True Size of a Samurai Army [c. 1600] 3D DOCUMENTARY

History documentary on the True Size of a Samurai Army! Watch the Assassin’s Creed Shadows trailer () and pre-order the game now ()! Thanks to @AssassinsCreed for sponsoring this episode. In this history documentary we seek to bring to life an army of the Sengoku Jidai. Such a task is quite the undertaking given the poorly documented and fast-evolving nature of the era’s military forces. Yet we can nonetheless model a typical Samurai army which captures most of the key themes of the period. We begin with context on the history of Japan from the early Heian period though the Kamakura, Muromachi, and eventual Sengoku eras. Next we establish the general structure of a Daimyo Kashindan and how this network of vassals mobilized its forces. This includes mobilization records of the Koku based system which give us a sense of each vassal’s obligations. We then inspect each type of soldier which went to war. This includes peasant non combatants, ashigaru troops, and samurai warriors. Finally, with all these pieces in place we see how the mustered forces were organized into an army. This begins at the smallest level of the Go (squad) and rises up to the tactical unit of the Sonae (battallion). Multiple Sonae would in turn be configured into the major elements of an army in the field. We conclude with a final positioning of such forces as they may have existed in an actual Samurai battle of the Sengoku Jidai. Sources: Samurai Armies of the Late Sengoku Period - Volume I by Till Weber Samurai Armies of the Late Sengoku Period - Volume II by Till Weber Credits: Research = Sophia Ware and Paul Liu Script = Invicta Narration = Guy Michaels Art = Penta Limited Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 02:31 Historical Context 05:17 A Daimyo’s Kashindan 06:59 Systems of Recruitment 09:01 Troop Types 13:02 Ashigaru Go (Squad) 15:34 Samurai Go (Squad) 16:52 Ashigaru Kumi (Platoon) 18:30 Samurai Kumi (Platoon) 20:22 Sonae (Batallion) 21:09 Combat Units 22:17 Command Group 25:01 Banner Group 26:04 Baggage Group 27:35 Sonae Statistics 29:03 Sonae in Battle 32:40 Samurai Army 35:20 Outro #AssassinsCreedShadows #AD