First of all, greetings to all of my new guests. Somehow I got linked from the amusing website "Badass of the Week" and their article on Kôsa Kennyô. All of a sudden my traffic feed seemed to quadruple. The article linked to my post on the Ikkô Ikki as a form of fortified compound insurgency in their struggle against Oda Nobunaga. I'm not sure if the readers of "Badass" were exactly looking for that sort of article, but who am I to complain? The Kôsa Kennyô article is pretty well done when viewed as a humorous endeavor. As I told friends elsewhere, I laughed my nembutsu off.
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I haven't forgotten my promise to review Olof G. Lidin's Tanegashima book. Unfortunately it seems that every time I think I'm going to do something, work and/or life say "ha ha, free time? I think not..." I will get to it soon, I hope, but for the time being I'm going to stop promising anything on a timeline. My presentation for the Chinese Military History Society mini-conference hasn't quite been as easy to put together as I thought. (Gee, a paper written 2 years ago needs to be updated and revised to incorporate subsequent research and concepts? Who knew?) Of course, part of that is me playing around with video elements in the presentation because I'm a nerd, but in addition to crazy work circumstances, my "free" time has been put into that. I promise I'll link the presentations (if I can) after the conferences in March.
Other thoughts:
In the realm of "nothing is ever actually new."Skulking in Holes and Corners examines an early quote he came across that wounding the enemy is better for rendering them ineffective than killing them. I thought it was interesting, and it made me wonder if this was ever a thought in Japanese premodern warfare. Prior to the Sengoku, probably not, as you wanted to take a head as proof you'd killed the enemy, and it's kind of hard for a head-removal to be merely a "fleshwound." Still, as the Sengoku progressed and armies got larger, I wonder if the medical system grew and taxed the resources of commanders. Coming from a modern, American perspective, it's hard to even imagine not doing everything possible to give medical aid to wounded soldiers in order to save their lives, but this is a reminder that perhaps people in different cultures and different times saw things differently. For much of history human life has been pretty cheap, after all.
More soon...I hope. As I said, no promises.
I haven't forgotten my promise to review Olof G. Lidin's Tanegashima book. Unfortunately it seems that every time I think I'm going to do something, work and/or life say "ha ha, free time? I think not..." I will get to it soon, I hope, but for the time being I'm going to stop promising anything on a timeline. My presentation for the Chinese Military History Society mini-conference hasn't quite been as easy to put together as I thought. (Gee, a paper written 2 years ago needs to be updated and revised to incorporate subsequent research and concepts? Who knew?) Of course, part of that is me playing around with video elements in the presentation because I'm a nerd, but in addition to crazy work circumstances, my "free" time has been put into that. I promise I'll link the presentations (if I can) after the conferences in March.
Other thoughts:
In the realm of "nothing is ever actually new."Skulking in Holes and Corners examines an early quote he came across that wounding the enemy is better for rendering them ineffective than killing them. I thought it was interesting, and it made me wonder if this was ever a thought in Japanese premodern warfare. Prior to the Sengoku, probably not, as you wanted to take a head as proof you'd killed the enemy, and it's kind of hard for a head-removal to be merely a "fleshwound." Still, as the Sengoku progressed and armies got larger, I wonder if the medical system grew and taxed the resources of commanders. Coming from a modern, American perspective, it's hard to even imagine not doing everything possible to give medical aid to wounded soldiers in order to save their lives, but this is a reminder that perhaps people in different cultures and different times saw things differently. For much of history human life has been pretty cheap, after all.
More soon...I hope. As I said, no promises.