The Japanese yari (槍、やり), or spear, was not originally a dominant weapon of war. My own research into this issue should not be thought of as authoritative, but this post contains my impressions on this fundamental weapon that became an essential component of the battles of the Sengoku Jidai (戦国時代), or Warring States Period.

So, no, the yari was not originally thought of as a weapon of choice by the samurai. Now, warfare became a nearly exclusive samurai affair for centuries, with exceptions such as the Sohei being mostly a sideshow. Samurai did use spears, but that was because swords were the easiest weapon to carry and an ideal last resort, with bows coming first. Spears were also used by non-samurai retainers of the elite and gave them a practical way to defend a man on a horse. Samurai would later come to favor the yari as highly suitable for mass combat.

In addition, the 14th century saw the rise of a new kind of warrior that made the yari its staple prior to the introduction of firearms, at which point the two would be used in tandem.

Yari in the Sengoku Jidai

I believe that the decisive reason for the shift to the yari is a matter of logistics more than technology. After all, the technology behind the yari cannot possibly have been new. Rather, warlords came to see the yari, used in packed formations, as superior to, and more decisive than, a bunch of samurai using swords (and this would be usually after their archery was no longer viable; think of samurai like multirole combat fighters in their day).

Now, it’s obvious why the forward thrusting spear is useful in tight formations; the Greeks and Romans established that long before the Swiss pikemen were thwarting cavalry across Europe. No, that is not the point. Why were packed formations an issue? As in, weren’t there packed formations before?

I’m thinking, no.

My speculation is that the evolving prosperity of Japan, which was now taking place in a highly distributed manner with the collapse of proper central authority, systematically placed more and more armed men under the banners of various warlords. In other words, warlords were able to feed and retain more samurai than ever before.

In addition, there was also the ashigaru (足軽、あしがる), literally light foot (light footmen). So, I believe that is why the issue came up; the bigger the battle, the more Japan’s constrained topography becomes an issue, and the simpler it is to smash a loose formation of swordsman with a tight formation of packed yari users.

And so a tactic was born.

In other words, it wasn’t an issue of cost… though I’m sure low cost did not escape the minds of yari advocates like Oda Nobunaga. However, it’s not the cost of a sword that’s the barrier here. It’s the cost of the man.

When that became less of an issue, yari use soared.

Now, ashigaru were not actually samurai. They first became established as what Europeans might call freebooters, and while I am no authority on this word, let us break it down for relevance: the “free” part, meaning you did not pay them salary; the “boot” part, meaning you did not assign a horse and they walked with the army; and “booty,” which was the only reward they would have for victory. At any rate, the more serious and less ritualistic the inter-clan rivalries became, the more ashigaru got involved. Yet these were part-timers who would go home to their farms and fields. After all, no salary – nor any retainer fee.

Later – and this is where my speculation about economics and social development comes in – warlords were actually retaining ashigaru like samurai, and in so doing, made them permanent warriors of a new, bottom basement class.

One might ask what then made them any different than samurai. Well, at this point samurai were a deeply entrenched permanent warrior class (but not caste). There was no desire to alienate them by treating ashigaru as their full equals. Thus, these militarized farmers became part of the increasingly heated and bitter wars of the age.

A Two-Handed Spear

Now, yari vary greatly, but the typical model used on the battlefield was absolutely meant to be wielded with two hands.

European spears had heavy shaft tapering so that the tip would not make the weapon very tip-heavy at all. For “spears” rather than pikes, this made one-handed use viable; one could even use spears with shields in Greek or Roman fashion. This , however, made blunt hits with the head of the spear a rather bad idea.

Yari include tapered shafts, but also include round shafts that are considerably beefier for swinging. Of course, this has the result of making the weapon tip-heavy, precisely what the Europeans were trying to avoid. Thus, this flexibility made the weapon harder to wield; not only was using two hands inevitable, but great skill would be required to be really good at it.

A Cavalry Staple As Well

It wasn’t just infantry. Samurai cavalry used yari for a rather simple reason: it had more reach than a sword. Yes, they could use bows too, but yari allowed shock tactics with European-like charges and were excellent first strike weapons against both infantry and cavalry.

Why first strike? Well, take the katana. Thought exercise; which is easier to carry as a secondary, spare weapon: a spear, or a sword?

Thought so.

High ranking nobles had their retainers who would have spare yari to use, but in a forward battle situation, a cavalryman was probably on his own with his spear, sword, and if all else fails, his tanto short sword (which, naming aside, was essentially a dagger).

Now, what happens when a cavalryman with a yari dismounts, either willingly or unwillingly? As professional warriors, samurai felt as if they would be er, forgive the pun, shafted (^^;) by a lack of skill if they did not take using the yari on foot at least as seriously as ashigaru peasants.

There are many reasons why a cavalryman might find himself on foot, just like European knights attempted it; human beings are smaller targets than horses, and horses can become living pincushions against archers in a pitiless age of war. So it wasn’t a theoretical situation.

As a result, schools of soujutsu (倉術、そうじゅつ) arose to take lessons learned from the brutal fields of combat and formalize instruction for future warriors, giving them a fighting chance. In general, the more one-on-one the situation, the more personal skill was a factor in survival rather than the overall battlefield situation.

For More Information

One place you may consider is this school of martial arts. As usual, I’m not linking to people I know and they owe no favors to me.

Some other time I’ll put images of specific kinds of yari up but, when I do, I can refer back to this post so people can have a primer on the basics. – J

What’s Wrong With Ritual?

In doing a little research on the history of the yari, the Japanese word for “spear,” I came across a mention that battles in early Japan, circa 700 A.D., were highly ritualized affairs with lone warriors dueling on horseback with bow and sword. So… what’s wrong with this, exactly?

I mean, we might casually write about it all these centuries later, but combat with a yuri (bow) and a tsurugi (pre-katana sword) were two very specialized areas. Combine that with doing it on horseback, and you have three skills that could take all of a young man’s life to master. Certainly they are not skills that can be mastered by non-professionals. Achieving and maintaining the physical and mental edge required was literally a full-time job.

Now, the real question that bears asking – and which is a rather obvious one to those who would demean cavalry, and the professional soldiery it demands, in any age and any context – is, were these just poseurs reducing battle to their own self-gratification, or did they actually fulfill some kind of useful military role?

This can only be answered by looking at how early Japanese cavalry fared when pitted, not against each other, but against everyone else.

The Yamato dynasty, from which Emperors throughout Japanese history are direct descendants of, began with the domination of the south of Japan’s main island (from which comes the very literal name of Honshu). Further expansion, especially eastward, was the result of violent confrontations with peoples who were not yet considered “Japanese.” Indeed, the first Shogun was the “General who Conquers the Eastern Barbarians,” thus directly expanding the nascent Japanese Empire.

Cavalry themselves, and the warhorses required for them, were introduced from Korea, but that was simply because Korea was closest; warhorses had been in general use in Eastern Asia since the days of the chariot (in Sun Tzu’s time) ended circa 500 B.C. Upon the adoption of war cavalry in Japan, aggressive Yamato expansion became feasible. While early cavalry were often refugees from Korea, i.e. losers in factional rivalries, it didn’t take long for Japanese clans to notice that they had a good thing going.

Thus did the idea of not just cavalry, but cavalry archers, spread to Japan; such ideas had been around since at least the era of the Three Kingdoms in China, circa 200 A.D.

While Japanese national mythology cites the exploits of particular members of the Imperial family as the driving force behind expansion, we should not feel any hesitation to view this as a broad-brush retelling of the story. In military history, it’s usually a dominant technology that leads to spectacular change.

So, judging purely by results, early Japanese cavalry did quite well against non-cavalry in a broad, big picture sense.

Easier Said Than Done

Now, this is not to say that the typical tactic of a mounted archer is to fire on the move. Granted, Mongols did this, but Mongols had the advantage of a nifty and very conveniently sized compound bow. The Japanese had long bows which weren’t trusted against samurai armor until their stated optimal range of 30 feet. (10 meters)

So, the simplest tactic would be to use cavalry as mobile artillery.

In other words, use a horse to get to a specific location; stop; fire to your heart’s content; move to a new location; fire; repeat.

If not countered, you can do this until you run out of ammo… or targets. One of the two.

Obviously, the other side having bows would mean they can return fire. However, infantry are in a pretty hard spot.

If infantry charge you in mass, you can simply retreat with ease and fire more arrows. If infantry charge you individually, you can – provided the training and cohesion is there – break your own unit apart, run around, make the infantry chase you, double back, and then trample/ skewer/ sword slice at will. Infantry faced with this will tend to rout; as in, turn their backs to you to become particularly easy prey.

Archers are more of a problem, obviously, but having swords as back-up weapons means that, given an opening, a group of mounted archers can do a group sword charge against foot archers, leading to spectacular result.

(Image from http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=201846 )

So, while a very specialized skill set and requiring the proper equipment (including the horse!), a mounted archer had a tactic for every typical situation. What he really had to worry about, if the situation arose, was fighting others like himself.

This is why, when Japanese forces fought each other, combat was highly ritualized. After all, they didn’t want everything to become a mixed infantry/ cavalry mess; they wanted everyone to see their displays of chivalric skills and duels for fame and fortune. If it was done any other way, it’d just become an issue of brute killing.

Not that they couldn’t resort to brute killing! But they preferred to save that for the “barbarians.”

A More Civilized Age?

It’s pretty hard for most relatively young people to forget their first experience with a movie light saber: “A weapon from a more civilized age.”

A lot of people really frown on ritualized combat because they consider it heresy against the serious business of bloody slaughter by citizen armies, where everyone has the right to vote so everyone’s obligated to kill the other army’s citizens. But how is that better?

Ritualized duels, between sides that have the minimum amount of cultural respect for each other required to support them, aren’t about sport per se, but rather, about the more fundamental word of competition.

As far as personal worth goes, there’s a big and fundamental difference between strength and power. As a practical matter, we see this mostly in something like anime, but having power doesn’t mean you’re stronger. Just because you have the magic sword doesn’t mean you’re the better swordsman, though it may mean the difference between winning and living, or losing and dying (or seeing your friends and loved ones die). So, power is important, but it won’t resolve the issue of who’s stronger or, in a competition sense, who is better.

For that, we need to have some kind of minimally fair setting for a duel.

Riding out to duel one’s opponent in front of massed mounted cavalry means:

a) The audience is composed of the people whose opinions matter to you.

b) Both combatants have powerful incentives to not turn chicken and run.

c) No one needs a TV if you’re all there in person.

If what you’re deciding isn’t the fate of the empire, but who has the territorial and otherwise bragging rights in a clan-based feud, why not settle your fights this way?

I know people cling to a fantasy of having the old men that start wars duke it out with pistols in a locked room, but old men really aren’t the ones to be doing that. History provides a long precedent for the use of champions to represent one’s cause. Think of these as the Jedi of ancient Japan. Why not get these people to settle the issue? How much pure death and destruction is saved by doing this rather than have the matter be decided by Stormtroopers or Clonetroopers or Droid armies or their equivalents of the day?

But no, a lot of people wouldn’t be happy if there wasn’t grand slaughter to ennoble warfare. Because that proves how civilized we are.

Send in the droids, I guess! Er, I mean infantry…