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I just imagine those pirates showing up before a raid like "We are a multi-ethnical, multi-cultural group from diverse backgrounds, we're here to plunder your riches in a totally non-racially motivated way!" and then went on in secrecy to found Ubisoft with their ill-gotten gains.
I'm Spanish, and when I studied that battle in high school, (so many years ago...) I was told that the Spanish army fought against chinese and japanese pirates, not against samurais... And I dont remember the numbers, but... my History teacher never told us about so few Spanish soldiers there as that article says...
It is true, never in Spain we had said that were samurais… we say that where ronins and pirates. So, no much for a “Debunk” but even if an anglosaxon is “hispanic” they always are a little jealous about our history and want to debunk, “view with other perspective” or just lie like they do mantaining the black legend made by Holand
Si eres español y has oído de esta historia deberías de saber lo que se guarda en los registros del museo militar de Madrid. Conocerías por tanto que 40 eran los que combatieron y el restante manejaban la nave y cañones. Por otro lado, los piratas no eran samuráis, sino ronins, mercenarios sin señor que combatían bajo el amparo de los piratas de la zona, que a su vez estaban bajo pagamento de Portugal y China.
@@21segarra Conozco lo poco que me enseñaron en el instituto, no es uno de los momentos históricos, ni de los lugares que me haya dedicado a investigar por mi cuenta. Sé que fueron piratas, no samurais. Pero no recuerdo que mi profesor hablase de tan pocos soldados como menciona ese artículo. Nunca he estado en el Museo militar de Madrid. ¿Merece la pena visitarlo?
It's like the 300 Spartans against the Persians forgets to mention the 7000 men from Greek colonies that fought with the 300 hundred Spartans. Or the 500 Spanish taking down the Aztec empire forgets to mention the 20000 telexcal natives that were enemies of the Aztec that helped the Spanish
Except people tend to Skip the 20000 native Warriors that supported Cortés because It doesnt fit their "Spain bad deliberately exterminated all natives the aztecs were so cool" narrative,here in Spain when we learn about the conquest of México we are always told about how countless tribes that were basically vassals of the aztecs supported Cortés and his men as soon as they started their expeditions into those lands
@@mohammadsadisanjaya1121 if a bunch of incredibly advanced aliens came down to earth and allied with, say, the US against its rivals, we'd undoubtedly take their assistance as well. we would feel equally shocked when they subjugate us after the fact.
The Philippines was quite a diverse country during this time. According to a 1591 census based on tributes, out of a total population of 667,612, there were 20,000 Chinese, 15,600 Mexicans and Peruvians, 3,000 Japanese, and 600 Spanish, with the rest being native Filipinos. Native colonial soldiers were shuffled between the Philippines, Mexico, and Peru which made it easier to control the regions. Chinese trade had been in the country centuries before the Spanish, but it intensified after colonization and led to the creation of the first “Chinatown” in history. The Philippines also became a stop for Japanese trade, and, towards the end of the Sengoku Jidai, the place of exile for many Japanese Christians including one Daimyo, Justo Takayama.
@@donleondevillafana7615 Si quieres recrear el Imperio español, estoy terminando un mapa del tamaño más grande posible y realístico para Age of Empires 2 HD, desde Canadá hasta Antártida, y desde China hacia el este hasta Arabia. Este tipo "metatron" hizo vídeo de media hora intentando socovar la gloria de nuestro pueblo. Es un fraude que no mencionó que los portugueses vendieron a los japoneses y chinos piratas armas de fuego y artillería.
@@barriolimbasThe Spanish also have used Filipino natives to fight for their wars. One example is that of Dagohoy's rebellion which lasted for 80 years which they quelled using the Cebuanos as their soldiers.
@@johnnymechavez429 In school it's taught to be 100, never could understand how such a potential classic in asymmetric war is not often discussed or even popularized in film, documentary etc.
im curious to know what kind of armor those pirates are wearing, is it a mix of Japanese armor like what samurais use mixed with Mongol like armor? or is it more diverse?
@@lenny_1369 in one of the letters, it is mentioned that they have breastplates and pikes. I can't remember if it was this same letter that said the equipment was provided by the Portuguese. I'm going to verify this and will let you know. If this is the case, then it would be likely that some of them were wearing European breastplates.
@@lenny_1369 This battle happened in the late 1500s...which is long after the Mongol empire and the main Mongol successor states had collapsed. They would not be wearing armor that resembled the Mongols of the 1200s AD.
There are a fair few historical naval battles where taller sailing ships held out for several hours against larger forces purely because its physically pretty hard to board a ship that's several metres higher than your skiff/galley/longship.
yep european sailing ships had very good technology for antibording measures, also european crews were motivated to fight for their lifes when at the other sid of the world because 1. they may not even have known how to surrender to some unknown culture, 2. if they surrendered their likelyhood of being freed or bought back there were even lower than usual. this lead to european crews fighting against all odds and pretty fiercely. also the boarding defences of european especialy southern european ships were developed in the mediterranean where there was a high risk from piracy and ottomans and so on. european ships had dedicated killzones in the middle and the castles had low caliber guns aiming at the middle deck so they could give flanking fire, making bording extremely costly.
Not to mention the Spanish just loved to turn the Deck of a ship into miniature battlefield. Imagine climbing up a Galley and as you peek over the top you see sixty men in a Tercio all pointing pikes at you like some giant porcupine. Lol I'd jump right back down and take a swim🤣
Forecastle as in the castle in the front with aftcastle Mediveal ships were build as multi level forts. A tradition for effective fighting and still continuing into this period.
Yes, as soon as I heard that the Spanish came in a fleet of 2 Galleons and 7 Frigates I Immediately went: "No shit they could beat 1000 with only 60 (although it's impossible to man those 7 ships with just 60 men). The 1000 only had basic Chinese/Japanese ship and the Spanish had the most powerful war machine in the world at that time"
@@MariusThePaladin No one states that only 60 man were on board. It were 60 soldiers,, so guys not belonging to the sailng crew. And that war machine was challenged (the same years) by the dutch and English .With success.
I like how in both letters even though the Spanish appear to have won the battles they didn't talk s*** about the pirates.. they said in both letters that they were valiant fighters.
Spaniards hired samurais as mercenaries even from the Japanese diaspora in Luzón. Maybe some of the samurais were actually fighting the pirates (who were 3 out of 10 Japanese and led by the Japanese according to the History of the Ming).
@@jamie_d0g978 Jesus: Most people go to hell. Catholics: Who cares what Jesus says? ENtire NATIONS go to heaven! Jesus: "Mary.... I call you merely... woman." Catholics: "MOTHER OF GOD MOST BLESSED WE ARE JSUT OBSESSED!" Jesus: "Who is my mother? Those who do God's will are my mother and my brother." Catholics: "The hell with Jesus' wods there!" Jesus: "Call no man on earth father in teh sense of having spiritual lordship over others." Cathoolics: "We have a pope which means father. Jesus is wrong." Satan: "Good Catholic pawns."
Ahh you beat me to it!! Fun fact as the Metatron mentions the wako were multi ethnic, well there's actual mentions in record that a few Dutchmen were apart of the crews!
Isn't it interesting that pirates, in some way, preceded humanist ideas, or at least developed humanist ideas on their own. (Idk about asian pirates, so this applies only to the ones in the new world and madagascar) A group of multiethnic people where every man was considered human and every man's word was influential? Where captains got elected and impeached? Where labour contracts and social systems were used? Hundrets of years ago? One could think, giving every man roughly the same amount of power leads to a fairer system... (Also i don't want to glorify pirates, they still were murdering, looting, r*ping barbarians, but considering their time period they had some remarkable progressive policies.)
Actually I was taught by a wonderful History teacher back in the day and that´s how I learned the word "Wako". No half educated person here in Spain thinks they were "1000 Samurai".
I have never once hear anyone claim that there were a thousand samurai, just pirates with some ronin against Spanish soldiers and their local levies that managed to win a battle with a numerically superior force.
Samurais sin amo, sí, ronin. Eso no los hace menos diestros, ni menos letales. La ventaja la tuvieron los rodeleros. El escudo es el enemigo de la katana.
I don’t think any serious scholar would argue that 1000 samurai were present at the supposed battle. That being said, from the roughly contemporary Boxer Codex, we know that Samurai, or at least Japanese men who presented themselves as Samurai had a presence in the Philippines. The Codex, along with the the fact that the letter rather explicitly distinguishes a Chinese Pirate ship from a Japanese one seems to indicate that the Spanish could recognize the difference between Chinese and Japanese, not to mention how foreigners of various ethnicities made frequent visits to Manila and had their own quarters, including the Japanese. The Spaniards are likely to have been somewhat familiar with differences, and I don’t think the they would have had ideological qualms over the ethnicity identity of the pirates. The battle also occurs a few decades after the Jiajing Wako raids of the Ming, meaning that there would have been a reduced Chinese participation in Wako Bands as reported by Ming sources of the era. More than likely these Wako bands were still multiethnic conglomerations, but given the reduced Chinese participation for the aforementioned reasons, and general disdain of the pirates by the local Philippines, its possible that the bands at Cagayan would have had a sizeable Japanese population, if not a slight majority, especially giving the rather explicit mentions of Japanese identity in the letters.
Before the XVIIth century, the samurai was not a class, ie not necessarily well defined who is samurai who is not. It is easy to imagine that the terms were loosely used, especially if someone wanted to prop up himself far from home.
Well I watched a similar video on kings and generals and they said that only a small number of woku were from japan. Also while the number of woku is exaggerated I dont think it is by much. I mean just look at Diu, the portugese were outnumbered almost 4 to 1 but still managed to win only taking 30 casualties while they killed 1000+ of the marmeluke mercenaries.
@@ANSELAbitsxb Wako demographics fluctuated over time, and once they lost their foothold in China(which would’ve been about 10-20 years before the Cagayan battles), the amount of Chinese participants waned, making Japanese participation higher than it was in previous decades. That being said I agree with your assessment that 1000 Wako is perhaps not too terrible of an overexaggeration. When the Ming General QiJiguang defeated a Wako army and only lost 3 men in Battle of Hua Street.
Well said 👍... Objectively, as far as well know, a small colonial Spanish force ousted a larger, Japanese led, maybe even majority Japanese, piracy operation and the rest is history. I think there must be a balance in impartial assessment when there is so little to go on and us in the modern day having maybe European-superiority or pro-Japanese sentiments...
@@the.wandering.warrior I don't think european superiority was a thing back then but ports and spanish were basically thought to be invincible by everyone, it wasn't untill the dutch wars that that idea was challenged. And doing extraordinary things with low numbers was basically their thing.
@@21segarra Ey. Si te gusta Age of Empires 2 HD, estoy haciendo un mapa inmenso y realístico de América desde Canadá hasta Tierra del Fuego. Includos están: España, Portugal, Italia, Francia, Inglaterra en gran parte, Irlanda, toda África, todo el Japón, el este de China, Hawaii y el norte de Filipinas. Pronto ojalá lo terminaré.
This doesn't really dispel much to me. A much smaller force of Spanish soldiers defeated a drastically larger force of Chinese and Japanese pirates. In the 19th century, Japanese "adventurers"(aka Pirates) murdered the Korean Queen. Them not being classified as "ronin" or whatever doesn't change much.
@@jeanbethencourt1506 Its weeb cope. The fact is that Japanese led the pirates and many ronin were probably among the pirates. This was also a period of decline in Chinese piracy meaning less Chinese, more Japanese. The Japanese outnumbered the Spanish and yet the Spanish still bent them over. Its quite obvious from history that tercio > samurai, unfortunately too many westerners are weened on anime nowadays.
That's weird, i thought a single japanese ronin could take down a million inferior western knights with his invincible katana that can cut through muskets, at least that's what anime says
I've learned this ocurrance by a recent Kings and Generals video. You debunking makes the story even more interesting and i think the 2 videos complement each other very well.
Filipino Here, Funny that the story always said by my family from Ifugao [the Headhunter Tribes and the region where Skallagrim's Favorite axe came from]. Terico and Conquistadores are just a recon party, and the "samurais" are just Wakou or Pirates...mostly Rónin or Masterless Samurai/Mercs...I mean...ITS ARMOURED SCOUT PARTY VS SOME SMELLY RAIDING PIRATES. Pirate Raids are common here in Early Modern Asia...hell my Dad's Region of Dumaguete still has that Lighthouse made by the Spanish to repel Muslim Pirates, and my Capital of Manila goy Raided by multiple Chinese Pirates like Limahong
Have you made any progress? Since I've made a test piece by cutting out 22 guage steel with shears, drilling holes, and following late period lacing methods that limit the amount of laces I use. Making an armor out of lamellar would he way too labor intensive.
@@TheHaighus True, but I stand by us being more biased today (narrative: one side is absolutely bad and the other is really good with a few bad actors).
@@jonathanbetenbender307 This is internal communication, not necessarily intended for public consumption. If the enemy is "brave" (ie. will stand and fight, even when confronted with experienced regulars), it is important for the sovereign to know this. This is the kind of respect that means you will not underestimate them on the battlefield. Keep in mind, though, that if they were considered pirates, they most likely still should count themselves lucky if they escaped being executed, and were still considered despicable scum and "enemies of all mankind" (as it would be phrased a few centuries later).
@@Snagabott That is an excellent point, so I didn't chose the best example make that comment on... that aside in the modern era I think our representation of the enemy is like a caricature of propaganda.
A huge chunk of our history classes here in the Philippines is centered around the Spanish colonization of this country for over 300 years. In that span of time, a lot's happened. Very significant events. I think the presence of over a thousand Japanese pirates in Cagayan ALONE during that time would have been notable enough to warrant at least some passing mention, even before delving into the ridiculousness of 50 or 60 soldiers beating that many. This is just absolutely hilarious lmao
Don’t be so sure. The Middle East and Africa has hundreds of years and in some cases millennium long periods that are completely ignored. And this is during similar timelines (1st century AD and on)
I do recall that there was a significant naval battle between a whole fleet of Chinese pirates against the Spanish garrison, with the latter heavily outnumbered. The pirate lord was Li-something. The samurai vs. tercio thing is new to me and sounds dubious.
@@voidempire2174 I'm from the middle east, and I know our history, but it's hardly ever mentioned at all, makes me think it's being done on purpose tbh.
60 soldiers can easily kill thousands of attackers. The Americans did it in Mogadishu. To see if it were possible, you'd have to first find out to what kind of air support the Conquistadors had access.
Actually is more like Spanish sensationalism, as this man argues here (Spanish audio though): ua-cam.com/video/L5sCVULHV7k/v-deo.html&ab_channel=DivulgadoresdelMisterio
Did he even mention that the Japanese ronin with the Chinese pirates among others had guns and artillery from the Portuguese? Major omission revealing his prejudice against the truth that SPain beat samurais even when outnumbered, and even when the samurais also had gunpowder power.
@@scintillam_dei They weren't Samurai. This has been debunked time and time again. They were a lose band of pirates made up of mostly Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino soldiers, fishermen, smugglers and merchants. Open up a freaking history book, and read the thing.
@@mmabri You don't know what you're talking about. You just regurgitate anti-Spanish propaganda. I did a video refuting the Metatron. He's full of shit.
Don't forget you need a large crew in order to operate this spanish ships. So besides the Tercios we would have the ships crew with most likely joing the fight. Either by been frontline soldiers or operating the ship cannons
"The tercio (Spanish 'third) was the *tactical formation* that took its title from the medieval practice of dividing an army into three parts - the van, main battle and the rear." yeah i wouldn't call the Spanish marines on board the ship Tercios but whatever
@@Zeldaytal there was in multiple times... Tercio is any "regular" unit of the spanish crown during the golden cents, from 60 men to 5000 men of Flandes
You dont. Smaller galleons could be operated by 40-50 men, and they could all be soldiers since operating the ship is pretty simple aside from manpower requirement. But there were 7 ships in total, plus some colonists, so easily over 100 men let alone women. I think the account mean about one engagement in a part of a battle before reinforcements arrived. One section would not have all 1000 men attack at once.
I have read the accounts in Spanish, and I agree with your assessment, although I calculate a little higher number of Waco; perhaps 300. In any case, it is no small feat for 60 soldiers to defeat 300 pirates. It is a 1 to 5 ratio.
I remember reading about this way back in the day for a college class. Basically the book said the European forces consisted of a galleon with their contingent of sailors and soldiers. So in according to the book the galleon was likely manned by about 250-300 sailors and 40 or so rodeleros, pikemen, and/or musketeers. For the pirates, the book mentioned the bulk of the ethnic makeup was likely Chinese or Korean, with few Japanese. The book it more or less drew the forces as 300-350 Europeans and unknown local allies vs 750-1000 pirates.
There was also a less known Battle between a Portuguese Nau, called the "Nossa Senhora da Graça", the famed "Black Ship" and several dozens japanese junks with thousands of samurai from the Arima Clan. The chase lasted for about 4 days and culminated in the boarding of the Portuguese Nau and the fierce melee that ensued. The captain of the Nau, André Pessoa then ordered the ship´s magazine to be set alight and for his men to abandon ship and shortly thereafter the Nau exploded in 2 sucessive explosions, killing most of the Portuguese Crew still on the Ship, including the captain, attacking Samurai and resulted as well in the loss of all the cargo. This was a result of direct Dutch interference in Japan´s trade intentions as they turned Japanese Clans against the Portuguese, resulting in this less known battle of History
@@VK-sz4it Black Ships would head for Japan to engage in the "nanban trade" every given time, every 1 or 2 years and they would paint their hulls black, so the Portuguese Naus or Galleons and later all western ships were called black ships. The "Nossa Senhora da Graça" was one of said ships, unfortunate enough to have been betrayed and ambushed near the coast of Nagasaki.
My first approach to the debunking of that battle was through that same blog, Gunsen History. After reading the extensive and interesting article I was wishing someone could make something like that but as a video. I guess Metatron made my wish come true.
Even being Spanish I knew that the numbers were exaggerated and that the "Japanese" were pirates and not samurai. I find this video very interesting, thanks for the information.
Samurais who lost in Japanese wars would, if surviving, flee to southern realms like Siam where many Japanese mercenaries worked. So when Thailand had samurais working, why wouldn't Luzón?
@@ganonstonebreaker4231 According to what I've read the pirates were (of course) not made up entirely of ronin, but other rabble as well such as untrained peasants and criminals.
Could you please a few videos on the Conquistadors? Like 1 video on the major conquistadors leaders and expeditions? Another on the weapons and armor choices, and maybe another on the types of recruits and their training?
The Metatron could spend his whole life clapping historical and modern cheeks in an effort to get accurate information out there! No foolishness gets past the Metatron!!!!
What's accurate about dishonestly omitting that the ronin and Chinese pirates had guns and artillery from the Portuguese, attempting to dismiss Spanish victories as only due to having firearms? Reminds me of the not-smart-people who say Spain could win only against loincloth-wearing arrow shooters. Spain captured the king of France in a war in Italy.
@@thebigone6969 I hate people who try to erase history because they're so obsessed with samurais they can't accept that lordless and therefore treasure-seeking samurais among other Asians doing piracy, wree beaten by Spaniards. The Black Legend. Look into it. Everyone who speaks English is affected, and most don't even know they're indoctrinated to belittle Spain.
They also tried to undermine SPanish credibility at every turn which makes them hypocrites since they don't apply this same standard for British nor Japanese victories. The anti-Spanish prejudice is evident. People who want the truth don't hide their bias. They do.
@@voltgaming2213 And so where the Spanish...only the leaders were Spaniard. Most soldiers would have been american creoles and philippine troops. It was no "Tercio" by any mean.
Great video, and historically accurate, as always. Spanish Tercios were a formidable war machine. Probably they'd had carried a couple of "culebrinas" which were thin light canions used on land or sea that could shoot shrapnel and gravel from the flanks. I know of the incident, and of course those were no samurai, and half of them would had flee after witnesing the first blast of firepower, followed by the voracity and killing efficiency of the swordsmen and pikemen advancing quickly in a mist of smoke. The guilds of asian pirates, while they could outnumber the tercios 5 to 1 in this type of squirmishes, they would have surrender fairly quickly, or be keen to negociate after losing a few men, since they were no army, and surely they'd prefered to stay alive. The spanish were pragmatic and always chose to make allies rather than enemies among the native factions. That was their conquering "style": Show your enemy how ruthless you can be for a minute, and sit on a table to drink with them the next, as if nothing happened. That's why so few "conquistadores" and a few, armed to the teeth tercio companies could grab so much land in just 40 years. In any case, the spanish respected this asian fighters, since they actually recruited soldiers in the Philippines to fight against the turks in the mediterranean.
There's no mention of any tercio, and we know Spain did not send tercio units outside Europe. I honestly have no idea why everyone, including Methatron, is assuming the 40-60 garrison soldiers were tercios. All evidence indicates the opposite, and there's not source that ever mentions it. Only once did Spain create (not sent) a tercio outside Europe, and that was in Chile to fight against the Araucanos.
The video should be named : Debunking the Myths about The Battle of Cagayan Note: There wasn't tercios, only spanish soldiers, and the great number were nativeamericans from Nueva España.
As Rafa like to say "There're a few things to take into consideration": First: There was no Tercios in Cagayan, only some officers like Carrion could have been part of a Tercio in the past, but it's doubtful. The Spanish there were a private company from Nova Spain, that being said the so-called Spanish in Filipina were mostly conformed by Tlaxcalan allies, also mestizos and creoles inmates, all known as Spanish Americans. According to the author Canales, there would have been only few more than 5 European soldiers in Cagayan at that time. Second: There also were the soldiers from the San Iusepe along with those of the Capitana galley, we could say more than 100 soldiers plus few sailors. And according to Canales, the pirates were no more than 300 in total during all the events, the rest were their relatives. Third: there were no mentions of Japanese armament used by the wakos, most were from Portuguese industry as mentioned by the sources, or native made cannons. And forth: The Ryukyu kingdom pirates were the only ones with ships capable to travel to Filipina, the Japanese ships could only travel short distances.
You know, just to add to your comment: Indigenous allies does not automatically imply Tlaxcallans, and the sources do not specify ethnic origin. The men serving in Cagayan could have just as easily been Mexica (aztec), Chalca, Texcocan, Tepanec, Purepecha, Tepexi, or any number of allies from the many cities and kingdoms that encompassed Mesoamerica at the time. Not everything is Tlaxcala.
@@Rafael_Mena_Ill The "indios conquistadores" were majority Tlaxcalans as they were the only who signed a true alliance with Spain with the Tlaxcala canvas. And after numerous supportive expeditions and wars they negotiated their political position directly with the king of Spain trying to get autonomy and privileges. The other allies were the Tarascan, but those participate only on few expeditions inside of Mexico. And most of the Mexicas left were basically subyugated and were only given the political role of maintaining the cities. And we could say the same when we speak of Spaniards-Castilians, knowing that some of them were from other regions, like Portugal, Italy, Germany, but the majority were from Spain.
@@yomauser This is factually incorrect. Texcoco, Huexotzingo, Quauquechollan, Tepexi, and many, many others, signed a true alliance with Spain within their own legally binding documents, and negotiated political positions under the King of Spain, to varying degree's of success, though ultimatly the plan backfired as disease crippled native bargaining power. Even those subjugated into a position of vassalage managed to negotiate means through which they could advance politically. The Mexica, Atzcapotzalca and Xochimilca for example, were instrumental in funding colonies in Guatemala, maya found themselves in the Andes, zapotecs and Mixtecs in the Yucatan, and so forth. The natives "accompanying" (quotations to adress the implication that they were in any way a minority in these expeditions, they were very much not.) the europeans were extremely diverse, and it's likely that a great many natives and mestizos that were in Cagayan were not Tlaxcallans themselves.
@@Rafael_Mena_Ill You are right, but most probably they were a mix of mexica and otomi, and most probably tlaxcalans as well. I mean, of course they could be from any ethnic group, but that means there could be tlaxcaltecas as well, and given they did go with the Spanish in several explorations, I don't think it's a ridiculous idea to imagine they were most probably one of the main groups to be in Filipinas at the time, though quite obviously not the only one.
I like this video in the part of the samurai, but the part of the spanish... Well you had a lot of misconceptions. In fact, I've fought for years to try to introduce to the real combat of Cagayán, and you had a great mistake (forgivable one because I understand that that's not your especialty in historic times). Well, first fact. The Spanish in the Phillipines were not tercio soldiers. Never were. Thats because the tercios were only used in Europe and North Africa (with the exception of the Albuquerque Tercio, created in America to fight the Araucanians indians). The soldiers in Phillipines at the time were semi-profesional troops recruited from adventurers, mainly from the recently conquered territories of Mexico (in fact, most of the soldiers who fougth in the spanish side were born in Mexico, sons fron the conquistador and sons of the indian allies of Cortés, especially tlaxcala indians) being only the officers from the iberian Peninsula. We must say that they also had mostly Tagalo warriors and oarsmen (that also fought) who worked for Spain at the moment. They were not the "elite" soldiers from Europe, even when some (mostly the officers) served in Europe some time. But, what is clear is that they used superior tactics (the know how to use harquebuse and musket fire more efficiently) and made good use of their superior technology (mosly the artillery of the galleys they had). Some points: The spanish pike were no longer than 4 meters. This is because usually the people mislead the correct measure of a span (the one of wikipedia its from XVIII century). The preferred weapon of the spanish were the harquebuse always. When there was more pikes than arquebuse was mainly by the imposibility to get more of them. Except for this things, good video. You do a great work, keep it up.
Awesome info! Thanks! I always wondered, did the Spanish use their pikes in the Americas as well? I imagine marching through the terrain such as jungle or Forrest would be hard to do.
@@huntclanhunt9697 It depends of the campaing and period of time. Not all Mexico were great jungles. In the early expeditions, most of spanish conquistadores used the combination of castillian spear and shield (mostly rotellas and adargas), but we know Cortés created a corps of indian allied pikemen to figth the expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez, created to take Cortés prisioner. Also, with the "europeization" of América, the spanish and indian rebels (as the araucanians, for example) used pikes as in Europe. We could say that against indians with traditional weapons, the spanish tended to use shorter spears and shields, but against enemies with "european" way of figth, they used pika&shot tactics. One example of that were the "dragones de cuera", a especial cavalry group created to protect the actual south of the USA when that territory was spanish. In the XVIII and early XIX century used adarga shields and lances because were the best weapons against apache and comanche, their main enemies there.
@@huntclanhunt9697 A lot of the territories the spanish conquered in the americas were kind of deserts. A lot of Mexico, Peru and Chile are desert, and the places that were densely forested were still mostly tamed by the locals. It's not like these were virgin lands, they'd been inhabited for thousands of years.
@@juanmolinafernandez3983 While they called them Araucanians, the term refers to a small town in coastal southern central Chile called Arauco, their actual name is Mapuche. They're still a thorn in the side for the non-native population XD
@@MDD77777 There wasn't one black ship. All portuguese ships that they built in their indian colonies were black because of the wood they used there. Most European ships that reached Japan were black.
Actual battle : like that time some Somali pirates attacked a French cruiser before realising they were not attacking a civilian ship. The captain to the guy writing the report : "copy paste the report from the battle of Actium !"
lmao I've just looked it up and it is pretty funny. However here are some corrections : La Somme (the French ship) isn't a cruiser, it's a supply & command ship. Because of its missions, it's somewhat similar to a civilian ship, which makes the mistake more understandable. Addendum : The ship was, in fact, targeted by pirates not once, but twice. In the first attack, the navy took five pirates prisoners and in the second one, the pirates fled after a short firefight prompting La Somme to pursue them, which brought it right to the pirate's camp. 6 pirates were arrested and weapons were seized.
@@Briselance Sorry made a typo, I meant 5 pirates were made prisoners. There's no way a bunch of dudes on dingys would ever take prisoners on a ship filled with soldiers.
The whole idea that Aztecs with the Spanish fought Samurai in the Philippines is insane. Would love to see a hypothetical battle between Aztec and Samurai warriors.
@@PackHunter117 Depending on the time period the Samurai have a serious equipment advantage. The Aztecs are more used to jungle warfare which could be useful.
@@PackHunter117 it wasnt the Aztecs bro, it was the Tlaxcaltecas; they fought against the Aztecs, helping the Spanish Tercios, and they also helped them against the japanese .
Great stuff! As a kid I was told that Europeans came to Japan and every one swordsman was able to kill tens of samurais because of superior martial skills. Now I understand where this myth comes from. Thanks for giving me tool to debunk future claims like this :) I was very fascinated with clash of cultures when Japan was discovered by Europe. Maybe you could explore this topic more? Perhaps maybe some analysis of James Clavell's "Shogun" and "Gai-jin"? I think it's very interesting how he is portraing relationships between drastically different nations
This is the equivalent of someone bragging at a club after a fistfight one on one in an alley that he kung-fu fought ten guys who ganged up on him and won
@@zamirroa If you have Debunk films, the most common examples are The Patriot (It is thought that only a few American and French militiamen beat the English and ignored all the economic and military aid from Spain, Battle of Pensacola) or the well-known 300 Spartans who in In reality, there were also other soldiers from the other Greek city-states who fought at Thermopylae. If the battle of cagayan had been fought by the English or the French, we would have a Hollywood movie, series and it would appear on the History Channel as the most epic battle between a Western army against an Eastern army. But as the Spanish did and they have to look for the smallest detail to criticize it as good followers of the Spanish black legend promoted mainly by Protestants and Italians. But the Spanish were the first to fight against Chinese and Japanese pirates. So the art of La Verdadera Destreza was superior against the art of the Katana.
@@yasue9375 it's depressing how Spanish history is so underrated , I mean that word because when we tlak about them is. Only to criticize and make looks awful and boring without anything destacable. I have been reading about casta system and realize that it was false and just were word to call people by their race but nothing more. The estamental system is confused with the supossed casta system.
@@Prespanda Your AD HOMINEM fallacy proves you're irrational, unfit to judge. You're also a hypocrite since you believe in conspiracy theories too, like the one about the Black Hand conspiring to assassinate the Archduke of Austria-Hungary which began WW1. Difference is, uyou believe in such theories when they're popular 'cause you're not a free-thinker, as your mind is WEAK, and you are AFRAID to come to your own conclusions.
@@scintillam_dei Amigo, Cálmate un poco. me parece que te estás tomando todo muy en serio, vamos, que el Metatron sea un weeb y tenga preferencia a los japos no lo hace un propagandista, el no niega que la batalla de cagayán haya pasado, simplemente está diciendo que la totalidad de piratas no era Samurai y que no hay fuentes que digan que eran 1000. Deja de acusar a todo de leyendanegrista o de propagandista protestante a todo lo que habla ''mal'' del Imperio, le das mala cara a la Hispanidad.
@@Pa_blito Acusa a los españoles de no ser fidedignos pero afirma que los romanos lo eran. Es hipócrita. Deja de defender a este antiespañol. No acusé a nadie de ser protestante. Ni me entiendes. Tú defiendes a los antiespañoles. Tú le das mala cara a la Hispanidad.
Some people imagine that all Japanese men were Samurai, and all Japanese women were geisha. It's a somehow weird way of looking at things, if I may say...
Misunderstanding. The imperial forces included Spaniard Tercios, Italian cavalry and some infantry squadrons, german lansquenettes wich were second class troops as well as swiss quarters. And if the general could gather more forces, more forces he enlisted. But the Tercio, the spaniard tercio was exclusively for spaniards. Not even italians, close cousins of spaniards, were allowed to join the tercios. They tried claiming that his father was spaniard and his mother italian whore( for exemple), but this cases were usually dismissed by spaniard recruiting officers. The salary was very good and the chances to die was not more than starving or disease at that time. Furthermore, the fear was more in front of tercios that in it. About Cagayan and that, well. I´m sure that there are better people than me to speak about it. But remeber that at that time, Tlascalas from Mexico were as spaniards as european spaniards and they participe largely in Philippines conquer.
Internet is all about heated debates and strong opinions. Weeaboo said knights were stinky fatsos and katana sharper than diamonds? Hemaboo will say samurai were useless and katana were made of butter.
Both are wrong... but to be honest Katana even being a decent weapon was pretty useless on a battlefield, even Samurai knew that that's why they used nagitaka/bows and firearms as soon as they could to fight.
A pirate encounter and request of more development for a far-off colony, turned into a novel-comicbook-internet meme, inflated by the media and blown off proportions, needs debunking. History receiving the usual treatment nowadays.
As a spanish all the posts and texts I read about this basically talk about how a few Spanish ships encountered a settlement of Japanese by a river and defeating them. Never saw anyone talking about thousands against 40 or 60 but rather and encounter between two small groups. I didn't even think that the event would be relevant enough for the anglos to be reporting on it but seems I was wrong. Thanks for the video metatron!
@@scintillam_dei Es un weeaboo italiano que se cree la leyenda negra. Todos los anglófilos de los comentarios les da rabia que el imperio español fue el primero en vencer a japoneses y chinos, además de dejar por los suelos la katana como espada definitiva que tanto glorifican y que se imponga la ropera toledana.
The history is written by victors. Or at least those who wrote it down. And in case of Roman Empire, no one living north of Alps used writing so, yeah, it had to be one sided. On the other hand it would be interesting to have Carthagian, Greek Levantine and Egyptian point of view on this matter.
It’s all in the visuals, a superficial knowledge of period military history, and a low understanding of the battle. If you imagine a bunch of katana wielding samurai vs. Tercios wielding long pikes, it sounds plausible. After all, samurai could never get close enough to hit the pikemen. And indeed, their weight of numbers and long swords would get in the way. Presumably they’d just exhaust themselves. Again, great visuals. But it all breaks down with the clarified facts the video shows. Plus battle reports tend to obfuscate one side’s errors, miscalculations, and failure while aggrandizing any successes. Meanwhile downplaying enemy successes.
I really love how you analyze things from history, especially starting with the original source material and then applying logic and context. It comes across very unbiased and professional. Many thanks for all that you do.
"logic" Haha! What's logical about citing a Wikipedia page only to ignore the part that says the Japanese with Chinese and others had gunpowder weapons from the Portuguese? That's not just illogical, but dishonest too. "very unbiased" .... I cannot vomit right now but would if I could. Sicilians were taken over by Iberians, and this one in particular idolized samurais so much so he wears their armour and worked in Japan and studied their language a lot. That's not jsut a weeaboo but a weeblord. The bias reeks to high heaven. I don't pretend to lack bias. No one lacks bias.
@@scintillam_dei He is a Weeaboo who idolizes Japan and roman empire and believes everything about the black legend. Even though his province Sicily was part of the Spanish Empire. He is going to criticize everithing related to Spain criticizing the minimum that does not correspond to the historical rigor instead of admitting that the Spanish soldiers of that time (Peninsulares, mestizos, mulattos or criollos) had a better fencing style, La Verdadera Destreza, than their Italian counterpart who was never able to master this style of fencing.
@@liveinlight5575 Yes, you're right. But there were probably a lot of natives from America as well. After all, Filipinas was ruled from New Spain (Mexico), not from Spain, so most SPanairds were actually Novohispano, or Spanish Americans, most of which were mixed and carried with them hundreds of American indian allies. But you're right, I think some people read indian and automatically think of Americans, Filipinos were indians too, actually, it was the Spaniards born in FIlipinas the ones to be called filipinos.
@@goodaimshield1115 this is way to early in the colonization of the Philippines the Spanish used almost exclusively native filipinos in their conquest and the native Mexicans they brought in the Philippines are very few keep in mind the Philippines was well populated even in those times they used mainly Cebuano and Kapangpagan peoples because they were loyal and specially the Kapangpagan are great at shooting gun
You are right. And they would cut it so fast that you can’t see the swing. The cut would be so clean that the frigate would explode into two halves several seconds after the swing.
The Spanish sources never say they are samurai. Just pirates...and pirates do not wish to die in battle with anyone if they can avoid. So a group of determined Spaniards could defeat in detail a much greater force of pirates whose hearts are not in the fight.
Un saludo desde Toledo, España!!! En el videojuego Shogun 2 total war aparecen los Wako, supongo que conocerás el juego. La batalla sobre la que hablas es más o menos conocida aquí en España, lo malo es que la gente suele confundir los samurái con estos piratas japoneses. Un saludo, ¡¡¡me encantan tus vídeos!!!
Useful video, thanks. I have seen reference to this tiny number of European soldiers (sometimes even described as akin to knights) defeating 1,000 Samurai in multiple UA-cam comment sections (including probably yours), often in I think ‘knightly sword v katana’ videos. So good to get the real deal laid out!
The 1000 or so other greeks were a reserve and support force. Greeks liked to only mention their hoplites, much like rome only mentioned their legions.
@@sangralknight3031 there were also around 5000 ( the force was almost 8000 based on modern and Roman claims and 6000 based on Herodotus who is actaully the least reliable because of his mixing of fantasy and historical) of these troops that were city state hoplites. Spartans were the frontliners at the start yes, it doesn't mean they didn't tire and didn't switch ranks with the others, even during the first day.
I love that the people who wrote these posts on FB regarding event clearly never researched what they were saying. Hell, even from just playing Age of Empires, you'd know that the "1000 samurai" is very false because the Wokou are clearly pirates.
People tend to assume that a battle is won by slaying every man in the opposition, and thus cannot imagine how 400 can wage war against 4 thousand. The answer is that they can surrender, which is sth they are likely to do if they expect an acceptable peace treaty should they do it , or terrible artillery and world class steel would they prefer to continue fighting. I’m no historian , but until now it’s the best explanation I’ve stumbled upon about how conquistadores won so many battles and amassed allies around them. The natives might change their minds after seeing just 30 of their friends being torn to pieces by distant explosions. At that point running and reconsidering your tactics is probably the rational thing to do.
Another option is simply making them rout. It was typical for an army to flee after taking around 10% casualties. Especially if the pirates didn't expect military-grade resistance and thought the ships would be an easy target.
@Marcelo Henrique Soares da Silva Hmm… as I said, I’m no historian, but I associate the Romans with a quite comfortable military superiority, as opposed to a group of well armed scouts with the advantage of fear inducing shots. But yes, sure. Allying your enemy’s enemy seems a universally good strategy.
Jajajaja si Rambo solo puede contra mil jajaja solo cun un cuchillo y una metralleta y no olvidemos que en sus películas cualquier ciudadano común y corriente estadounidense puede rescatar aviones y derrotar terroristas jaja
I must also add that those Spanish guys weren't exactly Spaniards. They were likely novohispanic military members (Mexicans and quite likely tlaxcaltecan indians who were already veterans of the chichomecan wars)
I know the mentioned blog. I found it in a comment under a smithing video. They have a fantastic 4 part smithing article about sources of iron in japan, processing the iron and forging swords and armor. No mystic bullshit just pure reality yet still interesting.
Great video and very good analysis. I fully agree with you. Congratulations! Just a couple of small clarifications, if I may: The Spanish tercios were indeed Spanish in the sense that it was a Spanish innovation, and mostly fought for the Spanish monarchy. The original tercios were made out entirely of Castillian professional soldiers. With time, as the empire grew, Spaniards became a minority in the troops forming the tercios, but the majority of the men in all Spanish tercios originated from the Spanish monarchy controlled territories. One could arguably say they were all Spanish "nationals", in the sense that they were subjects of the Spanish king. They were indeed multiethnic units (note that it is said that the catholic Englishman Guy Fawkes - the man who tried to blow up the parliament - had fought in a Spanish tercio), but generally most of the officers tended to be Spaniards. Additionally, ethnic Spanish tercios and companies were recognized by the contemporary sources as the elite units for their morale and professionality, and were often used as shock troops. And of course other European nations copied the tercio system. Therefore there were also tercios which didn't fight for the Spanish monarchy. But I think it is fair to talk about "Spanish" tercios, as well as to acknowledge the role of ethnic Spanish nationals in them, as officers, but also as the elite core of that unit. That, of course, without prejudice of all the other ethnic nationalities who fought in the tercios, amongst which Italians played a significant role. Also, a tercio was a military unit comprising between 2000-3000 men, organized in about 10 companies. They were deployed in battle in a very specific formation. Each of the tercios had the name of the city or region were they gathered, although volunteers gathering there may have come from other places. And the tercios fought in Europe. Even the Tercio de Galeras (the first marine infantry) was deployed in the Mediterranean. Some of the men who fought in these skirmishes in the Philippines may have been ex-professional soldiers with experience in a tercio, but most likely they were adventurers at the service of the governor. I would not say that 40, 60 or 100 Spanish soldiers fighting in an expedition like this were a "tercio". So there were no samurais and there was no tercio. Hence, I fully agree that this was probably a series of skirmishes between (probably professional) Spanish soldiers (with professional Spanish officers) and pirates and bandits. By the way, there is a better documented clash between Chinese-Japanese pirates and Spanish soldiers that took place in Manila, in 1574. Keep up the good work, I really like your channel!
and although it is true that the thirds were made up of both Spaniards and soldiers from territories at the service of Spain, the truth is that the combat tactics and formations of pikes and archbuses were Spanish and almost always instructed and commanded by Spaniards
This whole thing reminds me of the 300 legend. Nowadays we know that there were much more than the 300 Spartans on the battlefield. They were an alliance of several thousand Greeks who fought the Persians but everywhere you hear about this occurrence you just hear/read about this 300 Spartans.
The Kings ans Generals channel can be quite entertaining, however, most of their stories are made up or based on hearsay and urban legends. These people speak in great detail about some battles from the 6th century, including quotes, that we know for certain never happened.
some are indeed true, but those that are obscure can be difficult to know. Especially the Ethiopian Adal Wars and the Ottoman-Portuguese Competition for the Indian Ocean.
I'm so happy to see you talking about this. As a Spanish speaker I've encountered many people taking this tale too seriously. Some even claim after the usual pike confrontations, the Spanish went to 1vs1 the remaining Samurai with swords and then they took the katanas and armors as trophies... And the source is the Wikipedia article and the article's source is some blog that cites the Wikipedia article!
@@donleondevillafana7615 Será que no lo investigan con imparcialidad. De todas formas varios piratas eran ronin, que es básicamente samurais sin señor, si bien es cierto que en aquella época el término samurai era muy amplio y empleado de manera casual y aleatoria. De todas formas Metatron comete un fallo bastante grande. No había tercios. Esoss soldados no eran la élite de Europa, de hecho muy probablemente eran soldados semi profesionales, y realmente solo los oficiales venían de la península, la mayoría de los que lucharon eran nativos filipinos y gente de Nueva España. Ningún tercio, y dificilmente soldados profesionales o con gran experiencia en batalla. Respecto al número, si conoces otras batallas donde participaron los piratas chinos/japoneses (la mayoria chinos), el número no parece tan exagerado, ya que eran muy comunes estos enfrentamientos en el que los piratas superaban con creces a sus enemigos y aun las bajas y muertes entre los piratas eran increiblemente superiores a las del bando contrario. Muy probablemente el número de piratas no se exageró demasiado, más bien redujeron el número de gente participando en la defensa de Filipinas, siendo los españoles una minoría y soldados no muy bien adiestrados, pero habiendo uun número bastante considerable de nativos luchando a su lado.
Hay pruebas en el museo naval de Madrid, armaduras samurais o Robin y katanas de ese combate. O tal vez lo recuerdo mal, pero no creo... Puedes averiguar lo seguramente.
@@goodydeza Recuerdas mal. Hace unos 8 años (cuando resurgió esta historia) en ForoCoches varios usuarios estaban fantaseando con el breve relato de la batalla. De ahí surgió la risible idea de que chocaron espadas, que se retaron a duelo sobre los galeones europeos, que las katanas se rompían contra el acero español y que estas fueron llevadas a España como trofeo. Luego colgaron unas fotos de museos exhibiendo armamento japonés y todos se tragaron el cuento.
I stopped trusting Wikipedia when I saw the monocle article had its photographs removed because the editor didn't like the fact most of them were 20th century Germans.
7 Spanish ships. That's already impossible that they'd have only 60 men. One of those ship had at least 50 people on them. The bigger one would have 100-200 crew on board. And this is a naval battle. A battle between a fleet of 7 most powerful warships in the world at that time period against a fort, and a few other small, very basic ships. They are literally floating wooden castles armed with 12-200 cannons (depends on the size). Even if the Spanish are fewer in numbers they can just keep bombarding those 1000 pirates into nothing as long as they maintain superior firepower. It's not necessarily a melee or even line battle between 60 vs 1000.
Plenty of high ranking officers in plenty of countries lived their lives as pirates during that age that was in fact the golden age of piracy. People like: Sir Henry Morgan, Sir Francis Drake, Hayreddin Barbarossa, Turgut Reis, just to mention a few. To dismiss their martial competent simply because someone called them pirates is an extremely poor argument, as a matter of fact military orders of knights like the Knights of Saint Stephen and the Knights of Malta took part in acts of piracy. The 1000 pirates, could have well been professional soldiers
I watched this video about Cagayan, from an organisation called Heroes of Baler. Basically, they may have been about 300 waku against a force of about 100 Spaniards, where Spaniards means there were about 5-6 Peninsular Spaniards, including Carrion, about 30-40 Spanish creoles from Nueva España and... wait for it... about 60-70 Tlaxcalan pikemen. Yes, pikemen. They were regular Spanish soldiers...
a samurai could be a pirate, being a samurai does not prevent anyone from acts of piracy. Ronin were samurai without a master so I don't see the issue there
Thank you for making this video. Its also important to note the presence of the mentioned indians between the spaniards who, in their accounts, tends to not mention their number (it wouldn't be rare if their number was larger than the spaniards themselves) or even their concurrence at all. This is frenquently observed in the conquest of the Americas's accounts with the omission of the native allies role.
Consider a modern analogy, the "Somali pirates". - A thousand in a community does not mean a thousand able bodied combat capable seafaring men. The bulk of the pirate communities deal with other things. Repairing ships, maintaining equipment, simply operating the day to day of the community. - Most of the pirate vessels are fishing boats, trawlers, skiffs. - Many of the "pirates" are just regular fishermen and sailors who operate boats when called on. - Among the pirates are former mercenaries or soldiers who lost their jobs after the rise and fall of various warlords in a nation in constant state of turmoil. - The pirates are comprised of many nationalities. Persons tried for participation in the "Somali pirates" include not only Somalians but also Kenyans, Ethiopians, Yemenis. In any day and age, there are people drawn to tumultuous regions where government authority is limited and an outlaw way of life is possible. Places on the fringes of civilization as we usually think of it. These outlaw communities by and large become multiethnic communities with no national allegiances but to their own community. Look at young people from the west who go join insurgent and terrorist bands now. Yes, there were people of Japanese birth living in the Philippine archipelago back then. Yes, some of them were former Samurai then in exile. It's just a lot cooler if you say "We defeated Samurai in the Philippines" than if you say "We defeated a ragtag band of Philippine pirates, some of whom were ethnically Japanese and might have been a Samurai at some point."
He should do the Battle of Cartagena while he is at it. He already said its impossible for a small contingent of men to defeat one thousand pirates. But you know how these things go...
60 tercios? About 90,000 soldiers? I don't think Spain had many men in arms in that period of time. You are speaking of 60 soldiers and not 60 tercios. Change the title of your video.
I love Spanish military history, and I can only thank you for this. There's a lot of bad information about this battle. The numerical difference is actually not that extravagant or unrealistic considering tercio history, but the numbers and type of soldiers are soooooooo wrong regarding this battle. There's also the saying that's the only time Spain faced Asians in battle in the 16th century. What about the Battle of Manila of 1574?
There's also a good chance as well that the tercios in question in this battle were bolstered by a at least a few hundred levied/hired native Filipino sailors and warriors as it was a common practice in the Spanish Philippines as the Spaniards renowned the Filipinos for their sailing and fighting abilities.
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roman vs spartan pls
Yo
or can you just tell me who would win?
Castelnuovo metatron.... castelnuovo.
@@berzgaming1039 bro, the romans... The Romans CONQUERED Sparta...
"You Wakos are without a doubt, the worst pirates I've ever heard of."
Wako: "But you have heard of us?"
I'm pretty sure some Woku Anime Fan Art has been heard of.
THAT, is a tasty reference.
ua-cam.com/video/YFtbT8_lwjc/v-deo.html
What this is from a Filipino historian
Tercios ._. Didn´t fight out of Europe. And the katanas and armor from the pirates are in the museums and they are Samurai Armor
Qi Jiguang
I just imagine those pirates showing up before a raid like "We are a multi-ethnical, multi-cultural group from diverse backgrounds, we're here to plunder your riches in a totally non-racially motivated way!" and then went on in secrecy to found Ubisoft with their ill-gotten gains.
This exactly what happened!
lol
From wako to wacko in several centuries: the Ubisoft history.
But F Christianity in particular for some reason.
t.ubisoft
Hail the politically-correct pirates!
I'm Spanish, and when I studied that battle in high school, (so many years ago...) I was told that the Spanish army fought against chinese and japanese pirates, not against samurais... And I dont remember the numbers, but... my History teacher never told us about so few Spanish soldiers there as that article says...
It is true, never in Spain we had said that were samurais… we say that where ronins and pirates. So, no much for a “Debunk” but even if an anglosaxon is “hispanic” they always are a little jealous about our history and want to debunk, “view with other perspective” or just lie like they do mantaining the black legend made by Holand
Si eres español y has oído de esta historia deberías de saber lo que se guarda en los registros del museo militar de Madrid. Conocerías por tanto que 40 eran los que combatieron y el restante manejaban la nave y cañones.
Por otro lado, los piratas no eran samuráis, sino ronins, mercenarios sin señor que combatían bajo el amparo de los piratas de la zona, que a su vez estaban bajo pagamento de Portugal y China.
@@21segarra Conozco lo poco que me enseñaron en el instituto, no es uno de los momentos históricos, ni de los lugares que me haya dedicado a investigar por mi cuenta. Sé que fueron piratas, no samurais. Pero no recuerdo que mi profesor hablase de tan pocos soldados como menciona ese artículo. Nunca he estado en el Museo militar de Madrid. ¿Merece la pena visitarlo?
@@beledra4051 es interesante, aunque recomendaría ir con guía para conocer algunas curiosidades. Si no recuerdo mal habían días de entrada libre.
Bueno, ya te enseñaron mas que a mi 😂
Aunque claro, mi instituto no brillaba por su calidad...
It's like the 300 Spartans against the Persians forgets to mention the 7000 men from Greek colonies that fought with the 300 hundred Spartans. Or the 500 Spanish taking down the Aztec empire forgets to mention the 20000 telexcal natives that were enemies of the Aztec that helped the Spanish
Except people tend to Skip the 20000 native Warriors that supported Cortés because It doesnt fit their "Spain bad deliberately exterminated all natives the aztecs were so cool" narrative,here in Spain when we learn about the conquest of México we are always told about how countless tribes that were basically vassals of the aztecs supported Cortés and his men as soon as they started their expeditions into those lands
@@jav1843 colonialism still bad
Colonialism isn’t bad or good, it merely is.
@@God-mb8wi but still, those tribes were choosing the colonizer's rule instead of the aztec's
@@mohammadsadisanjaya1121 if a bunch of incredibly advanced aliens came down to earth and allied with, say, the US against its rivals, we'd undoubtedly take their assistance as well. we would feel equally shocked when they subjugate us after the fact.
The Philippines was quite a diverse country during this time. According to a 1591 census based on tributes, out of a total population of 667,612, there were 20,000 Chinese, 15,600 Mexicans and Peruvians, 3,000 Japanese, and 600 Spanish, with the rest being native Filipinos. Native colonial soldiers were shuffled between the Philippines, Mexico, and Peru which made it easier to control the regions. Chinese trade had been in the country centuries before the Spanish, but it intensified after colonization and led to the creation of the first “Chinatown” in history. The Philippines also became a stop for Japanese trade, and, towards the end of the Sengoku Jidai, the place of exile for many Japanese Christians including one Daimyo, Justo Takayama.
Excelentes datos, si cuenta con la bibliografía sería muy agradecida.
@@donleondevillafana7615 Si quieres recrear el Imperio español, estoy terminando un mapa del tamaño más grande posible y realístico para Age of Empires 2 HD, desde Canadá hasta Antártida, y desde China hacia el este hasta Arabia.
Este tipo "metatron" hizo vídeo de media hora intentando socovar la gloria de nuestro pueblo. Es un fraude que no mencionó que los portugueses vendieron a los japoneses y chinos piratas armas de fuego y artillería.
Honestly, doubt if there weren't any Filipinos in the Spanish crew as well.
@@barriolimbasThe Spanish also have used Filipino natives to fight for their wars. One example is that of Dagohoy's rebellion which lasted for 80 years which they quelled using the Cebuanos as their soldiers.
@@johnnymechavez429 In school it's taught to be 100, never could understand how such a potential classic in asymmetric war is not often discussed or even popularized in film, documentary etc.
So the whole event was basically just a skirmish between Spanish Tercios and some group of Asian pirates.
Basically yes
im curious to know what kind of armor those pirates are wearing, is it a mix of Japanese armor like what samurais use mixed with Mongol like armor? or is it more diverse?
Not completely true, as there was no Tercio in the Phillipines.
@@lenny_1369 in one of the letters, it is mentioned that they have breastplates and pikes. I can't remember if it was this same letter that said the equipment was provided by the Portuguese. I'm going to verify this and will let you know.
If this is the case, then it would be likely that some of them were wearing European breastplates.
@@lenny_1369 This battle happened in the late 1500s...which is long after the Mongol empire and the main Mongol successor states had collapsed. They would not be wearing armor that resembled the Mongols of the 1200s AD.
There are a fair few historical naval battles where taller sailing ships held out for several hours against larger forces purely because its physically pretty hard to board a ship that's several metres higher than your skiff/galley/longship.
yep european sailing ships had very good technology for antibording measures, also european crews were motivated to fight for their lifes when at the other sid of the world because 1. they may not even have known how to surrender to some unknown culture, 2. if they surrendered their likelyhood of being freed or bought back there were even lower than usual.
this lead to european crews fighting against all odds and pretty fiercely.
also the boarding defences of european especialy southern european ships were developed in the mediterranean where there was a high risk from piracy and ottomans and so on. european ships had dedicated killzones in the middle and the castles had low caliber guns aiming at the middle deck so they could give flanking fire, making bording extremely costly.
Not to mention the Spanish just loved to turn the Deck of a ship into miniature battlefield. Imagine climbing up a Galley and as you peek over the top you see sixty men in a Tercio all pointing pikes at you like some giant porcupine. Lol I'd jump right back down and take a swim🤣
Forecastle as in the castle in the front with aftcastle Mediveal ships were build as multi level forts. A tradition for effective fighting and still continuing into this period.
Yes, as soon as I heard that the Spanish came in a fleet of 2 Galleons and 7 Frigates I Immediately went:
"No shit they could beat 1000 with only 60 (although it's impossible to man those 7 ships with just 60 men). The 1000 only had basic Chinese/Japanese ship and the Spanish had the most powerful war machine in the world at that time"
@@MariusThePaladin No one states that only 60 man were on board. It were 60 soldiers,, so guys not belonging to the sailng crew.
And that war machine was challenged (the same years) by the dutch and English .With success.
fascinating video, thanks.
Hi
Thank you for watching Jason!
You both have amazing channels!
You make awesome content sir, you should have a TV show if there was any justice in the world 😁
Black Legend video.
"Highly Diverse multi ethnic group"
[Netflix rubs hands intensely]
God no
Most of them were asian so netflix don't care
@@quentinleroux6762 they'd bring on black people either way
@@kubli365 they can use melanesians tho
@@aaaaaaa9207 "mela what?" - Netflix exec
I like how in both letters even though the Spanish appear to have won the battles they didn't talk s*** about the pirates.. they said in both letters that they were valiant fighters.
Spaniards hired samurais as mercenaries even from the Japanese diaspora in Luzón. Maybe some of the samurais were actually fighting the pirates (who were 3 out of 10 Japanese and led by the Japanese according to the History of the Ming).
Spaniards be like: someone make note of that man’s bravery
Spaniards always respect bravery and catholic religious devotion. As long as you're brave and a good Christian, you're ok
@@jamie_d0g978 Jesus: Most people go to hell.
Catholics: Who cares what Jesus says? ENtire NATIONS go to heaven!
Jesus: "Mary.... I call you merely... woman."
Catholics: "MOTHER OF GOD MOST BLESSED WE ARE JSUT OBSESSED!"
Jesus: "Who is my mother? Those who do God's will are my mother and my brother."
Catholics: "The hell with Jesus' wods there!"
Jesus: "Call no man on earth father in teh sense of having spiritual lordship over others."
Cathoolics: "We have a pope which means father. Jesus is wrong."
Satan: "Good Catholic pawns."
@@scintillam_dei Catholic: outside Catholic Church can be save
Mary is new ark of covenant
Ahh you beat me to it!! Fun fact as the Metatron mentions the wako were multi ethnic, well there's actual mentions in record that a few Dutchmen were apart of the crews!
I'll look forward to see your take on It!
@@metatronyt Someday! I have to say your video is a hard act to follow
Later wokou pirates were mostly non japanese yes, early wokou was mostly desperate ronin from the Kyushu islands
@@i_love_crpg Ronin might've been amongst them but they were not the majority
Isn't it interesting that pirates, in some way, preceded humanist ideas, or at least developed humanist ideas on their own. (Idk about asian pirates, so this applies only to the ones in the new world and madagascar) A group of multiethnic people where every man was considered human and every man's word was influential? Where captains got elected and impeached? Where labour contracts and social systems were used? Hundrets of years ago? One could think, giving every man roughly the same amount of power leads to a fairer system...
(Also i don't want to glorify pirates, they still were murdering, looting, r*ping barbarians, but considering their time period they had some remarkable progressive policies.)
Actually I was taught by a wonderful History teacher back in the day and that´s how I learned the word "Wako". No half educated person here in Spain thinks they were "1000 Samurai".
I have never once hear anyone claim that there were a thousand samurai, just pirates with some ronin against Spanish soldiers and their local levies that managed to win a battle with a numerically superior force.
Samurais sin amo, sí, ronin. Eso no los hace menos diestros, ni menos letales. La ventaja la tuvieron los rodeleros. El escudo es el enemigo de la katana.
@@p.s.9658 la gente cree que por qué eran piratas estos no eran menos peligroso los samurais tenían códigos para pelear los piratas no
ua-cam.com/video/YFtbT8_lwjc/v-deo.html
Watch this guys from a Filipino historian
National myths exist everywhere, in every country.
I don’t think any serious scholar would argue that 1000 samurai were present at the supposed battle. That being said, from the roughly contemporary Boxer Codex, we know that Samurai, or at least Japanese men who presented themselves as Samurai had a presence in the Philippines. The Codex, along with the the fact that the letter rather explicitly distinguishes a Chinese Pirate ship from a Japanese one seems to indicate that the Spanish could recognize the difference between Chinese and Japanese, not to mention how foreigners of various ethnicities made frequent visits to Manila and had their own quarters, including the Japanese. The Spaniards are likely to have been somewhat familiar with differences, and I don’t think the they would have had ideological qualms over the ethnicity identity of the pirates. The battle also occurs a few decades after the Jiajing Wako raids of the Ming, meaning that there would have been a reduced Chinese participation in Wako Bands as reported by Ming sources of the era. More than likely these Wako bands were still multiethnic conglomerations, but given the reduced Chinese participation for the aforementioned reasons, and general disdain of the pirates by the local Philippines, its possible that the bands at Cagayan would have had a sizeable Japanese population, if not a slight majority, especially giving the rather explicit mentions of Japanese identity in the letters.
Before the XVIIth century, the samurai was not a class, ie not necessarily well defined who is samurai who is not. It is easy to imagine that the terms were loosely used, especially if someone wanted to prop up himself far from home.
Well I watched a similar video on kings and generals and they said that only a small number of woku were from japan. Also while the number of woku is exaggerated I dont think it is by much. I mean just look at Diu, the portugese were outnumbered almost 4 to 1 but still managed to win only taking 30 casualties while they killed 1000+ of the marmeluke mercenaries.
@@ANSELAbitsxb Wako demographics fluctuated over time, and once they lost their foothold in China(which would’ve been about 10-20 years before the Cagayan battles), the amount of Chinese participants waned, making Japanese participation higher than it was in previous decades. That being said I agree with your assessment that 1000 Wako is perhaps not too terrible of an overexaggeration. When the Ming General QiJiguang defeated a Wako army and only lost 3 men in Battle of Hua Street.
Well said 👍... Objectively, as far as well know, a small colonial Spanish force ousted a larger, Japanese led, maybe even majority Japanese, piracy operation and the rest is history. I think there must be a balance in impartial assessment when there is so little to go on and us in the modern day having maybe European-superiority or pro-Japanese sentiments...
@@the.wandering.warrior I don't think european superiority was a thing back then but ports and spanish were basically thought to be invincible by everyone, it wasn't untill the dutch wars that that idea was challenged. And doing extraordinary things with low numbers was basically their thing.
Got lots of comments about this event in my comments. I feel reassured in my suspicion about it :)
The Black Legend teaches you to dismiss any claim of Spanish superiority. Good job. You passed the indoctrination with flying colours.
@@21segarra Why you post some insecure link from a dubious source? And why you also post a link to a Edo period armor?
@@21segarra Ey. Si te gusta Age of Empires 2 HD, estoy haciendo un mapa inmenso y realístico de América desde Canadá hasta Tierra del Fuego. Includos están: España, Portugal, Italia, Francia, Inglaterra en gran parte, Irlanda, toda África, todo el Japón, el este de China, Hawaii y el norte de Filipinas. Pronto ojalá lo terminaré.
This doesn't really dispel much to me. A much smaller force of Spanish soldiers defeated a drastically larger force of Chinese and Japanese pirates. In the 19th century, Japanese "adventurers"(aka Pirates) murdered the Korean Queen. Them not being classified as "ronin" or whatever doesn't change much.
@@jeanbethencourt1506 Its weeb cope. The fact is that Japanese led the pirates and many ronin were probably among the pirates. This was also a period of decline in Chinese piracy meaning less Chinese, more Japanese. The Japanese outnumbered the Spanish and yet the Spanish still bent them over. Its quite obvious from history that tercio > samurai, unfortunately too many westerners are weened on anime nowadays.
That's weird, i thought a single japanese ronin could take down a million inferior western knights with his invincible katana that can cut through muskets, at least that's what anime says
western Knights maybe , but Spanish tercio soldier no , lol
I've learned this ocurrance by a recent Kings and Generals video. You debunking makes the story even more interesting and i think the 2 videos complement each other very well.
You are not wrong, good sir.
Which video was that? Link?
@@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin ua-cam.com/video/xY0yxv1wX3o/v-deo.html
I like Kings and Generals but that was one of their worse videos. I was more confused and had more questions than when I started the video.
I've watched this subject first from there too! Really nice channel. 👍
Filipino Here,
Funny that the story always said by my family from Ifugao [the Headhunter Tribes and the region where Skallagrim's Favorite axe came from]. Terico and Conquistadores are just a recon party, and the "samurais" are just Wakou or Pirates...mostly Rónin or Masterless Samurai/Mercs...I mean...ITS ARMOURED SCOUT PARTY VS SOME SMELLY RAIDING PIRATES.
Pirate Raids are common here in Early Modern Asia...hell my Dad's Region of Dumaguete still has that Lighthouse made by the Spanish to repel Muslim Pirates, and my Capital of Manila goy Raided by multiple Chinese Pirates like Limahong
Samurai* Japanese words double as both plural and singular please stop adding unnecessary s'.
@@drafezard7315 oh god, I know, there is a reason there are " " in the word "Samurais"
@@exudeku Putting it in quotes does not excuse it... every time I hear or read it with the s gives me a migraine. -_-
@@drafezard7315 SaMyuRaiS
Still a cool incursion if you think about it, pirates and a few ronin fighting our colonizers
Metatron doing Iberian history? It's quite late but it's a fine birthday present! I would love to hear of the Portuguese accounts of the Japanese.
I am so impressed you got the chinese pronunciation of wuokou right.
@@iamchengsolo Oh? I did huh?
Oh happy late birthday my bday was yesterday so your's is a day before mine
@@jesseherring4745 mine was at the tail end of last month, lol
"doing" as in "attempting to undermine the glory of"
The Metatron really inspired me into building my own Samurai Armour, despite my economic circumstances. Thank you!
Have you made any progress? Since I've made a test piece by cutting out 22 guage steel with shears, drilling holes, and following late period lacing methods that limit the amount of laces I use. Making an armor out of lamellar would he way too labor intensive.
To be fair the historical account doesn't seem biased they talked of the pirates bravery (much less bias than today).
Worth noting that accounts can be biased by talking up the bravery of the opponent to make your own actions look better.
@@TheHaighus True, but I stand by us being more biased today (narrative: one side is absolutely bad and the other is really good with a few bad actors).
Well it was a request for help, making it seem like you're winning wouldn't exactly be advantageous.
@@jonathanbetenbender307 This is internal communication, not necessarily intended for public consumption. If the enemy is "brave" (ie. will stand and fight, even when confronted with experienced regulars), it is important for the sovereign to know this.
This is the kind of respect that means you will not underestimate them on the battlefield. Keep in mind, though, that if they were considered pirates, they most likely still should count themselves lucky if they escaped being executed, and were still considered despicable scum and "enemies of all mankind" (as it would be phrased a few centuries later).
@@Snagabott That is an excellent point, so I didn't chose the best example make that comment on... that aside in the modern era I think our representation of the enemy is like a caricature of propaganda.
A huge chunk of our history classes here in the Philippines is centered around the Spanish colonization of this country for over 300 years. In that span of time, a lot's happened. Very significant events. I think the presence of over a thousand Japanese pirates in Cagayan ALONE during that time would have been notable enough to warrant at least some passing mention, even before delving into the ridiculousness of 50 or 60 soldiers beating that many. This is just absolutely hilarious lmao
Yeah. Never heard of this during history class in the Philippines. These articles are just trolling gullible people
Don’t be so sure. The Middle East and Africa has hundreds of years and in some cases millennium long periods that are completely ignored. And this is during similar timelines (1st century AD and on)
I do recall that there was a significant naval battle between a whole fleet of Chinese pirates against the Spanish garrison, with the latter heavily outnumbered. The pirate lord was Li-something.
The samurai vs. tercio thing is new to me and sounds dubious.
@@voidempire2174 I'm from the middle east, and I know our history, but it's hardly ever mentioned at all, makes me think it's being done on purpose tbh.
60 soldiers can easily kill thousands of attackers. The Americans did it in Mogadishu. To see if it were possible, you'd have to first find out to what kind of air support the Conquistadors had access.
Conspiracy theory: It's actually anti katana propaganda made by 2013 skallagrim
Actually is more like Spanish sensationalism, as this man argues here (Spanish audio though): ua-cam.com/video/L5sCVULHV7k/v-deo.html&ab_channel=DivulgadoresdelMisterio
I think flea markets are good enough anti katana propaganda.
Did he even mention that the Japanese ronin with the Chinese pirates among others had guns and artillery from the Portuguese? Major omission revealing his prejudice against the truth that SPain beat samurais even when outnumbered, and even when the samurais also had gunpowder power.
@@scintillam_dei They weren't Samurai. This has been debunked time and time again. They were a lose band of pirates made up of mostly Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino soldiers, fishermen, smugglers and merchants. Open up a freaking history book, and read the thing.
@@mmabri You don't know what you're talking about. You just regurgitate anti-Spanish propaganda. I did a video refuting the Metatron. He's full of shit.
Don't forget you need a large crew in order to operate this spanish ships.
So besides the Tercios we would have the ships crew with most likely joing the fight. Either by been frontline soldiers or operating the ship cannons
There was no tercios in asia. Not even in America iir. It was just a skirmish between spaniards and ronins
"The tercio (Spanish 'third) was the *tactical formation* that took its title from the medieval practice of dividing an army into three parts - the van, main battle and the rear."
yeah i wouldn't call the Spanish marines on board the ship Tercios but whatever
@@comradekenobi6908 The tercio was also the Military unit who conform the tactical formation, like the roman legions who was called legionaries.
@@Zeldaytal there was in multiple times... Tercio is any "regular" unit of the spanish crown during the golden cents, from 60 men to 5000 men of Flandes
You dont. Smaller galleons could be operated by 40-50 men, and they could all be soldiers since operating the ship is pretty simple aside from manpower requirement. But there were 7 ships in total, plus some colonists, so easily over 100 men let alone women. I think the account mean about one engagement in a part of a battle before reinforcements arrived. One section would not have all 1000 men attack at once.
I have read the accounts in Spanish, and I agree with your assessment, although I calculate a little higher number of Waco; perhaps 300. In any case, it is no small feat for 60 soldiers to defeat 300 pirates. It is a 1 to 5 ratio.
Exactly, it is an impressive feat regardless, so there is absolutely no reason to embellish the details of what actually happened so much.
I remember reading about this way back in the day for a college class. Basically the book said the European forces consisted of a galleon with their contingent of sailors and soldiers. So in according to the book the galleon was likely manned by about 250-300 sailors and 40 or so rodeleros, pikemen, and/or musketeers.
For the pirates, the book mentioned the bulk of the ethnic makeup was likely Chinese or Korean, with few Japanese.
The book it more or less drew the forces as 300-350 Europeans and unknown local allies vs 750-1000 pirates.
There was also a less known Battle between a Portuguese Nau, called the "Nossa Senhora da Graça", the famed "Black Ship" and several dozens japanese junks with thousands of samurai from the Arima Clan.
The chase lasted for about 4 days and culminated in the boarding of the Portuguese Nau and the fierce melee that ensued.
The captain of the Nau, André Pessoa then ordered the ship´s magazine to be set alight and for his men to abandon ship and shortly thereafter the Nau exploded in 2 sucessive explosions, killing most of the Portuguese Crew still on the Ship, including the captain, attacking Samurai and resulted as well in the loss of all the cargo.
This was a result of direct Dutch interference in Japan´s trade intentions as they turned Japanese Clans against the Portuguese, resulting in this less known battle of History
I dind't know that. I remember "Black ship" from Shogun 2, but I had never known there is actual story behind.
@@VK-sz4it Black Ships would head for Japan to engage in the "nanban trade" every given time, every 1 or 2 years and they would paint their hulls black, so the Portuguese Naus or Galleons and later all western ships were called black ships.
The "Nossa Senhora da Graça" was one of said ships, unfortunate enough to have been betrayed and ambushed near the coast of Nagasaki.
ah yes kamikaze attack before the Japanese thought of it
@@Levi_o_Lusitano I don't know Portuguese but does that translate to "Our Lady of Grace"?
@@the36lessons11 Yes thats it! 😉💪
My first approach to the debunking of that battle was through that same blog, Gunsen History. After reading the extensive and interesting article I was wishing someone could make something like that but as a video. I guess Metatron made my wish come true.
I'm Filipino and I've heard of this battle but never actually did any research on it so I'm glad you're making video on it.
My pleasure and thanks!
Even being Spanish I knew that the numbers were exaggerated and that the "Japanese" were pirates and not samurai. I find this video very interesting, thanks for the information.
Even being Spanish? Wtf? XD
@@alvarorodriguez1592 Are you spanish too? 😂😂😂
@@iz560 Mean technically they were Ronin, lord-less Samurai. Supply was shit, but the training was still there.
Samurais who lost in Japanese wars would, if surviving, flee to southern realms like Siam where many Japanese mercenaries worked. So when Thailand had samurais working, why wouldn't Luzón?
@@ganonstonebreaker4231 According to what I've read the pirates were (of course) not made up entirely of ronin, but other rabble as well such as untrained peasants and criminals.
Could you please a few videos on the Conquistadors? Like 1 video on the major conquistadors leaders and expeditions?
Another on the weapons and armor choices, and maybe another on the types of recruits and their training?
The Metatron could spend his whole life clapping historical and modern cheeks in an effort to get accurate information out there! No foolishness gets past the Metatron!!!!
With metatron liking your comment, him clapping cheeks is confirmed.
Metatron, Consumer of Pasta
Bearer of Wisdom
Clapper of Cheeks
What's accurate about dishonestly omitting that the ronin and Chinese pirates had guns and artillery from the Portuguese, attempting to dismiss Spanish victories as only due to having firearms?
Reminds me of the not-smart-people who say Spain could win only against loincloth-wearing arrow shooters. Spain captured the king of France in a war in Italy.
SCINTILLAM DEI Why must you hate on the Metatron fam?
@@thebigone6969 I hate people who try to erase history because they're so obsessed with samurais they can't accept that lordless and therefore treasure-seeking samurais among other Asians doing piracy, wree beaten by Spaniards. The Black Legend. Look into it. Everyone who speaks English is affected, and most don't even know they're indoctrinated to belittle Spain.
Kings and Generals just did a video on this.
Yup, that was an interesting video
@@crevetta6128 same here lol
ua-cam.com/video/YFtbT8_lwjc/v-deo.html
Watch this from a Filipino historian.
They also tried to undermine SPanish credibility at every turn which makes them hypocrites since they don't apply this same standard for British nor Japanese victories. The anti-Spanish prejudice is evident. People who want the truth don't hide their bias. They do.
Had always heard that it was a band of Wako vs the Spanish. Most of the Wako being Chinese.
But apparently the Japanese were in charge
@@sergioriggio1769 Japanese were the leaders in pirate but they were not majority it was multi ehenic
@@voltgaming2213 And so where the Spanish...only the leaders were Spaniard. Most soldiers would have been american creoles and philippine troops. It was no "Tercio" by any mean.
@@ernstschloss8794 Its so disappointing that so many events of history are misrepresented and nothing really is like we thought it was.
Great video, and historically accurate, as always. Spanish Tercios were a formidable war machine. Probably they'd had carried a couple of "culebrinas" which were thin light canions used on land or sea that could shoot shrapnel and gravel from the flanks. I know of the incident, and of course those were no samurai, and half of them would had flee after witnesing the first blast of firepower, followed by the voracity and killing efficiency of the swordsmen and pikemen advancing quickly in a mist of smoke. The guilds of asian pirates, while they could outnumber the tercios 5 to 1 in this type of squirmishes, they would have surrender fairly quickly, or be keen to negociate after losing a few men, since they were no army, and surely they'd prefered to stay alive. The spanish were pragmatic and always chose to make allies rather than enemies among the native factions. That was their conquering "style": Show your enemy how ruthless you can be for a minute, and sit on a table to drink with them the next, as if nothing happened. That's why so few "conquistadores" and a few, armed to the teeth tercio companies could grab so much land in just 40 years. In any case, the spanish respected this asian fighters, since they actually recruited soldiers in the Philippines to fight against the turks in the mediterranean.
There's no mention of any tercio, and we know Spain did not send tercio units outside Europe. I honestly have no idea why everyone, including Methatron, is assuming the 40-60 garrison soldiers were tercios. All evidence indicates the opposite, and there's not source that ever mentions it. Only once did Spain create (not sent) a tercio outside Europe, and that was in Chile to fight against the Araucanos.
@@goodaimshield1115 así fue
@@goodaimshield1115 tampoco en esa época existe un barco llamado Fragata
The video should be named : Debunking the Myths about The Battle of Cagayan
Note: There wasn't tercios, only spanish soldiers, and the great number were nativeamericans from Nueva España.
As Rafa like to say "There're a few things to take into consideration": First: There was no Tercios in Cagayan, only some officers like Carrion could have been part of a Tercio in the past, but it's doubtful. The Spanish there were a private company from Nova Spain, that being said the so-called Spanish in Filipina were mostly conformed by Tlaxcalan allies, also mestizos and creoles inmates, all known as Spanish Americans. According to the author Canales, there would have been only few more than 5 European soldiers in Cagayan at that time.
Second: There also were the soldiers from the San Iusepe along with those of the Capitana galley, we could say more than 100 soldiers plus few sailors. And according to Canales, the pirates were no more than 300 in total during all the events, the rest were their relatives.
Third: there were no mentions of Japanese armament used by the wakos, most were from Portuguese industry as mentioned by the sources, or native made cannons.
And forth: The Ryukyu kingdom pirates were the only ones with ships capable to travel to Filipina, the Japanese ships could only travel short distances.
You know, just to add to your comment: Indigenous allies does not automatically imply Tlaxcallans, and the sources do not specify ethnic origin. The men serving in Cagayan could have just as easily been Mexica (aztec), Chalca, Texcocan, Tepanec, Purepecha, Tepexi, or any number of allies from the many cities and kingdoms that encompassed Mesoamerica at the time.
Not everything is Tlaxcala.
@@Rafael_Mena_Ill The "indios conquistadores" were majority Tlaxcalans as they were the only who signed a true alliance with Spain with the Tlaxcala canvas. And after numerous supportive expeditions and wars they negotiated their political position directly with the king of Spain trying to get autonomy and privileges.
The other allies were the Tarascan, but those participate only on few expeditions inside of Mexico. And most of the Mexicas left were basically subyugated and were only given the political role of maintaining the cities.
And we could say the same when we speak of Spaniards-Castilians, knowing that some of them were from other regions, like Portugal, Italy, Germany, but the majority were from Spain.
@@yomauser This is factually incorrect. Texcoco, Huexotzingo, Quauquechollan, Tepexi, and many, many others, signed a true alliance with Spain within their own legally binding documents, and negotiated political positions under the King of Spain, to varying degree's of success, though ultimatly the plan backfired as disease crippled native bargaining power. Even those subjugated into a position of vassalage managed to negotiate means through which they could advance politically. The Mexica, Atzcapotzalca and Xochimilca for example, were instrumental in funding colonies in Guatemala, maya found themselves in the Andes, zapotecs and Mixtecs in the Yucatan, and so forth.
The natives "accompanying" (quotations to adress the implication that they were in any way a minority in these expeditions, they were very much not.) the europeans were extremely diverse, and it's likely that a great many natives and mestizos that were in Cagayan were not Tlaxcallans themselves.
@@Rafael_Mena_Ill You are right, but most probably they were a mix of mexica and otomi, and most probably tlaxcalans as well. I mean, of course they could be from any ethnic group, but that means there could be tlaxcaltecas as well, and given they did go with the Spanish in several explorations, I don't think it's a ridiculous idea to imagine they were most probably one of the main groups to be in Filipinas at the time, though quite obviously not the only one.
Love my country being featured on Metatron's channel
I like this video in the part of the samurai, but the part of the spanish... Well you had a lot of misconceptions. In fact, I've fought for years to try to introduce to the real combat of Cagayán, and you had a great mistake (forgivable one because I understand that that's not your especialty in historic times).
Well, first fact. The Spanish in the Phillipines were not tercio soldiers. Never were. Thats because the tercios were only used in Europe and North Africa (with the exception of the Albuquerque Tercio, created in America to fight the Araucanians indians). The soldiers in Phillipines at the time were semi-profesional troops recruited from adventurers, mainly from the recently conquered territories of Mexico (in fact, most of the soldiers who fougth in the spanish side were born in Mexico, sons fron the conquistador and sons of the indian allies of Cortés, especially tlaxcala indians) being only the officers from the iberian Peninsula. We must say that they also had mostly Tagalo warriors and oarsmen (that also fought) who worked for Spain at the moment.
They were not the "elite" soldiers from Europe, even when some (mostly the officers) served in Europe some time. But, what is clear is that they used superior tactics (the know how to use harquebuse and musket fire more efficiently) and made good use of their superior technology (mosly the artillery of the galleys they had).
Some points:
The spanish pike were no longer than 4 meters. This is because usually the people mislead the correct measure of a span (the one of wikipedia its from XVIII century).
The preferred weapon of the spanish were the harquebuse always. When there was more pikes than arquebuse was mainly by the imposibility to get more of them.
Except for this things, good video. You do a great work, keep it up.
Awesome info! Thanks!
I always wondered, did the Spanish use their pikes in the Americas as well? I imagine marching through the terrain such as jungle or Forrest would be hard to do.
@@huntclanhunt9697 It depends of the campaing and period of time. Not all Mexico were great jungles. In the early expeditions, most of spanish conquistadores used the combination of castillian spear and shield (mostly rotellas and adargas), but we know Cortés created a corps of indian allied pikemen to figth the expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez, created to take Cortés prisioner.
Also, with the "europeization" of América, the spanish and indian rebels (as the araucanians, for example) used pikes as in Europe.
We could say that against indians with traditional weapons, the spanish tended to use shorter spears and shields, but against enemies with "european" way of figth, they used pika&shot tactics.
One example of that were the "dragones de cuera", a especial cavalry group created to protect the actual south of the USA when that territory was spanish. In the XVIII and early XIX century used adarga shields and lances because were the best weapons against apache and comanche, their main enemies there.
@@juanmolinafernandez3983 Never heard of a Castillian Spear. Adarga.. Is that the leather moorish type shield that looked sort of heart shaped?
@@huntclanhunt9697 A lot of the territories the spanish conquered in the americas were kind of deserts. A lot of Mexico, Peru and Chile are desert, and the places that were densely forested were still mostly tamed by the locals. It's not like these were virgin lands, they'd been inhabited for thousands of years.
@@juanmolinafernandez3983 While they called them Araucanians, the term refers to a small town in coastal southern central Chile called Arauco, their actual name is Mapuche. They're still a thorn in the side for the non-native population XD
Man it is so satisfying to hear metatron pronounce TERCIO correctly
Thanks!
When you brought up the japanese using the pirates. I remember reading that the Spanish had a plan to use the pirates in a invasion of China.
AKA privateers, or 17th century economic terrorists.
There are actually so many battles to debunk. That would be a great series.
He didn't debunk that Spaniards beat samurais. I did a video refuting this failed attempt at a debunking.
If by "debunk" you mean Megawrong rambling and babling, we can do without that.
@@scintillam_dei Aaand yours failed. I can't hear any YEC "argument" over the tune of a Tarbosaurus yodeling or a singing Microraptor.
@@jeffreygao3956 So I'm wrong because there are sci-fi videos of singing dinosaurs. Wow. You're deluded. Utterly.
@@jeffreygao3956 no need to dog pile on him he is clearly mentally unwell
I guess they tried to capture the Black Ship in Shogun II and still haven't recovered from having lost nearly their entire navy in the process.
Wasn't the Black Ship in Shogun 2 Portuguese?
The black ship actually existed.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nossa_Senhora_da_Gra%C3%A7a_incident
@@MDD77777 There wasn't one black ship. All portuguese ships that they built in their indian colonies were black because of the wood they used there. Most European ships that reached Japan were black.
I remember the profesor Luis Medina talking about the aztecs meeting japanese speaking in spanish....in Acapulco
Manila Galeon. The Tlaxcala went with the Spaniards all the way to conquer the Philipines and the north of Mexico.
@astronomically anomaly lmao..just yesterday someone Tell me about that Channel.😄
Those Spanish loquillos...
Spanish: Bruh, I'm sorry we killed 1000 of your landlords
Japanese: Arigathanks for taking care of those pirates
Some country from the East: "Damn these pirates are hard to get rid off!"
Spain: "Hold my cerbeza."
Actual battle : like that time some Somali pirates attacked a French cruiser before realising they were not attacking a civilian ship.
The captain to the guy writing the report : "copy paste the report from the battle of Actium !"
lmao I've just looked it up and it is pretty funny. However here are some corrections :
La Somme (the French ship) isn't a cruiser, it's a supply & command ship. Because of its missions, it's somewhat similar to a civilian ship, which makes the mistake more understandable.
Addendum : The ship was, in fact, targeted by pirates not once, but twice. In the first attack, the navy took five pirates prisoners and in the second one, the pirates fled after a short firefight prompting La Somme to pursue them, which brought it right to the pirate's camp. 6 pirates were arrested and weapons were seized.
@@Knoloaify They managed to take five prisoners from the Somme during the first assault?? O_o
@@Briselance Sorry made a typo, I meant 5 pirates were made prisoners. There's no way a bunch of dudes on dingys would ever take prisoners on a ship filled with soldiers.
@@Knoloaify I mean the french have a strong tradition of quickly surrendering...
@@claspe1049 And Americans have a strong tradition of promptly running away while leaving their brethren behind.
dont forget about the Tlaxcaltecas, who helped the Spanish to defeat the Aztecs, they were also sended to fight against samurais in the Philipines
The whole idea that Aztecs with the Spanish fought Samurai in the Philippines is insane. Would love to see a hypothetical battle between Aztec and Samurai warriors.
@@PackHunter117 Depending on the time period the Samurai have a serious equipment advantage. The Aztecs are more used to jungle warfare which could be useful.
@@PackHunter117 it wasnt the Aztecs bro, it was the Tlaxcaltecas; they fought against the Aztecs, helping the Spanish Tercios, and they also helped them against the japanese .
@@kaltaron1284 True. And they could scare the Japanese with their human screaming mimicking whistles.
@@odiaranda2756 Oh yeah. My mistake.
Great stuff! As a kid I was told that Europeans came to Japan and every one swordsman was able to kill tens of samurais because of superior martial skills. Now I understand where this myth comes from. Thanks for giving me tool to debunk future claims like this :)
I was very fascinated with clash of cultures when Japan was discovered by Europe. Maybe you could explore this topic more? Perhaps maybe some analysis of James Clavell's "Shogun" and "Gai-jin"? I think it's very interesting how he is portraing relationships between drastically different nations
When the praise of the video's sponsor is interrupted by an ad, things go out of hand on UA-cam.
This is the equivalent of someone bragging at a club after a fistfight one on one in an alley that he kung-fu fought ten guys who ganged up on him and won
If they had to make this into a movie, they'd probably go with the 60 Spaniards vs 1000 Samurai just because it's cooler sounding.
And the samurai using leather armor
@@franciscosouzaaguirre9688 and katanas only while the spaniards all use rapiers.
They won't do it since it is about spaniards, of they were Americans or.engñosh, there would.be a ton of.movies on Netflix
@@zamirroa If you have Debunk films, the most common examples are The Patriot (It is thought that only a few American and French militiamen beat the English and ignored all the economic and military aid from Spain, Battle of Pensacola) or the well-known 300 Spartans who in In reality, there were also other soldiers from the other Greek city-states who fought at Thermopylae. If the battle of cagayan had been fought by the English or the French, we would have a Hollywood movie, series and it would appear on the History Channel as the most epic battle between a Western army against an Eastern army. But as the Spanish did and they have to look for the smallest detail to criticize it as good followers of the Spanish black legend promoted mainly by Protestants and Italians. But the Spanish were the first to fight against Chinese and Japanese pirates. So the art of La Verdadera Destreza was superior against the art of the Katana.
@@yasue9375 it's depressing how Spanish history is so underrated , I mean that word because when we tlak about them is. Only to criticize and make looks awful and boring without anything destacable.
I have been reading about casta system and realize that it was false and just were word to call people by their race but nothing more. The estamental system is confused with the supossed casta system.
Kings and Generals has done a really cool video about this incident already, quoting the actual historical sources.
And constantly trying to undermine them jsut like this propagandist.
@@scintillam_dei Given the fact that you are a conspiracy nut, it would be best if everyone ignored you
@@Prespanda Your AD HOMINEM fallacy proves you're irrational, unfit to judge. You're also a hypocrite since you believe in conspiracy theories too, like the one about the Black Hand conspiring to assassinate the Archduke of Austria-Hungary which began WW1. Difference is, uyou believe in such theories when they're popular 'cause you're not a free-thinker, as your mind is WEAK, and you are AFRAID to come to your own conclusions.
@@scintillam_dei Amigo, Cálmate un poco.
me parece que te estás tomando todo muy en serio, vamos, que el Metatron sea un weeb y tenga preferencia a los japos no lo hace un propagandista, el no niega que la batalla de cagayán haya pasado, simplemente está diciendo que la totalidad de piratas no era Samurai y que no hay fuentes que digan que eran 1000.
Deja de acusar a todo de leyendanegrista o de propagandista protestante a todo lo que habla ''mal'' del Imperio, le das mala cara a la Hispanidad.
@@Pa_blito Acusa a los españoles de no ser fidedignos pero afirma que los romanos lo eran. Es hipócrita. Deja de defender a este antiespañol. No acusé a nadie de ser protestante. Ni me entiendes. Tú defiendes a los antiespañoles. Tú le das mala cara a la Hispanidad.
Some people imagine that all Japanese men were Samurai, and all Japanese women were geisha. It's a somehow weird way of looking at things, if I may say...
That would be an interesting world to live in
Misunderstanding. The imperial forces included Spaniard Tercios, Italian cavalry and some infantry squadrons, german lansquenettes wich were second class troops as well as swiss quarters. And if the general could gather more forces, more forces he enlisted.
But the Tercio, the spaniard tercio was exclusively for spaniards. Not even italians, close cousins of spaniards, were allowed to join the tercios. They tried claiming that his father was spaniard and his mother italian whore( for exemple), but this cases were usually dismissed by spaniard recruiting officers. The salary was very good and the chances to die was not more than starving or disease at that time. Furthermore, the fear was more in front of tercios that in it.
About Cagayan and that, well. I´m sure that there are better people than me to speak about it. But remeber that at that time, Tlascalas from Mexico were as spaniards as european spaniards and they participe largely in Philippines conquer.
Internet is all about heated debates and strong opinions. Weeaboo said knights were stinky fatsos and katana sharper than diamonds? Hemaboo will say samurai were useless and katana were made of butter.
Both are wrong... but to be honest Katana even being a decent weapon was pretty useless on a battlefield, even Samurai knew that that's why they used nagitaka/bows and firearms as soon as they could to fight.
A pirate encounter and request of more development for a far-off colony, turned into a novel-comicbook-internet meme, inflated by the media and blown off proportions, needs debunking.
History receiving the usual treatment nowadays.
@2:38 is always why I am confident listening to this channel. His very first point to address....the sources.
Thanks!
As a spanish all the posts and texts I read about this basically talk about how a few Spanish ships encountered a settlement of Japanese by a river and defeating them. Never saw anyone talking about thousands against 40 or 60 but rather and encounter between two small groups. I didn't even think that the event would be relevant enough for the anglos to be reporting on it but seems I was wrong. Thanks for the video metatron!
Ve mi vídeo refutando a este mentiroso.
@@scintillam_dei Es un weeaboo italiano que se cree la leyenda negra. Todos los anglófilos de los comentarios les da rabia que el imperio español fue el primero en vencer a japoneses y chinos, además de dejar por los suelos la katana como espada definitiva que tanto glorifican y que se imponga la ropera toledana.
This is the first time i have heard about this battle. I am from Philippines. Thanks Metatron!
"Only one side of the story". Most history about the Roman Empire is just that. Isn't that quite common in historical research?
He's a hypocrite. See my video refuting this one.
The history is written by victors. Or at least those who wrote it down. And in case of Roman Empire, no one living north of Alps used writing so, yeah, it had to be one sided. On the other hand it would be interesting to have Carthagian, Greek Levantine and Egyptian point of view on this matter.
Lul, he might be a bit biased
Just when I was finding more info about this battle...The Metatron arrived! Thankkk youuu
You'd think there wouldn't be a need to tell people that "60 soldiers defeated 1000 soldiers in direct combat with ease" is kinda sus, but here we are
It’s all in the visuals, a superficial knowledge of period military history, and a low understanding of the battle. If you imagine a bunch of katana wielding samurai vs. Tercios wielding long pikes, it sounds plausible. After all, samurai could never get close enough to hit the pikemen. And indeed, their weight of numbers and long swords would get in the way. Presumably they’d just exhaust themselves.
Again, great visuals. But it all breaks down with the clarified facts the video shows.
Plus battle reports tend to obfuscate one side’s errors, miscalculations, and failure while aggrandizing any successes. Meanwhile downplaying enemy successes.
I really love how you analyze things from history, especially starting with the original source material and then applying logic and context. It comes across very unbiased and professional. Many thanks for all that you do.
"logic" Haha! What's logical about citing a Wikipedia page only to ignore the part that says the Japanese with Chinese and others had gunpowder weapons from the Portuguese? That's not just illogical, but dishonest too. "very unbiased" .... I cannot vomit right now but would if I could. Sicilians were taken over by Iberians, and this one in particular idolized samurais so much so he wears their armour and worked in Japan and studied their language a lot. That's not jsut a weeaboo but a weeblord. The bias reeks to high heaven. I don't pretend to lack bias. No one lacks bias.
@@scintillam_dei He is a Weeaboo who idolizes Japan and roman empire and believes everything about the black legend. Even though his province Sicily was part of the Spanish Empire. He is going to criticize everithing related to Spain criticizing the minimum that does not correspond to the historical rigor instead of admitting that the Spanish soldiers of that time (Peninsulares, mestizos, mulattos or criollos) had a better fencing style, La Verdadera Destreza, than their Italian counterpart who was never able to master this style of fencing.
@SCINTILLAM DEI You’re the biased one and a half rate Claude Frollo.
A group of guys beat up another group of italian guys in a bar
LOOK GUYS WE DEFEATED A GROUP OF ITALIAN MAFIA GUYS IN A BRUTAL FIGHT!
8:16 The "Indians in the galley" are the Filipino crew members. The Spanish calls the natives Indio.
some of them came from Mexico. maybe it's a mixed crew.
@@johnnymechavez429 no not true the Spanish called the filipinos Indios too
@@liveinlight5575 Yes, you're right. But there were probably a lot of natives from America as well. After all, Filipinas was ruled from New Spain (Mexico), not from Spain, so most SPanairds were actually Novohispano, or Spanish Americans, most of which were mixed and carried with them hundreds of American indian allies. But you're right, I think some people read indian and automatically think of Americans, Filipinos were indians too, actually, it was the Spaniards born in FIlipinas the ones to be called filipinos.
@@goodaimshield1115 this is way to early in the colonization of the Philippines the Spanish used almost exclusively native filipinos in their conquest and the native Mexicans they brought in the Philippines are very few keep in mind the Philippines was well populated even in those times they used mainly Cebuano and Kapangpagan peoples because they were loyal and specially the Kapangpagan are great at shooting gun
Yes and consider great soldiers
I'm pretty sure a samurai would just cut a frigate in half with a single swing.
You are right. And they would cut it so fast that you can’t see the swing. The cut would be so clean that the frigate would explode into two halves several seconds after the swing.
No wonder Japan was so divided
Patapa tssss
... but only if he uses a KATANA!!!
That what you get watching too much anime!
Watch this from a Filipino historian.
The Spanish sources never say they are samurai. Just pirates...and pirates do not wish to die in battle with anyone if they can avoid. So a group of determined Spaniards could defeat in detail a much greater force of pirates whose hearts are not in the fight.
Un saludo desde Toledo, España!!!
En el videojuego Shogun 2 total war aparecen los Wako, supongo que conocerás el juego. La batalla sobre la que hablas es más o menos conocida aquí en España, lo malo es que la gente suele confundir los samurái con estos piratas japoneses.
Un saludo, ¡¡¡me encantan tus vídeos!!!
Shogun 2 is a very fun game! My favorite is modding it to play as the Europeans and do an alternate history invasion of Japan.
También la gente cree que fueron tercios. Y no lo fueron, fueron simplemente soldados españoles, y la gran mayoría nativos americanos.
@@lopcaarald5161 exacto, se desvirtúa mucho la presencia Tlaxcalteca en las filas conquistadoras en Filipinas.
Pero muchos piratas wako fueron ronin (que era lo mismo, pero sin amo)
Que va, nadie conoce esta batalla en España XD Solo 4 frikis de historia.
Thank you, that was interesting! I'd not heard of this.
Useful video, thanks. I have seen reference to this tiny number of European soldiers (sometimes even described as akin to knights) defeating 1,000 Samurai in multiple UA-cam comment sections (including probably yours), often in I think ‘knightly sword v katana’ videos. So good to get the real deal laid out!
This is like they myth with 300 Spartans against the persian forces. The other greek troops are seldom mentioned...
The 1000 or so other greeks were a reserve and support force. Greeks liked to only mention their hoplites, much like rome only mentioned their legions.
@@sangralknight3031 there were also around 5000 ( the force was almost 8000 based on modern and Roman claims and 6000 based on Herodotus who is actaully the least reliable because of his mixing of fantasy and historical) of these troops that were city state hoplites. Spartans were the frontliners at the start yes, it doesn't mean they didn't tire and didn't switch ranks with the others, even during the first day.
@@scarecrow2097 interesting.
300 x 6 packs = mutually assured destruction
I love that the people who wrote these posts on FB regarding event clearly never researched what they were saying. Hell, even from just playing Age of Empires, you'd know that the "1000 samurai" is very false because the Wokou are clearly pirates.
People tend to assume that a battle is won by slaying every man in the opposition, and thus cannot imagine how 400 can wage war against 4 thousand.
The answer is that they can surrender, which is sth they are likely to do if they expect an acceptable peace treaty should they do it , or terrible artillery and world class steel would they prefer to continue fighting.
I’m no historian , but until now it’s the best explanation I’ve stumbled upon about how conquistadores won so many battles and amassed allies around them. The natives might change their minds after seeing just 30 of their friends being torn to pieces by distant explosions.
At that point running and reconsidering your tactics is probably the rational thing to do.
Another option is simply making them rout. It was typical for an army to flee after taking around 10% casualties. Especially if the pirates didn't expect military-grade resistance and thought the ships would be an easy target.
@Marcelo Henrique Soares da Silva
Hmm… as I said, I’m no historian, but I associate the Romans with a quite comfortable military superiority, as opposed to a group of well armed scouts with the advantage of fear inducing shots.
But yes, sure. Allying your enemy’s enemy seems a universally good strategy.
@@Duke_of_Lorraine Fully agree. Battles are fought by humans, not terminators. Mass psychology is a very important thing in these horrific events.
@@ivalov3681 sure, if you cannot retreat because you are sieged it’s more likely you’ll fight to the end. Plus, being fortified is a great advantage.
I didn't know about this account, and I read the Spanish version and agreed that there was some exaggeration in the actual history.
OMG! I had never heard of this battle and I just watched another video about it! I’m ready for the Metatron perspective!
Ahhh pero si hubieran sido ingleses o estadounidenses ya sería de digna admiración
Jajajaja si Rambo solo puede contra mil jajaja solo cun un cuchillo y una metralleta y no olvidemos que en sus películas cualquier ciudadano común y corriente estadounidense puede rescatar aviones y derrotar terroristas jaja
Como siempre los anglos tratando de blanquear su historia
I must also add that those Spanish guys weren't exactly Spaniards. They were likely novohispanic military members (Mexicans and quite likely tlaxcaltecan indians who were already veterans of the chichomecan wars)
I know the mentioned blog. I found it in a comment under a smithing video. They have a fantastic 4 part smithing article about sources of iron in japan, processing the iron and forging swords and armor. No mystic bullshit just pure reality yet still interesting.
Great video and very good analysis. I fully agree with you. Congratulations!
Just a couple of small clarifications, if I may: The Spanish tercios were indeed Spanish in the sense that it was a Spanish innovation, and mostly fought for the Spanish monarchy. The original tercios were made out entirely of Castillian professional soldiers. With time, as the empire grew, Spaniards became a minority in the troops forming the tercios, but the majority of the men in all Spanish tercios originated from the Spanish monarchy controlled territories. One could arguably say they were all Spanish "nationals", in the sense that they were subjects of the Spanish king. They were indeed multiethnic units (note that it is said that the catholic Englishman Guy Fawkes - the man who tried to blow up the parliament - had fought in a Spanish tercio), but generally most of the officers tended to be Spaniards.
Additionally, ethnic Spanish tercios and companies were recognized by the contemporary sources as the elite units for their morale and professionality, and were often used as shock troops. And of course other European nations copied the tercio system. Therefore there were also tercios which didn't fight for the Spanish monarchy. But I think it is fair to talk about "Spanish" tercios, as well as to acknowledge the role of ethnic Spanish nationals in them, as officers, but also as the elite core of that unit. That, of course, without prejudice of all the other ethnic nationalities who fought in the tercios, amongst which Italians played a significant role.
Also, a tercio was a military unit comprising between 2000-3000 men, organized in about 10 companies. They were deployed in battle in a very specific formation. Each of the tercios had the name of the city or region were they gathered, although volunteers gathering there may have come from other places. And the tercios fought in Europe. Even the Tercio de Galeras (the first marine infantry) was deployed in the Mediterranean.
Some of the men who fought in these skirmishes in the Philippines may have been ex-professional soldiers with experience in a tercio, but most likely they were adventurers at the service of the governor. I would not say that 40, 60 or 100 Spanish soldiers fighting in an expedition like this were a "tercio". So there were no samurais and there was no tercio. Hence, I fully agree that this was probably a series of skirmishes between (probably professional) Spanish soldiers (with professional Spanish officers) and pirates and bandits.
By the way, there is a better documented clash between Chinese-Japanese pirates and Spanish soldiers that took place in Manila, in 1574.
Keep up the good work, I really like your channel!
I read that, besides all sailors the 40 soldiers were from the Tercio Viejo de Sicilia in wich almost all were italian verterans
and although it is true that the thirds were made up of both Spaniards and soldiers from territories at the service of Spain, the truth is that the combat tactics and formations of pikes and archbuses were Spanish and almost always instructed and commanded by Spaniards
This whole thing reminds me of the 300 legend.
Nowadays we know that there were much more than the 300 Spartans on the battlefield. They were an alliance of several thousand Greeks who fought the Persians but everywhere you hear about this occurrence you just hear/read about this 300 Spartans.
The Kings ans Generals channel can be quite entertaining, however, most of their stories are made up or based on hearsay and urban legends. These people speak in great detail about some battles from the 6th century, including quotes, that we know for certain never happened.
some are indeed true, but those that are obscure can be difficult to know. Especially the Ethiopian Adal Wars and the Ottoman-Portuguese Competition for the Indian Ocean.
That's why I don't watch them anymore. So far almost all of their videos include misinformation that even Wikipedia gets more accurately.
Which stories on their channel are made up? I am curious. Would be great to know since Im no historian.
Ah... Sad to know they're not accurate :(
I love the irony of how modern articles try to dump on the Japanese, but the actual Spanish sources mention their valor and skill.
Excellent video. Always fascinated by the Tercios, the most organized fighting force in Europe since the Western Roman Empire.
I'm so happy to see you talking about this. As a Spanish speaker I've encountered many people taking this tale too seriously. Some even claim after the usual pike confrontations, the Spanish went to 1vs1 the remaining Samurai with swords and then they took the katanas and armors as trophies... And the source is the Wikipedia article and the article's source is some blog that cites the Wikipedia article!
Si... La verdad es un tema muy gustado por los Hispanistas, sin embargo no lo investigan con parcialidad.
@@donleondevillafana7615 Será que no lo investigan con imparcialidad. De todas formas varios piratas eran ronin, que es básicamente samurais sin señor, si bien es cierto que en aquella época el término samurai era muy amplio y empleado de manera casual y aleatoria. De todas formas Metatron comete un fallo bastante grande. No había tercios. Esoss soldados no eran la élite de Europa, de hecho muy probablemente eran soldados semi profesionales, y realmente solo los oficiales venían de la península, la mayoría de los que lucharon eran nativos filipinos y gente de Nueva España. Ningún tercio, y dificilmente soldados profesionales o con gran experiencia en batalla. Respecto al número, si conoces otras batallas donde participaron los piratas chinos/japoneses (la mayoria chinos), el número no parece tan exagerado, ya que eran muy comunes estos enfrentamientos en el que los piratas superaban con creces a sus enemigos y aun las bajas y muertes entre los piratas eran increiblemente superiores a las del bando contrario. Muy probablemente el número de piratas no se exageró demasiado, más bien redujeron el número de gente participando en la defensa de Filipinas, siendo los españoles una minoría y soldados no muy bien adiestrados, pero habiendo uun número bastante considerable de nativos luchando a su lado.
@Becky- ᑕᕼEᑕK ᗰY ᑭᖇOᖴIᒪE this seems to be a very recent embellishment.
Hay pruebas en el museo naval de Madrid, armaduras samurais o Robin y katanas de ese combate. O tal vez lo recuerdo mal, pero no creo... Puedes averiguar lo seguramente.
@@goodydeza Recuerdas mal. Hace unos 8 años (cuando resurgió esta historia) en ForoCoches varios usuarios estaban fantaseando con el breve relato de la batalla. De ahí surgió la risible idea de que chocaron espadas, que se retaron a duelo sobre los galeones europeos, que las katanas se rompían contra el acero español y que estas fueron llevadas a España como trofeo. Luego colgaron unas fotos de museos exhibiendo armamento japonés y todos se tragaron el cuento.
Another great reason to not trust Wikipedia.
if it involves katanas or politics, Wikipedia gets all over the place very quickly lol
@@endless2239 You're very right about that lol
I stopped trusting Wikipedia when I saw the monocle article had its photographs removed because the editor didn't like the fact most of them were 20th century Germans.
And they're other reasons to trust them.
Wiki accuracy is no 100% but most of what written in wiki are base in written records in both asian and European side
7 Spanish ships. That's already impossible that they'd have only 60 men. One of those ship had at least 50 people on them. The bigger one would have 100-200 crew on board.
And this is a naval battle.
A battle between a fleet of 7 most powerful warships in the world at that time period against a fort, and a few other small, very basic ships.
They are literally floating wooden castles armed with 12-200 cannons (depends on the size).
Even if the Spanish are fewer in numbers they can just keep bombarding those 1000 pirates into nothing as long as they maintain superior firepower. It's not necessarily a melee or even line battle between 60 vs 1000.
Was waiting for this
Plenty of high ranking officers in plenty of countries lived their lives as pirates during that age that was in fact the golden age of piracy. People like: Sir Henry Morgan, Sir Francis Drake, Hayreddin Barbarossa, Turgut Reis, just to mention a few.
To dismiss their martial competent simply because someone called them pirates is an extremely poor argument, as a matter of fact military orders of knights like the Knights of Saint Stephen and the Knights of Malta took part in acts of piracy.
The 1000 pirates, could have well been professional soldiers
I watched this video about Cagayan, from an organisation called Heroes of Baler. Basically, they may have been about 300 waku against a force of about 100 Spaniards, where Spaniards means there were about 5-6 Peninsular Spaniards, including Carrion, about 30-40 Spanish creoles from Nueva España and... wait for it... about 60-70 Tlaxcalan pikemen. Yes, pikemen. They were regular Spanish soldiers...
a samurai could be a pirate, being a samurai does not prevent anyone from acts of piracy.
Ronin were samurai without a master so I don't see the issue there
It is probably we (Spanish) forgot 8.000 auxiliar soldier from philippines and Tzacaltecas from America.
They were pirates, you are ok.
Thank you for making this video. Its also important to note the presence of the mentioned indians between the spaniards who, in their accounts, tends to not mention their number (it wouldn't be rare if their number was larger than the spaniards themselves) or even their concurrence at all. This is frenquently observed in the conquest of the Americas's accounts with the omission of the native allies role.
Consider a modern analogy, the "Somali pirates".
- A thousand in a community does not mean a thousand able bodied combat capable seafaring men. The bulk of the pirate communities deal with other things. Repairing ships, maintaining equipment, simply operating the day to day of the community.
- Most of the pirate vessels are fishing boats, trawlers, skiffs.
- Many of the "pirates" are just regular fishermen and sailors who operate boats when called on.
- Among the pirates are former mercenaries or soldiers who lost their jobs after the rise and fall of various warlords in a nation in constant state of turmoil.
- The pirates are comprised of many nationalities. Persons tried for participation in the "Somali pirates" include not only Somalians but also Kenyans, Ethiopians, Yemenis.
In any day and age, there are people drawn to tumultuous regions where government authority is limited and an outlaw way of life is possible. Places on the fringes of civilization as we usually think of it. These outlaw communities by and large become multiethnic communities with no national allegiances but to their own community. Look at young people from the west who go join insurgent and terrorist bands now. Yes, there were people of Japanese birth living in the Philippine archipelago back then. Yes, some of them were former Samurai then in exile. It's just a lot cooler if you say "We defeated Samurai in the Philippines" than if you say "We defeated a ragtag band of Philippine pirates, some of whom were ethnically Japanese and might have been a Samurai at some point."
Great. Do one about the “invincible armada” and debunk it, or is it to much to ask?
He should do the Battle of Cartagena while he is at it. He already said its impossible for a small contingent of men to defeat one thousand pirates. But you know how these things go...
60 tercios? About 90,000 soldiers? I don't think Spain had many men in arms in that period of time. You are speaking of 60 soldiers and not 60 tercios. Change the title of your video.
I love Spanish military history, and I can only thank you for this. There's a lot of bad information about this battle. The numerical difference is actually not that extravagant or unrealistic considering tercio history, but the numbers and type of soldiers are soooooooo wrong regarding this battle. There's also the saying that's the only time Spain faced Asians in battle in the 16th century. What about the Battle of Manila of 1574?
1574 is in the 16th century.
@@wilorwill precisely, Cagayán was not the only battle between Spaniards and Asians in the 16th century, that's what I said.
@@holabuenas7200 That you did! My fault, sorry. I read what you wrote wrong.
@@wilorwill no problem :)
There's also a good chance as well that the tercios in question in this battle were bolstered by a at least a few hundred levied/hired native Filipino sailors and warriors as it was a common practice in the Spanish Philippines as the Spaniards renowned the Filipinos for their sailing and fighting abilities.
Filipino tribes from the Cagayan Valley watching mystery people shoot fire at pirates: 👁👄👁🍿