Poor Ships Saved Japan From Mongolian Army

The Star ^ | 1-20-2005

[blam]

Poor ships saved Japan from Mongolian army

PARIS: Science has dealt a blow to a Japanese legend which says the country was twice saved from a Mongolian fleet thanks to a “divine wind,” or kamikaze, that destroyed the invaders' ships.

A 900-ship fleet, sent by the Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan in 1274, met resistance from Japanese samurai before being forced into retreat by bad weather and was then ripped to pieces by the kamikaze.

Kublai Khan tried again years later, amassing a vast fleet of 4,400 ships from China and Korea, most of which were sunk by strong winds off the island of Takashima, in southern Japan.

Ancient documents suggest that there was indeed a big storm in Japan in 1281.

New evidence, though, suggests that poor design and shoddy workmanship may have been the principal cause of the Mongols' defeat, the British weekly New Scientist says in its next issue, out on Saturday.

Randall Sasaki, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University, has pored over fragmented remains of the 1281 fleet that were found in 1981. About 700 pieces of ship were hauled up from the seabed off Takashima.

Sasaki has studied around 500 of the fragments and says many of the timbers have nails placed very close together, sometimes with five or six in the same location.

“This suggests the timbers were recycled to construct these ships,” he told New Scientist. “Also, some of the timbers were themselves of poor quality.”

As for the design of the ship, Chinese documents suggest that many of the vessels in the 1281 fleet were flat-bottomed riverboats, which would have been unstable in the open sea.

“So far, we have found no evidence of sea-going, V-shaped keels at Takashima,” says Kenzo Hayashida of the Kyushu Okinawa Society for Underwater Archaeology, which found the remains of the fleet in 1981.

Sasaki hopes more will be revealed by sonar and ground-penetrating radar, for less than 0.5% of the site where the fleet sank has been studied so far.

[blam]

GGG Ping

[judywillow]

Japan got REAL lucky somehow or other.

[rudyudy]

Well, if anyone would know it would be the "experts" 700 years later.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam. "Ancient documents suggest that there was indeed a big storm in Japan in 1281." I'm sure that's true. However, this finding of problems with the ships themselves (the small number of samples from a small number of ships from a total of ten thousand ships) isn't surprising. The ships were only needed for the short period of time required to cross to Japan. After that, the Mongol horde would have lived off the land, rather than relying (as the Romans did in the invasion of Britain) on a seagoing supply line.

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[2banana]

Built by the lowest bidder...

[GladesGuru]

As far as I can determine, Chinese naval architecture was what we now call "brown water" oriented, not "blue water" oriented. Their larger vessels were also flat bottomed.

Such vessels seem to have been made in rather advanced ship yards, using modular construction for the 1400's period, and such vessels made circumnavigations. Flat bottomed does not necessarily mean not sea worthy.

I suggest Gavin Menzes book titled 1421 for those interested in such matters.

[CzarNicky]

So they were lucky a wind came along and destroyed some poorly constructed ship instead of well constructed ones. OK I'll buy it.

[Blzbba]

Unfortunately, the Golden Horde of the Khan that rampaged middle Asia and Europe was not so poorly constructed, else they wouldn't have been knocking on the gates of Vienna in the 1300s...

[Hegemony Cricket]

The Junks were junk?

[struggle]

So Yoshimitsu wasn't Genghis Khan then?

[Cicero]

I don't think this proves much of anything. Ancient ships, in the orient as well as the Mediterranean, tended not to be deep water ships. War fleets set out and, if they were lucky, made it across. If they were unlucky, they sank. This happened numerous times, to the Greeks, the Romans, the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians.

Probably the Mongols consulted their priests, made the usual sacrifices, crossed their fingers, set out when the priests and shamans told them was the propitious moment, and lost the bet.

[blam]

"I suggest Gavin Menzes book titled 1421 for those interested in such matters.

Explorer From China Who Beat Columbus To America

[blam]

"I don't think this proves much of anything. Ancient ships, in the orient as well as the Mediterranean, tended not to be deep water ships."

1421, Zheng He's Ship (400ft) Compared To Columbus's (85ft)

[U S Army EOD]

Apparently they didn't have to boats to get there. If horses could swim a 1000 miles or so, the Japanese would be speaking Chinese.

[dljordan]

The Chinese were manufacturing crap even back then.

[blam]

"The Chinese were manufacturing crap even back then."

I'm old enough to remember when everything from Japan was considered crap too.

[Psycho_Bunny]

New evidence, though, suggests that poor design and shoddy workmanship may have been the principal cause of the Mongols' defeat

A stupid conclusion from someone who wants to "make a name" for themselves.

[SunkenCiv]

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[RightWhale]

Zheng He's Ship

Built in Korea. He was Muslim and a eunuch as well as Admiral of the High Seas. When his fleet was destroyed and he was about to be arrested he sailed off and was never officially seen again. He was familiar with the route to Africa and possibly Florida and was reportedly living the high life in Malaysia afterwards.