In Europe during the Middle Ages, ransom became an important custom of chivalric warfare. An important knight, especially nobility or royalty, was worth a significant sum of money if captured, but nothing if he was killed.
Samurai also sought glory by headhunting. When a battle ended, the warrior, true to his mercenary origins, would ceremoniously present trophy heads to a general, who would variously reward him with promotions in rank, gold or silver, or land from the defeated clan. Generals displayed the heads of defeated rivals in public squares.
TiramisuRocket on
And then there’s the method they found for the Imjin War to make things more efficient. Since soldiers were paid by the head, and since the heads needed to be shipped back to Japan on the same ships being used to carry more soldiers in, they found themselves collecting too many heads from Korean civilians for the ships to carry. As such, they simply chopped off the nose, then packed it and sent it back. The “Nose Mound” of Kyoto still exists, though it was later renamed to the more euphonious if less accurate “Ear Mound”, as do other similar, smaller nose tombs.
The-marx-channel on
I guess going to war as a Samurai would be a Headache
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom
In Europe during the Middle Ages, ransom became an important custom of chivalric warfare. An important knight, especially nobility or royalty, was worth a significant sum of money if captured, but nothing if he was killed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headhunting
Samurai also sought glory by headhunting. When a battle ended, the warrior, true to his mercenary origins, would ceremoniously present trophy heads to a general, who would variously reward him with promotions in rank, gold or silver, or land from the defeated clan. Generals displayed the heads of defeated rivals in public squares.
And then there’s the method they found for the Imjin War to make things more efficient. Since soldiers were paid by the head, and since the heads needed to be shipped back to Japan on the same ships being used to carry more soldiers in, they found themselves collecting too many heads from Korean civilians for the ships to carry. As such, they simply chopped off the nose, then packed it and sent it back. The “Nose Mound” of Kyoto still exists, though it was later renamed to the more euphonious if less accurate “Ear Mound”, as do other similar, smaller nose tombs.
I guess going to war as a Samurai would be a Headache