In modern times, although the Japanese have caused great harm to China, they have never made a secret of it, and in history, they have used Huawei as a teacher to comprehensively learn from China. Modern Japan retains the most Tang Dynasty elements, and if we want to restore some Tang Dynasty culture, we have to run to Japan.
Japan's study and worship of the Tang Dynasty began when Japan invaded the Korean Peninsula and was defeated by the Tang army. Of course, the national strength and military strength of the Tang Dynasty were many times that of Japan, but specific to each battle, the advantages of the Tang Army were not very obvious, and sometimes they were inferior.
At the Battle of Baekgangkou, which laid the foundation for Korea's victory, the Tang army was at a great disadvantage, with only 170 warships, while the number of enemy warships reached 1,000, one to six, and it seemed that the chance of victory was extremely slim. However, the final winner was the Tang Army, and Japan did not dare to go west from then on, but instead opened a comprehensive Tang policy, and batch after batch of Envoys sent to the Tang Dynasty, at the risk of being buried in the belly of the fish, also had to learn the advanced culture of the Tang Dynasty.
Japan's intervention in the Korean Peninsula was due to the Tang army's attack on Goguryeo and Baekje, which was the divided regime that occupied most of northeast China, and both the Sui and Tang dynasties made the elimination of Goguryeo a national policy. During the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang, the Tang army not only attacked from the ground, but also launched a large-scale amphibious landing. A large number of men and horses were crossed over the Yellow Sea and sent to the southern part of the Korean Peninsula to attack Baekje, an accomplice of Goguryeo.
Baekje also had a good relationship with Japan, and Buddhism was introduced to Japan from Baekje. Therefore, Japan decided to send troops to the Korean Peninsula to wage war against the Tang Dynasty. At that time, Japan was in the asuka era, and this bird was a place name and had nothing to do with the birds in the sky.
In 663, the Tang general Liu Renluo led a water division to the mouth of the Baekje River, preparing to join the army and capture Baekje's last stronghold, Guzhou Castle. The Tang Dynasty marine division totaled 170 warships and 13,000 men, and it was enough to pack up the remnants of the Baekje army. Unexpectedly, hundreds of warships soon appeared at sea level.
This was a sailor from Japan, when the Tang Dynasty called Japan the Uighur Kingdom. According to modern DNA test analysis, the ancestors of the Japanese were dwarf black races, coupled with the lack of meat, the body is generally much shorter than the Tang Dynasty, so it has this name.
As an island country, there were not many warships of the Uighur state, the first batch of 400 ships was sent, and soon increased to more than 1,000, with a total strength of 42,000, more than three times the number of Tang troops. However, Liu Renluo, who had been in the battlefield for a long time, soon found that the Warships were far smaller and rudimentary than the Tang Army warships, and although they were numerous, there was nothing to fear.
At Liu Renluo's order, the Tang army lined up in a neat formation and rushed towards the densely packed Fleet of The Uighurs. Naval warfare in the era of cold weapons was dominated by bumps and hand-to-hand combat. The Tang Army's warships were large and strong, and they would not suffer any losses in charging.
However, the Uighur army was small and flexible, desperately trying to get close to the gang, they thought that the Tang army, like the Silla army, was afraid of hand-to-hand combat with the Uighurs, as long as they boarded the enemy ship, victory could be won, and even the tang army's big ship could be captured for their own use.
However, jumping gangs was much more difficult than the Uighurs had imagined. First of all, the side of the Tang Army's warships was much higher than that of the Tang warships, and even if the Warships were to lean in, they had to climb onto the side of the Tang Army's ships like a siege. The soldiers of the Tang Army were condescending and used bows and arrows and spears to beat the Uighur army to the ground.
Secondly, from the perspective of troop strength, each Tang army warship can carry an average of more than 70 people, and the warship can only carry 40 people. One-on-one hand-to-hand combat, the Uighur army has no chance of winning. Even if the Wei army relied on more deception and climbed on the Tang army's warship desperately, they would find that the Tang army's fierceness and hand-to-hand combat skills were not weaker than their own.
Again, more importantly, the Tang army at this time was still in its heyday shortly after the founding of the country, and both armor and tactics were superior to the Japanese. The armor is stronger and the knife is sharper, and this gap can give the Tang Army a greater advantage in small-scale fighting. The soldiers who jumped over from the Wu army were cut down in batches, and they were not opponents of the Tang army at all.
The Tang army warships were on the sea, rampaged, and used rockets to ignite the warships of the Wei army, and the Wei army was also very tenacious, and with the numerical superiority, it fought with the Tang army's marine division four times, all of which failed, hundreds of warships were burned down, and the water division suffered heavy losses. In the end, he had to flee the battlefield and abandoned his plan to rescue Baekje.
The Battle of Baijiangkou played the prestige of the Tang Army, and Japan realized the huge gap between itself and the Tang Dynasty and began to study in an all-round way. One might say that Japanese swords are not very powerful? Judging from the first confrontation between Datang and Japan, at least at that time, the Japanese swords were not as good as the Tang swords, otherwise the Japanese Shosoin Would not have collected those Tang swords as their own national treasures. The knife-making process of the Tang Dynasty had a great influence on the development of Japanese swords, which led to the later Japanese swords.
The armor of the Japanese samurai at that time was more close to the Han Dynasty in China, far less rigorous and solid than that of the Tang army. The Japanese armor we see now is basically developed after the Tang Dynasty. A large number of foot-light infantry (Lazhuangding infantry) may be equipped with bamboo armor and bamboo spears, not to mention the opponents of the Tang army. Therefore, it is difficult for the Japanese army to gain the upper hand in the battle.
[References: Old Book of Tang, New Book of Tang]