Japan's Second Seawall NEW
In 1274, a Mongol-Korean invasion force landed at Hakata Bay in northern Kyushu. Japan’s samurai, trained for single combat, were routed by massed formations wielding gunpowder weapons they had never seen. A storm forced the invaders to withdraw, but the lesson was plain: the existing military model would not survive a second attempt. The Kamakura shogunate spent the next seven years preparing. It built a 20km stone seawall along Hakata Bay, developed small-boat night-raiding tactics and established Japan’s first permanent coastal defence force. When a far larger invasion arrived in 1281, the seawall held. The Mongol fleet sat offshore for weeks, unable to land. Then a typhoon struck and finished what Japanese preparation had started. ...