How did 4,400 of Kubla Khans warships sink on their way to invade Japan?
In earlier centuries the word was interpreted more literally. The samurai of old were swordsmen of unmatched skill and lethal efficiency, strikers of terror into foreign hearts. To fight them hand to hand was as futile as aiming a small aeroplane at a battleship. You might kill an enemy or two, but you’d be dead before you knew how many. To beat them, an attacker had to strike from a distance, stay clear of the flashing blades and pick them off with arrows. Whenever this looked likely, the samurai would pray for a kamikaze to blow their enemies away. So it was in 1281. The horizon off the Japanese island of Takashima gradually darkened with ships. Not only was it the biggest invasion fleet the samurai had ever seen, but it was, as it still remains, the biggest ever assembled. Some 4,400 vessels, carrying a 140,000-strong army bearing the very latest military technology including warhorses and explosive ordnance, advanced in the name of the world’s greatest superpower under the orders o
