• farmgineer@nord.pub
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    10 days ago

    Sakoku in Japan started in the 1630s where basically no one was allowed to leave (and anyone coming back, even if Japanese blown of course in a boat or something, could be put to death).

    After some poking around, it seems like some Japanese were in New Spain in 1613-1614, but I can’t find anything about mercenaries/guards (especially not large numbers of them). Is there a source?

      • farmgineer@nord.pub
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        10 days ago

        Until the 1630s, it’s not impossible for that group to exist; that part is fine (though I should also fact-check the katana part since, for a long time, it was bows and maybe even guns by that point).

        • jaygray91@piefed.zip
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          9 days ago

          A well made katana is still going to be a status symbol. They might still keep it for keepsake and for reminding them of home that they cannot return to. And if you have marshal prowess why not be a mercenary? And if you’re in foreign land and they are already using firearms, you have to adapt.

          It sounds plausible to me at least.

          • Cypher@aussie.zone
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            8 days ago

            Portugese firearms were introduced to Japan in 1543 and Samurai used them.

            You could have a Samurai with his katana and his heirloom matchlock rifle… in theory.

  • Protoknuckles@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    My favorite part of the original Dracula is that there is a literal rootin-tootin’ yee-haw cowboy in it.

    • BartyDeCanter@piefed.social
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      10 days ago

      The original Dracula is so good and the characters are so damn funny. You have the hero polycule consisting of a cowboy, a love stuck himbo, an autistic woman who’s special interest is trains, a romantic goth, a rich guy with a pack of corgis, an obsessive gadget guy and their adoptive eccentric uncle fighting against a man with a traditional harem he can’t keep happy and who spends half his time pretending to be his own servant to keep up appearances.

        • scytale@piefed.zip
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          9 days ago

          “I Was Transported to Victorian England to Defeat the Lord of Vampires, but My Party Is a Cowboy Gunslinger, a Lovestruck Himbo Solicitor, a Train-Obsessed Autistic Scholar, a Romantic Goth Girl, a Corgi-Hoarding Aristocrat, and a Gadget-Crazed Professor Led by Our Eccentric Adoptive Uncle. Meanwhile, the Demon Lord Keeps Cosplaying as His Own Butler Because He Can’t Manage Even a Single Harem?!", now available on Netflix.

    • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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      10 days ago

      Not by a long shot. This is pretty tame. I’d go to Mexico for a long weekend just to party with these guys.

  • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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    10 days ago

    I had to read that four times to realize it didn’t spell “technotitan.”

    I’m an idiot.

    • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Tried-and-true is safer money. I get it from an investing perspective, I just don’t think everything should be decided by that.

  • altphoto@lemmy.today
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    9 days ago

    There’s a long history of trade where people would travel from China and Japan thru the Philippines and end up in michoacan then travel thru the Mexican belly and depart from Veracruz to Cuba to Europe to Africa and then sail back from those places again thru Mexico to land in the Philippines Japan and China. So there is a history of mixed families along the way from China to Europe and Africa thru America.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    I was listening to public radio in new Mexico and they had a segment on how people used specific animal names in the new world to signal back to kin in the old world which regions and families they were from.

  • xangadix@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    That is actually pretty close to Jacks gang in Neil Stevenson baroque series (bonanza)

    • DagwoodIII@piefed.social
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      9 days ago

      Which begs the question why the series isn’t more popular?

      Isaac Newton as a crimefighter should have people lining up!

      • xangadix@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        Ow that is easy, because it’s waaay too long, I had to switch to audiobook because I really couldn’t be bothered with about half of the storylines.

        But crime fighting Isaac Newton was awesome 😎

        • DagwoodIII@piefed.social
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          9 days ago

          I am the kind of reader who turns his nose up at a book under 12 kilos.

          Look up Adrian Tchaikovsky if you feel the same. Pure science fiction, not historical