Arrival of Japanese Guns

 The Arrival of the Gun

In around 1542, a Chinese boat was blown onto the island of Tanegashima carrying three Portuguese travellers who became the first Europeans to ever set foot on Japanese soil. Two of them were armed with guns which, perhaps unsurprisingly, caught the attention of the lord of the island who promptly bought them and ordered his smiths to make duplicates. 

Over time, this would prove to be a 'game changer' when it came to how warfare was conducted in the country as the army with the most and/or best trained samurai warriors would no longer necessarily have the upper hand. Many believed the gun to be a dishonourable weapon because it evened the playing field and allowed the peasantry and lesser units such as the infantrymen (ashigaru) to be as effective as highly trained warriors. 

However those that refused to equip their armies with the new weapon tended to be beaten on the battle field by those that would so most successful generals were soon advocates of the use of the firearm; soon after their arrival, they were being made at a faster rate and higher quality than anywhere else in the world. 

Within 30 years, the potential of the firearm began to be fully realised and they were instrumental in Oda Nobunaga’s domination of Japan in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Nobunaga was probably the first Japanese commander to use the ‘roll, volley, fire’ technique which involves one line of soldiers shooting (often from behind a shield known as a tate) while a second row reloads so that there is a continuous series of shots fired at the enemy.