THE JAPANESE MATCHLOCK

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The Matchlock entered Japan in the 16th century, during an era of history that found the country  in a state of  constant  war known as the  Sengoku period ( the age of the country at war) 

The matchlock  soon  earned its place among the legendary weapons of samurai warfare  such as the sword, spear, and bow. While the basic components and shape of the matchlock remained relatively unchanged over the years, they were made in a great number and depending on their intended  use  were built in  various shapes, sizes, and calibers; so much so that it is difficult to find any two that are exactly alike.

Masters of Gun Manufacture

Guns arrived in Japan along with the first trading ships from Portugal in 1542 or 1543. Confident of the superiority of Japanese civilisation, the Japanese dubbed the Western visitors namban, 'Southern barbarians'. The Portuguese had landed on Tanegashima Island , outside Kyushu . One day the Portuguese trader Mendez Pinto took Totitaka, Lord of Tanegashima for a walk; the trader shot a duck. The Lord of Tanegashima made immediate arrangements to take shooting lessons, and within a month he bought both Portuguese guns, or Tanegashima as the Japanese soon called them.

The Tanegashima caught on quickly among Japan 's feuding warlords. The novelty of the guns was the main reason that the Portuguese were treated well. Lord Oda Nobunaga noted that 'guns have become all the rage...but I intend to make the spear the weapon to rely on in battle'. Nobunaga was worried about how long--15 minutes--it took to prepare a gun shot, and how weak the projectile was. The Portuguese guns, among the best of their era, were matchlocks (ignited by a match), and Japan 's rainy weather made the gun's ignition system unreliable.

Despite some initial problems, the Japanese rapidly improved firearms technology. They invented a device to make matchlocks fire in the rain (the Europeans never figured out how to do this), refined the matchlock trigger and spring, developed a serial firing technique, and increased the matchlock's caliber. They also dispensed with pre-battle introductions. By 1560, only 17 years after being introduced in Japan , firearms were being used effectively in large battles. That year, a bullet killed a general wearing full armor. In 1567, Lord Takeda Harunobu declared, 'Hereafter, guns will be the most important arms'. He was right. Less than three decades after Japan saw its first gun, there were more guns in Japan than any other nation on the planet. Several Japanese feudal lords had more guns than the whole British army.

It was Lord Oda Nobunaga, an early critic of the Portuguese matchlocks, whose army truly mastered the new firearms technology. At Nagashino in 1575, 3,000 of Nobunaga's conscript peasants with muskets hid behind wooden posts and devastated the enemy's cavalry charge. There was no honor to such fighting, but it worked. Feudal wars between armies of samurai knights had ravaged Japan for centuries. Nobunaga and his peasant army, equipped with matchlocks, conquered most of Japan , and helped bring the feudal wars to an end.

Guns dramatically changed the nature of war. In earlier times, after the introductions, fighters would pair off, to go at each other in single combat--a method of fighting apt to let individual heroism shine. Armored, highly trained samurai had the advantage. But with guns, the unskilled could be deployed en masse, and could destroy the armored knights with ease. Understandably, the noble bushi class thought firearms undignified. Even Lord Nobunaga personally refused to use guns and included samurai warriors in his armies. The warriors who became heroes were still those who used swords or spears.

Yet as Japan grew more pre-eminent in firearms manufacture and warfare, she moved closer to the day when firearms would disappear from society. The engineer of Japan 's greatest armed victories, and of the abolition of guns in Japan , would be a peasant named Hidéyoshi. Starting out as a groom for Lord Nobunaga, Hidéyoshi rose through the ranks to take control of Nobunaga's army after Nobunaga died. A brilliant strategist, Hidéyoshi finished the job that Nobunaga began, and re-unified Japan 's feudal states under a strong central government.

Having conquered the Japanese, Hidéyoshi meant to keep them under control. On 29 August 1588 , Hidéyoshi announced 'the Sword Hunt' (taiko no katanagari) and banned possession of swords and firearms by the non-noble classes. He decreed:

The people in the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short swords, bows, spears, firearms or other arms. The possession of unnecessary implements makes difficult the collection of taxes and tends to foment uprisings... Therefore the heads of provinces, official agents and deputies are ordered to collect all the weapons mentioned above and turn them over to the Government. (emphasis added)  

Although the intent of Hidéyoshi's decree was plain, the Sword Hunt was presented to the masses under the pretext that all the swords would be melted down to supply nails and bolts for a temple containing a huge statue of the Buddha. The statue would have been twice the size of the Statue of Liberty. The Western missionaries' Jesuit Annual Letter reported that Hidéyoshi 'is depriving the people of their arms under the pretext of devotion to religion'. Once the swords and guns were collected, Hidéyoshi had them melted into a statue of himself.