種子島銃

In 1543, a Chinese ship carrying Portuguese traders wrecked on the island of Tanegashima. The local lord, Tanegashima Tokitaka, purchased two matchlocks from the Portuguese, and ordered a local blacksmith to begin producing copies. Soon these "Tanegashimajû" were in great demand among warring armies all over Japan - both the original copies, and copies of the copies. The Tanegashima-style matchlock would prove its worth definitively at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, when Oda Nobunaga's army of lowly ashigaru used Tanegashima guns to devastate the Takeda samurai and their fabled cavalry charge.

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