Hi, I hope that my little input may give some good
direction to this discussion.
The Japanese fondness on the swordmanship through 16
and 17 century led to a branch of metal smith, which
could easily adapt into manufaturing arquebus once
they learned of it from the westerners. However, the
steel making process often adopted in the manufacture
of the cannons were more popularly used in China and
Korea.
That is why the major firearms for China and Korea
during this period was cannons instead of arquebus
unlike Japan.
However, Machurians who conqured Myung Dynasty used
archery against the firearms of China and proved that
their archery was superior weaponary than the use of
firearms. This is one of reasons why the last Chinese
empire(Manchurian's) did not show much interest in the
western weaponary.
As for Korea, their major weaponary was archery same
as that of Manchurians, which proved to be effective
in fighting the well trained Japanane soldiers until
Japanese adopted arquebus and used it during their
Korean invasion of the 16th(?) century. But, like
their continental neighbor, Koreans were also better
in manufacturing cannons rather than arquebus due to
their peculiar steel making process. The heavy and
efficient use of cannons especially by Korean Navy was
one of factors that made Japanese decide to withdraw
from the Korean peninsula.
Lastly, there is a recent English translation on the
book on the Japanese invasion of the Korea written by
the then Korean (royal court) prime minister, who was
a famous theoretical confucianist and well versed in
the military strategy during that time. I remember it
was published throught the grant offered by either UC
Berkeley or Stanford (not sure, but some well standing
university in the west coast). You might like to look
for the book if you are interested. For the specific
information on the book, you can try www.chosun.com,
which is the website of the Korean(largetst) daily
newspaper. I hope that this will help.
Sincerely,
Changsub Lee
---
murphymurphyjohn@... wrote:
> In my research into Japanese firearms, I know the
> use of arquebus match lock
> muskets is well documented, following the importing
> of the first ones by the
> Portuguese in 1543 at Tanegashima. However, there
> seems little (if anything)
> on the use of match lock pistols or hand guns by the
> samurai officers who
> captained Teppu-shu, the firearms corps of
> commanders like Oda Nobunaga at
> Nagashino in 1575. Can anyone enlighten me here?
> Prof. John F. Murphy Jr., The
> Japan Foundation
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>
>
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