ENGLISH

Samurai Armies 1550-1615

By Stephen Turnbull , Richard Hook

Book information

Publisher
Osprey Publishing
Year
1979
ISBN
085045302X, 9780850453027
LCC
DS838.5 .T87
Open Library ID
OL4200462M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
12 MB (12569994 bytes)
Series
Men-at-Arms
Pages
40\49
Topic
History
Time added
2010-02-18 13:16:04

Description

In 1543 three Portuguese merchants entered a turbulent Japan, bringing with them the first firearms the Japanese had ever seen: simple matchlock muskets called arquebuses. They proved a decisive addition to the Japanese armoury, as for centuries the samurai had fought only with bow, sword and spear. In 1575, one of the greatest original thinkers in the history of samurai, Oda Nobunaga, arranged his arquebusiers in ranks three deep behind a palisade and proceeded, quite literally, to blow his opponent’s cavalry to pieces, marking the beginning of a new era in Japanese military history.

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