Armi da fuoco nel periodo Sengoku

Tratto da Samurai Warfare di Stephen Turnbull

The Introduction of Firearms
Several references have already been made
to the use of matchlock muskets, otherwise
known as arquebuses, in samurai warfare.
From very early in their introduction they
were used as ashigaru weapons, and eventually
produced major changes in warfare,
so that it became more of a process of using
professional soldiers, most of whom,
including the lower ranks, were on
retained service, dressed uniformly, and
were well trained. The usual conclusion is
to see the introduction of firearms as the
cause, and the change in warfare as the
result, of a single process.
It may be that guns had been known
about for many years prior to their intro-
duction by the Portuguese in 1542. But if so
these would have been unsophisticated Chinese
weapons, and could not have had the
sensational impact upon Japan that the
handful of Portuguese arquebuses produced.
The island on which the Portuguese
landed, Tanegashima, was owned by the
Shimazu clan, and it was to Shimazu
Takahisa that the honour went of conducting
the first battle in Japanese history at
which firearms were used. This was in his
attack on the fortress of Kajiki, in Osumi
province, in 1549. He was one of several
warlords to appreciate the potential shown
by these new weapons, and local swordsmiths,
who were already renowned for
their metal-working skills, applied themselves
to learning the necessary techniques,
first to copy the arquebuses, and then to
mass-produce them. Connections with Portuguese
traders also proved very important,
and it is no coincidence that the first Christian
converts among the samurai class
became regular users of arquebuses. 'Don
Juan' Ichibu Kageyu, a vassal of the Matsuura
daimyō of Hirado, is a case in point.
This staunch Christian samurai made good
use of firearms at the Battle of Aikō no Ura
in 1563, and later used them against pirates
who had come to plunder his island of Ikitsuki.
Two of the three pirate ships were
sunk, and when Ichibu came to investigate
the corpses, all had died from bullet
wounds rather than from arrows.
The Portuguese arquebus was a simple,
but well-designed weapon. Unlike the heavier
type of muskets, which required a rest,
the arquebus could be fired from the shoulder,
with support needed only for the heavier
calibre versions developed later by the
Japanese, which are usually known as 'wall
guns' or 'hand cannon'. In a normal arquebus
an iron barrel fitted neatly into a wooden
stock, to the right of which was a brass serpentine
linked to a spring, which dropped
the serpentine when the trigger was pulled.
The serpentine contained the end of a glowing
and smouldering match, the rest of which
was wrapped around the stock of the gun, or
wound around the gunner's arm. Arquebuses
are therefore often called simply
'matchlocks'. As a precaution against premature
ignition the pan, into which the fine,
priming gunpowder had been carefully
introduced, was closed by a brass sliding
cover, which was swung back at the last
moment. The gun produced quite a recoil,
and a lot of smoke, as shown in the annual
festival at Nagashino where reproduction
matchlocks are fired. As skills developed,
cartridges were introduced, thus speeding
up the process of loading.
One technical problem the Japanese faced
was how to close the end of the barrel where
it fitted into the stock. According to legend,
one blacksmith of the Shimazu exchanged
his daughter for a series of lessons! A Portuguese
adventurer subsequently wrote that
within two or three years the Japanese had
succeeded in making several hundred guns,
and by the 1550s they were regularly seen in
action in battle. The best gunsmiths formed
schools to pass on the tradition, such as
those at Kunitomo and Sakai, and were
never short of customers. In 1549 Oda
Nobunaga placed an order for 500 arquebuses
with the gunsmiths of Kunitomo. In
1555 Takeda Shingen used 300 in an attack
on a castle owned by Uesugi Kenshin, and
was so impressed that he placed 500 arquebuses
in one of his own castles. By 1569 he
had such faith in firearms that he could write
to his retainers:
Hereafter guns will be the most important.
Therefore decrease the number of
spears and have your most capable men
carry guns. Furthermore, when you
assemble your soldiers, test their marksmanship
and order that the selection be
carried out in accordance with the
results.
This letter may be evidence of over-enthusiasm,
because guns were never as plentiful as
spears, nor as readily available, yet within
the space of a few years arquebuses were
being produced to quality standards that
exceeded those originally brought from
Europe. One simple but fundamental development
which occurred quite early on in
Japanese arquebus production was the standardisation
of the bore. In Europe, where no
form of standardisation was carried out,
practically every gun needed its own bullet
mould. In Japan bores were standardised to a
handful of sizes. Standard bores meant standard
sized bullets, which could be carried in
bulk for an arquebus corps, a small, but significant
improvement in production and use.
The efficiency and accuracy of the
matchlock musket have recently been
assessed in a series of practical experiments
carried out in Japan, using Japanese arquebuses
made at the beginning of the Edo
Period. The first test was an assessment of the
gun's range. Five bullets, each of 8mm calibre,
were fired at a target in the shape of an
armoured samurai from distances of 30
metres and 50 metres respectively by an experienced
matchlock user. At 30 metres each of
the five bullets hit the target area of the chest,
but only one out of the five struck the chest
area at 50 metres. At the Battle of Nagashino
in 1575 the guns began firing at a range of
about 50 metres, but as they were firing at
mounted men they had a much larger effective
target area, and to unhorse a samurai and
subject him to the spears of the waiting
defenders would be a useful result in itself. So
it may well have been that at this range all
that was desired was to disable the horses.
Even at 50 metres, however, a bullet that
struck home on a man could do considerable
damage, as shown by the results of the second
experiment. Bullets of 9mm calibre were
fired using a charge of 3 grams of powder at
ranges of 30 and 50 metres against the following
materials:
a. 24mm wooden board;
b. 48mm wooden board;
c. 1mm iron plate;
d. 2mm iron plate.
At 30 metres each was pierced cleanly. At 50
metres a. and c. were again pierced through.
The bullet entered the 48mm board for threequarters
of its depth, and also entered the
2mm iron plate, causing a dent on the inside,
but not passing through. As the iron scales of
a typical do-maru armour of the Sengoku
Period were about 0.8mm thick, the armour
could be holed by a bullet fired at 50 metres.
Notwithstanding the above comment
about the primacy of firearms, few of the
warlords properly appreciated that the successful
employment of firearms depended
only partly on technical skills concerned with
accuracy of fire and speed of loading. Just as
was the case in contemporary Europe, a
skilled archer could launch many more
arrows, and with considerably more accuracy,
in the time it took to fire a succession of
arquebus balls. But to use a bow properly
required many hours of practice, and a
degree of muscular strength, implying the
need for an elite archer corps, whereas the
arquebus could be mastered in a comparatively
short time, making it the ideal weapon
for the lower-ranking ashigaru.
The secret of success with firearms therefore
was the same as the secret of success
with any infantry unit: army organisation
and a considerable change in social attitudes.
But to achieve this there had to be a recognition
that the ashigaru were anything other
than a casually recruited rabble, and a commitment
had to be given to their training and
welfare. Only then could the warlord expect
to receive the long-term service from these
men. It took a further leap of the imagination
to give them pride of place in a samurai
army, because traditionally the vanguard of
an army had always consisted of the most
experienced and trusted swordsmen. Yet for
firearms to be effective, they had to be placed
in the front ranks in large numbers. All that
was needed was a demonstration of how
successful this method could be.

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Cannon were known in Japan as early as
1551, when two specimens were presented to
Otomo Yoshizumi by the Portuguese, as
presents from 'The King of Rome'. Each consisted
of a heavy barrel on a swivel, and both
were breech-loaders, the powder and shot
being loaded into the top of the breech by a
separate cylinder with a handle welded on,
which is by no means as efficient as a muzzle-
loader. As with the arquebuses, attempts
were made to copy the cannon, but not with
the same success, and for decades European
cannon were to be prized above those of
Japanese manufacture. In 1568 a letter from
Otomo refers to another cannon being
acquired from the Portuguese, but that this
one had been lost a sea on the voyage from
Malacca. Nevertheless we read that in 1558
cannon were fired from the coast of Bungo
(the Otomo territory) to drive off an attack by
'several hundred boats', which implies that
many guns had been made locally. In 1571
Oda Nobunaga showed that his vision with
regard to arquebuses extended to the use of
cannon, when he placed an order with the
Kunitomo gunsmiths for a gun that would
take a load equivalent to 750 grams. Cannon
were fired from ships against the Nagashima
garrison, and at the two battles of Kizugawaguchi
in 1576 and 1578. Cannon were
used at the land battle of Noguchi in 1578,
and by 1582 were being used in the provinces
of Etchū and Noto. Here Maeda Toshiie
wrote to his brother asking for twenty cannon-
balls. He also received another cannon,
but sent it back to be recast because the barrel
was too small. In 1584 cannon, probably
in the form of swivel guns, were fired from
boats mounted offshore during the Battle of
Okita Nawate on the Shimabara peninsula.
The account of the capture of Kanki castle
by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in his campaign
against the Mori in 1582 shows that the use
of cannon in siege warfare was now well
appreciated:
Korezumi Gorōzaemon and his soldiers
from the province of Wakasa were
assigned to the eastern gate of Kanki castle.
First he had two high towers erected
from which cannon were fired. The moat
was filled in and artificial mounds were
made, and from these the castle was
attacked. Takigawa Sakon moved from
the southern to the eastern gate where he
had labourers erect towers and had the
walls and keep bombarded with cannon.
The keep caught fire and burned down.
During the Korean War requests were sent
back to Japan for cannon to help reduce the
Korean castles. Because most cannon were
used from ships or for siege warfare in Japan
there was almost no development of what
might be called 'field pieces', i.e., cannon that
were essentially mobile ordinance. There are
not many illustrations of how cannon were
mounted for field service, and in most cases
they seem to have consisted simply of a barrel
tied on a cart pulled by oxen. For siege
purposes many weird and wonderful combinations
of gun carriage were developed. An
illustration from 1614 shows a small Japanese
bronze cannon, inside a larger wooden stock,
which is tied on to a pile of rice bales stuffed
with sand. Hokusai drew a picture showing
a European cannon mounted on a very solid
looking carriage, not unlike a ship's cannon,
but without wheels. Otherwise gun carriages
were not unlike the heavy wooden stands
developed to hold contemporary European
bombards during sieges. Elevation was
achieved by ropes, rather than the European
method of using wedges hammered under
the breech.
It is interesting to note that the Portuguese
made extensive use of Japanese copper in
casting the cannon made at their gun
foundries in Goa and Macao, which were
regarded as the cheapest and best to be
obtained throughout Asia. In fact some Portuguese
cannon cast from Japanese copper
were used by the Duke of Wellington at the
siege of Badajos in 1812. When Japan broke
off relations with Catholic Europe in 1639 the
market for copper was lost, and the re-estab-
lishment of it was one of the main reasons for
the embassy sent to Japan from Macao in
1647.
The Portuguese were soon supplanted as
the main suppliers of imported cannon to
Japan. In 1609 the Dutch established a trading
post (called a 'Factory') in Hirado, followed
in 1613 by the English, and it was
these two nations that supplied many of the
cannon used by the Tokugawa during the
siege of Osaka castle. By 1614 Tokugawa
Ieyasu was buying as many cannon as he
could lay hands on, Dutch and English guns
being much preferred to Portuguese or Chinese
models. The Tokugawa continued to be
well supplied by foreign traders when the
siege was over, and in addition to importing
pieces, the Dutch also began casting cannon
in Hirado. In 1615 a gun weighing 600
pounds (240 kilograms) was cast in Hirado,
and later in the same year Richard Cocks, of
the English Factory, watched two more being
made, and wrote:
I marvelled at their workmanship. For
they carried the metal in ladles above
twenty yards from the place where the
mould stood, and so put it in, ladleful
after ladle, and yet made as formal ordinance
as we do in Christendom, both of
brass and iron. Captain Specx told me
that neither workmanship nor stuff did
not stand him in half the price it cost
them in Christendom.
After the siege of Osaka castle the only disruption
that seriously challenged the Tokugawa
rule was the largely Christian
Shimabara Rebellion, when 38,000 disaffected
peasants and ronin (masterless
samurai) shut themselves up in the dilapidated
Hara castle on the Shimabara peninsula,
and withstood a long siege. The
failure by the Tokugawa army to overcome
Hara castle by bombardment is somewhat
puzzling in view of the clear superiority the
Tokugawa guns had enjoyed at Osaka.
However, twenty years of peace had
passed, so skills may have been forgotten,
but Hara was also in a very different geographical
position. It was built on a peninsula
jutting out into the sea, and the
topography ruled out long-range artillery
fire, because there was no prominent keep
to range on. The Dutch assisted by bombarding
the castle from the sea, but this
served largely to put heart into the defenders,
who reckoned that the Tokugawa commanders
were getting desperate.
The castle eventually fell because of starvation,
and was taken by storm. The failure to
take it earlier turned the Tokugawa Shōgun's
attention towards the provision of mortars,
which would have been very useful because
of their high trajectory. The Dutch traders
were asked to demonstrate some mortars in
action, and cast some for a session in March
1639. In the words of an eye-witness:
The first shot fell too short, yet was
observed to fall into a deep marshy hollow
wherein rice was planted, between
17 and 18 feet deep, and consequently
in their opinion it was either lost, or
could not possibly take effect; albeit it
proved to be the contrary, for shortly
afterwards it burst with such violence
that all the mud, slime and filth was
hurled so high into the air, that all who
saw it were astonished, and particularly
the Regents who could not show
enough amazement. At the second shot
the bomb exploded in the mortar,
whereby the gunner's face was severely
burned and all the rest of us were
wounded more or less.
Nothing daunted, the Dutch tried again.
Eleven shots were fired. Some exploded in
the barrel, others in mid air, and others in
nearby fields. None hit the target. The Japanese
were none the less impressed, and
requested that the twelfth shot be ignited in
the house which had been the original target.
The resulting conflagration proved satisfactory,
and the demonstration was concluded.
The politics of isolation, rather than samurai
warfare, now dominated in Japan, and
cannon were not to be fired in anger again for
more than two centuries. But the Japanese
retained a respect for artillery, and when the
English ship The Return made an unsuccessful
attempt to re-open trade with Japan, two
brass guns and one mortar were included in
the cargo as presents for the Shōgun. In 1811,
when Russians visited Hakodate in the north
of Japan, they found Dutch cannon mounted
on the forts. These had been obtained
through the tiny Dutch trading post on
Dejima, an artificial island in Nagasaki Bay,
which was Japan's only contact with the
West during the Tokugawa Period.