Portuguese Introduce Muskets at Kagoshima

1544

The Shimazu daimyo in Satsuma, on the southern tip of Kyushu, welcomed Portuguese merchants and their firearms. Within a decade Japanese gunsmiths in Sakai and Kunitomo were producing matchlocks by the thousand. The Sengoku battlefield changed forever, and castle design with it. Within twenty years Japanese gunsmiths had improved on Portuguese designs, making Japan one of the world's most heavily armed nations.