Tanegashima (1543): How the First Guns Arrived in Japan

The arrival of firearms at Tanegashima in 1543 marks the moment when Europeans first reached Japan and the matchlock gun entered Japanese history. Portuguese traders aboard a Chinese junk landed on this small island south of Kyushu, and its young lord bought their arquebuses. Within a generation, Japanese-made guns were deciding battles in the civil wars of the Sengoku period.

Background: Japan at war and a sea full of traders

In the 1540s Japan was divided among rival warlords, the daimyo, in the era later called Sengoku, the “Warring States” period. The Ashikaga shoguns in Kyoto had little real power, and armies of samurai and foot soldiers (ashigaru) fought constantly over territory.

At sea, the waters between China, Japan and Southeast Asia were busy with smugglers. The Ming dynasty banned private overseas trade, but Chinese merchants defied the ban and traded with Japan, sometimes violently, in what became the wokou crisis. The Portuguese, who had taken Malacca in 1511, joined these networks as they pushed into the China Sea.

What happened at Tanegashima

The main Japanese account is the Teppōki (“Record of the Gun”), written in 1606 by the Zen monk Nanpo Bunshi for the Tanegashima family. It says that in the eighth month of 1543 a large foreign ship arrived at the southern tip of the island. Among about a hundred people aboard were two Portuguese traders, whose names the text renders in Japanese.

No one on the island spoke Portuguese, but a Chinese scholar on board communicated with a local official by writing characters in the sand. The Teppōki names him as Gohō, a name widely identified with Wang Zhi, the Chinese merchant who later became the most notorious smuggling chief of the coast.

The ship was brought round to the port of Akaogi. There the Portuguese demonstrated their firearms, and the lord of the island, Tanegashima Tokitaka, then about 15 years old, was so impressed that he bought two guns for a very large sum and had his retainers learn to make gunpowder and shoot.

Copying the gun

Tokitaka ordered the swordsmith Yaita Kinbei to reproduce the weapon. The hardest part was closing the breech end of the barrel with a screw plug, a technique unfamiliar to Japanese smiths. According to the Teppōki, working copies were made within about a year after another foreign ship brought a smith who could explain the method.

A popular local legend says that Kinbei gave his daughter in marriage to a Portuguese sailor in exchange for the secret of the screw. The story is still told on the island, but it is not supported by contemporary evidence.

From Tanegashima, the knowledge spread quickly. Merchants from Sakai near Osaka, warrior monks of Negoro in Kii province and smiths at Kunitomo in Ōmi became major centres of gun production. The matchlock, or hinawajū, became known simply as teppō, or by the nickname “tanegashima”.

How the matchlock worked

The weapon introduced at Tanegashima was a matchlock arquebus, a smoothbore gun loaded from the muzzle with gunpowder and a lead ball pushed down with a ramrod. A slow-burning cord, the match, was held in a curved arm called the serpentine. When the shooter pulled the trigger, the arm snapped the glowing match into a small pan of priming powder, which flashed through a touch hole and fired the main charge.

The design was simple and robust, but it had clear limits. Reloading took time, accuracy fell away sharply beyond about a hundred metres, and wind or rain could put out the match or spoil the powder. Japanese gunners responded with practical refinements, such as covers to protect the pan and match in wet weather, and smiths produced guns in many sizes, from light weapons for foot soldiers to heavy large-bore pieces for sieges.

Key people

• Tanegashima Tokitaka (1528-1579): lord of the island, who bought the first guns and had them copied.
• Yaita Kinbei: the smith credited with making the first Japanese copies.
• The Portuguese traders: the Teppōki gives their names in Japanese form; Portuguese sources mention António da Mota, Francisco Zeimoto and António Peixoto as the first Europeans in Japan.
• Wang Zhi: the Chinese merchant probably identical with the “Gohō” of the Teppōki.
• Fernão Mendes Pinto: a Portuguese adventurer who later claimed to have been on the first voyage, though most historians doubt his account.

Consequences for Sengoku warfare

Guns gave ordinary foot soldiers a weapon that could kill an armoured samurai at a distance after relatively short training. Daimyo who could afford them, and who controlled trading ports and sources of saltpetre, gained an advantage. Saltpetre for gunpowder was largely imported, which drew warlords further into overseas trade.

Firearms featured in battles from the 1550s, and their use grew rapidly. The best-known example is the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, where Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu deployed large numbers of musketeers behind field fortifications against the Takeda cavalry. Castle design changed too, with thicker stone walls and loopholes for guns.

Firearms also changed how armies were organised. Guns were most effective when large numbers of foot soldiers fired together under strict discipline, which favoured lords who could pay, train and supply standing units of ashigaru. Some groups became famous as specialist gunners, notably the warrior communities of Negoro and Saika in Kii province, who hired out their services to different warlords.

Supplying these armies created new trade. Saltpetre and lead were imported through the same networks that had brought the first guns, and scientific analysis of bullets from some Sengoku battlefields suggests that part of the lead came from Southeast Asia.

By the later 16th century Japan may have had more firearms than most European countries, and Japanese musketeers played a major role in the invasions of Korea from 1592. Oda Nobunaga and his successors used guns as one tool in their unification of the country.

Europe arrives in Japan

The landing at Tanegashima also opened regular contact between Japan and Europe. Portuguese ships soon began calling at ports in Kyushu, trading Chinese silk for Japanese silver, and the Jesuit Francis Xavier arrived in 1549 to begin Christian missions. This so-called Nanban (“southern barbarian”) trade shaped Japanese art, fashion and religion for nearly a century.

Myths and facts

• Myth: guns were completely unknown in Japan before 1543. Simple Chinese-style hand cannons may have been known earlier, and some historians argue that matchlocks reached Japan through several Asian trading routes at about this time. What 1543 marks is the documented introduction of the European-style matchlock that Japan then mass-produced.
• Myth: Japan “gave up the gun” under the Tokugawa. After 1600, peace and government controls reduced demand and production, but firearms were never entirely abandoned.
• Myth: the exact date is certain. The Teppōki gives 1543, while António Galvão’s Portuguese account gives 1542; 1543 is the date most widely used.

Timeline

• 1542 or 1543: Portuguese traders aboard a Chinese junk reach Tanegashima.
• 1543: Tanegashima Tokitaka buys two arquebuses and orders them copied.
• c. 1544: The first Japanese-made matchlocks are produced on the island.
• 1549: Francis Xavier arrives in Kagoshima, following the new Portuguese route to Japan.
• 1550s-1560s: Gun production spreads to Sakai, Negoro and Kunitomo.
• 1575: Massed musketeers help decide the Battle of Nagashino.
• 1606: Nanpo Bunshi writes the Teppōki, the main Japanese account.

Why it matters

The landing at Tanegashima brought Japan into direct contact with Europe and introduced a weapon that Japanese craftsmen adopted with remarkable speed. Firearms reshaped Sengoku warfare and helped the great warlords unify Japan, making a minor arrival on a remote island one of the turning points of Japanese history.