The Book of Bushido by Antony Cummins

Author:Antony Cummins
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786786197
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2022-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Samurai use of guns

[My master] only uses [a musket] when the enemy is at a distance but not when the enemy is too far for a shot. He also prefers to take his spear instead at times and have me hold the gun for him.

Zōhyō Monogatari (1657–84)

Did the samurai use guns? The simple answer is yes. However, high-ranking samurai would tend not to use guns in battle, although they did often carry lavishly decorated pistols. It was not that they considered guns to be an unchivalrous weapon, but it was beneath them to engage in any form of hand-to-hand combat, no matter what the weapon. Samurai commanders were discouraged from fighting on the front line; their role was to provide leadership and strategic thinking.

Guns were most effective when used by large numbers of men arranged in ranks rather than by individuals. Gunmen tended to be lower-class soldiers who had basic training in a single weapon and fought as a unit and so were quite distinct from samurai forces comprising multi-talented and independent warriors.

However, guns were adopted by lower-ranking samurai and helped them move their way up the ranks. When Toyotomi Hideyoshi was being pressed in battle with the Asakura, the men of Mikawa pushed forward to help him and Tokugawa Ieyasu himself used a matchlock gun. After the battle, a priest fired twice at Ieyasu but the shots did not penetrate his armour.

In another example of samurai gunmanship, two of Ieyasu’s retainers, Okubo Tadayo and Amano Yasukage, took sixteen matchlock men at night to flank the Takeda forces and cause panic in the camp. Furthermore, at the battle of Komaki in 1584, a samurai from the Mori clan tried to rally his men. Being dressed in white, he stood out as a target and, sure enough, one of the samurai of the prestigious troop under Ii Naomasa took aim and shot him in the head.

Even considering all of this positive evidence, there are contradictory reports to show that in the Sengoku period some samurai disdained guns. The following quote is from a missionary who was in Japan during this time. However, he died in 1570 and so he did not live to see the rise of the gun to prominence at the end of the Sengoku period.

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