Viper of Mino - Guns Arrive In Japan - Update 8
In this update muskets finally arrive in Japan. The year is 1543 and their arrival would mean that the face of war for Japan would forever be changed. Trade would open up greatly, for now, and guns would flood in from the west and from Sakai.
In August in the 12th year of Tenmon, 1543, on Tanegashima Island of Osumi. On the morning after a typhoon, the people of the island found a single boat washed up on the coast.
Western:
…
Lookout:
Hey, is that…? Hey, you, state your name!
Western:
…!
Lookout:
Wh-What was that sound?! Hey, someone call the ma… No, call the young master! A westerner with strange magic is attacking us!
The westerner on the washed up boat had been carrying a musket, a weapon made from technology not yet in Japan. Though the man fired a shot into the air in surprise when the island dwellers approached him, he eventually calmed down. …and met with the leader of the Tanegashima clan, Tokitaka Tanegashima. Tokitaka fell in love with the weapon the moment he saw it fired and paid the foreign man a large sum of money for it.
Jisshinsai Shimazu:
So, this is what my boy from Tanegashima has gotten us?
Takahisa Shimazu:
Yes, father – he’s still young, and knows no fear.
Jisshinsai Shimazu:
There are times when recklessness can teach us that which we did not know before… Yet, is it truly wise to give such a rare thing to the shogunate?
Takahisa Shimazu:
We are in possession of another of its kind. Tokitaka is having his craftsman attempt to make a copy of it.
Jisshinsai Shimazu:
Meaning that the day will come when we’ll have quite a few of these around, ‘ey?
Takahisa Shimazu:
It will. And when it does…
Jisshinsai Shimazu:
…we’ll be able to use these in battle. I look forward to it, yet cannot help also fearing it.
The copy of the musket Tokitaka had made did not possess strong enough screw to make it effective. To remedy this, the craftsman Kinbei Yaita had his daughter marry the westerner, learn the construction of the screw, and thus created a musket durable enough to use. The war torn world’s demand for the powerful new weapon was immense, immediately prompting mass production. Due to the efforts of the Tanegashima clan’s liege clan, the Shimazu, as well as the visiting warrior priest of the Negoro Temple, Kazunaga Tsuda, muskets spread all throughout the nation.
