My new toys: Ottoman flintlock kubur

[Southerner]

Surly if I remember correctly did not the samurai take up firearms in the form of copies of the Portuguese match locks? While other countries advanced to the flint lock the Japanese in there usual manor stuck with what they had and perfected it producing some of the finest (and now most sought after) matchlocks in existence! they still carried their swords though and adapted their code of honor to the new weapon. The samurai had reigned for near 2000 years it was more the protectionism and isolation they had enjoyed for so long finally failing that brought about the eventual decline and adoption of more modern weaponry.

Southerner

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Southerner

Surly if I remember correctly did not the samurai take up firearms in the form of copies of the Portuguese match locks?

Sorry, am i confused or was it the peasants that took up firearms against the samurais and their lords, starting a new era in Japan ?

[FenrisWolf]

Originally Posted by fernando

Sorry, am i confused or was it the peasants that took up firearms against the samurais and their lords, starting a new era in Japan ?

Yes and no; for the first few hundred years, firearms were simply one more weapon of the samurai, used in conjunction with their more traditional weapons. They stayed with the matchlocks and evolved them to a height seen nowhere else, but they were still an elite weapon, paid for and supplied by a lord to his troops.

The peasant levies didn't arise until the industrialization and Westernization of Japan, as glamorized in the Tom Cruise film "The Last Samurai". The families that controlled the Military-Industrial complex wanted to play in the game of empire-building, and the traditional families were trying to hold on to the old ways. The military raised armies out of the peasant class and rammed through laws banning the samurai. In the end Westernization won out. Tragically, you can now find more traditional, heirloom samurai swords in the US than in Japan.