Oda Nobunaga is known as the man who dragged Japan out of its blood-soaked medieval past and cleared the way for the 264-year Tokugawa Shogunate to follow. This he achieved by dint of his advanced grasp of military strategy -- and especially by being the first to realize the deadly potential of firearms.
The first matchlocks had been brought to Tanegashima Island in present-day Kagoshima Prefecture by Portuguese merchants in 1543, at the height of the century-long Warring States Period. However, though warlords across the country took a keen interest in these latest inventions from Europe, before Nobunaga none had been able to use them to any great effect.
Then, in 1575, Nobunaga's victory at the Battle of Nagashino -- where he issued his 30,000 troops with some 3,000 matchlocks -- showed for the first time on this soil that the future of warfare would come from the barrels of guns.
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