Nagashino Falls: Gunpowder Unifies Japan Under Nobunaga
Oda Nobunaga deployed approximately 3,000 ashigaru armed with arquebuses behind wooden palisades at the Battle of Nagashino on June 29, 1575, destroying the Takeda cavalry that had been the most feared military force in Japan. Nobunaga organized his gunners into rotating volleys, allowing continuous fire while each line reloaded. Takeda Katsuyori's mounted samurai charged repeatedly but could not break through the concentrated firepower. Over 10,000 Takeda soldiers were killed, including many of their finest generals. The battle demonstrated that massed firearms had permanently changed Japanese warfare, making the heavily armored mounted samurai charge obsolete. Nagashino accelerated Nobunaga's campaign to unify Japan under a single military government and is sometimes compared to the European transition from medieval to modern warfare.
June 28, 1575
451 years ago
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