Editing Musket (section)

====Japan====
[[File:EdoJapaneseArquebuse.jpg|thumb|left|Various antique [[Tanegashima (Japanese matchlock)|Tanegashima]].]]

During the [[Sengoku period]] of Japan, arquebuses were introduced by Portuguese merchantmen from the region of [[Alentejo]] in 1543 and by the 1560s were being mass-produced locally.{{sfn|Andrade|2016|p=169}} By the end of the 16th century, the production of firearms in Japan reached enormous proportions, which allowed for a successful military operation in Korea during the [[Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598)|Japanese invasions of Korea]]. Korean chief state councillor [[Yu Sŏngnyong]] noted the clear superiority of the Japanese musketeers over the Korean archers:

{{Blockquote|In the 1592 invasion, everything was swept away. Within a fortnight or a month the cities and fortresses were lost, and everything in the eight directions had crumbled. Although it was [partly] due to there having been a century of peace and the people not being familiar with warfare that this happened, it was really because the Japanese had the use of muskets that could reach beyond several hundred paces, that always pierced what they struck, that came like the wind and the hail, and with which bows and arrows could not compare.<ref>Firearms: A Global History to 1700 by Kenneth Chase</ref>|''Letter from [[Yu Sŏngnyong]]''}}