Handscroll On Barrel Design / Rifling

[Randy McCall]

In my Facebook group for collectors of antique Japanese manuscripts, I track the auctioning of various items of interest.  This morning a handscroll on matchlock design and (apparently) rifling, dated 1799, sold for $85 USD.  I thought I'd share the pictures of the item here for those who might find it interesting.  The entire scroll is shown, starting with an overview picture, then pictures showing sections of the scroll as it would be read Japanese style (right to left). 

 

           

     

[Brian]

Nice find Randy!

Might even be worthwhile to pay for a translation. I'll look into it.

 

Brian

[Peter Bleed]

Thank you Randy. This is an interesting source. Do we know the author or where it was written. The "Giving up the Gun" crowd now have more they have to ignore.

Peter

[IanB]

Randy,  What a wonderful find and an amazing price too. Not sure about rifling - more to do with points of aim and positioning of sights I think. Nevertheless a valuable source of information. So many Japanese seem to have been totally incurious about how things were designed and made and anything written is a real bonus.

Ian Bottomley

[Randy McCall]

Thank you Randy. This is an interesting source. Do we know the author or where it was written. The "Giving up the Gun" crowd now have more they have to ignore.

Peter

 

Author?  Unfortunately not. The date is 1799 - Kansei 10 寛政+

[Randy McCall]

Randy,  What a wonderful find and an amazing price too. Not sure about rifling - more to do with points of aim and positioning of sights I think. Nevertheless a valuable source of information. So many Japanese seem to have been totally incurious about how things were designed and made and anything written is a real bonus.

Ian Bottomley

 

Ian, now that I know this I'll keep an eye open for items on this topic.  They do come up from time-to-time, many written as hidensho instruction from various ryuha of gunnery / firearm formation tactics /  兵法

[Bugyotsuji]

Ian seems to be right on target with his comments above.

 

It appears to measure, both in large guns and small, where the ball will strike relative to the aim along the sights, at distances of 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 Ken. (1 Ken was about 1.82 meters.)

 

Agreed that a translation would be nice. Few Japanese today could read this, I would hazard. The paper and the writing look new, almost as if this is a copy of an older MS.

[estcrh]

 The "Giving up the Gun" crowd now have more they have to ignore.

 

Peter can you explain what you mean?

[Peter Bleed]

Eric,

Sorry if I was off-hand or cryptic. In 1979 and thoughtful guy who knew very little about Japan - Noel Perrin - wrote book called "Giving up the Gun..." He said that the Japanese had copied European firearms in the 16th century - very well - but then proceeded to "give them up". For that reason the Japanese had to once again copy European firearms designs after they were forced into the modern world - yahhh dahhhh yahhh dahhh - in the 1850s. This story became very popular suggesting to some folks that 1) the Japanese are copiers or 2) peaceful, or 3) that disarmament can happen or 4) that it can't. It has also been the subject of lots of discussion as to whether or not it is true that the Japanese ever really and truly "gave up the gun."

Sources like the one we are discussing here clearly show that the Japanese did not simply or completely 'give up the gun'.

Peter

[IanB]

Further to Peter's comments, the Japanese also made flintlocks, snaphaunces and even wheel lock guns, the latter being very ingenious with a spiral spring inside a hollow wheel having a steel rim. None of these were made in any numbers because there was no real need in a time when the Tokugawa regime imposed a rigid peace. One triple barrelled snaphaunce with a mechanism that was distinctly retrograde came out of Mexico City with very faint Tokugawa kamon on the barrels. We know Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga visited there and that the Tokugawa provided the bulk if the gifts and I suspect this formed part of such a gift, having been disposed of as basically ineffectice. What is interesting is that during the late 16th and early 17th centuries the English gave richly decorated flintlock guns as gifts and sold a considerable number of similar pieces from their trading post on Hirado, and the VOC gave the shogun pairs of flintlock pistols, yet not a trace of any of these guns seems to have survived in Japan.

Ian Bottomley

[Viper6924]

I think the biggest error with Noel's book is his notion that the samurai "gave up" the gun because of some sort of ethic reasons and that they also detested the very sight of a matchlock.

The samurai was warrior. If they would have gotten hold of a Tomahawk missile during the early 17th century they would have blown away half the main island without thinking twice about. If it killed the enemy = very good.

And had Noel taking his time to study local matchlock history, he would have found that some samurai during the relative peaceful 18-19th century honored the history of the local style of matchlock and actually spent money ordering new guns instead of spending them on the real symbol of the warrior class, the sword.

 

Jan