![Мураками пират](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/%D0%9C%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B8_%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82.jpg)
or were large
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese
warship
A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster a ...
s of the 16th and 17th century used during the internecine Japanese wars for political control and unity of all Japan.
History
Japan undertook major
naval
A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...
building efforts in the mid to late 16th century, during the
Sengoku period
The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615.
The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...
, when feudal rulers vying for supremacy built vast coastal navies of several hundreds of ships. The largest (and generally most dangerous) of these ships were called atakebune. These vessels may be regarded as floating fortresses rather than true warships, and were only used in coastal actions. They used
oar
An oar is an implement used for water-borne propulsion. Oars have a flat blade at one end. Rowers grasp the oar at the other end.
The difference between oars and paddles is that oars are used exclusively for rowing. In rowing the oar is connecte ...
s for propulsion, as their full iron cladding, if it existed, as well as their bulk (i.e. the armament and people they were carrying) likely impeded wind propulsion via sails.
Around that time, the
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese ''
daimyō
were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...
''
Oda Nobunaga
was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period. He is regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan.
Nobunaga was head of the very powerful Oda clan, and launched a war against other ''daimyō'' to unify ...
had made, according to the diary of the Abbot of the Tamon-I, six iron-covered big atakebunes in 1578. These ships were called "Tekkōsen" (
鉄甲船), literally meaning "iron ships", which is not to imply they were of iron, but that their superstructure may have been reinforced with iron plates against cannon and fire arrows. No iron covering was mentioned in the account of the
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
missionary
Luís Fróis
Luís Fróis (1532 – 8 July 1597) was a Portuguese missionary who worked in Asia during the second half of the 16th century. While in Japan in 1582, he witnessed the attack on Honnō-ji, a Buddhist temple that ended in the death of Oda Nobuna ...
, who had also seen and described the ships.
[Stephen Turnbull, "Samurai Warfare" (London, 1996), Cassell & Co , p.102]
However, in the letter from
João Rodrigues to
Luís Fróis
Luís Fróis (1532 – 8 July 1597) was a Portuguese missionary who worked in Asia during the second half of the 16th century. While in Japan in 1582, he witnessed the attack on Honnō-ji, a Buddhist temple that ended in the death of Oda Nobuna ...
in 1593, full iron-covered atakebune build by
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
, otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...
was mentioned. Hideyoshi made those ships
to invade Korea and their superstructure was fully covered by iron plates.
The atakebune were armed with four at most (six if there were two smaller breech-loading swivel guns)
cannon
A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...
s and numerous large-caliber
arquebus
An arquebus ( ) is a form of long gun that appeared in Europe and the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. An infantryman armed with an arquebus is called an arquebusier.
Although the term ''arquebus'', derived from the Dutch word ''Haakbus ...
es because it lacked the strength to withstand the recoil of cannon. The Oda defeated the
Mori
Mori is a Japanese and Italian surname, and also a Persian pet name for Morteza. It is also the name of two clans in Japan, and one clan in India.
Italian surname
*Barbara Mori, Uruguayan-Mexican actress
* Camilo Mori, Chilean painter
* Cesare ...
's navy with them at
the mouth of the Kizu River,
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...
in 1578 in a successful naval blockade. These ships, the best of the atakebune, were used somewhat in contrast to Japanese naval tactics of the time, which viewed naval combat as a battle between the crews of ships, rather than between the ships themselves (which contributed to the primary Japanese naval tactic of drawing near and boarding opposing ships, as the Japanese crews excelled at hand-to-hand combat).
In the
Japanese invasion of Korea the shortcomings of these ships became pronounced as they proved to be of no match to the superior build and fire power of the Korean navy's
Panokseon
Panokseon ("board roofed" ship) was an oar and sail propelled ship that was the main class of warship used by Joseon during the late 16th century. The first ship of this class was constructed in 1555. It was a ship made of sturdy pine wood, ...
ships, which could accommodate far more number of cannons due to sturdier structure and thus were employed in a distance engagement by cannon tactics rather than the grappling tactics of the atakebune-based Japanese navy.
"Atakemaru" (
安宅丸), the big atakebune made by
Mukai Shōgen Tadakatsu
Mukai Tadakatsu (1582–1641), more generally known as Mukai Shōgen (Jp:向井将監), was the Admiral of the fleet (Jp:お船手奉行) for the Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu during the beginning of the Edo period, in the early 17th century.
Between ...
for
Tokugawa Hidetada
was the second ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty, who ruled from 1605 until his abdication in 1623. He was the third son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Early life (1579–1593)
Tokugawa Hidetada was bo ...
and
Tokugawa Iemitsu
Tokugawa Iemitsu (徳川 家光, August 12, 1604 – June 8, 1651) was the third ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada with Oeyo, and the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Lady Kasuga was his wet nurse, who a ...
was fully covered by copper plates.
Arai Hakuseki
was a Confucianist, scholar-bureaucrat, academic, administrator, writer and politician in Japan during the middle of the Edo period, who advised the ''shōgun'' Tokugawa Ienobu. His personal name was Kinmi or Kimiyoshi (君美). Hakuseki (白 ...
,「安宅御船仕様帖」「安宅御船諸色注文帖」,1711
See also
*
Ohama Kagetaka
was a Japanese pirate during the latter part of the Sengoku period and the Azuchi–Momoyama period of Japan. He operated in the Shima Province area (now part of Mie Prefecture), and later commanded naval forces for both Takeda Shingen and Tok ...
, a pirate who used an atakebune
*
Turtle Ship
A ''Geobukseon'' ( ko, script=Hang, 거북선, ), also known as turtle ship in western descriptions, was a type of large Korean warship that was used intermittently by the Joseon Navy, Royal Korean Navy during the Joseon, Joseon dynasty from the ...
, a Korean ship with similar armor plating
*
Djong, large ship with thick hull, which lower the effectiveness of artillery
References
{{reflist
Naval ships of Japan
16th-century ships