ABSTRACT
THE PORTUGUESE CAME FOR THE FIRST TIME.-At the end of the Ashikaga Age, when the power of the Shogunate had crumbled and feudal lords arose in all directions, the arrival of the Portuguese ships in Japan opened what was really a new world to the eyes of the Japanese. According to many historical records, the Portuguese ships reached Japan for the first time in 1543, when they came to Tanegashima Island of Satsuma Province, and the Japanese saw a fowling-piece for the first time in their lives. There are various opinions as to the object of the Portuguese in coming to Tanegashima Island. According to the records in Japan, they are said to have run accidentally into Tanegashima, being overtaken by storm and attacked by pirates. But according to Portuguese archives, Fernand Mendes Pinto, together with his two companions, Christopher Borrells and Diego Zeimoto, who were employed in a pirate ship, seem to have been driven by a storm to take refuge in Tanegashima; and Gensho, a priest of Satsuma and the author of The History of the Gun, tells us that there was on board this ship Ochoku, a Chinese scholar. Though Ochoku was called a scholar, he was in fact a notorious pirate in connection with wako (the Japanese pirates), and the ship should properly be called a pirate ship. The natives of Tanegashima Island, seeing to their great astonishment that those Portuguese sailors landed with firearms to hunt, and that flying birds and running beasts fell before them, reported it to Tokiaki, the lord of the island. Tokiaki thereupon invited these Portuguese sailors to an interview, presented them with 1,000 ryo of gold, and offered to put at their disposal some pretty women if only they would show him how to use firearms and how to make them. He obtained his desire and, in addition, two smallarm pieces. The names of these Portuguese are said by some to be Antonio de Mota, Francisco Zeimoto, and Antonio Piasoto, and by some Fernand Mendes Pinto, Christopher Borrello, and Diego Zeimoto, who are, according to another record, said to have travelled to Japan for the first time and been surprised to find the abundance of gold, which caused them to report to Europe that Japan was a very rich island. The coming of the Portuguese to Japan was a kind of revelation, causing a great change in tactics and strategy, which proved the beginning of a social and political revolution.
