What weapons do they use?
What weapons do you come up with when you heard samurai? Maybe, you should think about Japanese sword, Katana, like this,
One of them is Long spear. this is so essential that troops didn't use it means loss and it was standard to overwhelm enemies by spearing in the first part of battle. To boost morale of the soldiers, people thought it was important to defeat enemies and to make soldiers confident. The long spear is 6.3 meters and 6 kilogram so there were many people abandoned it after the early part of the battle.
Second weapon is Bow. in the middle of 1500s, enormous matchlock guns was imported from Portugal and Spain but extremely expensive and more inexpensive bow still got popular for soldiers. also, in contrast of guns, bow were not influenced by any bad weather and people could carry it easily. In those days, because a troop composed by one thousand people were regarded as a large-scale troop, night attack and surprise attack were usual and bow made only little sounds was often used.
Finally, the weapon I introduce is Rock. Rock is well known as a weapon in Europe and usually used when defending castles in Japan. Mainly, people interrupted enemies climbing castle by rolling it and threw it by centrifugal force like the left picture, and wound them mortally by swords and spears. In modern times, it had the function like slingshot.
Off course, people of noble birth have it, but a lot of soldiers didn't use it actually and more effective and affordable weapons in battlefield. I will introduce the most popular 3 weapons in 1500s.
One of them is Long spear. this is so essential that troops didn't use it means loss and it was standard to overwhelm enemies by spearing in the first part of battle. To boost morale of the soldiers, people thought it was important to defeat enemies and to make soldiers confident. The long spear is 6.3 meters and 6 kilogram so there were many people abandoned it after the early part of the battle. 
Second weapon is Bow. in the middle of 1500s, enormous matchlock guns was imported from Portugal and Spain but extremely expensive and more inexpensive bow still got popular for soldiers. also, in contrast of guns, bow were not influenced by any bad weather and people could carry it easily. In those days, because a troop composed by one thousand people were regarded as a large-scale troop, night attack and surprise attack were usual and bow made only little sounds was often used.
Finally, the weapon I introduce is Rock. Rock is well known as a weapon in Europe and usually used when defending castles in Japan. Mainly, people interrupted enemies climbing castle by rolling it and threw it by centrifugal force like the left picture, and wound them mortally by swords and spears. In modern times, it had the function like slingshot.
beside these, there were still many unique weapons, for example, excrements and oils and I can guess how poor people were at that time from these interesting weapons. Now, almost all of army don't use old-fashioned weapons because of guns but the reason they still fascinate people may be their ingenious design.
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