Arquebus 3

Nagashino battle standard festival

"Nagashino battle standard festival" started half-century and a few years ago. It might belong to the category of new ones just getting started.

We don't think this festival is famous around Japan. Neither not famous among international tourists. If someone already knows, he might be a big fan of Japanese festivals or he lives near "Nagashino" town now.



Nagashino battle standard festival

And, you need one more information. If you don't know the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, it's difficult to understand why Arquebuses are fired in this festival so many. Many fake Samurai warriors wearing armors gather in this festival site. They are who belong to several Arquebus-shooting groups and these groups play shooting-performances of Arquebuses all day long. Because this festival features the Battle of Nagashino, the battle Arquebuses played a very important role.

To say precisely, the incident drawn on "the folding screen of the Battle of Nagashino" wasn't happened here. Because this famous battle happened at the two main battle-fields. And the Nagashino castle was one of them which is the event site of this festival, however, the battle drawn on the folding screen happened at another battle-field.

Strands are everywhere

This battle separated to the former part and the later part. The former part was the siege of Nagashino castle, and the later part was the field-operations at Shitaragahara. In this field-operations, guns were used collectively never before. As a result, this tactics became very famous. However, that is another story.



Nagashino castle ruins

Now, we would like to look back over the history of Arquebuses quickly. The principle of matchlock guns was invented in China. But, practical invention was attained by some Europeans. By the description of an European historian, matchlock's anchor-hold and mobile-power weren't so superb than other traditional ordinary weapons first.

Nevertheless Europeans improved and refined their new weapon for many years. And, finally they made this new weapon assuring safe operation.
Why they put up with the inconvenience? That's because when this weapon was used, the user army troops needed less further extra practice to put into real battle field. When some army troops brought up their new arrow-soldiers, they needed a few years. By contrast, to bring up musket-soldiers, they only needed a few days!

Opening ceremony (shinshiro city HP)

On the contrary, Japanese didn't understand this most important point of using musket guns. Unexpectedly, they established new Budo named Hou-jyutsu. They chose the way of practicing new musket-soldiers in which they spent long and strict time until the completion of their study. If the battles continued, this decision was denied by the employers. However, battles were over so the decision was agreed.

Japanese couldn't improve musket's power in the technical aspect. Then they developed their weapons strangely. For example, they thickened the body to improve the power. The result showed that musket-soldiers had to bring very heavy muskets and they could not move quickly. So, some soldiers couldn't operate these weapons. As for the operations they had to practice their physical strength and used weapons with predefined actions.

Performance of Arquebuses

"Yonezawa-han Koshiki-jyu Hozonkai" is a group of the descendants of Yonezawa-han's Houjyutsu-ka, who attend this festival over half a century. Their special Arquebuses are over 20 kilograms. Furthermore, reaction force are awful as strong as the power to make shooter's shoulders broken when they don't behave correct performance.

Big size Arquebus (Shinshiro city HP)

We think these Arquebuses aren't useful for the action in the real battle field. However, their ancestors used these weapons in the very famous war named "the Siege of Osaka castle" in 1615.

Practicing of their physical performances and having great passion are behind the performance. It is very typical Japanese approach.


The venue and the festival schedule

We're sorry to do a little top-heavy explanation. Let's go to the festival place.
The main event site is Nagasino castle ruins. It's in Shinshiro-city Aichi-prefecture, same as "Shitaragahara historical museum". The traffic route is also same, you should ride 2 more stations, and you can arrive the place named "Nagashino-jo".

Running in board

The distance from the station to the event site is approximately 10 minutes by walk. You attend the festival now, then you can follow other audiences of the festival. You may reach the event site easily.

Festival schedule is below.
It's almost same every year.

The date of the festival   May 5th
Relevant events are held on May 3rd and 4th, but performances of Arquebuses are only 5th.

"Kattsen-Gyoretsu" or the parade   9:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.
Many attendees wear fake Samurai battle armors   

Only some votaries and local people go to see the parade, and other people wait the arrival of the parade at the event site. 

Performance of Arquebuses 1   9:30 a.m. to 10:00 am
This is the event for the people wait the starting ceremony.

We tried to visit there at the starting time of  this performance, but it's too difficult to make this timing. Because, you have to ride JR local train from Toyohashi-station to Nagashinojyo-station for approximately 1 hour. You may ride a train at Toyohashi-station around 8:30 a.m.. Accordingly, you have to leave Osaka-station very early in the morning.



Kassen-gyoretsu (Shinshiro city HP)

Ceremony   10:45 a.m. to 11:20 a.m.

Performance of Arquebuses 2   11:30 a.m. to 12:00 a.m.

Performance of Arquebuses 3   12:00 a.m. to 12:30 a.m.

Performance of Japanese Archery by wearing battle armors   12:30 a.m. to 01:00 p.m.

Performance of Arquebuses 4   01:20 p.m. to 01:50 p.m.

Performance of Arquebuses 5   01:50 p.m. to 02:20 p.m.

Performance of Arquebuses 6   02:30 p.m. to 03:00 p.m.  And, Finishing of the festival

Scenes of Ceremony

Performance of Arquebuses

This festival is featuring the battle famous for the big success of Arquebuses. Therefore, almost all performances are shootings. The performances are held 6 times by next 3 groups 2 times each.

"Nihon Zensoujyu-shageki Renmei"
or Japan muzzle-laders associations committee

"Yonezawa-han Koshiki-jyu Hozonkai"
or the traditional gun-performance association of the feudal domain of Yonezawa
 
"Nagashino Shitaragahara Teppou-tai"
or the musket troops of Nagashino and Shitaragahara region

 Today's event site isn't wide enough, so musket troopers separated small groups. Whole members unison-firing weresn't practiced.

On the other hand, we had seen about 10 troopers unison-firing at another festival of Okazaki-city. Compare with it, today's festival was held at closer range than Okazaki-city's. We felt strong live feeling by tremendous gun-sound! 

Performance of archers

Between 3rd performance of shooting and 4th, archer's performance was demonstrated. Archers released arrows practically. Besides, musket-gunmen didn't fire true bullets. Taking these things into consideration, we preferred to archer's performance instead.

Furthermore, musket-gunmen seemed to use kind of modern contraptions, that hadn't existed in the Sengoku era. Even that small difference made us spoiled the fun of Arquebuses.

2 to 3 minutes were necessary for musket-gunmen to prepare the next firing, even though they used such kind of modern contraptions.

They performe wearing armors

For archers, only bows and arrows were necessary in the battle field. But, for musket-gunmen, muskets and bullets were not only necessities, they needed other many little items, for example fire starters, gunpowder cases and so on.

items necessary for gun shooting

Each item was not so difficult to handle, but if you forgot to bring, dropped, or broke them, you couldn't fire your musket. Thus, musket-gunmen sharpened these items and came up with using the skills not to fail in the battle fields. However, the idle time after the first shot to the next wasn't shortened by their innovations.

We could meet performers by chance

By contrast, less than 30 seconds were needed for archers to switch places with the first group and the second one. And also there were no idle time between the first shot and the next in their unison-releasing. The targets were soon filled with arrows. However, the distance to the target was only 20 meters. So, we supposed the conditions were a little advantageous for archers.

We could see armored people closely

The event site was an empty space where was filled with the carpet of green grass and no buildings. There were only performers and audience. Gentle breezes and mild weather made us satisfied. It was a really beautiful festival day!