<p>At the end of S1 after the Great Fire of Meireki was finally over, Lady Itoh orders for the destruction of all 2000 muskets captured by the loyal Shogunate forces from the hands of the treacherous samurai under Fowler’s command. She gives this order to her eldest son, justifying it by saying that those guns almost brought Japan onto its knees and would've left the country ripe for European colonization.</p>
<p>I’m obviously looking at this from a modern American mindset but this is such an idiotic and suicidal plan of action. Don't get me wrong, I understand that the issue wasn’t necessarily the actual guns themselves since they were merely emblematic of the wider issue of European imperialism and foreign influences creeping their way into Edo era Japan.</p>
<p>You want your country to free itself from foreign influences and actors; fine, pretty understandable. My country fought for its freedom and independence to free itself from British rule. However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with embracing something foreign (i.e. the guns) if it means securing the sovereignty and freedom of your country, especially against an adversary who’s already demonstrated that they have aspirations to take your country for themselves. We saw this exact same scenario play out IRL 2 centuries after the show when Commodore Perry forced Japan to open up for trade/diplomacy by having modern (at the time) warships anchored in Edo aiming cannons at the Shogunate. It compelled the Japanese to rapidly modernize and industrialize for the sake of national survival and in competition against Western powers operating in the region, culminating in the Meiji Restoration.</p>
<p>If we go back roughly half a century before the start of the show and rely on actual history, we saw the samurai armies of Japan rapidly adopt arquebus en mass from the Portuguese after they proved to be an immense success. Oda Nobunaga used them to great effect and those arquebuses helped him secure his grip on power in his quest to unify Japan.</p>
<p>And despite popular beliefs about Sengoku/Edo era Japan, guns actually were a trump card to a degree. No, the katana wasn’t the primary battle arm of the samurai during Sengoku Jidai, that would be first the Yumi/bow and arrow then the spear.</p>
<p>At the macro level, guns are great in the sense that instead of solely relying on 500 elite warriors who spent years perfecting their craft with the sword, you can amass 5000 or 50,000 soldiers and train them up to be at least semi-competent riflemen within a few weeks, giving you a numerical advantage with a weapon capable of equalizing the battlefield via fire superiority. Now instead of a very wealthy, well armed/armored warrior on horseback cutting down poor conscripted peasants en mass in a futile battle, those conscripted peasants now have a much better shot (hehe) at killing that warrior without needing as much resources or wealth to sustain them.</p>
<p>IRL Sengoku Japan also had a very arquebus-heavy army for its time; IIRC 1/3 or 1/4 of the invasion force assembled by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in his conquest of Joseon during the Imjin Wars were composed of troops armed with Tanegashima matchlocks/teppo.</p>
<p>Most importantly, why handicap yourself by making it more difficult to arm your country in the first place? I’m sure that if the Itoh Shogunate were to make their own guns and build an indigenous Japanese arms industry, they’ll keep a handful of Fowler’s guns as samples. However, with 2000 guns as a jumping off point, you have enough weapons to arm 2 enlarged battalions/a single regiment, which is a considerable force for an early-modern 17th century military. I’m sure that if Japan were to embark on building guns of its own they will succeed and add their own flare (like IRL) but I don’t see how that’s a reason to handicap oneself by taking 2 steps back and starting from scratch. I get it, you need a ton of infrastructure and logistics to support a stable arms industry but I don't see why Blue Eye Samurai's Japan can't replicate IRL Japan and adapt to the best of their ability.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-26T13:31:07.023Z
I don't know the story, so just guessing. Maybe what is meant by the lady is that dependence on foreign import can be dangerous. In real history, (sorts of) guns were manufactured in Japan, but I think more powerful firearms were mostly imported around the Japanese civil war era (i.e. Edo - Meiji). (To-be) Meiji gov was backed by America, and Shogunate by France.
sundowner
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-26T13:53:22.090Z
@sundowner just some slight corrections: Edo period was very peaceful, I believe you're thinking of the Sengoku era, which took place prior to the Edo period. Also, the Meiji Restoration AFAIK didn't have any actual official Western support on either side. America opened Japan up and some European nations supported the modernization of the country but that was about it (although a French Army officer did side with the Shogunate/samurai forces later in the Restoration, but AFAIK that wasn't indicative of any actual French support for the Shogunate).
user69268
<japan><blue-eye-samurai>
Why did Lady Itoh order for the destruction of the 2000 muskets after Mizu (accidently) burned Edo down in Blue Eye Samurai?
# Why did Lady Itoh order for the destruction of the 2000 muskets after Mizu (accidently) burned Edo down in Blue Eye Samurai?
Posted by: username_0 on 2024-09-24
At the end of S1 after the Great Fire of Meireki was finally over, Lady Itoh orders for the destruction of all 2000 muskets captured by the loyal Shogunate forces from the hands of the treacherous samurai under Fowler’s command. She gives this order to her eldest son, justifying it by saying that those guns almost brought Japan onto its knees and would've left the country ripe for European colonization.

I’m obviously looking at this from a modern American mindset but this is such an idiotic and suicidal plan of action. Don't get me wrong, I understand that the issue wasn’t necessarily the actual guns themselves since they were merely emblematic of the wider issue of European imperialism and foreign influences creeping their way into Edo era Japan.

You want your country to free itself from foreign influences and actors; fine, pretty understandable. My country fought for its freedom and independence to free itself from British rule. However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with embracing something foreign (i.e. the guns) if it means securing the sovereignty and freedom of your country, especially against an adversary who’s already demonstrated that they have aspirations to take your country for themselves. We saw this exact same scenario play out IRL 2 centuries after the show when Commodore Perry forced Japan to open up for trade/diplomacy by having modern (at the time) warships anchored in Edo aiming cannons at the Shogunate. It compelled the Japanese to rapidly modernize and industrialize for the sake of national survival and in competition against Western powers operating in the region, culminating in the Meiji Restoration.

If we go back roughly half a century before the start of the show and rely on actual history, we saw the samurai armies of Japan rapidly adopt arquebus en mass from the Portuguese after they proved to be an immense success. Oda Nobunaga used them to great effect and those arquebuses helped him secure his grip on power in his quest to unify Japan.

And despite popular beliefs about Sengoku/Edo era Japan, guns actually were a trump card to a degree. No, the katana wasn’t the primary battle arm of the samurai during Sengoku Jidai, that would be first the Yumi/bow and arrow then the spear.

At the macro level, guns are great in the sense that instead of solely relying on 500 elite warriors who spent years perfecting their craft with the sword, you can amass 5000 or 50,000 soldiers and train them up to be at least semi-competent riflemen within a few weeks, giving you a numerical advantage with a weapon capable of equalizing the battlefield via fire superiority. Now instead of a very wealthy, well armed/armored warrior on horseback cutting down poor conscripted peasants en mass in a futile battle, those conscripted peasants now have a much better shot (hehe) at killing that warrior without needing as much resources or wealth to sustain them.

IRL Sengoku Japan also had a very arquebus-heavy army for its time; IIRC 1/3 or 1/4 of the invasion force assembled by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in his conquest of Joseon during the Imjin Wars were composed of troops armed with Tanegashima matchlocks/teppo.

Most importantly, why handicap yourself by making it more difficult to arm your country in the first place? I’m sure that if the Itoh Shogunate were to make their own guns and build an indigenous Japanese arms industry, they’ll keep a handful of Fowler’s guns as samples. However, with 2000 guns as a jumping off point, you have enough weapons to arm 2 enlarged battalions/a single regiment, which is a considerable force for an early-modern 17th century military. I’m sure that if Japan were to embark on building guns of its own they will succeed and add their own flare (like IRL) but I don’t see how that’s a reason to handicap oneself by taking 2 steps back and starting from scratch. I get it, you need a ton of infrastructure and logistics to support a stable arms industry but I don't see why Blue Eye Samurai's Japan can't replicate IRL Japan and adapt to the best of their ability.
**Tags:** japan blue-eye-samurai
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I don't know the story, so just guessing. Maybe what is meant by the lady is that dependence on foreign import can be dangerous. In real history, (sorts of) guns were manufactured in Japan, but I think more powerful firearms were mostly imported around the Japanese civil war era (i.e. Edo - Meiji). (To-be) Meiji gov was backed by America, and Shogunate by France.  
> **username_0**: @sundowner just some slight corrections: Edo period was very peaceful, I believe you're thinking of the Sengoku era, which took place prior to the Edo period. Also, the Meiji Restoration AFAIK didn't have any actual official Western support on either side. America opened Japan up and some European nations supported the modernization of the country but that was about it (although a French Army officer did side with the Shogunate/samurai forces later in the Restoration, but AFAIK that wasn't indicative of any actual French support for the Shogunate).  
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## 0 answers
