Military Revolution in Early Modern Japan

Abstract

Military changes that took place in Japan during the late sixteenth century bear a striking resemblance to those in Europe at about the same time. This essay argues that the Roberts thesis of military revolution – widely applied to Europe – provides a useful framework for identifying a series of cascading developments that, once realized, constituted the fundamental elements of a similar revolution in early modern Japan. These included: the almost universal adoption of firearms, the development of tactics for the effective deployment of those firearms, and finally, a change in the composition and organization of armies leading to the professionalization of warfare. Most important, by revolutionizing the way armies were organized and wars were fought, Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi contributed directly to the emergence of new notions of centralized authority that were critical to the creation of a unified and peaceful early modern state.