At first I doubt if here Ningbo is the city in Zhengjiang province, China. After checking the map, I make sure that Ningbo refers to a place of China. (Please correct me if I am wrong.) I am intrigued to learn the history about Oda Nobunaga with great passion by this blog. Yeah, the data shows that he built his army and conquered his opponents by taking advantage of the European gun. However, very miserably he was killed by one of his subordinates who betrayed him. I've only learned about Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the school who once invaded Ming dynasty. I'm so happy now I have known all the details about this period of history. It turns out that Hideyoshi was also one of his subordinates. Without Oda Nobunaga's favor and promotion, it is impossible for Hideyoshi--a person from a low and poor farmer family to enter the high society. Thank you for your great blog!
Many times history can be changed completely by a very occasional and accidental thing, so can our own life! I never thought that the European gun first came into Japan in such a weird way.
Yep, that's right, the Chinese city. It really is amazing how a single accidental event like this can really have such a huge effect. If not for this one event Japanese history, and probably Asian history as a whole, would look completely different.
Nobunaga is not very well thought of in Japan. He was a bloodthirsty tyrant who would kill at the drop of a dime and butchered women and children. Very often in media today (games, movies), he is portrayed as the villain, even as a demon. Many think that his true ambition was to kill the emperor and start his own dynasty. He probably could have easily conquered the country if he hadn't been betrayed. But you're right—one of his few virtues is that he didn't care about social rank or class and he treated low people like Hideyoshi the same as high people.
Hideyoshi, at least when he was a young man, before he went crazy and decided to foolishly attempt to conquer China and Korea, has a much better image and is generally well liked, sometimes even more than Ieyasu, the man who came after him.
I'm glad you enjoy my writing 😃 I love history so it is fun to share it.