IMJIN WAR Ep. 5 - Why Was the Gun So Important?

Episode Five of the IMJIN WAR, based on my book “The Imjin War: Japan’s Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China.” As we saw in the previous two episodes, the musket played a huge role in the initial success of Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea. The spearhead contingents of his invasion army, armed with thousands of matchlock muskets, swept north to take Seoul in only three weeks. In this episode, we’ll take a step back to look at the bigger picture of warfare from Alexander the Great and even earlier into the Bronze Age and ask the question: why was the gun such a game-changer? Why was the matchlock musket, or the arquebus as it was sometimes called, so superior to the bow?