I like guns.
No—"like" isn't quite it.
To be precise, it's this.
I'm afraid of swords.
Just think about it.
To cut someone down with a sword, you have to get right up close to him. Within arm's reach. Close enough to hear him breathe. Close enough to smell his sweat. Let an assassin get that close? Not on your life.
Just imagining it gives me goosebumps. The man standing in front of me smiles and slips a hand into his robes. Draws. A silver gleam, coming my way—. Once he's inside my guard, it's over. One thrust, and I'm dead.
But with a gun.
It's far. It's just so far. Before he can lay a finger on me, I can shoot him down from way over there. I don't have to see his face. I don't have to hear him breathe. It wipes out that terror of being up close, completely.
In other words, a gun is.
"A dream of a tool that lets you finish off an assassin without letting him near you."
So I bought them.
When nanban merchants brought Tanegashima matchlocks, I bought them. When the smiths of Sakai forged new barrels, I bought them. Even when they jacked up the price, I paid what they asked. When my life is on the line, is this any time to haggle?
One gun isn't reassuring. With ten, I'm still scared. With a hundred, I still feel like someone's going to get within striking distance.
A thousand.
Before I knew it, more than a thousand guns were piled in my storehouse.
Black barrels stood in a row against the wall. Looking at them, I could breathe a little easier—just a tiny bit. With this many, I could bring everyone down before they got within striking distance. That's what I could tell myself. I bought up mountains of shot and powder too. Too much, my retainers said, looking exasperated. Too much? Never. However much I had, I couldn't shake the feeling it wasn't enough.
While I was at it, if you'll pardon the phrase.
I collected nanban breastplates too.
These were wonderful as well. Thick, sturdy iron plates, and I heard they could turn aside even a bullet fired from a gun.
Armor that stops bullets.
The first time I put one on, I couldn't help stroking my chest. Hard. Cold. But that coldness felt good. Even if a bullet hits me here, I won't die. Just thinking that made me feel I could stand a little straighter. For someone like me, living in fear of being shot at any moment, nothing could be more welcome.
I bowed my head to the missionaries and had them part with some. Honestly, I didn't really understand their talk of a foreign god, but I listened earnestly, nodding along. I treated them with every courtesy. I even gave them land to build a church. Because I wanted more nanban goods. Though I'd never in a million years have said that it wasn't their god I wanted, but the iron plates.
And then, one day, it suddenly dawned on me. Before I knew it.
I'd become the man with more guns than anyone else in all Japan.
When I'd only been scared.
The world said this:
"Lord Oda was quick to see the fathomless power of that new weapon, the gun."
"He eagerly takes in nanban goods and learning, and seeks to break out of the old shell."
"Truly an innovator at the very forefront of the age. A child of the new world."
Innovator. Child of the new world.
I was just scared of assassins.
I just didn't want to let anyone within sword's reach.
And yet the world called me a progressive genius at the very forefront of the age.