Murata Tsuneyoshi

was a Japanese samurai, swordsman, marksman, firearm inventor, gunsmith, soldier, and Army officer. He also used the names and .

Biography

He was born the eldest son of , a retainer of the Shimazu clan. In his youth he studied the Tachi school of swordsmanship, a derivative of Jigen-ryū, as well as the Takashima school of hōjutsu. He also studied Western gunnery.

Murata's first combat experience was during the Bombardment of Kagoshima by the Royal Navy in 1863. During this battle, Murata was strongly impressed by the British guns, and began to research contemporary European firearms technology. He studied using European books he acquired from Nagasaki. In early 1865, Murata presented to the Satsuma authorities his own design for a bolt-action rifle. This was an astonishing feat for an inventor educated in a medieval society, as the bolt-action was then a state-of-the-art technology even in Europe. However, Satsuma rejected his design because it was considered to be beyond the limited manufacturing capacity of the Satsuma arsenals. Murata first visited France, and was received courteously through the offices of his friend Echemann. When he showed his 1865 rifle design to French officers, they told him it was very similar to the Dutch Beaumont rifle. Around that time, Murata built a summer house in Ōiso, Kanagawa Prefecture.

Murata's rifle featured a firing pin actuated by a simple but powerful leaf spring, a somewhat antiquated design compared to the more complex coil springs used in most bolt-action mechanisms of the time. This feature it shared with the Beaumont rifle. It is unknown why Murata chose this type of spring, but a number of reasons have been suggested. Japanese gunsmiths already had centuries of experience manufacturing leaf springs for the matchlock firing mechanisms of tanegashima arquebuses, and Murata's own training in traditional gunnery had likely familiarized him with the mechanical aspects of the centuries-old matchlock.

Privately, Murata was an avid practitioner of precision target shooting. In his later years, he often travelled to Europe to participate in long range shooting competitions where he won a number of championships.

He died of liver failure in 1921 at the age of 83.

Murata's guntō Murata was involved in the development of early guntō. Murata assessed that Japanese swordsmanship was generally more versatile than European swordsmanship and would therefore remain useful in modern warfare. In 1919, Murata gave a lecture titled at a generals' conference.

Family Murata Tsuneyoshi's great-grandson was the scholar of German literature (1930-2011), married to (b. 1941), a professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. Murata Tsunekazu is known for his studies of Thomas Mann. Another descendant is .