text: Firearms seem to have been known in Japan around 1270 as proto-cannons invented in China, which the Japanese called teppō (鉄砲 lit. "iron cannon"). Gunpowder weaponry exchange between China and Japan was slow and only a small number of hand guns ever reached Japan. However Japanese samurai used Fire lances in 15th-century. The first recorded appearance of the Fire lances in Japan was in 1409. The use of gunpowder bombs in the style of Chinese explosives is known to have occurred in Japan from at least the mid-15th century onward. The first recorded appearance of the cannon in Japan was in 1510 when a Buddhist monk presented Hōjō Ujitsuna with a teppō iron cannon that he had acquired during his travels in China. Firearms saw very little use in Japan until Portuguese matchlocks were introduced in 1543. During the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598), the forces of Toyotomi Hideyoshi effectively used matchlock firearms against the Korean forces of Joseon, although they would ultimately be defeated and forced to withdraw from the Korean peninsula.