In any case, soon native Sri Lankan kingdoms, most notably the kingdom of Sitawaka and the Kandyan Kingdom, manufactured hundreds of Sinhalese muskets, with a unique bifurcated stock, longer barrel and smaller calibre, which made it more efficient in directing and using the energy of the gunpowder. These were mastered by native soldiers to the point where, according to the Portuguese chronicler, Queirós, they could "fire at night to put out a match" and "by day at 60 paces would sever a knife with four or five bullets" and "send as many on the same spot in the target." Arquebuses were imported by the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) at an uncertain point, but the Ming only began fielding matchlocks in 1548. The Chinese used the term "bird-gun" to refer to arquebuses and Turkish arquebuses may have reached China before Portuguese ones. In Zhao Shizhen's book of 1598 AD, the "Shenqipu", there were illustrations of Ottoman Turkish musketmen with detailed illustrations of their muskets, alongside European musketeers with detailed illustrations of their muskets. There was also illustration and description of how the Chinese had adopted the Ottoman kneeling position in firing while using European-made muskets, though Zhao Shizhen described the Turkish muskets as being superior to the European muskets. The "Wu Pei Chih" (1621) later described Turkish muskets that used a rack-and-pinion mechanism, which was not known to have been used in any European or Chinese firearms at the time. Despite initial reluctance, the Safavid Empire of Persia rapidly acquired the art of making and using handguns. A Venetian envoy, Vincenzo di Alessandri, in a report presented to the Council of Ten on 24 September 1572, observed:  In Japan, arquebuses were introduced by Portuguese merchantmen from the region of Alentejo in 1543 and by the 1560s were being mass-produced locally. By the end of the 16th century, the production of firearms in Japan reached enormous proportions, which allowed for a successful military operation in Korea during the Japanese invasions of Korea. Korean official Yu Song-nyong noted the clear superiority of the Japanese musketeers over the Korean archers:  In Korea, the Joseon dynasty underwent a devastating war with newly unified Japan that lasted from 1592 to 1598.