Battle of Fukuda Bay

Timeline

1. 1565Fukuda Bay · NagasakiJoão Pereira, captain of the Portuguese trade fleet to Japan, sailed his great ships into Japan and, at the urging of Jesuit missionaries, abandoned Hirado and instead anchored at a port in Fukuda Bay within the domain of Ōmura Sumitada. This greatly displeased Hirado daimyo Matsuura Takanobu; an incident in which Portuguese had been killed at Hirado in 1561 had already made relations increasingly tense.
2. 1565Fukuda Bay · NagasakiOn the morning of October 18, Matsuura Takanobu used eight to ten large ships and about sixty small boats supplied by Sakai merchants to carry several hundred samurai in a surprise attack on the anchored Portuguese ships. Most of the crews were ashore at the time, leaving only about eighty Europeans aboard. Japanese troops briefly boarded the ships, but crossfire from the Portuguese galleon (commanded by captain Diogo de Menezes of Malacca) and the flagship's guns sank three Japanese vessels, killing over seventy and wounding more than two hundred; only eight Portuguese died, and the Japanese retreated in rout.