In 1566 ALL major armies in Japan were already equipped with Tanegashima firelocks and two warlords were the most prominent in adopting them: Uesugi Kenshin and Oda Nobunaga. Crosssbows were already present on the Japanese mainland starting from the Wa era (roughly the time of the Three Kingdoms to the fall of the Jin Dynasty) but went out of use with the adoption of samurai style of warfare in the early Yamato period.
War crossbows were HARDER to make than firearms in the era when both coexisted; that's the main reason everyone moved to firearms. The problem was that the bow must be made with either composite materials (horn, sinew, bamboo), or SPRING STEEL, which was a very expensive imported commodity in Japan. Tanegashima firelocks could be made with fairly low-quality folded steel sourced locally, like cheap katana blades. In the late 16th century it took a workshop between 15 to 30 days to produce one firelock from scratch. The composite bow for a crossbow needed up to 3 months to cure and the spring steel would have been too expensive to use in their production.
We have this anachronistic idea that crossbows are easy to make because they are indeed faster and cheaper to assemble in the modern world. Nowadays if we need a spring steel bow, we just go to a metal shop, pick from a catalog, and have it cut to order. You can even order cheap composite bows online from China or Vietnam and find them on your doorstep the next week. Obviously neither option was available to 16th century Japanese.
War crossbows were HARDER to make than firearms in the era when both coexisted; that's the main reason everyone moved to firearms. The problem was that the bow must be made with either composite materials (horn, sinew, bamboo), or SPRING STEEL, which was a very expensive imported commodity in Japan. Tanegashima firelocks could be made with fairly low-quality folded steel sourced locally, like cheap katana blades. In the late 16th century it took a workshop between 15 to 30 days to produce one firelock from scratch. The composite bow for a crossbow needed up to 3 months to cure and the spring steel would have been too expensive to use in their production.
We have this anachronistic idea that crossbows are easy to make because they are indeed faster and cheaper to assemble in the modern world. Nowadays if we need a spring steel bow, we just go to a metal shop, pick from a catalog, and have it cut to order. You can even order cheap composite bows online from China or Vietnam and find them on your doorstep the next week. Obviously neither option was available to 16th century Japanese.
