their siege of Hara Castle. The swordsman Miyamoto Musashi was present in the besieging army, in an advisory role to Hosokawa Tadatoshi. The event where Musashi was knocked off his horse by a stone thrown by one of the peasants is one of the only few verifiable records of him taking part in a campaign. The shogunate troops then requested aid from the Dutch, who first gave them gunpowder ;, and then cannons. Nicolaes Couckebacker, Opperhoofd of the Dutch factory on Hirado, provided the gunpowder and cannons, and when the shogunate forces requested that he send a vessel, he personally accompanied the vessel de Ryp to a position offshore, near Hara Castle. The cannons sent previously were mounted in a battery, and an all-out bombardment of the fortress commenced, both from the shore guns as well as from the 20 guns of the de Ryp. These guns fired approximately 426 rounds in the space of 15 days (at least once per hour on average), without great result, and two Dutch lookouts were shot by the rebels. The ship withdrew at the request of the Japanese, following contemptuous messages sent by the rebels to the besieging troops: Are there no longer courageous soldiers in the realm to do combat with us, and weren't they ashamed to have called in the assistance of foreigners against our small contingent? Final push and fall In an attempt to take the castle, Itakura Shigemasa was killed. More shogunate troops under Matsudaira Nobutsuna, Itakura's replacement, soon arrived. However, the rebels at Hara Castle resisted the siege for months and caused the shogunate heavy losses. Both sides had a hard time fighting in winter conditions. On February 3, 1638, a rebel raid killed 2,000 warriors from the Hizen Domain. However, despite this minor victory, the rebels slowly ran out of food, ammunition and other provisions. On 4 April 1638, over 27,000 rebels, facing about 125,000 shogunate soldiers, mounted a desperate assault, but were soon forced to withdraw. Captured survivors and the fortress' rumored sole traitor, Yamada Emosaku, revealed the fortress was out of food and gunpowder. On 12 April 1638, troops under the command of the Kuroda clan of Hizen stormed the fortress and captured the outer defenses. The rebels continued to hold out and caused heavy casualties until they were routed three days later, on 15 April 1638. Forces present at Shimabara The Shimabara rebellion was