Arquebuses were introduced to Japan in 1543 by Portuguese traders, who landed by accident on Tanegashima, an island south of Kyūshū in the region controlled by the Shimazu clan.
Shō Gen received his official investiture from the Ming Court in 1562, and received emissaries from the Shimazu clan of the Japanese province of Satsuma in 1570 and 1572.
She was the daughter of Tachibana Dōsetsu, a powerful retainer of the Ōtomo clan (which were rivals of the Shimazu clan at the time).
The Shimazu clan inhabit Satsuma and can recruit superior katana-armed samurai, their generals are also more loyal to their clan.
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They were brought to Kagoshima, the capital of Satsuma Domain, and then to Sunpu, where they met with the retired former shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, and were forced to sign a number of vows of fealty and allegiance to the Shimazu clan lords of Satsuma.
Close allies with the Kikkawa family, the Kobayakawa fought alongside the Kikkawa, Mōri, Toyotomi, and Ōtomo clans against the Shimazu, for control of Kyūshū at the end of the 16th century; they were awarded Chikuzen Province as their fief following the Shimazu's defeat, but the clan came to an end only a few decades later when Hideaki died without a successor.
The clan’s fortunes went into eclipse when Ōoka Tadashina (1667–1710) so displeased Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi that he was exiled to Hachijojima and Ōoka Tadafusa (1650–1696) was forced to commit seppuku for killing a retainer of the Shimazu clan in a brawl.
During the Edo period (1603–1868), Tomari Jochiku, a Confucian monk of the Nichiren sect who had been born in Yakushima and served the Satsuma domain, saw the destitution of the islanders in Yakushima and submitted a plan to cut down yakusugi to the Shimazu clan daimyo.
In the battle of Mimigawa that followed, the Shimazu army defeated Otomo who retreated under heavy losses losing commanders like Kamachi Akimori from which it never recovered.
Toward the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate, namely the bakumatsu in which the Shimazu clan played an important role, there have been a chain of events such, bombardment of Kagoshima, also known as the Anglo-Satsuma War (Satsu-Ei Sensō), which took place on 15–17 August 1863 during the Late Tokugawa shogunate, Meiji Restoration(1868), abolition of the han system(1871) and Satsuma Rebellion(1877).
In 1409, Higo (Tanegashima) Kiyotoki was given the islands of Yaku and Kuchinoerabu by Shimazu Motohisa, the head of the Ōshū branch of the Shimazu clan, who rivaled the Sōshū branch family.