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Schlachten, Zwischenfälle und historische Ereignisse rund um japanische Schwerter
214 Ereignisse
June 4, 1576 (Tenshō 4)
In the 5th month of Tenshō 4 (1576), during the Ishiyama War, Oda Nobunaga intercepted a combined Honganji-Miyoshi force at Tennōji in Osaka. One of the fiercest engagements of the era — Nobunaga himself was struck by a musket ball — yet Oda forces turned the tide to win.
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January 1576 (Tenshō 4) – May 1579 (Tenshō 7)
In January 1576 (Tenshō 4), Oda Nobunaga appointed Niwa Nagahide as general construction magistrate and began building a new stronghold on Mt. Azuchi beside Lake Biwa. In May 1579 (Tenshō 7), a magnificent seven-story tenshu was completed and Nobunaga himself moved in. Combining an all-stone rampart, painted interiors by Kanō Eitoku, and a free-market castle town, Azuchi Castle concentrated a series of innovations that overturned the conventions of Japanese castle architecture. Though it burned soon after the Honnō-ji Incident in 1582, its design left a decisive imprint on all castle-building that followed.
8th–9th month, Tenshō 19 (September–October 1591)
In 1591, Kunohe Masazane — a senior retainer of the Nanbu clan — rebelled against Toyotomi Hideyoshi's unification from Kunohe Castle in Mutsu Province. A massive Toyotomi army under Gamō Ujisato, Maeda Toshiie, and Asano Nagamasa was dispatched to Ōshū. After a siege, the castle fell and Masazane was executed. It stands as one of the last armed rebellions against Hideyoshi's completed hegemony.
28th day of 2nd month, Tenshō 19 (1591)
The master of wabi-cha, Sen no Rikyū, was forced to commit seppuku by order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. This incident illuminates the dark underbelly of Azuchi-Momoyama culture, where the Way of Tea intersected with the way of the sword.
May – July, Tenshō 18 (June – August 1590 CE)
The Siege of Oshi Castle (1590) was a subsidiary operation of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Odawara campaign, in which Ishida Mitsunari attempted to take the Narita clan's castle in Musashi Province by flooding it with a massive earthwork dam. The garrison of roughly 500, led by Masaki Toshihide and the legendary Kai-hime, held out against a force many times larger and was never taken — making Oshi one of the few castles to remain undefeated in the entire Odawara campaign.
June 5, Tenshō 17 (July 17, 1589)
In June 1589, Date Masamune destroyed the Ashina clan at Suriagehara (present-day Inawashiro, Fukushima Prefecture), effectively ending the Ashina domain and seizing control of Aizu and most of Mutsu Province. The battle marked Masamune's emergence as the dominant power in the Tōhoku region and is often considered the final major Sengoku battle of northeastern Japan.
August 29, 1588 (8th day, 7th month, Tenshō 16)
The purpose of the Sword Hunt Edict (Katanagari) was to confiscate weapons from farmers and temples, prevent uprisings, and institutionally separate the warrior and farming classes. Issued by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in July 1588, it was the greatest social transformation in Japanese sword history: the collected swords were ostensibly melted down for the Great Buddha at Hōkōji — and the early modern class system was born.
Seventh month (14th–27th), Tenshō 14 (1586)
In the seventh month of Tenshō 14 (1586), a Shimazu army of 50,000, on the verge of unifying Kyushu, besieged Iwaya Castle in Chikuzen, held for the Ōtomo by Takahashi Jōun. With only 763 defenders, Jōun refused every demand to surrender and, after half a month of desperate fighting, died with his entire garrison on the 27th. This heroic stand exhausted the Shimazu and bought time until Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Kyushu expedition arrived—ultimately thwarting Shimazu unification of the island.
August 1585 (Tenshō 13) and September 1600 (Keichō 5)
Fought in 1585 and again in 1600, the Battle of Ueda saw Sanada Masayuki and his son Yukimura repel far larger Tokugawa forces twice at Ueda Castle. A masterpiece of defensive warfare showcasing Masayuki's reputation as the Sengoku era's supreme strategist.
Third–fourth month, Tenshō 13 (1585)
In Tenshō 13 (1585), during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's subjugation of Kii Province, Hideyoshi's army subjected Ōta Castle—the last stronghold of the Saiga and Negoro leagues—to a flooding siege. Unable to storm the fortress, Hideyoshi built an embankment some 7 km long in only a few days to submerge it, and after about a month forced its surrender in exchange for the seppuku of ringleader Ōta Sakon and 52 others. It is counted, with Bitchū-Takamatsu and Oshi, among Japan's "three great flooding sieges."
29th day of the 11th month, Tenshō 13 (January 18, 1586)
The Tenshō Great Earthquake, which occurred on November 29, 1585 (lunar calendar) in the 13th year of Tenshō, was a massive seismic event with an estimated magnitude of 7.8–8.1, causing catastrophic damage across a wide swath of the Hokuriku, Tōkai, and Kinki regions. Castles and settlements in Hida, Etchu, Ōmi, and surrounding areas collapsed, with estimated casualties ranging from several thousand to over ten thousand. This earthquake, occurring on the eve of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's unification of Japan, profoundly affected the dispersal of renowned castles and famous blades and the fates of military commanders.
Ninth month (9th–11th), Tenshō 12 (October 12–14, 1584)
In the ninth month of Tenshō 12 (1584), Sassa Narimasa of Etchū—who had turned against Hashiba in concert with the Komaki-Nagakute campaign—besieged the strategic Suemori Castle in Noto with an army of 15,000. As the castle commander Okumura Nagatomi and some 300 defenders held on to the brink of collapse, Maeda Toshiie rushed through the night with 2,500 men and struck the Sassa army from behind, driving it off. The battle, which decided the fate of the Maeda house, is called "the Okehazama of Kaga."
July 2, 1582 (13th day, 6th month, Tenshō 10)
On June 13, Tenshō 10 (1582), eleven days after the Honnō-ji Incident, the culmination of the 'Great March from China' unfolded. Toyotomi Hideyoshi defeated Akechi Mitsuhide at Yamazaki in Yamashiro Province (present-day Mishima County, Osaka Prefecture) and seized hegemony following Nobunaga's death. This battle gave birth to the phrase 'the battle that decided the fate of the realm,' arising from the struggle over Tennō Mountain.
6th–10th months, Tenshō 10 (July–November 1582)
Following Oda Nobunaga's death at Honnō-ji on the 2nd day of the 6th month, Tenshō 10 (1582), three powers — Tokugawa Ieyasu, Hōjō Ujimasa, and Uesugi Kagekatsu — scrambled to seize the suddenly vacant former Takeda domains of Kai, Shinano, and Kōzuke. The conflict is named for the cyclical year designation Jingo (壬午). Ieyasu ultimately secured Kai and Shinano, transforming from a regional lord into a major power — a crucial step toward his eventual dominance.
April–June 2, Tenshō 10 (May–June 21, 1582)
From April to June 1582 (Tensho 10), a siege took place at Takamatsu Castle in Bitchu Province (present-day Takamatsu, Kita Ward, Okayama City), where Hashiba Hideyoshi subjected the castle held by Shimizu Muneharu to a water siege. The water siege in which Hideyoshi dammed the Ashimori River to inundate Takamatsu Castle is said to have been the largest engineering project in Japanese history. This historic battle became the catalyst for Hideyoshi's retreat to Kyoto via the Great Retreat through Chugoku after receiving news of the Honnoji Incident.
March 11, Tenshō 10 (April 3, 1582)
In March 1582, Takeda Katsuyori was cornered at Tenmokuzan in Kai Province by the combined forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu, and committed ritual suicide with his wife and remaining retainers. This final stand marked the extinction of the Takeda clan, once celebrated as the Sengoku era's most feared military power.
8th month, Tensho 10 (August 1582)
In August 1582 (Tenshō 10), Chosokabe Motochika crushed the Miyoshi-Sogo coalition at the Nakatomigawa River in Awa Province. Seizing the chaos that erupted after the Honnoji Incident, Motochika's resolve and the lightning campaign mounted by elite 'ichiryo gusoku' troops became the decisive move in Shikoku's unification.
Sixth month (16th–19th), Tenshō 10 (July 5–8, 1582)
In the sixth month of Tenshō 10 (1582), immediately after Oda Nobunaga was killed at Honnō-ji, Takigawa Kazumasu—the Oda retainer governing Kōzuke—clashed with the Hōjō forces led by Hōjō Ujinao at the Kanna River on the Musashi–Kōzuke border. Regarded as the largest field battle in the Kantō during the Sengoku period, Kazumasu's roughly 18,000 men were routed by the Hōjō's roughly 56,000, and he fled all the way back to his home at Nagashima in Ise.
c. 1781 (Tenmei 1) through the Bunsei era (1818–1830)
After arriving in Edo in 1781 (Tenmei 1), Suishinshi Masahide (1749–1823) criticized the ornamental formalism of contemporary sword-making and advocated a return to the aesthetic ideals of the classical Kamakura and Nanbokuchō periods. Through influential treatises and hands-on teaching to over one hundred disciples, he launched the Shinshintō (New-New Sword) movement, which dramatically revitalized Japanese sword culture from a period of decline. Together with his students Ōkei Naotane and Minamoto Kiyomaro, Masahide formed the "Three Masters of Edo" (Edo Sansaku), and his legacy shaped the final flourishing of sword culture in the late Edo period before the Haitōrei edict of 1876.
August 1532 CE (Tenbun 1)
In August of Tenbun 1 (1532), the allied forces of Hosokawa Harumoto, Rokkaku Sadayori, and the Hokke Ikki (Lotus Sutra league) burned and destroyed Yamashina Hongan-ji, the headquarters of the Ikko Ikki, in a decisive engagement of the Eishoku-Tenbun Disturbance (1531–1535). This event paved the way for the Hongan-ji's relocation to Osaka and the subsequent Ishiyama Conflict.
Autumn, Tenbun 9 (1540)
In autumn 1540, at Kōriyama Castle in Aki Province (present-day Akitakata City, Hiroshima Prefecture), Mōri Motonari repulsed a massive invasion by Amako Haruhisa of Izumi Province. Vastly outnumbered, Mōri's defense and counterattacks forced the Amako withdrawal, marking the turning point in Mōri's rise to dominate the Chūgoku region.
July 1536 (Tenbun 5)
In July 1536, warrior-monks of Enryaku-ji on Mt. Hiei, backed by Rokkaku Sadayori's forces, burned all twenty-one Hokke (Nichiren) temple compounds in Kyoto. The resulting destruction surpassed even the Ōnin War, and the Hokke faithful were expelled from the capital for six years — a vivid example of the interplay between religion, armed force, and daimyo power in the Sengoku age.
A series of incidents from 1535 (Tenbun 4) to c. 1579 (Tenshō 7)
Blades by the Muramasa school of Ise-Kuwana became associated with a chain of wounds and deaths said to have befallen four generations of the Tokugawa house—Kiyoyasu, Hirotada, Ieyasu, and Nobuyasu—giving rise during the Edo period to the legend of the "sword that curses the Tokugawa." The blades’ genuine reputation for sharpness and their wide circulation in the Tōkai region likely underlie the legend’s formation.
9th month, 1st day, Tenbun 20 (September 30, 1551)
In 1551, Ouchi retainer Sue Harukata overthrew his lord Ouchi Yoshitaka, forcing the great patron of western Japan's sword culture to commit suicide at Daineiji temple. The Ouchi clan's fall ended the organized Japan–Ming sword trade and scattered its patronized swordsmiths across western Japan.