Chōroku Era

Chōroku (1457-1461) is an era name of the mid-Muromachi period. It was adopted with the era change on the 28th day of the 9th month of Kōshō 3 (October 16, 1457), and it remained in use until the era was changed to Kanshō on the 21st day of the 12th month of Chōroku 4 (February 1, 1461). The reigning emperor was Emperor Go-Hanazono, and the shogun was Ashikaga Yoshimasa. The era name derives from a phrase in the Han Feizi: "qí jiàn shēng yě cháng, chí lù yě jiǔ" (its establishment of life is long, and its holding of emolument is lasting). On the 2nd day of the 12th month of Chōroku 1 (December 18, 1457), the Chōroku Incident occurred. In it, retainers of the Akamatsu clan, who had fallen into decline after the Kakitsu Incident, recovered the sacred jewel among the Three Sacred Treasures, which the Southern Court side had seized in the Kinketsu Incident. Furthermore, from Chōroku 3 (1459), a severe famine caused by nationwide crop failures began, known as the Chōroku–Kanshō famine. It led to many deaths from starvation through the Kanshō era. In the history of Japanese swords, the smith who represents the Chōroku years is Norimitsu, a smith of the Osafune school of Bizen Province. His signed work, a tachi with the inscription "Bizen no Kuni Osafune jū Saemon-no-jō Fujiwara no Ason Norimitsu / Sakushū Takatori-no-shō Kurosaka tsukuru / Takatori Kageyu-zaemon-no-jō Sugawara no Ason Yasusuke utsu kore / Chōroku san-nen tsuchinoto-u jūni-gatsu jūsan-nichi," was made at Kurosaka in the Takatori estate, Mimasaka Province, commissioned by Takatori Kageyu-zaemon-no-jō Yasusuke. Its blade length is 68.1 cm, and its curvature is 1.9 cm. It was designated an Important Cultural Property on February 8, 1958 (Shōwa 33), and it is held by a private owner. Although it is somewhat slender, its workmanship in the hada and hamon is excellent, and it is regarded as the finest of this smith's works. Although this was an unsettled age in which political strife, natural disasters, and famine overlapped at the center, this Important Cultural Property shows that sword production in Bizen maintained a high level in both quality and quantity.