Meiji Military Sword Era

The Impact of the Haitōrei

On 28 March 1876 (Meiji 9), the Meiji government promulgated the Haitōrei (Sword Abolition Edict), which prohibited the carrying of swords except by those wearing full dress uniform and by military and police officers and the like. It was the moment when the Japanese sword, long called the soul of the samurai, was overnight banned from being carried in public places. The shock of this policy extended in many directions. Swordsmiths lost their principal market, and sword-related craftsmen, including koshirae makers, polishers, and silversmiths, were all forced out of business. Many swords were discarded or broken up and lost, their value as cultural property unrecognized.

Samurai who opposed the Haitōrei rose up that same year in the Shinpūren Rebellion (Kumamoto), the Akizuki Rebellion (Fukuoka), and the Hagi Rebellion (Yamaguchi). In the following year, 1877, these escalated into the Satsuma Rebellion (the rebellion of Satsuma samurai led by Saigō Takamori). Ironically, the Satsuma Rebellion was also the war in which the government army, equipped with modern weaponry, defeated Satsuma samurai who still carried old-style swords from before the Haitōrei, and it became a symbol of Meiji modernization.

The Survival of the Japanese Sword as the Guntō

The Haitōrei was not a total ban on carrying swords; military and police officers were permitted to wear them. This exception became the lifeline by which the Japanese sword survived into the modern era as the guntō. The Meiji government adopted Western-style military sabers (yōshiki guntō) as the official issue for the army and navy, but among officers the practice persisted of using traditional Japanese-style swords mounted in guntō-koshirae.

Guntō broadly came in two types: the hybrid Japanese-Western type, with a Japanese blade fitted into Western-style mountings and koshirae, and the saber type, which was entirely Western from blade to koshirae. The former worked to preserve the skills of Japanese swordsmiths, while the latter functioned as purely Western military equipment. From the mid-Meiji period onward, as the Japanese military's confidence grew through the First Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, the argument that 'the Japanese sword, uniquely Japanese, is the symbol of the military spirit' grew stronger, and a trend emerged toward returning to guntō with traditional blades.

Gassan Sadakazu and the Transmission of Traditional Techniques

The swordsmith who achieved the most emblematic success under the Haitōrei was Gassan Sadakazu (1836–1918). Sadakazu, who succeeded to the Gassan school of Osaka, continued to work as a swordsmith after the Haitōrei. His blades displayed superbly the distinctive forged surface known as ayasugi-hada, a Gassan school tradition resembling the grain of cedar wood, and embodied the continuity of traditional technique. In 1906 (Meiji 39), he was appointed an Imperial Household Artist (Teishitsu Gigei-in; artist attached to the Imperial Household), the highest official honor for a swordsmith. Sadakazu's example proved that, even under the Haitōrei, the skills of traditional swordsmiths could be protected and esteemed at the national level.

The Beginnings of the Sword Preservation Movement

In the turmoil following the Haitōrei, an awareness began to take root among some intellectuals and collectors that Japanese swords should be preserved as cultural property. Museums (including what later became the Tokyo Imperial Household Museum) began collecting and exhibiting swords, and the view of the sword as art spread among the educated classes. In 1897 (Meiji 30), the Ancient Shrines and Temples Preservation Law was enacted, and a legal framework was taking shape under which swords too would be subject to protection. This became the precursor of the later designation systems for 'Important Cultural Properties' and 'National Treasures,' and formed the foundation for sword preservation activities in the Shōwa period.

The Collectible Value of Meiji Guntō

Swords of the Meiji guntō period occupy a distinctive position in the collecting market. Judged purely as art swords, they rank below works from before the Edo period. Yet among specialist collectors they have a firm following, on account of their historical value as 'witnesses to modern Japanese history,' the contextual meaning of technical continuity under the Haitōrei, and the pure technical perfection of masterworks such as those by Gassan Sadakazu. In particular, works by Meiji-period Imperial Household Artists such as Gassan Sadakazu and Miyamoto Kanenori are highly regarded artistically.