Establishment of the Edo Shogunate and Samurai Governance System

On the 12th day of the 2nd month of Keichō 8 (March 24, 1603), Tokugawa Ieyasu was appointed Sei-i Taishōgun by the imperial court at Fushimi Castle, and he established the shogunate in Edo. This moment came after about 13 years since the unification of the realm through the Odawara campaign of Tenshō 18 (1590), and about two and a half years counting from the victory at the Battle of Sekigahara in Keichō 5 (1600). It was the decisive institutional turning point of the warrior government, reached after a period of political and military groundwork.

The Establishment of the Regime After Sekigahara and the Significance of Assuming the Title of Sei-i Taishōgun

Having destroyed the Western Army at the Battle of Sekigahara, Ieyasu largely reorganized the domains of the daimyō from Keichō 6 (1601), making the Tokugawa house's holdings overwhelmingly dominant at approximately 4,000,000 koku. However, Toyotomi Hideyori still held Osaka Castle and governed about 650,000 koku across Settsu, Kawachi and Izumi, and he retained considerable influence. By obtaining the official status of Sei-i Taishōgun from the imperial court, Ieyasu needed to show both at home and abroad that he was not merely a powerful man but the legitimate head of a warrior government under the ritsuryō system.

The title of Sei-i Taishōgun had originally been a temporary military command post created for campaigns against the Emishi (the non-submitting peoples of the northeast), but since the Kamakura shogunate it had functioned as the symbolic position of warrior government. Ieyasu took office on the 12th day of the 2nd month of Keichō 8 (March 24, 1603), and only two years later, in the 4th month of Keichō 10 (1605), he transferred the shogunal post to his third son, Hidetada. This was a strategic move to show the realm that the Tokugawa house would hold the shogunate hereditarily, and that they were not rulers limited to a single generation like the Toyotomi.

Enactment of the Buke Shohatto and the Legal Definition of Samurai Status

Ieyasu continued to hold real power as Ōgosho after the succession. In Genna 1 (1615), he destroyed the Toyotomi in the Summer Siege of Osaka, and in that same year he promulgated the first Buke Shohatto as the Genna Code. Consisting of thirteen articles, it set out norms of conduct for warriors, restrictions on the repair of residential castles, and a ban on private marriages between daimyō. It was a legal framework that constrained the independent actions of the daimyō.

In Kan'ei 12 (1635), during the reign of the 3rd shōgun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, the Buke Shohatto was substantially revised (the Kan'ei Code). The most important part of this revision was that the sankin-kōtai system was written into law. Daimyō were obliged to alternate yearly between Edo and their home domains, and the costs of residing in Edo and of travel swelled enormously. As a result, the economic and military capacity of the daimyō was drained, and military resistance to the shogunate became virtually impossible.

The Sword Hunt edict was issued by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in Tenshō 16 (1588), but the separation of warriors and farmers was further completed in legal terms during the Edo period. Farmers and townspeople were in principle forbidden to carry swords, and the right to wear the daishō was clearly positioned as a privilege of samurai status. As a result, Japanese swords became markers of status that only the warrior class could possess and use, and their social and cultural significance rose dramatically.

Sankin-kōtai and the Concentration of Edo Swordsmithing Culture

The legalization of the sankin-kōtai system brought about a geographic concentration of sword culture. Because the daimyō of each domain needed to be stationed in Edo, skilled swordsmiths began to gather in Edo from the provinces. The smiths who moved to Edo set up workshops there and gradually formed their own Edo swordsmith groups.

Especially in the Kan'ei and Genroku periods (17th century), a style called "Edo shintō" was established. Distinguished from the swords of the kotō era (from the Heian period through Keichō), shintō embodied an aesthetic unique to the Edo period in its forging methods, shapes and curvature. Echizen Yasutsugu (an official swordsmith to the Tokugawa shogunal house), Nagasone Kotetsu (a master smith of Edo), and Inoue Shinkai (a leading figure of Osaka shintō) were active in the 17th century and competed at the summit of shintō.

The first-generation Nagasone Kotetsu was renowned as a representative smith of Edo and received many commissions from hatamoto and daimyō houses. Also during the Edo period, the presentation of tachi to the shogun became ritualized, and the system of gohairyōtō (swords bestowed by the shogunal house on its retainers) was put in order. As a result, the works of leading smiths circulated widely through the shogunal and daimyō houses, and a system for ranking famous swords (meibutsu) was also developed.

Standardization of Sword Fittings and Their Symbolism of Authority

With the establishment of the Edo shogunate, rank also came to be expressed in the designs of sword fittings (tsuba, scabbards, hilts, menuki, fuchigashira, and so on). As warrior etiquette developed, the proper use of different swords for different occasions became fixed. The uchigatana (worn at the waist) and the wakizashi were the samurai's everyday swords, while the tachi was used for warrior ceremonies and for audiences at court.

Craftsmanship in tsuba designs was especially highly developed. From the Edo period, the workshops of sword-fittings metalworkers (Shōami, Gotō, Yokoya, Yanagawa, Ōtsuki, Ishiguro, and others) competed in style, and technical and artistic rivalry arose over official commissions from the shogunal and daimyō houses. The Shōami family inherited the tradition from the Momoyama period and advanced decorative techniques such as inlay and metal engraving to a high level. The Gotō family, generation after generation, maintained its position as official metalworkers to the shogunate, and the Gotō mitokoromono (kozuka, kōgai and menuki) were regarded as the highest-ranking personal ornaments of the warrior class.

Advancement of Sword Craftsmanship: From Weapon to Art

The peace of the Edo period (the stable era following the Genroku peace and the Kyōhō Reforms) paradoxically promoted the artistic development of swords. With the loss of opportunities for actual combat, swords strengthened their spiritual and artistic value as "symbols of the soul." During the Kyōhō era (1716–1736), under the order of the 8th shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, the Kyōhō Meibutsuchō (compiled and written by Hon'ami Kōchū) was compiled, systematically recording the lineages of famous swords scattered throughout the country. This undertaking was a pioneering effort to recognize and document Japanese swords not as "weapons" but as cultural properties akin to national treasures.

The transmission of smithing techniques also became increasingly institutionalized during the Edo period. The official swordsmiths of the various domains passed their techniques from parent to child and from master to disciple, and firmly established their schools. Throughout the Edo period, technical development progressed from shintō to shinshintō (the late Edo period), and Suishinshi Masahide (the Tenmei era), Taikei Naotane (the Bunka-Bunsei era), and Minamoto Kiyomaro (the late Edo period) carved their names into history as master smiths representing their respective eras.

The establishment of the Edo shogunate in Keichō 8 (1603) was not merely a political event but a decisive turning point in the history of Japanese sword culture. The legal definition of samurai status, the concentration of sword-smithing groups through sankin-kōtai, the flourishing of sword-fitting culture, and the emergence of swords as cultural properties, symbolized by the Kyōhō Meibutsuchō, were all nurtured under the Tokugawa system of rule that began in 1603.