New Arrivals — Browse our catalog for the latest authentic Japanese sword arrivals. Browse →
July 11, 1585 (Tenshō 13, 7th month, 11th day)
Kyoto Imperial Court (investiture); later the Jurakudai palace
Forces
Toyotomi Administration
Imperial Court
About 11 min read
On July 11, 1585 (Tenshō 13), Toyotomi Hideyoshi assumed the position of Kanpaku (Imperial Regent). The Kanpaku, along with the Sessho, represented the supreme offices of the imperial court, assisting an adult emperor in the management of all state affairs. Since the Kamakura period, this position had been monopolized by the main line of the Fujiwara clan (the regental families). The fact that a man born as the son of a peasant in Owari Province had attained this position represented an upheaval that shook the very foundations of the medieval aristocratic order.
Behind Hideyoshi's acquisition of the position of Kanpaku lay skillful court politics. The position of Seii-Taishōgun (Shogun) required Minamoto lineage (following the precedent of the Ashikaga shogunate), and thus the path of establishing a shogunate as head of a warrior house was closed to Hideyoshi. He therefore became the adopted son (yūshi) of the prominent court noble Konoe Maehisa, thereby gaining entry into the ranks of the regental families.
On July 11, 1585 (Tenshō 13), succeeding Jōjō Akizane's retirement, he formally received the imperial appointment as Kanpaku. The following year (1586, Tenshō 14), he also assumed the position of Daijō-daijin (Prime Minister), and was granted the clan name Toyotomi by the imperial court. The fact that a man of peasant origin had come to monopolize the highest offices of the Ritsuryō state symbolized the collapse of the medieval hierarchical order.
At the time of his appointment as Kanpaku in 1585 (Tenshō 13), Hideyoshi had already subjugated the Kinai, Tōkai, Hokuriku, and Chūgoku regions, but independent powers remained: the Chōsokabe in Shikoku, the Shimazu in Kyūshū, the Later Hōjō in Kantō, and the daimyō of Ōshū.
In 1585 (Tenshō 13), Hideyoshi dispatched an army of over 100,000 troops to Shikoku and brought Chōsokabe Motochika to submission (the Shikoku Campaign). From 1586 to 1587 (Tenshō 14–15), he launched the Kyūshū Campaign, forcing Shimazu Yoshihisa of Satsuma to surrender. In 1590 (Tenshō 18), the Siege of Odawara destroyed the Hōjō clan (Hōjō Ujimasa and Ujinao), and through the Disposition of Ōshū in the same year, he brought the daimyō of Ōshū, including Date Masamune, into subjection. With this, the unification of the realm was complete.
Of all the policies Hideyoshi implemented during his unification campaigns, none was more closely connected to the history of the Japanese sword than the Katanagari-rei (Sword Hunt Edict). In the 7th month of 1588 (Tenshō 16), Hideyoshi issued an order throughout the realm demanding that peasants, commoners, and temples surrender swords, wakizashi, bows, spears, firearms, and other weapons.
The ostensible reason for the Sword Hunt Edict was that "the confiscated weapons would be melted into nails and clamps for the construction of the Great Buddha," connecting it to the construction project of the Great Buddha at Hōkoku-ji in Kyoto, thereby attempting to mitigate peasant resistance. However, the actual purpose was to prevent peasant uprisings (ikki) and to complete the separation of warrior and farmer classes (hei-nō bunri).
Before the Sword Hunt Edict, it was common for peasants to carry swords, and it was not unusual for daimyō and domain lords to incorporate peasants as semi-military fighters into their forces. Through the Sword Hunt Edict, the boundary "one who bears a sword = a samurai" became legally defined, and the class distinction between samurai and peasants was clearly separated (hei-nō bunri). This became the prototype for the status system (shi-nō-kō-shō) of the later Edo shogunate.
The Sword Hunt Edict fundamentally changed the social significance of the Japanese sword. It is said that many of the swords and blades confiscated from peasants and temples were of poor quality. On the other hand, swords possessed by samurai were granted a privileged status as "the soul of the warrior house," and their value and significance increased.
Hideyoshi himself was known to be an enthusiastic collector of swords and blades. The "Ichigohiburi" (One Strike, One Sword), a tachi attributed to Awataguchi Yoshimitsu, is said to have been owned by Hideyoshi and is now an imperial treasure (in the imperial collection). The "Heshikiri Hasebe," a blade that Oda Nobunaga granted to Kuroda Takahide (Kuroda Kanbei) and which was subsequently transmitted through the Kuroda family, is now widely known as a treasured item in the collection of the Fukuoka City Museum. The famous swords admired by the ruler of the realm under Hideyoshi's regime were subsequently inherited as family treasures by the great daimyō houses, greatly developing the appreciation culture of the Japanese sword.
The political system that Hideyoshi established, following his death in 1598 (Keichō 3), gave rise to internal strife within the Toyotomi family and the rise of Tokugawa Ieyasu, eventually leading to the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) and the Fall of Osaka (1615), resulting in the extinction of the Toyotomi clan. However, the framework established by Hideyoshi — the separation of warrior and farmer, the Sword Hunt Edict, and the status system — was inherited by the Edo shogunate, and the system whereby only samurai could bear swords was maintained for 265 years. In this sense, Hideyoshi's appointment as Kanpaku and the completion of his unification of the realm represent a historical turning point that determined the status of the Japanese sword as the exclusive possession of the samurai.