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Battles, incidents, and historical events related to Japanese swords
175 events
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.
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27th–28th day of the 8th month, 2nd year of Emperor Tenji (663)
In the 2nd year of Emperor Tenji (663), Wa supported the restoration of Baekje, clashed with the combined forces of Tang and Silla on the Korean Peninsula, and suffered a catastrophic defeat. This battle, the largest overseas military expedition in Wa history, ended in failure, and it marked the turning point at which Japan abandoned continental expansion and shifted to building its own state.
8th month, Tenbun 1 (1532)
In the 8th month of Tenbun 1 (1532), the combined forces of Hosokawa Harumoto, Rokkaku Sadayori, and the Hokke Ikki stormed and burned Yamashina Hongan-ji, the base of the Ikkō Ikki, destroying it. This was a decisive event of the Kyōroku–Tenbun Disturbance. It laid the groundwork for the Hongan-ji's move of its main base to Ōsaka and for the Ishiyama War.
9th month of Tenbun 9 (1540) – 1st month of Tenbun 10 (1541)
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 Izumo 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.
the 7th day of the 10th month of Tenbun 7 (October 29, 1538)
A 1538 battle at Kōnodai in Shimōsa Province between the allied forces of Ashikaga Yoshiaki, head of the Koyumi Kubō, and Satomi Yoshitaka against Hōjō Ujitsuna and his son Ujiyasu of the Later Hōjō. Yoshiaki's death in battle ended the Koyumi Kubō line and opened the way for Hōjō expansion into Shimōsa.
7th month, Tenbun 5 (1536)
In the 7th month of Tenbun 5 (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.
October 16, 1555 (Tenbun 24/10/1)
In the 10th month of Tenbun 24 (1555), Mōri Motonari of Aki defeated the great army of Sue Harukata, which had landed on the sacred island of Itsukushima in the Seto Inland Sea. He did so with a small force, using unorthodox tactics and naval power. This strategic victory set Motonari, known for the “Lesson of the Three Arrows,” on the path to hegemony over the Chūgoku region.
From the 9th day of the 9th month through the 1st day of the 10th month of Tenbun 19 (1550)
A battle fought from the 9th to the 10th month of Tenbun 19 (1550) between Takeda Harunobu (Shingen) and Murakami Yoshikiyo over Toishi Castle in the Chiisagata district of Shinano Province. The failed Takeda assault turned into a disastrous retreat that cost roughly 1,000 casualties and the life of the senior retainer Yokota Takamatsu, in what is known as Shingen's second major defeat, after the Battle of Uedahara. The following year, Sanada Yukitaka took the castle for the Takeda without a fight through stratagem.
19th day of the 3rd month, Tenbun 17 (1548)
On the 19th day of the 3rd month of Tenbun 17 (1548), a battle was fought at Azukizaka in Nukata District, Mikawa Province (present-day Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture). Oda Nobuhide of Owari clashed with Imagawa Yoshimoto, who governed Suruga and Tōtōmi, and whose army was led by Taigen Sessai. It took place amid a contest between the Oda clan of Owari and the Imagawa clan of Suruga over Mikawa, with Matsudaira Hirotada, lord of Okazaki Castle, caught in between. The Imagawa victory strengthened Imagawa dominance in Mikawa. The two sides are said to have fought at the same location twice, and the 1548 battle is also called the “Second Battle of Azukizaka.”
2nd month, Tenbun 17 (1548)
The Battle of Uedahara was fought in the 2nd month of Tenbun 17 (1548) at Uedahara in Chiisagata District, Shinano Province (present-day Ueda, Nagano Prefecture), where Takeda Shingen and Murakami Yoshikiyo clashed. The Takeda army suffered a severe defeat, and Shingen himself was wounded in two places, an unusually hard-fought ordeal. For the Takeda army, which lost two senior retainers, Itagaki Nobukata and Amari Torayasu, it is remembered as one of the most humiliating defeats in the history of the Sengoku period.
22nd day of the 9th month, Tenbun 16 (1547; the year is disputed)
On the 22nd day of the 9th month of Tenbun 16 (November 4, 1547), Oda Nobuhide of Owari invaded Mino and burned the castle town below Inabayama, only to be routed by a counterattack led by Saito Dosan at Kanoguchi, according to the common account. The two houses are said to have made peace afterward, leading to the marriage of Nobuhide's heir Nobunaga and Dosan's daughter Kicho (Nohime). The year is disputed: a 1544 (Tenbun 13) theory and a multiple-clashes theory also exist, and the 1547 dating is used here as the standard account.
May 19, 1546 (20th day, 4th month, Tenbun 15)
In Tenbun 15 (1546), Hōjō Ujiyasu reportedly carried out a night surprise attack with only 8,000 troops against a besieging force that war chronicles put at 80,000. It was the largest surprise battle in Kantō. Amid a three-way struggle among the Hōjō, Uesugi and Ashikaga, Ujiyasu's bold strategy destroyed the combined army of Uesugi Tomosada and Ashikaga Haruuji and established Hōjō supremacy in Kantō.
6th month, Tenbun 11 (1542) – 9th month, Tenbun 17 (1548)
From 1542 to 1548, Date clan head Date Tanemune and his son and heir Harumune clashed over succession and foreign alliance policy, escalating into a six-year war that split the daimyo of the Ōu region into two camps. Mediation by shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru brought peace; Harumune relocated the clan's base to Yonezawa Castle and reorganized its rule, laying the groundwork for Date Masamune's later unification of Ōshū.
Tenbun 10 – Kōji 2 (1541–1556)
The rise of Saitō Dōsan (Toshimasa), a retainer of the Toki family, the shugo (military governor) of Mino Province, who took control of Mino by driving out the shugo Toki Yorinori, until he was killed by his son Yoshitatsu in 1556. The story of an oil merchant who seized a province in a single lifetime comes from Edo-period war chronicles and similar works; today the takeover is generally seen as the work of two generations, Dōsan and his father Nagai Shinzaemon-no-jō.
19th day of the 2nd month, Tenpō 8 (1837)
On March 25, 1837 (19th day of the 2nd month, Tenpō 8), Ōshio Heihachirō, a former aide of the Osaka East Magistrate's office, led an uprising in Osaka under the banner of saving the people. As the largest city revolt of the Edo period, it profoundly influenced the late-shogunate loyalists.
September 5–8, 1864 (Genji 1/8/5–8)
A war fought from Bunkyū 3 to Genji 1 (1863–1864), in which the four-nation allied fleet of Britain, the United States, France, and the Netherlands launched a retaliatory attack on Shimonoseki after the Chōshū Domain fired on foreign ships. On September 5, 1864 (Genji 1/8/5), a 17-ship allied fleet subdued the Chōshū batteries in the Kanmon Strait with a concentrated bombardment, and the Chōshū forces suffered a crushing defeat. The war made the Chōshū Domain realize the impossibility of jōi (expelling foreigners), and it became a turning point toward the overthrow of the shogunate and the Meiji Restoration.
August 20, 1864 (19th day, 7th month, Genji 1)
In the 7th month of Genji 1 (1864), Chōshū domain samurai clashed with the combined forces of Satsuma and Aizu at the Hamaguri-gomon, one of the kinmon gates of the Kyoto Imperial Palace. It was the greatest street battle of the Bakumatsu period. The "Genji Fire (Dondon-yake)" burned some 30,000 houses in the city of Kyoto, and the Chōshū domain was designated an "imperial enemy." The Shinsengumi joined the suppression. This was the turning point at which the political conflict of the Bakumatsu period led to armed clash.
27th day of the 3rd month, Genji 1 (May 2, 1864) — rising at Mount Tsukuba; surrender in Echizen, 17th day of the 12th month, Genji 1 (January 14, 1865)
On the 27th day of the 3rd month of Genji 1 (May 2, 1864), the radical loyalist faction of Mito domain known as the Tengu-tō, led by Fujita Koshirō, raised an insurrection at Mount Tsukuba, clashing with shogunate forces and pro-shogunate domains. After a desperate march toward Kyoto under Takeda Kōunsai, the group surrendered at Tsuruga in Echizen Province; more than 350 members including Takeda Kōunsai were executed. The rebellion was the tragic denouement of the Mito school's expulsionist ideology played out in civil war within the domain that had originated it.
March 22, 1185 (19th day, 2nd month, Genryaku 2)
In the 2nd month of Genryaku 2 (1185), Minamoto no Yoshitsune launched a surprise attack on the Taira forces at Yashima on Shikoku, an important battle of the Genpei War. The crossing through the storm, Nasu no Yoichi's shooting of the fan target, and Akushichibyōe Kagekiyo's pulling of the shikoro: the fighting on both sea and land at the water's edge showed Yoshitsune's brilliant generalship and paved the way to Dan-no-ura.
8th month of Genkō 1 (1331) – 5th month of Genkō 3 (1333)
In Genkō 1 (1331), Emperor Go-Daigo raised an army at Kasagi to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate. The brilliant defensive stand of Kusunoki Masashige at Chihaya Castle pinned down the massive shogunate forces, buying time until Ashikaga Takauji and Nitta Yoshisada defected. In Genkō 3 (1333), Kamakura fell. The 140-year Kamakura shogunate was destroyed, triggering the Kenmu Restoration and ultimately the Nanbokuchō civil war.
June 20 – July 4, 1333 (8th–22nd day, 5th month, Genkō 3)
A historic battle in which, in the 5th month of Genkō 3 (1333), Nitta Yoshisada raised an army in response to the call to topple the bakufu issued by Emperor Go-Daigo's imperial side and took Kamakura, the stronghold of the Kamakura bakufu. The miracle of the receding tide at Inamuragasaki and the mass suicide of the Hōjō clan (the Tōshōji Battle) are recorded in Japanese history as the first turning point of the age of warriors, marking the fall of the Kamakura bakufu.
June 19, 1333 (Genkō 3, 5th month, 7th day)
On the 7th day of the 5th month of Genkō 3 (June 19, 1333), Ashikaga Takauji raised his banner against the shogunate and seized the Rokuhara Tandai in Kyoto. The collapse of this administrative center—the shogunate's 'eyes in the west,' which had dominated Kyoto for over 110 years since the Jōkyū Rebellion (1221)—became the decisive prelude to the Kamakura shogunate's fall on the 22nd day of the same month. This marked the end of the golden age of sword-craft in the late Kamakura period when Masamune flourished, and heralded the transition to the age of the ōdachi of the Northern and Southern Courts era.
2nd–5th month, 1333 CE (Genkō 3)
In 1333 (Genkō 3), Kusunoki Masashige held Chihaya Castle, built on the natural fortifications of Mount Kongō (in present-day Chihaya Akasaka Village, Osaka Prefecture), with only a few hundred troops against the Kamakura shogunate's tens of thousands. This siege, waged through stratagem and unwavering resolve, tied down the shogunate's forces for several months. While this struggle unfolded, Nitta Yoshisada attacked Kamakura itself, leading to the shogunate's collapse. The Battle of Chihaya Castle remains deeply engraved in Japanese sword and military-chronicle culture as a miraculous siege—testament to how tactical ingenuity against overwhelming numerical odds can alter the course of history.
July 30, 1570 (Genki 1, 6th month, 28th day)
In the 6th month of Genki 1 (1570), the allied forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu clashed with those of Azai Nagamasa and Asakura Yoshikage in a pitched battle at the banks of the Anegawa River in Ōmi Province. The fierce efforts of Tokugawa Ieyasu's retainer Sakakibara Yasumasa and others turned the tide of battle, and the Oda-Tokugawa forces achieved victory. This battle accelerated the collapse of the Azai-Asakura alliance.