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Battles, incidents, and historical events related to Japanese swords
6 events
February 26–29, 1936 (Shōwa 11)
In the predawn hours of February 26, Shōwa 11 (1936), young officers of the Army's Kōdōha rose in revolt, leading approximately 1,500 troops. They assassinated senior government figures Takahashi Korekiyo, Saito Makoto, and Watanabe Jotaro, and occupied the Nagatachō district of Tokyo, an attempted coup. In response to the Emperor's firm determination to suppress it, the rebel units surrendered on the 29th, and the officers were executed by firing squad after trial by a special court-martial. The tachi-style military sword (Type 94 guntō), introduced two years before the incident, symbolized the spirit of imperial-restorationist ultranationalism of the time.
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7th month, Keian 4 (1651)
In 1651 (Keian 4), a group of rōnin led by the military strategist Yui Shōsetsu and the spearmanship master Marubashi Chūya attempted an abortive coup to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate. Seeing opportunity in the death of the third shogun Iemitsu and the succession of the young Ietsuna, they plotted an uprising, but it was exposed in advance through an informant. Shōsetsu took his own life at Sunpu, and Chūya was executed by crucifixion. The affair exposed the destitution of the masterless samurai produced in the age of peace and prompted a reform of shogunal policy toward the rōnin.
17th day of the 11th month, Kōan 8 (1285)
In the 11th month of Kōan 8 (1285), a political upheaval occurred when Adachi Yasumori, a powerful gokenin of the Kamakura Shogunate, was overthrown and destroyed by Taira no Yoritsuna, the internal administrator. While the Hōjō Tokusō autocratic system became firmly established, it deepened divisions within gokenin society and became a distant cause of the Shogunate's decline.
Discovered on the 1st day of the 6th month of Angen 3 (1177); those implicated were punished from the 6th through the 7th month of the same year
In 1177, close attendants of the retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa gathered at a mountain villa in Shishigatani, Higashiyama, Kyoto, to plot the overthrow of the Taira clan. The plot was betrayed by Tada Yukitsuna and collapsed before it could be carried out; its leaders were executed or exiled, and the rift between Taira no Kiyomori and Go-Shirakawa became irreparable.
Uprising on the night of the 15th day of the 12th month of Genji 1 (January 12, 1865); after fighting at Edō, Ōta, and Akamura through the 1st–2nd months of Genji 2 (1865), Hagi Castle was seized on the 14th day of the 2nd month of Genji 2 (March 11, 1865)
On the night of the 15th day of the 12th month of Genji 1 (January 12, 1865), Takasugi Shinsaku led a force of just 84 men in an uprising at Kōzan-ji temple in Chōfu against the conservative "junronha" faction that had taken control of Chōshū domain and submitted to the shogunate. Joined by the domain's irregular militia units, the rebels won a string of victories and seized Hagi Castle by the 2nd month of Genji 2 (1865), swinging Chōshū policy decisively toward overthrowing the shogunate.
1221 (Jōkyū 3)
In Jōkyū 3 (1221), Retired Emperor Go-Toba raised an army to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate but was crushingly defeated by the shogunate's overwhelming forces. The retired emperor was exiled to Oki, and the authority of the imperial court declined sharply. It was the upheaval that decisively established warrior rule under the Kamakura shogunate.