New Arrivals — Browse our catalog for the latest authentic Japanese sword arrivals. Browse →
Battles, incidents, and historical events related to Japanese swords
17 events
12th day of the 6th month, Kōgyoku 4 (645)
In the 6th month of 645, Prince Naka no Ōe and Nakatomi no Kamatari assassinated Soga no Iruka within the court. One of the earliest documented political assassinations using ancient Japanese straight swords, it is a pivotal event in the history of the sword's origins.
Read more →
January 15, 1181 (Jishō 4, 12th month, 28th day)
On the 28th day of the 12th month of Jishō 4 (1180), Taira forces under Taira no Shigehira, sent by Taira no Kiyomori, attacked Nara, and most of the main halls of Tōdai-ji and Kōfuku-ji were destroyed by fire. The article covers the background, the advance headquartered at Hannya-ji, the damage to the Great Buddha Hall, the differing casualty figures, and the reconstruction led by Chōgen.
19th day, 5th month, Eiroku 8 (June 17, 1565)
An incident in which, on the 19th day of the 5th month of Eiroku 8 (1565), forces of the Miyoshi Sanningumi and Matsunaga Hisamichi raided the palace of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru and killed him. Records state that Yoshiteru fought bravely to the end, wielding a naginata and swords himself, and in later ages an anecdote arose that he had stuck several famous swords into the tatami and fought while switching from one to the next. Yoshiteru's mother, Keijuin, also killed herself on the same day. Known as the death most closely tied to swords in Japanese history, this historical event symbolizes the life of Yoshiteru, who was called the “Swordmaster Shogun.”
6th day of the 2nd month, Eiroku 7 (1564)
In the 2nd month of Eiroku 7 (1564), Takenaka Shigeharu (Hanbei) seized the seemingly impregnable Inabayama Castle with just sixteen men. Born of indignation at his lord Saitō Tatsuoki's incompetence, this audacious coup became the founding legend of Hanbei's reputation as one of the Sengoku era's supreme strategists.
March 2, 1657 (Meireki 3, 1st month, 18th–20th day of the lunisolar calendar; the fire lasted until about March 4)
A catastrophic fire on the 18th–20th days of the 1st month of Meireki 3 (March 2–4, 1657) that consumed much of Edo. The keep and main compounds of Edo Castle burned and the keep was never rebuilt. Damage to famous swords held by the shogunal house and daimyo families is also recounted, linking the fire to sword-history concepts such as fire-damaged blades, re-tempering, and "lost meibutsu."
17th day of the 10th month, Bunji 1 (1185)
In the 10th month of Bunji 1 (1185), Tosabō Shōshun, acting on Minamoto no Yoritomo's orders, launched a night raid on Minamoto no Yoshitsune's residence at Horikawa in Kyoto, but Yoshitsune personally fought back and repelled the attack. The incident made the rift between the half-brothers irrevocable; Yoshitsune obtained an imperial edict to subjugate Yoritomo but failed to raise an army, fled to Ōshū, and met his tragic end at Koromogawa in 1189.
30th day of the intercalary 4th month, Bunji 5 (1189)
On the intercalary 30th day of the 4th month of Bunji 5 (1189), Minamoto no Yoshitsune, cornered by the pursuit forces of his elder brother Minamoto no Yoritomo, killed his wife and children at Koromogawa no Tachi in Hiraizumi, Ōshū, then took his own life. He was thirty-one years old. The tragic end of the hero who destroyed the Heike at Dannoura gave birth to the cultural concept of hōgan-biiki (sympathy for the underdog), and together with the legends of famous swords said to be associated with Yoshitsune, continues to be passed down to the present day.
26th day of the 7th month, Bunmei 18 (August 25, 1486)
Bunmei 18 (1486): the assassination of Ōta Dōkan, builder of Edo Castle, who was murdered by his lord Uesugi Sadamasa. The untimely death of this renowned general, accomplished in both arms and letters, threw the political situation of the Kantō into turmoil and became a remote cause of the rise of the Later Hōjō clan and the opening of the Kantō Sengoku period.
September 14, 1862 (Bunkyū 2, 8th month, 21st day)
The incident in which Charles Lennox Richardson, a British merchant who rode his horse into the procession of Shimazu Hisamitsu, father of the Satsuma domain lord, was slain by Satsuma samurai on the 21st day of the 8th month of Bunkyū 2 (1862). Known as a representative case of foreigners being killed with Japanese swords, it was the direct cause of the Anglo-Satsuma War the following year. It was one of the greatest diplomatic crises of the late Edo period, in which the blade of jōi provoked an international problem.
May 21, 1862 (Bunkyū 2/4/23)
In the 4th month of Bunkyū 2 (1862), the Satsuma domain carried out a sword fight between its own samurai at the Teradaya inn in Fushimi, Kyoto. Shimazu Hisamitsu, the kokufu (the lord's father), sent his own samurai to suppress and purge the radical samurai of the sonnō jōi faction. This was a separate incident from the Teradaya Incident of 1866 (Keiō 2), in which Sakamoto Ryōma was attacked.
The 2nd day of the 9th month of Kennin 3 (October 8, 1203): Hiki Yoshikazu killed; the Hiki clan destroyed the same day in the battle at Kogosho
In the 9th month of Kennin 3 (1203), Hiki Yoshikazu — who wielded great influence as the maternal in-law of the second Kamakura shogun, Minamoto no Yoriie — was murdered at Hojo Tokimasa's Nagoe residence in a plot masterminded by Tokimasa, and the Hiki clan was destroyed after being besieged at the Koshogo. Yoriie was removed from the shogunate and confined at Shuzen-ji in Izu, where he died the following year. The incident marked the Hojo clan's seizure of control over the shogunate's government.
6th month, Tenshō 10 (1582)
In the 6th month of 1582, immediately after the Honnōji Incident, Tokugawa Ieyasu made a desperate escape from Sakai to Okazaki Castle in Mikawa via Iga and Kōka, guarded by Hattori Hanzō. This perilous journey became a founding legend of the Tokugawa house and a decisive step toward Ieyasu's eventual unification of Japan.
9th month, 1st day, Tenbun 20 (September 30, 1551)
In Tenbun 20 (1551), Sue Harukata, a senior retainer of the Ouchi clan, rebelled and drove Ouchi Yoshitaka, the great cultural patron of western Japan, to take his own life at Daineiji temple in Nagato. With the fall of the Ouchi, who had carried on the Japan–Ming trade, the official kangō (tally) trade also came to an end.
1833-1838 (Tenpō 4 to Tenpō 9)
The Tenpō Famine, a large-scale famine that struck all of Japan from Tenpō 4 (1833) to Tenpō 9 (1838). Continued crop failures caused by cooling weather led to serious damage, especially in the Ōu region. Across Japan the population fell by about 1.25 million, and in Ōsaka it is said that from 150 to more than 200 people starved to death each day. Amid the social unrest caused by hunger, large-scale uprisings and rebellions such as the Ōshio Heihachirō Rebellion and the Tenpō Disturbance followed one after another, accelerating social turmoil toward the late Edo period. It was a grave incident that exposed the declining governing capacity of the Tokugawa shogunate and a fundamental crisis of the Edo-period system.
5th month, Tenpō 10 (1839) — the exact day of the arrests is not firmly established
In the 5th month of Tenpo 10 (1839) the shogunate arrested and punished the Western-learning scholars Watanabe Kazan, Takano Choei and others in an act of suppression of speech. Behind it lay criticism of the shogunate's policy of repelling foreign ships after the Morrison Incident of 1837, in Kazan's Shinkiron and Choei's Boshin Yume Monogatari, and the inspector Torii Yozo is said to have led the crackdown on the circle of Western-learning scholars, the Shoshikai. Kazan was placed under house confinement and Choei was sentenced to life imprisonment. The affair reveals a clash among warrior society, Western learning and shogunal politics.
July 12, 1441 (Kakitsu 1, 6th month, 24th day)
In the 6th month of Kakitsu 1 (1441), Akamatsu Mitsusuke, daimyo of Harima, Bizen, and Mimasaka provinces, assassinated Shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori by inviting him to his residence—a political coup. It arose from backlash against Yoshinori's reign of terror, which was called "Terror of All Men." Mitsusuke was defeated by the shogunate army shortly after, and both the power of the daimyo and the authority of the shogun were greatly shaken.
1333–1336 CE (Genkō 3 – Kenmu 3)
Emperor Go-Daigo's brief imperial restoration (1333–1336) following the fall of the Kamakura shogunate. The conflict between loyalists like Kusunoki Masashige and Ashikaga Takauji's revolt led to the Nanbokuchō split and the rise of the Ashikaga shogunate.