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Battles, incidents, and historical events related to Japanese swords
32 events
Night of October 28, 1863 (Bunkyū 3, 9th month, 16th day; some sources say the 18th / October 30)
In the 9th month of Bunkyū 3 (1863), Kondō Isami and Hijikata Toshizō's faction purged Serizawa Kamo, a senior Mito-faction commander, at the Yagi residence in Mibu, Kyoto, in a struggle for control of the Shinsengumi. The incident established Kondō as sole commander and set the Shinsengumi on its path toward stricter internal discipline.
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18th day, 8th month, Bunkyū 3 (September 30, 1863)
On September 30, 1863 (Bunkyū 3/8/18), the Satsuma and Aizu domains, acting together, carried out a coup that expelled the radical sonnō-jōi faction centered on the Chōshū domain from Kyoto. Also called the "Bunkyū Coup," it set off the "Flight of the Seven Nobles" (Shichikyō-ochi), in which Sanjō Sanetomi and six other court nobles fled to Chōshū. As a coup that profoundly changed bakumatsu politics, it led on to the Kinmon Incident and the Chōshū expeditions.
May 30, 1863 (Bunkyū 3, 4th month, 13th day)
On May 30, 1863 (Bunkyū 3/4/13), Kiyokawa Hachirō, a sonnō jōi advocate of the late Bakumatsu period, was ambushed near Azabu Ichinohashi in Edo by shogunate assassins led by Sasaki Tadasaburō and was killed. Age at death: 34. The incident came after he led the Rōshigumi to Kyoto, declared sonnō jōi there, and returned to Edo. The rōshi who objected to this declaration and remained in Kyoto became the foundation of the Shinsengumi. An incident that symbolizes the political assassinations of the late Bakumatsu and the actual combat use of Japanese swords.
the 12th day of the 10th month of Bunkyū 3 (November 22, 1863)
An uprising in the 10th month of Bunkyū 3 (1863) at Ikuno in Tajima Province in which sonnō jōi activists led by Hirano Kuniomi, backing the court noble Sawa Nobuyoshi, rose in arms in response to the Tenchūgumi rebellion in Yamato. The revolt collapsed within two days under attack from allied domain forces and internal division, marking it as one of the earliest grassroots uprisings of the bakumatsu era.
17th day of the 8th month, Bunkyū 3 (1863)
In the 8th month of Bunkyū 3 (1863), the noble Nakayama Tadamitsu and rōnin Yoshimura Toratarō led an armed uprising in Gojō, Yamato Province, attacking the shogunate's magistrate office. Branded rebels after the August 18 coup in Kyoto canceled the planned imperial procession, the group was destroyed within about forty days.
Bunkyū 3 (1863) to Genji 1 (1864) (the period when Kondō's letters record his possession of a Kotetsu)
Kondō Isami, chief of the Shinsengumi, is said to have favored a sword by Nagasone Kotetsu, a master rated as saijō ō-wazamono. However, authentic Kotetsu works were already rare at the time and false signatures were rampant. The current accepted view is that the sword Kondō possessed was also a fake rather than an authentic work by Nagasone Okisato.
Bunkyū 3 (1863)
Formed in the 3rd year of Bunkyū (1863) from the rōshi band that the bakufu had recruited, the Shinsengumi stayed in Kyoto and was placed under the protection of the Aizu Domain, which held the post of Kyoto Shugoshoku (Kyoto Military Governor). It was a band of swordsmen that suppressed sonnō jōi shishi in Kyoto during the bakumatsu period. Under its kyokuchō (commander) Kondō Isami and fukuchō (deputy commander) Hijikata Toshizō, its members were feared for their unmatched elite swordsmanship and strict rules. As the period when the Japanese sword was last used in real combat, it holds a special place in the history of bakumatsu swordsmanship.
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.
15th day, 1st month, Bunkyū 2 (February 13, 1862)
On February 13, 1862 (Bunkyū 2/1/15), six Mito rōnin attacked Andō Nobumasa, a senior councilor (rōjū), outside the Sakashitamon Gate of Edo Castle. Though Nobumasa survived with minor wounds, the incident demonstrated the rising power of the sonnō-jōi faction and the weakening of bakufu authority, becoming a major political upheaval. The direct motivation is attributed to opposition to the kōbu gattai policy brought about by the imperial princess Kazunomiya's marriage to Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi.
October 6, 1868 (21st day, 8th month, Keiō 4)
On the 21st day of the 8th month of Keiō 4 (October 6, 1868), at Bonari Pass on the border between Aizu and Nihonmatsu domains, roughly 800 former shogunate and Aizu defenders under Ōtori Keisuke clashed with a New Government force of about 7,000 led by Itagaki Taisuke and Ijichi Masaji. The defenders were routed within half a day, opening the road for the New Government army to press directly on Aizu-Wakamatsu Castle — a battle regarded as having sealed the fate of the Aizu War.
September 15, 1868 (Keiō 4, 7th month, 29th day)
In the 7th month of Keiō 4 (1868), during the Boshin War, Meiji government forces attacked the Nihonmatsu domain, a member of the Ōuetsu Reppan Alliance. Facing a severe manpower shortage, the domain deployed boys aged roughly 12 to 17 as the "Nihonmatsu Boys' Corps," many of whom died in the fighting.
5th–8th months of Keiō 4 (1868)
From the 5th to the 8th month of Keiō 4 (1868), the Nagaoka domain of Echigo Province fought the new government forces as a member of the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei during the Boshin War. Chief retainer Kawai Tsugunosuke used Gatling guns to trouble the new government forces, waging a fierce battle that earned him the title “the last samurai.”
6th day, 3rd month, Keiō 4 (March 29, 1868)
On March 29, 1868 (Keiō 4/3/6), at Katsunuma in Kai Province (present-day Katsunuma, Kōshū, Yamanashi), the new government forces (Tosa domain troops and others) clashed with the former shogunate forces: the Shinsengumi, renamed the Kōyō Chintai-tai and led by Kondō Isami and Hijikata Toshizō. This battle of the Boshin War ended in a crushing defeat for the Kōyō Chintai-tai, owing to the disparity in troop numbers and the overwhelming superiority in firearms, and the Shinsengumi lost much of its strength.
January 27–30, 1868 (3rd–6th day, 1st month, Keiō 4)
In January 1868, the opening battle of the Boshin War pitted Satsuma-Chōshū forces against the Tokugawa shogunate army. The imperial coalition's modern weaponry overwhelmed the shogunate troops; Tokugawa Yoshinobu fled to Edo. The battle marked the final twilight of the samurai age and signaled the transition from blade to rifle in Japanese warfare.
January 1868 – June 1869 (Keiō 4, 1st month – Meiji 2, 5th month)
From Keiō 4 (1868) to Meiji 2 (1869), a civil war fought between the new government forces, centered on the Satsuma–Chōshū Alliance of the anti-Shogunate, pro-Restoration faction, and the former shogunate forces together with the Northern Alliance (Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei). It began with the Battle of Toba–Fushimi and ended with the Aizu War and the Hakodate War. Although firearms and cannon had become the main weapons, swords were still used in hand-to-hand combat in this civil war, which came before the Sword Abolition Edict.
December 13, 1867 (Keiō 3, 11th month, 18th day)
In the 11th month of Keiō 3 (1867), the Shinsengumi lured out and killed Itō Kashitarō and other members of the Goryō Eishi — a group that had split from the Shinsengumi to pursue anti-shogunate activities — at Aburanokōji in Kyoto. The Goryō Eishi were effectively destroyed in what became the Shinsengumi's last major internal purge.
15th day of the 11th month, Keiō 3 (1867)
On the night of the 15th day of the 11th month of Keiō 3 (1867), Sakamoto Ryōma, a central figure in the Satchō Alliance, was assassinated at the Ōmiya in Kawaramachi, Kyoto. He was 33 years old. His death came just after he had witnessed the success of the Taisei Hōkan, and it is remembered as a tragedy that struck just before the dawn of a new era. The identity of the culprits remains unconfirmed to this day, and the manner of his death, cut down by a sword, symbolizes the end of the Bakumatsu era, when swords and firearms coexisted.
18 July 1866 (Keiō 2/6/7) to 10 October 1866 (Keiō 2/9/2); the Kokura front continued until the peace agreement in the 1st month of Keiō 3 (1867)
In the summer of 1866 (Keiō 2), the shogunate ordered domains to send troops for a military campaign to subjugate the Chōshū domain. However, after the Satchō Alliance (mediated by Sakamoto Ryōma), the Chōshū domain's shotai (irregular units), such as the Kiheitai led by Takasugi Shinsaku and others, repelled the shogunal forces on every front. This showed the nation the limits of shogunal power and became the decisive turning point toward the following year's Taisei Hōkan (return of governing authority to the emperor) and the Meiji Restoration.
21st day of the 1st month, Keiō 2 (1866)
On the 21st day of the 1st month of Keiō 2 (March 7, 1866), a secret military agreement was concluded between the Satsuma and Chōshū clans through the mediation of Sakamoto Ryōma and Nakaoka Shintarō. One of the most influential political alliances in Japanese history, it enabled the overthrow of the shogunate and the Meiji Restoration.
1858–1859 (Ansei 5–6)
In 1858–1859, Tairō Ii Naosuke launched a sweeping purge of opponents who contested the shogunate's succession dispute and the Harris Treaty with the United States. Over 100 activists, scholars and daimyo were punished; Yoshida Shōin and Hashimoto Sanai were executed. The crackdown directly provoked the Sakuradamon assassination of Ii in 1860.
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.
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.
7th–12th month, Genji 1 (1864–1865)
In the 8th month of Genji 1 (1864), the Tokugawa shogunate organized a large-scale punitive expedition against the Chōshū Domain, which had fired on the imperial court during the Kinmon Incident. With Saigō Takamori serving as mediator, the Chōshū Domain apologized and submitted, and the campaign ended without bloodshed.