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Battles, incidents, and historical events related to Japanese swords
27 events
1 April 1933 (Shōwa 8)
In 1933 (Shōwa 8) the Law concerning the Preservation of Important Art Objects took effect to stop the outflow of art overseas. It certified items of national-treasure quality not yet designated, and swords became one of the most heavily certified categories. It ran until 1949.
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1929 (Shōwa 4)
In 1929 (Shōwa 4) the National Treasures Preservation Law replaced the Ancient Temples and Shrines Preservation Law. Designation was no longer limited to temple and shrine owners, opening the way for privately held swords. It lasted until the 1950 Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties.
1958 (Showa 33)
The Firearms and Swords Control Law of 1958 generally prohibits possession of swords but allows swords of artistic value to be owned if registered with a prefectural board of education. It is the foundation of the system under which postwar Japanese swords circulate as registered art objects.
1955 – present
In 1954, the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties was revised to establish a system for certifying Holders of Important Intangible Cultural Property (commonly known as Living National Treasures), and the first certifications were made in 1955. Sword-forging techniques were eligible for certification from the outset. The first certified individual was Takahashi Sadatsugu (1955), followed by Miyairi Akihira (1963) and others. After surviving the threat of seizure by GHQ following the war and being officially defined as “cultural property,” the craft of the Japanese swordsmith was given the state's highest form of recognition through this system. It was carried on by successive Living National Treasures, including Sumitani Masamine and Amata Akitsugu, and laid the foundation for modern sword culture.
Promulgated 30 May 1950; in force 29 August 1950
Prompted by the 1949 fire in the Kondo of Horyu-ji, the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties was enacted as a member-initiated bill and took effect on 29 August 1950. The earlier National Treasures Preservation Law and the law on important art objects were repealed, moving the protection of art and craft works including Japanese swords into a new framework.
February 1948 (Showa 23)
In February 1948 (Shōwa 23), under the GHQ Occupation of Japan, the Nihon Bijutsu Tōken Hozon Kyōkai (Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords, a public interest incorporated foundation; NBTHK, abbreviated Nittōho in Japanese) was established as a specialist organization. It was founded to counter the crisis of mass destruction and seizure of swords in postwar Japan by positioning swords not as 'weapons' but as 'art and craft objects.' It has functioned as a check on the loss of cultural properties caused by the postwar sword destruction orders, and to this day it remains the central institution for the preservation, appraisal, and honoring of Japanese swords.
Shōwa 20s to Shōwa 30 (early 1950s)
After the war, individual swordsmiths approved by the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Properties were permitted to forge swords, and a practice that had nearly been severed under the Occupation was publicly sanctioned once more. This approval system, together with the first Living National Treasure designation and the start of the Shinsaku Meitō Ten in 1955, formed the framework of the postwar revival of the Japanese sword.
August 1945 – 1948
In August 1945, GHQ ordered the confiscation of all weapons across Japan, threatening hundreds of thousands of Japanese swords with destruction. The campaign by sword scholars and cultural figures to argue that swords were art objects — not weapons — resulted in the founding of the Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords (NBTHK) in 1948, establishing the legal and cultural framework that protects Japanese swords to this day.
1945–1946 (Showa 20–21)
From late 1945 into 1946 (Shōwa 20–21), the Honjō Masamune, a sword treasured by the Tokugawa family and one of the finest blades in the history of the Japanese sword, went missing after being seized by the GHQ (General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers). A national-treasure-class blade said to have been forged by Masamune, the Kamakura-period swordsmith who perfected the Sōshū tradition, was permanently lost in the postwar confusion, and its whereabouts remain unknown to this day.
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.
December 1868 – June 1869 (Meiji 1, 10th month – Meiji 2, 5th month)
In 1869, the last battle of the Boshin War was fought at Goryōkaku fortress in Hakodate, Hokkaido. Enomoto Takeaki and Hijikata Toshizō led the remnant shogunate forces against the new Meiji government army. Hijikata died from a bullet wound in the final days. As one of the last large-scale organized battles involving Japanese swords, Hakodate stands at the threshold of tradition and modernity.
March 28, 1876 (Meiji 9)
On March 28, 1876 (Meiji 9), Grand Council of State Proclamation No. 38, the Haitōrei (Sword Abolition Edict), was issued. This single proclamation banned everyone except military personnel and police officers from wearing swords. It removed the Japanese sword, long the symbol of the samurai's soul, from the streets, provoked the anger of the shizoku, and became the fuse for the Satsuma Rebellion the following year. It was also a landmark proclamation, marking the starting point of the modern sword culture that transformed the Japanese sword from a weapon into art and cultural property.
October 27–31, 1876 (Meiji 9)
In October 1876, roughly 400 shizoku (former samurai) of the old Akizuki domain (present-day Akizuki, Asakura City, Fukuoka) rose up in protest of the sword abolition edict and the abolition of hereditary stipends, in response to the Shinpūren Rebellion in Kumamoto. Led by Miyazaki Shanosuke and Imamura Hyakuhachirō, the rebels tried and failed to coordinate with the Toyotsu shizoku, and were suppressed within days by government troops from the Kokura garrison. Alongside the Shinpūren, Hagi, and Saga rebellions, it is counted among the shizoku uprisings that erupted around Meiji 9.
October–December 1876 (Meiji 9)
In October of Meiji 9 (1876), a shizoku rebellion broke out in Hagi in Nagato Province (present-day Hagi City, Yamaguchi Prefecture) against the Meiji government. It was led by Maebara Issei, one of the leading figures of the Restoration, and its members were shizoku of the former Chōshū Domain. Against a background of shizoku discontent over the Sword Abolition Edict (Haitōrei) of March that year and the abolition of samurai stipends (chitsuroku shobun), among other measures, the rebels rose in response to the Shinpūren (Keishintō) Rebellion in Kumamoto and the Akizuki Rebellion in the former Akizuki Domain. They organized an approximately 200-strong Junkoku-gun ('Army of Martyrs for the Nation'), but within a little over a week they were suppressed by government forces, and Maebara and the other leaders were executed. The incident was a precursor to the Satsuma Rebellion (Seinan War) of the following year.
February 1874 (Meiji 7)
In February 1874 (Meiji 7), former state councilor Etō Shinpei and Shima Yoshitake led shizoku (former samurai) of the old Saga domain in a rebellion against the Meiji government. Etō's Seikan-tō (Invade-Korea Party), which had left the government after the seikanron political crisis, joined with Shima's Yūkoku-tō (Patriotic Party), which sought a feudal restoration, and they seized Saga Castle. Yet in the face of the government's swift response—leveraging the telegraph and steamships—the revolt was crushed within weeks, and Etō and Shima were beheaded and their heads displayed. It was the forerunner of the large-scale shizoku revolts of the early Meiji era.
October 14–25, 1873 (Meiji 6)
The 1873 crisis in which the government split over sending an envoy to Korea, the cabinet meetings broke down in October, and the five councillors Saigō Takamori, Itagaki Taisuke, Gotō Shōjirō, Etō Shinpei and Soejima Taneomi resigned. The article follows the dates from the caretaker government during the Iwakura Mission to the October events and their consequences for the samurai rebellions and the freedom and popular rights movement.
9th day of the 8th month, Meiji 4 (23 September 1871)
On the 9th day of the 8th month of Meiji 4 (23 September 1871) the Dajokan made hairstyles a matter of personal choice and made it optional for nobles and former samurai to go without swords. It was a permission rather than a mandate, unlike the Haitorei of 1876.
February 8, 1904 – September 5, 1905
In Meiji 37–38 (1904–1905), the Japanese Empire fought a large-scale land and naval war against the Russian Empire. This war fundamentally changed the positioning of the Japanese sword. The sword, which after the Haitōrei (sword abolition edict) had often been regarded as "unnecessary for practical combat," was reappraised as a "spiritual symbol of bushidō" against the backdrop of the exploits of Nogi Maresuke and Tōgō Heihachirō and the Japanese military's victory in the Russo-Japanese War, and for officers' military swords, the practice of fitting a Japanese blade into a Western-style mounting became established.
1897 (Meiji 30)
In 1897 (Meiji 30), Japan promulgated the Ancient Temples and Shrines Preservation Law, which protected the buildings and treasures of old temples and shrines. It was the starting point of the national-treasure system under which swords were later designated.
February 15, 1869 (Meiji 2/1/5)
Confucian scholar Yokoi Shonan was assassinated on February 15, 1869 (Meiji 2/1/5) when six exclusionist (jōi) men, including Totsukawa gōshi, ambushed his palanquin on Teramachi-dōri in Kyoto. He was 61 years old. Shonan, who had been invited to serve as san'yo (councilor) in the new Meiji government, was struck down by gunfire and sword blows and died. This was the assassination of a senior figure of the new Meiji government, an enlightened proponent of opening the country who fell to the blades of the exclusionists. It is also an incident that demonstrates the use of Japanese swords in actual combat on the eve of the Haitōrei (the Sword Abolishment Edict).
1896 (Meiji 29), first advanced by Imamura Chōga in the pages of the Yomiuri Shimbun
In 1896, the sword connoisseur Imamura Chōga argued in the pages of the Yomiuri Shimbun that the swordsmith Masamune either never existed or was not the master craftsman he was reputed to be, touching off a controversy that drew in the entire Japanese sword world. Later discoveries of genuinely signed blades and historical documents overturned Imamura's evidentiary basis, and the thesis is rejected by scholarship today.
System established 1890 (Meiji 23); swordsmiths appointed April 4, 1906 (Meiji 39)
In Meiji 23 (1890), the Imperial Household Ministry established the Teishitsu Gigei-in (Imperial Household Artist system), creating a framework to protect and encourage Japan's outstanding fine arts and crafts artisans under the honor of the Imperial Household. Thirty years after the Sword Abolition Edict (Haitōrei) of Meiji 9 (1876) caused demand for Japanese swords to plummet, and 16 years after the system's establishment, on 4 April 1906, two swordsmiths, Gassan Sadakazu (first generation) and Miyamoto Kanenori, were appointed as Imperial Household Artists, officially protecting and recognizing the traditional techniques of Japanese sword-making, which had been on the verge of decline.
May 14, 1878 (Meiji 11)
Minister of Home Affairs Ōkubo Toshimichi was assassinated on May 14, Meiji 11 (1878), at Shimizudani, Kioi-chō, Kōjimachi Ward, Tokyo Prefecture, by six shizoku from Ishikawa and Shimane Prefectures (the principal assailant being Shimada Ichirō), who cut him in 16 places with Japanese swords. Age at death: 49. The incident occurred two years after the Sword Abolition Edict (Haitōrei) (Meiji 9, 1876) took effect. The sword used was seized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and is now on public display in the Police Reference Room at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's headquarters building. It is recorded in Meiji and sword history as a major incident in which a Japanese sword was used in a political assassination after the Sword Abolition Edict.
March 4–20, 1877 (Meiji 10)
Fought over seventeen days from March 4 to 20, 1877 (Meiji 10), at Tabaruzaka in Higo Province (present-day Ueki-machi, Kita Ward, Kumamoto City, Kumamoto Prefecture), this was the largest and most costly engagement of the Satsuma Rebellion. Imperial government forces and the Satsuma army under Saigō Takamori fought a desperate struggle for control of Tabaruzaka, the strategic route by which reinforcements could reach besieged Kumamoto Castle. The government deployed the 'Battōtai' (drawn-sword corps)—swordsmen selected from the police force—to counter Satsuma close-combat tactics, an episode credited with reviving recognition of the Japanese sword's practical value after its decline under the Sword-Abolition Edict.