New Arrivals — Browse our catalog for the latest authentic Japanese sword arrivals. Browse →
Battles, incidents, and historical events related to Japanese swords
128 events
April 19, 1578 (Tenshō 6, 3rd month, 13th day)
In 1578, just before departing on a planned campaign into the Kantō region, the celebrated Echigo commander Uesugi Kenshin died suddenly at his stronghold of Kasugayama Castle at age 49. Having never designated an heir, his death triggered the Otate no Ran succession war between his adopted sons Kagekatsu and Kagetora, severely weakening Echigo’s regional power.
Read more →
3rd month, Tenshō 6 (1578) – 1st month, Tenshō 8 (1580)
From Tenshō 6 to 8 (1578–1580), Hashiba Hideyoshi besieged Miki Castle in Harima Province (present-day Miki City, Hyōgo Prefecture), held by Bessho Nagaharu, with a starvation blockade lasting two years. The campaign became synonymous with Hideyoshi's "hoshigoroshi" (starving-out) tactic, and Bessho Nagaharu took his own life to save his garrison. The resolve of a lord who cared for his soldiers, and his end by the blade, are remembered as one of the great scenes of history.
3rd month, Tenshō 6 (1578) – 3rd month, Tenshō 7 (1579)
Triggered by the sudden death of Uesugi Kenshin, ruler of Echigo Province, in Tenshō 6 (1578), a succession dispute broke out within the Uesugi family between Kenshin's adopted sons Kagekatsu (Nagao Akikage) and Kagetora (Hōjō Saburō). The civil war, which split Echigo in two, lasted about two years and ended with Kagekatsu's victory.
December 10, 1578 (Tenshō 6/11/12)
In the 11th month of Tenshō 6 (1578), the Shimazu army led by Shimazu Yoshihisa crushed the large army of Otomo Sorin in Hyuga Province (present-day Miyazaki Prefecture). It is also called the Battle of the Takajō River after the site of the decisive fighting. The Otomo army was destroyed by the Shimazu "tsuri-nobuse" tactic, and many drowned in the Mimikawa River during the rout. A major turning point in the "Three Kingdoms of Kyushu" struggle, it opened the way to the decline of the Otomo and the Shimazu domination of Kyushu.
21st day of the 10th month of Tenshō 6 (1578) – 9th month of Tenshō 7 (1579)
In the 10th month of Tenshō 6 (1578), Araki Murashige, a senior vassal of Oda Nobunaga, suddenly rebelled and holed up in Itami Castle in Settsu Province (present-day Itami, Hyōgo Prefecture). He kept refusing Nobunaga's repeated demands for surrender, and in the 9th month of Tenshō 7 (1579) he escaped from the castle and disappeared. Afterward, more than 600 of his wife, children, and retainers were executed. The true reason for the rebellion remains shrouded in mystery, and it is still passed down as one of the most puzzling betrayals in Japanese history.
November 3, 1577 (23rd day, 9th month, Tenshō 5)
In the 9th month of Tenshō 5 (1577), Uesugi Kenshin's forces reportedly pursued Oda Nobunaga's retreating great army and inflicted heavy losses at the Tedorigawa River (present-day Ishikawa Prefecture). Known as the great victory of Kenshin's final years, it displayed the martial power of the "Dragon of Echigo" to the country. However, Kenshin's sudden death the following year turned the victory into a "what if" of history.
10th month, Tenshō 5 (1577)
In the 10th month of Tenshō 5 (1577), at Shigisan Castle in Yamato Province (present-day Heguri Town, Nara Prefecture), Matsunaga Hisahide was surrounded by the forces of Oda Nobunaga and his son Nobutada, set fire to the main keep, and took his own life. Hisahide's figure, who met a dramatic end after smashing the famous tea kettle 'Hiragumo,' has been handed down to later generations as 'the pride of a scheming general.'
Tenshō 5–6 (1577–1578)
In 1578, a Mōri army besieged Kōzuki Castle, held by Amago Katsuhisa and Yamanaka Yukimori (Shikanosuke) in an attempt to restore the Amago clan. Oda Nobunaga ordered Hashiba Hideyoshi to abandon relief efforts; Katsuhisa took his own life and Yukimori was assassinated in custody, ending the Amago restoration movement.
August 7, 1576 (Tenshō 4/7/13) / December 4, 1578 (Tenshō 6/11/6)
A naval battle fought on two occasions, in Tenshō 4 (1576) and Tenshō 6 (1578), off Kizugawaguchi (the mouth of the Kizu River) in Settsu (present-day Osaka City). Nobunaga's navy, which sought to block the Mōri navy's transport of provisions, suffered a devastating defeat in the first battle. In the second, it repulsed the Mōri navy with great ships called tekkōsen (iron-clad ships) that Kuki Yoshitaka had built, and which are said to have been equipped with iron armor.
7th day of the 5th month, Tenshō 4 (June 3, 1576)
In the 5th month of Tenshō 4 (1576), during the Ishiyama War, Oda Nobunaga attacked and defeated the Hongan-ji forces that were besieging the Tennōji fort in Osaka. In this fierce battle Nobunaga himself was wounded by a musket ball, yet he turned the tide.
1st month, Tenshō 4 (1576): construction begins – 5th month, Tenshō 7 (1579): main keep completed
In the 1st month of Tenshō 4 (1576), Oda Nobunaga appointed Niwa Nagahide as general construction magistrate and began building a new stronghold on Mt. Azuchi beside Lake Biwa. In the 5th month of Tenshō 7 (1579), a magnificent seven-story tenshu was completed and Nobunaga himself moved in. Combining an all-stone rampart, painted interiors by Kanō Eitoku, and a free-market castle town, Azuchi Castle concentrated a series of innovations that overturned the conventions of Japanese castle architecture. Though it burned soon after the Honnō-ji Incident in 1582, its design left a decisive imprint on all castle-building that followed.
11th month, Tenshō 4 (1576) – 9th month, Tenshō 5 (1577)
A siege in which Uesugi Kenshin surrounded and captured Nanao Castle (present-day Nanao City, Ishikawa Prefecture), the stronghold of Noto Province, from the 11th month of Tenshō 4 (1576) to the 9th month of Tenshō 5 (1577). After a siege of nearly a year, Kenshin brought down Nanao Castle through an epidemic within the castle and the betrayal of insiders, and pacified most of Noto Province. The fall of Nanao Castle came just before Kenshin defeated Oda Nobunaga's forces at the Battle of Tedorigawa, and the siege marks the high point of Kenshin's conquest of the Hokuriku region.
June 29, 1575 (21st day, 5th month, Tenshō 3)
On the 21st day of the 5th month of Tenshō 3 (1575), at Nagashino in Mikawa Province (present-day Shinshiro City, Aichi Prefecture), the allied forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu inflicted a crushing defeat on the army of Takeda Katsuyori. Nobunaga is said to have used organized three-rank volley fire with matchlock arquebuses, and the battle stands as a symbol of the 'age of the matchlock arquebus' that brought a tactical revolution to Sengoku-period warfare.
Winter, Tenshō 2 (1574) – 6th month, Tenshō 3 (1575)
From 1574 to 1575, Mimura Motochika, lord of Bitchū Province, rebelled against the Mōri and was destroyed by the allied Mōri-Ukita forces. The fall of Bicchū-Matsuyama Castle brought Bitchū Province fully under Mōri control.
28th day of 2nd month, Tenshō 19 (1591)
The master of wabi-cha, Sen no Rikyū, was forced to commit seppuku by order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. This incident illuminates the dark underbelly of Azuchi-Momoyama culture, where the Way of Tea intersected with the way of the sword.
8th–9th month, Tenshō 19 (1591)
In 1591, Kunohe Masazane — a senior retainer of the Nanbu clan — rebelled against Toyotomi Hideyoshi's unification from Kunohe Castle in Mutsu Province. A massive Toyotomi army, with Toyotomi Hidetsugu as commander-in-chief and led by Gamō Ujisato, Asano Nagamasa, and others, was dispatched to Ōshū. After a siege, the castle fell and Masazane was executed. It stands as one of the last armed rebellions against Hideyoshi's completed hegemony.
7th–8th month, Tenshō 18 (1590)
In the 7th and 8th months of Tenshō 18 (1590), immediately after the fall of Odawara, Toyotomi Hideyoshi reorganized the domains of the Ōshū (Tōhoku) daimyō. Date Masamune, who had arrived late to Odawara, was heavily reduced, while the dispossessed former territories of the Ōsaki and Kasai clans erupted into a major uprising, marking the final stage of Hideyoshi's unification of Japan.
July 24, 1590 (Tenshō 18, 6th month, 23rd day)
In 1590, during the Siege of Odawara, a Toyotomi detachment of roughly 15,000 under Uesugi Kagekatsu and Maeda Toshiie stormed Hachiōji Castle, the stronghold of Hōjō Ujiteru. With Ujiteru away defending Odawara, a garrison of some 3,000 held out under his deputy but the castle fell in a single day.
6th–7th month of Tenshō 18 (1590)
The Siege of Oshi Castle was a defensive siege in Tenshō 18 (1590), during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Odawara campaign, in which Ishida Mitsunari attempted to capture Oshi Castle in Musashi Province (present-day Gyōda City, Saitama Prefecture) by water siege. About 500 defenders, led by castle warden Narita Yasusue and later by commander-in-chief Narita Nagachika, and supported by Masaki Toshihide and Kai-hime, withstood the fierce assault of Mitsunari's army of tens of thousands and the water siege by the Ishida Embankment (Ishida-zutsumi), and the castle never fell. Oshi Castle, which continued to fight in isolation even after the surrender of Odawara Castle, is called the 'Floating Castle' (Ukishiro) and is renowned as one of the three great water sieges of Japan.
July 17, 1589 (Tenshō 17, 6th month, 5th day)
In the 6th month of Tenshō 17 (1589), Date Masamune defeated the Ashina clan of Aizu at Suriagehara (present-day Inawashiro Town, Yama District, Fukushima Prefecture), destroying the Ashina house. The victory gave Masamune control of Aizu and established his hegemony over southern Ōshū. The battle marked the practical end of the Sengoku period in the Tōhoku region.
August 29, 1588 (8th day, 7th month, Tenshō 16)
The purpose of the Katanagari (Sword Hunt) Edict was to confiscate weapons from farmers and temples to prevent uprisings, and to institutionally establish heinō bunri (separation of warriors and farmers), that is, the status distinction between warriors and farmers. Issued by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the 7th month of Tenshō 16 (1588), it was the greatest social transformation in the history of Japanese swords. It was carried out under the pretext that the collected swords would be turned into nails and kasugai (clamps) for the Great Buddha of Hōkōji, and it became the foundation of early modern status-based society.
Seventh month (14th–27th), Tenshō 14 (1586)
In the 7th month of Tenshō 14 (1586), the Shimazu army, said to number anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 and on the verge of completing its conquest of Kyushu, laid siege to Iwaya Castle in Chikuzen Province, which was held by Takahashi Jōun on the Ōtomo side. Jōun rejected the demand to surrender and fought with only 763 castle troops. After a desperate struggle lasting half a month, all of them died in a gyokusai, a fight to the death, on the 27th day of the 7th month of Tenshō 14 (1586). This fierce resistance wore down the Shimazu army and bought time until the arrival of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Kyushu campaign army, and as a result it blocked the Shimazu unification of Kyushu.
Tenshō 14–15, 3rd–6th month (1586–1587)
From Tenshō 14 (1586) to 15 (1587), Toyotomi Hideyoshi conducted a massive military campaign to pacify the whole of Kyushu. Shimazu Yoshihisa shaved his head and surrendered, and Hideyoshi redistributed the region's fiefs among his vassals, marking the penultimate stage of his unification of Japan, with only the Kantō and Ōshū regions left to subdue.
Intercalary 8th month, Tenshō 13 (1585) and 9th month, Keichō 5 (1600)
Fought twice, in Tenshō 13 (1585) and Keichō 5 (1600), the Battles of Ueda saw Sanada Masayuki repulse a large Tokugawa army at Ueda Castle with a small force (in the second battle, together with his second son, Yukimura). A masterpiece of defensive warfare in which the resourcefulness of Sanada Masayuki, known as a clever tactician, shone.