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Battles, incidents, and historical events related to Japanese swords
296 events
c. 1606 (Keichō 11)
First-generation Yasutsugu receives the name "Yasutsugu" and permission to use the triple hollyhock crest from Tokugawa Ieyasu, establishing the symbolic status of Edo sword craftsmanship.
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Keio 4 (1868), intercalary 4th month 20th day to 7th month 14th day (old calendar; 10 June to 31 August 1868)
A Boshin War battle fought around Shirakawa Castle (Komine Castle) between the new government army and the allied forces including Aizu from the 20th day of the intercalary 4th month to the 14th day of the 7th month of Keio 4 (old calendar). Centered on the new government army's recapture of the castle on the 1st day of the 5th month, it sets out the fighting before and after and the differing casualty figures.
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.
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.
10th–12th month of Ōei 6 (1399–1400)
In 1399, the powerful western daimyo Ōuchi Yoshihiro raised a rebellion against Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu at Sakai in Izumi Province. Yoshihiro's death in battle with sword in hand ended the revolt and cemented Yoshimitsu's supreme authority, shaping the cultural flourishing of the Muromachi sword tradition.
6th month, Ōei 26 (1419)
In the 6th month of Ōei 26 (1419), Joseon Korea invaded Tsushima with a large force of 227 warships and 17,285 men. The Tsushima forces under Sō Sadamori, shugo (military governor) of Tsushima, fought well with ambushes that made use of the local terrain and repelled the Korean army. In Kyoto, the invasion was initially feared as a revival of the Mongol invasions, and it brought a major turning point to the Muromachi shogunate and to Japan–Korea relations.
2nd day of the 10th month, Ōei 23 (1416) to 10th day of the 1st month, Ōei 24 (1417)
A civil war in the Kamakura Government: in the tenth month of 1416, former Kantō Deputy Shogun Uesugi Ujinori (Zenshū) rose with Ashikaga Mitsutaka against the Kamakura kubō Ashikaga Mochiuji. Mochiuji fled to Suruga, recovered with shogunate backing, and Zenshū and his allies killed themselves at Yukinoshita, Kamakura, in the first month of 1417.
c. 1368 (Ōan 1)
Nen-ryū, founded by Nen-ami Jion (secular name Sōma Shirō Yoshimoto, born 1350) from the late Nanboku-chō period into the early Muromachi period, is regarded as one of the three great source schools of heihō and the oldest of them. Around 1368, Jion attained the secret essence of the sword while training at Anraku-ji in Tsukushi, Kyushu, and he perfected his swordsmanship through travels across the provinces. Chūjō-ryū, founded by his disciple Chūjō Nagahide, formed a core lineage of Japanese swordsmanship that led on to Ittō-ryū. The orthodox line of Nen-ryū survives today as Maniwa Nen-ryū, which was inherited by Higuchi Sadatsugu in the late Sengoku period.
From Onin 1–Bunmei 9 (1467–1477) onward
Through the devastation of the Ōnin War (1467–1477) and the collapse of the Muromachi shogunate's authority that followed, the Higashiyama Gomotsu, a collection centered on karamono (Chinese art objects), mostly Chinese (Song and Yuan) paintings but also including tea utensils, flower vases, and writing implements, which the Ashikaga shogunal family had collected and kept over generations, flowed out of the Kyoto gosho and storehouses and scattered into the hands of daimyō, merchants, and temples and shrines. Among the dispersed objects, the tea utensils were prized by tea masters of the Azuchi-Momoyama period and also influenced the later view of meibutsu.
September 27, 1556 (24th day, 8th month, Kōji 2)
The fratricidal battle between Oda Nobunaga and his younger brother Oda Nobuyuki (Nobukatsu), which broke out at Inō in Owari Province (present-day Nishi Ward, Nagoya City) on September 27, 1556 (Kōji 2/8/24). With fewer than 700 troops, Nobunaga defeated the 1,700-strong force of Nobuyuki's side, led by Shibata Katsuie and Hayashi Mimasaka-no-kami (Michitomo), and gained the upper hand in the struggle over the family headship.
May 28, 1556 (Kōji 2, 4th month, 20th day)
The battle in which Saitō Dōsan was killed on the 20th day of the 4th month of Kōji 2 (1556) while fighting the army led by his biological son, Saitō Yoshitatsu, on the bank of the Nagara River in Mino Province (present-day Gifu City). Dōsan, known by the nickname "Viper of Mino" (mamushi), met his end after being betrayed by his son. The battle dealt a severe shock to Oda Nobunaga, who had relied on the support of his father-in-law, Dōsan.
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.
1281 (Kōan 4)
The second Mongol invasion of Japan: in Kōan 4 (1281), a Yuan–Goryeo armada of about 140,000 troops on some 4,400 ships descended on Hakata Bay. The stone walls built under Hōjō Tokimune, the Japanese warriors' night raids and close-quarters fighting, and a storm on the 30th day of the 7th month (the "divine wind," kamikaze) destroyed the Yuan forces. It was the greatest event in which late-Kamakura Japanese swords were put to the test in real combat, and a historic campaign that coincided with the golden age of swordsmithing, when Nagamitsu of Bizen Osafune and Masamune of Sagami were active.
Kenchō era (1249–1256)
In the Kenchō era (1249–1256), at the invitation of Hōjō Tokiyori, regent of the Kamakura shogunate, Awataguchi Kunitsuna moved from Yamashiro to Kamakura. Shintōgo Kunimitsu, said to be his son or adopted son, established the foundation of the Sōshū-den in the late Kamakura period, based on techniques that took root in Sōshū (Sagami Province, present-day Kanagawa Prefecture). Kunimitsu drew on the techniques of the Yamashiro-den (Awataguchi) and Bizen-den, creating a new style built on suguha with strong nie and visible kinsuji and inazuma activity. This technique was passed on to his disciples Yukimitsu and Masamune and completed as the Sōshū-den, characterized by ara-nie-deki hamon.
Third month (2nd), Kenmu 3 / Engen 1 (April 13, 1336)
In the third month of Kenmu 3 / Engen 1 (1336), Ashikaga Takauji—driven from Kyoto and forced to flee to Kyushu—defeated the large army of Kikuchi Taketoshi, loyal to Emperor Go-Daigo, at Tatarahama in Chikuzen. Barely 2,000 Ashikaga troops broke the Kikuchi army of over 20,000 by inducing mass defections. The victory brought most of Kyushu over to Takauji, allowing him to regroup and march east again toward his victory over Kusunoki Masashige at Minatogawa.