* Image is for illustrative purposes only.Takenomata Kanemitsu
竹俣兼光
Also known as: Teppō-giri Kanemitsu (Gun-cutter) / Ichiryōzutsu / Azuki Kanemitsu
Description
The Osafune Kanemitsu treasured by Uesugi Kenshin
The Takenomata Kanemitsu is a tachi forged by Kanemitsu, the leading smith of the Bizen Osafune school in the Nanbokuchō period. Its signature is recorded as "Bizen Osafune Kanemitsu, sixth month of Enbun 5," and the blade is said to have been an imposing 2 shaku 8 sun (roughly 85 cm) in length. The oshigata rubbings compiled by Hon'ami Kōetsu record slightly different measurements and dates, but agree that the blade carried bō-hi grooves on both sides and a relief carving of a sanko-tsuka ken (a ritual Buddhist sword).
Origin of the name and its provenance
The name comes from Takenomata Mikawa-no-kami Yoshitsuna, a retainer of the Uesugi, who is said to have bought the sword from a farmer. His lord Nagao Kagetora — later Uesugi Kenshin — subsequently took it for himself and carried it as a favourite blade. After Kenshin's death it passed to his adopted heir Uesugi Kagekatsu, who presented it to Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1586. It then descended to Toyotomi Hideyori and disappeared when Osaka Castle fell in 1615. Tokugawa Ieyasu is said to have offered the extraordinary reward of three hundred gold pieces for its recovery, but the sword was never found and remains lost.
The "gun-cutter"
The blade carries several alternate names — Teppō-giri Kanemitsu (gun-cutter), Ichiryōzutsu, Raikiri (thunder-cutter) and Azuki Kanemitsu — all of them drawn from legends about its cutting power. Though the blade itself is long gone, these stories made Kanemitsu a household name. It should not be confused with the Raikiri (Chidori) carried by Tachibana Dōsetsu, a different sword entirely.
Kanemitsu and the legends of sharpness
Osafune Kanemitsu, said to have been the son of Kagemitsu, was the leading Osafune smith of the Nanbokuchō period. He is regarded as the foremost exponent of sōden Bizen, which grafted the Sagami tradition onto Bizen workmanship, and he left many of the long tachi characteristic of the age. A striking number of celebrated blades bearing cutting legends are his work — the Naminayogi Kanemitsu, said to have cut a swimming man through his armour, and the Suijingiri Kanemitsu, said to have cut a water serpent, among them. The gun-cutting legend of the Takenomata Kanemitsu belongs to that same tradition, and with the blade itself lost, those stories are now all that remains of it.
Legends & Stories
Cutting through a matchlock at Kawanakajima
The most famous story attached to the blade comes from the battles of Kawanakajima. When a Takeda gunner named Wagatsuki Heidayū took aim at Kenshin, the Uesugi lord is said to have struck him down with a single blow of this tachi. When the body was examined afterwards, both his armour and the matchlock in his hands had been cut clean in two. From this came the name Teppō-giri Kanemitsu, "the gun-cutter," and the alternate name Ichiryōzutsu, after the type of matchlock it severed.
The sword that cut lightning
An older legend concerns the farmer who owned the blade before the Takenomata family. Caught in a thunderstorm and about to be struck by lightning, he held the sword above his head; the bolt passed him by, and when he examined the point afterwards he found blood dripping from it — he had, the story says, cut the thunder god himself. From this came the name Raikiri.
Beans, and a test of authenticity
The same farmer is said to have been carrying a sack of beans when they spilled through a hole and split in two merely by brushing against the edge, which earned the blade its early name Azuki Kanemitsu. Years later, when a forgery was passed off as the sword, its former owner identified the genuine blade by a tiny hole in the ridge line about one sun five bu from the habaki — small enough for a single horsehair to pass through.