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Batailles, incidents et événements historiques liés aux sabres japonais
242 événements
June 2, 1183 (11th day, 5th month, Juei 2)
In May 1183, Minamoto no Yoshinaka (Kiso Yoshinaka) annihilated the Taira army under Taira no Koremori at Kurikara Pass on the border of Etchū and Kaga provinces. Famous for the legendary 'fire-ox stratagem,' the victory opened Yoshinaka's path to Kyoto and marked a turning point in the Genpei War.
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November 7, Kan'ei 11 (December 26, 1634)
On November 7, 1634, at the Kagiya no Tsuji crossroads in Iga Province (present-day Iga City, Mie Prefecture), master swordsman Araki Mataemon assisted his brother-in-law Watanabe Kazuma in a formal vendetta against Kawai Matago. Kazuma killed Matago while Mataemon held off the rest of the party. Counted among the three great vendettas of Japanese history, the duel made Mataemon's name legendary in Edo-period sword culture.
June 5, 1247 (1st year of Hōji)
In June 1247, Hōjō Tokiyori destroyed the Miura clan in a power struggle within the Kamakura shogunate. The mass self-immolation of the Miura warriors established the samurai code of honorable death, while cementing Hōjō dominance over the bakufu.
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.
6th–7th month, 672 CE (Jinshin 1)
The Jinshin War of 672 was the largest civil conflict in ancient Japan, fought between Prince Ōama (later Emperor Tenmu) and Prince Ōtomo over imperial succession. Ōama's victory, won by rallying warrior clans of Mino and Owari, established Tenmu's reign and laid the cultural foundations for Japan's centralized warrior tradition.
August 1573
The siege of Odani Castle (1573) was Oda Nobunaga's decisive campaign to destroy the Azai clan of northern Ōmi Province. Azai Nagamasa — once Nobunaga's brother-in-law — had allied with the Asakura and fought against Nobunaga for years. The fall of Odani Castle ended the Azai clan; Nagamasa died by his own hand, and the castle became a trophy of Nobunaga's rising power.
April 25, 1581 (22nd day, 3rd month, Tenshō 9)
On March 22, 1581, Takatenjin Castle in Tōtōmi Province fell to Tokugawa forces after a prolonged siege. Takeda Katsuyori's failure to relieve the garrison — trapped by Nobunaga's barrier forts — destroyed Katsuyori's prestige among his own retainers. The castle's fall was the pivotal turning point that set the Takeda clan on the road to extinction the following year.
March 13, Tenshō 6 (April 19, 1578)
In 1578, just before departing on a planned campaign toward the capital, 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.
March 1578 – January 1580 (Tenshō 6–8)
From Tenshō 6–8 (1578–1580), Toyotomi Hideyoshi conducted an extraordinary two-year siege of Miki Castle in Harima Province (present-day Miki City, Hyōgo), implementing a starvation blockade against the besieged Bessho Nagatoki. This campaign became the hallmark of Hideyoshi's hoshi-goroshi tactic—the practice of starving out an enemy garrison. Nagatoki took his own life by the blade to save his soldiers, a display of loyalty and samurai honor that resonates through history as one of Japan's most poignant military moments.
March 1578 – March 1579
In Tenshō 6 (1578), triggered by the sudden death of Uesugi Kenshin, the overlord of Echigo Province, a succession dispute of the Uesugi clan erupted between Kenshin's adopted heirs Kagekatsu (Nagao Kagekatsu) and Kagetora (Hōjō Saburō). The civil war that divided Echigo Province continued for approximately two years and ended with Kagekatsu's victory. Kenshin's legendary sword Yamatorige and Kagekatsu's cherished sword collection also became focal points of the conflict.
November 1578 (21st day, 10th month, Tenshō 6) – September 1579 (8th month, Tenshō 7)
In October 1578, Araki Murashige — one of Oda Nobunaga's most trusted senior retainers — abruptly rebelled and fortified himself in Itami Castle in Settsu Province. Despite repeated personal negotiations and Nobunaga's extraordinary patience, Murashige never surrendered. He eventually fled the castle in August 1579, leaving behind his family and retainers, approximately 600 of whom were executed by Nobunaga. The true reasons for the rebellion remain one of Japanese history's most debated mysteries.
November 3, 1577 (23rd day, 9th month, Tenshō 5)
In September 1577, Uesugi Kenshin launched a devastating surprise attack on a large Oda Nobunaga army at the Tedorigawa River in what is now Ishikawa Prefecture. This was the greatest victory of Kenshin's final years, demonstrating the full power of the 'Dragon of Echigo.' Kenshin died suddenly the following year, however, transforming his triumph into history's greatest 'what if.'
October, Tenshō 5 (1577)
In October 1577, Matsunaga Hisahide was besieged at Shigisanyama Castle in Yamato Province (present-day Heguri, Nara Prefecture) by the forces of Oda Nobunaga and Nobutada. Rather than surrender his prized tea kettle 'Hiragumo', Hisahide exploded the keep with himself inside, achieving one of the most celebrated — and idiosyncratic — deaths of the Sengoku period.
August 1576 (13th day, 7th month, Tenshō 4) / November 1578 (6th day, 11th month, Tenshō 6)
Naval battles fought twice off Kizugawa Mouth, Settsu Province (present-day Osaka Bay area), in Tenshō 4 (1576) and Tenshō 6 (1578). In the first engagement, Oda Nobunaga's fleet suffered a devastating defeat while attempting to block the Mōri fleet's supply transport. However, in the second engagement, the iron-clad ships (tetsukōsen) constructed by Kuki Yoshitaka defeated the Mōri fleet. As the world's first naval battle featuring armored warships, this engagement shines brilliantly in Japanese military history.
June 4, 1576 (Tenshō 4)
In the 5th month of Tenshō 4 (1576), during the Ishiyama War, Oda Nobunaga intercepted a combined Honganji-Miyoshi force at Tennōji in Osaka. One of the fiercest engagements of the era — Nobunaga himself was struck by a musket ball — yet Oda forces turned the tide to win.
January 1576 (Tenshō 4) – May 1579 (Tenshō 7)
In January 1576 (Tenshō 4), Oda Nobunaga appointed Niwa Nagahide as general construction magistrate and began building a new stronghold on Mt. Azuchi beside Lake Biwa. In May 1579 (Tenshō 7), 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.
8th–9th month, Tenshō 19 (September–October 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 under Gamō Ujisato, Maeda Toshiie, and Asano Nagamasa 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.
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.
7th–8th month, Tenshō 18 (August–September 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.
May – July, Tenshō 18 (June – August 1590 CE)
The Siege of Oshi Castle (1590) was a subsidiary operation of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Odawara campaign, in which Ishida Mitsunari attempted to take the Narita clan's castle in Musashi Province by flooding it with a massive earthwork dam. The garrison of roughly 500, led by Masaki Toshihide and the legendary Kai-hime, held out against a force many times larger and was never taken — making Oshi one of the few castles to remain undefeated in the entire Odawara campaign.
June 5, Tenshō 17 (July 17, 1589)
In June 1589, Date Masamune destroyed the Ashina clan at Suriagehara (present-day Inawashiro, Fukushima Prefecture), effectively ending the Ashina domain and seizing control of Aizu and most of Mutsu Province. The battle marked Masamune's emergence as the dominant power in the Tōhoku region and is often considered the final major Sengoku battle of northeastern Japan.
August 29, 1588 (8th day, 7th month, Tenshō 16)
The purpose of the Sword Hunt Edict (Katanagari) was to confiscate weapons from farmers and temples, prevent uprisings, and institutionally separate the warrior and farming classes. Issued by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in July 1588, it was the greatest social transformation in Japanese sword history: the collected swords were ostensibly melted down for the Great Buddha at Hōkōji — and the early modern class system was born.
Seventh month (14th–27th), Tenshō 14 (1586)
In the seventh month of Tenshō 14 (1586), a Shimazu army of 50,000, on the verge of unifying Kyushu, besieged Iwaya Castle in Chikuzen, held for the Ōtomo by Takahashi Jōun. With only 763 defenders, Jōun refused every demand to surrender and, after half a month of desperate fighting, died with his entire garrison on the 27th. This heroic stand exhausted the Shimazu and bought time until Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Kyushu expedition arrived—ultimately thwarting Shimazu unification of the island.