Mastering the Samurai Sword. Cary Nemeroff

      Another important aspect of sword making during this period was the Five Schools, organized groups of samurai sword craftsmen that filled the constantly changing needs of the government, as power in Japan changed hands and the capital moved around the country. The Koto period saw the highest volume of samurai sword production in Japanese history, and the swordsmiths of the Five Schools, each based in its own province—Yamashiro, Sagami, Yamato, Bizen, and Mino—produced 80 percent of them, some of which were purportedly the finest samurai swords ever crafted.

      Yamashiro, the earliest of the Five Schools, established itself in Yamashiro Province, in the capital at Heian (present day Kyoto), and became the local weapon supplier for the imperial government while its leadership remained there. As with the other schools of samurai sword manufacture, an abundance of high-quality iron ore, iron sand, and nearby water was an important deciding factor in the location of this school.

      In 1192, the Minamoto clan took full control of the government, and the capital was moved to Kamakura in Sagami Province. The Sagami, or Shoshu, School established itself in response to this move, and the Yamato, Bizen, and Mino Schools came about to meet the demands of samurai in other regions.

      Nationwide, a new samurai class was born when the Minamotos became the first to establish a feudal system of government, or shogunate, with a military style of leadership. This differed from despotic rule by a single emperor; the shogunate was a hierarchy in which regional feudal lords called daimyo answered to the shogun (military leader), and the samurai, highly trained and loyal warriors, served the interests of the daimyos.

      A samurai went to exhaustive lengths to protect his master’s honor, as well as his own, while at all times thinking of the “spirit of Japan,” which made up the fabric of his being. As a consequence of his belief that his service to his nation was tantamount to his duty to his daimyo, he outwardly manifested unceasing respect, courtesy, and justice in the presence of the people of his nation. The samurai took their role as protector so seriously that when they considered themselves to have been shamed or to have failed at some task, they committed ritual suicide (seppuku).

      Bitter infighting within the Minamoto family resulted in the death of Japan’s first shogun, Minamoto Yoritomo. Yoritomo’s widow, Hojo Masako, enabled the Hojo family to rise to power in the Kamakura-based leadership. Then in 1274 and 1281, the Mongols attacked Japan, creating a national emergency. This crisis prompted the Sagami School—whose craftsmanship was a blend of the Yamato, Yamashiro, and Bizen manufacturing techniques—to pursue rigorous samurai sword production, to defend the nation by serving the needs of the Kamakura government, which was located in their province. Fortuitously, the Mongols would be thwarted by a combination of the samurai and what was perceived to be help from the spirits—typhoons that struck to the advantage of the Japanese during each invasion, leading them to victory. On the domestic front, the shogun system had begun to fail. The quasi-military leadership, including officials who were more like civil servants than strong warriors, was weakened by the expense of defending the country from the Mongols. This created an opportunity for Godaigo, a man of the imperial line, to enthrone himself as emperor and attempt to abandon the shogunate system.

      Godaigo seized power with the support of a clan of samurai warriors called the Ashikaga, but they later betrayed him by reinstalling the shogunate and forming their own government in Kyoto. Emperor Godaigo fled to the Hill of Yoshino near Nara, from which he attempted to rule the nation. For the next forty-five years, there would be two imperial courts, resulting in a lack of centralized control that encouraged lawlessness. Land disputes and power struggles between feudal lords led the Japanese into a bleak era of warfare known as the Sengoku period (1467–1574). During this period of chaos and discord, a broader spectrum of the Japanese population came to use samurai swords, and the demand for them continued to be great. The upheaval of these dangerous times and the increased availability of the samurai sword gave rise to what would become a variety of different “ways” or ideologies about how to employ the weapon. And as the tactics and techniques of warfare evolved, the samurai sword’s characteristics were modified in order to address the particular circumstances of the swordsmen.

      SHINTO OR NEW SWORD PERIOD

      Some minor alterations to the sword occurred as we proceed into the Shinto, or New Sword, period (1530–1867). The tachi (curved sword), developed during the Chokuto period, became outdated. A lengthy blade measuring up to four feet in length, the tachi had been worn with its cutting edge facing downward, suspended from the hip of the samurai by a rope that was threaded through two rings on the scabbard. The revised version’s blade length was shortened, resulting in a blade only two feet long, that would be carried fastened to the user’s left hip by a sash, with the cutting edge of the blade facing upward. According to some sources, this new kind of sword was the first to be called a katana (single cutting edge). The katana enabled the samurai to draw the sword at a moment’s notice and greatly influenced other aspects of samurai sword technique. Most of the iai-jutsu (sword-drawing) techniques described in this book came about as a result of this important physical modification of the weapon.

      Some warriors of the era wore two samurai swords affixed by a sash at the side of the body, which were together known as daisho. These might have been composed of a katana or daito (long samurai swords) and wakizashi or shoto (short samurai swords), both seated on the left side at the hip. The shorter sword was considered an auxiliary to be used in tandem with the longer one, as a “back-up” in case of loss or damage to the primary blade, and even as an instrument to fall upon for suicide. (Today, this type of sword configuration is utilized in the more advanced levels of iai-jutsu; however, very few people ever train in this aspect.) A tanto (knife) was also worn, to be employed against an enemy of the samurai; it was also used if seppuku (ritual suicide) was necessary to preserve the honor of the samurai or his daimyo. In this case, another samurai would be appointed as the kaishakunin, to assist the samurai in seppuku by decapitating him, after he had cut himself across the abdomen.

      Seppuku was just one of many ritualized traditions in the samurai’s strict moral code of honor, known as bushido, or “way of the warrior.” This code was to be tested by Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582), a samurai and military general whose ruthless tactics would have been perceived by samurai of the time as dishonorable. They included employing muskets, making sneak attacks, and torturing captives—all violations against bushido, which demanded that the samurai act within specific parameters of fairness. There had been a slow decline in “martial etiquette” subsequent to the fall of the Minamotos, some of bushido’s most dedicated proponents, but the chaotic Sengoku period in which Nobunaga lived would see its greatest decline. Nobunaga’s unorthodox techniques may have been the cause of his demise; he was either killed or committed seppuku when one of his own generals, who was also a samurai, staged an overwhelming attack against him at a temple where he was staying the night.

      Nobunaga had been on his way to help his ally, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, in an effort to overthrow a common rival when he came under attack. Upon hearing about Nobunaga’s death, Hideyoshi continued to follow in his comrade’s footsteps and conquered more territory. Hideyoshi would eventually reunify Japan from its divided, almost anarchistic state to end the Sengoku period before the close of the sixteenth century.

      Hideyoshi’s clan lost control of the nation to the Tokugawa samurai in the battle of Sekigahara in 1600. This battle marked a shift in power that would result in about 250 years of relative peace in Japan under the Tokugawa “dynasty.”

      Circa 1600, the head of the Tokugawa clan, Tokugawa Ieyasu, came into power and strengthened the shogunate by clearly defining distinctions between the classes. The resulting hierarchy imposed a rigid structure and enforced strict laws that applied separately to daimyos, samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants (ordered by class, descending from the most to the least respected). During this period (the Edo period, 1600–1867), Japan looked inward, closing its borders to trade and influence from its neighbors. Aside from Ryukyu (the present-day Okinawa Prefecture), which was taken over by a small clan of Samurai sent by the Tokugawas, called the Shimazu, the shogu-nate ceased all attempts at conquest and expansion, and Japan became a relatively peaceful archipelago. This era brought about a decrease in demand for finely crafted samurai swords that were constructed to function well in combat. Thus, the sword-making techniques of the Five Schools became