(1542–1616) was born into the family of a local warlord in the west of Aichi Prefecture. Located between two powerful clans, Imagawa in the east and Oda in the west, Ieyasu spent his youth as a hostage of those respective families. Ieyasu changed his name from Matsudaira to Tokugawa in 1566 although the sub-branches of the family were always called Matsudaira. After the death of Hideyoshi in 1598, Ieyasu established himself as Japan’s shōgun after the decisive defeat of Ishida Mitsunari in the Battle at Sekigahara in 1600. For nearly three centuries (approximately 1603 to 1868), Japan existed as a feudal society under a relatively tranquil rule of the Tokugawa shōgunate. This Edo-based shōgunate lasted two hundred sixty-five years and is officially referred to as the Edo period.
During the Edo period, Japan was divided into roughly three hundred regional domains, inheritable lands or revenue-producing properties, called han. All but a few of the smaller han were governed by a daimyō (feudal lord) who swore loyalty to the Tokugawa shōgunate. Although the Tokugawa shōgunate closely monitored the military activities of each han, the daimyō were granted independence in their other domestic and economic policies. The daimyō held total power over their individual domains, answering only to the shōgunate. Each daimyōwas also given complete power and authority to administer operations within his own han. This right often extended to jurisdiction over the samurai of the han even when serving outside their respective territories.
Among the daimyō, there were various ranks, mostly related to whether their clan had directly supported Ieyasu and his forces during the Battle at Sekigahara. Within each domain, the individual daimyō ruled over a varying number of direct retainers, which often included a very complicated hierarchy within their own samurai ranks resulting in various status levels. The Tokugawa clan’s own direct retainers, called hatamoto or literally “banner men,” also held many significant positions within the shōgunate, many equal in rank to the daimyo.
One method the Tokugawa shōgunate used to control the various daimyō was to impose heavy financial burdens through taxation and other means. Unable to support the high cost of a strong military, the daimyō were no longer able to wage clan wars with their severely reduced armies. Since there was often no more need for their military skills during this time of peace and the daimyō faced mounting expenses, the samurai as a class were transformed into military bureaucrats and required to master administrative skills as well as military arts. Some developed the necessary skills for bureaucratic service, but others did not.
Whether due their inability to master other skills or the abolishment of their respective han, many samurai were forced to become unemployed wanderers known as rōnin, a term literally meaning “wave man.” Without a daimyō to serve and no steady source of income, they were generally at the mercy of circumstances, like men tossed about by waves in the ocean.
From the turn of the eighteenth century, the Japanese economy surged. For the first time, Japanese merchants became wealthy and powerful, despite their lower-class status in Japanese society. In the new affluent bourgeois culture, poor samurai frequently turned to opening bujutsu (military arts) schools as a way of making a living. Eventually many of these samurai began teaching their martial art skills to the more prosperous chōnin (townsmen).
As the Japanese economy evolved, there was also a great increase in criminal activities. Criminal elements such as the yakuza, or underworld gangs, first appeared during the Edo period in the Kanto area, where farmers found other employment due to the development of money-based economy. The yakuza became progressively more powerful and widespread during this period. Thus unarmed fighting techniques often proved to be quite popular with the townsmen, who were banned from carrying weapons other than short swords or knives due to their social status. Many townsmen and farmers also studied swordsmanship in the hope of distinguishing themselves and being raised to samurai status.
After the 1868 revolution in Japan, the Tokugawa shōgunate was overthrown and a constitutional monarchy, such as in England, was born. Many professional martial arts instructors who had served the shōgun and the many feudal lords by teaching their warriors suddenly lost their positions. Since samurai were now also prohibited from openly carrying swords, unarmed fighting skills were now often the only available means of self-defense or protection.
The Soul of the Samurai
The Japanese sword, admired for its artistic value as well as for its practical merits, is often considered an emblem of the samurai’s power and skill. It was venerated by the bushi, or “warrior class,” and the daishō, or set of two swords, was worn as a badge of a samurai’s status. Daishō literally translates as “big-little” and refers to a pair of swords, consisting of one daitō (long sword) and a shōtō (short sword). Either sword was referred to as katana, although the short sword was sometimes called wakizashi. The sword was “the soul of a samurai,” and no self-respecting bushi would be seen outside his home without his daishō prominently displayed.
During wartime, swordsmanship was essential for survival on the battlefield. However, the possession of suitable side arms was considered a samurai’s responsibility even after the end of the Warring States period. As bureaucrats, the samurai had little actual need for arms, yet they were required to wear the daishō as a symbol of their status and their place in society. Under the Tokugawa shōgunate, extensive martial arts training and individual expertise with weapons declined significantly within the samurai class in general as their responsibilities shifted toward administration and management.
Despite popular literature and the images portrayed in samurai films, bushidō the warrior’s code of ethics and the samurai’s moral precepts—did not allow for indiscriminate use of the sword. As bushidō stressed the proper use of the sword, it also detested its misuse. The samurai who drew his sword for unjustifiable reasons or at improper occasions was regarded as ill-mannered and crude.
Japanese swordsmiths would fast and undergo ritual purification before making a new blade. While working at their anvils, they wore white robes like Shintō priests. By the thirteenth century, Japanese swords were recognized as far superior to those made anywhere else in the world. No one could challenge the quality of the steel forged by these Japanese swordsmiths.
To hold a sharp edge, steel needed to be hard. However, hard steel is also brittle and could break in battle. Soft steel was more flexible and wouldn’t break as easily, but soft steel would not hold a sharp edge, quickly dulling through use. The Japanese swordsmiths solved this problem by hammering layers of steel of varying hardness together. Then they reheated the metal layers, folded the metal back on itself, and hammered it out thin again and again. After a dozen times, the steel consisted of thousands of paper-thin laminations of hard and soft metal. When it was ground to a sharp edge, the hard metal stood out and resisted dulling, while the soft steel kept the sword from breaking.
Finally, the master swordsmith covered the roughly finished blade with a thick layer of clay, leaving the edge exposed. The blade was then heated until the glowing metal reached the proper shade of color, then it was quickly submerged into cool water. The exposed edge cooled instantly while the rest of the blade, protected by the clay, cooled slowly and remained comparatively soft.
The final result was a flexible sword blade of soft non-brittle metal enclosed in a thin layer of hard steel. The edge, though, consisted of tempered hardened steel which would hold its razor sharpness despite repeated use.
The development of the samurai sword is based in Japanese mythology. According to legend, the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Omikami gave the first sword to her grandson, Ninigi-no Mikoto, to use as he ruled over Japan. The early warriors thought their swords had astonishing power and even their own individual personalities. There are many stories about the spiritual powers and sharpness of exceptional blades. One legend is about the products of two famous swordsmiths, Muramasa and Masume. Two warlords, who each owned a different craftsman’s sword, often argued about which one of the swordsmiths was the most skilled. Finally they decided on a test.
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