日清日露戦争期

Japan's victories in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) transformed the nation's international standing and simultaneously reignited domestic interest in the Japanese sword as a cultural and military symbol. Following the Haitōrei (1876) sword prohibition, the military had adopted Western-style sabers, but the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion had already revealed that saber-equipped government troops struggled against samurai wielding traditional swords in close-quarters combat. The Meiji 19 (1886) military sword regulation introduced a hybrid format—Japanese tachi-style blades in Western-style metal mountings—that became the basis for subsequent official military sword patterns. The Sino-Japanese War confirmed the effectiveness of Japanese-style military swords in actual combat, increasing officer demand for custom-ordered traditional blades. The Russo-Japanese War's large-scale Manchurian campaigns, including cavalry engagements and the brutal siege of Port Arthur, gave Japanese sword-bearing officers further opportunities to demonstrate blade effectiveness. Japan's historic defeat of a European great power sent shockwaves through the international community and elevated the Japanese sword's global profile. However, the war also exposed a fundamental tension: the scale of modern warfare required mass production that traditional玉鋼 (tamahagane) smithing could not meet, accelerating industrial shortcuts that would become the defining problem of Shōwa-era military sword production.