真田幸村

Sanada Yukimura (Nobushige), praised as 'the greatest warrior in Japan,' is immortalized for his desperate charge that nearly reached Tokugawa Ieyasu's headquarters during the Siege of Osaka. A pragmatic warrior, Yukimura treated his swords as pure weapons, valuing function over flamboyance. The Sanada clan, based in Shinano Province, had close ties with local smiths of Shinano and Kōzuke. The blade Yukimura wielded in the Summer Siege of Osaka, alongside his red-lacquered armor, became enduring symbols of Sanada valor. Under the banner of the six-coin mon, Yukimura charged fearlessly again and again — for him, a sword was nothing less than a pledge of one's life. Though many Sanada-clan swords have been lost to history, Yukimura's indomitable spirit continues to captivate as the very embodiment of bushidō.