宗三左文字

The Battle of Okehazama on the 19th of May, 1560, is one of the greatest upsets in military history. Imagawa Yoshimoto — master of three provinces, commander of an army of twenty-five thousand, marching on the capital in a procession of confidence — was caught resting in a narrow valley by Oda Nobunaga, who had perhaps five thousand men and the audacity to attack. Yoshimoto died. His sword passed to the man who killed him. And Nobunaga, recognizing the extraordinary historical significance of the moment, did something almost unique in the history of Japanese swords: he inscribed the tang himself. 'Yoshimoto Samonji — 19th day of the 5th month of Eiroku 3 — Oda Owari no Kami Nobunaga.' Every person who has read those words since then has felt the same thing: not just admiration for a fine blade, but the shock of contact with a specific, documented, world-changing moment. The sword then passed to Toyotomi Hideyoshi and then to Tokugawa Ieyasu — as if the three great unifiers of Japan took turns holding the proof of how it all began.