豊前江
Buzen-Gō
別名: Buzen-Gō; the Hosokawa Clan's Gō blade
解說
Buzen-Gō is a tantō attributed to Gō Yoshihiro of Etchū Province — one of the mastersmith's finest short blades and a principal member of the celebrated 'Gō group' of named Yoshihiro works. The blade takes its name from its connection to the Hosokawa clan, lords of Buzen Province (northeastern Kyushu), whose dynasty produced some of Japan's most culturally sophisticated daimyo: the poet-warrior Hosokawa Fujitaka (Yūsai), his son Tadaoki (a devoted disciple of Sen no Rikyū in tea ceremony), and in modern times former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa. The sword is now held by the Eisei Bunko Foundation — the Hosokawa family's private museum in Tokyo's Bunkyo district — as an Important Cultural Property. Like the Tomita-Gō, the Buzen-Gō exemplifies Yoshihiro's incomparable tantō style: a fine, tightly packed itame jigane alive with ji-nie and ji-kei, and a hamon of gentle notare-based midare with active ashi, ha, and kinsuji — an aesthetic of turbulent inner energy contained within outwardly serene form. The 'Gō group' to which Buzen-Gō belongs was largely associated with Toyotomi Hideyoshi's patronage, through which these blades were certified as meibutsu (named cultural treasures of the highest rank) and distributed among the great daimyo houses that survived the Sengoku period.
逸話與傳說
Buzen-Gō carries the history of the Hosokawa clan in its provenance — a family whose aesthetic sophistication was extraordinary even by Sengoku standards. Hosokawa Fujitaka (Yūsai) was simultaneously a formidable warrior and the foremost living authority on classical Japanese poetry, the keeper of the secret oral transmission of the Kokinshū (Kokin-denjū), a cultural treasure so precious that even as his castle was besieged during the Sekigahara campaign, the imperial court negotiated a ceasefire specifically to allow him to transmit this poetic secret before potentially dying in battle. His son Tadaoki was one of Sen no Rikyū's most devoted tea disciples, and his wife Hosokawa Gracia (Garasha) — a daughter of the rebel Akechi Mitsuhide who converted to Christianity — chose death over capture by Ishida Mitsunari's forces, becoming one of Japanese history's most celebrated tragic figures. Into this family's keeping came Buzen-Gō: a blade by the most enigmatic and exquisite of all Japanese smiths, preserved by people who understood beauty at the deepest level — warriors who wrote poetry, tea masters who fought battles, lovers who chose noble death over dishonor. The sword is a survivor of an age of extraordinary intensity, held by people who lived that intensity to its fullest.