Hi there,
I hope you are doing well.
If you know the name of one Japanese swordsmith, it is probably Masamune. So here is the part of this episode that surprised me: Masamune’s school is not number one.
Japanese swords are sorted into five traditions, the Gokaden, and each one grew up around a different customer. In Nara, smiths kept forges at the temple gates and armed the warrior monks of Todai-ji. In Kyoto, they made refined blades for the emperor’s court. In Kamakura, the shogunate summoned smiths from other provinces to build a school of its own, the Mongol invasions shaped what came out of its forges, and out of that workshop came Masamune. In Seki, in Mino province, they turned out swords in numbers no other school could match for a century of civil war.
The winner was Bizen, in Okayama. Iron sand from the mountains, a river to quench in, red pine for charcoal and a route to the sea, all along one river. Of the 122 swords designated National Treasures of Japan, 47 were forged there. And here is the twist: some of the masters who built Masamune’s school in Kamakura came from Bizen.
Around 1590 a flood on the Yoshii River destroyed the village of Osafune and most of its smiths. Within a generation the forges were lit again, and they still are. No prefecture in Japan has more swordsmiths registered with the All Japan Swordsmith Association than Okayama, and one of them is Kazuki Kawashima, a 15th-generation smith we have been lucky enough to speak with on the channel.
Watch it here: https://jpn.la/KatanaSchools5NL
Until next time, keep your edge.
Kind Regards,
Kei, Matt & Team from the History of Katana
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