【Treasures of Fukuoka】No.8 Sword “Heshikiri-Hasebe”(National Treasure)

The sword that attests to Oda Nobunaga's high regard for Kuroda Yoshitaka.

The sword was shortened from its original size, and the signature of the swordsmith was lost in the cutting process. However, Honnami Koutoku, a connoisseur of swords in the 16th century, stated that the sword was made by Hasegawa Kunishige, seeing

the distinctive Hitatsura patterns all over the blade. He also inlaid in gold the craftsman's name “長谷部國重(Hasebe Kunishige)” on the sword. Hasegawa Kunishige was a swordsmith in Kyoto who was active in the Period of the Northern and Southern Courts (13th century). On the other side of the sword, there is also a gold inscription of the owner’s name, “黒田筑前守,” which represents Kuroda Nagamasa, the first lord of the Fukuoka clan.

(A full-body image of Heshikiri Hasebe and close up image of the point and gold inscriptions)

The sword is now an Uchigatana type with a shallow curved knife edge. However, the wide blade and the shape of the point clearly suggest that the sword used to be Odachi (extra-long sword), which was popular at the end of the Kamakura period to the

Period of the Northern and Southern Courts. Grooves engraved on both sides of the blade's surface are stretched to the tang. The grooves’ width is narrowed to half at the bottom of the tang, which tells us that the back of the sword was also ground in the shortening process to make the curvature of the knife shallower.

The sword Heshikiri was once an honored possession of Oda Nobunaga, a daimyo feudal lord, and he bestowed this sword on Kuroda Kanbei (Yoshitaka) as a reward.

The “Kyoho Specialty Book,” written and compiled by the Honnami family, relays that the sword was first given to Hashiba Hideyoshi and Hideyoshi gave it to Kuroda Nagamasa, a son of Kuroda Yoshitaka. It sounds legitimate, considering that the sword bears Kuroda Nagamasa’s name on its knife edge. However, the copy of the “Kyoho Specialty Book,” which came from the Kuroda family, suggests otherwise.

According to “The History of Kuroda,” Kuroda Kanbei (then Yoshitaka), a renowned war strategist, advised his then lord Kodera Masamoto to support Oda Nobunaga, who hastily and enthusiastically extended his military influence westward, agitated by the movement of his rival Mouri Terumoto. When his proposal was approved, Yoshitaka delivered the message to Nobunaga himself. This was when Yoshitaka convinced Nobunaga that it was the optimal time to conquer Japan's central region. Nobunaga found this advice reasonable and gave the sword Heshikiri Hasebe to Yoshitaka as a reward. This was when Yoshitaka, who was merely a vassal of a powerful family in the Harima area, was discovered by Nobunaga and thus appeared in the frontline of Japanese history. Yoshitaka helped Hideyoshi when he took the initiative to conquer the central part of Japan. After Nobunaga died in the incident at Honno-Temple, Yoshitaka helped Hideyoshi become the unifier of Japan.

The sword that cuts well without swinging down.

Japanese swords need to be swung down to cut anything, but the sword Heshikiri was the exception. As the name suggests (Heshikiri means “to cut off by adding pressure”), the sword is so sharp that it can cut just by pressing the blade against the target object. According to the document黒田御家御重宝故実 and 御蔵御櫃現御品入組帳 (a record of swords derived in the Kuroda family), Oda Nobunaga used this sword to kill his male servant who was hiding under a shelf. Since there was not enough room to swing the sword under the shelf, Nobunaga killed the servant by simply adding pressure to the blade. The document describes Nobunaga feeling nothing when he cut the servant because the sword cut so well.

We often see descriptions of the Heshikiri Hasebe saying the sword cut the male servant and the shelf altogether, but that is not what 圧切 means. What makes the Heshikiri special is the fact that it cut the footman just by pressing the blade against him.

It seems like the sword was one of the Nobunaga’s favorites for daily use. He must have bestowed this sword on Yoshitaka, seeing him as a very prominent person who came all the way to see him.