The Toyotomi Blades

16

When our giddiness over my fish-eating antics subsided, I thought it would be a good time to get down to business. “Can you tell me about the swords?” I asked.

“Ah, the Toyotomi blades.”

“What’s that?”

“Those are the swords that you’re so interested in. Do you know who the Toyotomi were?”

“No.”

“Do you know who Hideyoshi was?”

“Wasn’t he the person who united Japan right before Ieyasu Tokugawa established the Shogunate?”

“Very good. Most Americans wouldn’t know that. Hideyoshi was a peasant who worked his way up to general while he was a vassal of Nobunaga. That would be hard even today, but it is a measure of his brilliance that he was able to do it when birth and family meant almost everything in Japan.

“Nobunaga was a feudal lord who tried to unite Japan in the late fifteen hundreds by killing his enemies. He was very good at killing, so he came close to his goal of unifying the country. Unfortunately, when you act like that you also make new enemies and Nobunaga was killed by one of his own subordinates before he could finish the job of uniting Japan. There was a scramble for power and several generals, including Ieyasu Tokugawa and Hideyoshi, rushed to take power. Hideyoshi managed to come out on top. The Toyotomi was the clan that Hideyoshi belonged to.

“Hideyoshi was a brilliant general, so he wasn’t adverse to killing, either. But he was also a great politician and he realized that he could unite Japan faster through bribery, alliances, and political maneuvering rather than constant war, which is exactly what he did. Instead of fighting leyasu, for instance, he made him his ally.

“Because Hideyoshi was a commoner and not a noble, he couldn’t take the title of Shogun. Although he couldn’t get all the titles he craved, Hideyoshi was still able to amass considerable power and wealth. At one point he had a tearoom made of solid gold, and he was famous for the opulence of his court and castles. When he died in 1598, he left a young son as his heir, with Japan governed by a council of five regents. This led to a dangerous and unstable political situation.

“leyasu Tokugawa was one of the five regents. He had been waiting for years for his chance to rule Japan and he eventually became the chief opponent of the Toyotomi clan. Through threats and victory in battle, he gradually eroded the Toyotomi’s power. It took him almost fifteen years to eventually destroy the Toyotomis. During this unstable period the legend of the Toyotomi blades was born.

“According to the legend, in 1614 the Toyotomis hid a portion of their treasure as a hedge against future battles with leyasu. They wanted a financial reserve because their battle with leyasu was a protracted one. A message revealing the hiding place for the treasure was cut on the blades of six swords by the sword-smith Kannemori. Each sword had a piece of the message, and all six swords would be needed to find the treasure. The swords were given to six trusted retainers of the Toyotomi clan. Each retainer given a blade did not know the exact identity of the other five, only that there were six blades in all. Only Hideyoshi’s widow and his son knew which six families had a blade. That way, no one would be tempted to change sides, taking the treasure with them.

“Unfortunately for the Toyotomis, leyasu managed to destroy Osaka castle, the stronghold of the Toyotomis, and take over the country before the Toyotomis could muster the strength to defeat him. Hideyoshi’s widow and son perished with the fall of Osaka castle, and apparently the Toyotomis were never able to use their secret hoard of treasure.”

“How do you know this?”

Sonoda-san smiled. “My family was one of the ones entrusted with a blade. In fact, the Kannemori sword I own today has been passed down in my family for almost four hundred years. My father told me this legend, as his father told it and his father before him. The original recipient of the blade got it directly from the hands of Yodo Domo, Hideyoshi’s widow. He was told about the six blades, and that it was necessary for all six blades to be put next to each other or the treasure could not be found. He then was told to guard the blade until it was called for. We’ve been doing that ever since, and I strongly believe in the legend.”

“Do you know how the blades reveal where the treasure is?”

“My family was never told that, but I think it’s some kind of message. When you get all six blades together you can decipher a message that tells you the hiding place.”

“Could the blades form something besides a message?”

“Such as?”

“A map.”

Sonoda rubbed his chin. “I’ve always assumed that the pictures formed words, but I suppose they could be a map. I’ve never thought of it that way.”

“Where are the blades now?” Mariko asked.

“Over the centuries, I’m sure the blades were passed down from generation to generation, but since I don’t know the five other families who received a blade, it’s impossible to know where they are now. I’m sure not all families were as lucky as mine in their ability to retain the blades. I know one blade ended up in the Japan National Museum, but it was stolen just this year. Hirota-san tells me that you own one that you bought in the United States. I’d love to see it. My guess is that it was taken from Japan at the end of World War II as a souvenir. A great many swords left Japan during that period.”

“I think I know about two others,” I said.

Sonoda’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

“I think so. One was sold at a New York auction and was used as a decoration in a rich man’s apartment. A few weeks ago it was stolen and the owner was killed. The police think the man was a member of the Mafia and that he was killed by organized crime, but the sword was stolen as part of the murder. I’m beginning to think it might be the real reason for the murder. The second sword was in the Dutch Shipping Museum in Rotterdam. It also was stolen, just a couple of days after the murder in New York. Both swords were made by Kannemori and both swords had patterns incised on the blade. Look.” I took the faxes from my pocket and showed them to him.

Sonoda-san took the faxes from me eagerly, his hand positively shaking with excitement. He peered at the faxes. “Great!” he said.

“Are these blades new to you?” I asked.

“Yes. There’s no central registry of swords around the world, and unless one is auctioned through a recognized source like Sotheby’s, which distributes an international catalog of Japanese swords and other Japanese works of art auctioned in New York and London, it’s almost impossible to know if a sword goes on the market.”

“Couldn’t you know that by computer?” Mariko asked.

Sonoda-san grinned. “I don’t own a computer. Even a VCR is baffling to me.”

“I don’t think it would help much if you did,” I said. “Most art auctions are not currently computerized, and despite what people think, most knowledge is not on the Internet. There’s just too much knowledge still on paper, and no money to computerize it or even index it. For instance, I’d be surprised if the Dutch Shipping Museum even has an Internet site, much less an on-line catalog of its collection. I learned about the swords because they were stolen and mentioned in news stories.”

“I thought these blades were lost forever,” Mr. Sonoda ruminated. “Yours, mine, and the three blades stolen in New York, Rotterdam, and Tokyo. That’s five blades. Do you know where the sixth blade is?”

“No. But I think whoever’s stealing the blades must know where it is. After all, what good is five-sixths of a map?”

“But why would anyone steal the blades now?”

“I was hoping maybe you could tell me that. Are these blades especially famous or symbolic of Japan?”

“No. The legend of the Toyotomi blades is an obscure one. Why is that important?”

“Because I’ve been told that the Yakuza is especially conservative so I thought they might want the blades for their symbolic value.”

“Do you think the Yakuza is involved in this?”

“I don’t know. I’m still confused about exactly who is involved in this and why. Do you think the legend of the blades is true?”

“You mean that the blades point to a treasure?”

“That’s right.”

Sonoda sighed. “My family has believed that for four hundred years, and I believe it, too. But I’m a romantic, and I want to believe in something that is so much a part of my family heritage. The patterns on the blades are unique and each blade is different. They could fit together somehow, but how would you know what order to put them in?”

“Your blade has a number on the tang, right?”

“Yes it does. In addition to the usual markings with the year it was made, it has the number three.”

“My blade might have a number on it, too. When I get back to Tokyo, Professor Hirota will have a rubbing of it for me and I’ll be able to see. If it does, I’ll bet the numbers indicate the order that the blades should be placed.”

“Interesting,” Sonoda said. He picked up the faxes and looked at them. “It’s too bad these faxes are of such poor quality. But you’d also need to get rubbings or pictures of all the blades with their handles removed. Then you could see if they all had a number. It would be nice to put the blades next to each other and then maybe we could see if they really formed a message or a map.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too. I work as a computer programmer and I think these images can be computer enhanced so we can see the patterns,”

“Really?” He studied the faxes closely. “That’s amazing, but one of these blades has the handle attached. Even if you could see the patterns on the blades, you wouldn’t know the proper order for the blades. Plus, you’re still missing one of the blades, which would make it impossible to decipher a message or complete a map.”

Mariko patted me on the arm. “He’ll figure out a way around that.”

“You have more faith in me than I have,” I told her. “Right now I don’t have a clue about how I’ll solve the problem of the missing blade or the inability to see the numbers on the tang of some of the blades. I’m like a man groping his way down a dark road with a dim flashlight. I’m interested in seeing just far enough ahead not to stumble. I can’t see the end of the road.”

“But if you can keep moving forward you will come to the end of the road, even if you can’t see the end point. Isn’t that true?” Mariko smiled.

“I guess you’re right,” I said. “But that assumes that I don’t come to the edge of a cliff or anything. Then I can’t go forward without falling off and killing myself.”

“It interests me that you want to solve mysteries,” Sonoda-san said.

“Why?”

“Righting things that are wrong seems to be an American ideal, but I get the feeling that maybe your Japanese heritage has something to do with your desire to get mysteries solved.”

“What to you mean?”

“It’s a Confucian ideal to have things in balance and working in harmony. Like it or not, a lot of Japanese culture springs from this Confucian view of the world. That’s different than the typical Western thirst for justice. Something like Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, where Javert pursues Jean Valjean to satisfy some technicality of the law, is very peculiar to us.

“In our view of the world, individual justice can exist only after the larger society is in harmony. In fact we’re supposed to sacrifice our individual desires for the good of the family, the company, or the country. I’m curious about what motivates you to get involved in these mysteries.”

“I don’t know. I just get a feeling that something is wrong and I want to put it right. Until recently I acted like your description of the Confucian ideal. I subordinated my personal desires and took a safe path, a path with as little conflict as possible. I know that choice came from my mother, who always advised me not to make waves. Lately, I’ve found that it can be exciting to make waves. When I met Mariko it came as a shock to me that she was starting over in life, giving up a good job with a bank and trying to make a new career as an actress. I thought she was crazy.” That drew a smile from her. “But playing it safe didn’t work out for me. The company I worked for downsized me out of a job, and the work and sacrifices I made for that job seem pretty silly. Now I think I was crazy to play it safe. I know I’m influenced by my Japanese heritage, but I think I’m ready to take risks. I don’t know if that risk taking is Japanese or American, but it’s what I want now.”