Nothing symbolizes the Japanese at war as much as the image of the Samurai sword. It is as beautiful as it is deadly and lethal. Due to the design and quality of the Japanese sword it is capable of cutting through iron plates as well as shields and even other sword blades without taking any damage to itself.

Even though it is known for its beauty and precision it is not just these things but also a representation of the samurai himself. It is known as the soul of the samurai.

Battle of Hakata Bay

It can be argued that the Japanese samurai sword is what saved Japan from one of the most war mongering peoples throughout history, the Mongols.  The mogul empire was on the rise and at the door steps of Japan, it seemed that invasion and possibly the conquest of japan was eminent.  But the Mongols were repeeled by the Japanese at what became known as the Battle of Hakata Bay. The Japanese were inexperienced in managing such a large force, and the Mongols made significant initial progress. It had been approximately 50 years since the last major combat event in Japan leaving not a single Japanese general with adequate experience in moving large bodies of troops. In addition, the style of warfare that then was customary within feudal Japan involved man-to-man duels of sorts, even on large battlefields. The Mongols possessed foreign weapons which included superior long-range armaments, and easily had the upper hand in land combat. The Japanese force at Hakata Bay needed time to await the arrival of reinforcements, with which they would be able to overwhelm the Mongol invaders. Around nightfall, a severe storm caused the Mongol ship captains to suggest that the land force re-embark on the sailing vessels in order to avoid the risk of being marooned on Japanese soil. By daybreak, only a few ships had not set out to sea. Those that had met their doom at nature's hand. Different accounts offer casualty reports that suggest 200 Mongol ships were lost. However, Japanese small boats were much swifter and more maneuverable than Mongol ships, and the Japanese were able to board the remaining Mongol ships. Mongols without their long-range land weapons and armor, once in hand-to-hand combat, stood little chance against the disciplined samurai and their swords.

In addition the was a second battle of Hakata Bay in which the mongol forces after having landed where immediately driven back to their ships. Due to multiple circumstances such as a typhoon, inferior ship designs and others the Mongols where again defeated by the numerically inferior Japanese defenders. There where also accounts reported of small groups of Japanese samurai sneaking onboard the mongol ships and killing entire crews during the night and before morning slipping back ashore, leaving the remaining ships in chaos and fear wondering who would be next when night fell again.

Japanese Sword Superior to Others

Before gun powder wars where fought with swords and of the thousands of swords throughout history only one remains as famous and as mystical as it was a thousand years ago when it was being used to slay its enemies, and that is the Japanese samurai sword. No other sword can rival the Japanese sword for beauty or cutting power.  The reason the Japanese sword is unrivaled at its cutting ability is because its flawless design. The samurai sword has a curved blade thus minimizing the surface area of the sword on initial contact and when striking the opponent it cuts into them utilizing the entire blade in one fluid motion. The reason why the Japanese sword is superior to others is due to the fact that it was designed to be a cutting weapon where all other straight bladed swords are thrusting weapons. This means that the straight bladed weapon was all about power and thrust, and strength, and if the blade did make contact with a blow it most likely wouldn’t do much damage due to its design. Now the samurai sword on the other hand was designed as a cutting weapon and the user didn’t need to have superior strength or thrusting power in order to be the victor. In fact the key difference was the amount of skill that was required for a samurai vs. a knight. Knights carried these very heavy bulky straight bladed swords in addition to a shield. This made the sword a purely offensive weapon while the shield was a defensive weapon. But the Japanese sword was both an offensive and defensive weapon due to the lack of shields in Japan in hand to hand combat. The samurai sword was able to take on the roles as both offensive and defensive due to how it was made. When a sword blade is being made the end result due to how it is cooled will either make the blade sharp or durable, the way the Japanese make their swords the blade becomes both and the Japanese samurai sword is the only blade in the world that is made to be this way. With shields made obsolete due to the sword, the samurai had to rely on honed reflexes and training in order to survive and these men practiced for hours on end everyday against an imaginary enemy to hone their skills.

Specific making of the Japanese Samurai Sword

The secret of the Japanese sword lies in the complex way the blade is made, to this day sword makers continue to make these blades the same way they where made a thousand years ago. The origins are Chinese, but it took the Japanese to perfect a technique that would allow a blade to be made that had a hard sharp edge that can cut easily and effectively but would not break during combat. The sword begins with a combination of hard and soft steels that are hammered together and then heated and folded up to fifteen times, thus creating a layered structure in the steel. When the blade is finished the sword can have up to over 30,000 layers in it. The steel is then flattened out and beaten into it distinctive curved shape, then the blade becomes ready for hardening, which is a critical part of the sword making. To overcome the problem of quenching the molten steel in water and making the blade sharp but brittle the Japanese have developed a technique of applying a layer of clay to the blade section of the sword so when cooled on water the blade and the backbone of the sword will cool at different temperatures thus giving the sword its flexibility, resilience and lethal sharpness.