Kantei

What his signatures say

Life and times

Not a single date of Morihide’s life is on record: only those of two blades and the province he writes on one of them.

On this page
  1. Nagato
  2. The dates
  3. What is not on record

Nagato

One of his katana is signed 長門国盛秀 (Nagato no Kuni Morihide), “Morihide, of the province of Nagato”. Nagato is, with Suō, the territory of the Chōshū domain, that of the Mōri, which in those years was one of the protagonists of the fall of the shogunate.

The dates

The other katana is dated 文久三年二月日 (Bunkyū sannen nigatsu hi), the second month of 1863, and the Nagato one 丙寅八月日 (hinoe-tora hachigatsu hi), the eighth month of a year of the fire tiger. The year of the fire tiger comes round every sixty years; on a blade with a late Edo shape it is 1866 (Keiō 2), three years after the other.

What is not on record

His civil name, his dates of birth and death, his master, his school, a title or a post in the domain are not recorded in the sources consulted: not in Wikipedia, nor in Kotobank, nor in ColBase, nor in Bunka Isan Online.