Shinano and Ueda
Kiyomaro was born in 1813 (Bunka 10) in the village of Akaiwa, in Shinano (today Tōmi, in Nagano). In 1829 he entered, with his elder brother, the school of Kawamura Toshitaka (河村寿隆), smith of the Ueda domain, and signed “Ikkansai Masayuki” (一貫斎正行); his work is known from the following year, when he was 17. In 1834 he signed “Hidetoshi” (秀寿), and afterwards went back to Masayuki. It is said that this name was given to him by his master. His brother is the smith Yamaura Saneo (山浦真雄), whose name is also read Masao. According to Sesko, some scholars doubt the five years of apprenticeship with Toshitaka that tradition relates, and think he trained mainly with his brother.
Edo and Kubota Sugane
In 1835 (Tenpō 6) he went to Edo, where the strategist Kubota Sugane (窪田清音) recognised his talent. Sesko brings his arrival forward to the winter of 1834. Sugane, a hatamoto and master of several schools, set up a forge for him in his own house and, according to the papers of Saitō Kiyondo cited by Sesko, lent him famous swords to study. Sugane organised a sword subscription (武器講, buki-kō) for him. It was for a hundred swords, one a month, drawn by lot among the subscribers. According to Sesko, the first is signed “Yamaura Tamaki Masayuki, Tenpō 10 (1839), buki-kō, the first of a hundred”; according to the Japanese Wikipedia, Kiyomaro finished that first one and left the rest when he went away in 1842. In his Tanki yoron (鍛記余論), of 1841, Sugane wrote of him, according to Sesko, that there was no one above him.
Hagi and Komoro
In 1842 (Tenpō 13) he went to Hagi, in Chōshū, invited according to the NBTHK by Murata Seifū, who was leading the domain’s reforms, and forged there for about two years. The classic view was a flight and a later pardon. Since the bicentenary exhibition the invitation has been argued for, on the strength of the receipts for charcoal and steel signed by Kiyomaro kept at the Murata Seifū museum, according to the Japanese Wikipedia. On his way back he passed through Komoro, in Shinano: some six blades of 1844 signed “at Komoro castle” (於信小諸城製, Shin Komoro-jō ni oite sei) are known.
Yotsuya
In 1845 (Kōka 2) he returned to Edo and opened his forge in Yotsuya, from which comes the name “Masamune of Yotsuya”. In 1846 he changed Masayuki to Kiyomaro, and the first blade with the new name was a katana for Kubota Sugane. The Japanese Wikipedia adds that he was left-handed, which is why the file marks on his tangs run the opposite way, and that he also handled the sword well and helped to teach at Sugane’s dōjō. According to a tradition recorded by the same encyclopaedia, Koyama Munetsugu, who had lived in Yotsuya before, sent him a challenge because he had not presented himself to him.
His death
He died on the 14th day of the eleventh month of Kaei 7, at the age of 42: according to the NBTHK, he took his own life with a blade, his health ruined by years of drinking and in despair at his condition. In the Western calendar, the date is 2 January 1855, according to the Japanese Wikipedia. According to Sesko, his pupil Kurihara Nobuhide left in writing that drink often kept him from working, and that he committed seppuku. Sesko rules out on the dates the legends that mix him up with Ōshio’s revolt or with the burning of the British legation. The Japanese Wikipedia relates that Kurihara Nobuhide and Saitō Kiyondo made the swords he had left on order and paid off his debts. His grave is at the temple Sōfuku-ji (宗福寺), in Shinjuku, and is a historic site of the ward.