Hideyoshi's Sword Hunt

1588

Toyotomi Hideyoshi decreed that all peasants must surrender their swords, spears, and firearms. The weapons were supposedly melted down for the nails and clamps of a new giant Buddha statue. Japan's social classes hardened into warrior, peasant, craftsman, and merchant, a stratification that would outlast Hideyoshi by centuries. The systematic disarmament created the rigid social stratification of the Tokugawa period that persisted for over two hundred and fifty years.