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The 'Ryūkyū Kingdom' (Ryukyuan: 琉球國 (''rūchū－kuku''), Japanese: 琉球王国''ryūkyū-ō-koku''), Traditional Chinese: 琉球國 (''liuqiuguo'')) was an independent kingdom which ruled most of the Ryukyu Islands from the 15th century to the 19th century. The Kings of Ryūkyū unified Okinawa Island and extended the kingdom to the Amami Islands in modern-day Kagoshima Prefecture, and the Yaeyama Islands near Taiwan.

Contents

History

Asian trade (15th-16th century)

Japanese invasion (1609)

Major events

List of Ryūkyū Kings

See also

External links

References

History

In the three Ryūkyū historical annals, ''Chūzan Seikan'' (中山世鑑, Mirror of Chūzan), ''Chūzan Seifu'' (中山世譜, Genealogy of Chūzan), and ''Kyūyō'' (球陽, Chronicle of Ryūkyū), the history of Ryūkyū Kingdom began with the 'Tenson Dynasty' (天孫王朝, Dynasty of Heavenly Descent), which lasted 17,000 years. Many historians today believe that this is a mythological legend created in the 16th or 17th century to lend more legitimacy to the ruling dynasty, the Shō family, over other local aristocratic families.
The Tenson Dynasty ended with three kings of the Shunten Line (舜天王朝), lasting from 1187 to 1259. According to ''Chūzan Seikan'', written by Shō Shōken, the founder of the dynasty was a son of Minamoto no Tametomo, a Japanese aristocrat and relative of the Imperial family. Minamoto no Tametomo was exiled to the Izu Islands after he failed to gain power in the Kyoto court; he then fled and drifted to Ryūkyū, where his son Shunten established their own dynasty. Some Japanese and Chinese scholars claim that the Shunten dynasty was again invented by the Shō family historians, for the same reason that they created the Tenson legend.
In the 14th century, small domains scattered on Okinawa Island were unified into three principalities, Hokuzan (北山, Northern Mountain), Chūzan (中山, Central Mountain) and Nanzan (南山, Southern Mountain). This was known as the Three Kingdoms or Sanzan (三山, Three Mountains) period. These three principalities, or tribal federations led by major chieftains, battled, and Chūzan emerged victorious, receiving Chinese investiture in the early 15th century. That is to say, the leaders of Chūzan were officially recognized by China as the rightful kings over those of Nanzan and Hokuzan, thus lending great legitimacy to their claims, if not victory outright. The ruler of Chūzan passed his throne to king Hashi (he received the surname "Shō" from the Ming emperor in 1421, becoming known as Shō Hashi, 尚巴志). Hashi had already conquered Hokuzan in 1416 and Nanzan in 1429, uniting the island of Okinawa for the first time, and founding the first Shō Dynasty.
Shō Hashi adopted the Chinese hierarchical court system, built Shuri Castle and the town as his capital, and constructed Naha harbor. Several generations later, in 1469, King Shō Toku died without a male heir; a palatine servant declared he was Toku's adopted son and gained Chinese investiture. This pretender, Shō En, began the Second Shō Dynasty. Ryūkyū's golden age occurred during the reign of Shō Shin, the second king of that dynasty, who reigned from 1478-1526.

Asian trade (15th-16th century)

Diplomatically, the kingdom established tributary relations with China during its Ming and Qing Dynasties. It also developed trade relations with Japan, Korea and many Southeast Asian countries, including Siam, Pattani, Malacca, Champa, Annam, and Java.
Between the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ryūkyū Kingdom emerged as the main trading intermediary in Eastern Asia. Japanese products (silver, swords, fans, lacquer-ware, folding screens) and Chinese products (medicinal herbs, minted coins, glazed ceramics, brocades, textiles) were traded within the kingdom for Southeast Asian sappanwood, rhino horn, tin, sugar, iron, ambergris, Indian ivory and Arabian frankincense. Altogether, 150 voyages between the kingdom and Southeast Asia on Ryūkyūan ships were recorded, with 61 of them bound for Siam, 10 for Malacca, 10 for Pattani and 8 for Java, among others.
Commercial activities in the kingdom diminished around 1570 with the rise of Chinese merchants and the intervention of Portuguese and Spanish ships, corresponding with the start of the Red Seal Ship system in Japan.

Japanese invasion (1609)

Around 1590, Toyotomi Hideyoshi asked the Ryūkyū Kingdom to aid in his campaign to conquer Korea. If successful, Hideyoshi intended to then move against China. As the Ryūkyū kingdom was a tributary state of the Ming Dynasty, the request was refused. The Tokugawa shogunate that emerged following Hideyoshi's fall authorized the Shimazu family, feudal lords of the Satsuma domain (present-day Kagoshima prefecture), to send an expeditionary force to conquer the Ryūkyūs. The occupation of the Ryūkyūs occurred fairly quickly, with a minimum of armed resistance, and King Shō Nei was taken as a prisoner to the Satsuma domain and later to Edo (modern day Tokyo). When he was released two years later, the Ryūkyū Kingdom regained a degree of autonomy, however, the Satsuma domain did seize control over some territory of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, notably the Amami-Ōshima island group, which was incorporated into the Satsuma domain.
The Ryūkyū Kingdom found itself in a period of "dual subordination" to Japan and China, wherein Ryūkyūan tributary relations were maintained with both the Tokugawa shogunate and the Ming Chinese court. Since Ming China prohibited trade with Japan, Satsuma domain, with the blessing of the Tokugawa ''bakufu'' (shogunal government), used the trade relations of the kingdom to continue to maintain trade relations with China. Considering that Japan had previously severed ties with most of the European countries except the Dutch, such trade relations proved especially crucial to both the Tokugawa ''bakufu'' and Satsuma ''han'' which would use its power and influence, gained in this way, to help overthrow the shogunate in the 1860s.
The Ryūkyūan king was a vassal of the Satsuma daimyo, but his land was not counted as part of any ''han'' (fief); up until the formal annexation of the islands and abolition of the kingdom in 1879, the Ryūkyūs were not truly considered part of Japan, and the Ryūkyūan people not considered Japanese. Though technically under the control of Satsuma, Ryūkyū was given a great degree of autonomy, to best serve the interests of the Satsuma daimyo and those of the shogunate, in trading with China. Ryūkyū was a tributary state of China, and since Japan had no formal diplomatic relations with China, it was essential that Beijing not realize that Ryūkyū was controlled by Japan. If they did, they would end the trade. Thus, ironically, Satsuma (and the shogunate) was obliged to be mostly hands-off in terms of not visibly or forcibly occupying Ryūkyū or controlling the policies and laws there. On top of that, in a strange way, it benefited all three parties involved — the Ryūkyū royal government, the Satsuma daimyo, and the shogunate — to make Ryūkyū seem as much a distinctive and foreign country as possible. Japanese were prohibited from visiting Ryūkyū without shogunal permission, and the Ryūkyūans were forbidden from adopting Japanese names, clothes, or customs. They were even forbidden from acknowledging their knowledge of the Japanese language during their trips to Edo; the Shimazu family, daimyo of Satsuma, gained great prestige by putting on a show of parading the King, officials, and other people of Ryūkyū to and through Edo. As the only ''han'' to have a king and an entire kingdom as vassals, Satsuma gained significantly from Ryūkyū's exoticness, reinforcing that it was an entire separate kingdom.
When Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry sailed to Japan to force Japan to open up trade relations with the United States in the 1850s, he first stopped in the Ryūkyūs, as many Western sailors had before him, and forced the Ryūkyū Kingdom to sign Unequal Treaties opening the Ryūkyūs up to American trade. From there, he continued on to Edo.
Following the Meiji Restoration, the Meiji Japanese government abolished the Ryūkyū Kingdom, formally annexing the islands to Japan as Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. The Amami-Ōshima island group which had been integrated into Satsuma domain became a part of Kagoshima prefecture. King Shō Tai, the last king of the Ryūkyūs, was moved to Tokyo and was made a Marquis (see Kazoku), as were many other Japanese aristocrats, and died there in 1901. Qing China made some diplomatic protests to the Japanese government, but these proved to have little effect.

Major events

★ 1372 The first Ming dynasty envoy visits Okinawa, which had been divided into three kingdoms, during the Sanzan period. Formal tributary relations with the Chinese Empire begin.

★ 1419 Chūzan, led by Shō Hashi, occupies Nakijin gusuku, capital of Hokuzan.

★ 1429 Chūzan occupies Shimajiri Osato gusuku, capital of Nanzan, unifying Okinawa Island. Shō Hashi establishes the Kingdom of Ryūkyū, ruling as king with his capital at Shuri (now part of modern-day Naha).

★ 1470 Shō En (Kanemaru) establishes the Second Shō Dynasty.

★ 1477 The third king, Shō Shin, ascends to the throne. Golden age of the kingdom.

★ 1609 (April 5) ''daimyō'' (Lord) of Satsuma in southern Kyūshū conquers the kingdom. King of Ryūkyū becomes a Japanese vassal.

★ 1624 Lord of Satsuma annexes the Amami Islands.

★ 1846 Dr. Bernard Jean Bettleheim (d. 1870), a British Protestant missionary, arrives in Ryūkyū Kingdom. He establishes the first foreign hospital on the island at the Nami-no-ue Temple.

★ 1853 Commodore Matthew Perry of the US Navy visits the kingdom. Bettleheim leaves with Perry.

★ 1866 The last official mission from the Qing Empire visits the kingdom.

★ 1874 The last tributary envoy to China is dispatched from Naha.

★ 1879 Japan replaces the Ryūkyū han with Okinawa Prefecture, formally annexing the islands. King Shō Tai (尚泰) is given the title of marquis (藩王 ''Han'ō'') and removed to Tokyo.

List of Ryūkyū Kings

'Lords of Okinawa'

Name	Kanji	Reign	Line or Dynasty	Notes
Shunten	舜天	1187–1237	Tenson Line
Shun Bajunki	舜馬順熈	1238–1248	Tenson Line
Gihon	義本	1249–1259	Tenson Line
Eiso	英祖	1260–1299	Eiso Line
Taisei	大成	1300–1308	Eiso Line
Eiji	英慈	1309–1313	Eiso Line

'Kings of Chūzan'

Tamagusuku	玉城	1314–1336	Eiso Line
Seii	西威	1337–1354	Eiso Line
Satto	察度	1355–1397	-
Bunei	武寧	1398–1406	-
Shō Shishō	尚思紹	1407–1421	First Shō Dynasty
Shō Hashi	尚巴志	1422–1429	First Shō Dynasty	as King of Chūzan

'Kings of Ryūkyū'

Name	Kanji	Reign	Line or Dynasty	Notes
Shō Hashi	尚巴志	1429–1439	First Shō Dynasty	as King of Ryūkyū
Shō Chū	尚忠	1440–1442	First Shō Dynasty
Shō Shitatsu	尚思達	1443–1449	First Shō Dynasty
Shō Kinpuku	尚金福	1450–1453	First Shō Dynasty
Shō Taikyū	尚泰久	1454–1460	First Shō Dynasty
Shō Toku	尚徳	1461–1469	First Shō Dynasty
Shō En	尚円	1470–1476	Second Shō Dynasty	AKA Kanamaru Uchima
Shō Sen'i	尚宣威	1477	Second Shō Dynasty
Shō Shin	尚真	1477–1526	Second Shō Dynasty
Shō Sei	尚清	1527–1555	Second Shō Dynasty
Shō Gen	尚元	1556–1572	Second Shō Dynasty
Shō Ei	尚永	1573–1586	Second Shō Dynasty
Shō Nei	尚寧	1587–1620	Second Shō Dynasty	ruled during Satsuma invasion; first king to be Satsuma vassal
Shō Hō	尚豊	1621–1640	Second Shō Dynasty
Shō Ken	尚賢	1641–1647	Second Shō Dynasty
Shō Shitsu	尚質	1648–1668	Second Shō Dynasty
Shō Shōken	尚象賢	1666–1673	''Sessei'' (prime minister)	first Ryūkyūan historian; lived 1617-1675
Shō Tei	尚貞	1669–1709	Second Shō Dynasty	AKA Shang Jing; lived 1645–1709
Shō Eki	尚益	1710–1712	Second Shō Dynasty	AKA Shang Ben; lived 1678–1712
Shō Kei	尚敬	1713–1751	Second Shō Dynasty	AKA Shang Jing; lived 1700–1751
Sai On	蔡温	1751–1752	''Kokushi'' (state instructor/regent)	major Ryūkyūan scholar and historian; lived 1682–1761
Shō Boku	尚穆	1752–1795	Second Shō Dynasty	AKA Shang Mu; lived 1739–1795
Shō On	尚温	1796–1802	Second Shō Dynasty	AKA Shang Wen; lived 1784–1802
Shō Sei	尚成	1803–1804	Second Shō Dynasty	AKA Shang Cheng; lived 1783–1804
Shō Kō	尚灝	1804–1828	Second Shō Dynasty	AKA Shang Hao; lived 1787–1839
Shō Iku	尚育	1829–1847	Second Shō Dynasty	AKA Shang Yu; lived 1813–1847
Shō Tai	尚泰	1848–March 11 1879	Second Shō Dynasty	AKA Shang Tai; lived 1843–1901; last Ryūkyū king

See also

★ Ryūkyūan people

★ Ryūkyū Islands

★ Ryūkyūan history

★ Gusuku

★ Tamaudun (intact royal tombs)

★ Ryukyu independence movement

External links

★ History of Okinawa

★ Brief History of the Uchinanchu (Okinawans)

References

★ Matsuda, Mitsugu (2001), ''The Government of the Kingdom of Ryukyu, 1609-1872''

★
★ (ISBN 4-946539-16-6)

★ Smits, Gregory (1999). "Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern Thought and Politics." Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.