Ryukyu Kingdom

Kingdom of Ryūkyū 琉球國
1429–1879
Flag (1875–1879) Royal Seal (琉球國王之印)
Status	Tributary to China¹ Vassal of Satsuma
Capital	Shuri
Common languages	Ryukyuan, Japanese, Chinese
Religion	Buddhism, Confucianism, native Ryukyuan religion, Shinto
Government	Monarchy
King (国王)
• 1429–1439	Shō Hashi
• 1477–1526	Shō Shin
• 1587–1620	Shō Nei
• 1848–1879	Shō Tai
Sessei (摂政)
• 1666–1673	Shō Shōken
Kokushi (国司)
• 1751–1752	Sai On
Legislature	Shuri Ō-fu (首里王府), Sanshikan (三司官)
History
• Unification	1429
• Japanese invasion	5 April, 1609
• Prefecture reform	1871
• Annexed by Japan	March 11 1879
• Battle of Okinawa	April 1–June 21, 1945
Area
2,271 km2 (877 sq mi)
Preceded by Succeeded by Chūzan Hokuzan Nanzan Okinawa Prefecture
¹ Ming and Qing dynasties.

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.

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 the Ryūkyū Kingdom began with the Tenson Dynasty (天孫王朝, Dynasty of Heavenly Descent), which was said to have 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.

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.

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 did not 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.

• 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.

• Ryukyuan people
• Ryukyu Islands
• History of Ryukyu Islands
• Gusuku
• Tamaudun (intact royal tombs)
• Ryūkyū independence movement

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ryukyu Kingdom.

• History of Okinawa
• Brief History of the Uchinanchu (Okinawans)
• National Archives of Japan: Ryukyu Chuzano ryoshisha tojogyoretsu, scroll illustrating procession of Ryukyu emissary to Edo, Hōei 7 (1710)

• Matsuda, Mitsugu (2001) The Government of the Kingdom of Ryukyu, 1609-1872: a dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Hawaii in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, January 1967, Gushikawa : Yui Pub., 283 p., 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, 213 p., ISBN 0-82482-037-1

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