Kingdom of Ryukyu
- Japanese: 琉球王国 (Ryuukyuu-ou-koku)
- Territory: most of the Ryûkyû Islands
- Capital: Shuri
- Kings: First & Second Shô Dynasty
- Existence: 1429-1879
The Kingdom of Ryûkyû encompassed and ruled over most of the Ryûkyû Islands, which stretch between Kyûshû and Taiwan, from 1429 to 1879.
Ruled by the Shô Dynasty of kings from Shuri Castle, on the island of Okinawa, the kingdom was formed by the unification in 1419-1429 of the island, which had been previously divided into three chiefdoms. It was an independent state, though a tributary to Ming China, until the 1609 invasion of Ryûkyû by forces of Japan's Satsuma han. From then until its dissolution in 1879, the kingdom served as a semi-independent vassal state under Satsuma, and continued its tributary relationship with China.
The kingdom's territory expanded over the course of the 15th-16th centuries, as the islands of the archipelago were absorbed into the kingdom one by one; after 1624, Amami Ôshima and a number of its neighboring islands were annexed by Satsuma han. The Amami Islands today remain part of Kagoshima Prefecture while the rest of the Ryûkyûs constitute Okinawa Prefecture.
History
Origins
Prior to 1314 or so, the Ryûkyû Islands were controlled by a myriad of small chiefdoms; those on the main island of Okinawa were loosely united under a "king". Tamagusuku, who ascended to this post in 1314, lacked the charisma, leadership qualities, and skills to maintain this unity, and the island fractured into three polities[1]: Nanzan in the south of the island, Hokuzan in the north, and Chûzan in the center.
Over the course of the next hundred years, the three polities consolidated their power, build a great many fortresses (gusuku), and expanded through trade. Chûzan entered into tributary relations with Ming China in 1372, the other two polities following suit within the next decade, and began to receive royal investiture from China as well. The three polities expanded their territory in this period as well, slowly acquiring the other nearby islands either as tributary states or as outright annexed territories, and entering into diplomatic and trade relations with Japan and Korea.
A local lord (anji) by the name of Hashi rose to power at the beginning of the 15th century, and overthrew the king of Chûzan, Bunei, around 1407. Hashi originally set up his father as king, but continued to wield power behind the scenes, succeeding his father in 1422. The two received formal investiture from the Ming Court, and were granted the surname Shô (尚, "Shang" in Chinese); father and son thus became Shô Shisho and Shô Hashi respectively, marking the beginning of the first Shô Dynasty. Under their leadership, Chûzan conquered Hokuzan in 1419 and Nanzan in 1429, uniting the island of Okinawa and establishing the Kingdom of Ryûkyû.
Independence
Invasion and Vassalage
Dissolution
Notes
- ↑ For the sake of convenience and simplicity, most sources in English refer to these as "kingdoms" and their leaders as "kings", though most are also keen to point out that the political structures of the time continued to far more closely resemble chiefdoms. Though the Chinese character for "king" (王) is used in both Chinese and Japanese sources of the period, it is perhaps most accurate to not consider these rulers "kings" until sometime around the unification of Okinawa in 1419-1429.
References
- Hamashita, Takeshi. 沖縄入門 (Okinawa nyuumon). Tokyo: Chikumashobou (筑摩書房), 2000.
- Kerr, George. Okinawa: the History of an Island People. (revised ed.) Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2000.
- Smits, Gregory. Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern Thought and Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999.
