- Born: 1614
- Died: 1673
- Titles: 佐敷王子 (Prince Sashiki)
- Other Names: 尚文 (Shou Bun)
- Japanese: 佐敷朝益 (Sashiki Choueki)
Prince Sashiki Chôeki, also known by his Chinese-style name Shô Bun, was the second son of King Shô Hô of the Ryûkyû Kingdom.
In 1634, at age 21, the prince returned to Ryûkyû from a tribute mission to China, and traveled to Kagoshima to report on the tribute mission, and on his father's investiture by the Ming court. He was then pressed into leading a mission to Kyoto, alongside his uncle Prince Kin Chôtei, to serve as the king's representative in extending regards and performing submission to Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu. Whether this Kyoto trip took place because Shimazu Iehisa, lord of Satsuma han, was in Kyoto, and that the prince therefore needed to go to Kyoto to report to the lord, or because of convenience (that he and Kin were already present in Kagoshima anyway), or whether this additional mission to the shogun was already in mind, is unclear.
Prince Sashiki lived until 1673, but as he had fallen ill, or was considered sickly or weak, at the time of his father's death, he was not selected to succeed his father as king. Sashiki's younger brother Shô Ken succeeded their father instead in 1640.
References
- Marco Tinello, "The termination of the Ryukyuan embassies to Edo : an investigation of the bakumatsu period through the lens of a tripartite power relationship and its world," PhD thesis, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia (2014), 45.
- Miyagi Eishô 宮城栄昌, Ryûkyû shisha no Edo nobori 琉球使者の江戸上り, Tokyo: Daiichi Shobô (1982), 13-14, 42, 108.