ky and Okinawaky and OkinawaModern Japan consists of four main islands and hundreds of smaller ones. The large islands are: Hokkaid
in the north; the main island of Honsh
, where lie the ancient and modern capitals of Kyoto and Tokyo; Shikoku, which nestles next to Honsh beside the Inland Sea; and Kysh, the great southern island that was for centuries the main gateway for trade and cultural contact between Japan and foreign nations. From the southernmost tip of Kysh, a long chain of islands stretches across the ocean to a point just over 100 miles from Taiwan. Administratively, these smaller islands belong to the prefectures of either Okinawa or Kagoshima, the ancient domain of the Shimazu family in southern Kysh. A glance at a modern map of Japan shows that the border between the two prefectures lies in the sea between the main island of Okinawa and the Amami Islands, but centuries ago matters were not so exact. Then, any such ‘borderline’ would have been an interface between two different sovereign states. A long argument over where that line should be drawn exercised the minds of the kings of Ryky and the daimyo of Satsuma for many centuries, which eventually led to the bloody climax in 1609.
The political complexity behind the 1609 operation is reflected in the choice of names applied to the collection of islands that became the Shimazu’s target. Ryky is sometimes used as a geographical term to denote the entire island chain running between Kagoshima and Taiwan. However, when used in a political sense it refers to the kingdom that existed there until 1879, one that did not rule over the whole archipelago and one that also lost a number of its northern islands after 1609. The kingdom of Ryky, which was controlled by Satsuma from 1609 onwards, lasted until 1879 when it was absorbed by Japan and renamed ‘Oki-nawa’ (from its resemblance to a length of rope tossed carelessly into the sea). Modern Okinawa prefecture comprises 55 islands, but the name Okinawa is also used to identify the main island of the group. Following the terrible battle of Okinawa in 1945, the American occupation resurrected the name Ryky but in adding an ‘-s’, referred to the region as ‘the Rykys’. When the prefecture reverted to Japan in 1972, the name Okinawa was re-adopted. As a further confusion, European visitors to Ryky in the 18th and 19th centuries often wrote its name as ‘Loochoo’. For clarity in the book, the term ‘Ryky’ is used in a historical context and ‘Okinawa’ for the geographical location of an event.
The busy streets of the town that surrounded the palace of Shuri, depicted here in imaginative detail by the artist Okada Gy
kuzan (1737–1812) in Ehon Ry
ky Gunki, an illustrated historical romance based on the story of the Okinawa raid of 1609.
The first mention of Ryky in Japanese history occurs in 1187 when reference is made to the accession to the throne of Shunten, a figure said to be the son of the exiled Minamoto Tametomo. A great samurai archer, Tametomo (1139–1170) became the hero of a brief conflict in Kyoto in 1156 known as the Hgen Incident. Following the defeat of his political faction, Tametomo was exiled. A story is told that on seeing a boatload of samurai coming to kill him, Tametomo fired an arrow and sank their vessel, whereupon he retired and committed seppuku. However, an alternative legend has him escape to distant Okinawa, where he became the ancestor of the kings of Ryky.
The political context of the Tametomo legend links the founding of the royal house of Ryky directly to Japan, making the assertion that the islands had always been an integral part of the Japanese empire. This was a belief deeply held by rulers of the neighbouring Satsuma province, who maintained a long-standing claim to the whole Ryky archipelago, dating from the time of Shimazu Tadahisa. In 1186 the first shogun, Minamoto Yoritomo, granted the governorship of Satsuma to his illegitimate son, Tadahisa. This had been a deliberate act on Yoritomo’s part because Satsuma was as far away from the capital at Kamakura, and the hostility of his wife towards his son, as was geographically possible. Its remote location allowed Tadahisa’s descendants to enjoy many centuries of unchallenged rule in Japan’s southern corner. Their first formal claim on Ryky dates from 1206, when Shimazu Tadahisa is supposed to have been granted the additional title of ‘Lord of the Twelve Southern Islands’, an imprecise term referring to Ryky.
The shogun Minamoto Yoritomo was the nephew of the late Tametomo, but the supposition that the kings of Ryky were descended from Shimazu Tadahisa’s great-uncle did not impress the actual rulers of the island kingdom. Even the legal basis of Tadahisa’s appointment in 1206 as overlord of Ryky could be challenged, because it was based on a written document that the Shimazu later maintained was lost in a fire. Yet based on these two elements of shaky evidence, the lords of Satsuma frequently made claims of ownership to Ryky during the ensuing centuries, causing several diplomatic problems. A document dated 1441 referred to the three provinces of Satsuma, Hyga and Osumi on the island of Kysh and confirmed them to be under the governorship of the Shimazu, the family also being known as ‘Ryky no shugo’ (governors of Ryky). These claims were to be incorporated into the surrender document that was signed after the 1609 raid with the words: ‘The islands of Ryky have from ancient times been a feudal dependency of Satsuma.’
kyAlthough the 1609 raid may have been launched from Satsuma against Ryky, such expansionist moves had never been one-sided. In fact over previous centuries, the Rykyans had shown themselves to be the more aggressive rival of the two. Rykyan expansion had begun with the islands near to Okinawa, and the neighbouring islands of Iheya and the Kerama group came under Rykyan control in 1264. This had all been carried out against a background of considerable conflict within the large island now known as Okinawa. For over a century (1314–1429), the control of Okinawa had been fiercely contested by the three rival ‘principalities’ of Hokuzan (north), Chzan (central) and Nanzan (south). The term ‘principality’ is used as a linguistic convenience rather than a precise political definition. Their rulers were normally referred to as kings, while lesser warlords, and rulers from an earlier period, were called aji.
The island chain between Japan and China.
In 1406, a warlord called Sh Hashi deposed the ruler of Ch
zan and replaced him with his own father Sh Shish. After a considerable military campaign, Sh Hashi united the three rival principalities in 1429 to create the kingdom of Ryky, which proceeded to rule over the whole of Okinawa Island. The new military strength on Okinawa meant that the conquest of the more distant Miyakojima and the Yaeyama group (which lay 176 and 262 miles to the south respectively) could now be contemplated, and both objectives were eventually achieved. Miyakojima was annexed in 1500, while the conquest of the Yaeyama Islands, which included Ishigaki, Iriomote and Yonaguni, took place in 1509 after a campaign involving 3,000 men on 46 ships. This extended Rykyan influence to the very edge of the archipelago. The ruler of Kumejima, an island to the west of Okinawa, succumbed in 1507.
In spite of their ancestral claims to the whole of Ryky, the Shimazu family of Satsuma made no attempt to interfere with the offensives made by the Rykyan kings to the south and west of Okinawa. What brought Ryky and Satsuma into collision were the expansionist activities of successive kings, aimed in a northerly direction against the Amami Islands (Oshima, Kikaijima, Tokunoshima, Okinoerabujima and Yoront). These were regarded as acts of aggression that pushed Rykyan affairs well within the Satsuma realm of interest. Oshima, the largest of the Amami Islands, which lies just under halfway to Satsuma at a point about 220 miles from Naha, eventually fell to an attack by the kingdom of Ryky in about 1440. Yet this did not give Ryky complete control of the archipelago, because the fighting continued for several years. This ongoing border dispute between Ryky and Satsuma is confirmed in a comment contained within a Korean document called Joseon Wangjo Sillok, a travelogue compiled in 1453 by the Korean survivors of a shipwreck. It relates how a ‘disastrous wind’ had arisen to cast them ashore on the tiny uninhabited island of Gajashima, which lies within the Tokara group about midway between Amami-Oshima and the Satsuma mainland. The Koreans recorded vaguely that Gajashima belonged to both Ryky and Satsuma, perhaps indicating they had been washed up on the front line of a continuing quarrel. The Korean survivors were eventually transported to the island of Okinawa itself. Here, they visited Shuri Castle, the stronghold of the king of Ryky, and had the opportunity to observe the military prowess of their hosts in matters such as firearms. They also learned that Kikaijima, another island of the Amami group, was still disputed territory some ten years after the conquest of Oshima.
Long after the Korean visitors had departed, Kikaijima’s continued resistance prompted the personal intervention of King Sh Toku, who attacked the island in 1466 with 2,000 men on 50 ships. Sh Toku was one of Ryky’s great warrior kings, and is portrayed in history as a headstrong youth imbued with romantic ideas of the wak pirates who made use of Ryky for their own raids. Sh Toku adopted as his crest the ‘three comma-shaped jewels in a circle’ device of Hachiman, the god of war, that was used by the pirates and later became the flag of the Ryky kings. Although Sh Toku’s expedition continued the expansion of Rykyan interests, Kikaijima provided no new resources or important harbour. It eventually proved to be such a strain on the treasury that Sh Toku was deposed while he was away ‘dallying’ with the chief priestess of Kudaka Island, a breach of royal etiquette that would have enraged his courtiers as much as his failure to exploit the conquest of Kikaijima.
From the 1440s onwards, the Rykyan kings stubbornly defended their occupation of the Amami Islands against any attempt by Satsuma to recapture them. After fierce fighting, they drove off an expedition mounted by the Shimazu against Oshima in 1493, while rebels on Oshima, who objected to Rykyan rule, prompted an armed intervention in 1537 by King Sh Shin. It is thought that in 1571, a similar expedition was carried out against rebels by King Sh Gen, which would have been the last aggressive move by Ryky to the north before 1609.
The Shimazu family of Satsuma were not the only daimyo to have had designs on Ryky in the years leading to 1609, and trade interests with China through Ryky undoubtedly had an influence on this. The names of Ouchi, Hosokawa and Otomo are mentioned in terms of coveting Rykyan territory, but only two daimyo ever threatened to challenge the Shimazu’s long-standing claim. The first was Kamei Korenori (1557–1612), who had served Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the 1582 expedition to crush the Mri family. This important campaign had been hastily concluded when Hideyoshi received news of the death of his master Oda Nobunaga. Later that year, Hideyoshi’s subsequent triumph at the battle of Yamazaki set him on the path towards becoming the ruler of all Japan, so generous rewards were in order for those who had helped him. Kamei Korenori asked Hideyoshi for Izumo province, which would have provided him with an ideal base to develop foreign trade, but when Hideyoshi informed him that Izumo was being given to the Mri as part of their overall surrender agreement, Korenori suggested Ryky as an alternative. The idea pleased Hideyoshi, who realised that this would give him an ally on the way to China as well as outflank the Shimazu, who had yet to submit to Hideyoshi’s authority. He therefore presented Korenori with his own war fan, and wrote upon it the date, his name ‘Toyotomi Hideyoshi’ and the coveted title ‘Kamei Ryky no kami’ (Lord Kamei of Ryky).
A view of the volcano of Sakurajima which lies in the bay off Kagoshima. The photograph is taken from the site of Tsurumaru castle, the seat of the Shimazu daimyo.
Not surprisingly, news that their ancestral claim had been casually passed to another was not received well in Satsuma, so the Shimazu asked Hosokawa Ysai and Ishida Mitsunari (senior government administrators) to remind Hideyoshi of the Shimazu’s long relationship with the islands. Kamei Korenori was not deterred, and in 1591 he sailed to claim his prize, only to find his fleet intercepted by the Shimazu. At that time, Hideyoshi was busy preparing for the invasion of Korea so took little notice of a minor dispute among his followers. Korenori quickly abandoned his plans, and very soon both the Shimazu and Kamei samurai were fighting side by side on the Korean peninsula. Korenori kept the war fan, and it entered the story once again when, just a few years later, it featured as part of the booty acquired by the Koreans after the Japanese defeat at the naval battle of Dangpo. Its description, together with the inscription on it referring to the Rykys, was faithfully recorded by the Korean Admiral Yi Sun-sin.
A further attempt to seize Ryky was made by Ukita Hideie. He was one of the defeated commanders at Sekigahara, and sought sanctuary after the battle with the sympathetic Shimazu of Satsuma. Hideie, however, planned to create a new territory for himself among the Ryky Islands, in spite of strict orders from Shimazu Iehisa, the current daimyo, not to do anything of the sort. The Ukita fleet haughtily set sail from the Tokara Islands but was then wrecked by a typhoon. Not long afterwards, the Shimazu punished him for his presumption by handing him over to the Tokugawa, and Ukita Hideie ended his days in 1662 on the island of Hachijjima, far from Ryky, as an exile, not as a daimyo.
The 1609 expedition was carried out by the family that had shown themselves to be the great survivors of Medieval Japan, both in war and in peace. With the triumph of the Tokugawa and the re-establishment of the shogunate in 1603, a century and a half of civil war had effectively come to an end. This long period of unrest, known as the Sengoku jidai, can be likened to a similar period of conflict in ancient China. It is thought to have started with the Onin War of 1467, when a succession dispute within the shogunate exposed the weaknesses of that long-standing institution. The most important result of the upheaval, which caused extensive damage within Kyoto itself, was that local warlords began to assert themselves as petty kings, knowing that the central authority lacked the power to control them. Some of these new daimyo, ‘great names’ as they termed themselves, had formerly ruled their provinces on the shogun’s behalf as his shugo. Now they created territories of their own and defended them with armies of samurai. Other daimyo were simply opportunists with military skills, but the overall result was to temporarily redraw the map of Japan until reunification could be achieved.
For the Shimazu family the transition from the post of governor, granted to their ancestor Shimazu Tadahisa, to that of ruling daimyo of Satsuma, was brought about largely by Shimazu Takahisa (1514–1571). The move was a very smooth one, untroubled by serious local opposition and carried out at a very great distance from Kyoto. Yet Satsuma was by no means a cultural backwater. In fact two of the most significant developments in Japanese history occurred on Shimazu territory. The first was brought about by a shipwreck in 1543, when a group of Portuguese traders, carrying with them the first European-style firearms ever seen in Japan, landed on the island of Tanegashima. Takahisa immediately realised the potential of these new weapons and authorised their production within his territory, a decision that marked the beginning of Japan’s military revolution. Six years later, St Francis Xavier brought Christianity to Japan when he landed in Satsuma, and for a few years at least, Satsuma became Japan’s gateway to Europe.
With firearms to hand, Shimazu Takahisa faced up to the challenges posed by the breakdown of the shogun’s authority, and used them to his family’s advantage in a programme of conquest that eventually resulted in the Shimazu becoming rulers of almost all of Kysh. They began by reinforcing their control over the three provinces of Satsuma, Osumi and Hyga, that they had nominally ruled since the days of the Minamoto. Of the three, only Satsuma was truly theirs. Deploying firearms in anger for the first time, the Shimazu asserted their authority over Osumi and Hyga in a series of battles. Following Takahisa’s death in 1571, the work of developing the family’s dominion was carried on by his four sons, Yoshihisa, Yoshihiro, Toshihisa and Iehisa. The eldest, Yoshihisa (1533–1611), took the Shimazu to the peak of their ascendancy. In 1578, when Otomo Srin of Bungo province invaded Hyga, the Shimazu responded by destroying the Otomo’s expeditionary army at the battle of Mimigawa. Then in 1584, they marched north from Satsuma and defeated the Ryzoji at the battle of Okita-Nawate on the Shimabara peninsula. A year later, they were making plans for the conquest of the Otomo’s home province, which would then make them masters of the whole of Kysh. This prospect, however, prompted the intervention of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, whose vast programme for the reunification of Japan would not be thwarted by ancient rulers such as the Shimazu. In 1587, Hideyoshi launched the invasion of Kysh in the guise of helping the Otomo. It was the largest military operation ever conducted in Japan up to that time, and drove the Shimazu back into Satsuma province from whence they had come. Hideyoshi had no desire to annihilate the Shimazu, merely to bring them under his control and then use their enormous local influence to rule their remote provinces on his behalf. As part of the peace settlement, Shimazu Yoshihisa was required to cede his domains to his brother Yoshihiro (1535–1619).
By 1591, Hideyoshi had received submission from every daimyo in Japan, and in an act of megalomania, decided to conquer China as well. The Korean peninsula provided the easiest route towards Beijing, but its inhabitants had no intention of letting Hideyoshi’s army have an uninterrupted journey, and a savage and disastrous war began in 1592. Shimazu Yoshihiro led the Satsuma contingent in the invasion, which was masterminded by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Unfortunately, Hideyoshi was ignorant of the geographical and political realities of the relationships between Japan, Korea and Ming China. His lack of knowledge also extended to any real understanding of the history between Satsuma and Ryky, because in 1590 Hideyoshi told King Sh Nei of Ryky that he would be expected to provide troops for the invasion while the retired daimyo, Shimazu Yoshihisa, would oversee the arrangements. Yoshihisa, who did not want to see an armed force raised on Okinawa, suggested to Hideyoshi that the Rykyan contribution should be made in terms of gold, silver and grain instead. This was agreed, but no shipment was made until the Shimazu put pressure upon Sh Nei, and even then only a token contribution was forthcoming. Hideyoshi had also been concerned that Ryky, which conducted active trade with Ming China, might alert the Chinese to his plans, so he ordered King Sh Nei to break off all trade relations immediately. The king refused and instead reported the invasion plans to a group of Chinese envoys, urging them to inform their emperor. This was a great embarrassment to the Shimazu; Hideyoshi believed they exerted considerable influence over the islands, but the king’s defiance had now exposed their actual lack of control. Fortunately Hideyoshi was too preoccupied with his invasion plans to notice such small details, and once in Korea, the Shimazu served Hideyoshi loyally and well, particularly during the last days of the Japanese withdrawal in 1598, when Shimazu Yoshihiro and his son Tadatsune withstood a massive Chinese attack on the fortress of Sacheon.
The daimyo of Satsuma, Shimazu Iehisa, bids farewell to his fleet as it sails from Yamakawa Harbour for Okinawa. This picture is interesting because it is a re-working by the artist Okada Gyokuzan of a scene used in his previous book Ehon Taik-ki which shows Hideyoshi bidding farewell to the Japanese fleet as it sails for Korea. The heraldry on the sails of the ships has been changed, as has the general’s flag. (Illustration taken from Ehon Ryky Gunki – ERG)
A distant view of the castle of Shuri, within whose walls rise the roofs of the royal palace of the kings of Ryky. We are looking across the artificial lake of Ryutan, created in 1427.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi died in 1598, leaving a power vacuum around his infant son Hideyori. Matters were resolved at the decisive battle of Sekigahara in 1600 when the Tokugawa defeated a loose coalition of other daimyo, among whom the Shimazu fought. Yoshihiro conducted himself with great bravery and as the battle finished, he fought his way out of encirclement and began a long and humiliating journey back to Satsuma, only to suffer the indignity of being imprisoned by his retired elder brother. The Shimazu had survived defeat for a second time, but once again it cost them a change of leadership. Yoshihiro was forced to retire and pass the territory to his son Tadatsune, who formally submitted to the Tokugawa in 1602. Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was shortly to acquire the title of shogun, treated the new Shimazu daimyo with respect and authorised Tadatsune to take the ancient Tokugawa surname of Matsudaira. He also bestowed upon Tadatsune one of the syllables from his own name. For some reason, Tadatsune decided to change his name completely to Iehisa, the name of one of his illustrious uncles who had died in 1587. Shimazu Iehisa, therefore, was the daimyo of Satsuma when his family carried out their 1609 raid.
The raid of 1609 represented an important policy shift by the Shimazu. In spite of their long-standing claim on Ryky, they had been too busy acquiring, defending and then losing territory on Kysh during the latter part of the 16th century, to make their theoretical assertion a reality. Now, once the dust had settled after Sekigahara, the Shimazu’s newly- established and cordial relationship with the new shogun made such an expedition attractive to both parties. In addition to giving Shimazu Iehisa a new name, Tokugawa Ieyasu had also confirmed on him the ancient Shimazu title of ‘Lord of the Twelve Islands’. However, his own political horizon stretched much wider. Having learned of the Spanish seizure of the Philippines in 1571, and seen Spanish presence in Japan established through Christian missionaries, Ieyasu greatly feared Spain’s influence. A way of frustrating any potential move by Spain against Japan in the future would be to strengthen Japanese influence along the chain of islands through which a European force would have to pass, so an envoy was sent to Okinawa requiring the King of Ryky to submit to the rule of the Tokugawa, just as every other daimyo in Japan had done. The king treated the demand with as much contempt as he had dealt with the earlier request to supply troops for the Japanese invasion of Korea. Faced with such defiance, Tokugawa Ieyasu willingly granted Shimazu Iehisa’s request to chastise the Rykyans for their presumption, and from that moment on, the prospect of a military move against Okinawa began to acquire real likelihood.
Shimazu Iehisa’s primary goal was probably the simple one of regaining the Amami Islands. A plan for such an expedition was drawn up in 1606 and funded by an allocation of silver, but the scheme was abandoned even before the necessary warships were built. It was, however, at the renewed prompting of Iehisa’s new master in Edo, Tokugawa Hidetada, who had succeeded his retired father, that a workable invasion plan was finally put on the table in 1608. This time, the aims went far beyond the simple recovery of the Amami Islands – the whole Ryky Kingdom was now the target. Hoping that the matter could be settled by negotiation, in the eighth lunar month of Keich 13 (1608), Shimazu Iehisa sent three senior retainers, Ichiki Obusei, Murao Shsei and the priest Daijiji Seiin Osho as envoys to Ryky, to present Satsuma’s demands to the king. The Rykyans were reminded of the debt they owed to Satsuma, dating back to the time of Hideyoshi’s Korean invasion. It was spelt out in grandiose terms how they had been spared from making a military contribution through the generosity of the family who had been their real overlords since 1206. As well as this, they were told they should pay homage to the Tokugawa and, at the very least, to cede the Amami Islands to Satsuma. When these demands were refused, the shogun officially commanded Shimazu Iehisa to pacify Ryky on the 19th day of the ninth lunar month (from now on to be written in the style 9m 19d) of that same year, which, when converted to the Gregorian calendar, was 27 October 1608.
In this painted screen in the Reimeikan Museum in Kagoshima we see the Shimazu army in action during the Battle of Sekigahara. Very similar flags bearing the mon of a cross in a ring would have been seen on Okinawa in 1609.