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Far East Kingdoms
Japan
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Dynastic Japan
The chain of islands that make up modern
Japan
stretch from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in
the south. Much of Japan faces what is now
North Korea
and South Korea,
while the southernmost edge of the country's territory abuts that of
modern China
to the south-west. Four main islands make up the country, these being
from north to south Hokkaido, Honshu (Honshū - the largest of all
of them), Shikoku (the smallest), and Kyushu (Kyūshū). A
further six thousand smaller islands are also included, although less
than five hundred of these are occupied.
Japan has emerged from a generally unified but rarely harmonious history
of clan feuding and political intriguing that began as soon as its
Early Cultures had reached
any particular level of complexity. At various points that unity existed
in name only, thanks to the continued presence of a divine emperor, while
two or more major clans conducted what was little less than a Japanese
civil war across the four main islands. It is the divine emperors who
are chronicled here, someone whom their warring subjects rarely opposed
but who were often little more than pawns themselves in the ongoing clan
struggle for superiority.
(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from the
BBC series, The Story of China, by Michael Wood, first broadcast
between 21 January and 25 February 2016, and from External Links:
Japanese
Archaeology, and
Encyclopaedia
Britannica.) |
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Emperors of the Sun Line of Japan (Legendary Period)
AD 1st Century (660 BC) - AD 539
According
to legend, Emperor Jimmu Tenno arrived with his people on the islands
of Japan in 660 BC. However, the number of his successors between that
arrival and the first truly historical emperors puts that arrival at a
point in the first century, coinciding with the
Yayoi period
of Japan's Early Cultures.
In addition, all dates prior to AD 500 should be approached with caution,
and even more so given the extraordinary lengths of reign ascribed to
some early emperors. Those for the first twenty-eight emperors are based
on the Japanese calendar system but are adjusted to bring them into like
with 'real world' dating. As their historical existence is unproven,
they are shown with a pink background to highlight their legendary
status.
Today there are around 127 million Japanese speakers worldwide, with a
vocabulary that has been strongly influenced by
Chinese during the fifteen
hundred years between the legendary period and the modern day. It is an
agglutinative language with a complex system of formalities that express
the hierarchical relationships within Japanese society and the relative
relationships between internal discussion partners.
Japanese script is a mixture of Kanji - characters copied from Chinese -
and Hiragana and Katakana, which are based on syllables. It is one of
two languages in the Japanese Ryukyuan language family - the other being
Ryukyuan, which is spoken on the Ryukyu Islands. Experts remain unsure
about the origins of this language family. It shows links and
similarities with other languages in many different areas, with many
theories being expounded about its source, these including the following:
Japanese is related to a now-extinct language which used to be spoken in
Korea and Manchuria;
Japanese is related to Korean; Japanese is one of the Altaic languages
which followers of this theory also believe to include
Mongolian, Tungusic,
Turkic, and Korean; Japanese
is a Creole language, possibly with Austronesian influences; Japanese
is a purely Austronesian language; or Japanese is related to Tamil. All
or any of these theories may contain elements of truth.
(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Records
of the Three Kingdoms, Chen Shou (third century text which covers the
period AD 184-220 and which combines individual histories of the three
kingdoms), from the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters), from
the Nihon shoki (Chronicles of Japan) from External Links:
Fasttranslator,
and
Japan-Guide.com,
and Ancient
History Encyclopaedia, and
Early
Jomon hamlet found (The Japan Times, 1997), and
Three Kingdoms (Encyclopaedia Britannica, and
New World Encyclopaedia).) |
AD 1st century |
Jimmu Tenno |
Tribal leader. Legendary founder of Japan. |
AD 1st century |
Jimmu Tenno - the posthumous name for this legendary
founder figure of Japanese culture and imperial rule - is given a date of
birth of 660 BC and a date of death of 585 BC. Shintoism places him as a
direct descendant of the sun goddess, Amaterasu, after she had sent her
grandson to the Japanese islands to marry a local princess. Jimmu Tenno is
the grandson of that princess and her husband.
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Jimmu Tenno, founder figure of modern Japan, as seen in a
coloured wood engraving by Nakai Tokujiro in 1908 during the
country's growing imperial status in the twentieth century
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However, his claimed arrival on Japan with his followers
is in fact an eastwards migration from Takachiho, the southern part of
Kyūshū (in modern-day Miyazaki prefecture) towards Naniwa (modern
day Ōsaka). The migration is lead by Jimmu's brother as their former
location is inappropriate for ruling over all of Japan. The brother is killed
in battle and Jimmu completes the conquest by sailing around the islands and
attacking Naniwa from the east (hence his 'arrival'). It would seem that
Jimmu's clan is largely dominant but needs to defeat one or more other clans
to be able to claim complete domination, much as the historical
Yayoi period
clans are in fact doing at this time in Japan. |
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Suizei |
Son. Reigned 37 years. |
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Annei |
Son. Reigned 38 years. |
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Itoku |
Son. Reigned 33 years. |
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Kōshō |
Son. Allegedly reigned 82 years. |
2nd century |
Kōan |
Son. Allegedly reigned 101 years. |
by 100 |
A society has by now emerged in
Yayoi period
Japan which involves a class system. Around a hundred clans have formed
which fight each other for dominance throughout the rest of the period.
Despite this fighting, the clans also form alliances when necessary,
creating small kingdoms for the purpose of ensuring military power or
mutual economic success. The
Chinese
Han Shu history of AD 82 is one source for this information. |
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Kōrei |
Son. Allegedly reigned 75 years. |
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Kōgen |
Son. Allegedly reigned 56 years. |
? - 219 |
Kaika |
Son. Allegedly reigned 60 years. |
219 - 249 |
Sujin |
Son. Reigned 67 years. Legendary male version
of Himiko? |
c.220s - 240s |
Emperor Sujin's proto-historical reign coincides very
nicely with the historically-attested reign of Himiko, the female ruler
of the Yamato, Japan's largest and most powerful clan at this time. She
is recorded in the Wei Zhi, a history of the
Wei
kingdom in 'Three
Kingdoms' China. Himiko is described as a shaman, practicing magic in
her spare time, and that she had come to power through many years of war and
conquest. In her later years she is effectively supreme ruler of
Yayoi period
Japan.
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Queen Himiko is mentioned by a number of contemporary and
near-contemporary Chinese sources (shown here with her single
male advisor) but seems to have been airbrushed out of early
Japanese records, which suggests that a change of dynasty made
her a figure to be avoided
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249 - 280 |
Suinin |
Son. The unnamed, unpopular
Yayoi period king? |
280 - 316 |
Keikō |
Male equivalent of female relative of Queen Himiko? |
c.AD 300 |
The
Yayoi period is succeeded by the
Kofun period
in Japan. A central ruling power has by now emerged and within a century all
of Japan is united under its control. This ruling power claims descent and
continuity from the far more dubious and uncertain rulers of the legendary
period which essentially covers the arrival, settlement, and ascendancy of
the Japanese during the Yayoi period. Japan's dynastic history has begun. |
316 - 342 |
Seimu |
Son. Allegedly reigned 59 years. |
343 - 346 |
Chūai |
Nephew. Reigned 8 years. |
346 |
According to early myth Emperor Chūai is ordered by
a kami (a spirit) to invade
Korea. He refuses and
the kami later engineers his death during a battle (on Japanese soil).
His length of reign of eight years is in marked contrast with those of his
predecessors. His position as nephew of the preceding emperor is the first
instance in which the title has not passed from father to son. Finally, his
use of Kyushu rather than Yamato for the imperial capital is another first.
Possibly these changes mark the emergence of a greater historical aspect to
the early emperors and the gradual end of the legendary period. The subsequent
Yamato
period witnesses the emergence of more concrete historical markers in Japan. |
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Japan's dynasties continue
here. |
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