Invasion of Ryukyu
Encyclopedia
The invasion of Ryukyu by forces of the Japanese feudal domain of Satsuma took place in 1609, and marked the beginning of the Ryūkyū Kingdom
's status as a vassal state under Satsuma. The invasion itself involved few casualties, as Ryukyu had little military strength, and its people were ordered by their king to surrender and to spare themselves any bloodshed.
Ryukyu would remain a vassal state under Satsuma, alongside its already long-established tributary
relationship with China, until it was formally annexed by Japan in 1879 as Okinawa Prefecture
.
of Satsuma. The two regions had been engaged in trade for at least several centuries and possibly for far longer than that; in addition, Ryukyu at times had paid tribute to the Muromachi shogunate (1336–1573) of Japan as it did to China since 1372.
In the final decades of the 16th century, the Shimazu clan, along with Toyotomi Hideyoshi
, who ruled Japan from 1582 to 1598, requested or demanded various types of aid or service from the kingdom on a number of occasions. The repeated refusals of these demands by King Shō Nei
(r. 1587-1620), who also ignored outright many communications from Shimazu and Hideyoshi, spurred the Shimazu, with the permission of the newly established Tokugawa shogunate
(1603–1867), to invade Ryukyu in 1609, claiming it a punitive mission.
One of the chief events which spurred Satsuma to aggression occurred when Hideyoshi launched the first of two invasions of Korea in 1592. Through messengers from Satsuma, he ordered that Ryukyu contribute warriors to the invasion efforts, and was refused; he also commanded that Ryukyu temporarily suspend its official missions to China. The mission traveled to Beijing
anyway, on business relating to Shō Nei's formal investiture, and related Hideyoshi's plans to Chinese Court officials there. Shimazu Yoshihisa
, lord of Satsuma, then suggested that Ryukyu be allowed to supply food and other supplies instead of manpower; Hideyoshi agreed, but Shō Nei ignored the related missives.
Following Hideyoshi's death in 1598, and Tokugawa Ieyasu
's subsequent rise to power, Shō Nei was asked by Satsuma to formally submit to the new shogunate, a request which was also ignored. The Shimazu then requested to launch a punitive mission against Ryukyu and, in 1606, were granted permission by the shogunate.
14 (March 1609), as over 100 ships carrying roughly 3,000 warriors left Kagoshima Harbor, under the command of Kabayama Hisataka
. After several skirmishes on the smaller, more northern islands of the Ryukyu archipelago
, the fleet landed at Unten Harbor on the Motobu Peninsula
of Okinawa Island
on 9 April 1609. They encountered fierce resistance there from the local peasants, and suffered considerable losses, but were ultimately victorious and moved on south to the Ryukyuan royal capital of Shuri.
The capital desperately tried to organize a defense, but the kingdom's military capabilities were no match for those of the invaders. Ryukyu's hereditary aristocratic class, unlike that of the Japanese samurai
, was not a warrior class, and in any case the kingdom had faced no threats greater than the occasional pirates in nearly two hundred years.
The invaders entered Shuri Castle
on May 6, and looted it, along with a number of nearby temples and noble residences. They stole or destroyed Buddhist scriptures and a variety of other objects with religious or historical significance. Shō Nei surrendered on the fifth day of the fourth lunar month
of 1609, and was taken, along with roughly one hundred of his officials, to Sunpu to meet with the retired Shogun
Tokugawa Ieyasu
. He was then taken to Edo
, for a formal audience with Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada
, and to Kagoshima, where he was forced to formally surrender and to declare a number of oaths to the Shimazu clan. In 1611, two years after the invasion, the king returned to his castle at Shuri.
In the king's absence, Kabayama Hisataka and his deputy Honda Chikamasa governed the islands on behalf of their lord Shimazu Tadatsune
. Fourteen samurai officials from Satsuma, along with 163 of their staff, examined the kingdom's political structures and economic productivity, and conducted land surveys of all the islands. Following the king's return to Shuri and the resumption of governance under the royal establishment, three Ryukyuan officials remained as hostages in Kagoshima until Satsuma was convinced that Shō Nei and his officials were operating in accordance with their oaths. The following year, the lords of Ōzato
and Katsuren
returned to Okinawa, while the third, an Aji (noble) by the name of Kunjan, chose to remain in Kagoshima. He took on a Japanese name and became a samurai retainer to the Shimazu, serving them in battle in the 1615 siege of Osaka
.
The kingdom's royal governmental structures remained intact, along with its royal lineage. The Ryukyus remained nominally independent, a "foreign country" (異国, ikoku) to the Japanese, and efforts were made to obscure Satsuma's domination of Ryukyu from the Chinese Court, in order to ensure the continuation of trade and diplomacy, since China refused to conduct formal relations or trade with Japan at the time. However, though the king retained considerable powers, he was only permitted to operate within a framework of strict guidelines set down by Satsuma, and was required to pay considerable amounts in tribute
to Satsuma on a regular basis.
This framework of guidelines was largely set down by a document sometimes called the Fifteen Injunctions (掟十五ヶ条, Okite jūgo-ka-jō), which accompanied the oaths signed in Kagoshima in 1611, and which detailed political and economic restrictions placed upon the kingdom. Prohibitions on foreign trade, diplomacy, and travel outside of that officially permitted by Satsuma were among the chief elements of these injunctions. Ryukyu's extensive trade relations with China, Southeast Asia, and Korea were turned to Satsuma's interests, and various laws were put into place forbidding interactions between Japanese and Ryukyuans, travel between the two island nations. Likewise, travel abroad from Ryukyu in general, and the reception of ships at Ryukyu's harbors, were heavily restricted with exceptions made only for official trade and diplomatic journeys authorized by Satsuma.
In addition, Amami Ōshima
and a number of other northern islands now known as the Satsunan Islands were annexed into Satsuma Domain and removed from the kingdom's territory. These islands remain today part of Kagoshima Prefecture
, not Okinawa Prefecture
.
Ryukyu Kingdom
The Ryūkyū Kingdom 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 Sakishima Islands near Taiwan...
's status as a vassal state under Satsuma. The invasion itself involved few casualties, as Ryukyu had little military strength, and its people were ordered by their king to surrender and to spare themselves any bloodshed.
Ryukyu would remain a vassal state under Satsuma, alongside its already long-established tributary
Tribute
A tribute is wealth, often in kind, that one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often the case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. Various ancient states, which could be called suzerains, exacted tribute from areas they had conquered or threatened to conquer...
relationship with China, until it was formally annexed by Japan in 1879 as Okinawa Prefecture
Okinawa Prefecture
is one of Japan's southern prefectures. It consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over long, which extends southwest from Kyūshū to Taiwan. Okinawa's capital, Naha, is located in the southern part of Okinawa Island...
.
Background
Satsuma's invasion of Ryukyu was the climax of a long tradition of relations between the kingdom and the Shimazu clanShimazu clan
The were the daimyō of the Satsuma han, which spread over Satsuma, Ōsumi and Hyūga provinces in Japan.The Shimazu were identified as one of the tozama or outsider daimyō clans in contrast with the fudai or insider clans which were hereditary vassals or allies of the Tokugawa clan,The Shimazu were...
of Satsuma. The two regions had been engaged in trade for at least several centuries and possibly for far longer than that; in addition, Ryukyu at times had paid tribute to the Muromachi shogunate (1336–1573) of Japan as it did to China since 1372.
In the final decades of the 16th century, the Shimazu clan, along with Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
was a daimyo warrior, general and politician of the Sengoku period. He unified the political factions of Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama period, named after Hideyoshi's castle...
, who ruled Japan from 1582 to 1598, requested or demanded various types of aid or service from the kingdom on a number of occasions. The repeated refusals of these demands by King Shō Nei
Sho Nei
' was king of the Ryūkyū Kingdom from 1587–1620. He reigned during the 1609 invasion of Ryūkyū and was the first king of Ryūkyū to be a vassal to the Shimazu clan of Satsuma, a Japanese feudal domain....
(r. 1587-1620), who also ignored outright many communications from Shimazu and Hideyoshi, spurred the Shimazu, with the permission of the newly established Tokugawa shogunate
Tokugawa shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...
(1603–1867), to invade Ryukyu in 1609, claiming it a punitive mission.
One of the chief events which spurred Satsuma to aggression occurred when Hideyoshi launched the first of two invasions of Korea in 1592. Through messengers from Satsuma, he ordered that Ryukyu contribute warriors to the invasion efforts, and was refused; he also commanded that Ryukyu temporarily suspend its official missions to China. The mission traveled to Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
anyway, on business relating to Shō Nei's formal investiture, and related Hideyoshi's plans to Chinese Court officials there. Shimazu Yoshihisa
Shimazu Yoshihisa
was a daimyo of Satsuma Province and the eldest son of Shimazu Takahisa. His mother was a daughter of Nyurai'in Shigesato , Yukimado . Shimazu Yoshihiro and Shimazu Toshihisa are his brothers....
, lord of Satsuma, then suggested that Ryukyu be allowed to supply food and other supplies instead of manpower; Hideyoshi agreed, but Shō Nei ignored the related missives.
Following Hideyoshi's death in 1598, and Tokugawa Ieyasu
Tokugawa Ieyasu
was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan , which ruled from the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu seized power in 1600, received appointment as shogun in 1603, abdicated from office in 1605, but...
's subsequent rise to power, Shō Nei was asked by Satsuma to formally submit to the new shogunate, a request which was also ignored. The Shimazu then requested to launch a punitive mission against Ryukyu and, in 1606, were granted permission by the shogunate.
Invasion and aftermath
The invasion began in the second lunar month of KeichōKeicho
was a after Bunroku and before Genna. This period spanned from October 1596 to July 1615. The reigning emperors were and .-Change of era:* 1596 : The era name was changed to Keichō to mark the passing of various natural disasters...
14 (March 1609), as over 100 ships carrying roughly 3,000 warriors left Kagoshima Harbor, under the command of Kabayama Hisataka
Kabayama Hisataka
was a samurai retainer, karō , and senior deputy commander in the service of the Shimazu clan in the early Edo period. Hisataka was born into the fifth generation of the Shimazu family line, adopting 'Kabayama' as his surname in respect to the birch -covered mountaintop upon which his castle...
. After several skirmishes on the smaller, more northern islands of the Ryukyu archipelago
Ryukyu Islands
The , also known as the , is a chain of islands in the western Pacific, on the eastern limit of the East China Sea and to the southwest of the island of Kyushu in Japan. From about 1829 until the mid 20th century, they were alternately called Luchu, Loochoo, or Lewchew, akin to the Mandarin...
, the fleet landed at Unten Harbor on the Motobu Peninsula
Motobu, Okinawa
is a town located in Kunigami District, Okinawa, Japan.As of 2003, the town has an estimated population of 14,481 and a density of 266.69 persons per km²...
of Okinawa Island
Okinawa Island
Okinawa Island is the largest of the Okinawa Islands and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, and is home to Naha, the capital of Okinawa Prefecture. The island has an area of...
on 9 April 1609. They encountered fierce resistance there from the local peasants, and suffered considerable losses, but were ultimately victorious and moved on south to the Ryukyuan royal capital of Shuri.
The capital desperately tried to organize a defense, but the kingdom's military capabilities were no match for those of the invaders. Ryukyu's hereditary aristocratic class, unlike that of the Japanese samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
, was not a warrior class, and in any case the kingdom had faced no threats greater than the occasional pirates in nearly two hundred years.
The invaders entered Shuri Castle
Shuri Castle
Shuri Castle is a gusuku in Shuri, Okinawa. It was the palace of the Ryūkyū Kingdom. In 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa, it was almost completely destroyed...
on May 6, and looted it, along with a number of nearby temples and noble residences. They stole or destroyed Buddhist scriptures and a variety of other objects with religious or historical significance. Shō Nei surrendered on the fifth day of the fourth lunar month
Lunar month
In lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two identical syzygies . There are many variations. In Middle-Eastern and European traditions, the month starts when the young crescent moon becomes first visible at evening after conjunction with the Sun one or two days before that evening...
of 1609, and was taken, along with roughly one hundred of his officials, to Sunpu to meet with the retired Shogun
Shogun
A was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Tokugawa Ieyasu
was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan , which ruled from the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu seized power in 1600, received appointment as shogun in 1603, abdicated from office in 1605, but...
. He was then taken to Edo
Edo
, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...
, for a formal audience with Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada
Tokugawa Hidetada
was the second shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty, who ruled from 1605 until his abdication in 1623. He was the third son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate.-Early life :...
, and to Kagoshima, where he was forced to formally surrender and to declare a number of oaths to the Shimazu clan. In 1611, two years after the invasion, the king returned to his castle at Shuri.
In the king's absence, Kabayama Hisataka and his deputy Honda Chikamasa governed the islands on behalf of their lord Shimazu Tadatsune
Shimazu Tadatsune
was a tozama daimyo of Satsuma, the first to hold it as a formal fief under the Tokugawa shogunate, and the first Japanese to rule over the Ryūkyū Kingdom...
. Fourteen samurai officials from Satsuma, along with 163 of their staff, examined the kingdom's political structures and economic productivity, and conducted land surveys of all the islands. Following the king's return to Shuri and the resumption of governance under the royal establishment, three Ryukyuan officials remained as hostages in Kagoshima until Satsuma was convinced that Shō Nei and his officials were operating in accordance with their oaths. The following year, the lords of Ōzato
Ozato, Okinawa
was a village located in Shimajiri District, Okinawa, Japan.On January 1, 2006 Ōzato was merged with the town of Sashiki, and the villages of Chinen and Tamagusuku, all from Shimajiri District, to form the new city of Nanjō....
and Katsuren
Katsuren, Okinawa
was a town located in Nakagami District, Okinawa, Japan.On April 1, 2005 Katsuren was merged with the town of Yonashiro, also from Nakagami District, and the old cities of Gushikawa and Ishikawa, to form the new city of Uruma....
returned to Okinawa, while the third, an Aji (noble) by the name of Kunjan, chose to remain in Kagoshima. He took on a Japanese name and became a samurai retainer to the Shimazu, serving them in battle in the 1615 siege of Osaka
Siege of Osaka
The was a series of battles undertaken by the Tokugawa shogunate against the Toyotomi clan, and ending in that clan's destruction. Divided into two stages , and lasting from 1614 to 1615, the siege put an end to the last major armed opposition to the shogunate's establishment...
.
Consequences
The surrender documents signed at Kagoshima in 1611 were accompanied by a series of oaths. The king and his councilors were made to swear that "the islands of Riu Kiu have from ancient times been a feudal dependency of Satsuma", and that there was a long-standing tradition of sending tribute and congratulatory missions on the succession of the Satsuma lords, those these were all falsehoods. The oaths also included stipulations that the kingdom admit its wrongdoing in ignoring and rejecting numerous requests for materials and for manpower, that the invasion was justified and deserved, and that the lord of Satsuma was merciful and kind in allowing the king and his officers to return home and to remain in power. Finally, the councilors were forced to swear their allegiance to the Shimazu over their king. Tei Dō, a royal councilor and commander of the kingdom's defense against the invasion, refused to sign the oaths and was beheaded.The kingdom's royal governmental structures remained intact, along with its royal lineage. The Ryukyus remained nominally independent, a "foreign country" (異国, ikoku) to the Japanese, and efforts were made to obscure Satsuma's domination of Ryukyu from the Chinese Court, in order to ensure the continuation of trade and diplomacy, since China refused to conduct formal relations or trade with Japan at the time. However, though the king retained considerable powers, he was only permitted to operate within a framework of strict guidelines set down by Satsuma, and was required to pay considerable amounts in tribute
Tribute
A tribute is wealth, often in kind, that one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often the case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. Various ancient states, which could be called suzerains, exacted tribute from areas they had conquered or threatened to conquer...
to Satsuma on a regular basis.
This framework of guidelines was largely set down by a document sometimes called the Fifteen Injunctions (掟十五ヶ条, Okite jūgo-ka-jō), which accompanied the oaths signed in Kagoshima in 1611, and which detailed political and economic restrictions placed upon the kingdom. Prohibitions on foreign trade, diplomacy, and travel outside of that officially permitted by Satsuma were among the chief elements of these injunctions. Ryukyu's extensive trade relations with China, Southeast Asia, and Korea were turned to Satsuma's interests, and various laws were put into place forbidding interactions between Japanese and Ryukyuans, travel between the two island nations. Likewise, travel abroad from Ryukyu in general, and the reception of ships at Ryukyu's harbors, were heavily restricted with exceptions made only for official trade and diplomatic journeys authorized by Satsuma.
In addition, Amami Ōshima
Amami Oshima
is a semi-tropical island in the Amami Islands, which is part of the larger Nansei Islands in Japan. Ōshima literally means big island, and it is the largest of the Amami Islands. It lies roughly halfway between the islands of Okinawa and Kyūshū. Briefly part of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, in 1624 it was...
and a number of other northern islands now known as the Satsunan Islands were annexed into Satsuma Domain and removed from the kingdom's territory. These islands remain today part of Kagoshima Prefecture
Kagoshima Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. The capital is the city of Kagoshima.- Geography :Kagoshima Prefecture is located at the southwest tip of Kyushu and includes a chain of islands stretching further to the southwest for a few hundred kilometers...
, not Okinawa Prefecture
Okinawa Prefecture
is one of Japan's southern prefectures. It consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over long, which extends southwest from Kyūshū to Taiwan. Okinawa's capital, Naha, is located in the southern part of Okinawa Island...
.
Further reading
- The Samurai Capture a King, Okinawa 1609. Author: Stephen Turnbull. Osprey Raid Series #6; Osprey Publishing, 2009. ISBN 9781846034428