Andrew Cobbing - Kyushu - Gateway To Japan. A Concise History (2008, BRILL - Global Oriental) PDF

KYUSHU: GATEWAY TO JAPAN
A CONCISE HISTORY
Kyushu:
Gateway to Japan
A CONCISE HISTORY

Andrew Cobbing
University of Nottingham
GLOBAL
ORIENTAL
KYUSHU: GATEWAY TO JAPAN
A CONCISE HISTORY
First published 2009 by

GLOBAL ORIENTAL LTD
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© Andrew Cobbing 2009
ISBN 978-1-905246-18-2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication

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Set in Garamond 11 on 12.5pt by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

Printed and bound in England by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts
CONTENTS
Plate section faces page 162.
List of Maps viii

List of Plates ix
Preface xi
Introduction xiii
1. Takachiho: The Floating Bridge of Heaven 1

Early settlement 5
Myth in the making 9
Landfall in memory 16
2. Himiko’s Lands: Gateway to Wa 25

The Yayoi imprint in northern Kyushu 28
Yayoi society in the Wajinden 33
Looking for Yamatai 37
Yamatai landmarks in Kyushu 43
3. Tsukushi: Isle of Unknown Fires 46

The age of great tombs 49
The Korean impact on Tsukushi 53
The Iwai Rebellion 57
Tsukushi as a frontier zone 62
4. Dazaifu: The Distant Court 67

The Dazaifu Headquarters 68
v
Kyushu: Gateway to Japan
The Tsukushi Lodge (Kōrokan) 71

Cultural influences from Tang China 75
Dazaifu in decline 80
5. Hakata: The Making of a Mercantile Centre 84

Imperial authority in the provinces 86
Private estates in Kyushu 92
Trade and the emergence of Hakata 94
Hakata in the Taira heyday 98
6. Divine Wind: The Mongol Invasions 103

The Kamakura bakufu 105
Approach of the Mongol empire 111
The Mongol invasions 113
The Kamakura bakufu in decline 119
7. Divided Loyalties: Pirates and Rival Courts 123

The road to Tatarahama 125
Kyushu in the age of rival courts 128
Seaborne samurai – the Matsura-tō 133
The tally trade and pirates 136
8. All under Heaven: Missionaries and Warlords 142

Europeans in Kyushu 145
Kyushu’s Christian daimyo 150
Kyushu in the age of warring states 153
The final campaigns 156
9. Turbulent Decades: State Control and Resistance 162

The Toyotomi regime in Kyushu 163
A hub of international trade 173
Persecution and exclusion edicts 177
The Shimabara Rebellion and Kakure Kirishitan 181
10. The Great Peace in Kyushu 187

The Tokugawa order in Kyushu 189
Towns, country and roads 194
vi
Contents
Trade and the Nagasaki system 204

Education and intellectual currents 210
11. Kyushu in the Meiji Restoration 213

Nagasaki in the ‘opening of Japan’ 214
Nagasaki in the overthrow of the Tokugawa regime 220
Meiji reforms and rebellions 225
The later Meiji world 234
12. The Twentieth Century 239

The colonial age in Kyushu 241
The post-war era 247
Contemporary Kyushu 255
Postscript 262
Appendix: Major domains in Kyushu circa 1850 265
Notes 267
Bibliography 305
Index 320
vii
LIST OF MAPS
1. East Asia xxiv

2. Kyushu Physical xxv
3. Ancient Kyushu (Saikaidō) xxvi
4. Medieval Kyushu xxvii
5. Early Modern Kyushu xxviii
6. Modern Kyushu xxix
viii
LIST OF PLATES
Plate section faces page 162.
1. Mt Aso in central Kyushu

2. Newly planted rice paddies
3. Takachiho Gorge in Miyazaki Prefecture
4. Mt Kirishima, Kagoshima Prefecture
5. A yokagura dance, Takachiho
6. Miyazaki Shrine
7. Kirishima Shrine
8. Part of the complex of burial mounds, Miyazaki Prefecture
9. Reconstructed storehouses and dwellings at Yoshinogari
10. Another view of Yoshinogari
11. Notice at Setaka Station
12. Statue of Sayō-hime, Kyūragi
13. Kashii Shrine, Fukuoka City
14. Usa Shrine, Ōita Prefecture
15. Tomb of Iwai
16. Stone figures (sekijin)
17. Remains of the Mizuki defensive earthwork
18. Site of the Dazaifu Headquarters (Tofuro Ato)
19. Site of the Dazaifu Headquarters (Tofuro Ato)
20. Dazaifu Tenmangū Shrine
21. Fields of green tea, Yame City
22. Shōfukuji Temple
23. Defensive wall at Iki no Matsubara
24. Hakozaki Shrine, Fukuoka City
ix
25. Takashima Island, Imari Bay

26. Terraced paddy fields at Hizen
27. Maenohama Beach, Tanegashima Island
28. Maenohama Beach with Cape Kadokura in the distance
29. Mt Kaimon, Satsuma peninsula
30. Monument of the Twenty-Six Martyrs, Nagasaki City
31. Ruins of Nagoya Castle
32. Kumamoto Castle
33. Walls of Kumamoto Castle
34. Samurai residence (buke yashiki)
35. Shimabara Castle
36. Ruins of Hara Castle
37. Sakitsu Village, Kumamoto Prefecture
38. Megane-bashi (Spectacles Bridge), Nagasaki
39. Gateway to the Shinchi (‘Chinatown’), Nagasaki
40. Dejima today
41. Nagasaki Bay in 1804
42. Tsūjunkyo Bridge, Kumamoto Prefecture
43. The Seirenkata, or experimental workshop, Saga
44. Officers of Saga returning ashore in front of Dejima
45. View of Kagoshima City facing east
46. Roof of Iso-tei on the outskirts of Kagoshima
47. The Shūseikan, next to Iso-tei villa
48. Bronze statue of SaigōTakamori
49. Bombardment of Kagoshima, August 1863
50. Ōura Church, 1864
51. View of Nagasaki Bay from the Glover villa
52. Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki
53. Statue of Aburaya Kumahachi
54. View of Beppu
55. Peace Statue, Nagasaki
56. Huis ten Bosch leisure resort, Nagasaki
57. Seagaia resort, Miyazaki City
58. Hainuzuka Station
59. Modern skyline of Fukuoka Tower and Fukuoka Dome
60. Kyushu National Museum, Dazaifu City
x
PREFACE
his book began life several years ago when I was teaching a course
T on regional history for international students at Kyushu University
in Fukuoka City. An abiding memory of classes on the Hakozaki
campus was the earth-shattering sound of low-flying aircraft coming
into land at the nearby airport. A new campus is now taking shape at a
quieter location on the western outskirts of Fukuoka. Also memorable
were the field trips to some of the key sites that feature in Kyushu’s
history and contemporary life. These took us to castles, shrines, pottery
kilns and steelworks. We tried our hands at tea ceremony, Zen medita-
tion, and planting and harvesting rice in terraced fields high in the
mountains (followed by well-earned barbecues courtesy of the local
farmers). In one year, students became quite accustomed to exploring
Sakana Mura (Fish Village), a seafood market on the Karatsu Bypass,
which always seemed to be on the way home during the long journeys
back to Fukuoka.
Perhaps it was the thin mountain air that clouded my judgement, but
standing ankle-deep in terraced rice paddies one day it suddenly seemed
to me quite important, and even possible, to try and convey an impres-
sion of this land’s history. And when I left Kyushu after twelve years on
the island (in three different prefectures), it appeared that the time had
finally come. Surely it was not unrealistic to think of writing up some of
the lecture notes I had accumulated along the way. It was only when I
sat down and tried, of course, that I realized the true scale of such a task.
Needless to say, I am indebted to the long-suffering coach driver (I
think he liked Sakana Mura), also students and university staff who, in
different ways, were all a great help in developing the ideas that appear
xi
in this text. I am especially grateful to Tam Mito for his unfailing good
cheer, in spite of the aircraft, and Tim Cross and Tamah Nakamura for
their lucid insights during the planning stages. For their guidance and
inspiration I will always remember Kawasoe Yoshiatsu and the late
Nakamura Tadashi, who introduced me to so much behind the scenes
in the world of history in Kyushu. In Britain, Paul Norbury of Global
Oriental has been extremely supportive throughout this project, even
though his patience was sorely tested by months, even years, of near
silence as the manuscript took shape. I would also like to thank Richard
Sims for his very helpful comments as the final hurdle approached.
Japanese names in this book are arranged in the order used in Japan,
with family names preceding given names. Readers familiar with ancient
history will see that, with the exception of some early legendary figures,
I have dispensed with the custom of linking names with the possessive
‘no’ particle (so – Sugawara Michizane, rather than Sugawara no
Michizane). The style of romanization employed follows the standard
system (hyōjun-shiki), which is an adaptation of the Hepburn system,
with macrons – like the accent on ‘hyo’ above – indicating long vowels.
Macrons, however, are omitted in the case of a few familiar place names
such as Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Honshu and, of course, Kyushu. Terms
that are specifically Japanese are generally given in italics, except in cases
such as shogun, samurai and tsunami, which have now entered the
English lexicon. There are also some Korean and Chinese names to
grapple with, spelt here using the McCune-Reischauer and pinyin
systems respectively. Trying to cover such a broad sweep of time and
different languages – English conventions are a minefield enough – pre-
sents numerous difficulties in achieving consistency in content and
style. Reams of paper might be needed to list up the errors which need
deleting, refining or further exploration, but there would have been
many more without the kind help of the people mentioned above. Any
inaccuracies that still remain, of course, are entirely my own.
Woodside Park, London
June 2008
xii
INTRODUCTION
n October 2005, the Kyushu National Museum was opened in

I Dazaifu City in Fukuoka Prefecture. There was much talk of its inno-
vative modern design, and how its wave-like structure reminiscent of an
airport terminal somehow manages to blend in with the surrounding
landscape of wooded hills. The opening ceremony was a landmark
event because this was the first ‘national museum’ to be established in
Japan for over a hundred years. In fact, this is only the fourth such
museum in the country – after Tokyo, Nara and Kyoto, the last to open
in 1897. During the early years of Meiji rule, Tokyo was a natural choice
for the first national museum as the capital of the new modern state.
Nara and Kyoto soon followed, also boasting fine pedigrees as ancient
imperial capitals in central Honshu.1
So why build a fourth national museum in this small city off the
beaten track in northern Kyushu? Dazaifu is important because, more
than a thousand years ago, a diplomatic facility here served as the des-
ignated site for receiving foreign envoys. For ambassadors from the
Korean peninsula and imperial China, it was this area that formed their
first and often most lasting impression of Japan. Unlike its illustrious
predecessors, which were built primarily to house art treasures, the
theme of this new museum is historical and, significantly, framed in an
international context. In the words of its director Miwa Karoku, it is
‘built around the concept of understanding the formation of Japanese
culture from the perspective of Asian history’.2
Also embedded in this theme is the key role that Kyushu has played
in the development of Japan. After all, it is Kyushu, not Dazaifu, which
gives the museum its name. From the very inception of a Japanese state,
xiii
and even before, this island has been the principal stepping stone in the
reception of cultural influences from the world outside. During the for-
mative stages of Japanese society some of these ingredients added new
layers to an existing cultural core; others were part, or even defining fea-
tures, of the core itself. Tea, coffee, guns and the printing press are just
some of the commodities and devices that were introduced through
Kyushu. Zen Buddhism and Christianity were among the religious
teachings which reached this island first. It is here that rice culture and
even the imperial line make their appearance in Japanese history. In
short, Kyushu is the gateway to Japan.
Of the four main islands in the archipelago, only Hokkaido far to the
north is within comparably easy reach of the Asian continent. With its
location to the southwest on the rim of the East China Sea, however,
Kyushu has accumulated by far the richest experience of early contacts
with sophisticated cultures from the continent and beyond. Japan’s
encounters with Chinese civilization, and subsequently Europe, have all
started here. Whenever questions are raised on the origins of Japanese
culture, identity and relations with the outside world, at some stage the
focus inevitably returns to the history of Kyushu.
The conscious emphasis on ‘the perspective of Asian history’ at
Dazaifu is also revealing. It was the influential art critic Okakura
Tenshin who, in 1899, first suggested that it was essential to set up such
a museum in Kyushu. His vision was not realized at the time, so why
has it finally taken shape now? The opening of the new museum in
2005, in fact, represents the fruition of a long campaign originally
launched in 1968. Now sixty years on from the end of the Pacific War,
it perhaps signals something of a new phase in Japan’s cultural dialogue
with the Asian continent. The rhetoric still harbours an implicit belief
in a unique or distinct Japanese culture – this is a national institution
after all – but it does explicitly acknowledge a cultural debt to the
country’s immediate neighbours.
Perhaps these ideas can be located within a narrative of Japan’s
second ‘return to Asia’ during the modern era. In the late Meiji period a
strategy of ‘leaving Asia’ (datsu-A) had first allowed the country to join
the Western powers in a policy of colonial expansion in the region, only
to ‘return’ in the 1930s with the avowed intention of ‘protecting’ its
neighbours from Western imperialism. Subsequently, Japan was isolated
from the continent by the strategic demands of the Cold War. It was only
xiv
Introduction
after normalizing relations with South Korea (1965) and China (1972)
that there was another opportunity to fully re-engage for a second time.
Since then, the development of economic ties has again been impressive
although, understandably, the ideology remains ‘muted’.3
Central to the museum’s declared theme of Japanese culture with an
Asian historical perspective is the concept of Kyushu itself. Yet a brief
review shows that the meaning of this term is not as simple as it seems.
Geographically, it seems clear enough. Kyushu is the third largest of
Japan’s four main islands, a little over the size of Switzerland or the
Netherlands. It is a land of active volcanoes, none more spectacular
than the giant caldera of Mt Aso in the central uplands. The fast-flowing
rivers that radiate from these mountains are channelled through steep
wooded valleys to the sea. The human population is largely confined to
the coastal plains, mountain basins and levelled clearings along the
valley floors. Now home to thirteen million people, this island accounts
for about 10 per cent of the national GDP, carrying economic weight
not only in Japan but throughout East Asia and beyond.
In historical terms, however, the idea of Kyushu is more complex.
To begin with, rulers of small ‘countries’ (kuni) on the island established
their own diplomatic relations with imperial China several centuries
before any state called Japan came into being. The concept of Kyushu,
or land of ‘nine provinces’, was actually an administrative term, subse-
quently imposed by the central authorities in neighbouring Honshu.
Moreover, it only came into common usage in the fourteenth century
during the course of the long civil wars between rival claimants of the
imperial line. Previously, this island had gone under various names,
including Kyūkoku (nine countries) and Saikoku (western country).
Under imperial rule it had initially been developed as the Saikaidō
(Western Sea Road), used in apposition to the Tōkaidō (Eastern Sea
Road), which is still the name for the main trunk line of the shinkansen
‘bullet’ train that runs between Tokyo and Osaka today.
In effect, the Saikaidō stood for the western circuit of highways that
was built around the coasts of ‘Kyushu’ in the eighth century. It was an
important step for the emerging Yamato state since it effectively
brought the whole island, now divided into nine provinces, within reach
of central control for the first time. Before the Saikaidō, however, this
remote territory had generally been known to the Yamato court by the
more local name of Tsukushi – or Chikushi, to the chroniclers of
xv
Chinese dynastic histories. At first this referred mainly to the lands

around the north coast, but it was later extended to include the whole
island after the recalcitrant tribes further south were finally subjugated
under Yamato rule.4
Kyushu, therefore, was the last of several terms to be used by various
central regimes to impose control on these lands on the western periph-
eries of their domain. Even after the Meiji Restoration in the nineteenth
century when it was divided into seven prefectures, the name of Kyushu
(nine provinces) stuck. This perspective alone, however, does not res-
onate strongly with the idea of Kyushu that is projected at the new
national museum in Dazaifu. It is only when looking overseas to
encompass other lands beyond Japan that the concept of a cultural
gateway comes into view. Alternatively, viewed from abroad, it was the
natural destination for ships sailing across the Tsushima (or Korea)
Straits from the Korean peninsula, across the East China Sea from
mainland China, or catching the Kuroshio Current and approaching
from the south.
There are hundreds of ports along Kyushu’s coasts, and all have been
involved in this cultural interaction at one stage or another. Three
coastal cities have played particularly dominant roles as ‘gateways’, and
as such occupy pride of place in this history of Kyushu. On the north
coast is Hakata (now Fukuoka), a thriving port since early medieval
times, situated just a few miles north of Dazaifu. On the west coast is
Nagasaki, the pre-eminent port for foreign trade in the early modern
era. On the south coast is Kagoshima, an important gateway for over-
seas trade as the one-time capital of the Satsuma domain.
In this conceptualization Kyushu is seen as an outward-looking place,
receptive to cultural influence from abroad. Yet where does this leave
the lands in the east of Kyushu which do not feature so prominently?
Do the ports along the coastline facing the islands of Shikoku and
Honshu form part of some other cultural system instead? It is worth reit-
erating that any formulation of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ networks assumes the
existence of a ‘centre’ in Honshu. Kyushu, after all, is an island, and
Honshu is also ‘abroad’. An alternative perspective is to view this island
in terms of two maritime spheres of influence, one centred on the East
China Sea and another formed around the Inland Sea. Variations on
these spatial themes have been advanced by a number of scholars and,
although an oversimplified framework, it at least allows us to look on
xvi
Introduction
Kyushu as a confluence zone of two overlapping cultural worlds. The

ambivalent relations with the centre inherent in this model can also help
to explain some of the dualistic images of Kyushu that emerge at key
stages in the political development of these islands.5
On the one hand, Kyushu is generally considered to be an integral
part of Japan. It could hardly house a national museum without this
consensus. Ever since the rise of the Yamato state, however, there has
been a strong tendency to view it as a remote, peripheral region, physi-
cally separated from the ‘mainland’ by the Kanmon (Shimonoseki)
Straits. To one eighth-century poet, Tsukushi (Kyushu) appeared as a
land ‘far beyond the mountains where white clouds hover’.6 In medieval
times, its location at the edge of the known world made it feared as a
source of unknown threats, some of them real such as epidemics and
Mongol invasions. In the medieval imagination – for example in the
Heike Monogatari (The Tale of Heike) – these fears found expression in
Kikaigashima (Demon Island), an unidentified land of savages and
exiles off the south coast of Kyushu.7 At times it was even viewed with
contempt as a lawless realm of wakō, the bands of ‘Japanese pirates’ who
Murai Shōsuke describes as carving out their own hybrid world in the
water margins around the East China Sea.8
Kyushu, therefore, always lay rather precariously on the frontier
between the ‘civilized’ (ka) and ‘barbarian’ (i) lands in the ka:i paradigm
of cultural supremacy, which Japan had borrowed from China. In early
modern constructions, the island was granted ‘civilized’ status, while
Okinawa and Ezo (Hokkaido) were beyond the pale, but it was still a
long way from the refined ‘Kamigata’ culture of the Kansai area or the
Edo culture in the Kantō plain. According to the social pathology iden-
tified by Irokawa Daikichi, the creation of the centralized Meiji state
also reinforced the tendency to typecast this and other peripheral
regions as backward places far away from the metropole. In the twen-
tieth century as well, people from Kyushu could still receive derogatory
comments about their ‘branch culture’ (shiten bunka), as opposed to
‘head office’ in Tokyo, and even their ‘colonial university’ (shokuminchi
daigaku) in Fukuoka, one of pre-war Japan’s ‘seven imperial universities’
(nana teidai) – or nine, including Seoul and Taipei.9
In the context of Japan’s cultural relations with the Asian continent,
of course, Kyushu has never been peripheral. Some effects of the
island’s proximity to and close relations with ‘other’ cultures are clearly
xvii
visible in the way it is perceived in Japan today. Many visitors from

Honshu immediately find what they call exotic traits there. To some
extent, this emphasis on cultural difference has been encouraged by the
tourist industry. Yet such an outlook immediately introduces what
Tessa Suzuki-Morris calls ‘the continuing interplay between similarity
and difference, outside and inside, space and time’ that can threaten to
dismantle some of our common assumptions about Japan.10
Throughout the post-war era, Japan has generally been viewed
as a monocultural society. This is despite the fact that, as Gaynor
MacDonald points out, ‘we have only to scratch the surface in Japan
to find rich cultural diversity based on regional, ethnic, social and
physical differences.11 A number of seminal works in English, from
Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946) onwards, have
also reinforced a belief in the unusual degree of social homogeneity
that is held to exist in these islands. A closely-linked idea is the largely
monoethnic population sometimes seen as the key element in the
country’s social cohesion. The concept of a ‘pure Yamato spirit’,
however, is not the timeless tradition often supposed, but was con-
structed by early modern scholars like Motoori Norinaga, who devel-
oped the branch of learning called Kokugaku (study of our country).
Moreover, it was not until the Meiji period that the Japanese began to
characterize themselves as culturally homogeneous.12 Arguably, the
idea of Japan as a monoethnic society dates only to the middle of the
twentieth century, when it was welcomed in an understandable effort
to distance post-war society from the multiethnic wartime empire.13
This is relevant to Kyushu because the proliferation of works on the
Nihonjinron discourse (the theory of being Japanese) that accompanied
Japan’s post-war rise as an economic superpower has also been mir-
rored throughout the country by a vigorous debate on regional iden-
tity. Popular interest in the supposed unique qualities of Japanese
culture escalated in the aftermath of the 1970 Osaka Expo, but also
raised questions in various parts of Japan. One reaction in the south-
west, for example, was the considerable media exposure given to the
theme of ‘one Kyushu’. This simultaneous fashion for imagined com-
munities at different levels is no coincidence but inextricably linked.
Now, more than ever, culture has become contested ground. As Paul
Claval points out, drawing on the experience in Europe, the revival of
regional consciousness can be seen as a response to the decline of
xviii
Introduction
historical philosophies that once supported the framework of the

nation state.14
In the early 1970s, there were even calls for Kyushu to claim a more
self-autonomous role from Tokyo, or to declare independence alto-
gether. Other catalysts in this debate included the new confidence
inspired by a booming economy on the eve of the oil shocks, and the
return of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty in 1972.15 Visions of a bright
future were also encouraged by the opening of a shinkansen ‘bullet train’
station in Hakata (Fukuoka) and the completion of the Kanmon
Suspension Bridge across the Shimonoseki Straits. The irony of the fact
that these pulled Kyushu closer to Tokyo just as much as they drew
Kyushu together was not lost on some at the time.
Declaring independence is not entirely without precedent in the
Japanese islands. In 1869, the Tokugawa ‘rebel’ Enomoto Takeaki
attempted to found his own republic in Hokkaido, and in 1945, there
was briefly a Yaeyama Republic in Okinawa.16 The driving force behind
the ‘one Kyushu’ movement, however, was the prodigious growth of
Fukuoka City as a regional capital, a trend that is still conspicuous thirty
years later. The enthusiasm shown by Fukuoka politicians and business-
men for assuming a leading role on Kyushu’s behalf – plans for a
Kyushu museum included – prompted fresh debate on the island’s iden-
tity. Others seemed less enthused by the prospect of replacing rule from
Tokyo with domination by Fukuoka. What this argument has perhaps
served to highlight most is the cultural diversity within Kyushu itself.
One outcome of such dialogues has been to raise the profile of
regional studies throughout Japan. For decades already, local authori-
ties had been making sustained efforts to produce weighty tomes of pre-
fectural and municipal histories packed with documents. Painstakingly
transliterated by small armies of calligraphy experts, they demonstrated
the depth of local patriotism to be found everywhere. It was only from
the 1970s, however, that the interpretational framework of national his-
tories was seriously challenged. The new focus on the concept of
Kyushu, for example, gathered momentum with the appearance of a
series of major collaborative works drawing together research on dif-
ferent regions within the island.17 In 1977, an academic journal called
Seinan Chiiki-shi Kenkyu [Research on Southwest Regional History] was
even founded in conscious apposition to the tradition of national his-
tories developed since the onset of the Meiji state.18
xix
Partly inspired by the groundbreaking work of scholars like Amino

Yoshihiko, recent research in English has also been placing more
emphasis on cultural diversity in Japan.19 Edited works reflecting this
shift include Diversity in Japanese Culture and Language (1995), Multicultural
Japan: paleolithic to postmodern (1996), and Japan’s Minorities: the illusion of
homogeneity (1997). In some cases this has found geographical expression
in studies on the most easily identifiable minority groups in the south-
ern and northern peripheries of the Japanese islands. There have been
a number of works with a focus on Okinawa, including a major two-
volume anthology on Ryukyu Studies (2000, 2002) and Visions of Ryukyu
(2001) by Gregory Smits. Several works have also explored Ainu iden-
tity, among them ‘Ainu Ethnicity and the Boundaries of the Early
Modern State’ (1994) by David Howells, ‘The Ainu: construction of an
image’ (1995) by Richard Siddle, and Brett Walker’s The Conquest of Ainu
Lands (2001).
Yet having made these geographical inroads from the edges of the
archipelago, where does that leave the rest of Japan? Are the regional
societies throughout the remaining islands synonymous with central
Honshu? There is now a rich and growing discourse on regional or pre-
fectural differences, although John Lie suggests that ‘these articulations
of internal heterogeneity. . .do not fundamentally challenge the belief in
essential Japanese homogeneity’.20 Nevertheless, in ancient times some
other distinct ethnic groups certainly lived on these islands, notably the
Kumaso and Hayato in Kyushu, and the Emishi in eastern Honshu. They
left no records of their own, however, and are visible only from the
‘outside’ perspective of early Japanese historical sources. With no sur-
viving trace of ethnic consciousness or narrative of loss to draw upon,
these people appear to have become assimilated once their lands were
colonized by the Yamato state. At the same time, it cannot be assumed
that they left no imprint on the landscape. After all, some provinces in
modern France owe their origins to the historic regions staked out as
tribal territories of the Gauls between the third and fifth centuries BCE.21
Ōbayashi Taryō has attempted to devise models articulating regional
diversity within a multicultural Japan by identifying several ‘culture
areas’ within the archipelago. Like Amino he demarcates western and
eastern Japan between the Kansai (Kamigata) and Kantō areas in
Honshu, but thinks Kyushu may also qualify, ‘not so much in ecologi-
cal terms but rather due to historical reasons of cultural exchange
xx
Introduction
around the East China Sea’. Linguistically, Kyushu’s sometimes impen-

etrable dialects also place it in a different category from the rest of
western Japan.22 Bruce Batten, who has examined borders and frontiers
in some detail, however, remains sceptical about drawing internal
boundaries between territories where cultural similarities may outweigh
their differences.23 As any model of overlapping spheres of influence
suggests, culture can always flow across notional borders as long as
there is unrestricted access.
Kyushu Island, therefore, may be easy to define geographically, but
is culturally more complex. This is underlined by some of the back-
ground factors driving regional studies in Kyushu today. To some
extent, the growing interest in the Asian continent has been generated
by the lure of new economic opportunities in Korea and the eastern
seaboard of mainland China. Fukuoka City, in particular, is always keen
to point out the strategic advantages of a business location almost
equidistant between Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul. The Japanese state’s
emphasis on internationalization (kokusaika) over the last thirty years
has also resonated strongly in the historic ‘cultural gateways’ of Kyushu.
Moreover, with the role of the nation state now under scrutiny through
the pressures of globalization, some areas are being approached not so
much in a local or even national context but rather, as in the case of
Satsuma for example, in terms of their place in the wider world.24
Regional studies on Hakata, Nagasaki and Satsuma in particular, have
attracted so much interest that they have even been framed as academic
disciplines in their own right. The project to open Kyushu’s own national
museum in nearby Dazaifu has fostered renewed awareness of Hakata-
gaku (study of Hakata). In English, the Dazaifu system of border control
and diplomatic exchange is also the subject of Bruce Batten’s Hakata:
gateway to Japan (2005). On the west coast of Kyushu, meanwhile,
Nagasaki-gaku (study of Nagasaki) is already well established, since the
influence of Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, Dutch and other foreign
communities there has long been the subject of integrated research. In
English this has been promoted through the publication of Crossroads: a
journal of Nagasaki history and culture, which was launched in 1993.25
Satsuma-gaku (study of Satsuma) has also become a focus of attention in
the south of Kyushu, addressing cultural encounters such as the arrival
of firearms and Christianity, besides Satsuma’s influential role in the for-
mation of the Meiji state. Recent works in English that address related
xxi
themes include Olof Lidin’s Tanegashima: the arrival of Europe in Japan

(2002), and my own The Satsuma Students in Britain (2000).
These local studies can be valuable in exploring core-periphery rela-
tions. At the same time, just as bureaucratic structures have dictated the
rather fragmented organization of municipal and prefectural histories,
there is always a danger of losing sight of wider cultural forces when
approaching any particular place in isolation. Indeed, Hakata, Nagasaki
and Satsuma can acquire collective significance in their shared roles as
cultural gateways and, to some extent, are inextricably related to each
other. In the last years of Tokugawa rule, for example, Nagasaki became
something of a hunting ground for politically active samurai from
around Kyushu, but records on such individuals can often be found in
places like Satsuma or Saga, not just in Nagasaki itself.26
This study is an attempt to highlight some of the undercurrents
within the mainstream of Japanese history by presenting a regional field
of view located between these local and national perspectives. As such,
it cannot match the level of detail in, say, an individual study on Hakata,
Nagasaki or Kagoshima. Instead, I seek to provide an overview with a
closer focus on salient themes in Kyushu’s development than can be
found in most general histories. Since my approach is framed within the
broader context of the Japanese islands (and indeed East Asia), much
of the material will undoubtedly be familiar to readers acquainted with
Japanese history. Some episodes may also seem familiar in that so many
key events with wider implications have unfolded in a Kyushu setting.
At the same time, I hope that the regional angle emphasized here helps
to cast them in a fresh light not always obvious when viewed from the
centre.
Among the various excellent survey histories of Japan that have
recently appeared in English, some stand out for their innovative
approach. Conrad Totman’s A History of Japan (2000) is the first com-
prehensive work to place such consistent emphasis on the environ-
ment. Marius Jansen’s The Making of Modern Japan (2000) draws attention
to the combined influence of regional power groups and external rela-
tions. Andrew Gordon’s A Modern History of Japan (2003) highlights the
growing interconnectivity that has characterized Japanese society’s
encounters with modernity. General histories, however, tend to be
informed by an outlook located mainly in Honshu, invariably with a
focus on central administrations either in Kyoto or Tokyo. As such,
xxii
Introduction
they do not always reflect the rich cultural diversity that often makes
such a lasting impression on anyone who has lived and travelled in the
Japanese islands for any length of time.
The timescale considered in this study stretches from ancient to
modern times, encompassing the full spectrum of historical experience
that makes Kyushu such an integral part of Japan, and yet so unique.
Themes include the ‘melting pot’ of early migrations and cultural influ-
ences from the Asian continent, followed by further interactions such
as trade, diplomacy and war. Several pivotal conflicts receive particular
attention, among them the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century,
pirate raids in the fourteenth, the Shimabara Rebellion in the seven-
teenth, the Satsuma Rebellion in the nineteenth, and Nagasaki’s experi-
ence of the atomic bomb in the twentieth.
Each chapter opens with a brief survey of a location in Kyushu that
has particular relevance to the period in question. The aim is to empha-
size the impact of historical episodes at a local level, past and present.
It also illustrates how regional consciousness can be embedded in col-
lective memory, and reflected in the still faintly visible layers of human
imprints on the landscape – a palimpsest of accumulated culture.27 This
was the abiding impression I formed during my twelve years in Kyushu.
The rich cultural diversity to be found here has been framed by the
island’s landscape, as the densely populated coastal plains are isolated
from each other by steep mountains, and the valleys and basins inland
are cut off from the sea. It is also a legacy of the fragmented political
structures that have often influenced communities in the past. Above
all, it draws on the multiple contacts with the Asian continent and
beyond that have combined through the course of history to make
Kyushu a gateway to Japan.
xxiii
1 EAST ASIA
MAP 1. Kyushu’s Situation in East Asia

2 KYUSHU PHYSICAL
MAP 2. Kyushu (Physical)

3 ANCIENT KYUSHU (SAIKAIDO)
MAP 3. Ancient Kyushu

The Saikaidō circuit of highways had taken shape by the early eighth century, linking nine provinces
(and the islands of Iki and Tsushima).
4 MEDIEVAL KYUSHU
MAP 4. Medieval Kyushu (late 12th–early 17th century)

5 EARLY MODERN KYUSHU
MAP 5. Early Modern Kyushu (17th–19th century)

Shows family seats circa 1850.
6 MODERN KYUSHU
MAP 6. Modern Kyushu

After the domains were abolished in 1871, Kyushu’s nine provinces were reorganized into seven
prefectures.
CHAPTER 1
TAKACHIHO:
THE FLOATING BRIDGE
OF HEAVEN

he recorded origins of Japan’s imperial line begin at Takachiho, a
T remote area steeped in ancient myths high in the mountains of
southern Kyushu. Here in Miyazaki Prefecture people find it natural
enough to call their region the ‘land of legend’. Situated far inland, the
Takachiho district in particular retains a strong identity as a ‘sacred’
area. From the landscape it is not difficult to see why. Invariably
swathed in cloud, even the upper slopes of these steep gorges are walled
in by mountains on all sides. The weather can turn suddenly, as veils of
mist frequently descend to crowd the field of view. Looking down, the
thickly-wooded slopes drop to seemingly impossible depths, and
threads of water trace a path through the rapids on the valley floors
below. In some places, jade-coloured streams flow beneath cliffs of
basalt columns, suggesting powerful natural forces at work. The
impression of superhuman strength shaping the landscape is reinforced
by the massive boulders that have been hurled down on the riverbanks
through the effects of weathering on these towering slopes.
The iconic image often photographed at the scenic Takachiho Gorge
is a sheet of white water plunging from the top of a cliff into the deep
green river below. This is just one example of how the natural setting
has influenced human activity in the area. Together with forestry, live-
stock and crop cultivation – mostly vegetables and tobacco – tourism
now forms a central part of the Takachiho economy. It is partly sus-
tained by the Takachiho Railway that links these inaccessible mountains
to the small city of Nobeoka on the east coast, a line recently threatened
1
with closure but since revived under private ownership. On some days
each year the station staff greet their passengers dressed in the ancient
costumes more commonly seen in the ceremonial dances performed at
Shinto shrines.
Partly because of its evocative landscape Takachiho is littered with
sacred places bearing names such as the ‘Hall of the Gods’ and the ‘Cave
of the Sun Goddess’. Often these are marked by wooden shrines that
can indeed look as old as the hills. In the eighteenth century there were
as many as 554 shrines in the area, although most were closed down a
century later when the new Meiji state stipulated one shrine for each
village. Sacred sites and shrines still abound nonetheless. For anyone
interested in dynastic roots, one place of note is Mt Futagami, a short
distance outside the town of Takachiho. This unprepossessing hill does
not really stand out from the surrounding landscape, but according to
legend it marks the junction between the celestial plain and the earth
below, and the place where, one day several aeons ago, the ‘floating
bridge of heaven’ (Ame no Uki Hashi) was joined with the land of men.
It was this temporary pontoon of cloud that allowed Ninigi, august
grandson of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, to appear in what is called
‘the descent of the heavenly race’ (tenson kōrin). Touchdown on Mt
Futagami heralded the arrival of the Yamato rulers of Japan, a dynasty
that continues, more or less, unbroken to the present day.
This at least is the narrative that unfolds in Japan’s earliest histories,
compiled several centuries after the ‘event’ they describe. The written
word, it would appear, came late to these islands, when Chinese letters
were imported in the sixth century. No earlier texts survive, either
because the inhabitants had no script of their own, or because any doc-
uments they kept have since perished. The theory of an earlier indige-
nous written language known as jindai moji is generally considered to be
a fabrication created during the eighteenth century. The earliest extant
records, therefore, are sixth-century transcriptions based on oral
accounts that recall memories of a former time. These include Teiki
(Imperial Record), a genealogy of the Yamato line, and Kuji (Ancient
Tales), a collection of ‘house histories’ compiled by prominent families
near the court to promote their own lineage. It was not until early in the
eighth century that a systematic attempt was made to construct a dynas-
tic chronicle in the style of Chinese models to place on record the back-
ground of the imperial line. This was based on the recitations provided
2
Takachiho: The Floating Bridge of Heaven
by a certain Hieda Are who, by order of the ‘Great King’ Tenmu some
years before, had committed the Teiki and Kuji to memory.1 The edited
transcription produced as a result in 712 was the Kojiki (Records of
Ancient Matters), followed eight years later by the more extensive
Nihongi, or Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan).2
The accounts of the Heavenly Grandchild’s descent at Takachiho
appear in the opening chapters of both these chronicles. Of course, the
divine ancestry this would suggest remains a highly emotive subject. In
the post-war era the issue has been largely avoided as a taboo theme,
particularly since the emperor Shōwa publicly renounced his ‘divinity’
in 1946. The broader movement to disclaim the historicity of texts
revered as ‘national histories’ was in itself a reaction to the way in which
they had been manipulated during Japan’s period of colonial expansion.
In the early twentieth century these foundation myths had been inter-
preted literally and any connotations of divine ancestry were exploited
to political ends, often accompanied by rousing slogans lifted from the
texts themselves.
In a park in Miyazaki City, for example, is a tall monument that has
now been renamed the ‘Tower of Peace’ (heiwa no tō). This was built in
1940 as the ‘Founding Pillar of Brotherhood’ (hakkō no kichū), and bears
an inscription proclaiming ‘universal brotherhood’ (hakkō ichiu). Also
inscribed is the ‘Year 2,600’, the time that had elapsed since 660 BCE
when, according to the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki (collectively known as the
ki-ki, or ki-gi), Ninigi’s great-grandson Jinmu left the Miyazaki area to
set up the imperial line in Japan’s main island of Honshu. Although not
specified as such in these ancient ki-ki texts (in this work abbreviated as
the Chronicles), the reign of this first human ruler was always considered
to mark the transition from the ‘Age of Gods’ to the ‘Age of Men’.3 The
four characters meaning ‘universal brotherhood’, or more literally ‘all
the world under one roof’, were originally a symbol of unity in the ‘Land
of Eight Great Islands’ (Japan). These were taken out of context from
the Chronicles by the militarist wartime regime, and liberally invoked to
glorify the ‘Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ under Japan’s lead-
ership. Yet as Umehara Takeshi notes, nowhere in the Chronicles is it
stated as such that the inhabitants of Japan are innately superior to the
people of other lands.4
The deities (kami) who appear in the ‘Age of the Gods’, in fact, are
‘not radically different from human beings’.5 The main exceptions are
3
seven heavenly deities who feature at the start of the creation myth in a
time before the universe took shape. In the post-war intellectual
climate, however, it became almost obligatory to dismiss the various
legendary figures who walk through the mountains, valleys and plains
of Miyazaki in the pages of the Chronicles. This was partly because a
number of scholars, notably Maruyama Masao, implicated the field of
Kokugaku – the study of ancient indigenous texts – in having produced
the emperor system that ultimately enabled ‘the descent into fascism’.6
It was in an attempt to rehabilitate this Kokugaku discourse, therefore,
that in the 1970s Haga Noboru stressed how it could only be fully
understood if viewed in isolation from politics.7
The legends of Miyazaki are to be found in the so-called Hyūga Myth
in the ‘Age of the Gods’. From the outset a survey of these texts also
needs to be consciously removed, and to some extent reclaimed, from
any political stigma still attached to notions of ‘divine descent’ and
Kokugaku studies as a whole. In the year 2000, for example, the prime
minister Mori Yoshirō created a fierce controversy when he referred to
Japan as the ‘land of the gods’, and he touched on the still sensitive
taboo surrounding imperial divinity by specifically referring to ‘the
emperor (tennō) at its core’.8 There are signs, nevertheless, that it is
becoming possible to invoke this cultural heritage without necessarily
inviting comparisons with political extremism. This was evident within
a month of Mori’s faux pas when the G8 summit of foreign ministers
was held at the futuristic new Seagaia resort on the Miyazaki coast. A
poster highlighting the occasion played on words in Japanese to pro-
claim that here in this land of ‘legend’ (shinwa), a ‘new story’ (shinwa) was
about to begin. It did not provoke a storm of protest.
Partly because of this loaded political background, the most prag-
matic stance in post-war Japan has been to subscribe to the authorita-
tive Tsuda Sōkichi’s judgement that none of the rulers described before
Ōjin have any historical foundation. Such a response has encouraged
the general assumption often made that the various allusions to places
in southern Kyushu found in the ‘Age of the Gods’ are a fictional con-
struct imagined by the compilers of the Chronicles. As early as the 1960s,
however, Inoue Mitsusada questioned Tsuda’s dependence on textual
analysis, and the combined use of anthropology and archaeology that
he pioneered has reopened these early chapters preceding Ōjin for his-
torical review. More recently, several works have revisited Takachiho
4
amid growing interest in the hidden import of the ancient texts.9 These
legends, moreover, can offer valuable insights into early settlement in
Kyushu, providing clues on the arrival of people from somewhere
beyond its mountains and shores.
Early settlement
Archaeological evidence suggests that the islands of Japan were first
settled by waves of migrations from various directions – some inland
peoples from continental Asia, but also ‘islanders’ from the south and
possibly as far away as Polynesia. These migrations contributed to what
ultimately became a complex racial mix, certainly not the homogenous
race sometimes portrayed by later generations. Some of these arrivals
occurred so long ago, however, that in the absence of records, they have
largely passed out of cultural memory. Even so, the eighth-century
world described in the Chronicles was an archipelago still inhabited by a
number of established tribes together with quite recent immigrants
from overseas.
From the outset the island of Kyushu was often the first area to be
settled. Some animals preceding them may have simply walked across
the land now covered by the sea of the Tsushima Straits that separates
Kyushu from the Korean peninsula. The Japanese islands were once
joined to the continental land mass at either end, enclosing a huge lake
now known as the Sea of Japan. Then, as now, the landscape was dom-
inated by highly active volcanoes, situated above the subduction zone
where the Pacific plate sinks below the continental crust.
Kyushu, in particular, has always been known as a land of fire. Mt
Aso in the heart of the island is the largest active volcano in Japan and,
by some accounts, on earth. Stretching twelve miles across and with a
circumference of seventy-five miles, the outer rim is certainly among
the world’s largest calderas, and the only visible remains of a once vast
supervolcano. It is still a common sight today to see plumes of vapour
rising from volcanic peaks such as Aso and nearby Mt Kujū, at 5,876
feet the highest mountain on the island. In the extreme south Mt
Sakurajima is also highly active and, even though situated across the
bay, is still alarmingly close to the city of Kagoshima. To the north, in
Nagasaki Prefecture, the series of eruptions that began at Mt Unzen in
1991 deeply scarred the surrounding landscape and created a new lava
5
dome at its summit. This is also the site of Japan’s worst ever recorded
volcanic disaster in 1792, when about 15,000 people were killed or
injured after the collapse of a lava dome triggered an earthquake that
sent tsunami waves racing across the Ariake Sea.
To any early settlers arriving in Kyushu from the Asian continent,
volcanoes would have been a phenomenon entirely beyond their pre-
vious experience. It has been suggested that the scribes who wrote the
Chronicles may even have been recalling the impact of volcanic erup-
tions long ago when their ancestors formulated their own creation
myth. After all, volcanoes are perhaps the closest equivalent in the
natural world to their descriptions of deities who literally gave birth to
the islands of Japan. Creation myths involving this notion of giving
birth to land are also found in various Polynesian islands, in geological
terms another region that lies within the Pacific ‘Rim of Fire’.10 An
alternative theory is that the disruptive behaviour of some deities por-
trayed in the ‘Age of the Gods’ may also be an allusion to volcanic
activity, since this is a feature that is otherwise curiously absent from
the Chronicles.11
The earliest human settlers arrived by sea around 10,000 BCE at some
stage after the last ice age. These are known generically as the Jōmon
people after the distinctive ‘coiled rope’ style of earthenware vessels
found on archaeological sites. There is mounting evidence to suggest that
they were connected to the prehistoric Yue populations of southern
China, and by extension to a cultural sphere incorporating what is now
Indonesia. This is reflected in the Jōmon customs of intentionally
extracting teeth, tattooing and also styles of ornamentation.12 If their
journey did involve a circuitous route from the continent through the
South Seas, such early settlers may well have acquired some degree of cul-
tural hybridity already before they set foot in the Japanese archipelago.
During the Stone Age in Japan, the Jōmon people inhabited easily
protected upland caves and sometimes straw huts. Typified as ‘hunter
gatherers’, they lived a simple nomadic life feeding on wild berries and
other fruits of the land. From around 500 BCE some settled down to
cultivate berries, nuts and even rice, but this was invariably dry rice
rather than the wet paddy rice cultivation that would subsequently
arrive, and in general their communities reached no great level of social
organization. Tribes would certainly have varied from one region to the
next, but with their thick brows, deep-set eyes and prominent features,
6
these Jōmon people were physically distinct from the next wave of
migrant settlers.
Climate change far inland in continental Asia could have been a cat-
alyst in bringing such new arrivals to the shores of Kyushu. From
around 500 BCE, lands on the fringes of the Gobi Desert that had once
sustained significant populations rapidly became practically uninhabit-
able. According to one scenario the resulting diaspora of displaced
people spread both east and west, their culture becoming so widely dif-
fused that on a linguistic level parallels have been drawn between such
far-flung languages as Turkish and Japanese. Although it also bears
Austronesian traces, modern Japanese is often associated with the
hypothetical Altaic family, a language group that includes distant
cousins spread widely across the Asian continent.13 Those people
heading east through the valleys and plains of China could in turn have
caused population pressure that drove communities towards the coast
and even across the sea in search of new land. Waves of ‘boat people’
perhaps brought migrants to the Japanese islands across the Tsushima
Straits, Yellow Sea or East China Sea. In many cases this would not have
been a single voyage but rather the result of island-hopping, via
Tsushima and Iki for those arriving from the north, or through the
Ryukyu Islands for those approaching from the south.
Whatever triggered the process, the result was a broad influx of
migrants into Kyushu and the other main islands between 300 BCE and
300 CE.14 These waves of new settlers are generically known as Yayoi
people after the archaeological site near Tokyo where their remains first
came to light. Typified by flatter faces and less pronounced features
than the Jōmon inhabitants they found there, their arrival created a
diverse ethnic mix in the western archipelago and prompted some rev-
olutionary changes in lifestyle. Perhaps the most striking impact was ini-
tially made in northern Kyushu where the earliest traces of wet paddies
have been found. The sites of Yayoi villages there show close links with
architectural styles in the Korean peninsula. This suggests a significant
level of migration across the Tsushima Straits and with it the introduc-
tion of superior technology and wet rice cultivation into the Japanese
islands. In place of the simpler Jōmon pottery found in earlier settle-
ments, they also reveal more sophisticated earthenware pots, evidence
of metallurgical skills, and some social and political organization. John
C. Maher suggests that a North Kyushu creole language may have
7
emerged during early attempts by these diverse settler communities to

communicate with each other. In this model, northern Kyushu was the
linguistic melting pot before the subsequent spread of the Japanese lan-
guage through the archipelago. As he points out, ‘we have no reason to
believe that there was a single Yayoi language’.15
These migrations, moreover, were not necessarily channelled exclu-
sively through the Korean peninsula. Wet rice cultivation, for example,
appears to have been introduced not only from the north but also
perhaps from the Chinese mainland, or alternatively via the Ryukyu
Islands to the extreme south of Kyushu. There is still debate as to
whether wet rice cultivation was first introduced through the north or
south of the island, and recent DNA analysis has reinforced claims that
it may have arrived from the Jiangnan region south of the Yangtze River
in China. Some elements of imported culture also bear the stamp of
southern influence. The Yayoi practice of jar burial, for example, was
particular to Kyushu and prominent even in the north of the island, but
appears to have originated in the South Sea Islands.16 In architectural
terms the roof structures of Shinto shrines and the subsequent custom
of building houses on stilts are more reminiscent of societies in
Southeast Asia than anything found in Korea. Agricultural implements
traditionally used in Miyazaki such as bamboo fish cages also recall
farming styles in the Celebes and Bali. The prevalence of such anthro-
pological links has inspired a theory that the Kuroshio or ‘Black’
Current, the world’s second largest ocean current, may have played a
key role in bringing seafarers from the coasts of what is now Indonesia
directly to the shores of southern Kyushu.17
The concept of heavenly descent and other elements of kingship
myths may have close parallels on the Asian continent, but a number of
themes in the Chronicles also recall legends found in islands far to the
south. The lands of Japan, for example, are created following the union
of Izanagi and Izanami when the primal couple imitate the movements
of a passing wagtail, a theme that has close analogies with legends to the
south in Okinawa and Taiwan. The story of how their daughter, the Sun
Goddess Amaterasu, hides away in a cave also recalls widespread myths
in Southeast Asia occurring as far away as the Andaman Islands. The
tale of how her grandson Ninigi chooses his bride is clearly reminiscent
of the ‘stone and banana’ myth that relates man’s loss of immortality in
parts of Indonesia. He unknowingly condemns his descendants to short
8
life spans when he selects the beautiful ‘Princess-Blossoming-

Brilliantly-Like-the-Flowers-of-the-Trees’ (Ko no Hana Sakuya Hime)
and rejects her uglier elder sister ‘Princess-Long-as-the-Rocks’ (Iwa
Naga Hime). As their father explains, if only Ninigi had not sent his
eldest daughter back, his offspring ‘might [have] live[d] eternally
immovable like unto the enduring rocks’, but now they would ‘be but
as frail as the flowers of the trees’.18 In the Indonesian version the first
humans reject the gift of a stone lowered from the sky, but accept a
banana, only to be told, ‘had ye chosen the stone, your life would have
been like the life of the stone changeless and immortal’.19 In another tale
suggesting the influence of the South Sea Islands, Ninigi’s son Ho-ori
sets out on a quest to find a lost fishhook and spends several years in
the palace of the Sea Deity Watatsumi, a theme also reflected in the well-
known but certainly ancient Japanese folktale of Urashima Tarō.20
Of course, there are also legends in the Chronicles that appear to
reflect more universal themes, such as Izanagi’s descent to the under-
world in pursuit of Izanami, which recalls the Greek myth of Orpheus’s
search for Persephone. Nevertheless, surrounding regions do seem to
have had a profound influence on the development of myths in Japan.
Whether arriving in Kyushu from the north or south, early Yayoi
migrants brought their own folk traditions with them. They would also
have the technology and military power to drive out the Jōmon inhab-
itants they found there and create space for their own settlement.
Drawing on their findings from sites in Kyushu and Honshu, however,
archaeologists have revised such a view of indigenous communities
necessarily being forced from their homelands by overseas invaders.
Some displacement was certainly involved, but there also appears to
have been a degree of coexistence and even inter-racial mixing between
Yayoi and Jōmon populations. These finds suggest intriguing possibil-
ities for the development of hybrid cultures. It would appear that one
such example, situated in southern Kyushu, is even portrayed in the
‘Age of the Gods’.
Myth in the making

In the early years of the eighth century, the political and cultural climate
at the new court in Nara had a critical bearing on the composition of the
Chronicles. Scribes such as Ō Yasumaro, who was centrally involved in
9
both compilations, were probably not familiar with the terrain of south-
ern Kyushu themselves, and yet it was here that these dynastic histories
located the origins of the imperial line. Their information on this far-off
region drew mainly on an oral tradition of ancient stories recounted and
possibly embellished, which Ō Yasumaro had then heard from Hieda
Are, Tenmu’s appointed narrator. In recent years they would also have
become acutely aware of this area from reports on the Yamato state’s
ongoing campaign to pacify the Hayato people who inhabited the
extreme south of the island. Just as the Kojiki was being completed in
712, plans were in train to reform the administration of Hyūga, the
province on the outer edge of Yamato control. In 713, this was reduced
in size and confined to the area now equivalent to Miyazaki Prefecture,
while a new province called Ōsumi was created in the frontier zone to
the south. At the same time, a community of two hundred migrants from
further north in Kyushu was settled at the new provincial capital of
Kokubu in the heartland of the Ōsumi Hayato, possibly to help intro-
duce the agricultural techniques and cultural values that had already been
established in the central core of the Yamato realm.21
Relations between the local inhabitants and these new settlers were
volatile and conflict broke out seven years later in 720 – incidentally the
same year that the Nihon Shoki was completed. Alienated by the impo-
sition of foreign rule, the Ōsumi Hayato took up arms in one last con-
certed effort to regain control of their lands. The Yamato state took the
threat seriously and sent a 10,000-strong army south to contain the
rebellion. They encountered fierce resistance as they were forced to
mount a series of sieges targeting the mountain fortresses around
Kokubu, and it took a full year and five months before the rebels were
finally subdued. With this victory the entire territory of Kyushu Island
at last came under Yamato rule.
Scribes like Ō Yasumaro would certainly have seen some of these
Hayato warriors. In 682, for example, many were recorded as appear-
ing at court bearing gifts, and in 687, there were 330 of them present
there.22 Such men were called upon to perform dances for the court’s
amusement, or were pressed into service in the imperial bodyguard. As
Basil Hall Chamberlain points out in his translation of the Kojiki, ‘the
Hayato were chiefly known as forming the Infantry of the Imperial
Guard, a curious choice of provincials for which mythological sanction
was invoked’.23
10
This distinctive escort may recall some later examples in Europe such
as the Swiss Guards at the Vatican, or the Varangian Guard in
Byzantium. Were these Hayato guards also chosen simply for their
martial valour, the exotic touch they added to life at court, or perhaps
due to some other connection with the Yamato line? The ‘mythologi-
cal sanction’ Chamberlain mentions was to name Ho-ori’s own elder
brother Hoderi, Ninigi’s first son, as the ‘ancestor of the Hayato’. In a
scene that features in both the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, Hoderi loses out
in a sibling power struggle and submits before Ho-ori, telling him, ‘in
future my descendants for eighty-nine generations shall serve thee’.24
Although they may have been subservient figures at court, therefore,
both texts effectively informed their readers that these provincial
Hayato from the far south of Kyushu were as much descendants of
Ninigi’s line as Jinmu himself. Moreover, this would have been a bizarre
corruption of an existing legend if, as Ōbayashi Tarō suggests, it was
based on the story of a sibling power struggle to be found in the foun-
dation myths of the Korean kingdom of Paekche.25
There are certainly various examples of continental influence. In an
effort to promote the political legitimacy of the imperial line, the
Chronicles were framed in the Chinese cultural terms that had now
become prevalent at the Yamato court. Perhaps one reason why the
more elaborate Nihon Shoki was commissioned was that the Kojiki was
considered to be too ‘Japanese’ in its literary style. Of course, the Kojiki
had been recorded in Chinese letters, albeit with some archaic
‘Koreanisms’ that may suggest its compilers were descendants of
Paekche exiles themselves.26 Nevertheless, the two works form ‘a study
in contrast’. A male chauvinist emphasis is more embedded in the Nihon
Shoki, for example, and a Taoist spatial hierarchy is apparent in both.27
Another singular example of continental style was pointed out by the
nineteenth-century historian Naka Michiyo, who claimed that in both
works the concern for auspicious years in the Chinese zodiac was the
overriding motive for dating Jinmu’s Eastern Expedition to as early as
660 BCE.28 A ramification of this was that his immediate successors
were recorded as having ruled for over a hundred years each, suitable
perhaps for human emperors with heavenly ancestry, but hardly credi-
ble to modern eyes. Moreover, the seventh century BCE predates even
the emergence of Jōmon berry cultivation, let alone rice paddies, and
was several hundred years before the first incursions of the more
11
technologically advanced Yayoi migrants from the Asian continent. As

such, it was also long before the introduction of the much-vaunted skills
in cultivating rice that the Chronicles insist were a defining feature of
Jinmu and his ancestors. The migration from Kyushu to Honshu
described in the Eastern Expedition, therefore, would appear to be
more consistent with the archaeological record tracing the influx of
Yayoi people from the continent between 300 BCE and 300 CE.
In the Takachiho district in the mountains of Miyazaki, far away from
the Nara plain, there are some intriguing place names that must have
either inspired or been inspired by key episodes in the ‘Age of the
Gods’. On the slopes of a thickly wooded ravine a few miles north of
the town of Takachiho, for example, stands the secluded but imposing
Shrine of Ama no Iwato (literally ‘Gate of the Cave of Heaven’). Here
pilgrims are allowed a fleeting glimpse of the cave in which, according
to legend, the Sun Goddess Amaterasu once hid herself away and
plunged the world into darkness. This was the refuge she sought from
the chaos and destruction caused by her mischievous brother Susanoo,
after he sabotaged her celestial rice paddies and defiled her palace in ‘the
plain of High Heaven’. Since their sibling quarrel threatened the liveli-
hood of all, the other deities gathered to confer at a place called Ama
no Yasukawara, which can also be found a short distance upstream. The
world was then saved from darkness when Amaterasu, in her curiosity,
was finally lured out by the assembled gods’ laughter at a female deity
who performed a lewd dance in front of the cave.29
Given that this episode is set in heaven before her grandson Ninigi’s
descent to earth, can Ama no Iwato be viewed as a plausible site for
Amaterasu’s retreat? Since he was a migrant, one possible explanation
is that it would have been perfectly natural to choose such a spot
to commemorate the ancestor who had sent him to this land.30
Alternatively, this and other sites have been viewed as rather part of an
imagined tradition constructed more recently by subsequent genera-
tions. Like Ama no Iwato, there are shrines in the Takachiho area
which, although suitably ancient in appearance, date back only to the
early modern period. At one time it became something of a trend to
identify sacred places from the ‘Age of the Gods’ in the Japanese land-
scape, inspired partly by Motoori Norinaga, who in the eighteenth
century did much to revive interest in the subject through a lifetime of
research on the Kojiki.
12
At the same time, some sites that are mentioned in the Chronicles
have curiously been overlooked. In an uncharacteristic slip, for
example, Motoori asserted that the birthplace of Amaterasu could not
be found in Hyūga Province, even though this was clearly located in
both texts at Awakihara, a place by the coast now on the outskirts of
Miyazaki City.31 The Eta Shrine here is hardly prepossessing, partly
because floods have forced it to relocate several times, but also because
it has escaped the attention of any shrine builders in search of the ‘Age
of the Gods’. It has ancient origins nevertheless, since it features
among the four shrines in the province recorded in the Engi Shiki, a
compendium compiled by the court in the ninth century. The fact that
the chroniclers assigned such a specific location to an occasion as aus-
picious as the birth of the Sun Goddess also merits some attention.
Significantly perhaps, the oldest Yayoi site in the region has been dis-
covered in the sand dunes nearby, including evidence of the earliest wet
rice cultivation yet found anywhere in Hyūga. Given the importance of
rice cultivation ascribed to the imperial line’s arrival in ‘Japan’,
Umehara suggests that this place on the coast could even provide a
missing link.32
Also revealing are not so much the stories included in the Chronicles
as the details that have been left out. There are around ten texts con-
sidered important enough to merit careful quotation in the ‘Age of the
Gods’, although no mention is made of their titles, a trait that has
prompted Furuta Takehiko to suggest that they were systematically
erased from historical memory.33 Some places in Kyushu also harbour
either alternative narratives or portray slight but significant variations
on the themes written up far away in the eighth-century Nara court. In
the mountains of southern and central Kyushu, for example, there is an
enduring belief that a relative or descendant of Jinmu returned from
Honshu to vanquish Kihachi, a wild mountain demon who had taken
advantage of his absence to wreak havoc in the region.
Among the deities revered at the Takachiho Shrine is a certain
Mikenu, an elder brother of Jinmu’s who, together with another sibling,
lost out in the power struggle that projected this first ‘emperor’ to
power in the Nara basin following his Eastern Expedition. The
Chronicles relate how the other sibling was banished and died, but the
fate of Mikenu is left unclear, perhaps because this passed out of
memory in Honshu. According to tradition in Takachiho, however, he
13
returned to the mountain area originally settled by his great-grandfather

Ninigi, only to find the Kihachi now in control. Mikenu killed him, but
for centuries afterwards the local community made sacrificial offerings
each year to placate the demon’s angry spirit, beseeching him not to
unleash the heavy mountain mists that could damage their crops.34 A
similar theme can be found in the story of Takei Watatsu, a deity revered
at the Aso Shrine situated further north in the shadow of Mt Aso. One
character is different, but this is clearly Tatei Watatsu, a grandson of
Jinmu’s whose fate again is not specified in the Chronicles, but who is also
held to have left Honshu to settle in Kyushu and is credited with found-
ing Miyazaki Shrine in honour of his grandfather.35
In Takachiho the community’s desire to placate Kihachi’s angry
spirit inspired the development of the sacred yokagura dances that have
now become such a cultural feature of the area. Initially, these mostly
portrayed episodes from the legend of Mikenu and Kihachi, but they
have since been embellished with various scenes from the ‘Age of the
Gods’ featuring deities including Izanagi, Izanami and Amaterasu. Also
prominent are the ancient mountain demons known as oni who feel
threatened by the appearance of the deities, and are shown as resorting
to mischievous antics to ward them off, such as throwing boulders from
the tops of cliffs. Yokagura dances are to be found performed in and
around shrines in a number of places in Japan, but in terms of range and
complexity the cycle of dances to be seen over the thirty-three-day
winter season here is unmatched, and there are no less than twenty-
three dance groups in Takachiho Town alone.
The stories these dances portray evoke an imagined world in which
gods, demons and men co-existed, tracing themes of conflict, mischief
and reconciliation. Reflecting a tradition handed down from one gen-
eration to the next, a single dance usually lasts less than twenty minutes,
although a full performance can continue through the night. The
dancers wear two types of stylized mask; flat-faced white okame masks
for the deities, and the more vivid tengū masks worn by demons, with
their deep-set eyes and more prominent features. To some extent the
characters they portray appear to follow the distinction drawn in the
Chronicles between deities of heaven (ama tsu kami) and those of earth
(kuni tsu kami). In Umehara’s view, judging from these features, ‘a
natural anthropologist would say that the tengū are Jōmon and the okame
are Yayoi’.36
14
It is hard to ignore the possibility that encoded here is some

memory of ancient cultural interaction. In the Kyushu context it is
also tempting to read into these contrasting styles of masks traces of
contact between people of different cultural backgrounds, perhaps
introduced through migration from overseas. Could yokagura dance
even recall the roots of a hybrid people intimated by the chroniclers
in stories of intermarriage between the heavenly race and indigenous
people in southern Kyushu? Seen in this light the imagery embed-
ded in the folk tradition of Takachiho conceivably includes
metaphors of cultural fusion, or in some cases even a re-enactment
of ‘heavenly descent’ itself. One dance, for example, represents the
story of Sarutahiko, cast as a tengū, and his marriage to Ame no
Uzume, cast as an okame. According to the Chronicles, Sarutahiko was
a local figure who acted as Ninigi’s guide on his arrival in Takachiho,
and as such was one of the original inhabitants already there. Ame
no Uzume was Ninigi’s maidservant, who accompanied him on his
journey from the celestial plain. Their subsequent union, therefore,
is an intermarriage of symbolic importance, and a theme later
repeated in the case of Ninigi’s own match with Princess Ko no
Hana Sakuya.37
Mark Hudson points out that past research on ethnogenesis in the
Japanese islands has often contained an undercurrent of nationalistic
discourses. This was most noticeable among proponents of the
‘nativist myth’ in search of an indigenous race, yet ‘even after the
diverse roots of Japanese culture became widely accepted, the idea that
a “pure” unitary culture was formed out of those roots remained – and
continued to remain – a powerful one’.38 Not even archaeological
studies have completely escaped such a subjective framework,
however subconscious it may have been.39 Nevertheless, it is by no
means the only approach to the exploration of Japan’s ancient past.
The cultural hybridity suggested by yokagura dance, for example, is
hardly unusual in itself, and the outcome only acquires political
meaning when overlaid with subsequently acquired notions of com-
munal identity. The case of Takachiho shows above all how the
shrines, folklore and dance in one remote mountain area in Kyushu still
reflect a particular and ancient cultural tradition at a localized level,
rather more than any sense of shared identity imagined by later inhab-
itants of the Japanese islands as a whole.
15
Landfall in memory
The event commonly portrayed as ‘the descent of the heavenly race’
(tenzoku kōrin) represents the landfall of migrants, whoever they were.
According to the Chronicles, the location was Takachiho in the moun-
tains of Hyūga, but to complicate matters from the start, in southern
Kyushu there are two places called Takachiho, each with a strong claim
to be the site of the ‘heavenly descent’. Even Motoori Norinaga, the cel-
ebrated eighteenth-century expert on ancient texts, declared that it was
difficult to choose between the two. The precedent he set of forbearing
to pass judgment was later upheld by his famous disciple Hirata
Atsutane and has largely remained to the present day.40
The Takachiho district in Miyazaki (Hyūga) has been introduced
already, but further south, just across the prefectural border with
Satsuma, stands ‘Takachiho Peak’, at 5,164 feet high a towering summit
among the spectacular cluster of volcanoes in Kirishima National Park.
In the eighteenth century, the mere suggestion by Norinaga that the
‘other’ Takachiho in Hyūga might be the site of the ‘heavenly descent’
provoked outrage among Kokugaku scholars in Satsuma. In the view
of Shirao Kunihashira, the stupendous grandeur of Takachiho Peak
clearly made it a more appropriate site for any junction between earth
and sky. Although more ancient shrines do exist in the area, by far the
most imposing of these today is Kirishima Shrine, which was built in
the eighteenth century to revere Ninigi by Shimazu Yoshitaka, daimyo
lord of the Satsuma domain. In the nineteenth century as well, the
growing political power of Satsuma was consciously projected through
what became known as the ‘national myth’. After the Meiji Restoration
this domain was in the vanguard of the movement to separate Shinto
and Buddhist sites, and temples in Satsuma suffered terrible damage as
a result. It was also through Satsuma’s influence in the Jingishō
(Ministry of Shintō) set up in 1871, and the Kyōbushō (Ministry of
Religion) created the following year, that the burial mounds officially
designated as the tombs of the first three generations of imperial ances-
tors (starting with Ninigi) are all located in Kagoshima Prefecture.41
The Takachiho district in Miyazaki cannot boast the grandeur of
Takachiho Peak, but it does feature a hill called Mt Kujifuru, apparently
the peak of Kuzhifuru or Kushifuru specified in both the Kojiki and
Nihon Shoki as the site of the ‘heavenly descent’.42 Yet local tradition,
16
together with the eighth-century Hyūga Fudoki (Gazetteer of Hyūga

Province), places the event not at Mt Kushifuru but at a nearby hill
called Mt Futagami. The Gazetteer also recounts how local inhabitants
exhorted Ninigi to cultivate rice there. Takachiho is located high in the
mountains, but its abundant water supply certainly makes the terrain
ideal for wet rice cultivation. Such a landscape would also suit the
technological skills ascribed to Ninigi’s line, reflected perhaps in the
tiers of terraced fields that scale the hillsides to this day. Only such an
environment, moreover, could sustain the textual consistency of the
Hyūga myth in the Chronicles. Jinmu, for example, speaks of his great-
grandfather Ninigi’s realm as a ‘land of fair rice-ears of the fertile reed
plain’, a description hardly consistent with the volcanic landscape
around Mt Takachiho in Kirishima, where farming has always been
hampered by water shortages.43
Of course, the relative merits of these rival sites for Ninigi’s arrival
would be largely irrelevant if the site had simply been chosen at random.
Tsuda believed, after all, that the ‘Age of the Gods’ was fictional, and
this event was entirely the product of the chroniclers’ imaginations. As
such, the ‘Sun-Facing Country’ expressed in the Chinese letters for
‘Hyūga’ could have been selected just because it looked like an appro-
priate location for the arrival of the descendant of the Sun Goddess.
Other cultures certainly offer comparable cases in which the process of
transcribing creation stories was meant to be viewed as therapeutic
rather than historically accurate.44 Moreover, the narrative of ‘heavenly
descent’ at a suitable local mountain-top might be no more than a liter-
ary device of symbolic importance, since it was also used on the Asian
continent as far inland as Mongolia.45 In the Korean peninsula similar
examples can be found in the foundation myths of the kingdoms of
Silla, Paekche and also Koguryŏ.46 Even within Japan the concept was
not confined to Ninigi’s line alone, as the Nihon Shoki admits that Nigi
Hayahi, ancestor of the powerful Mononobe family, descended from
heaven himself and, moreover, in the Yamato area in Honshu. Any sug-
gestion of a rival ‘heavenly ruler’, however, is qualified by stressing that
Nigi Hayahi promptly submitted to Jinmu as the ‘chosen’ representa-
tive of the imperial line.47 If it was acceptable to choose any mountain
at will, however, why did the eighth-century chroniclers not simply
locate the ‘heavenly descent’ in Nara, the area that had become the
power base of the Yamato state? Nara boasts a wealth of royal tombs
17
and archaeological treasures, particularly around Mt Miwa, which

appears to have been a focal point for the early Yamato court. If the aim
of the exercise was to lend prestige to the ruling line, as Tenmu’s orders
for compiling these chronicles suggests, a familiar nearby site such as
Mt Miwa could hardly be overlooked.48
One plausible reason why Takachiho may have been chosen was a
perceived need for a remote, scenic mountain location with a suitably
mystical quality for such an auspicious event. This form of literary
device has been used widely in other cultures, such as by the Hebrews
in Biblical times. Yet there are plenty of appropriate sites in Honshu,
and the conscious choice of a mountain in Kyushu would hardly seem
politically expedient, unless there was some hidden subtext embedded
in the original sources used in writing up the Chronicles. First, it traces
the origins of the imperial line not only to Kyushu but also close to the
Asian continent. Second, it entails Jinmu’s Eastern Expedition, a mili-
tary conquest of the Yamato heartland by an invading force from
Kyushu. Third, it results in a blood lineage for the imperial line that, by
the standards of the eighth-century Nara court, was of decidedly infe-
rior stock. Although he was a great-grandson of the ‘divine’ Ninigi,
Jinmu himself was seven parts in eight descended from the inhabitants
of southern Kyushu. Moreover, he and his descendants would have
been largely of Hayato extraction. If the chroniclers did enjoy full artis-
tic licence, it would be a puzzling choice in the cultural context of the
early Nara court to make this far-off subject people such close blood-
relatives of the ruling Yamato line.49
Intermarriage, in fact, is an abiding theme of the Hyūga myth. It
relates how, following his landfall in Takachiho, Ninigi comes across a
fine country, where he falls in love with and courts the king’s daughter.
In both the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki this occurs in a place called Cape
Kasasa, which has often been identified as the present-day Kasasa City,
situated close to the Noma peninsula on the west coast of Kagoshima
Prefecture. Since the Chronicles specify that ‘this place is opposite
Karakuni (land of Korea)’, one theory proposes that Kasasa was located
on the north Kyushu coast, and that the ‘heavenly descent’ was deliber-
ately placed far inland in the mountains of Hyūga so as to mask Ninigi’s
own Korean origins.50 However, it should not be forgotten that there is
also a peak called Karakuni in the Kirishima mountains in Kagoshima.
Moreover, not only does the Noma peninsula face north in the direction
18
of Korea, but it happens to be the one place along the entire Kyushu
coast where there exists a folk tradition of the ‘heavenly race’ making
landfall by sea. At the small port of Kurose there is even a monument,
once again built in 1940, which commemorates the tale of how Ninigi
and his companions were blown off-course and their ships arrived at
nearby Funagasaki in the shadow of Mt Noma. The hill of Miyanoyama
(literally ‘Palace Mountain’) close by is also considered sacred, and
contains traces of an as yet unexcavated archaeological site.51
Such a narrative clearly implies that the ‘heavenly race’ were human
migrants who made their way to Kyushu by sea. They could even have
set out from the Korean peninsula, since the Noma coastline would be
a difficult headland to miss for any boats sailing along the west coast of
Kyushu.52 Given this location so far to the south, however, it is hard to
dismiss the possibility that they might have arrived from the Chinese
mainland. Moreover, there are several traditions of senior Chinese offi-
cials making their way to the Japanese islands. In the early modern era,
Confucian scholars drew on ancient Chinese texts to link the family of
Jinmu with Wu Taibo, a member of the Zhou royal line who gave up
his claim to the throne. In the eighteenth century, for example, Tō
Teikan suggested that Wu Taibo’s descendants had reached Kyushu by
way of the Ryukyu Islands. Other figures linked with migration from
China to Japan included a son of Shaokang dating back to the legendary
Xia dynasty. The influential scholar Arai Hakuseki, together with
Motoori Norinaga, rejected any Chinese links with the imperial line, but
he did admit the possibility that some Kyushu chieftains might have
been descended from Wu Taibo or Shaokang. 53
Another enduring tradition is that Xufu, a servant of the First
Emperor at the Qin court found his way to the Japanese islands in the
third century BCE. The Houhanshu (History of the Latter Han Dynasty)
relates, for example, how he was commanded to search for the elixir of
youth and set out across the sea at the head of a sizeable expedition,
never to return. In Wakayama Prefecture there is a shrine where Xufu
(known as Jōfuku in Japan) is said to have lived and died, but there are
at least two such sites in western Kyushu as well. Not only was landfall
here more likely in geographical terms, but their locations near the
shore of the shallow Ariake Sea are also in keeping with the Chinese tale
that Xufu arrived in a land of marshes. One of these is Morodomi Town
in Saga Prefecture, where his party is said to have landed, and in nearby
19
Saga City there is a small museum which traces his search for the elixir
of youth. In Yame City in Fukuoka Prefecture, the Dōnanzan tomb is
also held to be the site where Xufu was buried.54
Regardless of whether they reached the Noma peninsula from Korea
or China, any migrants making landfall in the third century BCE would
certainly have brought with them more advanced knowledge of rice cul-
tivation than that prevailing in southwest Kyushu at the time. A journey
then undertaken in search of suitable terrain for farming would also be
entirely in keeping with the narrative traced in the ‘heavenly descent’.
The volcanic soils near the coast would not have been ideal, and previ-
ous settlers may already have staked a claim to agricultural land on the
narrow valley floors.55 A singular feature of the Takachiho district is
that, due to its remote upland location, it was practically the last area
anywhere in Kyushu to be brought under cultivation. Migrants arriving
by sea may have found low-lying areas already colonized, but this hin-
terland in the mountains offered rich potential for anyone with the
technological skills to harness its abundant water supply.
Takachiho’s situation at a crossroads in the centre of Kyushu also
made it something of a cultural confluence zone. The archaeological
record at late Yayoi sites in the area suggests there was some interaction
between communities on either side of the mountain backbone running
north-south through the island. Two distinct styles of earthenware
pottery have been excavated: traditional long urns associated with com-
munities on the eastern seaboard; and the more sophisticated menda-
type vases used by communities to the west. In some cases both types
have been found on the same site. Such a distribution is consistent not
only with the arrival of migrants in an already inhabited region, but
indicative of some level of co-existence between communities of
different cultural origins.56
Following his marriage at Cape Kasasa, Ninigi is recorded as having
reigned over his lands until his death and burial in the Hyūga plain that
lies along the east coast of Miyazaki Prefecture.57 One place strongly
associated with his burial is Saitobaru a few miles north of Miyazaki
City, the site of a remarkable cluster of ancient tombs, including the
largest examples found anywhere outside the Kinai or Kibi areas in
central Honshu. Umehara has suggested that although Ninigi may have
passed through Cape Kasasa on the west coast of Kyushu as the local
tradition of landfall by sea implies, the ‘Kasasa’ referred to in the
20
Chronicles is more likely to have been located around Saitobaru. Indeed,

there is a tradition in nearby Saito City that the Mifune-zaka area there
is the Cape Kasasa found in the Hyūga myth.58 In this interpretation
Ninigi’s union with Princess Ko no Hana Sakuya might have amounted
to a marriage alliance that enabled him to move down from his moun-
tain fastness in Takachiho and extend his authority over the rich agri-
cultural lands of the Hyūga plain.
The complex of ancient tombs at Saitobaru probably dates only to
the fourth century CE, but it boasts some significant connections with
the Yamato court, which around this time is also thought to have been
at a formative stage of development in central Honshu. The Chronicles
also relate how the ‘emperor’ Keikō once resided for six years at the
palace of Takaya in the Saitobaru area during an extended campaign to
subdue the Kumaso people in Kyushu. The reign of Keikō appears to
fall too early for the historicity of this monarch to have been recognized
by Tsuda Sōkichi, yet a number of scholars have now questioned this
assumption. It has been claimed, for example, that Keikō may have
been separated from the more historically credible Ōjin by only one
generation rather than the four described in the Chronicles. Given that
the great tomb attributed to Ōjin in the Kinai area has been dated to the
late fourth century, this would certainly place his reign in the same
period as the early tombs at Saitobaru.59
The remarkable tombs at Saitobaru, in fact, suggest that such a royal
sojourn may not be without foundation. Moreover, some significant
late fourth-century tombs have been found at other locations along the
route that Keikō is supposed to have taken on his tour around Kyushu.
The style of burial goods excavated at Saitobaru also bears a striking
resemblance to those used in royal tombs in the Kinai area, including
some fine examples of equine goods. Clearly, there was some aristo-
cratic cultural connection between Hyūga and the Yamato court.
According to Hidaka Masaharu there is considerable evidence to
support the existence of a strong, culturally independent Hyūga realm
that cultivated its own political ties with the emerging Yamato state. In
this case the largest tomb at Saitobaru, which is 718 feet in length, may
not have been built so much for Ninigi, as local tradition maintains, but
for some ruler of this Hyūga realm.60
After the death of Ninigi the ‘Age of the Gods’ cloaks the next two
generations of the ‘imperial’ line in mythological imagery, relating how
21
his son Ho-ori and then his grandson marry daughters of the Sea Deity
Watatsumi. This again betrays a strong hint of encounter with an alien
society. Ho-ori’s bride Toyo Tama, for example, pleads with him not to
look on her in the act of childbirth, warning him that, in her culture,
‘whenever a foreigner is about to be delivered, she [the expectant
mother] takes the shape of her native land’. When Ho-ori breaks his
word and looks he sees her changed into a dragon according to the
Nihon Shoki, or a crocodile in the Kojiki.61 This scene takes place at the
‘Parturition House of Cormorant Feathers’, which is held to be located
at the Udo Shrine on the Nichinan coast to the south of Miyazaki. Again
the narrative takes the descendants of Ninigi still further south as new
alliances perhaps enable them to expand their sphere of influence.
In Umehara’s view Ho-ori’s union with Toyo Tama might symbol-
ize a marriage alliance with the Hayato. This draws on a local tradition
that places the realm of Watatsumi in the far south of the Satsuma
peninsula which, in ancient times, was the homeland of the Ata Hayato
people. The Hirakiki Shrine located at the foot of the majestic Mt
Kaimon in this area was once known as Watatsumi Shrine. Nearby is a
well where Ho-ori is held to have first met Princess Toyo Tama, and a
few miles north in the town of Chiran there is even a Toyo Tama Hime
Shrine. The people living here would certainly have been culturally dis-
tinct from other communities further north in Kyushu. The archaeo-
logical record, for example, reveals a style of burial mound particular to
this peninsula. The area appears to have been inhabited by a seafaring
race that had already developed maritime trade connections. A notable
find is the site of an ancient workshop in Makurazaki to the west of Mt
Kaimon, where shells from the Ryukyu Islands were processed to make
the bracelets or armlets that were in such high demand as status symbols
among Yayoi aristocrats further north in Kyushu and Honshu.62
The Kojiki relates how Ho-ori and his descendants go on to reside at
Takachiho Palace attended by Hayato guards, who are themselves
descended from his elder brother. Given such a close association with
the Hayato and the apparent southward shift of the narrative in the
Chronicles, this may refer to Takachiho Peak in Kirishima rather than
the Takachiho district further north. It is also in this area that Ho-ori’s
grandson Jinmu is born and raised. Moreover, when he grows up the
man who is later credited with founding the Yamato dynasty in
Honshu chooses his bride from the ‘district of Ata’, a clear reference
22
to the Ata Hayato of the Satsuma peninsula. If this, too, indicates a

marriage alliance, it may have been instrumental in strengthening his
realm’s naval power, for at the age of forty-five Jinmu is described as
resolving to launch his Eastern Expedition, a seaborne invasion of
Honshu. 63
At the start of this campaign the Chronicles assign a key facilitating role
to Shio Tsutsu no Ōji, the ‘Ancient of the Sea’. It is he who informs
Jinmu that, to the east, lies ‘a fair land encircled on all sides by blue
mountains’.64 It was also this Ancient of the Sea who had once led his
grandfather Ho-ori to the realm of the Sea Deity when he found him in
a distraught state on the shore lamenting the loss of his fishhook. Shio
Tsutsu no Ōji is one of several possible ‘seafarers’ who have been linked
with supplying the maritime power that could have allowed Ninigi’s
descendants to embark on their naval campaign.65
Two places in southern Kyushu have long been associated with the
launch of Jinmu’s Eastern Expedition. At the port of Mimitsu on the
Miyazaki coast, a local festival commemorates this event each year.
Before their departure, Jinmu and his brothers are also held to have
stayed at Miyanoura Shrine by the sea near Kokubu in what is now
Kagoshima Prefecture. This is a tradition at least as ancient as the one-
thousand-year-old gingko trees in the shrine grounds, and would suggest
that Jinmu’s fleet set sail from Hayato territory on the shores of
Kagoshima Bay before possibly calling into port at Mimitsu on the
voyage north along the Kyushu coast.66 In either case the expedition as
represented by the chroniclers of the Nara court involves a military inva-
sion from Kyushu that culminates in Jinmu’s rise to power in Yamato.
Tracing four generations of the august Ninigi’s line through south-
ern Kyushu until Jinmu’s departure to the east opens a labyrinth of
memory, folklore and tradition. At least some of the places encountered
en route appear to have been creatively projected onto the landscape by
the imagination of subsequent generations, to varying extents under the
influence of the Chronicles. Nevertheless, local features including archae-
ological sites and shrines also contribute to a complex web of circum-
stantial evidence that suggests the narrative thread transcribed far away
at the Nara court recalls a not entirely fictional background. The exis-
tence of associated places with ancient traditions that sometimes stretch
back more than a thousand years certainly demands a more convincing
historical explanation than to be simply dismissed as pure fantasy. One
23
approach is to suggest the emergence of the Hyūga realm as a powerful

regional polity in league with the rise of Yamato in the Kinai area of
Honshu.
It seems that the chroniclers at the Nara court also nurtured some
awareness that their rulers’ forbears hailed from this island in the west.
This narrative, of course, would be consistent with an archeological
record that traces the arrival of technologically advanced Yayoi
migrants from the Asian continent. Kyushu was certainly the gateway
of Yayoi colonization in Japan and, as such, the Hyūga myth, with its
symbolic emphasis on wet rice cultivation, may reflect Yayoi expansion
from Kyushu to Honshu. After all, the theme of an ‘eastern expedition’
is not confined to the story of Jinmu’s campaign alone, but has parallels
in other traditions, among them the rise to power of Ōjin, the first
Yamato ruler acknowledged by Tsuda Sōkichi as a historical figure.
Even if Jinmu himself remains elusive, there remains a possibility that
his legendary exploits might represent the activities of other early mili-
tary leaders, perhaps including Ōjin himself.
The creative identification of composite figures from ancient texts
offers the prospect of finding answers to some of the riddles of ancient
Japan. What even a cursory survey of Kyushu demonstrates, however,
is the complexity of the influences involved. Gina Barnes, for example,
has suggested that settlers from the Korean peninsula may have under-
gone an ‘incubation’ stage lasting several generations in northern
Kyushu before moving on to extend their influence in Honshu.67 This
model resonates on a number of levels, yet any narrative of migration
through Kyushu ultimately needs to take into account various other cul-
tural elements found on the island. Rather than any subsequently
formed discourse on nation-building, what emerges most clearly is a
profile of early settlement indicating successive waves of inward migra-
tion followed by interaction or even fusion and the development of cul-
tural hybridity. In this regional perspective the Takachiho connection
and its metaphor of landfall represents above all some of these early
contacts with the continent and the island chains to the south.
24
CHAPTER 2
HIMIKO’S LANDS:
GATEWAY TO WA

n a quiet corner of the Kanzaki district a few miles east of the pre-
I fectural capital of Saga City, work began in 1985 to clear an area of
land for the construction of a new industrial estate. Plans for the site
were soon abandoned when it became clear that the workers had stum-
bled upon a major archaeological discovery. Before long there were
scenes of unprecedented interest as, every Sunday, crowds of visitors
from all over Japan flocked here to the village of Yoshinogari. Amid
growing speculation on its significance, a series of excavations con-
ducted over the next three years gradually uncovered the single largest
Yayoi settlement yet found.
It is easy enough to see why a populous community might have
developed in this low-lying area some two thousand years ago. The
fertile Saga plain is the granary of Kyushu, with a longstanding tradition
of crop cultivation. The largest stretch of open land on the island, it is
noted particularly for its rice, and various brands of sake are brewed in
the small distilleries scattered across the area. In Saga City itself, banners
on the streets provide a reminder of the local farmers’ ongoing cam-
paign to protect their rice from foreign competition.
Overlooked by a wall of mountains rising to Mt Tenzan at 3,431 feet,
the plain is intersected by several rivers, which flow south towards the
Ariake-Kai, Kyushu’s own inland sea. These are linked by a complex
system of irrigation channels to form what is known as a ‘creek
network’.1 The scenic canals in nearby Yanagawa City have even
invited comparison with Venice. Almost completely enclosed by the
Shimabara peninsula and the Amakusa Islands, the shallow waters of
the Ariake Sea teem with crab and mudfish, and the tidal flats provide
25
ideal conditions for cultivating seaweed. Recently, the catch has been
depleted by the environmental impact of the vast sluice gates closed in
1997 as part of the Isahaya Bay reclamation project along the west
coast, which cut off more than eleven square miles of tidal flats from
the sea. In response to concerted pressure a government panel has now
recommended that they should be reopened in an effort to restore the
local ecosystem.
This area’s natural abundance could certainly have supported a size-
able population in ancient times. What the archaeologists uncovered at
Yoshinogari in the heart of the Saga plain were the remains of a small
fortified city stretching over an area of thirty-six acres. There seems to
have been a heavy emphasis on defence, for the site is surrounded by
inner and outer moats spaced some distance apart, and clusters of deep
holes reveal the foundations of high watchtowers. The burial mounds
nearby contained 2,500 pottery jars, as well as bronze swords and the
characteristic embryo-shaped glass beads (magatama) once worn as
necklaces in Yayoi times.
This settlement was a major centre with a developed system of polit-
ical control. A clearly-defined social hierarchy is reflected in the sepa-
rate burial site reserved for members of the leader’s family located away
from the graves of the general population. It was a society involved in
war, for the watchtowers reflect the perceived threat of attack, and
mutilated skeletons found here confirm that fighting took place. There
is also evidence of an extensive trade network, as the large shells found
could only be obtained from the Ryukyu Islands. With their centres
hollowed out so that they could be worn as armlets, these decorative
items might even have been made in southern Kyushu at workshops
such as the example found at Makurazaki in the Satsuma peninsula.
From the artefacts discovered it would appear that Yoshinogari
reached the height of its prosperity some two thousand years ago. As
such, it bears all the hallmarks of a powerful local polity in the Middle
Yayoi period.2
Ancient sites such as this offer clues on the formation of early soci-
eties in the Japanese islands. Archaeological finds, in fact, provide the
only real on-site evidence of what life here was once like. No written
records survive, either because the inhabitants had no script of their
own or because any records they did keep have perished. To all intents
and purposes, therefore, the first written records of Japan’s early
26
Himiko’s Lands: Gateway to Wa
inhabitants appear in dynastic histories compiled on the continent by

Chinese chroniclers when referring to what they called the islands of
‘Wa’. The first reference is in the Hanshu (Book of Former Han) com-
pleted towards the end of the first century CE, which states simply that
‘across the ocean from Lelang [in the Korean peninsula] are the people
of Wa, where there are more than a hundred states, and who come to
offer tribute from time to time’.3 The Yayoi period, therefore, falls into
the somewhat hazy category of proto-history, a crucial gap in our
knowledge of the archipelago that lies between prehistory, traceable
mostly through archaeology, and the onset of the historical period with
the advent of textual records in the sixth century.
What intrigued many people about Yoshinogari when the site was
discovered in the 1980s were the close parallels it suggested with the
first detailed Chinese description of the islands of Wa. High watchtow-
ers, for example, were specifically mentioned in Sanguozhi (History of
the Three Kingdoms), the official chronicle of the period written by a
scholar called Chen Shou in the late third century. These were built to
protect the populous capital of a certain Himiko (or Pimiko), described
by Chen as ‘Queen of Wa’, and as such the first historical figure known
to have lived and ruled in the Japanese islands. Chen’s account describes
the tributary relations with the mainland which this Himiko had estab-
lished some fifty years before, but also records political and social con-
ditions. Her capital was located, he wrote, in a place called Yamatai, or
Yamai according to a recent closer reading of the text. But where this
Yama[ta]i actually was, if it existed at all, remains the subject of ongoing
controversy.4 Could the discovery at Yoshinogari, then, at long last offer
some evidence on the elusive realm that Himiko once ruled in these
ancient lands of Wa?
Much as the quest for the historical Arthur has exercised minds in
Britain, the search for Himiko and Yamatai has captured the popular
imagination for generations in Japan. In recent years it has even gener-
ated an extensive publications industry, as works on Yamatai alone
dominate whole rows of major bookshops. The ongoing fascination
with this subject is partly facilitated by the absence of conclusive evi-
dence. With no surviving records from the islands of Wa themselves,
the only textual clues in these proto-historical mists of early state for-
mation are near contemporary records from across the East China Sea
left by chroniclers like Chen Shou.
27
It is little wonder, therefore, that Chen’s account of Wa has come

under intense scrutiny. Chen, however, never set foot in these islands
himself, but relied on second-hand information from travelling emis-
saries. Moreover, his informants had never been allowed to venture
inland but were confined during their stay to the northern coast of
Kyushu. Quite apart from the political questions surrounding Yamatai,
his account nevertheless provides a fascinating insight into the culture
and lifestyle of the inhabitants of this coastline in Yayoi times. It also
complements the increasingly rich archaeological record now being
pieced together in the region. A survey of the Yayoi imprint found at
some of the major sites excavated demonstrates that, around two thou-
sand years ago, migrants were arriving on these northern coasts by sea
from the Korean peninsula. The settlements they built there were part
of a wider movement that was transforming society on these shores and
beyond in the islands of Wa.
The Yayoi imprint in northern Kyushu

Ever since Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki expedition across the Pacific on
board a traditional raft in 1947, there has been growing recognition of
the ability of ancient peoples to travel surprising long distances by sea.5
In 1975, a not dissimilar experiment was carried out on the Yasei-gō, a
specially constructed vessel based on the clay model of a boat found at
the Saitobaru burial tombs in Miyazaki. The exercise was an attempt to
show how people from the Korean peninsula might have reached Japan
around two thousand years ago – using oars and sail to travel along the
coast before island-hopping across the straits, first to Tsushima and
then Iki, until they reached northern Kyushu. Boats were certainly
plying these waters – indeed, at Haranotsuji, a large Yayoi site on Iki, is
the earliest evidence of a landing stage yet found in the Japanese islands.
The voyage of the Yasei-gō turned out to be an arduous experience,
revealing how primitive boats must have struggled to negotiate the local
currents on the south coast of the Korean peninsula. Nevertheless, it
vindicated the circuitous route recorded by Chen Shou along this coast-
line, which had previously puzzled those attempting to reconstruct the
course he described in his Sanguozhi.6
On approaching the north Kyushu coast, in many places the strong
currents, cliffs and rocks would have made landing a risky operation. A
28
natural target would have been the safe haven of what is now called
Hakata Bay, protected from the inclement Genkai Sea by a long spit of
land. This is one of the few stretches along a coastline flanked by
thickly-wooded mountains which offers easy access inland to the south
through the wide Mikasa valley. Further east along the coast, the low-
lying valley of the Onga River also allowed migrants an unobstructed
passage to the Kyushu hinterland, clearly reflected in the finds upstream
at the Middle Yayoi site of Tateiwa.
Today the shores around Hakata Bay are dominated by the urban land-
scape of Fukuoka, the largest metropolis in Kyushu. With a population
of over 1.4 million and hemmed in on either side by mountains, this
growing city continues to sprawl wherever space allows – south down the
valley, and east and west along the coast. All this construction has con-
tributed to the recent boom in archaeological discoveries, partly because
the high-rise reinforced concrete buildings now in vogue require deeper
foundations than ever before. Excavating here in an area that has been
densely populated for thousands of years frequently unearths signs of
human settlement through the ages, and the front pages of local news-
papers regularly carry announcements of the latest finds.
Somewhat less prominently featured are the ongoing battles
between the construction companies and archaeologists that often
follow. In most cases, precious little time is granted to preserve any dis-
coveries in the form of ‘virtual records’ before the developers’ patience
wears thin and the site is buried in concrete. Sometimes, however, the
finds are significant enough to enforce a change of plan. It was hardly
a surprise, for example, when Yayoi remains were uncovered during
recent excavations prior to the construction of the new Kyushu
University campus on the Itoshima peninsula to the west of Fukuoka
City. An entire hill has now been flattened in order to accommodate
the changes needed to preserve some tumuli around the proposed site
of the central library.
Partly as a result of the post-war construction boom and recent
development, archaeologists working in Fukuoka and other places in
northern Kyushu have accumulated a rich body of evidence – some
real, some virtual – which reveals much about Yayoi society around two
thousand years ago. It shows that the entire region was settled by
migrants from across the Tsushima Straits, and some sites reveal a
strikingly high level of social and political development. Undoubtedly
29
the jewel in this archaeological crown is the ‘Gold Seal’ (kin’in). Today
the single most treasured and publicized exhibit at the Fukuoka
Municipal Museum, what surprises visitors is its miniature size, mea-
suring just one centimetre across. This tiny object features in the fifth-
century Houhanshu (History of the Latter Han Dynasty), which records
that in 57 CE the emperor Guangwu sent a seal to a magnate in the
lands of Wa in return for tribute.7 It was apparently lost during the
medieval era, but rediscovered in 1784 by a peasant tending his fields
one day in Shikanoshima, the large island at the mouth of Hakata Bay.
For a century the characters inscribed on the seal puzzled scholars until
in 1896 it was successfully deciphered by Miyake Yonekichi as reading
‘From the Han Emperor to the King of Na in the Land of Wa’ (Wa-Na-
Koku-Ō-kin-Tei).8
At first glance this corresponds closely with Chen Shou’s third-
century account, which appears to situate a small polity called Na in
what is now the Fukuoka area. The Houhanshu also specifies that there
were ‘more than one hundred communities’ in the islands of Wa, and
that ‘nearly thirty of these communities have held intercourse with the
Han [dynasty] court by envoys or scribes’.9 In the early twentieth
century, Inaba Iwakichi raised doubts over Miyake’s reading of the
Gold Seal, suggesting that this would never have been bestowed on
such a small state as Na alone.10 No more persuasive explanation has
emerged, however, and it has gone on to become a powerful symbol of
local pride in Fukuoka, indicating perhaps that, several centuries before
the emergence of any state called Japan, the realm of Na here in the
valley south of Hakata Bay maintained diplomatic relations – albeit on
subordinate terms – with the might of imperial China.
Whatever the nature of the connection between China and Na, the
archaeological record in the Fukuoka area certainly reveals evidence of
extensive trade in Yayoi times. Links with peoples far to the south are
reflected in finds of shells comparable with those discovered at
Yoshinogari. To the west of Fukuoka, no less than thirty-nine bronze
mirrors – the largest quantity on any one site – have also been found
among the burial goods at the Hirabaru tomb in the Itoshima peninsula,
the site of a polity that Chen Shou recorded as ‘Ito’. Many of these
were imported from China, but in addition there are four mirrors mea-
suring 46.5 centimetres across – the largest found anywhere in East Asia
– which appear to have been made locally from a Chinese prototype.11
30
Another notable feature from the archaeological record is this area’s

possibly important role in the development of agriculture. As men-
tioned already, there is still debate over whether rice cultivation first
arrived through the north or south of Kyushu. In support of the north,
a few miles down the valley from Hakata Bay in the Itazuke district is
the earliest evidence of wet rice cultivation in Japan. To mark the spot
a mock Yayoi village has been built, surrounded by an outer wall and
moat. These enclose wooden huts featuring half-sunken interiors –
structures that have close equivalents in Korea – together with raised
storehouses. The suburban location of this Yayoi settlement adds a
surreal touch not found at Yoshinogari, which is set in the countryside.
Visitors trying to imagine life here two thousand years ago emerge from
the darkness inside the huts to find concrete blocks looming over the
village on all sides, and low-flying aircraft coming in to land at the inter-
national airport nearby.
Halfway up the valley slopes a few miles east of Itazuke, the grave-
yard site at Kanenokuma reveals a vivid portrait of Yayoi burial pat-
terns. On display here are sophisticated pottery techniques far superior
to the Jōmon vessels previously found in these islands. The inhabitants
used thinner, harder clay than their predecessors to make elongated
hemispherical earthenware jars large enough to use for burying their
dead. Less ostentatious than the vast keyhole burial mounds that fol-
lowed later, this practice of jar burial demonstrates the advanced tech-
nology already harnessed here around two thousand years ago.
A few miles further south down the valley is the Suku Okamoto site,
the centre of power in the one-time kingdom of Na. This has yielded
the largest cache of Yayoi bronze weapons yet found anywhere in
Japan. Also discovered at this site are some multiple casts, indicating the
mass production of spears and arrowheads. Whoever held power here
clearly had the motive and the means to field a substantial array of
weapons. For much of the Yayoi era it would seem that most of the
bronze and iron used was imported from the Korean peninsula. Large
reserves of copper, for example, were not found in Japan until the
eighth century. Nevertheless, the earliest evidence of iron smelting has
also been discovered here, and possibly a foundry as well.
Suku Okamoto and other archaeological sites in this region collec-
tively demonstrate that the Yayoi people of northern Kyushu possessed
a far greater quantity of weapons than other communities in these
31
islands. One factor was the close proximity to the more advanced met-
allurgical technology of the Korean peninsula, particularly the area of
Kaya on the coastal plain just across the Tsushima Straits, which was
famous for its iron. Another may be the fact that this location near the
coast created potential for conflict with any fresh waves of migrants
arriving from the continent. In any event, war and violence were clearly
central features of Yayoi society here. According to Sahara Makoto,
such was their fixation with military imagery that ‘the people of north-
ern Kyushu worshipped weapons’.12 Fierce-looking symbolic spear-
heads have been found in the tombs of what must once have been
powerful local leaders. Some of these are as much as three feet long, too
large and heavy to be of much practical use.
Traces of warfare on such a scale suggest a high degree of organization.
The walls and moats found at sites including Yoshinogari, for example,
show the importance of defence as growing populations engaging in wet
rice cultivation were enclosed in lowland settlements along the exposed
valley floors. They also indicate how early subsistence-level communities
may have integrated, partly in self-defence, to form small polities under
the rule of a local magnate, such as at Na. This was a very early stage in a
process of state formation that would eventually culminate in the Yamato
dynasty gaining political hegemony over the islands of Wa. In a Yayoi
village like Itazuke, for example, the wall and moat would have enclosed
more than a dozen habitats, housing a community under the leadership
of one chief. He and his next of kin were buried in the larger tombs
beyond the moat, set apart from the common graves of other villagers.
Through a process of trade, negotiation and conflict, whether prompted
by expansion, natural disaster or the need for mutual protection, neigh-
bouring settlements in the same valley could have united to form a small
polity (kuni) under a king or queen, such as the realms of Ito and Na
described by Chen. A confederation organized between several such poli-
ties would be able to exercise considerable power across a broad area
encompassing the valleys of northern Kyushu at least.
The single realm of Na, for example, incorporated a linear core of
villages around the Suku Okamoto site, strung out along the top of a
line of low hills on the western side of the valley. Its sphere of influ-
ence probably extended over a wider area perhaps encompassing
Itazuke and other settlements on the valley floor. Close to Suku
Okamoto itself is a series of large tombs which are thought to be the
32
last resting places of the kings of Na, one of them perhaps even the
recipient of the emperor Guangwu’s gold seal. Evidence of the social
structure in these communities can be seen not only in the hierarchy of
rank under this ruling class, but in the division of labour. On the valley
floor a few miles east of Itazuke, close to the runway of Fukuoka
Airport, recently discovered traces of rice paddies and workshops
suggest that the agricultural and pre-industrial labour force were con-
sciously segregated.
Several decades of excavation at Suku Okamoto have shown that the
kingdom of Na probably reached the height of its prosperity around the
first century CE, around the same time as Yoshinogari in the Saga plain.
Subsequently, what had once been a powerful local polity with the
resources to feed and protect a sizeable population somehow fell into
decline. Whether this was precipitated by invasion, disease or some other
cause remains unclear. In the case of Yoshinogari, Yasumoto Biten
points to evidence that the moats were filled in to suggest that the com-
munity decided to abandon the location and move elsewhere in the
islands of Wa.13 Did the armies of Na also march inland and settle some
other territory. This would certainly coincide with Gina Barnes’s model
of an ‘incubation’ stage in which Yayoi migrants of Korean origins settled
in northern Kyushu for several generations before colonizing lands in
western Honshu. Whatever the case, when emissaries from Wei arrived
on the Kyushu coast in the third century, the state of Na was probably
still there but already a shadow of its former self.14
Yayoi society in the Wajinden

Many of the remains found at sites in Kyushu such as Suku Okamoto
and Hirabaru in the old kingdoms of Na and Ito correlate with Chen
Shou’s descriptions of local society in the Wajinden (Account of the
People of Wa). This appears in his Weizhi (History of Wei) at the end of
a section devoted to tributary states in the Sanguozhi (History of the
Three Kingdoms), a multi-volume chronicle that charts the fortunes of
Wei, Wu and Shu, the three rival states in China in the third century CE.
Chen, a native of the southern state of Shu, was employed by the court
of Wei to record its relations not only with rival powers on the Chinese
mainland, but also with disparate peoples on the peripheries of the
celestial kingdom. Compiled in 289, his Wajinden draws on information
33
received through the Wei representatives who, some fifty years before,
had set out from their empire’s most distant outpost at Daifang (near
modern-day Seoul), and recounts their observations of the people they
encountered during their travels on the north coast of Kyushu.15
These impressions present a fascinating collage of daily life in
Kyushu in late Yayoi times. In some cases they recall customs immedi-
ately recognizable among subsequent generations of inhabitants in the
islands of Wa, lending weight to the veracity of Chen’s account. In
others they pose questions by omitting what have since come to be
thought of as key elements in ‘Japanese’ culture, implying perhaps that
these could have been imported at some later date. Of course, an
account of life in northern Kyushu can hardly be called representative
of the islands as a whole. As the earliest historical account of any of their
inhabitants, however, the Wajinden features prominently in documen-
tary collections such as Sources of Japanese Tradition.16
According to Chen, people in the lands of Wa were familiar with
spinning and weaving, the married women blackened their teeth with
lacquer (much like the custom that survived into the late nineteenth
century), and were extremely fond of liquor fermented from rice (a
pastime alive and well today in the form of sake). When going about
their daily business, the people would squat when talking to each other
or, as a mark of respect, kneel with both hands placed in front of them
(still a familiar sight on arriving at traditional Japanese restaurants and
inns). They walked barefoot, as traces of footprints in early paddy fields
also reveal.17
Chen records that the living quarters of the people of Wa were seg-
regated according to age and sex, although they could mix in public
gatherings. In daily life, they displayed an intense concern for purifica-
tion and pollution, just as Shinto rites and ancient texts reveal an obses-
sion for cleaning shrines and tidying rice paddies – from Amaterasu’s
heavenly fields to the rice terraces in the plain of men. Still today, the
washing of hands is a ritual part of any visit to a Shinto shrine. It remains
a matter of conjecture to what extent these customs were originally
motivated by the need for hygiene in a sub-tropical climate, the logis-
tics of producing rice to support a populous community, or some
combination of the two.
In contrast to such signs of cultural continuity, some elements in
Chen’s account suggest changes that might have occurred before or
34
after the Yayoi heyday. He writes, for example, that the people of Wa
ate their food with their hands. The first evidence for the use of chop-
sticks has been found in late seventh-century palaces, and appears to
have been imported from the continent. Chen also records how the
men often bore tattoos in various patterns according to their home state
(kuni) and rank, a custom that would subsequently disappear from
mainstream culture in ‘Japan’. One curious observation is a comment
on the absence of any livestock, not even sheep, oxen or horses. This is
in marked contrast to the situation in the eleventh century when large
numbers of livestock were recorded on the coast of northern Kyushu.18
Any new arrivals in the third century would have found the people
of Wa in a vigilant state of military alert. Chen records how their walled
settlements were equipped with watchtowers such as those at
Yoshinogari, and that they were constantly engaged in war, as the
archaeological record in Kyushu suggests. In peacetime as well, the
inhabitants seem to have been subjected to some political control. Each
small state (kuni) had its own revenue officials appointed to administer
the collection of grain levies. It also had its own market where, under
supervision, the people engaged in barter. A diplomatic representative
was even stationed by the coast in Ito to supervise contacts with emis-
saries and the exchange of tribute and gifts, explaining why Chen’s
informants were not allowed to travel inland. This official was
appointed by the ruler of a confederation of states in Wa, who is
identified in the Wajinden as Himiko (Pimiko).
Chen’s account of Himiko’s dominion in the 230s and 240s begins by
noting that there had once been a king who was the most powerful ruler
in the lands of Wa but after seventy years of infighting the people turned
to a woman, whose capital lay in a place called ‘Yama[ta]i’. Himiko had
restored peace to the region by establishing her supremacy over a con-
federation of some thirty small states (kuni). Many of these can be easily
identified with place names today, including Matsura, Ito and Na, all
along the north Kyushu coast from Karatsu to Fukuoka. Although the
Wei emissaries never travelled beyond this coastline, by reputation at
least, Himiko’s capital at Yamatai was populous, described in the
Wajinden as a settlement of around 70,000 households.
Chen’s portrait of Himiko herself suggests an enigmatic personality.
Although mature in age she remained unmarried and lived in a palace
surrounded by towers and stockades, with armed guards in a constant
35
state of vigilance. After becoming queen, her aura of mystery was rein-
forced by the fact that few people were allowed to see her. She had
1,000 female attendants, but only one man was granted access. This was
her younger brother, who served her food and drink and assisted her in
exercising power. As such he was the visible ruler of everyday affairs,
communicating his sister’s will to the outside world.
In 238, Chen records, Himiko sent a mission to Daifang, the
Chinese commandery in the Korean peninsula, and the emperor
responded by granting her official recognition as ‘Queen of Wa,
Friendly to Wei’. In return for tribute goods received from Wa he also
bestowed a number of gifts, including gold, silk, pearls and ‘a hundred
bronze mirrors’. In 243, Himiko sent a further mission, possibly to ask
for assistance against the hostile forces of Kuna to the south beyond
her Wa confederation, and in 247, to report that they were now at war.
At this juncture, however, she died and was buried in a vast tomb ‘one
hundred paces in diameter. More than a hundred male and female ser-
vants followed her to the grave.’ Subsequently, several men tried and
failed to win recognition as ruler of Wa, but control was only restored
with the accession of a thirteen-year old girl called Iyo, or Toyo accord-
ing to later chronicles, who in turn was recognized by the kingdom of
Wei.
Not only is Himiko the earliest historical figure known to have lived
in these islands, but together with Iyo her appearance in the Wajinden
suggests a time when it was not unusual to have female rulers, before
an emphasis on patriarchal lineage was imported from China.
According to Chen, these women were the only figures capable of exer-
cising political control in a divided land. Undoubtedly, the key to their
authority lay in the powers of sorcery which they used to bend the
people to their will. Himiko is described as a practitioner of kidō (way
of demons), foretelling the future from the cracks that appeared in
bones when they were cast into a fire. This form of shamanism is
strongly reminiscent (and indicative of links with) similar early religious
practices found in the Korean peninsula, and stretching over large areas
in China.19 According to the Wajinden, the people of Wa were also
deeply superstitious and would consult such an oracle before embark-
ing on any new venture. Himiko’s life of seclusion added mystique to
her powers as she fulfilled her role acting as a medium between her
people and the gods.
36
Looking for Yamatai

Recognized as the ‘Queen of Wa’, Himiko thus ruled over lands encom-
passing some thirty small states, although this confederation was often
at war with others, notably Kuna to the south. While some states like
Ito and Na can be easily identified, what is less clear is the location of
Himiko’s capital in the place that Chen Shou records as Yama[ta]i. Her
vast tomb, large enough to inter a hundred servants, has never been
found, although a number of possible sites have been suggested. Chen’s
informants supplied him with accurate details about the route from the
Korean peninsula as far as the coast of northern Kyushu but, confined
to the visitors’ reception area in Ito, they had to rely on reports to
describe the onward journey inland. At this stage, the orientation, dis-
tances and time frames provided in the Wajinden no longer correspond
with the geography of the islands of Wa since, if followed to the letter,
these would locate Yamatai in the Pacific Ocean beyond the southeast
coast of Kyushu.
Numerous attempts have been made to find Yamatai, for it lies at the
heart of the first polity known to have exercised political authority on
any scale in the Japanese islands. It does not feature prominently,
however, in Japan’s eighth-century chronicles, the Kojiki and Nihon
Shoki, which trace the origins of the Yamato state. The closest parallel
figure to Himiko mentioned is the empress Jingū, the mother of Ōjin,
who has also been described as a ‘shamaness ruler’.20 In the chapter in
the Nihon Shoki devoted to Jingū’s reign, the chroniclers of the early Nara
court even quote Chen Shou’s lines in the Wajinden relating the diplo-
matic missions that Himiko sent to Wei, although they do not discuss
their significance.21 The chronology presented also fits neatly with the
Wajinden, but the events attributed to Jingū’s reign cover several cen-
turies of known developments from the fourth to the seventh century,
suggesting that she, too, is perhaps ‘a composite figure who reflects the
personalities and deeds of several real-life female rulers in Japan’.22
The meaning of Yamatai was reviewed in the eighteenth century as
some prominent scholars turned their attention to the ancient texts of the
Yamato state. Arai Hakuseki began by suggesting that Yamatai may have
been located somewhere in the Kinai area in central Honshu which
includes Nara, Kyoto and Osaka, although in later life he tended
towards Kyushu instead. Subsequently, the celebrated Kokugaku scholar
37
Motoori Norinaga also decided that it must have been in Kyushu. In an

interesting twist, however, he claimed that Himiko was a usurper, pre-
senting herself to Wei as the ‘Queen of Wa’, even though her
confederation may not have been the strongest power in the islands.23
It was after the creation of the Meiji state in the nineteenth century
that scholars began to consciously dissociate Himiko from the figure of
Jingū, and various locations in Kyushu were put forward as a possible
location for Yamatai. Naka Michiyo and Shigeno Yutsugu both sug-
gested that Himiko’s realm must have been some distance inland from
the north coast. Suga Masatomo and Yoshida Tōgo claimed that it could
be found as far south as the vicinity of Himeki Castle in Kagoshima
Prefecture, also the site of the Ōsumi Hayato rebels’ last stand in 721.
Hoshino Hisashi and Kondō Yoshiki adopted a semantic approach that
was later widely followed, identifying sites for Yamatai in contemporary
places called Yamato in Fukuoka and Kumamoto prefectures respec-
tively. These various arguments persuaded Kume Kunitake – a noted
historian in Tokyo, although originally from Hizen (Saga) – that, irre-
spective of the exact site, the issue of whether it was located in Kyushu
or the Kinai area had effectively been resolved.24
It was at the onset of the twentieth century that the Yamatai debate
began in earnest. In response to Kume Kunitake’s show of support for
Naka Michiyo and others, in 1910, Naitō Torajirō of Kyoto University
marshalled a strong counter-argument for the Kinai area, claiming
that measures of distance rather than compass readings held the key to
deciphering the Wajinden. Naitō’s thesis was criticized by Shiratori
Kurakichi, who pointed out that by placing Kuna in Kyushu and Yamatai
in the Kinai area, he failed to explain how and why Himiko could possi-
bly have appealed for help from China.25 In 1920, Watsuji Tetsurō struck
an ingenious compromise by suggesting in his Nihon Kodai Bunka
(Ancient Culture of Japan) that Yamatai was originally located in Kyushu
but subsequently moved east to establish the Yamato state.26 He later
switched his affiliation to the Kinai theory, but this has proved to be a
resilient concept, partly because of the intriguing parallels it suggests with
Jinmu’s Eastern Expedition and also Ōjin’s rise to power.
Over the last hundred years the controversy has at times taken on a
partisan tone, developing into something of an intellectual game
between advocates of the Kyushu theory (largely based in Tokyo and
Kyushu) and supporters of the Kinai theory (largely based in Kyoto).
38
The case for Kyushu revolves around the notion that Chen’s compass
bearings were more accurate than his measurement of distance. The
case for Kinai holds that the distances he recorded were more accurate
than his sense of direction, suggesting that he should have located
Yamatai to the east rather than the south. Perhaps the most striking
contribution to this argument in recent years has been Furuta
Takehiko’s comment that although Chen made 2,237 references to
directions in the Weizhi (History of Wei), not once did he confuse east
with south.27 Nevertheless, despite the frequent claims that appear by
the year to have conclusively solved this riddle, there is no sign of any
consensus in sight, and the number of publications on the subject
continues to soar.
Since there can never be any agreement until incontrovertible evi-
dence of Himiko’s tomb is found, the post-war boom in archaeology
has also fuelled the search for Yamatai. This was why there was so much
excitement on the discovery of the Yoshinogari site in the 1980s. With
its evidence of high watchtowers and a large population, it certainly
bore some of the hallmarks of Yamatai recorded in the Wajinden, and
initially there were claims that Yoshinogari might even be Yamatai
itself.28 No sign was found, however, of an appropriately grand tomb in
the area. Moreover, the objects discovered there have since been mostly
dated to the Middle Yayoi period (c.100 BCE – 200 CE), too early for
the great third-century capital at Yamatai.29
Nevertheless, archaeological discoveries continue to present new
evidence to support the case for either Kyushu or Kinai. These broadly
affirm a cultural divide between Yayoi settlements in western Japan
(Kyushu and western Honshu) where bronze weapons predominate,
and the Kinai area, where bronze bells have been found instead. The
most dramatic finds in Kinai have been piles of small bronze mirrors
with distinctive triangular-shaped rims, and decorated with carved
motifs of beasts and deities. These recall the one hundred bronze
mirrors of this type which, according to the Wajinden, the emperor of
Wei sent to Himiko. As such, they have become a central feature of
claims supporting Kinai as the location of Yamatai.
Bronze mirrors like this have been found in many places, usually in
tombs, but as many as 50 per cent have been found in Kinai, as opposed
to just 12 per cent in Kyushu. In 1952, Kobayashi Yukio argued that
their widespread distribution suggests they were bestowed on lesser
39
chiefs by some primate, possibly as a mark of loyalty. The theory that

these were the mirrors sent to Himiko by the emperor of Wei, however,
has been challenged on various grounds, notably by Chinese scholars.30
Some have pointed out that, judging from their composition and
design, many of them originated in southern China rather than Wei. A
discrepancy over the dates has even led one to claim that the mirrors
were made by migrants from southern China who had settled in the
Kinai area. The style of the inscriptions has also been described as too
low in register to have emanated from the Wei court.31
Nevertheless, similar inscriptions have been discovered just recently
not only in the Liaodong peninsula but also the Yellow River basin. The
case for linking these mirrors with Yamatai, therefore, looks set to con-
tinue.32 Perhaps the most convincing argument against it has come
from Hirano Kunio, who points out that Kobayashi’s theory rests
entirely on the assumption that the mirrors were distributed through
political channels alone, ignoring the evidence that many would have
been used for trade purposes instead.33 After all, these particular
mirrors amount to just one design among the many styles discovered,
and viewed collectively 80 per cent of all the mirrors unearthed so far
have found been in northern Kyushu.
If access to iron signifies political power in Yayoi times, the archaeo-
logical record also shows that northern Kyushu possessed relative advan-
tages over Kinai. Iron goods from this period have been found at 663
different sites in northern Kyushu, as compared with just seventy-nine in
Kinai.34 Clearly, Kyushu’s proximity to the Korean peninsula gave any
regional primates a strategic edge, for initially at least iron would have
been imported across the Tsushima Straits. It has also been suggested
that the relative weight attached to the Izumo area in the Chronicles was
partly because it might have given the Yamato court in Kinai access to
iron without having to rely on supplies through Kyushu. Described in the
‘Age of the Gods’ as the stamping ground of Susanoo, the impetuous
brother of Amaterasu, Izumo’s location on the Japan Sea coast could also
be reached with relative ease from the Korean peninsula.35
Shortly before the discovery of Yoshinogari, new impetus was given
to the Yamatai debate in 1983 when Furuta Takehiko pointed out that
Himiko’s capital as transcribed by Chen in the Wajinden cannot be pro-
nounced ‘Yamatai’ at all, but should be read ‘Yamaichi’ or ‘Yamai’. It
was the fifth-century Chinese scholar Fan Yeh, who converted this to
40
‘Yamatai’ in the Houhanshu by changing the last character. Either this

was a simple error confusing two very similar characters, or Fan was
consciously taking account of the subsequent emergence of the Yamato
state. In this case, however, he would have been more likely to have
chosen any of the ten characters used for the sound ‘-to’ found in these
Chinese texts, rather than a character for ‘-tai’. Whatever Fan’s intent
may have been, perhaps more than any other single detail it has been his
creation of ‘Yamatai’ that has led to connections being made between
Himiko’s realm and the Yamato state.36
As the twentieth century drew to a close there was considerable
support for Nishijima Sadao’s argument that the emphasis should be
placed not so much on Yamatai as on Wa, a polity he suggested that
could even have emerged in the early second century, a hundred years
or so before the time of Himiko.37 At the same time there was no con-
sensus on the Yamatai debate itself, either in Japanese or English works.
Edward Kidder, for example, asserted that recent excavations around
Makimuku in the Nara basin have strengthened claims linking the area
with Yamatai.38 John Maher, on the other hand, saw the wealth of
mirrors found in northern Kyushu –‘sometimes thirty mirrors in a
single burial jar’ – as indicative of the shamanistic practice ascribed to
Himiko, and suggested that ‘Yamatai may have been in the area of
Fukuoka’.39 Imamura Keiji also insisted that, even if Yoshinogari was a
‘false alarm’, the discovery of large sites have now given Kyushu an
‘advantage over the Kinai theory’.40
Hirano Kunio, meanwhile, has criticized the increasing emphasis
placed on circumstantial archaeological evidence by calling for renewed
study on documentary sources, both Chinese and Japanese. In his view,
a close textual analysis of the Wajinden seen in the context of other
Chinese chronicles would indicate that Yamatai was situated in Kyushu.
One line in particular stands out: ‘about one thousand li across the sea
to the east of the Queen’s land, other lands are to be found. These are
also all of the Wa race.’41 On the premise established by Furuta that
compass bearings seem more reliable than measures of distance, these
would appear to be the islands of Honshu and Shikoku across the sea
to the east of Kyushu. Viewed from Kinai, the only possible candidate
would be Shikoku, across the Inland Sea to the south.42
Although the Yamatai debate ultimately remains a matter of con-
jecture, it does have a significant bearing on our understanding of early
41
state formation in Japan. If Himiko’s power base was located in

Kyushu her confederation of thirty small states would probably have
stretched across much of the northern and central part of the island,
but no further. In other words, it was a regional confederation, not
large enough to exert control over the whole archipelago. If, however,
Yamatai was located in the Kinai area, then the confederation must
have been a significantly more powerful organization, stretching
from northern Kyushu and covering much of western Honshu. The
question is whether or not any states of late Yayoi times were
sufficiently developed to operate beyond a regional level and exert
political control on what would now be recognized as a ‘national’
scale.
There are some further implications. If Himiko’s confederation was
a regional power in Kyushu, then it may have fallen at some later stage
and passed out of memory. If it was based in Kinai, however, it would
be inextricably linked with the subsequent rise of the Yamato state. As
such, Himiko herself would be among the founders of a dynasty that
has survived to the present day. A third possibility is that, as Watsuji
suggested, her confederation had a regional base in Kyushu but subse-
quently expanded and moved east to the Kinai area. In the fast-moving
world of modern archaeology, however, even the discovery of
Yoshinogari is now considered to be ancient history, and the case for
such a transfer of power from Kyushu to Honshu has recently been
described as ‘out of date’.43
Nevertheless, excerpts from Chinese dynastic chronicles still lend
some credence to this theory. One example can be found in the
eleventh-century Xintangshu (New History of the Tang Dynasty) which
declares, ‘the Japanese say that from their first ruler . . . there were alto-
gether thirty-two generations of rulers, all bearing the title of mikoto and
residing in the Palace of Tsukushi’.44 Tsukushi was an archaic name for
Kyushu, and until the ‘barbarian’ tribes in the south were finally con-
quered in the eighth century, referred mainly to the northern part of the
island. Hirano also draws attention to a line in the Suishu (History of the
Sui Dynasty), citing a visiting envoy who observed in 608, ‘all the lands
to the east of Tsukushi were subject to Wa’. Pointing out that Chinese
scribes customarily drew on existing records to update their knowledge
of political conditions at home and abroad, he asserts that they must
have been consciously referring to the line from the Wajinden – ‘across
42
the sea to the east of the Queen’s land’ – when they elected to replace
‘the Queen’s land’ with ‘Tsukushi’.45
Yamatai landmarks in Kyushu

At a local level in some parts of Kyushu, Yamatai never seems far away.
The small hot spring town of Funagoya, for example, is in the extreme
south of Fukuoka Prefecture. As they cross the bridge over the Yaba
River, drivers passing through on National Route Number Three are
greeted by a roadside sign with a picture of a woman in ancient dress on
the far bank. The image is accompanied by the message, ‘Welcome to
Setaka, home of Himiko.’ It is perhaps the boldest such claim that
drivers will find on their travels in Kyushu, but so vague are Chen
Shou’s directions that numerous locations on the island have been sug-
gested for the lost site of Yamatai, too many to list here.46 By contrast,
supporters of the Kinai theory are largely agreed at least on where to
look. Even if the Hashihaka tomb has been identified as too recent to
have possibly been that of Himiko, there is a large concentration of
impressive Yayoi tombs and relics excavated in the Nara basin.
The case for Setaka in Kyushu is based to some extent on local place
names. Of the nine ancient tombs that have so far been identified as
candidates for the site of Himiko’s burial, three are located in the Setaka
area. The most impressive of these is Zoyama Kuramazuka, although
closer inspection has revealed that this dates to a period after the heyday
of Himiko’s rule. The numerous Hachiman shrines in the district
suggest another tenuous link due to their association with Ōjin, son of
Jingū who, as we have seen, is the closest parallel figure to Himiko
found in the Chronicles.
At the same time, there is almost as much dissension among sup-
porters of a Kyushu location for Yamatai as that reserved for advocates
of the Kinai area. In the late nineteenth century, Naka Michiyo pro-
posed a place near Setaka called Yamato as a possible site, only for
Kume Kunitake to then suggest another place by the same name further
inland in the Kikuchi valley. After the Pacific War, the suggested links
with Ōjin influenced Tomiki Takashi to make the case for the town of
Usa to the east in Ōita Prefecture, since this is the site of the head shrine
of the Hachiman sect.47 Based on both topography and archaeology the
Chikugo basin has also won support as an inland area that could
43
certainly have sustained a sizeable population, and excavation work in

the Amagi area in particular continues to be a focus of interest.48 Others
have argued that Yamatai was not inland at all, and at least two recent
theses have claimed that Himiko’s palace was situated on the north
Kyushu coast, either in the Itoshima peninsula or on a hill in the
Fukuoka area overlooking Hakata Bay.49
To complicate matters, both place names and textual records indi-
cate the widespread prevalence of female rulers in the region. As
Michiko Aoki points out, ‘undoubtedly there lived in Kyushu some sea-
faring people who had the custom of electing female chieftains in
ancient times’. Place names that literally mean ‘Female Hill(s)’ include,
for example, Zoyama in Setaka and Ominayama in Saga Prefecture.
According to the eighth century Hizen no Kuni Fudoki (Gazetteer of
Hizen Province), the Ominayama hills were named after a group of
recalcitrant sorceresses called tsuchikimo who used to live there. The
impressive Hirabaru tomb discovered in the Itoshima peninsula in 1965
was also clearly reserved for a female of high rank, possibly a priestess,
who was buried surrounded by a thousand jewels.50 Such a connection
with early worship is reinforced by the fact that many of the tombs in
the area are aligned with the fall of light at sunrise on significant days of
the year, rather like Stonehenge and other Neolithic stone circles and
tombs in the British Isles and continental Europe.
Some place names have even been linked with the name of Himiko
herself. The numerous small Shinto shrines in Japan are usually left
mostly unattended, but at larger shrines there are always priests together
with priestesses called o-miko-san, attired in white tops and red dresses.
These women perform various tasks from assisting religious services to
cleaning sacred areas and selling lucky charms. As a shamaness who
divined the future by looking for cracks in bones, Himiko, too, has some-
times been described as a priestess (miko) of fire (hi). There are parallel
associations in the Kyushu landscape, notably in Kumamoto Prefecture,
which has long been identified as the ‘Land of Fire’ (Hi-no-Kuni).
Much like the various theories of Yamatai, what can start as the
search for a specific location ends with more general comments on the
nature of early societies in Japan. Without conclusive evidence, all
the candidates for the site of Himiko’s realm fade into the landscape.
Archaeological discoveries sometimes provide clues that lend weight to
a particular argument, such as at Yoshinogari twenty years ago, but the
44
nucleus of the third-century confederation of Wa remains elusive. Such

finds strengthen the case for arguing that northern Kyushu was the
centre of Yayoi political hegemony, but do not amount to evidence for
Yamatai itself. After Chen Shou’s Sanguozhi, it is not until the late fifth
century that an extant Chinese chronicle hints at political developments
on the islands of Wa. In the interim, there were clearly some significant
changes, enabling the emergence of a line of powerful kings in the Kinai
area. How the pattern of political control developed from the confed-
eration of Wa in the third century to grow into the Yamato dynasty
by the fifth, however, is still largely concealed by the historical void
often described as ‘the mysterious fourth century’ that followed the era
of Himiko.
45
CHAPTER 3
TSUKUSHI:
ISLE OF UNKNOWN FIRES

rom Saga City, near the Yayoi remains of Yoshinogari, the main
F road north heads across the plain and then winds through wooded
mountains before reaching the north Kyushu coast. The spectacular
stretch of coastline here in Karatsu Bay is called Niji no Matsubara, or
‘Rainbow Forest of Pines’ after its long bow-shaped beach flanked by
trees. Its sheltered position makes it second perhaps only to Hakata Bay
further to the east as a safe haven for ships. Today the journey from
Saga features a recently built landmark as the road runs through the
mountains to the sea. Around a corner on the approach to a services
area near the town of Kyūragi, an impressive white statue looms into
view. Standing forty-six feet high and rotating gently, this giant figure
of a young woman – wearing loose robes and with one hand held aloft –
recalls at first glance the Statue of Liberty, until closer inspection reveals
she is waving a cloth.
This is Sayō-hime, the celebrated beauty who, according to legend,
captured the heart of the general of the Yamato army when he passed
this way in 537.1 Ōtomo Sadehiko, a renowned military leader, was
bound for Karatsu to lead his troops across the sea to fight in the
Korean peninsula. Shortly before leaving he married Sayō-hime, and so
she joined him in Karatsu as the expedition prepared to embark. Her
statue recalls the scene when, as Sadehiko’s ship set sail, she climbed a
hill near the shore and waved farewell from the top. From this episode
the site takes its name of Hirefuri no Mine (scarf-waving hill). In one
version, Sayō-hime is held to have been so distraught that she followed
the fleet in a small boat as far as the nearby port of Yobuko where, in
her grief, she turned to stone.2
46
Tsukushi: Isle of Unknown Fires
Although little more than a tale of courtly love transferred to the

country, this legend reflects the considerable political changes that had
taken effect by the mid-sixth century. The island of Kyushu, or at least
the northern part, was now generally known as Tsukushi to the
courtiers of the growing Yamato state. Viewed from their capital in the
Nara basin it was a mysterious region in the outer reaches of the realm.
In the verse that they wrote, military officials posted to this far-off land
conveyed the sense of a remote frontier zone. Examples such as this
one were later included in the Man’yōshū (Songs of Myriad Leaves),
Japan’s oldest anthology of poetry compiled in the mid-eighth
century.
Our Sovereign’s far-off court

Is Tsukushi, the isle of unknown fires
It is the citadel defending
Her Empire against the foreign enemy 3
The ‘unknown fires’ cited here refer to the light effects that still appear
in the inland seas enclosed by the islands off the west coast of Kyushu.
It was only in the early twentieth century that a scientific explanation
was finally offered for this natural phenomenon, when it was identified
as a type of mirage. This rare optical illusion has been compared with a
similar effect found in Lake Geneva, but is becoming increasingly diffi-
cult to see due to the prevalence of electric lighting along the coast and
now polluted water. Recalling a time when it was a defining local
feature, however, there is a town on the coast of the Ariake Sea in the
north of Kumamoto Prefecture called Shiranui (literally ‘unknown
fire’). Further south along the coast is another stretch of water called
the Shiranui Sea.
According to the Nihon Shoki it was this sea, rather than the region’s
volcanoes, that gave Kumamoto its reputation as the ‘Land of Fire’
(Hi no Kuni). It records how, on one occasion, having subjugated the
recalcitrant Kumaso people of the region in battle, the ‘emperor’
Keikō was travelling along this coastline one night when, catching
sight of some lights out at sea, none of his followers could answer his
question, ‘Whose fire is this?’4 In the Hizen no Kuni Fudoki (Gazetteer
of Hizen Province), the episode is attributed instead to a victorious
general who was serving under Keikō, and when the emperor later
47
passed this way he declared, ‘now I know why this land is called Hi no
Kuni’.5
Judging from verses in the Man’yōshū, to be sent to these frontier
lands of Tsukushi was not a popular assignment for soldiers of the
Yamato state who had grown up in Honshu. They lamented their exile
in tones reminiscent of the Tang dynasty border poetry written by
Chinese soldiers sent to man the Great Wall. Tsukushi was also a dan-
gerous place. In some areas lay rebellious peoples who had only recently
submitted to what they saw as the civilizing influence of Yamato rule.
These included the Kumaso, based largely in the central highlands of
Kyushu (around present-day Kumamoto Prefecture) who, according to
the Chronicles, had finally been pacified by Keikō. Beyond their lands in
the far south of the island were the warlike Hayato (in Kagoshima
Prefecture). To the north of Tsukushi beyond the Tsushima Straits also
lay the warring states of the Korean peninsula, and Yamato rulers were
repeatedly drawn into the complex power struggles unfolding there.
Either they coveted some wider influence for themselves, or they could
not ignore the pleas for help that increasingly arrived from their allies
across the sea. The departure of Ōtomo no Sadehiko at the head of an
army was one example of the lengths they would go to in order to secure
what they saw as their vested interests on the continent.
This precarious state of affairs poses several questions. Why would
Yamato devote its scarce military resources to sending armies across
the sea from Tsukushi to fight in the Korean peninsula at a time when
there were still untamed peoples in the Japanese islands – the Kumaso
and Hayato in Kyushu, and the Emishi in Honshu – yet to be brought
under their control? Of course, our earlier themes on the development
of proto-historic Kyushu provide some relevant background in explor-
ing the nature of Yamato control, such as the legend of an imperial
ancestor moving out of Kyushu and conquering the Yamato area in the
Nara basin. Also important is the formation of the Yamatai confeder-
ation of the third century, and whether this was just a regional organi-
zation based in Kyushu, or already the genesis of the Yamato state in
the Nara basin. What is unquestionable is that, no matter how the
Chronicles compiled in the eighth century are interpreted, they indicate
extremely close links between the Yamato rulers and the island of
Kyushu during a sustained period of military involvement in the
Korean peninsula.
48
The age of great tombs

It is tempting to search for a direct connection between the worlds of
Yamatai in the third century and the subsequent rise of Yamato, but
unfortunately the Chinese dynastic histories, the only source of textual
information at this stage, reveal nothing on developments during the
fourth century. The archaeological record, however, clearly shows that
by the end of the century significant changes were in train, ushering in
an age of great tombs (kofun), which would dominate the political land-
scape in the Japanese islands for the next two hundred years. These dis-
tinctive keyhole-shaped tumuli include some of the largest tombs ever
built, surpassing in terms of area, if not height, the Pyramids of Egypt,
and in length comparable with even the tomb of the First Emperor of
China near Xian.6 Substantial examples can be found in Kyushu and
western Honshu, but the massive tombs of Ōjin and Nintoku in what
is now the city of Osaka, point to the emergence of a dominant polity
in the Kinai area at this time. While its political hegemony in these
islands may not yet have extended beyond a loose confederation of
allies, such impressive monuments indicate the formative years of what
became the Yamato state.
A culture of building giant tombs like these can be found in much of
East Asia, originating in China and spreading into the Korean peninsula
before it appeared in Japan. It remains unclear, however, whether the
distinctive design of the keyhole-shaped tombs in Japan was perfected
in these islands of Wa or imported directly from the Korean peninsula.
Similar examples have been found in southern Korea but might con-
ceivably have been built for Yamato soldiers who had fallen in battle
there. Nevertheless, the artefacts found in the tombs in Japan point to
a significant level of cultural interaction between the early Yamato state
and the Korean peninsula, much of which was conducted through
‘Tsukushi’ in northern Kyushu.
In some ways conditions in Tsukushi were shaped just as much by
the emergence of new states across the Tsushima Straits as by the devel-
opment of Yamato into the dominant force in the islands of Wa. By this
time the Chinese commanderies at Lelang and Daifang which had
enabled Chen Shou’s informants to travel as far as Himiko’s lands in the
third century were long gone. In place of these outposts of Chinese
power, three kingdoms had emerged in the Korean peninsula. One of
49
these, the state of Koguryŏ in the north, had always remained indepen-
dent of Chinese rule and was now in a position to extend its territories.
Further south, two substantial new powers were formed, Paekche in the
west and Silla in the east. Between these states lay a smaller stretch of
territory known as Kaya, a loose federation of several principalities
along the southern shores just across the water from Tsukushi.7
This is a controversial theme since it marks the onset of historical
contacts between Korea and Japan, a chequered relationship in early
modern and modern times. What is clear, however, is that the Yamato
state was deeply involved in the political rivalries between the three
kingdoms in the Korean peninsula. Much less certain are exactly how
and why it became involved. Some surviving texts and artefacts can
nevertheless help to provide clues in piecing together the nature of early
ties between Yamato and Korea. These include a passage in the
Chronicles, a unique seven-branched sword and an ancient monument
on the banks of the Yalu River, which today marks the border between
North Korea and China.
Compiled in the early eighth century to place on record the dynasty’s
lineage, the Chronicles recount how several centuries before, the
‘emperor’ Chūai had once arrived in Tsukushi at the head of an army to
subdue the Kumaso inhabitants to the south. His ships managed to land
in northern Kyushu although not, it would appear, without some diffi-
culty. If he did encounter resistance and had to land by force this is
obscured in the text by references to the ritual offerings he made to pave
his way.8 He then prepared for his Kumaso campaign, establishing his
court at a palace in Kashii, now an area in the eastern suburbs of
Fukuoka City. On one occasion he was visited by a deity who spoke
through his wife Jingū, counselling him to turn his attention across the
water, where a land called Silla offered rich opportunities. Chūai
offended the deity, however, when he refused to believe this story, saying
that to the north lay only sea. 9 The same night he died, leaving Jingū to
take his place and launch the campaign against Silla that, according to
the Chronicles, established an enclave under Yamato control in the region
of Kaya, known as Imna, or retrospectively as Mimana Nihonfu.
Whether or not such a colony ever existed in Korea, and in what form
if it did, has been the subject of much debate. The Chronicles refer to res-
idents at the ‘Japanese Government House’ (Mimana Nihonfu) being
supervised by a ‘Governor of Imna’, but also mention a ‘King of Imna’
50
of equal rank with the rulers of Paekche, Silla and Koguryŏ. This would
suggest more of a diplomatic facility than a colony as such. Its exact loca-
tion on the coast also remains something of a mystery. 10
On a more dynastic note, it is worth mentioning the epilogue to this
Korean campaign described in the Chronicles. Tradition holds that
Kashii Shrine (Kashii-gū) was built as a mausoleum dedicated to the
spirits of both Chūai and Jingū, who died in Tsukushi following her
return from the peninsula.11 The fact that three female deities – daugh-
ters of Amaterasu – are revered at the Great Shrine of Munakata just
along the coast also hints at the arrival of royal blood from across the
water. Throughout the campaign, moreover, Jingū had been carrying a
child, and it was shortly before her death that she gave birth to the son
called Homuda-wake who would grow up to become Ōjin, ruler of the
Yamato state.12
This is where legend merges with history, for while Jingū is sometimes
thought of as a semi-fictional composite figure of historical female rulers
(Himiko, Suiko and Jitō among them), Ōjin is the first Yamato ruler
listed in the Chronicles who, according to Tsuda Sōkichi’s model, is gen-
erally acknowledged as having lived and ruled in these islands. His reign
also appears to mark the onset of historical relations between the
Yamato state and the Korean peninsula, particularly through state-level
contact with the western kingdom of Paekche based in the region
around modern-day Seoul.13 Since he was born in Tsukushi, Ōjin has
been portrayed as a north Kyushu chieftain who marched east to take
the Kinai area by force and establish his own dynasty.14 As such, his rise
to power bears more than a passing resemblance to the Eastern
Expedition of Jinmu, the legendary founder of the Yamato state.
It has been suggested that the compilers of the Chronicles contrived
to create a composite figure when they ‘created both Jinmu the
Conqueror and Ōjin the Man of Peace out of Homuda-wake’.15
Traditionally renowned for his martial valour, Ōjin’s military exploits
and aggressive character are highlighted in the eighth-century gazetteers
of various provinces. In Kyushu his name is associated with a number
of places, but most closely identified with the Hachiman Shrine at Usa,
where he is revered as the ‘God of War’. This is in stark contrast,
however, with the passive nature of Homuda-wake (Ōjin) portrayed in
the Chronicles. As Aoki has observed, ‘the compilers of Kojiki and
Nihongi seem to have taken pains to conceal his belligerence before and
51
after his emergence as the ruler of the Yamato state, or the unifier of
the several confederacies of the Japanese islands’.16 Gina Barnes agrees
that ‘the Ojin story echoes that of the eastward trek of Jinmu and’,
moreover, ‘is thought to reflect the same grain of reality’.17
By whatever means he used to take control, Ōjin certainly stamped
his authority on the Kinai area. Visible testimony of his power can be
found in the vast tomb which, according to tradition, was built for him
in the suburbs of Osaka. This measures 1,316 feet in length, and has
been dated by archaeologists to the end of the fourth century. In terms
of scale it is surpassed only by the nearby tomb of his son and succes-
sor Nintoku, which is all of 1,594 feet long. These giant structures are
clearly symbols of the ascendancy of the Yamato state although, as they
remain under the protection of the Imperial Household, they are yet to
be excavated.18
Another ancient relic mentioned in the Chronicles, which unquestion-
ably points to close political links between Yamato and the Korean
peninsula, is the famous seven-branched sword. A unique artefact made
with considerable technical skill, this was shown to be more than a lit-
erary fantasy on its discovery in 1873, and is now kept at the Isonakami
Shrine in Nara, not far from the great tombs of Ōjin and Nintoku. It
was certainly a ‘gift’ to Wa (Yamato) from the Korean state of Paekche,
although the terms under which it was given are contested. It even bears
a date, for although it was recorded in the Chronicles as having arrived in
372, the inscription on the scabbard itself reads the year 369. Attempts
to decipher the Chinese letters inscribed have been inconclusive, but
suggest that either Wa was a vassal state of Paekche, or was on at least
equal terms. According to one reading, the Yamato ruler this was made
for is even named as Keikō who, perhaps to enable the association of
Jingū with Himiko, is recorded in the Chronicles as having ruled more
than 150 years before Ōjin.19 What is beyond doubt is that, already by
the late fourth century, these two states were important to each other.20
A third clue pointing towards some early Yamato involvement in the
Korean peninsula takes the form of an ancient thirty-three-foot high
monument on the north bank of the Yalu River. This was discovered,
coincidentally, by a Japanese army officer in 1884 at a time when, after
a passage of several centuries, Japanese activities in Korea were gaining
fresh momentum. Erected in 414 to commemorate the death of
Kwanggaet’o, the king of Koguryŏ, the inscription consists of more
52
than 1,800 characters which relate at length his glorious exploits span-
ning nearly two decades of war from 390 to 407. It records the south-
ern advance of the Koguryŏ army and how this was resisted by other
states in the Korean peninsula, who received assistance from Wa troops
until Koguryŏ achieved a crushing victory. It is far from clear whether
or not this Wa contingent actually implies an overseas expeditionary
force sent by the Yamato state, but is at least consistent with the legacy
of friendship between Yamato and Paekche inscribed on the seven-
branched sword some thirty years before.21
Piecing together archaeological and textual records from Japan,
China and Korea, the military narrative that emerges suggests that, over
a period spanning nearly three hundred years, a series of Yamato expe-
ditions crossed the Tsushima Straits and fought in the Korean penin-
sula. This chronology unfolds in three phases. First, with the gift of the
seven-branched sword, Yamato was allied with Paekche from around
372 and may have helped to resist the advance of Koguryŏ until meeting
defeat in 407. Second, Yamato continued to assist Paekche with some
success in fighting campaigns against both Koguryŏ and Silla, although
it is unclear whether it ever really had the means to establish the enclave
in Kaya claimed in the Chronicles. Finally, the confederation of Kaya
itself fell to Silla in the sixth century following a process of gradual
encroachment, and Paekche then repeatedly called on Yamato for mil-
itary assistance to resist the advance of Silla until it was destroyed in turn
during the seventh century.
The Korean impact on Tsukushi

At times, these Yamato military expeditions must have transformed the
sheltered bays of Hakata and Karatsu into armed camps before they
embarked across the sea. The influence this exerted on Tsukushi,
however, cannot be viewed in isolation from the cultural impact trans-
mitted in the other direction from the Korean peninsula. The three
kingdoms of Koguryŏ, Paekche and Silla, together with the Kaya con-
federation, all possessed technology superior to that of Yamato.
Whether obtained through military or diplomatic channels, the ruling
elites in the Japanese islands were clearly motivated by the prospect of
acquiring prized goods and knowledge. The increasing flow of traffic
across the Tsushima Straits would have a marked impact on life at the
53
Yamato culture and also had a profound effect on communities in

Tsukushi. At the same time, a distinction needs to be drawn between
the influence of Paekche on the Yamato state, and the overall Korean
influence on northern Kyushu, which were by no means always
synonymous.
To some extent soldiers brought artefacts back from their overseas
campaigns in the service of the Yamato armies. Diplomatic ties with
Korean states such as Paekche also resulted in the flow of gifts, exper-
tise and ideas to the islands of Wa. Then there was the growing trade
carried out across the Tsushima Straits, and if the monument on the
Yalu River is to be believed, pirates from Wa were already active in these
waters. Above all, successive waves of migrants driven across the sea by
the political convulsions in the Korean peninsula had a major impact.
For many new arrivals the first landfall after island-hopping from
Tsushima to Iki en route was the north coast of Tsukushi. In the early
stages these were often people from different parts of Kaya driven out
by the advance of Silla, and there were also migrants from Silla itself. In
the seventh century the expansion of Silla would eventually precipitate
a diaspora of high-ranking Paekche migrants, although many of these
ventured on to a life of exile at the Yamato court. Ultimately, the
migrant culture in the Kinai area took on a distinctly Paekche flavour
by comparison with Tsukushi and the western tip of Honshu, where
new arrivals were drawn from various places of origin in the Korean
peninsula, Silla included. The effect would serve to complicate the
profile of political and cultural affiliations across the Tsushima Straits,
which were certainly not confined to bilateral ties between Yamato and
Paekche alone.
The influx of such migrant communities would transform society in
the islands of Wa. Cultural legacies that can be traced to the political
ties between Yamato and Paekche, for example, include the introduc-
tion of writing and Buddhism. An understanding of Chinese characters
seems to have appeared at the Yamato court during the fifth century,
but it was probably the arrival of scribes from the Korean peninsula
that allowed stylized letters to be drafted and sent to China.22 Of
course, political leaders not just in Yamato but also Kyushu would have
been aware of writing systems for some time already, through their
diplomatic ties and items such as bronze mirrors found among their
burial goods. Among the very earliest examples of Chinese characters
54
known to have been written in the islands of Wa is the 714-letter

inscription on a large sword discovered at the Funayama tomb in the
north of Kumamoto Prefecture, which is thought to date to the middle
of the fifth century. How they interpreted or utilized these imported
symbols in a time before they and their subjects could read remains a
matter of conjecture.23
The introduction of Buddhist teaching was also largely state-
sponsored. In 538, or possibly 552, the king of Paekche, in an excep-
tional mark of favour, despatched some Buddhist monks among the
men of culture who were regularly sent to reside at the Yamato court.
These parties included royal princes of Paekche, sometimes heirs to the
throne, portrayed as ‘hostages’ in the Chronicles but who possibly saw
themselves rather as cultural supervisors. One striking result was that,
whereas Chinese chronicles had previously pointed out the differences
between clothing in the Japanese islands and the Korean peninsula,
now they remarked on the similarities between them. Another impor-
tant outcome was the adoption of the uji-kabane system which gave rise
to the powerful clans (uji) and titles (kabane) that dominated Yamato
court politics.24
The most impressive symbols of continental influence were the
giant burial mounds (kofun), which first appeared in the mid-third
century, subsequently grew in size, and in places remain prominent
features of the landscape today. In many cases, the crests of these
mounds are ringed by rows of haniwa, small earthenware cylinders sur-
mounted mostly by figurines, some wearing armour, together with
models of buildings and even boats. These at least would appear to be
a feature particular to the Japanese islands. A famous passage in the
Nihon Shoki records how this practice was developed to replace the
longstanding custom of burying servants alive on the death of their
lords.25 In later examples there are also figurines depicting horses with
stirrups, bridles and saddles.26
While the largest keyhole tombs ever built are concentrated in the
Kinai area, the two earliest known examples are both located in
Fukuoka Prefecture.27 The burial goods they contain reveal a particu-
larly strong Korean influence. Most of the chambers in which brightly
coloured wall paintings have been found, indeed, are located in
northern Kyushu. It would appear that, for whatever reason, from the
fifth to the seventh centuries, regional chieftains there consciously
55
drew inspiration for their burial practices from models in the Korean
peninsula.28
In 1921, Kida Sadakichi suggested that there must have been some
link between the emergence of three powerful kingdoms in the Korean
peninsula around the fourth century and the appearance of the first
Japanese state in Yamato.29 The power balance involved in any cultural
and technological transfer, however, remains a matter of controversy.
At one extreme among the various theories advanced is a tale of
Japanese military expansion and even colonization in the Korean penin-
sula, as apparently portrayed in the Chronicles commissioned by the
Yamato court. At the other is a scenario of conquest by Korean
migrants settling in the islands of Wa and establishing the Yamato state.
A striking model is the ‘horse-rider theory’ developed in 1948 by
Egami Namio, who claimed that only invasion by mounted warriors
from a nomadic tribe somewhere on the continent can account for the
absence of horses in the Chinese account of Yamatai in the third
century, and their subsequent appearance in the age of great tombs.
Horses are first mentioned in the Chronicles, for example, in a reference
to cavalry in the reign of Nintoku.30 Equine equipment has also been
found among burial goods and portrayed in haniwa pottery. The archae-
ological record, however, does not fully support this theory. The evi-
dence for horse trappings does not appear until the late fifth century.31
Moreover, bones and teeth unearthed at Neolithic sites show that,
unknown to the Wei envoys, there were horses already on these islands.
As in the case of rice, they appear to have been introduced either
through the north or south of Kyushu, and the inhabitants raised them
as livestock for food, as beasts of burden, and for religious rituals.32
Gari Ledyard later developed Egami’s ideas to assert that the
mounted invaders he had identified came from Puyeo in southern
Manchuria. Yet as Wontack Hong has pointed out, both Egami and
Ledyard ignore the fact that ‘there is no record of Korea being invaded
by any nomadic peoples from northeastern Asia during or before the
fourth century’.33 This would suggest that any invasion of Japan at this
time must have been the work of the Korean kingdom of Paekche,
whose leaders themselves were of Puyeo descent, having first reached
the Paekche region in 18 BCE.34 By extension, this interpretation even
identifies the all-conquering Homuda-wake (Ōjin) as a royal prince of
Paekche.
56
Between these two extremes of overseas conquest by either Yamato

or Paekche are some other less dramatic perspectives. These could
include some late manifestation of an ‘incubation’ stage, with Korean
migrants settling in northern Kyushu for several generations before
extending their influence to Honshu. Another model is the Korean
satellite theory, which holds that groups of migrants from various parts
of the peninsula established outpost communities at different times in
the islands of Wa, while at the same time retaining contacts with their
cousins across the Tsushima Straits.
In its initial stages at least, therefore, the Yamato realm can hardly be
thought of as an integrated state. The giant tombs of Ōjin and Nintoku
reflect considerable political power, but some impressive large examples
also indicate the emergence of strong regional polities in Kibi, northern
Kyushu and Hyūga in the late fourth and early fifth centuries.35
Moreover, the particular style of tombs confined to northern Kyushu
not only reveals close ties with Kaya, but even suggests a culturally dis-
tinct ‘Kyushu realm’ (Kyushu Ōchō), just as the emergence of a ‘Hyūga
realm’ is possibly reflected in the Saitobaru complex further south in
Miyazaki. Regional rulers in Kyushu may have pledged their loyalty at
some stage to the emerging Yamato regime, but they maintained an
international outlook and had their own overseas connections. In the
north they could also control the sea lanes linking the islands of Wa with
the Korean peninsula. Although tenuously incorporated within the
Yamato polity, therefore, these rulers were involved in a wider network
of alliances, and could draw on alternative sources of political support.
When one such leader rebelled against his overlords, he potentially had
the power to threaten the viability of the Yamato state.
The Iwai Rebellion

By the late fifth century the political authority of the Yamato regime
had become more widely established under the rule of Yūryaku. He
was recorded as the fifth and last in a dynastic line that had begun with
Ōjin and Nintoku, and whose power was so extensive that they are col-
lectively mentioned as the ‘five great kings’ in Chinese chronicles.36
This is borne out by the increasingly uniform design of great tombs
(kofun), and also the discovery in tombs as far apart as Kumamoto in
Kyushu and the Kantō plain (near present-day Tokyo) of swords with
57
inscriptions pledging allegiance to Yūryaku’s rule. Yamato, however,

was not yet so much a unified polity as the dominant power in a con-
federation of regional rulers distributed through the islands of Wa.
Bound by the personal authority of the ‘king’ and the allegiance of
several powerful clans grouped strategically in the Nara basin, it was
still a fragile hegemony.
Following the rule of Yūryaku and this formative era of ‘five great
kings’, the Yamato state of the early sixth century appears to have been
beset with internal conflict. Neighbouring Kibi (now in Okayama
Prefecture) was a powerful threat, with its own independent cultural tra-
dition.37 Across the mountains on the northern shores of Honshu,
Izumo (now in Shimane Prefecture) had also remained largely beyond
Yamato’s control during the era of the ‘five great kings’. As late as 608,
Chinese envoys passing through Suō (now Yamaguchi Prefecture) were
also surprised to find that the ‘people [there] were identical with the
Chinese of the Middle Kingdom’. It has been suggested that they may
have been a migrant colony, partly because the Ōuchi family which
dominated the area in medieval times traced its ancestry to a Korean
prince thought to have settled in the area at the onset of the seventh
century.38
If Yamato authority was less than emphatic in western Honshu, the
regime had a precarious hold across the Kanmon (or Shimonoseki)
Straits in Tsukushi. The Chronicles refer to several regional chieftains in
the sixth century who controlled large territories in northern and central
Kyushu apparently on behalf of the Yamato state, among them
Tsukushi no Kimi, Hi no Kimi, Aso no Kimi (based in the highland area
around Mt Aso), and Ōkita no Kimi (ruling lands now in Ōita
Prefecture). According to a model devised by Inoue Tatsuo, Kyushu
may be broadly divided into three geographical categories until it was
brought more firmly under Yamato control from the mid-seventh
century onwards. The ‘Tsukushi’ region in the north was culturally the
most akin to the Yamato state and served as its base of operations there.
Further south in central Kyushu, the lands of the now subjugated
Kumaso people had less in common with Yamato. In the far south the
Hayato were yet to be fully pacified, and although their representatives
would appear at court to pay tribute from the mid-seventh century
onwards, it was not until the eighth century that they were finally
reconciled to Yamato rule.39
58
Even in the Tsukushi heartland in the north of the island, Yamato

authority was still far from assured. This was because, although closer
to Honshu, the region was also subject to political influence from the
Korean peninsula. There was, for example, a significant level of contact
with Silla, a power whose territorial expansion was now threatening the
interests of Paekche, and, if they clung on to dreams of a presence on
the continent, the Yamato rulers as well. According to the Chronicles,
Yūryaku had acknowledged a longstanding Silla presence in Tsukushi
when he warned of an approaching conflict: ‘Silla occupies the Western
land; age after age he has done us homage . . . [but now] . . . he has
betaken himself beyond Tsushima.’40 This helps to explains why
records held at the Great Shrine of Munakata to the east of Fukuoka
City indicate the receipt of gifts from not just Yamato but Silla as well.
A few miles inland in Tagawa City, the Kawara Shrine is also dedicated
to a deity from Silla, and colourful roof tiles characteristic of Silla design
have also been found in the area. These are not isolated cases, as the
north coast of Kyushu abounds with place names suggesting Korean
influence, among them Hakata, Munakata and Yahata. According to
one claim, Shirakibaru, now a station on the Nishitetsu line in the
suburbs of Fukuoka, also reflects the arrival of migrants from Silla
(pronounced Shira in Japanese).41
A combination of dynastic rivalries at court, Tsukushi’s strategic
importance, and its contacts with the Korean peninsula always made
this region vulnerable to the threat of rebellion against the Yamato state.
The Chronicles even suggest a precedent in an episode in which
Takenouchi Sukune, a powerful figure at Ōjin’s court, once plotted an
uprising there by claiming, ‘Alone I will cut off Tsukushi and will invite
the three Han to come and do homage to me.’42 It was little surprise,
therefore, that the first major uprising against the Yamato state broke
out in northern Kyushu. The occasion was the rise to power of Keitai,
Yūryaku’s successor and a ruler from a different regional background
than the ‘five great kings’, possibly from Echizen to the northeast of the
Kinai area.43 Since Ōjin, the supposed founder of this first line of kings,
had apparently been born in Kyushu, the accession of this new over-
lord in itself might have weakened the allegiance of Kyushu chieftains
to the Yamato state.
It was Keitai’s ambitious plans for an overseas military campaign
that seem to have provoked armed resistance in 527. According to the
59
Chronicles his aim was to defend Yamato’s interests in the rich coastal
plains of Kaya, specifically the enclave at Mimana Nihonfu which had
come under sustained attack from the mountain kingdom of Silla.
Preparations for the campaign, however, were delayed for several years
when the most powerful figure in northern Kyushu, Iwai Tsukushi no
Kimi (Lord of Tsukushi), raised an army and challenged the Yamato
state. He also took command of the sea-lanes across the Tsushima
Straits, intercepting ships from the peninsula bearing gifts (or tribute)
to the Yamato court. Iwai’s opposition to the campaign against Silla has
been characterized as an internal rebellion on an international scale.
‘Fearing that the matter would be hard to accomplish’, he had now
struck up an alliance against Yamato, or as the Chronicles relate, suc-
cumbed to Silla’s secret bribery.44 His dissenting outlook, however, was
perhaps more realistic than that of the Yamato court, which for years
afterwards would try to maintain a presence in the Korean peninsula
that it were ultimately powerless to uphold.45
Iwai had a formidable power base in northern Kyushu. His title
Tsukushi no Kimi implies at least that he had previously recognized
Yamato authority, but he was lord of a regime that had its own distinct
style. Iwai held court at a place called Iwatoyama near Yame (now in the
far south of Fukuoka Prefecture), tucked away in the foothills of the
central Kyushu mountains. Judging from the statues of men and horses
found there, this was unlike anything within the Yamato cultural sphere.
The extent of his territories is also evident from the fact that such stone
images (sekijin) have been found over a wide area stretching across
Kumamoto, Fukuoka and Ōita prefectures. Another feature indicative
of a regional political centre spanning several generations is the long line
of tombs strung out along a high ridge near Iwatoyama, commanding a
prominent position overlooking the Chikugo and Yabe rivers that wind
through the flood plains on either side.46
The Yamato state moved swiftly to confront the threat of Iwai’s
insurrection, as an army said to have numbered 60,000 men was
despatched to Tsukushi under the leadership of the general Mononobe
Ōmuraji Arakabi.47 Iwai’s position was severely weakened when the
reinforcements he had been promised by Silla failed to materialize.
Nevertheless, the rebellion lasted for a year and a half until the decisive
battle in which Iwai is recorded to have been killed, although some
sources claim that he managed to escape into hiding. His son quickly
60
came to terms and ceded the ‘granary’ of Kasuya no Miyake, a military

supply base a few miles to the south of Hakata Bay. Iwai himself is
thought to have been buried at the great tomb next to his court at
Iwatoyama.48
The removal of this rebel lord reinforced Yamato control over some
vital bases on the north Kyushu coast, but it did not yet allow the impo-
sition of direct rule in the region. Indeed, the most conspicuous shift in
power relations in the decades that followed seems to have been the
emergence of another powerful regional lord called Hi no Kimi, who
was based in Higo in central Kyushu to the south of Iwai’s capital at
Iwatoyama. According to Hizen no Kuni Fudoki (Gazetteer of Hizen
Province), this ruler boasted a proud lineage as a descendant of Tate
Wokumi, the general who had once subjugated the Kumaso on behalf
of the ‘emperor’ Keikō.49 The archaeological record reveals that in the
late sixth century Higo-style tombs can be found increasingly in the area
to the north as well, suggesting political expansion into the territories
that had once been under Iwai’s control. One example has even been
found near Hakata Bay less than half-a-mile away from the principal
military base for overseas campaigns to the Korean peninsula. It would
appear, therefore, that the Yamato state was only able to maintain its
hegemony and control over supply routes in Tsukushi through cooper-
ative ties with Higo-based regional chieftains. The Chronicles, for
example, report that when Prince Hye of Paekche was escorted from
Yamato en route to his homeland in 556, ‘[t]he Lord of Hi in Tsukushi
was sent separately . . . in command of 1,000 valiant soldiers to escort
him’ through his lands.50
For how long any distinct ‘Kyushu realm’ maintained its own control
over the north of the island remains open to question. It has long been
claimed that Chinese records describing the islands of Wa from
Yamatai up to the time of the ‘five kings’ may have referred to regional
polities in Kyushu rather than the Yamato state of the Kinai area.
Furuta Takehiko has provoked considerable debate by extending this
notion to argue that an independent ‘Kyushu realm’ (Kyushu Ōchō)
endured until late in the seventh century. In support of his claims he
asks why, for example, there are Chinese records of an envoy from the
‘king of Wa’ visiting the Sui court in China in 600, although this does
not feature at all in the Chronicles (it was in 607 that the empress Suiko
is recorded as sending an embassy from the Yamato court).51 Also, the
61
observations of Sui envoys visiting Japan graphically describe the land-

scape around Mt Aso ‘where the rocks for no reason erupt in fire that
touches the heavens’, but make no reference of any onward journey
through the Inland Sea to the Yamato court.52
Around 670 there was certainly an important political watershed with
what amounted to the official declaration of Nihon (Japan), the realm of
the ‘rising sun’. Before then, Amino Yoshihiko suggests that it would be
more accurate to refer to the inhabitants of the islands of Wa as ‘pre-
“Japanese” dwellers and civilizations of the archipelago’.53 Furuta main-
tains that when the Tang court in China finally recognized a state called
‘Nihon’, it was also acknowledging a shift in the political regime in north-
ern Kyushu.54 His claims that this was just one of several regionally-based
polities have recently drawn support, together with some scepticism.55
Even if the Yamato state had already secured a degree of political hege-
mony in northern and central Kyushu, Iwai Kimi and then Hi no Kimi
clearly promoted distinctive cultural regimes there for much of the sixth
century and possibly beyond. Rather than any programme of state expan-
sion, moreover, it was the Yamato court’s external relations and the secu-
rity of Tsukushi in particular that seems to have prompted the
announcement of ‘Nihon’. As Gavan McCormack suggests, ‘the process
was stimulated by events in Korea . . . creating a need for the dwellers of
the “Japanese” islands to conceive of an identity for themselves, and
perhaps to prepare a unified response to any invasion’.56
Tsukushi as a frontier zone

The fall of Iwai had some important implications for the islands of Wa.
It enabled an unprecedented flow of cultural exchange between
Paekche and the Yamato court, including the arrival of doctors, herbal-
ists and astronomers. Significantly, it was also just a decade or so after
his death that Buddhism was transmitted to Japan. At the same time it
marked the onset of concerted Yamato activity in establishing military
bases in key areas on the northern coasts of Tsukushi. In addition to the
‘granary’ of Kasuya no Miyake ceded by Iwai’s son, a base called
Nanotsu Miyake was set up closer to the shore of Hakata Bay, and in
536 a line of miyake bases was established along the Inland Sea.
After the Iwai Rebellion, therefore, Tsukushi developed into a front
line of attack as successive generations of soldiers were stationed in this
62
outpost of Yamato rule. According to the Nihon Shoki it was Ōtomo

Sadehiko who, having left his new bride Sayō-hime behind ‘went to
Imna and restored peace there. He also lent aid to Pèkché.’57 Such cam-
paigns to ‘retrieve’ Mimana Nihonfu were arguably an agenda of con-
quest, but as Iwai had suspected, they were unable to prevent Silla’s
gradual expansion. By 562, Silla had completely absorbed the Kaya con-
federacy on the southern coast of the Korean peninsula and now shared
borders with Paekche. This marked the onset of territorial rivalry
between these two kingdoms as, in response to Paekche’s requests for
assistance, Yamato military operations based in Tsukushi increasingly
took on the form of relief expeditions.58
In return for aid against Silla, cultural ties between Yamato and
Paekche were reinforced as scholars and rare gifts continued to arrive
at court. At the same time senior members of the imperial line ended
up spending months and sometimes years based along the north coasts
of Tsukushi, as they marshalled their forces in support of their allies
across the Tsushima Straits. Occasional successes provided glimpses of
hope, such as in 600 when a Yamato army sent by the empress Suiko
achieved a great victory over Silla. Later in the seventh century another
empress – known as Kōgoku during her first term as ruler and Saimei
during the second – launched several overseas campaigns in response
to Paekche’s desperate pleas for help.
Silla was clearly becoming the dominant force in the southern half of
the Korean peninsula. An important factor was the alliance struck with
the might of Tang China in response to provocation from a mutual
enemy, the kingdom of Koguryŏ to the north. To clear their path for an
assault on the Koguryŏ capital of P’yŏngyang, by 660 Silla and Tang
armies had agreed to strike first against the embattled state of Paekche
in the west, which was now threatened with encirclement. After receiv-
ing a request for help, Saimei moved to Tsukushi to supervise prepara-
tions for a relief expedition, but before this could be launched she died
in 661 at Asakura, a few miles south of the army’s headquarters at
Nanotsu Miyake.
Without Saimei the war effort was taken up by her son Naka, later
known as the ‘Great King’ Tenji. At a critical naval encounter two years
later, however, a fleet of Tang and Silla warships intercepted and crushed
a force of Yamato vessels as they arrived at the mouth of the Kŭm River,
downstream from the Paekche capital of Puyŏ (Sabi). In the Battle of
63
Paekchon River (as the Kŭm River used to be called), Chinese sources
record that as many as four hundred Yamato ships were sunk.59 This all
but confirmed the destruction of the kingdom of Paekche which, despite
an attempted restoration, was finally overrun within a decade. Moreover,
it swiftly brought an end to the Yamato state’s overseas military activi-
ties, and nearly a thousand years would pass before a ruler of Japan
would next attempt to send troops across the Tsushima Straits.60
Following the destruction of Paekche, exiles fled to the islands of Wa
and began to arrive on the northern shores of Tsukushi, which now
became a front line of defence against the expected invasion from Silla
and Tang China. Nanotsu Miyake was considered too close to the sea
to be safe from attack, so the military headquarters was moved further
inland, several miles to the south. In response to the perceived threat,
the task of defending the Yamato army’s positions in Tsukushi was
entrusted to engineers from Paekche. Under their supervision an earth-
work rampart stretching across the valley was constructed in 664, just a
year after the Battle of Paekchon River. According to the Nihon Shoki,
‘a great embankment was built in Tsukushi to store water. It was named
the Water Fortress (mizuki).’ This was an impressive work of engineer-
ing, originally forty-six feet high and 115 feet thick at the base, and
would have required a workforce of several thousand to complete the
project within just one year. Moreover, border guards and signal fires
were put in place in the Tsushima and Iki islands, and along the coast
of Tsukushi. These border guards (sakimori) manned the defences on a
three-year tour of duty, but they appear to have been largely conscripted
from eastern Honshu, not drawn locally from Kyushu.61 This may have
been partly motivated by the need to guarantee the loyalty of troops
along this sensitive frontier; the Yamato state did not want any repeat
of the Iwai Rebellion. It was a system that would remain in place until
795, when guards from Kyushu were finally introduced instead.62
Mizuki was just the start of a concerted effort to protect northern
Kyushu from attack. As Bruce Batten has noted, ‘the post-war con-
struction must have dwarfed the war effort itself’. In 665, the fortress
of Ōnojō was built under the supervision of Paekche exiles on a high
hill overlooking Mizuki on the east side of the valley.63 Today, the foun-
dations of this castle can still be seen, just as sections of the now
wooded Mizuki wall remain as a thin green line stretching three quar-
ters of a mile across the valley floor below, bisected by the railway lines
64
and motorways that run from Fukuoka to the city of Kurume further
south.
All this construction was intended to confront an invasion that, for-
tunately for the inhabitants of Tsukushi, Yamato guards and Paekche
exiles alike, never materialized. After their joint victory at Paekchon
River, Silla and Tang China were unable to maintain a united front and
fought instead over the spoils in the kingdom they had combined to
destroy. The ramparts of Mizuki would not be used against a foreign
invader until five hundred years later when the Mongols, having con-
quered much of continental Asia, turned their attention to the subjuga-
tion of Japan. As Batten points out, while the impact of the Battle of
Paekchon River on Japan as a whole is sometimes overestimated, it
unquestionably had a major effect on northern Kyushu as, in effect, ‘it
created an international boundary where none had existed before’.64
The Paekche diaspora also exerted a significant cultural influence on
Yamato, as leading figures from the fallen Korean state regrouped to
build a new life in the Japanese islands. For defensive reasons Tenji built
a new Korean-style fortress capital at Ōtsu, near the shores of Lake
Biwa. The Paekche nobility in exile also became prominent figures at
the increasingly multicultural Yamato court. Most of the Taihō Code, a
groundbreaking set of land reforms implemented in 701, was written by
such exiles, using Korean units of measurement (jōrei) to determine the
size of fields. As already noted, there was also a certain Korean influ-
ence on the Chronicles compiled a decade later. Other Paekche migrants
settled in Kyushu, and not only on the northern coastline to guard
against attack from their former enemies. In the village of Nangō in the
mountains of Miyazaki Prefecture, for example, stands the Mikado
Shrine, which is dedicated to the Paekche royal line. Tradition holds
that Prince Shika of Paekche and his extended family arrived in the area
after a dispute drove them out of the Yamato court. Their two ships
were initially bound for Tsukushi through the Kanmon Straits but were
blown off course in the Inland Sea and driven south through the Bungo
Channel before arriving at different points on the north Miyazaki coast.
The two groups then made their way separately inland to the moun-
tains, with Prince Shika establishing a community at Nangō while his
son settled in the village of Kijō sixty-five miles to the south.65
The Paekche nobility, however, were not the only exotic new arrivals
at the late seventh-century Yamato court. There were also hostages and
65
vassals from the so-called barbarian peoples on the fringes of their

‘empire’, as Yamato armies, barred from further military adventures in
Korea, now turned their attention to pacifying the people with whom
they shared the islands of Wa. It is still something of a puzzle that Yamato
rulers were content to defer the subjugation of people like the Kumaso
and Hayato in Kyushu in favour of military adventures in the Korean
peninsula. It would seem that for long periods the allure of the cultural
capital obtainable from associating with relatively advanced kingdoms
such as Paekche outshone the prospect of territorial expansion closer to
home. This certainly helped to reinforce the still fragile political legiti-
macy that the Yamato state tried to invoke when staking its claim to rule
over powerful regional lords such as Iwai in northern Kyushu, who after
all could boast Korean connections of their own.
In cultural terms, defeat at sea in 663 also proved to be a pivotal
moment for the Yamato state. As the memory of the disaster on the
Paekchon River faded, the balance of power in the Korean peninsula
lost the burning importance it had once held for the inhabitants of these
islands. Over time, the Paekche court in exile would be absorbed into
Yamato society, and Tsukushi no longer served as an advance base for
overseas military expeditions. Instead, the northern coastline evolved
into the outer extremity of Yamato rule as an international frontier with
a fortified border, clearly demarcating Japanese political control from
other states across the sea. Even if the victory over Iwai more than a
hundred years before had not yet confirmed its political authority in the
region, as a result of this state-led construction ‘the island and its inhab-
itants were now firmly under Yamato’s thumb’.66 The area around
Nanotsu Miyake that had once been the centre for planning military
expeditions became instead the first line of defence, and also a gateway
for diplomatic exchange with the continental powers.67 This was char-
acterized by formal ties with imperial China, which by the seventh
century had emerged from centuries of fragmentation to take a more
active role in orchestrating international relations. Even as the walls of
Mizuki and Ōnojō were being built in the 660s, Tang emissaries were
arriving in Hakata Bay with a view to drawing the Yamato state more
closely into the China-centred political order in East Asia.
66
CHAPTER 4
DAZAIFU:
THE DISTANT COURT

very year, thousands of high school students make their way to the
E Dazaifu Tenmangū Shrine, a few miles south of Fukuoka City.
After lining up and waiting their turn, these young pilgrims pray to
Tenjin, the ‘God of Letters’, for success in passing their university
entrance exams. The shrine is housed in a distinctive building, with a
sweeping roof of thatched bark and lacquered crimson beams dating
back to the seventeenth century. It has a far more ancient heritage,
however, stretching to an era over a thousand years ago when Dazaifu
was known among the courtiers of Kyoto as the ‘distant court’ of Heian
Japan.
In life, Tenjin was the renowned scholar Sugawara Michizane, whose
prodigious talent illuminated the imperial court at Heian (Kyoto) during
the late ninth century. Such was his skill in composing Chinese verse
that even visiting emissaries sent by Tang dynasty emperors were
impressed. Although he hailed from an illustrious noble family,
however, factional infighting at court led to his appointment as gover-
nor of far-off Dazaifu in 901. As an administrative centre Dazaifu was
second in importance only to Kyoto, and to be governor was the
highest post in the realm outside the imperial seat at Heian. At the same
time it effectively meant banishment from court.
Condemned to a life of reluctant exile, Sugawara died in Dazaifu two
years later in 903. His demise cast such a shadow over the court, espe-
cially among his former enemies. In years to come his hand was seen at
work in a wave of ominous signs, most conspicuously in 930 when there
was a severe drought and lightning struck the palace. Now feared as a
thunder god, Sugawara was formally deified in the form of Tenjin in 947
67
when the Kitano Tenmangū Shrine was built on the outskirts of Heian
in an effort to placate his angry spirit. In Dazaifu, meanwhile, a small
altar had appeared in his memory as early as 905, and the cult of Tenjin
would become a feature of devotional life at the Anrakuji Temple later
built on this site. Buddhist elements were finally removed in 1869 when
Shinto shrines and temples were separated by order of the new Meiji
state, and this grand building took its present form as a place devoted
solely to the cult of Tenjin.1
References to the Sugawara legend abound in Dazaifu. Inside the
entrance to the shrine marked by an imposing torii gate is a statue of
an ox, recalling the animal that effectively decided the location of
Sugawara’s grave when, carrying his body during the funeral procession,
it suddenly collapsed and died en route. The approach to the shrine is
lined with stalls selling umegae-mochi, a red bean-paste cake taking its
name from plum branches. In the inner courtyard is the so-called tobi-
ume (flying plum), a tree recalling the poems that Sugawara composed
before his departure for Dazaifu, in which he begged his favourite plum
tree to let the wind carry its fragrance to him far away in exile. The
legend holds that the tree was so moved that it uprooted from his
garden and flew to join him there.2 Today the surrounding area is also
covered with thousands of plum trees. Other nearby attractions set up
in the post-war era to lure the hordes of visitors include a rusting amuse-
ment park. A more recent addition, reached by escalators running
through a tunnel cut into the hillside, is the futuristic new Kyushu
National Museum, concealed from view on the other side.
The Dazaifu Headquarters

The name Dazaifu translates literally as ‘Great Government
Headquarters’. According to the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan), an
official had been appointed to the post of Tsukushi Dazai, or ‘Viceroy’
of Tsukushi, as early as 609 to represent the Yamato court and receive
overseas guests.3 How much authority this title initially carried is open
to question, but the idea of a permanent government presence certainly
took hold in the middle of the seventh century. In the years following
the Yamato fleet’s crushing defeat at the Battle of Paekchon River in
663, new headquarters were built for the viceroy here in the relative
safety of this site a few miles inland from the shores of Hakata Bay. The
68
Dazaifu: The Distant Court
northern coasts of Tsukushi had long since been a military frontier for
overseas campaigns on the Korean peninsula, but now with the threat
of attack from the victorious forces of Tang China and Silla they were
rapidly transformed into a fortified defensive border. Dazaifu itself was
tucked behind the defensive ramparts of Mizuki and overlooked by the
hilltop fortress of Ōnojō, both built with the help of Paekche exiles.
Instead of invading troops, however, the small fleets that arrived in
Hakata Bay – now the ‘designated gateway’ – carried emissaries from
Yamato’s former enemies. The role of ‘gatekeeper’ fell to government
officials at the Dazaifu Headquarters, which Bruce Batten describes as
‘the command centre south of the bay’.4 Before long it had become an
important centre of diplomatic and cultural exchange.
Away from the crowds that today make their way from the station to
the Tenmangū Shrine, the streets off the beaten track are relatively
quiet. A fifteen-minute stroll to the north, for example, leads to a sur-
prisingly large area of open ground covered with grass, an unusual
feature in this built-up valley. This is known as ‘Tofuro Ato’, the site of
the ancient government buildings at Dazaifu. All that remains today are
the foundation stones of the colonnades that once enclosed an impos-
ing courtyard and a grand reception hall. These are the remnants of a
later structure built in the tenth century after the original seventh-
century buildings had been destroyed.
Reconstructions of how Tofuro Ato might once have looked portray
a noticeably Korean architectural style, comparable perhaps with the
last Paekche capital of Sabi (Puyŏ). In terms of layout it also carries the
unmistakable stamp of Chinese cultural influence. Like the medieval
palaces in Seoul, for example, the choice of location is governed by
Taoist cosmology, situated in a splendid setting with mountains behind
and a river running in front. The imperial cities later built in Japan were
modelled on Chang’an, the magnificent Tang capital (now in Xian), in
the form of grid patterns criss-crossed by broad avenues. Although not
as extensive Dazaifu also bears the hallmarks of such a design. Today
the southern approach to the main entrance of Tofuro Ato is still called
Suzaku Avenue, just like the road that leads to the ancient palaces
in Nara, Kyoto, and, inevitably, the approach to the main gate in
Chang’an.5
Dazaifu was consciously laid out to impress official visitors from the
continent. The importance of ceremony and diplomatic protocol were
69
always paramount, with close attention paid to ensuring that the style
and level of culture on display would reflect favourably on the Yamato
state when these guests reported back to their own courts. Musicians
trained in gagaku (the world’s first polyphonic music) and dancers would
be on hand to entertain them during the official banquets laid on during
their stays here on the north coast of Tsukushi. Developed first in China
with some variations introduced from Korea, these art forms were the
direct forbears of the formal dance styles that subsequently developed
in medieval Japan into sarugaku and Nō theatre.6
Among the grand buildings a short walk down Suzaku Avenue was
the Buddhist temple of Kanzeonji. According to tradition this was built
in honour of the empress Saimei who died in nearby Asakura in 661.
Although destroyed on several occasions, it still boasts one of the two
oldest bells in Japan dating to 697. It held great symbolic importance,
reflecting the state’s receptivity to the ‘civilizing’ influence of Buddhist
culture and its participation in a common East Asian religious lan-
guage, as travellers from abroad could give thanks here or pray to a
familiar deity for safe passage across the sea. It was also one of only
three temples during the early days of Buddhism in Japan – the others
were in Nara and Kantō – where trainee priests were allowed to
graduate.7
According to the Taihō Code of 701, a systematic attempt by the
Yamato state to impose control over its expanding territories, Dazaifu
was officially charged with two main functions as an administrative
centre. Its primary domestic role was to supervise the lands of
Tsukushi, or the Saikaidō circuit, the new administrative term for the
island that was just coming into use. Its other major task was to receive
foreign emissaries. Batten has described Dazaifu as the ‘Immigration
Office’ of Heian Japan.8 The analogy could even be extended to call it
a ‘Ministry of Foreign Affairs’. Based on a Chinese model the Taihō
Code established a Council of State called the Dajōkan, which featured
the equivalent of most modern ministerial posts including departments
for finance, law and the military, but with the glaring exception of
foreign affairs. More by default than design, perhaps, it fell to the gov-
ernor of Dazaifu to fill this role. The official appointed was often an
imperial prince, for he had to be suitably senior in rank to represent the
state when receiving guests from abroad.
70
The Tsukushi Lodge (Kōrokan)

A key element in the Dazaifu Headquarters’ role as a centre of diplo-
matic exchange was the Tsukushi Lodge, a lavishly appointed guest-
house close to the shore of Hakata Bay. This was where foreign
dignitaries were accommodated on their arrival and also where they
spent most of their time during their sojourns in Japan. Occasional
invitations to official banquets would be the signal for day trips down
the valley to Dazaifu itself. For the most part, however, there was little
to relieve the tedium for these often large retinues of officials who had
made the trip by sea. A strictly regulated regime enforced at the
Tsukushi Lodge also limited opportunities for contact with the local
population to an absolute minimum. Their stays could last for several
months, especially if an invitation was forthcoming for a smaller dele-
gation to make the return voyage to the imperial capital in the Nara
basin.
A guesthouse for receiving foreign envoys had first been set up in
this area close to the sea in the early seventh century. Initially called
Tsukushi no Taizai, this was probably located near Nanotsu Miyake, the
military base the Yamato regime used for its Korean campaigns.
Previously, emissaries had been described in the Nihon Shoki as ‘mes-
sengers’, but now they were referred to as ‘guests’. The Tsukushi Lodge
(Tsukushi no Murotsumi) first appears in the Nihon Shoki in 688, as con-
struction appears to have begun shortly after the Battle of Paekchon
River in 663. The war prompted a series of high-profile diplomatic
visits, with no less than five Tang embassies arriving between 664 and
671, some of them bringing large numbers of Paekche and Yamato pris-
oners for resettlement. Not surprisingly, these overtures were greeted
with guarded suspicion by the Yamato authorities, even if they offered
less of a military threat than simply the intention ‘to impress upon Japan
its subordinate place in the Tang-centred universe’.9 Only one such
mission received an invitation to attend the Yamato court, so these hon-
oured guests often had to be accommodated and entertained for
months on end here by the shores of Hakata Bay, and it fell to the new
governor of Dazaifu to furnish them with the lavish gifts their exalted
status demanded.
Long sojourns at the Tsukushi Lodge were also the order of the day
for most members of the twenty-three embassies from Silla that arrived
71
in Hakata Bay in the late seventh century. Quite apart from any linger-
ing suspicions over the intentions of their former enemies this policy of
keeping foreign envoys away from the Yamato court was partly moti-
vated by a sense of embarrassment at the lack of suitably imposing
buildings there. Any dearth of facilities was largely overcome with the
construction of new capitals in the early years of the eighth century, and
envoys from Silla subsequently used the Tsukushi Lodge more as a
staging post before the onward journey to the imperial court.10 By the
middle of the eighth century, moreover, any remaining inferiority com-
plexes were largely overcome by the completion of the impressive new
temple of Tōdaiji in Nara, a building that drew the admiration of the
East Asian Buddhist world.
The Tsukushi Lodge was actively used for several hundred years.
During its heyday in the Nara and early Heian periods in the eighth and
ninth centuries, it played an important role in enabling the reception of
Chinese culture. It was during this period that the Tang emperors devel-
oped the tribute system to project a Sino-centric world order throughout
East Asia. The Yamato court was content to subscribe to tributary status
in return not only for the prestige this conferred, but for the access it
granted to sophisticated political and cultural models for possible adap-
tation in Japan.
The agents of this cultural transfer were visiting Tang and Silla envoys,
besides Japanese emissaries, students and priests returning from their
travels on the continent. Known as the kentōshi, the Japanese court’s
diplomatic missions to Tang China were elaborate expeditions with, on
occasion, more than five hundred participants travelling on four ships
fitted out in Hakata Bay to cross the East China Sea. In total, fifteen such
expeditions were sent to the Tang capital between 630 and 838. Partly
due to Chang’an’s location deep inland in China, participants might
spend several months or even years travelling on the continent, or longer
if they stayed to absorb the cosmopolitan culture there. In a park on the
outskirts of Xian today, for example, is a monument to Abe Nakamaro,
a Japanese official who arrived in Chang’an in 717 as part of an embassy
comprising 570 delegates and remained behind to become an established
figure at the Tang court for several decades until his death in 770.11
These official expeditions included large numbers of Japanese
monks, some of whom were given permission to travel within China to
explore different religious teachings. This resulted in the introduction
72
of various Buddhist sects. A priest called Ennin, for example, kept

records of the nine years he spent travelling in China. On his return in
847 he stayed at the Tsukushi Lodge, which in 883 had been renamed
the Dazaifu Kōrokan, adapting the imagery of an equivalent facility at
the Tang capital of Chang’an called the Kōroji.12 Ennin went on to
found the Tendai sect on Mt Hiei on the outskirts of Heian (Kyoto).13
With the development of overseas travel to the Asian continent, the
Kōrokan came to feature in contemporary literature as the point of
departure at the outset of ocean voyages. Several verses in the Man’yōshū
(Songs of Myriad Leaves) refer to the beach and headland of Aratsu, the
inlet of Hakata Bay by the shore just below the Kōrokan, where trav-
ellers would embark at the start of their journey. The name of the
modern city of Fukuoka can even be traced to this small peninsula,
since the connotations of ‘rough waters’ implicit in the characters for
Aratsu were later considered so unsuitable that it was replaced with the
more propitious name of Fukusaki. The first character was then used
when the Kuroda family built the castle they called Fukuoka on the
nearby hill in the early seventeenth century.14
Besides the treasures brought as ‘gifts’ from China, artefacts of great
value were brought to the Kōrokan by emissaries from Silla, now the
pre-eminent state in the Korean peninsula following the fall of Paekche.
The most valuable items were often sent on to the Kinai area where,
from the eighth century they were collected at the Shōsōin, the imper-
ial court’s treasure-trove in Nara which survives to this day, and offers
a wonderful insight into craftsmanship throughout East Asia more than
a thousand years ago. Several miles off the northern coast of Kyushu
there is also a small rocky island called Okinoshima which, due to its
own rich array of treasures, has gained a reputation as the ‘Shōsōin of
the Sea’. Whereas the articles found on Okinoshima range mostly from
the fourth to the seventh centuries, those kept in the Shōsōin date
mainly from the eighth. This apparent shift in location for storing trea-
sures from abroad has been cited in support of the argument that the
Yamato court did not exert systematic control over northern Kyushu
(and its imported wealth) until well into the seventh century.15
The small shrine on Okinoshima, together with another on the island
of Ōshima and a grander structure on shore, form between them
the Great Shrine of Munakata, and are each dedicated to one of
Amaterasu’s three daughters. Prized objects have traditionally been
73
stored there as devotive gifts, ceremonially placed by priests who are

still the only people allowed to set foot on the island, for since time
immemorial women have not been permitted to tread this sacred
ground. Surveys of the treasures on Okinoshima have revealed evi-
dence of a surprisingly extensive trade network. Among them are items
from the Middle East and Africa, which may have reached the East
China Sea through the hands of Persian and Arab merchants as their
activities expanded across the Indian Ocean during the seventh century.
It was due to such far-flung traders that Okinoshima and later the
Shōsōin became the terminus of the ‘Maritime Silk Road’ which
emerged in competition with land routes across the Gobi Desert.16
The Kōrokan, meanwhile, continued to be used even after diplo-
matic contacts with the continent lapsed in the late ninth century, but
the facility was finally abandoned around 1100. While the location of
the Dazaifu Headquarters was never in doubt, the site of the Kōrokan
was forgotten for centuries after the heyday of Heian Japan, and was
only rediscovered in the closing years of the twentieth century. Today
one of the most prominent landmarks in Fukuoka City is the Fukuoka
Dome, a futuristic baseball stadium complete with retractable roof,
built in 1993 on reclaimed land by the sea. The impetus for its con-
struction was partly influenced by the unexpected demise of the old
Heiwa-dai (Peace Stadium), a more modest structure built shortly after
the Pacific War, just inside the moat of Fukuoka Castle. This was the
home of the legendary Nishitetsu Lions baseball team, subsequently
known as the Seibu Lions.
An amateur archaeologist had tentatively identified this area as a pos-
sible site of the long-lost Kōrokan in the 1920s, and some early exca-
vations revealed a large quantity of ancient tiles. Yet it was only when
the remains of an ancient structure were revealed during the course of
renovation work around the Heiwa-dai stadium in 1987 that his theory
was finally confirmed. By this time the scale of popular interest in local
heritage was approaching the modern passion for baseball, and after the
importance of the find became apparent the stadium was dismantled
and a full-scale excavation launched. The discovery of this iconic build-
ing, which features after all in the Manyōshū and Nihon Shoki, stirred local
civic pride and symbolically reinforced Fukuoka City’s proud claims to
have become once again Japan’s ‘Gateway to Asia’ in the aftermath of
the Cold War.
74
More than twenty years later excavation work is still going on at the
site of the Kōrokan, and three stages of construction have been identi-
fied. It is perhaps indicative of how communities choose symbols to
reflect their cultural heritage that there was never a strong movement to
restore the keep of Fukuoka Castle, despite the grandeur of its outer
walls and moat. This is in marked contrast with the citizens of
Kumamoto who, as soon as they had gathered enough capital in the
post-war economic boom, set about restoring the magnificent black
keep of their castle in the mid-1960s, as the long list of donations inside
the entrance reveals. Modern residents of Fukuoka never had quite the
same attachment to their castle as found in other cities in Japan. After
all, this is a relatively recent addition by comparison with the adjoining
merchant town of Hakata, let alone the Kōrokan of yore. If any ancient
structure was to be restored here it would perhaps be the Kōrokan
itself, reflecting Fukuoka’s outward-looking self-image at the dawn of
the twenty-first century.
Cultural influences from Tang China

Dazaifu and the Kōrokan developed against a backcloth of the Yamato
state’s engagement with the resurgent power of imperial China. After
centuries of division and conflict much of the territory of the original
empire carved out by the First Emperor was once again under the hege-
mony of one ruler. The territories previously divided between three
kingdoms were reunited first by the short-lived Sui dynasty founded in
589 and then the mighty Tang, which would rule for nearly three
hundred years. With the tribute system now encouraging state-level
contacts, large numbers of envoys, priests and students passed through
the Kōrokan on their return from the continent, and Chinese cultural
influences went on to make a lasting impression in the islands of Japan.
In earlier times these had arrived indirectly, filtered through the
hands of Korean envoys mainly from Paekche. The import of letters
and Buddhism were found to be particularly useful devices for exerting
political control. Buddhism, for example, had been introduced in the
sixth century but was not actively promoted until a power struggle at
the Yamato court when the Soga clan destroyed the heads of the
Mononobe line. The Soga family’s zeal for Buddhism gave them lever-
age over other powerful families at court, and the teaching was officially
75
recognized during the reign of the empress Suiko, whose brother Prince
Shōtoku, a devout adherent, actively encouraged the creation of formal
links with the new Sui dynasty in China.
Diplomatic relations opened in the early seventh century when the
Yamato court sent its first embassies to the Sui capital at Chang’an. The
Chinese, however, probably viewed them as bearers of tribute from an
insignificant client state, and according to Furuta Takehiko’s argument
for a still largely independent ‘Kyushu realm’, they had yet to be even
convinced of Yamato’s claims to supremacy in the islands of Wa. Suiko
certainly took great efforts to stress the power of her court, claiming in
her official letter to the Sui in 607 to rule as ‘Heavenly Heir (tenshi), in
the land where the sun rises’, suggesting parity with China, the land
where the sun sets.17 Some sixty years later in the sensitive political
climate following the destruction of Paekche, the Yamato court again
protested against the Tang envoys’ habit of referring to their lands as
‘Wa’, using a character meaning ‘dwarf’. Instead, they insisted on the
two characters of ‘Ni-hon’, drawn from the old pillow word hinomoto
(source of the sun), a term used for the lands of barbarian Emishi to the
east and north of Yamato.18 It was a name that stuck, for six hundred
years later during his travels in China Marco Polo recorded these same
characters phonetically as ‘Cipangu’, the origin of ‘Japan’ as used in
English today.
Not all of Prince Shōtoku’s cultural innovations caught on in the
islands of Wa, notably his preference for sitting on chairs rather than on
the floor. Nevertheless, through his contact with the Sui court he pio-
neered the adoption of existing Chinese models to build institutions
and extend the control of the Yamato state. In 603, he introduced a
merit-based bureaucratic hierarchy with different coloured caps to dis-
tinguish twelve grades of official rank. The following year he announced
his influential seventeen-article constitution founded on a combination
of Confucian and Buddhist rhetoric. This used the Confucian concept
of li for the first time to express human relations in cosmological terms,
such as in Article Three which stated that ‘Lord is heaven and the min-
ister is earth.’ As if to reinforce the message, Suiko took to presiding
over her courtiers garbed in Chinese-style robes, unlike the warrior
kings of the past who had commanded their men wearing armour.19
Such new institutions created a platform for building a centralized
bureaucracy as the state tried to extend its political authority to include
76
provincial administration. Despite internal unrest and later the threat of

outside attack, or rather perhaps because of them, the trend towards
increased central control continued throughout the seventh century.
The coup d’état which removed the Soga clan from power in 645 did
nothing to diminish the Chinese cultural impact. In fact, the Taika
Edicts announced the following New Year by the triumphant
Nakatomi clan (later the house of Fujiwara) marked the first attempt to
introduce a comprehensive system of codified law. Then in the 660s,
faced with the prospect of invasion following the destruction of
Paekche, ‘Great King’ Tenji’s response was to mark out the territories
of his realm in provinces and districts.
It was left to his successor Tenmu to organize an integrated system
of administrative control when he emerged victorious after a violent
power struggle in 672 known as the Jinshin War. The standardized laws
he commissioned would set a precedent for the Taihō and Yōrō Codes
which followed in 701 and 718. These created the Dajōkan (Council of
State) and uniform court ranks. In place of the clan warfare among uji
houses that had previously characterized the Yamato court, there
emerged instead a bureaucratic culture rife with nepotism, dominated
by the powerful Fujiwara and Mononobe houses.
The Chinese impact on Japanese court culture became increasingly
conspicuous during the seventh century, most visibly in the design first
of palaces, temples and then new capitals. In a symbolic gesture after
taking power from the Soga clan in the 640s, for example, Kōtoku used
Chinese-style tiles for the first time when he rebuilt the palace at
Naniwa (Osaka). Before long entire cities were modelled on the layout
of the Tang capital at Chang’an. In addition to Dazaifu, the ‘distant
court’ in Kyushu, Tenmu planned the first large-scale Chinese-style
capital to be built at Fujiwara in 694. This precedent was soon followed
by grander examples at Heijō (Nara) in 710, Nagaoka in 784 and finally
Heian (Kyoto) in 794.
Importantly, however, the introduction of Buddhism did not alto-
gether replace existing Shinto rituals or beliefs and, even as they
accepted Buddhist symbolism, the court never lost sight of the power
of the kami in the foundation myth of Yamato rule. By the mid-eighth
century, for example, a number of grand buildings with a strong
Buddhist influence were appearing in and around Heijō (Nara), notably
Hyōryūji Temple with its square courtyard and majestic pagoda, and the
77
impressive Tōdaiji Temple, which remains the largest wooden building

in the world today.20 Emperor Shōmu, who built Tōdaiji, consciously
portrayed himself as a servant of the Buddha, and the project was pre-
sented as a symbolic expression of common purpose and values,
achieved with the active cooperation of several outlying provinces.
Nevertheless, just a few years after this magnificent edifice was com-
pleted, in 748 a shrine of the Hachiman sect was set up within Tōdaiji’s
grounds. It was the first time a Shinto shrine had ever been placed
within a Buddhist temple, creating what has been described as ‘a multi-
plex ritual centre’, and setting a significant precedent that would endure
for centuries to come.21
It seems that the Hachiman sect had only recently been founded,
having been established when Usa Shrine (now in Ōita Prefecture) was
built during the Yōrō era (717–724). Today, the Usa Hachiman Shrine
remains the centre of the largest Shinto sect in Japan, with a network of
25,000 shrines spread across the country.22 The presence of a Hachiman
shrine at Tōdaiji reflects the unusual prestige this sect enjoyed at court
from an early stage. It is not clear exactly what this high reputation was
founded on, although the sect’s strong association with Ōjin may have
provided some notional link with the ruling Yamato dynasty. At the
same time it was more for his martial characteristics as a ‘God of War’
that this kami was invoked by warriors (pirates included) for centuries
to come when they carried ‘Hachiman’ banners into battle.23
The use of Chinese imagery, therefore, did not necessarily entail the
rejection of existing belief systems and traditions. In place of the indige-
nous Ōkimi (Great King) that had been used previously, some mon-
archs in the seventh century took to calling themselves Tenshi (Child of
Heaven), Kōtei (Emperor) and, albeit posthumously, even Tennō
(Heavenly Sovereign), the title accorded to the sovereign, or ‘emperor’,
of Japan today. In Chinese texts this term denoted the pole-star of the
northern heavens, so its adoption placed the ruler at the centre of a con-
stellation of satellite states. It was probably at the very end of the
seventh century that the ‘empress’ Jitō became the first ruler to be called
Tennō in her own lifetime. It marked a cultural shift already apparent in
the 670s under ‘Great King’ Tenji, who envisioned his realm as an
insular version of tiensha (all under heaven). Based on the Chinese model
of a middle kingdom receiving tribute from its surrounding satellites
(Silla and Japan included), Tenji now presented himself as a universal
78
sovereign and lord of a multi-ethnic empire of tributary states, among

them the Paekche court in exile and the Hayato people of southern
Kyushu.
Tenji’s successor Tenmu was thus using continental influences when
he went on to portray himself as a heavenly warrior, but he also retained
a deep respect for the myth-history he had inherited from his forbears.
This Sino-Yamato cultural fusion was nowhere more apparent than
when he commissioned the dynastic histories that finally took shape as
the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. Just as Taoist concepts of spatial precedence
were employed, for example, in articulating the hierarchy in the
Dajōkan by placing the minister of the left (sadaijin) higher in rank than
the minister of the right (udaijin), it was no coincidence that in the Kojiki
the Sun Goddess Amaterasu and the Moon God Tsukiyomi were born
from Izanagi’s left and right eyes in turn.24
These Chronicles were completed at a significant stage in Yamato state
formation. In Kyushu the regime’s armies had extended their control
far beyond the frontier zone of Tsukushi in the northern part of the
island and were encroaching on the homelands of the Hayato people in
the far south. The Taihō system introduced a decade before provided
for a provincial militia, but in this region it was more through the coop-
eration of local strongmen that troops were conscripted and organized
for the final push.25 Hayato hostages and bodyguards were now seen at
court, influencing perhaps the suggestion clearly implied in the
Chronicles that a special bond or even blood-link existed with the
Yamato line. It was in 720, the same year that the Nihon Shoki was com-
pleted, that the Hayato rose up in a last rebellion before, after a bitter
campaign, their resistance was finally broken and the whole of Kyushu
Island at last came under the rule of the empire of Nihon.26
This period was also an important stage in the development of core-
periphery relations in Japan. There would be occasions afterwards
when rebellious lords in Kyushu might challenge the authority of the
central regime, but never again in the manner of the Iwai Rebellion of
the early sixth century when Yamato control was barely secured, or its
encroachment was still resisted by independent cultures like the
Hayato. Subsequently, the recurring pattern of rebellion in Kyushu
would involve exile or flight from the centre instead. One of the earli-
est examples occurred within decades of the Yamato court imposing
its political control over Kyushu. In 739, the powerful noble Fujiwara
79
Hirotsugu was sent to the Dazaifu Headquarters. Although he was

awarded the prestigious title of Dazai Shōni, a combination of bad har-
vests and a smallpox epidemic drove him into rebellion in his frustra-
tion at ‘the failures of recent policy’ by the court. Before long he had
raised an army of 15,000 men, including Hayato warriors from the
south who, twenty years on from their final defeat, still resented the
extent of outside interference in their lands. The court responded
by sending a force of 17,000 and, after a three-month campaign, the
uprising was suppressed, partly because the Hayato themselves turned
against him.27 Hirotsugu fled west to the Gotō Islands off the coast of
Hizen Province but was soon captured and beheaded.28 Nevertheless,
his campaign set a new tone because, unlike previous insurrections, on
this occasion the state had been forced to take up arms ‘not so much
to pacify rebel forces of the periphery as to put down a rogue leader
from the metropole itself’.29
Dazaifu in decline
Fujiwara Hirotsugu’s rebellion may have temporarily disrupted the
administration at the Dazaifu Headquarters, but the central regime
based at Heijō (Nara) was now consolidating its political control in the
provinces. The grand buildings for receiving ‘guests’ at Dazaifu and the
Tsukushi Lodge had largely taken shape, and the procedure for con-
ducting diplomatic relations became a matter of established routine.
From a ‘domestic’ or insular perspective the outlook in Kyushu
appeared to be relatively stable. There was no military threat such as had
galvanized the state into fortifying the northern coasts of Tsukushi
nearly eighty years before. At the same time an air of uncertainty had
begun to fall over the future of Japan’s diplomatic relations. In China
the revolt of An Lushan in 755 posed a far greater threat to the incum-
bent regime than Hirotsugu had in Japan, with the capital of Chang’an
itself falling into rebel hands the following year. This was subsequently
recalled as a watershed, marking the onset of the Tang dynasty’s long
decline. Ultimately, it would also take much of the lustre away from
Dazaifu’s role as a diplomatic centre, which after all had drawn its
inspiration from cultural models at Chang’an.
On a more practical level, the failing political authority of the Tang
regime around the peripheries of its vast empire now made it harder to
80
maintain cultural contacts across the East China Sea. Japanese envoys,
priests and students found the prospect of undertaking long voyages
increasingly fraught with danger. This was partly because, beset by
palace coups and internal conflict, Silla’s control over its own territories
in the Korean peninsula had also been seriously weakened. With a sub-
stantial area in the southwest (formerly Paekche territory) now effec-
tively beyond Silla’s control, the islands of Tsushima and Iki, and the
northern shores of Kyushu as well, were subjected to a series of pirate
attacks from across the straits.
The earliest recorded incident of Korean piracy on the Kyushu coast
was in 811, and in 869 two ships were even attacked within the confines
of Hakata Bay. As the power of Silla declined the number of incidents
rose, and by the onset of the tenth century raids along the coast were
becoming commonplace. Some of these included hundreds of armed
assailants, in which case their intent was clear. On other occasions these
‘Silla pirates’ as they were generally known, perhaps crossed the straits
with other motives in mind – trade or even settlement among them.30 In
some cases, moreover, the raids were not really from Silla at all, but
launched by seafarers based on other coasts in the East China Sea. Just
as with the wakō (Japanese pirates) who would become the scourge of
Korean and Chinese coasts in medieval times, the perceived origins of
such brigands, and their place in recorded histories, have owed much to
the imaginations of the communities that fell victim to their attacks.
Due to this unsettled overseas climate the number of travellers ven-
turing between Japan and China decreased significantly during the
ninth century, and the flow of Chinese culture through the Tsukushi
Lodge (Kōrokan) to the Heian court rapidly declined. The last kentōshi
expedition to Chang’an departed in 838, and although another was
planned in 894 the appointed Japanese envoy, none other than
Sugawara Michizane, judged that conditions had become so dangerous
that he postponed the voyage. At the time this was considered a tem-
porary measure and not intended as a conscious break in diplomatic
relations. In the event, however, it marked the end of Japan’s official
links with the Tang dynasty. Isolated from developments on the con-
tinent in the tenth century, the court at Heian would rely less on imi-
tating Chinese models and develop its own distinct style, signalling the
onset of what has been described as a new phase of Sino-Japanese
hybrid culture.31
81
The decline in Tang power and the increasingly lawless conditions in

the seas off the Kyushu coast transformed Dazaifu’s place in Heian
Japan. Instead of being at the hub of a transport network supporting
cultural exchange throughout the known world, it found itself once
again on a perilous frontier with the shores of nearby Hakata Bay prone
to attack by pirates. It was little wonder that Sugawara was less than
enthused by the prospect of being appointed governor of Dazaifu in
901. He made his way there by ship, arriving in Hakata Bay before
making the short journey south to Dazaifu. On the way, he stopped to
rest at a place that was later named after him. This was Tenjin, the thriv-
ing downtown area of Fukuoka City today.
Within a few years of Sugawara’s death at Dazaifu, the neighbouring
states across the sea crumbled at last. The Tang dynasty fell in 907 and
it would not be until 960 that China’s divided territories were reunited.
After a prolonged series of military campaigns, Silla finally collapsed in
935 when its king submitted to control by a new rival power to the
north. This was the kingdom of Koryŏ, which would rule for nearly five
hundred years and bequeath the name ‘Korea’ to the peninsula. Given
such political instability across the Tsushima Straits, the Heian court
was understandably reluctant to engage in continental affairs and diplo-
matic overtures from both China and Korea were greeted with little
enthusiasm. To some extent this was also due to the fact that newly
forged trading links made luxury goods and information obtainable
without the expense of organizing or receiving official missions.32 At
the same time there was a crisis of confidence in the once prestigious
Tang model of diplomatic relations. The tribute system would not be
invoked again until several hundreds of years later when subsequent
Chinese dynasties projected their own ambitions by trying to emulate
their illustrious forebears.
The Dazaifu Headquarters still retained its strategic importance as
an administrative centre and base for organizing the frontier against
outside attack. It was a less glamorous role, however, restricted to
defending the coast from pirates. Towards the end of the tenth century
a wave of large-scale raids was even launched by brigands mostly from
the Ryukyu Islands to the south of Kyushu. On one occasion more than
four hundred locals were abducted. The largest assault on Hakata Bay
and environs, however, was the Toi invasion of 1019, which involved
more than fifty ships. Although these were manned by Korean pirates
82
who had possibly been press-ganged into service, the expedition itself
may have been orchestrated by people of Jurchen origins far to the
northeast on the coast of Manchuria. Faced with such overseas threats
it was left entirely up to the Dazaifu Headquarters to manage the
defences along the coast, for by the time any news reached the court the
incursions would be over.33
No longer active so much as a prestigious centre of diplomatic
exchange, the ‘distant court’ at Dazaifu became known instead as a trea-
sure trove offering rich opportunities for collecting revenues. As part of
this transition, in its last years the Kōrokan also became less of a guest-
house for diplomats and more of a trading post. The conspicuous
wealth to be found there made these centres near the coast potential
targets of attack, not just for Korean but Japanese pirates as well. In 939,
an ambitious noble and kinsman of the emperor called Fujiwara
Sumitomo rebelled against the court. Styling himself the ‘New
Emperor’, he fled Heian first of all to the island of Shikoku where he
raised an army and rampaged through the countryside. Operating in
collusion with pirates, in 941, he evaded the pursuit of forces sent by
the court to catch him and landed in Kyushu. There his army overcame
the resistance of troops guarding Dazaifu and burned the state build-
ings. It was the first time that the headquarters itself had been attacked,
although the area would later become the site of numerous battles in
the medieval era.34
Sumitomo himself was defeated in a pitched battle fought in Hakata
Bay featuring the capture of several hundred pirate ships, but the
episode served to undermine the authority of Dazaifu. Although the
regional administration continued to be run from here, the level of
control exerted from the capital gradually diminished. The prestige and
status associated with this symbolic site of imperial authority enabled it
to function to some extent until the end of Heian rule, and even after-
wards its reflected glory would always command respect among
medieval warlords. Ultimately, however, Dazaifu never quite recap-
tured its former importance, and over time the ‘Great Government
Centre’ came to sound like more of an ancient place name than a central
link in Japan’s cultural world.
83
CHAPTER 5
HAKATA: THE MAKING OF

A MERCANTILE CENTRE

wai, the lord of Tsukushi who rose up against the Yamato state, built
I his power base in what is now the Yame area in the far south of
Fukuoka Prefecture. The long line of burial mounds along a ridge and
the unusual stone sculptures near his tomb recall a time in the sixth
century when this was an important political centre. Now the area has
a reputation for the stone lanterns that are produced by hand further up
the Yaba valley. A fine example decorates an otherwise indistinctive
patch of grass enclosed by a slip road as drivers leave the Yame inter-
change on the Kyushu Expressway. Yame today is best known for its
highly-prized green tea. The most striking feature of the surrounding
landscape is the series of uniform deep-green rows of tea plants, spread
across the hills. This is not the only area in Kyushu, or Japan for that
matter, which claims a proud tradition of producing high-quality green
tea. It certainly boasts one of the oldest, however, as just across the
Chikugo valley on the slopes of Mt Seburi to the north is the spot where
tea is thought to have been first grown in Japan.
Mt Seburi is an imposing landmark overlooking the Saga plain and
the Chikugo River, and faces the long valley that stretches northwards
past the old Dazaifu Headquarters towards Hakata Bay. Here on the
western slopes of the valley, not far from the one-time ‘distant court’,
stand a number of ancient temples, evidence of a time when the area
was actively developed by Buddhist priests. At the foot of nearby Mt
Tenpai, for example, Buzōji is held to be one of the oldest temples in
Kyushu and has a sprawling wisteria tree of great antiquity. It was in
1195 that a Japanese monk of the Tendai sect called Eisai stepped
ashore in Kyushu, bringing with him some tea plants he had obtained
84
Hakata: The Making of a Mercantile Centre
during his travels in China. Tea was not entirely unknown at the Heian
court in Kyoto for, as a herbal medicine, it was among the sought-after
luxury items brought from the continent for the use of a privileged few.
Eisai, however, took this one step further as he set about cultivating his
own tea plants in the garden of Ishigamibō on the slopes of Mt Seburi.
It was a limited experiment at first, but in effect the success he had there
would lead to popularizing the custom of tea-drinking among all social
classes in Japan.1
Eisai, otherwise known as Yōsai, is also credited with introducing the
Linji school of Zen on his return from China, for it was he who suc-
ceeded in establishing the Japanese line of Rinzai Zen. Often viewed
now as something quintessentially Japanese, Zen practice in these
islands is certainly unique in its form and interpretation. Like many
other Buddhist sects, however, it had continental origins. Eisai had
encountered this teaching during his eight years of travel abroad when,
like other itinerant priests, he visited Mingzhou (now Ningbo), a flour-
ishing port situated to the south of Hangzhou Bay (on the other side
from what is now Shanghai). Two of the five sacred ‘mountains’
(temples) in Zen Buddhism are located in this area.2 Tea, Zen and med-
itation would come together in the form of tea ceremony, which also
developed into a highly stylized and refined cultural pursuit. Again, the
forms of tea ceremony observed in Japan, with ceramic bowls served in
hushed tones kneeling on tatami mats, soon diverged from the tradi-
tional practice still to be seen sitting on chairs at lacquered tables in the
tea-houses of Ningbo.3
Tucked away down a quiet side street in Hakata, now a bustling dis-
trict in the heart of Fukuoka City, a gateway opens onto an unexpect-
edly spacious area, with a pathway leading to a group of temple
buildings. Although imposing enough these are somehow out of
keeping with the grand scale of the site, and were built after the original
structure had been destroyed by fire. This is Shōfukuji, the first Zen
temple ever built in Japan, which Eizai established here in 1195 shortly
after his return from China. The town of Hakata that he knew was
already an important port, with ships regularly arriving from the Korean
peninsula and the Chinese coast.4
Hakata’s emergence as a thriving mercantile centre during the last
centuries of Heian rule may appear at odds with the insularity that
increasingly characterized life at court in Kyoto. The diplomatic links
85
with China that had once fostered cultural developments had remained
neglected ever since 894, when the unstable international climate led
Sugawara Michizane to postpone his kentōshi tribute mission to the con-
tinent. Isolated from the political chaos engulfing both the Tang empire
and the kingdom of Silla, in the tenth and eleventh centuries a distinc-
tive Sino-Japanese hybrid culture emerged at court. With this flowering
of ‘classical’ Japanese style, the aristocratic society of Heian Kyoto was
vividly portrayed in new literature such as Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book and
Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji.5
While these works offer fascinating images of the so-called ‘World of
the Shining Prince’ as seen by noble ladies, they reveal little about how
ordinary people lived in Heian Kyoto, let alone in the provinces beyond.
Away from the capital in far-flung regions such as the nine provinces of
Kyushu a rather different narrative emerges. This was more a tale of
initial conquest and political consolidation under centralized imperial
rule, followed by a gradual process of fragmentation and decline. In
Honshu an influential role in power politics was also taken by the
samurai, a new breed of professional warrior bound to his lord that first
emerged in the Kantō area, the site of modern-day Tokyo. In Kyushu,
meanwhile, this period sees the growth of international trade, the
appearance of the Hakata merchant and some important arrivals from
the continent, returning monks like Eisai among them.
Imperial authority in the provinces

The central control systems which imposed Yamato rule in the
provinces were based on codified law. Until the time of Suiko the
Yamato state was still a largely fragmented polity, more of a confeder-
ation joined by personal loyalty to a single overlord than a unified state
as such. Regional territories were controlled mainly by country chief-
tains, the descendants of rulers buried in the great kofun tombs of times
past, such as Iwai Tsukushi no Kimi, lord of Tsukushi, who had once
rebelled against the court. Their power depended on localized kinship
relations rather than recognition from the centre, and no clear regula-
tions were yet in place for either paying tribute or rendering service to a
higher authority. In effect, these regional paramounts were autonomous
allies of the Yamato court, and the monarch rarely interfered in their
affairs.6
86
From the seventh century the conscious attempts made to adapt

Chinese administrative models from the Sui and Tang capital of
Chang’an were instrumental in finally bringing these country chieftains
to heel. The rhetoric of Prince Shōtoku’s constitution, for example,
provided a framework for Buddhist monks to be pressed into service as
ambassadors, advisers and scribes, and before long attendance records
and timekeeping were becoming regular features of life at court.7 At this
stage the effect was only really visible at the centre, but subsequent
episodes of internal unrest and the threat of invasion prompted further
efforts to extend the court’s control over outlying regions. The Taika
Edicts of 645, for example, were more a statement of intent than real,
but symbolized at least the concept of direct imperial rule over the
subject population. According to the Chronicles, these would abolish the
loosely organized worker groups still prevalent at the time and replace
them with tribute-paying households. There was to be a population
census, and lands would be registered based on standardized measure-
ments. Tax records would also be kept to monitor the tribute ‘payable
by every registration unit in rice, cloth, other goods or corvée labour’.8
The planned reforms directly threatened the authority of the old
country chieftains, for such close control from the centre would under-
mine their claims to rule in their own power bases. For ambitious
smaller lords, however, they presented an opportunity to increase their
influence by acquiring new status as official agents administering lands
on behalf of the court. With the political leverage this gave them, they
could now act more independently of the country chieftains who, until
then, had been the dominant force in regional affairs. The potential for
self-advancement on offer was underlined in the 650s, when these local
lords were officially incorporated as royal clients in a new table of
ranks.
Some district boundaries were already being laid out in the wake of
the Taika Edicts, but it was the threat of a Tang-Silla invasion in the
660s that allowed Tenji to justify royal intervention and reorganize the
countryside on a wider scale. New codes were put in effect, and in 670
a first census was carried out in those districts which had already been
developed.9 After taking power by force in 672, his successor Tenmu
tried to extend central control by redrawing whatever maps existed to
create an ambitious layout of provinces. Based on the model in Tang
China these were then grouped into seven ‘circuits’, each one linked
87
together and joined to the central Kinai area by a network of new high-
ways. The island of ‘Kyushu’, for example, was now organized into a
circuit called the Saikaidō (Western Sea Road), and as Yamato territo-
ries expanded in the following years, the land they knew as Tsukushi
was divided into nine still largely notional provinces. In time it would
be referred to as Saikoku (West Country), and eventually in medieval
times as Kyushu (Nine Provinces), while Tsukushi was reduced to an
archaic term recalled in poetry evoking a bygone age before Yamato
armies had consolidated their control over the Hayato people in the
south.
Already in Tenmu’s day some provincial governors were being
appointed at court and despatched to their designated territory to
administer central law. In most places, however, the extent of their
political control was limited, for although in terms of status and culture
they clearly outranked the regional elites, they had few soldiers to
enforce their authority on site. A notable exception, of course, was the
governor of the Dazaifu Headquarters who, because of the perceived
threat of foreign invasion, now controlled a fortified border manned by
guards (sakimori) recruited from the centre. Elsewhere, these early rep-
resentatives of the court were heavily dependent on the cooperation of
regional chieftains, whose role in any royal rituals organized at a local
level was still largely voluntary.
The powers exercised by provincial governors expanded significantly
with the implementation of the Taihō Code in 701 and then the Yōrō
Code in 718.10 Based on recent models from Tang China, these put into
effect a universal control network known as the ritsuryō system, ritsu for
‘penal law’, and ryō for ‘administrative rules’. As Joan Piggott vividly
describes, ‘by the first decade of the eighth century, teams of provincial
governors, numbering up to seven for the largest provinces, were trav-
elling out from the capital to their assigned posts via the great trunk
highways’.11 On the way they could change horses at the staging posts
recently established to improve communications. Following their
arrival, the governors’ main task was to supervise the taxation and
census records gathered at ground level by local officials now working
for the state. To allow the system to operate effectively a headman was
also appointed in charge of each village (ri). The unusual prevalence of
place-names in Saga Prefecture ending in -ri (e.g. Imari, Yoshinogari) is
a vestigial remnant of these times.12
88
The headman reported on village affairs to the district magistrate,

often a local chieftain, who held his own designated district office, com-
plete with workshops, stables and granaries. He then reported in turn
to the provincial governors. This involved a journey, often across
country, to the provincial capital (kokubu), which in the Nara and Heian
periods was the most visible symbol of royal power. Much like the
Dazaifu Headquarters, although laid out on a smaller scale, each kokubu
had its own government office, an official temple (kokubunji) and a
nunnery. Visitors arriving from the surrounding countryside could
hardly fail to be impressed by these grand Chinese-style buildings,
notably the towering pagoda in the temple precinct, which reflected a
world far removed from their own daily lives.
Apart from collecting records and tribute the role of the provincial
governors, together with this community of officials, priests and nuns,
was to act as cultural ambassadors, spreading the civilizing influence of
Buddhism, courtly style and letters. Official notices were written out in
Chinese characters on wooden tablets (mokkan). In the humid Japanese
climate few of these have survived. Some of the earliest examples yet
discovered have been unearthed in the western outskirts of Fukuoka
City on the site of the new campus of Kyushu University.
Every year the governors were required to leave their provincial cap-
itals and retrace their steps on the great trunk highways leading back to
the court, where they reported on affairs in the areas under their juris-
diction. The single exception was in Kyushu, where provincial gover-
nors of the Saikaidō circuit reported instead to the Dazaifu
Headquarters in the north of the island. One reason was the distance
involved. Another was the high status (Junior Third) of the governor
general of Dazaifu (sotsu) in the administrative hierarchy at court. The
grand layout of the state buildings, and the refined culture at a court
familiar with entertaining envoys and handling gifts from Tang China
and Silla, made Dazaifu easily the most impressive symbol of imperial
rule anywhere in the provinces.
By the middle of the eighth century the provisions contained in the
Taihō Code were being put into effect, and it seemed as if the ritsuryō
system had become a unifying feature across many areas of Japan. In
the far south of Kyushu, however, the recently pacified Hayato contin-
ued to pay ‘tribute’ rather than taxes until public land was finally allo-
cated early in the ninth century.13 At a local level, in fact, the power
89
relations were often finely balanced. One day in 883, for example, local
guards in the provincial capital of Chikugo (present-day Kurume City)
were unable to prevent a mob from surrounding the governor’s resi-
dence, killing him and stealing his possessions. The offenders then
managed to evade capture when the Dazaifu authorities, just a day’s ride
away, sent officials to investigate.14
Although the hallmarks of centralized imperial rule were now being
introduced in theory, in practice the authorities were still forced to
operate pragmatically by cooperating with existing local interests. In
Piggott’s view, ‘ritsuryō officialdom was an archipelago-wide alliance of
elites unified by mutual acceptance of elements of the worldview pro-
mulgated by Yamato court society’.15 The central authorities were still
powerless to remove the country chieftains, who remained largely
autonomous with hereditary posts, so they tried to enlist their services
instead as agents of imperial rule. As a result, the administration of the
ritsuryō system was in effect negotiated rather than imposed.
Given this delicate balance of power, the ritsuryō system never really
crystallized into a uniform control network. Instead, it was subjected to
a gradual process of fragmentation as the powers nominally in the
hands of officials at court were dispersed among prominent figures in
the provinces. A key factor that appeared in the eighth century was the
growing prevalence of lands integrated into private estates (shōen) and
exempted from paying imperial taxes. Another reason was an ambitious
phase of military expansion which overstretched the state’s resources as
Yamato armies rolled back the frontiers inhabited by other native
peoples in the archipelago. In the south of Kyushu, the pacification of
the Hayato people made the Saikaidō circuit a territorial unit in fact as
well as in name. In eastern Honshu, meanwhile, a series of campaigns
drove the Emishi, who had once inhabited much of the island, far to
the north.
Even as the court prepared to relocate to the new capital of Heian
(Kyoto) in 794, the ritsuryō system was already under pressure.
Moreover, the established system of conscription had been abolished
just two years before. This spelt an end to the system of centrally-
recruited guards (sakimori) who, for over a century, had manned the
defences around Dazaifu, and raised questions over how the realm’s
expanding frontiers would be protected in future. In the absence of
support from the centre some frontier zones produced new military
90
leaders who would go on to exert a powerful force over regional poli-

tics. To the east a new breed of warrior – the samurai – appeared on the
plains of Kantō, where they had space to train the horses needed for
their campaigns against the Emishi. They were loyal only to their mili-
tary leaders, such as the men from the powerful Taira and Minamoto
families who would one day fight over the spoils of the Heian court. In
Kyushu as well, the growth of shōen estates created a need for armed
guards, and ‘mounted warriors wearing armour’ were recorded in
Bungo Province, for example, as early as 828.16 Warrior families who
protected remote valleys and upland areas were sometimes able to carve
out their own spheres of influence, among them the Kikuchi, Aso and
Ōkura who subsequently went on to feature prominently in medieval
Kyushu.
The new upper level of regional aristocracy that was now emerging
were not so much descendants of the old country chieftains as ambi-
tious nobles from the court itself. The appointed task of officials sent
to the provinces as governors was to reinforce central control, but in a
number of cases they acted in effect as agents of decentralization
instead. Some became so powerful that they styled themselves ‘regional
princes’. Viewed from Heian they appeared rather as over-mighty sub-
jects, introducing a new dynamic that always had the potential to frac-
ture relations between the court and regional authorities.17 Attracted by
the private wealth of shōen estates, many chose to stay and build their
fortunes, often intermarrying with the descendants of country chief-
tains. Complaints of oppression in the provinces soared. In 842, for
example, Nakai no Ōkimi refused to return to court when his term as
governor of Bungo Province came to an end. During his time there he
had settled in the Hita basin in the central highlands of Kyushu, and
managed to extend his control over estates in surrounding provinces as
well. When complaints over the high levies Nakai had imposed on the
peasants reached the attention of the Dazaifu Headquarters, steps were
eventually taken to force him to return to Kyoto.18
Some of these ‘over-mighty subjects’ and ‘regional princes’ in
Kyushu were intent not just on private financial gain but also posed a
political threat to imperial rule. On more than one occasion the court’s
efforts to impose its authority on the island were undermined by prob-
lems encountered in finding officials it could trust. In 866, for example,
an imperial officer serving in Hizen travelled to Silla in the Korean
91
peninsula to advise on techniques for manufacturing weapons to be

used in a planned invasion of Tsushima.19 In 870, a senior official at
Dazaifu, the Dazai Shōni, Fujiwara Motori, was also found to have been
plotting a rebellion in collusion with the king of Silla. Perhaps the most
conspicuous example of treason by a prominent courtier was Fujiwara
Sumitomo in the tenth century. After rebelling against the court in 937
Sumitomo built his power base in northern Kyushu and even burned
down the Dazaifu Headquarters in 941 before his forces were finally
defeated in Hakata Bay.20
Private estates in Kyushu

In provinces throughout Japan it was the growth of shōen estates that
was most influential in gradually dismantling the ritsuryō system. All the
land originally measured out by order of the court was considered to be
under public ownership, meaning that it belonged to the emperor and
all its produce was taxable by the state. A system of reallocating plots
every six years was supposed to ensure that people would work the land
and pay tribute without staying long enough to justify any claims to
ownership. As a comprehensive approach, however, this attempt to
settle all the ordinary people (hyakushō) on taxable plots of land proved
to be effective for only about a hundred years.
For a start, to measure out and cultivate land was often impractical
in coastal and mountainous areas where the local population depended
for their livelihood more on fishing and hunting. In 743, an imperial
decree also allowed any new land reclaimed from virgin forest and
marshes to be kept in perpetuity and remain exempt from tax. This
loophole provided scope for accumulating private wealth, an opportu-
nity not lost on court nobles and religious sects alike who soon colluded
with local aristocrats and officials to gather peasants on large shōen
estates of newly-cultivated land. Tired of the high levies they had to pay
on public lands, people migrated to these new tax havens in large
numbers.
Before long the system of periodically reallocating public land had
been seriously undermined. The public family registers kept by provin-
cial officials looked increasingly meaningless, partly due to a shortage of
paddy-fields and because people were now escaping to the countryside
and private estates. In central and northern Honshu they often tried to
92
settle on lands won from the now retreating Emishi. The flight of peas-
ants from the taxable core of public land became so conspicuous that
decrees were issued for their capture and return. The central authorities
also offered incentives to stay on public land by reallocating plots to the
same peasants, but in effect this compromise invited a slow slide
towards private ownership there as well. In an ironic twist, under Heian
rule even the imperial family bypassed its own central treasury in the
pursuit of private wealth by joining in the rush to sponsor shōen estates.
These estates were largely self-sufficient, loosely comparable with the
lands organized under the manorial system in medieval Europe. By
extension, therefore, they have been closely linked with the emergence
of the Japanese equivalent of feudal society. Each estate had a clearly
identifiable tax-free nucleus, from which there usually developed a
complex hierarchy of associates. Typically, large numbers of peasants
were set to work on wet paddies to cultivate rice. Those less well off
might have to work dry fields, where a variety of crops were grown,
including millet, vegetable roots and wild grasses. Other activities
included fishing and raising livestock, which was a far more common
practice in Heian rural life than in contemporary Japan. The peasants
were supervised by resident managers, possibly drawn from regional
elites such as district chieftains and the local aristocracy. These would
answer to a central proprietor, probably a member of the court nobility
or a large temple or shrine. Above this tier was a guarantor, usually an
even more powerful noble, temple, shrine, or in some cases, the impe-
rial family. Naturally, such private wealth created a need for security
measures, and in effect the abolition of conscription in 792 would
encourage proprietors to recruit their own forces to patrol and defend
their land.
To date, some 463 shōen estates have been identified in Kyushu,
amounting to about one-sixth of the total throughout the Japanese
islands. These were generally quite large by comparison with estates in
the Kinai area. Often entire districts were converted wholesale into
private holdings. Shimazu-shō was the largest to be found anywhere,
with lands stretching over the borders of three provinces in Satsuma,
Ōsumi and Hyūga. The most powerful shōen proprietor at this regional
level was Usa Hachimangū Shrine in Buzen, which eventually held
estates throughout Kyushu. Influential temples holding large estates
also included Kanzeonji and Anrakuji in Dazaifu. In many cases,
93
however, the central proprietors were based in Honshu, and this rela-
tively high degree of absentee landlordism in Kyushu is thought to have
contributed to the rapid decline of shōen there during the civil wars of
the medieval era.21
Kanzaki-shō in Hizen Province, for example, was an imperial estate.
Overlooked by Mt Seburi to the north, this was located in the Saga plain
on what today is rich farmland on the eastern outskirts of Saga City. It
was in one corner of this site that in 1985 archaeologists first came
across the much older Yayoi community of Yoshinogari. Some of this
land seems to have fallen into disuse after the ancient people who had
once lived there apparently abandoned the settlement. In the ninth
century it lay in an uncultivated state until 839, when an area of 690 chō
(3.5 square miles) was cleared by imperial order. Surrounding lands
were later added until, by the late Heian period, it had grown into a large
imperial estate covering an area of over thirteen square miles.
Kanzaki-shō was an important element in the flourishing regional
economy that developed within the compass of Hakata on the north
coast. Documents are sparse but testify to the estate’s wide influence at
home and abroad. In 1015, monks from China were reported to have
visited. In 1127, Kanzaki-shō presented the emperor with a specimen
of ambergris, a rare and prized source of perfume from the intestines
of sperm whales found occasionally floating out at sea. Shortly after-
wards, it came under the control of the increasingly powerful Taira
family as part of their wider strategy to control the economy in western
Japan. Following the destruction of the Taira line in 1185, Kanzaki-shō
continued to operate as an imperial estate. Towards the end of the thir-
teenth century, however, it was finally divided up among samurai war-
riors seeking rewards of land for their services in defending Kyushu’s
shores in the aftermath of the Mongol invasions.22
Trade and the emergence of Hakata

The gradual shift from centralized economic management to private
ownership had a profound impact, but in Kyushu another significant
element was the rise of trade, sometimes operating on an international
scale. On occasion these local and overseas interests would interact,
notwithstanding the efforts made by the Dazaifu Headquarters to reg-
ulate contacts and control both domestic and foreign affairs. At the
94
heart of such developments was the growth of Hakata into a mercan-

tile centre. A superb natural port, Hakata Bay has always been a safe
haven for ships, sheltered by a long spit of land from the rough waters
of the Genkai Sea. It was by the banks of one of several small rivers that
flow into the bay that Nanotsu Miyake had once been set up as a mili-
tary base for Yamato expeditions to Korea. Later it was designated as
the place for the reception of envoys from Tang China and Silla with
the construction of the Tsukushi Lodge. It was the growth of trade,
however, that provided the impetus for Hakata’s subsequent develop-
ment into a flourishing medieval city.
Seaborne commerce in East Asia had expanded rapidly during the
seventh and eighth centuries, partly stimulated by the Persian and Arab
merchants in the Indian Ocean who helped to develop the ‘Maritime Silk
Road’. Trade conducted through Hakata Bay as an activity distinct from
diplomacy first appears in records in 831 with a reference to the arrival of
‘Silla merchants’. It was in this year that the Dajōkan, the Great Council
of State in Heian, laid down guidelines for handling merchant ships from
overseas. Commerce was permitted but subject to close regulation,
including the minute inspection of arriving merchandise by officials from
the Dazaifu Headquarters. The trade operating from the Korean penin-
sula was soon supplemented by expeditions from across the East China
Sea, with the arrival of Tang merchants first recorded in 842. Even after
the demise of the Tang dynasty, merchants from successor states contin-
ued to test these waters. Chinese junks appeared at a number of locations
in Kyushu, such as when Wu Yue landed on the Hizen coast in 945, but
such vessels were consistently redirected to the now designated gateway
for trade at the Tsukushi Lodge (Kōrokan) in Hakata Bay.23
The origins of the Hakata merchant community are not entirely clear.
It seems that the Kōrokan was finally abandoned in the late eleventh
century, possibly after a fire in 1047. By this stage, however, a diaspora
community of Chinese merchants had already appeared a short distance
to the east, situated on a long sandbar between the Mikasa and Naka
rivers that would later form the core of the medieval city of Hakata.
The inhabitants were possibly merchants operating out of ports like
Mingzhou (Ningbo), who had previously traded through the Kōrokan
and decided to settle. The Dazaifu authorities turned their attention to
supervising the trade that they were now conducting on the beach and
in the streets of their new settlement.24
95
A major catalyst in Hakata’s development was the expansion of over-

seas trade fostered by the dynamic economic growth in China under the
Song dynasty, which came to power in the late tenth century. Partly in
response to an explosion in the size of the population, which doubled
within two hundred years, there were significant increases in the pro-
duction of quality goods on the continent, including silks, metals and
ceramic ware. To cope with demand a flourishing network of private
commerce emerged, and the effects were felt far and wide from Japan
to the Arabian Sea. Under Tang rule there had been strict regulations
on domestic trade, while in international relations the emphasis had
always been on diplomacy, and what limited overseas trade there was
remained largely confined within the official language of tribute and
gifts. Under Song rule, however, while there were still some govern-
ment monopolies over key industries, free markets appeared in Chinese
cities and merchants took advantage of a boom in shipbuilding to invest
their funds in joint expeditions and seek their fortunes abroad. The
rulers of the new dynasty developed no official ties with Japan, but this
did not prevent trade contacts across the East China Sea flourishing
during the last centuries of Heian rule.
Such were the innovative strides made in technology, art and philos-
ophy during the Song dynasty that the period has often been compared
with the Renaissance. Japan’s wealthy nobility in Kyoto and the
provinces showed a keen interest in the latest commodities from China.
As a result, Song merchants arriving in Hakata to sell their goods found
a growing market for cotton, silks, perfume, medicine and especially the
newly developed style of jade-coloured glazed pottery. Books and paper
were also popular, particularly now that the invention of printing in
China had drastically reduced costs. From the twelfth century onwards,
substantial quantities of copper coinage were also transported to Japan.
Song merchants often set out on their overseas voyages from
Mingzhou, the main port for trade with the Korean peninsula as well
as Japan, although some used other ports such as Quanzhou and
Hangzhou. Available records confirm that Song vessels bound for
Japan invariably ended up in Hakata, as the designated gateway for
both imports and exports.25 Despite the inconvenience of tight secu-
rity checks by the Dazaifu authorities on arrival, experience showed
that this was usually the best place to sell their merchandise. For the
return voyage to China their cargoes could include a range of goods,
96
among them gold, pearls, mercury, sulphur, timber, fans, metalwork

and swords.26
It is easy to overestimate the level of commerce between Heian
Japan and Song China. Extant sources indicate an average of only one
junk arriving each year during the tenth and eleventh centuries.27
Nevertheless, the volume of trade subsequently grew, and anyone vis-
iting Hakata in the eleventh or twelfth century would have been struck
by the level of Song influence on this cosmopolitan town. Moreover, a
short distance west along the coast of Hakata Bay, a rival port of Imazu
had also sprung up as a favoured destination for Song merchants, spon-
sored by an extensive private estate called Itōnoshō. In 1922, a large
quantity of Song coins was unearthed in the Imazu district. It was also
there that Eisai spent his early years in the Hakata area, working on a
project to build Seiganji Temple, and where he first came into contact
with merchants and monks from the continent before going on to travel
to China himself.28
Far away in Honshu, Kyoto may have been characterized by the rel-
atively isolated court culture of the late Heian period, but this was a
very different world from the merchant community in Hakata. At the
same time, their overseas commercial contacts carried some dangers,
among them exposure to contagious disease. The inhabitants of these
islands had little natural immunity to the viruses that were endemic on
the continent. If there was any outbreak of epidemics in ports along the
Chinese or Korean coasts, Hakata was often the place most seriously
at risk.
In cultural terms it was perhaps the new developments in religious
thought and philosophy under Song rule that, together with the advent
of printing, would have the most lasting impact. During this period Zhu
Xi developed the tenets of neo-Confucian thought which subsequently
influenced Japanese political doctrine and society in the early modern
era and beyond. New strains of Buddhism were also emerging, and the
clergy’s appetite for religious texts from the continent survived long
after the lapse in diplomatic relations that had once provided the offi-
cial conduit for the inflow of Buddhist culture.
Song monks, such as those who visited Kanzaki-shō, played an
important role in disseminating these new ideas, while intrepid Japanese
priests venturing abroad were also heavily involved. The Dazaifu
Headquarters still required individuals to obtain a licence before they
97
could gain a passage to the continent. In 1082, however, a monk by the

name of Kaikaku defied this ban and slipped aboard a Song merchant’s
vessel in Hakata bound for Mingzhou. From there he went on to record
his travels to various holy sites in China.29 A century later, Eisai, the
founder of Zen Buddhism in Japan, travelled through China twice, first
in 1168 and then in 1187. On his second trip he failed in his avowed
goal of reaching India, but spent more than eight years abroad before
returning to found Shōfukuji Temple in Hakata.30
In addition to overseas trade, the mercantile culture of Hakata was
generated by the growth of a regional economy in northern Kyushu as
a complex network of shōen estates was mobilized to support the private
wealth of absentee landlords. Quite apart from the tribute collected by
the imperial administration from public lands, private profits from
these estates were regularly shipped through Hakata Bay, and it was
these rich cargoes which tempted pirates to the area. The oldest sacred
site in the Nakasu district in the heart of Hakata, for example, is the
small Kushida Shrine, usually quiet but always thronging with crowds
in July each year when it serves as the departure point for the floats
paraded though the streets during the Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival.
Its unusual name is derived from the older but much less well-known
Kushida Shrine on the imperial estate of Kanzaki-shō. This was
acquired in the days when sacks of rice were brought from Kanzaki and
stored in a granary there before being shipped on to the imperial capital.
According to one theory these loads were carried over Mt Seburi, the
shortest distance from Kanzaki to Hakata as the crow flies. Such a
mountain hike would have been so demanding for any baggage train,
however, that it seems more likely that they would have been
transported instead along the valleys or perhaps by sea.31
Hakata in the Taira heyday

With its growing concentration of commercial wealth, Hakata attracted
not only overseas merchants seeking profits and the occasional incur-
sion of pirates but also domestic powers intent on building their polit-
ical fortunes. Foremost among these was the Taira family, a line of
samurai warriors of distant imperial lineage who, together with their
rivals, the Minamoto, eventually rose to become more powerful than
the nobles they served. These families traced their origins to the early
98
days of the Heian court. The Minamoto line was created in 814 as the
family name chosen by the emperor Saga for several of his children. The
name of Taira was bestowed in 825 on the emperor Kanmu’s grandson.
Subsequently, they developed into warrior leagues and served as the
military arm of the powerful Fujiwara family at court. Eventually they
commanded strong territorial bases – the Taira in the west and the
Minamoto in the east. For a time the Minamoto also held some inter-
ests in western Japan, but in the early twelfth century it was the Taira
who became the dominant force there. An important step was taken in
1119 when, operating from his base in western Honshu, Taira
Masamori first extended his family’s influence across the narrow
Kanmon Straits (at Shimonoseki) and into Kyushu.
High on the Taira’s list of priorities was to control the mercantile
wealth of Hakata, which had now become an established entrepôt of
domestic and overseas trade between China, Kyoto and the Kyushu
hinterland. At the same time they also exerted considerable power over
the countryside beyond. In the early twelfth century, for example, Taira
Tadamori managed to take control of the old imperial estate of
Kanzaki-shō in the Saga plain. In 1133, he even forged an imperial doc-
ument which permitted Song merchant ships to sail up the Ariake Sea
and offload their cargo on the shores near the estate, a ruse designed to
evade the inspections imposed by the Dazaifu authorities at Hakata.32
Tadamori’s son, Kiyomori, later extended the power of the Taira to
such an extent that, at one stage, they were in control of twenty
provinces in western Honshu and Kyushu. Both he and his half-brother
served as Dazai Shōni and through their control of the Dazaifu
Headquarters they developed a coordinated strategy to promote the
Song trade by investing in Hakata. Kiyomori built a new port facility
called Sode no Minato to the east of the existing docks, which was soon
filled with merchant shipping. Another place in Japan where his patron-
age is remembered is the strategically located island of Itsukushima near
Hiroshima, home of the Miyajima Shrine with its famous crimson torii
gates standing in the seawater. This was also part of the Taira trading
empire, as the island was an ideal staging post for merchant ships
passing through the Inland Sea.
With such a formidable power base and transport network at his dis-
posal, Taira Kiyomori was able to dominate politics at court. In 1160,
he expelled his rivals, the Minamoto, from the imperial capital. At the
99
same time he consolidated his control over Kyushu. When one lord in
Hizen called Hyūga Michiyoshi honoured his Minamoto connections
and refused to submit, Taira Iesada was furnished with an imperial edict
for a punitive raid and sent to storm his castle.33 In 1167, Kiyomori then
became the first man from a samurai background ever to hold the title
of Daijō Daijin, the highest post in the Heian bureaucracy. Finally, in
1180, he forced the emperor Takakura to abdicate in favour of his infant
half-brother Taira Antoku, who was also Kiyomori’s grandson. The
prospect of a Taira imperial dynasty was too much to bear for
Minamoto Yoritomo, who had been building his own power base in
exile far to the east in Izu. Provoked into rebellion, Yoritomo launched
the campaign that would destroy the Heian world.
This was the Genpei War – gen and hei are alternative readings of
Minamoto and Taira respectively – a conflict subsequently immortal-
ized in the medieval war tale Heike Monogatari (Tale of the Taira Line).
Although the initial advance by Yoritomo ended in defeat, an insurrec-
tion in Kyushu deprived the Taira of the financial strength they needed
to press their advantage, and the island was not pacified until late in
1181. By this time Kiyomori had died after a long illness and the
Minamoto forces were advancing from the east. In 1183, the Taira
ranks in Kyoto were forced to abandon the capital and retreat to
western Honshu. Early in 1185 an army under Minamoto Yorinori was
able to land in Bungo Province with the aid of a local lord called Ogata
Koreyoshi, who provided eighty-two ships and safe passage. This pre-
vented the Taira forces from regrouping in Kyushu, and after Yorinori’s
men then advanced into the north of the island, they were finally cor-
nered near the Kanmon Straits separating Kyushu from Honshu. Here,
at the decisive naval battle of Dannoura, many of the Taira warriors
either drowned or committed suicide, and when all was lost a court
lady jumped into the sea, taking the infant Emperor Antoku and the
imperial regalia with her.
In the aftermath of Dannoura the surviving Taira warriors of the
Heike clan were scattered and many appear to have gone into hiding. In
centuries to come, legends would surface about the existence of ‘Heike
villages’ in remote mountains and coastal areas mainly in Kyushu and
Shikoku, but also in parts of Honshu. Today there are nearly two hundred
such villages that claim to have been founded by some fugitive warrior
of the Heike clan. In many cases these are based on longstanding
100
traditions of ritual and local folklore that hover between myth and
history, but remain difficult to substantiate.34 Examples deep in the
mountains of southern Kyushu include the village of Itsuki in the upper
stretches of the Kuma River, which flows west through Kumamoto
Prefecture, and Shiiba nearby, close to the source of the Mimigawa River,
which flows east through Miyazaki.35
With the destruction of the Taira in 1185 the Heian government fell
into disarray. The authority of the central bureaucracy had long been in
a state of gradual decline, eroded by the ambitions of court and local
elites alike. Existing mechanisms and loopholes in the system of civil
administration had been systematically exploited to furnish private
sources of wealth and power. Central control over the provinces had
been undermined as the ritsuryō system fragmented beyond repair. To
what extent this can even be called a process of decentralization,
however, is open to question, given that the extent of the court’s power
in many provinces had never quite matched the theory enshrined in
codified law. The eclipse of Heian rule nevertheless marked an impor-
tant transition as provincial governors, once the emperor’s direct rep-
resentatives throughout the land, no longer carried the influence they
had previously held, and in many areas disappeared from the local scene
altogether.
With his territories practically unmanageable in the aftermath of the
Genpei War, the emperor eventually charged the victorious Minamoto
Yoritomo with the task of maintaining order in the realm. To carry out
these duties Yoritomo set up a military government apparatus in his
own base far to the east in Kamakura. This was the first occasion on
which the axis of political power clearly shifted to the Kantō area. It also
set a precedent that would be repeated subsequently, and is still
reflected in the shape of Tokyo as the capital of Japan today. The loss
of influence to Kamakura was reflected in life at court in Kyoto. In the
provinces of Kyushu as well, new authorities were sent to enforce peace
in lands once held by the Taira. The subsequent shifts in the chain of
command, for example, were keenly felt in Dazaifu. In the more con-
fused world of Kamakura politics, no single authority would have the
power to exert control over incoming shipping in the carefully managed
way prescribed in times past.
As a result, Hakata lost its status as the single designated gateway for
vessels from overseas. It still flourished as the most important merchant
101
city in Kyushu due to the continuing growth of the Song trade, but
foreign ships could now put into port elsewhere along the coast, creat-
ing what Bruce Batten calls a ‘borderless’ Japan in the medieval era. One
example was Bōnotsu situated in the Satsuma peninsula in the far south
of the island, a small town today but once a thriving medieval port in its
own right.36 In some respects, however, the fall of Heian rule had a rel-
atively mild impact on Hakata, as commercial life there was not entirely
dependent on political forces in Honshu. Incorporated into a wider
sphere of influence extending across the East China Sea, Hakata mer-
chants were at the same time more sensitive to developments on the
continent. In this sense, the greatest threat to their livelihood proved to
be not so much from Kyoto or Kamakura as from Beijing, the new
capital of the Mongol empire.
102
CHAPTER 6
DIVINE WIND:
THE MONGOL INVASIONS

n the western outskirts of Fukuoka City along the shores of
O Hakata Bay is a long sandy beach called Iki no Matsubara. From
the land this is approached, as the name suggests, by a wood of pines,
which shields the coastline from the wind. On emerging through the
trees and into the open, in places the path to the sea is barred by the
foundations of a thick stone wall. Now barely three feet high, this
barrier stretching along the shore is the best preserved remnant of what
was once a series of formidable defences. It used to stand over fourteen
feet tall, guarding the shore from attack as one of seven ramparts built
around the bay in the thirteenth century. In most places these walls have
disappeared beneath urban developments as Fukuoka has developed
into a modern city, sprawling along the coast and down the valley
towards Dazaifu a few miles inland. Nevertheless, traces can still be
seen on some of the more remote beaches, along one stretch visible
only in the shape of what appears at first to be a bank of sand dunes.
These walls were built to protect the coast from the Mongols, who
had carried all before them in Asia and beyond. Their leader Khubilai
Khan ruled over an empire that now stretched over practically the
known world. Having conquered the Korean kingdom of Koryŏ and
even China, all that stood between them and the islands of Japan were
the Tsushima Straits and the East China Sea. Mongol warriors are gen-
erally noted more for their celebrated riding skills than any tradition of
seamanship, but on one occasion already they had prepared a vast fleet
and set sail, targeting Hakata Bay in an attempt to gain a foothold on
the coast of northern Kyushu. Something of a hiatus followed in the
aftermath of this first assault, providing valuable time needed to
103
prepare these defensive walls around the bay, but it was clear that a
second campaign would follow. When they finally appeared off the
Kyushu coast, the fleets assembled by the Mongols for the subjugation
of Japan would amount to the largest seaborne invasion the world had
ever seen.
Waves of attacks followed on the shores of Hakata Bay. It came as a
surprise to the inhabitants, therefore, when the assault finally stopped
and the sails of the enemy ships disappeared over the horizon, never to
return. Just as when a fleet of brigands had attacked Hakata Bay in the
Toi invasion of 1019, the people offered up prayers at local shrines in
thanks for their safe deliverance from danger. The sudden disappear-
ance of the Mongol fleets seemed little short of miraculous, and such
was the relief that popular legend grew in praise of a ‘Divine Wind’
(kamikaze), which had apparently risen up to smash the invaders’ ships
off the Kyushu coast.
This phrase was hardly new, having first been used by the poet
Kakimoto Hitomaro in a verse to describe the stormy weather during
the Jinshin War of 672.1 The story of a divine wind off the Kyushu coast,
however, would later foster a headstrong belief that Japan’s shores were
somehow immune from attack. There was no living memory of any suc-
cessful invasions by sea, even if these may have occurred during migra-
tions from the continent in unrecorded ancient times. This alone set the
inhabitants of these islands apart from, for example, the English expe-
rience of the Norman Conquest. The north coast of Kyushu, the closest
point on the Japanese mainland to the continent, moreover, is 120 miles
away from the Korean peninsula across the Tsushima Straits, six times
the distance separating Dover from Calais. Any belief that Japan was
safe, however, would prove to be a rather ineffectual insurance against
modern gunboat diplomacy in the nineteenth century. In the culture of
military expansion that followed, the notion would nevertheless persist.
During the last months of the Pacific War in 1945, the ‘Divine Wind’
(kamikaze) was again invoked in a desperate show of bravado, lending
symbolic weight to the suicide attacks by young pilots who flew out
from the southern coast of Kyushu and tried, unsuccessfully, to protect
their homeland from foreign control.
Stormy weather certainly contributed to saving these islands from
the Mongols. Yet this alone cannot account for their defeat, as the
invaders encountered not just the elements but well-organized troops
104
Divine Wind: The Mongol Invasions
barring their progress. For weeks on end the ramparts at Iki no

Matsubara and the other six walls along the shores of Hakata Bay were
put to the test as wave upon wave of soldiers disembarked and charged
up through the sand. The contest also brought together two very dif-
ferent warrior cultures as samurai and Mongol soldiers were locked in
combat. Given the immense resources devoted to both expeditions on
the orders of Khubilai Khan, the spectacular failure of these invasions
continues to be the subject of controversy. To what extent was Japan
saved from the Mongols by the elements, the military prowess of the
samurai or the constraints of physical geography?2 Recently, the debate
has been fuelled by the discovery of wrecked Mongol hulls beneath the
waves just off Takashima Island in Imari Bay further west along the
Kyushu coast. More than six hundred years after the event, these sub-
merged vessels have yielded some new clues which can help to piece
together the last days of the ill-fated fleet.
The battles on the beaches of Hakata Bay had far-reaching conse-
quences, throughout the Japanese islands and the Asian continent. This
was easily the greatest challenge yet faced by the military order that had
emerged out of the chaos of the last years of Heian rule some seventy
years before. Based in the small town of Kamakura on the Honshu
coast to the south of what is now modern Tokyo, the new government
had developed its own institutions to apply a measure of jurisdiction
over the lands under the sovereignty of the emperor. The Mongol inva-
sions were a severe test of the regime’s resilience in the face of outside
pressure, and the ramifications would unfold for decades afterwards.
On the Asian continent as well, the effects were felt far and wide among
the subject populations of Mongol rule.
The Kamakura bakufu

Although not immediately apparent at the time, Minamoto Yoritomo’s
victory over the Taira at Dannoura in 1185 sounded the death-knell to
nearly four centuries of Heian rule. The civil bureaucracy’s claims to exer-
cise imperial authority from Kyoto based on the old ritsuryō system was
increasing irrelevant to daily life in many provinces, Kyushu included.
With a high proportion of the cultivated land now segmented into shōen
estates, much of the country’s wealth lay outside the taxable base of the
imperial economy. Much of the population, too, was beyond the reach of
105
the imperial administration, and often it was only the samurai warriors
guarding private lands who were in a position to exert control on site. In
1192, in an attempt to forestall the perceived danger of a descent into
anarchy, Yoritomo received an imperial appointment as shogun, the post
that in effect made him the sword arm of the emperor. He did not – or
could not – dispense with the institutions of the imperial government in
Kyoto, but to protect the emperor’s lands he set up his own administra-
tive network controlled from the Minamoto power base in Kamakura.
This new system of political control signalled at least the partial overhaul
of civil government with military power, and underlined the rise of the
samurai as a new ruling class.
The administration established at Kamakura was known as the
‘bakufu’. Literally meaning ‘tent government’, the term was taken from
the name for the headquarters of the emperor’s palace guards in Tang
China. In the context of medieval Japan, it initially described the equiv-
alent of a field headquarters, an operational military command with a
bare minimum of administrative apparatus. Since it was permanently
stationed in Kamakura, however, in time this area acquired the trap-
pings of a political and cultural capital, albeit on a modest scale. The first
Zen temple there, for example, was Kenchōji, built in 1253 several
decades after Eisai had introduced Zen following his return from
China. Perhaps the most impressive feature was the ‘Grand Buddha’
(daibutsu) statue at Kōtokuin for which the town is famous today, once
covered by a roof until a tsunami wave smashed the temple building late
in the fifteenth century, leaving it open to the air.
The traditional paradigm for the political transition at the onset of
this new regime is one of military control in Kamakura replacing impe-
rial rule in Kyoto. In reality, the balance of power was more complex as
a dual system emerged based on the coexistence of civil and military
authority. The emperor in Kyoto gradually became little more than a
figurehead of sovereign power, but the Dajōkan, the Council of State
which ruled in his name, was still in operation. In many cases governors
were still appointed and dispatched to the provinces, and in some
regions imperial power remained largely in force. In others, governors
might arrive in their appointed province, only to find that their titles
carried little weight. It was in such localized power vacuums where
imperial authority was weak that the military officials appointed by
Kamakura were often most active in imposing new models of control.
106
At the centre itself, wherever that now was, the delegation of politi-
cal authority that evolved in medieval Japan was a complex web of
hidden powers. When Minamoto Yoritomo died in 1199 his son was
still in his teens and his trusted advisers, the Hōjō clan, stamped their
authority on political affairs in their role as regents (shikken). Although
the title of shogun was inherited in turn by Yoritomo’s two sons, they
were both assassinated by the Hōjō, who saw them as a threat to their
own power. The post continued to exist but it became a largely sym-
bolic appointment. Those selected for the role included members of the
Fujiwara, the illustrious noble line from Heian antiquity, and even
members of the imperial family. Through their monopoly on the post
of shikken, meanwhile, successive generations of Hōjō rulers were in a
position to exercise control by supervising the Samurai-dokoro, the
bakufu council in Kamakura.
It was the Samurai-dokoro that controlled the Kamakura bakufu’s
network of vassals in the provinces. These were loyal samurai warriors
appointed to the newly-created posts of shugo and jitō, who acted as mar-
shals to maintain law and order, especially in regions where imperial gov-
ernance had failed. The shugo were usually favoured officials selected
from among the samurai vassals (go-kenin) of the Minamoto to exercise
authority on the bakufu’s behalf. Although not appointed to every
province, they served in effect as constables in charge of policing duties,
with powers to punish serious offences including murder and rebellion.
There was always the danger, therefore, that they could in turn become
over-mighty subjects in the same way that provincial governors had
once eroded the Heian state by building their own power bases at a
regional level. Aware of this threat from the start, the Kamakura bakufu
limited the power of shugo officials by trying to ensure that they did not
become hereditary posts or include any rights to land ownership. In
some regions the shugo were nevertheless able to become influential mil-
itary governors. They never made much headway in central Honshu,
where the Heian structure remained largely intact. In the provinces of
Kyushu, however, some of the most powerful dynasties of medieval
warrior lords – Shōni, Ōtomo and Shimazu – counted men who held the
post of shugo among their ancestors in Kamakura times.
The shugo, in fact, would become the leading figures in Kyushu during
the post-Taira era, although the creation of these new posts appears to
have been relatively late. It was only in 1197, for example, that the head
107
of the Shimazu-shō estate in the far south was handed effective control
over the Satsuma and Ōsumi provinces, and his appointment as shugo was
not confirmed until around 1203. In the immediate aftermath of the
Battle of Dannoura, it had been Minamoto Yorinori who was sent to the
island to follow up his earlier military campaign there and hunt down
fugitive Taira rebels. Then, in 1186, Amano Tōkage was despatched to
Dazaifu under the title of Chinzei Bugyō (literally ‘magistrate for the paci-
fication of the west’), a new military post outside the old bureaucratic
framework of Heian rule. His first recorded mission in Kyushu was to
control the samurai who were then rioting in Kanzaki-shō.3 The post of
Chinzei Bugyō appears to have lapsed after Amano was recalled, but
according to Toyama Mikio, the duties it encompassed were subse-
quently shared between two shugo lords: the Mutō in charge of security in
the west; and the Ōtomo, who protected the east.4
Besides the shugo the other main agents of bakufu authority were the
estate stewards known as jitō. Their role was more closely linked to man-
aging the landed wealth that had increasingly slipped through the hands
of civil governors under imperial rule. The jitō were paid fees for the ser-
vices they performed on behalf of the often absentee proprietors of the
estates they supervised. In Kyushu there was a two-tier system of jitō
stewards. The officials who were given overall charge of these estates
were often trusted Minamoto vassals from eastern Honshu, who had
been sent to Kyushu to assist in the pacification of the island. Under
their supervision was a further sub-category of local jitō, who were
allowed to keep their longstanding land rights as a reward for their
cooperation in hunting down Taira fugitives after 1185.
A conspicuous feature of provincial life in Japan under Kamakura
rule was the escalation in legal disputes between jitō stewards and pro-
prietors as they fought over the profits from their shōen estates. In the
case of Kyushu the uneasy coexistence between ‘colonist’ and ‘native’
jitō stewards on the same estates also became a frequent source of
tension. In 1226, for example, a local steward in Hizen called Takagi
Sueie filed a suit against his own superior Hasunama Saburō for taking
his rice levies. As a result, Hasunama received a warning from the
bakufu the following year.5
In Honshu the rising tensions over land revenues even led to the out-
break of military conflict with the Jōkyū disturbance of 1221, finally
prompting the Kamakura regime to take a more proactive approach
108
towards dispute resolution. Ironically, this led to the formation of a

complex bureaucratic system that belied the bakufu’s own tradition of
minimal administration. Before long its main function had become to
act as a supreme judiciary, processing the hundreds of law suits that
were sent up to Kamakura for arbitration. Detailed codes were drawn
up to guarantee an even-handed procedure for reviewing each case,
with guidelines covering any conflict of interests. A side-effect,
however, was the growth of a labyrinth of ‘red tape’. Marginal cases
could last for several years, even after 1259 when the bakufu allowed
them to be handled at a provincial level to help clear a mounting
backlog of unresolved suits.6
Ultimately, the military regime in Kamakura amounted to a limited
government, as its control extended to some provinces more than
others. To try to piece together an overall patchwork of rule from
the ‘centre’ would require records for both the Samurai-dokoro in
Kamakura and the Dajōkan in Kyoto. Information lacking from
records for Kamakura, for example, may appear in documents from
Kyoto.7 The respective governing bodies in these two capitals,
however, did not really function as an integrated complementary
network, but developed instead in isolation, exercising authority simply
where they could. With its now complex bureaucratic machinery, the
bakufu in Kamakura also took on some of the features more commonly
associated with the decline of Heian rule. The mechanisms of civil
administration in Kyoto, meanwhile, were never systematically over-
hauled, so the culture of the Heian era was by no means wiped out by
the onset of warrior rule in medieval Japan. The selection of members
of the Fujiwara family to act as shogun also reaffirms the respect paid
to existing symbols of authority. The bakufu in Kamakura, therefore,
did not so much replace the imperial government as coexist with the
regime in Kyoto.
In some cases local conditions even conspired to allow the two
systems to merge, creating a hybrid form of authority never imagined
by any institutional architects in Kamakura or Kyoto. A striking
example occurred at Dazaifu, although this had always been a special
case as the ‘distant court’ of Heian tradition. Here a shugo appointed by
the Kamakura bakufu was able to assume a senior title in the imperial
hierarchy, which he then used to project his family’s regional power.
This was Mutō Sukeyori, who in 1196 was sent to northern Kyushu by
109
Minamoto Yoritomo to help impose Kamakura rule. Together with the

appointment of Ōtomo Yoshinao, his arrival was intended to contain
the influence of the Kikuchi, a powerful family based in Higo that had
once served under the Taira.
The Mutō family traced its origins to a branch of the noble Fujiwara
line, and since the middle of the Heian era had won favour as loyal
retainers of the rising Minamoto clan.8 Now based in northern Kyushu,
Mutō Sukeyori spent several decades imposing his authority in his post
as shugo until in 1226 he was finally rewarded with the title of Dazai
Shōni. Although not quite as elevated in status as Dazai Daini, this was
one of the most senior imperial posts at the Dazaifu Headquarters and
had been held by some illustrious forebears, among them Taira
Kiyomori when he held sway in this region half a century before. As
such it helped to consolidate Mutō’s political control in the area, and he
was so flattered by the honour that he changed his family name to
Shōni. It was under this name that his successors would go on to
consolidate their power and lead the way in defending the coast of
northern Kyushu during the Mongol campaigns.
As Dazai Shōni, Mutō Sukeyori held jurisdiction over security
matters in nearby Hakata, which as it turned out proved to be an unen-
viable role for his son to inherit. The thriving trade in this mercantile
port was the most visible symbol of the ‘Shōni’ family’s growing
power. It also brought them into contact with a cosmopolitan world,
as they now shared space with merchants from China. For well over a
century overseas traders had been establishing their own commercial
empires, none more so than Xie Guoming, a Song merchant who even
owned a small island off the coast and lived in a large house in central
Hakata. It was Xie, for example, who supervised the construction of
the new Jōtenji Temple on land donated for this purpose by the Shōni
in 1242.9
At the time, a severe plague epidemic was sweeping through the port
of Hakata, and, in response, Enni, the head priest of Jōtenji, was carried
around the town on a portable shrine from which he sprinkled holy
water to cleanse the streets. In years afterwards, the procession was cer-
emoniously re-enacted, inspiring a tradition that developed into the
Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival, still one of the major annual street
parties in Japan today. As a spectacle Yamakasa arguably surpasses even
the cast of thousands who take part in the Hakata Dontaku festival in
110
May. Setting out from Kushida Shrine in the early hours of 15 July each
year, teams of bearers representing local wards put months of training
to the test as they carry the full weight of seven towering Yamakasa
floats through the crowded streets.10
Chinese merchants such as Xie Guoming contributed to the impact
of Song culture by selling commodities from the continent. With their
networks of overseas contacts they were also well placed to convey
news from the outside world. Any reports of disease outbreaks in ports
along the Chinese coast were always treated seriously here. Political
developments could also cause concern, especially if they threatened to
affect commerce. Even so, the first reports on the rise of the Mongols
in the far-off lands of continental Asia must have been difficult to com-
prehend for people who had never been beyond the shores of Kyushu.
Later they would form a more graphic impression when Mongol war-
riors sailed into Hakata Bay.
Approach of the Mongol empire

In 1204, just a few years after Minamoto Yoritomo had set up his
bakufu government in Kamakura, Genghis Khan established his posi-
tion as leader of all the Mongols. Originally a general serving under
Togrul, khan of the Kerait tribe, he was involved in destroying the
Tatars and later the Kerait themselves to stamp his authority on the
Mongolian plains. His military exploits enabled him to found an empire
that, within just a generation, would dominate the known world. He
also had a reputation for cruelty that inspired fear throughout Asia.
Genghis Khan once ordered the deaths of thousands of prisoners in a
single day during his conquest of northern India, and on another
occasion he notoriously had the King of Kiev smothered in a carpet.
Nevertheless, there was method to his brutality, which was certainly
effective in forcing the submission of several populous cities in the inte-
rior of China.11
The Mongols first invaded Koryŏ (Korea) in 1231, but met unusu-
ally fierce resistance there which would keep them at bay from the coast
facing Kyushu for the next thirty years. Further inland in central Asia
their conquests unfolded with breathtaking range and speed. To the
west they invaded the plains of eastern Europe in 1241, and to the east
they attacked China and Annam (Vietnam) in 1253. By 1260 they had
111
taken control of the northern territories of Song China, and Genghis

Khan’s nephew, Khubilai, was installed as emperor of the new Yüan
dynasty in Beijing. It was the first time this city was used as an imperial
capital. Three years afterwards, in his nostalgia for his native Mongolian
plains, Khubilai Khan built a summer palace on a site ten days’ journey
to the north. This was Shangdu, the Xanadu of Coleridge’s famous
poem composed more than five hundred years later.12
Khubilai Khan’s all-conquering armies gradually wore down the
remaining pockets of resistance in the continental lands of East Asia.
By 1260 Koryŏ had been cowed into submission at last, although rebel-
lion persisted in the far south of the peninsula for another decade. A
focal point of resistance was the large island of Cheju, which was
invested with formidable defensive ramparts and held out until 1273.
Calls for aid were even sent across the Tsushima Straits, although it is
not clear to what extent, if at all, any Japanese forces responded to help
their embattled neighbours.13 In China, meanwhile, the increasingly
fragile Song regime retreated south beyond the Yangtze River and clung
onto the remnants of its empire for a few more years. Unquestionably
now ruler of the dominant power, Khubilai Khan looked for ways to
shore up the foundations of Mongol hegemony. One method he chose
was to revive the tribute system, the old network of diplomatic relations
developed centuries before under the Tang dynasty, which had served
to formalize the subordinate status of surrounding satellite states.
During the Tang heyday, Japan had also been incorporated into this
network, as tribute and gifts were exchanged across the East China Sea.
At that time there were clear advantages to be gained from basking in
the cultural glow of Chang’an, but the allure had lapsed since 894 when
Sugawara Michizane abandoned the last attempt to send an embassy.
Now that neighbouring states were once again being forced to submit
to the supreme rule of the ‘Middle Kingdom’, Japan, in the eyes of
Khubilai Khan, was a conspicuous absentee from the new Mongol
tribute system. Establishing relations may also have been part of a
strategic design to pave the way for his preparations to attack the
remnants of the Song regime in the south of China.14
In 1266, an official letter was dispatched from Beijing inviting Japan
to renew its tributary status. Couched in the rhetoric of the old Tang
system, the terms on offer were clearly unequal, as the letter was
addressed ‘from the Emperor of Great Mongolia to the King of Japan’.
112
Neither was there any real option to politely decline, for Khubilai’s
invitation carried with it a thinly veiled threat. ‘Is it reasonable’, he
asked, ‘to refuse intercourse with each other? It will lead to war, and
who is there who likes such a state of things!’15 The king of Koryŏ was
charged with arranging the safe passage of the Mongol emissaries
bearing this letter. Partly because of rough seas but also due to his reluc-
tance over their mission, nearly two winters passed before they finally
reached the shores of Kyushu. When they did, it created a state of
emergency that lasted for the next thirty years.
The Mongol invasions

Early in 1268, the envoys stepped ashore in Hakata Bay and handed
over the letter from Khubilai Khan. One reason for the heated discus-
sion that followed was that, being addressed to the ‘King of Japan’, the
delicate balance of power struck between emperor and shogun made it
far from clear who should respond. In the first instance it was delivered
into the hands of Shōni Sukeyoshi, the son of Sukeyori, who was in
charge of local security matters. By now he would have been fully aware
of the threat posed by the Mongols, having perhaps seen maps of their
vast empire brought from China by merchants like Xie Guoming.16 The
letter was sent on to Kamakura where it was seen first by Hōjō
Tokimune, the regent (shikken) in charge of bakufu affairs, and passed
on to the shogun before being forwarded to Kyoto for inspection by
the emperor.
Amid much uncertainty the court may have concluded that it would
be damaging to Japan’s pride to send a response at all. Alternatively, it
may have drafted a response, only for a decision not to send it to then
be taken by the bakufu when this was received in Kamakura.17 In either
case the result was that the letter from ‘the Emperor of Great Mongolia’
was simply ignored, clearly an insult to the dignity of Khubilai Khan.
When his envoys returned to Beijing empty-handed later in 1268, he
immediately ordered the king of Koryŏ to construct ships and conscript
troops for a full-scale invasion. At the same time he sent further envoys
to Kyushu, promising peace but in effect delivering a more threatening
ultimatum each time. One arrived in Imazu on the west coast of Hakata
Bay in 1271, and another went as far as Dazaifu in 1273. On neither
occasion were they able to take back with them a reply from the ‘King
113
of Japan’. By this time a consensus had emerged not to respond, even

if this meant facing the wrath of the Mongols.
The Kamakura bakufu also began their preparations for a possible
attack, in 1268 alerting the shugo to secure their defences.18 Intelligence
received in 1271 that the Mongols were planning an invasion from
Koryŏ territory prompted what amounted to a mobilization order. All
the go-kenin warriors residing in Kyushu had already been commanded
to be on the alert for an attack on the coast, but now absentee land-
holders as well were instructed to return there ‘to fortify the land and
pacify local outlaws [akutō]’.19 On the continent, meanwhile, Khubilai
Khan’s attention was diverted by the ongoing siege of Hsiang-yang, the
last great stronghold blocking the Mongols’ path to the Yangtze River
and beyond to the southern heartland of the Song regime. When
Hsiang-yang fell and the remaining rebels in Koryŏ were crushed in
1273, he was at last able to concentrate on the subjugation of Japan,
now a rogue state in the Mongol world order.
During the summer of 1274 a huge invasion force was massed on the
southern coast of Koryŏ, with 28,000 troops (8,000 of them Korean)
ready for transportation in 900 ships.20 In November the fleet moved
south across the straits from one island to the next, devastating
Tsushima and then Iki. A leader called Taira Tsunetaka – possibly the
descendant of a Taira fugitive – manned the defences in Iki, but was
killed in the first skirmishes with the Mongols.21 Now within sight of
the Kyushu coast, their ships then sailed into Hakata Bay and cast
anchor in the shelter of Shikanoshima Island across the water from the
town itself. From this base they made their way ashore.
The Mongol invaders immediately encountered resistance from the
forces of Kyushu lords such as Shimazu and Kikuchi, led by the shugo
commanders Shōni Sukeyoshi and Ōtomo Yoriyasu. Also present were
some warriors from the Matsura territories in northwest Kyushu whose
mobile lightweight boats would prove useful in harrying the enemy fleet.
Even so, between them they had nowhere near the 100,000 men later
claimed in Chinese records.22 Samurai were accustomed, moreover, to
the individual combat that had become the accepted style of fighting in
conflicts such as the Genpei War nearly a century before, and were
unprepared for military innovations recently developed on the continent.
For their part the Mongol warriors were unable to take much advantage
of their exalted horsemanship in this seaborne attack, but they could call
114
on a host of techniques and weapons honed in combat in China, includ-

ing the use of tight group formations, fireballs and poisoned arrows.23
Despite the samurai warriors’ efforts to contain them, detachments of
Mongol troops at last broke through and began marauding inland.
After twenty days of fighting the Japanese were forced to fall back
from the coastal area and regroup behind the ramparts of Mizuki, which
guarded the approach to Dazaifu. The invaders, however, had also sus-
tained losses and were suffering from a shortage of supplies, so they
decided to withdraw to their ships moored in Hakata Bay. On the way
back they continued to inflict damage, burning down the grand shrine
at Hakozaki built in honour of the empress Jingū. According to the
Hachiman Gūdoki, the Japanese had little hope of resisting the Mongols
the following day: ‘We lamented all through the night, thinking that we
were doomed and would be destroyed to the last man and that no
“seeds” would be left to fill the nine provinces.’24 Under the cover of
darkness, however, fierce gales were pounding the coast. At sunrise,
much to the surprise of the defenders on shore who were steeling them-
selves for a further onslaught, the enemy fleet had completely disap-
peared.
A traditional explanation of this miraculous delivery from attack is
that the Mongol ships were damaged by a fierce storm and dashed on
the rocks of Shikanoshima Island.25 There is also a suggestion that,
because they still lay at their moorings, some ships were dragged below
the waves as other vessels around them foundered. It is unclear,
however, whether or not the Mongol fleet had decided to set sail
already, and if it encountered this stormy weather while it was still in
Hakata Bay or already on the way back to Iki or Tsushima islands.
Moreover in 1958 the meteorologist Arakawa Hidetoshi pointed out
that, as the disaster occurred in late November, it was far too late in the
year for the typhoon season. Drawing attention to the fact that it does
not appear in any reliable records either, he suggested that the great
storm remembered from this first invasion has been confused with
the typhoon which certainly befell the second.26 What is clear is that the
Japanese believed they had been saved by a ‘divine wind’, and when the
remaining Mongol ships limped back into harbour in Koryŏ, they were
found to be missing more than 13,500 men, over a third of the force
that had left port just a few weeks before.27
In Japan there was even talk of retaliating by sending a military
115
campaign across the Tsushima Straits but this plan came to nothing. In
his role as shikken, however, Hōjō Tokimune did set about mobilizing
a small navy, relying on the seafaring skills of pirates based in Kyushu.
He also sent a close relative called Hōjō Sanemasa to coordinate secu-
rity measures in Hakata Bay on Kamakura’s behalf, in effect assuming
the responsibilities hitherto held by the Shōni. The bakufu was aware
of reports that the Mongols could be expected to mount a further
attack. For the time-being, they were given valuable breathing space by
the fact that Khubilai Khan was now concentrating on finally crushing
the resistance of the ailing Song regime in southern China.
It was in 1275, a year after this first Mongol invasion that a young
Venetian traveller called Marco Polo is thought to have held his first
audience with Khubilai Khan. The attacks on Japan feature in the
famous Travels he wrote several years later. The ‘Cipangu’ he described
was a land rich beyond compare, reflecting perhaps how these islands
were viewed as a treasured prize at the Mongol court. Khubilai Khan had
certainly not forgotten, and may have believed that this first show of mil-
itary strength had been enough to intimidate the ‘King of Japan’. The
next year a further group of Mongol envoys was dispatched to the
islands to reinforce the point. On their arrival they were sent on to
Kamakura, only to be summarily executed when they stepped ashore.
By this stage preparations were underway to protect the north coast
of Kyushu. In 1275, vassals in Kyushu were ordered to combine their
forces into units of two to three provinces, which then took turns to
spend three months of the year manning defences. In 1276, Hōjō
Sanemasa also organized the construction of the seven massive walls
along the beaches of Hakata Bay. The cost of this ambitious project was
shared among the major shugo lords of Kyushu, who called on the
resources of both the go-kenin and shōen estates in their lands to complete
the task just within six months. It was certainly time well spent because,
following a Mongol offensive lasting six years, the Song dynasty in the
south of China finally collapsed in 1279. Now free to focus again on the
islands across the East China Sea, Khubilai Khan sent another envoy to
announce the defeat of the Song and warn the Japanese that they would
be next if they did not submit. On Kamakura’s orders this emissary was
executed on the spot when he landed in Hakata.28 Preparations for a
second invasion were soon in full swing.
As they had now imposed their control on the continent, for this next
116
campaign the Mongols were able to draw on the resources of the subject
population south of the Yangtze River as well as Koryō. Before long
they had amassed a vast invasion force, divided into two grand fleets.
On the south coast of the Korean peninsula the eastern fleet was com-
parable in strength with the first invasion seven years before, with 900
ships ready to carry 40,000 troops across the Tsushima Straits. A south-
ern fleet was also to sail from Ningbo, carrying a force of no less than
100,000 Song soldiers on board 3,500 ships across the East China Sea.29
The plan was for the two fleets to meet at a rendezvous point near Iki
Island off the north coast of Kyushu and combine their forces in a direct
assault on Hakata Bay. This would give them well over five times the
troop strength that would later sail to England in the Spanish Armada
in 1588. Moreover, thirty times as many ships were involved, although
these were mostly smaller and less seaworthy than the Spanish galleons
of the sixteenth century.30
The objective was conquest and then occupation, for a number of
Mongol troops even brought hoes with them to cultivate the land once
it was in their power. From the outset, however, the invasion did not go
according to plan. Tsushima Island with its newly-built defences proved
difficult to take, so the eastern fleet pressed on across the straits to Iki,
where the thirteen-year-old Shōni Suketoki was killed trying to defend
the island.31 They were unable to rendezvous with their allies, however,
as the departure of the southern fleet from China was delayed due to the
sudden death of its commander. Deciding not to wait, in June the eastern
fleet sailed into Hakata Bay and promptly launched a series of attacks on
the shore. The fighting continued for two months in the heat of the
summer, as the new protective walls manned by samurai troops held the
Mongols on the beaches. Unable to break through the invaders captured
Shikanoshima Island at the mouth of Hakata Bay, but were constantly
harried by squadrons of small Japanese boats. Their provisions were also
soon exhausted and disease broke out on board their ships, striking down
large numbers of men and horses.
Eventually, the eastern fleet was forced to lift the siege on the
Hakata coast and fall back to Iki. From there it sailed west to the island
of Hirado off the northwest coast of Kyushu and joined up at last with
the southern fleet, which had now completed its passage across the
East China Sea. Armed with these reinforcements their combined
armada moved east to renew the assault on Hakata Bay. If this
117
immense force had ever arrived, the Mongols and their allies would
have heavily outnumbered the samurai warriors manning the walls. On
14 August, however, a fierce storm caught the fleet as it made its way
along the coast. Seeking a safe haven in Imari Bay, the ships became
tightly packed together and were driven by tide and storm towards the
rocks off Takashima Island. Within hours, hundreds of vessels sank,
taking their crews with them. To press their advantage a small fleet of
Japanese ships under Shōni Kagesuke was despatched along the coast
to capture or kill any survivors they found scattered along the shore.32
Unable to mount a further challenge, the remaining ships of the grand
fleet limped back across the Tsushima Straits to the safety of the Koryŏ
coast. Less than half of those who had left the continent made it back
alive.33
The catastrophic failure of the Mongol invasions has sometimes
been linked to Khubilai Khan’s dependence on large numbers of
troops from Koryŏ and on the second occasion from Song China.
Many of these soldiers certainly lacked any strong motive for attack-
ing the Kyushu coast. Nevertheless, there were significant numbers of
battle-hardened Mongol warriors among their ranks. The recent dis-
covery of the wrecks of the fleet on the bed of Imari Bay has thrown
further light on the demise of the disastrous second expedition. This
confirms suspicions that, in his haste to attack, Khubilai Khan gave
the shipyards in southern China too little time to prepare the fleet. A
number of wrecks discovered have turned out to be low-keeled vessels
with flat-bottomed hulls, much like the river boats used in the Yangtze
basin. Boats quite unsuitable for this sea-crossing were thus pressed
into service and would certainly have been the first to capsize in the
stormy waters off the Kyushu coast.34 Also found among the remains
of the fleet have been stone anchors of a type used only by Arab
trading ships, suggesting that Muslim merchants then active in
Quanzhou in southern China provided material assistance for the
second Mongol invasion. One of the most striking facts to emerge,
however, is the discovery that many of the wrecks lie aligned in the
same direction on the sea bed, indicating how quickly they must have
sunk and also the power of the natural forces that drove them towards
the rocks on the shore.35
Incensed by the failure of this second expedition, Khubilai Khan
entertained plans for a third invasion for several years afterwards. For
118
a long time this was impossible due to the outbreak of rebellion in parts
of China and Annam, together with rampant inflation and political
infighting at the Mongol court.36 Nevertheless, in 1293 he did send
another envoy to Japan. The unfortunate messenger got only as far as
Tsushima before he was executed, whereupon Khubilai Khan gave
orders to Koryŏ to prepare another attack. He died the following year,
however, and the news was greeted by scenes of open celebration in
those states – Koryŏ and Song China – which had been forced to
comply with his dream of overseas conquest. Careful not to be caught
off guard, the coastal defences in Hakata Bay were maintained for years
to come, and even as late as 1314 there were occasions when they were
reinforced amid renewed fears of another Mongol attack.37
The Kamakura bakufu in decline

A torii gate by the shore in Hakata Bay marks the gateway from the sea
leading to Hakozaki Shrine a short walk inland. Destroyed in the first
Mongol invasion, this was rebuilt shortly afterwards in an act of defi-
ance. Facing out to sea, a symbolic placard above the entrance bears
four characters that read tekikoku kōfuku, or ‘the enemy country sur-
render[ed]!’38 This became the subject of some controversy in later gen-
erations, particularly during the twentieth century, but the message was
originally inspired by the intense relief felt when Kyushu’s shores were
spared from conquest. While there was widespread rejoicing from
Hakata to Kamakura and Kyoto, however, in the long term the ramifi-
cations of the conflict arguably had a greater impact on Japan than the
Mongol empire itself.
These disastrous expeditions did not entirely destroy Khubilai
Khan’s power in China, but they certainly damaged his prestige as the
myth of Mongol invincibility was irrevocably undermined. The cam-
paigns also created severe economic problems, as the costs incurred
forced the Mongol rulers to devalue the central currency. The tax
increases ordered by Khubilai Khan also caused deep resentment
among the Chinese population, especially as Mongol residents did not
have to pay. The Yüan dynasty he had founded would ultimately
become one of the most short-lived regimes to hold sway in China,
lasting barely a hundred years until its collapse in 1368. Ironically,
however, by this time the Kamakura bakufu was already a fading
119
memory in Japan, its own authority shattered within fifty years of the
celebrated military victories on the coasts of Hakata Bay.
A significant factor in the decline of Kamakura’s power was the
immense cost involved in defending Kyushu’s coasts against the two
invasions. These campaigns had caused economic hardships for all
those samurai vassals, mostly from Kyushu, who were mobilized to
man the coasts. After so much sacrifice many of them considered them-
selves ‘war heroes’. In the Shōni family, for example, the eighty-four-
year-old Sukeyoshi had received a severe wound, while his sons
Tsunesuke and Kagesuke were ‘decorated’ for bravery. In the years that
followed, the Kamakura bakufu was besieged by demands from such
veterans for some form of compensation. It was customary to distrib-
ute land and booty after any military victory, but this was no civil con-
flict in which the defeated side’s territory could be divided and shared,
or an overseas expedition in which riches could be plundered. Despite
the enormous effort involved, there was precious little in the way of
spoils of war after these defensive campaigns. This was why the impe-
rial estate of Kanzaki-shō was one of the many shōen to disappear when,
within a year of the second Mongol invasion, it was divided up by
drawing lots among four hundred samurai veterans.39
The most famous example of a compensation suit was the case of
Takezaki Suenaga, a middle-ranking samurai from Higo Province. After
lobbying the authorities in Kyushu to no avail, he finally made the
journey all the way to Kamakura to press his claim and was eventually
rewarded with land and also a prize horse. To commemorate this event
the grateful Takezaki later commissioned some elaborate pictorial
scrolls to recount his exploits during both Mongol campaigns. The
vivid illustrations they contain present the most detailed available
record of the armour, weapons and techniques employed in military
combat between the samurai and Mongol warriors.40
Only the sort of persistence that Takezaki had shown, however,
could offer hope of success, and the majority of samurai involved were
left feeling less than satisfied with the meagre rewards they received.
The level of disaffection among Kyushu vassals became so conspicuous
that, in the 1290s, the bakufu supplanted the lapsed post of Chinzei
Bugyō with the new position of Chinzei Tandai in an effort to maintain
order on the island.41 The Shōni naturally hoped to receive this appoint-
ment, having represented Kamakura interests in northern Kyushu for
120
more than two generations already. Instead it went to a member of the

Hōjō family who was sent down from Kamakura to re-impose control.
Moreover, the post of Chinzei Tandai carried with it shugo jurisdiction
over Hizen Province, and was subsequently extended to incorporate six
of Kyushu’s nine provinces. The Hōjō were so intent on stamping their
authority on the island that by the end of Kamakura rule the only three
provinces left in the hands of the shugo families were Chikuzen (Shōni),
Bungo (Ōtomo) and Satsuma (Shimazu). To some extent the bakufu’s
mistrust of these powerful Kyushu lords was understandable, even if
their forebears had originally been sent to the island on Kamakura’s
behalf. Nevertheless, given these circumstances, it was hardly surpris-
ing that forty years later the Shōni would turn against the Hōjō in their
hour of need.
It was becoming increasingly clear that the bakufu could no longer
command the loyalty of the samurai, a precarious state of affairs for a
military regime. When a political conflict did occur, therefore, it might
divide the realm into two or more military camps. In 1331, an attempted
coup d’état by the ambitious emperor Go-Daigo came to nothing, but
by this time enemies of the Kamakura regime were never short of
support. Two years later, the powerful vassal Ashikaga Takauji suddenly
declared for the emperor and, after a swift attack on Kamakura itself,
destroyed the ruling Hōjō line. In Kyushu, meanwhile, just a few days
later Shōni Sadatsune marched on Dazaifu and killed Hōjō Hidetoki,
the serving Chinzei Tandai and symbol of Kamakura power. With the
bakufu government in ruins, Ashikaga, with some help from his
Kyushu allies at a critical juncture, would soon be in a position to set up
his own military regime.
After a tense diplomatic stand off the military confrontation
between the Mongol empire and the Kamakura regime had been
played out on the shores of Hakata Bay. The cumulative burden these
campaigns placed upon the bakufu in Honshu contributed directly to
its long-term decline. Already struggling to manage the resolution of
land disputes in peacetime, the claims on land in the aftermath of war
stretched the capacity of the authorities to keep control. The fragmen-
tation of shōen estates was symptomatic of the challenges facing repre-
sentatives of the Hōjō despatched to Kyushu. Once on site, they found
it was no longer just the former allies of the Taira or ‘outlaws’ that
posed a threat to Kamakura rule, but even vassals appointed by the
121
bakufu itself. The military regime had been able to unite its vassals
against the Mongols, but loyalty to the Chinzei Tandai did not stretch
far beyond his headquarters in Dazaifu, the ‘distant court’ of Heian
times.
122
CHAPTER 7
DIVIDED LOYALTIES:
PIRATES AND RIVAL
COURTS

hen the Mongol ships went down off Takashima Island in Imari
W Bay in August 1281, the first survivors to clamber ashore were
promptly despatched or rounded up by local fishermen. These were
men who spent much of their working lives spreading their nets at sea,
but who clearly knew how to fight as well. In the defence of their com-
munities they were often drawn into the long civil wars that dominated
politics in medieval Kyushu. Some also used their boats to look for
booty as well as fish, for here in this mountainous terrain, the forested
slopes made the land ill-suited to agriculture and the inhabitants were
forced to seek their livelihood at sea. Many of these fishing villages
were so isolated that they were largely cut off from any central or even
regional authorities’ spheres of influence. With their independent spirit
and durable local organization, however, they could certainly make an
impact on the overall balance of power both in Japan and overseas.
These were the Matsura-tō, a loose confederation of coastal com-
munities who united to protect their interests in times of need. In Korea
and China these and other bands of men from across the water had long
been recognized as wakō, the notorious ‘Japanese pirates’ who spread
fear whenever they appeared offshore. This is the Japanese pronuncia-
tion of a term in Chinese letters that first appears as early as 414 CE,
inscribed on the Kwanggaet’o monument on the banks of the Yalu
River in northern Korea. It is formed from two characters; wa- meaning
‘dwarf’, the pejorative name traditionally used for the people and
islands of ‘Wa’, together with -kō, meaning ‘brigand’. In medieval times,
123
from the thirteenth century onwards, such bands – known as waegu in

Korean, or wōkòu in Chinese – began to feature prominently around the
coasts of the East China Sea.1
Fear of the wakō, real or imagined, created a powerful discourse of
victimhood among coastal communities in Korea and China, just as
people in northern Kyushu for a long time had lived in fear of ‘Silla
pirates’.2 At least some of these seafarers set out with trade foremost in
mind, only to arouse the suspicion of local populations. In Murai
Shōsuke’s analysis, the inhabitants of remote areas on the northern
coasts of Kyushu or Iki and Tsushima islands can be thought of as
‘people of the margins’, as they developed a culturally distinct mar-
itime livelihood of their own. In many cases those who ventured
overseas could also be described as what Philip Curtin calls ‘cross-
cultural brokers’, playing intermediary roles in negotiations across these
borderlands.3
There was always scope for conflict when trade was involved, and
any visiting seafarers disappointed with their haul could soon turn
violent. It would be misleading, however, to characterize the wakō only
as disgruntled merchants. The Chinese described them as ‘shrewd by
nature’, noting how ‘they carried merchandise and weapons together
and appeared here and there along the sea-coast’.4 Clearly, there was a
thriving culture of piracy, and from their bases in Japan, they were able
to launch raids far and wide on the coasts of the Tsushima Straits and
East China Sea.
Together with fleets operated by adventurers in the Inland Sea, the
Matsura-tō in particular built a reputation for their naval power. Their
activities escalated in times of weak political control, notably in the four-
teenth century when Japan was gripped by civil war during the ‘age of
rival courts’ (nanboku jidai). Such raids were less conspicuous in the peace-
ful interlude that followed as order was restored and new dynasties, Ming
and Chosŏn, took charge in China and Korea, but they returned with a
vengeance in the sixteenth century, in the chaotic political climate that
prevailed during the ‘age of warring states’ (sengoku jidai).
At their height wakō raids could be full-scale military operations,
involving fleets carrying small armies on board that sometimes num-
bered in their thousands. On arrival these bands would terrorize the
coastline, burning everything in sight, stealing all they could lay their
hands on from rice to gold, and enslaving local villagers. Their ships
124
Divided Loyalties: Pirates and Rival Courts
flew the distinctive flag of the Hachiman Daibosatsu, the Buddhist title
bestowed on Ōjin, or in popular memory the ‘God of War’. In Kyushu
this was a particularly emotive symbol, as Ōjin himself was held to have
been born and raised on the island.
The power of such symbolism was not lost on Ashikaga Takauji, the
rebellious vassal of the Hōjō who destroyed the Kamakura bakufu in
1333. It was later in 1336, after being forced west to regroup his forces,
that he raised his standard in Kyushu at the start of the military cam-
paign that would sweep him to power. His victories enabled him to
found a new dynasty of Ashikaga shogun rulers in charge of another
military bakufu, this time based in (and named after) Muromachi, an
area on the outskirts of Kyoto. At the onset of this campaign, however,
his political fortunes hinged on the outcome of a battle fought at a
place called Tatarahama by a riverbank now in the suburbs of Fukuoka
City. Heavily outnumbered, it seemed at first that his cause was lost,
and according to the Taiheiki, Japan’s most epic medieval war tale, he
was so disheartened that his younger brother Tadayoshi had to dis-
suade him from committing suicide.5 In the event, the tide turned when
a number of enemy troops, the Matsura-tō among them, suddenly
changed sides. They may have hailed from remote villages in the
country, but these men exemplified the juxtaposition of inner and
outer networks of power that were a feature of everyday life in
medieval Kyushu.
The road to Tatarahama

The collapse of the Kamakura bakufu divided loyalties in many areas of
Japan, and at a regional level these were often reflected in the form of
longstanding family rivalries. In northern Kyushu, for example, the
great power struggle that emerged was between the Kikuchi and Shōni
families. To some extent this bitter feud involved issues of land, wealth
and local status. It would also assume wider importance when it became
directly linked with Ashikaga Takauji’s bid for supremacy. The episode
illustrates how, in the fragmented world of medieval politics, struggles
at the centre were affected by localized conflicts, and how events in
Kyushu could have a bearing on the balance of power in Kyoto.
The bad blood between the Kikuchi and the Shōni can be traced to
the final days of the Kamakura regime. At the start of 1333, Hōjō
125
Hidetoki was worried. In Kyoto the emperor Go-Daigo had recently

sent out golden brocade banners to all corners of the realm, calling on
his subjects to rally behind his campaign to overthrow the bakufu and
‘restore’ imperial rule. As the Chinzei Tandai in Dazaifu, Hōjō consid-
ered sending out his own call to arms to secure the support of the most
powerful families in Kyushu. First there were the shugo lords, the Ōtomo
based in Bungo Province in the east and the Shōni in the north, both
loyal servants who had spearheaded the campaigns against the Mongols
fifty years before. Then there were the Kikuchi, an influential family con-
trolling territories in Higo Province in the centre of the island. Like the
Shōni, the Kikuchi could claim descent from the noble Fujiwara line,
although their ancestors in Heian times may have simply adopted this
name to reflect the status they held as senior officials at the Dazaifu
Headquarters.6 Moreover, they had a proud record of protecting the
north coast from attack, having fought in both the Toi and Mongol inva-
sions. In the twelfth century they had been associated with the Taira
hegemony in Kyushu, but the Kamakura regime then allowed them to
retain their lands as they had led the insurrection against the Taira at the
start of the Genpei War, and finally deserted to the Minamoto at the
decisive Battle of Dannoura.
From the perspective of Hōjō Hidetoki in his position as Chinzei
Tandai, of all these lords it was Kikuchi Takatoki whose loyalty
appeared the most suspect, and to pre-empt unrest he summoned him
to appear in Dazaifu. Kikuchi was wary of being trapped so far north
of his own lands, and although he reluctantly complied he took his time
to make the journey. When Hōjō reprimanded him for not obeying
more promptly, Kikuchi called on the Shōni and Ōtomo to honour a
previous agreement they had made to join together in presenting a
show of regional solidarity. Judging that it was too soon to act,
however, neither of these shugo lords responded to his appeal and he
was left critically exposed. Kikuchi was killed in action when Hōjō’s
men launched a punitive attack and, branded a rebel, his head was
paraded in Dazaifu. The public humiliation this brought upon the
Kikuchi was exacerbated by their sense of outrage at what they saw as
the treachery of the Shōni in particular, for failing to make even the
short journey from their base nearby to help their lord in his hour of
need. As such, his death marked the onset of a bitter feud that would
last for the next sixty years.7
126
Having made an example of Kikuchi Takatoki, the Dazaifu authori-

ties hoped that they had managed to assert the bakufu’s control in
Kyushu. It was only shortly afterwards, however, that the shogunate
itself collapsed when, after suffering a decisive military defeat on the
outskirts of Kamakura, the Hōjō and over seven hundred retainers
committed suicide. When the news reached Kyushu, Shōni Sadatsune
promptly marched on Dazaifu and killed Hōjō Hidetoki as well. They
may have had little sympathy for the Kikuchi, but it would appear that
the Shōni had never quite forgotten the slight of having been over-
looked for the post of Chinzei Tandai in Kyushu.
Following the collapse of the Kamakura bakufu, the emperor Go-
Daigo attempted to restore imperial rule with the military backing of
Ashikaga Takauji. In 1335, however, this ‘Kenmu Restoration’ frac-
tured when Go-Daigo refused to grant his general’s request for official
recognition as the new shogun. Ashikaga turned against the emperor he
had helped to gain power, but after some initial clashes he was hounded
out of Kyoto. Taking only a small force of loyal vassals with him, he
escaped west to Kyushu to seek protection from the Shōni.
When Ashikaga arrived in Kyushu he found that hostilities had
already broken out between the Kikuchi and the Shōni as, following the
removal of Hōjō Hidetoki, the two families struggled for regional
supremacy. Kikuchi Taketoshi launched the first attack, only for Shōni
Sadatsune to retaliate by capturing Kikuchi Castle. Taketoshi managed
to escape, however, and now that many samurai in Kyushu were rally-
ing behind the golden brocade banners sent out by the emperor Go-
Daigo, he soon found himself at the head of a large army marching
north into Shōni territory to seek out the rebel Ashikaga. For his part,
Ashikaga had been wary of being branded a rebel as an ‘enemy of the
court’, and was clearly relieved when a monk arrived in Kyushu bearing
an order (inzen) from the retired emperor Kōgon of the rival Daikakuji
branch. This gave him the semblance of legitimacy he needed to
command his forces to hoist his own golden brocade banner and
prepare for battle around Hakata.8
On his way north Kikuchi laid siege to Shōni Sadatsune at Uchiyama
Castle, and although there seemed little danger at first, Shōni was sud-
denly attacked by traitors within his ranks and forced to commit
suicide.9 Now deprived of his main ally, Ashikaga’s prospects looked
bleak indeed as the enemy army approached Hakata, and he withdrew
127
his troops to a low hill on the far side of the Tatara River a short dis-
tance to the east of the city. The battle site of Tatarahama is today occu-
pied by a large distribution centre reserved for container trucks. The
surrounding area is littered with battlegrounds, as control over the rich
port of Hakata was contested on numerous occasions. Nevertheless,
the Battle of Tatarahama in particular lives on in local memory as a place
of treachery and bloodshed.10
Waiting on the hill to the east of the river, Ashikaga Takauji was sup-
ported by Shōni Yorihisa, Sadatsune’s son, but he had less than 2,000
men to protect him. Approaching the River Tatara from the west,
Kikuchi Taketoshi, together with Aso Korenao, a neighbouring lord
from the central uplands of Kyushu, commanded an army of anything
between 30,000 and 50,000 men. Against such overwhelming odds
Ashikaga should not have stood a chance, but Shōni Yorihisa seemed
confident that some of those in Kikuchi’s ranks would desert once
battle was joined. His prediction proved to be well-founded as large
numbers in the rear of the enemy army changed sides, including the
Matsura-tō who had fought with the Shōni in the past.
Now trapped in a defenceless position by the riverbank, the Kikuchi
warriors tried to break out but were soon hacked down in their thou-
sands.11 Kikuchi Taketoshi was killed in action, while the fatally
wounded Aso Korenao fled and escaped south down the valley. He
managed to ride as far as the town of Ogi at the foot of Mt Tenzan in
neighbouring Hizen, and was laid to rest at the summit according to his
dying request, ‘Bury me where I can see the smoke of my homeland
Aso.’12 In reality, even on a clear day it would have been impossible to
see Mt Aso from there, although such is the dominance of volcanoes in
the Kyushu landscape that they never seem far away.
Kyushu in the age of rival courts

Tatarahama was a pivotal moment in Ashikaga Takauji’s political for-
tunes. Defeat would have cast his flight west to Kyushu in the same light
as that of the Taira on the way to Dannoura in 1185. Victory gave him
the power base he needed to march on Kyoto. On his approach to the
imperial capital he was confronted by the celebrated general Kusunoki
Masashige, but a further victory at the Battle of Minatoguchi allowed
him to enter the city and set up his new shogunate. He did not have
128
undisputed control, however, since the emperor Go-Daigo escaped

south to the mountain sanctuary of Yoshino, where he and his sons set
up and ruled over a ‘Southern Court’. In Kyoto, meanwhile, Ashikaga
set the rival emperor Kōmyō on the imperial throne of the ‘Northern
Court’. This age of rival courts divided loyalties everywhere, plunging
the land into continuous warfare for the next fifty years.
In Kyushu the resulting conflict took on a complex form as, at one
stage, the island was divided into at least three camps. To protect the
interests of the Northern Court, Ashikaga followed the model of the
Kamakura bakufu and assigned the role of Chinzei Tandai to Isshiki
Noriuji, one of his trusted generals, to assert the power of the
Muromachi shogunate. Isshiki, however, found it hard to win the
support of Kyushu lords and in his first four years in office alone, he
unsuccessfully tendered his resignation no less than nine times.13
Following their defeat by the Shōni, meanwhile, the Kikuchi had
managed to regroup and they continued to fight under Go-Daigo’s
golden brocade banner on behalf of the Southern Court. Their cam-
paign received a boost in 1342 when Prince Kaneyoshi, Go-Daigo’s
twelve-year-old son, landed in Satsuma and consolidated a power base
in the south.14 The new bakufu’s authority suffered a further blow in
1349 when Ashikaga Tadafuyu, Takauji’s son, rebelled against his
father and landed in Kyushu as well. For several years Tadafuyu
enjoyed the support of Shōni Yorihisa, his father’s saviour at
Tatarahama, who felt slighted that his family had once again been over-
looked for the post of Chinzei Tandai. With the support of the Shōni,
Tadafuyu briefly held control over much of northern Kyushu, but his
fortunes waned when he returned to Honshu in 1352 to press his
claims in Kyoto.
For long periods it was the forces of the Southern Court that held the
balance of power in Kyushu. On several occasions the Kikuchi-
Kaneyoshi alliance managed to defeat Isshiki’s armies, and their ascen-
dancy was assured when Isshiki himself was hounded from the island
in 1356. A decisive confrontation followed at the Battle of Chikugo
River in 1359, the largest single engagement in Kyushu involving 60,000
men on either side. By defeating the combined forces of the Shōni and
the Ōtomo there, the Kikuchi effectively stamped their authority on the
region and, under their protection, Prince Kaneyoshi was able to hold
court at Dazaifu for nearly a decade.
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This high watermark in the fortunes of the Kikuchi was interrupted

when the third shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu came to power in 1368.
Determined to revive the Muromachi regime’s fading claims to rule in
the west, Yoshimitsu appointed Imagawa Ryōshun to the new post of
‘Kyūshū Tandai’ and charged him with the task of imposing control
over the nine provinces that gave the island its name. During a series
of hard-fought campaigns Imagawa went on to break the resistance of
both the Kikuchi and Shōni. His authority, however, was never more
than tenuous, partly because he never won the trust of the three great
shugo lords of Kyushu. A key moment occurred on the eve of the Battle
of Mizushima in 1375 when Imagawa called on the Shōni, Ōtomo and
Shimazu to join his army in a show of force within striking distance of
Kikuchi Castle in Higo. When Shōni Fuyusuke responded late,
Imagawa had him promptly assassinated during a banquet supposedly
held in honour of his arrival. Appalled at this slight on the honour of
Kyushu’s three shugo families, Shimazu Ujihisa promptly left the camp
and refused to listen to Imagawa’s attempts to explain. Even twenty-
two years later when the Kyūshū Tandai was finally recalled to Kyoto
in 1395, Shimazu’s son Korehisa sent a pointed message to his fellow
shugo lord Ōtomo Chikayo, celebrating Imagawa’s departure from the
island.15
For years the Muromachi shogunate’s territorial control had been
largely confined to Honshu and Shikoku, and at times did not encom-
pass much of Kyushu at all.16 Despite the contempt in which he was held
by the shugo lords, however, Imagawa managed to re-impose a measure
of order. As shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu also asserted his military
supremacy in Honshu and revived the credibility of the Muromachi
regime. In 1392, moreover, the schism between the rival courts was
finally resolved when the emperor Go-Kameyama made a symbolic
return from Yoshino to the imperial court in Kyoto.
Due to these decades of fighting, however, the shugo lords originally
appointed as shogunal vassals had also increased their own authority at
a regional level. Already they could be seen as shugo daimyo, or semi-
independent lords, just one step away from becoming sengoku daimyo,
the independent princes who wielded complete power in the subse-
quent age of warring states. Whereas the Kamakura bakufu had asserted
its jurisdiction even at the expense of courting unpopularity, the
Muromachi authorities were more inclined to appease any shugo daimyo
130
claims for land. Partly in recognition of their own weakness, in 1368

they established a principle of settling territorial disputes by dividing
land equally among rival claimants. This accelerated the break-up of
shōen estates and allowed regional lords further scope to expand their
power. It also undermined the bakufu’s control in the provinces, for in
a local context any decrees from Muromachi could appear less persua-
sive than the number of men-at-arms on site. As they acquired more
land the shugo daimyo were able to collect taxes for themselves, offering
their samurai vassals an income and protection in return for their
support. The remaining nominal links with central authority gradually
disappeared from view, as disparate parcels of land and their resources
were integrated into largely independent domains under the military
jurisdiction of these daimyo lords.
Having dominated much of regional politics in medieval Kyushu, the
houses of Kikuchi and Shōni may have been expected to thrive in this
less regulated environment. Faced with the rise of new competition,
however, they both drifted into terminal decline. The Kikuchi had
briefly held power in Dazaifu, but after being crushed by Imagawa
Ryōshun at the battle of Mizushima in 1375, they faded to become a line
of small sengoku daimyo. In the sixteenth century they would be unable
to prevent the Ōtomo armies from marching west past Mt Aso and
taking control of their lands in Higo. Nevertheless, the memory of the
Kikuchi as loyal defenders of the emperor’s cause would live on in some
quarters. Saigō Takamori, the Satsuma general who in the nineteenth
century led the coup d’état that restored imperial rule, always believed
that he was a distant descendant of the Kikuchi line.17
The power of the Shōni, meanwhile, had once stretched across the
whole of northern Kyushu, but in the fifteenth century, they were
gradually pushed west into Hizen. Their chief adversaries were now
the Ōuchi, an emerging power based in western Honshu who had
crossed the Kanmon Straits at Shimonoseki and expanded into
Kyushu. When the Ōuchi closed in on the coveted target of Hakata in
1431, they were pushed back at first by a combined army of Shōni and
Ōtomo troops on the city outskirts. The reverse was only temporary,
however, as the Muromachi bakufu supported the subsequent Ōuchi
advance in an attempt to extend its own influence over Hakata’s
trading networks.
By the early sixteenth century the Ōuchi had finally replaced the
131
Shōni as the dominant power in the north of the island. Ōuchi

Yoshitaka acquired so much territory that in 1534 he was able to estab-
lish his own base at Dazaifu, in former times the Shōni heartland. Two
years later he even received an appointment as Dazai Daini, a post more
senior than the proud title that had given the Shōni their name.
Confined to their castles in Hizen, the power of the Shōni was visibly
on the wane. Then in 1547, after openly criticizing his military strategy,
Shōni Fuyuhisa’s most powerful vassal Ryūzōji Takanobu turned
against him and attacked his garrison at Seifukuji Castle in Kanzaki (on
the site of the estate of Kanzaki-shō). Seven years later he pursued him
to Ayabe Castle and finally back to Seifukuji once more in 1559.
Surrounded and isolated, Fuyuhisa committed suicide. His death
marked the end of the once powerful Shōni line, which had destroyed
the Hōjō in Kyushu and helped Ashikaga Takauji to set up his shogu-
nate more than two hundred years before.18
On one level the age of rival courts was an important transitional
stage in the political fragmentation of the late medieval era, as shugo
daimyo and their vassals carved up territory in a succession of regional
wars. At the same time social groups other than the samurai vassals of
local lords were also taking on more active roles to secure their inter-
ests. These ranged from fishing villages along the coasts to monastic
retreats in the mountains. The Shugendō sect, for example, had devel-
oped over the centuries to become a powerful force in medieval
Kyushu. A hybrid Shintō-Buddhist organization with a strong empha-
sis on sacred mountains, Shugendō communities led a secluded exis-
tence on sacred ground such as Mt Hiko in northeast Kyushu, Mt
Hōman near Dazaifu and in the Kunisaki peninsula on the east coast.
For self-protection they made security arrangements with local powers
and built elaborate defences in their mountain refuges. These commu-
nities would survive until late in the sixteenth century when Mt Hiko
was finally attacked and destroyed by the Ōtomo, and Mt Hōman also
suffered terrible damage during the battles around Dazaifu. Since it was
under Ōtomo protection and isolated from the most contested territo-
ries, however, the Kunisaki peninsula was largely spared, and to this day
small shrines and temple buildings can be found on practically every hill
in the area. The Shugendō movement itself was banned in 1869 when
the new Meiji state severed the connections between Shintō and
Buddhism, but recently there have been some localized efforts to revive
132
a tradition that has been part of the Kyushu landscape for over a thou-
sand years.19
Seaborne samurai – the Matsura-tō

A singular example of a community that took the initiative in mobiliz-
ing its own armed forces was the Matsura-tō in northwest Kyushu. To
some extent they were involved in defensive activities, as they had once
cooperated with the Kamakura bakufu’s representatives in Kyushu and
used their naval power to protect the coastline during the Mongol inva-
sions. They were also involved in the military campaigns on land in
Kyushu during the conflicts of the rival courts. Their field of opera-
tions, however, extended overseas as well, since they featured promi-
nently in the renewed wave of attacks by wakō (Japanese pirates) on the
Korean and Chinese coasts during the fourteenth century.
The Matsura-tō exercised considerable power operating as a loose
federation of communities scattered along the northwest coast, some
of them based on the small islands offshore. Their lands extended from
Karatsu in the east to Hirado Island in the west, covering a long stretch
of coastline in what are now the Saga and Nagasaki prefectures. They
boasted a proud and independent heritage. Already this stretch of coast-
line had been known as Matsura for over a thousand years, since a small
state of that name had been recorded in China in the third century
during the age of Himiko, the ruler of Yamatai. The Matsura families
traced their own roots to Heian times and the arrival of Hisashi, a
descendant of the emperor Saga, who they claimed had settled here in
1069. After adopting the name of Matsura, Hisashi divided his lands
among his sons rather than select one family head. This resulted in a
form of power-sharing among equals that was unusual in medieval
Japan, where the tendency towards a system of inheritance through pri-
mogeniture took hold during the Kamakura period.20
The Matsura-tō developed an egalitarian decision-making process.
When heads gathered to discuss pressing issues in council, the objective
was to reach a united front, known as ikki, based on a majority vote.
Each voter’s name was listed on a document drawn up to record their
resolution, although there was no prescribed order of rank and lots were
drawn to decide whose name should appear first. As a result, there was
no one dominant voice and they each retained an equal degree of
133
independent control within their own area. The earliest known docu-
ment of this kind dates to 1373.21 Their practice of divided inheritance
could be seen as a weakness in that it resulted in the fragmentation of
the Matsura territories. Nevertheless, the flexibility of their organization
proved to be as much an advantage as the unity they demonstrated in
wartime. Moreover, in an age when powerful families were often
betrayed by relatives or their own vassals, this was also perhaps one
reason why they managed to survive for 500 years without destroying
themselves from within.22
If it suited them the combined forces of the Matsura-tō might coop-
erate with powerful regional interests in northern Kyushu when they
received calls to arms, often from the Shōni during their heyday, and
most notably when they deserted to Shōni Yorihisa’s side at the Battle
of Tatarahama in 1336. Other key battles in which they had taken part
included Dannoura on the side of the Taira in 1185. During the age of
rival courts, however, they also devoted considerable energies on over-
seas raids, which contributed to exporting the military conflict in Japan
to Korea and China. They even colluded with the imperial prince
Kaneyoshi who, as a champion of the Southern Court’s cause in
Kyushu for several decades, actively promoted wakō operations to
supply his military campaigns.23 Japan’s civil wars at home and pirate
raids abroad thus did not develop independently of each other. They
were part of the same struggle.24
Taking advantage of new developments in shipbuilding, some wakō
raids had already been launched on the Korean coast during the thir-
teenth century.25 Invariably, the bases for these expeditions were in
Matsura territory in northern Kyushu, Iki and also Tsushima, which
were identified in Korean records as the ‘three islands’. The complaints
these raids provoked were taken so seriously by the Kamakura bakufu’s
representatives that in 1226 Shōni Sukeyori had sixty pirates executed in
the presence of the Koryŏ envoy.26 Under the protracted threat of the
Mongol invasions, however, such attacks became increasingly rare.
Then in the fourteenth century, as the wars between rival courts became
entrenched, from the 1350s the Korean coastline was again subjected to
a series of raids, this time on a scale never seen before. These attacks
reached a peak in the late 1370s and early 1380s, and now extended
beyond just Korea to include the Chinese seaboard. The first ever such
raid across the Yellow Sea was made on the Shandong peninsula in 1358.
134
In both China and Korea, wakō attacks contributed to undermining

the stability of the ailing Yüan and Koryŏ regimes. In China, defences
along the coast were strengthened during the last years of Mongol rule,
and in 1363, a wakō force was defeated in battle in the Shandong penin-
sula. The new Ming dynasty which came to power five years later made
concerted efforts to contain piracy. Envoys were sent to Japan, but the
ongoing domestic conflict there forestalled any attempts to resume
diplomatic relations, and their papers never reached the Muromachi
bakufu in Kyoto. Some of these Ming emissaries were killed on the way,
either by pirates or, invoking the memory of the Mongol threat, on the
orders of Prince Kaneyoshi when they reached Hakata.27
Subsequently, Kaneyoshi was even recognized by the Ming court as
the ‘King of Japan’, partly because he agreed to accept subject status and
also because he was based strategically at Dazaifu, the traditional centre
of diplomatic relations with China.28 This did not stop wakō raids on
China continuing, however, as the attacks now extended down the
coast as far south as Fujian Province. To facilitate such widespread
operations, some bases were located in advanced positions, notably the
Zhoushan Islands just off the coast near Ningbo, which remained for
long periods under wakō control. The Ming authorities took the threat
they posed very seriously, withdrawing entire communities inland from
coastal areas and building a series of nearly sixty forts stretching from
Shandong in the north to Fujian in the south.29
At the same time wakō attacks on the coasts of Korea continued to
compound the problems of the struggling Koryŏ regime, with raids often
reaching far inland. Large quantities of products such as rice and cloth
were stolen, and the loss of coinage was so severe that in many places the
inhabitants were forced to return to a barter economy. As in China, the
state tried to intervene by sending the first of several delegations to Japan
to protest in 1366. In time, it was found that direct negotiations with
powerful lords in Kyushu, notably the Sō family on Tsushima Island,
were the most effective way to curb further attacks. Representations were
also made to the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. An envoy sent to Kyoto
in 1375 marked the onset of revived diplomatic relations with the
Muromachi bakufu that would last well into the next century. In the last
years of Koryŏ rule a campaign to stamp out wakō influence was already
underway. In 1381, a force of Korean ships destroyed a fleet of several
hundred ships at the mouth of the Kŭm River, the site of the Yamato
135
fleet’s demise at the Battle of Paeckchon River more than seven hundred
years before. Before long, most of the wakō bases had been eliminated
from the offshore islands, and as many as 300 Japanese ships were burned
in a punitive raid on Tsushima in 1385.30
After the installation of the Chosŏn dynasty (Korea’s last) in 1392,
new initiatives were taken to address the problem. In return for aban-
doning piracy many people were given land and allowed to settle in the
peninsula, a policy that met with considerable success as the number of
attacks fell sharply afterwards. Some raids persisted, however, and in
response to continued provocation, in 1419 the Chosŏn authorities exe-
cuted 737 Japanese traders and launched another punitive raid on
Tsushima. On this occasion 17,000 Korean troops arrived on the island
on board 200 ships. When Sō Sadamori retaliated tensions ran high until
he finally persuaded them to withdraw, warning of an impending
typhoon. Having caused widespread devastation along coasts through-
out the region, it now appeared that wakō activities were at last being
held in check. The new regime was exerting tighter controls, and a
measure of diplomatic dialogue enabled a safer passage for licensed
merchant ships crossing the Tsushima Straits.
The tally trade and pirates

When Ashikaga Yoshimitsu finally resolved the schism between the
rival courts in 1392, the Muromachi bakufu was able to re-impose its
political authority in much of Japan. Kyushu had for long remained on
the periphery of its control, but the northern coastline at least had now
been largely pacified. A key element in projecting the regime’s power in
the region and beyond was Imagawa Ryōshun’s success in securing
control over Dazaifu and Hakata, albeit achieved only with the cooper-
ation of the Shōni and Ōtomo. This enabled renewed diplomatic dia-
logue with neighbouring states, which now had added significance after
Prince Kaneyoshi’s recent attempts to control these links himself.
Moreover, with the new Ming and Chosŏn regimes established in China
and Korea, collective efforts were being made to police the coasts in the
region as a whole.
In 1401, Yoshimitsu returned to China a number of Ming subjects
who had been captured by the wakō. This conciliatory gesture accompa-
nied an initiative to reopen official trade links in accordance with the
136
tribute relations once employed by the Tang dynasty more than five
hundred years before. Sending an envoy to China together with a list of
tribute goods, he drew a favourable response the following year when a
Ming emissary arrived bearing a letter from the second emperor Chien
Wen, recognizing him as the ‘King of Japan’. Implicit in the message was
the assumption that Japan would become a Ming vassal, but on this
occasion the sensitive issue of nomenclature that had provoked the
Mongol invasions was overlooked. Yoshimitsu responded with a tribute
mission the next year, signing away the independent status that so many
samurai had fought to protect more than a hundred years before.31
Yoshimitsu has been accused by champions of early nationhood of
betraying Japan, not only as an impostor in masquerading as sovereign
ruler in place of the emperor, but for accepting a subordinate rank in
the East Asian international order. In practice, however, this detail of
diplomatic protocol did not lead to any real encroachment from China
on his regime’s political jurisdiction. There was good reason, moreover,
to court the cooperation of the Ming authorities, for he was never slow
to exploit an opportunity to fill the coffers of the Muromachi bakufu.
Today Yoshimitsu’s most visible legacy is Kinkakuji, the lavish ‘Golden
Pavilion’ he had built at vast expense in 1401 by the side of a lake in
Kyoto, an architectural jewel among the many treasures of the imperial
city. The now retired shogun had as keen an eye for wealth as any pirate,
and the revival of trade with China offered an opportunity he could
hardly overlook.32
Tight control over the inflow of continental goods was also possible
because the new Ming regime had prohibited Chinese merchants from
trading overseas. Nevertheless, ships from recognized ‘tributary’ states
were allowed to arrive in port, so long as they bore the official licences
known as tallies (kangō) bestowed by the Ming court. The one hundred
Yüan Lo tallies which Yoshimitsu’s envoys brought back to Japan in
1403 were designed to distinguish these authorized vessels from pirate
ships. They also flew banners displaying the characters for ‘tribute ship’
as they sailed upriver into Ningbo, the designated port of entry, where
the tallies were inspected before their cargo could be unloaded on the
quay.33 Initially at least, only two ships from Japan were allowed into
Ningbo harbour each year, although this restriction were subsequently
relaxed. The ‘tribute goods’ they took to China included horses, swords,
gold screens and sulphur. Among the ‘gifts’ they brought back to Japan
137
on the return voyage were large quantities of copper coins and highly
prized silk. The monopoly this arrangement allowed the Muromachi
bakufu to exercise over the inflow of copper in particular resulted in
huge profits for the regime. During their stay in Ningbo, participating
merchants could also buy a wide range of goods on the open market,
including silk, drugs, books, porcelain ware and paintings.
From the time this tally trade got underway until it was eventually
stopped in the mid-sixteenth century, some eighty-seven ships made
the voyage from Hakata or the port of Sakai near Osaka across the East
China Sea. There were nine ships in the largest fleet ever to sail from
Hakata, although these were later limited to three vessels. On each
occasion, hundreds of merchants would pay the sponsor of the expedi-
tion for their passage and a chance to trade in China. Initially, this would
be the shogun himself, but later the privilege was granted at a high price
to influential Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines and regional lords, who
then handed over preparations to guilds of merchants in the cities they
controlled. Major sponsors included the Hosokawa family in the case
of Sakai, while Hakata was contested between the houses of Shōni,
Ōtomo and Ōuchi.
Although they were based in Bungo in eastern Kyushu, the Ōtomo
were able to participate in this trade as they had been granted control
of the Itōnoshō estate on the shores of Hakata Bay after the Mongol
invasions. It was the threat of losing control of these vested interests
that prompted both the Ōtomo and Shōni to present such fierce resis-
tance to the advance of the Ōuchi from Honshu. Hakata was now a
flourishing merchant city, boasting strong commercial links with China
and Korea, and also a base for the trade across the Tsushima Straits
developed by the prosperous new Chūzan kingdom of Ryukyu.34
According to a late fifteenth-century account, there were 4,000 houses
in the southwest area of the city under Shōni control, and 6,000 houses
in the northeast under the protection of the Ōtomo. Assuming an
average of five people to each household, this would make the popu-
lation of Hakata in the region of 50,000.35 Merchants had a powerful
voice in running the port, to the extent that it has even been charac-
terized as an autonomous city state. As Bruce Batten has pointed out,
however, they also needed military protection and were heavily depen-
dent on patronage. As a result, control of the city’s commercial wealth
was always contested between the region’s powerful lords.36
138
Although Hakata was briefly recaptured by the Shōni in the 1490s,

the Ōuchi eventually stamped their authority on much of northern
Kyushu by the end of the fifteenth century. The Ōtomo still held con-
siderable influence over Hakata’s commerce, but it was the Ōuchi who
increasingly dominated the tally trade there. Intense competition devel-
oped between the licensed trade organized by the Ōuchi through
Hakata and the Hosokawa through Sakai. It was not unknown for rival
fleets to come to blows, most notoriously in 1523 when Ōuchi and
Hosokawa forces clashed in Ningbo harbour. After a pursuit to the
nearby walled city of Shaoxing, the ‘unruly band’ of Ōuchi men
returned to Ningbo where they started fires, stole the police magis-
trate’s boat and made their escape.37
Later in the sixteenth century, the powerful Ōuchi Yoshitaka
managed to exert a near monopoly over this overseas trade, but he was
unable to prevent the growing domestic unrest from affecting his com-
mercial interests. Previously, both the Ōuchi and Hosokawa had been
in a position to curb the wakō activities within the territories they con-
trolled in northern Kyushu and Shikoku. Now the anarchic climate of
warring states at home was again manifest abroad in a renewed outbreak
of pirate raids along the coasts of Korea and China. In 1549, the
patience of the Ming authorities finally snapped and permission to
engage in the tally trade was revoked. Beset by enemies, Ōuchi
Yoshitaka himself was assassinated two years later, and with this last
restraining hand removed there was little to stop the pirates from
marauding overseas once more.
Thereafter, the wakō streamed abroad in considerable numbers, pil-
laging the Korean coastline, but also increasingly active on the Chinese
seaboard. Attacks were also launched from the coast of Satsuma in the
far south of Kyushu, where fierce fighting and internal divisions for a
time prevented the Shimazu rulers from reasserting their territorial
control. Moreover, a one-time Chinese salt-merchant called Wang Zhi
who had taken to the life of a buccaneer, colluded with wakō groups to
orchestrate what has been described in the Mingshi (History of Ming) as
a full-scale invasion. In 1553, these pirate forces ‘arrived like clouds
over the water’, and the campaign reached a height three years later
when their attacks reached as far inland as Nanjing.38 An early
Portuguese visitor to Malacca in 1555 noted how ‘a great fleet from
Camgoxima [Kagoshima] had destroyed many places in China which
139
were situated along the sea coast, including a very populous city.’39
Operating from camps such as those in the secluded coves of the
Zhoushan Islands, the raids extended further south than ever before. In
the same year, a wakō army of 7,000 men even rampaged through
Canton, taking rice and enslaving large numbers of villagers.
One hundred years earlier in 1446, the king of Chosŏn claimed to
have heard that four out of every five wakō pirates raiding the Korean
coastline were actually Korean.40 Now in the sixteenth century, Chinese
records estimated that the majority of these brigands wreaking havoc
along the coast were of Chinese origin. Moreover, various ‘influential
families’ in the coastal Zhejiang and Fujian provinces apparently felt
aggrieved by the official restrictions on contact with the ‘Wa’ seafarers,
and reports emerged of ‘the connivance of rich traders with the
pirates’.41 Distinctions of political loyalty, it would seem, were princi-
pally the concern of central administrations in capitals far inland, and
less important perhaps to many of the coastal inhabitants around the
East China Sea. According to David Shapinsky, the portolan charts
used and shared by pilots from various backgrounds in these waters also
belie the ‘common fallacy of state-centred histories that identify a sea-
farer’s primary identity by his or her land of origin’.42 Wang Zhi, for
example, had kept his headquarters in ‘that old wakō lair’, the island of
Hirado. Another, Teng Wen-chün, was based on the north Kyushu
coast in the port of Yobuko. Both locations lay within the territories and
under the protection of the Matsura-tō.43
These wakō bases at last came under threat as the age of warring
states drew to a close. In 1576, a Matsura army under the leadership of
Yamashiro Tora-Ōmaru suffered a major military defeat on land at the
hands of Ryūzōji Takanobu, who had recently also destroyed the Shōni
line. Eleven years later, their room for manoeuvre was curtailed still
further when an even mightier warlord called Toyotomi Hideyoshi
proclaimed a purge on piracy after bringing Kyushu under his control.
In 1593, the stone fortress built by the Matsura-tō in the mountains
near the port of Imari was finally destroyed. Brought to heel at last,
their remaining leaders were eventually confined to the domain of
Hirado Island in the west and converted into the role of daimyo lords.44
The case of the Matsura-tō illustrates the inseparable links between
domestic and overseas spheres of influence in late medieval Kyushu.
Together with local interest groups such as Hakata merchants who made
140
their fortunes through the tally trade, they were able to use their navi-
gating skills to extend their activities far beyond their own shores. What
might appear as peripheral coastlines viewed from Kyoto often played a
central role in Japan’s external relations. Unlike the Hakata merchants,
however, the licence that wakō pirates had to roam the seas was most
conspicuous during times of internal conflict, notably during the ages of
‘rival courts’ and ‘warring states’.
The scope of wakō operations was also affected by the level of control
that neighbouring states held along their own coasts. Regardless of
whether they hailed originally from Japan, Korea or China, such adven-
turers were well placed to exploit any power vacuums emerging around
the rim of the East China Sea. Whenever regimes in the region frag-
mented under the strain of dynastic decline and civil conflicts, their
coastlines were most vulnerable to seaborne incursions. The wakō,
however, were not the only navigators to take advantage of such oppor-
tunities. Before long they were joined from the south by a hitherto
unknown breed of seafarers. Wearing clothes of an unusual style not
seen before in these waters, their arrival on the Kyushu coast in the six-
teenth century heralded the onset of a cultural encounter that would
have a long-lasting impact on Japan. They came from lands far beyond
the East China Sea called Portugal and Spain.
141
CHAPTER 8
ALL UNDER HEAVEN:

MISSIONARIES AND
WARLORDS

athed in the warm currents of the East China Sea, the island of
B Tanegashima off the south coast of Kyushu has a subtropical
climate and flowers bloom all year round. An ecosystem unique to the
area is relatively intact, and on neighbouring Yakushima Island the
‘Yaku cedar trees’ found only here are renowned for their unusual
longevity. The most famous example is the huge ‘Jōmon cedar’, which
has a girth of nearly fifty-four feet and is reputed to be up to 7,200 years
old. Today, Tanegashima usually features in news bulletins from Tokyo
only on those occasions when Japan sends a satellite into space from
the rocket launch-pad situated on a cliff at the southern tip of the island.
In the sixteenth century, however, it was here that the unexpected
arrival of some unusual visitors marked the beginning of a cultural
encounter that would transform Japan’s relations with the outside
world.
In September 1543, a Chinese junk was blown off-course and drifted
east for several days before managing to cast anchor in a cove on the
Tanegashima coast, close to the site of the rocket launch-pad today.1
The ship caused something of a sensation when she was towed into the
island’s main town of Akōgi two days later. What caught the locals’ eyes
most were two of these castaways, who spoke in a language unlike any-
thing heard before. At a nearby temple was a priest who knew some
Chinese, and a Ryukyu woman who acted as an interpreter for the
Chinese captain of the junk. It was established that his strange-looking
passengers were merchants from a land called Portugal. Tanegashima
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All Under Heaven: Missionaries and Warlords
Tokitaka, lord of the island, was particularly intrigued by the ‘fire rod’
these men had brought with them. When they responded to his request
to show him how it worked they were, in effect, introducing firearms to
Japan.2
Tanegashima and its neighbouring islands lay within the sphere of
influence of the Shimazu family, lords of the Satsuma domain who
ruled over an extensive territory on the mainland in southern Kyushu.
Like other sengoku daimyo of the time, they were caught up in a
continuous struggle for survival as they fought for supremacy with
other regional warlords. Reports of the strange fire weapons observed
on Tanegashima soon reached the Shimazu family’s castle town at
Kagoshima on the Kyushu mainland. After initial experiments to man-
ufacture replica models, some ‘Tanegashima guns’ were probably first
put to use by Satsuma troops when they stormed the fortress of Kajiki
in 1549.3 In a climate of endemic warfare the new technology spread
rapidly. A Portuguese adventurer was probably exaggerating when
he claimed that there were already 300,000 guns in Japan by 1556.4
Nevertheless, they would be deployed with spectacular effect by the
powerful warlord Oda Nobunaga in central Honshu, when he used
3,000 matchlocks and volleys of musket-fire to defeat Takeda Shingen’s
celebrated cavalry at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575.5
The age of warring states (sengoku jidai) is commonly held to have
begun with the outbreak of hostilities in Kyoto in 1467 known as the
Ōnin War, heralding more than a century of anarchic conflict in Japan.
During this period, various ambitious sengoku daimyo such as Nobunaga
were bent first on securing a regional power base and ultimately on
becoming the lord of tenka – ‘all under heaven’ – by establishing their
power throughout the land. He was the first of ‘three great unifiers’
originally from Owari Province in central Honshu (now around the city
of Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture), demonstrating the strategic importance
of controlling the Tōkaidō, the Great Eastern Highway that linked
Kyoto with the Kantō plain. These men commanded the military
resources to finally re-impose temporal power in a realm where neither
the increasingly moribund Muromachi bakufu nor the imperial court
held much authority beyond Kyoto.
Nobunaga gained control over the lands flanking the Tōkaidō in
1560 when he won a stunning victory at the mountain pass of
Okehazama against Imagawa Yoshimoto, until then the strongest
143
daimyo in the region. By 1568 he was powerful enough to make his

entry into Kyoto, and five years later he presided over the official
demise of the Muromachi bakufu when the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki
was banished from the imperial capital. In 1575, the guns he deployed
at Nagashino against his arch-rival Takeda Shingen left much of central
Honshu at his mercy. In 1582, however, while still at the height of his
power, Nobunaga was ambushed at Honnōji Temple and he commit-
ted suicide. It was left to two other ‘great unifiers’, Toyotomi Hideyoshi
and Tokugawa Ieyasu, to finish his work over the next decades and
secure control of ‘all under heaven’. This passage culminated in the cre-
ation of the Tokugawa regime, an outcome reflected in the Japanese
saying, ‘Nobunaga mixed the cake, Hideyoshi baked it, Ieyasu ate it.’6
To some extent developments in Kyushu mirrored those in Honshu.
Some regional lords were immediately drawn into the wider conflict in
1467, as the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa called on them to fight against
Ōuchi Masachika, who had sent an army to march on Kyoto. Since the
Ōuchi were now preoccupied in Honshu, the Shōni were even able to
regain temporary control of Dazaifu in 1491. In the case of Kyushu,
however, it may be said that such civil conflict had never really disap-
peared, even in the decades preceding the outbreak of the Ōnin War.
Starting with their attack on Tachibana Castle near Hakata in 1431, it
was during these years after all that the Ōuchi had first extended their
control over northern Kyushu. In the south of Kyushu as well, the
Shimazu were already involved in fighting local rivals, such as the Ijūin
in 1450 and the Ichiki in 1462.
Nevertheless, just as in Honshu, after several decades of initial skir-
mishes at a local level, in Kyushu as well there emerged three potential
unifiers with regional power bases large enough to contend for the prize
of tenka, at least on this one island. The fact that two of them could
trace their family lines back to shugo lords originally appointed by the
Kamakura bakufu has been interpreted as a sign that Kyushu’s relative
‘political insularity’ made it less volatile than Honshu.7 This, however,
would be to overlook the fact that the region was deeply influenced by
cultural dynamics that transcended the territorial confines of the
Japanese islands alone, among them the activities of marginal commu-
nities including merchants and pirates.
In Kyushu, moreover, the balance of power was also influenced by
alternative claims to lordship over ‘all under heaven’ that had recently
144
arrived from overseas, and on a scale unimaginable in Honshu. The

agents of this movement were Jesuit missionaries who made their
appearance within a few years of the Portuguese merchants ship-
wrecked in 1543. Although their activities would extend to isolated
parts of Honshu, it was in Kyushu that these pioneers enjoyed their
most sustained results in founding and developing sizeable communi-
ties of converts. And when Western scholars used to describe this his-
torical period as Japan’s ‘Christian century’, it was largely Kyushu to
which they referred.8 This may have exaggerated the influence exerted
by Europeans on early modern state formation in Japan as a whole, but
in some parts of Kyushu, particularly along the western seaboard, they
certainly had a profound social impact.9
Europeans in Kyushu
Even before they arrived in Japan some European travellers may have
already met people from these islands, as wakō pirates were now
patrolling waters far to the south along the Chinese coast. As Jurgis
Elisonas has vividly described, they ‘were carried to Japan on the back-
wash of the wakō tide’.10 The first to reach these shores themselves,
however, appear to have been the two merchants who landed in
Tanegashima with their musket in 1543. An alternative tradition sug-
gests that a compatriot called Jorge Faria arrived in Bungo on the east
Kyushu coast in 1541. In later years, the powerful local daimyo, Ōtomo
Sōrin, certainly recalled having met him there at around this time.11
Another Portuguese explorer by the name of Fernão Mendes Pinto also
claimed that it was he who had been the first to reach these islands. The
veracity of this and many of his stories has been discounted, but it seems
that he did make several voyages around the Kyushu coast during the
1540s.12
In medieval times European ships had been mainly confined to more
local waters, stretching from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic
seaboard in the south, to the Baltic and North seas. It was in the fif-
teenth century under the influence of Prince Henry ‘the Navigator’ of
Portugal that explorations began to develop a sea route to ‘the Indies’.
The search for a maritime passage was partly motivated by the fact that
the coveted riches of the East were becoming unobtainable overland as
the Ottoman Turks closed their net around Constantinople. As the first
145
Portuguese ships pushed their way south along the coast of West Africa,
there was as yet no hint of any changes to come in the East China Sea,
where the tally trade was now underway with Japanese vessels sailing
out of Hakata or Sakai on their voyages to Ningbo.
An early sign that Japan might one day feature in European plans can
be traced to Christopher Columbus’s voyage across the Atlantic Ocean
in 1492. His avowed target was to find Cipangu (Japan), the land of gold
mentioned in Marco Polo’s Travels, and until his death he always
believed that the lands he had chanced upon were the Indies. Their ‘dis-
covery’ prompted the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1493, an agreement of
global vision that attributed to Spain, Columbus’s sponsor, all the lands
to the west of the Azores, leaving territories found to the east in the
hands of Portugal. Drawn through the Atlantic Ocean at 50 degrees
West longitude, this boundary would run straight through Honshu in
the middle of Japan if extended beyond the poles to encompass the
‘other’ side of the globe. Unconsciously, perhaps, it also ensured that
adventurers from both countries could lay claim to Japan when they
finally approached, the Portuguese via the Indies from the west and the
Spanish via the Americas from the east.
Shortly afterwards in 1498, Portugal achieved an important break-
through when Vasco da Gama confirmed the existence of a sea-route
around the Cape of Good Hope and sailed into the Indian Ocean. The
colony he went on to establish at Goa on the west coast of India became
the base for further exploration. Merchant ships soon found a way
through the Malacca Straits to the Spice Islands, including some that
then sailed north into the South China Sea, leading to the establishment
of the colony at Macao in 1512. From there it was a natural step to
venture further along the coast and into the East China Sea.
In Japan, the Europeans would become known as nanbanjin, literally
‘barbarians from the south’, indicating the direction from which they
arrived. The first to land in Kyushu during the 1540s were merchants
and explorers. In 1549, however, a Jesuit missionary from Spain by
the name of Francis Xavier stepped ashore in the castle town of
Kagoshima. Just as trading interests and technological advances had
once encouraged Prince Henry to send his ships in search of the Indies,
now the forces of the Counter-Reformation far away in Europe had an
almost immediate effect on the other side of the world. No more than
a decade had passed since Ignatius Loyola and a small group of
146
associates in Paris had founded the Jesuit Society in 1539. The follow-
ing year it was recognized by Pope Paul III as an official order of the
Catholic Church. Soon the Jesuit ‘Province of the East Indies’ was
established at Goa, and it was under the auspices of the Portuguese that
the Jesuits made their mark in Japan.
Xavier’s arrival in Kagoshima was prompted by a chance encounter
in Malacca with a certain Anjiro from Satsuma, who had mastered
enough Portuguese to draw his interest with tales of his homeland.
Xavier reached the city after two months at sea on board a Chinese
junk, with Anjiro acting as his interpreter and guide. The ruling
Shimazu family greeted him with curiosity and respect, well aware of
the material benefits gained after the last such appearance in
Tanegashima six years before. Xavier was allowed to address the
people and gave them sermons in a mixture of Latin, Portuguese,
Spanish and the occasional word of Japanese. Anjiro helped by con-
veying the import of his message in his native Satsuma dialect. The fre-
quent references he made to the marvels he had seen at Goa in Tenjiku
(India) led some to believe that Xavier represented a new Buddhist
sect. The people of Kagoshima, for their part, appeared receptive
enough, as they lived in a society where the addition of a new deity was
hardly an exceptional event.13
Xavier was captivated by the gentle manners of the locals and in his
reports to Goa he emphasized the rich potential for spreading the
Christian faith in this land. After more than a year in Kagoshima,
however, he had managed to convert only about a hundred people.
After hearing news that a Portuguese ship had put into port at Hirado,
he then travelled north and was able to meet the explorer Mendes Pinto
there. His journey next took him first to Yamaguchi at the western tip
of Honshu where he achieved some success, building a church with 300
cruzados he had borrowed from Pinto on the way.14 He was later allowed
to enter Kyoto although, during his eleven-day stay, he failed to achieve
his avowed goal of gaining an audience with the emperor. Instead, he
responded to an invitation to move on to Bungo in Kyushu, where he
was received generously by the young daimyo Ōtomo Yoshishige – the
later Ōtomo Sōrin – in years to come a convert to Christianity himself.
Xavier finally left Japan in 1551, nurturing plans to spread his activities
to China. Travelling with him at the start of this voyage was a young
convert from Satsuma called Bernardo, who became the first person
147
from the Japanese islands known to have reached Europe when he

landed in Lisbon in 1553. Still pursuing his mission in Asia, meanwhile,
Xavier was struck down by illness in the same year and died on Sancian
Island near the mouth of the Canton River.15
The reports on Japan that Xavier had sent back to Goa were positive
enough for the Province of the East Indies to follow up his initiative.
For Portuguese merchants in Macao the prospects for trade also
encouraged them to take their galleons into the East China Sea. It was
on board such ships that Jesuit missionaries arrived in Kyushu, side by
side with merchants keen to sell gold bullion, silk and other wares from
China. These distinctive ocean-going vessels became known as kurofune,
or ‘black ships’. As they approached the coast they could easily be
marked out from other craft afloat in these waters due to their immense
size, the black tar painted on the sides of their hulls to keep them water-
tight, and the unusual patterns of their rigging and sails.
Often these galleons would make landfall on the west coast of
Kyushu, where political developments ensured that they found a
welcome reception. This trend was reflected in early European maps of
Japan, which show a disproportionate emphasis and level of detail on
this stretch of coast by comparison with the hazily sketched informa-
tion on other regions, particularly inland. Sailing from the south the first
landmark to be sighted might be Mt Kaimon, the cone-shaped ‘Satsuma
Fuji’. Continuing east past this mountain could bring ships into
Kagoshima Bay, but the Shimazu lords who ruled there never again
showed the same favour to Christian missionaries that they had once
reserved for Xavier. Portuguese captains became familiar enough with
the local sea currents to head north instead along the west coast of
Kyushu, leading them towards the sheltered bays and inlets of the
Amakusa Islands. If they pressed on further north, the towering peak
of Unzen would come into view, looming over the Shimabara penin-
sula and inviting them to weigh anchor in its shadow at the port of
Kuchinotsu. Some would continue still further up the west coast of
Hizen as far as Hirado. Alternatively, they might call at Yokose, or,
nearer at hand still, find their way to the entrance of a long, narrow bay
flanked by wooded hills that went by the name of Nagasaki.
This was the terrain known to the Jesuit missionaries despatched to
Kyushu to spread Christianity in Japan. It was in 1563 that Luis Frois
arrived in Yokose Bay. From there he made the journey on to Kyoto,
148
and six years later he managed to persuade Oda Nobunaga to grant

Christians the right to stay ‘unmolested’ in the imperial capital. Under
Frois there was a total of thirty Jesuit missionaries, but within five years
of Allessandro Valignano’s arrival at Kuchinotsu in 1579, this figure
had climbed to eighty-five, of whom twenty-nine were Japanese. One
reason for Valignano’s success was the tactical change he made in
ordering Jesuits to follow Japanese customs rather than impose
European ways. Frequent bathing was encouraged, and fish featured
more often than meat in their diet. He also created a systematic
network of seminaries and colleges, small educational centres where
the first generation of native priests were trained. These were concen-
trated in areas where missionaries were most favourably received by
local daimyo, predominantly along the west coast around Amakusa and
Nagasaki.
Valignano returned to Europe for several years in the 1580s, but
during this time a Jesuit priest called João Rodrigues found special
favour with Hideyoshi, Nobunaga’s successor, and went on to spend
much of his career serving as his adviser in the world of political intrigue
in Honshu. In Kyushu, meanwhile, the most active missionary was Luis
Almeida, who employed his knowledge of medicine to win local
support. Under the protection of Ōtomo Sōrin, he set up a hospital in
the castle town of Funai (now Ōita) in Bungo. Later he employed his
medical skills in the Amakusa Islands, where he was welcomed by the
daimyo of Kawachi. It was here in Kawachinoura that a home was also
found for the printing press that Valignano brought with him on his
return from Europe in 1590. Producing a variety of works including
Aesop’s Fables and Cicero’s speeches besides religious texts, the mass dis-
tribution of reading matter this enabled had a significant effect on the
early diffusion of European culture. Its heyday as a Christian commu-
nity lasted for just a few years, but with a hospital, college and printing
press, the small town of Kawachinoura in Amakusa briefly became a
flourishing cultural centre.16
The Jesuits enjoyed considerable success in promoting Christianity
along the western shores of Kyushu. Estimates suggest there may have
been as many as 150,000 converts in Japan already by the time
Valignano arrived, a figure that possibly doubled over the following
thirty-five years. In 1606, it was even claimed that the Christian com-
munity now numbered 750,000 believers. Such a large figure is open to
149
question. The Jesuits had good reason to exaggerate, since the reports
they sent back to the Province of the East Indies in Goa were required
to include some measure of progress to justify the allocation of further
resources to the mission in Japan. At the same time they were certainly
making headway, partly through their declared policy of ‘being all things
to all men’ as they set about presenting their message in a palatable
form, including the provision of medical care. It was also due to their
strategic efforts to win favour in high places. This is most visible
perhaps in the attempts made by Jesuit missionaries from Xavier
onwards to ingratiate themselves with the emperor or the most power-
ful warlords in the land from Nobunaga to Hideyoshi. In terms of
adding to their growing lists of converts, however, it was most effective
at a regional level in the favours they received from various daimyo
based mainly in Kyushu, particularly those lords who proved so recep-
tive that they converted to Christianity themselves.17
Kyushu’s Christian daimyo

The appearance of ‘black ships’ laden with gold off the west coast and
the growth of Christian communities added an extra dimension to the
already complex struggle among the warring states in Kyushu. Some
daimyo lords felt that they stood to gain an advantage in their military
conflicts by responding to the overtures of Jesuit missionaries in search
of a base of operations. Their interest was inspired to varying degrees
by the prospect of wealth, new technology, overseas trade, cultural
curiosity, and even the support of far-away Rome. The new religion was
allowed to flourish, particularly in the domains of lords who also sub-
mitted to baptism, some of whom seem to have been genuinely devout
in their Christian beliefs. The mass conversions that at times they
ordered on their subject populations certainly helped the Jesuits to write
up their reports back to Goa. Just as Xavier’s first sermon in Kagoshima
may have left his audience confused, however, many of the resulting
converts claimed by the Jesuit mission probably had an incomplete
understanding of the teachings of the Church.
Ōmura Sumitada, the first Christian daimyo, laid the foundations for
the growth of Nagasaki by providing a safe haven for Portuguese ships
in his territories on the northwest coast of Kyushu. In 1563, the year he
was baptized, he offered Portuguese merchants the use of Yokose Bay
150
when they were driven out of Hirado. After they came under attack
there as well, in 1570 he then gave the Jesuits access to a safer stretch
of coastline at the head of Nagasaki Bay, and allowed them to keep the
profits from all their trade. They settled in to their new base the fol-
lowing year, and, from 1580, Ōmura even allowed them to control the
territory outright.
It was in the form of a Jesuit colony, therefore, that Nagasaki subse-
quently grew from a small fishing town to become a hub of interna-
tional trade and rival the much older port of Hakata to the north.
A symbolic remnant of this remarkable transition is Megane-bashi
(Spectacles Bridge), which was built here by a Chinese monk in 1634.
Now the oldest stone bridge in Japan, this takes its name from the way
its two arches are reflected in the Naka River to form perfect spheres.
Although Jesuit priests and Portuguese merchants were the first foreign
visitors to settle in Nagasaki, they were later joined not only by Chinese
merchants and Buddhist monks, but, from the 1590s, also Spanish
traders and Franciscan and Dominican friars arriving from the
Philippines, another European colony recently established by Spain.
Nagasaki’s multicultural origins gave rise to a cosmopolitan range of
culinary traditions that is still in evidence today. A short stroll away from
Megane-bashi is one of Nagasaki’s oldest shops and among the most
exclusive purveyors of ‘Castella’, the distinctive sponge cake for which
Nagasaki is famous throughout Japan. With its profusion of boiled
meats, the local cuisine known as shippoku-ryōri also betrays a strong
Chinese influence. Deep-fried tenpura, too, is based on a cooking style
introduced from Portugal and reminiscent of dishes found in other
former Portuguese colonies such as Brazil. It was through this connec-
tion as well that ‘pan’, the Japanese word for bread, was introduced to
these islands. Commodities from the Americas such as tobacco were
also transported here through Iberian hands, for part of the way at least.
A singular example was cayenne pepper, which failed to find a market
in Europe but was then introduced to India from where it found its way
to China, and from there at last to Japan. Today it features in small red
pots on many a dining table, often sprinkled on noodles, ironically
under the label of tō-garashi, literally ‘Chinese spice’.
The most powerful lord to become a Christian daimyo was Ōtomo
Sōrin, ‘the Great King’, who ruled over extensive territories from his
base at Funai (now Ōita) on the Bungo coast in eastern Kyushu. First
151
introduced to this new faith by Xavier nearly thirty years before, Ōtomo
was baptized in 1578 and became known as Don Francisco. He took
his religion seriously, attending mass every day, and disposed of one
wife who opposed his conversion to marry the Christian Julia instead.
Ōtomo had the power to dream even of establishing a Christian realm,
and at one stage he controversially followed the commandment
in Exodus ‘not to have any other gods before me’ by ordering the
destruction of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in his lands.
Another notable Christian daimyo was Arima Harunobu, who was
baptized a year after Ōtomo in 1579. Controlling lands in the Shimabara
peninsula adjoining those of Ōmura, his conversion ensured that much
of the western coastline in Hizen Province became, in effect, Christian
territory. Although they ruled over domains on opposite coasts of the
island, Ōmura, Ōtomo and Arima found enough in common to form a
Kyushu confederation of Christian daimyo. Their most significant joint
project was to select the young relatives who would form an ‘embassy
of princes’ that visited Rome. Led by Itō ‘Dom Mancio’, Ōtomo’s
grand-nephew, ‘Dom Miguel’, ‘Dom Martinho’ and ‘Dom Juliao’ were
all fourteen and fifteen years old when, under the protection of
Valignano, they set out from Nagasaki in 1582. In the first official visit
to Europe to be undertaken from anywhere in East Asia, this group
reached Portugal and Spain before travelling on to Rome where, on 23
March 1585, they received a ceremonial papal audience with Gregory
III.18
By the time the young princes returned to Kyushu with Valignano in
1590, the ranks of the Christian daimyo on the island had been joined
by the zealous Konishi Yukinaga. Now in control of the southern half
of Higo, Konishi drew notice from the Church for the safe haven he
offered to Jesuit missionaries in the Amakusa Islands. On one occasion
Valignano was even able to report that as many as 30,000 converts had
been baptized there within just six months.19 Less auspicious was the
fact that Konishi’s power in the islands had been acquired by brutally
suppressing a rebellion organized by the ‘five Amakusa barons’ (gonin-
shū), at least three of whom were Christians themselves.20 As a power-
ful warlord he became the Church’s leading hope of a ruler who might
unite the Christian daimyo although, in the event, others chose not to
rally to his cause. In 1600, when he was finally defeated in battle against
Tokugawa Ieyasu and offered the usual option of committing ritual
152
suicide (seppuku), Konishi refused on account of his Christian faith and

was publicly executed instead.21
At this stage the first restrictions imposed on missionary activities
were already being felt, and the young princes who had triumphantly
entered Rome faded into obscurity.22 Ōmura and Ōtomo had already
died, and Arima Harunobu now cut an increasingly isolated figure as the
last of the Christian daimyo in Kyushu, although Kuroda Yoshitaka, the
recently installed lord of Chikuzen, always remained privately sympa-
thetic to the new religion. In 1612, Arima’s lands were finally confis-
cated by Ieyasu when he was found to have taken part in a seditious
conspiracy to reclaim some of the territory he had lost. In a case similar
to that of Konishi, he was beheaded when he refused to commit suicide
on religious grounds.
Kyushu in the age of warring states

A colony at Nagasaki, Jesuit missionaries, Christian daimyo and mass
conversions were among the unusual features that complicated the
struggle for power in Kyushu during the age of warring states. After
decades of fighting, three contenders emerged among a host of sengoku
daimyo to tilt at the prize of becoming the undisputed master of
Kyushu. Ōtomo Sōrin had his base in the east, Ryūzōji Takanobu in the
northwest, and Shimazu Takahisa in the far south. Their respective pro-
files reveal some of the ways in which an ambitious daimyo could
become a successful warlord in Kyushu during the sixteenth century.
The Ōtomo and Shimazu families had long since been the leading
powers in the east and south, as their ancestors had been appointed as
shugo in control of these lands by the Kamakura bakufu three hundred
years before. Ryūzōji, however, was a new force in the region, a former
vassal of the once powerful Shōni line who had turned against his
master and taken his domains.
Based in Funai on the east coast, Ōtomo often seemed to be the
dominant figure in this land as the head of an extended family with ter-
ritories stretching across the central mountains of Kyushu. Incidentally,
these included the Kujū highlands, which in more recent times
Kurosawa Akira used as the setting for Ran, his epic film based on
Shakespeare’s King Lear and also set in Ōtomo’s day during the age of
warring states. In the event of a military campaign, Ōtomo could
153
summon support from no less than sixty-one families of cousins and

thirty-one vassal daimyo. In order to control these disparate groups,
however, a notoriously rigid social hierarchy developed within his
empire. It proved difficult to satisfy so many vested interests and his
lands were beset by factional infighting. Although he usually enjoyed
numerical superiority when he raised an army, some of his allies were
prone to defect in battle. Moreover, Ōtomo’s own conversion to
Christianity would test the loyalty of many of his vassals.
From his base at Saga in Hizen, Ryūzōji Takanobu also gained
control over large territories in northwest Kyushu. Known as the ‘Bear
of Hizen’, he was ferocious in combat and lesser lords were so intimi-
dated by his reputation for cruelty that they quickly rallied to his flag.
He did not always command their loyalty, however, for at times the fear
he inspired also served to undermine his authority. Given a realistic
opportunity to break ranks, there were vassals who would turn against
him, just as he himself had risen to power by overthrowing the Shōni.
The most notorious example of Ryūzōji’s brutality was the occasion in
1581 when his forces destroyed the Kamachi family in nearby
Yanagawa. After the battle they needed two boats to carry their victims’
severed heads across the Saga plain to show their lord.23
As the cases of Ōtomo and Ryūzōji suggest, the foremost quality for
any successful sengoku daimyo was an ability to command the loyalty of
his vassals. In many cases these men would be his former enemies who
had been subdued during localized conflicts in the initial stages of the
civil war. If they survived defeat in battle, they could save their necks by
pledging loyalty to their new overlord. Under this arrangement their
primary duty was to supply and lead their men whenever they received
a call to arms.
Through this self-perpetuating culture of warfare, fighting became a
way of life and taking up weapons the only way to survive. No matter
how unwelcome the conflict these vassals had orders to fight, and their
loyalty was frequently put to the test on the occasions when they were
commanded to attack their own neighbours or even blood relatives. At
Yanagawa in 1581, for example, Tajiri Akitane had no option but to
attack the town situated just across the river from his own castle, even
though his cousins in the Tajiri and Kamoike lines were among the
inhabitants. At Hibikibaru in the same year, no sooner had Sagara
Yoshihi fallen to Shimazu Yoshihiro than he was ordered to break
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written oaths of friendship, including one in the keeping of Aso Shrine,

in order to attack the neighbouring Aso domain to the north.24
Leadership was also a key factor. One daimyo, Itō Yoshitsuke, held
rich lands in Hyūga Province in southeast Kyushu, and fielded such a
powerful army that his troops boasted of how they could brush
Shimazu or any other rivals aside armed only with bamboo sticks. At
the same time he was a distant figure who led a decadent lifestyle and
never led his men into battle. In a decisive encounter with his most
powerful rival in the south, Itō’s much vaunted troops were scattered
by a smaller Shimazu army at the Battle of Kizakibayu. By contrast,
Shimazu Yoshihiro, the victor, always led from the front and shared the
hardships of camp life with his soldiers. So committed were his men, it
was said, that they never had to wait for orders to risk their lives for him
in battle. It was partly this reputation that gave rise to the local legend,
‘the Shimazu do not need walls – they are defended by their men’.25
Fighting techniques had changed significantly from the old days of
single combat romantically portrayed in medieval war tales. Samurai
warriors now rode into battle on horseback, and troops of foot soldiers
(ashigaru) were mobilized from among the daimyo lord’s subject popu-
lation. When a warlord was on the offensive, his troops would burn
houses and anything else they found while marching through enemy
territory. When forced onto the defensive, he would often seek the pro-
tection of a fortified hilltop castle. A rare example to have survived is
the impressive fortress at Taketa in Ōita Prefecture, the one-time base
of the Shiga family, who were relatives of the Ōtomo line.
Although military campaigns were often brutal, a distinctive samurai
code of honour was developed and refined through the experience of the
warring states. This would be written up more formally afterwards in
works on bushidō (The Way of the Warrior), notably Hagakure (In the
Shadow of Leaves) which was based on commentaries by Yamamoto
Tsunetomo, a retainer of the Saga domain in the early eighteenth
century.26 Central to these attitudes was the notion of an honourable
death. Complex conventions governed the timing of when it was appro-
priate to send out a relief force, and it was common for a samurai to prove
his valour by fighting to the death. Troops surrounding an enemy warrior
in the heat of battle might also pause and give him the chance to uphold
his family name by committing suicide (seppuku) with his sword. In this
age of ceremonial suicide, if a powerful daimyo died, however peacefully,
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his vassals sometimes followed him to the grave. In the early seventeenth
century, for example, some forty to fifty loyal samurai took their lives on
the death of Date Masamune, the daimyo of Sendai in northern Honshu,
and also in the case of Nabeshima Naoshige, who became lord of Saga
in Hizen after the fall of Ryūzōji Takanobu. It was a practice that perhaps
had its origins in the distant past, although echoes survived into the
modern era, such as when General Nogi committed suicide on the death
of the emperor Meiji in 1912.
Respect for the enemy was also a singular feature of war etiquette. It
was not uncommon for daimyo lords in the field to send messengers to
deliver fresh fish and sake to the enemy general on the eve of battle.
Occasionally, celebrated poets who found themselves on opposing sides
might exchange verses by shooting arrows into the enemy camp. At the
siege of Minamata late in 1581, for example, Shimazu Tadaharu warned
Fukamizu Munakata of the fate awaiting his castle by the sea when he
wrote, ‘the leaves on the trees fall in the autumn wind’. Fukamizu boldly
dismissed the threat of the army encamped outside his walls when he
replied, ‘the tide waxes with the sinking moon’.27
For all this rhetoric of honour, Kyushu during the age of warring
states was littered with incidents of brutality and treachery. The taking
of heads became a common feature in the climate of endemic violence.
After a battle was won it was customary for the victor to inspect a line
of heads, and some lords such as Ryūzōji and later Hideyoshi would
take this practice to extremes. In Honshu it was a treacherous vassal
who cost even the powerful Nobunaga his life and in Kyushu, too,
similar cases abound. In 1527, for example, Usuki Nagaaki was in
charge of an Ōtomo army laying siege to Togamure Castle, and he
finally lured his neighbour Saiki Koreharu out with a promise of safe
passage, only to put his retinue to the sword in the mountain pass on
their journey south. In 1581, Ryūzōji lured his relative Kamachi
Shigenami to Saga with an invitation to watch a performance of saru-
gaku, the forerunner of Nō theatre, only to ambush his party in the
streets when they arrived.28
The final campaigns

On several occasions during the last decades of the age of warring states,
Ōtomo Sōrin tried to make his territorial advantage count and establish
156
his supremacy in Kyushu, only for new adversaries to block his path. In
1551, he seemed to have a clear opportunity following the assassination
of Ōuchi Yoshitaka, his powerful rival in the north. Standing in his way
was Mōri Motonari who, after avenging Ōuchi’s death, took over his
lands in western Honshu and sent troops across the Kanmon Straits into
Chikuzen Province in northern Kyushu. For nearly two decades the
forces of Ōtomo and Mōri clashed repeatedly, but Ōtomo gradually
gained the upper hand as Mōri found himself committed on two fronts,
increasingly preoccupied with the challenge of first Amako Yoshihisa
and later Oda Nobunaga further east in Honshu.
In 1564, Mōri agreed a truce with Ōtomo so as to cover his western
front in Kyushu. Three years later, however, the Chikuzen lords who
depended on his protection found themselves in a perilous state when
an Ōtomo army moved through the mountains of Kyushu and set up
camp at the base of Mt Kōra in neighbouring Chikugo to the south.
When Mōri responded to their appeals for help in 1569 by sending
troops into Kyushu, both armies converged on the strategic port of
Hakata. The Battle of Tachibana which followed on the eastern out-
skirts of the city takes its name from the mountain castle where a
Chikuzen lord held out against Ōtomo’s men. Some of the fighting
occurred near the site of Ashikaga Takauji’s momentous victory at
Tatarahama more than two hundred years before. Tachibana has been
viewed as the first major battle to involve muskets, since it was fought
six years before Nobunaga’s spectacular victory at Nagashino. On this
occasion as well it was the threat of Nobunaga which forced Mōri to
pull out after six months and protect his eastern frontier in Honshu,
leaving the Chikuzen lords in Ōtomo’s power.29
Ōtomo now held the whole of central and northern Kyushu with the
one exception of Hizen Province in the northwest, where he encoun-
tered fierce resistance from Ryūzōji Takanobu. In 1570, therefore, a
powerful Ōtomo army of 60,000 men marched into Hizen and sur-
rounded Ryūzōji’s garrison of 5,000 warriors trapped inside Saga Castle.
A war council called by Ryūzōji to discuss their predicament vacillated
between a defensive strategy and a plan his captain Nabeshima
Naoshige proposed for a night sortie to catch the enemy by surprise. It
was the entrance of Ryūzōji’s sixty-year-old mother Keigin that decided
the issue when she declared her support for Nabeshima. In the Battle
of Imayama that followed, the Ōtomo forces camped in the hills to the
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north of the castle were caught off-guard as Ryūzōji’s men recorded an

unlikely victory. His survival also tipped the balance of power in north-
ern Kyushu, for he was now able to consolidate his power base in Hizen
and subsequently made inroads into the Ōtomo empire by seizing
territories in Chikuzen, Higo and Buzen.30
Even with the rise of Ryūzōji in the north, Ōtomo still remained all
powerful in much of central Kyushu, until a new threat appeared from
the south with the re-emergence of the Shimazu. Physically cut off from
the rest of Kyushu by steep mountainous terrain, the local conflicts in
these southern domains had hitherto developed in relative isolation.
The Shimazu family was well established in the area and over the course
of several centuries had built up a core of loyal military vassals, such as
the Iriki who had originally pledged their allegiance in 1397.31 Recent
internal divisions, however, had weakened their control over the region
and Ōsumi Province had largely passed out of their control, while the
Satsuma coast became feared as a pirates’ lair on a par with Hirado.32
From their castle town in Kagoshima, however, the Shimazu were able
to re-impose their authority on southern Kyushu by first overcoming
the opposition of local lords such as Iriki, Kedōin and Kamō. Victory
at the Battle of Iwatsurugi in 1554, partly achieved through the use of
muskets, allowed them to break through to the Ōsumi peninsula. Their
advance brought them within marching distance of the Hyūga territo-
ries ruled by an Ōtomo ally, the powerful Itō Yoshitsuke. The resound-
ing success over Itō’s men that followed at Kizakibayu in 1572 was a
defining moment in their rise to prominence and has been called
Kyushu’s equivalent of Okehazama, the battle that propelled Oda
Nobunaga to power along the Tōkaidō in Honshu.
It was Itō’s appeal for help that brought Ōtomo Sōrin into direct
confrontation with the Shimazu. Determined to destroy this challenge
from the south, Ōtomo planned an ambitious march through his own
territories and down the east coast of Kyushu into the lands of Hyūga.
In the spring of 1578, he set out with a 50,000-strong army from Bungo.
He had just been baptized and felt confident enough to dream of build-
ing Christian colonies in the lands to be conquered along the way. This
was not a vision shared by all his vassals, however, and they were further
dismayed by his orders to burn the Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples
they encountered during the march south. Questions surrounding his
ability to lead were also asked as he now attended mass daily and left the
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fighting to his generals. When the Ōtomo forces finally clashed with
Shimazu in the autumn at the Battle of Mimigawa, poor tactics con-
tributed to a catastrophic defeat as a whole troop of men forded the
river, only to be cut off from the rest of the army.33
Ōtomo never fully recovered from the reverse at Mimigawa and sub-
sequently some of his vassals began to drift away. In the north of
Kyushu, Ryūzōji had also seized this opportunity to expand his own ter-
ritories, and, to the south, Shimazu forces were now encroaching on
lands in Hyūga and Higo that had traditionally lain within Ōtomo’s
sphere of influence. At the Battle of Hibikibaru in 1581, Shimazu
Yoshihiro defeated Sagara Yoshihi, lord of the strategically vital
Hitoyoshi domain in southern Higo. He then forced Sagara to advance
north and attack the lands of Aso Koremasa, a key Ōtomo vassal based
in the heartland of Kyushu. As Shimazu troops swept north through the
coastal plain of Higo in 1583, Ōtomo’s power was visibly on the wane,
and it now seemed that any contest for supremacy in Kyushu would be
settled between Shimazu and Ryūzōji instead.
The catalyst for such a test of strength duly appeared in 1584 when
Arima Harunobu, lord of Shimabara, rebelled against Ryūzōji’s oppres-
sive rule and appealed to Shimazu to send help across the short stretch
of sea that lay between Higo and his own domain. Enraged by the loss
of such an important vassal, Ryūzōji marched south into the Shimabara
peninsula to bring Arima to heel. Even though his wife was from the
Arima line and their son had mixed loyalties, Ryūzōji ignored their pleas
to stay behind and led his men against the Shimazu troops waiting for
him there. After advancing down the coast, however, the contest was
soon settled when Ryūzōji himself was killed in action at the Battle of
Okidanawate. His son, the only figure in Kyushu who could still claim
enough territory and men at arms to mount a serious challenge,
promptly came to terms, handing Shimazu almost undisputed military
control of the island.34
At this stage a conclusion to the long civil war in Kyushu seemed
imminent at last. It remained only for Shimazu to reduce the vestiges of
Ōtomo Sōrin’s power, now confined to pockets of control in the east
and north. Clearly unable to resist, Ōtomo feared that conquest by
Shimazu would spell the end for Christianity in the island. His only
glimpse of hope was to appeal for help, ironically as it turned out, from
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Oda Nobunaga’s successor, who now reigned
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supreme in Honshu. Ōtomo was encouraged by reports that Hideyoshi

might be sympathetic to his cause, partly fostered by the taste he had
developed for European fashion and the presence of João Rodrigues in
his retinue. Moreover, he was now in control of territories bordering on
Kyushu, as he counted the powerful Mōri Terumoto among his vassals
and had just pacified the smaller island of Shikoku. So extensive was
Hideyoshi’s influence already that he had even adopted the name of
kanpaku, an antiquated title for a high-ranking imperial adviser in the
Heian court of yore.
Two Shimazu armies seized the initiative in 1586. Advancing up the
east coast of Kyushu and into Bungo territory, Shimazu Iehasa captured
Funai and drove Ōtomo out of his capital. Meanwhile, his elder brother
Shimazu Yoshihiro had moved further north with an army of 50,000
men to destroy the last Ōtomo outposts and confirm Satsuma’s control
over the island. After burning the city of Hakata they marched inland
and camped at Dazaifu where, high on a hill above the town, Takahashi
Joun, Ōtomo’s strongest general, held out in Iwaya Castle with just
1,000 men. Priests in Dazaifu sent Shimazu gifts, begging him not to
destroy their sacred sites, and their help was even enlisted in the siege.
Despite repeated calls to surrender, however, for over two weeks
Takahashi’s defiant reply was that he held the castle on behalf of the
emperor’s representative (kanpaku).
The tale of Takahashi’s heroic defence of Iwaya lives on in local
legend, and today a colourfully decorated float depicting him in full
armour is kept on display in the bullet train foyer at Hakata Station. His
last stand was motivated by the hope that a relief force promised by
Hideyoshi would arrive in time at least to save his son, who held the
castle on Mt Hōman further up the valley. Shimazu launched a series of
ferocious attacks but each time his troops were repulsed, and ultimately
they only found a way through when a local informant showed them a
back way up the mountain. In this final assault Takahashi killed seven-
teen warriors himself until, realizing that their cause was lost, he com-
mitted suicide together with fifty loyal followers.35
Takahashi’s death was not in vain. Shimazu’s army had suffered 4,500
casualties during the siege and had been kept at bay long enough to
thwart his plans to complete the conquest of Kyushu. Takahashi’s son
was also saved as, shortly afterwards, Shimazu withdrew on hearing
news of the approach of troops under Mōri Terumoto in the vanguard
160
of Hideyoshi’s relief army. This marked the first of several encounters

between the houses of Shimazu based in Satsuma and Mōri of the
Chōshū domain in western Honshu. Ironically, had Mōri’s exhausting
struggle against Nobunaga not inclined him to come to terms with
Hideyoshi already, Kyushu might have been more vulnerable to
Shimazu’s quest for supremacy there. In different circumstances the
possibility of some collusion between Shimazu and Mōri could also not
be ruled out. After all, they would later sink their differences and cam-
paign against his successor Tokugawa Ieyasu, and again nearly three
hundred years later when a Shimazu-Mōri alliance sounded the death-
knell of the Tokugawa regime.
In 1586, however, with Mōri by his side, Hideyoshi’s power was
assured. Shimazu Yoshihisa was ordered to submit but felt confident
enough in his own strength to refuse. More than anything else, it was
his derisive reply to this ultimatum, invoking his ancient lineage as
reason enough not to accept, that persuaded Hideyoshi to embark on
the conquest of Kyushu.36 The stage was set for the arrival of the largest
invading army seen since the time of the Mongol incursions three
hundred years before. His agenda was to secure the submission of
Shimazu, pacify Kyushu and, as the age of warring states drew to a close,
complete the process of unifying the land that Nobunaga had begun.
For decades this region had been contested by warlords, missionaries,
merchants and pirates, operating in relative isolation from events in
neighbouring Honshu. Hideyoshi’s plans for a Kyushu campaign would
enable the return of centralized authority and would ultimately bring the
combined armies of the warring states into this one island. The shift in
the deployment of military power this entailed would have a significant
impact not just on Kyushu but on East Asia as a whole.
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CHAPTER 9
TURBULENT DECADES:
STATE CONTROL AND
RESISTANCE

ituated far from the Kyushu mainland on the outer island of
S Amakusa, the fishing village of Sakitsu nestles at the foot of a steep
hill on the shores of a sheltered bay. The wooden houses clustered
around the waterfront form a scene not unusual along this coastline of
coves and cliffs by the East China Sea. What is striking, however, is the
spire of a church rising above the rooftops. Today, a large proportion of
those who attend services there are elderly local residents. Ironically, a
faith that survived hundreds of years of persecution by the central
authorities is now threatened most by the allure of modern urban life
and the younger generation’s flight from the countryside.
Amakusa has always been one of the poorest rural areas in Kyushu.
Apart from fishing the economy is heavily dependent on sandstone
quarries and a growing influx of tourists. The remote location of these
islands may have been a key factor in keeping the flame of Christianity
alive in former times, but they are so isolated that visitors from other
parts of Kyushu – drawn by their picturesque landscapes and exotic
churches – often arrive by plane. So deprived was Amakusa in the pre-
modern era, in fact, that it was not uncommon for peasants to sell their
daughters to survive. Although a practice by no means unique to this
region, it was strongly associated with these islands well into the twen-
tieth century. This is reflected in the memory of karayuki-san, the young
women who left home on ships ‘bound for China’ and other parts of
Southeast Asia, which in the colonial era often entailed a life in the
service of the Japanese Imperial Army.1
162
Turbulent Decades: State Control and Resistance
The little church in Sakitsu symbolizes the remarkable survival of a

curious religious tradition. It was built by a French priest in the nine-
teenth century after the local community was finally reconciled to the
Catholic Church as European missionaries returned to Kyushu follow-
ing the ‘opening of Japan’. Until then, successive generations had been
forced to practise their faith in secret, ever since their religion had been
driven underground centuries earlier after a ferocious wave of persecu-
tion. For over two hundred years these ‘Hidden Christians’ (Kakure
Kirishitan) had preserved the beliefs of their ancestors far from the eyes
of the authorities in these remote village communities.
Christianity had flourished in Kyushu during the age of warring
states, as Jesuit missionaries built on Francis Xavier’s early initiative.
Through a combination of trade winds and the support of Christian
daimyo, the new religion had taken root in communities especially on
the western seaboard of Kyushu, in parts of Hizen Province like
Nagasaki and Shimabara, and the Amakusa Islands in Higo. In the
1580s, however, these missions faced an uncertain future as warlords
with little sympathy for their beliefs gained the upper hand in the strug-
gle for control. Before long the entire region appeared to be at
Shimazu’s mercy, yet ironically it was the overlord who arrived from
Honshu at the eleventh hour to stop him who embarked on the perse-
cution that eventually drove the Christians underground. This was
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, to whom Ōtomo Sōrin turned for help in 1586 to
save Kyushu (and himself) from Shimazu’s power. The new order that
he imposed brought with it a confusing blend of mixed signals, in some
respects revolutionary. It led to several more turbulent decades of mil-
itary expansion, commercial growth and social conflict before this
region was brought fully under control.
The Toyotomi regime in Kyushu

When Mōri Terumoto’s relief force was despatched from western
Honshu in 1586, it arrived just in time to protect Ōtomo’s vassals from
Shimazu Yoshihiro’s troops. This, however, was just the vanguard, for
after considerable planning, early the following year Hideyoshi himself
advanced into northern Kyushu at the head of a vast host recruited
from no less than thirty-seven provinces. Drawing on an overall troop
strength of 250,000 men, he progressed slowly down the west coast
163
through Higo, while another invasion force under his half-brother

Hidenaga marched down the east coast through Bungo and into Hyūga.
The only resistance encountered in northern Kyushu came from
Akizuki Tanezane, a Chikuzen lord who had remained loyal to Shimazu,
but once he had been forced to surrender he became active in persuad-
ing like-minded vassals in Hizen and Higo to defect to Hideyoshi.2 As
support for Shimazu drifted away in central Kyushu, the main Satsuma
army was compelled to withdraw far to the south and pin its hopes on
a defensive campaign in home territory.
On the eastern front, meanwhile, Shimazu Iehisa soon found himself
isolated from his allies and surrendered Sadowara Castle to Hidenaga.
Everything now rested on the outcome of Hideyoshi’s offensive down
the west coast. Battle was joined on the banks of the Sendai River,
which forms a natural barrier in the north of Satsuma’s territories. One
of Shimazu’s foremost generals, the courageous Niiro Tadamoto, sur-
prised Hideyoshi by drawing up his troop of 5,000 men on the unpro-
tected north side of the river. Even more surprising was his decision to
launch an attack on the advancing army of 170,000 men, and it was not
until nightfall that a bridgehead was secured across the river. Next the
Satsuma forces tried to ambush the enemy troops in the thick woods to
the south of the river but they eventually had to fall back for a last stand
around Kagoshima.
Shimazu Yoshihiro remained confident of holding the narrow
mountain passes on the outskirts of the castle town, and for a while his
men succeeded in frustrating the first attempts to break through. What
he had not counted on was an unexpected attack from the south by a
detachment of Hideyoshi’s men who had sailed around the peninsula
and landed further down the coast. Information from some Pure Land
Buddhist monks who had been acting as Hideyoshi’s spies also allowed
the advancing columns under Katō Kiyomasa and Kuroda Yoshitaka to
find a way through these ravines, and despite their fine swordsmanship
the Satsuma warriors were put to flight, as much through the element
of surprise as defeat in combat.3
Hideyoshi appears to have been greatly relieved when the Shimazu
brothers signalled their submission at last. With his supply lines over-
stretched and the army increasingly restless as the rainy season took
hold in Satsuma, he was anxious to avoid a mutiny and had even con-
sidered abandoning the campaign. One report suggests that he was
164
within five days of striking camp himself when the Shimazu finally
capitulated.4 It was something of a muted triumph, therefore, as he
made his way back north, taking Shimazu Yoshihiro with him as a
hostage and to serve as one of his own generals.
Arriving in Hakata in July, Hideyoshi then spent a month in residence
at Hakozaki Shrine a short distance to the east of the city. During his
stay he gathered his generals around him and laid out the territorial set-
tlement that would broadly determine the future balance of power
among the ruling lords in the region. Shimazu Yoshihisa was allowed to
stay in control of Satsuma with his lands largely intact, no doubt to the
disappointment of some vassals who had been hoping for spoils of war.
This was certainly magnanimous, but Hideyoshi felt confident enough
of his erstwhile foe’s reputation for loyalty to announce, ‘once Satsuma
submits, her allegiance is secured for ever’. Moreover, his rationale for
sparing Shimazu was influenced by a dilemma of political authority, for
as he was well aware, ‘he might crush the Satsuma clan, but what could
he put in its place?’5 The following year Shimazu Yoshihiro was allowed
to prove his loyalty when he was put in charge of stamping out piracy, a
campaign which led to the confinement of the once roving house of
Matsura to the island of Hirado.
Elsewhere in Kyushu in 1587, Ōtomo Sōrin had just died but his son
Yoshimune was restored to his family’s lands in Bungo. In Hizen,
Ryūzōji Takanobu’s ailing son Masaie retained his territories, although
power there now effectively lay in the hands of his regent Nabeshima
Naoshige, a former Shōni vassal who would later become daimyo
himself. Higo was now divided between two of Hideyoshi’s strongest
generals, Katō Kiyomasa in the north and the Christian Konishi
Yukinaga in the south. These new regimes were not uncontested,
however, as both Katō and Konishi had to respond vigorously to stamp
out peasant revolts that broke out on their arrival. Another vassal who
held Christian sympathies was the renowned warrior Kuroda Yoshitaka
(Josui) who, together with his son Nagamasa, was first given control of
Buzen Province in northeast Kyushu, but later rewarded with the richer
prize of Chikuzen, including the port of Hakata.
In addition to partitioning territory among his trusted generals, the
reforms Hideyoshi introduced to pacify Kyushu would lay the founda-
tions, as in other parts of Japan, for a new social order that came to dom-
inate the early modern era. Partly in response to the peasant revolt in
165
Higo, sword hunts were launched from 1588 onwards to prevent

weapons from remaining in the hands of commoners. This initiative was
reinforced in 1591 when, in a measure called heinō bunri, a distinction was
drawn between samurai warriors, who retained the privilege of carrying
swords, and peasants who did not, paving the way for the clear divisions
in class structure that would follow. At the same time the cadastral land
surveys (taikō kenchi) that had already begun in Honshu were now
extended to Kyushu as well. This led to the first comprehensive alloca-
tion of land attempted since the ritsuryō system was in place. It also
enabled a rigid pecking order among daimyo lords everywhere by fixing
a value (measured in rice) on the agrarian wealth in each domain.
With his interest in commerce and expanding revenue, Hideyoshi
paid particular attention to some of Kyushu’s major ports. In Hakata,
for example, the ‘tally trade’ had previously demonstrated considerable
potential, but more recently the threat of piracy and the dangers of civil
war had contributed to a decrease in the volume of commercial traffic.
Drawn by its wealth, the city had at times become a battleground for
rival armies, and in 1559 was even attacked and burned by 2,000 troops
under Tsukushi Korekado. A Jesuit missionary observing Hakata in
1571 reported that there had once been 10,000 houses there, but after
a series of attacks rebuilding had begun over the past year and already
3,000 houses were to be seen.6 More recently as well, the city had suf-
fered further damage at the hands of Shimazu Yoshihiro’s forces in
1586. From his base in nearby Hakozaki, therefore, Hideyoshi was well
placed to recognize the plight of local merchants who appealed to him
for help. He responded by ordering surveys to be conducted, which
resulted in a new town layout that reoriented the streets, traces of which
remain today. He also introduced a system of drainage channels to
improve the water supply in a city which has always been vulnerable to
epidemics transmitted from the continent.7
In stark contrast to the troubled experience of Hakata, the port of
Nagasaki had been growing rapidly, its commercial prosperity driven
partly by the Portuguese ‘black ship’ (kurofune) that arrived once a year
from Macao, carrying a rich cargo of gold, silks and raw wool from
China. At the same time this region of Hizen with its large Christian
population presented a particular challenge for any overlord seeking to
impose his rule. On his journey north through Kyushu after the
Satsuma campaign, Hideyoshi had been dismayed by the political
166
influence that Christian missionaries appeared to exert over some local

communities. This was particularly conspicuous in Hizen, nowhere
more so than Nagasaki which, in effect, had been functioning as a Jesuit
colony for over a decade already.
Hideyoshi had acquired an avid taste for European fashions, but he
showed a more guarded attitude to European political activities in ter-
ritories under his control. Conscious of the Jesuits’ loyalties to Rome,
he suspected that they could pose a threat to his plans to pacify Kyushu
and establish his own order. In 1588, he placed Nagasaki under direct
jurisdiction – in itself a statement of intent for a regime based so far
away in Kyoto – and four years later Terazawa Hirotaka was appointed
as the first magistrate (bugyō) to govern the city. Also in 1588, he sent
agents to Nagasaki to buy up all the raw wool imported by Portuguese
ships arriving from Macao. This was the origins of the itowappu system,
an arrangement which secured for his government a monopoly by con-
centrating the distribution of raw wool only through the hands of
licensed merchants in Nagasaki, Sakai and Kyoto. Following the Ming
authorities’ practice of controlling trade by issuing tallies, he also
awarded vermilion seals to some favoured merchants from these three
cities. Now that the surrounding seas were free at last from the scourge
of pirates, these served as official licences as their ‘vermilion seal ships’
(shuinsen) embarked on a new wave of commercial expeditions over-
seas.
For the inhabitants of the Korean peninsula, however, Hideyoshi’s
arrival in the island on the other side of the Tsushima Straits heralded
not so much a long-awaited respite from wakō pirates as a new
onslaught on a scale they had never endured before. Indeed, Kyushu
was not just a commercial gateway recovering from the disruption of
internal conflict, but once again a militarized frontier zone patrolled by
veteran generals and their samurai troops. This island may have been
pacified at last, but the question remained of how to channel the mili-
tary energies that had unified these lands and still retain political control.
In the event, the north coast of Kyushu became the launch pad for the
Japanese state’s first overseas campaigns since the fall of Paekche in the
seventh century.
Hideyoshi’s uninterrupted experience of taming warlords in Japan
had given him unlimited confidence in his military powers and the
continent was next. He dreamt, in fact, of a new Asian order, with his
167
own regime replacing the Ming dynasty at the hub of an elaborate

network of tributary states. This was why he summoned Sō Yoshitoshi,
the lord of Tsushima, during his stay in Hakozaki in 1587, and gave him
the onerous task of sending a message to the king of Korea, demand-
ing that he accept subordinate status to Japan. Concerned more for his
domain’s close ties with the peninsula, the message that Sō actually
delivered indicated only Hideyoshi’s desire to enter into diplomatic rela-
tions. Similarly, Shimazu Yoshihisa was instructed to demand the sub-
mission of the king of the Ryukyu Islands to the south of Kyushu.
Although he received no positive reply from either Korea or Ryukyu,
Hideyoshi assumed that both these kingdoms now lay in his power. In
a singular example of diplomatic misunderstanding, the Korean envoys
who visited Japan in 1590 were clearly stunned when they received
orders to attack China.8
For its own part the Yi court of the Chosŏn dynasty in Korea was
critical of Japan’s attempt to upset the established political hierarchy
and ignored a further approach, ostensibly because it was not presented
in person as custom required. Just as rebellious daimyo lords had been
brought to heel before, Hideyoshi would not tolerate what he saw as
insubordination within his empire and preparations began for a full-
scale invasion of Korea. The site of the new purpose-built headquarters
he chose for the campaign was on a quiet hilltop in former Matsura ter-
ritory on the north Kyushu coast called Nagoya (not to be confused
with the city of Nagoya in central Honshu). Kuroda Yoshitaka was
placed in overall charge of construction and Shimazu Yoshihiro built
the ramparts, as a new fortress took shape within just five months. With
all the daimyo lords throughout the land now summoned to set up
camp beneath its walls, for a short time this Nagoya Castle became the
political and military centre of Japan.
The troops for the Korean campaign were drawn from Kyushu and
some domains in western Honshu. Support was not unanimous,
however, for shortly after the invasion was launched in 1592, a
Shimazu vassal called Umekita Kunikane rebelled on the south Higo
coast in protest against the Toyotomi regime. The time it took Shimazu
to suppress the revolt would delay his own departure for the continent.
By this stage the first detachments under Konishi Yukinaga and Sō
Yoshitoshi had landed on the Korean coast – at first, local inhabitants
thought they were once again under attack from wakō pirates. With the
168
subsequent arrival of other Kyushu lords such as Katō Kiyomasa,

Ōtomo Yoshimune, Nabeshima Naoshige and finally Shimazu
Yoshihiro, before long an army of 170,000 troops had crossed the
Tsushima Straits. With a force of 130,000 also kept in reserve around
Nagoya Castle, Hideyoshi now had a total of 300,000 men under his
command.
Initially, the Japanese invaders swept all before them, and despite
some brave resistance many soldiers in the Korean armies fled before
the onslaught. Within just seventeen days of the first landing the king
of Korea was forced to abandon his capital at Hanyang (Seoul), which
fell shortly afterwards. On hearing the news at his headquarters in
Nagoya, a delighted Hideyoshi talked of moving his own base to
Ningbo on the Chinese mainland and even dreamt of invading India.
His troops, meanwhile, continued their march through the Korean
peninsula and reached Pyŏngyang before they were finally stopped in
their tracks by the arrival of a Ming relief army. In the spring of 1593,
Konishi found his garrison there surrounded by overwhelming
numbers and appealed for assistance from Ōtomo Yoshimune, who
was based close by with 6,000 men. Leaving Konishi to his own devices,
however, Ōtomo had already retreated south. For many years Ōtomo
Sōrin, Yoshimune’s father, had been a dominant figure in Kyushu, but
for this one act of cowardice in the field by his son, Hideyoshi finally
stripped the family of its lands in Bungo.
Korean resistance groups were now beginning to rally after their
initial losses as volunteer militia, including former government troops,
used guerrilla tactics to hound the Japanese armies. Having pushed so
far north, the invading forces’ supply lines were increasingly stretched
and vulnerable to attack, a weakness that was systematically exploited
by the Korean navy. Using the so-called ‘turtle-armoured’ ships origi-
nally developed to fight the wakō, Admiral Yi Sun-sin secured control
of the sea lanes across the Tsushima Straits, effectively cutting off the
Japanese troops from their headquarters in Kyushu. Today in the city
of Pusan on the south coast of Korea an imposing statue of Admiral Yi
looks out to sea in memory of his exploits.9
The Japanese armies were decimated as a result of this Korean cam-
paign. Within eleven months Konishi and Ōtomo lost more than half
their men, while Nabeshima and Katō lost a third of theirs.10 Only a
minority of these casualties had been killed in major battles, as larger
169
numbers were cut down during ambushes or died of disease, while

others were driven to surrender by hunger and the severe Korean
winter. These deserters amounted to the largest influx of Japanese
migrants to the peninsula since pirates had been induced to settle there
nearly two hundred years before. The acute loss of troops they suffered
would also drastically weaken the daimyo lords of Kyushu and western
Honshu. Biding his time on the outskirts of Nagoya Castle, meanwhile,
one influential figure who was conspicuously unaffected by this war of
attrition was Tokugawa Ieyasu. Since his own power base lay in the
Kantō plain in eastern Honshu his troops had stayed at home, a factor
that weighed in his favour when he made his own bid for power after
Hideyoshi’s death.
A year into the Korean campaign, both sides were war weary after a
long winter and Konishi and Katō contrived to seal an armistice with
the Ming emissary Shen Weijing. This was achieved, however, only by
sending conflicting messages on the terms for peace to their respective
masters in China and Japan, who they knew would never agree to mutu-
ally acceptable conditions. The misunderstanding this created came to
light when a Ming envoy reached Japan in 1596, bearing a message from
the emperor acknowledging Hideyoshi’s subordinate status as ‘King of
Japan’ in return for evacuating the Japanese garrison that had been left
in place at Pusan. Negotiations soon broke down and in his fury
Hideyoshi made plans for another invasion.
The second Korean campaign was launched in 1597 when an army
of 140,000 troops was sent across the Tsushima Straits. Strategically this
was a less ambitious venture, targeting only four provinces in the south,
but it would be remembered afterwards as a more savage war than the
first as large numbers of civilians were also attacked. Another reason
why Hideyoshi is indentified as the most reviled Japanese figure in
Korean history is due to the practice his troops developed of systemat-
ically destroying temples and other cultural treasures. On the military
front the invading armies once again found themselves on the defen-
sive after an initial advance. Retreating to coastal areas in the south of
the peninsula, they built a number of forts known locally as ‘Japanese
castles’ (wajie), the ruined remains of which still survive today. The
contest again became a war of attrition as their enemies closed in. At
Ulsan Castle, for example, the men in Katō Kiyomasa’s garrison were
reduced to eating horsemeat to survive a siege by a Ming army. Later he
170
would put this experience of defensive fortifications to good use when

he drew up plans for designing Kumamoto Castle.11
The campaign finally petered out after Hideyoshi’s death in 1598. For
Kyushu these expensive military adventures had brought war exhaus-
tion to the region’s ruling daimyo and samurai warriors. A significant
proportion of the fighting population had either died or settled across
the Tsushima Straits, while ships returning from the war zone also
carried as many as 60,000 Korean slaves. Some of these were bought by
the Jesuits and found their way to Macao, and one who ended up in Italy
is thought to have been the first Korean to have reached Europe.12
Other notable hostages included the master potters who were sought
out by admiring daimyo lords, giving rise to what became known as the
‘Pottery War’ (yakimono-sensō). Many distinctive earthenware and
ceramic styles have their origins in this episode, including Arita and
Karatsu in Hizen, Satsuma in the south, and Hagi in western Honshu.
Enforced exile for these master craftsmen brought with it the consola-
tion of high status, and occasionally they were subsequently allowed to
return to Korea, such as the founders of the lesser known Takitori ware
near Dazaifu.13
Another legacy of Hideyoshi’s Korean campaigns was the appear-
ance of local festivals, such as the Fujisaki Shrine autumn festival held
in Kumamoto each September to commemorate the first victory won
by Katō Kiyomasa. In the port of Yobuko, not far from the aban-
doned ruins of Nagoya, a tug-of-war festival is held each June, recall-
ing the games that Hideyoshi once used to rouse the morale of largely
idle troops camped around his castle. The still impressive walls bear
testimony to his wild ambition, although many of the stones were later
removed by Nabeshima Katsushige, lord of Hizen, when he built Saga
Castle.
At the height of his power Hideyoshi dreamt of a Toyotomi dynasty
ruling on behalf of the emperor and armed with sophisticated mech-
anisms of central control. He was also noted for the grand gestures he
used to demonstrate his political authority. On his return to Kyoto late
in 1587, for example, he threw a flamboyant party to commemorate
the success of his Kyushu campaign. Lasting for ten days, this was
orchestrated by Sen Rikyū, master of the now in-vogue ‘Way of Tea’
(sadō).14 For the most lasting symbol of his power he chose the con-
struction of Hōkōji, the largest wooden temple ever built, surpassing
171
even Tōdaiji in size. Massive timbers from the primeval forests of

Yakushima off the south Kyushu coast were shipped to Kyoto for this
ambitious project. In 1596, however, the newly finished building was
shattered by an earthquake, an event that also marked, it was said, the
demise in the fortunes of the Toyotomi line.15
On his deathbed in 1598, Hideyoshi received Tokugawa Ieyasu’s
promise to rule as regent until Hideyori, his infant son and heir had
come of age. Tokugawa, however, nurtured ambitions to establish his
own regime, a dream he realized in 1600 when his ‘eastern army’
defeated the ‘western army’ raised to defend Hideyoshi’s will at the
Battle of Sekigahara in central Honshu. Some of the Kyushu daimyo,
such as Katō Kiyomasa, declared for Tokugawa. Nabeshima
Naoshige, meanwhile, sat on the fence until the eve of battle before
revealing his hand and recalling his son to Kyushu to prevent him
from taking the field with the western army. Kobayakawa Hideaki,
who held lands including Hakata, deserted to Tokugawa‘s side at the
height of battle, and was rewarded afterwards with a new fief in
Okayama. Yet his reputation for treachery followed him, and two
years later he died in suspicious circumstances after a hunting trip.
The lands around Hakata were now bestowed instead on Kuroda
Yoshitaka who had recently defeated an attempt by Ōtomo
Yoshimune to land in Bungo and claim his former territory there on
the western army’s behalf.
Other Kyushu lords, among them Konishi Yukinaga and Shimazu
Yoshihiro, took the field against Tokugawa at Sekigahara. Following
his defeat, Konishi was pursued and then executed. Shimazu appears
to have been less committed to the cause and spent much of the battle
as a bystander. When they were surrounded by Tokugawa’s troops,
however, he and his men managed to break out with a fighting retreat,
and his family would once again be allowed to retain control of the
Satsuma domain. Now in a position to assert his political supremacy
in what became the new administrative capital of Edo, Tokugawa
Ieyasu officially launched his own bakufu government in 1603 when
he received the title of shogun from the emperor. Just as in the
Genpei War of the late twelfth century when Minamoto Yoritomo
destroyed the Taira line, an eastern army had seen off a challenge from
the west to install a new military ruler based in the Kantō area in
Honshu.
172
A hub of international trade

The Battle of Sekigahara may have ushered in a new age of Tokugawa
rule, but in Kyushu there remained some strong threads of continuity
from the years of Toyotomi control. In particular, the foundations laid
by Hideyoshi helped to create a climate in which overseas trade could
flourish. Ieyasu himself was acutely aware of the potential value of com-
merce, and new opportunities were presented by the influx of foreign
merchants now frequenting Kyushu’s ports. Traders arrived on board
not only Portuguese galleons, but ships from Spain, Holland and
England, besides the more familiar vessels from China, Korea and the
Ryukyu Islands. As a result, in the early seventeenth century ports like
Nagasaki and Hirado could boast a degree of multicultural trade rarely
found on the shores of the East China Sea.
Although Nagasaki had now been removed from Jesuit political
control, Portuguese galleons continued to arrive each year, and with
directly appointed magistrates (bugyō) on site the Tokugawa regime was
able to reinforce the central government’s monopoly over the raw wool
they brought from Macao. From the 1590s, there were also visits from
Spanish galleons, which had gained access to trade in the East China Sea
after 1565 when the conquistador Miguel López de Legaspi arrived
from Spanish Mexico to establish a foothold in the Philippines.
Moreover, the formation of trading companies in northern Europe
would also make an immediate impression, paving the way for the
Dutch and English impact in Asia as a whole.
Early negotiations to plan such joint commercial ventures led to the
creation of the East India Company in London in 1600, followed two
years later by the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) in
Amsterdam. The first sign of this activity in Japan was in April 1600
when, after an epic two-year voyage, the surviving crew of a Dutch
vessel called the Liefde made landfall on the beach at Usuki on the east
Kyushu coast. After being sent to Honshu and held at Osaka Castle,
their pilot, an Englishman called William Adams, made such a
favourable impression in his interview with Tokugawa Ieyasu that he
was given some land and allowed to settle.16 His influence contributed
to the welcome that was extended in turn to Dutch and then English
ships. When Ieyasu granted the Dutch permission to trade in 1605,
Matsura Shigenobu, the daimyo of Hirado, responded by offering them
173
the use of his main port. He also built the ship that allowed the ship-
wrecked crew of the Liefde to leave for Europe. As a result, the trading
post known as the Dutch ‘factory’ was first opened on Hirado Island in
1609. The term recalled the ‘factory system’ of allocating premises to
foreign merchants or ‘factors’ that had originally been developed in
medieval Flanders. Although now dying out in Europe, the system was
being widely adopted by Dutch and other European merchants as they
developed their trade networks in Africa and Asia.17
For both the Dutch and the English, Hirado was viewed as a poten-
tially useful trading post for targeting the rich silks of China. In 1613,
the East India Company was also granted permission to set up a factory
there, and quarters were rented from the ‘Chinese Captain’, a merchant-
pirate by the name of Li Tan. In the same year Matsura, a lord of pirate
stock himself, resorted to the intriguing ruse of burning down his own
castle. It appears that he was anxious to prove his loyalty to the
Tokugawa regime at a time when other daimyo in Hizen were coming
under increasing scrutiny. He may have been influenced by news of the
fate of Arima Harunobu, the Christian daimyo of nearby Shimabara,
who had just been sentenced to death for plotting the murder of the
Nagasaki bugyō.18 The castle at Hirado would be left without a wooden
keep until it was rebuilt in 1707.
By 1616 the rapidly developing European commerce in Hizen was
brought under closer control by the Tokugawa authorities as Spanish
and Portuguese vessels were confined to Nagasaki, while Dutch and
English ships were restricted to Hirado. The main port on this island
continued to flourish as a trading post over the next two decades, with
a growing population of European men and a number of children born
as a result of matches with local women. Despite the proximity of their
factory settlements and the life they shared, however, there was always
an intense rivalry between the Dutch and the English. The East India
Company’s negative appraisal of trading prospects finally led the
English to pull out in 1623, and the following year their relative weak-
ness in the Indies was confirmed when a Dutch force attacked and
destroyed an English trading post on Amboyna, an island in the
Moluccas, massacring all the inhabitants including some Japanese men
from Hirado. It was this ruthless streak that also enabled the Dutch to
take control of the Portuguese territories in these Spice Islands and
create an extensive colonial empire in the region.19
174
In addition to the commodities passing through European hands,

trade with neighbouring states around the East China Sea had now
begun to revive after the havoc caused by Hideyoshi’s dreams of con-
quest. From 1611 the Tokugawa authorities gave the Chinese junks
known as tōsen permission to trade through Nagasaki, although this was
a rather general category that included occasional arrivals from as far
south as Annam (Vietnam) and Siam. Following Hideyoshi’s death
commercial relations had also been reopened with Korea, allowing
twenty ships to arrive each year at a trading facility in Pusan called the
‘Japan House’ (Waegwan), which housed a community of around 500
Tsushima merchants.20 Unlike his predecessor, Tokugawa Ieyasu also
exchanged diplomatic credentials on equal terms, leading to the peri-
odic arrival in Hakata of large-scale Korean embassies passing through
en route for Edo, usually timed to coincide with the accession of each
new shogun.21
In the south of Kyushu the port of Kagoshima also became a flour-
ishing gateway for trade, both directly and indirectly, with China. A con-
tributing factor was that Shimazu Yoshihiro’s stock with the Ming
authorities had risen due to his magnanimity in once having spared and
returned a senior Chinese general during the Korean campaigns. Junks
continued to put into port at Kagoshima until 1616 when the Tokugawa
authorities ordered them to be diverted to Nagasaki instead. By this
stage, however, ships from the now subjugated Ryukyu Islands were
also becoming a common feature in Kagoshima. In 1609, a Shimazu
expeditionary force had invaded these islands with the blessing of the
new Edo bakufu, after the king of Ryukyu had failed to register his grat-
itude when Tokugawa Ieyasu returned some castaways several years
before. The campaign, moreover, allowed the Shimazu rulers of
Satsuma to expand south and develop the island of Ōshima, a plan
influenced to some extent by the heavy economic burden that had been
placed on their domain by the shogun’s orders to provide funds for the
construction of Edo Castle.
After a three-day siege a force of 3,000 Satsuma troops occupied
Shuri Castle, the royal seat in Okinawa. The king of Ryukyu himself was
seized and taken to Kagoshima, but he was allowed to return in 1611
under an arrangement that effectively opened up a new route for indi-
rect trade with China. While the Ryukyu Islands retained their official
status as an independent kingdom, they were forced to pay tribute to
175
Satsuma and resident officials were also sent from Kagoshima to

oversee state affairs in the islands. This enabled Ryukyu to maintain the
diplomatic relations it held with China, and every two years when ships
bearing tribute were sent there Satsuma officials were able to furnish the
mission with silver to buy raw cotton, medicine and other goods from
the continent. Before long, the inflow of rich commodities arriving in
Satsuma via the Ryukyu Islands prompted the new daimyo Shimazu
Iehisa to build a trade depot in his capital called the Kagoshima Ryukyu
Hall (Kagoshima Ryūkyū-kan). It was the Satsuma economy that bene-
fited most from this semi-colonial rule although, as with missions from
Korea, embassies led by the crown prince of Ryukyu and sometimes
numbering more than a hundred officials would arrive in Kagoshima en
route for Edo to pay their respects whenever a new shogun was
installed.
Besides the growing number of foreign ships putting into port in
Kyushu, the activities of Japanese merchants abroad expanded rapidly
during the early seventeenth century. Following Hideyoshi’s initiative,
the Tokugawa authorities continued to grant vermilion seals which
served as licences for overseas trade. In the thirty years or so that the
‘vermilion seal’ trade operated, as many as 130 merchants received this
authorization, operating in up to 370 ships in all.22 Influenced by the
technological skills and knowledge of their various trading partners,
these sizeable vessels sometimes had curiously hybrid designs. From
the 1620s, Nagasaki shipwrights in particular incorporated features
they found in the hulls of European vessels to construct ships that
looked part-junk and part-galleon in inspiration. Life on board the
‘vermilion seal ships’ was also multicultural, as the chief pilots they
employed could be Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch or English, and
various languages were commonly used.23 Supplied by such vessels
Japanese communities known as Nihon-machi sprang up far and wide
on the coasts of Southeast Asia. One of the most distant examples was
built in the southern suburbs of Ayutthaya, the capital of Siam, and at
one stage numbered several thousand people.24 These communities
would later fade and only a few survived into the eighteenth century,
but they nevertheless bear testimony to a brief but significant era of
rapid expansion in Japan’s mercantile contacts with the world
outside.25
176
Persecution and exclusion edicts

The regular arrival of Portuguese ships in the sixteenth century had
enabled Jesuit missionaries to establish their presence in Nagasaki and
beyond, but the subsequent appearance of Spanish galleons would
complicate the outlook for Christian communities in Kyushu. On
board these vessels were sometimes Franciscan and Dominican friars
who, discarding the more subtle approach used by their Jesuit fore-
bears, were often outspoken in their criticism of existing beliefs in
Japan. Hideyoshi identified their growing influence as a political threat,
for although interested in the trade opportunities that accompanied the
‘black ships’, he was sensitive to any interference in state affairs. His
misgivings over the political influence of Christian missionaries first
emerged after his Kyushu campaign. While he had generally maintained
good relations with the Jesuit padres he received, one such interview
during his stay at Hakozaki prompted a change in mood towards the
Christians in Japan.
The conversation that Hideyoshi held in July 1587 with Vice-
Provincial Gaspar Coelho, the master of Nagasaki, appeared to have
been cordial enough. A few days later, however, he suddenly ordered
Takayama Ukon, the Christian daimyo of Takatsuki, to renounce his
faith or forfeit his lands. He then issued an edict that condemned
Christianity as a ‘pernicious doctrine’ and expelled the padres, who were
given twenty days’ notice to leave Japan.
Hideyoshi never enforced this edict, but he never renounced it either.
The padres recognized the need to behave discreetly, and many of them
took to wearing Japanese clothes.26 The danger seemed lost, however,
on some of the Franciscan monks who began arriving in the early 1590s,
ironically as a result of an attempt by Hideyoshi himself to include the
Philippines in his own tribute system. One of these was Pedro Baptista,
who openly set about converting local people in Hirado and, in a
growing climate of Jesuit-Franciscan rivalry made the journey along the
northwest Kyushu coast for an audience with Hideyoshi at Nagoya
Castle. Some also made the journey on to Kyoto (‘Miyako’) and
preached with what the Jesuits considered to be a reckless degree of
fervour.
Notoriously erratic in his judgement during these last years of his
life, in 1596 Hideyoshi finally lost patience over the San Felipe affair.
177
This Spanish galleon packed with merchandise had been blown off
course and run aground on the Tosa coast in Shikoku. Afraid that her
rich cargo might be confiscated, the ship’s pilot Francisco de Olandia
apparently tried to intimidate Mashida Nagamori, Hideyoshi’s agent
on site, by explaining the might of the Spanish empire, and how a van-
guard of missionary activities often preceded a full-scale military inva-
sion. According to a Jesuit account, on hearing Mashida’s report
Hideyoshi ‘leapt to the conclusion that the friars of St Francis, who
had been in Meaco near unto three years, should also be taken for
spies’.27 When he then ordered the arrest of all the missionaries in
Osaka and Kyoto, twenty-one Christians were rounded up and taken
back to Kyushu. Even after their arrival in Nagasaki early the follow-
ing year, Hideyoshi remained unmoved and, on 5 February 1697, in
the first clear-cut example of persecution, twenty-six individuals were
crucified on a hill overlooking the town. Twenty of the victims were
Japanese, four were Spanish, one was Mexican, and another Indo-
Portuguese, with six Franciscan missionaries and three Jesuits among
them. These Christian martyrs were canonized by Pope Pius IX in
1862, and today a monument in Nagasaki marks the site on the hill
where they died.28
As Hideyoshi died himself shortly afterwards, there was still hope
among the Christian community that this may have been just another
isolated incident, and no coordinated persecution followed. For the
large numbers of Christians in the south of Higo and Amakusa,
however, a turning point was the death of their daimyo Konishi
Yukinaga after the Battle of Sekigahara. The Amakusa Islands were
now placed in the hands of Terazawa Hirotaka, whose ruthlessly high
taxation caused widespread suffering. In 1603, Katō Kiyomasa also
expanded south from his own base in Higo, purging any local Christians
who refused his orders to return to the Buddhist faith. Two leading
Christians and their families were killed, and further executions fol-
lowed in 1608. Nevertheless, the Christian presence survived, and in
Amakusa it continued to flourish. Including the still large communities
in Shimabara and Nagasaki, there may even have been around 300,000
Christians in Japan in 1614.29
The new shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu initially adopted a conciliatory
approach towards the Christian daimyo in Kyushu. The mood changed
quickly after 1612, however, when the discovery of Arima Harunobu’s
178
plot to assassinate the Nagasaki bugyō called into question the loyalty of
all the western lords. Since he had actively promoted trade connections
in Nagasaki, Ieyasu had remained cautious in the past about excluding
the padres altogether. The recent arrival of the Dutch and English now
allowed his regime to trade in European merchandise without relying
on Portuguese or Spanish ships and the missionaries they brought with
them. The issue was highlighted when open conflict broke out among
the Europeans themselves in 1612, as the Spanish and Portuguese
labelled the Dutch as pirates, only to be accused in turn of conspiring
to turn Japan into a Christian state. Finally dismissing any room for
accommodation, Ieyasu responded by prohibiting Christianity in his
own territories, and followers of the faith were rounded up in directly
ruled cities such as Edo and Sunpu.
At first this purge barely scratched the surface, as it was not imple-
mented with great force in those cities, notably Nagasaki, where sym-
pathy for Christianity was strong. From 1614, however, persecution
was extended throughout the country as notice-boards were put up,
announcing rewards for informing on Christians, and churches were
burnt or closed down. As part of a systematic search, people were now
required to register with their local temples. This represented a chal-
lenge to the social order of Nagasaki with its mostly Christian popula-
tion of around 25,000 people, and at least as many in the surrounding
Hizen countryside. In 1614, some 3,000 protestors reacted by demon-
strating against the ban during a religious procession through the
streets.
There followed a small diaspora of Christians leaving Nagasaki for
Macao. A notable casualty was Takayama Ukon, the daimyo who had
forfeited his lands in 1587 on Hideyoshi’s orders and was now deported
to Manila where he died shortly after his arrival. At the same time a
number of European missionaries chose to go into hiding and stayed in
Japan.30 Moreover, as a result of their activities thousands of adults con-
tinued to be baptized each year. Tokugawa Hidetaka, Ieyasu’s succes-
sor, reacted by ordering the daimyo to devote more energy into
stamping out the religion. In Nagasaki this growing culture of persecu-
tion was marked by the notorious execution of fifty-five Christians in
1622, and continued for years afterwards.31 Two years later, Spanish
ships were finally expelled from the port, together with the last of the
Franciscans. As the English had closed down their factory on Hirado
179
and pulled out the year before, the only European merchants now left
were the Portuguese and the Dutch.
Previously, Christianity had been singled out by the Tokugawa
regime as the principal target of restrictions imposed in Kyushu, but
now the agenda of imposing political control was extended to include
trading interests there as well. After coming to blows with Japanese
merchants overseas, both the Portuguese and Dutch were temporarily
barred from putting into port during the late 1620s.32 Under Tokugawa
Iemitsu, the third shogun, a series of edicts was then issued that cur-
tailed much of the overseas commercial activity operating through the
island’s ports. In 1633, Japanese ships were prohibited from sailing
abroad, a measure reinforced when Japanese people were also barred
from leaving. The only exceptions were to be the bakufu’s own repre-
sentatives, although such an occasion would not arise for over two
hundred years. A European observer later described the effect of these
edicts as having created a ‘closed country’, a state of affairs variously
labelled as a ‘seclusion policy’, or even more grandly, ‘national isolation’.
Exclusion would perhaps more accurately describe the mindset of
Tokugawa administrators, whose main priority was to ensure political
security and their own commercial supremacy relative to other trading
interests in these western ports.
To some extent, therefore, the attacks on Christians over previous
decades had always been symptomatic of a wider strategic agenda.
Given that its own power base was in the Kantō plain, the Tokugawa
regime could not afford to allow domains in Kyushu unrestricted access
to the new technology, ideas and commodities, ranging from guns to
printing presses, that had poured into the island since the arrival of
Europeans less than a century before. The experience at Sekigahara,
where some Kyushu lords had taken the field against Ieyasu, also served
as a reminder that if they were to capitalize on their relative proximity
to China, Korea and the trade winds from the south, it could potentially
swing the balance of power against the regime in Edo. It was in this
climate of reinforcing political control that in 1636 the remaining
Portuguese traders in Nagasaki were confined to a small fan-shaped
island specially built for them by a consortium of local merchants. This
was intended to be their quarters for the foreseeable future, but in the
event they would not stay there for long.
180
The Shimabara Rebellion and Kakure Kirishitan

The most violent reaction against the authority of the Tokugawa regime
during its early years in power was the rebellion that broke out in
Amakusa and Shimabara late in 1637. The political legitimacy of the
shogun was contingent on his ability to impose order, so the news that
thousands of peasants from adjoining provinces in Kyushu had united
under a Christian banner posed a major threat. Debate continues over
the extent to which the seeds of rebellion were economic, religious, or
a combination of the two. For several decades already, the largely
Christian community in the Amakusa Islands had suffered both perse-
cution and the high taxes imposed by Terazawa Hirotaka. The
Shimabara peninsula, a short distance across a channel to the north, had
once been ruled by the Christian daimyo Arima Harunobu. It had since
become the domain of Matsukura Shigemasa, whose plans to construct
a magnificent castle at Shimabara on the shogun’s orders had resulted
in a crippling tax burden on the peasants in the area.
Here in the shadow of Mt Unzen, the poor volcanic soils of
Shimabara forced the local population to depend on meagre returns
from their land at the best of times. Symptomatic of the tyrannous rule
that continued under Matsukura Katsuie, Shigemasa’s son, was the
notorious ‘Mino dance’ in which, as the Dutch factor at Hirado
described, those who failed to pay their taxes were dressed ‘in a rough
straw coat made of a kind of grass’ that was then set on fire.33 According
to a Portuguese account, the revolt broke out when one village and then
the whole district rose in support of a father after he ‘killed the daimyo’s
stewards who were torturing his daughter before his eyes’.34
The speed with which the rebellion spread suggests that an agree-
ment had already been reached at a meeting held on a small island in the
straits between Shimabara and Amakusa to coordinate a call to arms.
Within weeks, as many as 37,000 peasants had united under the leader-
ship of a fourteen-year-old boy, the messianic Amakusa Shirō.35
Supporters of a Christian conspiracy theory point to the prophesy left
by a missionary driven from Amakusa in 1612, foretelling a time when
‘a remarkable youth will appear’ in which ‘multitudes shall bear the
cross on their helmets’ and ‘white flags shall float over sea and river,
mountain and plain’. Such propaganda appears to have been used
to foment unrest among the population by discontented ‘masterless
181
warriors’ (rōnin), such as the five former vassals of Konishi who were
among the rebel leaders in Amakusa.36
During initial skirmishes on both sides of the straits the rebels
enjoyed some success but were unable to storm the castles of
Shimabara and Tomioka. Early in 1638, they united into one force and
fell back to mount a last stand at the abandoned site of Hara Castle by
the coast, some twenty miles to the south of Shimabara. Soon they were
surrounded by an army of samurai warriors assembled by daimyo rulers
in the region. If the revolt had not been motivated by religion before it
certainly took on a Christian flavour now, as the besieged rebels placed
wooden crosses on the battlements, flew banners with Portuguese
inscriptions and encouraged each other by shouting the names of Iesus,
Mary and Santiago.37
Despite the samurai army’s superior training the first assaults on
Hara Castle ended in abject failure. To defeat this peasant army a force
of more than 100,000 men was eventually assembled, and it was nearly
three months before they were able to force the issue. The cannon-shot
fired from junks offshore proved so ineffective that, in an episode
perhaps more in keeping with the Thirty Years War, even the Dutch
factor Nicholas Koeckebacker was commanded to assist. The ship he
sent from Nagasaki fired 426 shot on the beleaguered castle within a
fortnight before he received permission to withdraw.38 In his judge-
ment, this reprieve was motivated by a letter the rebels shot into the
enemy camp, taunting them with their apparent dependence on Dutch
firepower. During the siege there were moments of betrayal, such as
when one rebel and his men tried to defect, and also treachery, when
they were all promised a full pardon if only they surrendered.
Eventually, hunger took its toll and when a desperate sortie failed to
secure provisions the starving population inside was doomed. Defiant
to the last, two days of slaughter followed as the castle was finally
stormed and every last rebel killed.39
In the aftermath of the Shimabara Rebellion, Matsukura Katsuie was
punished for the tyrannous rule that had initially provoked the unrest
and ordered to commit ritual suicide. Terazawa Katataka, his counter-
part in Amakusa, lost his lands and revenue before going insane and also
taking his own life. It was the cost of suppressing the rebels that had
most surprised the Tokugawa authorities. At least 13,000 soldiers had
been killed fighting against a peasant army that, even if it did include
182
some of Konishi’s former retainers, should have been no match for

samurai warriors. Plans then underway to launch an ambitious cam-
paign abroad and seize the formidable Spanish garrison at Manila were
rapidly reviewed and abandoned.40
In Nagasaki the repercussions were felt almost immediately as the
Portuguese were finally expelled in 1639. When a galleon arrived from
Macao the following year in the hope of re-establishing trade relations,
the four envoys and fifty-seven members of the crew were beheaded.
In a further attempt in 1647, two Portuguese ships were allowed to
leave but the expedition failed to achieve its objective. Any contact with
Portugal or Spain was now considered seditious, and their religion
absolute taboo. Even in 1673, when an English ship called the Return
put into Nagasaki harbour hoping to re-open trade, the Tokugawa
bakufu rejected the request citing Charles II’s marriage to Catherine of
Braganza, the King of Portugal’s daughter.41
The immediate beneficiaries of the expulsion of the Portuguese were
the Dutch, who were now the only Europeans left in Kyushu allowed
to trade, albeit under restricted conditions. In 1641, their factory in
Hirado was closed down and they, too, were confined to the small
island in Nagasaki Bay originally built for the Portuguese. In their
records they usually referred to the place as Deshima, although it is as
Dejima that this is commonly known in Nagasaki today. When the
factory was moved to Nagasaki, the children of mixed blood on Hirado
were all deported to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. A number of
letters they subsequently wrote to the relatives they left behind have sur-
vived, casting light on the life of exile they led far from their homeland.
The cultural memory of loss evoked by these poignant letters also
inspired the occasional creative forgery, notably the famous ‘Jakatara-
bumi’, an embroidered copy of which is kept on display at the Hirado
Tourist Archives.42
In the wake of the Shimabara Rebellion, the campaign to stamp out
Christianity in Kyushu moved into its final phase. Despite the preced-
ing years of persecution, it is thought that there were still some 150,000
Christians there when the Portuguese were expelled in 1639.43 Over the
next two generations, however, so many were forced to renounce their
faith that, superficially at least, the ‘problem’ appeared to have been
‘resolved’. Specially appointed magistrates known as Kirishitan bugyō led
the hunt, as once a year the residents of each ward in Nagasaki were
183
gathered together and compelled to step on images of Jesus or Mary.

The first reference to this practice of ‘picture-trampling’ (fumi-e) dates
to 1658, but a Swedish doctor called Karl Thunberg employed at
Dejima recorded such scenes more than a century later when he arrived
in Nagasaki in 1775.44 Such was the culture of intolerance in the mid-
seventeenth century that, of the 608 Christians who were found in the
Ōmura area near Nagasaki in 1657, 411 were killed, seventy-eight were
imprisoned and died from disease, twenty served life sentences and only
ninety-nine were pardoned.45
Those Christians who still clung on to their faith after decades of per-
secution were eventually driven underground. Such communities of
‘Hidden Christians’ (Kakure Kirishitan) often developed in some of the
remotest areas of Kyushu, stretching from Amakusa in the south to the
north coast of Hizen, Hirado and beyond to the outlying Gotō islands.
To avoid detection their religious services and imagery became ingenu-
ously blended with existing Shinto and Buddhist symbols. In their eyes,
statuettes of Kannon-sama, the Buddhist goddess of mercy, could rep-
resent Mary, with only a cross discreetly etched into the back or the base
hinting at any visible distinction.46 A devotional text used by some com-
munities called the Tenchi hajimari-koto (The Beginning of Heaven and
Earth) was clearly inspired by the Book of Genesis, but also included
Buddhist terms and references to Japanese folk tales.47
It is not clear to what extent this hybrid blend of Christianity and
existing religions had already set in before the Kakure Kirishitan went
underground, or whether it was developed purely in response to the
need for survival. For many, however, the adoption of Christianity may
have been ‘just an addition to their religious life’, embedded ‘within
their already rich tradition of beliefs, which contained elements of
Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism and folk religion’.48 The custom at
Shinto festivals of carrying shrines of kami deities on portable mikoshi
floats, for example, could easily be adapted to Kakure Kirishitan needs.
In some places a kami known as Gozen-sama was believed to be a man-
ifestation of Jesus and, as a result, the local devotional calendar revolved
around ceremonies for the ritual preservation of this deity’s shrines. On
Ikitsuki Island near Hirado, an annual festival is still held for Hattai-
sama, a local kami of the five cereals originally created in memory of a
Christian woman who was once caught in a flood and drowned.49
It should not be forgotten that, besides these Hidden Christians,
184
some Buddhist communities in southern Kyushu also suffered perse-

cution and were driven underground. Pure Land Buddhism had grown
rapidly during the age of warring states, influenced by the militant Ikkō
sect which, for several decades had preserved its independent control
over much of Kaga in central Honshu. Viewing such religious activity
as a challenge to his authority, Sagara Haruhiro, the daimyo of
Hitoyoshi, banned the Ikkō sect from his domain in 1555.50 This pro-
scription was then reinforced by the house of Shimazu as Satsuma
expanded its control over southern and central Kyushu. Quite apart
from their own Zen loyalties, the Shimazu family’s intolerant attitude
was influenced by their suspicion that monks of the Ikkō sect had con-
spired to open the way for Hideyoshi’s march on Kagoshima in 1587.
The ban would remain in place in both Hitoyoshi and Satsuma, result-
ing in Buddhist communities hidden away in remote areas like the
foothills of Mt Kirishima. When thousands of adherents were later dis-
covered throughout Satsuma territory during the 1830s, most were
punished with fines, although some ringleaders were exiled or even exe-
cuted. At the onset of Meiji rule forty years later this climate of repres-
sion also contributed to the terrible destruction inflicted on temples in
Satsuma during the movement to separate Shinto and Buddhist sites.51
By keeping a low profile, meanwhile, many Kakure Kirishitan com-
munities around the western seaboard of Kyushu managed to survive
throughout the Tokugawa era. The level of surveillance may have
diminished over time, but there was always the danger of exposure and
even reprisals. In the Urakami district of Nagasaki, for example, local
informants told the authorities about their Christian neighbours on a
number of occasions dating back at least to 1790.52 In 1805, large
numbers of Kakure Kirishitan were also ‘discovered’ in the Ōe area
near Sakitsu in Amakusa.53 Official practice dictated that an investiga-
tion be launched and the details recorded, and those on the register were
subjected to fumi-e inspections such as at Nagasaki and also some legal
discrimination. The local authorities, however, showed little enthusi-
asm for punishing otherwise law-abiding villagers, and perhaps because
the forbidden religion was no longer perceived as such a major threat,
these heretical activities were often tolerated, if not condoned.
The remaining Christian communities were nevertheless placed in a
deeply ambivalent position after 1859 when, following Commodore
Perry’s demands for trade, the first treaty ports were opened in Japan.
185
In Nagasaki foreign merchants were free to practise their Christian

faith, resulting in the construction of Ōura Church in 1864, the oldest
church building in Japan today. Native residents, however, remained
bound by the ban on Christianity established more than two hundred
years before. When some of them took to attending mass at the new
church the following year, a large Christian community was uncovered
in the nearby Urakami district. French priests at the time estimated that
in addition to the five or six thousand Christians still in Amakusa, there
were 20,000 dispersed in various communities around Nagasaki.54
Some of these Urakami Christians were imprisoned and, since the ban
remained in force even after the collapse of the Tokugawa regime, in
1868 as many as 3,500 were exiled to twenty different locations around
the country. The harsh conditions they suffered in captivity proved to
be a deep embarrassment to the new Meiji government until, under
pressure from the Western powers, the notice-boards proclaiming the
ban on Christianity were taken down at last, and they were finally
allowed to return.55
It would still be several years before freedom of religion was univer-
sally recognized, but now in this more open climate various Kakure
Kirishitan communities began to emerge after their long vigil under-
ground. Catholic missionaries were initially enthused by these remark-
able developments, but became more circumspect when they noticed
the glaring irregularities in religious practice that some villages had
acquired during the centuries of isolation from Rome. In many parts of
Amakusa and Nagasaki the people were persuaded to conform and
were reconciled at last to the Catholic Church. In others, notably on
Ikitsuki and the outlying Gotō Islands, the local people refused to sur-
render the rites they had silently protected for so many generations. As
a result, their hybrid form of Christianity survived, and some commu-
nities still preserve this unique religious tradition although, as with the
Catholic parish of Sakitsu in Amakusa, their numbers are dwindling by
the year.
186
CHAPTER 10
THE GREAT PEACE IN

KYUSHU

ebruary nights in Nagasaki – or late in January if the Chinese New
F Year comes early – are lit up by thousands of colourful lanterns
strung along the main streets. In the heart of the city crowds throng the
Shinchi ‘Chinatown’ quarter and stroll through the ornately painted
west gate to a little park across the road, where variety shows are held
in a sea of illuminated floats. This Lantern Festival is not particularly
steeped in tradition, but is one of various events that illustrate the
importance of tourism to the Nagasaki economy. It is also a cultural
legacy of the unique status this city once held during the centuries of
Tokugawa rule, when it flourished as the only designated port for
incoming foreign ships and their merchandise.
The Dutch also left their imprint on Nagasaki. Just a few steps away
from Shinchi lies Dejima, site of the Dutch factory which, for over two
hundred years, housed the only Europeans permitted to trade. Once it
was a fan-shaped island built in the bay and accessible from the shore
only over a short wooden bridge. Now it is surrounded by reclaimed land,
ringed by multi-storey car parks and tramway lines as modern urban
Nagasaki, ever short of space, encroaches on the narrow estuary at the
head of the bay. For several years now a reconstruction project has been
gradually restoring the island to its original shape. Walls and moats are
being built to separate its wooden buildings and stone warehouses from
the bustling street life around. A few miles up the coast another example
of this influence has taken shape at the resort of Huis ten Bosch (‘House
in the Woods’). Built in the 1990s entirely in Dutch style, the complex has
a town square, church, several hotels, self-catering cottages, windmills
and canals. Naturally, springtime is a riot of tulips.1
187
For Japanese visitors these are just some of the ‘exotic’ features to be
found especially in Nagasaki, and other parts of Kyushu. For residents it
is a more a natural outcome of living on the shores of the East China Sea
and the cosmopolitan level of cultural influence this has sometimes fos-
tered. Nagasaki remains a favourite destination for parties of school-
children enjoying the educational trips organized by junior and senior
high schools from all over the country. Visitors arrive in their coachloads,
and a highlight often included at some stage in the tour is a journey by
cable car up Mt Inasa. At 1,092 feet high, the observatory platform at the
summit affords panoramic views over the natural amphitheatre of
Nagasaki Bay. After sunset, the city lights scattered across the slopes on
all sides combine to form, together with similar scenes at Kobe and
Hakodate, one of Japan’s ‘three famous nightscapes’.2
Hemmed in by wooded mountains, Nagasaki Bay is a long narrow
stretch of water now filled with fishing boats, ferries and the occasional
warship. In times past Chinese and Dutch vessels were moored here,
successors themselves to an earlier generation of Portuguese and
Spanish galleons. With the aid of binoculars, visitors to Mt Inasa can
make out the roofs of neo-colonial villas and church steeples on the far
side of the bay, which were built in a subsequent age of mail steamers
in the late nineteenth century. Looking west and far out to sea, the Gotō
Islands can also be seen on a clear day, still home to communities that
preserve the Kakure Kirishitan faith of their forbears. Facing inland to
the east, a long red brick line can be identified as the walls of Urakami
Cathedral, built in 1959 after the original building was destroyed by the
atomic bomb. Nearby is the large open space of the Peace Park, a sym-
bolic reminder of the disaster that befell Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. A
walk through this park takes the visitor past rows of monuments
donated in friendship, mostly by former allies of the Soviet Union. In
terms of scale, however, these pale into insignificance before the
massive statue – half-Buddha, half-Zeus – that forms the backdrop for
commemorative ceremonies each year. By the foot of the statue people
hang long chains of colourful paper cranes, often made by school-
children in a collective effort before they arrive.
Besides tourism the main pillar of Nagasaki’s economy is the ship-
building industry, as shown by the docks of the Mitsubishi Shipyard that
dominate the Akunoura shore at the foot of Mt Inasa. This also has
Dutch origins, as it was engineers sent from Holland who developed
188
The Great Peace in Kyushu
the first workshops here in the 1850s. More recently in the post-war era,
shipbuilding played a key role in Japan’s economic recovery, and in the
1980s the world’s longest dry dock – one kilometre from end to end –
was built by Mitsubishi further along the coast of Nagasaki Bay.
Competition from cheaper labour forces, first in South Korea and then
China, has since affected the demand for the tankers that were once
made in Japan. In response, the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard has
diversified into the manufacture of high-speed cargo vessels, wind farm
blades and the luxury passenger liners sometimes called ‘floating
hotels’, such as P&O’s Diamond Princess.3
Today, Nagasaki is a relatively small city by Japanese standards with
a population of around 430,000. At the onset of Tokugawa rule it was
still in its infancy as a trading port, but was fast emerging as the strate-
gic centre of the new regime’s tightly controlled external relations. Just
as the few Europeans who were still permitted access might see it as ‘a
window on Japan’, it also offered the richest source of information on
developments beyond Japan’s shores. Throughout the medieval era
Hakata had enjoyed undisputed status as the pre-eminent port in
Kyushu, rivalled in Japan only by Sakai near Osaka. It could still boast
a larger population and a substantial volume of domestic trade, but now
in the more rarefied air of state control in the Tokugawa era, Nagasaki
emerged in Hakata’s place as the focal point of Kyushu’s cultural
relations with the outside world.
The Tokugawa order in Kyushu

In the generations following the Battle of Sekigahara, officials in Edo
could defend the political legitimacy of the new regime by citing what
became known as the ‘Great Peace’ (taihei) of the Tokugawa shogunate,
often referred to also as the ‘Pax Tokugawa’. In their view, the bakufu
government now in power was the natural ruling authority, having
established order at last after the chaotic age of warring states. In many
parts of northwest Kyushu this struck a rather hollow note as it was
achieved at the expense of a long and intense campaign of persecution
conducted against local Christian communities. While other areas of
Japan settled down to a relatively peaceful existence as Tokugawa rule
was imposed, here it would be several decades before the culture of
terror was finally removed. For those religious communities forced
189
underground the memory of this trauma never quite disappeared. One

outcome was the close attention the bakufu government paid to the
region in terms of territorial control. Nagasaki itself was now under the
jurisdiction of magistrates (bugyō) appointed directly by the shogun.
Following the calamity of the Shimabara Rebellion, order was also
quickly re-imposed by removing the two daimyo lords, Matsukura
Katsuie and Terazawa Katataka, who had failed to control their
domains in Shimabara and Amakusa respectively.
Over time, the ‘Great Peace’ would gradually become the recognized
hallmark of the Tokugawa regime for much of Kyushu as well as
Honshu and Shikoku. Some domains could be reallocated or even come
under the direct control of Edo if their incumbent rulers transgressed
the new stringent rules of conduct for daimyo lords and forfeited their
right of tenure as vassals of the shogun. The process of confiscating
domains, known as kaieki, enabled the first three generations of
shoguns to acquire territories amounting to a quarter of the total landed
wealth in Japan. Much of this was located in the Tokugawa power base
around the Kantō plain in eastern Honshu, but in addition to Nagasaki
there were some notable examples in Kyushu. One was a direct result
of the ignominious fall of Ōtomo Yoshimune, who was not only
stripped of his lands for the cowardice he had shown in the face of the
Ming armies in northern Korea, but then tried in vain to regain them by
fighting against Tokugawa’s allies on the eve of Sekigahara.
The new bakufu government was now in a position to acquire some
of the extensive former Ōtomo lands strategically located in the moun-
tainous uplands in the heart of Kyushu. Since this area, like Nagasaki,
was under direct Tokugawa control, it became known as the ‘heavenly
territory’ (tenryō) of the Hita basin. It also went on to become something
of a regional cultural centre, partly due to the influence of officials
despatched from Edo and also because of the prominent role that Hita
merchants played in supplying commodities from Kyushu to the pop-
ulous cities in central Honshu. They were well placed, moreover, to
develop an influential network of contacts in most areas of Kyushu
(except the far south). The Hirose family, for example, moved from
Hakata to Hita in 1673 to build their fortune. From there they were able
to use the profits they made from their distribution trade to provide
support for several enterprises in northern Kyushu, such as the wax
industry in the Fukuoka domain.4 In the financially straitened climate
190
from the late eighteenth century onwards, merchant groups like the
Hirose family would also become noted for the high interest loans they
advanced not only to regional businesses but prominent samurai and a
number of daimyo lords as well.5
Unlike the previous Kamakura and Muromachi regimes, the
Tokugawa bakufu made no attempt to rule Kyushu through Dazaifu,
the ‘distant court’ of Heian antiquity. It was Hita that became the
administrative hub of the island in the eyes of the central authorities and
to here that bakufu officials from other tenryō territories in the region
reported each year. The city was also valuable to the regime due to its
rich resources in forestry and mining. With almost unerring accuracy
the Tokugawa authorities managed to confiscate lands throughout
Japan wherever there were important copper and silver mines to be
found. This was hardly coincidental since it allowed them to control the
lion’s share of the realm’s mineral wealth. In the Taio district deep in
the mountains south of Hita, for example, officials and bandits alike
were drawn by the prospects for gold panning. To this day there are
various reminders of Hita’s once prestigious status under Tokugawa
rule, among them the festival in May when floating banquets are held
on boats fitted with lanterns on the Mikuma River. Another unusual
sight in this wide stretch of water at the confluence of two rivers is cor-
morant fishing, introduced long ago from China but rarely seen now in
Japan.6
Besides territories such as Hita and Nagasaki that were under direct
administration, the bakufu was able to call on the allegiance of a host
of smaller lords known as fudai daimyo, whose cumulative landed
wealth served to tip the overall balance of power in favour of the
Tokugawa regime. In such domains there was a relatively high turnover
of ruling families, as they were often subject to redistribution by the
shogun. Many were located in eastern Honshu and served as a buffer
zone, effectively forming a protective shield around the Tokugawa
heartland in the Kantō plain. In Kyushu there were few examples,
largely confined to the relative safety of the east coast of the island,
stretching from Kokura in the north to Nakatsu, Kitsuki, Funai (Ōita)
and Nobeoka further south. There were only three fudai domains
beyond this coastline: two of these were in the Amakusa Islands and
the Shimabara peninsula, strategically reinforcing the bakufu’s author-
ity in this once volatile region; the other was Karatsu, quite close by on
191
the north coast of Hizen. In this domain no less than six different fam-
ilies would rule over the territory at different times. One of these was
the Matsudaira, an old name for the Tokugawa line used by distant rel-
atives of the shogun and often adopted by lords of fudai domains to
lend their families reflected prestige.
From the perspective of Edo officials, however, much of Kyushu was
still potentially hostile territory largely beyond their control. Isolated
pockets of land under direct bakufu rule and fudai allies alone were not
enough to allow them to interfere very actively in the internal affairs of
the independent tozama domains. Literally meaning ‘outer lords’, these
were often powerful rulers who, in the political settlement after the Battle
of Sekigahara, had either been allocated or already controlled lands in
outlying regions where they were strategically kept at arm’s length from
the Tokugawa power base at Edo. Much of Kyushu was in the hands of
such lords who, as long as they subscribed to Tokugawa regulations, were
largely left to their own devices within their own domains.
In some respects, therefore, the tozama domains that stretched along
the ‘outer’ western seaboard of Kyushu appeared very much as self-con-
tained autonomous states. Moreover, they included some of the richest
territories in the Japanese islands. According to the rather idealized
image of an agrarian economy imposed by the authorities, landed wealth
was measured in terms of the unit koku – the equivalent of five bushels
of rice or enough to feed a man for a year. This kokudaka (crop yield)
system had become widespread among western daimyo lords during the
age of warring states, and had then been extended by Hideyoshi to
encompass the whole country. Satsuma, with 728,000 koku, was second
in size only to Kaga (1,000,000), while Higo (Kumamoto) and Chikuzen
(Fukuoka) both held lands returning over 500,000 koku, and Hizen
(Saga) had 357,000.7 These were all in the top ten among the 260 or so
daimyo domains that emerged intact in the late seventeenth century after
the initial rounds of kaieki confiscations had finally stopped.8 In addi-
tion, a number of other tozama lords ruled over smaller territories in
Kyushu, among them the Matsura (in Hirado), Sagara (Hitoyoshi),
Arima (Kurume), and Tachibana (Yanagawa).9
Each daimyo developed his own administrative structure, managed
by samurai retainers and organized on much the same lines as the
shogun’s government in Edo, albeit on a more modest scale. This
resulted in a complex dual system of fragmented powers (bakuhan taisei),
192
in which regional domainal governments coexisted and overlapped

with the bakufu’s more extensive network of bureaucratic control.
Some tozama lords were viewed with a measure of guarded trust by the
Edo authorities, and together with the fudai daimyo they played an
important role in sustaining the Tokugawa’s ‘Great Peace’ in Kyushu.
The Kuroda family now in control of Fukuoka had always been loyal
vassals, for example, and Nabeshima Naoshige, the daimyo of Saga in
Hizen, had also thrown in his lot with Ieyasu on the eve of Sekigahara.
It was this political background that prompted the bakufu to entrust
Fukuoka and Saga with the task of supplying troops to maintain security
in and around the port of Nagasaki.
Further south, most of Higo was now under the control of Katō
Kiyomasa, who had also fought with Ieyasu. His allegiance to the new
regime, however, had always remained in doubt, and the fine castle he
built at Kumamoto was clearly designed to withstand a protracted
siege.10 The domain was later confiscated from the Katō family in 1632,
after his son Tadahiro was arrested while travelling up to Edo on a
charge of conspiring against the third shogun Iemitsu.11 Tadahiro was
sent into exile and his lands re-assigned to Hosokawa Tadatoshi, whose
father, Tadaoki, had served under Ieyasu, and his family went on to rule
in Kumamoto for the rest of the Tokugawa era. Further south still, and
geographically isolated beyond a line of mountain walls, lay the lands of
Satsuma, the domain of the powerful Shimazu family. Now established
as the oldest ruling line among the major daimyo of Kyushu, they had
somehow managed to maintain the trust of Hideyoshi and Ieyasu in
turn, despite having mounted a serious challenge for regional hege-
mony themselves.
The Tokugawa regime did not have the power to impose its jurisdic-
tion on such far-flung domains as Fukuoka, Saga, Kumamoto and
Satsuma, but it was usually able to the secure the compliance of their
rulers. This was achieved by issuing daimyo lords with stringent house
regulations, initially applied with the buke shohattō code proclaimed by
Ieyasu in 1615. Marriage matches now required the shogun’s approval
and, in what amounted to taking hostages, a member of each daimyo’s
family was to be kept in Edo at all times. Moreover, every domain was
ordered to maintain a sizeable residence there, ostensibly to ensure the
comfort of the daimyo’s relatives in exile. Through the system of ‘alter-
nate attendance’ (sankin kōtai), the daimyo himself was also required to
193
report to the shogun’s capital every other year. This involved the
planning and movement of large-scale processions all the way to Edo
and back, their scale fixed according to a domain’s wealth. In the case of
larger domains such as Satsuma, this would be an expedition of hun-
dreds of retainers, and invariably more than half of any daimyo’s wealth
was expended on these stately residences and processions.12
Systematically draining their vassals’ coffers, in fact, was a key
element in the Tokugawa bakufu’s strategy for keeping powerful
daimyo in a submissive state. This could also take the form of ordering
expensive construction projects such as irrigation schemes. In the
opening years of Tokugawa rule, it was most often evident in the stip-
ulation contained in the buke shohattō code that each domain must have
only one castle (ikkoku ichijō-rei). The hill-top fortresses that had char-
acterized the age of warring states, particularly in Kyushu and western
Honshu, were torn down and castles built instead on open low-lying
sites. The cost this entailed placed a substantial burden on local
economies, so much in the case of Shimabara that it contributed to pro-
voking the rebellion of 1637. Once built, however, the settlement of
daimyo lords in their new castle bases would have a lasting impact on
the shape of society in Kyushu under Tokugawa rule.
Towns, country and roads

Fukuoka, Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Ōita and Saga have a familiar ring
today as prefectures in Kyushu, and more specifically the prefectural
capitals that bear their names. Now they mean more to residents and
visitors than the archaic names of the provinces they replaced:
Chikuzen, Satsuma, Ōsumi, Higo, Bungo and Hizen. These regional
urban centres have all grown out of the castle towns that were devel-
oped as the capitals of daimyo domains during the ‘Great Peace’ of
Tokugawa rule. Intended as symbols of strength in a peacetime order,
the new castles in Kyushu were formidable strongholds. The most mag-
nificent example is Kumamoto Castle, girdled by a deep moat and outer
walls rising to a great height. Inside, a maze of passages is flanked by
thick stone walls surmounted by pitch-black wooden turrets, and at the
centre a massive keep. These wooden buildings were later destroyed by
fire during the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, but the castle was never
stormed and the reconstructed towers still dominate the Kumamoto
194
skyline. From the top of the keep on a clear day, even Mt Aso can be
seen far in the distance inland.
In front of the main outer gate at Kumamoto stands a large bronze
statue of Katō Kiyomasa, who in the early years of Tokugawa rule used
all his experience of castle-building in Korea to create what has been
recognized as his masterpiece. The reconstruction of the castle keep in
the post-war era was by far the grandest project of its kind in Kyushu,
but there are several others, notably at Shimabara and, on a smaller
scale, at Karatsu, Hirado, Kokura and Kitsuki. In the whole of Japan, in
fact, there are only twelve castles that retain their original keeps, since
most structures of this kind today are the result of restoration work,
often featuring liberal use of concrete. 13
In Kyushu, some of what were once the most imposing castles have
for long been left largely unrestored. The wide outer moat of Saga
Castle, for example, encloses a site large enough to house the prefec-
tural office, museum, library, gymnasium, a school and the local televi-
sion station. There is even space for the keep, which became the largest
wooden castle reconstruction in Japan when it was restored in 2004.
The walls of Fukuoka Castle are also a rambling ruin of open parkland,
usually quiet with the one exception of the season for viewing cherry
blossom in the spring. Then the grounds are packed with parties of rev-
ellers who use every inch of available grass as they stake out their terri-
tory with blue plastic sheets. Inside the outer walls of the castle there is
also enough open space for an athletics ground with a running track,
together with the now disused Heiwa-dai baseball stadium, which for
much of the post-war era concealed the site of the ancient Kōrokan. For
all the landed wealth of the Satsuma domain, however, the walls of
Tsurumaru Castle in Kagoshima are laid out on a relatively modest
scale. An explanation regularly offered is the local legend that the
Shimazu were protected not so much by castle walls but by their men.
There is still enough space within the walls to house the Reimeikan, or
‘Museum of Awakening’, built in deference to the pivotal role that
Satsuma played in the nineteenth century during the ‘opening of Japan’.
In each domain the castle served as the official residence of the
daimyo and his immediate family of monbatsu rank, who represented the
pinnacle of the local hierarchy of samurai retainers. Some daimyo lords,
notably Shimazu, Nabeshima and Hosokawa, also spent much of their
time in the extensive villas they built in parkland settings. Tokugawa
195
regulations, however, compelled them to confine their retinues of

samurai vassals largely within their designated castle towns. High-
ranking retainers lived in the immediate vicinity of the castle walls, with
each residence boasting an imposing gate, while lower-ranking officials
occupied smaller dwellings beyond in more outlying quarters. In some
places such residences can still be seen, such as in the ‘samurai district’
(buke-machi) close to Shimabara Castle. A partial exception to this
pattern occurred in Satsuma where, in addition to the castle town of
Kagoshima, small satellite communities of samurai officials were main-
tained in rural locations throughout the domain. This resulted in a large
population of ‘rural samurai’ (gōshi), which reinforced the Satsuma tra-
dition of strength in numbers. Due to their countryside setting, some
of these old samurai quarters have been spared the modern urban devel-
opment that has destroyed so many castle towns. Isolated examples of
these buke-machi districts still survive around Kagoshima as a result,
such as at Izumi on the west coast, and in the small town of Chiran
tucked away in the hills of the Satsuma peninsula.
Under the influence of first Hideyoshi and then the Tokugawa
regime, Japan became a militarized society adapted for peacetime
control. The ruling elite of samurai warrior bureaucrats comprised as
much as 7 per cent of the population, but for their livelihood they were
entirely dependent on stipends received from their daimyo lords, cal-
culated according to rank. The crops that effectively supported the
samurai in their castle town were grown by the peasantry, who made up
the majority of the population, and were settled in rural villages scat-
tered around the domain. Rice became the staple of the urban popula-
tion, which is why a succession of shortages later in the Edo period
quickly resulted in a state of famine. In the Fukuoka domain, the Kyōho
famine in the 1730s was so severe that as many as 70,000 – or 22 per
cent of the population – are thought to have died.14 In the countryside,
however, the peasants who supplied the towns with food subsisted on
dry field crops and ate rice only on special occasions, while fish was con-
fined mainly to coastal areas. Physical segregation was a key element in
this social system, as peasants were tied to the land and not permitted
to live in the castle town. This policy reinforced the ‘sword hunts’ insti-
gated by Hideyoshi and his campaign to draw a veil over the chaos of
the warring states by concentrating weapons in samurai hands.
Just as there was a clearly-defined samurai hierarchy in the castle
196
town, gradations in rank gradually became conspicuous within village

communities as well. Besides the village headman, wealthier families
often acquired increasingly disproportionate amounts of land. Some of
this could be rented out to poorer tenant farmers who had been forced
to give up their own plots after failing to pay the levies imposed by the
domain. Although the principle of confining peasants to the country-
side was maintained for several generations, the pressures resulting
from this widening social inequality ensured that such landless farmers
would be among the first to find their way to the new settlements which
later grew up on the fringes of the castle town.
In addition to its samurai residents, the town itself was reserved fore-
most for the various artisans who furnished them with everyday com-
modities. Prefectural capitals in Kyushu today are littered with place
names that recall the quarters where they worked. Gofuku-machi in
Fukuoka, Nishiki-machi in Saga and Kajiya-machi in Nagasaki, for
example, were once the districts of tailors, brocade makers and black-
smiths respectively.15 Merchants were also permitted to live in the castle
town, as they provided a vital lifeline for urban consumers through their
distribution networks and shop premises. Between them these artisans
and merchants became generally identified as ‘townsfolk’ (chōnin),
sharing the town with urban dwellers of various callings from samurai
officials to priests.
The Tokugawa authorities employed a neo-Confucian framework to
justify the rigid class-based social hierarchy they tried to enforce through-
out Japan. This drew on the writings of Zhu Xi, a Song dynasty philoso-
pher whose ideas ultimately had a wider impact in Korea and Japan than
his own homeland in China. The class structure now observed in Japan
consisted of four general bands abbreviated as shi-nō-kō-shō indicating, in
descending order, samurai, peasants, artisans and merchants. In an adap-
tation of Zhu’s principles, the peasantry were ranked second only to the
ruling samurai class, their value to society clearly reflected in the crops
they produced to sustain the economy. Artisans were ranked next since
they also made tangible products. However wealthy they were, however,
merchants were classified beneath them since they had no crops or arte-
facts to show for their labours. Among the lowest ranked of all urban res-
idents were the peddlers who had no capital of their own and required
licences to hawk their wares.
This at least was the Confucian ideal of ‘agricultural fundamentalism’
197
employed by the Tokugawa authorities to impose order on their world.

The vision of an agrarian economy it presupposed, however, was
perhaps more of a political convention than an accurate reflection of
the society they controlled. As much as 80 to 90 per cent of the popu-
lation consisted of people classified as hyakushō, literally meaning
‘people with various names’. In practice, these were assorted common-
ers who lived mainly outside the castle towns, including many who had
been disarmed during the sword hunts. There is still a strong tendency
in Japan to equate hyakushō with ‘farmers’, a connotation which the
same term does not carry in China or Korea. This dates back to the
eighth-century ritsuryō system which attempted, ultimately without
success, to tie all the people in this category to the land.
In Tokugawa society, however, not all hyakushō spent their working
lives ankle-deep in rice paddies. Amino Yoshihiko has estimated that as
many as 40 or 50 per cent of people classified as such were engaged in
activities other than farming the land. In coastal areas these would
include fishing, salt-making and shipping. The rich fishing grounds in
the Genkai Sea off the north Kyushu coast, for example, encouraged a
high degree of occupational diversity. From the sixteenth century
onwards, a number of whaling stations were set up and dolphin drives
were also not uncommon.16 Even today, on some islands off this coast
there are female divers (ama) who go in search of the highly prized local
sea urchin (uni).17 They represent an ancient tradition, as the ‘fisher-
maids’ (ama) in their rowing boats near Shikanoshima Island at the
mouth of Hakata Bay once caught the eyes of eighth-century poets and
appear in the Man’yōshū, Japan’s oldest anthology of verse. 18
In the mountainous areas of Kyushu as well, occupations included
hunting, the lumber industry, mining, carpentry and pottery. Near
Kokura in the far north, for example, coal was first discovered in the
fifteenth century in the area now known as Chikuhō, although it was
not until the eighteenth century that there were significant levels of pro-
duction.19 Also scattered in the mountains close to clay quarries were
various communities of potters, among them Arita in Hizen and the
hamlet of Sarayama not far from Hita.20 The proportion of the hyakushō
population who devoted their time to farming, therefore, was clearly
lower in these coastal and highland areas than more open spaces like the
Saga and Hyūga plains. And even in those areas where the land was
covered with rice paddies, other trades were developed as well, among
198
them breweries, water mills and river ferries. As Amino contends, ‘the
common view that Japan was an agricultural society must be seen as a
fabrication’.21 Moreover, these farming communities did not devote all
their time to growing rice. Dry field crops included wheat, millet, pulse
and, in Satsuma, sweet potatoes, all products now used to distil the
shōchū gin that has become so popular in Kyushu and Korea. Among the
fruits and other products also harvested from trees were persimmons,
oranges, chestnuts, mulberry bark and lacquer. In many places still
today, orchards of ripening persimmons provide a colourful feature in
the autumn, for example stretching for miles along the upper slopes of
the Chikugo valley.
It was principally as a tool of political control, therefore, that the
Tokugawa authorities employed their agrarian calculation of revenue.
To accommodate such a diversity of produce, wealth was effectively
measured in what amounted to a convertible rice standard. The labour
supplied and the profits made from sundry trades were all understood
in terms of notional koku units. In addition to sacks of rice these could
be viewed under headings such as the ‘fruits of the mountains’ (yama
no sachi) and ‘fruits of the sea’ (umi no sachi). It was the daimyo of
Fukuoka, for example, who granted fishing villages in his domain
access to the Genkai Sea. The villages paid for this privilege by pro-
viding ‘sea products for the lord’s table’ and performing corvée
duties.22
Imposed by the ruling order and policed by samurai officials, the shi-
nō-kō-shō structure allowed little room for social mobility. Intermarriage
between classes was prohibited, and residential quarters clearly segre-
gated. The four recognized categories also ignored some other smaller
groups which fell outside the mainstream, among them priests, monks
and street entertainers. The culture of exclusion this created was felt
most keenly by those minorities who were considered beneath notice in
Tokugawa society. Not far from the towns, for example, lived commu-
nities of leather workers and others involved in such tasks as handling
slaughtered livestock. The sensibilities of the urban population dictated
that they and their work were kept out of sight even though, in the case
of the Fukuoka domain for example, they are thought to have com-
prised about 6 per cent of the population around 1870.23 These outcast
groups, generally known as eta and hinin, suffered from a culture of
discrimination which, despite legislation and ongoing campaigns to
199
achieve recognition and social equality, is still apparent to some extent

today.24
Ironically, the principles of neo-Confucian theory that had been
intended to create social stability were gradually undermined by the ram-
ifications of economic growth which emerged in the more settled
climate of Tokugawa rule. Along with several generations of peacetime
arrived a level of prosperity that was instrumental in generating the rapid
expansion of the castle town. The prodigious rate of urbanization was
nowhere more apparent than Edo, the Tokugawa capital in the Kantō
plain where, complete with its hundreds of daimyo residences, the pop-
ulation exceeded one million by the eighteenth century.25 Edo was
rivalled only by the merchant city of Osaka, which became renowned as
‘the kitchen of Japan’ in its role as the country’s major depot and distri-
bution centre for domestic trade. In Kyushu as well, commercial centres
such as Nagasaki and Hakata experienced growth, influenced partly by
the flight of impoverished tenant farmers from the countryside.
Here in these mercantile cities the rigid class divisions of Tokugawa
society were put under severe strain. Some merchants were able to build
large personal fortunes and could end up becoming wealthier than
many samurai officials, regardless of their social station. In most
domains the daimyo’s retainers were also subjected to increasing pres-
sure to lead a more frugal lifestyle, due to the strictures of economic
recession that took hold in the eighteenth century. Lower-ranking
samurai families could become so destitute that they might turn to loans
to survive, and ultimately it would become socially acceptable in some
cases to arrange marriages with wealthy merchant houses.
In Kyushu these trends were perhaps most visible in Hakata which,
although an old merchant city, was only a short walk away from
Fukuoka, the new castle town built and developed by the Kuroda family
in the seventeenth century. Over time these two settlements eventually
merged, and the Tenjin district that is now the downtown area occupies
the space that once lay between them. One outcome that often confuses
modern travellers arriving in Fukuoka by rail or sea is when they are told
to alight at Hakata Station or Hakata International Port Terminal. This
is because of the decision taken in 1889 to name the city Fukuoka but
keep the port as Hakata, as it had been for over a millennium already.
The station, meanwhile, also retained the name of Hakata, but more
recently the airport, just a short taxi ride away, was named Fukuoka
200
when it opened in 1972 on the site of the Itazuke Air Base used by the
US Air Force in the post-war era.
A major reason for the commercial prosperity merchants enjoyed
during the ‘Great Peace’ of Tokugawa rule was the development of an
integrated transport network. Communications were greatly improved
as, for the first time since the Saikaidō of the Nara period, roads were
laid throughout Kyushu and systematically maintained. Whereas all
roads had once led to Dazaifu, in former times the region’s administra-
tive capital, now the emphasis lay rather on facilitating access for daimyo
processions to ports on the east coast of the island for the onward
journey to Edo. The Nagasaki Kaidō Highway, for instance, bypassed
Dazaifu and cut straight through the hills to the port at Kokura on the
shore of the Kanmon Straits. The daimyo of Fukuoka would reach
Kokura by the road along the north coast, while the journey from
Kumamato involved traversing the central highlands of Kyushu, passing
through the caldera of Mt Aso on the way, before emerging on the east
coast at Funai (Ōita). After the onward voyage through the Inland Sea
to Osaka, daimyo processions from Kyushu and western Honshu con-
verged on the Tōkaidō, the Great Eastern Highway, for the last stretch
of the journey to the shogun’s capital.
These highways now had staging posts (shukueki) furnished with
inns and stables which, in accordance with Tokugawa law, were main-
tained at the expense of the daimyo whose territory they ran through.
In terms of scale none compared with the Tōkaidō, where the staging
posts immortalized in the early nineteenth-century prints by Hiroshige
were sometimes transformed into small towns overnight whenever
two daimyo processions crossed paths.26 Perhaps the most unusual
visitor ever to pass this way en route to Edo was an elephant the
shogun acquired from Annam (Vietnam), which arrived in Nagasaki in
1728.27 In Kyushu as well, the highways helped to foster economic
development and provided more scope for itinerant travellers, among
them early tourists on the Buddhist pilgrimages that were popularized
during the Tokugawa era. The relative leniency that border guards
showed towards such pilgrims contributed to what amounted to a
major travel boom throughout the country by the onset of the nine-
teenth century.28
Roads also had a lasting impact on modern life since the major
railway lines and national highways in Kyushu still follow these winding
201
routes down both coasts from Kokura in the north as far as Kagoshima
in the south. Only in recent years have motorways and bullet train lines
strayed from this blueprint to take more direct routes inland, running
over bridges high above valleys and through tunnels cut deep in the
mountains. On the Kyushu Expressway, for example, a series of thir-
teen tunnels now stretches for over ten miles between the Yatsushiro
and Yamae interchanges, through the wall of mountains that once kept
Satsuma isolated from the rest of the island. This southern part of
Kyushu has been geographically cut off for so long that the first bullet
train route did not open here until 2004, and it will be 2010 before it is
finally linked to the main terminus at ‘Hakata’ in the north.
The road network may have improved communications for trav-
ellers, but social restrictions still kept most of the population largely
confined to their own localities. Each domain maintained its own
border controls along these major highways and operated what was in
many respects a self-contained economy within its boundaries.29
Merchants, for example, were sometimes dependent on patronage
from their daimyo to win monopolies over the limited niche markets
in the domain. The use of currency, as well, was not always universal,
for while silver was favoured in the west of Japan, copper was more
prevalent further east, and in the nineteenth century several domains,
including Fukuoka, Saga and Satsuma, would start issuing their own
paper bills.
The fragmented, almost federal system of political control that devel-
oped under Tokugawa rule served to reinforce a high degree of regional
consciousness in Kyushu. This was particularly evident in the writings
of the ruling samurai class. In Hagakure (In the Shadow of Leaves), his
eighteenth-century treatise on the ‘way of the samurai’, Yamamoto
Tsunetomo, for example, extolled ‘the wonder of being born into a clan
with such a deep pledge between master and servant’.30 For much of this
period, therefore, any patriotic attachment to ‘country’ often related
more to the local domain than any wider notion of Japanese identity.
Besides such expressions of clan affiliation, dialects also contributed
to regional awareness in Kyushu. In some localities, these were so
marked as to be practically incomprehensible to outsiders from other
parts of Japan. The famously impenetrable Satsuma dialect, so popular
tradition holds, was consciously emphasized so as to deter any attempts
by Tokugawa spies to infiltrate the domain. Notwithstanding the
202
homogenizing effect of national television and other recent media in the

modern era, the various dialects still spoken in Kyushu today are partly
the result of the self-contained economies and cultural spheres of influ-
ence that once governed everyday life. On the east coast, for example,
accents clearly betray a tradition of close relations with communities in
Honshu and Shikoku on the far shores of the Inland Sea. The tenryō ter-
ritory of Hita and the fudai domains seem to have been more receptive
to Edo style and other influences prevalent there. The dialects in the
lands of the old tozama domains on the western seaboard, however, all
bear some relation to each other but are distinct from any other part of
Japan. These were all areas in which a high degree of economic inde-
pendence and cultural autonomy were actively encouraged by the ruling
class.
For a long time the old castle towns in Kyushu also retained the social
conservatism that once characterized their samurai populations. For
their part, the merchant communities in commercial centres like
Nagasaki and Hakata took pride in their more liberal and cosmopolitan
outlook. Traces of these influences survive, despite the rapid social
changes that transformed urban life during the nineteenth and twenti-
eth centuries. They are reflected today in the character types still
proudly invoked by people in different parts of Kyushu to symbolize
what they perceive as their own regional identities. In Saga, for example,
there is talk of the ‘spirit of Hagakure’. Kagoshima, in particular, has a
reputation for the relatively low rank traditionally accorded to women,
or rather the high rank of ‘Satsuma men’. The colourful festivals and
urban lifestyle of Nagasaki, meanwhile, have perhaps generated a love
for culture over politics. In Fukuoka, the legacy of the Hakata mer-
chants of yore also bears testimony to the spirit of enterprise in a city
that is now promoting its international profile once more.31
Viewed from other parts of Japan, some of these features combine
to form the more general archetype of the ‘Kyushu man’ (Kyūshū danji),
traditionally known for his strong will, loyalty, and occasionally volatile
spirit. To some extent this image reflects the perspective of successive
regimes based in Honshu that have looked on this island as something
of a ‘sleeping volcano’, deceptively tranquil but always a potential
seedbed of rebellion. In Toyama Mikio’s view, it was this sense of
untapped energy that both the Taira and Ashikaga Takauji once tried to
exploit when they headed west to build their power. Seen from this
203
angle, ‘it is certainly no coincidence that the rebellions of the Hayato

and Iwai in ancient times, the action taken by Shimazu and his allies at
Mizushima in the age of rival courts, and later the Saga, Shinpūren and
Seinan rebellions against the new Meiji state in the modern era (Hagi
excepted), were all the work of men from Kyushu’.32 At the same time,
what this also reflects is that the formation of any sense of collective
Kyushu identity has been partly mediated by how its people have been
perceived from the ‘other’ island of Honshu.
Trade and the Nagasaki system

It was a desire to explore new perspectives on the world that took the
noted Edo painter and scholar Shiba Kōkan to Nagasaki in 1788. On
arriving in Kyushu he journeyed inland, traversing the north of the
island along the Nagasaki Kaidō Highway. At last he reached the final
stage of his journey and, having been allowed through the border check-
point in the Haruki mountain pass he made his way through the hills of
the Urakami district and caught his first sight of the streets of Nagasaki.
In the bay he could make out a Dutch flag flying over the small island
of Dejima. A short distance to the south seven or eight junks with white
flags were moored at the quayside in front of the large walled quarter
reserved for Chinese merchants.33 When he later tried to gain access to
Dejima, Shiba dressed as a merchant so as to avoid suspicions that he
might be spying on behalf of bakufu officials in Edo. He was not
allowed to take anything with him, and after being thoroughly searched
he made his way across the small bridge and through the guarded gate
on the other side.34
The port of Nagasaki was a frontier zone with access restricted in
both directions. Shiba had reached the city by way of the entrance on
land. By sea the long approach through Nagasaki Bay was also patrolled
and permission to land reserved for Dutch vessels and Chinese junks
(tōsen). Late in the seventeenth century as trade flourished, three Dutch
ships a year would make the voyage from Batavia to Nagasaki, but sub-
sequently this was limited to two. Any Dutch ship approaching this
coastline was first required to cast anchor by a tiny island called
Takabokojima – known as ‘the Papenberg’ to the Dutch – at the mouth
of the bay. A party of bakufu officials would arrive in rowing boats to
inspect the merchandise on board before escorting the ship through the
204
bay to dock at Deijima. Intruders were subjected to close scrutiny. A

Portuguese embassy of several ships which sailed into Nagasaki in 1647
was soon trapped by a pontoon bridge of small boats thrown rapidly
across the bay to block their escape. The envoys on board found bakufu
officials in no mood to entertain their requests to reopen trade, and they
were only allowed through the chain of boats and out to sea on condi-
tion that they never returned.35
Maintaining security in Nagasaki fell to visiting troops of samurai
retainers drawn from nearby domains. These men were usually sent by
the lords of Fukuoka or Saga who, by the shogun’s command, took it in
turns each year to shoulder the responsibility of manning the coastal
defences. In the case of an emergency such as the Portuguese incursion
in 1647, however, they could be reinforced by troops from various other
domains in Kyushu and Shikoku. As a result, no less than thirty-six
western domains maintained their own residences (yashiki) in Nagasaki.36
At the hub of this surveillance network was the Bugyō-sho, the mag-
istrates’ offices, where a small army of bakufu retainers coordinated
efforts to regulate the city’s trade. The offices located close to the
wooden bridge connecting Dejima to the shore allowed them to keep a
watchful eye on the small foreign community on the other side, which
consisted of about twenty servants of the Dutch East India Company.
The only other Japanese people allowed across the bridge were mer-
chants delivering supplies or women from the nearby Maruyama cour-
tesan quarter, a concession granted euphemistically on the pretext of
making tea to comfort the residents. Wooden stakes were also driven
into the water around the island at regular intervals to mark out an
exclusion zone complete with notices warning local boats not to
encroach too close.37
The Dutch residents were practically imprisoned on Dejima as
nobody was allowed ashore. The only exception was the opperhoofd, the
factor known to the Japanese as oranda kapitan, who was allowed to attend
the Suwa Shrine festival each year. Every other year, he and a small
retinue were also required to make the long journey to Edo under escort
to appear before the shogun. It was these expeditions (Edo Sanpo) that
furnished Europe with much of its knowledge of Japan under Tokugawa
rule. In particular, the observations of Engelbert Kaempfer, a German
doctor resident at Dejima in the late seventeenth century, made a
significant impact when they were published following his return.38
205
Under imperial rule in ancient times, the closest equivalent to a min-

ister with any remit over foreign affairs had been the governor of the
Dazaifu Headquarters, but for much of Tokugawa rule it was the
Nagasaki bugyō who had the most regular contacts with messengers from
abroad. By comparison he had much less of a ceremonial role and his
portfolio had a strong emphasis on maintaining security. An important
element of his remit was to gather and control the flow of information.
In return for granting trade rights, bakufu officials were keen to elicit
news from the Chinese and Dutch on world affairs. To communicate
with the captains of incoming ships they engaged professional inter-
preters – known as Tō tsūji for Chinese and Oranda tsūji for Dutch – who
were drawn from a select group of local families and trained from an
early age. The information that officials gleaned from them was written
up in the form of fūsetsugaki, which amounted to reports on develop-
ments in the world outside. From the late eighteenth century these
would attract increasing attention as security fears began to grow.39
Dealing with unexpected visitors also fell under the jurisdiction
of the Nagasaki bugyō. In 1708, when an Italian Jesuit priest called
Giovanni Battista Sidotti was found on the island of Yakushima off the
south coast of Kyushu, he was sent first of all to Nagasaki for interro-
gation.40 He later died in captivity in Edo, although not before provid-
ing the noted scholar Arai Hakuseki with background information for
his Seiyō Kibun (Tidings of the West). Another singular example of a stray
intruder occurred much later in 1848 when a shipwrecked American
adventurer called Ranald MacDonald was found on the island of Rishiri
near the coast of Ezo (Hokkaido) in the far north after a disastrous
whaling expedition in the Pacific Ocean. MacDonald was promptly
transported to Nagasaki for questioning, and it was during his sojourn
there that he taught some English to a team of bakufu interpreters,
including Moriyama Einosuke who would be called upon to translate
when Commodore Perry arrived shortly afterwards.41
Security in Nagasaki was rigidly controlled, but foreign merchants
active there were sometimes able to carve out a lucrative trade with
Japan. For the Dutch East India Company the Dejima trade was an
important source of wealth. When the upheaval caused by the collapse
of the Ming dynasty in the seventeenth century restricted access to
Chinese porcelain, demand grew instead for what the Europeans knew
as ‘Imari ware’ from Japan. Produced inland in a town called Arita under
206
the patronage of the Nabeshima lords of Saga, this owed its origins to
the kaolin quarry discovered in 1616 by Lee Cham-Pyung, a Korean
master craftsman who had been brought to Japan after Hideyoshi’s
invasions. From Arita it was transported overland to the nearby port of
Imari, before being shipped around the northwest coast of Kyushu to
Nagasaki.
Arita porcelain became highly prized by the European aristocracy
and examples can often be found displayed in country houses today. It
also served as the inspiration behind the development of porcelain
manufacture in Europe during the early eighteenth century, first at
Meissen before spreading to other centres such as Vienna, Munich,
Sèvres, Limoges and Stoke-on-Trent.42 In response to the growing
Dutch demand for their products, some of the kilns in Arita also
embellished their porcelain with vivid colours and designs so as to
appeal to European consumers. Notable among these was the use of
crimson highlights that the Kakiemon kiln achieved through a process
of multiple firings. The current master of this kiln is the latest in a line
stretching thirteen generations back to the seventeenth century, and is
one of four ‘living treasures’ among the potters of Arita today.43
Chinese merchants, meanwhile, could make their fortunes in
Nagasaki by importing silks and exporting to the continent large quan-
tities of Japanese silver and subsequently copper.44 Their prosperity is
visibly reflected in temples such as Sōfukuiji which migrant communi-
ties were allowed to build on the fringes of the city. These are clearly
distinct in style from Japanese-style Buddhist buildings, and the ceme-
teries on the steep slopes behind are an unusual feature in a land where
cremation predominates. Another striking landmark of more recent
origin is the Kōshibyō, a colourfully painted Confucian shrine built by
Chinese residents with the aid of the Qing regime in 1893, and the only
example of its kind outside China. This longstanding cultural influence
is also preserved in the dragon dance that forms a central part of the
Kunchi festival held at Suwa Shrine every October, and the dragon boat
racing held annually in Nagasaki Bay.
Chinese residents were allowed to live anywhere in the city until the
special quarter (Tōjin yashiki) was built for them at the end of the sev-
enteenth century. With an unbroken tradition stretching back more
than four hundred years, Nagasaki thus has a claim to have one of the
oldest ‘Chinatown’ districts anywhere. Other cities in Kyushu such as
207
Fukuoka and Saga also have areas known as Tōjin-machi, or ‘Chinese

Town’, dating to the early seventeenth century. These did not survive
as distinct communities, however, as subsequent Tokugawa restrictions
either forced them to relocate to the Chinese quarter in Nagasaki or
become assimilated with the local population.45
Nagasaki was clearly an international port which handled a signifi-
cant volume of trade. At the same time the ban on Christianity imposed
in the early seventeenth century was consciously upheld, and an intri-
cate system of controlling trade and foreigners’ movements was final-
ized when the Dutch were moved to Dejima in 1641. From a European
perspective, therefore, it was the limitations placed on commerce that
appeared more conspicuous. In a land where Portuguese, Spanish and
English ships had once traded along the Kyushu coast, now only a
handful of Dutch merchants were left, and they were restricted to a tiny
off-shore island and guarded night and day. Beyond the footbridge of
Dejima the outside world was tantalisingly close but mostly barred from
view, an outlook popularized by the influential Kaempfer when he
described Japan as a ‘closed country’.
This was the origin of the concept of seclusion (sakoku) that still char-
acterizes interpretations of Tokugawa society and often underpins rep-
resentations of Japanese identity. As Derek Massarella points out, it is
‘embedded in the assumption’ that the country had previously been
‘ “open” to foreigners’, but ‘then the country was “closed” . . . enabling
Japan to enjoy the benefits of a “pax Tokugawa”.’46 Given the evidence
of continuous external trade in Kyushu, however, this model of an
‘open/closed rhythm to Japanese history’ is probably unsustainable.
Neither is it unique, since other regimes in East Asia such as China and
Korea also imposed state monopolies on commerce. It was not until
1801, moreover, that Kaempfer’s idea of a ‘closed country’ was trans-
lated into Japanese by the Nagasaki interpreter Shizuki Tadao when he
created the term sakoku, literally meaning ‘chained country’.47 The
theme was only popularized later in the nineteenth century as part of a
conscious effort to dissociate the new modern era of the ‘Meiji
Enlightenment’ (bunmei kaika) from the old Tokugawa world before the
‘opening of Japan’.48
While recognizing the weakness of the sakoku model, Bruce Batten
points out that ‘the frequency and volume of foreign contacts’ in early
modern Japan can still be seen as limited by comparison with the
208
explosion of unrestricted trade enabled by the ‘the vacuum of central

authority’ before the imposition of Tokugawa rule.49 This marked tran-
sition is clearly apparent from the strict regulations the bakufu enforced
at the recognized gateways for overseas trade. Nagasaki was the single
designated port for Chinese merchants and the Dutch East India
Company, but there were also other ports open to foreign commodi-
ties. The only example outside Kyushu was far to the north in Ezo
(Hokkaido) where officials of the Matsumae domain organized trade
with Ainu communities. On the north coast of Kyushu, Hakata was
allowed to receive goods imported from Korea by the Tsushima mer-
chants licensed to trade at the ‘Japan House’ (Waegwan) in Pusan. At
Kagoshima in the south, the Ryukyu Hall handled not only products
imported from the Ryukyu Islands, but also goods that the kingdom’s
tribute missions – often funded with silver by Satsuma officials –
brought with them on their return from China.
While these ‘four ports’ – Nagasaki, Hakata, Kagoshima and
Matsumae – represented the full extent of overseas trade in the eyes
of the Tokugawa government, as far as Satsuma was concerned its
official Kagoshima trade through the Ryukyu Hall was just part of a
wider maritime network. Shimazu Iehisa had complied with the direc-
tive in 1616 to redirect Chinese ships to Nagasaki as a mark of loyalty,
but it seems that the domain never fully subscribed to the Tokugawa
edict to confine overseas trade to these recognized gateways. Foreign
commercial links continued through several small towns on the west
coast of the Satsuma peninsula, notably at Bōnotsu, a natural port of
call for ships sailing in these waters. The domain was aware of these
activities but chose not to interfere, and this remote coastline was far
beyond the pale of Tokugawa control. Significant quantities of goods,
moreover, seem to have been ‘smuggled’ in with the collaboration of
domain officials. Bōnotsu developed into a flourishing town and its
ongoing trade connections are still reflected in the old houses and
warehouses in the streets, and the graves of Chinese merchants in the
cemetery there. In the nineteenth century this maritime network
would also allow one group of merchants, the Hamazaki family, to
become a ‘key agent in the domain’s commercial expansion’ through
its success in distributing rice, sugar and other commodities to
markets in Kyushu and Honshu.50
209
Education and intellectual currents

Throughout Japan the cultural differences to be found between castle
towns and merchant cities were clearly reflected in the development of
educational institutions. During the eighteenth century in particular, it
became a matter of prestige for a domain to open its own school (hankō)
in the vicinity of the castle, where the sons of samurai retainers received
their training in ‘letters and martial arts’ (bunbu). The first example in
Kyushu was the Jishūkan in Kumamoto which opened in 1755, while
the Shūyūkan in Fukuoka dates back to 1783. In Saga the Kōdōkan was
built in front of the castle, and at a regional level the sense of tradition
that such names conjure still carries weight in the educational world
today. For children of ‘townsfolk’ (chōnin), however, the only provision
was at the schools run by local temples called terakoya. In addition to
learning Confucian texts by rote like their samurai peers, pupils at these
schools might also receive lessons on how to use an abacus, especially
in mercantile centres where the value of calculating profit margins was
more widely recognized.51
The most striking intellectual developments in the eighteenth
century were the emergence of two new branches of learning;
Kokugaku (study of our country) and Rangaku (Dutch Studies).
Kokugaku initially arose in a climate of doubt over the ability of neo-
Confucian learning to inspire recovery from a growing economic
malaise inflicted by rising inflation, natural disasters and the pressures
of rapid growth. Scholars such as Motoori Norinaga turned instead to
ancient classics such as the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) for alter-
native models that, in the nineteenth century, would culminate in calls
for unity under the rehabilitated authority of the emperor.52
Kokugaku seems to have become most widely diffused among fudai
domains and featured less prominently in tozama areas. In Kyushu, for
example, it flourished in the fudai domain of Nakatsu, where Watanabe
Shigena taught the subject at the hankō and attracted a large group of
adherents. These ideas did permeate to some tozama domains, however,
such as Kumamoto where the growth of ‘Higo Kokugaku’ fostered
pride in the traditional samurai culture of this grand castle town. Further
south, the study of ‘Satsuma Kokugaku’ developed by Shirao
Kunihashira carried a strong element of regional patriotism with its
emphasis on imperial links to the area found in the Hyūga myth. In the
210
mid-nineteenth century this tozama domain would also prove an excep-

tion to the rule when the daimyo Shimazu Nariakira took an interest in
the field and added Kokugaku to the hankō curriculum.53
Rangaku, meanwhile, emerged from a growing body of information
on the unseen world outside gleaned from the Dutch merchants based in
Nagasaki, now Japan’s ‘window on Europe’. In the years following
the expulsion of the Portuguese, the ongoing campaign to stamp out
Christianity was so intense that that any European books found on
incoming ships were promptly destroyed. Already by the late seventeenth
century, however, some Nagasaki interpreters and locally based scholars,
such as the merchant astronomer Nishikawa Joken, were able to piece
together surveys on international commerce based on Dutch reports and
Chinese works.54 During what was a time of rapid scientific advance in
Europe, they also began to suspect that foreign learning could be of prac-
tical use, especially in the fields of astronomy and medicine. It was the
fifth shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune who signalled a change in approach
in 1720 when he relaxed the restrictions on European books, as long as
the contents did not relate to Christianity. Ships arriving in Nagasaki were
always rigorously inspected, although this did not prevent a copy of the
Bible finding its way to the library of the daimyo of Takeo a few miles
inland, catalogued as a work on astronomy.
In the eighteenth century astronomers were among the first scholars
from surrounding domains to make their way to Nagasaki in an effort to
improve their knowledge of calendars. In some cases this contributed to
predicting eclipses with greater accuracy.55 In time, however, Rangaku
became most commonly associated with medicine, again after doubts
had been raised over traditional methods. Although there was still a pre-
vailing cultural taboo against dissecting human bodies, in 1771 two
physicians, Sugita Genpaku and Maeno Ryōtaku, were able to verify the
accuracy of a German work entitled Tafel Anatomia when they examined
the corpse of an executed criminal in Nagasaki.56 Impressed by their
results compared with existing knowledge in Japan, they then spent
three years translating what was published as Kaitai Shinsho in 1774.
Dutch-style medicine became widely studied, particularly at prestigious
private schools in Nagasaki and Osaka. It was also the forerunner of
what is called ‘Western medicine’ (Seiyō igaku) in Japan today.57
By the end of the eighteenth century the study of Dutch books had
developed so fast that, curiously for a society whose outlook was
211
confined to a single gateway, as Donald Keene observes, ‘the Japanese

were better acquainted with European civilization than the people of
any other non-Western country’.58 While limited at first mainly to
astronomy and medicine, Rangaku later developed to include a wider
range of disciplines, such as the European-style art that Shiba Kōkan
popularized before and after his sojourn in Nagasaki. In the early nine-
teenth century renewed concerns over defence and security also led to
wider interest in fields with a military application, among them naviga-
tion, gunnery and chemistry. It was the study of Western books that
would also build a platform for the subsequent introduction of
European science and technology.
In late Tokugawa society intellectual developments were reflected
in the growing numbers of privately-run specialist academies that
appeared mainly in cultural centres. An unusual case in the eighteenth
century was the almost reclusive Miura Baien, who retired to the
Kunisaki peninsula after attending a private school in nearby Kitsuki,
but through his wide reading was able to develop an original approach
to philosophy and physics.59 Not far away in Hita during the early
nineteenth-century, Hirose Tansō used his family’s mercantile wealth
to open the Kangien academy, where he offered an education in
Confucian studies with a strong emphasis on self-reliance. His school
acquired such a wide reputation that it attracted nearly 5,000 students
from all over Japan. Among them was Takano Chōei, who later became
a noted scholar of Rangaku after studying Dutch medicine in
Nagasaki.60 His career is just one of many that demonstrate the cross-
fertilization of ideas between Confucian studies, Kokugaku and
Rangaku which informed the intellectual outlook of the late Tokugawa
world. It also provided the framework for debate and the terms which
scholars used to interpret some of the threats that were now emerging
to challenge an increasingly fragile social order and even the rule of law
from Edo.
212
CHAPTER 11
KYUSHU IN THE
MEIJI RESTORATION

he Kagoshima skyline is dominated by the volcano of Sakurajima,
T a short ferry ride from the city across the bay. Plumes of smoke rise
from the crater, dissolve into haze, and when the wind blows from the
east the streets are covered in a thin layer of ash. Just along the coast
from the city is the Iso-tei villa, situated at the foot of a steep wooded
hill with panoramic views over the bay. This was the residence of the
Shimazu family, daimyo rulers of the Satsuma domain. It was here
on 23 July 1866 that a party of British diplomats was treated to a
forty-course banquet to celebrate the renewed friendship between two
powers that had recently been at war.1 The bombardment of
Kagoshima by a squadron of Royal Navy ships three years before had
controversially reduced much of the city to flames, but the invaders also
suffered some damage under fire from the gun batteries on the shore.
To this day, the sites of these batteries recall the conflict generally
known in Japanese as the ‘Anglo-Satsuma War’. It was a pivotal
encounter in the final years of Tokugawa rule, reflecting the emergence
of Satsuma as a central force in creating the new Meiji state.
Close to the entrance of the Iso-tei villa is an old building with thick
stone walls. Now called the Shūseikan Museum, in the nineteenth
century it housed many of Satsuma’s early experiments with modern
technology. Nearby is the Ijinkan, or ‘Foreigners’ Residence’, where a
team of Lancashire engineers lived when they helped to set up the
Kagoshima Cotton Mill, Japan’s first, here on this site in 1867. The
scheme was devised by a samurai with entrepreneurial flair called Godai
Tomoatsu. Subsequently he was active in promoting the commercial
development of Osaka, a city that would go on to develop such a
213
flourishing textile industry that it later became known abroad as the

‘Manchester of the Orient’.
A statue of Godai near his birthplace in the old castle town of
Kagoshima is just one of various monuments that represent Satsuma
figures who had a formative influence on the growth of the Meiji state.
Among these is Tōgō Heihachirō, who as Admiral Togo was hailed in
Britain as the ‘Nelson of the Orient’ for his spectacular success in
sinking the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima Straits in 1905.
Another is Ōkubo Toshimichi, who emerged as the leading architect of
Meiji domestic policy in the early years of the new regime. The unas-
suming statue of Ōkubo is located in a riverside spot slightly removed
from the centre, and close to the old castle public attention is mainly
focused on the larger-than-life bronze figure of Saigō Takamori, which
stands so tall that a signpost directs visitors to a designated place for
framing photographs on the other side of the road.
Saigō is revered in Japan today as a popular hero of the Meiji
Restoration, commemorated in Tokyo by the prominent statue
unveiled in Ueno Park in 1898. In Kagoshima Prefecture he is an almost
omnipresent figure, his name invoked on roadside advertisements
everywhere that lure drivers to the hot spring ‘where he bathed’ or extol
the shōchū gin ‘that he loved’. Only recently, a giant statue of Saigō thirty-
six feet high was set up outside the main entrance to Kagoshima
International Airport. Despite his military victories against the
Tokugawa regime, however, he remains an enigmatic figure. In his role
as caretaker prime minister in 1873 he was heavily implicated in an
unsuccessful movement to launch a military campaign against Korea.
Later in 1877, he would lead a rebellion against the same Meiji state that
he had helped to install, and he died fighting here in Kagoshima to pre-
serve – according to his legend – traditional samurai values, in the last
civil war ever fought on Japanese soil. To many he represents the con-
tradictions of the age in which he lived, as the familiar framework of
Tokugawa authority was swept away in the social and economic
upheavals that followed the opening of treaty ports to overseas trade.
Nagasaki in the ‘opening of Japan’

If Kagoshima took centre stage at some critical moments in the forma-
tion and survival of the Meiji state, for much of the nineteenth century
214
Kyushu in the Meiji Restoration
it was Nagasaki that consistently drew attention as a source of valuable

information. Ultimately, it would be the arrival of a squadron of black
steamships off the Uraga coast not far from Edo that caused the largest
political shockwaves when Commodore Perry delivered his govern-
ment’s demands to open ports for trade. This was certainly the most
visible statement yet of the encroachment of foreign powers in Japanese
waters, and clearly demonstrated the technology gap that had opened
up in the ‘Age of Steam’. From a Nagasaki perspective, however, it
could hardly be viewed as a surprise, as it amounted to just the latest vis-
itation in a series of incidents stretching back over the previous fifty
years. Sightings of foreign ships were on the increase, and while the
growing number of whaling ships active in the Pacific Ocean might be
spied off any Japanese coast, for local observers and Tokugawa officials
alike the appearance of unusual vessels in Nagasaki Bay had long served
as a barometer of political changes in the world outside.
Expansion into East Asia was the Russian agenda when a mission
under Nikolai Rezanov arrived in Nagasaki in 1804, presenting requests
to open trade together with a goodwill gesture of returning Japanese
castaways who had been found on the Kamchatka coast. Although he
was allowed to spend several months in the port as he waited for an
answer, his request was eventually refused. The outraged Rezanov retal-
iated by inciting his compatriots in the Russian American Company to
raid settlements in Ezo (Hokkaido). Far away in Europe the Napoleonic
Wars were also creating a new hostile threat as, following France’s con-
quest of Holland and the resulting British occupation of Batavia, the
island of Dejima in Nagasaki became the only outpost still flying the
Dutch flag. In 1808, the British man o’ war HMS Phaeton sailed into
Nagasaki Bay to demand the handover of Dutch personnel. Some
adroit negotiations by Hendrik Doeff, the Dutch factor, secured the
vessel’s withdrawal, but the daimyo of Saga, who was responsible for
ensuring security in Nagasaki that year, was placed under house arrest
for failing to prevent this intrusion, and the Nagasaki bugyō committed
suicide.2
The danger of Russian encroachment had been pointed out since the
1770s, particularly by Hayashi Shihei, but it was the furore over HMS
Phaeton’s visit that set the tone for bakufu foreign policy over the next
forty years. If Japan ever approached the ‘closed country’ of the arche-
typal sakoku image it was during this period of bristling hostility towards
215
foreign shipping. Other unusual-looking vessels contributed to this

defensive response, such as the American ships the Dutch were forced
to hire while Batavia lay in British hands.3 Stamford Raffles, now
installed as the British lieutenant-governor of Java, even sent two of his
own ships to Nagasaki under Dutch colours in a covert trading opera-
tion in 1813.4 The resulting conspiracy theories promoted by Ōtsuki
Gentaku, an expert in Dutch Studies based in Nagasaki, inspired the
bakufu’s ‘shoot-on-sight’ policy (uchiharai-rei), which was implemented
in 1825 after the crew of a British whaler ran amok on the Hitachi coast
to the north of Edo. This was evident in the hostile reception that
greeted an American vessel called the Morrison when it tried to return
some Japanese castaways in 1837. The incident prompted scholars such
as Takano Chōei and Watanabe Kazan to challenge bakufu policy and
call for a more receptive response to overtures for trade, but their argu-
ments for ‘opening the country’ (kaikoku) fell on deaf ears and they
were imprisoned for spreading such seditious ideas.5
News of China’s defeat in the Opium War shortly afterwards seemed
only to renew the bakufu’s determination to keep uninvited guests at
bay. With the opening of treaty ports such as Shanghai in 1842,
however, Western merchants were now only a week’s voyage away
from Nagasaki across the East China Sea. Increasing numbers of British
and French vessels were sighted in the waters of the Ryukyu Islands to
the south. In 1844, the Dutch factor at Dejima even presented a letter
from King Willem II of Holland advising the Tokugawa authorities
that, in the current international climate, it was difficult to see how their
longstanding restrictions on overseas trade could be maintained.6
Despite these warnings the embattled bakufu councillors largely shied
away from such an unsettling concept and looked instead to the state of
the country’s coastal defences.
The Phaeton incident in 1808 also set the tone for advances in military
technology as it was the incursion of this British warship that demon-
strated the inadequacy of security measures in Nagasaki. This was felt
nowhere more keenly than in Saga, where the humiliating experience
inspired concerted efforts by the domain to study cannon technology.
In the 1830s some experimental guns were produced in Takeo, a
branch domain of the Nabeshima line, a short distance inland from
Nagasaki. The technical knowledge acquired there then filtered up to
Saga, where Japan’s first reverberatory furnace – essential for firing
216
metals at high temperatures – was built in 1850. Other examples were

later built at Kagoshima (Satsuma), Hagi (Chōshū) and Mito, while the
Tokugawa bakufu built its own furnace at Nirayama in 1854, but Saga
never lost its lead in this strategically vital field. Large orders for cannon
were placed with the domain, for example, when the bakufu drew up
plans for gun batteries along the Kanagawa coast not far from Edo.
Moreover, replicas of the latest Armstrong guns were produced in Saga
in 1863 and four such pieces of artillery would later be used to devastat-
ing effect against the Tokugawa bakufu’s own troops at the Battle of
Ueno in 1868.7
The emergence of these small-scale industrial plants in castle-towns
like Saga, Kagoshima and Hagi showed that some domains had the
capacity to harness the sophisticated technology now being imported
through the Dutch in Nagasaki. Some Kyushu lords, notably Shimazu
Nariakira and Nabeshima Naomasa, became so fascinated with these
innovations – in Shimazu’s case notwithstanding his interest in
Kokugaku – that they earned a reputation as ranpeki daimyo for their
‘obsession with Dutch learning’. By the late 1850s, for example, the
workshops near the reverberatory furnace in Nabeshima’s castle town
of Saga were producing steam-trains and steam-boats, albeit on a model
scale, and these can still be seen exhibited in the prefectural museum
situated within the castle walls.
Not all technological developments, however, were dependent on
mediation by Dutch merchants. There are also various examples of
impressive engineering works, from irrigation schemes to stone
bridges, which were all built in an age before the advent of steam. More
than 90 per cent of the stone bridges in Japan are located in Kyushu. A
notable case is Tsūjunkyo Bridge in Kumamoto Prefecture which,
although built in 1854, remains Japan’s largest stone-arch aqueduct.
During the Hassaku festival held every September, blocks of stone at
the top of the arch are ceremonially removed, releasing jets of water that
tumble spectacularly into the river far below.8
By the mid-nineteenth century growing concerns over security had led
to Rangaku diversifying into new areas such as technology and science.
The now traditional emphasis on medicine, however, remained very
much in the mainstream of this field, especially after Philipp von Siebold,
a German doctor employed at Dejima in the 1820s, was given permission
to teach some leading physicians, among them influential scholars like
217
Takano Chōei.9 Some of the students at his Narutaki-juku school in

Nagasaki, notably Itō Genboku from Saga, would in turn become the
masters of prestigious schools in Osaka and Nagasaki, which attracted
considerable numbers of apprentices in the last years of Tokugawa rule.10
Nearby castle towns such as Saga and Fukuoka were also noted for the
high standard of their physicians trained in the Dutch style.
In Nagasaki itself, however, the most visible development in
Rangaku during the 1850s was the training in navigation provided by
experts from the Dutch Navy. These senior officers were sent by their
government in 1855, invited to Japan as part of the bakufu’s efforts to
shore up the country’s coastal defences. They arrived on board the
Soembing, a ship that King Willem III presented to the shogun, and not
only Tokugawa officers but retainers from various south-western
domains were allowed to take part in a series of training exercises which
lasted through to 1859.11 The presence of hundreds of naval cadets
from these mainly Kyushu domains quickly raised the profile of
Nagasaki as not just a gateway for valuable information but also a hive
of political intrigue, a role that would grow in years to come. Also sent
from Holland at this time was a team of scientists who built the
Nagasaki Steel Plant just across the bay in Akunoura, on the site of what
would later become the Mitsubishi Shipyard.
The arrival of these Dutch experts was a direct response to the first
treaties the bakufu had concluded with foreign powers in 1854. With
commerce rapidly growing in Shanghai across the East China Sea, the
race to extract permission for trade with Japan was contested by
Russian and American expeditions under Admiral Putiatin and
Commodore Perry. Both made attempts in 1853 and 1854, but while
Putiatin initially put into port at Nagasaki, Perry increased the pressure
on the Tokugawa authorities by heading for the coastline near their seat
of power in Edo. The threats he made on his first visit cowed the bakufu
into submission when he returned as promised with a larger squadron
on the second. The treaty he procured as a result did not yet include any
guarantee of trade, but secured right of passage for ships and permis-
sion for an American diplomatic representative to reside on site at
Shimoda, down the coast from Edo. Shortly afterwards squadrons from
Russia, Britain and Holland all converged on Nagasaki and spent
several months with their ships moored in the bay – sometimes at the
same time – as they negotiated treaties on similar terms.12
218
Obtaining the right to trade became the primary target for Townsend
Harris, the US envoy who arrived in Shimoda in 1856. One ruse he used
to this end was the threat of British and French military intervention in
Japan, once their troops then in China had finished their operations in
the Second Opium War. While the bakufu councillor, Hotta Masayoshi,
agreed to Harris’s demands, he failed to win the emperor’s approval and,
left with a state of impasse, his successor Ii Naosuke then took respon-
sibility upon himself for opening the country by signing a series of treaties
in 1858 with the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Holland.
These agreements heralded an end to more than two centuries of seclu-
sion by opening the first three treaty ports the following year at Nagasaki,
Kanagawa (Yokohama) and Hakodate in Ezo (Hokkaido).
Ii’s actions, however, had deeply compromised the political author-
ity of the Tokugawa regime. On the one hand he tried to restore control
by clamping down on critics of bakufu policy. This was a reaction to the
weakness the government had recently shown over foreign affairs by
canvassing the opinion of daimyo throughout the land on the most
appropriate response to Perry’s demands. At the same time, by signing
the treaties without imperial consent, Ii enabled those same critics to
unite under the banner of loyalty to the emperor who, with the rising
popularity of Kokugaku studies, had once again become a potent
symbol of unity in a divided land. Shimazu Nariakira was so incensed
by this apparent volte-face that, in 1858, he marshalled his troops in
Satsuma and prepared to march on Edo. Only his sudden death from
illness – some claimed it was poison – prevented him from leading this
army into Honshu.13
The opening of treaty ports the following year unleashed political
forces that, within a decade, had resulted in the demise of the Tokugawa
bakufu. External pressure, however, was not the only cause of the over-
throw of the regime. Domestic political forces were already sharply
divided, the loyalties of more than two hundred daimyo wavering as,
within each domain, factions for and against open trade vied for power.
Long-term domestic pressures also contributed, notably the govern-
ment’s failure to adapt the anachronistic social structure in the face of
recurrent economic crises. Moreover, the rising incidence of peasant
rebellions in various regions reflected a pattern of growing unrest, albeit
with localized economic grievances often more apparent than any
overtly political motives. Nevertheless, the controversial new treaty
219
ports were certainly dangerous territory for a regime that had always
claimed political legitimacy on the premise of maintaining the ‘Great
Peace’ of Tokugawa rule.
Nagasaki in the overthrow of the Tokugawa regime

As soon as the new treaty ports opened on 1 July 1859, foreign mer-
chants set out from Shanghai, sailed across the East China Sea and
began arriving in Nagasaki. Initially confined to Dejima, this closely
guarded community was relocated to a new foreign settlement the fol-
lowing May when a site was laid out and lots allocated in the Ōura dis-
trict along the south coast of the bay. Well-appointed villas were built,
notably the house of the Scottish merchant Thomas Blake Glover in
1863, which is the oldest Western-style building in Japan today. Down
the road a church was built the following year as, under the terms of the
treaty, foreign residents were granted the freedom of worship still
denied their Japanese neighbours.
Nagasaki was now becoming a key centre of intelligence on political
affairs at home and abroad, so senior retainers at the residences main-
tained there by various western domains were charged with gathering
information. In some cases these officials were called kiki-yaku, their
role being, as the term implies, to ‘listen’ for news. Since British and
American merchants made up the vast majority of the population in
the foreign settlement, however, almost overnight the primary source
of overseas information changed from Dutch to English. In 1861, the
first English newspaper in Japan was published in Nagasaki and,
although this quickly folded, newspapers printed in Yokohama and
Hong Kong arrived regularly by sea. The first newspaper to be issued
in Japanese was set up in Nagasaki by one Joseph Heco, a returned
castaway, in 1865. It was also there that a local expert in Rangaku called
Ueno Hikoma became the first Japanese exponent of the new art of
photography.14
Another young scholar of Dutch Studies from the Nakatsu domain
called Fukuzawa Yukichi would later recall how, on his first visit to the
foreign settlement at Yokohama in 1860, he was amazed to find that all
the signs were in English.15 Nagasaki was much the same although,
unlike Yokohama, the existing tradition of linguistic training enabled a
smoother transition from Dutch to English Studies. Already by 1848,
220
the bakufu had enlisted the services of the castaway Ranald MacDonald
to teach English to some Dutch interpreters in Nagasaki, and in 1858
its first English school was opened there. After foreign merchants
arrived in the treaty ports, some domains, such as Saga, began sending
retainers to Nagasaki to learn English.16 By 1865, Saga had set up its
own English school there called the Chienkan under the tutelage of
Guido Verbeck, an influential Dutch-American missionary who
attracted students from far and wide in Kyushu and beyond.
There is a famous photograph of Verbeck taken around 1867 sur-
rounded by his students, among them a significant proportion of the
figures often noted for plotting the overthrow of the Tokugawa
regime.17 It was hardly surprising, therefore, when Verbeck later found
employment in Tokyo as a key adviser to the new Meiji government.
Not until 1867 when Fukuzawa founded his Keiō Gijuku – the fore-
runner of Keio University – did Edo emerge as a centre for English
Studies as well. Incidentally, Ōkuma Shigenobu, who would found the
Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō – now Waseda University and Keio’s traditional
rival – was also from Saga and at the time was still a student of Verbeck’s
at the Chienkan in Nagasaki.
As political tensions rose during the 1860s, Nagasaki became the
major source of imported second-hand ships and weapons. Leading
roles in this frantic arms race fell to so-called ‘merchants of death’ such
as William Alt and Thomas Blake Glover, who sold to the Tokugawa
bakufu and rival domains alike. Many of the key turning points,
however, occurred elsewhere, at the seat of Tokugawa power in Edo,
or the imperial capital of Kyoto. It was at one of the gates to Edo Castle
in January 1860 that the bakufu councillor Ii Naosuke was surrounded
and killed. The plot was hatched and carried out by a group of men from
Mito, but a samurai from Satsuma delivered the final blow. Initially,
assaults on foreigners were also concentrated mainly in Yokohama and
Edo, where the British legation was twice attacked in 1859 and 1862,
the second time reducing the building to flames.18 Quite apart from any
sense of rage against foreigners themselves, the growing numbers of
radicalized samurai soon realized that such attacks could be deeply
embarrassing to the bakufu. They certainly made it increasingly difficult
for the Tokugawa authorities to present any semblance of control or
political credibility to the foreign powers with whom they had signed
the treaties in 1858.
221
As the xenophobic emperor still refused to sanction this arrangement

anyway, slogans of ‘honour the emperor’ (sonnō) and ‘expel the barbarian’
(jōi) were now being intoned together by critics of bakufu policy. This
highlighted the growing strategic importance of the court as rival
domains competed for control of Kyoto. At first, the strong jōi faction in
Chōshū held the ascendancy there, encouraged by a radical priest from
Kurume called Maki Izumi who was already lobbying for an imperial
restoration. This was intolerable, however, in the eyes of Shimazu
Hisamitsu, the ambitious regent of Satsuma, who tried to raise his own
influence by brokering instead a marriage alliance between the shogun
and the imperial princess Kazu no Miya. The attempt at a fusion of court
and military interests (kōbu gattai) ultimately proved ineffectual, not least
through Shimazu’s own readiness to embarrass the bakufu in front of the
treaty powers. One day in September 1862, for example, while on his way
back from these marriage negotiations in Edo, his daimyo procession
was blocked on the Tōkaidō Highway by Charles Lennox Richardson, a
British merchant out for a ride near Yokohama, and a Satsuma guard in
his escort showed no hesitation in cutting the intruder down.19
Shimazu’s intervention in state politics nevertheless resulted in the
shogun receiving a summons to appear before the emperor in the hostile
environment of Kyoto early in 1863, the first such interview for 230
years. There he received instructions to ‘expel the foreigner’ with effect
from 25 June, a directive the bakufu was in no position to carry out due
to its own commitments to the treaty powers. When the appointed day
arrived however, this did not stop Chōshū firing on passing foreign ship-
ping from its batteries around the town of Shimonoseki on the north side
of the Kanmon Straits. A punitive expedition was launched in response
the following year, when a combined squadron of British, French,
American and Dutch ships would silence these guns in a matter of hours.
Later in the summer of 1863, meanwhile, Satsuma’s refusal to bow
to demands for compensation over Richardson’s murder also brought
a squadron of seven Royal Navy ships into Kagoshima Bay. Over the
course of three days they fired on Shimazu’s capital in the pouring rain
before they finally withdrew, leaving the city in flames. Both sides
claimed victory, as the Satsuma batteries had also managed to inflict
some damage and the enemy had been ‘put to flight’. This painful expe-
rience, however, exposed the full extent of the technology gap with the
foreign powers. In the Shūseikan Museum in Kagoshima, for example,
222
traditional Satsuma cannonballs used in this contest are displayed side

by side with the vastly more powerful shells of the British Armstrong
guns. During their subsequent peace negotiations, therefore, rather
than dwell on confronting the treaty powers, Satsuma, and later
Chōshū, concentrated instead on finding common interests with the
British. In particular, it was their mutual antipathy for the bakufu’s
restrictive monopoly over trade that drew representatives from
Satsuma and Chōshū more closely together with British merchants in
the treaty ports.
In the summer of 1863 tensions also ran high in Nagasaki where,
with supporters of kaikoku, jōi and foreign merchants juxtaposed in one
urban area, the city at times seemed like a microcosm of the wider polit-
ical landscape. In the build-up to the bombardment of Kagoshima the
foreign settlement became a ghost town as most residents, Verbeck
among them, evacuated temporarily to Shanghai. Fears of a mass attack
on foreigners were compounded by the growing presence of troops on
the hills around the city, which themselves had been mobilized in
response to fears that Nagasaki, not Kagoshima, was the Royal Navy’s
target.20
Afterwards, life in the port quickly returned to relative normality as
the jōi campaign was now on the defensive, especially after Satsuma
troops in Kyoto suddenly turned on Chōshū forces and expelled them
from the city. Chōshū’s demise seemed complete the following year
when, in addition to the allied squadron’s attack on Shimonoseki, the
bakufu mobilized a punitive campaign for breaking the peace in the
imperial capital. Satsuma was among the Kyushu domains that pro-
vided troops under the leadership of Saigō Takamori. As a result of the
peace agreement he negotiated, some court nobles sympathetic to the
jōi campaign who had taken refuge in Chōshū, among them the future
prime minister Sanjō Sanetomi, were placed under the protection of the
Fukuoka domain and symbolically relocated to the old ‘distant court’ at
Dazaifu.21
The foreign merchants in Nagasaki were now fostering closer links
with the south-western domains, whose trading interests and appetite
for overseas knowledge were becoming increasingly apparent. In 1865,
for example, Glover made arrangements for three different ‘escapes’ as
samurai from Satsuma, Chōshū, Saga and Hiroshima defied the long-
standing ban on overseas travel and went to study in Britain. The largest
223
of these was a Satsuma expedition planned by Godai Tomoatsu, in

which nineteen retainers were picked up by a ship that Glover sent to a
prearranged spot on the Satsuma coast.22
Through these covert adventures Satsuma and Chōshū gained the
overseas experience that was largely denied them on the official mis-
sions the bakufu sent to ratify the treaties in America and Europe. By
contrast, Saga (in Hizen) managed to include several of its leading tech-
nicians in these large delegations, so much so that another participant,
Fukuzawa Yukichi, told his own domain of Nakatsu, ‘I hope urgent
steps will be taken so that we do not fall behind the lord of Hizen.’23 A
high proportion of the officers from Satsuma, Chōshū and Saga who,
by legal means or otherwise, gained experience of travel abroad, would
soon be appointed to influential posts in the new Meiji government fol-
lowing their return.
Other bakufu expeditions included a trade mission to Shanghai in
1863, which coincided with the last throes of the Taiping Rebellion and,
on a grander scale, participation in the Exposition Universelle held in
Paris in 1867. Overseas travel had just been legalized at last the year
before under pressure from the treaty powers, and domains from all
over Japan were now invited by the Tokugawa bakufu to take part. The
only two that did so were Satsuma and Saga. The Saga delegation trav-
elled with the bakufu party and attracted less notice, but the ostenta-
tious banner unfurled by the Satsuma party at the exhibition hall in the
Champ de Mars and the distribution of commemorative medals from
‘The Satsuma Kingdom of Ryukyu’ led European observers to believe
that they were from a realm altogether distinct from the bakufu’s
Japanese state.24
By this stage the Tokugawa bakufu’s grip on power had been severely
weakened after a disastrously ineffectual second punitive campaign
against Chōshū in 1866. A covert alliance struck between Satsuma and
Chōshū also swung the balance of power significantly away from the
incumbent regime. The role played by a Tosa samurai called Sakamoto
Ryōma in persuading these erstwhile enemies to sink their differences
has often been highlighted, but it was through his activities based in
Nagasaki that he was most influential. It was there in 1864 that he had
formed the corps of Tosa samurai who became known as the Kaientai
(literally ‘Marine Support Force’) for their activities in distributing
locally bought weapons, mainly to Satsuma and Chōshū.25 The British
224
remained neutral, although there has been much speculation on their

increasingly cordial links with the south-western domains, notably a
visit by the minister Sir Harry Parkes to Kagoshima in July 1866. The
Tokugawa regime, meanwhile, turned belatedly to French expertise for
military training.26
By 1867 there was spiralling inflation, exacerbated by the foreign
merchants who flooded the market with cheap Mexican silver. Civil
unrest became widespread, including riots in the streets of Osaka.
Faced with escalating difficulties the new shogun, Tokugawa
Yoshinobu, resigned his powers to the emperor. This alone, however,
did not placate the regime’s enemies, since the Tokugawa line could still
boast a quarter of the landed wealth in Japan, an imbalance that under-
mined some conciliatory calls for a ‘council of daimyo’. In January 1868,
Saigō Takamori led the Satsuma troops that took control of the palace
in Kyoto and announced the restoration of imperial rule. Tokugawa
supporters raced to Kyoto to challenge his control, but after their defeat
at the Battle of Toba-Fushimi on the city’s outskirts they fled to the east.
Backed by Tosa, the forces of Satsuma and Chōshū – now calling
themselves the ‘imperial army’ – marched on Edo and swept to victory.
At this stage they were also reinforced by the naval strength of Saga,
which further tipped the military balance of power against the bakufu.
As the British diplomat Ernest Satow observed, Nabeshima Naomasa,
lord of Hizen, kept everyone guessing about his intentions until the last
minute when he reversed the decision of his ancestor before Sekigahara,
and took sides instead against the house of Tokugawa.27 Edo Castle was
surrendered without bloodshed to Saigō by Katsu Kaishū, the bakufu
official who had supervised the naval training in Nagasaki a decade
before. There was some resistance at the Battle of Ueno on the outskirts
of the capital, and also further north, notably from the Aizu domain, as
the ‘Boshin’ civil war dragged on into the following year. With the
forces of these south-western domains now in control, however, the
young emperor Meiji himself moved out of Kyoto and into the ‘eastern
capital’ of Tokyo, the new name for the old city of Edo.
Meiji reforms and rebellions

While ports in Kyushu had featured among the military conflicts of the
early 1860s, the battles of the Boshin war took place far away in Honshu
225
and even as far north as Hokkaido. News of Tokugawa military defeats

arrived first by sea, confirming the end of the old order. Troops from
two Kyushu domains were in the ‘imperial army’ that had seized power
to form the new Meiji government. Yet although Satsuma and Saga
claimed a greater stake than ever before in determining the future of
central politics, within a few years they themselves would be reduced to
battlegrounds as the locations of the most significant rebellions to
threaten the survival of the fledgling Meiji state.
The concerted resistance against the new government that grew in
the 1870s would severely test the loyalty of retainers from these
domains who, in the aftermath of the Meiji Restoration, had moved up
to Tokyo to take up central government posts. As the victors in the
overthrow of the bakufu, such men often received substantial plots of
real estate in the old Tokugawa capital, which in some cases their
descendants still hold today. The ‘restoration’ may have been presented
as a return to imperial rule (ōsei fukko), complete with an archaic
Dajokan structure recalling Heian times, but it was entirely innovative
in that the reins of power were grasped by often young and ambitious
men who had emerged during the collapse of the Tokugawa bakufu. In
years to come, the survivors would come to be known as the ageing
Meiji oligarchs (genrō), symbols of institutional conservatism in a rapidly
changing society, but at the onset of this new regime they represented
a new world of revolutionary reform.28
From the outset their political careers in Tokyo were marked by the
stamp of victor’s justice, and the departments they controlled by the
factional interests of their home domains. A culture of patronage, for
example, was clearly evident in the foreign ministry where many early
diplomatic posts were filled by men from Satsuma. The army was
largely in the hands of Chōshū, while Satsuma men often filled senior
posts in the navy (hence the rise of Admiral Tōgō). Quite apart from
their competing military interests, the factional rivalry between army
and navy that this invited would have a marked impact on Japanese
foreign policy over the following decades. Also strategically vital was
the financial ministry, where Chōshū featured prominently, although
running the new Imperial Mint required the technical skills offered by
men from Saga. In the Ministry for Public Works as well, Chōshū men
were in charge, while Saga officers supervised construction projects
from lighthouses to telegraph cable lines.
226
Landmarks such as these lighthouses and cables were among the

most visible changes during an age called the ‘Meiji Enlightenment’
(bunmei kaika). Already, the Charter Oath, the inaugural vow of alle-
giance sworn by daimyo throughout the land in 1868, had enshrined the
regime’s receptivity to ‘new ideas from abroad’.29 Among the various
foreign experts known as o-yatoi who were hired by separate ministries
to this end, civil engineers from Britain were prominent in shaping the
infrastructure of modern Japan (which is why motorists there still drive
on the left). In Kyushu, for example, Richard Henry Brunton helped to
build lighthouses at Cape Sata at the southern tip of the island, and also
at Iyōjima, a small island close to the mouth of Nagasaki Bay. An engi-
neer called J. Morris was involved in the ambitious three-year project to
build telegraph lines stretching from Tokyo to Nagasaki by 1874. When
a Danish company laid a telegraph cable linking Shanghai and Nagasaki
the same year, it even became possible to send a telegram directly from
Tokyo to London.30
Yet it was the domains just as much as the central government that
initiated the trend for hiring foreign experts. The team of British engi-
neers employed by Satsuma to set up Japan’s first Western-style cotton
mill had arrived in Kagoshima in 1867. In the same year Saga signed a
contract with Thomas Glover to develop the first Western-style coal
mine on the island of Takashima off the Nagasaki coast (not the
Takashima in Imari Bay where the Mongol fleet sank). Samuel Morris,
the engineer hired by Glover from India to drill the coal-shafts there,
was later employed by Saga to develop the Kisu mine on the outskirts
of Imari.31 A few miles inland in Arita, meanwhile, a German chemist
called Gottfried Wagner was engaged by the domain to develop the
ceramics industry, using his scientific knowledge to introduce the cobalt
blue dye that is still employed today. Now with a new export market
available through Shanghai, the industry expanded rapidly with mass-
produced tableware in addition to the traditional handcraft of the Edo
period. Due to Saga’s close connection with telegraph technology,
ceramic insulators were also produced there, replacing the glass models
initially introduced by British engineers to prevent electric currents
escaping from overhead cables.32
Another notable foreign expert in Kyushu during these early Meiji
years was the Irishman Dr William Willis, who for some time had served
as physician to the British Legation. In 1870, he was invited by Satsuma
227
to teach in Kagoshima where he spent seven years introducing the

English school of medicine, unusual at a time when the Prussian school
was starting to dominate in Tokyo.33 What these adventurous projects
to employ expert guidance at a regional level show is that the domains,
to varying extents, were themselves making dynamic future plans,
regardless of the central government’s agenda to transform the politi-
cal map of Japan. Just as ministries were laying the foundations of far-
reaching reforms, during a brief period of uninhibited experimentation
several domains also went ahead and overhauled their own bureaucratic
structures.
This was before the domains themselves were finally abolished in
1871 and replaced by prefectures governed from Tokyo. In one fell
swoop, the fragmented patchwork of 260 or more territories that had
survived for centuries was converted into a single centralized state. Unity
against the threat of the foreign powers was ostensibly the rationale that
persuaded central government figures like Kido Takayoshi to advocate
this sweeping reform. In 1869, the process was begun when the territo-
ries of Satsuma, Chōshū and Tosa were voluntarily returned to the
emperor. Two years later an imperial guard of troops drawn from this
ruling coalition was stationed around Tokyo to ensure security in the
capital as all the other domains were required to follow suit by imperial
decree. Despite vociferous cries of local patriotism, everyone was sur-
prised by the absence of any concerted resistance. In some cases it was
their crippling debts – the central government had finally called them in
the previous year – which enabled the domains to swallow their pride
and face up to the prospect of an administrative takeover. Another pow-
erful reason to comply was to head off what was seen as the growing
threat of another civil war, this time between Satsuma and Chōshū.34
The victorious coalition of the Meiji Restoration, in fact, was looking
increasingly fragile. In 1870, rumours had even circulated that Saigō
Takamori was planning to march on Tokyo and attempt another coup
d’état. He appeared to be the only figure in Kagoshima who could
control the restless Satsuma troops now returning from the front after
the recent civil war. Conservative by nature, he also harboured mistrust
of the Meiji leaders’ more radical plans for reform, and refused their
overtures to join the government. Satsuma seemed to lie beyond the
reach of Tokyo, ruled by traditional forces complete with a standing
army of war veterans, while peasant disturbances in western Japan over
228
the winter contributed to the prevailing sense of disorder. It was only

after a change of heart by Saigō when he decided to join the govern-
ment the following year that the Tokyo authorities were able to seize
the moment and abolish the domains.35 Shimazu Hisamitsu, the ex-
regent, complained bitterly that Satsuma had been betrayed by his
former retainers, Saigō conspicuous among them. In a fit of disgust, on
one occasion he even arranged for fireworks to be launched through the
night from a coal barge placed in the bay in front of his Iso-tei villa in
Kagoshima.36
In terms of lost influence Fukuoka was perhaps the region in Kyushu
that suffered most during these early Meiji years. This domain had
boasted a reputation as a powerful mediating force in the political
turmoil of the early 1860s, having played a key role in protecting court
nobles such as Sanjō Sanetomi. In the final struggle against the
Tokugawa regime, however, it had missed the chance to make an
impact in establishing the new state. Moreover, in 1870 it was severely
reprimanded by the government for issuing its own bills of currency.
Since 1868 all the domains had been repeatedly warned not to print
their own money, and Fukuoka was by no means the only continuing
offender. Nevertheless, it was singled out for punishment and the
former daimyo Kuroda Nagatomo was even removed from his post as
governor, an insult that provoked considerable bitterness among his
retainers towards the fledgling state.37
Just as revolutionary as its early political reform was the Meiji gov-
ernment’s attempts at social levelling. With domains abolished and
regional coffers empty, the unproductive ruling samurai class gradually
had their stipends withdrawn until they received one final pay-off by
1876. In Satsuma the arrangements were not as draconian as elsewhere,
although this did little to placate the unruly samurai veterans there who
had led the way to victory over the Tokugawa regime. Together with
their loss in income came a loss in status as the samurai’s privilege to
wear swords was removed, a sanction proposed amid great controversy
by a young politician from Satsuma called Mori Arinori, who had
recently returned from studying abroad. In a bid to overcome the fac-
tional rivalries that had marked the Edo period, the government turned
for protection instead to a conscript army drawn from the ranks of the
peasantry. The loyalty to one’s home domain that had been such a pow-
erful motivating force in recent years was to be discarded in favour of
229
patriotic attachment to the Japanese empire as a whole. Such constructs

of national consciousness, however, were a perplexing notion for many
ex-samurai, who had now been reclassified into an unfamiliar new social
class called the ‘gentry’ (shizoku).
When the Meiji government experienced a severe political crisis in
1873, it turned out to be a pivotal moment in alienating some shizoku
groups in Kyushu from the central regime. Perhaps it was because their
domains had triumphed through the use of force just a few years before
that these disinherited and politically marginalized samurai in Saga and
Satsuma were the first to take up their weapons now. At any rate, while
peasants in areas scattered throughout Japan rebelled against the
burden of social reforms from conscription to the new land tax system,
it is striking how the samurai rebellions in the 1870s flared up mostly in
the territories of these once powerful south-western domains.38
The initial catalyst involved the resignation of Saigō Takamori, prime
minister of the caretaker government left in control while a high-
ranking diplomatic embassy under Prince Iwakura Tomomi travelled
the world to formally announce the Meiji state. Having seen the indus-
trial development in America and Europe, Iwakura and his vice-
ambassadors were convinced that the key to Japan’s security lay in
internal growth, the policy of ‘enriching the country and strengthening
the army’ (fukoku kyōhei) – otherwise summed up as ‘iron and coal’ – that
characterized much of the Meiji era. On their return in 1873, therefore,
they found it hard to sanction a commitment Saigō had made, albeit
under pressure from supporters of the ‘argument to attack Korea’
(seikan-ron), to launch a punitive campaign across the Tsushima Straits.
Claims of a diplomatic snub to the emperor, together with alleged
attacks on Japanese merchants in Pusan, were fuelling enthusiasm for a
foreign military adventure. Although he was still the only full general in
the Japanese army, Saigō resigned his post and, disillusioned by devel-
opments in Tokyo, returned to his native Kagoshima. It remains a
matter of debate whether his motive was to retire at last from public life,
consolidate his own power base, or achieve some combination of the
two.
The first samurai rebellion broke out the following year in Saga,
capital of the old Nabeshima territories in Hizen. Tensions had risen
when two senior government figures from Saigō’s old cabinet, Etō
Shinpei (Saga) and Itagaki Taisuke (Tosa), resigned their posts in
230
protest against the government’s authoritarian style and jointly submit-

ted a ‘declaration of liberal rights’. Participants in government yet
largely confined to the fringes of power, Tosa and Saga were fast
becoming become seedbeds of shizoku resistance to early Meiji reforms.
Tosa is often associated with the unfolding campaign for liberal rights
as this was where, following Saigō’s lead, Itagaki returned to gather
support. Etō’s own return to his native Saga was even more explosive.
Welcomed back as a hero, Etō soon found himself at the head of a
small shizoku army. Rival groups in Saga, the Seikantō (Attack Korea
Party) and Yūkokutō (Patriots’ Party) joined forces in response to news
that the government, alarmed at the threat of imminent rebellion, had
sent an expeditionary force into the prefecture. With the die already
cast, Etō agreed to organize what was now seen as an unavoidable cam-
paign of resistance. Given a power base limited to just one former
domain, however, there was never any realistic hope of victory.39 The
rebels did launch one successful assault on the army garrison in Saga
City, but they were quickly pressed back following the arrival of the
expeditionary force and, heavily outnumbered, the revolt was over
within two weeks. Etō was captured and hanged in Ōkubo’s presence,
together with several other ringleaders.40 The political ramifications of
the Saga Rebellion were swift. The sizeable territory of Saga Prefecture
(formerly Hizen Province) was partitioned, and for several years the
name of Saga disappeared from the map altogether until 1883, when it
was restored in the much reduced form that this prefecture has today.
It was ironic that the newly completed telegraph line from Tokyo to
Nagasaki which enabled government troops to react so quickly, perhaps
too quickly, had been the work of Ishimaru Yasuyo, a Saga man himself.
He was one of several government figures whose loyalties were tested
during the Saga Rebellion. Another was Yamaguchi Masuka, who had
served as a vice-ambassador during the Iwakura Embassy’s recent
world tour. He played an influential role in his home town of Takeo a
few miles west of Saga, where he implored his countrymen not to take
up arms and join Etō’s rebels. Meanwhile, the ex-daimyo Nabeshima
Naohiro was in London when he heard news of the unrest and hurried
back to Japan the same year to assess the damage in his former domain.
After Saga, fragmented shizoku rebellions followed two years later in
Kumamoto, Akizuki (Fukuoka Prefecture) and Hagi (Yamaguchi),
provoked partly by the final commutation of samurai stipends. The
231
Shinpūren (Divine Wind League) in Kumamoto was also inspired by

the local tradition of ‘Higo Kokugaku’ and articulated its campaign in
Shinto nativist terms. Followers expressed outrage at the way that
Captain Leroy Janes, an American teacher at the new foreign school,
had been spreading Christian values among his students. Refusing to
use firearms since these were also of ‘foreign’ origin, these rebels were
easily picked off by government troops, particularly since they seemed
incapable of orchestrating a united campaign with sympathizers from
neighbouring prefectures.41
None of these revolts compared, however, with the threat of the
Satsuma Rebellion led by Saigō Takamori in 1877. Known in Japanese
as the Seinan Sensō (South-west War) or Seinan no Eki (South-west
Campaign), this was a full-scale civil war, and the last ever fought on
Japanese soil. Since his return to Kagoshima four years before, Saigō
and his associates had run private schools (shigakkō) that were in effect
military training camps and, regardless of his intentions, these ‘did
evolve into a rebel army’.42 The prefectural governor Ōyama
Tsunayoshi was also a close friend, and actively colluded with Saigō as
state authority in Kagoshima all but disappeared. To some extent
Satsuma’s remote location obscured the danger from the Tokyo regime,
but again it was the authorities’ response to the threat of internal revolt
that provided the catalyst for insurrection. Attempts to infiltrate the
shigakkō backfired when government spies were exposed, and the
confession extracted of a plot to assassinate Saigō provoked a call to
arms in the Satsuma army.43
It is by no means clear that Saigō ever planned or intended a full-scale
rebellion, and there is no conclusive evidence that he instigated the
revolt. After government attempts to seize munitions in Kagoshima,
however, and prompted by a sense of obligation to followers who were
desperate to fight in his name, he gave the order for his troops to mobi-
lize.44 This samurai army of 4,000 trained men marched out of
Kagoshima, challenging the Meiji regime’s largely untested conscript
troops. Some detachments from neighbouring prefectures quickly
rallied to his standard, but Saigō’s decision to lay siege to the garrison at
Kumamoto Castle denied him the chance of advancing into northern
Kyushu and swelling his ranks with disaffected shizoku groups there.
Founded mainly on shizoku loyalty in one domain, moreover, his cam-
paign made little attempt to carry broader social appeal. Some farmers
232
in the Kumamoto area looted property on the approach of his army,

encouraged by rumours that the new regime would abolish the land tax
and cancel debts. The men from Satsuma, however, treated farmers in
the area so roughly that, during the course of the siege, they lost what-
ever support they initially had.45
Against all expectations, the government garrison in Kumamoto
Castle held out, even though Katō Kiyomasa’s great wooden keep was
finally burned down in the process. This allowed the Meiji government
the time it needed to rush troops to Kyushu, where the numerical supe-
riority of its conscript army proved enough to contain Saigō’s advance.
In total the government sent 65,000 soldiers to the front, whereas the
Satsuma forces had no more than 30,000 in the field.46 Both sides sus-
tained heavy losses at a pitched battle lasting several days in the hills of
Tabaruzaka north of Kumamoto, but the result was decisive.
Now on the defensive and threatened with encirclement, Saigō was
forced to raise the siege on Kumamoto Castle after a campaign lasting
fifty-five days, in effect acknowledging the failure of his revolt.
Withdrawing south, the Satsuma troops turned to fight off the imperial
army in a series of rearguard actions, notably at Hitoyoshi Castle which
guarded the route across the Kuma River. Ultimately, however, Saigō
had to fall back on Kagoshima where his men, heavily outnumbered,
prepared for a last stand on the crest of Mt Shiroyama overlooking the
castle. On 24 September, after refusing a demand to surrender, tradi-
tion holds that he committed ritual suicide in classic samurai fashion
after being hit by a bullet, although his autopsy report showed no evi-
dence of any self-inflicted wound.47
The assassination of Ōkubo Toshimichi in Tokyo by a shizoku group
from Kanazawa the following year also contributed to establishing the
Saigō legend that has become such a fixture in modern Japan. The
explanatory note they left denounced him as a traitor to the traditional
values they saw embodied in Saigō. Rather than his own qualities,
however, which at best can be defined only in the haziest terms, it was
perhaps as the antithesis of the pragmatic Ōkubo that Saigō struck a
chord with people later when they wistfully recalled the passing of the
Tokugawa world and the advent of Meiji. He may have been a flawed
character, with question marks surrounding his motives at key
moments in his career, but in the popular imagination the image of the
Great Saigō still appears larger than the sum of its parts.48
233
The later Meiji world

With the defeat of Saigō’s army the Meiji regime had survived its
sternest test, and the promise it made shortly afterwards to install a new
constitution also served to forestall the growing demands for popular
representation. This was the concession made in 1881 by Itō Hirobumi,
the rising star of the Meiji government, in response to a political chal-
lenge from Ōkuma Shigenobu, now his nearest rival following the
deaths of Kido and Ōkubo. When Ōkuma broke ranks with colleagues
who favoured a constitution on a Prussian model and spoke out in
favour of an English-style parliament, he was attempting partly to
harness popular support as a spokesman for liberal rights within the
government. He was doubtless influenced also by the liberal ideas
championed in his native Hizen by Etō Shinpei and his associates at the
time of the Saga Rebellion several years before.
It was on a platform of voicing popular grievances, for example, that
Ōkuma – together with Fukuzawa Yukichi and Iwasaki Yatarō, the
founder of Mitsubishi – caused political waves in 1881 when they
orchestrated a press campaign against the sale of assets planned by the
Hokkaido Colonization Board. Not only was this state property under-
valued, but Kuroda Kiyotaka, chief of the board, and Godai Tomoatsu,
the chief recipient, were both from Satsuma. There was a public outcry
against the perceived favouritism reserved for such men from the victo-
rious domains of the Meiji Restoration. Ōkuma’s gathering assault on
conservative interests in the government became so conspicuous,
however, that Itō was able to mobilize a concerted response. Colleagues
closed ranks against him and he was forced to resign, while his compa-
triots and allies in the central administration were hounded out of office.
Itō’s triumph served to reinforce the factional nature of the Meiji oli-
garchy, concentrating power in the hands of Satsuma and Chōshū offi-
cials. It was achieved, however, only at the expense of suspending the
Hokkaido sale and promising to deliver a constitution within eight
years. Nevertheless, the prospect of an elected government shattered
the political cohesion of the liberal rights movement, whose supporters
spent the following years vacillating between Itagaki Taisuke’s Jiyūtō
(Liberal Party) and Ōkuma’s Rikken Kaishintō (Constitutional
Progressive Party).49 In 1882, a Kyūshū Kaishintō was also formed in
Kumamoto with representatives drawn from all over the island, only
234
for the party to follow the example of others when it was disbanded
three years later.
It was Itō’s Prussian model that came into effect when the new Meiji
Constitution was promulgated in 1889. Although this gave the vote to
just 1 per cent of the population, it was immensely significant as the first
example of a representative constitutional government in Asia. It also
lent weight to the Meiji government’s longstanding efforts to revise the
‘unequal’ treaties signed by the Tokugawa authorities thirty years
before. This campaign had been launched when the Iwakura Embassy
toured the world in the early 1870s, but it was only in the 1890s that a
changing political climate and Japan’s assiduous efforts to appear as a
‘civilized’ state in Western eyes won reluctant acceptance from Britain
and the other treaty powers.
In 1899, the old ‘treaty ports’ finally lost their special status as the
foreign residents there came under Japanese jurisdiction for the first
time. In Nagasaki, this handover seems to have been prepared and
implemented quite smoothly, for it was in the interests of neither
foreign consuls nor the local government to provoke a flight of mer-
chants from the port.50 Moreover, the terms of trade were still weighted
in these merchants’ favour, since the Japanese government did not
manage to wrest control over tariff rates until 1911. Nevertheless,
Nagasaki was no longer Kyushu’s designated gateway for overseas
trade. In 1900, for example, the old merchant city of Hakata (now called
Fukuoka) was in a position to launch itself once again as an ‘interna-
tional port’. Some trade also continued through Kagoshima, although
no longer in the form of ‘gifts’ from China to the Ryukyu Islands. As
the twentieth century approached, another port to emerge was Moji
near Kokura on the Kyushu side of the Kanmon Straits, the terminus
station of the first railway line built on the island.
A few miles down the track from Moji, Japan’s rapid industrial
growth at the turn of the century was exemplified in the shape of the
massive Yawata Steelworks, which opened in 1901.51 Great strides
forward had been taken in preceding decades, prompted initially by
state-sponsored plans for internal strengthening through fukoku kyōhei,
and recently boosted by reparation payments from China. Perhaps the
greatest economic challenge met so far had been the deflationary poli-
cies of the 1880s implemented by the finance minister Matsukata
Masayoshi (from Satsuma), who restored the value of the yen by
235
withdrawing the large amounts of paper money that had been printed
over the previous decade. In the countryside this created wide dispari-
ties in wealth as many peasants ended up working as tenant farmers on
land which, unable to pay their taxes as a result, they were now forced
to sell.52
In the newly-developed industrial areas, meanwhile, the 1880s were
a period of privatization, as state-owned factories, mines and shipyards
were sold off to the growing zaibatsu conglomerates. The Takashima
coal mine near Nagasaki, for example, passed into government hands
after the bankruptcy of Thomas Glover in 1870, but was then acquired
by Mitsubishi, which also controlled the Nagasaki Shipyard. In the far
south of Fukuoka Prefecture, the Miike coal mine was also taken over
by the Mitsui conglomerate. By this stage, a populous mining commu-
nity was growing up around the rich coal seams of the Chikuhō region
in the hills inland from Kokura. Although the miners at Takashima
gained notoriety for their strike actions in 1888, the coalfields of
Kyushu would go on to feature prominently in the modernization of
Japan. Miike alone consistently accounted for over 10 per cent of the
country’s annual coal output, and the Chikuhō mines collectively
earned a reputation as a powerhouse of industrial growth.53
Another singular project was the development of the Taio gold mine
a few miles south of Hita. Here, in what had once been tenryō territory
under Tokugawa rule, the local mountain streams had long attracted the
interest of prospectors panning for gold. It was in 1894, however, that
a gold seam was first discovered. The mine was later taken over by Hans
Hunter, the half-Japanese son of a British merchant based in Kobe,
who drew on his considerable family fortune to invest in hiring foreign
engineers and modern machinery. Growth was so rapid in the first half
of the twentieth century that Taio gained a reputation as the largest gold
mine in East Asia.54
Industrialists were now looking beyond Kyushu’s shores as well to
explore new opportunities on the continent, as the early Meiji decades
of peaceful consolidation gave way to the first steps of colonial expan-
sion. Despite the initial fracas that had so nearly led to war as early as
1873, these overseas military campaigns arose not so much from dis-
putes with Korea as tensions with China. A bilateral treaty on equal
terms was agreed for the first time in 1871, but it was so vaguely worded
and half-hearted that friction soon mounted over Japan and China’s
236
respective spheres of influence in the territories that lay between them.

After all, the Ryukyu Islands and Korea still maintained their traditional
tributary relations with China. In 1874, a punitive expedition to
Formosa was launched in retaliation for the murder of some Ryukyu
fishermen, and, as a result, the Ryukyu Islands were formally brought
under the political jurisdiction of Japan. Although reconfigured as
Okinawa Prefecture in 1879, however, it would be several decades
before the islands gained full representation in central assemblies like
the National Diet in Tokyo.
Korea, meanwhile, was opened to trade after Japanese gunboat
diplomacy forced the signing of the Treaty of Kangwha in 1876.
Internal divisions, however, led to the emergence of competing factions
at court in Seoul backed by Japan and China respectively. Only a hur-
riedly agreed non-intervention pact prevented a confrontation in 1885.
The crisis prompted Fukuzawa Yukichi, a staunch advocate of
‘Westernization’, to call on his compatriots to disown their cultural ties
with a continent increasingly under semi-colonial domination and ‘leave
Asia’ altogether (datsu-A).
A right-wing group that spearheaded calls for colonial expansion was
the Genyōsha (Black Ocean Society), which took its name from the
Genkai Sea on the north Kyushu coast. This had been launched in 1881
by some former Fukuoka samurai, who still nursed grievances over the
humiliation inflicted on their former domain. Initially active in the cam-
paign for liberal rights, the Genyōsha was outspoken in its criticism of
Meiji foreign policy and developed into a radical anti-government
movement. Outraged at the perceived lack of progress in negotiations
over the unequal treaties, in 1889 it was also responsible for the bomb
attack in which Ōkuma Shigenobu, as foreign minister, lost a leg.55
War between Japan and China finally broke out in 1894, when the
Korean government seemed powerless to prevent civilians in Seoul
from demonstrating against increasing levels of foreign interference.
The Chinese defeat that followed surprised the world, and, with the
Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, Formosa became Japan’s first official
overseas colony. In place of China, Japan now faced a new rival in the
shape of Russia. Tensions escalated when Russian troops remained
massed in Manchuria near the Korean frontier after the Boxer
Rebellion in 1900. Negotiations to defuse the situation ultimately failed,
including a suggested compromise of trading political influence in
237
Manchuria for control of Korea. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902

may have reinforced Japan’s status as an emerging power, but if any-
thing it also made war with Russia more likely, precluding the interfer-
ence of third parties in any direct contest.
The military conflict that then broke out in 1904 placed a heavy
burden on the resources of both sides. In Russia’s case, it was the cata-
lyst for the first revolution of 1905. The Russo-Japanese War also fea-
tured such a heavy concentration of new modern weapons that,
recently, it has even been described as World War Zero.56 It was
Admiral Tōgō’s naval victory in the Tsushima Straits in May 1905 that
effectively ended the contest. The resulting Treaty of Portsmouth nego-
tiated by the foreign minister Komura Jutarō (a native of Miyazaki),
gave Japan exclusive control over Korea, together with the south of
Sakhalin Island, the Liaodong peninsula and rights over the Russian-
built Chinese Eastern Railway. Although further disturbances followed
in Korea, none of the major Western powers made any strong objec-
tions to Japan’s increasing influence there, and the peninsula was finally
annexed in 1910. By the time the emperor Meiji died in 1912, Japan had
become a rapidly growing colonial power, with ports such as Moji,
Hakata, Nagasaki and Kagoshima now important staging posts in main-
taining communications with overseas satellites including Formosa and
Korea.
238
CHAPTER 12
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
n 1938, construction work began on the Musashi at the Mitsubishi

I Shipyard in Akunoura on the north side of Nagasaki Bay. Together
with her sister ship Yamato she would be the largest battleship ever built.
As the vessel took shape a short distance across the harbour from the
streets of Nagasaki, Musashi symbolized a highly visible and thinly veiled
message of intent, sweeping aside the international agreement on limit-
ing naval expansion that Japan had signed in London eight years before.
It also posed a sensitive issue for the local authorities, since the com-
mercial prosperity of this former treaty port had been closely linked
with the growth of the foreign settlement on the south side of the bay.
A makeshift warehouse was even put up along the seafront facing the
British Consulate in an attempt to mask the view of the battleship under
construction across the water.
The grand villa built by Thomas Blake Glover in 1863 on the slopes
of the Minami-Yamate district enjoys splendid views over this harbour.
Originally from the small port of Fraserburgh in northern Scotland,
Glover had become a powerful merchant in the foreign settlement after
Nagasaki first opened as a treaty port seventy years before.1 The house
had since passed into the hands of his son Tomisaburō, who was now
in his late sixties having carved out a singular business career himself
during the early years of the twentieth century. This had been his home
for much of his life, but with the construction of Battleship Musashi
underway he was relocated to a smaller building at the foot of the hill.
Tomisaburō was a prominent figure in a city where, over the years,
the foreign community had become increasingly integrated with the
native population. Half-Japanese himself, he was an active member of
239
the Naigai Club (International Club) formed in 1899 to create ‘a good

understanding between the Japanese and foreign residents’ when
Nagasaki lost its status as a treaty port.2 He was also the first person in
the city to own a motor car, although its use was largely confined by the
steep hills to a road along the seafront. The port itself was no longer the
new frontier of commercial opportunity that it had once been in his
father’s day. The handover to Japanese jurisdiction had been smooth
enough and, at the turn of the new century, the number of foreign ships
arriving was on the rise, with thirty-six Western saloons and nineteen
hotels also open for business to cope with the demand.3 Trade dipped
sharply after the Russo-Japanese War, however, and in 1907
Tomisaburō pointed out that locally-based businessmen were now
exploring prospects in the Korean port of Chemulpo, as the govern-
ment began to exploit land resources on the continent.4
Tomisaburō’s later years encapsulate the change of mood in Nagasaki
from a cosmopolitan city with an international outlook to a place where
outsiders were treated with suspicion by the authorities. By the end of the
1920s Western influence had practically disappeared from the port, but
this was due not so much to the closing of the foreign settlement as wider
economic and political forces.5 Tomisaburō, for example, had helped to
build Japan’s first public golf course on the uplands of Mt Unzen in the
nearby Shimabara peninsula. When it opened in 1913 everything seemed
to augur well for this hot spring area, popular among foreign tourists
trying to escape the summer heat in treaty ports around the East China
Sea. The opening of the picturesque Unzen Kanko Hotel in 1935,
however, was not such a well-timed venture. The hotel register on display
in the reception area shows the signatures of foreign guests who stayed
there in its early years, but their numbers dwindled as the wartime regime
took hold. By this stage Tomisaburō and the few remaining foreign res-
idents were regularly being trailed through the streets of Nagasaki by
members of the military police (kenpeitai). He never shook off their sus-
picions that he might be acting as a spy against the Japanese war effort.
Tomisaburō survived the atomic bomb that was dropped on the
Urakami district of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. Not only was the
Mitsubishi Shipyard spared, but the old foreign settlement with its neo-
colonial villas was far enough away to survive the worst of the damage.
Mabel Shigeko Walker (née McMillan), another long-term resident who
had stayed during the war, remembered seeing a light ‘as bright as the
240
The Twentieth Century
sun’ projected on the wall of her air-raid shelter for an instant before
she managed to close the door.6 In the weeks that followed, with the
city in ruins and the emperor announcing Japan’s surrender, rumours
spread about the impending arrival of American troops. For
Tomisaburō they brought the prospect of further close attention and
pressure to cooperate, this time from the US Army. On 26 August he
was found dead in the house at the bottom of the hill. It was clearly
suicide, a strange ending for a man who had lived to see the end of the
war but not the start of peace. He was seventy-four years old.7
The colonial age in Kyushu

With the growth of the Japanese empire in the early years of the twen-
tieth century, Kyushu’s ports became gateways for supplying the new
colonies. Between the various passenger steamers, transport ships and
cargo vessels, the volume of shipping reached unprecedented levels
across the Tsushima Straits and the East China Sea. Much of this traffic
passed through ports like Moji and Hakata in the north, Nagasaki in the
west, and Kagoshima in the south. Coastal areas in Kyushu were also
being intensively developed during Japan’s first wave of modern indus-
trialization. Situated far away from the Meiji state’s main urban centres
in Honshu, railways had reached this region relatively late. Now there
were trunk lines extending down both coasts, enabling the growth of
heavy industrial plants such as the Yawata Steelworks near Kokura.
Some railway lines were also stretching into the mountainous interior,
bringing the mineral resources of Kyushu’s hinterland within reach of
a wider market. Coal from the Chikuhō mines was taken on barges
down the Onga River, and hauled by rail to the terminus at Moji.
Further inland, the construction of a railway line across Kyushu enabled
timber from the Hita area to be transported by train.8 In times past, logs
from Hitoyoshi in the far south of Kumamoto Prefecture had been
floated down the Kuma River in rafts, shooting rapids in the gorges
along the way. Now with the opening of the Hisatsu railway line in 1909
– a project involving hundreds of Chinese and Korean workers – these
loads could reach the coast by rail.9
Together with industrialization and the expansion of transport net-
works, significant numbers of Japanese labour migrants were leaving
their rural homelands to seek work elsewhere. Already in the early Meiji
241
era there had been isolated cases of entire communities being relocated
from Kyushu to Hokkaido as part of the government’s programme to
develop this untamed region in the north, and traces of a Kurume
dialect, for example, can still be found in some places there. In Kyushu,
meanwhile, communities of labourers formed in localized pockets due
to the growth of heavy industry, particularly around mines and steel-
works. These were particularly vulnerable to fluctuations in the
economy, such as the catastrophic shortfalls in rice harvests and rising
inflation in the second decade of the twentieth century. The protests in
1918 against the high price of rice were started by a community of fish-
ermen’s wives in Toyama Prefecture, but the wave of violent strikes that
followed in the Chikuhō coal mines contributed to the downfall of the
Terauchi administration.
As the population boomed, government-sponsored migration pro-
grammes aimed at relieving pressure on local resources were underway
by the 1920s, and large numbers travelled across the Pacific Ocean to a
new life overseas. Many headed for South America after the United
States imposed a ban on Japanese immigrants in 1924. It was this phase
that resulted in the growth of what is now the largest overseas Japanese
community in Sao Paolo. A substantial proportion of these migrants
came from farming communities in parts of Kyushu which had been
badly hit, first by poor harvests, and then by the effects of the Great
Depression. Among them were the parents of Alberto Fujimori, the
recent president of Peru, who in 1934 left their village of Kawachi, now
a district in the suburbs of Kumamoto City. The scale and range of
these migrations belie recurring post-war notions of Japan as an insular
and introspective society. Some people from southern Kyushu, for
example, turned their gaze to the south and relocated to islands in New
Caledonia to seek their fortunes in phosphate mining. During the 1930s
Kumamoto families also featured among the thousands of people who
moved to Manchuria as part of the government’s drive to instil Japanese
culture in its new continental empire.10
It would be misleading to portray the migration of rural workers to
the growing cities in Japan simply as a process of leaving a static tradi-
tional society behind to embrace the attractions of modern urban life. In
Kyushu’s agricultural communities, significant innovations were also
transforming the landscape. The Saga plain, for example, had always
been a rich agrarian belt, but over time the introduction of technological
242
improvements like mechanized pumps and new techniques for seed

planting and crop rotation had a striking effect on productivity. By the
1930s, Saga Prefecture had the highest average rice yield in the country,
and this period has even been described as the ‘Saga stage’ of develop-
ment. As Penelope Francks notes, ‘Saga represented the first evidence
that Japanese agriculture was beginning to follow the path which the
agricultural sectors of the then-developed countries were believed to
have followed, towards higher labour productivity, larger scale and the
use of machinery.’11
Changes were clearly underway in these rural communities, there-
fore, but the rapid transformation of urban society nevertheless created
a widening gap between town and country life. In the 1920s, for
example, the so-called ‘mass culture’ (taishū bunka) of the Taishō era was
marked by an influx of cheap books, magazines and newspapers, all of
which served to raise political awareness among the urban population.
The political pressures this heaped on the ruling elites led to legislation
in 1925 that widened eligibility to vote to a quarter of the population,
although not as yet to women. Developed within the framework of the
Meiji Constitution, however, this ‘Taishō Democracy’ would prove to
be a fragile platform for the newly emerging political parties in the face
of a powerful military lobby intent on protecting its vested interests in
the colonies.
Together with printed media, novelties including Charlie Chaplin
films, jazz music and new fashions were also appearing in the cities. For
the first time, in fact, a significant proportion of cultural influences from
abroad were arriving not so much through Kyushu but ports like
Yokohama, the destination of many ships crossing the Pacific from the
United States. Kyushu’s previous dominance as a cultural gateway was
now challenged in what would become, in effect, Japan’s Pacific
century. It was a trend that continued in the post-war era with the devel-
opment of commercial air travel as airports in Tokyo and later Kansai
became Japan’s main international gateways. By comparison, it was only
in the last years of the twentieth century that airports in Kyushu, notably
Fukuoka, started to handle a large volume of international traffic.
Nevertheless, in the very early days of air travel, geographical proxim-
ity to the Asian continent was still a key factor. The biplanes that
launched Japan’s first airmail service in 1929 took off from an airfield
on the narrow spit of land that encloses Hakata Bay.
243
In this new modern age of telephones, radio and department stores,

Japanese cities were very much part of the consumer society emerging
at the same time in urban landscapes across Europe and America. As a
founder member of the League of Nations after the First World War,
the civilian government in Tokyo also appeared to embrace an interna-
tionalist outlook, only to find the international community now looking
askance at Japan’s growing influence on the Asian continent. In the pre-
vailing climate of demilitarization and US insistence on an ‘Open Door’
for trade in China, scope for expansion was curtailed by the Washington
Conference in 1922 and subsequent agreements on disarmament, cul-
minating in the London Naval Pact in 1930. The civilian government
even signed up to the idealistic Kellogg-Briand Pact that renounced all
war in 1928.
For the Kwantung Army, which had been based in Manchuria since
the Russo-Japanese War, the Tokyo government’s adherence to these
international conventions often seemed to bear little relation to the
immediate pressures on the ground. Years of civil conflict had con-
tributed to creating a deeply insecure environment, now complicated by
the rise of warlords and the growing threat of Soviet expansion to the
north. The ultra-nationalist factions which emerged within the military
as a result can be traced back to the nineteenth century. Perhaps the ear-
liest such group had been the Genyōsha (Black Ocean Society), formed
in 1881, but this was followed in 1901 by the Kokuryūkai (Black Dragon
Society) during the build-up to the Russo-Japanese War. Within the
armed forces they soon began orchestrating resistance to the govern-
ment line from Tokyo, culminating in the creation of the Sakurakai
(Cherry Society) in 1930, in response to the London Naval Pact.
Following the Wall Street Crash, meanwhile, the Great Depression only
served to increase the air of desperation as it hit many rural communi-
ties, the traditional recruiting ground for conscripts in the Japanese
Army.
During the 1930s the power of this military lobby drove a wedge
between the civilian government in Tokyo and the international com-
munity. A fabricated attack on the Manchuria Railway on the outskirts
of Mukden in September 1931 served as the pretext for the Kwantung
Army’s occupation of the entire region. Defying calls from the Tokyo
government and the world outside to withdraw, the army then estab-
lished the colony of Manchukuo in 1933, effectively forcing Japan to
244
leave the League of Nations the same year. A series of assassinations

also removed high-profile critics and undermined the civilian govern-
ment as army and navy figures increasingly dominated the cabinet. In
1936, sections of the army even plotted a coup d’état in Tokyo in a bid
to achieve a ‘Showa Restoration’. Although this attempt failed, a wave
of popular sympathy for the conspirators served only to reinforce the
military’s hold on power.
As plans were approved to expand the armed forces and tensions
escalated on the continent, war with China broke out in 1937. In a series
of campaigns described in hindsight as the ‘China Quagmire’, rapid
advances led to over-extended supply lines and a prolonged war of attri-
tion which, given the economic embargoes imposed in response, the
Japanese army was never in a position to win. As part of this struggle,
the search for resources in South-east Asia finally drove Japan into war
against the United States, launched with the surprise attack on Pearl
Harbor on 7 December 1941 (8 December in the eastern hemisphere).
While Japanese troops rapidly advanced through Hong Kong,
Singapore, Burma and the Philippines, at home the entire population
was mobilized into a national defence state with the country’s industrial
resources devoted to the war economy. Communities were marshalled
into small mutual surveillance units (gonin-gumi) and Western cultural
influences increasingly attacked.
After defeat at Midway finally halted the Japanese advance in 1942, the
US forces’ strategy of island-hopping eventually brought their B29 planes
within reach of Japan’s shores by the summer of 1944. Subsequent air
raids had a devastating effect on a population that had only been given
news of unbroken military success. Okinawa Island far to the south of
Kyushu bore the brunt of the following advance in the spring and
summer of 1945, as the local community came under attack, not only
from American troops but also Japanese soldiers suspicious of their
loyalty.12 After capturing the island following a land campaign lasting
nearly three months, the Americans now had a clear field of advance
north through the Ryukyu Islands to the Japanese mainland on the
Kyushu coast. The strength of the regiments now gathering in Kyushu
became the focus of US strategic calculations as preparations were laid
for a final assault. There were thirteen field divisions deployed there by
the end of July, amounting to a force of 435,000 men.13 At the Chiran air-
field in the hills of the Satsuma peninsula, meanwhile, kamikaze pilots
245
were being despatched on a wave of desperate missions to protect their

homeland. The rhetoric may have grandly invoked the divine wind said
to have saved Kyushu from the Mongols more than six hundred years
before, but many of these suicide bomber pilots were barely out of their
teens, recruited and trained at airbases nearby.
Faced by the daunting prospect of concerted resistance from the
Japanese army, the US plans for a land invasion of Kyushu were also a
key factor in President Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb. On
18 June 1945 he had approved a proposal presented by the Joint War
Plans Committee to launch the Kyushu campaign in November. In the
event, however, it was specifically to avoid the loss of US troops in this
offensive that he then sanctioned the use of nuclear weapons. Even if a
further campaign in Honshu had ultimately proved unnecessary, it was
the estimated casualties of more than 100,000 men that Truman
invoked to justify his use of the bomb, however inflated these predic-
tions may have been. His decision was predicated on the assumption,
however, that only nuclear strikes could force Japan’s surrender before
the Kyushu campaign was due to commence. Not enough considera-
tion was given to the possibility that this could have been achieved by
November through a combination of non-combat strategies such as
direct negotiations, mediation by a third party and blockade-bombing.
To some extent Truman’s resort to ‘prompt and utter destruction’ was
therefore influenced by his advisers, who only ever presented plans for
a naval blockade and continued bombing in conjunction with commit-
ting US troops to a land campaign in Kyushu.14
By the summer of 1945 the central districts of several cities in
Kyushu had already been subjected to heavy bombing. Contemporary
photographs of central Fukuoka show the concrete shell of the Iwataya
department store as practically the only building left standing. Any
visitor to Nagasaki these days who expects to find it visibly different
from other Japanese cities due to its experience of the atomic bomb can
only be left struck by how faded the scars have become, at least super-
ficially. This is partly testimony to the resilience of the local population
in rebuilding their city from the ashes. It also reflects the fact that other
cities in Kyushu were also devastated, if not on quite the same scale, and
how post-war rebuilding demolished large areas as well in a headlong
rush for prosperity and desire to raze the past.
Nevertheless, the loss of between 40,000 and 75,000 lives on a single
246
day in 1945 makes Nagasaki’s experience of bombing comparable only

with that of Hiroshima.15 The city was not even the primary target for this
second atomic bomb. On 9 August the US B-29 bomber carrying the
nuclear device code-named ‘Fat Man’ was on its way back from Kokura
further north, which had been singled out for attack due to its concen-
tration of industrial plants like the massive Yawata Steelworks. Cloud
cover over Kokura had forced a change of plan, and only a parting in the
clouds as the plane passed over Nagasaki later that morning allowed
the pilot to identify his secondary target far below. The bomb destroyed
the Urakami munitions factory and also shattered the red-brick walls of
Urakami Cathedral a short distance from the hypocentre. Today a replica
of the only wall left standing is the largest exhibit on display at the atomic
bomb museum near the Peace Park. On a much smaller scale are the
molten forms of a metal rosary liquefied by the intense heat, and glass
bottles fused together. Other exhibits recall a moment frozen in time,
such as the silhouette of a human form projected on a charred wooden
wall. Another is a clock that forever reads 11:02.
The post-war era

The bombing of Nagasaki was the last major air strike of the Second
World War and, following the earlier attack on Hiroshima, was arguably
more than enough to secure Japan’s surrender six days later. Within a
matter of days the last rallying cries of resistance from the Japanese mil-
itary were replaced, first by an uneasy wait, and then, with the arrival of
American troops, by the onset of the Allied Occupation. With General
MacArthur in charge of the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers
(SCAP) in Tokyo, a predominantly US team of army officials and
bureaucrats set about designing post-war reforms intended to system-
atically dismantle the ‘national defence state’. At the International
Military Tribunal of the Far East held in Tokyo in 1947, twenty-five
defendants were tried and seven of them executed for Class A war
crimes, including the wartime prime minister General Tōjō Hideki.
Although the emperor was not subjected to trial and was allowed to
remain as head of state, he was compelled to publicly renounce the
imperial family’s claim to divinity. The powerful zaibatsu conglomerates
which had been a moving force in the economic expansion of Japan’s
wartime colonies were also dissolved into smaller units. The army itself
247
was overhauled, as Article Nine in the new constitution promulgated in

1947 declared that ‘the Japanese people forever renounce war’, and to
that end, ‘land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will
never be maintained’.16
With the corridors of power in Tokyo now the domain of
Washington bureaucrats, the censorship imposed during the occupa-
tion served to compound the suffering inflicted by the atomic bombs.
In John Dower’s view, ‘it is at this local level that US censorship was
most inhumane’.17 Doctors were compelled to rely on local resources
to help treat surviving victims (hibakusha), and were not permitted to
publish their findings on radiation sickness. The Japanese authorities
were also slow to respond, and it was not until 1952 that the medical
community was free to share knowledge on this new field of research.
After censorship began to ease late in 1948, one dying victim, a young
Catholic doctor called Nagai Takashi, prompted a wave of public sym-
pathy through his vivid portrait of the collective suffering of Nagasaki.
Published in 1949, his best-selling Nagasaki no Kane (The Bells of
Nagasaki) was later made into a film, and even the emperor visited him
at his bedside.18 It remained the most influential work on the subject of
the bombs until Ibuse Masuji’s 1965 novel Kuroi Ame (Black Rain) on
the experience of Hiroshima.
These literary works were among several important landmarks in
articulating ‘victim consciousness’ (higaisha ishiki), when open discus-
sion was allowed to surface after the censorship of the occupation years.
Perhaps the most dramatic was the outpouring of public indignation
after a Japanese trawler was affected by fallout from a US thermonu-
clear test on the Bikini atoll in 1954. The following year the Peace Statue
was unveiled in Nagasaki and the first World Conference against
Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs was held in Hiroshima. More than sixty
years on, the anniversaries in August are always marked by large crowds
at ceremonies of remembrance in both cities. On a more everyday level,
surviving victims still report weekly to the hospitals that have become
world leaders in the treatment of radiation sickness.
No immediate timescale was placed on the Allied Occupation. Most
of those involved expected it to last for a minimum of ten years, while
some thought it would take a generation to pull out. In the event, the
return to independence with the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951
reflected US strategic needs as East Asia developed into a key theatre
248
of conflict in the Cold War. The mutual security treaty signed on the
same day enlisted Japan’s cooperation in the US operations on Japanese
soil that have continued to varying degrees to the present day. The
largest concentration of US troops remains in the extensive bases on
Okinawa Island, but Sasebo Port in Nagasaki Prefecture is still used by
US Navy ships, including nuclear-powered vessels. In a striking local
example of Japan’s often ambivalent relations with the United States,
these ships are welcomed in Sasebo, where the economy depends
heavily on the US Navy, but are met with protests on the quayside in
Nagasaki whenever they try to dock in a city that, understandably, is a
self-proclaimed nuclear-free zone.
Another controversial by-product of US strategic interests was the
rehabilitation of the Japanese military in the shape of the Self-Defence
Forces. This is still the official description of what is now a well-
equipped army, although participation in peacekeeping operations and
other United Nations exercises has led to growing support for a revi-
sion to Article Nine of the Constitution. Each year, Japanese forces and
US troops still meet to conduct joint training exercises in the hills of
Kyushu, often in the Kujū highlands in Ōita or the Ebino basin in
Miyazaki. Whenever these are held, vociferous bands of protestors
gather outside the camp gates, an ongoing reminder of the vast crowds
that once surrounded the National Diet Building in Tokyo when the
Security Treaty was controversially renewed in 1960.
Japan’s post-war economic recovery also emerged in the course of
efforts by the United States to prevent the spread of communism in
East Asia. In 1949, the year that Mao Ze Dong took power in China,
rampant inflation and black markets were dominant features of daily life
in cities all over Japan. Some legacies of this unstable period survive,
such as the street stalls in Fukuoka called yatai where, under licence
from the municipal authorities, vendors avoided the expense of renting
premises by selling hot food on pavements and along the banks of the
Naka River. It was a Detroit banker called Joseph Dodge, meanwhile,
who drafted the package designed to rescue the sinking economy,
including the ‘Dodge Line’, a fixed rate of exchange that allowed
Japanese exports to sell at competitively low rates for the next two
decades. The intention was to create a climate in which Japan could
become the ‘Workshop of Asia’, as the undersecretary of state Dean
Acheson outlined in a speech in 1947. On a political level it was an
249
agenda closely linked with the perceived need to turn Japan into a
‘bastion of democracy’. Numerous politicians and businessmen who
had previously been linked with the wartime regime now found them-
selves rehabilitated, or ‘de-purged’, as a result. In some cases this con-
trast was so conspicuous that revisionist historians have pointed to a
‘Reverse Course’, a shift away from the idealistic agenda of the occupa-
tion in its early years.19
The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 also provided a catalyst that
helped to kick-start the Japanese economy. Special procurement orders
were now received for large quantities of goods to supply the US armed
forces in the Korean peninsula. Many of these commodities were
shipped from ports such as Hakata and Moji, or flown out from the
Itazuke Air Base on the outskirts of Fukuoka. With the entrenchment
of troops on either side of the 38th parallel, however, Japan’s inclusion
in US strategic interests would cast Kyushu once again in the role of a
military frontier zone during the Cold War. A graphic reminder during
the Vietnam conflict, for example, was the incident on 5 June 1968
when a US warplane on a night flight from Itazuke crashed in the nearby
Hakozaki campus of Kyushu University.20
The tense relations with Korea and mainland China following the
Pacific War led to a drastic reduction in commercial shipping across the
Tsushima Straits and the East China Sea. At the height of the Cold War
the level of maritime traffic was minimal compared with the thriving
network developed during the early twentieth century to supply prod-
ucts and personnel to Japan’s colonies. The strictures imposed were
briefly even reminiscent of sakoku, as previously important ports like
Hakata and Nagasaki became gateways to practically nowhere.
Nevertheless, the revival of commercial ties that soon followed played
an important role in post-war diplomatic rapprochement. Under US
pressure, Japan controversially recognized South Korea in 1965, but
trade across the Tsushima Straits had already been growing for over a
decade. Similarly, business ties with mainland China increased steadily
throughout the 1960s before the normalization of Sino-Japanese rela-
tions in 1972 following President Nixon’s sudden decision to engage in
talks with the communist regime in Beijing.21
During the Cold War American influences were also significant in
shaping the cultural landscape of Japan, and Kyushu was no exception.
In some respects these were imposed by statute in Tokyo during the
250
Allied Occupation, as votes for women, the US high school system

and the ideals of a nuclear family had a profound impact on the outlook of
the post-war generation. Images from Hollywood would also popularize
the material affluence of the ‘American dream’, inspiring a consumer
culture of large cars, bowling alleys and family restaurants. Some ele-
ments of this are still very much in evidence today, as are cultural influ-
ences picked up more informally at a grass roots level. During the
occupation allied soldiers posted to prefectural cities, for example,
helped to foster an interest in music styles from Country to Swing, and
in subsequent years US forces in naval ports and air bases were instru-
mental in popularizing what became an enduring fascination with Rock
‘n’ Roll. One legacy is ‘Country Gold’, a music festival of now interna-
tional standing which is held every October at an outdoor venue in the
shadow of Mt Aso. This was inspired by ‘Charlie’ Nagatani who, after
growing up in Kumamoto City, formed a country group in 1956 and went
on to acquire a wide following after touring US bases around Japan.22
Perhaps the most visible landmarks in Kyushu’s post-war economic
recovery were the opening ceremonies of several modern transport net-
works, which inspired confidence in new technology and offered the
prospects of a brighter commercial future. Construction on the first
Kanmon railway tunnel beneath the Shimonoseki Straits had already
begun in the late 1930s. When this was finally completed eight years
later in 1944 it not only provided a direct link between Kyushu and
Honshu but became the first undersea tunnel built anywhere in the
world. A road tunnel under the straits was later completed in 1958, but
it was in the 1970s that the most impressive projects were realized. After
five years of construction, the Kanmon Suspension Bridge was opened
in 1973. Not only was this the first bridge between Kyushu and
Honshu, but for some years held the distinction of being the longest
bridge in East Asia. Equally significant was the completion of another
rail tunnel in 1975 which, for the first time, enabled the new shinkansen
‘bullet trains’ to run directly from Tokyo to Hakata. Just after the war
this journey would have taken the best part of twenty-four hours, but
now it became possible to cover the distance in only seven. Anyone
familiar with the old kodama bullet trains, however, will know that it still
took over nine hours during the 1980s. These days the fastest trains can
make the trip in just five hours.23
Together with expanding transport networks the development of
251
media communications exerted a powerful force on culture and

language throughout post-war Japan. In regional areas like Kyushu the
diffusion of radio and then television in the 1960s contributed to the
increasingly uniform language often employed in schools and the work-
place, if not always at home. Since not all households had radios until
the mid-1940s, it has been suggested that ‘the linguistic unification of
Japan occurred [only] in the post-war period’.24 Still today, the tensions
between a notional Tokyo-based ‘standard’ language and regional
dialects contribute to what at times can even approach a bilingual envi-
ronment. In various parts of Kyushu people still switch from polite
speech to dialect in less than the time it takes to put the phone down.
This is perhaps most marked in the case of the notoriously thick
Satsuma dialect, but is by no means the only case.
In the congested cities of Kyushu, meanwhile, high-speed economic
growth during the 1960s was reshaping the urban landscape as industry
flourished and the construction of large concrete residential blocks
expanded into the suburbs. As in other regions, the first signs of rural
depopulation had appeared earlier in the twentieth century, with the
growth of heavy industry and labour migration overseas. It was in the
post-war era, however, that the decreasing numbers in the countryside
became conspicuous, as the pressures of rapid urbanization created
new social tensions memorably evoked in Ōzu Yasujirō’s 1953 film
Tōkyō Monogatari (Tokyo Story). Around the old castle town of Kokura,
for example, there appeared the first city in Kyushu after Fukuoka with
a population over a million, as communities adjoining the Yawata
Steelworks and other industrial plants merged to form the sprawling
metropolis collectively known as Kitakyushu.
For many years in the late twentieth century the perennial clouds
hanging over this new city were synonymous with the heavy pollution
that accompanied Japan’s rise as an industrial power. Environmental
warning signs were ignored in the rush towards post-war recovery by
companies and local authorities alike. In some long-suffering communi-
ties the consequences were disastrous. The most notorious case occurred
in Minamata, a small coastal city in the south of Kumamoto Prefecture.
Here the local fish stocks were poisoned over a sustained period by
mercury released from a nearby chemical factory owned by the Chisso
Corporation, the city’s largest employer. The result was ‘the single worst
long-term, man-made industrial pollution disaster in history’.25
252
People in Minamata would later recall having noticed unusually dirty

water as early as 1951. The following year the local fishing cooperative
even filed a complaint, prompting Kumamoto Prefecture to request
data from Chisso, but the company was evasive in its response. In 1954,
there was also concern over the puzzling behaviour of local cats which
suddenly became prone to wild gyrating fits. In the nearby fishing
village of Modō, as many as a hundred cats died within two months. It
was the resulting explosion in the mice population that first drew the
attention of the media to the possibility that something out of the ordi-
nary was happening in Minamata.26 By this stage, humans were being
affected as well, but no one knew the cause of their symptoms of numb-
ness and uncontrollable shaking hands. In some cases doctors thought
their patients had been poisoned by the acetylene lamps that were often
used in the area during night fishing off the coast.27
It took until 1956 before it was realized that Minamata was in the
grip of an epidemic and a direct link was established with the chemical
factory. Even then, several years elapsed before the full scale of the
problem finally emerged. Many victims had tried to conceal their sick-
ness, as the growing fear of this mysterious disease made them ‘out-
casts, stigmatized and degraded, frequently even in their own eyes’.28
Their plight was also shunned by society at large, for it raised uncom-
fortable questions over culpability. After all, it clearly implicated a
major company that, until then, had been emblematic of post-war eco-
nomic success. Coverage was thus restricted to a mainly local audience
until Chisso quietly tried to close the case in 1959 by making ‘sympa-
thy payments’ to victims and arranging compensation for local fishing
cooperatives.
In the 1960s, however, the issue attracted wider attention as the sub-
sequent appearance of pollution scandals in other parts of the country
served to raise awareness of ‘Minamata disease’ at a national level. What
had seemed like an isolated local problem was now placed within the
context of the growing citizen protests emerging across a broad range
of social, political and environmental concerns. Encouraged by a
nationwide support network, Minamata campaigners openly champi-
oned their cause, consciously identifying themselves with atomic bomb
victims (hibakusha) and also Burakumin, the descendants of social out-
casts from a former age.29 During an extended process of litigation it
became one of the so-called ‘big-four’ pollution cases in the late sixties,
253
which broke new ground by exposing social taboos and reshaping the
power relations between industry and the community. In 1970, a group
of Minamata protestors even confronted Chisso President Egashira
Yutaka at the company shareholders’ meeting. By 1973 they were able
to claim a moral victory at last when Chisso was forced to accept
responsibility and publicly apologize.30
This ruling was perhaps the single most important landmark in the
long campaign to seek redress over Minamata disease, although it was
not until more than twenty years later in the mid-1990s that uncertified
patients would also receive compensation. Even then, some victims
received nothing and, significantly, the government still accepted no
legal blame. Even today the ramifications are still felt widely in the
area.31 The local fishing industry, for example, had to wait until the dawn
of the new century before the water in the Shiranui Sea off the coast of
Minamata was clean enough to resume business.
Pollution was just one of various side-effects caused by rapid industrial
expansion in the post-war era. To meet the growing demand for Japanese
exports the labour force was also being systematically mobilized with
long working shifts at factories across the country. The social pressures
these created in turn led to new approaches to work and leisure, includ-
ing some early initiatives in the development of mass tourism. In Kyushu
the coastal town of Beppu in Ōita Prefecture, with its unmatched con-
centration of sulphuric hot springs, became a popular resort, as ferries
brought large numbers of holidaymakers across the Inland Sea from the
industrial centres of Honshu.
Beppu Spa had initially been developed in the early years of the twen-
tieth century. It was in 1911 that the influential Aburaya Kumahachi
first arrived in the area and founded the Kamenoi Inn, which still runs
as the Kamenoi Hotel today. The fleet of buses he created in 1927 pro-
vided guided tours around the famous ‘Beppu Hells’, nine boiling pools
where the mineral contents create a range of vivid colours from milky
white to blood red. The Kamenoi Hotel claims that Aburaya’s innova-
tive idea of hiring beautiful girls to provide the commentary was the first
time that bus guides were employed in Japan. After the Pacific War,
Beppu rapidly grew into a busy, commercialized resort. The first sight
to greet many passengers arriving by ship from Honshu was Beppu
Tower, a lattice steel structure with an observation deck built in 1957
that, at 328 feet high, dominates the seafront today. Inspired perhaps
254
by the Eiffel Tower, it is also reminiscent of Blackpool Tower, the

symbol of another coastal resort on the Lancashire coast in England.
Since Ōita Prefecture boasts more hot springs than anywhere else in
the country, the area was destined to become a popular leisure destina-
tion as commercial prosperity returned to post-war Japan. The growth
of Beppu into a tourist centre in turn fostered a market for travellers
wishing to escape to the more secluded hot springs in the mountains
inland. The Kamenoi Bus Company, for example, opened a regular bus
service from Beppu to Yufuin, which gave visitors access to the exclu-
sive new Kamenoi Bessō Hotel situated by the picturesque Kinrin Lake.
During the last decades of the twentieth century Yufuin would develop
into a bustling resort itself, conspicuous now as much for its gift shops
and little museums as for its celebrated waters. The construction of a
motorway stretching across Kyushu from Nagasaki in the west to Ōita
in the east has also created easier access to the still relatively unspoilt
hot springs hidden away in these mountains. A notable example is
Kurokawa, just across the border in Kumamoto Prefecture. Here by a
river in a quiet woodland setting, a remote village community overcame
years of hardship in the post-war era to pioneer the growth of what is
arguably now the most sought-after hot spring location anywhere in
Kyushu.
Contemporary Kyushu
For several decades the strategic conditions imposed by the Cold War
placed severe limitations on interaction across the East China Sea, but
towards the end of the twentieth century there were increasing signs of
renewed contact between Kyushu and the Asian continent. On a
broader level, the relative cultural isolation of the Japanese population
in the post-war era was already being overhauled by the 1960s after
years of sustained economic growth and the staging of the Olympic
Games in Tokyo. The floating of the yen against the dollar in 1973 also
enabled the first post-war boom in overseas travel, although Japanese
tourists initially flocked mainly to places like New York, London, Paris
and Hawaii. While commercial shipping was already booming, sea gate-
ways to the Asian continent such as Hakata and Nagasaki were largely
bypassed in the new age of jet travel. Besides any political considera-
tions, lands in Asia were still often overlooked as leisure destinations,
255
partly through a lack of infrastructure to support demand, and partly

through the lack of awareness to create it.
In recent years, however, there has been a significant revival in chan-
nels of communication across the Tsushima Straits and the East China
Sea. For Kyushu in particular, this has had an increasing impact on com-
merce, culture and tourism. To a large extent it has been fostered by the
ongoing diplomatic rapprochement with mainland China and South
Korea. Geopolitical forces have also contributed as the ramifications of
the oil shocks in the 1970s, for example, have prompted a more broadly
based diplomatic outlook than reliance on the so-called San Francisco
System alone. On a cultural level, the emphasis that has since been
placed on ‘internationalization’ as a result has led to an influx of
students and workers from regions around the globe.
Now in the twenty-first century, many Japanese cities boast an often
small but diverse profile of foreign residents. There was a sharp rise in
the number of immigrants in the 1980s, attracted by the high yen and
the prospect of better wages. Away from the cities, there has also been
a less conspicuous but steady influx of imported brides from various
countries including the Philippines and Sri Lanka. This reflects the
acute problem of rural depopulation and the plight of Japanese farmers
who have been unable to find partners to share their agricultural
lifestyle in the countryside. Whether in the town or the country, the
current wave of cultural hybridization is becoming an increasingly rec-
ognized feature of daily life in Japan today.32
In Kyushu, such an influx of foreign migrants is nothing new since,
in cities like Kitakyushu, for example, there are substantial communi-
ties of Korean residents now in their third or fourth generation, whose
forbears arrived as labourers during the colonial era. In coastal areas
around Fukuoka, Kagoshima and Nagasaki, untold numbers of people
also have some Korean, Chinese and even European ancestry dating
back to earlier contacts in the now distant past. A noticeable feature of
the influx of foreign residents in Kyushu over the last decade, however,
has been the relatively high proportion of Korean and Chinese stu-
dents. Until the late 1980s the high yen made Japanese universities pro-
hibitively expensive, but due in part to Kyushu’s geographic proximity,
growing numbers of first Korean and, more recently, Chinese students
have since arrived. At the same time the sharp decline in the birth rate
in Japan has raised question marks over the future of universities
256
throughout the country, many of which were built in the 1960s to cater
for the baby boom generation. Overseas students, predominantly from
continental Asia, therefore, are increasingly welcomed as part of a long-
term survival strategy. An innovative example is the Ritsumeikan Asia
Pacific University in Beppu, where nearly 40 per cent of the student
body are from overseas.33 In some respects this trend is a revival as well
as a new departure, since it recalls the early years of the twentieth
century when there were as many as 20,000 Chinese students studying
in Japan.34
Besides students and labour migrants, there has recently been a strik-
ing increase in the number of Korean and Chinese tourists. This is
reflected in the fact that road signs on motorways in many parts of
Kyushu are now presented not only in Japanese characters together
with Roman letters, but often in Korean and Chinese as well. Landmark
events held in Fukuoka have contributed, notably Yokatopia, the Asian
Pacific Expo in 1989, which inspired the construction of Fukuoka
Tower on the seafront, at 400 feet high a building often cited as the new
symbol of the city today. In 1993, the World Student Games were also
held there, and the World Cup football tournament held jointly by
Japan and Korea in 2002 prompted a rise in the numbers of tourists
heading in both directions across the Tsushima Straits. Many of these
travellers take the hydrofoil ‘Beetle’ service that has operated between
Fukuoka and Pusan since 1991, crossing the straits in less than three
hours.
This reopening of channels of communication with the Korean
peninsula and mainland China has helped to foster a reawakening to
‘Asia’ in a broader sense. It was in the 1990s that the volume of air traffic
over the Pacific Ocean exceeded that over the Atlantic Ocean for the
first time. China’s recent prodigious growth has also prompted wide-
spread predictions of a ‘Pacific century’, with the Asia Pacific region
emerging as the centre of the world economy. Seen from a Kyushu per-
spective, however, the last few years have been a case of looking not so
much across the Pacific, but rediscovering longstanding links with the
Asian continent. In recent decades, for example, the volume of shipping
between Kyushu and the continent has increased dramatically, especially
following the liberalization of the Chinese economy since the 1980s.
Growing prosperity and new markets in both China and Korea have
also encouraged the business community in Kyushu to focus on the
257
island’s strategic position in the centre of East Asia rather than at the
edge of Japan. In promotional literature on the city’s advantages as a
conference centre, for example, Fukuoka often boasts of a location
almost equidistant between Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul. In fact, Seoul
is marginally the nearest of the three. It is within this context that the
municipal and prefectural authorities in Fukuoka have drawn on the
city’s long heritage as an international port (albeit under the name of
Hakata) to promote its unique position as ‘Japan’s Gateway to Asia’.35
Any inherent implication this may have that Japan and its inhabitants
are somehow not part of Asia perhaps recalls Fukuzawa Yukichi’s
famous call to ‘leave Asia’ (datsu-A) in 1885, and the justifications this
allowed for then ‘returning’ to impose colonial rule. The idea of a
‘Gateway to Asia’ today can certainly be seen in the context of a second
‘return’. Unlike the experience of the early twentieth century, however,
it is essentially a reaction to a post-war era dominated by the barriers to
cultural contact imposed by Japan’s strategic role in the Cold War.
Seen in this light, it is worth noting that much of the discussion con-
cerning Japanese character and identity that developed during the post-
war era was framed in a cultural environment with an unusually high
degree of isolation from the Asian continent. The Nihonjinron discourse
of self-interpretation, for example, includes a marked emphasis on
what is often seen as the unique and culturally homogenous qualities
of the Japanese people. In some respects this drew inspiration from
the renewed confidence that accompanied Japan’s revival and emer-
gence as an economic superpower by the 1980s. At the same time, it
described a society heavily dependent on the economic infrastructure
imposed during the Allied Occupation and for several years placed in
a state of near seclusion from neighbouring states. It would seem now
that these almost laboratory conditions were perhaps more of a tran-
sient interlude before the onset of cultural reintegration with the Asian
continent.
Nevertheless, on a strategic level the coasts of Kyushu still remain
something of a frontier zone. In contrast to Europe where the Cold War
ended dramatically with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the East China
Sea today continues to be a highly sensitive region, heavily patrolled by
security vessels. The rise of Chinese military power has also served to
heighten tensions over disputed waters, an issue exacerbated by renewed
prospects of securing access to potential reserves of oil. Even as com-
258
mercial and cultural channels of communication rapidly expand, there-

fore, political fracture lines still remain never far beneath the surface.
Today, Kyushu has a population of thirteen million, and the island’s
economy accounts for about 10 per cent of Japan’s gross domestic
product. The emphasis has shifted considerably away from the steel,
shipbuilding and chemical industries that once dominated during the
era of high-speed growth. To a large extent these have been replaced by
a wide range of tertiary industries. Also prominent are the Toyota and
Nissan automobile factories, while the presence of Bridgestone in
Kurame has made the company’s owners, the Ishibashi family, the city’s
most prominent sponsor of culture and the arts. The semiconductor
industry, meanwhile, grew so rapidly in the last years of the twentieth
century that by 1997 it accounted for 10 per cent of the world’s pro-
duction of integrated circuits.36 Symptomatic of this transition has been
the redevelopment of facilities more commonly associated with the age
of heavy industry. Where the Yawata Steelworks and Miike coal mine
once employed large work-forces, now there are theme parks called
‘Space World’ and ‘Mitsui Greenland’, built in an effort to absorb some
of the shock of large-scale redundancies. The rapid growth of the
leisure industry is also reflected in the new resorts built in the 1980s and
1990s, often with a focus on the exotic appeal of foreign climes. Besides
Huis ten Bosch, the Dutch village near Nagasaki, a notable case is the
ambitious Seagaia complex on the Miyazaki coast which – equipped
with a man-made beach and wave machine inside a retractable dome –
ensures climatically controlled summer weather all year round.
Kyushu now seems to be taking on many of the features of a post-
industrial society. Fukuoka, in particular, continues to grow into a
prosperous regional capital, but everywhere the effects of rapid urban-
ization, rural depopulation and the emergence of an affluent workforce
have resulted in significant shifts in outlook. Increasingly, urban
dwellers have fostered aspirations to rediscover some imagined lost
origins away from their city environment. In the 1980s, for example,
extensive parks of log-cabins were developed in various locations in the
highlands of central Kyushu. These have become popular as weekend
homes in the country for city workers missing the fresh air or rural tran-
quillity they either remember from childhood or hope to find there.
Such a desire to rediscover a notional ‘home village’ (furusato) has
become a powerful force in the regeneration of depopulated rural areas,
259
often through the development of tourism and leisure facilities.37 It has

also been galvanized by the ‘one village one product’ (isson ippin) move-
ment, a programme for regional development first inaugurated in Ōita
Prefecture by the governor Hiramatsu Morihiko in 1979.
Also indicative of a post-industrial society in Kyushu is the relatively
high level of environmental awareness that has emerged in recent years.
A notable success, for example, has been the transformation of
Kitakyushu from a once polluted industrial city perpetually shrouded in
smog into a metropolis of cleaner air and green belts. A disadvantage of
this greener image has been a falling population that frequently threat-
ens to drop below the one million mark. Unfortunately, this jeopardizes
the municipal authorities’ entitlement to the support from the central
government that is reserved for Japan’s larger urban areas.
To a large extent the metamorphosis of Kitakyushu in the late twen-
tieth century also reflects changing economic priorities with the con-
traction of the steel industry and the closure of the nearby Chikuhō coal
mines. At their height in 1957, there were as many as 400,000 coal
miners throughout Japan, but faced with the challenge of cheaper
petroleum and subsequent environmental concerns, five in six of them
had been laid off by 1972. Forced redundancies caused severe social dis-
location, as miners were given practically no support and there was
often little prospect of alternative employment in the surrounding area.
Both in Kyushu and Hokkaido there were a number of strikes, but the
most antagonistic of all was launched by workers at the Miike coal mine,
who in 1959 took their campaign to Tokyo and protested in front of the
Diet building and the prime minister’s residence. Although it failed to
prevent the steady stream of redundancies – their numbers halved over
the next five years – they did raise awareness of the plight of the miners
and the urgency of the social problems their communities faced.38
During the high-speed economic growth of the 1960s, meanwhile,
the environmental consequences of industrial expansion and urbaniza-
tion had been largely overlooked. Besides the extreme cases of pollu-
tion such as mercury poisoning in Minamata, some construction
projects and land reclamation schemes did provoke civilian protest at a
local level, but the balance of power was always weighted heavily in
favour of large corporations. The construction industry still exerts
immense influence over local authorities, but environmental protection
groups have now grown significantly in stature as well. Schemes that
260
have recently been the target of orchestrated protests include the giant
sluice gates in the Ariake Sea, and current plans to develop an ‘Island
City’ in the southeast corner of Hakata Bay, threatening the habitat of
rare birds that live in the marshes along the coast.
The impact of information technology and ever-increasing access
to ‘borderless’ communication in recent years has also helped to
promote the development of these civilian networks. In addition to
concerns over the natural environment, interest in conservation is
becoming reflected in the emergence of a heritage industry. Whereas
buildings of historical importance were liable to be destroyed with little
thought in the immediate post-war era, there is now growing awareness
of the need to preserve local sites of cultural value. Municipal and
prefectural authorities have devoted considerable resources to the
construction of impressive new museum facilities. Striking examples
include the Reimeikan (Museum of Awakening) within the castle walls
in Kagoshima City, and the recently built Nagasaki Museum of History
and Culture, in part a reconstruction of the magistrate’s office (Bugyō-
sho) that once stood on this site in the Tokugawa era. In keeping with
the times, this was opened in October 2005 as one of the few museums
in Japan – according to the promotional literature – organized around
a theme of ‘overseas exchange’.39
This more outward-looking theme and focus on shared heritage has
also been the inspiration behind some high-profile developments in the
arts. The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum which opened in 1999, for
example, houses the largest collection of contemporary Asian art in the
world. It is no coincidence that this was established one hundred years
after Okakura Tenshin first called for a museum in Kyushu on a par
with Tokyo, Nara and Kyoto. Okakura’s vision itself was finally realized
in October 2005 with the opening of the new Kyushu National
Museum in Dazaifu, with its expansive message of embracing ‘the per-
spective of Asian history’ in ‘the formation of Japanese culture’.
Perhaps this does signal a more reflective approach in these early years
of the twenty-first century. At the same time it is part of an ongoing cul-
tural dialogue that, in and around these gateways of Kyushu at least, has
never been far from view.
261
POSTSCRIPT
n June 2008, after finishing the manuscript for this book, I travelled
I to Japan on a whistle-stop tour of Kyushu. It was the rainy season,
hence the dark skies in some of the photographs in the plate section. As
I took local trains from one place to the next, it came as something of
a relief to find that many of the scenes I have described here remain
much as I had remembered them. After writing a history that
encroaches on the present day, however, I could hardly expect not to
come across the odd change since the last time I had passed this way.
This tour of reflection also allowed me to see how features in the land-
scape can shift as time and society move on. Rather than draw up a list
of errata as such, I decided to point out here, by way of an update, some
of the details that caught my eye.
Perhaps the most dramatic change I found was the sight of the new
bullet train tracks now under construction along the Kagoshima
Trunk Line. In an island where the mountainous terrain has always
made communications difficult, this new line running the length of
Kyushu will have a major impact when it opens in 2010. Sadly,
however, the privately-run little railway from Nobeoka to Takachiho
that I describe in Chapter 1 is no longer in operation. It was forced to
close down after suffering severe damage when Typhoon No. 14
ripped through the Miyazaki countryside on 6 September 2005. A few
months later the prohibitive cost of repair work convinced the pre-
fectural and local authorities to close the line permanently. The
Takachiho community and local businesses have since been cam-
paigning to save their railway. As of April 2008 these efforts are being
coordinated by the newly-created Takachiho Amaterasu Railway
262
Postsscript
Company, and there are hopes to reopen a section of the track in the
not too distant future.
In Chapter 2 I describe the Yayoi settlement at Yoshinogari, but what
I remember as an archaeological site with scattered examples of recon-
structed buildings has now expanded to encompass dozens of wooden
huts, storehouses, watchtowers and palisades spread over a large area.
In nearby Saga City, meanwhile, the banners that I describe as protest-
ing against imports of cheap foreign rice have now disappeared. These
were an abiding memory of the bus journeys I used to take from Saga
Station to the prefectural library. At the time, considerable efforts were
being made to open up Japan’s once notoriously protectionist agricul-
tural markets; long-term residents may recall the initial furore over
importing Californian oranges, Australian beef and Thai rice. Today,
advertisements still encourage consumers to buy food ‘made in Japan’,
but outwardly at least this no longer appears to be the burning issue that
once dominated headlines in the last two decades of the twentieth
century.
Another roadside landmark I refer to in Chapter 2 is the sign wel-
coming drivers to the ‘home of Himiko’ as they cross the bridge over
the Yabe River in the small hot spring town of Funagoya. On my return
there, I was impressed at first by how clean and smart the bridge was
looking – I remembered a rusting iron structure with fading red paint.
On closer inspection it transpired that the old bridge had been torn
down in 2002 and replaced by a new one, also painted red. The weath-
ered sign of Himiko I once knew had disappeared in the process.
Nevertheless, as the photograph taken on the platform of Setaka
Station shows, images of this ancient queen are still a feature of the area.
Similarly, in Chapter 8 I point out a colourful float portraying
Takahashi Joun, the general who heroically defended Iwaya Castle in
1586, which I remember seeing in the bullet train foyer of Hakata Station
each time I passed by. Today the float has gone, as this concourse has
been closed off and is undergoing renovation. When I returned there on
1 July, another float was being unveiled to an admiring crowd in front of
the station. It marked the start of the countdown for the Gion Yamakasa
festival in which, in the early hours of 15 July, this and other towering
floats would be carried through the streets by rival teams of bearers.
Notices were giving details of special trains to be laid on during the night
to allow people in surrounding areas to travel in and watch.
263
In Chapter 9 I also mention that the keep of Saga Castle had become
the largest reconstructed wooden castle building in Japan when it was
completed in 2004. This has now been surpassed by the new Honmaru
Palace next to the keep of Kumamoto Castle, which opened in April
2008. Built at a cost of 5,400 million yen, the Kumamoto municipal
authorities provided around 60 per cent of the funding, although the
state has also helped, and around 1,000 million yen has been received
in private donations. In the grounds of Fukuoka Castle, meanwhile,
archaeological work continues on the remains of the Tsukushi Lodge
(Kōrokan) that once stood there in Nara and Heian times. When this is
finished at last, perhaps in ten years’ time, there are plans for the area to
take on a new lease of life as the ‘Fukuoka Castle-Kōrokan Park’. Like
other ongoing projects to preserve and represent symbols of local her-
itage, it looks set to continue for some time yet.
264
APPENDIX
Major domains in Kyushu circa 1850

Domains with revenue less than 20,000 koku not shown
Location Revenue
Crest Family name Castle town Type
(province) (koku)
Satsuma
Shimazu Kagoshima tozama 770,000
Ōsumi
Hosokawa Kumamoto Higo tozama 540,000
Kuroda Fukuoka Chikuzen tozama 520,000
Nabeshima Saga Hizen tozama 357,000
Arima Kurume Chikugo tozama 210,000
Ogasawara Kokura Buzen fudai 150,000
Tachibana Yanagawa Chikugo tozama 119,600
Okudaira Nakatsu Buzen fudai 100,000
Nabeshima Ogi Hizen tozama 73,000
Oka
Nakagawa Bungo tozama 70,400
(Taketa)
265
Location Revenue
Crest Family name Castle town Type
(province) (koku)
Matsudaira Shimabara Hizen fudai 70,000
Hyūga*
Naitō Nobeoka fudai 70,000
Bungo
Matsura Hirado Hizen tozama 60,170
Hizen
Ogasawara Karatsu fudai 60,000
Chikuzen
Nabeshima Hasuike Hizen tozama 52,000
Itō Obi Hyūga tozama 51,000
Inaba Usuki Bungo tozama 50,000
Kuroda Akizuki Chikuzen tozama 50,000
Hosokawa Tamana Higo tozama 35,000
Matsudaira Kitsuki Bungo fudai 32,000
Akizuki Takanabe Hyūga tozama 27,000
Ōmura Ōmura Hizen tozama 27,000
Shimazu Sadowara Hyūga tozama 27,000
Kinoshita Hiji Bungo tozama 25,000
Sagara Hitoyoshi Higo tozama 22,000
Matsudaira Funai (Ōita) Bungo fudai 21,000
Mōri Saiki Bungo tozama 20,000
Nabeshima Kashima Hizen tozama 20,000
* Includes enclave northwest of Miyazaki City
266
NOTES
Introduction:
1. The term ‘national museum’ here refers to ‘Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan’ pre-
ceded by its location. Kyushu National Museum (Kyūshū Kokuritsu
Hakubutsukan) is thus the fourth such museum following the opening of
its counterparts in Tokyo (1872), Nara (1889) and Kyoto (1897). It falls
into a different category from subject-specific ‘national’ museums where
no location is specified. The National Museum of Science (Kokuritsu
Kagaku Hakubutsukan) was founded in 1877 on a site in Ueno Park adja-
cent to Tokyo National Museum. The National Museum of Art
(Kokuritsu Kokusai Bijutsu Hakubutsukan) and the National Museum of
Ethnology (Kokuritsu Minzoku Hakubutsukan) both opened in Osaka in
1977 in the aftermath of the 1970 Expo there. The National Museum of
Japanese History (Kokuritsu Rekishi Minzoku Hakubutsukan) opened in
Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture, in 1983.
2. Karoku Miwa (director), Kyushu National Museum, Museum Guide.
3. Gavan McCormack, ‘Kokusaika: impediments in Japan’s deep structure’
in Donald Denoon et al. (eds), Multicultural Japan: paleolithic to postmodern
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 274.
4. Toyama Mikio, Chūsei no Kyūshū [Medieval Kyushu] (Tokyo: Kyōikusha,
1979), pp. 13–16.
5. This conceptualization of maritime spheres is reflected in Joan Piggott, The
Emergence of Japanese Kingship (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997),
pp. 2, 18. See also Gina Barnes, Protohistoric Yamato: the archaeology of the first
Japanese state (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1988), p. 3. The concept
of two distinct Western Seto and Eastern Seto cultural spheres was first
developed in the early twentieth century by Naka Michiyo and Watsuji
Tetsurō. Inoue Mitsusada, Nihon no Rekishi, I: Shinwa kara rekishi e [Japanese
History, vol.1: from myth to history] (Tokyo: Chūōkōronsha, 1965),
pp. 258–9. Murai Shōsuke identifies a ‘Pan East China Sea Region’ in the
267
medieval era. Murai Shōsuke, Chūsei Wajinden [Medieval Account of the

people of Wa] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1993), p. 39. Ōbayashi Taryō pre-
sents categories described by Shimono Toshimi as the ‘East China Sea
Culture Sphere’ and the ‘Yamato Culture Sphere’ in Ōbayashi Taryō,
Higashi to Nishi, Umi to Yama: Nihon no bunka ryōiki [East and West, Sea and
Mountain: Japan’s cultural regions] (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1990), p. 55.
6. Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai, Manyōshū: one thousand poems (Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten, 1940), p. 122.
7. Helen Craig McCullough, The Tale of Heike (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1988), p. 110. Another medieval text identifies a land located in the
sea between Japan and China where ‘fifty thousand little demons (ko-oni)
live’. The fear of shipwreck and being left at the mercy of unknown
islanders clearly had a powerful effect on the author’s imagination. The
accompanying images of creatures with horns and bulging eyes recall
Maurice Sendak’s illustrations in Where the Wild Things Are (first published
in 1963). Murai Shōsuke, Ajia no Naka no Chūsei Nihon [Medieval Japan
within Asia] (Tokyo: Kōsō Shobō, 1988), pp. 46, 55.
8. Murai Shōsuke, Chūsei Wajinden, (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1993), p. 39.
9. Kawazoe Shōji and Seno Seiichirō, Kyūshū no Fūdo to Rekishi [Cultural
Environment and History of Kyushu] (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha,
1977), p. 347.
10. Tessa Morris-Suzuki, ‘A Descent into the Past: the frontier in the construc-
tion of Japanese identity’ in Denoon et al. (eds), Multicultural Japan, p. 92.
11. Gaynor MacDonald, ‘The Politics of Diversity in the Nation-State’ in John
C. Maher and Gaynor MacDonald (eds), Diversity in Japanese Culture and
Language (London: Kegan Paul International, 1995), pp. 291–2.
12. Makiko Hanami, ‘Minority Dynamics in Japan: towards a dynamics of
sharing’ in Maher and MacDonald (eds), Diversity in Japanese Culture and
Language, p. 121.
13. On the idea of Japan as a monoethnic society being a post-war construct,
the political scientist Kamishima Jirō has written, ‘In pre-war Japan, every-
one said that Yamato people are hybrid people . . . But, rather strangely,
in the post-war period, beginning with progressive intellectuals, people
began to say that Japan is monoethnic. There is no basis for this.’ John Lie,
Multiethnic Japan (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2001),
pp. 134, 137.
14. Paul Claval, An Introduction to Regional Geography (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers, 1998), p. 155.
15. Kawazoe and Seno, Kyūshū no Fūdo to Rekishi, p. 38.
16. Lie, Multiethnic Japan, p. 178.
17. Examples of Kyushu-centred collaborative projects in the 1970s include
Ōkubo Toshiaki (ed.), Meiji Ishin to Kyūshū [The Meiji Restoration and
Kyushu] (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1973), Yanai Kenji (ed.), Gairai Bunka to
268
Notes
Kyūshū [Imported Culture and Kyushu] (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1973),

Sugimoto Isao (ed.) Kyūshū Tenryō no Kenkyū: Hita o chūshin toshite [Research
on Tokugawa ‘Heavenly Territory’ in Kyushu: focus on Hita] (Tokyo:
Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1976).
18. Hidemura Senzō, ‘Sōkan no Ji’ (Inaugural Volume Foreword), Seinan
Chiiki-shi Kenkyū [Southwest Regional History Research], vol.1, May
1977, p. 1.
19. Bruce Batten, To the Ends of Japan: premodern boundaries, frontiers and interac-
tions (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press: 2004), p. 4.
20. Lie, Multiethnic Japan, p. 51.
21. Claval, Regional Geography, p. 146.
22. Ōbayashi Taryō, Higashi to Nishi, Umi to Yama, pp. 55, 243.
tions (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press: 2004), pp. 70–1.
24. Kagoshima Junshin Daigaku Kokusai Bunka Kenkyū Centre (ed.), Shin-
Satsuma-gaku: sekai no naka no Satsuma [New Satsuma Studies: Satsuma in
the world] (Kagoshima: Nanpō Shinsha, 2002), pp. 3, 240.
25. Lane R. Earns and Brian Burke-Gaffney (eds.), Crossroads: a journal of
Nagasaki history and culture, No. 1, Summer 1993 (Showado Printing Co.,
Nagasaki).
26. See, for example, Andrew Cobbing, ‘The Nagasaki Information War of
1863’, Kyushu University International Student Centre Bulletin, no.14, 2002,
pp. 58–68.
27. A palimpsest is a metaphor for the process of landscape change. The term
derives from a medieval tablet that could be used on multiple occasions,
although residual traces of earlier scripts were never completely erased.
Mike Crang, Cultural Geography (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 22–3.
Chapter One: Takachiho: The Floating Bridge of Heaven

1. The title of tennō, often translated as ‘emperor’, seems to have come into
use from the late seventh century after the reign of Tenmu. ‘Great King’
(Ōkimi) is therefore a more appropriate title for Tenmu himself. In the
Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, all previous rulers as far back as Jinmu, whether
imagined or real, were retrospectively ascribed the title of tennō.
2. John Bentley argues that the Sendai Kuji Hongi, although derivative in nature
and later edited, was being compiled in the early Nara court at about the
same time as the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. John Bentley, The Authenticity of
Sendai Kuji Hongi: a new examination of texts, with a translation and commentary
(Boston: Brill, 2006), pp. 80–1.
3. John S. Brownlee, Japanese Historians and the National Myths, 1600–1945: the
age of the gods and Emperor Jinmu (Vancouver: University of British Columbia
Press, 1997), p. 5.
269
4. Umehara Takeshi, Tennō-ke no Furusato: Hyūga o yuku [Homeland of the

Imperial Family: journey to Hyūga] (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2000), p. 7.
5. Michiko Y. Aoki, ‘Empress Jingū: the shamaness ruler’ in Chieko Irie
Mulhern (ed.), Heroic with Grace: legendary women of Japan (Armonk NY: M.E.
Sharpe, 1991), p. 23.
6. Susan L. Burns, Before the Nation: kokugaku and the imagining of community in
early modern Japan (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 6.
7. Ibid., pp. 6–7.
8. Address by Japanese Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro to the Council of the
Shinto Political Federation of Diet Members. 15 May 2000.
9. Umehara, Tennō-ke no Furusato, p. 16.
10. Inoue Mitsusada, Nihon no Rekishi, vol. 1: shinwa kara rekishi e [History of
Japan, vol.1: from myth to history] (Tokyo: Chūōkōronsha, 1965), p. 31.
11. Alexander Vannovsky, Volcanoes and the Sun: a new concept of the mythology of
the Kojiki (Tokyo and Rutland VM: Bridgeway Press 1960).
12. Charles Holcombe, The Genesis of East Asia (Honolulu: University of
Hawai‘i Press, 2001), p. 184.
13. Ibid., p. 185.
14. Hanihara Kazurō has estimated that as many as a million migrants may
have settled in the Japanese islands during the Yayoi and subsequent
Kofun periods between 500 BCE and 700 CE, although others place the
figure much lower. Gavan MacCormack, ‘Introduction’ in Donald
Denoon et al. (eds), Multicultural Japan: from the paleolithic to the postmodern
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 4. See Hanihara
Kazurō, ‘Estimation of the Number of Early Migrants to Japan: a simula-
tive study’ in Journal of the Anthropological Society of Nippon, no.95, 1987,
pp. 391–403.
15. John C. Maher, ‘North Kyushu Creole: a language-contact model for the
origins of Japanese’ in Denoon et al., Multicultural Japan, pp. 31, 40.
16. Holcombe, The Genesis of East Asia, p. 184.
17. Hidaka Masaharu, Saitobaru Kodai Bunka o Saguru [In Search of the Ancient
Culture of Saitobaru] (Miyazaki: Kōmyakusha, 2003), pp. 176–7, 195.
18. Basil Hall Chamberlain (trans.), The Kojiki: records of ancient matters (Tokyo:
Charles E. Tuttle, 1981), pp. 138–9. According to one of several versions
presented in the Nihon Shoki, ‘this is the reason why the life of man is so
short’. W.G. Aston (trans.), Nihongi: chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to
A.D.697, vol. I (Rutland VM and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1972),
p. 85.
19. J.G. Frazer, The Belief in Immortality (London: MacMillan & Co., 1913),
pp. 74–5.
20. Inoue, Nihon no Rekishi, I, pp. 98, 105.
22. Inoue, Nihon no Rekishi, I, p. 107.
270
Notes
23. Chamberlain, The Kojiki, p. 142.

24. Aston, Nihongi, I, p. 100.
25. Wontack Hong, Paekche of Korea and the Origin of Yamato Japan (Seoul:
Kudara International, 1994), p. 101.
26. Ibid., p. 126.
27. Aoki, ‘Empress Jingū’, pp. 24–5.
28. Inoue, Nihon no Rekishi, I, p. 253. See also David J. Lu, Japan: a documentary
history, vol.1 (Armonk. NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), p. 9.
29. Chamberlain, The Kojiki, pp. 44–5. Aston, Nihongi, p. 69–70.
31. In Chamberlain’s translation the Odo district of Awakihara is presented as
‘a plain [covered with] ahagi [bushclover], at a small river mouth near
Tachibana in Himuka [archaic name for Hyūga] in [the island of] Tsukushi
[archaic name for Kyushu].’ Chamberlain, The Kojiki, pp. 46–7. In the
Nihon Shoki this appears as ‘the plain of Ahagi at Tachibana in Wodo in
Hiuga of Tsukushi.’ Aston, Nihongi, I, pp. 26–7.
33. Furuta Takehiko, Kyūshū Ōchō no Rekishi-gaku [Historical Study on the
Kyushu Realm] (Tokyo: Shinshindō, 1991), pp. 109–10.
34. Ibid., p. 50.
35. Ibid., pp. 46–7, 95.
36. Ibid., p. 43.
37. Sarutahiko and Ame no Uzume are the main deities revered at the Aratate
Shrine in Takachiho Town. Ibid., p. 43.
38. Mark J. Hudson, ‘Tales Told in a Dream’ in Michael Weiner (ed.), Race,
Ethnicity and Migration in Modern Japan (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 123.
39. Mizoguchi Koji, An Archaeological History of Japan, 30,000 B.C. to A.D. 700
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), p. 7.
41. Ibid., pp. 19, 158.
42. Chamberlain, The Kojiki, p. 134. Aston, Nihongi, p. 78.
44. Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2005),
p. 137.
45. Inoue, Nihon no Rekisihi, I, p. 88.
46. Hong, Paekche of Korea, pp. 99–100.
47. The Sendai Kuji Hongi goes further than the Chronicles’ description of Nigi
Hayahi’s descent and an alternative ‘heavenly line’ by asserting that he was
Ninigi’s older brother. Bentley, The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi, p. 74.
Aston, Nihongi, I, pp. 127–8.
48. Umehara, Tennō-ke no Furusato, pp. 188, 202.
49. John Bentley suggests that one reason the Sendai Kuji Hongi may have been
suppressed by the early Nara court was because it implied a strong Silla
271
blood connection with the imperial family, thus ‘melding continental

blood with the children of the sun lineage’. If such editorial licence did
exist, it is even more surprising that the Hyūga myth was allowed to survive
in the form it appears, since it clearly links the imperial line with the ‘bar-
barian Hayato’ (cf. civilized Silla). Given this anomaly, any desire to elim-
inate links with Silla may have been driven not so much by questions of
lineage so much as the political sensibilities of the Paekche court in exile.
Bentley, The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hong, p. 79
50. Hong, Paekche of Korea, p. 78.
52. Seki Yūji, Kodaishi no Shuyaku [Lead Roles in Ancient History] (Tokyo:
Jitsugyō no Nihonsha, 2005), p. 114
53. Hudson, ‘Tales Told in a Dream’, pp. 120–1.
54. ‘Tradition says that the first emperor of Ch’in sent a Taoist, Hsü Fu, at the
head of many thousand young boys and girls in quest of the immortals of
P’êng-lai [off coast of Shandong peninsula], but without success. Being
afraid of the death sentence, Hsü Fu did not dare return home, but settled
on an island. Generation followed generation, and there are now tens of
thousands of families there.’ ‘History of the Latter Han Dynasty’ in
Ryūsaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese
Dynastic Histories (South Pasadena: P.D. & Ione Perkins, 1951), p. 3.
55. Umehara, Tennō-ke no Furusato, pp. 34–5, 189.
56. Ibid., p. 62.
59. Hidaka, Saitobaru Kodai Bunka, p. 244.
60. A candidate for the role of King of Hyūga and occupant of this largest
tomb at Saitobaru is Toyo-kuni-wake. According to the Chronicles, ‘King’
or ‘Prince’ Toyo-kuni-wake was ‘the ancestor of the Rulers of the Land of
Himuka’ and ‘the first ancestor of the Miyakko of the Land of Hiuga’.
Chamberlain, The Kojiki, pp. 245, 247. Aston, Nihongi, I, p. 196. Hidaka,
Saitobaru Kodai Bunka, pp. 245–6.
61. Chamberlain, The Kojiki, p. 152. Aston, Nihongi, I, p. 52.
62. Umehara, Tennō-ke no Furusato, pp. 181, 184–5.
64. Ibid.
65. Hidaka, Saitobaru Kodai Bunka, pp. 232–4. Seki, Kodai-shi no Shuyaku, p. 124.
67. Gina Barnes, ‘Miwa Occupation in Wider Perspective’ in Gina L. Barnes
and M. Okita (eds), The Miwa Project Report: survey, coring and excavation at the
Miwa site (Oxford: Tempvs Repartvm, 1993), pp. 181–92. Cited in Mark
Hudson, Ruins of Identity: ethnogenesis in the Japanese islands (Honolulu:
University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999), p. 133.
272
Notes
Chapter Two: Himiko’s Lands: Gateway to Wa

1. Penelope Francks, Technology and Agricultural Development in Pre-war Japan
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), pp. 100–103.
2. Gina Barnes, The Rise of Civilization in East Asia: the archaeology of China, Korea
and Japan (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999), pp. 220–1.
3. Inoue Mitsusada, Nihon no Rekishi, vol. I: shinwa kara rekishi e [History
of Japan, vol.1: from myth to history] (Tokyo: Chūōkōronsha, 1965),
p. 173.
4. Barnes, The Rise of Civilization in East Asia, p. 219
5. Furuta Takehiko, Yamatai-koku wa Nakatta [Yamatai Did Not Exist]
(Tokyo: Asahi Bunko, 1993), p. 289. See also Heyerdahl, Thor, Kon-Tiki
(London: Rand McNally, 1950).
6. Hirano Kunio, Yamatai-koku no Genshō [The Phenomenon of the Yamatai
State] (Tokyo, Gakuseisha, 2002), p. 143.
7. ‘History of the Latter Han Dynasty’ in Ryūsaku Tsunoda and
L. Carrington Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories: later
Han through Ming dynasties (South Pasadena: P.D. & Ione Perkins, 1951),
p. 2.
8. Takeno Yōko, Hakata: chōnin ga sodateta kokusai toshi, [Hakata: international
city fostered by townspeople] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2000), p. 4. Inoue,
Nihon no Rekishi, I, p. 172.
9. ‘History of the Latter Han Dynasty’ in Tsunoda and Goodrich (eds), Japan
in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 1.
10. John Young, ‘The Location of Yamatai: a case study in Japanese histori-
ography, 720–1945’ in The John Hopkins University Studies in Historical and
Political Science Series, LXXV, No.2, 1957, p. 104.
11. For details on this site see Barbara Seyock, ‘The Hirabaru Site and
Wajinden Research: notes on the archeology of the kings of Ito’, NOAG,
173–174, 2003, pp. 211–12.
12. William Wayne Farris, Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures: issues in the historical
archaeology of ancient Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998),
p. 37.
13. Kanaseki Hiroshi and Sahara Makoto, Yamatai-koku to Yoshinogari [The
Yamatai State and Yoshinogari] (Tokyo: Gakuseisha, 1997), p. 132.
14. On the theory that Na was destroyed by Yamatai see Yasumoto Biten, Na-
koku no Metsubō: Yamatai-koku ni horobasareta kin’in-koku [End of Na: the
gold seal state destroyed by Yamatai] (Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1990),
pp. 35–46.
15. The full text of the Wajinden appears in Chinese with Japanese translation
in Saeki Arikiyo, Yamatai-koku Ronsō [The Yamatai State Debate] (Tokyo:
Iwanami Shinsho, 2006), pp. 207–17. In English it appears in Tsunoda
and Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, pp. 8–16. Also
273
J. Edward Kidder Jr, Himiko and Japan’s Elusive Chiefdom of Yamatai

(Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007), pp. 12–18.
16. William Theodore de Bary, Donald Keene, George Tanabe, and Paul
Varley (eds), Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol.1 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2001), pp. 6–8. David Lu, Japan: a documentary history
(New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 11–17.
17. Farris, Sacred Texts, p. 13. Hirano, Yamatai-koku no Genshō, pp. 221–7.
18. Bruce Batten, Hakata: gateway to Japan (Honolulu: Hawai‘i University Press,
2004), p. 99
19. For a discussion on shamanism and the role of the miko see Carmen
Blacker, The Catalpa Bow: a study of shamanistic practices in Japan (Richmond:
Japan Library, 1999), p. 115.
20. Michiko Aoki, ‘Empress Jingū: the shamaness ruler’ in Chieko Irie
Mulhern (ed.), Heroic with Grace: legendary women of Japan (Armonk NY: M.E.
Sharpe, 1991), pp. 3–38.
21. W.G. Aston (trans.), Nihongi: chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to
A.D.697, vol. I (Rutland VM and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1972),
pp. 245–6.
22. Aoki, ‘Empress Jingū’, p. 17.
23. This interpretation still has some support today. See Seki Yūji, Yamatai-
koku no Nazo o Toku [Solving the Riddle of Yamatai] (Tokyo: PHP
Kenkyūsho, 2006), p. 90.
24. Young, ‘The Location of Yamatai’, pp. 97–100.
25. Ibid., p. 110.
26. In the late twentieth century the theory that Yamatai moved east from
Kyushu to Kinai won support from several scholars such as Inoue
Mitsusada, Mori Hiroichi and Yasumoto Biten. Inoue, Nihon no Rekishi, I,
p. 258. Yasumoto, Na-koku no Metsubō, pp. 214–16.
27. Hong, Paekche of Korea and the Origin of Yamato Japan, p. 249.
28. Kanaseki and Sahara, Yamatai-koku to Yoshinogari, p. 400.
29. Saeki Arikiyo, Yamatai-koku Ronsō [The Yamatai Debate] (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shinsho, 2006).
30. For summaries and criticism of Kobayashi’s theory on mirrors see Farris,
Sacred Texts, pp. 42–6. Kidder, Himiko and Yamatai, pp. 180–5.
31. Saeki, Yamatai-koku Ronsō, pp. 183, 187–8.
32. Ibid., pp. 188–9.
33. Hirano, Yamatai-koku no Genshō, pp. 165–8.
34. Farris, Sacred Treasures, p. 51.
35. Seki Yūji, Kodaishi no Shuyaku, [Lead Roles in Ancient History] (Tokyo:
Jitsugyō no Nihonsha, 2005), pp. 102–103.
36. Hong, Paekche of Korea and the Origin of Yamato Japan, p. 249.
37. Nishijima Sadao, Yamatai-koku to Wakoku, [Yamatai and Wa] (Tokyo:
Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1994), pp. 175, 185.
274
Notes
38. Kidder, Himiko and Yamatai, p. 238.

39. John C. Maher, ‘North Kyushu Creole: a language-contact model for the
origins of Japanese’ in Donald Denoon et al. (eds), Multicultural Japan:
Paleolithic to postmodern (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 41.
40. Keiji Imamura, Prehistoric Japan: new perspectives on insular East Asia (London:
UCL Press, 1996), p. 191.
41. My translation. Tsunoda’s translation reads: ‘Over one thousand li to the
east of the Queen’s land, there are more countries of the same race as the
people of Wa.’ ‘History of Wei’ in Tsunoda and Goodrich (eds), Japan in
the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 13. Kidder’s translation reads: ‘Across the
ocean more than one thousand li east of the queen’s domain are more
chiefdoms, all like the Wa.’ Kidder, Himiko and Yamatai, p. 16.
42. Hirano, Yamatai-koku no Genshō, pp. 216–36.
43. Seki, Yamatai-koku no Nazo o Toku, p. 22.
44. ‘New History of the Tang Dynasty’ in Tsunoda and Goodrich (eds), Japan
in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 38
45. Hirano, Yamatai-koku no Genshō, p. 238. ‘History of the Sui Dynasty’ in
Tsunoda and Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 32.
46. For an exhaustive list of places identified as possible sites of Yamatai see
Kidder, Himiko and Yamatai, pp. 232–3.
47. Inoue, Nihon no Rekishi, I, p. 230. In addition to the three sites in Setaka,
tombs also associated with Himiko can be found in Kurume (1), Kikusui
(1), Asakura (1), Sendai Kurume (1), all in Kyushu, and Nara (3) in Kinai.
Visual Nihon no Rekishi, [Visual Japanese History], no.82 (Tokyo: De
Agostini Japan, 2001), p. 79.
48. Kuroda Zenkō, Yamatai-koku Chikushi Kōiki Setsu, [Case for Locating
Yamatai in the Chikushi Basin] (Fukuoka: Ashi Shobō, 1994). Yasumoto
Biten has also linked Yamatai to Amagi. Kanaseki and Sahara, Yamatai-
koku to Yoshinogari, p. 129.
49. Ikuno Masayoshi and Furuta Takehiko locate Yamatai in the Itoshima
peninsula and Fukuoka respectively. Ikuno Masayoshi, Chen Shou ga
Shirushita Yamatai-koku, [The Yamata Recorded by Chen Shou] (Fukuoka:
Kaichōsha, 2001). Furuta, Yamatai-koku wa Nakatta, pp. 267–72. Okuno
Masao suggests that Himiko’s tomb is in the Itoshima peninsula. Okuno
Masao, Yamatai-koku wa Kodai Yamato Seifuku shita, [Yamatai Conquered
Ancient Yamato] (Tokyo: JICC Shuppan-kyoku, 1990), p. 32.
50. Aoki, ‘Empress Jingū’, pp.19, 21.
Chapter Three: Tsukushi: Isle of Unknown Fires

1. The date of this supposed Korean campaign is thought to be probably
spurious. Like the date selected for Jinmu’s accession, 537 was an auspi-
cious year in the Chinese zodiac. Inoue Mitsusada, Nihon no Rekishi, I:
275
shinwa kara rekishi e [History of Japan, vol.1: from myth to history] (Tokyo:
Chūōkōronsha, 1965), p. 481.
2. Michiko Aoki, Records of Wind and Earth: a translation of fudoki with introduction
and commentaries (Ann Arbor: Association of Asian Studies, 1997), p.
262.
3. David Lu, Japan: a documentary history, vol.1 (Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe,
1997), p. 45.
4. W.G Aston, (trans.), Nihongi: chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D.
697, vol. I (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1972), p. 198.
5. Aoki, Records of Wind and Earth, pp. 249–52.
6. Nintoku’s tomb is 1,594 feet long. The area at the base of the First
Emperor’s tomb near Xian measures 1,689 by 1,591 feet. The sides of the
Great Pyramid at Giza near Cairo are each approximately 755 feet long.
7. Gina Barnes, State Formation in Korea: historical and archaeological perspectives
(Richmond: Curzon, 2001), pp. 20–44.
8. Gina Barnes, Protohistoric Yamato: archaeology of the first Japanese state (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), p. 13. Aston, Nihongi, I,
pp. 220–1.
9. Basil Hall Chamberlain (trans.), The Kojiki: record of ancient matters (Tokyo:
Charles Tuttle, 1981), pp. 277–8.
10. This enclave cannot have been called Mimana Nihonfu at the time as this
was a later construct devised by the compilers of the Chronicles, since
‘Nihon’ did not come into usage until the seventh century. Wontack Hong,
Paekche of Korea and the Origin of Yamato Japan (Seoul: Kudara International,
1994), p. 217.
12. Jingū is also associated with maritime power, reflected in the fact that she
is revered at the Hakata Sumiyoshi Shrine together with three sea deities
who are themselves a common feature on this north Kyushu coastline.
Inoue, Nihon no Rekishi I, p. 351.
14. Inoue, Nihon no Rekishi I, pp. 375, 377.
16. Michiko Aoki, Ancient Myths and Early History of Japan: a cultural foundation
(New York: Exposition Press, 1974), p. 37.
17. Gina Barnes, Protohistoric Yamato (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1988), p. 13.
18. Although never excavated, in September 1872 a landslide at one end of
Nintoku’s tomb revealed some burial goods, examples of which are now
held by Boston Museum. Ibid., p. 389.
19. Hidaka Masaharu, Saitobaru Kodai Bunka o Saguru [In Search of the Ancient
Culture of Saitobaru] (Miyazaki: Kōmyakusha, 2003), p. 243.
20. Hong, Paekche of Korea, pp. 251–2.
276
Notes
21. Barnes, State Formation in Korea, pp. 20–1. Hong, Paekche of Korea, pp. 195–203.
22. See, for example, Yūryaku’s letter to the Liu Song dynasty. William
Theodore de Bary, Donald Keene, George Tanabe, and Paul Varley (eds),
Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol.1: from earliest times to 1600 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 9.
23. Inoue, Nihon no Rekishi, I, p. 409.
24. Hong, Paekche of Korea, pp. 116, 131–5, 159.
26. Inoue, Nihon no Rekishi, I, pp. 401–402.
27. Farris, Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures, p. 92.
1977), p. 59.
31. Farris, Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures, pp. 62–3.
32. Ryūsaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese
Dynastic Histories (South Pasadena: P.D. & Ione Perkins, 1951), p. 5.
William Wayne Farris, Heavenly Warriors: the evolution of Japan’s military,
500–1300 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 15–16.
33. Hong, Paekche of Korea, pp. 4, 67.
34. Ibid., pp. 64–5.
35. Yun Sokkyo, Kanegawa Susumu (trans.), Kaya to Wachi [Kaya and the Land
of Wa] (Tokyo: Shinsensha, 1993), p. 195.
36. Joan Piggott, The Emergence of Japanese Kingship (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1997), p. 41.
37. Ibid., pp. 53–4. In Okayama, for example, the popular children’s story
Momotarō is held to be based on the local legend of Kibitsuhiko.
38. Tsunoda and Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, pp. 32,
151.
39. Kawazoe and Seno, Kyūshū no Fūdo to Rekishi, pp. 22–3.
40. Hong, Paekche of Korea, p. 109 Aston, Nihongi, I, p. 353.
41. Tamura Enchō, Tsukushi no Kodai-shi [Ancient History of Tsukushi]
(Tokyo: Gakuseisha, 1991), I, p. 136.
42. Hong, Paekche of Korea, p. 108. Aston, Nihongi, I, p. 258.
43. Piggott, The Emergence of Japanese Kingship, p. 69. Inoue, Nihon no Rekishi, I,
p. 451.
44. Aston, Nihongi, II, p. 15.
45. Tamura, Tsukushi no Kodai-shi, pp. 141–2.
46. Ibid., pp. 124, 130–1.
47. Aston, Nihongi, II, p. 15. It has been suggested that the Iwai Rebellion
occurred a decade earlier than stated in the Chronicles. Piggott, The Emergence
of Japanese Kingship, p. 70.
277
48. Iwai’s grave was identified as the Iwatoyama burial mound in 1957, a rare
case of a kofun tomb where the identity of the individual interned is known.
Tamura, Tsukushi no Kodai-shi, p. 126.
49. Aoki, Records of Wind and Earth, p. 249.
50. Hong, Paekche of Korea, p. 112. Aston, Chronicles, II, p. 78.
51. On the question of which Wa power sent the embassy recorded by the Sui
court in 600, Furuta suggests this may have been an envoy from the
‘Kyushu realm’. There is also a theory that it was a special embassy from
Imna on the Korean peninsula although, even if this territory was ever
under Yamato control, it had already been overrun by Silla. Tsunoda and
Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 34.
52. My translation. Tsunoda’s translation reads: ‘There is a mountain [there]
called Mt Aso, the rocks of which, for no reason whatever, belch forth
fire. The people, astonished, offer up prayers and conduct religious
rites.’ Tsunoda and Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories,
pp. 31–2. Furuta Takehiko, Kyūshū Ōchō no Rekishi-gaku [Historical
Study on the Kyushu Realm] (Tokyo: Shinshindō Shuppan, 1991),
pp. 85, 89.
53. Gavan McCormack, ‘Kokusaika: impediments in Japan’s deep structure’ in
Donald Denoon et al. (eds), Multicultural Japan: paleolithic to postmodern
54. Ibid., pp. 103–105.
55. Critics of Furuta’s theory include Inoue Mitsusada, Enoki Kazuo and
Yamao Yukihisa. Furuta Takehiko, Yamatai-koku kara Kyūshū Ōchō e [From
the Yamatai State to the Kyushu Kingdom] (Tokyo: Shinsensha, 1987).
56. McCormack, ‘Kokusaika: impediments in Japan’s deep structure’, p. 267.
57. Aston, Nihongi, II, p. 35.
58. Tamura, Tsukushi no Kodai-shi, pp. 135, 139.
59. Bruce Batten, Hakata: Gateway to Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i
Press, 2005), p. 22.
61. Farris, Heavenly Warriors, pp. 54–5
63. Batten, Hakata, pp. 26, 31.
64. Ibid.
65. Nangō Village in Miyazaki Prefecture has even been called the ‘Shōsōin of
the West’, since seventeen of the three hundred Paekche bronze mirrors
found in Japan are held there. This theme has framed the development of
tourism in the area over the last twenty years as part of the ‘one village, one
product’ (isson, ippin) movement that became widespread in the 1980s. The
project has included the construction of cultural attractions such as
‘Kudara no Sato’ (Home of Paekche) and ‘Kudara no Yakata’ (Paekche
Hall).
278
Notes
66. Batten. Hakata, p. 31.

67. Ibid., pp. 24, 28.
Chapter Four: Dazaifu: The Distant Court

1. Robert Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane and the Early Heian Court (Honolulu:
University of Hawai‘i Press. 1994), pp. 308–10.
2. Ibid., pp. 290, 304.
3. W.G. Aston (trans.), Nihongi: chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to
A.D.697, vol. II (Rutland VM and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1972),
p. 139–40.
4. Bruce Batten, Hakata: Gateway to Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i
Press, 2005), p. 24.
5. Suzaku is the Japanese name for the ‘Vermilion Bird’ (Zhū Què), the
Guardian of the South which is one of the Four Symbols of Chinese
Constellations. In modern-day Xian this ‘Vermilion Bird’ Avenue is still a
wide boulevard, although the imposing city gate at its southern end the
scale of which once amazed visitors to Chang’an, no longer remains.
6. Today gagaku is often associated with the Imperial Household and formal
imperial family events. In recognition of Dazaifu’s links with this ancient
music, however, the nearby temple of Shōgyōji created its own gagaku
ensemble in 1957, and this has since become one of the most recognized
exponents of gagaku music outside the Imperial Household.
7. Tamura Enchō, Tsukushi no Kodai-shi [Ancient History of Tsukushi]
(Tokyo: Gakuseisha, 1992), p. 219.
8. Bruce Batten, ‘Kodai Nihon no Kokkyō to Dazaifu’ (Dazaifu and Borders
in Ancient Japan) in Chihōshi Kenkyū Kyōgikai (eds.), Ikoku to Kyūshū –
rekishi ni okeru kokusai kōryū to chiiki keisei [Foreign Lands and Kyushu – inter-
national interaction and regional formation] (Tokyo: Oyamakaku
Publishing, 1992), p. 66.
9. Batten, Hakata, pp. 25–6.
10. Ibid., p. 53.
11. Katō Shūichi and David Chibbett, A History of Japanese Literature: the first
thousand years (London: MacMillan Press, 1979), p. 80.
12. The Tsukushi Lodge was one of three diplomatic guesthouses given the
name of Kōrokan in 833, after the Kōroji in Chang’an. The other two were
at Naniwa and Heian, where emissaries from the Parhae state of northern
Manchuria were received. The Chinese characters literally mean ‘voice’
(kō) – ‘convey’ (ro) – ‘house’ (kan).
13. Takeno Yōko, Hakata: chōnin ga sodateta kokusai toshi [Hakata: international
city built by townspeople] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1991), pp. 17–22. On
Ennin’s search for the law in China see David Lu, Japan: a documentary
history, vol.1 (Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 60–2.
279
14. A more common explanation is that the castle was named after a place
called Fukuoka in Bizen Province (now Okayama Prefecture), where the
Kuroda family had lived before their move to Kyushu. Kawazoe Shōji and
Seno Seiichirō, Kyūshū no Fūdo to Rekishi [Cultural Environment and
History of Kyushu] (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1977), p. 109.
15. Furuta Takehiko, Kyushū Ōchō no Rekishi-gaku [Historical Study on the
Kyushu Realm] (Tokyo: Shinshidō Shuppan, 1991), pp. 107–108.
16. Oda Fujio (ed.), Okinoshima to Kodai Saiki [Okinoshima and Ancient
Festivals] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1988), pp. 6, 13–14.
University Press, 1997) p. 81.
18. ‘About this time, the Japanese who had studied Chinese came to dislike
the name Wa and changed it to Nippon. According to the words of the
[Japanese] envoy himself, that name was chosen because the country was
so close to where the sun rises. Some say, [on the other hand], that Japan
was a small country which had been subjugated by the Wa, and the latter
took its name.’ ‘New History of the Tang Dynasty’ in Tsunoda and
Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 40. For a discus-
sion on the problems associated with defining ‘Hinomoto’ see Mark
Hudson, Ruins of Identity: ethnogenesis in the Japanese islands (Honolulu:
University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999), pp. 223–4.
19. Lu, Japan: a documentary history, vol.1, pp. 22–6.
20. The current building was constructed in 1709, although this was 30 per
cent smaller in scale than the original structure.
21. It was not until the new Meiji government announced the order to
separate shrines from temples in 1869 that this dual use of sacred space
was significantly challenged. Piggott, The Emergence of Japanese Kingship,
p. 268.
22. Another Shinto sect that has a strong connection with Kyushu is the
Kasuga Cult, although this appears to derive not so much from any
provincial influence on the court so much as the spread of Yamato polit-
ical control from the centre. Allan Grapard, The Protocol of the Gods: a study
of the Kasuga Cult in Japanese History (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1992), pp. 40–2
23. Inoue Nobutaka (ed.), Shinto: a short history (London: RoutledgeCurzon
1998), p. 103.
24. Chamberlain, The Kojiki, pp. 50–1. Aston, Nihongi, I, pp. 27–8.
25. William Wayne Farris, Heavenly Warriors: the evolution of Japan’s military, 500–
1300 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press), p. 65.
26. Umehara Takeshi, Tennōke no Furusato: Hyūga o yuku [Homeland of
the Imperial Family: journey to Hyūga] (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2000),
p. 166.
27. Farris, Heavenly Warriors, pp. 60–3
280
Notes

1979), p. 24.
29. Piggott, The Emergence of Japanese Kingship, p. 254.
30. Batten, Hakata, pp. 83, 87.
31. W.G. Beasley, The Japanese Experience: a short history of Japan (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2000), pp. 61–2.
32. Batten, Hakata, p. 79.
33. Ibid., pp. 97, 100.
34. Takeuchi, Rizō, ‘The Rise of the Warriors’ in Donald Shively and William
H. McCullough, The Cambridge History of Japan, vol.2: Heian Japan
Chapter Five: Hakata: The Making of a Mercantile Centre

1. Sen Sōshitsu XV, The Japanese Way of Tea (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i
Press, 1998), p. 59.
2. For a description of the Five Mountains see Martin Collcutt, Five Mountains:
the Rinzai zen monastic institution in medieval Japan (Cambridge MA: Harvard
University Press, 1981), p. 10. The longstanding historical connections
between Japan and Ningbo are now being explored by a major collaborative
research project organized at Tokyo University under the title, ‘Maritime
Cross-cultural Exchange in East Asia and the Formation of Japanese
Traditional Culture: interdisciplinary approach focusing on Ningbo’.
3. Tea ceremony practice varies greatly between China and Japan. In Ningbo,
for example, liberal quantities of tea are spilt over a lacquer tray, something
that never happens in Japan where it is essential that tatami mats remain dry.
city built by townspeople] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1991), pp. 37–9.
5. On Heian court life see Ivan Morris, The World of the Shining Prince (New
York: Kodansha America, 1964). For an interpretation emphasizing more
cultural diversity at the Heian court see Thomas Lamarre, Uncovering Heian
Japan: an archaeology of sensation and inscription (Durham NC: Duke University
Press, 2000).
University Press, 1997), pp. 97–8.
7. Timekeeping was introduced in 636, with a bell in the assembly courtyard
rung each day at appointed hours. Ibid., p. 109.
8. Ibid., p. 106.
9. These were the Ōmi and Kiyomihara Codes, which have not survived.
10. The Taihō Code (701) was based on the 651 Tang Code and the Yōrō
Code (718) was based on the 715 Tang Code.
12. These appear in the Hizen Fudoki [Gazetteer of Hizen Province], a rich
281
source from these times recording administration in the area which is now
Saga and Nagasaki prefectures. See Oda Fujio, Fudoki no Kōkogaku, vol.5,
Hizen Fudoki no kan [Archaeology of the Fudoki, vol. 5: Hizen Fudoki]
(Tokyo: Dōseisha, 1995), pp. 221–2.
tions (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004), p. 32.
1979), pp. 25–6.
16. Toyama, Chūsei no Kyūshū, p. 29.
17. Cornelius Kiley, ‘Provincial Administration and Land Tenure’ in Donald
Shively and William H. McCullough (eds), The Cambridge History of Japan,
vol.2: Heian Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 264.
18. Ibid., p. 27.
19. Ibid., pp. 28, 32.
20. Takeuchi Rizō, ‘The Rise of the Warriors’ in Shively and McCullough
(eds), The Cambridge History of Japan, vol.2: Heian Japan, p. 659.
21. Toyama, Chūsei no Kyūshū, pp. 37, 42–3.
22. Kawasoe Yoshiatsu, Kyōdo no Rekishi to Bunka, 18 [Local History and
Culture] (Saga: Kanzaki Kioyaki Kōtō Gakkō, 1998), pp. 1–4.
23. Ibid., p. 112.
25. Ibid., p. 117.
26. Conrad Totman, A History of Japan (Oxford: Blackwell. 2000), p. 109.
1977), pp. 123, 126.
29. Chikushi Yutaka, ‘Kaikaku no Tosō-ki’ (Kaikaku’s Record of Voyage to
Song China), Fukuoka Rekishi Sanpo [Walk through Fukuoka’s History]
(Fukuoka: Fukuoka City, 1977), pp. 43–4.
30. Although religious contacts between China and Japan were affected by the
Mongol invasions during the late thirteenth century, the Yüan authorities
chose Zen priests from Putuoshan in the Zhoushan Islands near Ningbo
to act as envoys when they tried to re-establish diplomatic ties after
Khubilai Khan’s death. Moreover, judging from extant records alone it is
clear that at least 220 Japanese Zen priests travelled to China in the
last seventy years of Yüan rule. Ryūsaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington
Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories (South Pasadena: P.D.
& Ione Perkins, 1951), pp. 91–2. Murai Shōsuke, Ajia no Naka no Chūsei
Nihon [Medieval Japan within Asia] (Tokyo: Kōsō Shobō, 1988), p. 81.
31. Kawasoe, Kyōdo no Rekishi to Bunka 18, pp. 1–4.
32. Takeno, Hakata, p. 33.
282
Notes

34. Carmen Blacker, ‘Legends of Heike Villages: the fugitive warrior as ances-
tor’ in Japan Society Proceedings, no.132, Spring 1999, pp. 6, 12.
Chapter Six: Divine Wind: The Mongol Invasions

1. Umehara Takeshi, Tennō-ke no Furusato: Hyūga o yuku [Homeland of the
Imperial Family: journey to Hyūga] (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2000), p. 198.
2. Bruce Batten, Hakata: gateway to Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i,
2005), pp. 47–8.
1979), p. 63.
4. Ibid., p. 117.
5. Ibid., p. 104.
6. A 1250 land survey of the Iriki estate in Satsuma shows that the jitō steward
held about 5 per cent of the land, ‘with the warrior receiving about 31 per
cent, the proprietor about 30 per cent, and the provincial office 39 per
cent’. A 1244 land survey of the Hitoyoshi estate in southern Higo shows
that the jitō held 5.5 per cent of productive land and taxed the rice from
other paddies, but the warrior held 40 per cent of the silk cloth and 70 per
cent of the hemp. William Wayne Farris, Heavenly Warriors: the evolution of
Japan’s military, 500–1300 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press,
1992), pp. 346–7. K. Asakawa, The Documents of Iriki: illustrative of the devel-
opment of the feudal institutions of Japan (Westport CT: Greenwood Press,
1974), pp. 136–42. Jeffrey P. Mass, ‘The Kamakura Bakufu’ in Yamamura
Kozo, The Cambridge History of Japan, vol.3: medieval Japan (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 66.
7. Jeffrey Mass, Antiquity and Anachronism in Japanese History (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1992), pp. 175–7.
8. The name Mutō denotes ‘the Fujiwara of Musashi no Kuni’, composed of
‘tō’, an alternative reading of the character for ‘Fuji’ in Fujiwara, together
with the ‘Mu’ in Musashi, the province in the Kantō plain where the family
was originally based. Kawasoe Yoshiatsu, Kyōdo no Rekishi to Bunka 18
[Local History and Culture] (Saga: Kanzaki Kioyaki Kōtō Gakkō, 1998),
pp. 1–4.
9. Takeno Yōko, Hakata: chōnin ga sodateta kokusai-toshi [Hakata: international
city built by the townspeople] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2000) p. 39.
10. Iwanaka Yoshifumi, Hakata-gaku [‘Hakatology’] (Tokyo: Shinchōsha,
2002), pp. 254, 256.
11. Although Genghis Khan may have perpetrated ‘ethnocide’ in practically
obliterating the Xi Xia state, he also showed leniency during his conquests
283
in China, as long as cities submitted rather than resist. John Man, Genghis
Khan (London: Bantam Press, 2004), pp. 117, 143.
12. Samuel Coleridge composed Xanadu in an opium dream in Porlock,
North Devon, in 1797. Little remains of Shangdu today other than stone
foundation stones, much like those at Dazaifu. The palace was destroyed
on the demise of the Yüan (Mongol) dynasty in 1368.
13. Murai Shōsuke, Ajia no Naka no Chūsei Nihon [Medieval Japan within Asia]
(Tokyo: Kōsō Shobō, 1988), pp. 14–17, 163–9.
14. Kawazoe Shōji, ‘Japan and East Asia’ in Yamamura Kōzō (ed.), The
Cambridge History of Japan: vol.3: medieval Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge
15. James Murdoch, A History of Japan, vol.1 (London: Routledge, 1996),
pp. 499–500.
16. The NHK Taiga drama broadcast in 2011 was a serialized portrait of Hōjō
Tokimune’s life. The filmset was put on public display for several months
over the summer and called Medieval Hakata Exhibition (Chūsei Hakata-
ten). Among the exhibits was a replica of the map of China said to have
been shown to Japanese authorities by Song merchants such as Xie
Guoming.
17. Murdoch, A History of Japan, vol. 1, p. 505.
18. Ishii Susumu, ‘The Decline of the Kamakura Bakufu’ in Yamamura Kozo
(ed.), The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 3: medieval Japan, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 134. The only such Kamakura
directive to have survived was sent to the shugo of Sanuki in Shikoku, but
doubtless similar orders were sent to Kyushu as the front line of defence.
19. Ibid., p. 136.
20. Kawazoe, ‘Japan and East Asia’, p. 418.
21. Ryūsaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese
Dynastic Histories: later Han through Ming dynasties (South Pasadena: P.D. &
Ione Perkins, 1951), p. 81.
22. Ishii, ‘The Decline of the Kamakura Bakufu’, p. 139.
23. Pictorial representations of these fireballs are visible in the scrolls com-
missioned by Takezaki Suenaga. Thomas Conlan, In Little Need of Divine
Intervention: Takezaki Suenaga’s scrolls of the Mongol invasions of Japan (Ithaca:
Cornell, 2001), p. 73.
24. Arthur Marder, ‘From Jimmu Tennō to Perry: sea power in early Japanese
history’, The American Historical Review, vol. LI, no.1, October 1945, p. 13.
25. According to the ‘History of the Yüan Dynasty’, ‘That night there was a
great storm and our fighting craft were dashed against the rocks and
destroyed in great numbers. Hu-tsu’s forces thereupon went away under
cover of darkness.’ Tsunoda and Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese
Dynastic Histories, p. 82.
284
Notes
27. Ishii, ‘The Decline of the Kamakura Bakufu’, p. 140.

28. Tsunoda and Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 84.
30. For comparison, the Spanish Armada consisted of 30,000 men on 130
ships; Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea in 1592 consisted of 170,000 men,
with 130,000 kept in reserve at Nagoya Castle on the north Kyushu coast.
31. Shōni Suketoki’s valiant defence is commemorated by a statue on Iki
Island, and he is remembered at Iki Shrine.
32. Marder, ‘From Jimmu Tennō to Perry’, p. 17.
33. According to the ‘History of the Yüan Dynasty’, ‘On the first day of the
tree and the rat, in the eighth month, a furious hurricane blew up and all
the ships were either damaged or destroyed. Very many men were
drowned, among them the assistant commander-in-chief A-la-t’ieh-mu-
erh. Dead bodies came floating into the bay, borne by the tide, and piled
up like a hill. There were, however, several thousand survivors who
managed to escape to Takashima. There they tried to repair the damaged
ships in order to return home, but all were slain by the Japanese.’ Tsunoda
and Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, p. 88.
34. The survey of the Mongol wrecks in Imari Bay was carried out in July and
August 2004, led by the marine archaeologist Hayashida Kenzō.
35. Kazuhiro Suzuki, Yoshifumi Karakida and Yasuhiko Kamada,
‘Provenance of Granitic Anchor Stones Recovered from the Takashima
Submerged Site: an approach using the CHIME method for dating of
zircons’, Proceedings of Japan Academy, 76, Ser. B, 2000, pp. 139–44.
36. Kawazoe, ‘Japan and East Asia’, pp. 419–20.
37. Conlan, In Little Need of Divine Intervention, p. 7.
38. The characters reading ‘enemy country surrender[ed]’ (tekikoku kōfuku)
also feature at the foot of the seventy-one-foot high bronze statue of the
emperor Kameyama near the Fukuoka prefectural office in Higashi Park.
This was built in 1904 to commemorate the Mongol defeat.
40. Takezaki Suenaga’s famous scrolls are now in the possession of the
Imperial Household. Ishii, ‘The decline of the Kamakura Bakufu’,
pp. 141–2.
41. 1293 is often given as the year in which the post of Chinzei Tandai was
created, although Kawazoe Shōji and Seno Seiichirō maintain that this
only took effect with the appointment of Hōjō Sanemasa in 1296 or 1297.
Toyama, Chūsei no Kyūshū, pp. 121–2.
Chapter Seven: Divided Loyalties: Pirates and Rival Courts

1. Murai Shōsuke, Ajia no Naka no Chūsei Nihon [Medieval Japan within Asia]
(Tokyo: Kōsō Shobō, 1988), pp. 313–14.
285
2. There is a room with cases of exhibits devoted to the wakō (wōkòu) at the
Museum of Coastal Defence in Zenhai, Zhejiang Province, China.
3. Peter Shapinsky, ‘Polyvocal Portolans: nautical charts and hybrid maritime
cultures in early modern East Asia’ in Early Modern Japan, XIV (2006), p. 9.
Philip Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History, (Cambridge: Cambridge
4. According to the ‘History of Ming’, ‘If opportunity arrived, they dis-
played their weapons, raiding and plundering ruthlessly. Otherwise, they
exhibited their merchandise, saying they were on the way to the Court
with tribute.’ Ryūsaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington Goodrich (eds), Japan
in the Chinese Dynastic Histories (South Pasadena: P.D. & Ione Perkins,
1951), p. 117.
5. Takahashi Sadaichi (ed.), Taiheiki, vol.1 (Kyoto: Shibunkaku, 1976),
p. 446.
6. The Kikuchi claimed descent from the Heian court noble Fujiwara Takaie,
but were in fact descended from Fujiwara Masanori, a Dazaifu official who
fought in the Toi invasion in 1019.
7. Seno Seiichirō, ‘The Kikuchi and their Enemies in the 1330s’ in Jeffrey P.
Mass (ed.), The Origins of Japan’s Medieval World: courtiers, clerics, warriors, and
peasants in the fourteenth century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997),
p. 69.
8. Ibid., p. 72.
9. Ibid., p. 73.
10. Chikushi Yutaka, ‘Tatarahama no Gassen’ (The Battle of Tatarahama) in
Fukuoka Rekishi Sanpo [Walk through Fukuoka’s History] (Fukuoka:
Fukuoka City, 1977), pp. 61–2.
11. Ibid., p. 62.
12. Kawasoe Yoshiatsu, Kyōdo no Rekishi to Bunka, 22 [Local History and
Culture] (Saga: Kanzaki Kioyaki Kōtō Gakkō, 1998), p. 2.
1979), p. 138.
14. Prince Kaneyoshi often appears in Kyushu and Chinese sources under the
name of Kanenaga.
1977), pp. 147–8.
16. John Whitney Hall, ‘The Muromachi Bakufu’ in Yamamura Kozo (ed.),
The Cambridge History of Japan, vol.3: Medieval Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge
17. During his three years of exile in Amami Ōshima from 1859 to 1862, Saigō
Takamori took to calling himself Kikuchi Gengo, and his friends addressed
him as ‘great lord Kikuchi’. He linked his own loyalty to the emperor with
the Kikuchi’s activities on behalf of Go-Daigo and the Southern Court in
286
Notes
the fourteenth century. Mark Ravina, The Last Samurai: the life and battles of
Saigō Takamori (Hoboken NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004), pp. 21–4.
18. Kawasoe, Kyōdo no Rekishi to Bunka, 22, p. 3.
20. The Ōtomo family, for example, converted to inheritance through primo-
geniture in 1333. Toyama, Chūsei no Kyūshū, p. 109. Kawasoe Yoshiatsu,
Kyōdo no Rekishi to Bunka, 19, p. 1.
22. Hyungsub Moon, Matsura-to: pirate-warriors in northwestern Kyushu, Japan,
1150–1350 (Ann Arbor: Proquest, 2005), p. 182.
23. Ibid., p. 89.
24. Kawazoe, Shōji, ‘Japan and East Asia’ in Yamamura Kozo, The Cambridge
History of Japan, vol.3: medieval Japan, pp. 397–8.
25. For details on wakō activities in the thirteenth century see B.H. Hazard,
‘The Formative Years of the Wakō, 1223–63’, Monumenta Nipponica, vol.22
(1967), pp. 260–77.
27. Murai, Ajia no Naka no Chūsei Nihon, p. 84–5.
28. ‘History of Ming’ in Tsunoda and Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese
Dynastic Histories, pp. 107–108.
30. Roger Tennant, A History of Korea (London: Paul Kegan International,
1996), pp. 124–5.
31. Kawazoe, ‘Japan and East Asia’, pp. 433–4.
32. Ibid., p. 435.
33. Besides Ningbo, the other two Ming ports designated for incoming over-
seas trade were at Canton and Fujian.
34. In Murai Shōsuke’s view, during the fifteenth century the two ports of
Hakata and Naha can be thought of as cosmopolitan centres, ‘the gateways
to the states of Japan and the Ryukyu Islands and at the same time the
“capitals” of the East China Sea maritime region’. Murai, Ajia no Naka no
Chūsei Nihon, p. 95.
36. Bruce Batten, Hakata: gateway to Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i
Press, 2005), p. 132.
37. Nishijima Sadao, Nihon Rekishi no Kokusai Kankyō [The International
Environment in Japanese History] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press,
1987), pp. 212–13. ‘History of Ming’ in Tsunoda and Goodrich (eds),
Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, pp. 121–2.
38. Wang Zhi is also thought to have been the captain of the junk that brought
the first Portuguese merchants to Tanegashima Island in 1543. He was
finally captured and executed in 1559. ‘History of Ming’ in Tsunoda and
Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories, pp. 128–9.
287
39. Olof Lidin, Tanegashima: the arrival of Europe in Japan (Copenhagen: NIAS
Press, 2002), p. 83
40. Pierre Francois Souyri, The World Turned Upside Down: medieval Japanese
society (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 128. Murai, Ajia no
Naka no Chūsei Nihon, pp. 328–34.
41. ‘History of Ming’ in Tsunoda and Goodrich (eds), Japan in the Chinese
Dynastic Histories, p. 127.
42. Shapinsky, ‘Polyvocal Portolans’, p. 9.
43. Jurgis Elisonas, ‘The Inseparable Trinity: Japan’s relations with China and
Korea’ in John Whitney Hall (ed.), The Cambridge History of Japan, vol.4: early
modern Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 250.
44. Some of the stones from this Matsura castle were transported the short
distance to Nagoya where Hideyoshi built the castle that served as the base
for his invasions of Korea. Nagoya itself is situated in what had been
Matsura territory near the port of Yobuko.
Chapter Eight: All Under Heaven: Missionaries and Warlords

1. There are some discrepancies between Japanese and Portuguese records
on the details of this first encounter in Tanegashima. For the debate on
whether these first Portuguese merchants reached the island in 1543 or
1542 see Olof Lidin, Tanegashima: the arrival of Europe in Japan (Copenhagen:
NIAS Press, 2002), pp. 24–7.
2. Primitive ‘guns’ or ‘fire arrows’ (hiya) had been developed in China in the
fourteenth century and are known to have reached Japan via the Ryukyu
Islands as early as 1466. Wakō pirates may also have introduced European
matchlock guns at an earlier stage. It was following the arrival of these
Portuguese merchants in 1543, however, that the manufacture of replica
‘Tanegashima’ guns led to the duffusion of firearms on a significant scale.
Ibid., 3–4, 7–8, 93–4.
3. Yoshinaga Masaharu, Kyūshū Sengoku Gassen-ki [Record of Battles in
Kyushu in the Age of Warring States] (Fukuoka: Kaichōsha, 1994), p. 34.
4. Delmer Brown, ‘The Impact of Firearms on Japanese War’, reproduced in
Stephen Turnbull (ed.), The Samurai Tradition, vol.1 (Folkestone: Global
Oriental and Edition Synapse, 2000), p. 205.
5. Jeroen Lamers, Japonius Tyranus: the Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga reconsid-
ered (Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2000), p. 112.
6. W.G. Beasley, The Japanese Experience (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson,
1999), p. 117.
7. Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi (Cambridge MA: Harvard University
Press, 1982), p. 87.
8. See C.R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 1549–1650 (Berkeley CA:
University of California Press, 1951).
288
Notes
9. Derek Massarella, ‘Some Reflections on Identity Formation in East Asia

in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’ in Donald Denoon et al. (eds),
Multicultural Japan: paleolithic to postmodern (Cambridge: Cambridge
10. Jurgis Elisonas, ‘Christianity and the Daimyo’ in John Whitney Hall, The
Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 4: early modern Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge
11. Lidin, Tanegashima, pp. 33–4.
12. On Pinto’s activities in Japan see Chapter Six: ‘Fernão Mendes Pinto’s
Four Voyages to Japan’ in Lidin, Tanegashima, pp. 102–29.
13. Ibid., p. 167.
14. Xavier later repaid the 300 cruzados he had borrowed from Pinto when he
met him in Malacca in 1551. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, pp. 20–1.
15. Bernardo later travelled to Rome but died at Coimbra in Portugal in 1557.
Lidin, Tanegashima, pp. 255–6.
16. J.F. Moran, The Japanese and the Jesuits: Alessandro Valignano in sixteenth-century
Japan (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 153.
17. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, pp. 187, 230.
18. Ibid., pp. 14–16. For details of this mission see Michael Cooper, The
Japanese Mission to Europe, 1582–1590 (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2005).
19. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, p. 180
20. Elisonas, ‘Christianity and the Daimyo’, p. 365.
21. Michael Cooper (ed.), João Rodrigues’ Account of Sixteenth-century Japan, Third
Series, no.7 (London: The Hakluyt Society, 2001), p. 194.
22. Mancio Itō lived in various areas but died in Nagasaki in 1612 at the age
of forty-three. Michael Chijiwa lived in the Ōmura area until 1633 but may
have renounced his Christian faith. Martin Hara left for Macao after the
expulsion edict of 1614. Julian Nakaura was persecuted after trying to help
Christians in Amakusa and died under torture in 1633 after being sus-
pended upside down. Before his death he said, ‘I am Fr Julian Nakaura
who went to Rome.’ On the young princes’ later careers see Cooper, The
Japanese Mission to Europe, pp. 180–92.
23. Yoshinaga, Kyūshū Sengoku Gassen-ki, p. 228.
24. Ibid., pp. 225–7, 245.
25. Ibid., p. 176.
26. Yamamoto Tsunetomo, The Book of the Samurai: hagakure (Tokyo:
Kodansha International, 1979).
27. Yoshinaga, Kyūshū Sengoku Gassen-ki, p. 213.
28. Ibid., pp. 15–16, 223–4.
29. Ibid, pp. 144–5.
30. Yoshinaga Masaharu, Sengoku Kyūshū no Onna-tachi [Women of the Age of
Warring States in Kyushu] (Fukuoka: Nishi Nihon Shinbunsha, 1997),
p. 45.
289
31. K. Asakawa (trans.), The Documents of Iriki: illustrative of the development of the
feudal institutions of Japan (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1974), p. 30.
32. Elisonas, ‘The Inseparable Trinity: Japan’s relations with China and
Korea’, p. 257.
33. Yoshinaga, Kyūshū Sengoku Gassen-ki, pp. 205–207.
34. Ibid., p. 264.
35. Ibid., pp. 280–1.
36. Adriana Boscaro, 101 Letters of Hideyoshi (Tokyo: Sophia University 1975).
p. 27.
Chapter Nine: Turbulent Decades: State Control and Resistance

1. Documentary evidence on these karayukui-san is meagre since those who
returned to Japan in later life have often been reluctant to speak of their
experiences as young women overseas. On the recollections of a woman
from Sakitsu in Amakusa who later told her story see Tomoko Yamazaki,
Karen Colligan-Taylor (trans.), Sandakan Brothel No. 8: an episode in the history
of lower-class Japanese women (Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1999). Another
woman from Hiroshima who revealed her story became the theme of
Karayuki-san, a documentary film made by Imamura Shōhei in 1973.
2. J.H. Gubbins, ‘Hideyoshi and the Satsuma Clan in the Sixteenth Century’
in Stephen Turnbull (ed.), The Samurai Tradition, vol.1: the art of war
(Richmond: Japan Library, 2000), p. 243.
3. Stephen Turnbull, The Samurai: a military history (Richmond: Japan Library,
1996), p. 176.
4. Adriana Boscaro, 101 Letters of Hideyoshi (Tokyo: Sophia University, 1975),
p. 31.
5. Gubbins, ‘Hideyoshi and the Satsuma Clan’, p. 266.
1979), p. 227.
city built by townsfolk] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1991), pp. 96–8.
8. Stephen Turnbull, Samurai Invasion: Japan’s Korean War, 1592–96 (London:
Cassell & Co., 2002), p. 38.
9. On Yi’s ‘turtle-armoured’ ships see Andrew J. Marder, ‘From Jimmu
Tennō to Perry: sea power in early Japanese history’, The American Historical
Review, vol. LI, no.1, October 1945, pp. 25–6
10. Imperial Army General Staff (ed.), Nihon Senshi [Military History of Japan],
cited in Kiyohara Shinichi (ed.), Visual Nihon no Rekishi [Visual Japanese
History] no.7 (Tokyo: de Agostini, April 2000), p. 260.
11. A magnificent screen recording the siege of Ulsan Castle graphically
depicts the plight of Katō Kiyomasa’s starving garrison inside. ‘Chōsen-
gun Jinzu Byōbu’, Nabeshima Hōkōkai, Saga.
290
Notes
12. Kiyohara (ed.), Visual Nihon no Rekishi, no.7, p. 289.

13. Roger Tennant, A History of Korea (London: Paul Kegan International,
1996), pp. 176–7.
14. This event took place in the grounds of Kitano Tenmangū, the shrine that
had been built to placate the angry spirit of Sugawara Michizane in the
tenth century. Sen Rikyū, the master of tea, had also been in Hakozaki
during Hideyoshi’s stay there in 1587. Sen Sōshitsu XV, The Way of Tea
(Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998), pp. 172–3.
15. Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi (Cambridge MA: Harvard University
Press, 1982), pp. 197–8.
16. In addition to James Clavell’s novel Shogun, the life of William Adams has
been the subject of several biographies, including Giles Milton, Samurai
William: the adventurer who unlocked Japan (London: Hodder & Stoughton,
2002) and William Corr, Adams the Pilot: the life and times of Captain William
Adams, 1564–1620 (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1995).
17. Philip Curtin, Cross-cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge: Cambridge
18. Jurgis Elisonas, ‘Christianity and the Daimyo’ in John Whitney Hall (ed.),
The Cambridge History of Japan, vol.4: early modern Japan (Cambridge:
19. For details on the English Factory see Derek Massarella, A World Elsewhere:
Europe’s encounter with Japan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). For documents see Anthony
Farrington, The English Factory in Japan, 1613–1623, two vols. (London:
The British Library, 1991).
20. James Lewis, ‘Pusan Wakan ni okeru Nitchō Bōeki’ (Korea-Japan Trade
at the Japan House [Waegwan]) in Nakamura Tadashi (ed.), Sakoku to
Kokusai Kankei [Sakoku and International Relations] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
Kōbunkan), pp. 269, 274.
21. Nakamura Tadashi, ‘Chihō Kenkyū to Sakoku’ (Regional History and
Sakoku) in Chihōshi Kenkyū Kyōgikai (eds), Ikoku to Kyūshū: rekishi ni okeru
kokusai kōryū to chiiki keisei [Foreign Lands and Kyushu: international inter-
action and regional formation] (Tokyo: Oyamakaku Publishing, 1992),
pp. 130–3. Tennant, A History of Korea, pp. 178–9.
22. Iwao Seiichi, Shinpen Shuinsen Bōeki-shi no Kenkyū [New Research on
the Mercantile History of Vermilion Seal Ships] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
Kōbunkan, 1985), p. 220.
23. Peter Shapinsky, ‘Polyvocal Portolans: nautical charts and hybrid mar-
itime cultures in early modern East Asia’ in Early Modern Japan, XIV
(2006), p. 14.
24. The most celebrated resident of the Nihon-machi in Siam was Yamada
Nagamasa, who served as head of the samurai volunteer militia organized
there by the king of Siam. Ishii Yoneo, ‘Siam and Japan in Pre-Modern
291
Times: a note on mutual images’ in Donald Denoon et al. (eds),

Multicultural Japan: paleolithic to postmodern (Cambridge: Cambridge
25. See Iwao Seiichi, Nanyō Nihon-machi no Kenkyū [Research on Japanese
Settlements in Southern Oceans] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1966). Also
Iwao Seiichi, ‘Reopening of the diplomatic and commercial relations
between Japan and Siam during the Tokugawa period’, Acta Asiatica, vol.4
(July 1963), pp. 1–31
26. Jurgis Elisonas, ‘Christianity and the daimyo’, pp. 359–61.
27. Ibid., p. 364.
28. Berry, Hideyoshi, pp. 225–7.
29. Ann Harrington, Japan’s Hidden Christians (Chicago: Loyola University
Press, 1993), p. 27.
30. The theme of a European Jesuit padre in hiding features in Endō
Shūsaku’s celebrated 1966 novel Chinmoku (Silence), currently the subject of
a film project by Martin Scorsese.
31. Elisonas, ‘Christianity and the daimyo’, p. 368.
32. L.M. Cullen, A History of Japan, 1582–1941: internal and external worlds
33. Otis Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan, vol.1 (Richmond: Curzon Press,
1993), p. 221.
34. C.R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 1549–1650 (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1951), p. 377.
35. According to Japanese accounts a total of 20,000 men and 17,000 women
and children were involved in the rebellion, although it is unlikely that
there can have been more than 20,000 in the last stand at Hara Castle. See
Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan, vol.1, pp. 224, 227. Boxer, The
Christian Century in Japan, p. 379.
36. Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan, vol.1, p. 222.
37. Ibid., p. 224. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, p. 378.
38. Ibid., p. 225.
39. The only survivor was Yamada Emonsaku, an ex-Jesuit dojuku painter
from Nagasaki, who had recently tried to defect to the enemy camp. When
this was discovered he had been kept imprisoned in the castle for the
remainder of the siege. Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan, vol.1, p. 226.
40. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, pp. 379, 383.
41. Ronald Toby, State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the
development of the Tokugawa Bakufu (Stanford, Stanford University
Press, 1984), p. 14. Andrew Cobbing, The Satsuma Students in Britain:
Japan’s early search for the essence of the West (Richmond: Japan Library,
2000), p. 47.
42. For letters written by Hirado exiles see Iwao Seiichi, Zoku Nanyō Nihon-
machi no Kenkyū [Further Research on Japanese Settlements in Southern
292
Notes
Oceans] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1987), pp. 137–74. See also Andrew
Cobbing, ‘The First Japanese Woman in Europe?’ in The Japan Society
Proceedings, no.132, Spring 1999, p. 38.
43. Harrington, Japan’s Hidden Christians, p. 28.
44. Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan, vol.1, p. 228.
1977), p. 218.
46. Examples of places where Madonna symbols ‘hidden’ in Kannon-sama
figurines (Maria kannon) can be found include Shimabara Castle Museum
and two museums in Nagasaki City, one next to Ōura Church and the
other next to the Monument of the Twenty-Six Martyrs.
47. Harrington, Japan’s Hidden Christians, pp. 77–8.
48. Ibid., p. 79.
49. Stephen Turnbull, The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan (Richmond: Japan Library,
1998), p. 130. See also John Breen and Mark Williams (eds), Japan and
Christianity: impact and responses (London: MacMillan Press, 1996).
50. Maeyama Mitsunori, Kumagawa Mongatari [Kuma River Story] (Fukuoka:
Ashi Shobō, 1997), p. 44
52. John Breen, ‘Heretics in Nagasaki: 1790–1796’ in S.R. Turnbull (ed.),
Japan’s Hidden Christians, vol.2: secret Christianity in Japan, 1640–1999
(Folkestone: Japan Library, 2000), pp. 55–6.
53. Turnbull, The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan, pp. 231–2.
54. Peter Nosco, ‘Secrecy and the Transmission of Tradition: issues in the
study of the “underground” Christians’ in Japanese Journal of Religious Studies,
March 1993, 20–1, p. 23.
55. Following their return from exile, the Urakami Christians vowed to build
a cathedral on the site where the fumie interrogations had once been held.
Construction of Urakami Cathedral began in 1895 and it became the
largest Catholic church in East Asia when it was completed in 1914. John
Breen, ‘Public Statements and Private Thoughts: the Iwakura Embassy in
London and the religious question’, The Iwakura Mission in Britain, 1872,
STICERD, IS no.349, March 1998, pp. 53–67.
Chapter Ten: The Great Peace in Kyushu

1. The Huis ten Bosch complex in Nagasaki Prefecture was named after the
Huis ten Bosch Palace, The Queen of the Netherlands’ summer residence
in The Hague.
2. The penchant for sets of threes in Japan may be traced to the imperial
regalia. More specifically, the ‘three famous nightscapes’ are the modern
equivalent of the ‘three famous views’ in Tokugawa Japan, which are
293
usually attributed to the scholar Hayashi Razan. These are the torii gate
of Miyajima Shrine on Itsukushima Island, the pine-clad islands in
Matsushima Bay north of Sendai extolled by the haiku poet Bashō, and the
‘Heavenly Bridge’ of Ama no Hashidate, a narrow strip of land stretching
across Miyazu Bay in northern Kyoto Prefecture.
3. In December 2002, a major fire broke out on board the Diamond Princess
when she was still under construction at Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard.
Completion was delayed by several months and the first voyage was in
March 2004. The vessel can accommodate 2,670 passengers, has four
swimming pools, a wedding chapel and a nine-hole golf course.
4. Kawazoe Shōji to Seno Seiichirō, Kyūshū no Fūdoki to Rekishi [Culural
1977), p. 256.
5. The domains in Kyushu which received loans from Hita merchants were
Kumamoto, Fukuoka, Akizuki, Kurume, Yanagawa, Tsushima, Karatsu,
Kashima, Ōmura, Kokura, Nakatsu, Funai, Hiji, Kitsuki, Mori, Taketa and
Nobeoka. Sugimoto Isao (ed.), Kyūshū Tenryō no Kenkyū: Hita Chihō o chūshin
toshite [Research on Kyushu’s Heavenly Territory: focus on the Hita
region] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1976), pp. 306, 308–309.
6. Perhaps the first reference to cormorant fishing in Japan is this passage in
the seventh-century Suishu [History of the Sui Dynasty]: ‘[The people]
attach a small ring to the neck of the cormorant and then let it go into the
water to catch fish. Their daily catch is more than a hundred fish.’ Eighth-
century references can also be found in the Chronicles and the Manyōshū
anthology of verse. Ryūsaku Tsunoda and L. Carrington Goodrich (eds),
Japan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories: later Han through Ming dynasties (South
Pasadena: P.D. & Ione Perkins, 1951), p. 31. Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai,
Manyōshū: one thousand poems (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1940), pp. 29, 147.
7. The only other domains with more landed wealth than Fukuoka (523,000
koku) and Kumamoto (510,000 koku) were Nagoya (619,000 koku) and
Wakayama (555,000 koku). Together with the Mito domain these com-
prised the three sanke ruling houses, close relatives of the Tokugawa from
whom the shogun themselves were selected. Besides Kaga, Satsuma and
Saga, the other domains in this notional top ten were Chōshū (369,000
koku), Hiroshima (346,000 koku) and Okayama (315,000 koku).
8. The definition of a daimyo was a local magnate who held land producing at
least 10,000 koku. During the age of warring states there had been more than
300 warlords who qualified in this category, but following the political set-
tlement after Sekigahara their numbers were reduced and after the kaieki
confiscations in the seventeenth century, finally stabilized around 260 lords.
9. The Tachibana family were descendants of Takahashi Joun, the hero of
the Battle of Iwaya Castle in 1586, which saved Kyushu from Shimazu
domination.
294
Notes
10. Local tradition holds that Katō Kiyomasa ordered seeds to be placed in
the cracks in the stone walls of Kumamoto Castle so that vegetables could
be grown in the event of a siege.
11. William Scott Wilson, The Lone Samurai: the life of Miyamoto Musashi (Tokyo:
Kodansha International, 2004), p. 90.
12. Luke Roberts, Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain: the merchant origins of economic
nationalism in 18th-century Tosa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998), p. 18.
13. Hirai Akira, Nihon no Meijō [Japan’s Famous Castles] (Tokyo: Shinjinbutsu
Ōraisha, 1977), p. 157
14. Arne Kalland, Fishing Villages in Tokugawa Japan (Richmond: Curzon Press,
1995), p. 54.
15. Note that in many cities in Kyushu districts are often called machi rather
than chō, the reading usually used in Tokyo and other parts of Japan.
16. On whaling off the Kyushu coasts see ‘Fukuoka and Whaling’ in Kalland,
Fishing Villages in Tokugawa Japan, pp. 180–97.
17. On ama see ‘The World of the Female Divers’ in Kalland, Fishing Villages
in Tokugawa Japan, pp. 163–79.
18. Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai, Manyōshū, pp. 96, 213.
19. Kalland, Fishing Villages in Tokugawa Japan, p. 76.
20. The pottery produced at Sarayama is called Onta ware (ontayaki). For gen-
erations this was less celebrated than other varieties such as Arita ware, but
a visit by the English potter Bernard Leach in 1954 helped to promote
awareness of its artistic value. Brian Moeran, Folk Art Potters of Japan: beyond
an anthropology of aesthetics (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1997), pp. 45–9.
21. Amino Yoshihiko, ‘Emperor, Rice, and Commoners’ in Donald Denoon
et al. (eds), Multicultural Japan: paleolithic to postmodern (Cambridge:
22. Kalland, Fishing Villages in Tokugawa Japan, p. 146.
23. Ibid., p. 19.
24. On the origins of the Burakumin see, for example, Makiko Hanami,
‘Minority Dynamics in Japan: towards a society of sharing’ in John C. Maher
and Gaynor MacDonald (eds), Diversity in Japanese Culture and Language
(London: Kegan Paul International, 1995), pp. 123–5. In the same collec-
tion is a powerful account of growing up in a Burakumin district in Miyazaki
Prefecture in the twentieth century. Ryūichi Kariya, ‘The Confidence to
Live: experiencing the Buraku Liberation Movement’, pp. 178–201.
25. James McClain, John Merriman and Ugawa Kaoru, Edo & Paris: urban life &
the state in the early modern era (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), p. 13.
26. For details on the organization of these staging posts (shukueki) see Patrick
Carey, Rediscovering the Old Tokaido: in the footsteps of Hiroshige (Folkestone:
Global Oriental, 2000). Also Oliver Statler, Japanese Inn (Honolulu:
University of Hawai‘i, 1961).
295
27. Marius Jansen, China in the Tokugawa World (Cambridge MA: Harvard
28. Constantine Nomikos Vaporis, Breaking Barriers: travel and state in early
modern Japan (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 4, 15.
29. The level of surveillance in border controls varied from one domain to the
next. At the Higo-guchi gate (bansho) on the Satsuma-Higo border travellers
were subjected to checks by Satsuma guards, but over the border in Higo
these were less strict. On entering the Hitoyoshi (Sagara) domain, incom-
ing travellers were escorted by the guards to the next village. Ibid., p. 170.
30. Yamamoto Tsunetomo, The Book of the Samurai: hagakure (Tokyo:
Kodansha International, 1983), p. 168.
1977), pp. 326, 339–43.
1979), p. 18.
33. Shiba Kōkan, Kōkan Saiyū Nikki [Kōkan’s Diary of a Journey to the West]
(Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1986), p. 104.
34. Donald Keene, Travelers of a Hundred Ages (New York: Henry Holt & Co.,
1989), p. 363.
35. A.J.R. Russell-Wood, The Portuguese Empire, 1415–1808: a world on the move
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 81.
36. Jansen, China in the Tokugawa World, p. 12.
37. Grant Goodman, Japan and the Dutch, 1600–1853 (Richmond: Curzon
Press, 2000), pp. 18–20.
38. Engelbert Kaempfer (Beatrice Bodart-Bailey trans.), Tokugawa Culture
Observed (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999), p. 7
39. Fūsetsugaki date to 1644 when Dutch and Chinese captains were given
orders to submit reports. Jansen, China in the Tokugawa World, p. 12.
40. Kate Wildman Nakai, Shogunal Politics: Arai Hakuseki and the premises of
Tokugawa rule (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), pp. 328–
9.
41. MacDonald was of Scottish Highlander and Chinook descent, the son of
a Hudson Bay Company clerk called Archibald MacDonald and Koale’
zoa, or Princess Raven, the daughter of King Comcomly, leader of the
Chinook nation. He was born in the Chinook homeland near the mouth
of the Columbia River, in what is now the northwest region of USA. Jo
Ann Roe, Ranald MacDonald: Pacific Rim adventurer (Pullman, Washington
State University Press: 1997), pp. 1–2, 96–7.
42. Kawazoe and Seno, Kyūshū no Fūdo to Rekishi, pp. 249.
43. Among the master potters of Arita today three are currently designated as
‘Living National Treasures’: Sakaida Kakiemon XIV, Imaizumi Imaemon
XIII and Manji Inoue.
296
Notes
44. Chinese demand was so great that Japan became the largest producer of
silver in the world. In 1688, however, the bakufu placed a ban on the
export of silver, and promoted copper exports instead. Jansen, China in the
Tokugawa World, pp. 16, 28.
45. Ibid., pp. 9–10.
46. Derek Massarella, ‘Some Reflections on Identity Formation in East Asia
in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’ in Donald Denoon et al. (eds),
Multicultural Japan: Paleolithic to modern (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), p. 135.
47. Ronald Toby, State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the develop-
ment of the Tokugawa Bakufu (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984),
p. 12.
48. John Lie, Multiethnic Japan (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press,
2001), pp. 131–2.
49. Bruce Batten, To the Ends of Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press,
2004), pp. 5, 46.
50. Robert Hellyer, ‘The Missing Pirate and the Pervasive Smuggler: regional
agency in coastal defence, trade, and foreign relations in nineteenth-
century Japan’, The International History Review, vol. XXVII, no.1, March
2005, p. 12.
51. On hankō and terakoya schools see Ronald Dore, Education in Tokugawa
Japan (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), pp. 68–73, 252–65.
52. Although Kokugaku is often translated as ‘national studies’, it is not the
most appropriate term for an age before any distinct nationalist con-
sciousness had necessarily emerged. Susan L. Burns, Before the Nation: koku-
gaku and the imagining of community in early modern Japan (Durham NC: Duke
University Press, 2003), pp. 1, 231–2.
53. Mark McNally, Proving the Way: conflict and practice in the history of Japanese
nativism (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 55
54. Nishikawa was the author of Kai Tsūshō Kō (Study of Commercial Relations
with China and the Barbarians), a groundbreaking geographical gazetteer
that served as a platform for subsequent work in the field. Andrew
Cobbing, The Japanese Discovery of Victorian Britain (Richmond: Japan Library,
1998), p. 6.
55. Andrew Cobbing, The Satsuma Students in Britain (Richmond: Japan Library,
2000), pp. 29–30.
56. Donald Keene, The Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1720–1830 (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1969), p. 22.
57. In Japan today ‘Western medicine’ (seiyō igaku) is still used in contrast to
East Asian treatments such as the herbal remedies of ‘Chinese medicine’
(kanpō-yaku), and traditional therapies including acupuncture and shiatsu
massage.
58. Keene, The Japanese Discovery of Europe, p. 123.
297
59. See Rosemary Mercer, ‘Miura Baien’s Search for a New Logic’ in William
Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E. Tiedemann (eds), Sources of
Japanese Tradition, vol.2: 1600 to 2000 (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2005), pp. 424–31.
Chapter Eleven: Kyushu in the Meiji Restoration

1. Hugh Cortazzi, Victorians in Japan: in and around the treaty ports (London:
Athlone Press, 1987), pp. 254–5.
2. Sugitani Akira, Nabeshima Kansō (Tokyo: Chūkō Shinsho, 1992), p. 2.
3. Japanese observers thought these American ships might be British, since
they were not aware of US independence until 1809. Andrew Cobbing, The
Japanese Discovery of Victorian Britain: early travel encounters in the far west
(Richmond: Japan Library, 1998), p. 11.
4. W.G. Beasley, Great Britain and the Opening of Japan, 1834–1858 (Richmond:
Japan Library, 1995), pp. 5–7.
5. Takano and Watanabe outlined their arguments for opening the country
in Bojutsu Yume Monogatari (1838) and Shinki ron (1839). Katō Bunzō,
Watanabe Kazan (Tokyo: Ōtsuki Shoten, 1996), pp. 114–18.
6. It was Philipp von Siebold who drafted this letter and, with the exception
of minor changes, it was this message that was delivered to Japan in 1844.
Herbert Plutschow, Philipp Franz von Siebold and the Opening of Japan
(Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2007), pp. 35–6.
7. Iida Kan’ichi, ‘Saga-han no Gijutsu Sentaku’ (The Saga Domain’s Choice
of Technology) in Sugimoto Isao (ed.), Kindai Seiyō Bunmei tono Deai: reimei-
ki no seinan yuhan [Encounter with Modern Western Civilization: awaken-
ing of the powerful south-western domains] (Tokyo: Shibunkaku, 1989),
p. 77. Sugitani, Nabeshima Kansō, pp. 27–30, 147, 167. Andrew Cobbing,
Bakumatsu Saga-han no Taigai Kankei no Kenkyū: kaigai keiken ni yoru jōhō dōnyū
o chūshin ni [Research on the Saga Domain’s External Relations in the
1860s: information transfer through overseas travel] (Saga: Nabeshima
Hōkō-kai, 1994), pp. 47–8.
8. Chen, Wai-fah, Bridge Engineering Handbook (Boca Raton FL: CRC Press,
1999), pp. 65–6.
9. On Siebold’s teaching and medical practice in Nagasaki see Arlette
Kouwenhoven and Matthi Forrer, Siebold and Japan (Leiden: Hotei
Publishing, 2000), pp. 24–6.
10. For example, Itō Genboku went on to run the Shōsendō School of Science
in Edo, Ogata Kōan, who studied under a Dutch doctor in Nagasaki in the
1830s, went on to found the Teki-juku in Osaka. Numata Jirō, Yōgaku
[Western Studies] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1989), pp. 183, 209–12.
11. Renamed Kankō Maru, the Soembing was later taken into service by the Saga
298
Notes
Navy. A replica built in 1987 was displayed first at the Oranda Mura theme
park and then Huis ten Bosch in Nagasaki Prefecture.
12. For a comparison of these treaties see William McOmie, The Opening of
Japan, 1853–1855 (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2006), pp. 440–55.
13. Mark Ravina, The Last Samurai: the life and battles of Saigō Takamori (Hoboken
NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004), pp. 72–3.
14. Ishiguro Keishichi, Utsusareta Bakumatsu: Ishiguro Keishichi collection [Last
Years of the Bakufu on Camera: the Ishiguro Keishichi Collection]
(Tokyo: Akaishi Shoten, 1990), pp. 252–63.
15. Fukuzawa Yukichi, Fukuō Jiden [Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi]
(Tokyo: Hakuōsha, 1970), pp. 97–8.
16. Cobbing, Bakumatsu Saga-han no Taigai Kankei no Kenkyū, p. 36.
17. There is an entire book on the subject of this photograph of Verbeck with
his students in Nagasaki. See Katō Shōichi, Bakumatsu Ishin no Angō [Code
for the Overthrow of the Bakufu and Meiji Restoration] (Tokyo:
Shōdensha, 2007). Sugitani, Nabeshima Kansō, p. 97.
18. For a description of the first attack on the British Legation see Cortazzi,
Victorians in Japan, pp. 103–104.
19. Contemporary reports of Richardson’s death in the ‘Namamugi incident’
feature in Japan Herald. A detailed account is presented in Miyazawa
Shinichi, Satsuma to Eikoku tono Deai [Encounter between Satsuma and
Britain] (Kagoshima: Kōjō Shobō Shuppan, 1987), pp. 77–95.
20. Andrew Cobbing, ‘Foreign Intelligence Reports in the Nagasaki
Information War of 1863’, Kyushu International Student Centre Bulletin, no.10,
1999, pp. 58–60.
1977), p. 292.
22. Andrew Cobbing, The Satsuma Students in Britain (Richmond: Japan Library,
2000), pp. 35–6.
23. Fukuzawa Yukichi, letter to Shimazu Yutarō cited in Sugitani, Nabeshima
Kansō, p. 74.
24. W.G. Beasley, Japan Encounters the Barbarian: Japanese travellers in America and
Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 114–6. Cobbing,
The Satsuma Students in Britain, pp. 109–10.
25. On the Kaientai and Sakamoto’s activities to promote cooperation
between Satsuma and Chōshū see Marius Jansen, Sakamoto Ryōma and the
Meiji Restoration (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), pp. 216–9.
26. On Britain’s diplomatic stance in the last years of the Tokugawa regime
see Gordon Daniels, Sir Harry Parkes: British representative in Japan
(Richmond: Japan Library, 1996), pp. 51–7.
27. On ‘Matsudaira Kansō, the ex-daimiō of Hizen, an oldish-looking man’,
Satow wrote, ‘He had the reputation of being a time-server and a great
299
intriguer, and certainly, up to the very moment of the revolution, which took
place in 1868, he never allowed anyone to guess what side he would take.’
Ernest Satow, A Diplomat in Japan (New York: ICG Muse, 2000), p. 250.
28. The ‘Meiji Restoration’ is the commonly used English term for the trans-
fer of power and reforms known in Japanese as Meiji Ishin, although
‘Meiji Renovation’ would be a more accurate translation. Richard Sims,
Japanese Political History since the Meiji Renovation (London: Hurst & Co.,
2001), p. 1.
29. William Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Arthur Tiedemann (eds),
Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol.2 (New York: Columbia University Press,
2005), pp. 671–2.
30. As a result of the cable laid between Nagasaki and Shanghai in 1874, by
the mid-1870s correspondence between Japanese diplomats in Europe
and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo was conducted by means of
telegrams written in English. Both Brunton and Morris wrote memoirs of
their experiences in Japan. J. Morris, Advance Japan (London: Wyman
and Sons, 1895). R.H. Brunton, Building Japan, 1868–78 (London:
RoutledgeCurzon, 1995).
31. Andrew Cobbing, ‘Irei no O-Yatoi Gaikokujin: kōzan gishi Morisu no
sokuseki o saguru’ (An Unusual Oyatoi: in search of mining engineer
Morris) in Nishi Nihon Bunka, no.339, 1998.
32. Andrew Cobbing, ‘The Western Technological Impact on Arita Porcelain
in the Early Years of the Meiji Period’, Kyushu University International Student
Centre Research Bulletin, no.13, 2003, pp. 113–23.
33. See Hugh Cortazzi, Dr Willis in Japan: British medical pioneer, 1862–1877
(London: The Athlone Press, 1985). Another example of a foreign expert
employed in Kyushu was the celebrated writer Lafcadio Hearn, who spent
some time in the 1890s teaching at the Fifth Higher Middle School in
Kumamoto. The house where he spent his first year there is now a
museum. On Hearn’s Kumamoto sojourn see Yoji Hasegawa, A Walk in
Kumamoto: the life and times of Setsu Koizumi, Lafcadio Hearn’s Japanese wife
(Folkestone: Global Oriental, 1997).
34. Sims, Japanese Political History since the Meiji Renovation, p. 29.
35. Ibid., pp. 21–7.
36. Charles Yates, Saigō Takamori: the man behind the myth (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1995), pp. 131–5. Kawazoe Shōji and Seno Seichirō,
Kyūshū no Fūdo to Rekishi, p. 299.
38. A notable example of a ‘peasant’ rebellion that actually involved various
social classes was the Takeyari Ikki of 1873, in which 100,000 people con-
verged on Hakata in protest against government policy. Houses and even
the prefectural offices in Fukuoka Castle were damaged before govern-
ment troops restored order.
300
Notes
39. Sonoda Hiyoshi, Etō Shinpei to Saga no Ran [Etō Shinpei and the Saga
Rebellion] (Tokyo: Shinjinbutsusha, 1978), p. 154.
40. Stephen Vlastov, ‘Opposition Movements in Early Meiji, 1868–1885 in
Marius Jansen (ed.), The Cambridge History of Japan, vol.4: the nineteenth century
41. Ibid., pp. 392, 402.
42. Yates, Saigō Takamori, p. 169.
43. Vlastos, ‘Opposition Movements in Early Meiji’, p. 396.
44. Yates, Saigō Takamori, pp. 165–6, 168.
45. Tamamuro Taijō, Seinan Sensō [The Southwest War] (Tokyo: Shibundō,
1958), p. 157.
46. Vlastov puts Saigo’s armed strength at 22,000, Yates at 30,000. Vlastov,
‘Opposition Movements in Early Meij’, pp. 398–9. Yates, Saigō Takamori,
p. 167.
47. Saigō’s head had been severed but was not found next to his body, adding
to the mystery surrounding his death. The most reliable accounts suggest
that the head was recovered later by government troops. Ravina, The Last
Samurai, p. 211. Yates, Saigō Takamori, p. 168.
48. Tobu ga gotoku, Shiba Ryōtarō’s novel on Saigō’s career was televised in the
1990 NHK Taiga drama series, with Nishida Toshiyuki playing the lead
role. Yates, Saigō Takamori, pp. 169, 183.
49. Sims, Japanese Political History, p. 53.
50. Lane Earns, ‘Local Implications for the End of Extraterritoriality in Japan:
the closing of the foreign settlement in Nagasaki’ in Helen Hardacre and
Adam l. Kern (eds), New Directions in Meiji Japan (Boston: Brill, 1997), p. 319.
51. The spelling of ‘Yawata’ reflects the influence of the central authorities in
Tokyo. In Kyushu this is commonly pronounced ‘Yahata’, but it appears
as Yawata in English documents relating to the steelworks.
52. Sims, Japanese Political History, p. 58.
54. The Taio gold mine remained in operation until 1972. Matsumoto Kōhei,
Taio Kinzan-shi [History of Taio Gold Mine] (Ōita: Saiki Printing
Corporation, 1989), pp. 13, 75.
55. Ibid., p. 307.
56. See, for example, John Steinberg et al. (eds), The Russo-Japanese War in
Global Perspective: World War Zero, vol.1 (Boston: Brill, 2005). David Wolff
et al. (eds), The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero, vol.2
(Boston: Brill, 2006).
Chapter Twelve: The Twentieth Century

1. Links with Thomas Glover’s homeland in north-east Scotland today
include the Glover Room in Fraserburgh Library and Braehead House,
301
where his parents lived in Aberdeen. In Nagasaki, a ceremony is held in

front of the Glover villa every September commemorating his arrival in
Japan.
2. Lane Earns, ‘Local Implications for the End of Extraterritoriality in Japan:
the closing of the foreign settlement in Nagasaki’ in Helen Hardacre and
Adam L. Kern (eds), New Directions in Meiji Japan (Boston: Brill, 1997), p. 317.
3. Ibid., p. 316.
4. Tomisaburō foresaw the demise of Nagasaki quite early. ‘It is very
difficult to make money in Nagasaki nowadays. Moji and Bakan
[Shimonoseki] have taken all the business away from here. I am afraid we
shall never see Nagasaki of ten fifteen years ago again. To my idea Korea
or Manchuria will be the business field of the future.’ Tomisaburō Glover
to Walter Bennett, 21 April 1907. ‘Glover Family Papers’, Nagasaki
Prefectural Library.
5. Earns, Local Implications for the End of Extraterritoriality in Japan’, p. 316.
6. Interview with Mabel Shigeko Walker by Andrew Cobbing for Link
Productions, Nagasaki, 5 October 1994.
7. After the Pacific War the Glover villa passed into the hands of Nagasaki
City. Several other Western-style houses from the age of the foreign settle-
ment have since been dismantled and reassembled on this site to form the
‘Glover Garden’. This attracts so many visitors that there is a coach park at
the bottom of the hill and ‘skywalk’ escalators to facilitate the climb to the
top. On the contrasting fortunes of the Glover family over two generations
see Brian Burke-Gaffney, Hana to Shimo: Gurabā-ke no hitobito [Flower and
the Frost: people in the Glover family] (Nagasaki: Nagasaki Bunkensha,
1989).
8. Steven Ericson, The Sound of the Whistle: railroads and the state in Meiji Japan
(Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 41–3.
9. On the Hisatsu Railway see Maeyama Mitsunori, Kumagawa Monogatari
[Kuma River Story] (Fukuoka: Ashi Shobō, 1997), pp. 27–8.
10. Louise Young, Japan’s Total Empire (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1998), pp. 328–9.
11. Penelope Francks, Technology and Agricultural Development in Pre-war Japan
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), pp. 237, 276.
12. On the suffering of the Okinawa population at the hands of the Japanese
army in 1945 see Matthew Allen, ‘Wolves at the Back Door: remembering
the Kumejima massacres,’ in Laura Hein and Mark Selden (eds), Islands of
Discontent: Okinawan responses to Japanese and American power (Lanham ML:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), pp. 39–64.
13. Max Hastings, Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944–45 (London: Harper
Press, 2007), p. 480.
14. Barton Bernstein, ‘Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese
Surrender; missed opportunities, little-known near disasters, and modern
302
Notes
memory’ in Michael Hogan (ed.), Hiroshima in History and Memory

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 45, 69.
15. At the atomic bomb museum in Nagasaki it is now acknowledged that
there were considerable numbers of Korean and other non-Japanese
victims. About 20,000 Koreans in Hiroshima and 2,000 in Nagasaki are
thought to have died as a result of these two attacks. Mikiso Hane, Modern
Japan: a historical survey (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), p. 413.
16. David Lu, Japan: a documentary history, vol.2, p. 472.
17. John Dower, ‘The Bombed: Hiroshimas and Nagasakis in Japanese
Memory’ in Michael Hogan (ed.), Hiroshima in History and Memory
18. Ibid., p. 129.
19. See, for example, John Dower, Embracing Defeat (New York: W.W. Norton
& Co., 1999), pp. 271–3.
20. Frank Langdon, ‘Japan: multi-party drift and Okinawa reversion’ in Asian
Survey, vol.9, no.1: A Survey of Asia in 1968, Part 1 (Jan. 1969), p. 48.
21. Paul Bailey, Postwar Japan: 1945 to the present (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers
Ltd., 1996), pp. 100–101. Yutaka Kosai, ‘The Postwar Japanese Economy’
in Yamamura Kozo (ed.), The Economic Emergence of Modern Japan
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 191–2.
22. Nagatani has a club in Kumamoto City called ‘Good Time Charlie’s’,
which is a popular venue for live music. See http://www.countrygold.net/
us/(accessed 10 March 2008).
1977), pp. 32–3.
24. John Lie, Multiethnic Japan (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press,
2001), p. 188.
25. Timothy George, Minamata: pollution and the struggle for democracy in postwar
Japan (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), p. 17.
26. Ibid., pp. 3–5.
27. Ibid., p. 18.
28. W. Eugene Smith and Aileen Smith, Minamata (New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, 1975), pp. 10–11
29. George, Minamata, p. 218.
30. Ibid., p. 259.
31. Ibid., p. 8.
32. Gavan McCormack, ‘Kokusaika: impediments in Japan’s deep structure’
33. At APU’s multicultural campus in Beppu there are approximately 2,300
international students from seventy-eight countries and regions through-
out the world together with around 3,000 Japanese students.
303
34. Paula Harrell, Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese students, Japanese teachers,
1895–1905 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), p. 2.
35. See, for example, Outline of the Fukuoka 21st-Century Plan, March 1998 issued
by the Planning and Promotion Department, Fukuoka Prefectural
Government.
36. Kyushu’s Advantages, Kyushu Bureau of MITI, 1998.
37. Jennifer Robertson, ‘It Takes a Village: internationalization and nostalgia
in postwar Japan’ in Stephen Vlastov (ed.) Mirror of Modernity: invented
traditions of modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998),
p. 119.
38. Robert Uriu, Troubled Industries: confronting economic change in Japan (Ithaca and
London: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 99–100.
39. See http://www.nmhc.jp/ (accessed 10 March 2008).
304
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INDEX
Abe Nakamaro, 72 Amano Tōkage, 108

Aburaya Kumahachi, fig.53, 254 Ama no Yasukawara (Miyazaki), 12
Acheson, Dean, 249 America, United States of, 216, 218;
Adams, William, 173 army, 241, 245–7, 249; bases, 249,
Aesop’s Fables, 149 251; envoy, 219
agriculture, 198, 242–3. See also rice Amaterasu (deity), 2, 8, 73; birth, 13,
Ainu (people), xx, 209 17, 79; concealment; 12; rice
airports, 31, 243, 255 paddies, 34
Aizu domain, 225 ambergris, 94
Akizuki domain, 231, 266 Amboyna massacre, 174
Akizuki family, 266 Ame no Uki Hashi (floating bridge of
Akizuki Tanezane, 164 heaven), 2
Akōgi (Kagoshima), 142 Ame no Uzume (deity), 15
Akunoura (Nagasaki), 188, 218 Amino Yoshihiko, xx, 62, 198, 199
Allied Occupation, 247–8, 250–1, 258 Andaman Islands, 8
Alt, William, 221 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 238
Altaic languages, 7 Anglo-Satsuma War. See Kagoshima,
ama (divers), 198 bombardment of
Amagi (Fukuoka), 44 Anjiro (interpreter), 147
Amako Yoshihisa, 157 An Lushan, 80
Amakusa Islands, fig.37, 148, 162, 191; Annam (Vietnam), 111, 119, 175,
Christian community, 149, 152, 178; 201
Kakure Kirishitan, 163, 184, 185, Anrakuji Temple, 68, 93
186; Shimabara Rebellion, 181–3 Ansei Treaties, 219; revision of, 235
Amakusa Shirō, 181 Antoku (emperor), 100
Ama no Hashidate (Kyoto), 293n2 Aoki, Michiko, 44, 51
Ama no Iwato Shrine, 12 Arai Hakuseki, 19, 37, 206
320
Index
Arakawa Hidetoshi, 115 automobiles. See motor vehicles

Aratsu (Fukuoka), 73 Awakihara (Miyazaki), 13, 271n31
archaeological sites; Eta, 13; Hirabaru, Ayabe Castle, 132
30; Itazuke, 31; Kanenokuma, 31; Ayutthaya (Siam), 176, 291n24
Makurazaki, 22; Suku Okamoto, 31,
32–3; Takachiho, 20; Tateiwa, 29; bakuhan-taisei, 192–3
Yoshinogari, 25–6 Bali, 8
architecture: shrines, 8; Korean, 31, Baptista, Pedro, 177
69 Barnes, Gina, 24, 51
Ariake Sea, 6, 19, 25–6, 47, 260–1 baseball, 74
Arima family, 192, 265 Bashō (poet), 293n2
Arima Harunobu, 152, 153, 159, 174, Batavia, 183, 215; Java, 216
178–9, 181 Batten, Bruce, xxi, 64, 65, 102, 138,
Arita, 227; (Imari) ware, 171, 198, 208; on Dazaifu, 69, 70
206–207 Beijing, 102
Armstrong guns, 217, 223 bells, 39, 70
artisans, 197 Benedict, Ruth, xviii
Asakura (Fukuoka), 70 Beppu (Ōita), figs.53–54, 254–5, 257
ashigaru (foot soldiers), 155 Bernardo (convert), 147
Ashikaga Tadafuyu, 129 Bikini Atoll, 248
Ashikaga Tadayoshi, 125 Black Ship. See also kurofune, 148
Ashikaga Takauji, 121, 125, 127–8, Bōnotsu (Kagoshima), 102, 209
132, 157, 203 border guards (sakimori), 48, 64, 89, 90
Ashikaga Yoshiaki, 144 Boshin civil war, 225–6
Ashikaga Yoshimasa, 144 Boxer Rebellion, 237
Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, 130, 135, 136–7 Brazil, 151, 242
Asian continent, xiii-xiv, xvii bread (pan), 151
Asian Pacific Expo (Fukuoka), 257 breweries, 25, 199
Aso family, 91, 155 bridges, 217
Aso Koremasa, 159 Bridgestone Tyres, 259
Aso Korenao, 128 Britain, 173, 213–15, 216, 218, 219;
Aso: Mt, fig.1, xv, 62, 128, 195, 201, Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 238;
251; Shrine, 14, 155, 278n52 consulate, 239; engineers, 227;
Aso no Kimi, 58 legation, 221, 228. See also under
astronomy, 211 merchants
atomic bombs, 188, 240–1, 246–7, Brunton, Richard Henry, 227
248; hibakusha, 248, 253; museum, Buddhism, 54, 72, 78, 97; civilizing
247, 303n15 influence, 70; Ikkō sect, 185;
Austronesian languages, 7 introduction of, 55, 75–6, 77;
321
Buddhism (cont.) Chaplin, Charlie, 243

monks, 72–3, 87; persecution; 185; Charles II (England), 183
pilgrimages, 201; Pure Land, 164, Charter Oath, The, 227
185; separation from Shintō, 16, 68, Cheju Island, 112, 114
132, 185; Tendai sect, 84; Zen, 85 chemistry, 212
Buddhist temples, 158; Anrakuji, 68; Chemulpo, 240
Buzōji, 84; Hōkōji, 171–2; Honnōji, Chen Shou, 27, 28; Wajinden, 33–6, 37,
144; Hyōryūji, 77; Jōtenji, 110; 39, 41
Kanzeonji, 70; Kenchōji, 106; Chijiwa, Michael, 152, 153, 289n22
Kōtokuin, 106; Satsuma, 16; Chikugo basin, 43–4, 199
Seiganji, 97; Shōfukuji, 85; Sōfukuji, Chikugo Province, 90
207; Tōdaiji, 72, 78 Chikugo River, 60; Battle of, 129
buke-machi (district), fig.34, 196 Chikuhō coal mines, 198, 236; strikes,
buke shohattō (code), 193 242, 260
bullet train. See shinkansen Chikuzen Province, 121, 157, 165
Bungo Province, 91, 121, 165, 169 China, 189, 198, 236–7, 249; economy,
bunmei kaika (Meiji Enlightenment), 257: military power, 258; Mongol
208, 227 conquest of, 111–12; normalization
Burakumin, 253, 295n24. See also eta; of relations with, xv, 250;
hinin Chinese dynastic histories, xv-xvi, 27,
burial style: Ata, 22; jar burial, 8, 31 49, 57; Hanshu (Former Han), 27;
bushidō, 155 Houhanshu (Latter Han), 19, 30,
Buzen Province, 165 40–1; Sanguozhi (Three Kingdoms),
Buzōji Temple, 84 27; Suishu (Sui), 42; Xingtanshu (New
Tang), 42; Mingshi, 139
Canton, 140 Chinese dynasties: Xia, 19; Qin, 19;
carpentry, 198 Sui, 61, 76. See also Tang; Song;
castaways, 215, 216 Yüan; Ming; Qing
Castella cake, 151 Chinese Eastern (Manchuria) Railway,
castles, 155; ikkoku ichijō-rei, 194; wajie, 238
170 Chinmoku (film), 292n30
castle towns, 194–6, 197, 203; Chinzei Bugyō (post), 108, 120
urbanization, 200 Chinzei Tandai (post), 120–2, 126,
Catherine of Braganza, 183 127, 129
Catholics, 163, 186 Chiran (Kagoshima), fig.34, 196,
cayenne pepper, 151 245–6
Celebes, The, 8 Chisso Corporation, 252–3
Chamberlain, Basil Hall, 10 chōnin (townsfolk), 197, 210
Chang’an (Xian), 69, 72, 76, 80 chopsticks, 35
322
Index
Chōshū domain, 161, 222–6, 228 country chieftains, 86–7, 90, 91

Chosŏn dynasty, 124, 136, 140; currency, 202. See also coinage;
Hideyoshi’s invasions, 167–72 deflation; inflation
Christian daimyo, 150–3, 154, Curtin, Philip, 124
178–9
Christianity, 144, 146, 158, 159; Daifang (Korea), 34, 36, 49
converts, 149–50, 166–7; Daikakuji branch, 127
persecution, 177–80, 183–4, daimyo, 193, 219, 265–6, 294n8; buke
189–90, 211; prohibition, 179; shohattō, 193; fudai, 191, 192; kaieki,
twenty-six martyrs, 178. See also 190; monbatsu, 195; ranpeki, 217;
Catholics; Dominican Order; sankin kōtai, 193–4, 201; tozama, 192.
Franciscan Order; Jesuit Order; See also shugo daimyo: sengoku
Kakure Kirishitan; Protestants; daimyo
Shimabara Rebellion Dajōkan (council), 70, 77, 95, 106,
Chūai (emperor), 50 108, 226
Chūzan (state), 138 Dannoura, Battle of, 100, 105, 108,
Cicero, 149 126, 128
civilian protest, 253, 260. See also ikki Date Masamune, 155
Claval, Paul, xviii datsu-A (leaving Asia), xiv, 237
coal mining: Chikuhō, 198, 236; Kisu, Dazaifu (Fukuoka), xiii; governor, 88,
227; Miike, 236, 259; strikes, 242, 89; Headquarters, figs.18–19,
260; Takashima, 227, 236 68–70, 80, 91; Kanzeonji, 70;
Coelho, Gaspar, 177 kokubu, 89; inspections, 94–9;
coinage: copper, 202; silver, 202, 207; Tenmangū Shrine, fig.21, 67, 68;
Song, 97 Tofuro Ato, figs.18–19, 69; decline,
Cold War, The, xiv, 74, 248–50, 255, 82–3; destruction of, 92; Kamakura,
258 109, 126; rival courts, 129, 132, 135,
Coleridge, Samuel, 112, 284n12 136; warring states, 101, 144, 160;
Columbus, Christopher, 146 Tokugawa, 191, 201, 223. See also
Confucianism, 97, 197, 198, 210 Kyushu National Museum
conscription, 90, 230, 232 Dazai Daini (post), 110, 132
conservation, 260–1 Dazai Shōni (post), 80, 92, 99, 110
Constantinople, 145 deflation, 235
construction industry, 29, 260 descent from heaven. See tenson kōrin
copper, 138, 207 Dejima, fig.40, 180, 183, 187, 204, 215,
cormorant fishing, 191, 294n6 220; Edo Sanpo, 205; porcelain trade,
corvée labour, 87, 199 206–7
cotton, 213 democracy, 235, 243; votes for
Counter-Reformation, The, 146 women, 251
323
demons. See kidō; oni English (language), 220, 221

department stores, 244, 246 Ennin, 73
Depression, The Great, 242, 244 Engi Shiki, 13
Deshima. See Dejima Enomoto Takeaki, xix
Diamond Princess (ship), 189, 294n3 eta (class), 199–200
dialect, 202–3, 242, 252 Eta Shrine, 13
disease, 97, 110, 117, 166; smallpox, Etō Shinpei, 231, 234
80 Europe,145–50, 212; trade with,
Dodge, Joseph, 249 173–4, 179, 183. See also Britain;
Doeff, Hendrik, 215 Dutch East India Company; France;
Dominican Order, 151, 177 Portugal; Russia; Spain
Dontaku festival, 110–11 Ezo. See Hokkaido
Dower, John, 248
Dutch East India Company (VOC), Fan Yeh, 40–1
173; East Indies, 174, 183; Hirado Faria, Jorge, 145
factory, 174, 183; ships, 204. See also farmers, 25, 197, 198–9, 236, 242–3,
Dejima; opperhoofd 256
Dutch Navy, 218 festivals, 171, 184, 203; Dontaku,
Dutch Studies. See Rangaku 110–11; Hassaku, 217; Kunchi, 205,
207; Yamakasa, 98, 110–11
earthquakes, 6, 172 firearms, 143, 157, 232, 288n2. See also
East China Sea, xvi, 241, 255, 258 gunnery
East India Company, 173; Hirado First Emperor, The, 19, 75, 272n54;
factory, 174, 180 tomb, 49
Ebino basin, 249 fishing, 198, 252–3, 254
Edo, xvii, 172, 200; Castle, 173, 221, football, 257
225; culture, xx foreign experts. See o-yatoi
education, 210–12, 221, 223–4, 250–1, forestry, 191, 198
256–7; samurai, 210; imperial Formosa, 8; campaign, 237
universities, xvii France, 219, 225
Egami Namio, 56 Franciscan Order, 151, 177; expulsion,
Egashira Yutaka, 254 179–80; martyrs, 178
Eisai (Yōsai), 84–5, 97, 98 Francks, Penelope, 243
elephant, 201 Frois, Luis, 148–9
Elisonas, Jurgis, 145 fudai daimyo. See under daimyo
Emishi (people), xx, 48, 90, 91 Fujian Province, 135, 140. See also
Endō Shūsaku, 292n30 Quanzhou
England. See Britain; East India Fujimori, Alberto, 242
Company Fujiwara (capital), 77
324
Index
Fujiwara family, 77, 99, 107, 110, 126 Genyōsha (Black Ocean Society), 237,
Fujiwara Hirotsugu, 79–80 244
Fujiwara Motori, 92 globalization, xxi
Fujiwara Sumitomo, 83, 92 Glover, Thomas Blake, 220, 221,
Fukamizu Munakata, 156 223–4, 227, 236, 301n1
fukoku kyōhei (policy), 230, 235 Glover, Tomisaburō, 239–41
Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, 261 Glover villa, fig.51, 220, 239, 302n7
Fukuoka Castle, fig.59, 74, 75, 195, Goa, 147
264; 300n38 Gobi Desert, 7, 74
Fukuoka City, xix, 197, 246, 257–8; Go-Daigo (emperor), 121, 126, 127,
airport, xi, 31, 200; castle town, 194; 128
Dome, fig.59, 74; formation, 200; Godai Tomoatsu, 213, 214, 224, 234
growth, 29, Heiwa-dai, 74, 195; Go-Kameyama (emperor), 130
name, 73, 280n14; Tōjin-machi, go-kenin (vassals), 107, 114, 116
208; yatai, 249. See also Hakata; gold, 146, 148, 150. See also Taio gold
Kyushu University mine
Fukuoka domain, 190, 192, 193, 199, golden brocade banners, 126, 127
205, 223; currency, 202, 229; Kyōho golf, 240
famine, 196; Shūyūkan school, 210. gonin-gumi, 245
See also Kuroda family Gordon, Andrew, xxii
Fukuzawa Yukichi, 220, 221, 224, 234; gōshi (rural samurai), 196
datsu-A, xiv, 237, 258 Gotō Islands, 80, 184, 186, 188
fumi-e (picture trampling), 184, 185 Gozen-sama (deity), 184
Funagoya (Fukuoka), 43, 263 Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,
Funai (Ōita), 149, 153, 160, 191, 201; 3
domain, 191, 266 Gregory III (pope), 152
Funayama (tomb), 54 Guangwu (emperor), 30
furusato (‘home village’), 259 gunnery, 212, 216–17
Furuta Takehiko, 13, 39, 40, 61, 76
fūsetsugaki (reports), 206, 296n39 Hachiman sect, 43, 78, 125
Futagami, Mt, 2, 17 Hagakure (book), 155, 202, 203
Haga Noboru, 4
gagaku music, 70, 279n6 Hagi (Yamaguchi), 204, 231; ware, 171
Gama, Vasco da, 146 Hainuzuka (Fukuoka), fig.58
Gauls, xx Hakata, xvi, 59, 101, 151;
Genesis, Book of, 184 battlegrounds, 128, 157; culture,
Geneva, Lake, 47 203; destruction of, 160, 166;
Genkai Sea, 29, 198, 237 growth, 95–6, 98, 138–9, 200;
Genpei War, 100, 114, 126, 172 Hakozaki, 115, 119, 165, 177;
325
Hakata (cont.) Ōsumi, 10, 38; rebellion, 79, 204;

Hideyoshi, 166; international port, subjugation of, 58, 66, 89, 90;
235; Jōtenji, 110; Korean trade, 209; warriors, 10, 80
Kushida, 98; merchants, 95; origins, Hearn, Lafcadio, 300n33
94–6; rivalry over, 131, 136; Heco, Joseph (Hamada Hikozō), 220
Shōfukuji, 85; Sode no Minato, 99; Heian court, 81, 82, 84; culture, 86;
Song influence, 97, 102; Tachibana, eclipse, 101, 105. See also Dajōkan
Battle, of, 157; Tatarahama, Battle Heian (capital). See Kyoto
of, 125, 128. See also Dontaku Heijō (capital). See Nara
festival; Fukuoka; Yamakasa festival Heike Monogatari (Tale of Taira Line),
Hakata Bay, 29, 83, 95, 97, 121, 243; xvii, 100
defensive walls, fig.23, 103, 105, heinō bunri. See shi-nō-kō-shō social
116, 117, 119; Island City, 261 structure,
Hakata-gaku, xxi Henry, Prince, Duke of Viseu
Hakata Station, xix, 160, 200, 202, 251, (Portugal), 145
263 heritage industry, 261
Hakodate, 188, 219 Heyerdahl, Thor, 28
hakkō ichiu (universal brotherhood), 3 hibakusha. See under atomic bombs
Hakozaki Shrine, fig.24, 115, 119, 165, Hibikibaru, Battle of, 154, 159
166, 177 Hidaka Masaharu, 21
Hamada Hikozō (Joseph Heco), 220 Hideyoshi. See Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Hamazaki family, 209 Hieda Are, 3, 10
Hangzhou, 96 Higo Province, 165
haniwa, 55, 56 Hiji domain, 266
hankō schools, 210, 211 Hiko, Mt, 132, 133
hansharō. See reverberatory furnaces Himeki Castle, 38
Hanyang. See Seoul Himiko (queen), fig.11, 27, 35–6, 38,
Hara, Martin, 152, 153, 289n22 51, 263
Hara Castle, fig.36, 182, 292n35 hinin (class), 199–200
Haranotsuji (Iki), 28 Hi no Kimi, 58, 61, 62
Harris, Townsend, 219 hinomoto, 76
harvest, 80 Hirabaru (tomb), 30, 44
Hassaku festival, 217 Hirado Island, 80, 117, 147, 151, 177,
Hasuike domain, 266 184; Castle, 174, 195; domain, 165,
Hasunama Saburō, 108 192, 266; factories, 173–4, 180, 183;
Hayashi Razan, 293n2 Kakure Kirishitan, 184; Matsura-tō
Hayashi Shihei, 215 territory, 133, 140; in Mongol
Hayato (people), xx, 48; Ata, 22–3; invasions, 117. See also Matsura
imperial bodyguard 10–11, 22; family
326
Index
Hirakiki Shrine, 22 Hosokawa Tadatoshi, 193

Hiramatsu Morihiko, 260 hot springs, 43, 214, 240, 254–5
Hirano Kunio, 40, 41, 42 Hotta Masayoshi, 219
Hirata Atsutane, 16 house histories. See Teiki; Kuji
Hirohito (emperor). See under Shōwa Howells, David, xxx
Hirose family, 190–1 Hsiang-yang, 114
Hirose Tansō, 212 Hudson, Mark, 15
Hiroshima, 247, 248; domain, 223 Hunter, Hans, 236
Hisatsu railway line, 241 Huis ten Bosch (resort), fig.56, 187,
Hita, 191, 198; basin, 91, 190; Kangien 259, 293n1
Academy, 212. See also merchants hyakushō, 92, 198. See also peasants
Hitoyoshi: Castle, 233; domain, 159, Hyōryūji Temple, 77
185, 266; estate, 283n6 Hyūga myth, 4, 17, 18, 24, 210, 271n49
Hizen Province, 121, 165, 166, 171, Hyūga Michiyoshi, 100
184; Fudoki, 44, 47, 61 Hyūga Province, 10, 17, 155; Fudoki,
Hoderi, 11 17; plain, 20–1, 198–9; realm, 21,
Hōjō family, 107, 121, 125, 127 24, 57. See also Miyazaki
Hōjō Hidetoki, 121, 125–6, 127
Hōjō Sanemasa, 116 Ibuse Masuji, 248
Hōjō Tokimune, 113, 116, 284n16 Ichiki family, 144
Hokkaido, xiv, xvii, 206, 209, 215, 226; Ieyasu. See Tokugawa Ieyasu
Colonization Board, 234; migration, Ii Naosuke, 219, 221
242; Republic of, xix Ijinkan (Kagoshima), 213
Hōkōji Temple, 171–2 Ijūin family, 144
Holland. See Dutch East India Iki Island, 28, 64, 114, 117, 124, 134
Company Iki no Matsubara, fig.23, 103
Hollywood, 251 ikki, 133, 219, 300n38
Hōman, Mt., 132, 160 Ikitsuki Island, 184, 186
Homuda-wake. See Ōjin ikkoku ichijō-rei (one castle law), 194
Hong, Wontack, 56 Imagawa Ryōshun, 130, 136
Honnōji Temple, 144 Imagawa Yoshimoto, 143
Honshu, xvi, 204 Imamura Keiji, 41
Ho-ori, 9, 11, 22 Imari (Saga), 88; Bay, figs.25–26, 118,
horses, 35, 55; horse-rider theory, 56 123, 140; Kisu mine, 227; ware. See
Hoshino Hisashi, 38 Arita ware
Hosokawa family, 138, 139, 193, Imayama, Battle of, 157–8
195–6, 265, 266. See also Kumamoto Imazu (Fukuoka), 97, 113
domain Imna, 50–1, 63 See also Mimana
Hosokawa Tadaoki, 193 Nihonfu
327
imperial line. See tenson kōrin; Itsuki (Kumamoto), 101

Yamato (state) Itsukushima Island, 99, 293n2
Inaba family, 266 Iwai, Lord of Tsukushi, figs.15–16,
Inasa, Mt, 188 60–1, 62, 66, 278n48
India, 111; Tenjiku, 146 Iwakura Embassy, 230, 231, 235
Indies, The, 145–6 Iwakura Tomomi, 230
inflation, 225, 242, 249 Iwa Naga (princess), 9
Inland Sea, xvi, 62, 99, 124, 254 Iwasaki Yatarō, 234
Inoue Mitsusada, 4 Iwatoyama (tomb), figs.15–16, 60–1,
Inoue Tatsuo, 58 84, 278n48
internationalization (kokusaika), xxi, Iwatsurugi, Battle of, 158
256 Iwaya Castle, Siege of, 160
International Military Tribunal Iyo (queen), 36
(Tokyo), 247 Iyōjima Island, 227
interpreters, 142, 147, 206, 208 Izanagi (deity) 8, 9
Iriki family, 158, 283n6 Izanami (deity), 8, 9
Irokawa Daikichi, xvii Izumi (Kagoshima), 196
iron, 31, 40 Izumo (Shimane), 40, 58
Isahaya (Nagasaki), 25
Ishigamibō garden, 85 Jakatara-bumi (letter), 183
Ishimaru Yasuyo, 231 Janes, Leroy, 232
Isonokami Shrine, 52 Jansen, Marius, xxii
Iso-tei villa (Kagoshima), fig.46, 213, Japan (name): ‘King of’, 112, 114, 135,
229 137, 170; Nihon (Nippon), 62, 76,
Isshiki Noriuji, 129 276n10, 280n18; Cipangu, 76, 116,
isson ippin (movement), 259–60 146
Itagaki Taisuke, 230–1, 234 Japanese Imperial Army, 162, 225–6,
Italy, 171 244–5, 247–8
Itazuke (Fukuoka), 31; air base, 201, Japan Sea, 40
250 Jesuit Society, 145, 146–7, 171;
Ito (state), 30, 35 martyrs, 178; missionaries, 148, 149,
Itō family, 266 150, 152, 163; in Nagasaki, 151;
Itō Genboku, 218, 298n10 Province of the East Indies, 147,
Itō Hirobumi, 234, 235 148, 150 See also Frois, Luis; Loyola,
Itō Mancio, 152, 153, 289n22 Ignatius; Rodrigues, João; Xavier,
Itonoshō (estate), 138 Francis; Valignano, Allessandro
Itoshima peninsula, 29, 30, 44 Jiangnan (region), 8
itowappu system, 167, 173 jindai moji (indigenous script), 2
Itō Yoshitsuke, 155, 158 Jingishō (Ministry of Shintō), 16
328
Index
Jingū (empress), 37, 50, 51, 276n12 Kajiki (Kagoshima), 143

Jinmu (emperor), 3, 11, 17; Eastern Kakiemon ware, 207
Expedition, 3, 11–12, 13, 18, 23; Kakimoto Hitomaro, 104
birth, 22; marriage, 22–3; Ōjin Kakure Kirishitan, 162, 184, 185–6,
parallels, 24, 38, 51–2; 188
Jinshin War, 77, 104 Kamachi family, 154
Jishūkan school (Kumamoto), 210 Kamachi Shigenami, 156
Jitō (empress), 51, 78 Kamakura, 101, 105; Kenchōji, 106;
jitō (stewards), 107, 108, 283n6 Kōtokuin, 106
Jiyūtō Party, 234 Kamakura bakufu, 106, 108, 121, 130;
Jōfuku. See Xufu bureaucracy, 108; defences, 114;
jōi (movement). See sonnō jōi go-kenin, 107, 114, 116; Samurai-
Jōkyū disturbance, 108 dokoro, 107; decline; 119–21; fall,
Jōmon: people, 6–7, 9, 11, 14; cedar, 121, 127
142; pottery, 20 Kamchatka, 215
Jōtenji Temple, 110 Kamenoi Hotel, 254
Juliao, Dom. See Nakaura, Julian kami (deities), 3, 14, 77, 184
Jurchen (people), 83 Kamigata culture, xvii, xx
kamikaze, 104, 115; pilots, 104, 245–6
Kadokura, Cape, figs.27–28 Kamō family, 157
Kaempfer, Engelbert, 180, 205, 208 Kamoike line, 154
Kaga domain, 192, 233 Kanagawa, 217, 219. See also
Kagoshima City, fig.45, xvi, 5, 139, Yokohama
143, 194; bombardment of, fig.49, Kanazawa: See Kaga domain
213, 222–3; Castle, 195; Cotton Kanenaga, Prince. See Kaneyoshi,
Mill, 213, 227; Iso-tei villa, fig.46, Prince
213, 225, 229; reverberatory Kanenokuma (Fukuoka), 31
furnace, 217; Ryūkyū-kan, 176, 209; Kaneyoshi, Prince, 129, 134, 135,
Saigō’s last stand, 164; Shūseikan 136
Museum, fig.47, 222; trade, 175; Kangien Academy (Hita), 212
Xavier, 146–7. See also Sakurajima, kangō (licences), 137, 166
Mt; Satsuma Rebellion Kangwha, Treaty of, 237
Kagoshima Prefecture, 16, 214, 232 Kankō Maru (ship). See Soembing
ka:i (civilized:barbarian) paradigm, xvii Kanmon Straits, xvii, xix, 99, 131;
kaieki (sanction), 190 Tunnel, 251. See also Dannoura,
Kaikaku, 98 Battle of
kaikoku movement, 216, 223 Kanmon Suspension Bridge, xix, 251
Kaimon, Mt, fig.29, 22, 148 Kanmu (emperor), 99
Kaitai Shinsho (book), 211 Kansai, xvii. See also Kinai area
329
Kantō area, xvii, 57; samurai, 91; Khan, Khubilai, 103, 112, 113, 116,
Kamakura, 101; Edo, 170, 172, 190, 118; death, 119
191, 200 Kibi (Okayama), 57, 58
Kanzaki (Saga), 25, 132; Kanzaki-shō, Kida Sadakichi, 56
94, 98, 99, 108, 120. See also Kidder, Edward, 41
Yoshinogari kidō (way of demons), 36
Kanzeonji Temple, 70, 93 Kido Takayoshi, 228
kaolin, 207 Kiev, 111
Karatsu (Saga), 46, 133; Castle, 195; Kihachi (demon), 13–14
domain, 191–2, 266; ware, 171 Kijō (Miyazaki), 65
Karatsu Bay, 46 Kikaigashima (Demon Island), xvii
karayuki-san, 162, 290n1 Kikuchi Castle, 127, 130
Kasasa, Cape, 18–19, 20–1 Kikuchi family, 91, 110, 125–7,
Kashii Shrine, fig.13, 50, 51 129–30, 286n6; decline, 131
Kashima domain, 266 Kikuchi Taketoshi, 127, 128
Kasuga Cult, The, 280n22 Kikuchi Takatoki, 126–7
Kasuya no Miyake, 61 Kinai area, 21, 24, 55, 73, 93. See also
Katō Kiyomasa, 164, 172; Christian Kansai
purge, 178; Korean campaigns; 169, kin’in (gold seal), 30
170, 171; Kumamoto Castle, 193, Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion), 137
233; peasant revolt, 165; statue, 195 Kinoshita family, 266
Katō Tadahiro, 193 Kirishima, Mt, fig.4, 16, 17, 18, 22, 185
Katsu Kaishū, 225 Kirishima Shrine, fig.7, 16
Kawachinoura (Kumamoto), 149 kirishitan bugyō (post), 183
Kawara Shrine, 59 Kisu mine (Imari), 227
Kaya (state), 32, 50, 53, 54, 60, 63 Kitakyushu, 252, 256, 260
Kazu no Miya (princess), 222 Kitano Tenmangū Shrine, 68, 171,
Kedōin family, 157 291n14
Keene, Donald, 212 Kitsuki: Castle, 195; domain, 191,
Keigin, 157 266
Keikō (emperor), 21, 47–8, 52, 61 Kizakibayu, Battle of, 155, 158
Keiō Gijuku University, 221 Kobayakawa Hideaki, 172
Keitai (emperor), 59 Kobayashi Yukio, 39
Kenchōji Temple, 106 Kobe, 188
Kenmu Restoration, 127 kōbu gattai movement, 222
kenpeitai (military police), 240 Kōdōkan school (Saga), 210
kentōshi missions, 72, 81, 86 Koeckebacker, Nicholas, 182
Kerait tribe, 111 kofun (tombs), 49, 57; haniwa, 55, 56
Khan, Genghis, 111 Kōgoku (empress). See Saimei
330
Index
Kōgon (emperor), 127 Koryŏ (state), 82; resistance against

Koguryŏ (state), 50, 53, 63; foundation Mongols, 103, 111, 112, 114; in
myth, 17. See also Kwanggaet’o Mongol invasions, 113, 117, 119;
Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters), 3, envoys, 134, 135
13, 16, 22; compilation, 9–10; Kōshibyō (Nagasaki), 207
Hayato, 11; Motoori Norinaga, 12, Kōtoku (emperor), 77
210; Taoist imagery, 79 Kōtokuin Temple, 106
koku (unit). See kokudaka Kuchinotsu (Nagasaki), 148, 149
Kokubu (Kagoshima), 10, 23 Kuji (Ancient Tales), 2–3
kokubu (provincial capitals), 89 Kujifuru, Mt, 16
kokudaka (crop yield system), 166, 192, Kujū: Mt, 51; highlands, 153, 249
199 Kŭm River, 63, 135. See also Paekchon
Kokugaku (study of our country), xviii, River, Battle of
4, 210–11, 219, 297n52; Higo, 232; Kumamoto Castle, figs.32–33, 75, 171,
Satsuma, 16 193, 194–5, 232–3; Honmaru
Kokura, 201, 236, 241, 247; Castle, palace, 264
195; domain, 191, 265. See also Kumamoto City, 171, 194, 195, 242
Kitakyushu Kumamoto domain, 192, 193, 265;
Kokuryūkai (Black Dragon Society), Jishūkan school, 210. See also Katō
244 Kiyomasa; Hosokawa family;
kokusaika (internationalization), xxi, Shinpūren Rebellion
256 Kumamoto Prefecture, 44, 253; Hi no
Komura Jutarō, 238 Kuni, 44, 47–8
Kōmyō (emperor), 129 Kuma River, 101, 233, 241
Kondō Yoshiki, 38 Kumaso (people), xx; subjugation of,
Konishi Yukinaga, 165; Christian faith, 21, 47–8, 50, 58, 61
152–70; Korean campaigns, 168–9; Kume Kunitake, 38, 43
vassals, 182, 183; death, 153, 172, Kuna (state), 36, 38
178 Kunchi festival, 205, 207
Ko no Hana Sakuya (princess), 9, 21 Kunisaki peninsula, 132, 212
Kon Tiki (raft), 28 Kuroda family, 73, 193, 265, 266. See
Kōra, Mt, 157 also Fukuoka domain
Korea, 198, 230, 237–8; South, xv, Kuroda Kiyotaka, 234
189, 250. See also Paekche; Silla; Kuroda Nagamasa, 165
Koguryŏ; Koryŏ; Chŏson Kuroda Nagatomo, 229
Korean War, The, 250 Kuroda Yoshitaka (Josui), 153, 164,
Korea Straits. See Tsushima Straits. 165, 168, 172
Kōrokan, 73, 195. See also Tsukushi kurofune (Black Ship), 148, 166, 173
Lodge Kuroi Ame (film), 248
331
Kurokawa (Kumamoto), 255 Ledyard, Gari, 56

Kurosawa Akira, 153 Lee Cham-Pyung, 207
Kurose (Kagoshima), 19 Legaspi, Miguel Lopez de, 173
Kuroshio Current, xvi, 8 leisure resorts. See Huis ten Bosch;
Kurume, 90; Bridgestone (Ishibashi), Seagaia
259; dialect, 242; domain, 192, 265; Lelang (Korea), 27, 49
Kōra, Mt, 157 Liaodong peninsula, 238
Kushida Shrine, 98 liberal rights movement, 231, 234,
Kusunoki Masashige, 128 235–6, 237
Kwanggaet’o (king), 52–3; monument, Lidin, Olof, xii
52, 54, 123 Lie, John, xx
Kwantung Army, 244 Liefe (ship), 173, 174
Kyōbushō (Ministry of Religion), 16 lighthouses, 227
Kyōho famine, 196 Li Tan, 174
Kyoto (capital), 67, 90, 130, 143; livestock, 35, 93. See also horses
Christians, 177–8; layout, 69, 77; London Naval Pact, 239, 244
Muromachi, 125; Kinkakuji, 137; Lopez de Legaspi, Miguel, 173
Kitano Tenmangū Shrine, 68, 171; Loyola, Ignatius, 146–7
rivalry over, 222; Toba-Fushimi, lumber industry, 241
Battle of, 225
Kyūragi (Saga), fig.2, fig.12, 46 Macao, 146, 148, 167, 179
Kyushu, concept, xv-xvi, 88; danji, 203; MacArthur, Douglas, 247
dialects, xxi: economy, xxi; MacDonald, Gaynor, xviii
Expressway, 84, 202; realm, 57, 61, MacDonald, Ranald, 206, 221, 296n41
76 Maeno Ryōtaku, 211
Kyūshū Kaishintō Party, 234–5 magatama (jewellery), 26
Kyushu National Museum, fig.60, Maher, John C., 7, 41
xiii–xiv, 68, 261, 267n1 Maki Izumi, 222
Kyūshū Tandai (post), 130 Makimuku (Kinai), 41
Kyushu University, xvii, 29, 89, 250 Makurazaki (Kagoshima), 22, 26
Malacca, 139, 146
lacquer, 199 Manchester, 213–14
land reclamation projects: Isahaya, Manchukuo, 244–5
25–6; Hakata, 261; Nagasaki, 187 Manchuria, 237–8, 242, 244; Railway,
land survey. See taikō kenchi; ritsuryō 238, 244. See also Jurchen; Puyeo
system Mancio, Dom. See Itō Mancio
Leach, Bernard, 295n20 Manila, 183
League of Nations, 244, 245 Man’yōshū (verses), 47, 48, 73, 198
Lear, King (play), 153 Mao Ze Dong, 249
332
Index
Martinho, Dom. See Hara, Martin 294n5; Japanese, 176; monopolies,

Maruyama courtesans, 205 202; Nihon-machi, 176; Persian and
Maruyama Masao, 4 Arab, 74, 95, 118; Silla, 95; Song, 96,
Mashida Nagamori, 178 110, 111; Tang, 95; Tsushima, 175,
Massarella, Derek, 208 209
Matsudaira family, 192, 266 mercury, 252
Matsukata Masayoshi, 235 metallurgy, 31–2
Matsukura Katsuie, 181, 182, 190 Midway Island, 245
Matsukura Shigemasa, 181 migration: early, 5, 7, 12, 57, 59,
Matsumae domain, 209 270n14; rival courts, 136; warring
Matsuo Bashō, 293n2 states, 170, 171; recent, 241–2,
Matsura (state), 133; family, 165, 192, 256–7. See also urbanization
266 Miguel, Dom. See Chijiwa, Michael
Matsura Shigenobu, 173–4, 175 Miike coal mine, 236, 259; strikes,
Matsura-tō, 123, 124, 125, 128, 133–4, 260
140 Mikenu, 13–14
Matsushima Bay, 294n2 miko (priestess), fig.20, 44
McCormack, Gavan, 62 mikoshi floats, 184. See also Yamakasa
medicine, 211, 217–18, 228, 248, Mikuma River, 191
297n57 military police (kenpeitai), 240
Megane-bashi (Spectacles Bridge), Mimana Nihonfu, 50–1, 60, 63,
fig.38, 151 276n10
Meiji (emperor), 156, 225, 238 Mimigawa River, 101; Battle of, 159
Meiji (state): centralization, xvii, 228; Mimitsu (Miyazaki), 23
Christian policy, 186; Constitution, Minamata (Kumamoto): disease,
235; creation of, 213, 225; foreign 252–4; Siege of, 156
relations, 236–8; fukoku kyōhei, 230, Minamoto family, 91, 98–9
235; oligarchy, 226, 234; separation Minamoto Yorinori, 100, 108
of Buddhism and Shinto, 16, 18, Minamoto Yoritomo, 100, 101, 105,
132 172; shogun, 106; death, 107
Meiji Enlightenment, The. See bunmei Minatoguchi, Battle of, 128
kaika Ming dynasty, 124, 135, 167, 168;
Meiji Restoration, xvi, 214, 225–6, envoys, 137, 170; relief army, 169,
300n28 190; fall, 206
Meissen, 207 Mingzhou. See Ningbo
Mendes Pinto, Fernão, 145, 147 mining, 191, 198; phosphate, 242. See
merchants, 197, 200, 221; American, also coal mining
220; British; 220, 223; Chinese, 207, mirrors, 30, 36, 39, 41, 54; Kobayashi
209; Hakata, 95, 102; Hita, 190–1, theory, 39–40
333
Mito domain, 217, 221 Mōri Motonari, 157

Mitsubishi, 234, 236; Nagasaki Mōri Terumoto, 160, 163
Shipyard, 188–9, 218, 239, 240, Moriyama Einosuke, 206
294n3 Mori Yoshirō, 4
Mitsui, 236; Green Land, 259 Morodomi (Saga), 19
Miura Anjin. See Adams, William Morrison (ship), 216
Miura Baien, 212 Morris, J., 227
Miwa, Mt, 18 Morris, Samuel, 227
Miyajima Shrine, 99, 293n2 Motoori Norinaga, xviii, 12, 16, 19, 37,
Miyake Yonekichi, 30 210
Miyanoura Shrine, 23 motor vehicles, 240; factories, 259
Miyazaki City: Eta Shrine, 13; G8 Mukden, 244
Summit, 4; Seagaia, 4; Shrine, fig.6, mulberry bark, 199
14; Tower of Peace, 3 Munakata Shrine, 51, 59, 73
Miyazaki Prefecture, 1, 8. See also Munich, 207
Hyūga Province Murai Shōsuke, xvii, 124
Mizuki (Water Fortress), fig.17, 64–5, Murasaki Shikibu, 86
66, 69 Muromachi bakufu, 125, 128–9,
Mizushima, Battle of, 130, 131, 204 130–1, 135–7, 143; fall, 144
Moji (Fukuoka), 235 Musashi, Battleship, 239
mokkan (wooden tablets), 89 music: country, 251; gagaku, 70, 279n6;
monbatsu rank, 195 jazz, 243; rock ‘n’ roll, 251
Mongol empire, 102, 103, 111, 121; Mutō family, 108, 283n8. See also
envoys, 112–14, 116, 119. See also Shōni
Yüan dynasty Mutō (Shōni) Sukeyori, 109–10,
Mongol fleet, 104, 114, 117; wreck, 134
fig.25, 284n25, 285n33 Mutual Security Treaty, 248–9
Mongolia, 17, 111 mythology, 6, 8–9; Greek, 9. See also
Mongol invasions, xvii, 65, 94, Hyūga myth, 4, 17; Paekche, 11
103–104, 110, 126, 133; failure, 105,
118; first, 114–15; preparation, 113, Na (state), 30, 31, 32–3
116; second, 117–8 Nabeshima family, 195–6, 216, 265,
Mononobe (family), 75, 77; Nigi 266. See also Saga domain
Hayahi, 17 Nabeshima Katsushige, 171
Mononobe Ōmuraji Arakabi, 60 Nabeshima Naohiro, 231
Mori Arinori, 229 Nabeshima Naomasa, 217, 225,
Mōri family (Chōshū), 161. See also 299n27
Chōshū domain Nabeshima Naoshige, 155, 157, 165,
Mōri family (Saiki), 266 169, 172, 193
334
Index
Nagai Takashi, 248 Naitō Torajirō, 38

Nagaoka (capital), 77 Nakagawa family, 265
Nagasaki Bay, fig.41, 215, 227 Naka Michiyo, 11, 38, 43
Nagasaki bugyō (post), 173, 167, 190, Nakai no Ōkimi, 91
206; Bugyō-sho, 205, 261; plot Nakasu district. See Hakata
against, 174, 178–9; suicide, 215 Nakatomi family, 77. See also Fujiwara
Nagasaki City, xvi, xxii, 148, 149, 197, Nakatsu domain, 191, 210, 220, 224,
246–7; Christian community, 163, 265
178, 179, 185, 186; culture, 203; Nakaura, Julian, 152, 153, 289n22
foreign settlement, 220, 235, 239– Namamugi Incident, 222, 299n19
41, 302n7; growth, 166, 200; Jesuit nanbanjin, 146. See also Europe
colony, 151, 167; Kaientai, 224; nanboku jidai (age of rival courts), 124,
Kōshibyō, 207; late Tokugawa, 219, 128–33, 134
220–1; Maruyama, 205; Megane- Nangō (Miyazaki), 65, 278n65
bashi, fig.38, 151; naval training, Nanjing, 139
fig.44, 218; nuclear-free zone, 249; Nanotsu Miyake, 61, 62, 64, 71, 95
Ōura Church, fig.50, 186; Peace Napoleonic Wars, The, 215
Park, fig.55, 188, 247; sakoku, 183; Nara (capital), 9, 18, 69, 70, 77;
security, 193, 205, 216; shipwrights, Hyōryūji, 77; Shōsōin, 73; Tōdaiji,
176; Shinchi, fig.39, 187; Sōfukuji, 72, 78
207; Steel Plant, 218; Tōjin yashiki, Nara basin, 17, 48; Hashihaka, 43;
204, 207; tourism, 188–9; twenty-six Miwa, Mt, 18; Makimuku, 41
martyrs, fig.30, 178. See also atomic navigation, 212
bombs; Dejima; Glover villa; New Caledonia, 242
Urakami newspapers, 220, 234, 243
Nagasaki-gaku, xxi Nigi Hayahi, 17, 271n47
Nagasaki Kaidō (highway), 201, 204 Nihon. See Japan
Nagasaki Museum of History and Nihongi. See Nihon Shoki
Culture, 261 Nihonjinron discourse, xviii, 258
Nagasaki no Kane (film), 248 Nihon-machi, 176
Nagasaki Prefecture, 231 Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan), 3,
Nagasaki trade, 173, 174, 208–209; 22; compilation, 9–10; Hayato, 11;
tōsen, 175. See also Dejima Paekche, 55; Taoist imagery, 79;
Nagashino, Battle of, 143, 144, 157 tenson kōrin, 16, 17; Yamatai, 37
Nagatani, Charlie, 251 Niiro Tadamoto, 164
Nagoya Castle (Saga), fig.31, 168, 169, Niji no Matsubara (Saga), 46
171, 177, 288n44 Ninigi: landfall, 2, 16, 17, 19; marriage,
Naigai (International) Club, 240 8–9, 15, 18; rice cultivation, 17;
Naitō family, 266 death, 20, 21
335
Ningbo, 85, 95, 96, 281n2; in Mongol Okehazama, Battle of, 143, 158
invasions, 117; wakō threat, 135; Okidanawate, Battle of, 159
tally trade, 137–9 Okinawa, xvii, xx, 245, 249; Shuri
Nintoku (emperor): tomb, 49, 52 Castle, 175; Yaeyama Republic, xix.
Nirayama, 217 See also Ryukyu Islands
Nishijima Sadao, 41 Okinawa Prefecture, 237
Nishikawa Joken, 211, 297n54 Okinoshima Island, 73–4
Nishitetsu: Lions, 74; railway, 59, 64–5 Ōkita no Kimi, 58
Nixon, Richard, 250 Ōkubo Toshimichi, 214, 231, 233
Nobeoka (Miyazaki), 1, 262; domain, Okudaira family, 265
191, 266 Ōkuma Shigenobu, 221, 234, 237
Nobunaga. See Oda Nobunaga Ōkura family, 91
Nogi Maresuke, 156 Olandia, Francisco de, 178
Noma, Mt, 19 Olympic Games, 255
Noma peninsula, 18–19 Ominayama, 44
Norman Conquest, 104 Ōmura domain, 266
Northern Court, 129 Ōmura family, 266
Nō theatre, 70, 156 Ōmura Sumitada, 150–1, 152
One Village One Product (isson ippin)
Ōbayashi Tarō, 11 movement, 259–60
Ōbayashi Taryō, xx Onga River, 29, 241
Obi domain, 266 Ōnin War, 143, 144
Oda Nobunaga, 143, 144, 149, 156, oni (demons), fig.5, xviii, 14, 268n7. See
157, 158 also Kihachi
Ōe (Kumamoto), 185 Ōnojō (fortress), 64, 66, 69
Ogasawara family, 265, 266 Onta ware, 198, 295n20
Ogata Kōan, 298n10 Open Door policy, 244
Ogata Koreyoshi, 100 Opium Wars, 216, 219
Ogi (Saga), 128; domain, 265 opperhoofd (Dutch factor), 182, 205,
oil, 258; shocks, 256 215, 216
Ōita City, 194. See also Funai oranges, 199, 263
Ōita Prefecture, 255, 259–60 Orpheus, 9
Ōjin (emperor), 4, 43, 56; birth, 51, 59; Osaka, xv, 49, 200, 213–14, 218, 225;
god of war, 51, 78, 125; historicity, Castle, 173; Expo, xviii, 267n1;
4, 21; Jinmu parallels, 24, 38, 51–2; Naniwa, 77
tomb, 49, 52 Ōshima Island, 175
Oka (Taketa) domain, 265 Ōsumi Province, 10
Okakura Tenshin, xiv, 261 Ōtomo Chikayo, 130
Okayama, 172. See also Kibi Ōtomo family: Hakata interests, 131,
336
Index
138–9; Kamakura, 107, 108, 121, Paul III (pope), 147

126; rival courts, 129, 130, 136; Peace Park, 188, 247; Statue, fig.55,
warring states, 132, 138–9, 153 248
Ōtomo Sadehiko, 46, 48, 63 Pearl Harbor, 245
Ōtomo Yoshimune, 165, 169, 172, 190 peasants, 93, 196, 197; rebellions
Ōtomo Yoshinao, 110 (ikki), 219, 230, 300n38. See also
Ōtomo Yoshishige (Sōrin), 145; farmers
campaigns, 153, 156–7, 158; peddlers, 197
Christianity, 147, 149, 151–2; death, Perry, Matthew C., 206, 215, 218
165; decline, 159–61, 163 Persephone, 9
Ōtomo Yoriyasu, 114 persimmons, 199
Ōtsu (court), 65 Peru, 242
Ōtsuki Gentaku, 216 Phaeton, HMS, 215, 216
Ottoman Turks, 145 Philippines, The, 151, 173, 183, 256
Ōuchi family, 131–2, 138–9; roots, photography, 220
58 physics, 212
Ōuchi Masachika, 144 Piggott, Joan, 88
Ōuchi Yoshitaka, 132, 139, 157 Pimiko. See Himiko
Ōura. See under Nagasaki Pinto, Fernão Mendes, 145, 147
overseas students, 223–4, 256–7 piracy, 82, 83. See also Silla pirates; Toi
Owari Province, 143 invasion; wakō
Ōyama Tsunayoshi, 232 Pius IX (pope), 178
Ō Yasumaro, 9–10 pollution, 47, 252–4, 260
o-yatoi foreign experts, 227 Polo, Marco, 76, 116
Ōzu Yasujirō, 252 Polynesia. See South Sea Islands
porcelain, 206–207
Pacific Ocean, 257; Rim of Fire, 6 portolans, 140
Pacific War, 104, 188, 245–7 Portsmouth, Treaty of, 238
Paekche (state), 50, 51; capital, 69; Portugal, 141; colonies, 151, 174;
diaspora, 54, 64; exiles, 11, 65, 66, embassy, 205; explorations, 145–6;
69, 71, 79; foundation myth, 11, 17; expulsion, 183; Goa, 147;
Prince Hye, 61; relations with merchants, 142–3, 144, 150–1;
Yamato, 52, 55, 56, 62; fall, 53, kurofune, 148, 166, 167, 173
63–4, 167 pottery, 198; haniwa, 55, 56; Jōmon,
Paekchon River, Battle of, 64, 65, 66 Yayoi, menda, 20; porcelain,
Papenberg, The, 204 206–207. See also yakimono-sensō
Paris, 147; Exposition Universelle, (Pottery War)
224 printing, 97, 149
Parkes, Sir Harry, 225 provincial capitals (kokubu), 89
337
provincial governors, 88–9, 91 Rikken Kaishintō Party, 234–5

Pusan, 169, 170, 230; Waegwan, 175, Rishiri Island, 206
209 Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University,
Putiatin, Yevfimy, 218 257, 303n33
Puyeo (people), 56 ritsuryō system, 88–90, 92, 101, 105,
P’yŏngyang, 63, 169 166, 198. See also Taihō Code; Yōrō
Pyramids, The, 49 Code
rival courts, age of. See nanboku jidai
Qing dynasty, 207 river ferries, 199
Quanzhou, 96, 118 roads, 201–202. See also Saikaidō
Rodrigues, João, 149, 160
radio, 244, 252 Rome, 152
Raffles, Stamford, 216 rural depopulation, 256, 259. See also
railways, 235, 238, 251; Hisatsu line, urbanization
241; Kagoshima Trunk Line, 262; Russia, 215, 218, 237–8; Baltic Fleet,
Nishitetsu line, 59, 64–5; Takachiho 214. See also Soviet Union
line, 1–2, 262–3 Russo-Japanese War, 238, 240, 244
Ran (film), 153 Ryukyu Islands, xx, 8, 224, 237;
Rangaku (Dutch Studies), 210, Chūzan (state), 138, 168; invasion
211–12, 217, 220; ranpeki daimyo, of, 175; shells, 22, 26; pirates, 82;
217 trade, 175–6, 209
rebellion, 59, 203–4; An Lushan, 80; Ryūzōji Masaie, 165
Fujiwara Hirotsugu, 79–80; Ryūzōji Takanobu, 132, 140; rise, 153;
Fujiwara Sumitomo, 83; Iwai, brutality, 154, 156; Imayama, Battle
59–61; Saga, 226, 230–1, 234; of, 157–8; death, 159
Satsuma, 194, 226, 230, 232–4;
Shimabara, 181–3, 190; Shinpūren, sadō (Way of Tea), 171
232 Sadowara Castle, 164; domain, 266
Reimei-kan (museum), 195, 261 Saga (emperor), 99, 133
Return, The (ship), 183 Saga Castle, 157, 171, 195, 264
reverberatory furnaces, 216–17 Saga City, 25, 46, 203; Xufu museum,
Reverse Course, The, 250 20; Tokugawa, 194, 195, 197; Tōjin-
Rezanov, Nikolai, fig.41, 215 machi, 208; Rebellion, 230–1;
rice, fig.2, fig.26, 196; cultivation, 6, 7, Ryūzōji Takanobu, 154
8, 20, 209, 242–3; foreign Saga domain, 265; Chienkan, 221;
competition, 25, 263; Itazuke, 31. currency, 202; Hagakure, 155, 156;
See also kokudaka Kōdōkan school, 210; Meiji
Richardson, Charles Lennox, 222, Restoration, 225–6; Nagasaki duties,
299n19 193, 205; overseas missions, 223–4;
338
Index
revenue, 192; Seirenkata, fig.43; Samurai-dokoro (council), 107

technology, 216–17, 224, 226–7. See San Felipe (ship), 177–8
also Hizen; Nabeshima family San Francisco, Treaty of, 248; System,
Saga plain, 25, 198–9, 242–3 256
Saga Prefecture, 231 Sanjō Sanetomi, 223, 229
Sagara family, 266 sankin kōtai (alternate attendance),
Sagara Haruhiro, 185 193–4, 201. See also Edo Sanpo
Sagara Yoshihi, 154–5, 159 Sao Paolo, 242
Saga Rebellion, 204, 226, 230–1, 234 Sarayama (Fukuoka), 198, 295n20
Sahara Makoto, 32 sarugaku (dance), 70, 156
Saigō Takamori, fig.48, 214, 301n47; Sarutahiko, 15
lineage, 131, 286n17; Chōshū Sasebo (Nagasaki), 249
campaign, 223; Meiji Restoration, Sata, Cape, 227
225, 228–9; resignation, 230; Satow, Ernest, 225, 299n27
Satsuma Rebellion, 232–4 Satsuma: Castle, 195; currency, 202;
Saikaidō (circuit), xv, 70, 88, 89, 90 dialect, 202, 252; domain, xvi, 193,
Saiki domain, 266 265; gōshi, 196; Hideyoshi, 164–5;
Saiki Koreharu, 156 Buddhism, 16, 185; Meiji
Saikoku, xv, 88 Restoration, 222–6, 228; revenue,
Saimei (empress), 63, 70 192; trade, 175–6, 209; students,
Saitobaru (Miyazaki), fig.8, 20–1, 57, xxii, 223–4; ware, 171. See also
272n60 Shimazu family.
Sakai (Osaka), 138–9, 189 Satsuma-gaku, xxi
Sakamoto Ryōma, 224 Satsuma peninsula, 22–3
sake (liquor), 25, 34, 156 Satsuma Province, 121
Sakhalin Island, 238 Satsuma Rebellion, 194, 204, 226, 230,
Sakitsu (Kumamoto), fig.37, 162, 163, 232–4
185, 186 Sayō-hime, fig.12, 46, 63
sakoku, edicts, 180; policy, 208, 209, Scorsese, Martin, 292n30
215–16 Scotland, 239, 301n1
Sakurajima, Mt, figs.45–46, fig.49, 5, Seagaia (resort), fig.57, 4, 259
213 sea urchin (uni), 198
Sakurakai (Cherry Society), 244 Seburi, Mt, 84, 85, 98
salt-making, 198 seclusion policy. See sakoku
samurai, 86, 91, 106, 200; buke-machi, Seifukuji Castle, 132
fig.34, 196; bunbu, 210; combat style, Seiganji Temple, 97
114, 120, 155, 156; gōshi, 196; seikanron (movement), 230, 231
monbatsu rank, 195; swords, 166, Seikantō Party, 231
229. See also bushidō: shizoku Seinan War. See Satsuma Rebellion
339
Seirenkata, The (Saga), fig.43 Buddhism, 185; conflict with

Sei Shōnagon, 86 Hideyoshi, 160–1, 164–5;
Sekigahara, Battle of, 172, 180 Tokugawa, 193, 195–6, 213. See also
Self-Defence Forces, 249 under Kagoshima City; Satsuma
Sendai domain, 156 Shimazu Hisamitsu, 222, 229
Sendai River, Battle of, 164 Shimazu Iehasa, 160, 164, 176, 209
Sendak, Maurice, 268n7 Shimazu Korehisa, 130
sengoku daimyo, 130, 131, 143, 154–6 Shimazu Nariakira, 211, 217, 219
sengoku jidai (age of warring states), Shimazu-shō, 93, 108
124, 139, 143, 153–7 Shimazu Tadaharu, 156
Sen Rikyū, 171, 291n14 Shimazu Takahisa, 153
Seoul, xvii, 69, 169 Shimazu Ujihisa, 130, 204
seppuku (ritual suicide), 152–3, 155–6 Shimazu Yoshihiro, 155; conflict with
Setaka (Fukuoka), fig.11, 43, 263 Hideyoshi, 163, 164; Hakata, 166;
Seven-Branched Sword, The, 50 Hibikibaru, 154, 159; Iwaya, 160;
Sèvres, 207 pirates, 165; Korean campaigns,
shamanism, 36, 37, 44 169, 175; Nagoya, 168; Sekigahara,
Shandong peninsula, 134, 135 172
Shangdu (Xanadu), 112, 284n12 Shimazu Yoshihisa, 161, 165, 168
Shanghai, 216, 224, 227 Shimazu Yoshitaka, 16
Shaokang, 19 Shimonoseki, bombardment of, 222;
Shaoxing, 139 Treaty of, 237
Shapinsky, David, 140 Shimonoseki Straits. See Kanmon
Shiba Kōkan, 204, 212 Straits
Shiga family, 155 Shinchi (Nagasaki), fig.39, 187
Shigeno Yutsugu, 38 shinkansen (bullet train), fig.59, xv, xix,
Shiiba (Miyazaki), 101 160, 202, 251, 262
Shika (prince), 65 shi-nō-kō-shō social structure, 166, 196,
Shikanoshima Island, 30, 114, 115, 198 197, 199
shikken (post), 113 Shinpūren Rebellion, 204, 232
Shikoku, xvi, 139, 160 Shinto, 77, 78; Jingishō (Ministry), 16;
Shimabara: Castle, fig.35, 181, 182, miko priestesses, 44; purification
194, 196; Christians, 178; domain, ritual, 34; separation from
266; peninsula, 148, 152, 159, 163, Buddhism, 16, 68, 132, 185
191; Rebellion, 181–3, 190 Shinto shrines, 8, 158; Ama no Iwato,
Shimazu family, 265, 266; Kamakura, 12; Aso, 14, 155, 278n52; Dazaifu,
107, 121; rival courts, 130; warring fig.21, 67, 68; Eta, 13; Hakozaki,
states, 139, 144, 153, 155, 158, 159; fig.24, 115, 119, 165, 166, 177;
firearms, 143; Xavier, 147, 148; Hirakiki, 22; Isonokami, 52; Kashii,
340
Index
fig.13, 50, 51; Kawara, 59; Shōsōin (Nara), 73

Kirishima, fig.7, 16; Kitano, 68, 171, Shōtoku (prince), 76; constitution, 76,
291n14; Kushida, 98; Mikado, 65; 87
Miyajima, 99, 293n2; Miyanoura, 23; Shōwa: Constitution, 247–8, 249;
Miyazaki, fig.6, 14; Munakata, 51, emperor, 3, 247; Restoration, 245
59, 73; Suwa, 205, 207; Takachiho, shrines. See Shinto shrines
13; Toyo Tama Hime, 22; Udo, 22; Shu (state), 33
Usa, fig.14, 43, 51, 78, 93 Shugendō sect, 132–3
Shio Tsutsu no Ōji, 23 shugo (lords), 107–108, 109, 126, 130,
shipbuilding, 259. See also under 144, 153; daimyo, 130–1, 132
Mitsubishi shuinsen (vermilion seal ships), 167, 176
Shirakibaru, 59 shukueki (staging posts), 201
Shiranui (Kumamoto), 47; Sea, 47, Shun Weijing, 170
254 Shuri Castle, 175
Shirao Kunihashira, 16, 210 Shūseikan Museum (Kagoshima), 213,
Shiratori Kurakichi, 38 222
Shiroyama, Mt, 233 Shūyūkan school (Fukuoka), 210
shizoku class, 230, 231–3 Siam, 175, 176
Shizuki Tadao, 208 Siddle, Richard, xx
shōchū gin, 199, 214 Sidotti, Giovanni Baptista, 206
shōen estates, 90, 92–4; security, 91; Siebold, Phillip von, 217, 298n6
absentee landlords, 98; jitō, 108; Silk Road, 74, 95
Mongol invasions, 116, 120; Silla (state), 50, 53, 59–60, 63, 65, 92;
fragmentation, 121, 131 embassies, 71–2, 73; fall, 82;
Shōfukuji Temple, fig.22, 85 foundation myth, 17; pirates, 81
shogun (post), 106, 107 Sino-Japanese Wars, 237, 245
Shōmu (emperor), 78 slavery, 82, 125, 171
Shōni family, Kamakura, 107, 120–1; Smits, Gregory, xx
rival courts, 125–7, 129; Hakata, Sode no Minato (Hakata), 99
110, 136, 138–9, 144; decline 131–2; Soembing (ship), 218, 298n11
fall, 153 Sō family, 135
Shōni Fuyuhisa, 132 Sōfukuji Temple, 207
Shōni Fuyusuke, 130 Soga family, 75–6, 77
Shōni Kagesuke, 118, 120 Song dynasty, 112, 114, 119; coinage,
Shōni Sadatsune, 121, 127 97; economic growth, 96; fall, 116;
Shōni Suketoki, 117 merchants, 110; monks, 94, 97
Shōni Sukeyoshi, 113, 114, 120 sonnō jōi (movement), 221–2, 223
Shōni Tsunesuke, 120 Sō Sadamori, 136
Shōni Yorihisa, 128, 129, 134 South America, 242
341
Southern Court, 129, 134 taikō kenchi (land survey), 166

South Korea, xv, 189, 250 Taio gold mine, 191, 236
South Sea Islands, 6, 8, 9 Taipei, xvii
Soviet Union, The, 188 Taiping Rebellion, 224
Sō Yoshitoshi, 168 Taira family, 91, 94, 98–9, 172, 203;
Space Centre (Tanegashima), 142 fugitives, 100–101, 108, 114, 126
Space World, 259 Taira Iesada, 100
Spain, 141, 146, 173, 177; empire, 178; Taira Kiyomori, 99–100, 110
expulsion, 179; Philippines, 151 Taira Masamori, 99
Spanish Armada, The, 117, 285n30 Taira Tadamori, 99
Spice Islands, 146, 174 Taira Tsunetaka, 114
Sri Lanka, 256 Taishō Democracy, 243
Stonehenge, 44 Taiwan, 8, 237, 238
Suga Masatomo, 38 Tajiri Akitane, 154
sugar, 209 Takabokojima Island, 204
Sugawara Michizane, 67, 68, 81, 82, 86. Takachiho (Miyazaki), 1–2, 12, 16–17,
See also Tenjin 21; archaeology, 20; Gorge, fig.3, 1;
Sugita Genpaku, 211 Railway, 1–2, 262–3; Palace, 22;
Sui dynasty, 61, 76 Shrine, 13; yokagura, 14–5
Suiko (empress), 51 61, 63, 76 Takachiho Peak. See Kirishima
Suku Okamoto (Fukuoka), 31, 32–3 Takagi Sueie, 108
Suō (Yamaguchi), 58 Takahashi Joun, 160, 263, 294n9
Susanoo (deity), 12, 40 Takakura (emperor), 100
Suwa Shrine, 205, 207 Takanabe domain, 266
Suzaku (vermilion bird), 73, 279n5 Takano Chōei, 212, 216, 218
Suzuki-Morris, Tessa, xviii Takashima Island (Imari Bay), fig.25,
sweet potatoes, 199 105, 118, 123
Swiss Guards, 11 Takashima coal mine (Nagasaki), 227,
swords, 166, 196. See also Funayama; 236
Seven-Branched Sword, The Takatsuki domain, 177
Takayama Ukon, 177
Tabaruzaka, Battle of, 233 Takeda Shingen, 143, 144
Tachibana: Castle, 144; family, 192, Takei Watatsu, 14
265, 294n9 Takenouchi Sukune, 59
Tafel Anatomia (book), 211 Takeo domain, 211, 216, 231
Tagawa (Fukuoka), 59 Taketa: Castle, 155; Oka domain,
Taiheiki (war tale), 125 265
Taihō Code, 65, 70, 77, 88, 89 Takeyari Ikki, 300n38
Taika Edicts, 77, 87 Takezaki Suenaga, 120
342
Index
Takitori ware, 171 terakoya schools, 210

tally trade. See kangō (licences); shūinsen Terauchi Masatake, 242
(vermilion seal ships) Terazawa Hirotaka, 167, 178, 181
Tamana (Kumamoto), 266 Terazawa Katataka, 182, 190
Tanegashima Island, xxii. 142, 145; Thailand. See Siam
guns, 143; Maenohama Beach, Thunberg, Karl, 184
figs.27–8 Toba-Fushimi, Battle of, 225
Tanegashima Tokitaka, 143 Tōdaiji Temple, 72, 78, 172
Tang dynasty, 63, 65, 75, 96; An Tofuro Ato, figs.18–9. See also Dazaifu
Lushan Rebellion, 80; decline, 80–1, Headquarters.
82; embassies, 71; kentōshi missions, Togamure Castle, 156
72, 81, 86; tribute system, 72, 75. tō-garashi (pepper), 151
Taoism, 11, 69, 79 Tōgō Heihachirō, 214, 226, 238
Tatarahama, Battle of, 125, 128, 134 Toi invasion, 82, 104, 126
Tateiwa (Fukuoka), 29 Tōjin-machi, 208
Tate Wokumi, 47, 61 Tōjin yashiki (Chinese quarter), 204,
tattoes, 35 207–8. See also Shinchi
taxation, 87, 89, 92, 230 Tōjō, Hideki, 247
tea, fig.21, 84; ceremony, 85; sadō, 171. Tōkaidō (highway), xv, 143, 201, 222
See also Sen Rikyū Tokugawa bakufu, 172, 180, 219, 224;
Teiki (Imperial Record), 2–3 bakuhan-taisei, 193; buke shohattō, 193;
telegraph lines, 227, 231 fall, 219, 225; Pax, 189, 190, 208,
television, 203, 252 220; sankin kōtai, 193–4; tenryō
temples. See Buddhist temples territory, 190, 191; uchiharai-rei, 216
Tenchi hajimari-koto (book), 184 Tokugawa Hidetaka, 179
Tendai sect, 84 Tokugawa Iemitsu, 180
Teng Wen-chün, 140 Tokugawa Ieyasu, 144, 161, 170, 172,
Tenji (emperor), 63, 65, 77, 87 173, 175
Tenjin, 82, 200; god of letters, 67 Tokugawa Yoshimune, 211
tenka (all under heaven), 143, 144; Tokugawa Yoshinobu, 225
tiensha, 78 Tokyo, xv, 101, 225, 226, 228;
Tenmu (emperor), 3, 77, 78, 87, 269n1 National Diet Building, 249, 260;
tennō (title), 78, 269n1 Olympics, 255; Ueno Park, 214;
Tenpai, Mt, 84 War Trials, 247
tenpura (cuisine), 151 Tōkyō Monogatari (film), 252
tenryō territory, 190, 191 Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō, 221
Tenzan, Mt, 25, 128 tombs: Funayama, 54; Hashihaka, 43;
tenson kōrin (descent from heaven), 2, Higo-style, 61; Hirabaru, 30, 44;
3, 15, 16–7 Iwatoyama, 60–1, 84; Kagoshima,
343
tombs (cont.) Tsūjunkyo Bridge (Kumamoto), fig.42,

16; Makimuku, 41; Nintoku, 49, 52; 217
Ōjin, 21, 49, 52; Saitobaru, 20–1; Tsukiyomi (deity), 79
Zoyama Kuramazuka, 43, 44. See Tsukushi, xv, xvii, 47, 53, 57, 58, 59,
also kofun 62, 88; Palace, 42; Viceroy, 68
Tomiki Takashi, 43 Tsukushi Korekado, 166
Tomioka Castle, 182 Tsukushi Lodge, 71–5, 81, 95, 264,
Tordesillas, Treaty of, 146 279n12
Tosa, 178; domain, 224, 225, 228 Tsukushi no Kimi. See Iwai, Lord of
tōsen (junks), 175, 204 Tsukushi
Tō Teikan, 19 tsunami waves, 6, 106
Totman, Conrad, xxii Tsurumaru Castle, 195
tourism, 162, 254–6, 257 Tsushima Island, 64, 92, 114, 124,
Toyama Mikio, 108, 203–204 134–5, 168–9; merchants, 175, 209.
Toyama Prefecture, 242 See also Sō family
Toyo (queen). See Iyo Tsushima Straits, xvi, 5, 136, 168–71,
Toyo Tama (princess), 22 241, 257; Battle of, 214
Toyotomi Hidenaga, 164 ‘turtle armoured’ ships, 169
Toyotomi Hideyori, 172
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 144, 149, 156, uchiharai-rei (policy), 216
192; Kyushu campaign, 159–61, Udo Shrine, 22
163–5; Hakata, 166; pirates, 140; Ueno, Battle of, 225
Korean campaigns, 167–72, Ueno Hikoma, 220
285n30; persecution of Christians, uji-kabane system, 55, 77
177–8; death, 171, 172 Ulsan Castle, 170
tozama daimyo. See under daimyo Umehara Takeshi, 3, 13, 20, 22
trade, 82, 94–5; Yayoi, 22, 26, 35; Umekita Kunikane, 168
Song, 96–7; Tokugawa, 173, umi no sachi, 199
208–209; European, 173–4, 179; uni (sea urchin), 198
Meiji, 240; post-war, 250, 256; See United Nations, 249
also merchants; kangō (licences) Unzen, Mt, 5–6, 148, 181, 240
transport networks, 201–202, 251. See Unzen Kanko Hotel, 240
also railways; roads; Saikaidō Uraga, 215
travel, 201 Urakami: Cathedral, fig.52, 188, 247,
treaty ports, 216, 219, 220 293n55; Christians, 185, 186
treaty revision, 235 Urashima Tarō, 9
tribute system, 72, 78–9, 82, 112 urbanization, 200, 243, 252, 259
Truman, Harry S., 246 Usa Shrine, fig.14, 43, 51, 78, 93. See
Tsuda Sōkichi, 4, 17, 24, 51 also Ōjin; Hachiman sect
344
Index
Usuki (Ōita), 173; domain, 266 wax industry, 190

Usuki Nagaaki, 156 Wei (state), 33, 36, 40; envoys, 34, 37
Weizhi, 33, 39
Valignano, Allessandro, 149, 152 whaling, 206, 215, 216; stations, 198
Varangian Guard, 11 Where the Wild Things Are (book), 268n7
Verbeck, Guido, 221, 223 Willem III (Holland), 216, 218
vermilion seal ships. See shuinsen Willis, Dr William, 227–8
Vienna, 207 wōkòu (pirates). See wakō
Vietnam. See Annam wool. See itowappu system
Vietnam War, The, 250 World Cup (football), 257
villages, 197, 199; headman, 88–9 World Student Games, 257
volcanoes, xv, 5–6. See also Aso; writing, 54–5
Kirishima; Sakurajima; Unzen Wu (state), 33
Wu Taibo, 19
Wa: islands, 27, 30; people, 76, 123–4, Wu Yue, 95
280n18
waegu (pirates). See wakō Xavier, Saint Francis, 146, 147–8,
Waegwan (Japan House), 175 163
Wagner, Gottfried, 227 Xian, 49, 72, 279n5. See also Chang’an
wajie (Japanese castles), 170 Xie Guoming, 110
Wajinden, 33–6, 37, 39, 41, 273n15 Xufu, 19–20, 272n54
Wakayama Prefecture, 19
wakō (pirates), xvii, 54, 81; banners, 78; Yabe River, 60, 263
Hizen, 123–4, 133–6; warring states, Yahata, 59. See also Yawata Steelworks
139–41, 145, 167, 168–9; campaigns yakimono-sensō (Pottery War), 171, 207
against, 135–6, 140. See also Matsura- Yakushima Island, 142, 172, 206
tō Yalu River, 50
Walker, Brett, xx Yamada Emonsaku, 292n39
Walker, Mabel Shigeko, 240–1 Yamada Nagamasa, 291n24
Wall Street Crash, 244 Yamaguchi, 147
Wang Zhi, 139, 140, 287n38 Yamaguchi Masuka, 231
warring states, age of. See sengoku jidai Yamakasa, Hakata Gion (festival), 98,
Waseda University, 221 110–1, 263
Washington Conference, 244 Yamamoto Tsunetomo, 155, 202
Watanabe Kazan, 216 yama no sachi, 199
Watanabe Shigena, 210 Yamashiro Tora-Ōmaru, 140
Watatsumi (deity), 9, 22 Yamatai (state), 27, 35, 133;
water mills, 199 confederation, 35, 36, 42, 48;
Watsuji Tetsurō, 38 location, 37–42; reading, 40–1
345
Yamato (state), xv, xx; dynasty, 2; rise, Yokohama, 219, 243

24, 42, 49, 56, 57; court, 21, 54, 55, Yokose Bay (Nagasaki), 148, 150–1
65. 72, 73; relations with Paekche, Yōrō Code, 77, 88
52, 55, 56, 62; Korean campaigns, Yōsai. See Eisai
48, 53, 63; conquest of Hayato, 10; Yoshida Tōgo, 38
expansion, 90. See also Mononobe Yoshino, 129, 130
family; Soga family Yoshinogari (Saga), figs.9–10, 25, 26,
Yamato, Battleship, 239 46, 263; name, 88; trade, 30;
Yamato spirit, xviii watchtowers, 26, 27, 39;
Yame (Fukuoka), fig.21, 20, 60 abandonment of, 33; Kanzaki-shō,
Yanagawa (Fukuoka), 25, 154; domain, 94
192, 265 Yüan dynasty, 112, 119, 135
Yangtze River, 112, 118 Yüan Lo tallies. See kangō (licences)
Yasei-go (boat), 28 Yue (people), 6
Yasumoto Biten, 33 Yufuin (Ōita), 255
Yawata Steelworks, 235, 241, 247, Yūkokutō Party, 231
301n51; Space World, 259 Yūryaku (emperor), 57–8, 59
Yayoi (people), 7, 8, 9, 12, 14;
archaeology, 20, 25, 26, 28–33; zaibatsu conglomerates, 236, 247
customs, 33–6; colonization, 24; Zen, 85, 282n30
shells, 22; tattoos, 35; trade, 30; war, Zhejiang Province, 140. See also
26, 32, 35; weapons, 31–32 Ningbo; Shaoxing; Zhoushan
Yi dynasty. See Chosŏn dynasty, Islands
Yi Sun-sin, 169 Zhoushan Islands, 135, 140,
Yobuko (Saga), 46, 171 282n30
yokagura (dance), fig.5, 14–15 Zhu Xi, 97, 197
Yokatopia, 257 Zoyama Kuramazuka (tomb), 43, 44
346
1. Mt Aso in central Kyushu. Viewed from near the summit facing north, in the foreground is
the small volcanic cone of Yonezuka, and in the distance the rim of the outer caldera that
encircles the mountain. (Courtesy of Kumamoto Prefectural Office for Tourism and Produce).
2. Newly planted rice paddies with a backdrop of mountains. This is in Kyūragi in Saga
Prefecture, but is a familiar scene throughout Kyushu. (This and all other photographs are by
the author, except where otherwise stated).
3. Takachiho Gorge in Miyazaki Prefecture. In Japanese mythology the setting for the ‘Age of
Gods’ with a nearby hill the location of the descent from heaven of Ninigi, grandson of the Sun
Goddess Amaterasu and founder of the imperial line. (Courtesy of Miyazaki Prefectural Society
for Tourism and Conventions).
4. Mt Kirishima in the north of Kagoshima Prefecture. Since one of the summits is called
Takachiho Peak this spectacular setting has also been promoted as a possible site for the August
Grandchild’s ‘heavenly descent’. (Courtesy of Kagoshima Prefectural Visitors Bureau).
5. A yokagura dance performed at Takachiho in Miyazaki. Note the pronounced features of the
mask worn by ‘demons’, in contrast to the flatter white masks worn by ‘gods’. (Courtesy of
Miyazaki Prefectural Society for Tourism and Conventions).
6. Miyazaki Shrine. According to tradition, built by a descendant of Jinmu on the site of

Takachiho Palace, his residence before he left to conquer Yamato and rule Japan.
7. Kirishima Shrine, built in 1715 by Shimazu Yoshitaka, daimyo of the Satsuma domain, and
dedicated to Ninigi. (Courtesy of Kagoshima Prefectural Visitors Bureau).
8. Part of the complex of burial mounds in Saitobaru in Miyazaki Prefecture. The round tomb in
the centre dates to the late sixth or early seventh century. What appears to be a wooded hill in
the distance is an early fifth-century tomb, probably built for a powerful regional magnate.
(Courtesy of Miyazaki Prefectural Society for Tourism and Conventions).
9. Reconstructed storehouses and a dwelling at Yoshinogari in the Saga plain, the most extensive
Yayoi settlement yet found, viewed facing north with Mt Seburi in the distance.
10. Another view of Yoshinogari. Note the high watchtowers, a detail that features in Chen
Shou’s third-century account of Yamatai.
11. The characters at the top of this notice on the platform of Setaka Station read ‘home of
Himiko’, Japan’s first historical figure described in Chen Shou’s account. Another image of
Himiko lies beyond the railway track.
12. Statue of Sayō-hime by the road in Kyūragi, Saga Prefecture. Ancient songs recall how, in the
sixth century, Lady Sayō waved her scarf from a hill on the coast when her husband sailed to
fight in the Korean peninsula.
13. Kashii Shrine on the outskirts of Fukuoka City, reputedly built as a mausoleum for the
emperor Chūai and Jingū, his consort and successor. Jingū is recorded as having launched the
first Yamato campaign on the Korean peninsula and gave birth to Ōjin following her return to
Kyushu.
14. Usa Shrine in Ōita Prefecture, head shrine of the Hachiman sect which reveres Ōjin as the
‘God of War’. Ōjin is the first ruler in the imperial line often considered to be a historical, rather
than mythical, figure.
15. Tomb of Iwai, Lord of Tsukushi, at Iwatoyama, Yame City in the south of Fukuoka
Prefecture. Iwai led a major rebellion against the Yamato state in the early sixth century. The
tomb is built in the typical keyhole shape reserved for aristocrats. More unusual is the open quad
(top left) where Iwai held court. (Courtesy of Yame Municipal Office).
16. Stone figures (sekijin) lining the open quad next to Iwai’s tomb. Such statues are unique to
the territory in Kyushu that once lay under Iwai’s control.
17. The remains of Mizuki, a defensive earthwork wall built across the valley north of Dazaifu in
664. Viewed looking west from the top of Mt Shiōji, today it is a bank covered by trees, flanked
on both sides by sprawling suburbs in the commuter belt of Fukuoka City.
18. Site of the Dazaifu Headquarters (Tofuro Ato) built in the seventh century, situated
according to Taoist convention with a backdrop of mountains.
19. Site of the Dazaifu Headquarters (Tofuro Ato) viewed looking west from the slopes of Mt
Shiōji.
20. Dazaifu Tenmangū Shrine, dedicated to Tenjin, the posthumous name for Sugawara
Michizane, who died on this spot in 903 and is now revered as the ‘God of Letters’. On the right
in front of the building is the tobi-ume, the legendary plum tree said to have flown from
Sugawara’s garden in Kyoto to join him in exile. Note the prietesses (miko) filing out on the left.
21. Fields of green tea. Yame City, Fukuoka Prefecture.

22. Shōfukuji Temple, in the Hakata district of Fukuoka City. Founded by Eisai following his
return from China in 1195, this was the first Zen temple built in Japan.
23. The remaining section of a defensive wall at Iki no Matsubara, one of seven ramparts built
along the shores of Hakata Bay in 1276 after the first Mongol invasion. They proved invaluable
when a second invasion followed in 1281. In the distance is a recently reconstructed section
standing over six feet high.
24. Hakozaki Shrine in Fukuoka City, dedicated to Jingū. Destroyed during the first Mongol
invasion in 1274, the building seen here was built in 1594, facing out to sea with gold characters
placed high above which read tekikoku kōfuku – ‘enemy state surrender(ed)!’
25. Takashima Island in Imari Bay, soon to be joined by a bridge to the coast. Viewed here from
the east, it was in these waters that the Mongol fleet sank during a storm on 14 August 1281.
26. Terraced paddy fields in Hizen Town on the east coast of Imari Bay. This was once the
territory of the Matsura-tō, local warriors notorious for piracy in the medieval era.
27. Maenohama Beach viewed from Cape Kadokura at the southern tip of Tanegashima Island.
It was here that the first Europeans to reach Japan arrived on a shipwrecked junk in 1543. The
headland in the distance is the site of Japan’s rocket launch centre.
28. Maenohama Beach with Cape Kadokura in the distance, viewed looking west from the
rocket launch centre.
29. Mt Kaimon, the ‘Satsuma Fuji’ in the far south of the Satsuma peninsula, a landmark for
travellers arriving by sea, among them Francis Xavier in 1549. This view is from Nishi Ōyama,
according to the sign at the end of the platform Japan’s southernmost station (although
Okinawa now has a privately run monorail line).
30. Monument of the Twenty-Six Martyrs, Nagasaki City. Set on a hill overlooking the bay, this
was where the first victims of persecution against Christians were crucified on Hideyoshi’s
orders in 1597.
31. Ruins of Nagoya Castle, Saga Prefecture, from where Hideyoshi launched his invasions of
Korea in the 1590s. A foundation stone of his keep can be seen (bottom left), with outer
ramparts in the middle distance.
32. Kumamoto Castle, Katō Kiyomasa’s masterpiece, and the result of extensive experience
building castles including Nagoya on the north Kyushu coast and Ulsan in Korea. The keep was
reconstructed in the 1960s. (Courtesy of Kumamoto Prefectural Office for Tourism and
Produce).
33. The walls of Kumamoto Castle. In the distance is the keep, and to the right the roof of the
newly reconstructed Honmaru Palace, which opened in 2008.
34. A house in the district of preserved samurai residences (buke yashiki) in Chiran, Kagoshima
Prefecture.
35. Shimabara Castle, Nagasaki Prefecture. The wooden keep is a reconstruction but the massive
walls are original. The cost of construction led to crippling taxes, a contributing factor in the
outbreak of the Shimabara Rebellion in 1637.
36. The ruined hilltop Hara Castle in the Shimabara peninsula, Nagasaki Prefecture. Inspired by
Christianity and provoked by their lord’s oppressive rule, a peasant army held out here for three
months during the final stages of the Shimabara Rebellion in 1638.
37. The village of Sakitsu in the Amakusa Islands, Kumamoto Prefecture. Now noted for its
picturesque church, one of various ‘Hidden Christian’ communities survived here for centuries
despite the ban on their religion under Tokugawa law. (Photograph courtesy of Kumamoto
Prefectural Office for Tourism and Produce).
38. Megane-bashi (Spectacles Bridge) in Nagasaki takes its name from the two circles visible
when the arches are reflected in the Naka River. Built by a Chinese monk in 1634, this is now
the oldest bridge in Japan.
39. Gateway to the Shinchi ‘Chinatown’ district in Nagasaki. In the Edo period this was a small
manmade island just off the coast from the Chinese Quarter (Tōjin Yashiki), fitted with
storehouses for merchandise offloaded from arriving ships.
40. Dejima, once a fan-shaped island which housed employees of the Dutch East India
Company, the only Europeans allowed into Japan under the Tokugawa policy of seclusion
(sakoku). Now surrounded by urban Nagasaki, it is gradually being reconstructed and is due to
resume its original shape in 2010.
41. Nagasaki Bay in 1804. On the left a Russian ship under Nikolai Rezanov seeks permission to
trade. Immediately to the right on both sides of the bay are boats manned by retainers of the
Saga domain, charged with Nagasaki’s defence. On the far right is the city; note the man-made
islands of Dejima and Shinchi offshore. (Courtesy of Saga Castle History Museum).
42. Tsūjunkyo Bridge, Kumamoto Prefecture, built in 1835. Technological advances were being
made before the arrival of help from the West. These jets of water are released during the
Hassaku festival held every September. (Courtesy of Kumamoto Prefectural Office for Tourism
and Produce).
43. The Seirenkata, an experimental workshop in the castle-town of Saga. Viewed here in the
late 1850s, this was at the leading edge of Japanese technology in the mid-nineteenth century.
Note the model railway in the centre and steamboat on the right. (Picture courtesy of
Nabeshima Hōkōkai).
44. Officers of Saga and other south-western domains returning ashore in front of Dejima after
naval training exercises conducted under Dutch supervision. Note the family crests adorning
their landing boats. Organized by the Tokugawa bakufu, this scheme ran from 1855 to 1859.
(Courtesy of Saga Castle History Museum).
45. View of Kagoshima City facing east with Mt Sakurajima across the bay. The summit is often
enveloped in cloud, and sudden eruptions of volcanic ash are a common sight. Originally an
island, the volcano was joined to the Ōsumi peninsula in 1914; the last major eruption of lava
flows was in 1949. (Courtesy of Kagoshima Prefectural Visitors Bureau).
46. The roof of Iso-tei, the Shimazu lords’ villa on the outskirts of Kagoshima. In the distance,
Mt Sakurajima.
47. The Shūseikan, next to the Iso-tei villa. Now a museum, this was once used by the Satsuma
domain as a centre for technological experiments, such as Kagoshima Spinning Mill, Japan’s
first, which was set up here in 1867.
48. Bronze statue of Saigō Takamori, Kagoshima City. A popular hero of the Meiji Restoration,
Saigō is a prominent figure in Kagoshima. (Courtesy of Kagoshima Prefectural Visitors Bureau).
49. The bombardment of Kagoshima, August 1863. Undeterred by heavy rain, seven Royal
Navy ships pound the city, reducing it to flames, but sustain damage themselves from Satsuma
batteries in the foreground and on the shore of Mt Sakurajima across the bay. (Courtesy of
Shōko Shūseikan Museum).
50. Ōura Church, built in 1864 in the Nagasaki foreign settlement, is Japan’s oldest church.
51. View of Nagasaki Bay from the Glover Villa, built by the Scottish merchant Thomas Blake
Glover in 1863. Across the bay is the Mitsubishi Shipyard, with Mt Inasa behind.
52. Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki. The statues and bricks in the foreground are remnants of
the original building destroyed by the atomic bomb which detonated nearby on 9 August 1945.
The cathedral was rebuilt in 1959.
53. Statue of Aburaya Kumahachi, the entrepreneur who developed Beppu into a modern
tourist resort in the early twentieth century. An English inscription above his name reads, ‘The
man called “Shiny Uncle” who loved children.’
54. A view of Beppu, which has the largest concentration of hot springs anywhere in Japan. In
the background is Mt Takasaki, famous for its colony of wild monkeys. To the right is Beppu
Tower and, along the seafront, ryokan inns with rooftop spa baths.
55. The Peace Statue in Nagasaki. In the foreground are chains of coloured paper cranes offered
by visitors with prayers for peace.
56. Huis ten Bosch in Nagasaki Prefecture, a leisure resort with a Dutch theme. It opened in
1992, drawing on the area’s long tradition of cultural exchange with Holland.
57. The Seagaia resort on the outskirts of Miyazaki City opened in 1993. Note the ‘Ocean
Dome’, the world’s largest indoor water park, complete with retractable dome and wave
machines. Expensive to run, this facility closed down in 2007. (Courtesy of Miyazaki Prefectural
Society for Tourism and Conventions).
58. Hainuzuka Station in the south of Fukuoka Prefecture, with a shinkansen ‘bullet train’ track
now under construction. When it opens in 2010 this will run the length of Kyushu from Kokura
in the north to Kagoshima in the south.
59. The modern skyline of Fukuoka Tower and Fukuoka Dome (built in 1989 and 1993
respectively), viewed from the top of Fukuoka Castle (constructed 1601-7).
60. Kyushu National Museum in Dazaifu City, a short walk from Dazaifu Tenmangū Shrine,
which opened in 2005. This vast structure boasts an innovative design – note the skyline
reflected in the walls – in an effort to blend in with the surrounding landscape.

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KYUSHU: GATEWAY TO JAPAN

First published 2009 by

© Andrew Cobbing 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this publication

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Set in Garamond 11 on 12.5pt by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

Plate section faces page 162.

List of Maps viii

1. Takachiho: The Floating Bridge of Heaven 1

2. Himiko’s Lands: Gateway to Wa 25

3. Tsukushi: Isle of Unknown Fires 46

4. Dazaifu: The Distant Court 67

The Tsukushi Lodge (Kōrokan) 71

5. Hakata: The Making of a Mercantile Centre 84

6. Divine Wind: The Mongol Invasions 103

7. Divided Loyalties: Pirates and Rival Courts 123

8. All under Heaven: Missionaries and Warlords 142

9. Turbulent Decades: State Control and Resistance 162

10. The Great Peace in Kyushu 187

Trade and the Nagasaki system 204

11. Kyushu in the Meiji Restoration 213

12. The Twentieth Century 239

1. East Asia xxiv

Plate section faces page 162.

1. Mt Aso in central Kyushu

25. Takashima Island, Imari Bay

n October 2005, the Kyushu National Museum was opened in

Chinese dynastic histories. At ﬁrst this referred mainly to the lands

Kyushu as a conﬂuence zone of two overlapping cultural worlds. The

visible in the way it is perceived in Japan today. Many visitors from

historical philosophies that once supported the framework of the

Partly inspired by the groundbreaking work of scholars like Amino

around the East China Sea’. Linguistically, Kyushu’s sometimes impen-

themes include Olof Lidin’s Tanegashima: the arrival of Europe in Japan

MAP 1. Kyushu’s Situation in East Asia

MAP 2. Kyushu (Physical)

MAP 3. Ancient Kyushu

MAP 4. Medieval Kyushu (late 12th–early 17th century)

MAP 5. Early Modern Kyushu (17th–19th century)

MAP 6. Modern Kyushu

emerged during early attempts by these diverse settler communities to

life spans when he selects the beautiful ‘Princess-Blossoming-

Myth in the making

technologically advanced Yayoi migrants from the Asian continent. As

returned to the mountain area originally settled by his great-grandfather

It is hard to ignore the possibility that encoded here is some

together with the eighth-century Hyūga Fudoki (Gazetteer of Hyūga

and archaeological treasures, particularly around Mt Miwa, which

Chronicles is more likely to have been located around Saitobaru. Indeed,

to the Ata Hayato of the Satsuma peninsula. If this, too, indicates a

approach is to suggest the emergence of the Hyūga realm as a powerful

inhabitants appear in dynastic histories compiled on the continent by

It is little wonder, therefore, that Chen’s account of Wa has come

The Yayoi imprint in northern Kyushu

Another notable feature from the archaeological record is this area’s

Yayoi society in the Wajinden

Looking for Yamatai

Motoori Norinaga also decided that it must have been in Kyushu. In an

chiefs by some primate, possibly as a mark of loyalty. The theory that

‘Yamatai’ in the Houhanshu by changing the last character. Either this

state formation in Japan. If Himiko’s power base was located in

Yamatai landmarks in Kyushu

certainly have sustained a sizeable population, and excavation work in