This episode we’ve returned to the archipelago from the continent, and we return at a moment of change. According to the Chronicles, the sovereign was dead and there were no immediate heirs designated for succession. We are on the cusp of a new dynasty—a new line of rulers. But before we get too much into that, let’s pull out and look at how we got here. As head down in the individual stories as we’ve been, sometimes as they say: “you don’t see the forest for the trees.”

So this episode we look at a larger story—the story we’ve been telling, page by page, but look at where we’ve come. This is the story of the formation of the State.

It would be easy to simply say that the State started with Queen Himiko. After all, she’s a queen, right? Except, “Queen” and “King” were thrown around with some abandon by those Han and Wei courts. It was a mark of respect, but there is the question of just what it meant in terms of control. What is it that we mean by “state”?

While I don’t try to promote it as a primary resource, in this case people may want to read the Wikipedia article on State formation for an overview. Among other things are the various categories and qualities that people point to. One of the key definitions, though, is that the State is the only authorized dispenser of violence in its territory. In other words, nobody else can legitimately commit physical violence against other people in the territory without state backing or approval.

Why violence? Shouldn’t it be something else—a sense of belonging, or perhaps rules and laws? And yeah, that’s true—and it doesn’t even mean that the state has to be extremely violent, nor even cruel. But that sense of belonging typically means that there is an “othering”. There are those who are part of the state and those who are not, and even in that, there is a certain amount of violence that is often involved. Then there are the rules and laws—the social contract between people. But what happens when that social contract breaks down? Who enforces those rules and laws? At the end of the day, there is a threat of violence backing up those rules and laws, in one form or another.

This is part of where people see Yamato as an early state, but doubt its authority throughout the archipelago. Sure, it may have had influence—in business today, a common thing is to talk about “leading from where you are”, exerting influence over other people through a variety of means, but that doesn’t make you the boss. Influence may lead to authority, but they aren’t necessarily one and the same thing.

So what do we actually see in the record. Control of legitimate violence and influence may be there, but what does that look like in the history or in the archaeological record?

Well, things like the spread of the keyhole shaped mounded tombs demonstrates a certain affinity that groups in the archipelago had with Yamato and the state at the heart of that movement. In fact, we explicitly see some other shapes, including square mounded tombs, circular round tombs, and those particular square tombs up in Izumo. If you look, you can see some of the untold stories of influence and control that play out in the different tomb mounds of the early and middle kofun periods.

Complex trade is another indicator of connectedness. Early on, the fact that sites in the Miwa region demonstrate examples of artifacts from around the archipelago is something that we can point to regarding their reach. Trading for goods is one of the things that is thought to drive complexity in societies. There are structures and bonds and agreements that are struck so that goods can travel from one point to another. There are also hierarchies that often form in the management of goods and just who gets them—the creation of elite structures.

There is also warfare. We see evidence of warfare on the islands, but also with the peninsula. Interestingly, for Yamato to launch raids against Silla, they would have to have relationships with the communities between the two of them. It seems a rather massive feat for Yamato to simply take to the seas, particularly with any sizeable number of warriors. I tend to believe that these battles must have been coalitions of multiple groups, of which Yamato may or may not have been the head. Certainly by later centuries they were, but early on it may have been the case that other proto-states were just as likely to be leading men off on a profitable raiding trip.

All of these activities take an evolution of government structures—of statecraft. Some of this was no doubt homegrown, but some of it was just as likely imported. Writing helps immensely with communication—no longer do you need to rely on someone hopefully communicating your intent when you can write it down and show them. Horses not only provide an advantage in battle, but also make it much easier to travel from place to place.

Then there are foreign relations. The ability to engage with other states at that level. After all, why would they even deal with you if they didn’t agree you had some level of authority over others in your group? This is a problem that plagues the Ming court in the 16th century, as numerous daimyo in Japan’s Sengoku Period would attempt to represent themselves as the legitimate government representatives. At one point the court had to institute something of a first-come-first-served rule, refusing to recognize other embassies that arrived in the same year, requiring that they sort it out back in the islands. This happened during a time when the authority of the state was, of course, quite weak, leading to a period of warlordism.

In the end, I don’t know that there will be consensus around any one particular year or event for the formation of what would become the Japanese state. It was, rather, a complex evolution, and there were times when the state was ascendant, and times when it was in decline, especially in the early days. It was, after all, a new idea and a new concept, and it would take some time to work out the kinks.

Generally, I tend to see the early state in the time of Wakatake, aka Yuryaku Tenno. He seems to have had control over a wide swath of the the archipelago. I imagine that control slipped somewhat after him, but I see something else that is important—the elite families. The nobles and the courtiers who supported the state. By tying themselves and their fortunes to it, they bolstered it. That meant they also vied for power, but in that context. Importantly, they could keep the structures in place and moving forward, even during times of weak or even non-existent sovereigns. It was more than just having a powerful, charismatic ruler—it was about having those institutions that were larger than individuals, and which people tied themselves to. And so when the next ruler comes to the throne—however that actually happened—his dynasty would already have the infrastructure in place to move it forward.

Still, we are only talking at this point about the growing power of Yamato. We have not yet come to the point where we first see the term “Nihon”, or “Japan”, but that is coming. For now, we’ll continue looking at the paramounts of Yamato and their rule and keep an eye out as we enter more and more reliably historic periods.

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