New Year's Recap 2025

January 1, 2025 Joshua Badgley

Mt. Fuji from Miho Matsubara. Photo by author.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to our 2025 recap. This episode we look back on the past year, but also try to make sure that we prepare for the next year. We’ll cover the big events and then go into some of the major themes that we’ve seen over the year. For that, we’ll also cover some of the previous history that has led up to the start of things this year.

One of the biggest things we’ll do is look at the various forms of power and influence used in the archipelago, based on what we can see in the archaeological record, but also on what we are told by the histories. There is still much that we don’t know, and one of the largest debates between the Chronicles and modern scholarly interpretations of events seems to be just how much control Yamato actually held prior to this period. However, from about the 7th century onwards, there appears to be enough correlation with other events that we have some idea of what was actually happening.

A key fact to remember is that we are in the middle of the 7th century, and the Nihon Shoki’s account ends in 697 CE—about twenty-three years earlier than the date it was published, in 720 CE. So these latter events would have been the ones with the most sources and the most people who probably remembered something about them—or had at least heard stories. In fact, we can imagine that someone who was 80 years old in 720 CE would have been born in 640, and would have been in the prime of their life by 660. So we are now within the period where people actually remembered the events the Chroniclers were writing about.

Chart showing the various lineages with bold outline around those referenced most heavily this year

Isshi Incident and the Taika Era

The majority of this year was focused on the changes that stemmed from the Isshi Incident, which spawned the Taika era—the era of “Great Change.” This is the start of the Ritsuryo era, and the birth of the bureaucratic state that would be used for some time to govern Yamato—and eventually Nihon, aka Japan.

Though it wouldn’t necessarily take a direct path—after building a grand palace in Naniwa, they moved back to Asuka. Still, they had expanded control throughout the archipelago, or so it seemed.

And now here we are: Takara hime is back on the throne, but Prince Naka no Oe is still Crown Prince and still has a lot of influence on the court.

Shinnen Akemashite! Happy New Year and Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is the New Year’s Recap episode for 2025!
It’s that time again: we are going to look back at what happened in the episodes this year. That was only episodes 101 to 117—we’ll skip the travelogue episodes for the time being. This covered the years of the early to mid-7th century, from roughly 613 to 659. That is easily within the lifetime of a single individual, and yet a lot was going on.
At the start of this year, we were at the height of Soga power. In 2023, we covered how back in 587, Soga no Umako had wrested power away from the powerful Mononobe clan, defeating Mononobe no Moriya. As you may recall, the sovereign known to posterity as Jimmu Tennou was the descendant of the Heavenly Grandchild known as Ninigi no Mikoto, at least according to the Nihon Shoki. The Mononobe clan claimed descent from none other than Nigi Hayahi, the Other Heavenly Grandchild, whose offspring were said to have been defeated by Jimmu.
You may recall that scholars generally consider the story of Jimmu, and the nine sovereigns that immediately followed him, as almost certainly a later addition to the story of the royal lineage. So when did the story of Nigi no Hayahi’s defeat enter the picture? And was its inclusion perhaps related to the defeat of the Mononobe by the Soga family? A family that successfully intermarried with the Royal House, themselves, such that all later sovereigns would trace their ancestry back to the Soga house?
Of course, under Soga dominance we saw the rise of figures like the Soga descended Kashikiya Hime, aka Suiko Tenno. During her reign, major reforms were carried out, Buddhism became fully established by the State, and ties with the continent were strengthened.
Politics would continue to be dominated by Soga, even after the death of Soga no Umako and Kashikiya Hime, with Soga no Emishi taking up the mantle of Prime Minister, working closely with his son, Soga no Iruka. The Soga family was so entwined with the politics of rulership that the main rivals of the Soga were… the Soga. That is to say different Soga-descended lineages, like that of the Prince Umayado, aka Prince Shotoku. Rather than supporting Umayado’s son, Prince Yamashiro no Oe, Soga no Emishi backed another candidate to the throne, Prince Tamura. , of the royal Okinaga lineage. Tamura came to power as Jomei Tenno, but there is little doubt that Soga no Emishi was the one in control.
Later, when Tamura passed away in 641, Yamashiro no Oe continued to be passed over. In fact, Soga no Emishi supported the ascension of Tamura’s wife, Takara hime, over Yamashiro no Oe, and there is evidence that he supported a prince known as Furubito no Oe as the Crown Prince and eventual successor. All of the evidence—which, to be honest, is rather biased—suggests that the Soga family were setting up a series of puppet rulers who would do their bidding, or at least be pliable to their suggestions.
There must have been some pushback, though, especially when one considers how strong the cult of Prince Shotoku, aka Umayado, would eventually become. One imagines that Prince Yamashiro was another pole around which those who opposed the Soga family could rally. After all, he was the son of Crown Prince Umayado, and likely had just as much of a claim as Tamura and his children. And so, to counter this threat, Soga no Emishi’s son and successor, Soga no Iruka, took matters into his own hands.
In a brazen display of the violence of court politics, Soga no Iruka had Yamashiro no Oe accused of plotting against the throne and took an army to arrest him—no doubt in the hope that the prince would resist. Eventually they cornered Yamashiro and his family, who committed suicide rather than submit.
This attack was likely targeted to take out the rival to the Soga family’s preferred Crown Prince, Prince Furubito no Oe, but rather than quell any dissent, the move seems to have enflamed the passions of those who wanted to see an end to the Soga house. Those passions took particular root in none other than Furubito no Oe’s younger brother, Prince Naka no Oe. Together with the support of his uncle, Prince Karu; the head of the Nakatomi house, Nakatomi no Kamatari; as well as another scion of the Soga house, Soga no Kuroyamada, Prince Naka no Oe staged a coup d’etat. Using the death of Prince Yamashiro no Oe as an excuse, they engineered a plot to assassinate Soga no Iruka in court, in front of Naka no Oe’s own mother, Takara Hime no Oho-kimi. After Iruka’s death, Naka no Oe and his supporters then took the fight to Soga no Emishi, who committed suicide and set his own house on fire in what came to be known as the Isshi Incident.
This shocking assassination caused Takara hime to step down. The Soga-backed Prince Furubito no Oe, rather than stepping up and taking the throne, retreated to a Buddhist temple and took holy orders, effectively retiring and theoretically taking himself out of court politics. That left Prince Naka no Oe and his uncle, Prince Karu, as possible candidates.
We are told that Prince Naka no Oe declined to take the throne himself, instead supporting his uncle, Prince Karu. Prince Karu took the throne, and is known to us as Kotoku Tenno, today. Prince Naka no Oe stepped up as the Crown Prince, and with the help of his co-conspirators, such as Nakatomi no Kamatari, Soga no Kurayamada, and others, they began a project to remake the Yamato government, using continental models—specifically the Sui and Tang courts, which were also influencing the governments of the Korean peninsula, such as those of Baekje and Silla.
This is known as the Taika, or Great Change, era. There had been previous movements to adopt some of the continental trends, but nothing to this extent, which culminated in a tremendous palace complex built in Naniwa—modern Ohosaka. Governors were sent out to the east of the country. The old, decentralized system was being replaced by a centralized bureaucracy.
And yet this wasn’t entirely a smooth transition. Early on there was a threat by supporters of the previous Crown Prince, Furubito no Oe. He was killed to put down any possible revolt. Later, Naka no Oe was hoodwinked into going after his own co-conspirator, Soga no Kurayamada, resulting in Kurayamada’s death and the punishment of his entire family. A few years later, Naka no Oe moved back to Asuka, taking most of the royal family and the court with him, abandoning the grand government complex that they had built in Naniwa for reasons that remain unclear.
Shortly thereafter, Karu, aka Kotoku Tenno, passed away. But rather than Naka no Oe taking the throne—or even Karu’s son, Prince Arima—the throne went back to Naka no Oe’s mother, Takara Hime. This is the only case we have of a single sovereign reigning twice, and the Chroniclers gave her two separate regnal names—Kogyoku Tenno to refer to her first reign and Saimei Tenno to refer to her second.
And this is the reign that we are going to start the new year with.
Beyond what was going on on the archipelago, there was also plenty that we covered on the continent. We started the year with the Sui dynasty having consolidated control and working to continue to expand their territory north, south, and west, while also connecting the economic areas of the Yangzi and Yellow rivers.
Unfortunately, through their wars and public works projects they overextended themselves, and the dynasty fell, replaced, in 619, with the Tang dynasty. The Tang continued to expand, taking control of important points on the Silk Road and becoming a hub of trade and commerce. At the same time, they were contesting their borders with the Goguryeo, who, themselves, had come under the control of Yeon Gaesomun, an infamous noble and anti-Tang hard-liner, who had staged a coup, murdered the Goguryeo king and any who stood against him, and who had installed a puppet king on the throne. It is little wonder that the Tang dynasty was courting Goguryeo’s enemy, Silla, to pressure them from the other side. This eventually kicked off the Tang-Goguryeo war, with the loosely allied Tang and Silla fighting on and off with Goguryeo and their ally, Baekje, who was also invested in stifling Silla’s ambitions on the peninsula.
So that’s where we are: The Korean peninsula is currently embroiled in conflict between the three kingdoms on the peninsula and the nearby superpower, the Tang Dynasty. Meanwhile, Yamato, on the archipelago, is going through a whole… thing. What that is, we’ll try to get into over the next year.
Given all of this, let’s go over some of the themes from the past year. To start with, let’s talk about expanding Yamato influence.
From what we can tell, Yamato’s influence in the archipelago had peaked around the 5th century, between the creation of giant Daisen Ryo kofun and the reign of Wakatake no Ohokimi, aka Yuryaku Tenno. Wakatake no Ohokimi had courtiers from as far away as Kyushu and the Kanto plain. However, from what I can tell, Yamato’s influence appears to have temporarily waned, possibly coinciding with the end of Wakatake’s own dynasty, with a new dynasty coming to power in the 6th century.
It is possible that Wakatake was simply never quite as powerful as the Chronicles make out, but there are a few other things that make me think that the end of the 5th and early half of the 6th century were a low point in Yamato’s power. For one thing, we see a drop off in interactions with the continent after 479—or at least anything beyond the tip of the Korean peninsula. In addition, we see smaller rooms built in the region of the Nara Basin and the Kawachi plain, while more “royal” tombs continue to appear elsewhere in the archipelago. It isn’t that they stopped, but the size decreased, suggesting that Yamato didn’t have the same labor pool it used to.
On top of that, we have the dynastic change. We are told that the line related to Wakatake died out and they had to bring in someone from Afumi and Koshi, who traced their lineage back to the legendary Homuda-wake, aka Ōjin tennō, some five generations back. Many scholars suggest that this connection was a later merging of the lineages, suggesting that, in reality, an entirely new branch of sovereigns had come to power.
Finally, we can see the Chronicles focusing more and more on the areas near to Yamato, the area known as the Home Provinces, possibly because Yamato only held direct control over these areas, while control beyond that was only nominal. Local elites in those regions had a lot of autonomy, and if Yamato did not have anything in particular to offer them, they would not have a reason to necessarily go along with Yamato’s requests.
This may have even been part of the impetus for the so-called “rebellion” by Iwai, in Kyushu. As you may recall, in the early 6th century Iwai attempted to ally with Silla against Yamato and Baekje, with the idea of cutting off Yamato’s access to the continent. This ultimately failed, and Yamato ended up creating what would become the Dazaifu near modern Fukuoka, but the fact that Iwai could contemplate it and gather such support would suggest that Yamato was at least perceived as vulnerable.
Now up to this point, we see several different policies that were used for increasing the court’s control. Early on, this was done by doling out various elite goods. We also see Yamato soft power in the form of spiritual authority and the expansion of local Yamato cultic practices out into the other lands of the archipelago. There was also the tradition of monumental tombs, and especially the royal keyhole style tombs, which spread out from Yamato and was likely as much an indication that those regions saw Yamato practices as worthy of emulation, at the least, and perhaps saw Yamato as a cultural nexus on the archipelago.
To all of this, they eventually added the “Be” system. This appears to have been copied from systems being used on the Korean peninsula, and it focused on creating familial units to organize various industries, with family heads responsible for reporting and funneling necessary goods up to the court. This eventually included the noble “uji” clans, with their power bases in various geographic regions.
Yamato extended its influence through a variety of methods, including various public works projects. These included things like the building of ponds, or reservoirs, which would have been critical to the wet-rice paddy agriculture that was the economic backbone of the Yamato government.
Another means of extending government control was the “miyake”, or Royal Granaries. Originally we see these set up in the Nara basin, but during the current dynasty they had been extended all the way out to Kyushu. Ostensibly, they were there to collect rice for taxes, but they appear to have acted as government offices, providing a presence for Yamato even out in the hinterlands. Eventually they would turn the area in Kyushu, the Dazai, into its own, semi-autonomous extension of the Yamato government, as well.
In the past year of the podcast, we’ve seen many of those older forms of government control replaced with a new bureaucratic system. This included an upgrade to the rank system, which was a way for the government to both organize the bureaucracy while also creating a means to award individuals. Early rank systems had initially been granted at the family level, but following a continental model meant that the new system was based solely on the individual. Thus they could hand out rank to various kings and chieftains across the archipelago and entice them into the Yamato orbit, a trick they had been doing previously as well with various types of recognition. Those that took the titles and rank that Yamato handed out gained a certain amount of legitimacy, locally, but since that legitimacy was tied to the Yamato court, it also helped solidify Yamato’s own influence on those areas.
That doesn’t mean that all expansion was peaceful. Yamato contested on their eastern and northern border with the people referred to as the Emishi, which eventually included contests as far north as the island of Hokkaido with the Mishihase people.
There was another form of soft power used by the court in the way that it supported Buddhism, which was still a new religion at this point, having arrived in the early part of the 6th century. Patronage of Buddhism would lead to the building of temples and otherwise claiming some authority in the spiritual realm, beyond simply the court’s control of the Mt. Miwa site. Furthermore, the state itself took particular interest in Buddhist institutions, and cracked down heavily on the clergy, ensuring that they reported up to the court, formally solidifying the connection between temples and the State.
But then they went a bit further and instituted actual governors. They were appointed by the Yamato government, and they were particularly installed in the Eastern lands—referred to as provinces. These governors reported to the court, and appear to have initially been separate from locally recognized elites, who were known as the Kuni no Miyatsuko. The governors were to take stock of the areas under their authority and report up information such as a summary of the lands and local census information. This meant that Yamato did not need to rely on local elites to administer an area, they would have greater insight into what was actually going on.
This was all combined with the institution of new laws on taxes, corvee labor, and more, while eliminating traditional practices such as the Miyake and even royal tomb-building. The latter was likely affected by the various public works projects, but also the fact that more work was going into the building of things like Buddhist temples.
As we noted back in the previous year, Buddhist temple building appears to have had a hand in the end of the prolific kofun building, at least in Yamato proper. Kofun were memorials—meant to carry on the memory of an individuals well after their death. They were ritual sites, and families were set up to care for them.
Temples, likewise, were erected with certain memorial qualities. Donating to build a temple was thought to increase one’s karma, and thus do wonders for your next life. Temple patrons would be remembered, and services were carried out, but temples also had a certain public aspect to them, as well. On top of that, they were new, and no doubt exotic, with their tiled rooves, intricate carvings, and colorful buildings. Much of the labor that would have built tombs appears to have been co-opted, instead, to build temples.
Some of the temples founded in this period include Asuka dera, aka Hokoji, built on or near the Soga family compound, as well as other Asuka temples, such as Yamadadera, Kawaradera, Toyouradera, and Kudaradera. There was also Houryuji, erected by Prince Umayado near his house, and the ancient temple of Shitennouji, erected in Naniwa. Of these, both Horyuji and Shitennoji continue, today, at or near their original with some of the oldest extant buildings in Japan. Asukadera was moved to its modern site of Gangoji, in Nara city proper, but there is still a smaller Asukadera on the original site, with what may be one of the original images, though the buildings have been rebuilt after numerous fires and disasters over the years.
Of course, a big part of all of these foreign ideas, such as Buddhism but also Confucian thought as well, was the growing influence of the continent, whether in the form of Baekje, Silla, Goguryeo, or beyond. While there had been influence ever since the Yayoi period—and arguably even during the Jomon, in some instances—there seems to have been an acceleration once Yamato began to import Buddhism, which was likely connected with all of the learning and texts that were also being imported around that time. Then, during the Sui and Tang dynasties—both of which the Chronicles simply label as the “Great Tang”—the court sent several embassies to the Sui and Tang emperors, bringing back individuals with actual experience in the way things were happening outside of the archipelago.
And we should not discount the various embassies to and from the Korean peninsula. Yamato was increasing its involvement in peninsular affairs. They continued to be concerned with the state of Nimna, also known as Imna or Mimana, which had been assimilated by Silla, along with the rest of Gaya, or Kara, by the early to mid-6th century, with many accounts dealing with attempts to reinstate Nimna as a separate and sovereign entity. Along with this, Yamato continued their relationship with Baekje, who sent Prince Pung to reside at the Yamato court. This continued a long-standing tradition that is portrayed as a type of diplomatic hostage, though there have been several times that princes at the Yamato court came back to Baekje to rule after the king died or was killed.
All of this to say that not only did ambassadors from Yamato go to these countries, but ambassadors also traveled to Yamato, while various immigrants from these areas of Baekje, Silla, and even Goguryeo occasionally settled in Yamato. This further increased the number of individuals with knowledge and experience of continental concepts and technology, and we can see their influence in numerous different ways.
This was all part of what led to the Yamato government’s adoption of Tang style law codes, though it should be noted that the law codes were not taken wholecloth. Rather, they were adapted specifically to the issues of the archipelago. This was the beginning of what came to be known as the Ritsuryo system, literally the system of laws and punishments.
Under this system, the government went from a single Oho-omi, or great minister, to two Great ministers, one of the left and one of the right. These would come to be known as the Sadaijin and the Udaijin. Nakatomi no Kamatari was afforded a special place as the third minister, the minister of the center, or Naidaijin, possibly referring to his responsibilities with the interior of the royal household, while the ministers of the left and right would have had particular ministries beneath them - eight ministries in total, with various departments underneath them. They would be assigned to report either to the Minister of the Left or the Minister of the Right, each one overseeing, effectively, half of the government portfolio.
This system, combined with the governors and the Tomo no Miyatsuko in the provinces, meant that Yamato had much more granular control over the workers and the means of production. They organized households into villages, and villages into districts. There were lower level officials who reported up the chain all the way to the great ministers, the Daijin, or Oho-omi. This meant that they effectively abolished the Be and Uji system, at least as it had been set up. These familial groups continued to operate as families, or perhaps more appropriately as “clans”, given how the groups had come to be.
These officials were granted rank and, more importantly, stipends from the government. A portion of taxes, which were paid in rice, went to various officials. This meant that officials not only relied on the government for their status, but for their incomes as well.
This went along with an attempt to implement something known as the “equal field system”, imported, again, from the continent. This determined who would work what fields, and was another way that the government was involved down to the actual labor producing the rice that was the economic engine of the State.
And that covers most of what we’ve been up to this past year. There have been individual accomplishments that we didn’t get into, but there is plenty there if you want to listen to it.
So that covers the past year in the podcast—a little over half of the 7th century. It really was a time of dramatic change—whether or not “Taika” was the name given to part of it, it certainly feels appropriate. Even though the court eventually moved to Naniwa, this is the height of the Asuka period, and the start of the Ritsuryo state. It would form the foundations for what was to come, and themes from this period will continue to show up again and again.
In this next year, we are going to continue to look at Takara Hime’s reign and beyond. We’ll see the resolution of the Tang-Goguryeo war, and the impact of all the continental fighting on the archipelago. We’ll also see continued developments within the archipelago itself, hopefully getting through to the end of the 7th century.
We are actually reaching the end of the material in the Nihon Shoki. This does not mean that we are running out of material, though. The Chronicles end in 697—less than 40 years out from our current place in the Chronicles. From there, we have the Shoku Nihongi, which covers 95 years, until 797 CE. Translation of much of the Shoku Nihongi is available through the work of Dr. Ross Bender, and you can find his work online if you want to get a leg up on the reading, though that is a ways out. For now, we can still comfortably continue with the Nihon Shoki, at least through the reign of Temmu Tennou.
Until then, Happy New Year! As usual, thank you for listening and for all of your support. Thanks also to my lovely wife, Ellen, for her continued work at helping to edit these episodes!
Remember, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
Also, feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

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New Year's Recap 2024

January 1, 2024 Joshua Badgley

Sunset over the hills west of Asuka. Photo by author.

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Happy New Year!

Welcome to our 2024 recap. This episode we look back at what we went over the past year and try to cover some broad themes. We talk about the uji-kabane system, and how the families that were created to help the government work were now starting to get a bit big for their britches, leading to the rise of families like the Soga and the Mononobe. We note that the royal succession is still something of a mess, and even things we think are rules may not actually be rules.

There’s also the coming of Buddhism, destruction of Nimna, and the rise of the Sui dynasty. In the end, we have set the stage for a new Yamato, one that sees itself in a new light.

And with that, I hope the new light for this new year is bright and wonderful for everyone. Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu!

Shinnen Akemashite! Happy New Year and Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is the New Year’s Recap episode for 2024
Every year I try to take a moment and look back at the material we covered. In part, this is to remind us of the journey we’ve been on, but it is also to help look at some of the larger themes that we might otherwise miss when we are looking at more discreet topics. This year we have not necessarily progressed through as much of the archipelago’s history as in previous years—we started in the early 530s and have probably covered about 80 or 90 years, in contrast to 2022 and before where we covered multiple centuries in a year. But there’s a good reason for that: it has been an eventful period, or at least more of the events are getting written down. However, there is a lot of important stuff going on. We are seeing, more than anywhere else, the rise of powerful families, not just individuals, a process that began as a way to expand the power of the state, but which then took on a life of its own under what is known as the uji-kabane system—the system of families and family rank. This is happening alongside of a reimagining of the state and of the royal family in particular. Many of the 8th century cultural norms are starting to be set in this period. In many ways, the people of Yamato are revising their cultural imaginary of themselves, often in reference to new ideas, concepts, and philosophies being imported from the continent. This includes the arrival of Buddhism and its shake up of the way that the people of the archipelago viewed the world and their place in it.
And so we’re going to start with a recap of the various sovereigns, then go into some of the more particular aspects of what was going on, and try to cover some of those more overarching themes. Hopefully this gives us a good base to move on into 2024.
Now over the past year we’ve gone through seven sovereigns. First was the short reign of Magari no Ohine, aka Ankan Tennou, around 531 to 536, back in episode 79, when we talked about the glass bowl attributed to his tomb. He was followed by his brother Takewo Hirokunioshi Tate, or Senka Tennou, who reigned until his death in 539. That was Episode 80, where we also kind of kicked off the Asuka period, which many see as starting around 538.
Next, in Episodes 81 through 86, was their half-brother, Amekunioshi Hiraki Hironiwa, or Kinmei Tennou, who ruled until about 571. Amekunioshi was followed by his son, Nunakura Futodamashiki, known as Bidatsu Tennou, who ruled until 585—Episodes 88 and 89. Bidatsu was followed, in episode 90, by our fifth sovereign in this year’s line up, Tachibana no Toyohi, or Youmei Tennou, father of Prince Umayado, aka the famous Shotoku Taishi, who we talked quite a bit about for his legendary and historical importance. Youmei Tennou passed away in 587, and after some conflict, Hasebe no Wakasasaki came to the throne, remembered as Sushun Tennou. He was assasinated in 592, as we covered in Episode 92, and succeeded by Toyomike Kashikiya Hime, daughter of Amekunioshi, wife to Nunakura Futodamashiki, and known to most as Suiko Tennou. That’s where we are at present.
We also have seen a succession of high officials. We started off with Ohotomo no Kanamura and Mononobe no Arakahi as the two Ohomuraji, but we quickly saw the addition of Soga no Iname as Oho-omi. This foreshadowed the fading of the Ohotomo family appear to have lost their status with their failures in peninsular dealings, while the Mononobe and Soga continued to help lead the country. Mononobe no Arakahi was succeeded in the position of Ohomuraji by Mononobe no Okoshi, and then Mononobe no Yugehi no Moriya. Soga no Iname was succeeded to the position of Oho-omi by his son, Soga no Umako.
Taken together with Prince Umayado, aka Shotoku Taishi, these are perhaps some of the main names in the Chronicles. Let’s recap what was most important about each of them.
We started this year talking about the reign of Magari no Ohine, aka Ankan Tennou. The official account says that he was the son of Wohodo, aka Keitai Tenno, and one of two of Wohodo’s sons that were basically just keeping the seat warm for their half-brother, Amekunioshi, aka Kinmei Tennou. In other words, they were kind of regents.
This story quickly falls apart, however, when you look at several factors. First, based on some of the dates given for his birth, Amekunioshi would have been around 22 years old when their father, Wohodo, passed away—young, but old enough to take the throne without requiring any kind of regent. In addition, neither of his two brothers gave up the throne to him when he finally came of age—whatever age that might have been. Instead, each one died in the position. That doesn’t exactly scream that they were giving up power.
Why this discrepancy? The best explanation is that the Chroniclers were trying to keep things nice and tidy, and
we are told that the tradition was for sovereigns to only come from lineages where both the male and female lines were considered royal—one sovereign and one royal princess, typically, who would be raised up as the Queen, and whose offspring would be eligible for the throne. However, that was slightly disrupted by Amekunioshi, aka Kinmei Tennou, who seems to have taken the throne despite the fact that his two half-brothers and their offspring may have had the stronger claim. Still, he was able to point to his mother’s royal status. In fact, she was even of the previous dynasty, sister to the last sovereign from that line, Wohatsuse Wakasazaki, aka Buretsu Tennou. Or so we are told by the Chroniclers.
. And so only Amekunioshi’s mother is considered to be the truly legitimate queen, while Magari no Ohine and the other so-called “regent” brother - Takewo Hiro Kunioshi Tate, aka Senka Tennou - must have been from a consort other than the Wohodo’s main wife. Their mother, Menoko, was instead linked to a prominent family, that of the Owari no Muraji, but it is unclear if they had the royal connections on her side—though I have little doubt that they could have been invented if they didn’t already exist.
I would point out that even given this explanation, both of the brothers were given the posthumous honors of “Tenno”, rather than being referred to as a regent, whereas the sovereign Okinaga no Tarashi Hime, aka Jingu Kougou, also ostensibly a regent, was never granted that honor, at least by the Chroniclers. We discussed this a bit in Episodes 41 and 42, and how that may have been due to the Chroniclers’ misogynistic tendencies as much as anything. There is a suggestion that in reality, these two brothers may have been rival claimants, and there may have even been competing courts, as different family members rallied support to their side.And all of that perfectly helps illustrate just how we think things might have looked around this time. Succession to the royal throne hardly appears to have been cut and dry. Even before this period, we saw times where there were multiple claimants , regents, etc. There is no clear pattern by which we can deduce who would succeed any given sovereign: it might be a brother, or any of their sons, or even a daughter. And without a clear system of succession, every time the sovereign passed away, there was a competition for the throne.

You might recall that the mutual father of these three sovereigns, Wohodo, was himself said to have been the first in a new dynasty-- the previous dynasty died out with Wohodo’s predecessor, Wohatsuse no Wakasazaki, aka Buretsu Tennou. There are a lot of questions around this transition, but even the Chroniclers couldn’t immediately connect Wohodo to the previous lineage without having to go all the way back to Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, on his father’s side, and to Ikume Iribiko, aka Suinin Tennou, on his mother’s side, but there are still plenty of questions about those ties and how real they were.

When it comes to the complications of succession, one thing to factor in is that this was still in the time when every sovereign moved into a new palace. There are various thoughts on why this was —one of them being that the move prevented spiritual pollution associated with a dead body. I also wonder if it wasn’t practical as the new sovereign may have already had their own base of power, or perhaps by building new it was a way to ensure that the buildings were always fresh and free of any problems, as I believe these early buildings were largely built of fresh, untreated wood. Whatever the reason, moving to a new palace each time also means that there wasn’t an actual, physical throne to fight over. Rival sovereigns could set themselves up in different areas in and around the Nara basin, Kawachi, et cetera, and gather supporters to their court.
Those supporters, no doubt individuals with some power and clout in their region who saw benefit in allying themselves with an even bigger name, would eventually become the heads of various corporate families, further extending their power and influence. There is plenty of reason to believe that the family systems we see on the archipelago were not necessarily indigenous creations. Early on people were associated with a place, perhaps, and of course you would know your line of descent, possibly even going back into myth and legend. The concept of “family” as simply a matter of descent and relationship no doubt existed—after all, everyone has a mother and a father. However, the idea of families with wide ranging control over a particular industry, administrative function, or even court ritual were likely imported from the continent as a way to group people together. In fact, these are often referred to more as “clans”—groups of individuals who claimed shared descent, whether real or imagined, often from some legendary figure. The new concept of these families not only grouped people based on things like their occupation or common ethnicity, if they came from the peninsula, but it also added a layer of administration that was then tied into the concept of the Yamato court, making it an extension of the government. In turn, the government classified these families through a system of rank and titles—the kabane.
This system had people being known as much or even more by their family name as they were by the common name they went by as individuals. Originally we see individuals working in similar professions organized into groups that used the term “-Be” in the name, but later we get the “uji”, or familial clans, that were more like administrators and extensions of the court. Of note, there would continue to be many people who were not formally part of a particular -Be or Uji or even Ie, or “house”. These were mostly individuals of the common agricultural class or similar, and long lineages might have no actual family name until the Meiji period, when everyone was expected to take on a family name as part of the efforts to modernize the country. Until then, having a family name meant that you actually were already a part of the upper crust of society, even if you were only on the bottommost rung of that particular social ladder.
In addition, a family name allowed someone to take on the family kabane, or title. While there were some titles that appear to be given to the individual, these kabane titles, such as Suguri, Kishi, Atahe, Kimi, Muraji, and Omi, designated entire families. These terms themselves appear to come from earlier job positions, indicating different types of leadership, from a local headmaster up to rulers of countries, and high ministers of the court. For example, the title of “Omi” was originally a job description, indicating one of the many functionaries that made the court run, but as a kabane, any member of a given family would be able to use the term, whether they were actually in a ministerial position or not.
At this point, these important families were essentially an extension of the state—a way to decentralize control so that the Yamato state could function at an expanded level. Some families appear to have been set up around local administration, including making local chieftains and the like part of their own family unit that was then granted control of the area by the court. During the period we’ve covered this past year, we see that approach of absorbing regional families mature and grow, and those families taking on greater roles: initially with stories of the Ohotomo and Mononobe families, culminating in the powerful Soga family.
For the Ohotomo and the Mononobe, the family name likely tells us part of what and who they were. The Ohotomo were the Great Tomo, or the Great Tomo no Miyatsuko. These Tomo no Miyatsuko are some of the earliest court nobles, and it would make sense that the Ohotomo were at their head—which would also explain their position as the Oho-omi in the 5th and early 6th centuries. Next to this family were the Mononobe, the Be (occupational group) of the Warriors, or Mononofu. Together these families represented the early concepts of administration and military might. However, as the families continued to evolve, they became independent from the roles they were originally created to hold. The Ohotomo would eventually fall from power, and in their place would rise up the Mononobe. However, the Mononobe would also find themselves on the outs, especially in the tumultuous period following Amekunioshi’s death.
It was at this time that a new family would rise up to take their place: the Soga, which we’ve heard a lot about this year. The head of the Soga, Soga no Iname, had positioned his family in part through carefully marrying his daughters into the royal line. While this had been done in the past, it wasn’t to the extent or success that the Soga were able to achieve: In only a single generation, Iname saw Soga descended sovereigns on the throne. This took place, of course, with not a small amount of maneuvering and the eradication of rival lineages. It was their own Game of Thrones playing out, with the families created to serve the state and the royal family grabbing for themselves more power. This would seem to be an unexpected consequence of a concept that had initially helped expand the royal authority, and we’ll only continue to see more of it in the coming decades and centuries.
At the same time that all of this was playing out on the archipelago, things on the continent were also changing. First and foremost, in that it was closest to home for Yamato, was the rising power of Silla on the Korean peninsula.
Up to this point, most of the Korean peninsula appears to have been a collection of small, regional polities, with occasional alliances between them. There were two or three kingdoms of note. In the north was Goryeo, a shortened version of the original name, Goguryeo, which is how we generally refer to it today to distinguish it from the 10th century state of the same name. It was the oldest of the various kingdoms, and claimed descent from the northern Buyeo kingdom, centered in modern Manchuria.
In the southwest of the peninsula was the kingdom of Baekje. They, too, claimed descent from the nobility of Buyeo, and they were made up of many of the various polities collectively referred to as Mahan. While Goguryeo was ruling up in the north, Baekje was one of the first kingdoms to set up shop in the southern end of the peninsula.
Then there was Silla. Originally a confederation of six polities in the area known as the Jinhan, they eventually became a kingdom and started pushing against the other polities in the region. This includes the fledgling kingdom of Kara, mostly known as a confederation of smaller polities from the old Byeonhan region. There are royal style tombs in the area, but before they could really get going Kara and the other polities fell under the control of the kingdom of Silla. This included groups like Ara and the controversial polity of Nimna. This set Baekje and Silla in direct confrontation, as Silla’s land grab eliminated much of the buffer territory between the two of them.
Nimna appears to have been of particular concern to Yamato, and appears to have been one of Yamato’s allies, along with Baekje. While Baekje appears to have been the stronger of the two, Nimna may have had a special place for Yamato, especially as it may have been an important port for Yamato ships traveling to trade with the rest of the continent. Nimna being under Silla rule would have made this trade much more risky, as the Silla-Yamato relationship was often a rocky one. Yamato attempted to move Nimna out from under Silla control, both through an alliance with Baekje, in concert with some of the other polities, as well as through attempts to take the country by force—most of which excursions were called off for one reason or another.
At the same time, Baekje had been in decline, generally speaking. They moved their capital farther south after being defeated by Goguryeo. They were rebuilding, and still a powerful force, but not quite at the height of their power.
Farther on the mainland, between the Yellow and Yangzi rivers, the period of the Northern and Southern Courts was coming to a close, and the Sui dynasty would eventually rule much of the Middle Kingdom, what is today modern China. They would bring a stability to the region and embark on public works projects that would forever change the face of East Asia.
As all of this was happening, influences were coming from the west. We mentioned the Sassanian glass bowl and similar wares that made their way from the Middle East all the way to Japan—though whether as part of a sovereign’s burial or not might still be up for debate. Nonetheless, we know that the overland trade routes were booming, even if the occasional instability might disrupt them now and again. The whole of Asia was more connected than we often give it credit for.
Along this road came not only material goods, but new ideas. Greek culture had reached at least as far as Gandhara, modern Pakistan and Afghanistan, and from east of the Indus came a new religion: Buddhism. It spread along the silk road, eventually finding a home in China, where it flourished, and continued to spread to the Korean peninsula and then, in the 6th century, to the archipelago of Japan.
Buddhism came hand in hand with other mainland texts, exploring a variety of science and philosophy. We discussed how the mainstream story of the introduction of Buddhism is likely not entirely correct. That story sets up a conflict between the foreign religion of Buddhism and the worship of local kami—the practices that would become Shinto. So, resistance to Buddhism is initially depicted as a resistance to foreign influence and the need to continue to support indigenous belief. The reality, however, is much more complex.
First is the role of kami worship in the expansion and exercise of State power. The archaeological record demonstrates some expansion of Yamato ritual in the spread of various kofun styles —especially the royal keyhole shaped kofun, which were clearly adopted by others, demonstrating Yamato’s influence. More subtly, we see the spread of Yamato ritualists to various parts of the archipelago, and eventually the spread of various beliefs—though it may be somewhat difficult to say just when belief in any particular kami started at this period. Remember, though, the way that powerful physical icons of the kami, such as mirrors and swords, had been taken by the Yamato sovereign and held by the court. We touched on this back in Episode 20, where we discussed on Yamato took on “guardianship” for various relics, almost like they were taking sacred hostages. Worship of the kami was intertwined with statecraft, and spiritual power and political power were both a part of the mix along with actual military power. If you could perform a ritual that people felt was effectual, that was seen as on par with actual governance. We also see this in the way that various families identified with different kami, such as the Mononobe and their link to the deity of Isonokami shrine, and the Royal family with the deity of Mt. Miwa.
Worship, however, was already starting to take on a continental tinge, as we see in stories about various deities, and the practice of worship. This was no doubt influenced by immigrants from the Korean peninsula, who brought their own stories and beliefs. Furthermore, whenever nothing else seemed to be working, bringing in new and exotic ritual practices from across the sea was likely seen as New and Shiny. It was, after all, the latest in spiritual technology, and that foreign-ness and lack of local understanding would have led not only to its also having a somewhat mysterious quality, but also in the power that comes with being the only ones to quote-unquote “understand” the power of it and how to translate it. If you were a 5th or 6th century ritualist family, if you could get hold of things that seemed to be ancient practices from the continent that nobody else really knew or understood, you were automatically the local subject matter expert.
Furthermore, there wasn’t necessarily a single, unified concept of how the kami worked, either. Kami worship was often localized, and then later would spread as others heard about particularly powerful kami and rituals. But there was no single concept of “Shinto”—there’s no evidence that Izumo, Yamato, and Kibi all had the same origin stories, and, in fact, the many different stories that make up the Age of the Gods in the Chronicles speaks to the idea that there were many different stories, depending on who you asked.
In many ways, this is even true today. While there are general themes that most Shinto shrines and practitioners follow, ritual practices from place to place may vary wildly. This is less so in places that were part of more unified systems, such as the shrines connected to the royal family or those regulated by State Shinto in the Meiji period through World War II, but even today you can find a variety of differing beliefs and rituals in Shinto, even as most things appear to be the same on the outside. A shrine’s teachings may have local meaning or local rituals that are not practiced elsewhere, though many will fall into a recognizable cultural milieu that tends to make them more standardized. As a small, but visible example, different shrines may have different omamori—protection amulets—that they offer. While most offer amulets against sickness, disaster, or for attaining goals, some may have specific amulets for the martial arts, while others may have more specific amulets about love and marriage. These will often be based on those things which the shrine and its kami are most associated with.
In many ways, the Soga clan’s acceptance of and use of Buddhism early on emphasizes this kind of spiritual borrowing, but to an extent that went well beyond what anyone else had done. Most groups or families seem to have borrowed bits and pieces from the continent and then applied them to their local customs, but the Soga appear to have taken on Buddhism wholesale. The benefit was that Buddhism wasn’t just a few new practices—it was an entire corpus of material, with a rich written tradition.
Of course the writing was primarily in Sinic script, which was not exactly accessible to most people. And early attempts at building temples and holding worship demonstrate a clear lack of understanding of Buddhist rites and rituals – indeed they are described much more like what one might expect to see in kami worship, with an emphasis on Buddhist “feasts”. This may have been an attempt to make these new practices more accessible, but I believe that it is more likely that these early attempts at Buddhism were trying to treat the Buddha as another kami, through which the Soga family could control access to rites and rituals and thus gain political power through their perceived spiritual power. It didn’t hurt that, when they finally did build some temples, they were in the continental style, even further illustrating the Soga family’s connection with all of these new fangled ideas coming over from across the sea.
This was likely facilitated by the Soga family’s connections to the immigrant community, particularly to various people from Baekje whom they sponsored and who, in turn, would be able to assist them in various ways. These included people like Shiba Tattou and his family, who were regularly assisting Soga no Iname and Soga no Umako in their endeavors. This may in part explain why early Buddhist images were coming over from Baekje, Yamato’s ally at the time, though that may have been coincidental or even a catalyst—it isn’t entirely clear.
It is also intriguing to me that I have not seen a clear reference to a Soga family shrine. Perhaps the Soga themselves were from the continent, originally—that may explain some of the earlier Soga names that appear to reference the peninsula and even Goguryeo. Then again, it is hard to say—it may be that the Soga family shrine was never of as much import as their eventual attachment to Buddhist institutions.
For those in power who could see how the Soga family was using this new religion, it is little wonder that they pushed back against it. They had no particular reason to see Buddhism as anything particularly special, but they no doubt knew that the Soga would use it as a platform to further enhance their position. And the powers-that-be succeeded several times, it would seem, in resisting Soga attempts to found a new ritual center.
The Soga, however, had already gained considerable power outside of Buddhism. Much of their rise is not entirely catalogued, but by the time of Soga no Iname, things were looking good. The Ohotomo family was on the decline, which likely created something of a power vacuum that Soga no Iname was able to exploit.
By the way, there is a thought that early on the position of “Muraji” was actually superior to that of “Omi”, and it may be that the “Oho-omi” position was not quite as prestigious as that of Ohomuraji. This is obscured by the fact that by the time of the Chronicles, the Oho-omi position clearly eclipsed the position of Ohomuraji, and that is projected back into the distant past by the Chroniclers. This would speak to the idea that the Soga family was actually ranked behind the Ohotomo and the Mononobe, originally, but their Omi family was on the rise, and eventually their position as Oho-omi, the Great Omi, became the most influential position at court.
This may go along with the fact that Soga no Iname is also given the personal kabane of Sukune in the Chronicles, which is described as the highest personal title that could be bestowed on an individual.That also speaks to his personal power and influence at court. Of course, he is described by these terms from early on, even though he likely received them later in his career, and so it can be difficult to track just when he came to the peak of his effectiveness. There is also the possibility that some of it is projected back on him because of his offspring, though even then he was still likely someone of consequence to be able to have those familial connections with the royal family in the first place.
I suspect that much of Iname’s position was likely derived from his access to Baekje and other immigrants and their access to reading, writing, and the new technologies that the court was hungering for. Iname then parlayed that position into strategic marriages with the royal house. Several consorts were from the Soga lineage, daughters of Soga no Iname. Their sons and daughters, while royal princes and princesses, would also be connected to their Soga relatives. This was a not uncommon ploy, as we’ve seen it in many other cases as well.
However, then something happened that would disrupt the apple cart. Remember hwo we talked about how a sovereign was supposed to be be descended from the royal family through both their paternal and maternal lines?
Amekunioshi was succeeded by his son Nunakura Futodamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennou. His mother had been Ishi Hime, son of Amekunioshi’s half-brother, Takewo Hiro Kunioshi Tate, aka Senka Tennou. But when he died, his son, Hikobito, was not made sovereign. Instead, the throne passed to his half-brother, Tachibana no Toyohi, aka Youmei Tennou, a son of Amekunioshi and a daughter of Soga no Iname—so royal blood on only half of the family’s side.
Following him, we see a bloody fight for the throne, largely personified by the military forces of the Mononobe v. those of the Soga. Remember, the Mononobe had started as the Be of the warriors. They were expected to be the armies of the court, at least in Yamato and the archipelago. In previous reigns they had been the ones to mete out punishment and to be given charge of places like the Yamato government’s outpost in Kyushu, from which point armies would be launched against the continent. They did not, however, have a monopoly on military power. Many families participated in raids against the peninsula, so we can assume that there were many who had their own, private forces. While the Mononobe may have been the court’s warriors, they had also branched out into other areas of administration, as well as maintaining the ritual site of Isonokami.
The Soga versus Mononobe fight also saw various royal princes pitted against each other, and many would-be sovereigns were killed. Prince Hikohito, whom one might think as the eldest son of Nunakura was the heir presumptive, was killed, and the Mononobe ended up supporting Prince Anahobe against the Soga’s candidate, Prince Hasebe. However, both of these candidates were descended from daughters of Soga no Iname—nobody was putting up a candidate that truly had royal blood on both sides.
In the end, the Soga were victorious, and they destroyed the Mononobe—though not entirely. The Mononobe were certainly out of power, but they would continue to exist in a more minor role. The Soga candidate, Hasebe, was then placed on the throne as Sushun Tenno, while Soga no Umako enjoyed unparalleled power as Oho-omi.
However, despite his Soga lineage, and the fact that Soga no Umako had helped put him on the throne, Hasebe was not necessarily going to let himself be controlled. And so Soga no Umako resorted, we are told, to assassination, to clear the throne for someone else. And that someone else was none other than Toyomike Kashikiya Hime, aka Suiko Tennou.
She is something of an enigma. She is the first woman to be granted the title of “Tennou” by the Chroniclers, and several accounts make her seem like she was a shrewd operator. She had been the second wife of her half-brother, Nunakura Futodamashiki, and she’d been in or near the halls of power since his reign. And yet some believe her to be little more than a puppet for Soga no Umako, while others believe she was a consensus candidate who was largely inoffensive to the majority of the court. This is further complicated by the fact that she didn’t even name her own offspring as Crown Prince, designated to succeed her. Rather, that position went to none other than her nephew, the Prince of the Upper Palace, Kamitsumiya, aka the Prince of the Stable Door, Umayado, more popularly known today as Prince Shotoku Taishi.
Shotoku Taishi is a mytho-historical figure by all accounts. While many believe that an actual prince existed, he is given credit for almost anything good that happened. Although the Soga family was clearly responsible for bringing in Buddhism, it is Shotoku Taishi who is credited with spreading the holy religion. He is also said to have written the first constitution for the state, and set up a court rank system similar to the continent, though still unique to Yamato.
He is said to have ruled jointly with his aunt, and is treated in later stories as a dharma king, even though he never took on the actual mantle of sovereign. Of course, Soga no Umako also exerted a huge influence, and in the end it is hard to say exactly who held the real power amongst the three: Kashikiya Hime, Prince Umayado, or Soga no Umako.
Umayado was the first to pass away, however—which may have also contributed to his holy status as any problems could be passed off as belonging to his aunt or, even better, to his grand-uncle, Soga no Umako, who would follow Umayado in death a few years later, and then, finally, Kashikiya Hime herself would succumb to time. They all passed away within a decade of each other, but Kashikiya Hime would manage to outlast them all.
Through this reign, for all of the fighting and politics, many of the foundations were laid for a reimagining of the Yamato state, the sovereign, and the vehicles of power. The court had spread their control through ritual, through the familial system, and through the establishment of Miyake—government outposts designed to control rice land and send tribute back in the form of tax. However, now they were formalizing that structure and in so doing they were putting a legal framework around it. Built around a continental model, the throne became the source of rank for the individual, not just the family, and that rank could be given out across the archipelago. This set up some of what was needed to start to move towards a more bureaucratic state in the continental model.
Certainly, we see that Yamato power had expanded. Further out from Yamato, we see the round, keyhole shaped tombs becoming popular, while closer to the Nara basin, they actually began to die out. In part this can be seen as a possible sign of Yamato control, since the local elites were no longer being represented as rulers, but in a lesser capacity. However, it then takes a real turn as even the sovereigns—or at least the Soga descended sovereigns—are no longer buried in keyhole shaped tombs, either, and these tombs become smaller. This may be, at least in part, because resources to build tombs were being redirected into the new temple building craze. For whatever reason, Buddhism had caught on, at least amongst the elites. If the Soga family had hoped to control Buddhism, they appear to have failed. Numerous temples started up, tied to different families, most of them connected, in some way, with various immigrant groups in the archipelago. Where this would go, we’ll have to see.
And that largely catches us up. I skipped over a few things, but it is worth recalling the Haruna eruptions that we covered back in episode 87, which reminds us that the Chronicles really only give us a narrow view of everything that was going on. Much of the history of the archipelago remains unrecorded, and is only understood through the archaeological record. While a lot was happening in Yamato, there was plenty going on elsewhere, but we only see it when it touches on Yamato and their politics.
And so we learn a little more about the creation of the Dazaifu, and we hear about natural disasters, such as earthquakes and floods, but only if they affect the Nara basin. There are some hints in the fudoki, the local gazetteers that were compiled in the 8th century to catalog the local stories and histories, but we only have so much, and even then the stories aren’t always easy to place in a truly chronological context. Still, we can see some general themes running throughout this period.
As we start into 2024, we’ll finish up with the reign of Kashikiya Hime. Before her reign ends, we’ll also see the rise of the Tang dynasty on the continent—a new inspiration for Yamato, but also a new threat, especially as they ally with Silla. Also, with Prince Umayado gone, who will next take the reins of power? And what will happen with the Soga family? Will Umako’s children prove as formidable as he was? There is plenty more to look forward to.
Until then, Happy New Year! As usual, thank you for listening and for all of your support. Thanks also to my lovely wife, Ellen, for her continued work at helping to edit these episodes!
Remember, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
Also, feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

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Episode 83: Shakyamuni, aka the Historical Buddha

April 1, 2023 Joshua Badgley

Image of the Buddha at Asukadera, one of the earliest temples in Japan (though the original is no longer extant). Buddhism would bring major changes to the archipelago. Photo by author

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This episode we are talking about Shakyamuni, the Historical Buddha, as we start a multi-episode look at Buddhism and how it came to the Japanese archipelago, as well as what it changed.

Who’s Who

SiddhartHa Gautama

The “Historical Buddha”. Believed to have been born around the 6th century CE, Siddhartha Gautama was born to the Shakya clan and became known as Shakymuni (sage of the Shakyas) and given the title of “Buddha”, or “Awakened One”. Buddhists believe that Siddhartha became awakened to the truths of existence and helped define a way to escape the suffering that exists in the mortal plane.

Ashoka the Great

A ruler on the Indian subcontinent around the 3rd century BCE who helped patronize Buddhism. While some histories claim that he completely converted to Buddhism to the exclusion of all else, there is evidence that he patronized multiple religions, though it is clear that Buddhist concepts entered into his lexicon in the form of his various edicts, which are found in inscriptions across his empire.

Buddhist Concepts

Tripitaka

Tri = Three and Pitaka = Basket, so this is literally “three baskets”. This describes the three groups of canonical Buddhist texts. There are the Sutras (Sutta Pitaka), the Vinaya (Vinaya Pitaka), and the Abhidharma (Abhidharma Pitaka).

Sutra

A document that describes the teachings of the historical Buddha, aka Shakyamuni. It includes recollections of his sermons and what he taught. Later there would be other Sutras that likewise claim to be canonical, but would not all be accepted as truth.

Vinaya

The written precepts for laypersons and monks. There are different lists, but they tend to have similar admonitions.

Abhidharma

Other writings about the teachings of the Buddha. These are not necessarily the actual teachings so much as scholarly discussion

Jataka Tales

While not necessarily canonical, these are stories about the previous lives of the Buddha.

The Three Jewels

The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha

Buddha

“Awakened One”. Technically it can describe anyone who has achieved an enlightened state, but it often refers to the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni.

Dharma

The teachings of the Buddha.

Sangha

The community of believers.

The Four Sights

Four encounters that Siddhartha Gautama had that led him to seek a solution to human suffering. These were encounters with a person experiencing old age, disease, and even a dead body, along with encountering a wandering ascetic.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 83: Shakyamuni, aka the Historical Buddha.
First a quick note—it has been brought to my attention that some of the episodes are out of order, particularly the older episodes. I’m going to try to fix that. It probably has to do with a decision I made about a year or so in to not worry about the “season” number, since this isn’t exactly a “seasonal” show. But if some episodes are marked as “Season 1” then they likely show up differently. I’ll probably see if I can’t just remove the “Season” number from all of the episodes and hopefully that will fix it.
Last episode we talked about the happenings over on the Korean Peninsula during the reign of Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tennou, and it wasn’t looking very good for Yamato and their allies. Over the course of the last several decades in our story the kingdom of Silla rose to power, brokered a deal with Baekje, and then ended up eating up all of the smaller polities that sat between them, including Nimna, Kara, and whatever else was there.
A Baekje-Yamato alliance attempted to put the brakes on Silla’s ambitions, but despite some major offensives they were thwarted time and again. Overall, it seems rather a bleak outlook for Yamato, but there were several things going for it. For one thing, with their close relationship with Baekje, Yamato was getting a plethora of new ideas—from how to govern to the subject of our current episode: religion.
That’s right, if you didn’t figure it out from the title, we are finally going to talk about Buddhism.
The Buddhist religion and its accompanying institutions have played a huge role in the development of Japan and Japanese culture, and so we are going to want to understand something about this and where it came from, and the journey it took to get to the islands.
And to start with, let’s go back to the very beginning, of what Buddhism actually is.
Now this isn’t going to be an in depth history of Buddhism, but I am going to try to hit the high points so that we have some context for things we’ll see later on. It should also be noted that, while the core of the religion remained the same, specific beliefs and practices were not always universal across all people and at all times. Also, not everyone believes in exactly the same things, and as an outsider I’m going to do my best, but this will probably be more at the level of a Wiki article than a scholarly treatise. If you are interested in more, I highly recommend looking into what various scholars have written.
Also, a lot of what I’m pulling from is Andrew Skilton’s book, “A Concise History of Buddhism”, mainly because I think it fits what we are trying to outline here, but I recognize that there other teachings and scholarly discussions. Still, I think most of what we talk about will probably be at an even higher level than that book gets into.
And that brings me to another thing that's important to say up front: when I say Buddhism, I'm not necessarily talking about Zen, or any particular sect, at least not right now - though Zen is Buddhism, or a school of Buddhism. Likewise you might also hear about Tendai, Shingon, or even Jodo, or Pure Land, Buddhism— those are all sects within Buddhism, and just some of the schools that made it to Japan, although a lot of them don't appear until after the time we’re currently in. The differences between these sects could be likened to the differences between Roman Catholicism and various Protestant groups—or even with the Orthodox church. While they have differences, they also have their similarities, and the core beliefs that make them all Buddhist.
As to why this is so important—Buddhism had a huge impact on the development of Japan. As we’ll talk about in a later episode, the adoption of Buddhism affected not just the philosophical thinking of the Japanese court, but had direct impacts that would bring about the end of what we consider the Kofun era. Furthermore, having at least a cursory understanding of Buddhism is going to be useful in understanding some of the ways people thought about the world they inhabited.
Finally: I am probably going to butcher the pronunciation on a lot of Buddhist terms, but I will do my best. Where possible I may preference the Japanese terms, both because they are more familiar to me, but also because that is how most of us will encounter them in the context of Japanese history.
Buddhism gets its name from the fact that it promulgates the teachings of the Buddha, the Enlightened One, and while various people are believed to have attained this enlightened state over the course of human history, we usually are referring to the individual known to us as the Historical Buddha, also known to us as Siddartha Gautama.
Tradition holds that Siddartha was the son of one of the elites of the Shakya clan—later this would translate into the term “Prince”, though some think that term may not be quite accurate. Still he was born into power and privilege, at the height of his society; later this would translate into him being considered a member of the Kshatriya warrior class. His birthplace is thought to be located in “Lumbini”, at the foothills of the Himalayan mountains, in modern Tibet, in the 6th century BCE. Some traditions put the year of his birth at about 566 BCE, though there are those that suggest a later date, even into the 5th century.
From a young age, we are told that Siddartha was protected from much of the outside world, living a life of luxury, and unaware of the poverty and suffering that went on outside of the palace walls. You see, a seer had predicted that he would be destined to lead an empire—either political or spiritual. And so his father did everything he could to ensure that Siddartha would aspire to the political. Even though his mother had died when he was young, Siddartha was largely insulated from any suffering until his teenage years, and he was even provided a young wife, Yashodhara, by the time he was sixteen years old—which probably wasn’t that young, back in those days.
It was as a young man, in his late twenties, traveling about the land in a carriage, that Siddhartha saw four sights that suddenly set his mind on a different path. First, he saw an old man, and in asking about him, it occurred to him that old age and infirmity were the inevitable outcome of life; there is no escaping it. Likewise he encountered people suffering from disease and even death, in the form of a dead body. All of this forced him to confront the fact that suffering is a part of life here on the mortal plane. Finally, he encountered a wandering ascetic, which got him to thinking about spiritual matters, and that perhaps there must be a better way—a solution to all of this suffering.
As he contemplated what to do, he was suddenly graced with what should have been wonderful news: his wife had just given birth to a son. However, to Siddhartha, he saw this child as simply one more thing that was keeping him from going out and seeking answers to the problems he saw. The comfort of his life, the social obligations, the privileges he had were all metaphorical chains, keeping him from going out really trying to answer the questions he had.
And so, at the age of 29, he absconded himself. He left his wife and child. He left the power and prestige and worldly possessions he had inherited from his family, and he went out to seek answers and to find out how to put an end to suffering.
To do this, he sought out teachers, one after the other, learned what they had to teach, found himself at the end of what they could give him, and moved on. These teachers provided various meditation techniques, which helped, perhaps, to ease or even forget the pain and suffering of existence, but the pain and suffering were still there, nonetheless.
It should be noted that a core belief at this time was in the concept of reincarnation. The idea that, based on your karmic balance, that is the difference between the good and evil that you did, here in the world, you would be reborn after death into a new body and a new life. If you did well, then you would be born higher up the ladder of existence, perhaps into a better caste or more. But if you committed sins and evil acts then you would find yourself born further down the ladder of existence, perhaps even as an animal or an insect.
The problem, as Siddartha saw it, was that all of this just meant you kept going back through the same things over and over again, coming back into the world, and once more experiencing suffering. Even stories of the gods themselves tell of their wants and needs, and of their fighting, suffering, and even dying. As long as one stayed on the wheel of life and death, suffering would be inevitable, and you’d always come back around to it.
He sought out answers in some of the extreme forms of asceticism. Holding his breath for long periods. Starving himself. These were meant to bring on a state wherein he hoped he would find the answers. Eventually, though, he spurned these techniques as well, claiming they were dangerous and unnecessary.
He instead ate food in reasonable quantities, and found a form of meditation that felt natural. In other words, he sought out a path between the extremes of hedonistic overindulgence and severe deprivation—a Middle Way, one might say. Practicing this tempered form of existence, he meditated under a tree, and it was there that Siddartha Gautama achieved an awakening, or enlightenment.
He could see the world for what it truly was, and gained profound insight into our condition. This is how he became known as Buddha, or “the one who has awoken”, to quote Andrew Skilton. He was only 35 years old—he had been studying for 6 years to this point, when he finally found the answers he was looking for.
Quick side note right here: For many, “Buddha” is not a single person or individual. People may talk about the historical Buddha to refer to Siddhartha Gautama, but technically “Buddha” is a title for anyone who has awakened to the truths of the universe. Buddhist traditions would come to define various people who had attained this enlightened state, though Siddhartha Gautama is generally considered the most important for the current era.
Siddhartha Gautama spent the next forty-five years or so of his life wandering the land and teaching his Middle Way to anyone who would listen. He initially spent time teaching in the area of the Bodhi Tree, where he had first experienced his revelation, and this area is known to us as Bodh Gaya. He later went to a deer park in the area of Rshipatana, where five of the ascetics whom he used to hang out with were gathered.
These ascetics had known Siddhartha when they were all practicing extreme deprivation together. They had come to see him as a teacher, but turned from him when he spurned his own attainments and started on his Middle Path. It took some initial convincing, but Siddhartha was eventually able to convince them and bring them around.
From five, Siddhartha’s disciples soon grew to 60, and he sent them out across the land to share his teachings with the people. His community of followers—known as his Sangha—continued to grow. As for Siddhartha himself, he seems to have focused much of his time on urban centers, with much of the last 20 to 25 years spent weathering the rainy monsoon seasons in the city of Sravasti.
When he was 80 years old, Siddhartha grew seriously ill, possibly from something he ate. Realizing his own state, it is said that he predicted his death in three days, and he passed away among a grove of trees. Seven days later, his remains were cremated, and, much as with holy men everywhere, bone and teeth left over from the cremation were distributed as relics. Tradition holds that ten relics went to ten rulers for burial under stupas, or memorial mounds, as a tribute to Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.
After his death, his disciples continued to grow the community, or Sangha, and spread the word. The life and teachings of the Buddha were written down in various documents and these were copied into different languages.
In about the 3rd century BCE, Buddhism gained a powerful patron in the form of Ashoka. No, not the Togruta jedi, Ahsoka Tano, but the Mauryan king, Ashoka the Great. Much of what comes down to us about Ashoka is as likely legend as fact, but we do know some things for certain because Ashoka left his own words carved in stone across his kingdom. Many of these mention Buddhist ideas and concepts and even identify key sites, such as the site of Lumbini, where Siddhartha Gautama was born.
At the same time, I would be remiss in not pointing out that it can be difficult to suss out just what Ashoka believed. He certainly patronized Buddhism, much as Constantine patronized Christianity, including calling councils together to help ensure Buddhist orthodoxy, but it also can be read as a form of propaganda, utilizing Buddhist concepts to strengthen his own rule. We’ll see how later sovereigns would use similar tactics to lay claim to being a Buddhist sovereign, as well.
Whatever his motivations, the pillars and inscriptions left from the 3rd century BCE provide us some of the first instances of the term “Buddha”, as well as another name, “Shakyamuni”, the “Sage of the Shakyas”; the “Shakyas” being Siddhartha’s own people.
So with the patronage of Ashoka the Great, the influence of Buddhism spread. But what was it?
Well, what we know is what was passed down, first as oral tradition, and later written down.
First of all, all things in existence are impermanent. That is they come and go. People live and they die. Even we change, moment from moment, nothing is truly static in this world—even if it were to last for thousands and thousands of years.
Then there is suffering—the bane of humankind’s existence. However, it is also inescapable, at least in this life. Describing suffering, and his solution to it, Siddhartha, aka Shakyamuni, revealed the Four Noble Truths, which are at the heart of Buddhist teaching. They are, roughly:
· Suffering is an innate characteristic of existence. Even the greatest pleasure eventually fades, leaving longing in its wake. No matter how many times you go round the wheel of life and death, you cannot escape it.
· Suffering arises because of our desires. From our material wants and needs to simply our desire to not be hungry or cold.
· Ending our attachment can help us put an end to suffering.
· To put an end to desire, and thus to suffering, one should follow the Eightfold Path.
So the four noble truths are something like a diagnosis of the human condition and then a potential solution. By the way, notice the numbers four and eight—just as Christianity tends to find particular value in the number seven (seven deadly sins, seven heavenly virtues, etc.) and 12 (Jesus and the 12 Apostles), Buddhism finds particular significant in the number eight, and, to some degree, the number four, although that would clash in some areas of East Asia, where the word for “four” sounded like the word for death.
And that eight is found in Shakyamuni’s recipe for how to end suffering:
Right understanding
Right resolve
Right speech
Right action
Right livelihood
Right effort
Right mindfulness
Right concentration
These are all individual actions for someone to strive to achieve, but they are also pretty vague. After all, what is “Right Understanding” or “Right Resolve”? That feels kind of like giving someone directions by saying “take the right road and you’ll get to where you want to go”.
Indeed, Buddhism therefore offers various precepts for how to live your life in accordance with the eightfold path. There are precepts for the lay person and precepts for monks and nuns. These include the requirement to avoid taking a life, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and even harsh, frivolous, or senseless speech. There are also positive admonitions, such as to cultivate loving kindness and speech that is truthful, kindly, helpful, etc. There are different lists of these precepts, but they generally include the same things.
On top of this were the rules for monks, including such things as fasting after midday; no singing or dancing; no garlands, scent, or adornments; no luxurious beds; and a vow of poverty—no accepting gold or silver, the coin of the day.
Besides following the precepts, there were various teachings and practices that monks and lay persons can follow. Most common are various techniques of meditation, meant to help open the mind to see beyond the surface of what we can perceive with our eyes and our ears and to transform one’s consciousness.
All of this was geared towards the eventual attainment of a state of enlightenment, and eventually, nirvana. Contrary to many popular portrayals, though, nirvana is not some kind of heavenly existence. After all, any existence in this plane, at least as we know it, was still suffering. Instead, to attain nirvana meant to escape the cycle of death and rebirth entirely. How and what that looks like may vary depending on your interpretation, but that is generally agreed upon as the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice.
This does not mean that there was not a concept of a heaven or a hell in Buddhism. While some have suggested that much of Buddhism and Buddhist practice is philosophical in nature, or geared more towards mindful practice, it is also steeped in certain cosmological views of the universe, and greatly influenced by the beliefs in the Indian subcontinent. Gods and demons, however, were simply different orders of existence, and even gods and demons could seek their own escape from suffering if they chose to do so.
It appears as though Buddhism was originally passed down as an oral tradition amongst the community of Shakyamuni’s followers. Eventually this was written down in texts, describing Buddhism for those who came later. The canonical texts that outline the Dharma, that is to say the teachings of the historical Buddha, are known as sutras. They contain the actual words of the historical Buddha, or so it is believed, and the core of his teachings.
Then there are the Vinaya, which are those writings about the community, or Sangha, and the rules for the community and for various monks. These came about as the community grew, and various Buddhists in different areas, without access to the direct disciples of the Buddha themselves, started to vary in their practices. As such, the Vinaya texts were written to try to give some shared reference material.
Finally, there are the Abhidharma texts, which are further writings about the teachings, generally with a more scholarly bent. They elaborate upon what is found in the sutras, but are not considered the actual teachings of the historical Buddha.
Together, these three classes of texts are known in the Buddhist tradition as the Tripitaka, or three baskets, with any canonical text generally falling into one of the three descriptions.
I’ll note that it is unclear to me just when these texts were written down. The oldest extant sutra fragments are from sometime between the 1st century BCE and the 3rd century CE, but some of the texts—particularly sutras and Abhidharma texts, were likely around much earlier. Various traditions make claims to when different texts were written, but it can be hard, sometimes, to discern fact from fiction.
There is also at least one other form of Buddhist literature which would be important in its spread, and that is the jataka tales. These are stories about the previous lives of the Buddha. Much like Aesop’s fables or the parables found in the Bible, these are stories that contain lessons and often help to break down or explain a particular point, but they are not necessarily the direct teachings of the Buddha himself.
The focus of the canon was to help define and preserve the Three Jewels of Buddhism: Memory of the Historical Buddha, Siddartha Gautama, aka the Shakyamuni Buddha; the Dharma, which is to say, his teachings, and the Sangha, or the community of followers.
Over time, things changed. Early on, Buddhist monks would wander much of the year, coming back together during the rainy seasons and then dispersing again. At various times they would call a council and come together and ensure they still held the same doctrines, though even with that, differences began to form. At first it was just over things like the rules of conduct, which might differ in one place or another. Eventually, though, different sutras began to appear here and there, claiming to describe different teachings of the Buddha. One such sutra is the Lotus Sutra, which claims to tell the story of what the Buddha taught after his last sermon. It claims that after most of the people had left, the Buddha began another discourse just for those who remained, and that became known as the Lotus sutra, one that many will likely have heard of. Other texts include the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra.
Not everyone accepted these texts as factual and canonical scriptures, however. Particularly in the south, down to Sri Lanka, many of the Buddhist communities continued to focus on what they considered the orthodox canonical texts, while others began to incorporate these new sutras into their practice. Those sects that accepted the new sutras, which often focused on the concept of Boddhisatvas—individuals who had done all they needed to attain Buddhahood, but who had “remained” in this world to help shepherd and guide others—or on various tantric and spiritual techniques to attain Buddhahood for themselves, became known as the Mahayana, or Great Vehicle, sects. On the other hand, those sects that denied the authenticity of such sutras and which tried to keep to what they believed was the original tripitaka became known as Theravada Buddhism. Today, Theravada Buddhism tends to be more popular in Southeast Asia, in places like Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos, while Mahayana Buddhism tends to define many of the practices in Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan.
In addition to changes in what people considered doctrine, the nature of the Sangha and Buddhist worship changed as well. Over time, monasteries were set up as specific places where monks could settle down. This may have originally arisen from the places where they would gather during the monsoons, but they eventually became places where the monks themselves stayed, and where individuals might come to learn. In addition, there was a rise in the worship of holy relics, and many such settlements would have one or more stupas containing some form of holy relic that the people could pray to.
People also built statues depicting the Buddha and other figures from the stories. An entire school of how to depict various Buddhas and other figures came about, with specific hand gestures and postures imparting specific meaning to what was built. Traditions arose around how to build these temples and monasteries as well as to how to build the various statues and even to specific identifying features that would call out the Buddha, such as long fingers, drooping earlobes that had once held heavy and elaborate earrings, toes that were all the same length, et cetera. The features of Buddha images—especially the faces—would change in different areas. Much as Jesus is often depicted as a white man, Buddha would typically be depicted with features similar to the people who were making the image. Still, certain aspects remain the same from one tradition to another such that they are all recognizable as the Buddha.
From Shakyamuni’s home south of the Himalayas, Buddhism would eventually spread, following the trade routes of the so-called Silk Road. Buddhist missionaries appear to have made contact with the Han dynasty, but it wasn’t until the Northern and Southern states period that it really took off. Likewise, it made its way to the Korean peninsula, and from there to Japan.
But those are all things to save for our next episode, when we take a look at just how this new religion grew and expanded and became so influential in the continent and eventually in the peninsula and the archipelago itself.
Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4
Skilton, Andrew (1994). A Concise HIstory of Buddhism. Barnes & Nobles Books, by arrangement with Windhorse Publications. ISBN 0-7607-4829-2.

Episode 82: The Fate of Nimna

March 16, 2023 Joshua Badgley

6th century iron armor from Haman, South Korea, the area associated with the Ara kingdom of the Kara (or Gaya) confederacy. This style of armor goes back to at least the 4th century and can be found in the archipelago as well as on the peninsula. Armor at the Seoul National Museum, photo by author.

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This episode focuses on the struggle that was happening on the peninsula. Below is a rough timeline, and some of the people involved. There is also an excerpt at the bottom on the fate of Kawabe no Nihe and his wife, which I wanted to acknowledge, but given the subject matter thought it best not to include in the main podcast.

Timeline

502 - Silla officially becomes "Silla" (or "Sinra") (SS)

514 - Ara conference (NS)

525 - Baekje exchanges gifts with Silla (SS) [Note: This may be anachronistic and misplaced by about 60 years...]

527 - King of Kara initiates closer ties with Silla (SS)

529 - Baekje gets a port closer to Yamato--possibly taken from Kara's territory (NS)

530 - Baekje and Silla team up against a Kena no Omi (NS)

532 - Nimna and Ara are incorporated into Silla's territory (NS)

532 - Keumgwan Gaya (Kara) submits to Silla (NS, SS)

537 - Yamato supports Baekje against Silla and possibly Goguryeo (NS)

539 - Ame Kunioshi takes the throne (NS)

546 - Succession dispute in Goguryeo (NS) / King Yangweon of Gogureyo takes the throne (SS)

550 - Goguryeo attacks Baekje (SS)

551 - Baekje and Sill push back on Goguryeo taking Hansyeong (modern Seoul) and Pyongyang (NS) / Silla takes territory from Goguryeo (SS)

552 - Baekje abandons Hansyeong to Silla. (NS)

553 - Baekje requests further troops from Yamato (NS) / Silla seized Baekje's northeastern border region and calls it Sin province (Sin-ju) (SS) / Yeochyang leads a force against Goguryeo (NS)

554 - King Seong of Baekje dies in an attack on Silla (NS, SS)

561 - Baekje dispatches troops to raid Silla (SS)

562 - Silla stops the troops from Baekje (SS) / Kara rebels and the rebellion is put down (SS) / Yamato and Baekje attack Silla on behalf of Nimna, with Ki no Womaro and Kawabe no Nihe leading the charge; they suffer defeat at Silla's hands (NS) / Ohotomo no Sadehiko successfully raids a city in Goguryeo

571 - Ame Kunioshi dies and urges his successor to continue to try to resist Silla and reinstate Nimna (NS)

Dramatis Personae

Ame Kunioshi Hiraki Niha, aka Kinmei Tennō - Son of Wohodo no Ōkimi and his queen, Tashiraga—or at least that is what the Chronicles tell us. He was one of the youngest sons of Wohodo, and probably came to the throne in his 20s or 30s. He is our current sovereign this episode—and for a few episodes to come.

Ōtomo no Muraji no Sadehiko - Son of the famous Kanamura, he had previously been sent on expeditions to the continent to support Nimna. Now we find him at the head of a raiding party against Goguryeo.

Soga no Iname no Sukune no Ōmi - For anyone reading ahead, you know where this is going. Soga no Iname is the first Soga to achieve the rank of Ōmi. The fact that he has a personal rank of Sukune is not insignificant, either, though it is unclear when he actually achieved that—there is a tendancy in the Chronicles to use the last title a person had when talking about them. Still, there is little doubt that he will feature prominently in stories to come.

King Seong of Baekje - King of Baekje during much of this episode until his death. Reigned 523-554.

Prince Yeochyang aka King Witeok of Baekje - Crown Prince and eventually king of Baekje, he was heavily involved in leading expeditions against both Goguryeo and Silla, if the Nihon Shoki is to be believed. Reigned 554-598.

Prince Kye of Baekje - Later King Hye [r. 598-599], he was the brother to Yeochyang and son to King Seong.

Charo Mato - Possibly just “Mato” as well. They were apparently of Wa and peninsular descent with titles in both the Yamato court and Silla. “Mato” is the name given of a Wa subject who is causing Ara and Nimna to trust Silla.

Ki no Womaro - Yamato general who had some successes against Silla.

Kawabe no Omi no Nihe - A noble who was made deputy general in the war against Silla. Due to his lack of military expertise he is credited with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against Silla. See below for what happened when he was captured.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 82: The Fate of Nimna.
Before we get into this episode a few notes. First off, this episode deals with war and with the trauma that brings, to include issues of death, sexual assault, and enslavement. I’ll try to be delicate, especially where we don’t need it to get the larger story, and perhaps reference some of it more fully in the show notes at SengokuDaimyo.com/podcast, so go there for more information. That said, I don’t want to just gloss over it, either—these were violent times and history often deals with subjects we’d rather not talk about. We just don’t have to sensationalize it, either.
As we discussed last episode, we are into the reign of Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tennou. According to the dates given in the Nihon Shoki, Ame Kunioshi, the youngest son of Ohohodo no Ohokimi, aka Keitai Tennou, reigned from 539 to his death in 571. Thirty two years is a respectable reign for any sovereign, especially considering that two of his half brothers had taken the throne ahead of him. Add to this the thought that he may have been co-ruling in some capacity even before then and it is little wonder that he has quite the entry in the Chronicles.
And yet, most of his entry is taken up with an almost singular focus on one thing: Nimna, the polity on the Korean peninsula that is also known as Mimana in Japanese or Imna in modern Korean.
We’ve talked about Nimna in the past, and it is more than a little controversial. Sometimes it is ignored as a complete fabrication of the Japanese chroniclers, and other times it is equated with the larger Kara confederation. I suspect the truth lies in a complicated middle ground that cannot be fully explained as we only have external accounts regarding its existence.
For my part, I think there is enough evidence to suggest that Nimna was a real place, and a place of some import, as it shows up in things like the Gwangaetto Stele, as well as in some of the Sinitic records as well, so it isn’t something that the writers completely made up. At the same time, any talk of “Mimana Nihonfu” suggesting direct control by Japan or Yamato is just as likely made up to support Yamato’s own causus belli, and may have even been included in some of the earlier documents that the Chroniclers themselves were drawing from. There is also the possibility that the term “Nimna” was no longer in use, but still referenced by Yamato, much as they tended to refer to anything in the Yangtze river basin as Kure, or Wu, referencing an old dynasty that had long since been supplanted by others.
A lot of what we read about Nimna comes from the Baekje records that the Chroniclers frequently quoted. Unfortunately, there is no extant copy of this record, and all that we have is the fragments quoted in the Nihon Shoki, where the Chroniclers frequently embellished the accounts. They would often equate, for instance the Wa ethnonym—that is the term “Wa” used to refer to people of ethnic Wa descent—as an automatic reference to actual subjects of Yamato. It is much more likely that there were a variety of ethnic Wa polities—or at least multi-ethnic states with a sizeable Wa population—on the peninsula and the archipelago, outside of those territories directly controlled by Yamato, though by the time the Chroniclers were writing Yamato really was the only “Wa” polity around, at least of any major consequence. At the time, though, Yamato likely held a place of prominence and even immense influence across the various Wa polities on the archipelago and, possibly, on the peninsula, but things weren’t as cut and dried as we tend to think of it regarding states and countries today.
It is quite possible—even likely—that Nimna was important to Yamato, and most especially to the trade that occurred between Yamato and the rest of the continent. Based on various descriptions, Nimna, or the territory defined as such, bordered both Baekje and Silla, and it may have been made up of smaller polities, possibly with a core polity of Nimna at its head. I could even conceive that there may have been a semi-permanent Yamato embassy set up in Nimna—and possibly with the various other polities as well, though the idea that Yamato was actually controlling these states seems to be too much overreach, to me.
Prior to 539, we are told that Nimna had been incorporated into Silla’s territory, around 532, and Aston notes that in the Tongkam the name “Nimna” doesn’t show up after that date. This is also one of the dates generally accepted for the end of any independence of the Kara confederacy as a whole, and when Geumgwan Kara is said to have submitted to Silla.
As for the presence of ethnic Wa people on the peninsula, that does seem fairly well-established, assuming some accuracy to the Baekje record being quoted in the Nihon Shoki. There are several members of various families listed in the accounts that feel as if they are clear references to people of ethnic Wa descent. These are listed alongside other family names—likely of Baekje, Silla, or similar backgrounds. People like Mononobe no Makamu, who is listed as having the Baekje court rank of “Siteok” and who is being sent by Baekje with another envoy, whose name is something like Chinmu Kwimun. There is also a “Ki no Omi” who is listed as a Baekje envoy with the Baekje court rank of “Nasol”, who was also sent with other Baekje envoys to the country of Ara, or Alla. There is speculation by a later commentator that Ki no Omi may have been the son of a courtier who had been sent on one of the expeditions from the archipelago, and a Baekje woman. Then there is “Charomato”, who apparently was born of a “Korean” mother—likely meaning ethnically from the peninsula, but not of Wa descent. Charo Mato held the title of Ohomuraji, meaning the head of a prestigious family, but also held the rank of Namanye in Silla and went around wearing quote-unquote “foreign dress”, and yet the records still identify him as being of Wa descent.
While we’ve discussed the possibility that there were enclaves of Wa in the peninsula since ancient times it is also possible that members of families from the archipelago emigrated to the peninsula for one reason or another. For example, we have Kawachi no Atahe. This individual is noted in the Chronicles as the “Japanese authority” in the country of Ara, sometimes called Alla, which was one of the polities that was apparently lumped into the larger Kara confederacy. At the same time, it looks like Kawachi no Atahe may have been someone who had been exiled from Yamato—or somewhere in the archipelago—suggesting that he wasn’t actually a “Japanese authority” but rather that he was probably a local official who happens to be of Wa descent. In the case of a name like “Kawachi no Atahe”, that certainly appears to be a locative in the Yamato area, of course, but the whole story leaves me with questions.
Now, as I stated, much of this information comes from the Baekje records that the Chroniclers then embellished. For example, the Chroniclers couch almost all of Baekje’s interactions as being subservient to Yamato, rather than as those of an independent ally, and so as we look at this account, I’m going to try my best to address what is going on without too much of the Chroniclers’ biases coming through. But without independent confirmation from another source, that can be somewhat difficult, as many of the stories here are not found in the remaining records in the Samguk Sagi or Samguk Yusa, for example.
Now I’d like to start with something out of the Samguk Sagi, which tells us that in 502 the country of Silla finally came to be known by that name. Up to that point it had been known as Sara or Saro, evolving as it had from a coalition of about six city-states on the eastern edge of the Korean peninsula.
As you may recall, during the reign of Ohodo, aka Keitai Tennou, there was discussion of Yamato hosting talks in Ara around 514. In reality, those were probably talks hosted by Ara itself, which seems to have risen to some prominence at this point. We talked about that back in episodes 76 and 77.
Later, in 529, Baekje gained access to a port to better facilitate communication with their ally, Yamato. This is presented as a gift by Yamato to Baekje, but apparently the King of Kara had other ideas. They had already been on friendly terms with Silla since at least 527, and it seems that after this they turned even more towards Silla’s embrace. Indeed, the Silla annals in the Samguk Sagi tell us that Geumgwan Kara requested a Silla princess around this time, an event that is also recorded in the Nihon Shoki, and would suggest that they were looking for a marriage alliance to cement their position with their powerful Silla neighbor. What began as a marriage alliance, however, quickly turned into outright subjugation by 532. Ara, likewise, seems to have been in Silla’s sphere of influence, if not outright subjugated, by that point, at least if the Nihon Shoki is to be believed. Many considered this the point at which the Kara confederacy had been dissolved, though some histories consider that the individual polities retained some level of independence, resisting complete absorption for another generation or two, until about the early 560s.
In the current reign, things start out in 540, one year into Ame Kunioshi’s rule. King Seong of Baekje brought together a bunch of representatives of the smaller polities, ostensibly to talk about re-establishing Nimna. This is sometimes known as the Sabi conferences, named for the Baekje capital where they likely occurred. Against the backdrop of Silla expansion, Baekje wanted to prop up some of the buffer states in between the two kingdoms. They urged on Nimna at multiple times to re-establish themselves, promising aid, but Ara seems to have balked and suggested a more diplomatic route. This may have been because they were already on the side of Silla—Baekje certainly makes that accusation of Kawachi no Atahe, who held some influence in Ara.
The Chronicles claim Baekje did this to carry out the whim of the Yamato court. In fact, however, it is much more likely that they were playing their own chess game with Silla. The extent to which their ally, Yamato, was actually involved is hard to say. Certainly we have examples of Baekje and Silla making their own alliances. For example, in 525, Baekje records that they exchanged gifts of friendship with Silla, though Best, who translated the records, suggests that this may be misplaced, chronologically, as there is no corresponding record in the Silla annals of the Samguk Sagi. Then of course in 530, the Nihon Shoki notes that Silla and Baekje teamed up against a rogue Wa commander, Kena no Omi, but then in 537, we have Yamato supporting Baekje against a supposed Silla-Goguryeo alliance.
All of these shifting alliances make the accounts read like two very different stories that have been intertwined. On the one hand is the story of Baekje, trying to help the mighty Yamato restore the innocent country of Nimna, despite the pernicious interference of the irreverent Silla. On the other hand we see friendly—or at least tolerable—relations between Silla, Baekje, and Yamato, each agreeing to meet with each other and even ally with the other as the need arose. Unfortunately, we aren’t given many of the deeper thoughts or reasonings, but I lean towards discounting many of the stories that make Silla out to be the bad guy for everything. In fact, it is much more believable that, rather than overarching themes it was a much more complicated and even local situation, where alliances were more matters of convenience and where even during war the various states kept up some kind of dialogue. In addition, we have to remember the biases of Chroniclers who knew what was coming—in the 7th and 8th century it was Silla who was Yamato’s rival, and so here we see them, with the benefit of hindsight, building up to that conflict, which may mean an overemphasis on the threat Silla posed at the time.
As for ethnic Wa involvement in events on the peninsula, while they were not all the responsibility of Yamato, there may be more than a few that were. After all, there were those from Yamato who had been sent on raiding parties and in warbands for one reason or another over the past couple centuries. Then there were various envoys, who could spend considerable amounts of time in a foreign land and even settle down and have kids.
There was also likely another reason for people to move from the archipelago, which was the expansion of Yamato’s own power. As Yamato exerted greater and greater centralized control, anyone on the outs with the ruling authorities may have wanted to seek refuge elsewhere, and given the fluid nature of things at this point in time, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that they may have moved to Baekje, Silla, or even to some of these states in between. Once there, if they had administrative experience, perhaps they were able to find a place for themselves in their new home’s own government structure. The Nihon Shoki records plenty of examples of Baekje, Silla, and even Goguryeo people coming to live in the island chain, so why wouldn’t some people go in the other direction?
This could also explain Yamato’s own somewhat laissez-faire attitude towards Baekje’s considerable entreaties to get a handle on the various Wa people on the mainland, given that they probably had no way to actually compel them to return, let alone listen to what they said. This was likely a source of consternation for the peninsula, much as various pirates and similar independent adventurers would be in later centuries, when the central government often could not, or simply would not, rein in the excesses of those on the periphery.
The Yamato court may have also endorsed the behavior of these various Wa folks to some extent. There are hints that they were in close contact with Silla as well as Baekje, though the relationship does feel more tense, in general. We have to remember that our Chronicles are largely from either early Japanese sources or from Baekje sources viewed through an early Japanese lens. Meanwhile the Samguk Sagi tends to take a very pro-Silla point of view, while the other entities involved don’t get much of a voice at all.
Speaking of which, there are three other polities mentioned in the attempt to reestablish Nimna and to allow the various members of the Kara confederation to have their independence back. One of these we know as “Teokkwithan”, which we are told lay between Kara and Silla, and so without aid from a powerful neighbor, like Nimna, it was constantly harassed. Then there is South Kara, which was small and weak, and without any real allies that it could call on. While we don’t know the exact situation, one assumes it was probably on the coast, again near Kara and Silla. Then there was the state of Chaksyun, which is frankly depicted as evil and double dealing, and thus basically deserving of their eventual fate.
I can’t help but wonder if, in a way, these aren’t just general stand ins for the stories that happened again and again, both in the peninsula but also in the archipelago. Smaller polities ended up as pawns, and often became the ground on which the more powerful states would fight. That meant that most of the damages would accrue to the local lands, and whatever the motives might have been of Silla, Yamato, or Baekje, that was likely disastrous for the local population, and only further hindered their own growth.
Now Baekje regularly tried to entreat Nimna to side with them and to effectively break away from Silla control, but there is plenty of evidence that at least some in Nimna were willing partners with Silla. Baekje complains, for example, about one individual, named Isumi, whom we are told is the Omi in Nimna—possibly referring to his role as a minister, or else a mistranslation of the name Isumi no Omi, I’m not quite sure. He is accused, by Baekje, of conspiring with Silla to attack.
At the same time, recall that Baekje had annexed territory from Nimna, and refused to give it back, claiming that it was necessary as a buffer in case Silla decided to attack them. Really, I don’t see any shining examples of virtue in any of this.
Baekje eventually decided to set up its own fortresses along the river between Ara and Silla—presumably with Ara’s support. Tensions were certainly ramping up, and Baekje’s own reasoning for setting up the fortresses was to make it impossible for the Silla farmers on the other side of the river—presumably the Nakdong river at this point—to be able to tend to their fields. The reasoning given is that if Silla found it too difficult they would just give up the fortresses they themselves had erected and the independent buffer state of Chaksyun, which Silla had also swallowed up, could be restored.
Here I’d like to give a blow by blow of what happened, but we have too much happening too quickly. Besides the confrontation between Baekje and Silla over control of the various territories between them, there was still a threat from Goguryeo at the head of the peninsula. In about 546 a succession dispute in Goguryeo led to fighting between some of the elite factions in the court over their preferred candidates to the throne, leading to massive conflict. Several years later, Goguryeo was again threatening areas to the south, possibly with the support of some of the smaller polities, such as Ara, who may have been looking to break out from both Baekje and Silla control. In response, Baekje appears to have requested assistance from Yamato, but the nature of travel across the straits meant that any troops were slow in coming. This may be why Korean sources like the Tongkam note that Baekje allied with Silla to help stop the Goguryeo threat. This appears to go back to a long standing agreement between Baekje and Silla, to at least 493, where they mutually agreed to push back against Goguryeo, even as they continued to bicker with each other over the territories in their own regions.
During this latest Goguryeo incursion, Baekje even laid some blame on the quote-unquote “Wa authorities” in Ara, whom they blamed for calling Goguryeo to come in the first place. Yamato, for their part had to deny any complicity—they certainly hadn’t egged on Ara to call for Goguryeo to come help. In fact, Yamato was intending to send their own people to Ara to help repopulate the country.
If this all feels like a mess, that really is the sense I’m getting. There was a lot happening, and things could change at a moments notice. Through it all, though, Yamato and Baekje maintained good relations, even if they didn’t always agree.
By 551, it appears as though Baekje and Silla had pushed back on Goguryeo, forcing them to abandon Hansyeong, aka Seoul and later the area known today as Pyongyang. In 552, Baekje abandoned Hansyeong and Silla occupied it, and possibly the Pyongyang area as well, setting up two towns known as Utopang and Nimipang.
In 553, Baekje was requesting more troops from Yamato, and five months later an emissary was on his way back to Baekje with equipment and promises of troops. In the meantime it seems that Silla had been busy allying themselves with Goguryeo, and it looked like they were planning to attack Baekje. And so Prince Yeochyang, son of King Seong of Baekje led troops against Goguryeo.
This is one of the first in depths accounts we actually get of the fighting, although it still remains focused on the personal. In this case the focus is on the prince, who led his troops out to a large plain and set up entrenchments, presumably to await the arrival of their Goguryeo opponents.
They were not disappointed. Local boys, possibly overseeing their herds or tending the fields, had seen the arrival of the Baekje troops and sent word, and overnight an army had appeared. Prince Yeochyang had heard the sound of instruments in the night, but could see nothing. He had his own men beat their drums in response and they kept a strict watch.
The next morning they saw the Goguryeo troops arrayed around them, with banners covering the fields as a hill is covered with green foliage—or so the Chronicles tell us. A man approached on horseback, and we are told that he wore a gorget, or neckguard, and was accompanied by two others who carried instruments, like cymbals, and two more that were adorned with leopards tails in some fashion. This Goguryeo honor guard indicated someone of rank and status who had come for initial parlay.
The Goguryeo prince asked whom they were fighting. Yeochyang answered that he was of the “same name” as they were—that is, he called on his claim to a common Buyeo ancestry with Goguryeo—and mentioned that his rank was that of Hansol, and he was 29 years old. Likewise the Goguryeo prince responded with his own details, which are not recorded, and then they got things started.
First, before the battle, they set up a marked area of the field. Here the two princes would do single combat before the rest of the battle would commence. And so the Baekje and Goguryeo princes fought. Eventually, the Baekje prince knocked his opponent from his horse with his spear, killed him, and cut off his head, raising it on his spearpoint and showing it off to his troops. This gruesome display was met with joy by his own troops, but I daresay not so well on the other side. After that, the rest of the forces engaged, and Baekje eventually pushed back the Goguryeo forces.
So why tell you all of that? There isn’t a single mention of Yamato, and this is all happening in the north. Okay, it is in the Chronicles, but why does that matter to us? Heck, why did it matter to the Chroniclers?
Well, we could point to how Yamato used the Baekje records as if they were an extension of their own power and hegemony, and therefore a Baekje victory was a Yamato victory in their eyes.
This may also be taken out of context as an effort to support the view that Silla and Goguryeo were allying. In his translation of the Baekje annals in the Samguk Sagi, Jonathan Best points out that Silla had been attacking Goguryeo only a year or two earlier—would they really be allying against Baekje at this point? They don’t appear to have given up the territory they gained from Goguryeo, and so I have to wonder if this doesn’t come from earlier, when a Baekje-Silla alliance took Hansyeong and then the area of modern Pyongyang from Goguryeo control.
Regardless, what interests me, besides the fact that it is one of the few accounts of an actual battle, sparse and biased as it may be, is that the form of battle shown here is remarkably similar to something we see later, in the Heian and Kamakura periods, with the rise of the samurai warriors. It is the concept of single combat, and even the announcing of names. This was key, particularly in times when you didn’t always know who was who on the battlefield. First things first—is this an enemy in front of you, or an ally? And where did they come from and what was this all about? These are not questions easily answered by the dead, and where is the prestige in defeating an unknown enemy?
All that said, did it really happen like this? Did they honestly have these kinds of norms around fighting, at least on the peninsula? Quite possibly they did, at times, though it is also just as possible that this was more of a literary device than anything else—something to let the reader know what was going on and who was involved.
This also seems to kick off the wars in earnest. Up to this point, a lot of the fighting, assuming it happened, was largely off-screen, so to speak, with a focus on more diplomatic efforts, or simply the building of fortresses. It is not dissimilar to the early setup in a game, though this was no laughing matter. Outside of the glory or derision given to individuals in the pages of these historical records, we can’t forget that there was a very real and human cost in what was happening. Fighting meant death and destruction, and displaced people across the peninsula. We see them coming to the archipelago and being settled in various areas, but we also see people enslaved and offered as diplomatic gifts. These are people who were forced from their homes and their lives all because of aspirations of the powerful elites who directed soldiers to fight and die at their behest. We may not always see it, but as we listen to what was happening, let’s not forget the human toll around all of this.
Coming back off of his victory in late 553, Prince Yeochyang continued his offensive against the Silla, this time taking the fight to them, directly. They sent for the Wa troops that had been gathered in Tsukushi and Baekje sent a general with Mononobe no O to ask for even more. In early winter, they were ready to begin their assault. Baekje and Yamato troops assaulted Silla, but it wasn’t enough. This may account for a record in the Samguk Sagi which claims that Silla seized the northeastern border region of Baekje in that year, incorporating it into its own domain.
The records say Baekje sent 10,000 men in their fight to quote-unquote “assist” Nimna, but they needed more, and Baekje sent a request along with gifts to Yamato to presumably help offset the costs.
Yeochyang then headed back to the front with Silla and there he built a fortification at a place the records called Kutamura. King Seong, worried for his eldest son, decided to go to the front to see him there. The Samguk Sagi says that he assumed personal command of a force of about fifty thousand foot and mounted soldiers, and attacked the fortress of Mt. Kwanson along with “Karyang”, which some have identified as Kara troops, though it could be a reference to any number of troops from the areas in between Bakeje and Silla, I would think. The Silla military governor of the recently annexed Baekje territories came down to assist. During the combat, which seemed to be leaning in Baekje’s favor, a Silla leader named Todo made a sudden attack which ended up killing King Seong. This caused the army to break and the Silla troops pursued them. The records say they beheaded around 30,000 Baekje soldiers and four of the highest ranking nobles.
In the Nihon Shoki, they note this battle as well, though not quite in the same detail, simply stating that Silla brought all of their forces to bear on the king. They also mention that he was captured and beheaded, with Silla keeping his head, but eventually sending his bones back to be buried.
Prince Yeochyang, meanwhile, found himself surrounded, and according to the Nihon Shoki it was a man—or perhaps several men—from Tsukushi, aka Kyuushuu, who began to fire arrows so fast that they were able to open a hole in the opposing lines, allowing Yeochyang to escape. Here, instead of pursuing the fleeing troops, the Nihon Shoki claims they held off because of fear of Yamato, which sounds more like embellishment by the Chroniclers.
Following that defeat, Prince Yeochyang sent his younger brother, Prince Kye, to the Yamato court to inform them that their father had been killed and request more troops to avenge him. Soga no Iname, the Ohomi, consoled Prince Kye. He then hearkened back to the time of Wakatakeru no Ohokimi, aka Yuuryaku Tennou, and suggested that they should build a shrine to Ohonamuchi no Kami and worship him once more.
This last part probably seems a bit odd. As we’ll discuss later, Soga no Iname by this point had been selected to help experiment with Buddhism and Buddhist practices, but a lot of Yamato decisions still balanced elements of practical and strategic thinking with elements of kami worship. Without the kami on your side, there was very little that you could accomplish.
This also would seem to be further evidence of links between the kami worshipped in Japan and peninsular practices. Aston suggests there is a link here with the peninsular worship of Tankun, the legendary heavenly progenitor of Gojoseon. Ohonamuchi, as you may recall, had ties with Izumo, but worship of Ohonamuchi may have either come from or spread to the peninsula as well. The idea of a “Great Land Holder” seems to be a fairly nebulous and not particularly location-specific concept. Whether or not there is a link with Tankun is, perhaps though, a tenuous assumption to make.
It seems that there was some urging by Soga no Iname to join common worship to help bring about victory, though it is unclear if Prince Kye actually took him up on this suggestion. By this point, Baekje was fairly well immersed in Buddhism and the ruling elite were practicing Buddhists, though as we will talk about in later episodes, Buddhism doesn’t necessarily require that people abandon the worship of local gods, though there often is some amount of conflict between the two.
Later that year, back in Baekje, with the mourning ceremonies for the late King Seong concluded, Prince Yeochyang announced a desire to retire from the world and practice religion for the sake of his father. This practice of taking the robes of a monk and making merit for one’s father is not uncommon in some Buddhist traditions. Certainly in Japan it became the norm for sovereigns to retire and to take Buddhist vows, but that was typically after they had reigned for some period of time—and it was rarely a full withdrawal from the world. As it was, Yeochyang’s own court protested that while it might be the filial and Buddhist thing to do, he had to also think about the state of the nation as a whole. Instead, they suggested that he have 100 people quote unquote “enter religion”—which would seem to mean that they were forcibly tonsured—on his behalf, presumably to make merit for him and his father while he ran the country.
Both the Nihon Shoki and the Samguk Sagi have something of a pause here, at least for a few years. Baekje had received a pretty terrible defeat at the hands of Silla, and along with internal issues of getting everything back under control, it may have been a period of rebuilding. In Yamato, they note the arrival of several succeeding envoys from Silla who were basically given the cold shoulder. Silla seems to have then given up diplomatic relations for a while and worked, itself, to fortify its borders. The Chroniclers of course note that this was because they feared a Yamato invasion, and there may be something to that—not so much that they feared being overrun, but historically raids by Wa sailors against the Silla coast were not uncommon occurrences.
In 561 the Samguk Sagi once again notes Baekje dispatching troops to raid and plunder Silla’s territory. The Silla annals note this in 562, which may simply be the difference between when Baekje began to gather troops and when they actually attacked. Baekje lost 1,000 soldiers in that debacle.
That same year, the Samguk Sagi notes that Kara rebelled and that a Silla force was sent to put down the rebellion. In the Nihon Shoki, it is said that Nimna was destroyed by Silla this year, and a comment included in the Nihon Shoki states that this included Kara, Ara, Saiki, Tara, Cholma, Kocchi, Chatha, Sanpanha, Kwison, and Imnye—10 states, in total. Quoting the Tongkam, Aston says that the sources only mention Great Kara, or Daegaya.
Here, again, we see confusion in the sources, but it does seem that there was some rebellion, perhaps, in the area that Silla had conquered. According to the Nihon Shoki, Yamato sent troops to the front lines to help support Nimna against Silla, working with their ally, Baekje, who was just off their own defeat. To compound matters, an envoy from Yamato to Baekje ended up losing a letter as well as some of the bows and arrows he was transporting along the way, and these fell into the hands of Silla, which gave them crucial intelligence on what was being planned.
The Yamato generals for this endeavor were Ki no Womaro no Sukune and Kawabe no Omi no Nihe. Ki no Womaro appears to have had some early successes, and he encouraged the troops. Kawabe no Nihe, however, was inexperienced—apparently he was appointed because of his position in the court, rather than his military expertise.
During one of the encounters with the Silla troops, he had them pinned down, and they raised a white flag, a symbol—even back then—of a desire for a ceasefire to talk terms and possibly surrender. Nihe, however, was unaccustomed to warfare, and when he saw them wave the white flag he raised his own white flag in response, apparently thinking that it would stop the fighting. To the Silla troops, however, it looked like he was giving up as well, and so they lowered their flag and redoubled their efforts. Silla eventually routed the Yamato vanguard and many were injured. Some commanders even abandoned their troops, rushing back to the safety of their own fortifications.
Nihe survived, withdrawing to a nearby plain, but his troops’ confidence in him as a leader was shot, and they stopped listening to him. With little to no unit cohesion, they became easy prey for Silla forces, who rounded them all up, including the camp followers and Nihe’s own wife, who was there with him. Her name was Mumashi Hime, daughter of Sakamoto no Omi.
Here I’m going to take a pause on what happened next. Let’s just say that Nihe continued his less than heroic streak and that his wife paid the price. I’ll have more in the show notes at SengokuDaimyo.com/podcast, but we really don’t need to go into the gory details of it all here to get the bigger picture, as I really just want to set up what comes next.
You see, in contrast to Nihe’s behavior is the story of another man named Mitsugi no Kishi no Ikina. Ikina refused to submit to Silla. Threatening him with death the Silla commander made him remove his trousers. He then tried to force him to humiliate himself by pointing his posterior towards Yamato and crying out, and I quote: “Yamato Generals, Bite my A**!”. And yes, that is what the Chronicles say happened. Apparently that phrase is more universal than one might have suspected. Aston even makes the comment that there wasn’t really a good word for “Kiss” in Old Japanese and that “Bite” was probably the equivalent for the times. Either way, I think you get the meaning. Anyway, even threatened with death Ikina refused to submit, and instead he cried out “Let the King of Silla Bite my A**!”
Well things went downhill from there, and the Silla forces put him to death, along with his son, who had run out to comfort him. There is a song given for his wife, Ohobako, who had also been captured with him, which comes down to us as:
“Karakuni no / Kinoe ni tatashi / Ohobako wa / Hire Furasu miyu / Naniwa ni mukite”
“Standing on the walls of the country of Kara, Ohobako is seen to wave her scarf, turning towards Naniwa”
In the end, the sources agree that Silla was victorious. The rebellious regions submitted and Yamato troops withdrew.
There were no more major conflicts noted with Silla after that, at least not during Ame Kunioshi’s reign.
There is one more martial account, however, and it immediately follows on the footsteps of the disastrous raid of 562. Thousands of Yamato troops, working with help from Baekje and under the command of Ohotomo no Sadehiko, son of Ohotomo no Kanamura, attacked a city in Goguryeo territory where the King himself was staying. The king fled, and Sadehiko returned with numerous items of loot. These included a rich brocaded curtain that had been found in the king’s chambers, which was gifted to the sovereign. In addition, he gifted to Soga no Iname, the Oho-omi, and apparently the most powerful person at court at this point, two suits of armor, two swords mounted in gold, three copper bells with chasings, two flags of various colors, and a beautiful woman and her attendant, who had been captured and enslaved in the fighting. There was also an iron building—possibly like a shrine—that had been taken from a tower in the city and which was for a while kept in Chouanji temple, but by the time that the Chroniclers were recording the Nihon Shoki nobody was quite sure where that was or what had happened to it.
This seems odd to follow on to the disaster of the raid on Silla and the utter subjugation of the various states between Silla and Baekje, and it isn’t referenced in the Samguk Sagi at all. Then again, there is a general lack of any references at this point, so that may not mean as much as it seems. It could be that this was placed here just to provide some kind of victory in the face of such a crushing defeat by Silla. Then again, it is quite possible that Yamato and Baekje troops did use the opportunity to attack a Goguryeo that was still weakened and reeling from its losses to the Baekje Silla alliance years earlier.
Speaking of which, whatever alliance Baekje and Silla may have had, the annexation of all of the Kara states by Silla had put an end to it. Now Baekje and Silla shared a common border, with no buffer states between them. It was clear that Silla was now Baekje’s number one rival, as opposed to the weakened Goguryeo. From the beginning of Ame Kunioshi’s reign to now, whether or not Yamato had actually played a significant part in it, it was clear that the balance of power had shifted, and Silla was a rising threat.
Still, Yamato had big dreams—perhaps bigger than they could accomplish on their own. In 571, Ame Kunioshi passed away. As he lay dying, he urged his successor, Crown Prince Nunakura Futotamashiki, aka Bidatsu Tennou, to continue to fight to re-establish Nimna, which would become something of a causus belli through at least the reign of Toyomike Kashikiyahime, aka Suiko Tennou, with the last reference being made in the second year of Taika, or about 646, a good 75 years later. Notably, this deathbed request is the only real mention of Nimna in the Sendai Kuji Hongi, and some of have suggested that many of the more florid embellishments may have come from about the time of Kashikiyahime, to help justify her court’s own military campaigns.
Based purely on the conflict over Nimna and the other states collectively known as the Kara or Gaya Confederation, it would seem like this period was a huge loss for Yamato. And yet the close cooperation and dialogue with Baekje brought numerous gifts to the islands. This included further teachings from the continent that would help continue to shape the Yamato court with greater and more effective technologies that would strengthen the central government. And then there was the introduction of Buddhism, which also had come around this time, and which will be the subject of our next episode.
Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.

Below is the story of Kawabe no Nihe. I’ve attempted to “hide” the text as it contains discussions of sexual assault.

Realizing that he had his rival’s wife in custody, the Silla commander—likely either Isabu or his deputy, Sadaham, assuming this is the same event recorded in the Silla annals—asked Nihe what was more important to him, his own life or his wife. Nihe scoffed at this, asking why should he come to disaster just because of a woman. Mind you, it was his inexperience that had them all captured in the first place.
Given Nihe’s answer, the Silla commander took Nihe’s wife and publicly ravished her.
Following this, the commander let the self-serving Nihe go, and Nihe went and tried to speak with his wife. But really, what do you say to someone who was basically handed over and punished on your behalf. We aren’t told how it ended, but Nihe’s name doesn’t exactly come up again, and he clearly has been blamed for this entire episode and huge red flag warning of what not to do.

References

Kim, P., & Shultz, E. J. (2013). The 'Silla annals' of the 'Samguk Sagi'. Gyeonggi-do: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Kim, P., & Shultz, E. J. (2011). The 'Koguryo annals' of the 'Samguk Sagi'. Gyeonggi-do: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253.
Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4
Philippi, D. L. (1968). Kojiki. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN4-13-087004-1

Episode 53: [Insert Name of Monarch Here]

November 16, 2021 Joshua Badgley

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This episode we will talk about a lot of little stories. A few of the characters we mention, down below.

The Iron Shields of Goguryeo

There are actually two iron shields that are part of the treasures of the Isonokami Shrine (http://www.isonokami.jp/about/c4.html), one of which is on permanent loan to the Tokyo National Museum. They are of peninsular manufacture, probably late 5th to early 6th century—suggesting that they were not presented in the time of Ōsazaki, and they may not be the shields referenced in the story, but they are likely similar. Iron shields like this seem impractical, given their size and assumed weight, but they were still quite impressive.

Individuals referenced:

Tatebito no Sukune (盾人宿禰) [Literally “Lord Shield Person”], and later it is Ikuba no Toda no Sukune (的戸田宿禰), [Toda no Sukune of the Target]. Later we see Toda no Sukune spelled as (砥田宿禰), but given that he is listed as the founder of the Ikuba no Omi (的臣) and he’s sent traveling with Sakashi-nokori no Omi, who had been granted his rank at the same time, it seems a fair bet that these are one and the same person.
Sakashi-nokori no Omi (賢遺臣), formerly Sukune no Omi (宿禰臣) [This is a weird mixing of kabane]

The story of Tamichi

Takahase (竹葉瀬), ancestor of the Kozuke no Kimi (上毛野君)
Tamichi (田道), his younger brother who went off to attack Silla with him
Harbor of Ishimi (伊寺水門), where Tamichi was killed

The story of the Giant Tree of Tōtōmi (遠江國)

The country—later province—of Tōtōmi was named for Lake Hamana. It was the far (遠) lake (江): Tohotsu Afumi. Meanwhile, Chikatsu Afumi, the “near lake” referred to lake Biwa.

Yamato no Atae Agoko (倭直吾子籠) - this is the same individual whom the brothers went to to help clarify ancient laws. While this story of a giant log doesn’t seem like much, it gives us another view of this particular courtier.

Water torture in the Harima Fudoki

A couple notes. FIrst, Hōki was earlier pronounced Hahaki (伯耆), and along with Inaba (因幡), it sits on the Japan Sea side of the main island, just east of Izumo and north of Harima and Yamato. These are areas that seem to have originally been part of the Izumo sphere of influence, but they adopted the Yamato style round keyhole tombs earlier, possibly indicating a move away from Izumo and towards Yamato.

Kaguro of Hōki (伯耆加具漏) and Oyuko of Inaba (因幡邑由胡) are the two wealthy lords who are basically accused of being overly prosperous and disrespectful.
Una hime (宇奈比賣) and Kuha hime (久波比賣) - daughters of Miso of the Hatori no Muraji and Arasaka HIme. They were likely wives, possibly political marriages to the two wealthy men.
Miso no Hatori no Muraji (服部彌蘇連) - a powerful member of court. Normally his name would be more like “Hatori no Muraji no Miso”, but it seems this may have been a way of giving him greater respect by his daughters’ statement.
Arasaka Hime (阿良佐加比賣). The wife of Miso no Hatori no Muraji, she is said to be the daughter of the Kuni no MIyatsuko of Inaba (因幡國造), though to be honest, the original text does not clearly state that and you could just as easily read it that she was the Kuni no Miyatsuko of Inaba. It wouldn’t be the first important female ruler of that area if we go back and look at some of the Izumo stories, but the general consensus seems to be that she is just the daughter.
Sai no Muraji no Sayo (狹井連佐夜). His name is given in the more standard format. However, this is still perhaps the only real mention of this individual so far.

Sukuna of Hida

This is perhaps the first real mention of Hida (飛騨), the mountainous area north of modern GIfu.

Sukuna (宿儺) - His name resembles a corruption of Sukune—perhaps this was a typo and he was originally of “sukune” rank. Or it was just an example of using similar Chinese characters to make the proper sounds.
Naniwaneko Takefurukuma (難波根子武振熊). This extremely long name seems to start with a title: Naniwaneko. There has been some thought that the “neko” in earlier sovereigns names was a type of title, so that they were “Yamatoneko”. Here it is clearly referencing Naniwa instead of Yamato. The rest of the name is similarly interesting. For instance, should the “Take” be part of the previous title, meaning “brave”? Is any of this an actual name? Perhaps Furukuma?

The Pool of Agatamori

This takes place in Kibi (吉備), modern Okayama area. An “agata” (縣) is a district, and “mori” (守) means to protect, and usually used to indicate a governorship of some kind. Later it would be the “no-kami” of many names, such as “Ise-no-kami” (伊勢守), a title that later became name, indicating that one was nominally in charge of Ise province, though this would lose much of its meaning in later eras.

Kawashima (川嶋) literally means “river island”

Shiratori Tomb

Meki (目杵), the guard who was trasformed.
Hashi no Muraji (土師連), the family who eventually received conservatorship of Shiratori kofun.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is episode 53, Insert Name of Monarch Here .
Before we get started, a quick shout-out to Joe for helping to support the show. If you want to join him, you can find us on our recent Patreon page—just look up Sengoku Daimyo—or you can also donate through KoFi, at Ko-Fi.com/sengokudaimyo.
Also, a quick content warning: some of these entries contain things that may be disturbing. Specifically, this episode we will be referencing a suicide, however briefly.
This is probably going to be our last episode on the reign of the Great Wren, Oho Sazaki no Ohokimi, aka Nintoku Tennou. We’ve gone over the story of how he came to power, of his many loves, and several other stories—including how early elites were getting brain freezes in the summer thanks to their private slushee stash.
This episode is going to be about many of the other stories from his reign—those I didn’t cover previously. I’d generally categorize them in two different ways: First there are stories relating to the mainland, specifically to the Korean peninsula and our favorite cast of characters over there—mostly Silla and Goguryeo. Then there are stories from the archipelago itself. But the big thing that seems to unite these stories, in my mind, and why this episode has the title it does, is the fact that the sovereign’s place really isn’t defined or required for most of them. While the sovereign may, indeed, be referenced, and though some of the stories do seem to fit with other events, the truth of the matter is that it could be any sovereign, and how and why these stories are particularly tied to Oho Sazaki is not immediately clear, at least not to me.
For those stories referencing the continent, I suspect that a large part of that narrative is being driven by stories in things like the Baekje Annals, which the chroniclers were clearly pulling from. As we’ve seen, though, the dates don’t always line up, and it’s possible that some of these stories were added in simply because of the dates—which are still wildly inaccurate in this time period—and not because of a clear connection with Oho Sazaki’s reign.
On the other hand, the stories from the archipelago feel, to me, like local stories, not dissimilar to what we find in the later Fudoki. They are probably set in the 5th century, but as for whether or not they were explicitly set during the time of Oho Sazaki’s reign is unclear.
What does seem clear is that there was a very important fifth century ruler of some import—hence the presence of Daisen Kofun, which we discussed in episode 51 – as a reminder, this is the largest kofun in the archipelago, and one of the largest mausoleums in the entire world. Its construction likely took years, and untold numbers of laborers, crafters, and more. Whether the individual interred there was actually known as Oho Sazaki or not, their reign was no doubt a marker for later generations, and I suspect that, between the reigns of Oho Sazaki and his father, there may have been numerous stories that were attributed to them, particularly if they took place some time early in the reigns of their particular dynasties. And so the stories all get woven together and start to settle into a timeline. As things get written down, they obtain a kind of canonical position in the histories.
So with that understanding, let’s get started!
We’ll begin with the stories regarding the continent. Here we see the continued evolution of the complex relationships between the emerging nation-states of the peninsula and the archipelago. This isn’t as simple as stating that it was Baekje and Yamato—and possibly the states of Kara—against Silla and Goguryeo.
For instance, at one point it seems that Yamato’s relationship with Goguryeo had improved, at least since the days of Gwangaetto the Great. To illustrate this, a Goguryeo embassy is said to have arrived, bringing a gift of two iron shields. These caused quite the stir in a land that had iron armor but seems to have largely still been using shields made of wood. Not a month after the embassy had brought them, the ambassadors were being entertained at the court and people started shooting arrows at the shield. Rather predictably, the shields did as expected, and the arrows seem to have bounced off. Nobody could pierce them, unlike, one presumes, the wooden shields of the time.
Nobody, that was, until one man, Tatebito no Sukune. He stood up and took aim and he must have had quite the draw weight on his bow, as his arrow pierced the target. In recognition of such a feat, Oho Sazaki bestowed on him a new name. While he was previously known as Tatebito, a name that could be translated as “shield person”, he was given the name of Ikuba no Toda, where “Ikuba” means “target”.
Later Toda no Sukune—whose name is spelled differently, but who is claimed as an ancestor of the Ikuba no Omi—was made an ambassador himself, along with Sakashi-nokori no Omi, who gained his title at the same event where Ikuba no Toda no Sukune was given his name for piercing the shield. These two were sent to the mainland because, at least as the Nihon Shoki puts it, Silla had not been sending expected tribute. I mean, it kind of makes sense that you would send a guy who can shoot an arrow through an iron shield as an ambassador to a misbehaving tributary nation, right?
Toda and Sakashi-nokori showed up and were offered—and I use that term in the loosest of meanings—a quite specific one thousand four hundred and sixty pieces of tribute, including silk and various objects. In total it was 80 shiploads—probably just the Chronicles’ way of saying it was a heck of a lot—quite the haul for anyone at that time, however it may have actually been acquired.
Of course, this wasn’t the only “embassy” to Silla. At one point Takahase, who is said to be an ancestor of the lords of Kodzuke, the Kodzuke no Kimi, was sent to Silla, again because of this perceived failure by Silla to send tribute to Yamato. As he started out, though, before he left the islands, he spotted a white deer, a presumably auspicious sign, so he broke his journey and took the deer and returned to the sovereign. He then chose another day and left to travel across to the peninsula.
Shortly after Takahasa had left, Oho Sazaki decided he wanted a little insurance that the mission would be successful, and so he sent Takahase’s own brother, Tamichi, to follow after him, commanding him that if Silla refused to pay up then he should raise up an army and invade. Heck, this is looking more and more like some medieval gangster type shakedown. I can just see Don Sazaki saying something like “leave the sword, take the cannolis.” Or whatever the equivalent sweet of the day might have been.
Now it seems that Silla was, indeed, recalcitrant. They offered battle daily, rather than pay – I mean give - the Yamato forces what they wanted. But Tamichi made strong fortifications, and he refused to leave them. One day, as the siege dragged on, the Yamato forces captured a Silla soldier who was questioned—and probably not in a very nice way—and eventually gave up details of Silla’s order of battle. It seemed that Silla’s strongest forces were typically concentrated in the right van of their forces for some reason, and when Tamichi heard of this he knew what to do. The Yamato forces did go forth to do battle, and as they did so, Tamichi saw the hole in Silla’s left flank, just as the soldiers had said. He took a force of swift men—the chronicle says cavalry which might be an exaggeration, though we do see horse equipment from this period—and he bore quickly down into the gap. Once the left side of the Silla army collapsed, the Yamato soldiers were able to roll up the rest and rout them. In the end we are told they ended up taking—read “enslaving”—four villages worth of prisoners back to Japan, where they were no doubt resettled and put to work for Yamato.
This must have been a huge victory, and Tamichi was no doubt lauded for it, but his story doesn’t end there. For some time after his victory in Silla he was sent to the northeast, as the Emishi were rebelling. Unfortunately he did not fare as well in this campaign, and it would prove to be his last. Tamichi was slain at the Harbor of Ishimi. One of his soldiers was able to obtain his tamaki—an armlet apparently made of beads and bells tied together with a string—and they brought that back to his wife, who used it to strangle herself, thus joining her husband in death . This act moved even the hardest of the soldiers to tears.
At some later point—we aren’t told when, other than it was after Tamichi had been buried and a tomb erected—the Emishi once again rebelled and made as though to carry off many of the people. At the same time they dug up Tamichi’s tomb, presumably somewhere up in the Kozuke region, to loot the grave, and when they did so a giant serpent came out of the tomb. Its poison was potent, and all but two of the Emishi died. Thus it is said that Tamichi was able to get his revenge, even from beyond the grave.
As I mentioned above, these stories seem less about the sovereign, and more about notable individuals, such as Toda no Sukune and Tamichi, and their war-time heroics. Similarly, other stories seem to be about various people and places.
For example, there is the story of the giant tree of Toutoumi, which is to say, the western lands of modern Shizuoka province, around Lake Hamana, formerly known as Tohotsu-a(f)umi, from which the province got its name. Now whether there were particularly torrential rains or a massive earthquake—or just that nature took its course—we aren’t told, but what we are told is that the Kokushi, or provincial governor, of Toutomi reported that a huge tree had fallen along the banks of the Ohowigawa, floating downstream until it got stuck, firm as the Evergiven in the Suez Canal.
Now this wasn’t just some log, but it must have been a massive old-growth tree, likely hundreds of years old. It was 10 “girths” in size—in other words it was an incredibly big tree—and split in two at the very end. This was such an incredible find that the court sent Yamato no Atahe no Agoko himself to take care of things. Now, you may or may not remember Agoko—we mentioned him back in Episode 49 when Prince Oho-yamamori—or perhaps Nukada no Ohonakatsu Hiko—took the rice-lands and granaries from Ou no Sukune during the interregnum, while Oho Sazaki and his brother were still bickering over who would be sovereign. Even though Agoko had been off on a mission on the Korean peninsula at the time, the court tracked him down to help resolve the dispute, since apparently nobody knew the courtly traditions quite like he did. His ruling saw the land and granaries returned to Ou no Sukune and fueled the murderous rage of Oho Yamamori, who tried and failed to kill his own younger brother and take the throne for himself.
Here we see Agoko’s return to the forefront—he traveled to the land of Toutoumi, had the giant tree made into a boat, and then he sailed it back to Naniwa by way of the Southern Sea—in other words he sailed down south, around the Kii Peninsula.
A minor historical note here—this story, besides giving us more evidence of Agoko’s competence, is the earliest story we have that references the person overseeing a land or province as “kokushi”, which might well be termed something like provincial governor. Of course, much like the mention of horses during Yamato Takeru’s campaigns, this could just be an anachronism thrown in by later chroniclers. Nonetheless it could also be an indication of the structural changes occurring in the political make-up of the islands. Certainly Yamato’s hegemony appears to have hit a zenith at the point that Daisen kofun was built, so it may be that they were, in fact, exerting greater and greater control over the provincial leaders.
There are also a number of stories out of the Fudoki—largely from the Harima Fudoki. Many of these are simply etymologies for various place names. For instance, Ikahino, which literally translates to something like “the fields for keeping wild boar” claims that the area was given by the sovereign to keep a wild boar consecrated to Amaterasu. Sawoka, on the other hand, which means rice-planting hill, was named after the annual rice-planting festival that was held there. There is also Kurusu, named after a local chestnut grove, supposedly started from peeled chestnuts presented by the sovereign.
While some of these are interesting, and provide some tidbits on the operation of the court and various beliefs and onomastics, most such entries don’t have the depth that we’d really like. Though there is one with a bit more flair. It is recorded in the entry about Mikazuki Hara—the soaking fields.
We are told that there were two men who were so extravagant that they washed their feet with fine, clear sake. These two men were named Kaguro of the country of Houki and Oyuko of the country of Inaba—both areas on the Japan Sea side of western Honshu. The Yamato court considered that their conduct was excessive and disrespectful, and it sent out Sayo of the Sa(w)i no Muraji to bring them in and face punishment. Accordingly, Sayo went out and arrested all of the members of their households. And since there was no due process nor concepts of “innocent until proven guilty”, on the way back, Sayo tortured his prisoners, dunking—or soaking—them in water.
During the journey, there were two women who wore jewels on their wrists and ankles—not the kind of thing you’d expect to find on a servant, even one in a crazy rich household like that of Kaguro and Oyuko. In fact, after Sayo dug into it a little while he found out that they were, in fact, Una and Kuwa, the daughters of Miso of the Hatori no Muraji and his wife, Arasaka Hime, who herself was the daughter of the kuni no miyatsuko, or lord, of Inaba.
Now Miso was apparently a rather influential man at the court, and Sayo likely had a moment of panic as he realized just who it was that he had been treating as common criminals. He immediately released both of the women and sent them on their way. The place they were released was known as Farewell Hill, or Mi-oki-yama, and the place where Sayo had tortured his prisoners by dunking them in water was Mikazuki Hara, the Soaking field.
Once again, it is hard to exactly place this story in the timeline of Oho Sazaki’s reign, even though the Harima Fudoki does mention that it was the time of the Prince of Takatsu in Naniwa—based on the details, it could have been just about any time. For example, there is no clear evidence for a Hatori no Muraji named Miso, or his influence at the court. Granted, there are few enough individuals mentioned, anyway, and it could be that stories about him just didn’t warrant inclusion in the Chronicles and other records.
Once again, I suspect that this story evolved from some larger conflict the Yamato court had with Houki and Inaba, but what exactly I couldn’t say—just more evidence of the lack of good and reliable records for this period.
There is one thing in this story that would probably be worth noting, however, and that is the use of torture. Now this could be just part of a false etymology given life – finding an explanation for why this given place was called the “soaking field”, but we do see in the archipelago, at least later, that officials were not above using torture to get a confession.
In fact, one might note that the rule of thumb was less “Innocent until proven guilty” but more “guilty until proven innocent.” If you were arrested in ancient times, your guilt was more or less presumed. After all, if you were an upstanding citizen, why would you ever be arrested? Obviously, as we understand the legal system today, this is extremely problematic, but in ancient times it wasn’t uncommon to derive a confession through torture or other means, since that was seen as just streamlining the process. This would be true throughout most of the archipelago’s history, really.
But I digress. Beyond a few details that seem odd, there is nothing too outlandish about the story, overall—well, other than it taking Sayo until after they were tortured to determine that two of the women were actually rather important personages.
But not all of the stories are quite so mundane. While the stories of fighting on the mainland or even just dealing with a literal log jam in Toutoumi, might seem reasonable, the next story is one that seems like it would be more comfortable several reigns back, when Okinaga Tarashi Hime had to deal with literal winged rebels. This is the story of Sukuna of Hida.
Hida, by the way, indicates the area west of the Hida Mountains, in the northern, mountainous areas of what is today referred to as Gifu Prefecture, encompassing the areas of modern Hida, Takayama, and parts of Gero cities. This landlocked area is exactly the kind of treacherous area that was largely uncharted even into modern times. It is also the home of the famous Shirakawa-go and Gokayama villages, where the specialized gassho-zukuri houses have earned the area a UNESCO World Heritage site status. This especially steep-roofed houses were specifically developed due to the deep and heavy snows that regularly inundate the region, indicating the harsh conditions facing anyone in the region, so it may not be surprising that it was the source of some rather fanciful tales.
Which brings us back to Sukuna. We are told that on one “trunk” he had two faces, each turned away from each other. The crowns met, and there was no nape of the necks. Each of the two sides had their own hands and feet, and there were knees, but they were conjoined all the way down the back side. He carried swords on his right and his left side and he used the bow and arrow with all four hands.
Sukuna, who sounds like something out of an episode of He-Man, did not use his powers for good. In fact we are told that he plundered the people, and so the sovereign sent a man named Naniwaneko Takefurukuma, to deal out justice and stop his reign of banditry. Sure enough, Naniwaneko was successful and eventually slew Sukuna, ending his threat to the people.
So let’s break this down somewhat. First off, let’s address the obvious—isn’t it possible that the description we are getting is of conjoined twins? And it probably is possible, but not very likely. I think it is also safe to say that unfortunately, conjoined twins have historically been more at risk of violence from society than threats to it, given that humans can often be cruel and intolerant.
However, I suspect something else may have been going on here, as it seems the much simpler answer is that in the stories about Naniwaneko’s exploits, Sukuna was given monstrous characteristics that would both signal to the audience that he was a bad dude, but it would also make him that much more of a challenge for our hero to overcome. It strikes me as more likely that Sukuna was probably more of a local bandit or warlord, hiding out in the mountainous Hida region, and plundering nearby settlements. Of course, whether he was more of a Blackbeard type or Robin Hood, we cannot know, since we only have Yamato’s side of the story.
In fact, he’s more important, here, as a foil for Naniwaneko, who was an ancestor of the famous Wani no Omi family. We haven’t really discussed the Wani no Omi much, but the stories do mention them over and over, from the stories about Iware Biko, aka Jimmu Tenno, and his march on Yamato, up throughout the narrative. Mostly it is a reference here or there, but given the frequency we can assume that they were a family of some importance. I suspect that stories such as these were likely gleaned from the histories of the noble families, which in turn ensured that they would back the Chronicles as the official history of Yamato.
A similarly fantastical tale is told about another warrior, a man of fierce temper and of great bodily strength. We don’t know his name, but he was the ancestor of the Kasa no Omi and we are otherwise merely told that he was an agatamori—similar to an agatanushi, and likely translated as something like a “district warden”. Now this Agatamori lived in the land of Kibi—that land where it seemed they often rivaled Yamato in their power, or at least in their ability to organize labor and build giant, kingly style round-keyhole tombs.
The Nihon Shoki tells us that there was once a water-snake who sat at a fork in the Kawashima river, in central Kibi—probably the area later known as Bitchuu, in the western area of modern Okayama Prefecture. Travelers who passed by the area where the snake was at were “affected by its poison”, and died. Of course, we aren’t exactly told how they were affected—one assumes it bit them, but there are also stories of snakes effectively belching their poison, like some kind of dragon. Whatever the method it used, it was killing people and needed to be stopped.
The Agatamori went to where the snake was located, and here it seems he tried a diplomatic tack at first, one that seems somewhat at odds with the task at hand. He started by throwing three calabash gourds in the water, telling the water-snake that if he could sink the calabashes then the Agatamori would go away. But if he could not then he would kill the snake.
If this sounds familiar, you may remember a similar test of a water-spirit a few episodes back, when a man who was to be sacrificed to the river to ensure successful completion of a new canal used a similar tactic to prove that the kami was not as powerful as he claimed. In that case, the kami created a whirlwind to try to push the gourds under the water, but in this case the water-snake transformed into a deer and tried to sink them in that form. In both cases, this task proved too difficult, even for supernatural beings to accomplish.
And so, since the water-snake had failed to sink the gourds, the Agatamori raised his sword and entered the water to kill the snake, as well as its kith and kin, which filled a cave in the bottom of the pool. The Agatamori slew them all, such that the river itself ran red with their blood, and the pool became known as the Pool of Agatamori.
Once again, there is nothing in this particular story that is specific to a given sovereign, and it seems that this is more a story of Kibi and of the Kasa no Omi. There are also some curious parallels with other stories, such as the would-be canal sacrifice I just mentioned. It also bears mentioning, here, that kami in the earlier stories often appear as snakes, which in this case would certainly seem to be the implication, given how it could transform itself into a deer and all of that. There are also some intriguing parallels with stories from India and Southeast Asia, where snakes are often connected to rivers and water.
Continuing in the vein of the supernatural, there is one last story that I’ve saved from the Nihon Shoki, and that is the tale of Shiratori kofun, aka the White Bird Mausoleum of Yamato Takeru. We talked about this back in Episode 35—after the death of Prince Yamato Takeru, he was originally buried in a mausoleum over in Ise, where he had died, cursed-slash-poisoned because he had unwittingly disrespected a kami. After his wife and children and come to mourn, we are told that his spirit transformed itself into a white bird—a shiratori—and flew off to Kawachi. When it landed, a second tomb was built to honor his spirit, and it was known as the White Bird Mausoleum.
These kofun were likely more than just giant graves, but rather it seems clear that they were maintained, possibly as worship sites. Some of the features around larger keyhole shaped tombs appear to be built as areas for rituals—either as part of the burial or perhaps for rituals that were held afterwards.
Whatever rituals may or may not have been conducted there, though, the kofun—or at least some of them—were staffed, by guards if nothing else. Well, and a bunch of haniwa, but they were less effective as guards . After all, these giant tombs were not only monuments to the deceased elites of the Archipelago, they were giant treasure chests, filled with treasures of iron and more, just waiting to be opened by some enterprising grave-robbers.
In most cases, no doubt this tomb-guarding was considered an extremely important task, since the kofun contained the remains of the sovereigns and other important personages, but as for Shiratori Kofun, it was more of a memorial—or at least the way the stories were told. Since it wasn’t, technically, the kofun of the actual Yamato Takeru—that was the tomb over on the other side of the Kii peninsula—then when the Yamato court needed more laborers it seemed like a reasonable move to reassign some of the guards from the Shiratori tomb. They determined that their service was no longer required at a quote-unquote “empty” tomb.
However, the spirit of Yamato Takeru—or some other kami—wasn’t too pleased with this bit of bureaucratic reshuffling. Thus it was that one of the guardians-turned-laborers, a man named in the Nihon Shoki as “Meki”, was suddenly transformed into a sacred white deer. When the sovereign heard about this, he apparently had second thoughts, and immediately had the remaining men reinstated as guardians and gave charge of all of them to the Hashi no Muraji.
Of course, I have a few doubts about the whole thing with the transformation into a deer, but there are still a lot of interesting details to consider about the kofun and the way that they operated. I suspect that this story comes from the Hashi no Muraji, and that guardianship of the tombs, much like overseeing a shrine or other sacred place, was as much about the rice-lands and taxes dedicated to its upkeep, as well as possible status for those who were in charge of it. It is stories like this that, looking past the supernatural elements, can really give us a better look into what life was like at this time.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to seek most of these stories elsewhere, as with this episode, we leave behind Oho Sazaki, and start getting into the rest of dynasty and the 5th century.
So until next time, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate through our KoFi site, kofi.com/sengokudaimyo, or through Patreon, over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
Also, feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you and your ideas.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Aoki, Michiko Yamaguchi (1997). Records of Wind and Earth: A Translation of Fudoki with Introduction and Commentaries. As published at https://jhti.berkeley.edu
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4
Philippi, D. L. (1968). Kojiki. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN4-13-087004-1

Episode 48: The Life and After-Life of Homuda Wake

September 1, 2021 Joshua Badgley

19th century depiction of Homuda Wake, aka Ōjin Tennō

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This episode sees the end of the reign of Homuda Wake, and a little glimpse into the future as well. When talking about history, there is always something of a pull between trying to tell the story of the particularly time period you are looking at but also looking across the years at the influence those events had. Since almost all of history is basically one giant spoiler alert for everything up to the present, it is easy to see things as inevitable, much in the same way that we see our now as an almost ever-present Now and assume that things will always be as they are at this moment. There are so many things that don’t get any attention unless they are connected to something else.

And this episode we do a little of both. We’ll try to look at things in the context of the late 4th and early 5th centuries, but we will also take a peek into the future, particularly in regards to Homuda Wake and his connection with an important god of war whose cult will play an important role in future.

In this blogpost, we’ll dig in a little past the narrative covered in the podcast. We’ll provide some of the individuals involved, but also some of the details that just didn’t make it into the podcast itself this time around. So let’s get started.

Who’s who?

Ajikki (阿直岐)

The Baekje subject who was sent over to Yamato with the tribute of two horses in 404. He helped care for them and teach the Wa what they should do. We are also told that he could read and write and he actually became the tutor to the Crown Prince, Uji no Waki Iratsuko. He is said to be the ancestor the Atogi (Ajikki) scribes.

Wang’in/Wani (王仁)

Baekje scholar sent to Yamato in the year 405. It is thought that he may have been an ethnic Han scholar, descended from those scribes and scholars who supported the Han Commanderies in the 4th century, or possibly even from somewhere across the Yellow Sea. As soon as he arrived in the archipelago he took over Uji no Waki Iratsuko’s education.

Takuso (卓素)

Mentioned in the Kojiki as a smith from Kara who was sent over by the Baekje. The Kara region seems to have long been known for smiths and iron, at least in the archipelago, and was probably where much of Yamato’s early iron products came from. This may explain, somewhat, the similarity of arms and armour between the two regions.

Susukori (須須許理), aka Nipo (仁番)

Mentioned in the Kojiki as a brewer sent over by the Baekje king along with or shortly after Takuso. He apparently made quite the brew for the sovereign and his court, which had Homuda Wake stumbling home. In the podcast we talk about a particular proverb, or kotowaza, that comes from this episode:

堅石避醉人也　ー＞　堅石（かたしわ）も醉人（えいびと）を避（さ）く
Katashiwa mo Eibito wo Saku -> Even a solid stone avoids a drunkard.

Maketsu (眞毛津)

Seamstress (縫衣工女) sent over by the King of Baekje in 404 to the Yamato court. She is claimed as the ancestor of the seamstresses of Kume.

Saiso (西素)

A weaver of Kure (呉服 - see below) whom the Kojiki tells us came over with the smith Takuso, sent by the King of Baekje. The Nihon Shoki gives a more detailed account of how weaving came from Kure, however.

Achi no Omi (阿知使主) , Tsuga no Omi (都加使主), and the Weavers of Kure

A father and son who came over with members of the “17 Districts” (十七県). We aren’t exactly sure where they came from, but it is said that they started the Aya clan of Yamato (倭漢), where “Aya” uses the character for the Han dyansty (漢). They would eventually head back to the continent and bring back four weavers of Kure with them.

A map of northern China around 406, during the 16 Kingdoms period. YOu can see a few of the kingdoms that were competing and vying for power at this time. Map by SY, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Regarding the 17 districts, I wonder if this is referencing some of the many divisions in the north of what is today the modern country of China. Though this period is called the “16 Kingdoms” period, those kingdoms were constantly shifting. Even the specific count seems to depend on what gets counted, with the name “16 Kingdoms Period” coming in around the mid-6th century. While I’m not sure of the accuracy of the specific boundaries, I think the map here, taken from Wikipedia, does a decent job of showing the confusion around the time that Achi and Tsuga would have been traveling.

Also, I’d note that the “Omi” here (使主) is interesting to me. Usually the kabane of “Omi”, which usually indicates either a minister or minister-level clan, uses the kanji for “minister”: 臣. In this case, though, they use two kanji, the first of which is often found to indicate “messengers” or “envoys”, and the second is “lord” or “master”. A more intuitive reading might be “tsukahi-nushi”, but universally it seems that “Omi” is the given reading. Dictionaries note that this is a kabane that is regularly found with foreigners. It is not uncommon to find titles that are similar in Japanese, but that use different kanji to differentiate their exact meaning.

To get to Kure, Achi and Tsuga are given two guides. Their names are Kure Ha (久礼波) and Kure Shi (久礼志). The meaning would seem to be clear, and yet their names are not spelled with the character for “Kure” (呉) used for the country.

Finally, we are actually given names for the four weavers that Achi and Tsuda are said to have brought back. They are:

Ye Hime (兄媛) - Elder Lady
Oto Hime (弟媛) - Younger Lady
Kure Hatori (呉織) - Weaver of Kure (aka Wu)
Ana Hatori (穴織) - Weaver of Holes

As you might notice, these names are not exactly informative. Two of them are little more than mentions of birth order—there is even another Ye Hime mentioned elsewhere in Homuda Wake’s own reign—and “Weaver of Kure” sounds purely descriptive. “Ana Hatori” is the only one that doesn’t immediately come to mind as an obvious place name, and yet who knows. There are places such as “Ara” on the peninsula—an “Ana” wouldn’t seem too far off. On a truly far stretch I could possibly draw a connection between the story of Amaterasu and the Heavenly Rock Cave, but that is a bit too far at this point, I think. Notably, there is nothing close to the name “Saiso”, given in the Kojiki.

King Jeonji of Baekje (腆支 / 直支)

Prince (and eventually King) of Baekje. He reigned from 405 to either 415 (the date given in the Nihon Shoki) or 420 (the date given in the Baekje records in the Samguk Sagi). His name is most popularly known as Jeonji (腆支), but is also recognized as Jikji (直支), though Aston posits that this later name is taken from the name of Ajikki, and is a mistake. The Samguk Sagi seems to also claim that “Jikji” is another name, but given its dating it is always possible that for some of these entries they were consulting the Japanese chronicles—though if that were the case I would expect more consistency between them on certain issues, to be honest.

Speaking of, the death of King Jeonji is odd for its disagreement between the sources. In large part, we can match up the sexagesimal dates between the Samguk Sagi records and the Nihon Shoki, at least when the same record exists. Occasionally they might be a year off, which could be explained by when they leave one court and eventually arrive at another. But in this case there are at least 5 years difference between the sources. So which one is correct?

On the one hand, we might assume that the Samguk Sagi is correct since it is the peninsular source. However, it was also written much later, compiled from earlier histories which, as far as I am aware, are no longer extant. The Nihon Shoki was written closer to the events—though still centuries out, and the compilers also appear to have had access to annals specifically from Baekje.

Personally, I suspect that the Nihon Shoki may be right, in this instance, or at least closer to the truth, and they may be in good company. Dr. Jonathan Best, in A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, notes that there is a record for Emperor An of the Eastern Jin (晉安帝), who, in 416, sent an envoy to bestow various titles on the King of Baekje. This shows up in the Nan Shi (南史) and the Song Shu (宋書 - compiled 492-493), where they refer to this king as “餘映” (Yú Ying in Pinyin or Yeo Yeong in modern Korean). Later, in 420, Yeo Yeong is given a new title by the Eastern Jin court, and in 424 that same King, King Yeo Yeong, is said to have sent an envoy to the court of Liu Song.

Now if the Nihon Shoki is correct, it is possible that the king known to the Eastern Jin as Yeo Yeong was Guisin, and perhaps 420 was the year that he attained his majority and even started ruling by himself, which could explain why the Eastern Jin bestowed him with a new title, celebrating his changed status. If, however, this was King Jeonji, as the Samguk Sagi claims, then that envoy arriving in 424 must have somehow been sent at least 4 years earlier, or else we get another contradiction.

My suspicion is that later Baekje records cleaned things up, so that Guisin’s reign began upon him attaining the age of majority, possibly overlooking or sweeping away a potentially embarrassing incident involving Mong Manchi, for whatever reason—either because he just wasn’t considered that important or because the story is less than flattering for the Baekje royal house.

Prince Hunhae of Baekje (訓解)

As the brother of King Asin, Hunhae was the uncle to Jeonji, and upon Asin’s death, Hunhae took the throne of Baekje, reportedly holding it until Jeonji returned, at least according to the Samguk Sagi. However, he was killed by Asin’s youngest brother, Jeomnye, who then usurped the throne. One has to wonder whether or not Hunhae actually had intended to hold the throne for Jeonji, or if he was just another claimant to the throne, despite the noble intentions ascribed to him.

Prince Jeomnye [Jeoprye?] of Bakeje (蝶禮)

Youngest brother of King Asin who killed Prince Hunhae and usurped the throne. Because of this, Prince Jeonji held off his return, holing up on an island with 100 Wa troops. Eventually the people overthrew him and welcomed Jeonji back. Or at least that is what the official records tell us.

King Guisin of Bakeje (久爾辛)

Son and heir to King Jeonji of Baekje. He was apparently too young to rule when he came to the throne, and Mong Manchi seems to have acted as a regent, at least according to the Nihon Shoki. The Baekje Annals of the Samguk Sagi ignore this altogether, which may partly account for why his reign starts many years later in peninsular chronicles.

Mong Manchi (木満致)

Mong Manchi is the son of the general Mong Nageunja (木羅斤資f) (or possibly Mongna Geunja? Given the names, the former is probably correct, though Aston had it in the latter form) and a Silla woman. He seems to have been a lord or even king in Nimna (任那) one of the states of Kara (加羅). When King Jeonji of Baekje died, the Nihon Shoki claims that he took over the administration of that state. The Japanese record claims that Mong Manchi had an affair—or at least improper relations—with the Queen Mother, and so he was recalled by Yamato. The section of the Baekje chronicle claims that he was recalled because of his violence. Of course, there remains a question: what power did Yamato have to recall him in the first place?

Continental Clans

There are three clans, or uji, that come up this reign, and I want to talk briefly about them. All three of these may even be found as surnames, today, and the kanji used for each comes from a particular dynasty, with various claims of connection. The strange thing is that the name associated—the way the name is pronounced—has no apparent connection to the dynasty or kanji in question, but it is thought that it may have something to do with a weaving technique or type of fabric or similar that may have been brought over and associated with each one, much like we associate porcelain with “China”. These may have originally been groups—probably with immigrant roots—who were dedicated to making the products in question. The names are:

Hata (秦) - This name references the Qin dynasty of the 3rd century BCE. Some sources would associate people of this name with the early attempts at finding the Island of the Immortals. Others claim that they traveled over to Jinhan during the Qin and later emigrated to the archipelago from there, possibly with the people of Yutsuki. Hata may reference weaving and looms.
Aya (漢) - This is less common, today, it seems. The name references the Han dynasty, and some stories connect them with Achi no Omi and his son, whom they claim descended from the Han ruling family before it fell. Aya likely refers to figured cloth.
Kure (呉) - This references the Wu kingdom, one of the Three Kingdoms that arose after the fall of the Han. I am less confident on what the word “kure” could have been referring to, but it seems obvious that much of what is called “Kure” in the chronicles would have to have been some other place.

Hachiman

The god Hachiman will be quite important in later centuries. For our purposes it is mainly the fact that he is associated closely with Homuda Wake that is of interest, though that is likely due to stories that came out around the 9th century.

If you are looking to read up on the early stories about Hachiman, his divinations, etc., Dr. Ross Bender did a lot of work in this area. You may want to check out his work on Hachiman and how it plays into the Dōkyō Incident.

Homuda Wake’s Kofun

Aerial photo of Kondayama kofun. Copyright © National Land Image Information (Color Aerial Photographs), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. — **Aerial photo of Kondayama kofun. Copyright ©** **National Land Image Information (Color Aerial Photographs), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.**

As with other early kofun, we are not positive that this one belongs to Homuda Wake, but it certainly is grand. It is the second largest kofun in size, but it is estimated that it has more actual material than any other kofun in Japan. There are several kofun around it, as well, crowding it, and earthquakes and erosion have done their fair share as well. By all accounts it does seem to be around the 5th century, and had an impressive number of Haniwa—though human figures would still be a little later on.

The informal name of the kofun seems to be “Konda Yama”, using the first two characters of Homuda Wake’s name: 誉田山.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 48: The Life and After-Life of Homuda Wake
This episode is probably the last episode for Homuda Wake—we’ve covered some of the points about his reign, from the events written down on the Gwangaetto Stele in the 5th century, to the hostages from Baekje and Silla living at his court, all of which seem to indicate that the Wa were a power of some sort in the region—if not quite as powerful as their own Chronicles make them out to be. We are also told that this is when writing, in the form of Sinographic characters, first came to the islands, along with horses and classic continental literature. We’ve also talked about a few of the other characters from this period, including Takechi no Sukune and Katsuraki no Sotsuhiko, who dealt with things on the continent as well as those back at home. This episode we’ll continue with a few other things between the archipelago and the continent, and discuss briefly what this means. We’ll also discuss matters on the archipelago, such as the division of Kibi, Homuda Wake’s choice of Crown Prince, and more. And then, of course, we’ll talk about what happened after Homuda Wake’s reign—and we’ll touch briefly on how he is connected to one of the most famous kami in the archipelago: Hachiman, the God of War. We’ll talk about all that and finish up with a brief description of the kofun said to be his—one of the largest kofun in all of Japan.
Now, as a reminder, based on all of the stories and some of the events that can be corroborated with the peninsular records, we can make the assumption that this was all went down sometime in the late 4th and early 5th century, which is also a period of change in the archaeological record. Swords and suits of armor start to replace the bronze mirrors that had previously been common in large tombs, which would also seem to indicate that soldiers and martial pursuits were well valued, which certainly seems in step with the various conflicts both on the peninsula and within the archipelago.
And thus through trade and conflict, continental culture was flowing across the straits to the archipelago, where it was mingling with the people and traditions already present. Given the close ties between the islands and the peninsula throughout the previous centuries, it may be difficult to say just when any particular thing came over, but during this reign, as we’ve seen, travel and immigration in both directions was particularly noted.
Most of the immigration appears to be through Yamato’s close ally on the peninsula, the Kingdom of Baekje. Of course, some of those who came to Yamato were only temporary residents. These are the envoys and high status individuals like Prince Jeonji, King Asin’s own Crown Prince. Others seem to have come over on a more permanent or at least semi-permanent basis—primarily scholars and artisans. For instance, we already talked about how Ajikki was sent over with the Baekje king’s gift of horses to teach the Wa how to care for them and eventually raise horses of their own. And then there was Wang’in, who was brought over specifically to help teach the continental classics and how to read and write.
The Kojiki notes a smith, named Takuso, who also came over during this reign, and then there was the man known as Nipo, aka Susukori. He was a brewer, which put him in good stead with the court, who appreciated a good drink. Now we know that Yamato had alcohol, so this wasn’t exactly new technology, and we aren’t even told if he introduced anything particularly new to the archipelago. But he was, apparently, quite talented. He brewed a stiff drink for the Sovereign and his court, and it seems that everyone drank their fill, singing songs and just having a grand old time—in other words, not that much different from certain types of Japanese celebrations, today. Homuda Wake even made up songs of praise for Susukori, he was so pleased. Later that evening, the sovereign, Homuda Wake, staggered down the road, where he came upon a large rock. We are told that he struck the rock with his walking stick and sent it flying away.
From this seemingly innocuous incident we are told there was a kotowaza, or proverb, that you might even hear today:
Katashiwa mo Eibito wo Saku.
In English we might say: “Even a solid stone avoids a drunkard.”
Of course, it isn’t as if this proverb led to any kind of temperance movement. People continued to enjoy their adult beverages, nonetheless.
The other major craft that is mentioned as coming over during this reign was that of fabric arts. We previously mentioned the seamstress Maketsu coming over—a seamstress, likely bringing over continental fashions and how to make them. And then, elsewhere, they mention weavers—those who make the actual fabric from which the clothes are put together—coming over as well. The Kojiki mentions a weaver named Saiso, who is said to be from Kure, while the Nihon Shoki gives us more details.
In fact, it is in the Nihon Shoki where we hear the story of Achi no Omi and Tsuga no Omi, a father and son team. Achi no Omi himself is said to have immigrated from the continent around 409, bringing with him his son, Tsuga. They came to Yamato with a retinue of people from what the Chronicles call the 17 districts. While there doesn’t seem to be anything that firmly identifies just *which* 17 districts we are talking about, Achi no Omi is said to be the ancestor of the Yamato no Aya, where the name “Aya” utilizes the character for the Han dynasty. Later genealogies would claim that he was a direct descendant of the Han royal family, which might make sense if we were using the uncorrected dating of the chronicles, but seems less plausible for the 5th century. Nonetheless, there is a clear connection between him and the continental mainland, suggesting he may, indeed, have been an ethnic Han immigrant. The Yamato court would later ask Achi no Omi and his son to travel back to the land they had come from and to ask for weavers to be sent to Yamato.
Indeed, they headed out on their mission, but when they reached the peninsula, they couldn’t find a way to their apparent homeland. We are told they were headed to the court of Kure, more commonly known as Wu, one of the three Kingdoms that arose after the fall of the Han in the 3rd century. Which might have been accurate if we took the Nihon Shoki’s dates at face value, but even the Wu had been displaced by the time of our current sovereign, given our corrected dates, so if this happened then it was likely that they were traveling to either Eastern Jin, whose court was, at that point, operating out of the area of modern Nanjing, or else to one of the other, northern states that had arisen—perhaps one of the Yan or Wei kingdoms. This is known, after all, as the era of the Sixteen Kingdoms—though even that number may be off depending on how you count. Suffice it to say there are a lot of possibilities here for where they ended up.
Regardless, to get from the peninsula to the mainland, it seems that these envoys would need more than just the assistance of Baekje, and the Nihon Shoki claims that it was only through the help of Goguryeo, who provided them guides, that they were able to make the journey to “Kure”, whichever polity that was—which is somewhat interesting given that Baekje had established relations with the Eastern Jin by at least 372. It is possible that, given the turmoil on the peninsula several decades later, during the reign of Gwangaetto the Great, any unilateral path to the Eastern Jin court had been blocked, making Goguryeo the ultimate interlocutors for relations with the continent. Or perhaps, as mentioned, they were going somewhere else altogether. Either way, they were successful in their mission, and Achi and Tsuga returned with four weavers who brought with them the traditions of the mainland. Of course, we don’t have any clear evidence for this in any of the court records from the mainland, though, again, that may be understandable if they were dealing with one of the outer states and not a formal envoy to the imperial capital.
All of these stories demonstrate the kind of contact that the archipelago had with the mainland, and the individuals who were coming over, often starting new families who would, one assumes, become responsible of the production of continental goods in the archipelago. Information may even be hidden in the names, here. The names “Aya” and “Kure” for instance, though spelled with the sinographic characters for the Han and Wu dynasties, use a native Japanese gloss in their reading that doesn’t clearly identify with anything on the continent, but which may instead refer to the type of woven fabrics that were associated with each dynasty.
It is also interesting to me how the court was relying on a lot of continental assistance in the form of allies or immigrants to undertake these missions for them. Achi and Tsuga are said to have come over to the archipelago less than a decade before they were back up and heading back to the mainland. Horses and writing were sent to Yamato by the King of Baekje. Even the muscle that was being used on the peninsula was apparently a Baekje general.
But of course, it isn’t just what Baekje could do for Yamato—it was also about what Yamato could do for Baekje. Enter the story of Prince Jeonji.
Just a quick recap from previous episodes, Prince Jeonji was a hostage at the Yamato court, sent in 397 by his father, King Asin of Baekje, who came to the throne after the death—some sources suggest overthrow and murder—of Asin’s own uncle, King Jinsa. Prince Jeonji may have been sent to keep him safe, given that Goguryeo had previously defeated Baekje and taken several members of its court back with them, or he may have been sent to appease an angry Yamato. Either way, young Prince Jeonji grew up in Yamato until the unwelcome tidings of his father’s death reached the court 12 years later, in 405 CE, a date that seems to correspond between the Nihon Shoki and the Baekje annals of the Samguk Sagi with a clean break of 120 years, or two sexagesimal cycles of 60 years each.
Immediately, Homuda Wake suggested that Prince Jeonji return and take the throne, which I’m sure was entirely altruistic and had absolutely nothing at all to do with making sure that Yamato had a known quantity and a friendly ruler in place in Baekje. Homuda Wake even gave him command of 100 Wa soldiers to help.
Of course, this may have been more than just some courtesy. The Tonggam and the Samguk Sagi appear to agree that when King Asin died, his brother, Prince Hunhae, took over as regent until Prince Jeonji could return, and he was likely the one who sent for Jeonji in the first place. However, before Prince Jeonji could arrive King Asin’s youngest brother, Cheomnye, took the throne. The Samguk Sagi seems to make this out as an usurpation, but I would note that from what we’ve seen of the period and penn-insular succession rules in general, neither primogeniture nor patrilineal descent appears to have been necessary to claim legitimacy. In fact, in many cases it seems to have only been a requirement that one be the eldest—probably male—member of the family, and even *that* hasn’t been a hard and fast rule. Forms of agnatic succession—where the throne passes to a brother, rather than the sovereign’s own children—are definitely in evidence. This is all well and good, of course, until you get a couple generations in and suddenly have a plethora of potential royal candidates.
Anyway, it may have been this usurpation by Cheonmye that caused Homuda Wake to provide some Wa soldiers to help out. And yet, they were hardly used. Prince Jeonji made his way to the peninsula, but upon hearing that his uncle had usurped the throne, he withdrew with the troops to an island. There he waited until the people themselves, fed up with Cheonmye’s rule, overthrew him and placed Prince Jeonji on the throne as the true successor.
Now did the people really just overthrow Cheonmye, or did the Wa forces see a bit of action? We aren’t entirely sure, though it seems that the Baekje people have a suspicious habit of nobly rising up against a king as soon as it is convenient to prevent any whiff of the Wa having a hand in regime change. For my part, I see the heavy hand of Yamato in continental politics once again.
Of course, none of this should be too surprising, given the close association between the Wa and the peninsula. And here is where we get into territory that will likely cause some people a bit of a headache. Because there is plenty of reason to believe that a lot more came over from the continent than just new technologies. With artisans coming over and bringing others, as did Achi no Omi, they likely did what immigrants around the world have done and brought their own ideas, beliefs, and spiritual practices. We’ve already seen how material evidence of Yayoi spiritual life echoes, in some ways, the spiritual life that we see on the peninsula, and so it would seem no great stretch if the residents of the archipelago continued to incorporate some of the beliefs of the people immigrating into Japan. And so it is with little surprise that we see similarities in the ancient myths and legends of the archipelago with those of the continent. Even some of the kami that would come to be central to later beliefs, have connections with the continent. Susanowo is actually said, in some stories, to have first come down from heaven to the peninsula, where he then made his way over. And some of the aspects of the story of even Amaterasu Ohokami herself, and her weaving hall, seems to have a connection with the various weaver deity cults that we see elsewhere on the mainland. This is not to suggest that these are exactly foreign—the stories as we know them were still developing. For example, the kofun burials of this time were largely pit burials, dug into the top of the main mound of the kofun. It wouldn’t be until some time later that they would being a practice of building a corridor into the mound, which itself would seem to inspire some of the imagery around the whole world of the dead—the dark world of Yomi. And by that time, local and foreign legends and stories were merged, and foreign aspects were localized to the archipelago.
And there is nothing to suggest that the transfer was simply one way. It is hard to know what went from the peninsula to the archipelago and what went from the archipelago to the peninsula. Importantly, though, is that many of these things were transnational, meaning they crossed the various borders, often blending foreign and native concepts together. This is why I spend so much time talking about the mainland as well as the islands, because none of it developed in an isolated bubble. This often causes problems when people would like to have a clean narrative, especially for nationalists who want to see Japan and the Japanese Imperial Household as more isolated, unique, and unadulterated than it ever actually was. In contrast, we have plenty of examples of high ranking court nobles, whose offspring would marry into the royal line, with claims of continental descent. There is even an example of a Baekje princess who was sent to Yamato to become one of the sovereign’s wives.
Looking in the other direction, material culture, such as pottery and even burial practices from the archipelago show up in the peninsula from at least the Yayoi period onward. In the late 5th century we even see round keyhole shaped tomb mounds, oddly similar to those in the archipelago, showing up in the Yongsan River Basin in the southwestern peninsular region. This was a highly dynamic time for the region, during which many of the things that we may take for granted as being fundamental to Japanese history and identity were still being forged in the fires of international trade and immigration.
Back to the story of King Jeonji, there is one more event that I want to touch on here before we take a look at the rest of what was happening in the archipelago, and that is the death of King Jeonji. It seems that he was not fated to outlive Homuda Wake, and the Nihon Shoki claims that he died in 414, only nine years after his father and his return to Baekje. Upon his death his son, Kuisin, was named king, but he was still a child. And so a regent came to power: Mong Manchi. Now Mong Manchi was the son of Mong Nageunja, whom you may remember as the Baekje general who had helped in the late 4th century Baekje-Wa Alliance and who later had gone to Silla to stop Katsuraki no Sotsuhiko—though sometimes it is questionable whether he served Baekje, Yamato, or was his own independent warlord of some sort who allied with both.
Anyway, the excerpt of the Baekje Annals in the Nihon Shoki claims that Mong Manchi had taken over Baekje forcibly. According to the Nihon Shoki, with apologies to Aston, the Baekje record states: "Mong-man-chi was the son of Mong-na Keuncha, born to him of a Silla woman when he invaded that country. The great services of his father gave him absolute authority in Nimna. He came into our country [that is, Baekje] and went back and forward to the honourable country, accepting the control of the Celestial Court. He seized the administration of our country, and his power was supreme in that day. The court, hearing of his violence, recalled him." The Japanese Chroniclers of course assume that the “honorable country”, or “Kui-guo”, is Japan, as is the “Celestial Court”. Their own entry embellishes this story further, claiming that Mong Manchi was a subject of Yamato and that his actual crime wasn’t forcibly placing himself on the throne but rather having improper relations with the widowed Queen Mother.
Now this isn’t clear evidence of any actual Yamato interference and influence, at least not to my mind. After all, we aren’t sure that the “honorable country” actually referred to Japan, and the idea that Homuda Wake was presiding over something that Baekje would call the Celestial Court also appears to be equally suspect to my eyes. However the idea that that the throne of Baekje was briefly usurped by someone, possibly the King of Nimna itself may not be too farfetched.
And perhaps that is where we would leave it if it weren’t for one *tiny* detail. You see the Samguk Sagi and the Dongguk Tonggam appear to refute this whole story. They claim that King Jeonji didn’t die in 414, as the Japanese chronicle would appear to suggest, but rather that he died in 420, and his son, Kuisin, then took the throne, without any evidence of the kind of trouble suggested by the Baekje record in the Nihon Shoki. So what, exactly, is going on here? Did the Chroniclers just insert that entire episode in there because they thought it sounded good?
And with that, I think we’ll turn aside from the continent for a bit and focus on what else was happening on the archipelago. Much of the events recorded in the Chronicles are fairly standard compared with what we’ve heard about from earlier reigns. For example, even while Yamato was flexing its muscle on the continent, there were still independent entities on the archipelago. Mention is made early in Homuda Wake’s reign of the eastern Emishi attending with tribute, and they were put to work building the Mumazaka road, similar to the way that continental envoys were put to work building ponds, bringing into question, in my mind, just what sort of “envoys” these all really were. Then there is discussion of Homuda Wake meeting with the Kuzu, who are, in the Hitachi Fudoki, equated with the Tsuchigumo. In this case, though, they appear to be the kuzu of the mountains areas of the Kii peninsula, which suggests to me that while Yamato held sway over the plains and river deltas, where rice farming could be particularly successful, there may have still been plenty of independent groups living in the mountains, possibly with their own culture and values, which focused more on the mountain lifestyle than that of the plain-bound farming culture that largely sustained kofun-era Yamato. Of course, these are peripheral cultures, and therefore largely invisible in the text except when they directly interact with the people and court of Yamato.
In this instance we are given some insight into their ways—particularly into their rituals. For Kuzu offered songs and sake to the sovereign. In particular we are told that after they sang they “struck their mouths like drums” and laughed. The Kuzu are described as a plain and honest people who gather wild berries and boil frogs as a delicacy. They lived amongst the steep cliffs and ravines of the Yoshino river area, and produced such things as chestnuts, mushrooms, and trout. All of this speaks to me of people with very different lifeways from those common in the large settlements of Yamato.
But it wasn’t just the people living in the Japanese hollers and tucked away in the mountain crevasses who were outside of the larger Yamato polity, but there were plenty of other rice-growing areas as well. Of course, in either case, the Chroniclers extend the cloak of national unity over everything, but in this case I think we get a very interesting story, and it is tied in to Homuda Wake’s last queen.
I say his last queen because, based on what we’ve seen of royal succession to date, there appear to have been several. Takaki no Iribime, for example, is said to have been a descendant of Ikume Iribiko. She gave birth to one of the princes and eventual claimants to the throne. Then there was Naka tsu Hime—the Middle Princess, whom most genealogies name as the primary wife and queen, though little is actually said about her. She was a sister to Takaki no Iribime, we know that much, and their father was, oddly enough, Homuda no Mawaka no Miko, a royal prince with a name eerily similar to that of the sovereign, Homuda Wake. Naka tsu Hime would give birth to another eligible Prince.
But it is the last lady, who gave birth to the youngest of Homuda Wake’s eligible sons, who is the subject of our current story. She is Miyanushi Yagawa no Ye Hime, or the Elder Princess of Yagawa.
Now of the three possible claimants to the throne, Takaki no Iribime’s son, Ohoyamamori no Mikoto—who may be the same as Nukata no Oho Naka tsu Hiko—was the eldest son. Naka tsu Hime then gave birth to Ohosazaki no Mikoto. He was also eligible to become Crown Prince, and is the middle of three children who seem to have been in the running. The third eligible prince was known as Uji no Waka Iratsuko (or Uji no Waki Iratsuko), and he was the son of Miyanushi Yagawa Ye Hime, who was the daughter of Wani no Oho-omi, the great minister of the powerful Wani clan.
Ye Hime herself is mentioned several times throughout the reign, while Naka tsu Hime and her sisters are really only mentioned in the various lists of names and genealogies. Regarding Ye Hime, on the other hand, we get the full Hallmark treatment, from her courtship in Chika tsu Afumi to her later travels to Kibi.
Now the courtship of Ye Hime is given primarily in the Kojiki, where we are told of how they met and got married with the typical feasting that seems common in these kinds of stories. Ye Hime’s father has her serve Homuda Wake a large wine cup, which seems to have been about as close to a betrothal as you could get.
It is interesting that the Kojiki places all of this in Chika-tsu-Oumi, and in the song, that he sang at the feast, Homuda Wake seems to make the claim that he is from Tsunoga—aka Tsuruga Bay. That was where he had exchanged names with the Kami, and the area where Ame no Hiboko had been worshipped, which again begs the question about potential links between Homuda Wake and the peninsula.
The Nihon Shoki, however, gives Ye Hime a slightly different place of origin. For in that case we are told that one day, while they were both looking out over the land from a high tower, Ye Hime had a longing to go home and see her parents. And so Homuda Wake, who loved her so much that he would do nearly anything, summoned up 80 fishermen and had them take Ye Hime to Kibi. He even composes a song as she leaves where he calls her, quite blatantly, his spouse of Kibi.
And this seems a rather intriguing disagreement between the sources. The Kojiki has them meeting in what was presumably her home of Chika tsu Oumi—which is to say around Lake Biwa. Meanwhile, the Nihon Shoki claims that she is from Kibi. Of course, it could be that some other Ye Hime is meant in one of these accounts.
Either way, the Nihon Shoki claims that Homuda Wake then followed Ye-Hime to Kibi, dwelling in the palace of Ashimori, in Hata. This is traditionally identified as being along the Ashimori river northwest of modern Okayama city. This is an area with large, keyhole shaped tomb mounds that rival those in Yamato, and it may have actually been the home to an independent kingdom, particularly in the early 5th century.
This is why it is interesting what else we are told: That, while dwelling at Ashimori, Homuda Wake took a particular liking to a gentleman named Mitomo Wake, who, along with his entire family, waited on the sovereign, hand and foot. Eventually, Homuda Wake decided to divvy up the land of Kibi. Five of the various lands went to the five sons of Mitomo Wake, while the district of Hatoribe is said to have been given to his wife, Ye Hime, as her own. Mitomo Wake himself was designated as the Kuni no Miyatsuko, and his sons as Agatanushi, and the divisions—which may reflect later political boundaries—would largely remain in use, either formally or informally, until the present day.
Once again, we need to look beyond what the Chronicle is telling us. For instance, we know that there are huge, round keyhole shaped kofun in that region. The largest is known as Tsukuriyama Kofun, and it was built sometime in the late 5th century. By the way, “Tsukuriyama” is actually the name of several kofun, largely because its name merely means “man-made mountain”. In this case, though, we are talking about the fourth largest kofun in all of Japan, larger than most of the so-called imperial tombs. Many believe that it belonged to a king of ancient Kibi, and based on the size of the kofun, one who likely rivaled Yamato in terms of the power and labor that they were able to mobilize. And not only that, but the Kibi region has some of the densest concentrations of kofun outside of the Kinai region of central Honshu, built between the 4th and 7th centuries. There are over 140 of the large keyhole tombs, with at least twenty of them in the region of Tsukuriyama and the modern city of Okayama.
And yet I can’t help but note that they were following in the tradition set by Yamato in building a giant, round-keyhole tomb.
From the earliest stories, Yamato is said to have conquered and subjugated Kibi. But then again, they were also said to have conquered and subjugated the Korean peninsula, and in that case we have both textual and archaeological evidence to the contrary. Here we only have archaeological evidence, but I wonder: would Yamato have really allowed a subject to build such a large and grandiose resting place if they could prevent it? I figure at the very least it shows that the local elites had a fair amount of autonomy. Still, there are so many things that we are missing, and I wish we had records from outside of the main narrative, but alas, we will have to console ourselves with what the archaeology tells us.
Perhaps this story about Homuda Wake was actually about another king altogether—a king of ancient Kibi. Or perhaps there is some evidence here of an ancient marriage link to Kibi through his wife, Ye Hime, and perhaps even with her son, Uji no Waki Iratsuko.
Speaking of whom…
Now we know that Homuda Wake himself was quite enamored of his youngest son, and he had decided to make him the Crown Prince, which would seem fitting if he was actually the product of two powerful royal families. That said, he had at least two other sons who were apparently eligible for the throne, and if they didn’t support Uji no Waki Iratsuko’s claim it could be problematic after Homuda Wake’s death. And so, in one of those epic bouts of parenting that the royal lineage up to this point is so known for, he questioned his two elder sons, Oho Yamamori and Oho Sazaki, to ask, in a roundabout way, their thoughts. Of course, you can’t be direct with this kind of question, right? You know, just come right out and say, “Hey boys, I’m thinking of making your youngest brother the next ruler. You cool with that?” Nope, instead he sets up this whole elaborate thing. First he pulls them over to him and he comments about how they both have children of their own already—so they were already fully grown adults, themselves, by this time. He then asks which of their own children is more deserving of their love, the youngest or the eldest. Basically playing a game of “who does dad love the best” with the two that you’ve already decided are out of the running. Really?
Now, neither of the two other sons seem to have had any idea what he was getting at, but Oho Yamamori thought that this might be the moment to put in a bid for the throne himself. After all, he was the oldest, and he was the most experienced, right? Anyway, Oho Yamamori expounded upon the virtues of the older brother and how they were the most loved.
As Oho Yamamori went on about this, I imagine Homuda Wake’s visage took on a dark cast. You know that feeling when the audience has soured on what someone is saying, but they just keep going, anyway? Yeah, awkward…
So while Oho Yamamori was busy bombing on pitching their pater, Oho Sazaki saw what was happening and realized this wasn’t what their father wanted to hear. So when it got to his turn, he took a different tack, and he basically told his father what he thought he wanted to hear.
First off, he talked about how older children have already grown up and discovered their way in life. They were adults and had experience and could fend for themselves. The younger children, however, were still children. They didn’t have as much experience and therefore they needed the most love and support.
Clearly this was the answer that Homuda Wake was looking for. In the end, neither Oho Yamamori nor Oho Sazaki, despite their seniority, would be named the Crown Prince—that honor would go to their youngest brother, Uji no Waki Iratsuko. However, perhaps in response to the brown-nosing, he did appoint Oho Sazaki as assistant to the Crown Prince, and asked him to help administer affairs of state. Meanwhile he gave Oho Yamamori, well, he made him Oho Yamamori, which is to say the warden of the mountains and forested areas. This is probably where his name, or more properly title, actually comes from. His actual name may have been Nukata no Oho Naka tsu Hiko, but this is largely a guess on our part, based on the lists of Homuda Wake’s many offspring.
Of course, I’m sure that there were absolutely no hard feelings, and when Homuda Wake passes away, everything will be fine, right? Well, for that you’ll need to wait for the next episode.
First though, there is one more thing I’d like to touch on, though it isn’t exactly mentioned in the chronicles, and that is the story of Homuda Wake after his death. No, I don’t mean to suggest that he rose from the grave like some undead revenant, though that would have been a cool. Rather, I mean how the idea of Homuda Wake continued and evolved after his death.
So, yes, Homuda Wake did eventually pass away, and we are told he is buried in one of the large, round keyhole style mounds in the Mozu-Furuichi tomb mound group. But his spirit lived on in an interesting and, perhaps, appropriate way.
You see, centuries after his death Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, would be worshipped as one of the most famous deities of the archipelago, for he came be associated with the famous god-slash-Boddhisatva, Hachiman.
Now most people are familiar with Hachiman due to his later connection to the Minamoto family. His shrine in Kamakura, once the headquarters of the early shogunate, founded by Minamoto Yoritomo, is still extremely impressive, and an easy daytrip from Tokyo. But Hachiman was important before the Minamoto ever existed. And to examine the origins of Hachiman we are going to have to travel away from Kamakura and all the way to the western island of Kyushu.
It was here, on the island of Kyushu, that the cult of Hachiman was born, likely sometime in the 5th or 6th century, and the processes that come together in the founding of the Hachiman cult are highly demonstrative of the changes that are happening in the archipelago in general during the time of Homuda Wake, and so it is not entirely without merit that the two are linked, in my opinion.
It is difficult, of course, to know when an idea or story first comes into being, and much of what we have is based on the later information in works like the Shoku Nihongi, the successor to our current chronicles, and the founding tales of Usa shrine, that were passed down through the ages and eventually written down. Scholars suggest that originally this new tradition centered around a deity of a place called Yahata or Yabata, the native Japanese, or kun’yomi, reading of the characters in the name “Hachiman”. Yabata probably meant something like “eight fields”—a quite plausible locative, which could be just about anywhere in the archipelago. Eventually, though, worship of this deity took hold in Usa, one of the ancient settlement sites of northern Kyushu.
From the records we know that there were three families associated with Hachiman from an early time. One of these was, unsurprisingly, the Usa clan, who were probably the chieftains of the place with the same name. Usa comes up from time to time in the Chronicles, such as during Iware Biko’s march from Kyushu to Yamato, and later they were known for their Buddhist priests, whom they would occasionally send to the court. They certainly appear to have been an important place, even if the connection with Hachiman isn’t mentioned until much later.
Also involved in the early Hachiman cult were the Karajima. They appear to have been based out of the country of Toyo, but their name suggests that they descended from people who came over from the peninsula and settled there. The scholar Nakano Hatayoshi suggested that between the 3rd and 6th centuries they pushed south into the area of the Usa clan and conquered that region.
The last family were the Ohoga, whose name is just a different reading for “Ohomiwa”. Indeed, it seems they claim descent from the family charged with looking after the ancient holy site of Mt. Miwa, and they may have been sent out to the region as an extension of the Yamato court to help provide oversight of the Yamato-centered rituals. In fact, it may have been through such ritualist envoys that Yamato was able to exert some measure of control, along with sending out specialists in, of all things, burial mound construction—hence why we see the proliferation of the round keyhole style and related burial mounds in the kofun period.
And so we see here a merger of the local traditions, through the Usa clan, the Yamato traditions in the form of the Ohomiwa, and peninsular traditions of the Karajima. Three different traditions coming together.
It is this syncreticism that make Hachiman so interesting to many scholars of Japanese religion. To an outside observer, the shrines and rituals of Hachiman may closely resemble other forms of Japanese Shinto practice, but in many ways it is its own unique thing. At Usa shrine, Hachiman was venerated along with an image of Maitreiya Bodhisattva, and the worship of both was carried out together. Later, Hachiman would be designated as the protector of the Great Buddha at Toudaiji, in Nara, and the oracles of Hachiman would have significant impact on Japanese history.
The earliest records we have of Hachiman, in the 8th century, depict him as helping to secure a military victory, though this seems to have been a relatively minor part of his portfolio, at least early on. Later, as the chosen deity of the Minamoto clan, his God of War aspect would definitely be further developed. Initially, however, it was his role as a protector and his oracular divinations that caused such a splash. These divinations are at the heart of the famous Dokyo Incident in the 8th century, and came through the voices of the priests and mediums of Usa Shrine, rather than divine visions of the sovereign or reading the cracks on burnt deer scapulae or turtle shells. This was different from the type of divination generally seen with other kami, and it has been suggested that it was the result of a combination of practices from the peninsula and on the archipelago. It also likely didn’t hurt that there was no one single family that could lay claim to Hachiman and his cult. He was, in a way, a free agent, meaning that he could be shaped by later courts and sovereigns into what they needed him to be.
The connection of Hachiman with Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, actually comes in rather late. It is in the 9th century that we get a text which tells us that Hachiman revealed himself to be Oujin Tennou to the sovereign known as Kimmei Tennou in the mid-6th century, after Hachiman had already been adopted by the royal house as a protector.
In all likelihood, Hachiman had nothing to do with Homuda Wake until centuries after the fact. But even then it is intriguing to think about just what Homuda Wake meant to people. By all accounts he seems to have been from a different dynasty than the 8th century ruling family, though his line was important enough for them to work into their own narrative, and his story is often tied up with the reign of his mother—where Okinaga Tarashi Hime was a conquerer and warlord, the story of Homuda Wake focuses more on assimilation of new people and ideas. This balance of martial prowess—Wu or Bu—with literary pursuits—Wen or Bun—is a common dichotomy in Asian thought and philosophy, and so it is unsurprising that the narrative might reflect that.
And yet, as Hachiman, Homuda Wake is often depicted wearing arms and armor, and as much a conquering hero as an administrative governor. Of course, these different aspects may better reflect the needs of the people at any given time, rather than any core aspect of Homuda Wake’s character.
And with that, we have just one more thing to discuss before we move on and say farewell to Homuda Wake, or at least his human incarnation—as Hachiman he will definitely be putting in an appearance in later episodes, don’t you worry. Now this wouldn’t be the kofun period if we weren’t talking about the giant kingly tombs that these sovereigns are said to be buried in, and in Homuda Wake’s case it is a grand tomb, to be sure.
Measuring 425 meters in length, the Ega-no-mofushi no Oka Kofun, also known as the Konda Gobyou Yama or just Konda Yama Kofun, is the largest of the Furuichi kofun group, which lies in modern Ohosaka, south of the Yamato River, and just west of the mountain pass leading to the Nara basin. Not only is it the longest in its group, but it is the second longest in all of Japan, and the largest by volume of any of the kofun in the archipelago. As for the largest kofun, at least by length, that distinction falls to Daisen kofun, which lies just a little ways to the west in the Mozu kofun group, and which is said to be the burial site of Homuda Wake’s son, the sovereign known as Nintoku Tennou. Together they are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Mozu-Furuichi Kofun group, which attained official status in 2019. This is the height of kofun construction in the archipelago, at least for sheer monumental size.
In addition to its size—and the impressive array of haniwa figures that adorned it--Kondayama Kofun is, predictably, also the site of a shrine to Hachiman—Konda Hachimangu. By the way, I should probably note, since you can’t tell through the microphone, that the “Konda” here is just another reading of the name “Homuda”. The shrine itself claims that it was originally built in the front of Homuda Wake’s mausoleum in about the 6th century, and then later moved to the present location (south of the mound) in the 11th century. I have reason to question this, but that is the claim that the shrine appears to make.
And that’s all that I really have for you this episode. I appreciate everyone who has stuck with it—there has been so much this reign, it has taken us roughly six episodes to get through it all. Next episode, though, we get to move on and we’ll see just who becomes the next sovereign. Is it young Uji-Waki-Iratsuko, who was the designated Crown Prince and Successor? Or perhaps Oho Yamamori, who was passed over by their father. Or perhaps Oho Sazaki will step up. You’ll just have to wait and find out next episode.
So, until next time, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate through our KoFi site, kofi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the link over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Questions or comments? Feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.
That’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Lee, D. (2014). Keyhole-shaped Tombs and Unspoken Frontiers: Exploring the Borderlands of Early Korean-Japanese Relations in the 5th-6th Centuries. UCLA. ProQuest ID: Lee_ucla_0031D_12746. Merritt ID: ark:/13030/m52j7s88. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7qm7h4t7
SCHEID, B. (2014). Shōmu Tennō and the Deity from Kyushu: Hachiman's Initial Rise to Prominence. Japan Review, (27), 31-51. Retrieved August 10, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23849569
Kawagoe, Aileen (2009). “Did keyhole-shaped tombs originate in the Korean peninsula?”. Heritage of Japan. https://heritageofjapan.wordpress.com/following-the-trail-of-tumuli/types-of-tumuli-and-haniwa-cylinders/did-keyhole-shaped-tombs-originate-in-the-korean-peninsula/. Retrieved 8/24/2021.
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253
Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
Shultz, E. (2004). An Introduction to the "Samguk Sagi". Korean Studies, 28, 1-13. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23720180
Ishino, H., & 石野博信. (1992). Rites and Rituals of the Kofun Period. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 19 (2/3), 191-216. Retrieved August 16, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30234190
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Bender, R. (1979). The Hachiman Cult and the Dōkyō Incident. Monumenta Nipponica, 34(2), 125-153. doi:10.2307/2384320
Bender, R. (1978). Metamorphosis of a Deity. The Image of Hachiman in Yumi Yawata. Monumenta Nipponica, 33 (2), 165-178. doi:10.2307/2384124
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4
Philippi, D. L. (1968). Kojiki. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN4-13-087004-1
Hall, John W. (1966). Government and Local Power in Japan 500 to 1700: A Study Based on Bizen Province. Princeton University Press. ISBN978-0691030197

Episode 45: The Stele of Gwangaetto the Great, Part II

July 16, 2021 Joshua Badgley

Image of a horsed warrior from the Goguryeo tomb known as the “Twin Pillar Tomb”, from the 5th century. Though a bit later than our current story, perhaps it was warriors like this that charged down across the peninsula in the late 4th and early 5t… — Image of a horsed warrior from the Goguryeo tomb known as the “Twin Pillar Tomb”, from the 5th century. Though a bit later than our current story, perhaps it was warriors like this that charged down across the peninsula in the late 4th and early 5th century, expanding the realm of Goguryeo under the rule of Gwangaetto the Great. The Twin Pillar Tomb was in Nampo, near modern Pyongyang, the Goguryeo capital after Gwangaetto’s reign. At the National Museum of Korea in Seoul.

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This episode talks about the rest of the inscription on the stele, and takes us through the invasion of Silla and other conflicts.. We’ll also touch on King Silseong and his rise to power.

A lot of the discussion of this period revolves around the question of who are being referred to as the “Wa” (倭) and debates over just what was the state of the archipelago—pun fully intended. While it is hard to say exactly who might have been included as “Wa”, we might be able to shed a bit more light on this concept of statehood, which sometimes may seem to be splitting hairs for those not entirely familiar with the concept.

First off, I think we all are well familiar with the idea of the modern nation state, which is how most modern countries are organized. But where is that line between early societies—organized in family units, clans, or even villages—and then what we think of as a state, with an organized bureaucracy and some form of centralized authority?

There are plenty of early titles that seem to indicate some level of authority among the Wa, and there seem to be various paramounts with authority. Early on there are discussions of even a kind of taxation system. At what point do the traditions of the culture get codified into laws? How much were things held together through the personal charisma of a given leader vice some larger state apparatus?

The formation of the kofun is a good indicator. With the kofun, you had to mobilize a large amount of labor, meaning that you needed influence and organization to do so. But just how far did that organization extend? Was it centralized in the court? Or was it a series of family alliances, with the elites in various regions paying a kind of tribute up the social ladder, but maintaining direct control of what happened in their own lands and under their own authorities?

Without clear evidence, it is very difficult to say. Furthermore, because of the language used to describe everything, the Chroniclers uses sinographic characters with meaning over on the continent that may be used in an overblown sense in the archipelago.

And so, even if we don’t see a “state” as such over the archipelago, we may see hegemons who are able to command large forces and draw on a variety of resources—possibly even speak for the archipelago on various matters, but do they have the kind of organization that we would refer to as a state?

If we do believe we have a central state, how far did the “state” actually control?

These are all questions that make this period interesting but also frustrating to study—and perhaps it would be easier if our sources were more trustworthy. But that’s what we have.

Specific questions or comments? Feel free to post them, below.

Haniwa depiction of a boat from the 5th century. Was the Karano just a larger version of this?

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 45: The Stele of Gwangaetto the Great, Part II
So last episode, in Part I, we talked about the stele of Gwangaetto the Great, and how useful a historical resource it is, since it was erected shortly after the period of time it describes—starting in 391—and therefore is fairly close to the action. Of course, that doesn’t remove its own biases, such as attempting to aggrandize King Gwangaetto of Goguryeo, the ancient ruler the stone was created to eulogize in the first place. It also doesn’t mean that it is perfect—there are plenty of lacunae in the inscription and the ancient sinographic script is open to various interpretations by modern scholars. And that is without the modern political and cultural issues surrounding the stone, its finding, and its use as propaganda in the early 20th century, which leaves us with some controversial and questionable interpretations. Nonetheless, it is the closest we have to an eye witness to this period and thus we find ourselves piecing together the story in the inscription along with those in the Japanese and Korean Chronicles—specifically the Nihon Shoki, the Kojiki, the Kujiki, and the Samguk Sagi. Where possible, we are also trying to square this with the archaeological evidence as well.
As a reminder, this is all ostensibly happening during the reign of Homuda Wake, though that is hard to corroborate. The Korean sources don’t mention a Wa king by name, and although there are episodes we can match up between the Japanese and Korean chronicles it is by no means certain that everything is in the appropriate chronological order. Still, it is what we have to work with—the truth, as you might say, that the Chroniclers left us with—and so it is the story that we have to go off of at this time.
So far that has left us with the story of a powerful Goguryeo state in 391 who was making claims, justified or not, on both Shilla and Baekje as tributary or subordinate states. Certainly Silla seems to have been in some kind of direct relationship with Goguryeo, while Baekje was more on again and then violently off again. Goguryeo of course did not find any fault in their own belligerent activities, but blamed disorder on the peninsula largely on the Wa, whom they seem to have seen as the primary disruptors of the peace.
We discussed the conflicts with Baekje and the eventual death of King Jinsa of Baekje, followed by the ascension of king Asin of Baekje and his reinvigoration of the alliance with the Wa, despite—or perhaps because of—Goguryeo’s invasion and forced subjugation of Baekje, including the delivery to the Goguryeo court of top officials of the Baekje court. King Asin sent his own son, Crown Prince Jeonji, as a hostage to the Yamato court to help reinforce the good relations between those two allies, and then he turned around and began and aborted attempt at a military campaign against their northern rivals.
Meanwhile, the Wa had been continuing their own on again, off again attacks against Silla, who was ruled at this time by King Naemul, the first Silla king that we know from external records to have actually existed, as he sent emissaries to the Eastern Jin court. King Naemul had previously sent a nephew as a hostage to Goguryeo, hoping to enlist that more powerful state as an ally in their own struggles against Baekje and the Wa.
Now, the Silla Annals in the Samguk Sagi claim that the Wa attacked in 393, and that they encircled the capital of Geumseong, at modern day Gyeongju, besieging them for about five days. The soldiers of Silla wanted to go out and take the fight to the Wa troops, or so we are told, but the King told everyone to just sit tight—eventually they would have to leave. This actually seems to have been the tactic most often used in similar accounts in the past. The Samguk Sagi claims that the besieging Wa forces did eventually give it up and began to head back to their ships, at which point the Silla troops were able to heroically sally forth and attack them as they retreated.
The whole encounter leaves me with some questions, but the large question is perhaps why they mention this event, which may, perhaps, have been the impetus on the stele for saying that the Wa had subjugated Silla in the early 390s, but then the Annals don’t mention the other, seemingly much greater conflict in 399 and 400s.
You see, according to the stele, around 399, King Gwangaetto learned that Baekje and the Wa had formed an alliance, and he marched south from Jian to the fortifications at Pyongyang. I suspect that he was intending to punish Baekje for breaking their agreement—one suspects he may have already dealt with the hostages in one form or another, as we don’t hear from them again, but if so, that probably wasn’t enough.
Whatever he may have been planning, however, things changed when he got to Pyongyang, as a messenger arrived from his ally, King Naemul of Silla. According to the message, the Wa were at it again and had invaded that country. As a nominal vassal to the Kingdom of Goguryeo, Silla requested King Gwangaetto’s assistance in removing the Wa from their lands.
King Gwangaetto sent the messenger back with a promise to help, and assurances for the king for Silla. He then made sure to gather all of his forces and they marched down to Silla together.
If the stele is to be believed, this was perhaps one of the largest forces the peninsula had ever seen. It claims that there were 50,000 soldiers in the army that marched south. Even accounting for the exaggerated numbers that were typical of the time, it seems undeniable that it was a large and, shall we say, persuasive force.
It is not quite clear to me if the forces that were occupying Silla at this time were just Wa, or if was a combined Baekje-Wa alliance. The stele gives the Wa top billing, but unfortunately this section is one of the most heavily damaged sections of the stele, leading to a lot of potential interpretations depending on the reader. My sense, however, is that it was likely Baekje and Wa, and possibly some of their allies from Kara as well. That most of the stele seems to rail against the Wa could have been for a variety of reasons, including not wanting to give Baekje too much credit in the campaign—perhaps even trying to hold onto some sense of the fiction that Baekje was a Goguryeo subject and not a rival kingdom.
Now, does anyone remember watching Game of Thrones, and how, when they finally got to the Battle of Winterfell, everything was so dark you couldn’t actually make out any of the action? Yeah, that’s what reading this section of the stele feels like. All of a sudden there are a huge number of missing characters, which no doubt were recounting the triumphs of the Goguryeo soldiers, but most of it is gone, forever lost to history. But at least we can get the gist of it.
What we can be sure of is that Goguryeo repelled the Wa forces and their allies, and pushed them out of Silla. But they didn’t stop at the borders. Gwangaetto and the Goguryeo forces continued with their advance, pushing to the southernmost tip of the peninsula. The stele tells us that the Ara—one of the Kara states—also joined in the fighting, though I’m hard-pressed to tell you whose side they were on, exactly. Eventually, though, the Wa—and likely Baekje—forces gathered at a fortress in the country of Nimna-Gara, which appears to have been somewhere along the southern coast. There they held out for as long as they could, but eventually the fortress fell.
Nimna will show up later in the Japanese chronicles as an allied state, though the nature of that alliance has been contested. Some have even suggested that this could be related to the state of Thak-syun, who had helped facilitate the earlier alliance between Baekje and Yamato. It does show up in the chronicles in an entry with a corrected date of about 396, which claims that Men of Goguryeo, Baekje, Nimna, and Silla all attended the Yamato court, and they were then made to dig a pond, known as the Pond of the Men of Kara—which honestly sounds more like the story of people captured in war and raids and then put to work than any kind of official envoy, but it still is notable for its inclusion among the other kingdoms of the peninsula.
Whatever its status at this time, we will definitely see them later on in the narrative, but this is the first reliable instance of a place by this name, and given the contemporary nature of the stele, well, despite concerns about possible exaggeration on numbers and just how firm things like “subjugation” really were, I think we can have some reasonable confidence that a place called Nimna—known as Imna in Korean and Mimana in Japanese—existed. This was a pretty big deal for the Japanese when they first found it, as much of Japan’s later claims to anything on the peninsula would hearken back to the idea that there was an ally-turned-puppet state-turned Japanese colony on the peninsula until it was wiped out in the wars that would eventually see the peninsula united under a single kingdom. We’ll probably be referencing this again in the future as Nimna—or Mimana—coms to play a larger part in our narrative. For now, we’ll just leave it there in the stele, with the idea that they at least appear to be allied with the Wa at this point in the late fourth century.
Now, I have to admit, I find this whole story rather incredible. Not only for the broken glimpse it gives us into the wars swept through the peninsula at this time, but for the fact that it seems to have not been recorded anywhere else that I can see. It is somewhat understandable that it isn’t in the Baekje or Yamato histories—why would they want to memorialize such a defeat? It may be understandable that it is not found in the Silla annals—unless the earlier account from 393 is expected to cover this period. But the real question is: Why would this not have been included in the Goguryeo annals, at least? Instead, the Goguryeo annals record these years as ones of defeat at the hands of the King of Yan, a rivalry that never makes its way onto the stele.
It is possible that the original records were lost. Or they just weren’t considered important enough by later scribes to include. As we mentioned last episode, the stele itself seems to have been abandoned and forgotten, and so if written annals for this period were not available to the later chroniclers then they may have only been working with external sources.
Or, perhaps, the victory wasn’t all it was cracked up to be on the stele. Sure it was an impressive feat, but was it truly as all-encompassing a defeat as the stele seems to portray?
Whatever the reason, we are left to wonder about just what happened here.
Now, speaking of the stele, what happened when Goguryeo had defeated the Wa and their allies? Did they turn on Baekje and march on their capital? Did they consolidate their power and install governors over the southern territories? Did they exact tribute on the Kara states?
Actually, the stele doesn’t record any of that. Instead, they just seem to have withdrawn their troops. There is no mention of taking more prisoners or hostages. No indication that they required submission and further subjugation. Nor did they march back up through Baekje and take out their anger on them.
Now it is possible that Baekje wasn’t very involved. Perhaps, despite the alliance between the Baekje and the Wa, this was really more of the Wa and other allies on the peninsula, and Baekje wasn’t involved at all. That seems odd, however, given that the authors of the stele’s inscription seem to make a point of how Baekje and Wa had made another alliance, angering Goguryeo. Why would that be mentioned at the top of this particular conflict if it wasn’t relevant?
I have a couple theories on that point. First, I wonder if Baekje was seen as subjugated by the Wa, and therefore, portrayed as they were as the junior partner, it was the Wa, and not Baekje, that Goguryeo focused on. This could also be a bit of politicking—after all they still claimed Baekje as a vassal state, but the Wa were clearly viewed as an external threat. I wonder if this didn’t lead the court to focus the story on the evil Wa and downplay, to some extent, the role that Baekje had played. Heck, if that were the case, it is even possible that Baekje played a much greater role and may have been the lead figure in the invasion force, and they were just written out of the story because it didn’t fit the narrative.
Unfortunately, we just don’t know, and we can speculate all we want, but without more evidence I doubt we’ll reach any firm conclusions.
There is still the question, though of why Goguryeo didn’t do more to solidify their victory, as they had done against Baekje, earlier.
Perhaps they trusted Silla to handle things on their own. Or they just couldn’t keep their troops in the field for too long—a large force, whether 50,000 troops or smaller, was likely a significant portion of the Goguryeo forces, and Goguryeo had expanded significantly. Plus, as the saying goes, “an army marches on its stomach”, and they had traveled a fair distance away from their traditional lands. Even with their victories, I doubt they could exactly rely on the local populace to be friendly and submissive. So sure, they could bring the violence, but once that was over, where do you go from there?
Furthermore, they had other problems. Indeed, as I mentioned before, the Goguryeo annals claim that King Gwangaetto was involved in a separate conflict with the King of Yan—a conflict that must not have been going too well as it never seems to have made it onto the stele. Yan reportedly marched some 30,000 troops across the border with Goguryeo in response to a perceived slight. Perhaps the date on that was slightly off, and that is why Goguryeo forces were pulled back, or perhaps they just didn’t want to leave themselves exposed for any longer than they had to.
Or perhaps the victory wasn’t quite as complete as the stele makes it out to be. Perhaps they had chased their enemies off the Peninsula and back to the archipelago, but were they equipped to follow them?
Whatever the reasons there seems to have been an uneasy peace that existed, though perhaps that was due, in part, to droughts and famine that are mentioned in the Samguk Sagi across the peninsula in the succeeding year. And so it seems that Goguryeo was handling its affairs in the north, and Baekje and Silla were rebuilding and working their way through drought and famine. If there were more attacks, the record seems to be silent.
Then, in 402, the King of Silla, Isageum Naemul, died. According to Silla’s annals in the Samguk Sagi, he had been ruling for almost 50 years, starting in 356. Even if it hadn’t been that long, he is recorded in the Jin court chronicles as having sent an embassy in 381, so he had at least been on the throne for the past 20 years, which was nothing to sneeze at. Quite likely he was the longest reigning king in the region at that time.
That said, his death formed an interesting transition. Despite having several sons of his own, they did not succeed him—not directly. King Naemul had several sons, whom one would expect would have inherited the throne, but we are told they were still young, and so Prince Silseong, who had been a hostage in Goguryeo for the past decade, returned and took on the title of Isageum, or King. One can imagine that this must have only further cemented the alliance between Goguryeo and Silla—the King of Silla wasn’t simply a friend of Goguryeo, but he had spent the last decade in the Goguryeo court. He knew the court, the nobility, and likely knew King Gwangaetto as well. In fact, it is hard not to see the hand of the Goguryeo Court itself in this move, ensuring that they have a friendly ruler overseeing Silla for them.
And that may be why we don’t get Silseong merely as a regent—he seems to have desired more than that. He did marry his daughter to King Naemul’s eldest son, Prince Nulchi. But he would eventually send off Nulchi’s two younger brothers, Misaheun and Bokho, as hostages themselves.
Of particular interest to our narrative is the position of Prince Misaheun. It seems that as soon as Silseong came to the throne in Silla he sent Misaheun as a hostage—but not to Goguryeo as one might think. Instead, he reached out to an unlikely source—the King of the Wa.
Now this seems rather odd, doesn’t it? It isn’t as if the Wa and Silla had been exactly friends. And hadn’t the Wa just taken a severe drubbing from their last run-in with Silla and their Goguryeo allies? So why is Misaheun being sent to the Wa as a hostage?
And this isn’t just in one source. Both the Silla Annals in the Samguk Sagi and the Japanese Chronicles record the incident—though the Japanese chronicles do have a few issues with just where and when it is all happening, as the story got sliced up a bit in the Cuisinart of the Chroniclers own fumbling around with the chronology. Still, it seems likely it actually did happen, so what is up?
One option is that the dates are off. It is possible that Misaheun wasn’t sent to Wa by his uncle, King Silseong, but rather by his father, King Naemul. This is the story given in the Samguk Yusa, and it is dated to about 391.
According to that source, the Wa envoys of the time denounced Baekje’s attacks on Silla and then demanded that Silla return their courtesy by sending a prince to their court. This was around the time of King Jinsa of Baekje—he was the one who noped out of the fighting with Goguryeo, somehow got himself on the outs with Yamato, and eventually died, somewhat suspiciously, during a quote-unquote “hunting trip”, so perhaps there really was some truth to this. According to the story, King Naemul sent 10 year old Prince Misaheun—named Mihae in the Samguk Yusa story, but clearly the same person—back with the Wa. Of course, shortly thereafter the Wa found a new friend in Baekje’s King Asin, and the Samguk Yusa tells us that the Wa immediately treated Prince Misaheun not as an envoy but as a hostage, holding him as leverage over the Silla Kingdom. He would remain in Yamato for the next three decades.
Of course, it is possible that the truth lies somewhere in the middle—sending royal hostages certainly seems to have been a diplomatic tool that we see showing up in this period, and we’ve seen them sent proactively, to help cement an alliance—as was the case with Silseong of Silla and Jeonji of Baekje—but we also have seen them taken by force, such as Goguryeo’s abduction of King Jeonji’s own brother and ten high court officials. Personally, I tend to lean towards that explanation—especially if the invasion of Silla by the Wa and their allies was as complete as the stele makes it sound.
The Silla annals also impart a bit of bias on King Silseong’s part—upset that he had been sent away at such a young age to a foreign court by his own brother, he decided to do the same thing to his brother’s sons, exiling Misaheun to Yamato and eventually sending another nephew to Goguryeo and then, ultimately, attempting to kill the eldest of the three, Prince Nulchi. Thus, the exile of Prince Misaheun may have just been easier for the scribes to pin on Silseong, clearing the name of the revered King Naemul of any failure or misstep.
Either way, King Silseong seems to have garnered some ire from the Chroniclers—possibly for good reason, or possibly because they considered him tainted given his time in Goguryeo. Remember, he hadn’t been living in Silla for the past decade, and if the youngest of Naemul’s sons, Misaheun, was already 10 years old in 391, then that would suggest that his brothers were at least 20 years old, if not more—hardly children at the time, and not so young that one would expect they would need a regent. My personal head canon is that Silseong was likely forced on the Silla court by Goguryeo, and likely leveraged his Goguryeo allies to stay in power. That likely would have done little to endear him to his Silla subjects, and may also explain his attempts to prune the royal line, as it were.
Whatever the reason that Misaheun was sent—whether as an envoy or forced to go at swordpoint—if Silla was hoping that, like Baekje, this would give them some kind of leverage with the Wa—or at least respite from their raids—they were mistaken. The Baekje-Wa alliance under King Asin was strong, and Wa ships continued to plunder the coast.
Speaking of Wa ships, there is one more item of note on the stele having to do with Wa, and it is, frankly, the most difficult of the various claims for me to fully believe. According to the stele, in 404, a Wa fleet arrived at the district of Daifang, the location of the old Daifang commandery, which had fallen to Goguryeo at the start of the 4th century.
We aren’t told exactly what the purpose of such a fleet was—were they simply trying to assist their ally, Baekje, reclaim some of the territory they had lost? Was this an attempt to strike at the heart of Goguryeo and repay them for being kicked out of Silla? Or was it something else? But whatever the purpose, we can be sure they didn’t have Goguryeo’s best interests at heart.
Once again, I’m left to wonder if this was really just the Wa, or if the Wa are just the big scary bogeymen used on the stele. In later centuries it is almost a trope that any pirates, especially in northeast Asia, are attributed to the Wa and the Japanese archipelago. Known as “Wakou” by the mainland—the Japanese typically refer to them as “Kaizoku”, or similar—their reputation was such that almost any raids or violence was attributed to them, whether or not any Japanese were actually involved. It may be that such a reputation was already well-established in this much earlier period.
If so, this could as easily have been a combined fleet—possibly sponsored by Baekje. After all, Daifang is a little farther out than the Wa have typically been traveling—most of their raids so far have been recorded as against Silla and the eastern side of the Korean peninsula, rather than along the Yellow Sea shoreline, most of which was under the control of their ally, Baekje. It would have been extremely odd, therefore, to sail a fleet all the way to Daifang without Baekje’s support. Once again, I suspect Baekje played a larger part in this than they are given credit for.
Unfortunately, once again we just don’t know. What we do know, at least from the stele, is that Goguryeo successfully repelled the invasion, but once again this isn’t recorded in any of the 8th century or later chronicles, whether in Japan or Korea. Once again, perhaps the Chroniclers left out potentially embarrassing episodes in the other sources.
The rest of the stele then continues with King Gwangaetto’s military conquests. It is no wonder that he was known, posthumously, by this moniker, Gwangaeeto: The King who expanded the territory. The other two campaigns mentioned on the stele were a dispatch of troops to either Baekje or Houyen in 407 and the subjugation for “Tung-fu-yu” in 410. The king finally died in 412 or 413, and his tomb and stele seem to have been erected in 414.
Regrettably, that’s all we have from this period—at least in writing. Our next window, outside the Chronicles and archaeological finds, will come at the end of the 5th century in the form of the Song Shu, which will provide some glimpse into five named kings of Wa—but that will need to wait, for now.
Speaking of archaeology, though, what do we see there? Well, starting in the 5th century we see more and more evidence of Korean technology coming to the archipelago. In the Kawachi area in the 5th century we see the rise of Sue ware, which is very similar to a type of pottery found on the peninsula, and we see the development of more and more iron smithing, as well as horses and their associated accoutrements. Whether through conquest or friendship, it is clear that the archipelago was continuing to grow from its contact with the peninsula.
But, as I said, this is still where the text on the stele ends, leaving us with just our familiar companions, the Chronicles and the Korean Annals to help us make sense of what we see in the archaeological record. And as you may have sensed throughout this episode, there isn’t exactly a full agreement between the various sources. While the Stele may have exaggerated various actions, and was possibly even off by a year or two here or there, it was written during the living memory of the events it records. It was likely that they had people who could help them and who remembered what had happened, at least regarding Goguryeo. In contrast, our written sources were all compiled hundreds of years later, and we no longer have the original documents they used to compare them to. There are a few other things as well.
First, there is still the question of who are the “Wa”. Even in the Chronicles, we are confronted with this to an extent, as the Chroniclers used an extant copy of Baekje’s chronicles—along with other continental records—when they put together their own history. They weren’t just going off of the old court records and insular oral histories, but they were using other sources. And since, at that time, “Wa” was known as another name for the country of Japan, it is easy to understand how they would assume that all of those events were actually part of the Yamato court, which, at least at this point, was said to be headed up by Homuda Wake.
Many of the records, though, may have only mentioned the “Wa” or the “King of Wa”, without naming names. Without names, it really is difficult to tell if they are talking about the court of Yamato or if they are talking about other, ethnically Wa groups in Kyushu or elsewhere. Many archaeologists still seem unsure about the overall cohesion of the archipelago at this time. Could a sovereign ruling out of the Kinki region—whether the Nara basin or the Kawachi plain—actually mobilize enough people from across the islands, like the stele and other accounts would seem to claim?
I really struggle with this, and I think part of it goes to definitions of “state” and “kingship”. And I think we get a hint of this from the Japanese word for the sovereign around this time: Ohokimi. This term, which I believe is first written down in relation to Homuda Wake’s successor, was likely the actual term used for Homuda Wake as well. He wouldn’t have been Tennou or, as it was read in a more natural Japanese sense, Sumera no Mikoto, as that was clearly a later title, and so Homuda Wake—and possibly others before him, were likely Ohokimi, a term we see glossed with the sinographic character for “King”. But what does that really mean?
Well, I can’t say for certain, but I would point out that we see “Kimi” as a common title in the chronicles, and it appears to reference important people and families—perhaps even the ancient rulers—of various countries in the archipelago, such as Izumo, Kibi, Izumo, etc. It would be natural to assume, then, that Ohokimi was simply the Great Kimi, or the Great Lord—or perhaps the great sovereign or king.
To be honest the only thing that makes real sense to me, from the period of Queen Himiko to our present point in the narrative, is that there must have been networks of alliances, more like a kind of confederation, with Yamato as a nominal head. Even as the dynasties changed and the courts moved about the Kinai region, I find it telling that the name “Yamato” appears to have persisted from the period of Queen Himiko up through the current. Even in the unified period of the Sengoku period, there were identities tied up in the ancient provinces—what used to be the old independent states of the archipelago. That would indicate that even if the territory and even dynasties may have shifted some over time, the name itself seems to have held some cachet and identity with the people throughout the centuries.
Personally, I suspect that the Wa were not a unified state, but neither should we assume that they were all acting unilaterally. Rather, I tend to think that the ruler in Yamato may have acted in a role that was, quite often, primus inter pares—the first among equals. I see a parallel in how the shogunal authorities managed affairs, and even during the powerful reign of the Tokugawa there were those domains that were more independent, held together less by the strict threat of violence and more through an intricate web of politics and consequences.
If that were not the case, then we are left truly wondering: Who are these Wa that are apparently having such an effect on the continent that they are a thorn in the side of King Gwangaetto the great? Why would they be mentioned in so many of the conflicts that were ongoing? Why would Silla and Baekje be sending their princes as hostages?
Hopefully this will get somewhat easier as we move through the 5th century and cover the rest of this Middle Dynasty. Over time, Yamato authority would continue to expand. Where they previously had direct control over the Nara Basin, the Middle Dynasty seems to have had direct control over a larger area, but I suspect that just means that they had a more indirect control over the rest of the islands. This is portrayed, in the Chronicles, as a divine imperial authority, but that is no doubt an exaggeration. Still, the evidence that we have so far does seem to suggest that the Wa could somehow field enough troops to be of concern to their peninsular neighbors.
Speaking of which, there is a story in the Chronicles that I think might fit well in here. It is the story of a ship, of all things: The Karano.
The Karano was built, we are told, by the people of the country of Izu. This country was located on the mountainous, forested peninsula of the same name, at the eastern edge of modern Shizuoka prefecture, south of Mt. Fuji, between Sagami and Suruga Bays. This ship was tremendous for its day—the chronicles say it was 10 rods long, which is estimated to be around 100 feet in length. For reference, that is just 17 feet shorter than the Santa Maria, the flagship of Christopher Columbus when he sailed from Europe to the Caribbean. This thing must have been massive for its day, and it said to have been fast, as well—likely because of the number of rowers it could accommodate.
Now, as usual, we may be getting a bit of hyperbole in all of this. I doubt someone took a measuring stick out, and if they did, that it was precisely written down. I’m not even sure if the measurements they use—often translated as “rod”—were actually the lengths we ascribe to them. Many of these kinds of measurements could vary slightly from place to place until there was a single authority to provide a standard. And most of the time it didn’t matter. Whether it was 60 feet long or 100 feet long the point was that it was big.
And what was the purpose of building large ships if not to carry lots of men and equipment?
The Karano—meaning “Light and Swift—was built around 394, and it was supposedly called that because, well, was said to be light and swift. Based on when it was built, it would have been in service for most of the encounters on the peninsula. It remained in service until about 420, a total of 26 years, but by the end of that time, it was done. Seawater and time are not kind to wooden vessels, and over time, it started to break down. We are told that it had rotted out and was in disrepair. And so they decided to honor the ship, which had doubtless seen its share of action by then. They disassembled the ship and decided to use the wood to burn seaweed for salt, which would, in turn, be sent out to the various countries in return for ships, built as the spiritual ancestors of the grand Karano.
The salt fires were lit, and the salt collected, but at the end of it, they realized that not all of the wood had burned through. Some of it had survived, and so they took the unburnt wood and made a zither, or koto, and a song was composed to commemorate the event.
By the way, the fleet of ships? Well, they didn’t fare quite so well as the Karano. Apparently as they came in they were gathered as a fleet in Muko Bay. As they were sitting there, likely pulled up onto the beach, a fire broke out in the buildings on shore. Apparently the fire quickly spread and it must have caught the boats, and the entire fleet went up in flames.
So once again we have a story emphasizing the nautical nature of Yamato’s power, and describing some truly impressive ships for the time. Even if they are exaggerations, we can see that it was an important aspect of the culture and people of the 4th and early 5th century archipelago. A people we will try to get to know more in subsequent episodes.
But for now, that’s probably enough. Thank you for listening, and I hope you were able to follow along. This period is confusing, but fascinating at the same time. Perhaps the main takeaways are the chaos and violence on the peninsula, which are often times of growth and change, and the involvement of the Wa in so much of what was going on. Plus the various alliances—in particular that of Baekje and Yamato. This would be crucial in later years.
Of course, there is a lot more to come—we haven’t even touched on our long lived prime minister, Takechi no Sukune, and I want to introduce another figure of some note, whom we have perhaps briefly made mention of, Kazuraki no Sotsuhiko. We’ll also go into details on just what became of the princely hostages. There is so much going on this reign, I don’t think we’ll cover all of it—we probably don’t need to talk about the 200th time that the Silla coast was raided, for instance, but we’ll see where the narrative takes us.
So, until next time, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate through our KoFi site, kofi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the link over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Questions or comments? Feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.
That’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Kim, P., & Shultz, E. J. (2013). The 'Silla annals' of the 'Samguk Sagi'. Gyeonggi-do: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Kim, P., Shultz, E. J., Kang, H. H. W., & Han'guk Chŏngsin Munhwa Yŏn'guwŏn. (2012). The Koguryo annals of the Samguk sagi. Seongnam-si, Korea: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Rhee, S., Aikens, C., Choi, S., & Ro, H. (2007). Korean Contributions to Agriculture, Technology, and State Formation in Japan: Archaeology and History of an Epochal Thousand Years, 400 B.C.–A.D. 600. Asian Perspectives, 46(2), 404-459. Retrieved June 18, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42928724
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253
Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
Shultz, E. (2004). An Introduction to the "Samguk Sagi". Korean Studies, 28, 1-13. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23720180
Iryŏn, ., Ha, T. H., & Mintz, G. K. (2004). Samguk yusa: Legends and history of the three kingdoms of ancient Korea. Seoul: Yonsei University Press.
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Hatada, T., & Morris, V. (1979). An Interpretation of the King Kwanggaet'o Inscription. Korean Studies, 3, 1-17. Retrieved June 18, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23717824
Kiley, C. (1973). State and Dynasty in Archaic Yamato. The Journal of Asian Studies, 33(1), 25-49. https://doi.org/10.2307/2052884
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4
Philippi, D. L. (1968). Kojiki. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN4-13-087004-1

Episode 44: The Stele of Gwangaetto the Great, Part I

July 1, 2021 Joshua Badgley

Detail of the stele honoring Gwangaetto the Great

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This episode we look at the late 4th century history of the peninsula—especially the role of the “Wa”—with the addition of what we are told by the inscription on the stele outside of the tomb of the Goguryeo king, Gwangaetto the Great, whose posthumous name even references his work expanding the territory of the Goguryeo kingdom.

We talked about Goguryeo somewhat when we discussed the Three Kingdoms of the Korean peninsula. It is the oldest of the Three Kingdoms, but because of its position at the head of the peninsula it has not generally had direct contact with the people in the southern tip of the peninsula and the archipelago. Instead, the people of the archipelago mainly seem to have dealt with the Samhan—the three states of Mahan, Byeonhan, and Jinhan—and then the successor states of Baekje, Silla, and the independent states of Kara. But with the Wa raids on Silla, who then allies with Goguryeo, sending one of their princes to the Goguryeo court, and the Wa alliance with Baekje, a traditional rival with Goguryeo, the Wa and Goguryeo would start to come into conflict.

The territory of Goguryeo fluctuated over the centuries, but largely seems to have centered between the Yalu River and Pyongyang, at least in the 4th century. The Yalu River, for those who aren’t familiar with peninsular geography, is the modern border between China and North Korea. In fact, that border, at the head of the peninsula, is largely the Yalu River to the southwest and the Tumen River to the northeast, both of which flow to the sea. In fact, across the river in China are areas of ethnic Koreans who are, in fact, living as an ethnic minority in PRC controlled territory in the modern states of Liaoning and Jilin.

The old capital of Goguryeo and the royal tombs of the 4th century are located at modern Jian in Jilin Province, just on the PRC side of the Yalu River. Later, the Goguryeo capital would move back down to Pyongyang, the current capital of North Korea. Of course, the current political climate tends to make sites in North Korea difficult for others to gain access at this time.

Regardless, we do have some access to the Goguryeo stele and to the various tracings and rubbings that have been made over the years, and in the podcast we talk about some of how that came about.

The Kings of Goguryeo

So let’s quickly recap the kings of Goguryeo. I’m mostly going to use the posthumous names by which they are largely known and this is just a very quick overview:

King Bongsang (r. 292-300) - Not treated well in the Annals, he killed many of his rivals and was eventually killed himself. This or the next reign may have been the point when some nobles fled Goguryeo for Mahan, eventually founding the state of Baekje.

King Micheon (r. 300-331) - Fled the tyranny of King Bongsang and was invited back after the latter’s death. This is the other reign that may have seen an exodus of Goguryeo officials. This is the reign when Goguryeo destroyed the old Commanderies on the peninsula, which allowed Goguryeo to start expanding south but also provided room for the other states on the peninsula to start to expanding and solidifying into independent states as well.

King Gogugwon (r. 331-371) - Gogugwon followed King Micheon. His reigns suffered from numerous foreign invasions. He eventually died defending Pyongyang from Baekje forces, and is the only Goguryeo king to actually die in battle.

King Sosurim (r. 371-384) - He strengthened Goguryeo, who was still involved in numerous military conflicts, especially with the peninsular state of Baekje. It is also said that it is in this reign that Buddhism first came to Goguryeo—but we’ll talk about that in a later episode when we get to Buddhism and how it came to the archipelago.

King Gogugyang (r. 384-391) - He continued to build up the Buddhist and Confucian institutions in Goguryeo, continued to push back against Baekje and others, and allied with King Naemul of Silla, taking in Prince Kim Silseong, King Naemul’s nephew, as a royal hostage.

King Gwangaetto (r. 391-413) - King Gwangaetto the Great is the king in our current moment in the podcast, and his expansionist wars helped grow the boundaries of Goguryeo, and would spark over a century of growth in what was one of the high points of the Goguryeo kingdom.

The Kings of Baekje

Below is a short summary of the Kings of Baekje of interest to us.

King (Geun)Chogo (r. 346-375) - Called the “Later” Chogo in the Samguk Sagi he was probably just King Chogo, originally. He is considered the first historical sovereign of Baekje, though Baekje history claims a much lengthier lineage, all the way back to the mythical King Jumong, just like Goguryeo. It was during his reign that friendly relations were first established with the Wa, which is also mentioned in the Japanese Chronicles. It was also during his reign when Baekje attacked Pyongyang and killed King Gogugwon of Goguryeo.

King (Geun)Gusu (r. 375-384) - Like his father, he was also a “Later” king Gusu according to the Samguk Sagi, but many believe the previous Gusu was fictional, added to pad the lineage. He kept up the fight against Goguryeo and, from all accounts, maintained friendly relations with the Wa.

King Chimnyu (r. 384-385) - He is considered the first king to actually recognize Buddhism. Other than that, his reign was cut short due to his untimely death.

King Jinsa (r. 385-392) - He was the brother of King Chimnyu, and came to the throne because the Crown Prince, Prince Abang, was still considered too young. Under his rule, Baekje suffered major defeats by Goguryeo, and relations with the Wa appear to have fallen apart. He died while off on a hunting expedition, according to the Samguk Sagi, while the Japanese Chronicles claim that he was killed by his own people.

King Asin (r. 392-405) - King Asin (formerly Crown Prince Abang) came to power after his uncle, King Jinsa, passed away. He suffered initial defeats by Goguryeo and, according to the inscription on the Gwangaetto Stele, was made to submit to Goguryeo. Afterwards, he strengthened the friendship with the Wa, sending his own son, Prince Jeonji, to the Wa court as a hostage, much as Silla had done with Prince Silseong. This alliance appears to have further angered Goguryeo, who went back on the warpath.

King of Silla

Surprisingly, there is only one king of Silla that seems to have been active through most of the time that we are largely concerned with in this episode:

King Naemul of Silla (r. 356-402) - Ruling under the title of maripgan, he was recorded as king in the annals of the Eastern Jin. He was likely the king for the early alliance of Baekje and Wa, which may be the reason for his alliance with Goguryeo, sending his nephew, prince Silseong, as a hostage to that country. Later, when Baekje and Wa allied again under King Asin of Baekje, he would call on Goguryeo’s aid.

A note about “Wa”

So I want to talk a bit about the “Wa”. This is how most of the continental sources refer to the Japanese until they rename themselves as “Nihon”. In later Chinese records there are notes that the character for “Wa” should be understood as “Yamato”. But there are still questions about whether that actually encompassed all of the Wa ethnic groups. There are many who feel that Yamato, though a powerful Wa state, was just one of many. It could be that the original Wa-Baekje alliance was with a different state of the Wa, and that the raids against Silla were likewise made by another state, one situated in Northern Kyushu, most likely.

When the Japanese chroniclers in the 8th century were compiling everything, they made the assumption that “Wa” always referred to “Yamato” and therefore deftly added them into the narrative where they felt it was appropriate. As such, it is possible that all of the records from the Baekje Annals, while likely accurate, are not, strictly speaking, about Yamato. I am trying to be careful about which one I’m using, but I won’t guarantee that I don’t switch them up here and there, but just realize that does cause a bit of confusion.

One piece of possible evidence for the idea that this was Yamato all along is, in my opinion, the seven-branched sword commissioned in 372, which was sent to the Isonokami Shrine in the Yamato region. If that sword, which seems to clearly link a state of the Wa with Baekje, was indeed sent to some other group, then one assumes that it was later taken, possibly as a spoil of war or conquest—or possibly as part of the accumulation of shrine treasures that we see discussed in the earliest part of the Chronicles—and moved to Isonokami. If it was placed at Isonokami from the get-go, that seems to be an indication that it may indeed have been Yamato that Bakeje was allying with. Regardless, just know that it is more than a bit confused.

That should give you much of the background for this episode. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us!

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 44: The Stele of Gwangaetto the Great, Part One
Today we are going to head back to the peninsula for a bit and talk about what was going on there, ostensibly during the reign of our current sovereign in Yamato, Homuda Wake. This is going to be the first of two episodes—I was initially just planning to do one but, honestly, I felt there was enough here to break it into two shorter pieces.
As I’ve alluded to in previous episodes, one of the frustrating things about this period in Japanese history is how far all of our sources are from the actual events that are happening. I mean, sure, the writers of the Chronicles were bringing in fragments of records that were probably closer to the source, but they were compiling this all with their knowledge of events some 3 to 4 centuries later. We have enough trouble figuring out what happened in the 17th and 18th centuries, today, and that was with all of the things that actually got written down. And a lot of historical records are not the most detailed—people tend to leave out a lot of the whys and wherefores and simply give you the bare bones details. Consider: if you are going to write an account of what is going on around you, what do you include, and what do you leave out with the assumption that it is obvious to readers? Filling in the missing pieces is a constant practice for historians. I mean, if 2020 were recounted in ancient histories it probably would be something like: In the 2nd month of 2020, a great plague infested the land and there was great suffering. And that literally might be about it. Perhaps in 2021 you’d see a note about vaccines being distributed for the Great Plague, but you wouldn’t get a blow-by-blow of what happened, who said what, when, etc. And then, hundreds of years later, someone has to find that particular entry of interest for their purposes and include it in their compilation of events. It is no wonder things get lost.
And so whenever we can get a contemporary account to compare the Japanese Chronicles to, it is priceless. And that’s why the Gwangaetto stele is so impressive. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the fact that it is a huge slab of stone is rather impressive. Specifically it is a large slab of natural stone, 6.2 meters, and about one and a half to two meters on a side. It is covered in Sinographic characters—Chinese writing—and these tell the story of King Gwangaetto the Great of Goguryeo.For us, though, the most important part is that it was erected in 414 and it tells the story of Gwangaetto the Great and his reign, covering the period from about 390 to Gwangaetto’s death – so, in other words, it was written down shortly after all of those events happened. And even that might not mean much to our story except that many of his dealings specifically mention the Wa, or Japanese. So, this stone slab is possibly the closest we have to a contemporaneous, eyewitness account of what was happening on the peninsula, and what role the Wa had in it.
Before we get to what it says—and match that up with what we know in our other sources, let’s talk briefly about the history of this monument so we can gain a little bit of context. We know that it was erected in 414 outside of the tomb of King Gwangaetto the Great of Goguryeo. His tomb lies just outside of the capital at that time in Jian, in the middle reaches of the Yalu River in what is today part of the People’s Republic of China. Shortly after the stele was erected, Gwangaetto’s successor moved the capital south, to Pyongyang, leaving several families in charge of taking care of the tomb and the stele. Eventually, Goguryeo itself fell, becoming part of a single, unified kingdom that would become what we know as Korea, and over time the area of the old capital site was completely abandoned. The grand tombs of the kings of old became overgrown, and their monuments were lost, except to the odd traveler who would pass by and remark on them, but whether it was because they were so overgrown, or just a general apathy, nobody seems to have bothered to record what they had to say. Despite this, the monument continued to stand, alone, for centuries.
It wasn’t until the late 19th century that the stele gained renewed interest. The Qing dynasty had decided to open up land in the area of modern Jian, and numerous farmers, lured out with the promise of new land to open up, started to come in and cultivate the area. This was no doubt driven in part by the encroachment of Russia and the European powers, creating a very dynamic situation. Into this mix came Japanese adventurers as well.
When some farmers reported their find of a large stone slab, the local Qing official came out to investigate. To get a better look, he had all of the vegetation covering the stone burned off, leaving only the stone itself, and using tracing paper he had the first ever copy made. Holding the tracing paper up to the stone, the characters were individually traced, one by one, and then everything outside of them was filled in with black ink. This kind of copy is less accurate than a rubbing, and prone to error, but may have been done because of the stone’s rough, uneven surface. Eventually there would be rubbings made as well.
Only a few short years after its discovery, the stele was noticed by a Japanese man named Sakao Kagenobu. He was an army officer and an intelligence agent of the Japanese General Staff office, and he was charged with investigating conditions in Manchuria and China. Since the Meiji Revolution in 1868, which overthrew the shogunate and put in place a new government under the head of Emperor Meiji, Japanese, particularly military officers, had been traveling around the world in an effort to help gather information and modernize their newly opened state. Japan had a particular interest in the continent, and was already building its influence in part through the rapid acquisition of western technology. When Kagenobu sent an outline tracing of the stele back to the Japanese General Staff Office there was a lot of fascination with it because this object—situated at the head of the Korean peninsula—contained numerous references to the “Wa”, a known reference to Japan and the Japanese, such that even the kanji for Yamato can be translated as the Great Wa. Moreover, these references included language that could be interpreted to say that the early Japanese state had actually subjugated the kingdoms of Baekje and Silla, enhancing the idea of Japan as a powerful early state with historical claims on the ancient Korean entities.
There was also mention of another important location in the stele’s text: Nimna, or as the Japanese knew it, Mimana.
Now as we’ve discussed on previous episodes, the Japanese Chronicles mention Mimana, and in the early 19th century it was specifically believed in Japan that ancient Yamato had a colony on the Peninsula which was referred to as “Mimana Nihonfu”—a phrase used in the chronicles for the 6th century, during the reign of the sovereign known posthumously as Kinmei Tennou. This phrase has raised a lot of speculation and debate, but in the 19th century the Japanese—particularly members of the General Staff—latched onto this idea of Japan’s historical role on the peninsula as a rationalization for their own desires to gain a foothold on the continent. A team of military scholars and civilian historians were convened to go over the stele, which does mention both the Wa and the country of Nimna. They published their findings in 1889 under the authorship of Yokoi Tadanao, who was a professor at the Military Academy and the director of the research into the stele’s inscription.
Of course, Japan would go ahead and continue to push forward their continental ambitions, and in 1895 they would go to war with the Qing in what has become known as the first Sino-Japanese war. Ostensibly this was to protect Japanese interests in Korea, and it largely put Korea under Japanese influence. Japan would eventually set up the puppet state of Manchu-kuo and generally continue to be belligerent until they were defeated at the end of World War II. And while the interpretation of the Gwangaetto stele had not exactly caused the war, it was one more factor seen as pushing the Japanese in that direction.
And so it should be unsurprising the Korean scholars have challenged the interpretation of the stele by the Japanese military. There are even claims that the Japanese military defaced the inscription, changing, adding, or erasing characters to ensure that it fit with their interpretation. This was first brought up by Yi Chin-hui, a Korean scholar living in Japan in the early 1970s who published his own work, studying the various tracings, rubbings, etc. that had been made by that point. This had intense repercussions throughout the scholarly community, with some looking to reexamine the inscription and others attacking Yi’s work. Since then independent Chinese scholars have verified the authenticity of the inscription as it is known—though there are certainly parts missing, there is no indication of deliberate tampering with the passage that has been found.
In fact, in more recent years, another stele was found that seems to authenticate some of the Gwangaetto stele’s inscription—or at least the characters used in it. Though the other inscription was more administrative in nature, the characters used seemed to match those found on the Gwangaetto stele. Similar characters have also been found in metal engravings from this period. All of that helps vouch for the veracity of the inscription as it is.
That hasn’t exactly settled the debate, however, and arguments about the authenticity still come up from time to time. The stele is worn and some of the characters are missing—or may never have existed in the first place, given the irregularities of the stone, which may have forced the authors to shorten some of the lines. In addition, the language it is written in does not lend itself to easy translation. Scholars have made various interpretations of the stele by breaking sentences at different points. Since the ancient Chinese that was the early written language of the peninsula and the archipelago didn’t exactly use punctuation like we do today, and even the meaning of certain characters has changed over time, there is a lot of room to interpret the stele in different ways, and some of the missing characters could drastically affect a reading if they were something unexpected. Scholarly arguments exist for various readings, most biased in some way towards a particular scholar’s pre-existing understanding of this history of this period.
On top of questions of authenticity and interpretation there are also questions about the veracity of what was written on the stele. Though many of the sections of interest to us were written in a matter-of-fact style, we must remember that this was, primarily, a political tool, written to aggrandize a deceased monarch. Gwangaetto himself is referred to specifically as a “King” or even “Great King”, while the rulers of other states are given lesser titles of sovereignty—a not-so-subtle dig at their status vis-à-vis Goguryeo.
Some of these even get downright rude. While the character used for the Wa is the same derogatory character that showed up in the Wei and Han chronicles, the Wa forces are usually referenced as either pirates or brigands rather than with more martial or military terms. Likewise the state of Baekje is actually referred to as Baekchan, or just “Chan”, using a character that means “crippled”. It has been suggested that this was an attempt to label Baekje as a morally crippled state, likely named such because of the opposition they presented to Goguryeo.
There is also a debate on just who is meant by the “Wa” in this inscription. Many have debated that the actions taken by Wa seem much too grandiose to be referring to the archipelago, which many see at this point as not yet unified into the kind of kingdom that could be participating in military expeditions over on the peninsula; certainly the keyhole tomb mound culture is still growing across the archipelago, but there are plenty of regional differences such that many don’t consider the unification of the islands entirely complete. Others have suggested that the “Wa” mentioned here are simply ethnic Wa pirate groups, likely based out of North Kyushu. Others have suggested that the Wa were an extension of Baekje. Still others have suggested that they were a completely different group.
All that said, I think there is still plenty in here to give us an idea of what was happening, and I tend to think that the Wa here is, indeed, referring to the Japanese of the archipelago. It may not necessarily mean that every instance of Wa was a formally sanctioned military endeavor by the court at Yamato. Which gets to one more thing about the stele: the events it talks about don’t necessarily have clear connection with anything in the other written records. Neither the Samguk Sagi nor the Japanese chronicles reference the information from the stele directly. That doesn’t mean they disagree, though: when you look at the events, many seem to line up, even if years don’t exactly correlate.
Now the content of the stele itself can largely be broken up into three parts. The opening lines are about the mythical founding of Goguryeo, all the way back to the legendary King Jumong, and then the rise of the stele’s main subject, King Gwangaetto.
The second part of the stele, which is the area that we are most interested in at this point, recounts his military exploits and expeditions. All told,there are roughly seven different campaigns that are mentioned on the stele. Along with the subjugation of various groups, some of whom we have no other clear records for, like the Pi-Li, the Po-Shen, and the Tung-fu-yu, the stele also details one campaign specifically against Baekje and several campaigns, against the Wa, including not a few invectives thrown at them for good measure. It is these latter campaigns that will be our primary focus.
The last part of the stele includes instructions for the tombs caretakers—those families who were put in charge of tending to the tomb and its environs. Though a fascinating look at Goguryeo culture and society, we’ll leave that for other scholars to ponder.
So enough with the context. We’ll be looking at what was happening during the time covered in the stele’s inscription, and we’ll be placing it in context with the information from the Korean annals of the Samguk Sagi and what we find in the Japanese Chronicles as well to try to get a handle for just what might have been happening. So let’s get into just what we think is going on here, and to start with, let’s check back in with the Kingdom of Goguryeo.
Now several episodes back when we were talking about Baekje we mentioned that Baekje under King Chogo, who reigned from about 346-375, was at the height of its power. During his reign they had pushed north, all the way to Pyongyang, where they had even killed king Gogugweon of Goguryeo, giving him the dubious distinction of being the only king of Goguryeo to ever actually die in battle.
Of course, that didn’t put an end to the violence. Baekje may have had a significant victory, but it appears they did not have the forces to keep it—something we’ll see time and again. So after sacking Pyongyang, rather than occupying the city for themselves, Baekje pulled back, keeping only a portion of the territory they had conquered. Back and forth fighting continued along the border between Baekje and Goguryeo through the next several reigns. But it wasn’t just Baekje that Goguryeo was fighting. Positioned as they were at the head of the Korean peninsula, straddling the areas of modern Liaoning and Jilin, they were also contending with various tribes in the north, as well as with natural disasters—in the years 388-389 there was drought and locusts leading to severe famine.
Then, in 391, the King died, and the Crown Prince, Tamdeok, came to the throne. He would be the one who would later be known as Gwangaetto the Great, and he’s the one for whom this stele was eventually erected.
Now, spoiler alert: if you know Korean history you likely know about Gwangaetto the Great. His full posthumous title is Kukkangsang Kwanggaet'ogyeong hot'ae-wang, and sometimes he is known as Hot’ae and sometimes as Yeongnak. He was probably known as Tamdeok until after his death, but for our purposes I’m going to refer to him as Gwangaetto. If you go out looking there are movies and even miniseries about him as one of the truly legendary figures in Korean history. Even without the stele, he’s a badass who expanded his nation’s reach over the course of his reign. It is in this expansion that he came into contact with the Wa, and thus our interest.
Despite the trials of the previous reign, Goguryeo seems to have been doing alright when Prince Tamdeok assumed the throne. The stele, which was written some 2 decades later, claims that Baekje and Silla had long been subjects of Goguryeo, but in 391 Wa came in, and, well, basically they messed everything up. If we are to believe the stele, Goguryeo was sitting sweet and pretty at the top of the heap on the peninsula and, well, it would have stayed that way if it weren’t for those meddling Wa.
This is perhaps the most controversial part of the entire stele, because one interpretation is that the Wa came in and effectively subjugated both Baekje and Silla. This is based on a particular reading of the characters and an assumption of one missing character. This reading, of course, fits in beautifully with that of the Japanese Chronicles, which does make the claim that Yamato did cross the waves and subdue Silla and at least ally themselves with Baekje. But yet, when we look at the archaeology, do we really see a state ready to take on this kind of an expansionist challenge? According to the archaeological record, the islands themselves weren’t fully unified at this time, so how is it that they are quote-unquote “subjugating” others?
And maybe part of it has to do with that word, “subjugate”. To quote Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that word… I do not think it means what you think it means.”
For most of us, I suspect when we hear “subjugate” we think of the meaning “to bring under dominion or control”, and it is that last piece, “control”, that I’m not sure is entirely accurate. From what we’ve seen of the Wa at this time, their modus operandi appears to be that of a seaborne raiding culture, when it comes to the peninsula. If they can get the resources they need without raiding—for instance if someone is willing to pay them to get out of the fighting and inevitable destruction that would come with it—then that suits their needs. And so I wonder if “subjugate”, to them, was little more than ensure promises of payment.
There was no need for direct interference in their local affairs. As long as people paid lip service to your authority and the prestige goods, kept making their way through—by which Yamato could pay off the other states in the archipelago and keep them on their side, then what more is needed?
But the language that they are using to record all of this is the language of empire. And so I take it that everything could be skewed through that lens as well. The words and terms that were likely expected by the scribes, who have inherited their arts from the courts of the Jin, the Wei, and going back to the Han and Qin states, well, those were based on a concept of statehood and control that may have far outpaced what we actually have in the peninsula—let alone the archipelago—at this time.
There is also the thought here that the scribes of Goguryeo may have been exaggerating for effect. This is the tomb of Gwangaetto the Great, after all! Of course Baekje and Silla had been their subjects. You know… in the past… at some point…. Hey now, let’s not get caught up in all the minutiae, alright? They were ours and you all know it and you can just shut up about it.
Seriously, though, this was meant to be a monument, and claiming some kind of ancient status over the peninsula was just the kind of power move that one would expect here, so I don’t think we need to pay it too much mind, honestly.
That said, in support of the stele’s take on things, we are told in the Samguk Sagi that the king of Silla sent his nephew, Silseong, to live in Goguryeo as a hostage, so one assumes that they were fairly close. Or at least, Silla wanted to be close—probably influenced by the fact that they had pirates on their coastline and Baekje at their front door. That said, I’m not sure I’m buying it that Baekje was in the same position: There are numerous accounts of Goguryeo raiding the Baekje border, and vice versa, and, again according to the Samguk Sagi, in 392, King Gwangaetto of Goguryeo attacked Baekje with such ferocity that of the King of Baekje at that time pretty much refused to go out and face them. He just noped himself into his capital city and allowed the Goguryeo to do their thing.
It is possible that the stele could be referencing the much older connection—that Baekje claimed descent from the same Buyeo nobility as Goguryeo. If they really were founded by nobility from Buyeo or even from Goguryeo itself, the Goguryeo court may have honestly seen Baekje as their traditional subjects, regardless of how Baekje saw things.
And speaking of Baekje, let’s switch focus for a moment: According to the Baekje annals in the Samguk Sagi, this historical noping-out was in the 8th year of King Chinsa, a grandson of King Chogo, who had previously opened up relations with the Wa. He had taken over when his brother, King Chim’nyu, unexpectedly died just two years into his reign. As it turned out, Chim’nyu’s own son, Abang, was still young, and so Chinsa came to the throne instead. Japanese records, based on their own copy of the old Baekje annals, also acknowledge Chim’nyu’s death and Chinsa’s ascension, but claim that Chinsa effectively usurped the throne. If that is the case, one has to wonder just how much of the court supported his reign at this time. The official record paints a rather flattering picture of him, but what wasn’t written down? Rarely do you see this kind of usurpation without some hard feelings.
The Nihon Shoki goes on to provide an account from 392 that claims that Chinsa was disrespectful towards Japan—a rather vague causus belli that goes hand-in-hand with the exaggerated position that they were somehow suzerains of the southern peninsula—so Homuda Wake sent a force to call him to account. However, by the time they arrived they found that he had died—specifically the Nihon Shoki claims that the people of Baekje killed him by way of apology and established his nephew, Abang, as King.
Could it be that with all of Baekje’s defeats at the hands of Goguryeo—especially the latest by King Tamdeok, aka Gwangaetto—he offered some form of submission to Goguryeo? If so, Yamato may have seen this as disrespectful if they believed that Baekje had pledged their submission—or at least allegiance—to *them* instead. After all, Goguryeo appears to have been allied with Yamato’s traditional rival, Silla, and so if Goguryeo asserted dominion of some kind over Baekje as well, Yamato would be isolated. That could disrupt the flow of goods to the islands, and, as we’ve seen multiple times in the past, when the trade spigot is turned off or disrupted the archipelago often experiences chaos. I even wonder if this isn’t the basis for the apparent unity within the archipelago—even if the countries themselves are independent, they would band together to keep the routes to the continent open for trading—not to mention the occasional raid.
That said, only the Nihon Shoki claims that the King Chinsa was killed by his own people. It would be understandable—if he wasn’t standing up to Goguryeo, Baekje’s long-time rival, that may have been seen as grounds for some sort of coup. But the Korean sources we have claim that he actually spent time hunting out at a place called Kuweon, around the time that Goguryeo attacked and overran the seemingly impregnable fortress of Kwanmmi. The King was gone for 10 days, never returning back to the court, and he finally died at his temporary residence.
It is easy, here, to see a King that has abdicated his responsibilities. While he doesn’t have a golf course to go to, hunting was effectively the noble equivalent at the time—a leisure pastime for the wealthy, as opposed to subsistence hunting for your daily meal. And here he’s out gallavanting at the same time that Goguryeo is devastating the north of the country. It would hardly be unusual in human history for members of his court to be eager to do something about a King that wasn’t governing, regardless of whether his actions would have actually affected the outcome or not.
Then there is also that question about what happened with the succession. If he really had come to power under questionable terms, and there was a legitimate heir waiting in the wings, perhaps there was already an anti-Chinsa faction at the court who questioned his legitamacy, and, well—let’s just say that I wonder what actually happened out on that hunting trip, you know?
Regardless of what actually happened, it seems clear that King Chinsa was dead, and Prince Abang, the son of King Chimnyu, was crowned as the new King of Baekje, and he would be known to posterity as King Asin. Now King Asin’s reign was almost immediately faced with the threat of Goguryeo and King Gwangaetto’s expansionist intentions. There were successive campaigns between Baekje and Goguryeo. In fact, there was a campaign of some sort each year for the next three years, in 393, 394, and 395. So if there were any concessions that Goguryeo had extracted from King Chinsa, it seems those were already as dead as season two of Jupiter’s Legacy.
Things came to a head in the autumn of 395. Baekje’s annals in the Samguk Sagi claim that King Asin ordered his troops to attack Goguryeo, and King Gwangaetto himself rode out to meet them, personally commanding 7000 of his own soldiers. The resulting battle above the P’aesu River was a huge defeat for Baekje, who lost 8,000 soldiers in the engagement. King Asin then attempted to personally lead an army to avenge the loss of their soldiers, but they were caught in a snowstorm in the mountains. Many of their officers froze to death, and the King withdrew to Hansan Fortress.
Given the scale of their loss—first at the hands of Goguryeo, and then at the hands of General Winter herself—it puts the information on the stele in perspective, for that stone edifice claims that in the following year King Gwangaetto personally sailed down with a fleet to Baekje—though perhaps that was actually part of this same campaign.
Now, according to the stele, the Goguryeo forces swept through, capturing 18 fortress and eventually making their way to Baekje’s own capital, where they forced King Asin to submit and swear his allegiance. As part of his submission they took away a great number of people—likely to be enslaved—and great quantities of cloth. They also required territorial concessions and forced King Asin to send his younger brother and ten high officials as hostages to the Goguryeo court.
One can only imagine the devastation that this invasion wrought on the state of Baekje, but it is interesting to note that while Goguryeo took people and material, but there is no mention that they left anyone behind to govern or otherwise attempt to directly control Baekje. Instead they left the king on the throne and took hostages as assurances that Baekje would not attack again.
This is the first campaign mentioned against Baekje on the stele, despite the other records of fighting, above, possibly because it was the most significant, or possibly aggregating all of those assaults into one. After all, there was only so much stele to go around. Either way, the Baekje Annals conveniently left this out of their own story, it seems—or at least the later compilers of the Samguk Sagi opted not to include it—or perhaps something happened to it.
This all may explain the corresponding entry for the next year in the Nihon Shoki, though, where we are only told that King Asin “disrespected” Wa—which seems similar to the language used when they sent a force to call to task his uncle, King Chinsa. What form this “disrespect” took is, again, not defined. One could presume that Baekje signing their allegiance to Goguryeo was the offense. But what if it was something else? What if some sort of expected bribe, um, I mean tribute payment never made it? After all, Goguryeo had just devastated Baekje, and whatever trade missions had been going on between the Baekje and the Wa may have been disrupted. The “disrespect” could basically have just meant that they didn’t have anything to offer in whatever trade agreements they had made with each other.
As we’ve seen already, when the flow of trade stopped, that seems to be when Yamato would mount another expedition to the peninsula.
In this case, however, there was no force necessary, because King Asin preemptively reached out making assurances to Yamato, and both the Nihon Shoki and the Samguk Sagi mention that King Asin sent his own son, Crown Prince Jeonji, to the Wa as a hostage at this time.
Since we’ve mentioned hostages a couple of times already, let’s pause a moment to talk about what this likely meant. We’ve seen what looks like two different kinds of hostages, though for similar purposes I suspect that Prince Jeonji’s status in Yamato was much more amicable than that of his uncles’ as hostages in Goguryeo. After all, Baekje had submitted to Goguryeo, but only under extreme duress, and the hostages were there specifically as leverage to ensure obedience. Baekje, however, was under no such threat from Yamato—at least, not that we are aware of. Certainly the Japanese chronicles talk a good game, but as we saw it looks like they may have been more about rading than actually subjugating per se. Granted, Baekje was likely were ensuring good relations and preventing potential pirate raids along the coast, but even the Baekje annals mention that this was a friendly exchange, and make no intimations whatsoever that it was performed under duress of any kind.
That said, it strikes me that King Asin had to have realized how precarious his position was. What if Goguryeo had required the Crown Prince as a hostage, and not just King Asin’s brothers? Sending the young Prince Jeonji to a friendly Yamato court got him out of harm’s way and it helped cement their alliance with the Wa, a potential ally against an increasingly powerful and belligerent Goguryeo. King Asin was playing a dangerous international game—as soon as Goguryeo caught wind of the alliance they would know that something was up and likely attempt to punish Baekje.
For Yamato, this must have been emboldening. To have another kingdom send their Crown Prince to their court must have been a huge boost in prestige. Also, I would suspect that a number of Baekje officials and servants may have come with him—after all, as Crown Prince of Baekje he no doubt had a household to maintain. And maintaining close ties with Baekje is what would lead to them eventually receiving horses for the first time, brining Ajikki, and then Wang’in, to help teach the court how to read and write—and perhaps as the young Crown Prince’s tutor as well.
Now as it stands, Yamato hadn’t been sitting on the sidelines all this time. Besides involving themselves with Baekje when Chinsa submitted to Goguryeo in 392, a year later the Silla Annals in the Samguk Sagi tell us that the Wa invaded that country once again. It isn’t clear if this was a force from Yamato or an independent group of raiders—if it is mentioned in the Chronicles then the dates don’t match up clearly, and there isn’t enough to definitively say which attack this was, but it fits a general pattern, regardless. Clearly there was still animosity between Silla and Yamato, and the alliances were shaping up. It seems as thought it was Silla and Goguryeo against Baekje and Yamato—and possibly some of the states of Kara as well. This was where things were headed on the Peninsula at this point—it seems everyone was picking side, lest they find themselves caught in the middle.
Now if King Asin of Baekje was afraid of Goguryeo finding out about his alliance with the Wa, he wasn’t trying to hide it. Instead it looks like he went on the offensive, himself. A year after sending his son to Yamato, King Asin of Baekje began preparations to attack Goguryeo again, hostages be damned. Goguryeo had been in constant struggle, and in 398 the stele tells us that King Gwangaetto had sent out a small force to subjugate the Su-shen, another independent group in their orbit,, so Baekje may have seen this as a chance. However, as they were gathering the troops they witnessed a falling star—actually, the Samguk Sagi claims that the star fell into the Baekje camp—and King Asin decided to hold off. This was likely a wise decision, as the stele’s text makes it seem like the bulk of Goguryeo’s forces were still available to be deployed.
That said, word would soon reach Goguryeo about the Baekje-Wa alliance and when it did, King Gwangaetto was not a happy camper. He gathered his forces, and he started moving south. And heaven help anyone who stood in his way.
And that’s where we are going to wrap it up for now. This gives us most of the background, including the continuing relations between Baekje and Wa, the conflicts between Baekje and Goguryeo, and the continued attacks by Wa on Silla. Soon we’ll get into perhaps the greatest conflict detailed on the stele, especially as it concerns us and the history of Japan.
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That’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Kim, P., & Shultz, E. J. (2013). The 'Silla annals' of the 'Samguk Sagi'. Gyeonggi-do: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Kim, P., Shultz, E. J., Kang, H. H. W., & Han'guk Chŏngsin Munhwa Yŏn'guwŏn. (2012). The Koguryo annals of the Samguk sagi. Seongnam-si, Korea: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Rhee, S., Aikens, C., Choi, S., & Ro, H. (2007). Korean Contributions to Agriculture, Technology, and State Formation in Japan: Archaeology and History of an Epochal Thousand Years, 400 B.C.–A.D. 600. Asian Perspectives, 46(2), 404-459. Retrieved June 18, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42928724
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253
Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
Shultz, E. (2004). An Introduction to the "Samguk Sagi". Korean Studies, 28, 1-13. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23720180
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Hatada, T., & Morris, V. (1979). An Interpretation of the King Kwanggaet'o Inscription. Korean Studies, 3, 1-17. Retrieved June 18, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23717824
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4
Philippi, D. L. (1968). Kojiki. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN4-13-087004-1

Episode 40: Tarashi Hime and the "Conquest" of Korea

May 1, 2021 Joshua Badgley

Okinaga Tarashi Hime (aka Jingū Kōgō) and Takeuchi no Sukune as she fishes with rice as an ukehi to determine if the campaign against Silla will be a success. Print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi in 1876, courtesy of LACMA. — Okinaga Tarashi Hime (aka Jingū Kōgō) and Takeuchi no Sukune as she fishes with rice as an *ukehi* to determine if the campaign against Silla will be a success. Print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi in 1876, courtesy of LACMA.

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This episode we get to talk about one of the most intriguing and controversial parts of the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki, and that is the claimed “conquest” of Korea, and as much as I’d like to just tell you the story, this time we really need to address the controversy, because it gets to the heart, in many ways, of modern relations between Japan and Korea. Before World War II, images of Empress Jingū were widespread, and stories about the conquest and subjugation of the Korean peninsula were used to justify Japan’s actions in occupying Korea in the early 20th century. After the war, there was a backlash against the nationalist version of history that had propped up such a view, with claims that Jingū never existed and she is simply a composite figure—the chroniclers knew that there were reaching the era when the Wei Chronicles said there was a Queen, and so they added a queen and then added on other stories, many of them actually coming from later female monarchs. In addition, they added details from the Baekje Chronicles, a no-longer-extant work that nonetheless seems to match up with what we have in later Korean histories.

Nonetheless, there seem to be enough details that I suspect there is at least a grain of truth to the story of Okinaga Tarashi Hime—I accept her as an historic figure—even if many other details have been glommed on to her story. Likewise, there is enough evidence that there were plenty of raids by the Wa (倭) on the Korean peninsula, though nothing firmly indicating subjugation of one of any of the Three Kingdoms. That said, it very well could be the case that Silla tried to “buy off” Yamato to get them to stop the raids, a tactic that we see time and again in various places in history. Without something like that, then how, exactly, do we explain the political hostages that were sent in the late 4th or early 5th century? Would Silla have sent a prince to Japan—especially without receiving a Japanese prince in return—unless they felt somehow compelled to do so? But we’ll get into that more in other episodes.

For this post, I want to try to lay out some of the things we talk about in the episode and give you some references you can check out. I am going to give you some of the dated references as well as more recent, so you can make up your own mind on some of these theories that people have put forth.

First, though, let’s talk about dates. For more in depth you can read our article on Calendar and Time.

The sexegneary cycle, starting with kinoe-ne (elder wood rat) and ending with mizunoto-i (younger water boar). — The sexegneary cycle, starting with *kinoe-ne* (elder wood rat) and ending with *mizunoto-i* (younger water boar).

This was the kind of dating system that was frequently used throughout East Asia, in combination with the regnal names, creating eras and unique years within each era. However, it was likely not in use in Japan until the influx of actual writing. That leaves us with a problem: Although we can figure out the dates of things from outside annals, such as the Wei, Jin, Baekje, or Silla annals, we cannot necessarily trust the internal dates of the Japanese chronicles at this time, since by their own admission they had not yet started keeping written records in the continental fashion. Therefore it is entirely possible that the dates of things that are solely found in the Japanese records are out of place. It would be like having all the episodes from a highly episodic 80's cartoon show, without any of the names or show dates, and then being asked to put them together, in order. Now imagine doing that for, say, the 1940s Batman shows. You would be trying to use clues inside the episodes to put them together, but can you actually tell which order they are supposed to be in just by their content? Oh, and you' are probably missing at least half the shows. Good luck!

So we are pretty sure that things mentioned in the outside Chronicles happened, but they may have happened at different times. In this case they’ve combined the Wei chronicles, using the actual dates, with the Baekje Chronicles, but they’ve pulled that information back in time about 120 years—so that the cycle names still match up. The thing we aren’t sure of is whether all of the other action happening is properly dated. That is, is the rest of the story also 120 years out of synch, or is it inserted from somewhere else altogether?

We’ll talk about this more, later, but just to give you an idea of the confusion: The Nihon Shoki claims that Tarashi Hime lived through the reign of King Chogo (aka Geunchogo) of Baekje, and that he died before the end of her reign. On the other hand, the Kojiki has this same king interacting with Tarashi Hime’s son, Homuda Wake, during his reign, after Tarshi Hime had passed away. For what it’s worth, the Kūjiki seems to follow the dating of the Nihon Shoki, but doesn’t include the passages from other chronicles, sidestepping the question of dates altogether. So even though we are on the cusp of historical material—we will see writing arrive at the court in the next reign—we are still not sure of when, exactly, things are happening.

Still, we can use the dates we have in other sources to try to give ourselves some idea of what kind of intercourse is taking place between the archipelago and the peninsula. For instance, the Samguk Sagi gives the dates below as various points at which the Wa interacted with Silla or Baekje, prior to the late 4th century. While we cannot fully trust these dates, either—neither Silla nor Baekje seem to have kept written court records, themselves, until the mid-4th century—at least we can see what sorts of activity they were claiming. I suspect that these years are somewhat more spread out than they should be, and if that is the case we could be experiencing a kind of textual time dilation. Thus, assuming that these are at all accurate, these are probably accounts that took place within a span of a century or so, rather than the four centuries or so that is claimed:

50 BCE – Wa came with troops, intending to invade the coastal region of Silla, but withdrew because of the Founder Ancestor’s divine virtue.
20 BCE – Lord Ho, from Wa, was sent by the King of Silla on an official call to Mahan.
14 – The Wa sent more than a hundred ships to plunder the homes of the people on the sea coast.
59 – Silla established “good ties” with the Wa, and envoys were exchanged.
73 – Wa invaded the island of Mokchul. Kakkan Uo was sent to defend it, but to no success and he died there.
121 – Wa invaded the East Coast.
122 – A year later, a rumor that the Wa had come in “great numbers” caused people to hide in the mountains.
158 – Wa “courtesy visit” to Silla
173 – Samguk Sagi’s Silla Annals mention an envoy from Himiko. This feels way too early. She died in 238 CE. Some claim this is a highly anachronistic entry, and may reference a visit in 712 CE.
193 – The Wa had an epidemic and people came asking for food
208 – The Wa invaded the border [of Silla and the Six Districts]. Ibeolchan Ieum was sent against them.
249 – The Wa killed Seobulhan Uro
287 – The Wa raided Illye district and set it on fire. They captured 1,000 people and left with them
289 – The King, hearing that the Wa troops were approaching, repaired his ships and readied his armor and his troops.
292 – The Wa attacked and defeated Sado fortress
294 – The Wa troops came and attacked Changbong Fortress, but didn’t capture it.
295 – King of Silla suggested working with Baekje to attack the Wa across the sea, but his ministers suggested against it as they were not used to naval warfare and Baekje had often been deceitful.
300 – Silla exchanged envoys with the Wa
312 – The King of Wa sent an envoy proposing the marriage of his son. The court sent the daughter of Achan Geumri.
344 – The King of Wa sent an envoy requesting the marriage of the king’s daughter, but was refused because she was already married.
345 – The King of Wa sent an official letter severing ties.

Likely route for Yamato/Wa ships to the Silla capital at Gyeongju.

Late 4th century haniwa sculpture of a boat discovered at Takamawari Kofun No. 2 in modern Osaka. From the Osaka National Museum. Photo by author.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 40: Tarashi Hime and The Conquest of Korea.
Sitting on a rocky beach, a fisherman mends his nets and sets his hooks, looking out into the ocean. The white-capped waves roll up and down, and mimic the whisps of clouds in an otherwise clear sky. Suddenly, there is a glint upon the water, a flash of light in the bright daytime in a time before electricity. Squinting his eyes, the fisherman can just make out the sight, but what he sees sends an immediate shiver down his spine. The glint of light is simply the sun, reflecting off of a polished bronze mirror, hung from the branches stuck into the prow of a long, low ship, which is cutting through the water at a tremendous pace, urged on by the practiced oarsmen who sit upon benches and propel it forward. Then, behind the lead ship, come more, appearing from around the cape and just over the horizon. The fisherman drops his work and runs back up to the village, screaming: The Wa are coming!
So last episode we talked about the rise of the Three Kingdoms, or Samguk, of the Korean Peninsula. This was Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla. The fact that they seem to be keeping records from about the latter half of the 4th century is going to be key for helping us to understand the next part of the narrative. We also know that there are other groups operating on the Korean peninsula, though they don’t get the same kind of attention since they either weren’t keeping their own chronicles or, if they were, those chronicles don’t appear to be extant. Certainly the later Korean histories would focus on these three states, though there does seem to be some grey area as concerns the area known as Kara or, in modern Korean, Gaya. Either way, these three main kingdoms were definitely jockeying for position on the peninsula, playing a high-stakes game of warfare and international politicking that would eventually turn into a unified kingdom—though that is still some distance in the future.
Back in Japan, I want to just focus on the story as it is told from the Chronicles, at least for now. This is the idea that the Kami directed Tarashi Naka tsu Hiko to go and conquer Korea—specifically Silla—but he refused, remaining focused, instead, on the Kumaso of southern Kyushu. For his troubles, he was killed—whether in battle or by the mysterious power of the kami themselves—and so it fell to his Queen, Okinaga Tarashi Hime, as well as his prime minister, Takechi no Sukune, to carry out the kamis’ will and invade and conquer the Korean peninsula in the first place.
The Japanese Chronicles tell this as a fairly straightforward narrative, but with enough commonalities that there was clearly some source material available and common imagery that all of the chronicles are drawing from. The Kujiki even mentions a work that must have been around in the 8th century or so, titled “The Record of the Subjugation of the Three Han”, or “Seifuku Sankanki”, which may have been the original source from whence our story comes. Of course, even that source would be suspect, since it would still have been written down a good deal of time after the events that we are talking about here, which is still in the time of oral history.
So let’s get into it.
Now the Kojiki, as usual, is focused on the action and doesn’t sweat the small stuff. Remember, it was written down from what was effectively a performance piece by Hieda no Are, who would have recounted these stories for the court. As such, it launches straight into Tarashi Hime’s departure, stating: “She put the army in order and marshalled the ships.” Shortly thereafter she flew across the water, borne on the backs of every creature of the sea, and a giant wave brought the fleet halfway into the country of Silla—basically on the doorstep of the capital at Gyeongju. With no regard towards how they were going to get their boats back to the water—let alone all of the people who must have drowned in the flooding that such a tsunami would have brought with it, the Wa set up outside the Silla capital. The King of Silla, seeing such an overwhelming force, immediately capitulated, with no fighting at all. Next thing that you know, badda-bing, badda-boom, Tarashi Hime is planting her staff at the gates of Silla’s capital and Silla and Baekje are both sending tribute to Yamato. With Silla conquered, Tarashi Hime gets back in her boats (which probably had to be hauled back out to the ocean), and she’s sailing home.
Mission Accomplished. I’m sure that everything worked out fine.
Except that clearly there was much more to it than that. After all, when Tarashi Hime’s husband, the former sovereign, Naka tsu Hiko, died, the Yamato soldiers were still engaged with the Kumaso, and even if they wanted to obey the will of the kami they would need to disengage and regroup. Furthermore, they would need ships to take them across the straits in sufficient numbers to be effective. All of this is just glossed over in the Kojiki, but Tarashi Hime and Takechi no Sukune must have been working diligently to get everything ready.
Sure enough, in the Nihon Shoki, we see more of these details. Tarashi Hime first off puts Kamo no Wake, an ancestor of the Kibi no Omi, in charge of prosecuting the war against the Kumaso so she can attend to other matters. This he seems to take care of handily. But then, there were still a few out there defying Yamato authority, and Tarashi Hime didn’t want to leave to conquer the peninsula just to come back to some mess at home, and so she dealt with a few others before really heading out.
The first of these distractions is really fantastical. There was a fellow in a place called Notorita who was completely ignoring Yamato. He had a powerful frame, but more than that, he had wings. Yes, actual wings—at least according to the Chronicle, who names him as Hashiro Kumawashi, or “White-Feather Bear-Eagle”. I wonder if he was any relation to Chief Bear-Shark, that is: Kumawani? Anyway, this Bird Man of Notorita was apparently weighing on Tarashi Hime’s mind, so she went to Notorita and smote him. We aren’t exactly told how, but apparently she handled her business. And the proof of that? Well, there aren’t any birdmen flying around Japan today, are there?
Seriously, though, this is where I’m probably supposed to mention that he was just a chieftain and perhaps there was some totemic thing going on with birds, and the whole thing got wildly out of control. There is an ancient form of wooden armor that some people have suggested was supposed to represent wings on the backs of a warrior, but I find that a bit of a stretch. Truth is, we don’t have any evidence to corroborate this, really, and this is the only source I know of for the tale.
Next up is the rather mundane story of Tarashi Hime defeating the Tsuchigumo in the Yamato district of Tsukushi—later Chikugo. It is said that she killed Tabura tsu Hime, and when Tabura tsu Hime’s older brother, Natsuha, heard about it, he scrapped his idea of raising an army against Tarashi Hime and decided to flee, which was probably the best course of action for him. Again, this is probably demonstrative of various fighting that was going on in the archipelago as part of the process—intentional or otherwise—to unite the islands under a single government, though clearly there was still plenty of independence. Assuming that others recognized Yamato’s hegemony it may have been something more like Primus Inter Pares—the first among equals—rather than a purely dictatorial authority.
By the way, I’m not sure why the Kami didn’t get on Tarashi Hime’s case for all of these apparent side quests. Wasn’t she supposed to go and subdue Korea? But, whatever. Who can say why the kami do one thing or another.
Regardless, it seems that Tarashi Hime was finally ready. Well, almost. This was a large undertaking, and one shouldn’t embark on such a campaign without a little divination to ensure that it would be victorious. Of course, this wasn’t some kind of scapulimancy or plastrimancy—that is, burning deer scapulae or turtle shells and reading the cracks. No, in this case, it took the form of several ukehi—the oath-style divination.
First up, Tarashi Hime put a piece of boiled rice on a hook and made the claim that if she was able to catch a fish then that would indicate that she would also achieve victory. Sure enough, as she cast her line into the Ogawa river in Matsura, on the western side of Kyushu, a fish bit the line and she pulled it up. Apparently this is something that was repeated by women in the area every year as part of a festival, commemorating the event.
Next, Tarashi Hime set aside a sacred rice field and tilled it in anticipation of victory. She had an irrigation channel dug all the way to the Hill of Todoroki, where she planned to divert water from the Nakagawa river. However, the engineering crew encountered a seemingly insurmountable obstacle when they ran into a giant boulder. Tarashi Hime, the sovereign who had smote the mighty birdman of Notorita—and, fair warning, I’m probably going to just keep bringing that up—was not concerned. She had Takechi no Sukune pray to the kami of Heaven and Earth while she presented a mirror and a sword as offerings. Sure enough, out of the sky came a bolt of lightning that split the rock asunder, allowing the water to flow through. This was known as the Sakuta Channel.
Finally, at the Bay of Kashihi, Tarashi Hime got into the water and made the prediction that if the campaign would be a success, her hair would naturally part in two. Sure enough, as she lay down in the water the currents naturally took her hair and split it into two, which she then tied up in the fashion of a man—in fact, the Chronicles claim that she purposely donned the outfit of a man at this point in order to lead men into battle. Of course, that could just be the Chroniclers borrowing from some Chinese stories to help make things that more epic for their readers, or it could be the fact that, other than perhaps where it sits on the hips, armor doesn’t really care that much about how your body looks, let alone what pronouns you use, and generally provides everyone the same basic profile.
So kitted out in her armor, and with all of the omens pointing to “yes, do this thing already,” do you think Tarashi Hime was ready?
Of course not.
Apparently, despite everything else, they were having trouble raising enough ships for the voyage. And having an army is all well and good, but if you don’t have ships, well, that’s an awfully long way to swim. Of course, as with many things during this period, the answer isn’t just “build more ships”, but rather to address the real problem: Figuring out which kami you need to properly appease. In this case it was the kami of Ohomiwa, who perhaps hadn’t been feeling much love since the sovereigns had largely buggered off to everywhere *except* Yamato, recently. Tarashi Hime offered Ohomiwa no Kami a sword and a spear, and that seems to have done the trick. With Ohomiwa’s divine blessing they were able to raise the ships and the men and get things underway.
Except for one other thing. You may recall that the Kami who were spiritually financing this conquest had killed Tarashi Naka tsu Hiko, but had then said that the lands of the Korean peninsula would be given to the unborn child in Tarashi Hime’s womb. That’s right, Tarashi Hime wasn’t just going about all of this in the moment of her grief, she was also doing it while *pregnant*. However, she had no time to be giving birth—she had land to go and conquer. And so she performed a ritual where she attached two white rocks around her waist—some even say in her nether regions—and made another ukehi, praying: “let my delivery be in this land on the day that I return and our enterprise is at an end.”
Apparently those two stones were then set beside the road in Ito, where people would worship at them as they passed by. They were eventually stolen, but there are plenty of references to their miraculous power. These weren’t small stones, either—they were apparently about one to two shaku in length—so about half a meter or so.
Anyway, whew, finally! All of the prayers and divinations had been made, all of the ships and men were gathered, and Tarashi Hime’s pregnancy was put on a supernatural pause. It was time to go out and see what they could find.
The exact route of the journey isn’t mentioned, but it isn’t hard to guess just where they went, hopping from island to island until they got to Tsushima, and they departed from the bay of Wani for the territory of Silla. The Nihon Shoki, just as in the Kojiki, claims that the Yamato ships were borne on the backs of the fish and beasts of the sea, and they were aided by the Sea-god and the Wind-god—though the phrasing of the latter looks more like a Chinese phrase than something from Japan. As with the Kojiki, they were carried halfway into the territory of Silla, catching their prey largely unawares. When the King of Silla saw this, he immediately capitulated, waving a white flag, which is apparently a universal signal. Then he came out of the gates with his hands tied behind his back in a form of submission, just as we saw the Emishi chiefs do when they surrendered to Yamato Takeru. Tarashi Hime graciously accepted his surrender and made the King of Silla into her “forage provider”—basically the position of a lowly servant.
Now with such an entrance, word got around the peninsula, and Baekje and Goguryeo, the other two major powers at the time, sent spies to check out the Yamato army. They were so impressed by its size that they decided not to fight. Instead, they submitted to Yamato and agreed to send tribute of their own.
With things well in hand, Tarashi Hime headed back to Japan in triumph.
And that’s it, that’s the conquest of Korea. Except, well… maybe not? Let’s see if we can get past the story and into what may have been actually happening.
Now I have both been looking forward to and dreading getting into all of this here and the next few episodes. I’ve been looking forward to them because they cover an extremely dynamic part of the Chronicles and the history of the archipelago, and there is some actual documentation to attach it to on the peninsula. In fact, from here on out we’ll be getting into what we can reliably call the “historical” period for Japan, as they’ll soon start keeping their own records. On the other hand, as we make the transition from oral to written history, the boundary zone is rather like two rivers coming together, and occasionally the eddies and whirlpools of the narrative may bring us forward or backwards in time, so we get events verified by other sources, but well outside of their appropriate period. This leaves us with a quandary or two. For my part, I’ll try to keep the 4th and 5th century chronology consistent with what we know from continental sources, and then I’m using a bit of shorthand to otherwise line up events here. You see, in the reigns of Okinaga Tarashi Hime and her son, Homuda Wake, we often have direct quotes from mainland sources. The Chinese quotes are from the Weizhi, and these are clearly referencing Himiko—which I would argue could not be Tarashi Hime. However, because the chroniclers were trying to add years to the royal lineage, Tarashi Hime’s reign is given as probably about a century and a half too early—they are claiming dates that correspond to about 200-269, but describing events that seem much more likely to have been occurring from about 340-375 CE. In fact, the entries that correspond with known events in the Korean annals—particularly those of the country of Baekje—appear to correlate by exactly 120 years.
Now we won’t get into all the complexities of ancient Asian dating systems here—I’ll leave that for the blogpost—but suffice it to say that there was a 60 year, or sexagenary, cycle. It was actually 5 cycles of 12. Every series of 12 corresponds with one of the 12 zodiac animals you see on the placemat at many Chinese restaurants, and then each of those was paired with the five elements: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood. In total, this creates 60 unique year designations. These were used with the name of the reigning monarch to determine what year it was, and together they create a means of recording what happened in what years of any given reign. Once you know the reign orders and lengths, you should be able to correlate them to an absolute date. What the Chroniclers have done is added two cycles of 60 into their calculations somewhere, so that they are placing the events from the Baekje sources in the correct place to match up with that 60 year cycle, but just two cycles too early. Eventually those will start to marry up over the next series of reigns.
By the way, we do have at least two other pieces of corroborating evidence for this period. The first is a large stone pillar, or stele, known as the Gwaangaetto Stele, and it tells the story of the reign of King Gwangaetto the Great of Goguryeo. It is notable because it was erected in the 5th century, not long after the events that it records, but most of the events described occured at the very tail end of the 4th century and early into the 5th. The other piece of evidence that we have is a strange, seven-branched sword, which appears to have been given to the Japanese sovereign by the country of Baekje and it has an actual date in the inscription. This will come into play as we try to assess what is happening when. Unfortunately, none of these artifacts really give us the names of the Yamato sovereigns, so while we can verify that the events took place, who was actually on the throne is still a bit of an issue.
There is one more thing that we should pull out into the open here, and that’s the controversy surrounding this whole story. Nationalist scholars in pre-war Japan took it as a given that this story proved, conclusively, that Japan had subjugated Korea and therefore were justified in reasserting their control over the peninsula in modern times. Furthermore, when Japan occupied Korea in the early 20th century, and while they were propping up the puppet state of Manchu-kuo, many nationalist scholars used the Gwangaetto stele—which has numerous mentions of the Wa fighting on the peninsula—as evidence that Yamato was a major player in peninsular politics. On the flip side of this, many of the characters have been worn down with time and are illegible, and there are accusations against the Japanese army that they enhanced the inscription so that it would read more favorably based on their interpretations. While other, independent scholars have attested to the authenticity of the inscription as it is generally known, there are still different interpretations over exactly what it says, given the still missing characters. Still, it is a valuable resource given its proximity to the events in question.
To many of the pre-war Japanese scholars, the events of Tarashi Hime’s reign culminated not only in the subjugation of the peninsula, but in the establishment of a Yamato colony, known in Japanese as Mimana—or Imna in modern Korean. This was effectively treated as known fact, and knowledge of Tarashi Hime by her posthumous name: “Jinguu Kougou” was fairly well known. That said, the actual location and even existence of Mimana-slash-Imna has been hotly contested on all sides. However, I want to leave it off to the side for the time being. After all, nowhere in the narrative on Tarashi Hime’s conquest have we yet mentioned “Mimana”, and though various scholars have attempted to situate it in these earliest stories, it just isn’t clearly there, yet. That’s not to say that there wasn’t some place called Mimana, or Imna, or perhaps more appropriately “Nimna”, the contemporary Chinese reading for the character. The name even shows up on the Gwangaetto Stele, but if such a place as Nimna did exist, we don’t have any record of exactly where it was, nor what their leadership, culture, or ethnicity may have looked like. Many equate it with the polity in Gimhae known as Geumgwan Gaya [check spelling and pronunciation!], but even that seems to be conjecture at this point and not confirmed fact..
Of course, many scholars—especially Korean scholars—have pushed back against this interpretation of events. They claim that Japan never conquered anything, though they may have raided the coast quite a bit—especially the coast of Silla. Also, it is unclear whether or not the “Wa” mentioned in those ancient accounts had anything to do with the polity in Yamato in the archipelago. Were they armies sent by a strong central government? Or were they raiding parties from individual groups—most likely in Kyushu or even on the peninsula itself—who were operating independent of any larger state system? I wonder if it wasn’t a little bit of both, but I’ll talk about that in a bit.
There was also a push by Japanese scholars to reexamine the Chronicles. In the pre-war period, even the suggestion that there were problems with the official imperial genealogy could bring accusations of lese majeste and there were actual trials early on. This brought on a backlash as some scholars claimed that everything from Jimmu to Oujin—or in our case, Iware Biko to Homuda Wake—was a fiction created by the court to prop up the Yamato royal lineage. Because of the dates in the Nihon Shoki, and the Wei Chronicles talking about an early 3rd century female ruler in Japan, the Chroniclers somehow had to fit Tarashi Hime into the narrative. And so she is given credit for the work of Himiko, but they also layered on the various stories of attacks on the Korean peninsula and the birth and ascension of Homuda Wake. There is even the belief that some of the stories should be attributed to much later female sovereigns. Now, I think by now you know where I stand on this—somewhere generally in the middle—but just know that there are still some people who believe that Tarashi Hime herself is entirely fictional.
And then there is one other area that I want to address, which completely turns all of this on its head. This is the idea that the story of the conquest of Korea is actually *backwards*. It isn’t the story of Yamato conquering Silla, but rather the story of Baekje conquering Yamato. Yes, you heard that correctly. This theory holds that Tarashi Hime—if she existed—as well as Tarashi Nakatsu Hiko were actually from the continent. Eventually Tarashi Hime fought her way to Japan and all the way to Yamato where she put her son, Homuda Wake, on the throne. According to this theory, later Japanese sovereigns reversed things and added this story about the conquest to cover up their own lineage as Baekje nobles. This usually goes hand-in-hand with the “horse-rider” theory of Egami Namio, formulated around 1949, and later supported by Gari Ledyard in a paper in 1975. Namio’s theory points to the lack of horse-riding gear in the early archaeological record, up through the 4th century, and then its sudden explosion across the peninsula in the 5th century, and suggests that this was because Buyeo nobles from Baekje had arrived with their cavalry and these horse-riders had easily defeated the unmounted soldiers of Yamato. This theory has largely been denounced—in large part due to the archaeological evidence—but it still has some adherents.
As you can see, and as we’ve discussed previously, interpretations of the past can be influenced by modern thoughts and opinions, so let’s try to be aware of our own as we approach the material. I know this was long and involved, but I think it is necessary to really dig into some of this stuff.
Personally, as I mentioned, I find at least a grain of truth in most of these perspectives. Is Tarashi Hime completely mythical? I don’t know that I’m prepared to go that far, but clearly a lot of what is attributed to her is either anachronistic or clearly belongs to someone else’s story. There is also the fantastical nature of many of her exploits, even moreso than Yamato Takeru in places—and he was fighting off gods left and right. So I think we can tone down the rhetoric a bit, but that doesn’t mean she was not some sort of historical personage, or at least representing some person that was important enough to be remembered. So we’ll try to untangle a bit of what we know, but we can only go with the information presented to us.
Let’s start with the so-called invasion of Korea, which is really at the crux of what makes Tarashi Hime so controversial, given Japan’s later actions on the peninsula, including the invasion by Hideyoshi and the occupation in the early 20th century. One would think that such a massive undertaking as conquest of the peninsula would have found its way into the Korean records. Now, Aston was regularly checking his translation of the Nihon Shoki against the Dongguk Tonggam, a 16th century history of Korea that pulled together various other accounts, and I’ve also been checking against English translations of the Samguk Sagi and the Samguk Yusa, specifically the Silla, Baekje, and Goguryeo annals. None of them has anything that comes close to the scale of assault that we could really refer to as subjugation, or even direct Yamato control of anything on the peninsula at all.
The Korean histories, especially the Silla Annals, have contact with the Wa people noted as far back as 50 BCE. Of course, I have a hard time accepting that, since that is a mythical time even for the Korean histories, where founders are being born out of eggs and that sort of thing. Still, let’s take a look at the references and see what we find, realizing the dates are probably a little out of whack, at least until we get into the mid-4th century.
In Silla’s early history we see a Lord Ho serving the king who was originally from Wa. This in the time of Mahan, the confederacy that was eventually subsumed by the Kingdom of Baekje,
Early on, Wa sent 100 ships to plunder the homes of people on the eastern sea coast. Later, Silla established good ties with the Wa, but it wasn’t too long until the Wa invaded the island of Mokchul. Silla sent someone to defend the islands, but to no avail, and their general was killed. Then, the Wa came back and invaded the East Coast with such ferocity that only a year later there was a rumor that the Wa had returned in quote-unquote “great numbers”, causing people to abandon their villages and hide up in the mountains until they realized it was just a rumor.
Some time after all of that, Wa sent a “courtesy visit” to Silla. Later they claim that in 173 the Silla king entertained an envoy from Himiko. This entry is suspect—it seems to make an assumption based on the Weizhi and possibly using a later envoy from the Japanese court in 712. It is clear that, even though the early sources they were drawing from may have been referencing different polities all as “Wa”, by the time the Samguk Sagi was put together the Chroniclers just assumed that all of these were from the Kingdom of Yamato, generally accepting Japan’s own claims to an ancient state.
The entry for 193 is interesting in that it mentions refugees from Wa coming to ask for food because of some kind of epidemic. I’m reminded of the epidemic during the time of Mimaki Iribiko, but it isn’t clear that the two are actually related. Of course, a little more than a decade later the Wa are invading the borders of Silla and the Six Districts—which likely references the six communities that came together to form ancient Silla. Silla sent a general against them and he seems to have been successful.
In 232, it is said that the Wa “unexpectedly” showed up, surrounding the Silla capital at Gyeongju. The king personally went to fight them, and they scattered. Silla sent cavalry to pursue them, capturing a thousand of their troops. It apparently did not stop the Wa from attacking, though, as they would invade and raid the eastern coast the following year until Silla fought them at a place called Sado, setting fire to their ships.
Then, in 287, the Silla annals claim the Wa raided Illye district and set it on fire, capturing a thousand people and taking them with them—probably as slaves, given what we have seen in similar conflicts.
In 292, the Wa attacked and defeated Sado fortress, where they had previously been defeated, and two years later they attacked Changbong fortress, though they were unable to capture it.
In 295, apparently fed up with the raiding by the Wa, the King of Silla suggested working with Baekje to attack the Wa across the sea, but his ministers suggested against it. For one thing, they didn’t feel they could trust Baekje to hold up their end of the bargain, as Baekje had proven themselves deceitful many times over, at least from the Silla point of view. Furthermore, Silla didn’t really have a navy and they weren’t used to naval warfare, unlike the Wa, who seem to have been masters at it. This really sounds like the Wa really owned the sea lanes, early on. Those tables would be turned centuries later, but not right now. This may be why, five years later, Silla agreed to exchange envoys with the Wa, to try to find peace and put a stop to the raids. Indeed, in 312, the Silla Annals claim that Wa even sent an envoy proposing marriage to one of the King’s sons. The court responded by sending a noblewoman, the daughter of a man of the rank of Achan named Geumri. Thirty years later, the King of Wa supposedly requested the hand of the King of Silla’s daughter, but Silla refused because she was already married. A year later, the Wa formally severed ties, and the year after that the Wa suddenly showed up at Pungdo Island, where they plundered the households and then advanced inland. They surrounded the capital of Gyeongju and quickly attacked. The King of Silla wanted to sally forth with his troops, but his ministers cautioned against it, instead suggesting that they wait out the siege. Sure enough, the Wa supply lines were too long, and they ran out of provisions, causing the Wa to leave. This was in the year 346, so plausibly within the historical period.
There are other attacks, such as the ones in 364 and 393, but we’ll go over those in time. For now I want to focus on these entries in the Silla Annals not because I necessarily believe them in their entirety—I certainly am not ready to give credence to their dates—but I think it definitely demonstrates that by the latter part of the fourth century we see that there is a history between the peninsula and the Wa—and I think it is fair to assume that this includes the Wa on the archipelago.
The first thing that pops out is that there is no mention of actual submission by Silla, but there are moments where they send envoys to broker peace. It is important to remember that Silla would eventually unify the peninsula and so successive dynasties would likely not want to write down any indication of Silla as a subjugated state. And it is unlikely, in my opinion, that they ever were, completely.
The analogy that actually springs to mind for me is that of the British Isles during the raids of the Norsemen—commonly referred to as Vikings, or, more specifically, “going Viking”, aka going on a raid. I see a lot of similarities with a group of able seamen and warriors who could apparently raid and plunder the eastern coast of the peninsula more or less with abandon. There are fewer examples, however, of the Wa rounding the south and west coasts—possibly because the naval forces of the ethnic Han peoples in the south would not have countenanced such piracy, and the Wa were probably keen to stay on the good side of the commanderies, at least until they fell in the early 4th century.
Also like the Norse raiders along the coasts of England, Ireland, and Scotland, I suspect, that the ships the Wa sailed in were not just built for the sea, but could likely be rowed upstream through the various river systems to deploy troops deep inside Silla territory. This is based on the examples we have from haniwa and a handful of other depictions. That could account for how the Wa were getting all the way to the Silla capital, and could also explain the note in the Chronicles about them getting “halfway into the country” quickly and rapidly.
Furthermore, like with the Viking raids against England, the Wa seem to have excelled on the sea. This is unsurprising for people living largely on and amongst islands, whereas Silla and others were probably more practiced fighting on land.
And, one more possible similarity with the Viking raids on England—it is possible that Silla ended up buying them off. This isn’t exactly mentioned anywhere, but it could explain the two different views of the situation. From the Wa standpoint, they really want the goods—which, in the case of the chronicles, they frame as “tribute” being paid to them. However, it isn’t as if Silla were truly under their thumb once they departed, and there is no indication that there was any kind of actual control exerted on the peninsula beyond this desire for tribute-slash-bribery, but that is contextualized in the language of Empire—the language of the Sinitic chronicles that are their template for how such stories are supposed to go.
It may be the case that warriors from Yamato were trading with the peninsula, and when they felt they couldn’t get what they wanted that way, they may have used violence to take things that they felt they needed. This may have even led to forms of payment from peninsular groups and attempts to ally, such as through the traditional practice of marriage alliances that were so prevalent on the archipelago.
Because of all this, I have no problem believing that there was a sovereign—perhaps a female sovereign—who rallied the troops of Yamato and various other provinces and led them on a raid against the continental kingdom of Silla. This probably wasn’t the first such expedition, and it wouldn’t be the last. They may have even had practice raiding various coastal settlements in ways that just never made it into any histories, oral or otherwise. Riding across the waves in their boats, using their paddles to pull them across the straits, they skirted the coastline, possibly picking up others for their raiding party. Eventually they made their way upriver and inland, likely pillaging as they went, and eventually arriving at the Silla capital of Gyeongju. There they may have fought, or it may have been a siege or similar standoff between the various sides. Eventually, the King of Silla may have even met with them under a white flag and offered to send some sort of payment if they would leave. They were likely speaking different languages, and so any negotiations would have required interpreters, and, just as often happens today, the terms of any negotiation may have been conveyed slightly differently in each language. I can imagine a proud Tarashi Hime and Takechi no Sukune returning to their forces probably with some amount of treasure and claiming victory over Silla. I can see the King of Silla spinning the retreat of the Wa forces as a victory in their own right. Each confident that they had come out the victor—or at least that’s how they would make sure it was remembered, at least.
But what about Baekje and Goguryeo? It seems obvious that this was really just between Yamato and Silla at this point. We’ll get to Baekje, shortly, and Goguryeo some time after that, but at this point in the story, we are mostly talking about Silla and Yamato.
There is one more item from the Chronicles that I admittedly skipped over, but I think it would be relevant, here, and these are in some of those “other sources say…” kind of comments that pepper the Nihon Shoki, especially in the more mythical chapters that likely started as purely oral tradition. This has to do with the story of Prince Uro. There are two of these “other sources” stories I’m going to talk about, and then I’ll discuss the parallels we see in the Korean sources.
The first variant from the Nihon Shoki says that the person whom Okinaga Tarashi Hime met was a Prince by the name of Urusoborichiu, who submitted to the Yamato forces, whom some suspect may be a reference to the story of Uro, whose rank in modern Korean reads as “Seoburhan” or “Seopulya”. Could Uru-Soboritiu be the same as Uro Seoburhan?
The second variant doesn’t give the Prince a name, but expands on the story a lot more. In this telling, Tarashi Hime captured a Silla Prince and she had his kneecaps removed and had him crawl along the rocks until she finally slew him. She then installed a governor over Silla and headed back to Yamato. Now the wife of the prince cajoled the governor into telling her where her husband, the Prince, had been buried. Once he told her, she exhumed the body and raised up the people and killed the governor. When Tarashi Hime heard of all of this she was especially wroth and raised another army to punish Silla. The people, afraid of what that would mean, killed the late Prince’s wife to appease Tarashi Hime’s anger.
Again, I wouldn’t exactly take this story at face value for a variety of reasons, but there is some interesting correlation with the Korean records, specifically some events that are described as happening around the year 249. At this point, it’s doubtful that Silla and Baekje even existed as anything other than small parts of the larger confederacies, but we’ve already talked about how time is somewhat flexible in these retellings. So these events could have happened much later, and it could also be the case that the Japanese Chroniclers had access to these records from Silla and Baekje and were inserting the stories they thought were best to bolster the tale of Tarashi Hime.
So, here’s how the Korean records talk about this situation. It turns out there was a Prince named Uro listed in the Silla Annals. He is at one point referenced as the Crown Prince, and helped lead soldiers of the Six Districts of Silla to aid Kara. Despite being named as Crown Prince, he never actually seems to have attained the throne, but he did become a general and had other military successes and became the chief minister of military affairs in Silla by 244. A year later, however, he led troops on an unsuccessful raid against Goguryeo, where the Silla troops had to withdraw to a defense barricade at Madu.
Now it seems in this time there were at least semi-amicable relations between Silla and Yamato, because the Tonggam has an account in 249 of a Wa ambassador named “Kalyako”—possibly Katsuraki no So tsu Hiko, or someone similar. The King asked Prince Uro to entertain this ambassador, and at one point Uro mockingly told the ambassador that “sooner or later we shall make your King our salt-slave and your Queen our cook-wench.” As soon as this got back to the King of Wa, he was understandably upset and he sent an army to invade Silla. The King of Silla retreated to Yuchhon, while Prince Uro made his way to the invading Wa forces to apologize. Apparently words were not enough, and so the men of Wa seized Prince Uro and burned him on a pile of firewood and then left.
Later, another ambassador was sent to Silla. This time, the wife of the late Prince Uro asked to be allowed to entertain him. She got the ambassador away from his retinue, got him quite drunk, and when he was senseless she seized him and burnt him in the same manner that the Wa had burnt her husband. The Wa again attacked and besieged the Silla capital at Gyeongju, but they were unsuccessful.
Now, as with the other parts of this story, we can see how the Silla and Yamato accounts have some similarities, including names of the Prince and others involved, and various other details, such as the story of the wife taking revenge. In Yamato they conflate an ambassador or envoy with a governor, and they don’t mention the outcome of the retaliatory strike. I tend to put a little more faith in the Silla account, as it seems rather believable, but I suspect that the date of 249 CE is probably much earlier than any such event actually happened.
By the way, the Silla Annals in the Samguk Sagi, from which we get some of Prince Uro’s earlier life, also mentions the fateful year of 249, but without much embellishment. All it really gives us is that the Wa killed Seoburhan Uro, presumably in battle, but nothing more is given. It is an odd corroboration, if minimal.
For now, I think that gets us through the so-called Conquest of Korea, but don’t worry, there is plenty more fun to be had over the next episodes. We’ll see an alliance with Baekje and then we’ll continue to address the events on the Gwangaetto Stele. We’ll also talk about how writing first came to the archipelago. This really is an exciting, if confusing, period in Japanese history.
Next episode, however, we have more pressing concerns, and we’ll talk about Tarashi Hime’s son, Homuda Wake, and the succession crisis that she faced when she returned to the archipelago, focusing our attention briefly back on events in Yamato before again looking outward.
So, until next time, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate through our KoFi site, kofi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the link over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Questions or comments? Feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.
That’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Yōko, I. (2019). Revisiting Tsuda Sōkichi in Postwar Japan: “Misunderstandings” and the Historical Facts of the Kiki. Japan Review, (34), 139-160. Retrieved April 24, 2021, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/26864868
Ō, Yasumaro, & Heldt, G. (2014). The Kojiki: An account of ancient matters. ISBN978-0-231-16389-7
Yoshie, A., Tonomura, H., & Takata, A.A. (2013). Gendered Interpretations of Female Rule: The Case of Himiko, Ruler of Yamatai. U.S.-Japan Women's Journal 44, 3-23. doi:10.1353/jwj.2013.0009.
Barnes, G. (2006). Women in the "Nihon Shoki" (4 parts). Durham East Asia Papers, No. 20.
Bentley, John. (2006). The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi: a New Examination of Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. ISBN-90-04-152253
Lee, Jaehoon (2004). The Relatedness Between the Origin of Japanese and Korean Ethnicity. Florida State Univeristy Libraries, Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations. https://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fsu:181538/datastream/PDF/download/citation.pdf
Allen, C. (2003). Empress Jingū: a shamaness ruler in early Japan. Japan Forum, 15(1), 81–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/0955580032000077748
Allen, C. T. (2003). Prince Misahun: Silla's Hostage to Wa from the Late Fourth Century. Korean Studies, 27(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1353/KS.2005.0002
Philippi, D. L. (1968). Kojiki. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN4-13-087004-1
Edwards, W. (1983). Event and Process in the Founding of Japan: The Horserider Theory in Archeological Perspective. Journal of Japanese Studies, 9(2), 265-295. doi:10.2307/132294
Chamberlain, B. H. (1981). The Kojiki: Records of ancient matters. Rutland, Vt: C.E. Tuttle Co. ISBN4-8053-0794-3
Ledyard, G. (1975). Galloping along with the Horseriders: Looking for the Founders of Japan. Journal of Japanese Studies, 1(2), 217-254. doi:10.2307/132125
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4

Episode 39: Birth of the Three Kingdoms

April 16, 2021 Joshua Badgley

Royal tombs of the Silla Kings. While they also built mounds for their kings’ final resting places, there were many differences in construction between the ones here at on the archipelago, but both indicate their culture’s desire to memorialize eli… — Royal tombs of the Silla Kings. While they also built mounds for their kings’ final resting places, there were many differences in construction between the ones here at on the archipelago, but both indicate their culture’s desire to memorialize elite personages, even in death.

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This episode, as Okinaga Tarashi Hime is preparing her troops to cross the straits and seek out the land of “gold and silver” that the kami have promised her, we’ll take a moment to look at the peninsula and just what has been going on over there in the late 3rd to early 4th centuries, because this is when we see the peninsula enter into the Three Kingdoms period, with the countries of Baekje and Silla rising to meet the elder state of Goguryeo and becoming kingdoms in their own right.

Before we get too much into that, let me address a few things.

First, I don’t speak Korean, and so my apologies up front if I butcher any of these names. I’ll do the best I can. Also, on the spelling: There are various ways of turning Hangul, the Korean writing system, into Latin characters. So sometimes you’ll see Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla, and sometimes you’ll see Koguryo, Paekche, and Silla. For the most part I’ll be using the Revised Romanization (Gug-eoui Romaja Pyogibeop) as opposed to the McCune-Reischauer system, but since I’m not always familiar with things, forgive me if I slip up from time to time.

A general idea of the locations of the Samhan, or Three Han, of the Korean Peninsula. Map by Idh0854, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

So where are all these places we are talking about? Well, let’s first look at the location of the Samhan, or Three Han. By the way, it can get very confusing because generally I use “Han” in the meaning of the ethnic Han people in the area that is, today, modern China, including the various empires that were inspired by them (though those empires were not always properly “Han” in that context). (漢 / 汉) However “Han” is also the reading of the character that the old chronicles, like the Wei Chronicles, used to discuss three of the groups on the Kroean peninsula, and it also happens to be the term used in Korean for Korea itself (韓). For the most part, if I’m talking about the “Han” I’ll be referring to those people who came over from the areas of modern China, and not the early inhabitants of the peninsula.

Now exactly where these groups were is vague. It isn’t like anyone laid out a geographic map with borders. And there were other groups as well on the peninsula, even though we mostly concern ourselves with these three. So the map here gives a rough approximation of their location. The Commanderies would have been above them, to the north, and then the states of Okjeo, Goguryeo, and Buyeo beyond that.

Map of the Korean Peninsula showing the Three Kingdoms and Gaya. This is roughly showing the extent of the kingdoms in about 476. Used under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

After Goguryeo defeats the commanderies, and pushes them off of the peninsula, then the three kingdoms are able to take over most of the peninsula. The map here is actually of the borders in about 476—so about a hundred years after the time we are discussing—but it gives a general idea of where we are talking about. Of all of these, I’d say that Goguryeo probably has the most dramatic shift in borders. Then again, being at the northern end of the peninsula with access to the Manchurian massif and the Eurasian steppes, they have the greatest ability to expand, but also face the most threats in the form of other actors encroaching on their borders, while in the rest of the peninsular kingdoms they have at least one back to the ocean.

And, remember, other than Goguryeo, the Kingdoms generally weren’t being written about until after the fall of the Commanderies, and so we don’t exactly have great records for their full extent until much later.

Inscribed bricks (Goguryeo)

Bricks inscribed with writing from the 3rd century in Goguryeo, indicating the presence of some kind of written culture. From the Seoul National Museum.

Oracle bones

Oracle bones from SW Korean peninsula, near modern Haenam. Oracle bones in Shang times or earlier may have actually been the earliest use of Sinitic writing, but it didn’t necessarily require a written culture to “read” the cracks, as it were. Still, it shows some similarities with the scapulamancy practiced in the archipelago. From the Seoul National Museum.

Shield Decorations (Gaya)

4th C bronze decorations found in Gaya and also in Japan from very early centuries. It is thought that they were probably used on wooden shields, but the exact nature of their usage is unknown. From the Seoul National Museum.

Iron armor (Silla)

3rd-4th C iron cuirass. From the Seoul National Museum.

Iron cuirass (Silla)

Iron cuirass from a 4th C Silla tomb. Gyeongju National Museum.

Iron neck armor (Silla)

Rear view of a 4th C piece of neck armor—part of a larger suit. From the Gyeongju National Museum.

Iron cuirass (Silla)

Iron cuirass from a 4th C Silla tomb. Gyeongju National Museum.

Iron helmet (Silla)

Iron helmet found in a 4th C Silla tomb. From Gyeongju National Museum.

Iron helmet (Silla)

Rear view of an iron helmet from a 4th C Silla tomb. Gyeongju National Museum.

Iron socketed spearheads (Silla)

3rd-4th C iron, socketed spearheads. From the Seoul National Museum.

Iron socketed spearhead (Silla)

4th C iron socketed spearheads. Gyeongju National Musem.

Iron horse bit

4th C horse bit, indicating presence of horses on the peninsula. The archipelago seems to have still been working without horses, for the most part. From the Gyeongju National Museum.

Iron horse bit (Silla)

Iron horse bit from a 4th C Silla Tomb. Gyeongju National Museum.

Crystal and Jade Necklace (Silla)

Necklace from the 3rd Century. From the Gyeongju National Museum.

Glass and Jade Neckalce (Silla)

3rd C necklace. Before gold and silver there were other materials used in Silla—and jade and glass would continue to be appreciated into later centuries. From the Gyeongju National Museum.

Gold earrings (Silla)

Gold earrings found in a 4th C Silla tomb.

Bird-shaped ewers

Bird shaped funerary pottery seems prevalent in the southern Korean peninsula. Could this be connected with the sotdae (birds on poles) and the story of the Silla founder being born from an egg? From the Seoul National Museum.

Halfmoon Fortress (Gyeongju)

Overgrown earthworks of the Halfmoon Fortress in Gyeongju.

Halfmoon Fortress, Gyeongju

Broken pieces of rock at the top of the tree-covered earthworks of Halfmoon Fortress in Gyeongju.

Halfmoon Fortress, Gyeongju

Modern approach to the tree-covered earthworks of the ancient Halfmoon Fortress in Gyeongju.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 39: The Birth of the Three Kingdoms.
Alright, so we’ve been dealing with the Chronicles up through the fourteenth sovereign, Tarashi Naka tsu Hiko, more popularly known as Chuuai Tennou. By my calculations, we are somewhere in the mid to latter 4th century, even if the Nihon Shoki claims we are just at the end of the 2nd century. This was a momentous time on the peninsula, seeing the rise of native rule after the fall of the Han Commanderies, and the events there were having rippling effects throughout both the peninsula and the islands. You know, it is so easy for us to assume that because Japan is an island nation that it was somehow disconnected from the events on the mainland, like the straits and seas were a moat that kept everyone out. And yet, while they certainly did allow Japan to maintain some distance, they were hardly an iron wall, and Japan was often impacted by what happened with her neighbors, especially as time went on and things were becoming more and more connected. In a way, you could see this as the natural extension of the connections that we are seeing mentioned in the Chronicles, with Yamato dominion having been extended from Tohoku in the northeast all the way to Kyushu.
In the 4th century, the archipelago seems to have had at least good trade relations with the Gaya kingdoms, as we’ve mentioned before. To recap, Gaya was a confederation of small states that may have even become a kingdom, based in the old Pyonhan area, one of the three groups of city-states, this one around Gimhae and the Nakdong River region. While not confirmed, I highly suspect that the Pyonhan were—or at least included—a peninsular Wa people, possibly speaking their own form of peninsular-Japonic. If that is the case, then the states of the Gaya confederacy might be seen as simply an extension of the culture that had spread with the Yayoi into the Japanese archipelago, though no doubt, over time, those on the peninsula would have had more blending and interaction with the other people there.
From what it looks like, the Korean peninsula at this time was a diverse region. You likely had Han Chinese, Japonic-speaking Wa people, as well as others, such as the Buyeo people in Goguryeo and Baekje. There were many other groups mentioned in the Annals and Histories, such as the Ye, the Maek, the Malgal, and others, though whether they had distinct linguistic traditions or were simply different political groups, it is hard to say. Since we don’t have any indigenous chronicles for them we are largely left to conjecture based on what others have written about them. But regardless of the cultural and linguistic diversity, in broad strokes we can talk about the formation of three main powers. I will emphasize that these strokes are necessarily broad—I think it would be awesome to do an in depth discussion of Korean history, but that just isn’t our main focus. So please don’t yell at me for skipping over your favorite story from this period—we have a lot to cover.
So the Three Kingdoms that we are focused on here are Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla. We’ve talked about the Gaya confederation some in the past, and we may touch on them, but really I want to talk about the reason why the 4th century is considered the start of the “Three Kingdoms” period on the peninsula. And no, these are not the same as the Three Kingdoms, or San-guo, of China. No Cao Cao with a duck on his head. Sorry. Though some of the peninsular aristocracy did have some totally bitchin’ headgear. I’m just saying.
I want to try to talk about these as best we can, and to do that we’ll be looking at some other sources, including the Korean chronicles of the Samguk Sagi and the Samguk Yusa, which tell the tales of the “Three Kingdoms” of Baekje, Goguryeo, and Silla. However, as sources go, we need to be aware that these are even further than the source material than the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki, having been written centuries later. The Samguk Sagi, or “history of the three kingdoms”, was commissioned by the Korean Goryeo dynasty, and compiled by Kim Busik in 1145. It seems that this largely drew on various extant chronicles that we no longer have and compiled them into a single work. In fact, the Nihon Shoki mentions various Korean annals that were referenced in its own compilation. One interesting note, though, it seems that Kim Busik didn’t try to integrate all of these into a single narrative. Rather, the annals of each kingdom are told largely separately, meaning it reads something like Kurosawa’s “Rashomon”—or even the original “In a Grove”—with several different perspectives on the same event.
The Samguk Yusa, or “Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms”, focuses more on the stories and less on the chronicled history. It was probably put together by a monk by the name of Iryeon in the 13th century, but that is a lot less clear.
Like the Japanese Chronicles, both of these were written entirely in a Korean form of Chinese, using Chinese characters for both meaning and pronunciation. On the other hand, they likely had reliable textual references dating back much earlier than the archipelago, given their proximity to the various continental empires. That means that the peninsula likely had a more robust literary culture than the islands seem to have had. After all, the peninsular kingdoms had been right on the border of Wei and Jin empires, and both they and the ethnic Han commanderies utilized writing for all sorts of purposes, including the administration of the state. Bordering states would have likely been expected to pay tribute or otherwise appease the commanderies and the court at Louyang of which they were an extension. As such, one can only assume that they ended up adopting and adapting the tools of statecraft that they knew, which would have included reading and writing.
In the archipelago, on the other hand, there is no indication of this same kind of literary tradition—definitely not to the same extent. It certainly may be the case that there were those who could read and write, at least enough to send correspondence to the Wei court, back in the time of Himiko, but it is unclear if that was actually the Wa themselves, or perhaps Han immigrants in their midst. There may have even been decorative or performative writing—that is, writing that was done more as a performance or decoration than for any actual communication. This may be what we are seeing when we catch glimpses of what could be Sinitic characters on clay pots and similar media early on. But there is no indication of widespread use nor of an understanding of writing as a means of supporting the government.
I mean, think about it for a moment. When you consider a government, what do you have? Sure, at the top you have the leaders and people making decisions, whether a king, a president, a prime minister, and various legislative and judicial bodies. But other than arguing, what do the majority of people in a government do? A lot of them are either collecting data on the state of the country and sending that to someone, or they are implementing the policies being directed down from the top. That is something that is possible to some extent without writing, but it quickly gets to be unwieldy. Sure, you can rely on a network of individuals, but how reliable are they?
So writing may not be absolutely essential for the formation of a state—look at the incredible Incan empire in the Americas—but it is certainly extremely helpful, especially when you are trying to govern large regions of territory. And some of the earliest writing is really about keeping track of stuff—inventory, taxes, etc.
So it is quite likely that the peninsular kingdoms had some form of literary traditions, no doubt based on what they had learned from their Han neighbors, though these weren’t always long traditions, and weren’t necessarily being used to document historical fact. After all, as just about anyone in IT can tell you, most people don’t exactly focus on documentation first and foremost. Baekje, for instance, was possibly just starting to really keep court records around the mid-4th century—which could also be because, despite the claims made about the state’s history, it was actually relatively new to the scene at that point, which we’ll talk about.
Now, just because they wrote things down doesn’t mean that their sources are any more or less infallible. Indeed, there is some consideration that the historiographical methods of the Japanese court, designed to promote the story of the royal family, was something that they came by honestly from their peninsular teachers. So we can’t exactly treat the Samguk Yusa nor the Samguk Sagi as accurate in all things. In fact, it is very clear that they seem to have postulated much earlier dates for some events than seems at all possible, and, like with the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, as the centuries progress they get more and more reliable.
But let’s actually get into the history of the Three Kingdoms, themselves.
We should probably start in the north, because while the rest of the peninsula was still divided up into the Samhan, or three Han, each of which was made up of multiple independent polities, up in the north you already had one of your first of these three Korean states. This was Goguryeo, or sometimes even just “Goryeo”, which is actually where the English name, “Korea” is derived. Goguryeo was largely at the head of the peninsula and expanded into the continent. While the territory governed by the state would vary, at its height it ranged from the area of Harbin, in modern China, and, at its height, south into the northern parts of modern-day South Korea, encompassing all of modern North Korea.
Now you may recall that we discussed Goguryeo previously, and their on-again, off-again relation with the Han Commanderies. Sure, the Wei loved Goguryeo when they were helping them to take down their rivals on the Liaodong peninsula, just to the West, but it didn’t take much for that alliance to break apart, especially once the other threats had been eliminated. When Goguryeo attempted to expand southward, hoping to get access to much needed farmland, the Wei saw that as a provocation dealt a considerable blow to Goguryeo, driving them from their capital city in 244.
Goguryeo was down, but not entirely out. A second Wei invasion in 259 seems to have turned out not quite so well for the Wei, and they were defeated at Yangmaenggok. Nonetheless, the damage to Goguryeo was significant, and it would be years before they were again a major threat to the Commanderies or anyone else on the peninsula.
In fact, during the 2nd half of the 3rd century, much of Goguryeo’s bloodshed was internal, within the royal court. This seems to have culminated in the last decade of that century in the rise to power of one of Goguryeo’s most ruthless kings, King Bongsang.
According to the stories we have, Bongsang was quite the disagreeable figure. Arrogant and downright paranoid. Of course, he may have had a reason to be worried, but largely those seem to be reasons of his own making. As soon as he rose to power in 292, he had his own uncle, Prince Anguk, executed. Now Prince Anguk wasn’t just some dandy with royal blood, but back during the previous reign, that of Bongsang’s father, he had been helping his brother, the king, defend Goguryeo. The man was a frickin’ war hero, and quite popular with the people. King Bongsang didn’t care, and being the paranoid and insecure man that he was, only saw this as a threat to his own power, so he had him labeled as a traitor and killed.
And of course that totally blew up in his face. Killing the beloved war hero--I mean, really, when has that really worked? Bongsang’s plan seems to have been that if he labelled him as disloyal then it would kill any support the people had for him, but instead Prince Anguk’s death seems to have only riled up the populace against the King. He turned him into a martyr.
As if that wasn’t enough, he would try again, only a year later. This time he accused his own younger brother of plotting against him, and he made him commit suicide.
Now his brother’s son—that is Bongsang’s nephew—clearly saw the writing on the wall and decided to get out of Dodge. Known as Prince Eulbul, he apparently took on the life of a servant to hide as a commoner, taking on various menial tasks and doing his best not to catch his uncle’s eye. And when I say menial, I mean it. At one point he was in a job where he was throwing rocks into a pond at night so that the frogs wouldn’t wake up his master. How’s that for a night shift? He actually ran away from that job to find one where he had to do more physical labor, but at least he wasn’t up all night on frog duty.
And while Prince Eulbul was trying to figure out what options were open to him now that “Prince” was apparently out of the question, things weren’t getting any better at the court, and eventually, the court itself had enough. Bongsang’s own prime minister, a man by the name of Chang Jori, resigned his position and, along with other disaffected ministers, he planned and executed a successful coup, overthrowing King Bongsang in 300 CE. King Bongsang and his two sons were both exiled, but they all committed suicide rather than go on frog duty, themselves.
With the throne empty, Chang Jori and the other ministers decided that they needed to find a new monarch, and so they instituted a search throughout the land, eventually tracking down Prince Eulbul. Of course, the Prince thought this might be a trick—he hadn’t exactly been plugged into court politics for the past eight years, and he tried to deny who he was, but eventually they explained to him the situation and he was reinstated and then enthroned as King. Posthumously known as King Micheon, he grew the Goguryeo military, and had an extremely successful career, being known as one of Goguryeo’s better rulers. He expanded back into the Liaodong peninsula, and turned his attention to the old Han Commanderies.
Now the Wei had long since fallen and given way to the Jin dynasty, but the Jin itself was in trouble and unable to provide the support to its outposts as it once did. Still, at the beginning of the 4th century, the peninsula was not exactly forgotten. In fact, political rivals were often sent to the commanderies as a form of exile, sending them to the very edges of the empire.
Nonetheless, the commanderies were not what they once were, and Goguryeo forces began to attack the representatives of Jin power on the peninsula. First they attacked and destroyed the Xuantu Commandery in 302, which was the northernmost of the three commanderies still on the peninsula. Later they annexed the Lelang and Daifang commanderies in 313 and 314, effectively ending any official Jin presence on the peninsula, though there remained some ethnic Han citizens who stayed and seemed to have thrived, at least through the middle of the 4th century. Han tombs and their contents tell us that even if the Commanderies were no longer present, it doesn’t mean that all of the Han were wiped out, and in fact some seem to have done quite well for themselves.
After the defeat of the Commanderies, Eulbul turned his attention largely to the west, where he spent much of his time embroiled in conflicts with the Xianbei in the area of the Liaodong Peninsula. This continued throughout Eulbul’s reign, right up until the king’s death in about 331 CE, and likely kept Goguryeo’s attention focused largely on their western neighbors, rather than on the peninsula itself.
Following Eulbul’s death his son, Sayu, came to the throne. He would posthumously be known as King Gogugwon. One of the first things he did was apparently expand the fortress at Pyongyang—and yes, that is the same Pyongyang as the modern capital of North Korea. Later, he would repair the old fortress of Hwando and build the city of Gungnae-song in its shadow. This was actually a common plan for Goguryeo cities at this time: a fortress would be built incorporating the natural rise of the mountains, and this would be a stronghold for the people to take cover in during times of war and strife. Outside would be built a walled city on a geometric plan—in this case a square-walled site near modern Ji’an, on the Chinese side of the Yalu River border with North Korea. This square-shaped walled city would be the site of daily activities in a time of peace.
Not that peace was in the cards for Sayu and Goguryeo. They continued to suffer attacks from Xianbei Murong and other steppe groups, until they were ultimately defeated and humiliated by the Xianbei Yan Kingdom around 342. The Xianbei dug up the body of Sayu’s father, the previous sovereign, King Micheon, and also captured Queen Ju, Sayu’s mother, and various concubines. Holding all of them, both the living and the dead, as hostages, they demanded Goguryeo’s surrender. Eventually, Sayu submitted to Yan as a vassal state, for which he received back his father’s body, but his mother was still held hostage for some time. Sayu moved the capital back down south to Pyongyang, and seems to have focused their attention back on their southern neighbors. In 369, some 27 years after their defeat by the Xianbei, Sayu led an army against the people to their south, perhaps in an attempt to reinvigorate Goguryeo. This would not exactly go as planned, and we’ll touch on that, later.
That said, the fall of the commanderies at the beginning of the 4th century had ripple effects throughout the peninsula. Up to that point, they had represented the major power on the peninsula, whether it was the Han, the Wei, or the Jin. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that they continually played the various polities of the three Samhan off of one another and kept them largely destabilized and, in a way, subservient to the Commanderies themselves. Without the commanderies, there would have been a power vacuum created—and this may be one of the factors leading to the rise of the other kingdoms on the peninsula.
The first of these that I want to touch on is the Kingdom of Baekje. Now according to the Baekje Annals in the Samguk Sagi, the Kingdom of Baekje was actually founded in about 18 BCE, but that date seems impossibly early based on what else we know. For instance, we know that in 290 there was an embassy to the Jin court sent by representatives of the various Mahan states. At that time there was one state known as Bochi, or Pai-chi, which may be an early name for Baekje, but it wasn’t even the most prominent of the states in Mahan. That honor seems to have gone to a state known as Wolchi-guk, or possibly Mokchi-guk, about which we have very little information.
Now according to most sources, the founding of Baekje was closely tied to the state of Goguryeo, and through them to the ancient state of Buyeo. Buyeo seems to have been a predecessor to the state of Goguryeo, founded around the 2nd century BCE and lasting until the late 5th century. Much of its territory seems to be in the middle of Manchuria, in modern Northeast China. The legendary founder of Goguryeo, King Jumong, is said to have been a descendant of the King of Buyeo, founding Goguryeo around 37 BCE. According to Baekje tradition, King Jumong had three sons: Yuri, Biryu, and Onjo. Yuri was born to a previous wife, and when King Jumong died Yuri suddenly showed up in Goguryeo to take the throne. Accordingly his half-brothers, Biryu and Onjo, decided that they wouldn’t wait around—and seeing how bloody things got in later family disputes in Goguryeo, I can’t exactly fault them for deciding to get out of Dodge altogether. They made their way south, to the 54 states of the Mahan. There they were accepted and set up two new kingdoms. Biryu set up the kingdom of Michuhol, while Onjo set up the kingdom of Sipje. When Biryu died, the people of his kingdom joined with the other Goguryeo refugees in Sipje, and the kingdom was renamed to Baekje. “Sipje” basically meant “10 subjects”, indicating the 10 allies who had come with Onjo to first found his new state, and “Baekje” replaces “10” with “100” indicating the new subjects that had arrived from his late brother’s kingdom.
Some time after this consolidation, Onjo and his descendants began to consolidate power, eventually subjugating or absorbing all of the states of Mahan.
Of course, as I mentioned earlier, the Annals claim this was sometime around 18 BCE, but that date seems extremely unlikely. I mean, granted, it isn’t some 8 centuries too early, like we find in the Japanese Chronicles, but it still doesn’t line up with what we actually know about the peninsula.
There is no evidence that there was any kind of major peninsular state south of the commanderies that early on. In fact, as we’ve mentioned, the Commanderies themselves would likely have done their best to stop any major states from forming. But besides that, if one did form, we would likely hear about it in the record.
Johnathan Best, who translated the Baekje Annals from the Samguk Sagi into English, has made an attempt to try to uncover just when the state of Baekje was likely founded—or at least when its Buyeo-descended royalty may have arrived. After all, there does seem to be a consistent theme that the Baekje royal family was connected to Buyeo, usually mediated through the state of Goguryeo, and there are various cultural artifacts that would seem to confirm a connection, at least between Goguryeo and Baekje.
So it seems that there may, indeed, be a connection to the Goguryeo royal lineage—and thus all the way back to the ancient state of Buyeo—but if so, it must have been much more recent than 18 BCE. What we know for certain is that Baekje was definitely a fully fledged nation by 372, when King Geungchogo sent his own embassy to Jin Court. This King, King Geungchogo, was also the first king of Baekje to have had official written records kept, so he is largely considered historical whereas the previous 12 or so kings back to Onjo are questionable.
Now if the royal line of Baekje did come from Buyeo stock, by way of Goguryeo, when could that have occurred? Well, Best suggests that it may have been around the turn of the 4th century, probably around the time of the cruel and capricious King Bongsang of Goguryeo, whom we talked about earlier in this episode. It is possible that in his cruelty, he drove out more than just Prince Eulbul. On the other hand, it could also have been that when Changjori and other ministers enacted their coup and placed Eulbul on the throne, well, there may have been continued supporters of Bongsang, or even rival princes, who decided that it was in their best interest to not hang around any more. After all, they had just been through a decade of bloody palace intrigue and there was no reason to think that the newly risen faction in court wouldn’t take their opportunity to enact vengeance upon their rivals.
Furthermore, it is not too improbable that these disaffected nobles and Goguryeo refugees may have found safe haven in the young states of Mahan—possibly even in an existing state known as Baekje-guk. Even though they may have been on the outs with their home kingdom, they were still nobles and they would have been experienced in the latest tools of statecraft on the peninsula. This is something we don’t often think about but understanding how to run a government is a skill in and of itself, and the art of government evolves and changes. Over time the tools and techniques developed in one country can be spread and adopted in others. This may have made these foreigners quite popular with the elite.
In addition, they seem to have been given leave to set up in the northern part of the Mahan territories, around the Han river system, near modern Seoul, creating a buffer, of sorts, between the Mahan and the commanderies.
And here we see several similarities in the archaeological record between Baekje and Goguryeo. For one thing, Baekje’s capital city was similar to that of the Goguryeo site of Hwando and Kungnaesong, in that it was a geometric walled city paired with a Goguryeo-style mountain fortress. We also see similarities in the tombs, which are built up like short, flat-topped pyramids. These would seem to suggest that there was, indeed, some connection between these two states, though there was also a certain enmity between them.
Now, although the dates found in the Baekje Annals are questionable, the overarching story of the early kings of Baekje is, itself, rather intriguing, and not entirely unbelievable. Early on in the Baekje Annals, the rulers of the young state take a subservient position amongst the other Mahan, with one individual seemingly at the head of the various Mahan states. Though far from holding direct rule over all the myriad countries, this individual did seem to hold the power to intervene in disputes and even shame the kings of Baekje, at least early on, into compliance. This may not be too dissimilar from the kind of coercive influence that early Yamato may have held in the archipelago.
Of course, as the state of Baekje grew, it soon turned the tables on its neighbors, absorbing the other states of the Mahan, and entering into constant struggles with its neighbors. To the north, the commanderies were pressing on the young state, and rallying up local groups, referred to in the Annals as the Malgal, to raid and harass Baekje.
Despite all of the attacks and apparent warfare, Baekje seems to have thrived, holding its own against the Commanderies until they fell to the Goguryeo King Micheon—the former Prince Eulbeul—in 313 and 314. With the commanderies gone, Baekje would have been free to continue its expansion across parts of the peninsula. It also may have freed up the talent of the ethnic Han bureaucrats and merchants, if the young peninsular states could attract them to their courts.
And here I want to pause for a moment. We talked about the make up of the Baekje royal family as one of Buyeo descent, as was Goguryeo, and many of the high-ranking court nobles seem to have made similar claims, but this was only the upper echelon of society. It is actually quite probable that the people that they ruled over were ethnically distinct, which would make sense if this was Goguryeo nobility ruling over a common Mahan people.
The fact is, we don’t really know all that much about the people of Mahan. Were they a single ethnicity or were they several different groups? Did they all speak a common language, even? What was it that caused the Han, Wei, and Jin chroniclers to differentiate between the three groups of Mahan, Byonhan, and Jinhan in the first place? Was it just for geographic simplicity, or was it something else?
I suspect that the Baekje rulers and their people likely spoke a different language, at least at first. Think of the Normans in England, though I don’t know if the relationship was so cut and dried as “rulers” and “subjects”. The main thing to note is that the peninsula was, from an early point, a very diverse and heterogenous place, with many different groups, including, we believe, people speaking some form of proto or peninsular Japonic, as well as Chinese and an early form of Korean—and probably more as well. It is quite possible that people were regularly bilingual and dealing in multiple languages, or possibly through some regional lingua franca. Whatever the reality, it is hard to uncover exactly. Over time, many of the place names on the peninsula—the very locations that would most likely have held onto traces of the original languages of the region—were deliberately changed and replaced. Today we tend to treat all of these names and locations as if they were spoken with a modern Korean pronunciation, just as we tend to do with Japanese names on the archipelago, but we should remember that the truth is likely to be much more complex.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much more that we really get on the common people in Baekje at this time. We have only scant glimpses at their religious and personal lives, with much of the action focused on things like meteorological events and the political and military accomplishments.
Speaking of which: as Baekje subjugated much of the Mahan, they also eyed the land of Jinhan, to the east, on the other side of the Peninsula, where another fledgling state was asserting its own dominance; Silla. This was one of the other states that would rise and become a significant power on the peninsula. At the same time, Baekje was also taking the fight to the north, and without those pesky Commanderies in the way, they came into conflict with Goguryeo. When King Sayu of Goguryeo marched south with his men, Baekje, under the rule of King Geunchogo, repulsed the invaders and counterattacked, eventually culminating in an assault on the fortress of Pyongyang in 371 CE. During the assault, a Baekje arrow found its mark, striking and killing the Goguryeo king, Sayu. Baekje seems to have been unable or unwilling to press the advantage, though, but they do seem to have moved their own capital northward, perhaps to better administer the territories of southern Pyongyang.
So that gives us a general idea of Baekje, but let’s take a look at the third kingdom that we see rising up at this time: Silla.
Much like Baekje, Silla makes no real appearance in other records before the 4th century. The Samguk Sagi suggests that it was formed before either Baekje or Goguryeo, with a claimed founding in 57 BCE. Once again, we have to wonder about such a date. More likely, an early state, by the name of Saro, likely arose in the midst of the other countries of Jinhan, and really started to grow into a regional power sometime in the late 3rd century.
Ignoring the dates, if we look at the Silla Annals in the Samguk Sagi we see evidence of its growth. Of all of the locations, it seems to have been one of the most cosmopolitan. Some of the people of Jinhan apparently claimed descent from the ethnic Han populations, claiming status as ancient refugees of the Qin, though this seems questionable at best. There were also members of the court who laid claim to Wa ancestry—and indeed the areas of Jinhan and Pyonhan—the area of the Kara confederacy, and likely home to a fair number of peninsular Wa people—both seemed to have shared a fair amount of material culture up until the late 3rd century, when we see them start to drift apart.
Silla’s legendary founder is known as Bak Hyeokgeose, and the stories say that he was born from a large egg. From there, the early history of Silla talks of dealing with the leader of the Mahan states as well as Wa pirate raiders along the coast. Soon, they are in conflict with Baekje, while also dealing with the other tribes and ethnic groups on the peninsula, such as the Ye and the Maek.
Silla built its capital in the plains of Gyeongju, where there certainly is a long history of occupation, at least according to the archaeological record. Silla’s own stories say that six villages came together to build the city of Gyeongju, and that may give an indiation of how this early state was born.
The capital of Silla, known from early times as “Seorabeol”, which may have just meant “capital”, was centered on the Gyeongju plain. At a bend in the river, a fortress was built on a half-moon shaped hill, known as half-moon fortress, and then four other fortresses guarded the city from atop nearby hillsides. This was quite different from the Goguryeo-style paired sites of a mountain fortress and a geometrically planned walled city.
Their burial practices were also different. They built wooden chambers, covered in dirt, much as the ethnic Han would do, but then they employed a trick learned from the Goguryeo, adding a layer of cobblestones before covering it all over again. Those cobblestones, and the lack of a corridor, were a type of anti-theft measure. Imagine digging into the side of a mound, and at first it is easy going—you have some grass, probably, but soon you are just pulling out dirt. You know that there is something in there, so you keep digging, and eventually you hit the cobblestones. At first this doesn’t seem so bad—you just grab the cobblestones and pull them out of there. Except, you are probably working from the bottom, and it is like you just pulled the fruit out from the bottom of the display. As soon as you do that, all the other cobblestones fall after it, filling in the hole you just made. Like Sisyphus, every inch you gain is taken away from you, and instead of digging a small hole to your target you end up digging away half the mountainside. It is really a rather simple and ingenious way to protect your dead kings and their stuff, and it worked remarkably well—we have a treasure-trove of items from ancient Silla, and a lot of it does seem to involve gold and silver, much as we heard in the Nihon Shoki, though when Silla really became known for their golden crowns and manufacturing techniques I couldn’t exactly say.
It’s possible that this came with the fall of the Commanderies and the movement of some of the ethnic Han into Silla. It may also be notable that the surname of the later Silla kings, “Kim”, is a reference to “Gold”.
Speaking of which, it is somewhat notable that the first twelve rulers of Silla were actually from one of two intertwined families, either the Bak or the Seok. The thirteenth sovereign was actually the first ruler from the Kim clan, which would eventually come to dominate the throne. The Kim clan’s status seems to have been solidified by the time of the kingdom’s 17th sovereign, Kim Naemul, who was also the first sovereign that could be corroborated in other historical sources, such as those of the Jin court, and even mentioned in the Japanese Chronicles. Naemul came to power around 356 and ruled through 402—basically the entirety of the latter 4th century.
Now, of all the annals in the Samguk Sagi, the Silla Annals are the most detailed. Even for these times that we believe are anachronistic, they have a lot of detail of the dealings of Silla with its neighbors. It seems that Silla grew, and just as Baekje absorbed the Mahan, Silla absorbed the Jinhan. Whereas Baekje was focused on the Mahan and the Commanderies, however, Silla seemed concerned with the Wa and with Gaya, to the south. It is unclear if the Wa mentioned in the Silla accounts are all from the archipelago or if some of them may have come from the peninsula. Over time there is definitely a distinction between the Wa and Gaya, however, indicating a clear distinction between them.
There are also numerous conflicts with Baekje. Baekje seems to be shown as an aggressor against Silla, while Silla is actively attempting to subjugate the areas of Gaya and Wa. Of course, if they are fighting with Baekje, and Baekje wasn’t really a power until the late 3rd or early 4th centuries, then we have some idea, possibly, of when many of these stories are actually taking place.
That said, none of this is constant warfare, but instead there are periods of fighting followed by a truce, and then eventually, more fighting. The root cause of many of the conflicts aren’t directly discussed—and it may simply have been enough that they were different states vying for supremacy. There were even other groups and people, but other than Gaya we don’t hear nearly as much from them, other than the occasional raiding party or alliance. Even Gaya seems to be an “outside” party on the peninsula. It is into this mix that the Wa would find themselves, and Yamato would enter the complex world of peninsular politics.
And I think that’s about where we will leave it. By the latter half of the 4th century, around the time that Okinaga Tarashi Hime is gearing up to head off from Kyushu, there were three major states on the peninsula, and then myriad other, smaller groups. Goguryeo in the north had destroyed the ethnic Han commanderies, but was still nursing its own wounds inflicted by the Murong Xianbei and Baekje. Baekje itself was just reaching the height of their power, and were even starting to encroach on the weakened Goguryeo as well as their Silla neighbors. Silla had established itself on the central eastern coastline, and was fending off attacks from, and attempting to subjugate, the loosely confederated states of Gaya to their south. Meanwhile there are attacks by the Wa, the Malgal, and the Ye and Maek. Up in the north, the ancient Okjo and Buyeo, whom we’ve really only barely mentioned, seem to be waning.
This is the early part of Three Kingdoms era on the Korean peninsula. These three states will vie with each other for the next several centuries. At the same time they are still developing their own policies and statecraft, borrowing from their Han neighbors, but also innovating their own ways of doing things. Over time, they would consolidate into a single state, but for now they were still fighting with one another.
Next episode, will get back to Okinaga Tarashi Hime and we’ll see how she fares as she jumps into the fray on the Korean Peninsula.
So, until next time, thank you for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate through our KoFi site, kofi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the link over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Questions or comments? Feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.
That’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Kim, P., & Shultz, E. J. (2013). The 'Silla annals' of the 'Samguk Sagi'. Gyeonggi-do: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Kim, P., Shultz, E. J., Kang, H. H. W., & Han'guk Chŏngsin Munhwa Yŏn'guwŏn. (2012). The Koguryo annals of the Samguk sagi. Seongnam-si, Korea: Academy of Korean Studies Press.
Jeon, H.-T. (2008). Goguryeo: In search of its culture and history. Seoul: Hollym.
Best, J. (2006). A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tg5q8p
Shultz, E. (2004). An Introduction to the "Samguk Sagi". Korean Studies, 28, 1-13. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23720180
Iryŏn, ., Ha, T. H., & Mintz, G. K. (2004). Samguk yusa: Legends and history of the three kingdoms of ancient Korea. Seoul: Yonsei University Press.

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Who’s Who

SiddhartHa Gautama

Ashoka the Great

Buddhist Concepts

Tripitaka

Sutra

Vinaya

Abhidharma

Jataka Tales

The Three Jewels

Buddha

Dharma

Sangha

The Four Sights

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References

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Kawabe no Nihe's punishment

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The Iron Shields of Goguryeo

Individuals referenced:

The story of Tamichi

The story of the Giant Tree of Tōtōmi (遠江國)

Water torture in the Harima Fudoki

Sukuna of Hida

The Pool of Agatamori

Shiratori Tomb

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Who’s who?

Ajikki (阿直岐)

Wang’in/Wani (王仁)

Takuso (卓素)

Susukori (須須許理), aka Nipo (仁番)

Maketsu (眞毛津)

Saiso (西素)

Achi no Omi (阿知使主) , Tsuga no Omi (都加使主), and the Weavers of Kure

King Jeonji of Baekje (腆支 / 直支)

Prince Hunhae of Baekje (訓解)

Prince Jeomnye [Jeoprye?] of Bakeje (蝶禮)

King Guisin of Bakeje (久爾辛)

Mong Manchi (木満致)

Continental Clans

Hachiman

Homuda Wake’s Kofun

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The Kings of Goguryeo

The Kings of Baekje

King of Silla

A note about “Wa”

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