Ch 2 - Tales of Three Kingdoms

Yamato Wa

The Kingdom of Paekche expanded into the Ma-han territory and sent an expeditionary force to Japan.  The sudden influx of a new, advanced culture transformed Japan's Yayoi culture and led to the flowering of the Kingdom of Yamato.

Japan has not always been an island nation. During the Ice Ages, the four main Japanese islands were a single landmass. The southern island of Kyushu was connected to the Korean peninsula by a land bridge and the northern island of Hokkaido was connected to Siberia. The earliest human migration into this region occurred c. 30,000 BC, when small, wandering tribes crossed the Korean land bridge in much the same way early travelers crossed the Siberian land bridge into the Americas.

Japan is a late-comer in Asian history. It does not appear in recorded history until 57 AD, when Chinese histories make their first mention of a land referred to as "Wa," a land divided into a hundred or so separate tribal communities without writing or political cohesion. Despite their late arrival in written history, Japan's earliest settlers left their mark on the land as far back as the Paleolithic Age. Isolated from the Asian mainland, Japan's original inhabitants retained their Stone-Age life long past the time when China and the Korea first witnessed the beginnings of urban life.

Around c. 10,500 BC, Japan's nomadic inhabitants lived principally by hunting, fishing, and gathering nuts, roots and shellfish. Between c. 5,000 and 2,500 BC, the average global temperature was about 4 to 6 °F higher than it is today, warmer than any single period since the last Ice Age. The development of agriculture, the single most important technological invention of human beings, corresponds to this warming period. With the arrival of agriculture, people around the world began living a more sedentary life. Completely isolated from all other humans, Japan's hunter-gatherers, living in very small tribal groups or extended family groups, began building settlements and developing closer ties to the land. They lived in round or rectangular pit-houses, simple timber frames covered with a thatched roof. The floors of these houses were about dug about a foot below ground level to provide some warmth from the soil.

Among the many archaeological artifacts from this period are mysterious clay figurines that appear to be female and clay pots used for cooking and storing food. The pottery is decorated with intricate cord markings, the oldest of their kind in human history. The unique pottery design gives the culture its name - Jomon, which means "cord pattern." .

Beginning around c. 2,500 BC and continuing for nearly a millennium, the Jomon culture spread from the Kanto Plain near modern Tokyo to the surrounding mountains. During the time when ancient Egypt was building its great pyramids, when the first centralized city-states emerged in China's Yellow River basin, and the first urban centers were being built in Sumeria, the Jomon, with no awareness of any people beyond their island, began living in very large villages and developed a very simple agricultural economy. No longer hunter-gatherers, the Jomon became a somewhat settled people and developed increasingly sophisticated art, including clay figurines that clearly distinguished between humans and animals. In its later stages, c. 1,500 to 300 BC, the Jomon resettled in the region of the Kanto Plain and developed an identifiable religion which appears to be based on the worship of a goddess.

A new wave of migration from the Asian continent began arriving on the island of Kyushu and islands in the Tsushima Strait beginning around c. 200 BC. The migration continued for the next 250 years, gradually spreading eastward to the Kanto Plain and eventually becoming the mainstream of Japanese culture. It is unclear whether these new immigrants totally displaced the indigenous peoples of the islands or were gradually assimilated into the native Jomon culture. What is clear however, is that no evidence of Japan's language, social structure or religion can be found which precedes this period. Based on the fact that remnants of their settlements were first discovered in the Yayoi District in Tokyo, these immigrants are referred to as the Yayoi people.

The sudden emergence of the Yayoi culture had a profound impact on Japan, an impact that far surpassed even the transition imposed by the Industrial Revolution. Japanese culture changed almost overnight, as 8,000 years of cultural serenity was suddenly replaced by a very advanced culture that bore all the marks of China's Qin/Han culture. The three major symbols of the Japanese Kingdom:  the bronze mirror, the sword, and the royal seal stone are exactly the same as symbols used by the Qin Dynasty. The Yayoi had no system of writing, but they knew a great deal about agriculture, including irrigated paddy rice cultivation. They also brought the skills to manufacture bronze and copper weapons, bronze mirrors, and bells. The Yayoi also introduced wheel-thrown, kiln-fired ceramics and cloth weaving.

The Yayoi, dressed largely in clothing made from hemp or bark, lived primitively in clans called uji. They were a law-abiding people, fond of drink, concerned with shamanism and spiritual purity, who lived in a society of strict social differences. Each clan associated itself with a single god, or kami, a spirit that represented some force or other wondrous aspect of nature. The clan leader was a patriarchal figure who served as both war-chief and high-priest, or shaman, and headed or performed all ceremonies to the clan's god, commonly thought of as its ancestor. Marriages were frequently polygamous, but women held a fairly prominent place in clan society. Every town had its own ruling lord, every village its chief, and relationships among the Yayoi clans were complex. Over time, as happened in China and Korea, territorial conflicts and mutual aggressin led to the coalescing of small tribal states into clusters either for self-protection or kingdom-building.

During the age of Korea's Three Kingdoms, the peninsula was divided among the kingdoms of Koguryo, Paekche, Silla, and the confederated walled-town states known as the Kaya Federation. The original Paekche state emerged as a kingdom by incorporating various town states in the Han River basin under a centralized, aristocratic rule. It evolved as a feudal system controlling some 22 provinces and districts, each ruled by a prince or other member of Paekche's royal families. Paekche reached its final structure as a centralized, aristocratic state in the middle of the 4th century AD under the reign of the formidable warrior King Kun Ch'ogo.

In 364 AD, stories began to reach the Paekche capital at Wiryesong that described the existence of an "honorable country" far to the east that had long been communicating with the Kaya Federation. Such stories piqued King Kun Ch'ogo's interest to such a degree that he dispatched a scouting party to the Kaya territory to gather information about this mysterious land of the East and how to get there. Later that year, three Paekche envoys traveled to the Kingdom of Tak-sun in the Naktong River basin. During their meeting with the Tak-sun king, they described Paekche's interest in journeying to this eastern land and graciously requested directions. The king admitted that he had, "always heard that there is an honorable country in the East," but added that he had no contact with it, and had no idea how to get there. Noting the three men had no ships, he said, "Even if there were a regular crossing-place, how could you arrive there?"  After suggesting that Paekche would need large ships for such a venture, the three envoys returned to Paekche to prepare ships for the journey. Paekche would have to wait to make contact for another time.

Five years later, in 369 AD, Paekche made another expansive military strike to the south. King Kun Ch'ogo and his son, Crown Prince Kun Kusu, led a major attack that overran the city-states of the Ma-han and took control of a sizeable portion of western and southwestern Korea, including all the modern provinces of Kyonggi, Ch'ungchong, and Cholla, as well as parts of Hwanghae and Kangweon. The Paekche kings, father and son, met Prince Homuda, princes Areda and Kaga, and generals Kutyo, Sa-paek, Kaero, Sasa Nokwe, Mong-na Kun-cha, and others at the village of Wi-niu to congratulate them on their successes in the Ma-han campaign.

Prince Homuda, an influential member of a Paekche royal family and a military leader close to King Kun Ch'ogo, had sometime earlier given thought to finding new territory where he could carry on the government of his kingdom in peace. He spoke with other members of the Paekche royal family about his plans to conquer an eastern land, "a fair land encircled [on] all sides by blue mountains." The Imperial Princes, who had similar ideas, agreed. King Kun Ch'ogo chose Prince Homuda to lead the Imperial Princes and a naval force on an expedition against the mysterious land to the East. After rebuilding his command with choice Paekche troops and with the blessings of King Kun Ch'ogo and a "solemn declaration of alliance," Prince Homuda marched east toward the Kaya territory, located a "port of passage" in the southernmost Kaya state of Imna, and set sail for a New World.

In the winter of 369 AD, Prince Homuda's expeditionary force landed on the northern shore of Kyushu at Hakata Bay on the westernmost of Japan's large islands. On the rich agricultural plain near the present site of Fukuoka, the new arrivals from Paekche established a foothold and began building settlements. They spent the next three years repairing and refitting ships, making weapons, training, storing provisions and getting ready to subdue the territory. Prince Homuda's army pushed eastward for six years, encountering fierce resistance from many of the clans in its path. After subduing its opposition by surrender,outright conquest, or death, the expeditionary force finally halted on the rich agricultural plain formed by the Yodo and Yamato Rivers at the head of Osaka Bay. Having gained control over the central part of the country, Prince Homuda proclaimed the creation of his new kingdom, taking its name from the surrounding region and giving the country its first official "name" - Yamato.

Prince Homuda, founder of the Imperial Clan, was enthroned in 390 AD, with an imperial title befitting his stature - King of Yamato. Until the mid-7th century, the word "Yamato" was written as "Wa" (a term used by Chinese historians), but read as "Yamato." The great flowering of Japanese history began on the Yamato Plain and in the area of the Nara Basin, where the emergence of the Yamato Kingdom set a foundation for future Japanese civilizations. As late as the 3rd century AD, there were no horses in Japan. The formal arrival of horses in Japan occurred in 404 AD, when the King of Paekche sent A-chik-ki with a stallion and a mare as tribute. A-chik-ki cared for the two horses in stables on the slopes of Karu, a site that became known as Mumaya-saka (Stable Hill). Thus, the horse eventually bred by the Japanese was not a local horse, but a breed introduced into Japan from Korea.

A nearly continuous flow of people from Paekche and surrounding kingdoms followed in the wake of Prince Homuda's expedition, sailing the Tsushima Strait to Hakata Bay. From around 400 AD, the Yamato Plain and Nara Basin were settled predominantly by immigrants from Paekche, as royal families, generals and their descendants staked their claims in the new land by building palaces and capitals. Many of these clans gained sufficient economic and military power to control to enjoy a hegemony over the surrounding aristocracies that made them both wealthy and powerful. During this period, the Yayoi culture dissolved into the newer Yamato culture as political alliances and outright conquest gradually brought about a loose-knit unity that coalesced most of western Japan into a nation . Prior to the establishment of the first capital at Nara in 710 AD, most Yamato sovereigns lived in palaces built in or near the present-day village of Asuka, about 25 km to the south. At the time, the Asuka region was the political and cultural center of Japan, home to most of the Yamato kings who ruled before the 8th century. Unlike the situation in Korea, Yamato had no permanent capital city. When a king died, his successor usually transferred the capitol (site of his palace) to a new site in the Asuka region. Most of these palaces were, like temple shrines, fairly simple structures that could be built without much effort.

The Korean and Chinese clans that established roots in Japan were far more sophisticated than the native Yayoi culture and had knowledge, skills and technologies associated with a more advanced civilization. The Yayoi faced a markedly militaristic people with an appetite, if not fondness for warfare. Although the Yayoi jealously clung to the belief they were descendants of native gods, their primitive society underwent a radical change as it absorbed and adapted itself to a higher type of culture .

The cultural linkage among China, Korea and Japan produced a considerable amount of interchange among the Chinese of the Lolang Commandery, the people of Paekche and the Kaya Federation, and the inhabitants of Kyushu and islands in the Tsushima Strait. Envoys from Paekche visited Yamato as early as 367 AD and diplomatic embassies between Paekche and Yamato continued almost every year up to the death of King Kun Ch'ogo in 375 AD. His son and successor, Kun Kusu, continued this close relationship with Yamato Japan, cultivating friendships with Jin China on the one hand and Yamato Japan on the other. Because of the natural, intimate relationship between Paekche and Yamato, successive Yamato rulers maintained and administered a port facility in the Imna area (Mimana in Japanese) at the southern tip of the peninsula to serve as a direct short-cut crossing route to Japan. Kaya became a stopping off point for the many Yamato trade missions that traveled between Japan and the Lolang Commandery along the Taedong River. The Yamato who lived in Imna were neither colonists, nor conquerors, but agents who operated by permission from the King of Kaya, who restricted them to the immediate area of the port.

Historical and geographical circumstances have always put Japan on the periphery of major cultural centers, where it became primarily a recipient or borrower of cultural and technological innovations. Nevertheless, throughout its history Japan has always had the unique ability to work out stylistic refinements of borrowed technology and culture to suit itself. With the emergence of Yamato Japan, yet another major player stepped on to the stage, an ambitious, quick study that was ready, willing and able to take act out its destiny in the drama of Korean history.