⛩️Article 2 │ The Founding of the Ryukyu Kingdom and the Investiture System
The Ryukyu Kingdom (Ryūkyū ōkoku) was the cradle of karate. How could so small an island state preserve its independence for several centuries? The key lies in the investiture system (sakuhō taisei) that formed the backbone of the East Asian international order. This article unravels the kingdom’s formation and its relationship with China (the Ming and Qing dynasties) in a form that non-Japanese readers can follow.
The Distinctive Order of Pre-modern East Asia
Before the modern era, East Asia operated under an international order quite different from Europe’s. In Europe, the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 made the “sovereign-state system” — in which formally equal sovereign states stand side by side — the norm. Pre-modern East Asia, by contrast, formed a hierarchical order with China (a dynasty of the Han Chinese, or one that had inherited its mantle) at the apex. This is called the Sinocentric order (ka-i chitsujo, the “civilized-versus-barbarian” order) or the investiture system (sakuhō taisei).
Sakuhō (investiture) was the ceremonial act by which the Chinese emperor conferred a title of nobility on the ruler of a neighboring country and recognized that ruler’s legitimacy. A country that received investiture became a “vassal state” or “tributary state,” dispatching envoys at regular intervals and presenting tribute; China, in turn, bestowed gifts in return (kaishi).
What matters here is that investiture was not colonial rule in the modern sense. As a rule, China did not interfere in the internal affairs of its tributaries. Each tributary maintained its own laws, language, religion, and apparatus of government in full. In terms of modern European international law, the relationship was less a “treaty of unequal status” than a form of “participation in a ceremonial international order.” Even so — and this deserves emphasis for Western readers — it was not a relationship between equals, but a hierarchical one with China at the top.
Within this order, many states — Korea (Chōsen), Vietnam, Ryukyu, Siam (Thailand), and Burma (Myanmar) among them — maintained their independence as tributaries of China. Ryukyu in particular sent tribute with exceptional frequency and prospered as a hub of East Asian maritime trade.
From the Gusuku Age to the Three Kingdoms
From the 12th century onward, local strongmen called aji (按司) emerged across the main island of Okinawa, building stone fortresses (gusuku, グスク) and contending for power. More than two hundred gusuku survive across Okinawa, and in 2000 they were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as the “Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu.”
In the 14th century the main island split into three powers — the Three Kingdoms period (Sanzan jidai): Hokuzan (“northern mountain”) in the north, Chūzan (“central mountain”) in the center, and Nanzan (“southern mountain”) in the south. Each of the three independently dispatched tribute missions to Ming China.
In 1372, Satto (察度), king of Chūzan, sent the first tribute mission to the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming, and with this the history of China–Ryukyu relations began. The Ming subsequently permitted Hokuzan and Nanzan to send tribute as well, thereby in effect recognizing the coexistence of the three kingdoms.
Unification and the First Shō Dynasty
In 1406, Shō Hashi (尚巴志, 1372–1439) overthrew Bunei, king of Chūzan, and installed his own father, Shō Shishō (尚思紹), as king of Chūzan. This is generally taken as the beginning of the First Shō dynasty. Shō Hashi went on to destroy Hokuzan in 1416 and Nanzan in 1429, unifying the three kingdoms. Shuri (首里) became the royal capital of the unified kingdom, and Shuri Castle (Shuri-jō) its political, religious, and cultural center.
Immediately after unification, Ryukyu developed rapidly into a maritime trading state. It exported the copper coins, silk textiles, and ceramics granted by the Ming to Southeast Asia (Malacca, Siam, Java, Sumatra, and elsewhere), and resold Southeast Asian pepper, sappanwood, and ivory to China — reaping great profits from this entrepôt (intermediary) trade. The inscription on the “Bridge of Nations Bell” (Bankoku Shinryō no Kane), hung in the main hall of Shuri Castle in 1458, proclaims Ryukyu a country that “by means of ships forms a bridge between the myriad nations” — a vivid expression of the national self-image of Ryukyu at the time.
The Establishment of the Second Shō Dynasty
In 1469, following the death of Shō Toku, the last king of the First Shō line, a man named Kanamaru (金丸) was raised up after a political upheaval within the royal government. Kanamaru later took the name Shō En (尚円) and acceded to the throne in 1470; this marks the beginning of the Second Shō dynasty. (Formal investiture by the Ming came somewhat later: an envoy was sent in 1471 to request investiture, and in 1472 the chief investiture envoy Guan Rong [Jp. Kan’ei] and his party came to Ryukyu to perform it. The year of accession and the year of investiture should be kept distinct.) The dynasty would endure for about 410 years, until the “Ryukyu Disposition” of 1879.
The reign of the third king, Shō Shin (尚真, r. 1477–1526), is regarded as the golden age of the Ryukyu Kingdom. He carried out policies such as the following.
- Resettling the aji at Shuri. He gathered the regional aji together at Shuri, centralizing what had been local rule. This stripped the regional strongmen of their independence and strengthened royal authority.
- Codifying a system of court ranks. He clarified the status order of the gentry (shizoku).
- Patronizing Buddhism and organizing the priestess hierarchy. He institutionalized the body of female religious officials (noro) headed by the high priestess Kikoe Ōgimi (聞得大君), binding royal authority to religion.
- The tradition of a “weapons ban.” There is a tradition that the royal government restricted the populace’s possession of weapons. This “weapons-ban edict” (kinbu-rei), however, is difficult to confirm in primary sources, and its historicity is debated among scholars (Ogawa 2016). Later writers cite it as the reason for the development of Ryukyu’s empty-handed martial arts (ti), but whether it is historical fact should be treated with caution.
This is a recurring point of contention in karate history. The simple causal claim often found in Western books — “Shō Shin banned weapons, and therefore empty-handed ti developed” — finds little support in present-day Okinawan and Ryukyuan historical studies. The Ryukyuan gentry also studied Chinese-style martial arts, and traditions using weapons — the staff (bō), the sai, the tonfā, and so on — existed in parallel. The notion that “the empty hand is the essence of Ryukyuan martial arts” is an image reconstructed from the Meiji period (1868–1912) onward.
Tribute and the Tribute Ships
Under the Second Shō dynasty, Ryukyu regularly dispatched tribute ships, called shinkōsen (進貢船), to China (the Ming and the Qing). In the early Ming they sailed annually; later, once every two years or once every few years, they put in at Fuzhou in Fujian Province, and from there proceeded overland to Beijing for an audience with the emperor.
The tribute missions were far more than diplomacy.
- Kumemura (久米村). A settlement of residents of Chinese descent established at Naha. In 1392, a group of technical specialists known as the “Thirty-Six Families from Min” (Bin-jin sanjūroku sei; “Min” is an old name for the Fujian region) is said to have emigrated from the Ming and settled there. They handled navigation, interpreting, the practical business of diplomacy, and Confucian learning, and formed the nerve center of Ryukyuan foreign relations. The renowned karate figure Higaonna Kanryō (東恩納寛量, 1853–1915) was not from Kumemura but from Nishimura in Naha; even so, the China-facing exchange sphere of Naha — Kumemura included — together with the experience of voyaging to Fujian Province in China, formed an important backdrop to the formation of Naha-te (the “hand” of Naha).
- Kanshō (官生). Government-selected exchange students. They were sent to the Imperial Academy (Guozijian; Jp. Kokushikan) in Beijing or Nanjing to study Confucianism.
- Tribute-ship retainers. On the sea route from Naha to Fuzhou, merchants, artisans, and martial artists sometimes traveled along. This is frequently mentioned as a route by which martial arts were transmitted.
Ryukyu as Seen from China
Seen from the Chinese side, Ryukyu was a faithful tributary. In the various records of the Ming and Qing, Ryukyu was often praised highly as an “obedient” country. When an investiture envoy (sakuhōshi) was dispatched to Ryukyu, a large-scale ceremony was conducted at Shuri Castle.
This relationship with China was the very foundation of the Ryukyu Kingdom’s legitimacy. The title of “King of Ryukyu” and the royal seal conferred by the Chinese emperor were important grounds underpinning the international recognition of the king’s authority.
A Note for Western Readers
If one understands all this through the lens of European history — equating “tributary state” with “colony” and “investiture” with “subjugation” — one will misread the East Asian reality. The investiture system operated on a logic different from that of the modern sovereign-state system. China did not intervene in the internal affairs of its tributaries, did not station troops, and did not levy taxes. What it required in return was ceremonial submission and the regular dispatch of envoys.
The Ryukyu Kingdom was therefore, even under Chinese investiture, clearly an independent state. This is conceptually at odds with the “sovereign state” of modern international law, but measured against the East Asian international order of its own day it was, beyond doubt, an independent entity. From the Satsuma invasion of 1609 the situation grew more complicated — but that is the subject of the next article.
Notes on Terminology
- Investiture (sakuhō) and tribute (chōkō). “Investiture” is the act by which the Chinese emperor recognized a foreign ruler; “tribute” is the act by which the foreign state offered gifts and received gifts in return. The two together constituted the “investiture system.” It resembles neither a modern military alliance nor colonial rule.
- Gusuku. Stone fortresses peculiar to Okinawa. The word also carries the connotation of a sacred site: a gusuku was not merely a military structure but a religious and political center as well.
- “Ti” / “te” (手). The older empty-handed fighting methods of Ryukyu. The character 手 (“hand”) is read ti in Okinawan and te in Japanese. “Naha-te,” “Shuri-te,” and “Tomari-te” refer to streams of these methods associated with particular districts.
Coming Next
Article 3 takes up the Satsuma invasion of 1609 and the system of Ryukyuan “dual subordination” — to both Japan and China — that followed. Ryukyu’s peculiar position as a state with two suzerains would become the prelude to the later Ryukyu Disposition.
Bibliography
- Takara Kurayoshi, Ryūkyū ōkoku [The Ryukyu Kingdom], Iwanami Shinsho, 1993.
- Takara Kurayoshi, Ajia no naka no Ryūkyū ōkoku [The Ryukyu Kingdom within Asia], Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1998.
- Kamiya Nobuyuki, Ryūkyū to Nihon, Chūgoku [Ryukyu, Japan, and China], Yamakawa Shuppansha, 2003.
- Akamine Mamoru, Ryūkyū ōkoku no hōkai [The Collapse of the Ryukyu Kingdom], Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2004.
- Maehira Fusaaki, Ryūkyū kaiiki shiron [Essays on the History of the Ryukyu Maritime Region], Yōju Shorin, 2020.
- Ogawa Ryō, “Kinsei Ryūkyū no bugei to ‘kinbu’ gensetsu no saikentō” [Martial Arts in Early Modern Ryukyu and a Reexamination of the “Weapons-Ban” Discourse] (article), 2016.
- Sakihara, Mitsugu. A Brief History of Early Okinawa Based on the Omoro Sōshi. Honpo Shoseki Press, 1987.
- Kerr, George H. Okinawa: The History of an Island People. Charles E. Tuttle, 1958 (a classic English-language work; it includes perspectives that differ from Japanese scholarship).