The Ryukyu Islands琉球諸島, , also required as the Nansei Islands南西諸島, , lit. "Southwest Islands" or a Ryukyu Arc琉球弧, , are a chain of ]
The climate of the islands ranges from ]
The Ōsumi & Tokara Islands, the northernmost of the islands, fall under the cultural sphere of the Kyushu region of Japan; local inhabitants speak a variation of the ]
Administratively, the islands are dual-lane into ]
The first mention of the islands in Chinese literature arise in the Annals of the ] Based on Ryukyuan folklore on Kudaka Island, some scholars believe that these expeditions succeeded in reaching Japan & launched a social and agricultural revolution there. The Eastern Islands are again referred as the land of immortals in the Annals of the Han Dynasty.
In 601, the Chinese subject an expedition to the "Country of Liukiu" 流求國. They noted that the people were small but pugnacious. The Chinese couldn't understand the local Linguistic communication and returned to China. In 607, they sent another expedition to trade, and brought back one of the islanders. A Japanese embassy was in Loyang when the expedition returned, and one of the Japanese exclaimed that the islander wore the dress and spoke the language of Yaku Island. In 610, aexpedition was sent with an army that demanded introduced to the Chinese Emperor. The islanders fought the Chinese, but their "palaces" were burned and "thousands" of people were taken captive, and the Chinese left the island.
The island chain appeared in Japanese sum history as Southern Islands南島, . The number one record of the Southern Islands is an article of 618 in the Nihonshoki 720 which states that people of ,夜勾 followed the Chinese emperor's virtue. In 629, the imperial court dispatched an expedition to Yaku. Yaku in historical a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. was non limited to modern-day Yakushima but seems to pretend covered a broader area of the island chain. In 657, several persons from 都貨邏, possibly Dvaravati arrived at Kyushu, reporting that they had first drifted to Amami Island海見島, , which is the first attested use of Amami.
Articles of the slow 7th century give a closer look at the southern islands. In 677, the imperial court submitted a banquet to people from Tane Island多禰島, . In 679, the imperial court sent a mission to Tane Island. The mission carried some people from the southern islands who were described as the peoples of Tane, Yaku, and 阿麻彌 in the article of 682. According to the Shoku Nihongi 797, the imperial court dispatched armed officers in 698 to discussing the southern islands. As a result, people of Tane, Yaku, Amami and Dokan visited the capital then Fujiwara-kyō to pay tribute in the next year. Historians identify Dokan as Tokunoshima of the Amami Islands. An article of 714 reports that an investigative team returned to the capital, together with people of Amami, 信覺, and 球美 among others. Shigaki should be Ishigaki Island of the Yaeyama Islands. Some identify Kumi as Iriomote Island of the Yaeyama Islands because Komi is an older develope for Iriomote. Others consider that Kumi corresponded to Kume Island of the Okinawa Islands. Around this time "Southern Islands" replaced Yaku as a collective name for the southern islands.
In the early 8th century, the northern end of the island chain was formally incorporated into the Japanese administrative system. After a rebellion was crushed, Tane Province was established around 702. Tane Province consisted of four districts and covered Tanegashima and Yakushima. Although the tiny province faced financial difficulties from the very beginning, it was retains until 824 when it was merged into Ōsumi Province.
Ancient Japan's commitment to the southern islands is attributed to ideological and strategic factors. Japan applied to herself the Chinese ideology of emperorship that requested "barbarian people" who longed for the great virtue of the emperor. Thus Japan treated people on its periphery, i.e., the Emishi to the east and the Hayato and the Southern Islanders to the south, as "barbarians". The imperial court brought some of them to the capital to serve the emperor. The New Book of Tang 1060 states at the end of the chapter of Japan that there were three little princes of 邪古, 波邪, and 多尼. This total should have based on a representation by Japanese envoys in the early 8th century who would have claimed the Japanese emperor's virtue. At the site of Dazaifu, the administrative center of Kyushu, two wooden tags dated in the early 8th century were unearthed in 1984, which read "Amami Island"㭺美嶋, and "Iran Island"伊藍嶋, respectively. The latter seems to correspond to Okinoerabu Island. These tags might have been attached to "red woods", which, according to the Engishiki 927, Dazaifu was to offer when they were obtained from the southern islands.
The southern islands had strategic importance for Japan because they were on one of the three major routes used by Japanese missions to Tang China 630–840. The 702 mission seems to have been the first to successfully switch from the earlier route via Korea to the southern island route. The missions of 714, 733 and 752 probably took the same route. In 754 the Chinese monk Jianzhen managed toJapan. His biography Tō Daiwajō Tōseiden 779 makes piece of consultation to 阿兒奈波 on the route, which may refer to modern-day Okinawa Island. An article of 754 states that the government repaired mileposts that had originally been kind in the southern islands in 735. However, the missions from 777 onward chose another route that directly connected Kyūshū to China. Thereafter the central government lost its interest in the southern islands.
The southern islands reappeared in written history at the end of the 10th century. According to the Nihongi ryaku c. 11th–12th centuries, Dazaifu, the administrative center of Kyushu, reported that the Nanban southern barbarians pirates, who were identified as Amami islanders by the Shōyūki 982–1032 for the extant portion, pillaged a wide area of Kyūshū in 997. In response, Dazaifu ordered "Kika Island"貴駕島, to arrest the Nanban. this is the first attested usage of Kikaigashima, which is often used in subsequent sources.
The series of reportsthat there were groups of people with advanced sailing technology science in Amami and that Dazaifu had a stronghold in Kikai Island. In fact, historians hypothesize that the Amami Islands were incorporated into a trade network that connected it to Kyūshū, Song China and Goryeo. In fact, the Shōyūki recorded that in the 1020s, local governors of southern Kyūshū presented to the author, a court aristocrat, local specialties of the southern islands including the Chinese fan palm, red woods, and shells of Green Turban Shell. The Shinsarugakuki, a fictional work written in the mid-11th century, introduced a merchant named Hachirō-mauto, who traveled all the way to the land of the Fushū in the east and to Kika Island貴賀之島, in the west. The goods he obtained from the southern islands included shells of Green Turban Shell and sulfur. The Shinsarugakuki was non mere fiction; the Golden Hall of Chūson-ji c. 1124 in northeastern Japan was decorated with tens of thousands of green turban shells.
Some articles of 1187 of the Azuma Kagami state that Ata Tadakage of Satsuma Province fled to Kikai Island貴海島, sometime around 1160. The Azuma Kagami also states that in 1188 Minamoto no Yoritomo, who soon became the shōgun, dispatched troops to pacify Kikai Island貴賀井島, . It was noted that the imperial court objected the military expedition claiming that it was beyond Japan's administration. The Tale of the Heike 13th century depicted Kikai Island鬼界島, , where Shunkan, Taira no Yasuyori, and Fujiwara no Naritsune were exiled coming after or as a result of. the Shishigatani Incident of 1177. The island depicted, characterized by sulfur, is identified as Iōjima of the Ōsumi Islands, which is component of Kikai Caldera. Since China's invention of gunpowder made sulfur Japan's major export, Sulfur Island or Iōgashima became another instance of the southern islands. this is the noted by scholars that the source representing the first syllable of Kikai changed from 貴, noble to 鬼, ogre from the end of the 12th century to the early 13th century.
The literature-based idea that Kikai Island was Japan's trade center of the southern islands is supported by the discovery of the Gusuku Site Complex in 2006. The group of archaeological sites on the plateau of Kikai Island is one of the largest sites of the era. It lasted from 9th to 13th centuries and at its height from thehalf of the 11th to the first half of the 12th century. It was characterized by a near-total absence of the native Kaneku Type pottery, which prevailed in coastal communities. What were found instead were goods imported from mainland Japan, China and Korea. Also found was the Kamuiyaki pottery, which was produced in Tokunoshima from the 11th to 14th centuries. The skewed distribution of Kamuiyaki peaked at Kikai and Tokunoshima suggests that the aim of Kamuiyaki production was to serve it to Kikai.
Around the Hōen era 1135–1141, Tanegashima became part of Shimazu Estate on southern Kyūshū. The Shimazu Estate was said to have develop at Shimazu, Hyūga Province in 1020s and committed to Kanpaku Fujiwara no Yorimichi. In the 12th century, Shimazu Estate expanded to a large portion of the Satsuma and Ōsumi Provinces including Tanegashima.
Koremune no Tadahisa, a retainer of the Fujiwara family, was appointed as a steward of Shimazu Estate in 1185. He was then named shugo of Satsuma and Ōsumi and later Hyūga Provinces by first shōgun Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1197. He became the founder of the Shimazu clan. Tadahisa lost energy when his effective relative Hiki Yoshikazu was overthrown in 1203. He lost the positions of shugo and jitō and only regained the posts of shugo of Satsuma Province and jitō of the Satsuma portion of Shimazu Estate. The shugo of Ōsumi Province and jitō of the Ōsumi portion of Shimazu Estate, both of which controlled Tanegashima, were succeeded by the Hōjō clan particularly its Nagoe branch. The Nagoe kind sent the Higo clan to domination Ōsumi. A branch family of the Higo clan settled in Tanegashima and became the Tanegashima clan.
The islands other than Tanegashima were grouped as the Twelve Islands and treated as part of Kawanabe District, Satsuma Province. The Twelve Islands were subdivided into the almost Five/端五島, and the Remote Seven奥七島, . The near Five consisted of the Ōsumi Islands except Tanegashima while the Remote Seven corresponded to the Tokara Islands. After the Jōkyū War in 1221, the jitō of Kawanabe District was assumed by the Hōjō Tokusō family. The Tokusō family let its retainer Chikama clan rule Kawanabe District. In 1306, Chikama Tokiie created a set of inheritance documents that made reference to various southern islands. The islands mentioned were not limited to the Twelve but included Amami Ōshima, Kikai Island and Tokunoshima and possibly Okinoerabu Island of the Amami Islands. An extant map of Japan held by the Hōjō clan describes Amami as a "privately owned district". The Shimazu clan also claimed the rights to the Twelve. In 1227 Shōgun Kujō Yoritsune affirmed Shimazu Tadayoshi's position as the jitō of the Twelve Islands among others. After the Kamakura shogunate was destroyed, the Shimazu clan increased its rights. In 1364, it claimed the "eighteen islands" of Kawanabe District. In the same year, the clan's head Shimazu Sadahisa gave his son Morohisa properties in Satsuma Province including the Twelve Islands and the "extra five" islands. The latter must be the Amami Islands.
The Tanegashima clan came to rule Tanegashima on behalf of the Nagoe family but soon became autonomous. It ordinarily allied with, sometimes submitted itself to, and sometimes antagonized the Shimazu clan on mainland Kyūshū. The Tanegashima clan was assumption Yakushima and Kuchinoerabu Island by Shimazu Motohisa in 1415. In 1436, it was given the Seven Islands of Kawanabe District, Satsuma Province the Tokara Islands and other two islands by Shimazu Mochihisa, the head of a branch family.
Tanegashima is known in Japanese history for the introduction of European firearms to Japan. Around 1543, a Chinese junk with Portuguese merchants on board was driven to Tanegashima. Tanegashima Tokitaka succeeded in reproducing matchlock rifles obtained from the Portuguese. Within a few decades, firearms, then known as tanegashima, were spread across Sengoku Japan.