1. Why Naha Port Became a Hub for East Asian Trade

Introduction

Okinawa was once a unified country known as the Ryukyu Kingdom and is said to have enjoyed great prosperity as a center of East Asian trade.

Despite being a small nation, how did the Ryukyu Kingdom become the center of East Asian trade and a hub port?

Also, what was the historical background that led to Kuninda playing such an important role there?

Remaining Vestiges of Trade

The Ryukyu Kingdom accepted and embraced the cultures of the countries with which it had extensive trade relations, and these have been passed down as the unique culture of Okinawa.

One well-known example is Uchinaguchi, a dialect unique to Okinawa, which is said to have its roots in Japanese, but to be a mixture of languages from various countries with which it has had historical ties.

For example, chanpuru, an Okinawan dialect word meaning “jumbled together” and referring to stir-fried food in cooking, is said to be a corrupted form of the Indonesian word campur. The exclamation ahiya used by Okinawans is also found in modern Chinese, and wan, which refers to “I” in dialect, is found in the Quanzhou dialect of Fujian Province. In Fuzhou, cats are called maya, pronounced the same way as in Okinawa. Akutagawa Prize-winning author Tatsuhiro Ōshiro states that during the era of the Ryukyu Kingdom, pirates were referred to as haizei (pirates) in Chinese.

The Shiimii graveside sweeping festival held during the Chinese Qingming Festival, one of the 24 solar terms of the lunisolar calendar, is “to the surprise of tourists from the mainland. This also came from China, and is said to have spread when common people copied the customs of the nobility and samurai families close to the royal family. Other famous Okinawan sweets include chinsuko, which is called taos (peach cakes) in China, sata andagi, which is an Okinawan variant of a sweet called kaikou shao, and tofuyo, which is popular among tourists and has its origins in Chinese tofu milk. Such instances are too numerous to mention one by one.

Kuninda’s influence on Japanese history

The Ryukyu Kingdom, which prospered through trade with China, the leading country in East Asia at the time, also had a significant impact on Japanese culture and its cuisine.

For example, the Rikuyuengi-Tai’i (Six Courses About Ethical Doctrines, Vol. 1), which was used as a textbook at the famous terakoya temple schools of the Edo period (1603-1867), was also introduced through Kuninda. The Rikuyuengi-Tai’i , which was an educational book explaining Chinese Confucian principles, was printed in Fuzhou by Tei Junsoku, a Confucian scholar from Kuninda, who brought it back to Japan. It was presented to the Tokugawa Shogun through the lord of the Satsuma Domain, and the shogun had it translated into Japanese by Muro Kyūsō. It was printed in large quantities as Kankoku Rikuyuengi-Tai’i (Japanese translated version) and became widely used as a textbook for Confucian education and as a model for calligraphy at temples and shrines throughout Japan. Tei Junsoku is known as the person who proposed the establishment of Meirindo, the first public school in the Ryukyu Islands, at the Confucian Mausoleum in Kuninda. Accepted as an academic discipline in Japan, Confucianism greatly influenced the thinking of a wide range of Japanese people, including those in political and business circles, during the Meiji Restoration and modern Japan.

The Japanese shamisen, which originated out of the sanshin from China, and the satsumaimo sweet potato, which originated out of the Chinese sweet potato, were introduced to Japan via the Ryukyu Islands. Why, then, did the Ryukyu Kingdom flourish as a center of East Asian trade, and why did Kuninda come to play such an important role?

East Asia at that time

Four hundred years ago (Muromachi period in Japan), the most prosperous country in East Asia was the Ming Dynasty of China.

The Ryukyu Kingdom at that time received clear preferential treatment in trading with the Ming compared to other Asian countries.

Why was the Ryukyu Kingdom able to receive this preferential treatment from the Ming?

The reason is a historical mystery that has not yet been solved, but the most popular theory is said to be that the Ming Dynasty was worried about Japanese pirates.

The Ming Dynasty

At that time, the Ming Dynasty had only just established its government after defeating the Mongols, but it continued to have trouble with the Mongols after that.

In these circumstances, coastal areas of China and Korea were being ravaged by Japanese pirates. Meanwhile, in China, ordinary people engaged in illicit trade with Japanese pirates, and this also served as a source of revenue for forces opposed to the dynasty.

Under such circumstances, the Ming Emperor Hongwu, seeking to stabilize the country, launched a campaign to suppress the Japanese pirates, but it did not go well.

Because the Japanese pirates were not based in China, but rather in Kyushu, Japan, the Ming could not risk hunting them down so far away while it was still busy fighting the Mongols .

Therefore, the Ming emperor issued a “sea ban” prohibiting private trade by ordinary citizens in order to cut off contact between Japanese pirates and the general public and stabilize the country.

The sea ban

The sea ban did not prohibit trade itself, but rather limited trade to only countries that made tribute to China, that is, vassal states which demonstrated their obedience to the Chinese emperor. Accordingly, the sea ban enabled the kings of vassal states to monopolize trade.

Trade was restricted to ships dispatched by kings, i.e., ships with a Kango certificate, and private trade by Chinese and foreign merchants was severely punished.

At that time, the Ming Dynasty was the dominant state power in East and Southeast Asia. Although East and Southeast Asia was closed to trade, the region had a trade network that was led by overseas Chinese merchants.

By prohibiting free trade among the people and switching control of trade from the common people to tributary states, China sought to bring those states under its control and create a stable system of politics in East Asia.

Japanese pirates

These measures, accompanied by Chinese coercive measures, were effective against Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand, but did not work well against Japan.

Of course, Ming Emperor Hongwu also sent an envoy to Japan urging tribute and obedience, saying, “If you refuse, we will not hesitate to start a war and capture the Japanese pirates holed up in the islands around Japan and put your king in bonds”.

However, the Japanese ignore this message; moreover, they also slayed the Ming envoy.

The Ming thought that by making the king of Japan subservient, he could order the king to suppress the Japanese pirates, but this plan did not work.

In was against this background that the Ming singled out the Ryukyu Kingdom for attention.

Why the Ryukyu Kingdom?

Although Chinese goods were in considerable demand in Japan, the Muromachi Shogunate was not willing to conduct trade if it meant submitting to the Ming Emperor. 

Meanwhile, the Japanese pirates continued to ravage the coastal areas of China.

Accordingly, Ming Emperor Hongwu reasoned that if Ming goods were concentrated in the Ryukyu Islands, a tributary state, he would be able to control Chinese goods through the Ryukyu Islands, thereby eliminating the plundering activities of Japanese pirates on the Chinese coast.

The plan worked out as intended. In fact, the Japanese pirates served another function, namely that of traders who connected Japan and Ryukyu.

Prosperity of the Ryukyu Kingdom

As Ming goods began to gather in Ryukyu, Japanese pirates were able to transport these goods to Japan via Ryukyu. Meanwhile, in Ryukyu, the pirates began to show themselves as traders. Moreover, because the Japanese pirates were well-versed in sea routes, they were recruited as envoys sent by the King of Ryukyu to Joseon (Korea).

Joseon, which had also been subject to attacks by Japanese pirates, also began to treat the Japanese pirates as traders, enabling the pirates to obtain peaceful business, and the number of pirate attacks gradually decreased.

While the Ming emperors ordered Southeast Asian countries to offer tribute once every three years, they gave Ryukyu permission to offer tribute whenever it liked. It is said that the historical background of this preferential treatment was the Ming Dynasty’s approach to Japanese pirates. Having no pipeline with Japan, the Ming Dynasty sometimes encouraged the Muromachi Shogunate to negotiate through the Ryukyu Islands. The fact that Ryukyu was an important supplier through tribute of military supplies such as sulfur and horses to the Ming also contributed to the preferential policy.

Naha as a hub port

The Ryukyu Kingdom’s preferential trade with Ming led to a large influx of Chinese goods into the small island nation.

This resulted in the Ryukyu Islands becoming awash with surplus goods that could not be consumed by the Ryukyu Islands alone.

In contrast, shortages of Ming goods were occurring in other Southeast Asian countries, which could only conduct tribute trade once every three years. The demand for Ming Chinese goods was also high in the Japanese market.

Therefore, Naha Port became a hub for various trade routes connecting Ryukyu to such places as China, Southeast Asian countries, Bonotsu, Hakata, Tsushima, Joseon, and Hyogo-Sakai. Naha Port thus became a trading center for East Asian goods.

Summary

The reason why the Ryukyu Kingdom became the center of East Asian trade, was because the Ming Dynasty wanted to stabilize its control of East Asia and suppress Japanese pirates, and Ming goods gathered in the Ryukyu Kingdom, which maintained stable relations with Japan.

It is said that the people of Kuninda played a major role in this trade, especially that with China and Southeast Asian countries. Why, then, did Kuninda play such a role in the Ryukyu Kingdom and contribute so much to its prosperity?

The origins of Kuninda in the Ryukyu Kingdom played a major role in this.

The next article, “The Origins of Kuninda,” will describe in detail the Ryukyu Kingdom and the birth of Kuninda at that time.