The Yamato Kingship (ヤマト王権, Yamato Ōken) was a tribal alliance centered on the Yamato region (Nara Prefecture) from the 4th century to the 7th century, and ruled over the alliance of noble families in the central and western parts of the Japanese archipelago. The age lasted from the 3rd to the 7th century, later than the Yamatai Kingdom. After the Taika Reform, the ōkimi as an emperor, at that time, was in power, and the Yamato period ended. The time period is archaeologically known as the Kofun period. Regarding its establishment, due to the relationship between Yamatai and Yamato's succession to the king's power, there are widely divergent views.
The Yamato Kingship refers to the regime that emerged in the Nara region (Yamato region) since the 4th century. At the same time as the rise of the Nara Kingship, there were probably several or even dozens of power centers in the Japanese archipelago. This is an issue that Japanese academia attaches great importance to. , who use this name from the late third century.
The word "Yamato" also means.
It has three different meanings. Yamato, the narrowest of the three, is the area where the emergence-period burial mounds are concentrated, and it is thought to be the place where the center of the royal administration existed. Rather than "Yamato," which is immediately associated with the imperial Yamato State (2), "Yamato" which clearly implies 3 is more appropriate.
Shiraishi further points out that from the Nara and Kyoto basins to the Osaka Plain, the Yodo River system in the north and the Yamato River system in the south have very different types of ancient tombs. "Yamato" is rather the area of the Yamato River system, i.e., the combination of the later Yamato and Kawachi (including Izumi). In other words, according to Shiraishi, the katakana notation "Yamato" is used because it can comprehensively handle the meaning of the Yamato River system (Yamato and Kawachi) in addition to 1. to 3.
On the other hand, Kazuhiko Seki states that "Yamato" was used from the 8th century, and before that, it was written as "Yamato" or "Daiwa", so that although "Yamato" or "Daiwa" is appropriate to describe the regime in the 4th and 5th century, "Yamato" is appropriate to prevent confusion between the two. On the other hand, there are researchers who use the "Yamato" notation, such as Takemitsu mentioned above.
According to Takemitsu, the ancients called the area at the foot of Mt. Miwa "Yamato," a name that distinguished it from other areas in the Nara Basin such as "Asuka" and "Ikaruga," and the current terminology of calling the entire Nara Prefecture "Yamato" did not appear until the 7th century. Takemitsu, who considers Garthrace to be the birthplace of the "Yamato Court," calls the whole area "Yamato," the ancient city.
On the "Royal Court"
The term "Royal court" has its original meaning as a governmental office where the Son of Heaven conducted political affairs such as dynastic government and Ritual, collectively known as dynastic rites. Bureaucracy with a Centralised Government and Emperor as a sovereign title, and that it is inappropriate to use the term "Imperial Court" in a situation where the various governmental systems are not in place. For example, Kazuhiko Seki defines "imperial court" as "the political seat of the emperor" and argues that it is inappropriate to refer to the 4th century and 5th century regimes as the "Yamato Imperial Court" and Kito Kiyoaki also argued in a book for the general public that multiple dynasties could have existed in the Kinki region at the time of the Iwai Rebellion, and that before the Emperor Keitai The term "Yamato Court" should be used only from the 6th century after Emperor Tsugitai, as "there may be cases where the Yamato Court is unrelated to the Emperor Keitai.
"State" "Government" "Kingship" "Royal Court"
Kazuhiko Seki said that "kingship" is "the political power of the king" as opposed to "the court" which is the "political place of the emperor". "Government" is defined as "ultra-historical political power", and "state" is defined as "the entire power structure that embraces them". As for the inclusion of words, the scheme of imperial court < kingship < government < nation is presented, but in some cases, "royal court" is used to mean "nation". Point out that there is also confusion.
About the term "Yamato kingship"
The ancient historian Yukihisa Yamao explains that "Yamato kingship" "refers to the power structure of kings established in the central Kinki region in the 4th and 5th centuries, and is seen in the emperor genealogies of Kojiki and Nihon Shoki as corresponding roughly from Sujin to Yūryaku".
In another book, Yamao also defines "kingship" as "an organism of power in which a community of privileged groups assembled as the king's vassals" is "the center of a hierarchical unity" of "a race of subordinates to the king, with the king as their apex authority", which "emerged clearly in the Kofun period. On the other hand, Taiichiro Shiraishi refers to the "coalition of political forces from all over the Japanese archipelago except for the north and south" and the "wide-area political coalition" as the "Yamato government", and states that it is "the leader of the coalition of chiefs of the Kinai and the coalition of political forces from all over the Japanese archipelago. The "Yamato kingship" is the name given to the "Kinai kingship, which was both the leader of the Kinai confederation of chiefs and the ally of the Yamato government, which was a federation of political forces from all over the Japanese archipelago.
Also, according to Yamao.
- 190s-260s The period of the emergence of royal power.
- 270s–370s: Early royal period.
- 370–490 The period of completion of kingship. This is followed by the unification of tribes by kingship (from the 490s), and then the construction of early states (from around 530).
The term is used to describe the period from the time of the completion of the kingship to the time of the unification of the tribes by the kingship (from the 490s), and the construction of the early state (from around 530).
The term was first used by Ishimoda Tadashi in his Iwanami Koza Nihon Rekishi in 1962. It is also used as a concept of classification, but it is not necessarily strictly defined and there is no common understanding of the use of the word
Yamato Imperial Court
The term Yamato court has three meanings:
- Yamato court is a powerful political force and organization based in the Nara period before the establishment of the Ritsuryo state.
- The government and administration of the Yamato period (Kofun period). Yamato kingship.
- Yamato Kingship, a centralisation government or administration with a bureaucracy led by the Son of Heaven (Emperor of Japan) during the Asuka period or late Kofun period.
In the pre-war period, the term was used in the sense of 1. but after the war, it came to mean simply "the government of the Yamato period or Kofun period" (2.). However, with the examination of the word "dynasty" and the progress of archaeology research on kofun, especially on the anterior and posterior tombs, the word is increasingly used in a more limited sense, as in 3.
At present, researchers and authors who use the term "Yamato Court" in the sense of 1. include Takemitsu Makoto and Takamori Akinori. Takemitsu, in his Encyclopedia of the Kojiki and Nihonshoki (1999), lists the Jimmu expedition and Naganohiko's setsuwa as the "origin of the Yamato Court".
When using "Yamato Court" as a topic in comprehensive ancient history research that also takes into account Chinese archival materials, or in archaeological research based on archaeological materials, the words "Yamato (Yamato) kingship" and "Yamato Court" are used interchangeably. In some cases, words such as "Yamato (Yamato) kingship" and "Yamato Imperial Court" are used interchangeably for chronological purposes. For example.
- "Yamato kingship" before Emperor Ankang, and "Yamato court" after Emperor Yusei in the late 5th century – Kunio Hirano
- Before Emperor Seonghwa, "Yamato royal authority" or "Yamato royal authority", and after Emperor Kinmei in the middle of the 6th century, "Yamato court" – Kiyoaki Kito
The establishment of kingship
Occurrence of small countries
In the Yayoi period, as there is the description of "Wa-kokuō Suishō" (倭国王帥升, Suishō the King of Wa) dated 107 in the "History of Tō-i (Eastern I)" (東夷伝) in the Book of the Later Han, we can see that there were a certain territory called "Wa" and its monarch called "King". However, the details of the political organization are not known, and since there is a report in the Wajinden, in the Record of the Three kingdoms (魏志倭人伝), which says "there are currently 30 countries with which our envoys can contact and communicate", it is likely that the state of separation of small countries continued until the third century.
In addition, from the description in the Book of Later Han, which reports "During the reign of Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling of Han, Wakoku was largely disturbed, and countries fought each other, and thus there was no Lord for a long period." (桓霊の間、倭国大いに乱れ更相攻伐して歴年主なし, Kan-Rei no kan, Wakoku ōini midare, komogomo ai-kōbatsu-shite, rekinen aruji nashi.), it is clear that the political bond among the small countries was not necessarily strong. This description is also supported by the archaeological materials. They show that moated settlements with deep moats and earthworks, and highland settlements, which seem to have had a watchful function, were built in high places unsuitable for rice cultivation, and that many of the bodies in the tombs, which were clearly killed or injured in the battle, were unearthed. In the Jōmon period, stone arrowheads were used exclusively as tools for hunting small animals, but in the Yayoi period, they had become larger and were transformed into weapons that could be used against humans. These archaeological evidences suggest that conflicts between small countries were fierce.
The Yamatai Kingdom and Queen Himiko
The Wajinden states that Himiko came to prominence in Yamatai in the first half of the 3rd century, and that the states (probably city-states) "co-established" Himiko and made her queen, thus ending the strife and creating a federation of about 30 small countries. The Wajinden also states that the Emperor of the Wei awarded Himiko the seal of Shin-Gi Wa-ō (親魏倭王; lit. 'Subject of Wei, King of Wa'). It also states that Yamatai had a certain degree of social stratification and organization, such as differences in status between the governing nobles (大人, taijin), commoners (下戸, geko; lit. 'lower households'), and slaves of the state (生口, seikō; lit. 'living people'); a system of punishment and taxation; and the establishment of an inspector-like office under the title of Ichidaisotsu (一大率), which helped to oversee territories north of Yamatai itself.
There are two theories about the location of the Yamatai Kingdom: the Honshu Theory, and the Kyushu Theory. According to the Honshu Theory, a political coalition covering a wide area from the Kinki region to northern Kyushu was already established in the third century, and this was likely the precursor to the later Yamato court. Meanwhile, the Kyushu Theory holds that the coalition under Himiko was only a local regional group, unrelated to the Yamato court.
Struggle between the Yamataikoku and the Kununokuni
In Japan, there was a war between the Yamataikoku and the Kununokuni, and in 247 (the eighth year of the Shosho Era), the director of the Obikata County, Zhang Zheng, who was sent to Japan to receive reports of the conflict between the two countries, admonished the queen with a proclamation. In addition, according to the Book of Records of the Wei Dynasty, after the death of Himiko, a male king took over but there was a civil war and a 13-year-old girl from Himiko's clan, Iyoyo (壹與, or Toyo (臺與) in later historical books), became king and ruled again. In the Empress Jingu period of the Chronicles of Japan, the Jin Ki-ui-note (no longer extant) cited in the Empress Jingu period of the Chronicles of Japan mentions that in 266 (the second year of Tai-chou (an error in "Tai-shi")), an envoy of the Queen of Japan went to Luoyang, the capital of the Western Jin Dynasty, to pay tribute to Luoyang, the capital of the Western Jin Dynasty, and this queen is thought to be Taiyou. Therefore, it is possible that the "Nihon Shoki" assumes that the actions of Taeyo were those of Empress Jingu. In addition, there is no mention of a queen in the extant Book of Jin, although the Siyi biography and the Wudieki do mention a Japanese tribute in 266.
In addition, the location of the Kununokuni is to the south of the Yamatai Kingdom. In the Wajinden, there is another Japanese country a thousand miles across the sea to the east of the Yamatai Kingdom, and in the west of the Yamatai Kingdom is the Land of the Rising Sun. To the northwest of the Yamatai Kingdom is Obikata County, and to the north is Itokoku.
Yamataikoku Union and the Garnet Ruins
Taiichiro Shiraishi states, "The political coalition of the wide area centered on the Yamataikoku, which was greatly revolutionized by the reorganization of the coalition order following the death of Himiko in the middle of the third century and the expansion of the map following the merger with the Kununokuni coalition, is none other than the Yamato government from the latter half of the third century onward.
As a basis for this, it is claimed that the site of Nara Prefecture was the center of a federation of small states in the Kinai region at that time. This site is located at the foot of Mt. Miwa in the southeastern part of the Nara Basin, where the "Great City" is said to have been located in the Asuka Period. Remains, which are said to be traces of urban planning, have been found, and civil engineering works such as canal have been carried out. As a political city, more than 30 pits for storing ritual tools, ritual halls, and temporary buildings for rituals were found, and the site was located in the Tōkai region, Hokuriku, Kinki, Asan Setouchi, Kibi, Izumo, and a small number of northern Kyushu pottery. It is a huge site comparable to the Fujiwara Palace at the end of the 7th century, which is about ten times larger than the Karako-Kagi site, one of the largest moat encircling settlements in Japan, and about six times larger than the Yoshinogari site. It is said to be a huge ruin, possibly surpassing the scale of Taga Castle ruins. Takemitsu Makoto states that the Garou site is the birthplace of the "Yamato Imperial Court".