Hokuzan

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Hokuzan in northern Okinawa during the Sanzan period.

Hokuzan ( Japanese 北山 , dt. "Northern Mountain") was one of the three kingdoms that controlled the island of Okinawa during the Sanzan period in the 14th and early 15th centuries. The island was divided into countless tribal principalities and small kingdoms, from which three central kingdoms emerged in the years from 1314. In addition to Hokuzan, these were the kingdoms of Chūzan and Nanzan . Hokuzan ceased to exist after it was conquered by King Shō Hashi of Chūzan in 1416 .

history

Before the founding of Hokuzan, the rulers of Okinawa were loosely subordinate to a supreme prince of Okinawa. After Prince Eiji's death in 1313, his son Tamagusuku took over the office. Tamagusuku did not manage to get all the princes to regard him as a legitimate ruler, so that rebellions against him came almost immediately. Therefore, in 1314, he proclaimed the kingdom of Chūzan from his future capital, Urasoe . Haniji , the prince of Nakijin in the north, renounced Tamagusuku and fled to his domain, where he finally proclaimed the kingdom of Hokuzan in 1322. Around 1337 the south of the island broke away from Chūzan as the kingdom of Nanzan. The rulers of the three kingdoms succeeded in asserting themselves as undisputed kings against the other tribal chiefs, so that Okinawa was more or less centrally united for the first time.

Although Hokuzan was the largest of the three kingdoms and controlled a good half of the island, it had the lowest population density and was therefore the weakest economically. The land in the north of the island was wild and inhospitable and therefore not very suitable for agriculture. The center of the population was the city ​​of the same name, built around Nakijin Castle , which was located at the tip of a peninsula in the northwest of the empire.

Another significant disadvantage for both Hokuzan and Nanzan was that Chūzan controlled Nāfa, the largest trading port on the island. Hokuzan also took part in the increasingly important sea trade in the region, but only to a much lesser extent than Chūzan. At that time it was important for overseas trade to be integrated into the tribute system of the Chinese Ming dynasty . Chūzan succeeded in doing this in 1372, while Hokuzan was only able to achieve something comparable later. The low economic importance of the empire was also reflected in the number of tribute embassies it sent to China. Only nine such missions are known, while Nanzan sent 19 and Chūzan even 52 missions to China. In contrast to Chūzan, Hokuzan was also not given the opportunity to send some of its residents to China for study purposes.

Another setback for Hokuzan came in 1406. After the death of the Chinese Emperor Hongwu in 1398, all three kingdoms had sent ambassadors to Nanjing with the request that the respective king be recognized as the only legitimate king of Okinawa. There was no answer until 1406 when a Ming embassy arrived in Chūzan and its king recognized Bunei as the rightful ruler of Okinawa.

Despite its economic situation, Hokuzan was able to maintain a force large enough to prevent Chūzan from invading until the 1410s. However, when three important princes turned away from King Hananchi , the ruler of Chūzan, Shō Hashi, saw the opportunity and conquered the kingdom in 1416. Shortly before the fall of Nakijin Castle, King Hananchi and his closest subordinates killed themselves. In the year In 1422 Shō Hashi installed his brother as governor of Hokuzan, who, however, had only limited power and was absolutely subordinate to the throne in Shuri .

literature