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Located on the eastern outskirts of the East China Sea, the Ryukyu Islands have a total length of more than 1,000 kilometers from north to south and a total land area of 3,090 square kilometers. It has a population of 1,558,100. Today's Ryukyu is called Okinawa.
Okinawa Prefecture is one of the 43 prefectures in the administrative division of Japan today, located at the southernmost point of the entire Japanese territory, with a total length of more than 1,000 kilometers from north to south, close to China's Taiwan Island, across the sea. Shurijo Castle is a Ryukyu-style castle in Naha City, which was once the seat of the royal palaces and capitals of the Ryukyu Dynasty. What is the connection between Ryukyu and China? Was Ryukyu once a Chinese territory? Ryukyu did prefer China to Japan.
Relations between Ryukyu and China began during the Sui Dynasty. The first history book of the Ryukyu people, the Nakayama Chronicle, records: "At the beginning, there was no [name] for Ryukyu. Tens of thousands of years later, the Sui Dynasty Emperor ordered The Yu lieutenant Zhu Kuan to visit and seek a different custom, which began to reach the border of this country. Looking at the distance between the ten thousand waves, the cockroaches and stretches, and if the mist floats in the water, it is named Ryuya. "The name Ofe Liu began in the Sui Dynasty.
King of the Ryukyu Islands
After Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang unified the world, Yu Hongwu sent Yang Zai to envoy Ryukyu in the 5th year, and the edict called it Ryukyu. Since then, it has been officially named Ryukyu. It can be said that the name of the country of Ryukyu was named after the Sui Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty. At that time, Ryukyu was in the "Three Kingdoms Era" and was divided into Zhongshan Kingdom, Shannan Kingdom, and Yamabei King. King Chadu of Zhongshan first took command and immediately sent his brother TaiQi and Yang Zai to China to pay tribute to him. Seeing this, the king of Shannanguo and Shanbei also paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty in the following year. The Ming Dynasty and Ryukyu were closely related, and in the 25th year of Hongwu, Ming Taizu gave the Min people thirty-six surnames to Ryukyu to preach indoctrination. The Ryukyu King often sent people to study in the Ming Dynasty.
Since hongwu 16 years, successive Ryukyu kings have requested canonization from the Chinese emperor to formally determine the relationship between kings and subjects, and the relationship between the clans and clans has been maintained for more than 500 years. The Ryukyu Kingdom has always used the Chinese era name, adhering to the Chinese Zhengshuo, and each generation of kings needs to be appointed by the Ming Dynasty government. Chinese characters are also the official script of Ryukyu, and Ryukyu is also influenced by Hokkien. The Ryukyu Kingdom is also "a member of the Kanji cultural circle". During the Yongle period, China gave the Ryukyu king the surname shangshi, and the history called it "the first Shang dynasty". Ming Taizu often issued edicts, and the three Ryukyu kingdoms obeyed the orders, and indeed they were Chinese vassal states, more obedient than Li's Korea. After Chongzhen committed suicide, Ryukyu Shizi Shangxian still regarded the Southern Ming regime as The Chinese Zhengshuo, and maintained tributary relations with the Hongguang and Longwu dynasties.
In addition, the Ryukyu King also participated in the Ming Dynasty's anti-Wu campaign. The History of The Ming Dynasty records that in the thirty-sixth year of Jiajing, "Wokou was defeated from Zhejiang and arrived in the Ryukyu Realm." Shizi Shangyuan sent troops to attack, annihilated them, and obtained six Chinese plunderers, and returned them. Humorously speaking, the Ryukyu King and Qi Jiguang were comrades in arms in the trenches.
If you look at it from the perspective of modern law, Ryukyu at that time belonged to the autonomous territory of the Ming Dynasty. This is fundamentally different from the current British Commonwealth, the Ming Dynasty can interfere in the internal affairs of Ryukyu, you let the current Queen of England remotely control under the command of India to try? Modi certainly wouldn't have listened.
After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Ryukyu paid tribute to the Qing Dynasty in 1654, and the Shunzhi Emperor Fu Lin made Shangqi King the King of Ryukyu. However, in fact, Ryukyu had lost most of its autonomy, because in 1609 the Japanese Lord of satsuma domain, the Shimazu clan, sent the general Kutaka Kakeyama to attack Ryukyu. Most of the Ryukyu trade from the Qing Dynasty was encroached upon by the Satsuma Clan. This was the beginning of Japan's invasion of Ryukyu.
After the Black Ship Incident in 1853, the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate was forced to open its port. The United States asked Japan to open the port of Ryukyu, but Japan told Perry that Ryukyu is a sovereign state and has no right to decide on the opening of its ports. The following year, the United States and the Ryukyu Kingdom signed a treaty in both Chinese and English, the Treaty of Reconciliation between the United States and the United States, which opened the port of Naha.
After the Meiji Restoration, Japan's national strength grew, gradually catching up with the Qing Dynasty in the foreign affairs movement, and how to completely annex Ryukyu became a problem for Japan, because Ryukyu was a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty in legal terms, and Japan did not dare to rush to war with the Qing Dynasty. In 1871, 66 Ryukyuans mistakenly entered the indigenous township of Mudanshe on Taiwan Island and were killed by most of the aborigines, which is known in history as the "Peony Society Incident". When the Japanese delegation sent an envoy to Prime Minister Yamen, when it came to the Peony Society incident, qing Dynasty officials Mao Changxi and Dong Ke said without any trouble: "The murderers are all 'shengfan', and they are the people of foreign countries." This made the Japanese mission a treasure: Since Ryukyu belongs to Shengfan, it has nothing to do with your Qing Dynasty, and I japan justifiably annexed Ryukyu and invaded Taiwan by the way.
In 1874, japan sent troops to Taiwan under the pretext of avenging Ryukyu. The Qing government still maintained a cowardly level, unchanged for 50 years. Prince Gong Yi signed the Sino-Japanese Treaty with Japan, the Qing government recognized the Peony Incident as a "wanton infliction of harm on the Japanese national subjects", and Japan sent troops to Taiwan "to protect the people, China cannot blame Japan", which made the ownership of Ryukyu very passive. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Yi, commonly known as "Devil Six", was not too good at diplomacy. Although the Qing Dynasty had previously insisted that it was a vassal state of China on the issue of Ryukyu sovereignty, Li Hongzhang signed it anyway. In 1879, Japan officially annexed Ryukyu and announced that Ryukyu was changed to Okinawa Prefecture, with Nabeshima Nabeshima as the first prefectural governor. On May 27, King Shangtai was forced to take illness to Tokyo, and the Ryukyu Kingdom collapsed.
1880 Ryukyu Three-Point Plan: China has sovereignty
From 1879 to 1885, a large number of Ryukyuan people went into exile in China and launched a restoration movement. The Ryukyuans, led by Lin Shigong, submitted 28 petitions to the Manchu qing ministers Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang, requesting representations with Japan. However, although Zuo Zongtang's contribution to the recovery of Xinjiang at that time was remarkable, he was fiercely suppressed by Li Hongzhang and was unable to pay attention to Ryukyu, and in 1885, the national hero Zuo Zongtang regretted his illness and died. In desperation, the Ryukyuan Lin Shigong committed suicide.
On April 4, 1880, Li Hongzhang presented a three-point plan for Ryukyu: the central islands, including the main island of Okinawa, would return Ryukyu, restore the Ryukyu Kingdom, assign the islands south of Miyako and mt. Yae to China, and assign the five islands, including Amami Oshima, to Japan. The Japanese side proposed dividing the Ryukyu Into two parts: the main island of Okinawa and its northern islands as Japanese territory, and the southern Senjima Islands as Chinese territory. However, neither side was satisfied, and the proposal was shelved. However, in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, the Qing Dynasty was defeated and completely lost the right to speak in the Ryukyu Islands, not only returning the Ryukyu Islands to Japan, but also ceding Taiwan and Penghu to Japan. Since then, the fact that our country has sovereignty over the Ryukyu Islands and part of its territory has begun to be forgotten.
During World War II, Roosevelt wanted to give Ryukyu to China, but Chiang Kai-shek declined
During World War II, the Japanese army slaughtered more than 260,000 Ryukyu people. Japan was then defeated. The Cairo Declaration and the Peace Treaty of Bostan stipulate that Japan may retain only its four native islands and other small islands as the drafters have decided". Roosevelt wanted to hand over Ryukyu to Chiang Kai-shek, but Chiang Kai-shek refused for various reasons.
At that time, Chinese believed that Ryukyu belonged to China, and the patriotic poet Wen Yiduo's "Song of the Seven Sons of Taiwan" wrote: "Ryukyu is my brother, I am Taiwan." In 1938, Chiang Kai-shek also said: "In the past Sino-Japanese War, he invaded and occupied our Taiwan and Ryukyu. "It is a pity that, for historical reasons, the United States gave Ryukyu to Japan in 1970. The present-day Ryukyu Islands are called Okinawa Prefecture.
Although Ryukyu was under Japanese rule, the Shurijo Castle Festival was held every October, imitating the scene when Chinese envoys visited during the Ryukyu Dynasty, telling the story of the deep friendship between Ryukyu and China over the past century. Japan obviously did not like the Shurijo Castle Festival, after all, Ryukyu could not be restored, so it did not oppose it.
In addition, however, according to the Postan Proclamation, Japan's territory is limited to the Japanese archipelago, and Ryukyu is obviously not within the territory of Japan, which is an illegal land. To this day, the sovereignty of the Ryukyu Islands has not been determined, China has never recognized Japan's sovereignty over them, and the "Ryukyu Restoration Movement" has always existed in Ryukyu.