As the saying goes, "the goose has left a voice, the person has left a name", the name of the person still has to spend countless thoughts of parents to take seriously, such a serious thing as the name of the country, but also to think carefully to finalize. In ancient times, due to the emergence of the most advanced cultural circles in China, the culture of many East Asian countries was deeply influenced, such as the name of Vietnam, which was related to the name given by the Jiaqing Emperor.
In the Wu Zetian period, there was also a small country in order to change the name of the country to the Central Plains Imperial Court, they sent an emissary called Sutian Zhenren, although The Sutian Zhenren is not very famous in history, but the Old Book of Tang has a very high evaluation of him: "Good reading of the history of the scriptures, interpretation of the genus, tolerance and elegance." ”
Makoto Awata was the 7th Envoy of Japan to the Tang Dynasty. He was sent by Emperor Bunmu of Japanese history (683–707). Why did Emperor Bunmu come to the Wuzhou Dynasty with the task of changing the name of the country? It turned out that Japan had been tossing and turning about the name change for a long time before this, and several emperors of the Sui and Tang Dynasties had not agreed to change their names for a long time, but the emperor still held out a glimmer of hope.
The name to be changed is "Uighur Kingdom". In other words, Japan was not called the current name for a long time in ancient times, but was changed to become the current version. So where did the name of the Uighur Kingdom come from? This is related to the Han Dynasty.
The Book of the Later Han Dynasty records: "In the southeast sea of Han, the Wo lived on the mountain island, and there were more than a hundred countries. Since Emperor Wu destroyed Korea, he made the yitong to the Thirty Kingdoms of the Han Dynasty, and all the kingdoms were called kings, which was a tradition in the world. "At that time, the emperors of the Han Dynasty called the Japanese Uighurs, probably because of pronunciation problems, or because of the short stature of the Japanese they saw.
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were many scattered small countries on the main island of Japan, and one of them sent emissaries to visit the Guangwu Emperor Liu Xiu, hoping to obtain the canonization of the Han Dynasty. Liu Xiu gladly accepted their submission and gave them a "Seal of the King of the Han Dynasty", and from then on the title of Wuguo was accepted by Japan and recognized by the Chinese history books at that time, but the two words "Wunu" obviously carried a little contempt.
With the deepening of Japan's understanding of Han culture, the titles of "Wu Nu" and "Wu Guo" were not pleased, according to the Old Book of Tang, at that time, the country "hated itself and its name was indecent, changed to Japan", and even wrote a national letter to the Sui Emperor calling himself the "Son of the Sun", the Sui Emperor was furious, because the name change represented that Japan no longer regarded itself as a vassal country, but sought an equal status, and the Sui Emperor was obviously unwilling to recognize the equal status between the two countries.
By 669 AD, the Uighurs had decided to change the foreign name to "Japan", and sent people to the Tang Dynasty several times to request approval, but due to poor communication, Tang Gaozong did not agree; in addition, during that period, there were also a series of events such as the "Battle of Baekgangkou" between the Tang Dynasty and the Silla Alliance against the Combined Forces of the Uighurs and Baekje, the outbreak of the "Nongshen Rebellion" in the Uighur Kingdom, and the interruption of communication with the Tang Dynasty by the Emperor Tianwu, and the matter of changing the name was delayed.
After 12 years after Wu Zetian ascended the throne and became emperor, Emperor Wenwu sent The 7th batch of Tang envoys led by Awata Makoto to Luoyang to meet the empress. Awata Makoto left a good impression on Wu Zetian, who accepted the gifts he had brought and ordered people to entertain the envoys at a banquet at the Linde Hall, and Awata Makoto took the opportunity to propose the change of the name of the Uighur kingdom to Japan, and Wu Zetian agreed to this request very happily when he was drunk.
Of course, this matter may also be related to Wu Zetian's own love of changing the name of the country. The "History of Justice" records that "the Kingdom of Wu, Empress Wu changed her name to the Kingdom of Japan", and Awata Makoto made great contributions and received many rewards after returning to China. Since then, this name has been used to this day, who would have thought that the name of the East Asian power, the historical source is so bumpy!