Prince Sōtoku and Ono are no strangers to those who like to read manga, as they are classic characters in Japan's Hilarious Manga Hiwa. In fact, Prince Shengde and Ono Meizi are not fictional, they are real figures in history.
Ono and Prince Shengde in Funny Manga Nichiwa
Prince Shengde (574-622), member of the Japanese Imperial Family during the Asuka period, thinker, and politician. During his regency, he carried out a series of fruitful political reforms in the face of a domestic environment of contradictions and bullying of power and lords, and reshaped the authority of the royal family. He studied both Confucianism and Buddhism, and was open-minded, and under his leadership, Buddhism spread rapidly in Japan and became the largest religion in Japan. At the same time, he sent Sui envoys to China four times, opening a new era of Sino-Japanese exchanges.
Statue of The Prince of St. De
Ono Meizi (565-625), a Japanese politician during the Asuka period. According to the Nihon Shoki, he was sent to the Sui Dynasty twice in 607 and 609 as an envoy to the Sui Dynasty. In the Sui Dynasty, the Chinese name is "Su Yinggao", which is the Chinese consonant of its name. Although the name was "sister", it was male (at that time, the word "son" was available for both men and women).
Statue of Sister Ono
The reform of the Prince of Saint Virtue
On February 7, 574, princesses of Japan gave birth to a baby boy outside the stables of the imperial palace. For this reason, his father named the baby boy Stables after emperor Ming, and because (supposedly) he could listen to ten people at the same time without mishearing, he gave him a nickname, "Feng Cong'er". This was the later Prince of Shengde.
After emperor's death, Emperor Chongjun ascended the throne, with Su I Mazi as his minister. Relying on his power, Su Mazi gradually manipulated the internal and external affairs of the dynasty. In order to further seize power, on November 3, 592, Su I Mazi instructed Naoma to kill Emperor Chongjun. Afterwards, Su I Mazi assumed the dictatorship and installed his niece, Feng Yu Yu Yahime, as emperor. On December 8, 592, the 38-year-old Toyo Go-ryoko Yakihime took the throne. This emperor was the first empress of Japan, Emperor Tuigu.
Statue of Emperor Suiko
In the second year of emperor Tuigu's reign (with emperor Tomorrow's sister), he made his nephew, Toyotomi Toyotomi, crown prince and made him regent to assist him in his administration. During the 36-year reign of Emperor Tuigu, Prince Shengde (because Prince Shengde died in 621 and Empress Tuigu died in 628, so throughout his life, he could only be called the crown prince) and implemented a series of reforms, known in history as the "Reform of the Tuigu Dynasty". The reforms vigorously strengthened imperial rule and gradually established a centralized system centered on the "emperor".
In this series of reforms, the most important thing is to formulate a new system of official positions. In 603, Prince Shengde enacted the "Twelfth Rank of the Crown" law, that is, to modify the caste system, to set the official position into 12 ranks, and to appoint officials according to ability and merit. The crown is not divided into categories, only according to talent and merit awarded to individuals, can not be hereditary. The implementation of the "Twelfth Rank of the Crown" suppressed the power of the nobility to a certain extent, and played a role in recruiting talents, promoting the bureaucratization of the nobility and the formation of a bureaucracy headed by the emperor.
In 604, Prince Shengde presided over the formulation of the "Seventeen-Article Constitution", the first written legal code in Japan. However, this is not the constitution in today's sense, but only the regulations that bind officials, and the content is mostly from Chinese Confucianism, Law, Taoism, and Buddhism, among which the Confucian "Three Principles" and "Five Constants" are the core ideas of the "Seventeen-Article Constitution", which stipulates the social status and rights and obligations of each hierarchy, and especially highlights the loftiness of imperial power. The first article of the "Seventeen-Article Constitution" stipulates that "peace is precious", the second article is "respect for the Three Jewels" (the Three Jewels refer to Buddha, Dharma, and monks), and the third article is "To inherit the edict must be respectful". The first emphasizes the harmony of Japanese society, the second establishes the status of Buddhism in Japan, the shinto country, and the third establishes the authority of the emperor. The impact of these three articles on Japanese society continues to this day.
In order to unify his thinking, Prince Shengde also vigorously promoted Buddhism. In addition to "paying homage to the Three Jewels", he also preached the scriptures in the imperial palace several times, personally wrote the three sutras of "Shenghua", "Lotus", and "Vima", and built seven Buddhist temples, including the Four Heavenly Kings Temple, Horyu Temple, and Zhonggong Temple.
Dispatch sui envoy diplomacy
The "Asuka Period" inherits the Kofun period of Japan and the Nara period of the lower Kai, which is an important period for Japan to enter feudal society. At this time in Asia, the Sui Dynasty of China coincided with the Asuka era of Japan. In 589, the Sui Dynasty unified the north and south of China, and the Sui Dynasty had strong national strength, cultural prosperity, advanced systems, and developed production technology, and had a strong influence and attraction on neighboring countries. Prince Shengde has long admired Chinese culture and liked to study the civil administration of the Middle-Earth dynasty. In order to learn and introduce excellent Chinese culture and advanced production technology, and in order to get rid of the traditional subservient position in the interaction with the mainland imperial court, establish an equal position, and consolidate his own rule, Prince Shengde decided to send emissaries to China.
In addition, on the Korean Peninsula at that time, Goryeo, Silla, and Baekje were in the ascendancy of the three kingdoms. In 598, emperor Wen of Sui raised an army to conquer because of Goryeo's attack on western Liaoning, while Silla and Baekje took the opportunity to pay tribute to the Sui Dynasty and borrow the power of the Sui state to counter Goryeo. At that time, The Japanese stronghold of power in Korea, Renna, was destroyed by Silla in 562, and for this reason, Japan (then known as the Uighur Kingdom) refused to give up. After that, Japan's greatest concern for the Korean Peninsula was whether Renna could be revived, and just after the Sui Dynasty sent 300,000 troops to conquer Goryeo in 598, Japan also prepared to conquer Silla. However, due to the illness of the Japanese conquest general Prince Laimu, the conquest plan had to be abandoned, and Silla had already made friends with the powerful Sui Dynasty at this time. In order to compete with Silla and maintain its international status, the importance of diplomatic activities against the Sui Dynasty became even more prominent.
In 607, Prince Shengde sent Ono Meizi to lead the scholar Shamen (the common name for a monastic monk) on a trip to the Sui Dynasty. At that time, the Sui Emperor opened the Hongxu Temple Sifang Hall in Luoyang to receive the Japanese delegation, and ordered the senior monks to be responsible for educating students and Shamen.
Sui envoys to China route
For this dispatch, there is a clear record in the Nihon Shoki: "In the autumn of July, Pengshen Shuo Gengji, the big gift Onochen sister was sent to the Tang Dynasty to do welfare affairs with a saddle. (The Nihon Shoki was written in 720, corresponding to the Tang Dynasty in China, and Japan had begun to use "Tang" to refer to China, so when writing the history books, it called the Sui Dynasty "Tang".) The same is true of the "Emperor Tang" in the following text. There was also a "Guoshu incident" in the diplomacy of the Sui envoys: Japan was anxious to establish "equal diplomacy" with the Sui Dynasty, calling itself "the son of heaven at sunrise" in the book of state, and calling the Sui Emperor "the son of heaven who has nowhere in the day". A small country that had always been crowned by China as the "King of Han Wei" and "Pro-Wei Wu King" dared to call itself "The Son of Heaven", and, in terms of position, the "sunrise" was obviously more honorable than the "sun nowhere", and the Sui Emperor would of course be disgusted and disgusted, but on the grounds of their low level of education and poor language, the Sui Emperor persuaded the Sui Emperor. The Sui Dynasty Emperor revised a letter of state and sent Pei Shiqing and thirteen other people to visit Japan with Ono Meizi.
Unexpectedly, on the way back to China, on the way back to China, there was another "incident of the loss of the national book". After Pei Shiqing and Ono's party arrived in Nambazu, Ono said that she had originally carried the Sui Emperor's national certificate, but was taken away by baekje on the way back to China. Its facts are published in the Nihon Shoki:
The concubines of the courtiers said: "When the ministers returned, the Tang Emperor gave the ministers a book. However, on the day of the Baekje Kingdom, the Baekje people probed to plunder, and it was not allowed to be above. So the courtiers agreed: "Although the husband makes a man die, he will not lose his purpose." Yes, it is made. What is the book of the lost powers? "Then sit on exile. The Emperor of Shi's pardon said: "Although a sister has the sin of losing her book, she must not be guilty." Its big country customers and so on, etc., are also bad. "Forgiveness is not sinfulness either."
There has been controversy over ono's loss of the National Book. One view is that what Ono said is true, and that it was indeed Baekje that took away the national book; the other view is that the loss of the national book was jointly directed by Prince Seontoku and other Centers of the Japanese Imperial Court and Ono Meizi.
Judging from the international situation at that time, it was unlikely that the Baekje State would seize the Sui Dynasty Emperor's letter to Japan. At that time, the situation on the Korean Peninsula was tense, and Silla and Baekje chose to pay tribute to the Sui Dynasty and borrow the power of the Sui State to resist Goryeo. Since it was necessary to rely on the Sui Dynasty to protect itself, if the Baekje State seized the State Letter of the Sui Dynasty and Japan at this time, it would not only anger the Sui Emperor and lose the protection of the Sui Dynasty, but also establish a new enemy of Japan, plus the Goryeo State that was already eyeing the tiger, Baekje would be attacked on three sides. Undoubtedly, the plundering of the national book is harmful and unprofitable to Baekje, so the claim that the national book was taken by Baekje is not very credible.
Out of the responsibility and mission of the emissary, Ono Meizi should know the contents of the national book, and the japanese power center at that time, Prince Shengde and others should also know the content of the national book. Some scholars have speculated that the loss of the national book incident was a play co-directed by Ono Meizi and the Japanese power center. Because the Sui Dynasty was very unhappy with Japan's practice of striving for equal diplomacy at that time, especially the practice of calling itself "the son of heaven at sunrise" in the national book and calling the Sui Emperor "the son of heaven who is nowhere in the day". According to the "Sui Shu And Biography of the Kingdom of Wu", after reading the national letter carried by Ono Meizi, the Reaction of the Sui Emperor was "it is not pleasant to read, it is said that Hongxu Qing knows, and the barbarian book is unreasonable, do not hear it again", then this unpleasant emotion will inevitably be reflected in the Sui Emperor's letter to Japan. In order to maintain the face of the emperor's royal family and his own country, it is reasonable that Prince Seitoku and Ono Meizi co-directed the play "The Book of The Nation Was Taken".
So what kind of "punishment" did Ono finally accept? The Chronicle of the Bamboo Book records that the courtiers proposed to exile Ono Meizi, but the Emperor pardoned Ono Meizi on the grounds that the matter was not well affected by the Sui Dynasty. In fact, not only did Ono Meizi not receive any punishment, but Prince Shengde also appointed Ono Meizi as an ambassador for the second time, Ji Shixiong as a small envoy (that is, a deputy envoy), Kurasashi as a general affair, and four international students and four monks studying abroad, and accompanied Sui envoy Pei Shiqing and others back to China. From here, it can also be explained from the side that Ono's national book was not snatched away in Baekje. Otherwise, how could an emissary who lost his credentials go unpunished and be entrusted with a heavy responsibility and send another mission?
This time, the dispatch of Sui envoys was mainly for the consideration of diplomatic etiquette, that is, to send Pei Shiqing and others back to China, and also to send monks and students studying abroad to China to study excellent Chinese culture, especially Buddhist culture. Therefore, when Ono meizi returned home after her visit the following year (609), international students and monks stayed in the Sui Dynasty to continue to study the excellent Chinese culture for decades. These international students and monks have made significant contributions to the political and economic construction of Japan in the future, as well as to the promotion of social change. This dispatch of sui envoys is also considered to be a prelude to the large-scale "dispatch of Tang envoys" in the future.
In 614, Japan sent Sui envoys to visit China, and the Nihon Shoki records that in June 614, "in June 614, "inuyasha Jun Mita shovel and Yadabe were made in Datang"; in September 615, "Inuyasha Jun Mita shovel and Yadabe were created from Datang". However, among the envoys this time, ono's figure was missing. Ono disappeared from history after completing her second mission in 609. However, it is worth mentioning that when Prince Shengde was in power, the "Twelfth Order of the Crown" was implemented, and ono Meizi first appeared in the historical records as the fifth order, and after completing the mission, it was promoted to the first order.
Although it was not recognized and reprimanded by the Sui Dynasty monarchs, it opened the curtain of Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges in the past three hundred years, which is of great historical significance. The "Sui envoys" of the ancient Dynasty sent envoys a total of four times, which promoted the large-scale campaign of sending envoys to the Tang Dynasty during the subsequent Tang Dynasty. The texts brought back by the envoys of the Tang Dynasty changed the thinking of the people in Japan and prepared the ideological conditions for the Dahua reform, while these Envoys, overseas students, and monks studying abroad provided a talent reserve for the Dahua reform. In the Dahua Reform, the main force of political reform is precisely some old international students such as Nanyuan An, Gao Xiangxuanli, and Monk Xing.
A large number of Middle-earth civilization was introduced to Japan, and Japan ushered in the first period of cultural prosperity in history, in which the rise and spread of Buddhist culture became the biggest highlight during this period. The period from the push of the ancient dynasty to the Dahua revolution is known as the "Asuka Culture Era". As an important promoter of cultural exchanges during this period, Prince Shengde illuminated japan's asuka era. Ono Meizi as an important figure in the Sui envoys has also been recorded in the annals of history.
Old (1958-1984) Prince Sunde on the Yen
bibliography
1. Nihon Shoki, vol. 22, Elementary School, 1996
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3. Wang Xiangrong and Xia Yingyuan: Compilation of Materials on the History of Sino-Japanese Relations, Zhonghua Bookstore, 1984
4. Wang Yong, "A Study of sui and Tang envoys in East Asian coordinates", China Book Publishing House, 2013
5. Wang Xinxi, "On the Japanese Envoys to Sui", Historical Research, July 2002