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There is a famous Evil Horse Tai Kingdom in the history of Japan, which once had in-depth contacts with Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period.
However, the Evil Horse Tai Kingdom soon disappeared into the historical records, in the Chinese history books, it last appeared in the era of the Western Jin Dynasty, and the Japanese history books for this era are similar to myths, similar to the Chinese Three Emperors and Five Emperors period, so the final outcome of the Evil Horse Tai Kingdom has always been a major problem that has plagued historians.
After Emperor Wu of Jin, Japan and China had no official contacts for a long time, until the ninth year of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (413), when the new state once again paid tribute to Emperor An of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, resuming exchanges between the two countries that had been interrupted for more than a hundred years.
This is the earliest official Chinese record of the Yamato imperial court. Later, during the Southern Dynasty and Song Dynasty, five more kings (Zan, Zhen, Ji, Xing, and Wu) sent envoys to the Chinese Dynasty to ask for the title, which is the famous Five Kings of the Wu.
This regime continued to develop, and during the Sui Dynasty in China, it evolved into the Yamato court, which continues to this day, which is also recognized by all walks of life.
However, it is difficult to discuss what the predecessor of the Yamato court was, and what this regime had to do with the Evil Horse Tai Kingdom.
On this point, there is a question about where the specific location of the Yamatai Kingdom is, whether it is in the northern part of Kyushu Island or in the area of Honshu Island.
If it is in the northern part of Kyushu, then the Evil Horse Tai Kingdom is likely to be only the suzerainty of the Kyushu tribes, and may not have much to do with the later Yamato imperial court, and the so-called eastward migration of the Yamato Kingdom has no clear evidence to support it.
If it is in, it means that the Yamatai Kingdom is likely the predecessor of the later Yamato court, the ally of the various Japanese tribes during the Three Kingdoms period that eventually unified most of the Japanese archipelago.
This issue has been debated in Japanese historiography for more than 200 years, and two famous scholars of the Edo period, Honju Nobunaga and Arai Shiraishi, were representatives of the Kyushu and theories, respectively, and they have been arguing ever since.
In fact, the location of the Evil Horse Tai Kingdom can be found in the Three Kingdoms, which has become the key to cracking the development of ancient Japanese history, so let's try to explore it.
In the Records of the Three Kingdoms, the specific path from the mainland to the country of Evil Horse Tai is described in detail.
First, head southeast from Obiga-gun to the southernmost tip of the Korean Peninsula. After that, he crossed the sea to Tsushima Island, crossed the sea to a large country (present-day Iki Island), and then continued to cross the sea, finally landing on the island of Kyushu, reaching the country of Moro, and then continuing to the southeast, passing through the country of Ito and the country of slaves, and reaching the country of Bumi.
All of the above is not controversial, but then the problem comes, the Three Kingdoms records that after starting from the Bumi Kingdom, you can reach the country of Touma in twenty days by water, and ten days to the south by water, one month by land, you can reach the country of Evil Horse Tai.
According to the Kyushu theory, the Yamadai Kingdom is located in the northern part of Kyushu, not far from the Bumi Kingdom, on the grounds that there are some archaeological finds in Kitakyushu that prove that there are a large number of ruins of the late Yayoi period.
There is no doubt that the country of Bumi is in the north of Kyushu, but it is an exaggeration to go south to the country of Yamatai to take ten days by water and one month by land. According to this mileage, it is impossible for the Evil Horse Tai Kingdom to be in the northern part of Kyushu.
In order to solve this problem, some Japanese scholars have given two explanations.
The first is that the records of the Three Kingdoms may be wrong, not Lu Xing January but Lu Xing one day. However, this assertion has little basis and is therefore not discussed.
The second is that the ten days of water travel and the month of January of land travel are not successive but parallel, that is, starting from the country of Bumi, the ten days of water travel or the month of land travel can reach the country of Evil Horse Tai.
However, there are still some problems with this statement, because from Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, the northernmost part of Kyushu Island, to Kagoshima City, Kagoshima Prefecture, the southernmost city, it is only a little over 300 kilometers, and it is very rich to take a month by land. Therefore, if you go south from northern Kyushu for a month, you can't still be in northern Kyushu, but you should have reached the southernmost tip of Kyushu.
Moreover, there is also a dog slave country in the south of the evil horse Tai country, if the evil horse country can only be in the south of Kyushu, then where is the dog slave country, is it in the sea?
Therefore, the fatal flaw of Kyushu's theory is the problem of distance.
So what about?
ONE OF THE MAIN ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF THE THEORY IS THAT THE KUMADAI KINGDOM IS LOCATED IN THE YAMATO AREA (PRESENT-DAY NARA PREFECTURE), AND ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS IS THAT THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE WORD YAMATO やまと (YAMATO) IS VERY SIMILAR TO YAMATO, SO IT IS BELIEVED THAT THE KUMADAI KINGDOM GRADUALLY EVOLVED INTO THE YAMATO REGIME.
Moreover, the theory can also explain the biggest shortcoming of the Kyushu theory, that is, the distance problem, starting from Kitakyushu, after ten days by water and one month by land, it is almost possible to reach the area.
However, also has a major flaw, and that is the problem of direction. Because the Three Kingdoms Zhi clearly says that from Bumi Kingdom to Evil Horse Tai Kingdom is going south, if Yama Tai Kingdom is in, then it is not going south but east. Therefore, scholars supporting this statement can only assume that the reference to the southbound in the Three Kingdoms Chronicles is incorrect, but should be eastbound.
In my opinion, the distance problem mentioned by Kyushu is a bigger problem and cannot be explained, while the direction of's theory can find an explanation.
In ancient times, in the absence of an accurate map, the Cao Wei envoy probably got the direction wrong, and he imagined the western part of the Japanese archipelago, which originally ran east-west, as a north-south direction. Rotating the real map ninety degrees clockwise became what Wei Envoy imagined.
The evidence is that, according to the records of the Three Kingdoms, the kingdom of U was in the sea east of Dongye in Huiji County.
Ji Qidao, when in the east of Huiji and Dongye. (Three Kingdoms Zhi Weishu Karasuma Xianbei Dongyi Biography)
Huiji County Dongye is in the area of present-day Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, and from the map, in the sea east of Fuzhou City, only Okinawa Island is located, and the U Kingdom can never be in this position.
But if the western part of Honshu Island is rotated 90 degrees clockwise, then the Yamato area is indeed east of Higashiye.
From this point of view, the records of the Three Kingdoms may indeed be incorrect, and the kingdom of Evil Horse Tai may not be south of the kingdom of Bumi, but east of the kingdom of Bumi.
On the other hand, to the south of Yamato is the Kumano region (present-day southern Nara Prefecture, southern Mie Prefecture, and Wakayama Prefecture), which may be the location of the dog slave country.
On the whole, the Kyushu theory is much more loophole than the theory.
So why is this statement so marketable in Japan? I think it was caused by Cao Wei's experience with the evil horse Taiguo.
You know, many times academic research is also to serve politics.
Although the Yamato court, represented by the Five Kings, later appealed to the Southern Song Dynasty for a title, they had complete independence, and the Southern Song Dynasty did not interfere in their internal affairs. Moreover, they asked the governor of Silla to appoint the military of the six kingdoms of Nagaro, Qin, Han, and Han, so the purpose of seeking the title was obvious, that is, to gain hegemony over the Japanese mainland and the Korean Peninsula, not to really submit to the Central Plains Dynasty.
But the Evil Horse Tai Kingdom is different, if it were not for the intervention of Cao Wei, perhaps the Evil Horse Tai State would not be the opponent of the Dog Slave Country. Coupled with the fact that the Later Cao Wei envoys helped the Evil Horse Tai State to quell the civil unrest, it can be said that if it were not for the help of Cao Wei, the Evil Horse Tai State might have become history.
Perhaps in Japan's view, this kind of history is not honorable, and if the Evil Horse Tai Kingdom is in Kitakyushu, it means that this country has nothing to do with the later Yamato imperial court, and this dishonorable history has nothing to do with later Japan.
Conversely, if the Yamatai Kingdom was in and later developed into the Yamato regime, wouldn't it mean that the later Japanese regime was preserved with the help of the Central Plains Dynasty?
However, I think that the truth of history will always be revealed one day, and I look forward to making major discoveries such as the golden seal given by Emperor Guangwu in the future.
This article is part of a long-term serialization, please follow me and reply by private message: 1, you can see all the articles, which have been sorted out.