Several years ago, a friend directed me to a book I'd never heard of before. It was "Korean Impact on Japanese Culture", by Dr. Jon Covell and Alan Covell. They are Korea scholars who not only pointed out the many cultural influences that had been brought to Japan via Korea, but also proposed the idea that the Japanese imperial line may have been taken over by ethnic Koreans sometime in the fourth century A.D.
I was going over some historical material recently in the Nihongi (the Chronicles of Japan) and found some material I wanted to compare. So I also re-read the Covell's book. Here I present some of the interesting and (for me) unanswered questions that are raised.
I should mention that this kind of speculation is not welcomed by many Japanese people, who naturally accept the fact that the Japanese people and their Emperors have descended in an unbroken line, at least back to the turn of the millenium, if not back to the Sun Goddess at the beginnings of Time. And there has been a traditional but underlying animosity between the Japanese and Korean cultures for as long as anyone can remember.
My background is in Japanese culture and language; I've lived in Japan for four years and have a great appreciation for their traditions and history. Frankly, I would rather not see their earliest histories proven wrong, but I have an amateur scholar's curiosity, and I find this question interesting from an historical perspective.
First, here is some of the historical material from the fourth century in Japan, as recorded in the Nihongi. Also called the Nihon-Shoki, it was compiled in 720 A.D. at the behest of the Empress of Japan, and is one of the earliest written chronicles in Japan. (The Kojiki, written only 8 years earlier, recounts virtually the same stories, but is more difficult to read, repleat with long songs and poetry). The Nihongi tells the history of the Japanese people from the earliest creation myths, and through an enumeration of the reigns of each of the Emperors and Empresses up until 697 A.D. I use the translation by W. G. Aston, complete with many footnotes and commentaries.
Supposedly, none of this material had been properly written down before (writing was still something somewhat new to Japan), so most of it had been an oral tradition for centuries. As a result, while it certainly represents a great deal of more-or-less factual material (after the creation myths are related), it is not lent the same verbatim creedence that we might give to more recent histories. The dates and elapsed times are certainly suspect in any case. We start with Book 8, The Emperor Chiuai.
The 14th Emperor, Chiuai ascended the throne in 191 A.D. Scholars add a minimum of 120 years to these early dates and in some cases up to 160 years, by correlation with histories recorded in China and Korea. The commonly accepted dates of Chiuai's reign are somewhere around 340 A.D.
In the second year of his reign, Chiuai took Oki-naga-tarashi-hime as his Empress; she was later to succeed him as the Empress Jingo. Previously he had three sons by two different consorts.
Unlike the introduction of most Imperial Chapters, the Nihongi does not mention where Chiuai set up his new palace. The previous Emperor Seimu, his father, was buried in Saki (near Osaka), so we are left to assume that he, like most rulers of this time, lived around the area of Naniha (Osaka) and Yamato, just to the east.
Chiuai desired to conquer the land of Kumaso, in southern Kyushu Island. But a God came to Jingo and told her that the Emperor should instead conquer the wealthy land of Mukatsu ("Over There"), which Aston identifies as the Silla kingdom in Korea. But the Emperor refused, saying that he had climbed the hill and could see nothing at all across the sea. The God came to Chiuai and told him that because of his impudence, he would never conquer Mukatsu, but that its rule would be left to the son just conceived in the Empress Jingo. Chiuai tried to subjugate Kumaso instead, but without success. In the ninth year of his reign he died; one chronicle says in was in battle against Kumaso, another that he died soon after the God prophesied his unborn son's fate. (Several different versions are recounted in the Nihongi.)
Jingo and her regent decided to conceal the death of the Emperor from the people. It is not clear what they may have accomplished by this or when it was finally divulged. It was not until the "10th month" of her reign that she was endowed Great Empress, and a year later Chiuai was officially burried (in a tumulus that probably took long to construct).
Believing that Chiuai had died as a direct result of the God's curse, Jingo (as a shaman) called up the Gods to determine which one(s) had spoken to her and Chiuai previously, so that she could give offerings, reportedly so that she could successfully obtain the treasured land of Mukatsu. The God identified itself a 'the lady of sky-distant Mukatsu'.
Very soon after Chiuai's death, Jingo decided to embark on the conquest of Mukatsu (Korea) and gathered an army and navy. On the sea they were buoyed up by winds and currents so favorable that the tide carried them all the way to Silla, in the interior of Korea -- completely passing over the Kaya and Paekche kingdoms! Having reached Silla without effort, her armies battled south, conquering the other kingdoms on the way to the sea, and securing promises of servitute from all the Korean rulers.
At the time for the delivery of her child, Jingo was still in Korea, and she 'stopped up her loins with a stone' to delay the delivery so that her son could be born in Japan, where she wanted him to rule. After arriving in Kyushu, Jingo gave birth to the future Emperor Ojin, after over 11 months of pregnancy. [This looks suspiciously like an attempt to attribute the child's imperial parentage to Emperor Chiuai, who had died at least 11 months previously.]
Having reached Kyushu, her armies proceeded back to Naniha, and immediatly took on the task of "Subjugating Yamato". Yamato was part of the heartland of the Japanese Imperial dynasty, just east of Naniha, but (at least by the time of the writing of the chronicles) was also used as the name for the empire ruled by the Japanese emperors. This subjugation (of an area that Jingo had only recently left as the Emperor's widow) entailed the defeat, and death in battle, of the two older sons of Chiuai, who could have been heirs to the imperial throne. Only after these conquests was Jingo declared officially the Grand Empress.
Recall that Chiuai professed total ignorance of the existence of any lands across the sea. However, following the acent of Jingo as Empress, the Nihongi is filled with constant references to Korea. Not just for a few generations, but for hundreds and hundreds of years, scarcely a page goes by without entries about the visits, tributes, and historical happenings in the Korean kingdoms (or 'colonies') of Paekche, Silla, and Koryo. Fully half of the dated entries refer to Korea. 'The king of Paekche died', 'Paekche sent an envoy', 'envoys visited Koryo'. Under the Emperor Ojin, Jingo's son, armies were sent again to subjugate unrully vassals in Paekche.
I had "read through" the Nihongi before, but this time it amazed me to see the amount of importance given to these Korean connections over the centuries. This is not proof of anything other than the very close relationship between Japan and Korea over many centuries. It is well recognized that Korea (eventually) acted as the main intermediary source of the higher forms of culture that originated in China -- learning, writing, religion,architecture, metal-craft, textiles, pottery and so on. This closeness of political commerce between Japan and Korea beginning in the early fourth century was certainly the beginnings of that influx of cultural influence, but it well pre-dates the obvious influences that began to appear later, in the Japapese adaptation of Chinese forms of architecture, writing, learning, and religion in the seventh and eighth centuries.
Another explanation for this phenomenon relates to the scarcity of early written Japanese records. While the first chronicles did not appear in Japan until the eighth century, writing was certainly known among court scholars and scribes back into the sixth century, and the authors of the Nihongi probably had access to some court records of this time. For earlier written records, however, they may have had to look to court records of the (friendly) Korean states, focusing on those which showed interactions with Japan. It is known that Silla and Paekche were keeping records in written Chinese by the middle of the fourth century; although these records no longer exist today, they might likely have been available to the Japanese court a few centuries later.That is to say that while in Japan before writing was common, ordinary events like the arrival of tribute or envoys would not as likely have been preserved by the oral records, the written Korean records of the same era would have routinely recorded such interactions, including some that involved Japan. This might explain the large number of records in the Japanese chronicles of "routine" transactions that involved Korea, versus routine internal Japanese affairs that would not have been recorded in writing before the 7th or 8th century.
One more very startling entry is the fact that 270 years after Jingo, the 30th Emperor, Bidatsu, is simply recorded as having set up his palace at Oho-wi in Kudara, the Japanese name for Paekche, Korea! The following Emperor returned the throne to the Yamato area of Japan.
Now to the Korean side. This version is taken from "Korean Impact on
Japanese Culture" by Dr. Jon Carter Covell and Alan Covell. (
Hollym order this book.
They are Korean history scholars who have published several historical
works and have clearly done research in
vernacular Korean histories, at least as early as the Nihongi. But I
have not seen any of their sources myself and can only pass on what they
have reported in their book.
Around 346 A.D. a tribe of shamanistic horsemen called the Puyo fled south from the main continental area around Manchuria into the Korean peninsula. They were warlike and succeeded in subjugating -- or at least intermingling with -- the people of Paekche in northwest Korea. They brought with them a special treasure, a baby princess of the royal blood of the Puyo line. Her name was Jingu, and her royal shamanistic bloodline was shared with and revered by the rulers of Paekche.
When Jingu grew up, the leaders of Paekche deemed to give her in a political marriage to the leader of the neighboring kingdom of Kaya, an ally of the Silla kingdom. He was over fifty years old and already had two sons; his name was Chuai.
Frankly, I'm unclear as to whether the Covell's found the names Jingu and Chuai in the Korean chronicles, or whether they have started from the point of view that these Japanese characters were in fact Koreans, and have then reconstructed their history using those names.May, 2003: I'm happy that the Covell's have contacted me to clarify that in fact "The story proposed about who Jingu really was was indeed hypothetical...". This is as I expected and does not detract from the historical possibility of their hypothesis.
Within a few years, old Chuai died at home, and Jingu feared for her political fortunes, faced with the rivalry of Chuai's two sons. With the help of her regent, she gathered an army around her. Here things get fuzzy (or fuzzier). Alone, her following was not great enough, so she enlisted the alliance of Paekche with a promise to conquer more new territories (possibly including Japan). Whether this was a plan to flee militarily from Kaya or simply to gain armies against her Kaya foes is anyone's guess by this time, but she fully intended to remain a ruler in her own right and not simply revert to an honored matron, or be killed as a potential rival. If nothing else, she wanted her unborn son to be a king. (Make no mistake about it, no matter which version you like, Jingo/Jingu was one tough woman.)
Her combined armies invaded Silla just to the east, subjugating them and adding some of their forces to her own. The combined armies fought south with success and then embarked across the sea to conquer the "Land of Across" (something like Mukatsu, or 'over there'), meaning Japan. Somewhere along the line she had became pregnant, possibly by Chuai, but equally as likely by her regent, who was not himself high enough born to be a king. But the wife and son of King Chuai were Imperial timber enough, so the child was reported to be a truly royal conception.
How Chuai's two sons also wound up in Japan in order to be conquered there by Jingu is also not at all clear, and the Japanese and Korean chronicles are clearly intermingled by this time.
This version would explain how Jingu's forces arrived 'magically' in the northern parts of Korea and then fought south "back" to Japan. It also provides a strong explanation for the very close ties between her Empire and those of Korea, as she (and her lineage) would have been closely related to them culturally, politcally, and by blood and tradition.
Which version should we believe? Well, as I've said, the 'factuality' of all of these ancient chronicles is certainly in doubt, especially since they were not recorded for our edification until almost four hundred years after the fact.
It could also be speculated that -- regardless of which version you favor -- the ties between Japan and the Korean kingdoms became so close that the later written formulation of both of their historical chronicles could certainly have borrowed from each other's oral traditions -- simply by the nature of oral histories, if not by duplicitous design.
It is taken for granted that much of these histories would have been 'edited' in some ways by the Emperors -- not only those who commissioned their writing, but also in the interim hundreds of years of telling and reformulating them orally. Indeed, had writting of any kind been prevalent at the time, it would have been much more difficult to transform the Emperor Chiuai from a lord in Korea and transplant him as a Japanese Emperor who didn't believe that Korea existed. If that, in fact was the case, and I certainly have no way of knowing. For my many Japanese friends, it may be an unthinkable theory, but I must admit that for me it is just interesting food for thought.
More Sources:
Mr. Bob Otis has kindly written me to point to another and more recent source
of information on this topic. In fact, this source is so rich, that I'm just
going to point you there and not pretend that I personally have anything
further to add to historical scholarship -- or speculation or argumentation
-- in this area.
Dr. Wontack orderhttp://gias.snu.ac.kr/wthong/publication/paekche/eng/paekch_e.html.
Feb, 2004: Another source on this subject that has come to my
attention is "The
-- Randy Johnson
Randy's Japan Page
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