What Up, Nerds?
Yeah, that's what I thought. Same here. Because disaster done struck OMG Hussites Part 2, so that will take a while more in production.
In the mean time you know what's cool? The early history of modern Japan and the Yamato state. Awww yeeee.
According to the official imperial chronology, the country we now know as Japan was founded more than half a millenia before the time of Jesus. It was just a few years after King Hezekiah died in ancient Judea. Supposedly the first Emperor Jinmu made the pilgrimage to and moved his court to the Yamato valley near modern Kyoto.
They were supposed to have come from the westernmost of the big Japanese islands: Kyushu. Jinmu was said to have lead the expedition as an armed migration with his brothers and his followers. He subjugated all the peoples he met on the way.
Oh, also Jinmu was directly descended from a god. That too.
Yep.
So that's all total bullshit. Jinmu was almost certainly just made up.
What really happened:
1200 years later, at around 680 AD, the leader of the Yamato State was a fellow named Tenmu. Now Tenmu was a little bit of tough. He was a younger brother who was never supposed to have had the throne, and indeed he had been sent off to be a monk. But when his King/older-brother died he saw his chance. He moved like lightning, and seized the country in 672 AD. To get a sense of how goddamn recently this was, Islam had already been around for a half century by then.
Like you might expect from someone with that kind of initiative, he was officially reported to have rigorously reorganized the Empire into a more powerful state. What he really did was more impressive.
Because he was essentially the real founder of the Japanese Empire.
Before Tenmu there had been a whole series of bickering clan-states spread across the western half of the Japanese archipelago. There was a no real unity in them. Over the course of several centuries the patriarchal heads of the clan in the Yamato valley warred and politicked, and they gained a kind of lip-service sovereignty as the most powerful state in the area.
But these Yamato chiefs weren't emperors, and they didn't claim to be. They started claiming this wider lip-service sovereignty under a chief named Suijin in the 200's or 300's AD. But until the time of Tenmu they only controlled a very small part of Japan directly.
Tenmu's unified Japanese Empire was not what all of you might think of as Japan. From Yamato it extended westwards along Honshu (the big island) and also included Kyushu (the small island to the southwest). What's more he might not have been related to the past chiefs of the Yamato like Suijin, but he thought he'd be better off if he said they were all from the same line.
Tenmu wanted to create the idea of an all-Japanese imperial lineage so he compiled the various stories and legends about those old chiefs and the legendary first chief. In this compilation he called them all Emperors and said everyone from the mythical "Jinmu" to Suijin were members of a direct male lineage. He wrote it down in the book Nihon Shoki.
So Tenmu styled Jinmu to be his legendary predecessor, who somehow legitimized Tenmu's conquest of his Empire. Jinmu's supposed subjugation of the peoples along his migration route helped him spin the fight as more of a reconquest, and thus it became much more palatable to the Japanese people. Tenmu would go on continuing centralizing his Empire and would father several more future Emperors.
Funny enough his imperial line eventually sputtered out, and the throne reverted to someone else who came from his invented "imperial" line of succession. To be fair, those later Emperors probably were at least related to Tenmu, though not necessarily. And that dynasty continued on for more then a thousand years. It presided over a state that became the Japanese Empire that America fought to the death in WWII. And that line of Emperors still reigns to this day.
Yeah, that's what I thought. Same here. Because disaster done struck OMG Hussites Part 2, so that will take a while more in production.
In the mean time you know what's cool? The early history of modern Japan and the Yamato state. Awww yeeee.
 |
| Early Japanese history is cool. |
According to the official imperial chronology, the country we now know as Japan was founded more than half a millenia before the time of Jesus. It was just a few years after King Hezekiah died in ancient Judea. Supposedly the first Emperor Jinmu made the pilgrimage to and moved his court to the Yamato valley near modern Kyoto.
They were supposed to have come from the westernmost of the big Japanese islands: Kyushu. Jinmu was said to have lead the expedition as an armed migration with his brothers and his followers. He subjugated all the peoples he met on the way.
Oh, also Jinmu was directly descended from a god. That too.
Yep.
So that's all total bullshit. Jinmu was almost certainly just made up.
What really happened:
1200 years later, at around 680 AD, the leader of the Yamato State was a fellow named Tenmu. Now Tenmu was a little bit of tough. He was a younger brother who was never supposed to have had the throne, and indeed he had been sent off to be a monk. But when his King/older-brother died he saw his chance. He moved like lightning, and seized the country in 672 AD. To get a sense of how goddamn recently this was, Islam had already been around for a half century by then.
Like you might expect from someone with that kind of initiative, he was officially reported to have rigorously reorganized the Empire into a more powerful state. What he really did was more impressive.
Because he was essentially the real founder of the Japanese Empire.
Before Tenmu there had been a whole series of bickering clan-states spread across the western half of the Japanese archipelago. There was a no real unity in them. Over the course of several centuries the patriarchal heads of the clan in the Yamato valley warred and politicked, and they gained a kind of lip-service sovereignty as the most powerful state in the area.
But these Yamato chiefs weren't emperors, and they didn't claim to be. They started claiming this wider lip-service sovereignty under a chief named Suijin in the 200's or 300's AD. But until the time of Tenmu they only controlled a very small part of Japan directly.
 |
| Very small. Just what's in red. (Pic from Wiki) |
As Yamato clan-chief, Tenmu did something revolutionary after he seized the throne. He invented a new title: Emperor of Japan. And then he enforced his new empire. He moved his armies and manipulated public opinion and he shattered support for all the rival clans. He conquered and unified and then built forts throughout his new empire.
Tenmu's unified Japanese Empire was not what all of you might think of as Japan. From Yamato it extended westwards along Honshu (the big island) and also included Kyushu (the small island to the southwest). What's more he might not have been related to the past chiefs of the Yamato like Suijin, but he thought he'd be better off if he said they were all from the same line.
Tenmu wanted to create the idea of an all-Japanese imperial lineage so he compiled the various stories and legends about those old chiefs and the legendary first chief. In this compilation he called them all Emperors and said everyone from the mythical "Jinmu" to Suijin were members of a direct male lineage. He wrote it down in the book Nihon Shoki.
So Tenmu styled Jinmu to be his legendary predecessor, who somehow legitimized Tenmu's conquest of his Empire. Jinmu's supposed subjugation of the peoples along his migration route helped him spin the fight as more of a reconquest, and thus it became much more palatable to the Japanese people. Tenmu would go on continuing centralizing his Empire and would father several more future Emperors.
Funny enough his imperial line eventually sputtered out, and the throne reverted to someone else who came from his invented "imperial" line of succession. To be fair, those later Emperors probably were at least related to Tenmu, though not necessarily. And that dynasty continued on for more then a thousand years. It presided over a state that became the Japanese Empire that America fought to the death in WWII. And that line of Emperors still reigns to this day.
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