interessant dürfte für alle, die sich mit okinawa und den ryûkyû-inseln beschäftigen wollen, auch dieser artikel sein:
https://apjjf.org/-Gregory-Smits/3409/article.html
Zitat:
Shō Shin and his successors appointed non-warlord officials to oversee the districts, and the former warlords involved themselves with the aristocratic society of the capital and central government politics. Significantly, references to local military forces in monuments erected between 1522 and 1554 used the term “magiri gun” (district forces) instead of aji gun (warlord forces). We do not know the details of the composition of these forces, but they were all under Shuri’s direct command by the end of Shō Shin’s reign.(26)
The hiki system was the core of Shō Shin’s new military organization. Perhaps the easiest way to grasp the logic of this arrangement is to think of “hiki” rather literally as meaning “to pull together.” Each hiki pulled together various officials and military forces into networks capable of dealing with emergencies. The hiki combined in one organization both military and police functions, including guard duty, administration of government, and administration of trade. Ryukyuan ships were the governing metaphor of the hiki. The hiki were led by officials with the title sedo (O. shiidu), a variant of sentō, ship’s captain. The names of the hiki all ended with –tomi, which was also the suffix for the names of large ships (like –maru for Japanese vessels). This terminology is indicative of the central importance of oceanic trade, a royal monopoly, for Ryukyu’s prosperity. Takara Kurayoshi has characterized the hiki as “overland ships” (chijō no kaisen) and ocean-going vessels as “floating hiki” (umi ni ukanda hiki). Not surprisingly, the hiki also provided shipboard military forces for Ryukyuan trade vessels, all of which were armed from 1421 onward. The hiki were grouped into three watches (ban), each of which contained four hiki. It is likely that the heads of these three watches evolved into the Sanshikan (O. Yoasutabe), the highest organ of government in Ryukyu from the sixteenth century until the end of the kingdom.(27)
In modern military terminology, one might characterize the hiki as rapid deployment forces.
(26) These events are well documented in any general history of Okinawa. Uezato explains their significance in the context of military affairs with great clarity. See “Guntai,” pp. 110-112.
(27) For a detailed analysis of the hiki, see Takara Kurayoshi, Ryūkyū ōkoku no kōzō (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1987), pp. 103-119. See also Uezato, “Guntai,” p. 112, 118-119.
Zitat:
In conjunction with these networks of rapid deployment forces, Shō Shin sought to strengthen the underlying infrastructure of the military, a policy continued by his immediate successors. A famous 1509 monument inscription at Urasoe tells of the king’s storing weapons there to reduce the need to obtain them from outlying areas. It is this inscription that is typically cited in connection with claims that Ryukyu became a society without weapons because of Shō Shin’s policies. The king also walled in the northern face of Shuri Castle and in 1522 built a road for military use between Shuri and Naha. In 1546, Shō Sei extended the network of defensive walls around Shuri Castle and constructed Yarazamori Fortress to defend the entrance into Naha Harbor. Shō Shin also established an official to oversee artillery deployment and technology.(28)
As we will see, the combination of the Yarazamori Fortress and effective cannon served the kingdom very well when an invasion force from Satsuma attempted to enter Naha Harbor in 1609. It also helped repel major attacks by pirates in 1556 and 1606.
(28) Uezato, “Guntai,” p. 113; and Uezato “Ryūkyū no kaki,” p. 78.
Zitat:
After 1609, Ryukyu came under Satsuma’s domination. The new political order undoubtedly resulted in changes to the kingdom’s military affairs, but many details of this period await further research. Overall, however, it is important to stress that post 1609 Ryukyu was not without armed military and police forces. Pirate attacks on Ryukyuan shipping remained a common problem, and Satsuma occasionally complained that Ryukyuan sailors did not defend their ships vigorously enough (Satsuma typically put up most of the capital for Ryukyu’s tribute trade after 1609).(35)
Ryukyuan ships sailing to China continued to be armed for their voyages and to need those arms. Seventeenth-century bureaucratic reforms reduced the status of the hiki but did not eliminate them. One document points out that in response to the appearance of a foreign ship at Yaeyama in 1640, “soldiers from Satsuma and several hundred Ryukyuan soldiers” were dispatched.(36)
35 For example, in 1670 pirates connected with Ming loyalist forces captured a Ryukyuan ship, and Satsuma criticized the Ryukyuans as “cowards in the extreme.” See, Tomiyama Kazuyuki, Ryūkyū ōkoku no gaikō to ōken (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2004), p. 80.
36 Uezato, “Guntai,” pp. 116-117.
Zitat:
Conclusion
Among scholars of Ryukyuan history in the early twentieth century, there were explicit critics of the notion of a pacifist Ryukyu kingdom. Yokoyama Shigeru, for example, vigorously criticized Basil Hall’s assertion of a land without weapons. Among postwar scholars, Nakahara Zenchū criticized Iha’s portrayal of a pacifist Shō Shin, arguing that Shō Shin’s policies were moves intended to strengthen the kingdom’s military capabilities. Nakahara also argued that it was not the case that the Shimazu confiscated the kingdom’s weapons after 1609. In recent decades, scholars such as Takara Kurayoshi, Maehira Fusaaki, Teruya Masayoshi, Tomiyama Kazuyuki, and Uezato Takashi have confirmed and further developed the arguments of Yokoyama and Nakahara, shedding much light on the details of Ryukyuan military organization, equipment, and tactics.(52)
Abundant evidence of the Ryukyu Kingdom’s military and police structures and capabilities is available for anyone who cares to take a close look the academic literature. A glance at the headlines of the entries in the Kyūyō should be sufficient to dispel the notion that Ryukyu was a land without weapons, crime or conflict.
Why, then, does the myth of Ryukyuan pacifism find continue to find such fertile ground on which to thrive? There is no single or simple answer. Certain habits of thought that assume enduring qualities among groups of people over time facilitate uncritical extrapolating the prevailing anti-base, anti-military sentiment in Okinawa backward in time. The basic institutions, issues and events of Ryukyuan history prior to 1879 are not widely known among non-specialists. This situation means that relatively few people are able or willing to call the myth into question. More generally a lack of detailed knowledge of Ryukyuan history enables Ryukyu to function as a blank screen onto which contemporary people can project desires such as de-militarization.
(52) For a concise summary of these arguments and a listing of the key essays, see Uezato, “Guntai,” pp. 105-106. In English the most comprehensive work is Turnbull, The Samurai Capture a King.
"Gregory Smits is an Associate Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University. He is a social and cultural historian of Japan, whose interests range from the fifteenth through the early twentieth centuries. A specialist in the history of the Ryukyu Kingdom, he is the author of Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern Thought and Politics and co-editor with Bettina Gramlich-Oka of Economic Thought in Early-Modern Japan.
This is a revised and expanded version of an article that appeared in the inaugural issue of The International Journal of Okinawan Studies.
Recommended citation: Gregory Smits, "Examining the Myth of Ryukyuan Pacifism," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 37-3-10, September 13, 2010."
