Getting into the reign of Ikume Iribiko (aka Suinin Tennou) and we'll briefly cover the state of the Korean Peninsula as we will deal quite a bit with the stories of travelers who are said to have come over at this time--Sonaka, Tsunoga, and Ame no Hiboko, possibly all one and the same person or possibly combinations of several different people. For more go to: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-30 Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 30: Yamato and the Continent. Last episode we finished up with the reign of Mimaki Iribiko, who ruled from the Mizugaki Palace, who would later be named as Sujin Tenno, and whose entry and accomplishments may or may not be conflated with Queen Himiko. We are assuming that his story should reasonably be set somewhat closer to the present than the Nihon Shoki puts it, so we are assuming about the mid-3rd century CE, which puts his successor somewhere towards the latter part of the third century. This is still the very start of what we know as the Kofun period. Mounded tombs—in particular these round keyhole shaped tombs—would come to dominate how we think of this era – as evidenced by the name of the period. But it wasn’t as if that was all that was going on, it is simply the most visible. Today we are going to get into the start of the story of Mimaki Iribiko’s successor, Ikume Iribiko—perhaps better known today as Suinin Tennou. First I think it is useful to take a look at the historical and archeological setting and revisit just what is going on outside Japan at this time period, beyond just what is set out in the Chronicles. Ikume Iribiko is the first sovereign in the Chronicles with a significant interaction with people from the peninsula, and so to better understand that we should probably take a look at what is going on over there. After all, when last we took a look at the Korean Peninsula, the Lelang and Daifeng Commanderies of the Wei dynasty was going strong, situated as they were in the middle of the peninsula, somewhere around the areas of modern Pyongyang and Seoul, were a significant presence. Meanwhile, much of the rest of the southern peninsula was still populated by the people of the Samhan, the three Han of Mahan, Pyonhan, and Jinhan. These would eventually become the kingdoms of Baekje, Silla, and the Gaya confederacy. North of the commanderies was Goguryeo and Buyeo, which were already well established kingdoms by the time Himiko’s envoys sent their first tribute to the Wei court. Unfortunately, however, this period, just after Himiko, is somewhat of a blank spot, historically speaking. While we have the chronicles, these are collected from fragments of oral stories. Meanwhile, the continental accounts from this time period go silent, and with good reason. The Han Commanderies like Daifeng and Lelang, first established in 108 BCE by the Han court, and Yamato’s primary conduit to the Wei court had become a bit pre-occupied. As you may recall from our episodes on Himiko and her envoys, the Han Commanderies were administrative units established by the Han and later dynasties to help provide some measure of control over the frontier regions—in this case the Korean peninsula. Administrators were sent from and supported by the courts in their mother country, and they acted as a stand-in for many of the regular interactions with the people in the border regions. In some cases that may have been receiving tribute and trade, or even arbitrating local issues. In others, it may have involved chastising those that encroached on the territory the commanderies were responsible for. And of course they facilitated the actual missions with the court in Luoyang. Unfortunately, after Himiko’s death, we merely get a glimpse of the continued fortunes of the Wa on the archipelago, and this is probably due, at least in part, to the fact that the Wei and its commanderies had more important matters to focus on. To begin with, to their north was the relatively mature state of Goguryeo, whose leaders claimed descent from the older Buyeo state.. In 238 Goguryeo helped the Wei destroy the Liaodong commandery, which also helped the Wei gain control of Lelang and Daifeng, which had previously been administered by the Gongsun. Only four years later, though, this relationship soured, as Goguryeo continued expanding towards the south, seeking arable land along the Yalu river, which drew the ire of the Wei, who saw that as their territory, setting off a series of conflicts which would lead to the destruction of the Goguryeo capital at Hwangdo, two years later. It would take almost a half century for Goguryeo to completely replace its Meanwhile, to the south of the commanderies, other kingdoms were coming of age. The state of Baekje, which was also led by nobles from the same Buyeo lineage as the Goguryeo royal family, had been growing ...
