Kings in All but Name

Abstract In the sixteenth century, the Ōuchi family were kings in all but name over much of the Japanese archipelago. Immensely wealthy, they controlled sea lanes stretching out from Japan to Korea and China, while the Ōuchi city of Yamaguchi functioned as an important regional entrepôt, with an expanding population and a host of temples and shrines. The family was unique in claiming ethnic descent from Korean kings, and—remarkably for this time—such claims were recognized in both Korea and Japan. Their position, coupled with dominance over strategic ports and mines, allowed them to facilitate trade throughout East and Southeast Asia. They played a key cultural role in disseminating Confucian texts, Buddhist sutras, ink paintings, and pottery, and in creating a distinctive, hybrid culture that fused Japanese, Korean, and Chinese beliefs, objects, and customs. This monograph reveals that Japan from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries was an ethnically diverse state, replete with extensive mines, and closely bound in trading ties to Korea and China. It focuses on the Ōuchi, a magnate family from western Japan that was overthrown shortly after the period of initial Portuguese contact. The work provides a chronological narrative of their rule, focusing on the Ōuchi rulers, and showing how rituals, policies, politics, and economics were interwoven, and that what has been thought of as a period of warfare and turmoil was actually a stable and prosperous trading state.