Japan's Foreign Relations 600 to 1200 A.D.: A Translation from Zenrin Kokuhoki

Abstract

N Account of Good Neighborly Relations as a Treasure of Our Country is the title Zuikei Shiuho iMAM (1391-1473) gave his Zenrin kokuhoki lk IiSi-2 (completed in 1470), a chronicle of Japan's foreign from prehistoric times to the fifteenth century. Zuikei Shuho, a Zen priest of Shokokuji UiHW1, temple in Kyoto, explains in his preface that good relations (zenrin Ha) mean, first, diplomatic exchanges, primarily with China, and, secondly, foreign trade that would contribute to the country's wealth. These two themes indeed marked the period of diplomatic history from 600 to 1200 A.D. that Zuikei Shuho took up in the first part of his compilation of Japanese and foreign records of neighborly relations. For this period, as discussed in the introduction to the translation of that section published in MN 54:1 (Spring 1999), he focused on the exchange of official embassies and the comings and goings of priests between Japan and the continent. Zuikei Shuho was himself, in fact, a diplomat in that in 1464 he wrote the official letter addressed by the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa YR#IiR (1436-1490) to Emperor Xianzong WA (r. 1464-1487) of Ming China.1 It is therefore not surprising that diplomatic were his first concern. History, however, forced him to change his focus for the period from 1200 to 1392: during these years diplomatic exchanges were under the shadow of military confrontations in Kyushu and unrest on the sea between Korea and Japan. The period was marked by the two Mongol invasions of Japan, 1274 and 1281, and by piracy in the East China Sea.