비극적인 역사를 가진 섬 일본과는 전혀 다른 역사를 가진 해상왕국 오키나와(류큐왕국)

5. Okinawa This is a story about Okinawa, another Japan that was once an independent country. Okinawa, a representative tourist destination in Japan, is located between the Pacific Ocean in the East China Sea, and is the center of Okinawa's politics and economy. Of the 1.35 million people in Okinawa, about 1.2 million are concentrated on Okinawa Island. It is the only tropical area in Japan that boasts a warm climate throughout the year, so coffee, bananas, pineapples, papayas, melons, mangoes, and candied fruits are grown in the area. From April to October, you can enjoy playing in the water. You can also see colorful tropical fish and beautiful coral reefs. Thanks to this, many tourists from all over the world are looking for Okinawa Island. However, did you know that Okinawa Island, which is only shown as a beautiful tourist destination, has a sad history? Okinawa was not originally a Japanese territory. So the history is completely different. Originally, the Ryukyu Kingdom was an independent country, but it was annexed to Japan in 1879. Even now, there are people who claim independence from Okinawa. That's why Okinawa's history and spirit are very different from Japan. To find out why, you have to look back on a long history. It is the first day of the Stone Age that people began to live in Okinawa. In 1967, the remains of the former human race, which lived in the Ryukyu system about 20,000 years ago, were found. Even then, they lived with a completely different culture and history from Japan. The detailed history of Okinawa began to be recorded in the late 12th century. In the 12th century, a tribe called Aji was formed in each region of Okinawa Island. They built large castles on their own and formed a power. They fought with each other, and later on, they gradually formed a tribal alliance centered on the region. In the early 14th century, Okinawa was dominated by the three major forces, Nanzan, Chuzan, and Hokuzan. This period is called the Sanzan period, and Chuzanguk was the most powerful among them. In 1406, the ruler of Chuzanguk, Hashi, set fire to the Kugang Bunei as an excuse to destroy the Sato dynasty. He killed the king of Chuzanguk. To put it simply, it's a coup d'etat. Hashi defeated his father, Shisho, as the new king of Chuzan, and defeated Hokuzanguk in 1416. In 1421, Hashi killed his father, Shisho, as the new king of Chuzan in 1422. Seven years later, in 1429, Chuzanguk started a war with Nanzanguk, killing Nanzanguk's king, Darumi, and destroying Nanzanguk. As a result, Hashi unified the three kingdoms and became the first country to unify the Ryukyu. In 1430, Hashi sent a messenger to Myeong-nal and offered a tribute. The son of Myeong, Hashi, was given the title of Ryukyu along with the royal title of Sho. As a result, Chuzanguk was given the new name of Ryukyu. The Ryukyu kingdom was flourished through trade with Japan, Chosun, China, Taiwan, and other Southeast Asian countries. You can see that the Ryukyu kingdom did not belong to Japan after trading with Japan. The Ryukyu kingdom started to be known as the Sea Kingdom of East Asia. The 14th and 16th centuries are remembered as the golden age of great education in the history of Ryukyu. At that time, the Ryukyu trade line was divided into Japan's Sakai, Hakata, Chosun's Busan, China's Fuzhou, Gwangdung, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. However, the Ryukyu kingdom's trade activities were circulated in China with the advent of the Haegeum policy. At that time, Myeong-nal blocked the entry of foreigners into the sea to block foreign trade. At this time, the Ryukyu kingdom was also banned from trading outside of Chosun. As a result, Ryukyu's trade became extremely dark after the 16th century. As a result of the ups and downs, this time, the Ryukyu kingdom went from Japan to Siberia. In 1587, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who unified Japan, asked the Ryukyu kingdom in 1591 to supply 12,050 ships and 8,000 golden sheep for 7,500 people to eat for 10 months. The Ryukyu king did not accept this, but sent a messenger to Myeong-nal to report Toyotomi's plan to invade Chosun. After that, when the time passed and the Imjin War ended, Japan mobilized 3,000 troops and 80 ships to invade the Ryukyu kingdom. The Ryukyu kingdom was literally besieged. After the unification of the Ryukyu kingdom, there was no war for 180 years, and the Ryukyu king's army was strong in numbers and combat power. On the other hand, Japan's army was strengthened through the Pibilin War and the Imjin War. But that didn't mean it was incorporated into Japan. Ryukyu became a dual state that dominated Japan's Bokjong and colonized China and Japan for 270 years. As the Portuguese traders set out for East Asia, Ryukyu became a sea kingdom. From the point of view of Okinawa and Ryukyu, Japan was a bad guy and China was a good country. It is said that the Ryukyu sent a tribute to the Qing Dynasty, but the Qing Dynasty did not politically dominate the Ryukyu and did not occupy it economically. If you send a tribute, you pay more than several times the price. It felt like a kind of exchange. However, Japan not only tried to politically dominate the Ryukyu, but also economically. Japan took 30% of the trade in the Ryukyu kingdom to support the tribute to China. It was a time when sugar was bought at a ridiculously cheap price in Ryukyu. It was actually a country. In fact, it seems to dominate Okinawa while pretending not to cause trouble with the Chinese. This is also the reason why Okinawan people still hate the Japanese government. In the 19th century, Western ships often appeared in Ryukyu. Most of them were warships from Europe and the United States. In 1844, the French army approached Ryukyu and demanded the expulsion of the Chinese and the Christianity. In 1854, the American Perry system led the Black Sea Fleet to Ryukyu. They demanded a negotiation with Makbu and put pressure on Okinawa to open Nahang. Makbu lied that Japan did not have the right to open Nahang as Ryukyu was a faraway independent country. As I said before, it was actually a small country and a dominant country, so they could do whatever they wanted. Then, Makbu secretly ordered Ryukyu to sign an agreement with the United States. Makbu lied so that China would not know that Ryukyu was their messenger. In the end, Ryukyu signed a non-Ryukyu-signed agreement with the United States. Ryukyu, who was suffering from exploitation and tyranny, became a Japanese colony in 1872 with the rise of imperialism. After the Japanese government called Ryukyu Gugwang to Tokyo under the name of the Chuka priesthood, Ryukyu announced unilaterally that he would give Ryukyu Gugwang the same status as the Japanese nobility, and put Ryukyu under the Japanese Foreign Ministry. In a word, it was the official Shingminjiya. Ryukyu Gugwang did not stay still. At first, he sent three secretaries to Cheongnara and asked for assistance. But Cheongnara's reaction was cold. At that time, the head of the Cheongnara, Ri Heung-jang, said that he could not mobilize military forces on a few islands and ignored Ryukyu. When Ryukyu hit the back of the head of Cheongnara, which he believed in, there was no way out. Japan, which learned later that it had sent secretaries to Cheongnara, decided to completely dominate Ryukyu. As a result, on March 27, 1879, the Japanese government sent 500 troops to Ryukyu and occupied Shuriseong. On April 4, Ryukyu was abolished and Okinawa was declared. And the last king of Ryukyu, Shotai, was deposed and deported to Tokyo. This is called Ryukyu disposal. In this way, the Kingdom of Ryukyu became Okinawa and became a country that was recorded only in history. As time went by, World War II broke out. As you all know, the United States and Japan started the Pacific War. In November 1943, when the war was in full swing, President Franklin Roosevelt of the United States, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, and General Zhang Jiechi of China gathered in Cairo, Egypt, to come up with a post-war order. At this time, the agreement was called the Cairo Declaration. In the Cairo Declaration, the issues of China's rebellion against Manchuria and Taiwan and the independence of Joseon were noted, but the issue of Okinawa was excluded. Okinawa literally became an isolated island. From the Japanese point of view, Okinawa was dominated, but it was actually a different country with a big difference in culture and life. Just as Japan considered Korea as a colony, Okinawa was also a colony. Because it was a colony, it had to be rebelled or belong to another country like Korea. Korea was not in the same colony, Japan was not, and the only thing left was China. Roosevelt proposed to Zhang Jiechi that he would give Ryukyu to China, but Zhang Jiechi was reluctant. Two days later, when the U.S.-China Summit was held, Roosevelt re-debated Ryukyu. Ryukyu, which divides the West Pacific from Taiwan to Kyushu, is China's security shield. If China takes Taiwan and does not secure Ryukyu, Taiwan, as well as the security of mainland China, will be threatened. Moreover, Japan, which cannot give up its invasiveness, cannot give Ryukyu to China. I said that I think it is good for China to take Ryukyu with Taiwan and Penghu, but even then, Zhang Jiechi rejected Ryukyu. At that time, Zhang Jiechi only cared about Manchuria and Taiwan, and above all, what was important to Zhang Jiechi was to annihilate the Communist Party of China. On April 1, 1945, when the Pacific War was just over, the last battle of the Pacific War, the battle of Okinawa, took place. During the fierce battle, the number of soldiers was as fierce as 200,000. At the same time, it was also the battle with the most Japanese soldiers. However, the residents of Okinawa did not even think that they were Japanese, but it was ridiculous to have a war on Okinawa land. In terms of us, it is the same as the U.S. having a war on the Korean Peninsula to attack Japan. At this time, the trauma experienced by the residents of Okinawa is beyond imagination. Residents were forced into battle, forced into labor, or used as bullet pants by the Japanese military. In this situation, the residents of Okinawa started to cooperate with the U.S. military. The U.S. military gave Okinawa residents a lot of supplies and guaranteed safety. The residents of Okinawa were willing to provide supplies to the front line. If they did this, the U.S. military provided more food and bedding. Of course, Japan was angry. The way Japan chose was a group suicide. The military threw grenades at the residents who committed suicide by themselves due to the pressure of the military. In Japan, when the U.S. military becomes a pro, women are exterminated and men are killed. They even brainwashed them not to be humiliated by pro. As a result, the U.S. military won the battle with Okinawa. But the U.S. also had a lot of worries. Because more than 10,000 soldiers died in Okinawa, a small island, If the U.S. military landed in Okinawa, the domestic public opinion would have been very bad. In the end, the U.S. decided to use atomic bombs. As you all know, the result was Japan's unconditional surrender. The war ended, and Okinawa became a U.S. military command post. Since then, Okinawa has been under U.S. control for 27 years. But the tragedy continued. The U.S. military used the entire island of Okinawa as a U.S. military camp, and imprisoned all the island residents in the camp. Thanks to this, Okinawa absorbs U.S. culture, whether you like it or not. So Okinawa has become an exotic island where the U.S. and Japanese cultures are mixed together. Okinawa returned to Japan in 1972. In the late 1960s, the U.S. was suffering a great war cost from the Vietnam War. At that time, Japan had a bright economic growth. It was the golden age of the Japanese economy before the lost era in Japan, which we know well. At that time, Richard Nixon, the U.S. president, announced that he would sell Ryukyu to Japan to add war costs to Japan. In other words, he was going to sell it. So, in 1972, Okinawa and Japan's vast territory were taken over by Japan. As history is history, unlike other parts of Japan, Okinawa is strongly opposed to the Liberal Party. There are many cases where non-members or members of the ruling party are elected. As I said before, there are quite a few people shouting for independence. The voice of discrimination against Okinawa in the local government of Japan is constantly coming out. In many cases, the residents do not call themselves Japanese, but Ryukyu. This is the end of this episode about Okinawa, which was once an independent country in Japan.