This essay reexamines the historical relationship between Japan and the Korean Peninsula in antiquity and challenges the conventional view that Japan simply received culture from the peninsula.
Drawing on sources such as the Book of Sui, the Records of Wei, the Nihon Shoki, the Kojiki, and the Samguk Sagi, it argues that Japan already possessed advanced culture and technology in ancient times and was, rather, a great power that repeatedly invaded the peninsula.
The essay also discusses the Japanese bloodline in the Silla royal house, the role of mineral resources in repeated invasions, and contradictions in Korean historical interpretations, urging Japanese readers to reconsider their own authentic history and the broader history of East Asia.

2019-03-12
If Japan crossed the sea and launched invasions over many centuries, there is no possible conclusion other than that Japan was a great power.

It Was the Japanese Who Ruled the Ancient Korean Peninsula.
Yojiro Sato.
Writer.
Professor, College of Art, Nihon University.

Even while growing utterly weary of the Korean people’s habit of falsehood, there are still not a few Japanese who remain under the illusion that much culture came to the archipelago by way of ancient Korea.
Do not be deceived by such newly coined words as “torai-jin.”
Japanese blood flowing in the royal house of Silla…this is a continuation of the indispensable reading for all Japanese citizens, the special Rekishitsu supplement to the April issue of the monthly magazine WiLL.

Repeated invasions of the peninsula.

Perhaps because of that influence, kimono cloth is still today called “gofuku.”
I heard from local people that if one boarded a boat from the vicinity of the Yangtze River, one would arrive in Kyushu even without doing anything.
If rice cultivation in Japan originated in Kyushu, then the inference that they brought it may also hold.
If one considers that Emperor Jinmu’s “Eastern Expedition” began from southern Kyushu, one may also think that those who possessed advanced technology moved eastward.
Incidentally, “eastern transfer” and “eastern expedition” differ in meaning, yet these too are casually used without deep examination.
“To conquer the east” and “to transfer the capital to the east” are far too different in meaning.
Koreans say that rice cultivation too spread from the peninsula, but geographically, climatically, and in terms of ocean currents, the grounds for that are weak.
In cultural terms as well, the Book of Sui contains the passage, “In the third year of Daye, its king Tarishihoko sent envoys with tribute, and the envoys said, ‘We have heard that the Bodhisattva Son of Heaven west of the sea greatly revives the Buddhist Law, and therefore we have come to pay court, and have also sent several dozen monks to study the Buddhist Law.’”
It thus records that Tarishihoko, king of Wa, sent envoys with tribute, and that because the Bodhisattva Son of Heaven west of the sea was devoted to Buddhism, monks were dispatched in order to learn it.
The Japanese already had contact with China two thousand years ago and were learning the Buddhist Law.
The Book of Sui and the Records of Wei state that the people of Wa used iron.
They wrote this down because the use of arrowheads and iron implements was surprising to them, but the people of Wa were already producing iron two thousand years ago.
As far as one reads the Chinese historical records at least, it is difficult to think that Japanese culture, which had learned Buddhism and acquired advanced technology, flowed in from the Korean Peninsula.
And if one reads the Samguk Sagi and the Kiki, it becomes perfectly clear that, since the beginning of recorded history, Japan has invaded the Korean Peninsula countless times.
The reverse is virtually nonexistent.
As for me, I know only of the Oei Invasion, when Joseon Korea attacked Tsushima for around ten days in the Muromachi period, but are there others.
There were countless incursions by the wokou, and the coasts of Goryeo became uninhabited.
The Oei Invasion was an assault on Tsushima, which had become a base for those wokou, in which ships were destroyed and hostages released, but other than that, Korea instead offered hostages to Japan and repeatedly presented tribute.
Moreover, with Silla, which Japan had invaded so often, state-to-state exchange became scarce after the Battle of Baekgang, where Japan was defeated by the Tang-Silla allied forces.
Even in relation to the Six Nara Schools and the new Buddhism of the Kamakura period, Japan was influenced more by Tang than by Korea.
The importation of culture, too, must have come from China together with the envoys to Sui and Tang.
As can also be seen in the Book of Sui, it is difficult to uphold the theory that culture entered from the Korean Peninsula, and it is also hard to imagine that a great variety of culture flowed in from a country that had continued to be attacked since ancient times.
Even if both the Yangtze route and the peninsula route existed, it is mistaken to say that the Korean Peninsula had greater national power and a higher cultural level than Japan.
If one insists on saying so, one must present the grounds for it, otherwise it is the kind of thing summed up by the saying, “A lie told a hundred times becomes truth.”
Japan’s ritsuryo system and court ranks were not created by imitating Korea.
And yet, concerning the Imjin War, Shin Il-cheol, born in 1931, a Korea University professor who also served as president of the Korean Philosophical Association, has said:
“Japan, which was a culturally backward country in East Asia, plundered cultural heritage such as movable type, books, paintings, and ceramics from Korea, and abducted many technicians and scholars. Along with this, Korean Neo-Confucianism was also transmitted and had a major influence on Japanese culture.”
He says this despite the fact that the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki, which are four hundred years older than the Samguk Sagi and the Samguk Yusa, already existed, and that even older Chinese historical records also describe what kind of country Japan was and what sort of existence it represented.
Japan persistently attacked Silla because there were mineral resources there.
In the Book of Roads and Kingdoms compiled in 845 by the Arab Ibn Khurdadbih, it is written, “Beyond China there is a country called Silla, mountainous and ruled by various kings, where much gold is produced,” and it is also written that Muslims had already settled there seeking it.
Silla was also a land of gold.
The Nihon Shoki too says that Empress Jingu and the others attacked because there was gold there.
That is why Japan repeated its invasions.
That is written not only in the Kiki but also in the Samguk Sagi.
Do Koreans deny even their own “official history.”
Before speaking this way or that about Japan, they should first read their own “official history.”
At the very least, it states there that the kingdom of Wa attacked many times.
Such a country cannot possibly have been, as they say, a land poor in culture.
If it crossed the sea and launched invasions over many centuries, there is no possible conclusion other than that Japan was a great power.
To be continued.