Published on September 18, 2019.
This essay introduces a piece by writer and Nihon University College of Art professor Sato Yojiro from Rekishi-tsu, a special April issue of the monthly magazine WiLL, and criticizes the historical view that much of Japanese culture entered the archipelago through ancient Korea, discussing ancient Japan’s relationship with the Korean Peninsula, rice cultivation, Buddhism, ironworking, legal institutions, repeated Wa invasions of Silla, and descriptions in the Nihon Shoki, Kojiki, and Samguk Sagi.

September 18, 2019.
Even while being fed up with Koreans’ habitual falsehoods, there are still quite a few Japanese who believe that much culture was transmitted to the archipelago through ancient Korea.
Do not be dreamily misled by newly coined terms such as “people who came from abroad.”
Silla was also a land of gold.
The Nihon Shoki also says that Empress Jingū and the others attacked because there was gold.
That is why Japan repeatedly invaded.
This is a chapter published on March 12, 2019, under that title.
It was the Japanese who ruled the ancient Korean Peninsula.
Sato Yojiro.
Writer and professor at Nihon University College of Art.
Even while being fed up with Koreans’ habitual falsehoods, there are still quite a few Japanese who believe that much culture was transmitted to the archipelago through ancient Korea.
Do not be dreamily misled by newly coined terms such as “people who came from abroad.”
The blood of the Wa people flowing through the Silla royal family.
This is a continuation from Rekishi-tsu, a special April issue of the monthly magazine WiLL, a book that every Japanese citizen must read.
Repeated invasions of the peninsula.
Perhaps because of that influence, even today kimono are called gofuku.
I heard from local people that if one boards a boat near the Yangtze River, one will arrive in Kyushu without doing anything.
If rice cultivation in Japan originated in Kyushu, then the inference that they brought it may perhaps hold.
Considering that Emperor Jimmu’s “Eastern Expedition” began from southern Kyushu, it is also possible to think that people possessing advanced technology moved eastward.
Incidentally, “tōsen,” eastern relocation, and “tōsei,” eastern expedition, have different meanings, but this too is used casually without deep examination.
“To conquer the east” and “to move the capital to the east” are far too different in meaning.
Koreans say that rice cultivation was also transmitted from the peninsula, but geographically, climatically, and in terms of ocean currents, the basis for that is weak.
In terms of culture as well, the Sui Shu states, “In the third year of Daye, their king Tarishihoko sent envoys to offer tribute.
The envoy said, ‘Having heard that the Bodhisattva Son of Heaven west of the sea is vigorously reviving the Buddhist Law, we have sent envoys to pay homage, and several dozen monks have come to study the Buddhist Law.’”
It records that the Wa king Tarishihoko sent envoys and tribute, and that the Bodhisattva Son of Heaven west of the sea was earnestly practicing Buddhism, so monks were sent to come and study it.
The Japanese had already had exchanges with China two thousand years ago and were studying Buddhism.
The Sui Shu and the Wei Zhi record that the Wa people used iron.
Because the fact that they used arrowheads and iron tools was surprising to them, they left it in writing, but the Wa people were making iron two thousand years ago.
As far as one reads Chinese historical records, it is hard to think that Japanese culture, which was studying Buddhism and acquiring advanced technology, flowed in from the Korean Peninsula.
And if one reads the Samguk Sagi and the Kiki, the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, it becomes clear that since the beginning of recorded history, Japan continued to invade the Korean Peninsula countless times.
The reverse is virtually nonexistent.
I know only of the Ōei Invasion, in which Joseon Korea attacked Tsushima for about ten days during the Muromachi period, but are there any others?
There were numerous incursions by wakō, and people stopped living along the coast of Goryeo.
The Ōei Invasion was an attack on Tsushima, which had become a base for these wakō, destroying ships and freeing hostages, but apart from that, Korea conversely handed over hostages to Japan and repeatedly offered tribute.
Moreover, with Silla, which Japan had invaded so much, state-to-state exchanges became scarce after the Battle of Baekgang, in which Japan was defeated by the Tang–Silla allied forces.
In connection with the Six Schools of Nara Buddhism and the new Kamakura Buddhist schools as well, Japan was influenced more by Tang than by Korea.
The importation of culture must also have come from China along with the missions to Sui and Tang.
As can be seen in the Sui Shu, the theory that culture entered from the Korean Peninsula is difficult to establish, and it is also hard to imagine that various forms of culture flowed in from a country that had continued to be attacked since ancient times.
Even if there were both the Yangtze River route and the peninsula route, it is wrong to say that the Korean Peninsula had greater national power and a higher cultural level than Japan.
If they insist on saying so, unless they present the grounds, it is merely of the sort that “if a lie is told one hundred times, it becomes the truth.”
Japan’s ritsuryō legal system and court ranks were not created by imitating Korea.
And yet regarding the Bunroku and Keichō campaigns, Shin Il-chul, born in 1931, who served as a professor at Korea University and president of the Korean Philosophical Association, said: “Japan, which was a culturally backward country in East Asia, plundered cultural heritage such as type, books, paintings, and ceramics from Korea, and abducted many technicians and scholars.
Together with this, Korea’s Neo-Confucianism was also transmitted and greatly influenced Japanese culture.”
This, despite the fact that the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki, which are four hundred years older than the Samguk Sagi and Samguk Yusa, already existed, and even older Chinese historical records had written what kind of country Japan was and what kind of existence it was.
The reason Japan persistently attacked Silla was that minerals existed there.
In the Book of Roads and Kingdoms, compiled in 845 by the Arab Ibn Khordadbeh, it says, “Beyond China there is a country called Silla, with many mountains, ruled by various kings, where much gold is produced,” and it is written that Muslims had already settled there seeking it.
Silla was also a land of gold.
The Nihon Shoki also says that Empress Jingū and the others attacked because there was gold.
That is why Japan repeatedly invaded.
This is written not only in the Kiki, but also in the Samguk Sagi.
Do Koreans deny even their own “official history”?
Before saying this or that about Japan, they would do better to read their own “official history.”
At the very least, it is written there that Wa attacked many times.
Such a country cannot possibly be the culturally poor country they claim it was.
If it crossed the sea and attacked for centuries, the only possible conclusion is that Japan was a great power.
This essay continues.