1 Introduction

The Ryūkyū 琉球 Kingdom existed from 1429 to 1879, when it was annexed by Japan during the Meiji 明治 period (1868–1912) and incorporated into the emerging Japanese nation-state. Succeeding the chieftains and petty kingdoms of the Gusuku 城 and Sanzan 三山 periods (1050–1429), the separate regions of Okinawa 沖縄 Island had been united by King Shō Hashi 尚巴志 (1372–1439) by 1429, thus founding the Ryūkyū Kingdom.¹ At the height of its power, during the reign of King Shō Shin 尚真 (1465–1527), the Ryūkyū Kingdom spanned the entire homonymous island chain, today part of Japan’s Okinawa and Kagoshima 鹿児島 prefectures. Having entered the Chinese tributary system at the end of the fourteenth century, Ryūkyū experienced rapid cultural, economic, and technological development during the ensuing two hundred years.² By the time of Shō Shin, the kingdom thrived in its role as a bridge between the polities of East and Southeast Asia, a position that it had acquired by accepting China as its suzerain – a precondition to becoming a member of the tributary system (Akamine 2017).³

Yet in 1609, the kingdom was invaded by the Japanese feudal domain Satsuma 薩摩 following a diplomatic dispute concerning the possession of the Ryūkyū Islands’ northernmost part. Hence, the island realm found itself confronted with the demand to submit to its north-eastern neighbour, becoming thereupon a tributary state of both China and Japan (Akamine 2017: 58–72). The new geopolitical conditions forced the Ryūkyū Kingdom to manoeuvre between its suzerains in order to survive, a policy that significantly influenced Ryūkyūan culture and society. A period of strong Japanese influence and deliberately close cooperation with Satsuma under prime minister Shō Shōken 向象賢 (1617–1675) was followed by an accelerated process of cultural Sinicisation and renewed emphasis on ties with China promoted by the scholar-official Sai On 蔡温 (1682–1761). A consequence of both was the kingdom’s increased alignment with principles of Confucian statecraft that prevailed in late imperial China and early modern Japan (Smits 1999). Concomitantly, hitherto dominating autochthonous cultural norms, such as female pre-eminence in religious affairs, came under pressure and gradually waned (Smits 2000: 108–123).

Ryūkyū’s new reality is reflected in the Chūzan Seikan 中山世鑑 and the Chūzan Seifu 中山世譜, two of the kingdom’s official histories written by Shō Shōken and Sai On, respectively.⁴ They mirror their authors’ political orientations and indicate the reconceptualisation of the kingdom’s state doctrine, ideology, and founding narrative that followed the invasion of 1609. A common cause to both Shō Shōken and Sai On was the justification of Ryūkyū’s continued existence as a state in spite of its political subordination. Using historiography as a tool, they linked the sensitive issues of the kingdom’s positioning vis-à-vis its suzerains and the extent to which it could maintain some degree of autonomy to the legitimacy of its ruling house. To present a convincing narrative of the royal lineage’s dignity and virtue that was appealing to Ryūkyūan elites as well as the kingdom’s Chinese and Japanese suzerains was thus a vital concern of the two statesmen. Whereas there are many anecdotes in the histories that can be seen in this light, the episode starring King Gihon 義本 (1206–1259/60?) and King Eiso 英祖 (1229–1299) is particularly interesting for its attempt to reconcile the various concepts of political legitimacy prevalent in late imperial China, early modern Japan, and the Ryūkyū Kingdom itself (Iha, Higashionna, and Yokoyama 1962: vols. 4–5).⁵

This article investigates the Ryūkyū Kingdom’s positioning in East Asia, specifically its relations to late imperial China and early modern Japan, using the question of political legitimacy and its official articulation in the kingdom’s historiography as a case study – with a special focus on the tale of King Gihon and King Eiso.⁶ It asks why the depiction and evaluation of the recounted events and the protagonists, although similar in their general outline, are nevertheless slightly different, and how this difference is connected to the legitimacy of the royal lineage that forms the story’s underlying theme. To answer these questions, the article provides an overview of the state of research on the history of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, followed by theoretical considerations regarding the characterisation of the kingdom and its official histories. Next, a translation and detailed discussion of the two versions of the tale as presented by the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu are offered. The article concludes by summarising the main points discussed and then revisits the initially introduced theoretical concepts, underlining their validity with respect to the case study – and possibly beyond.

2 State of the Art

The question of Ryūkyū’s positioning is a recurring theme in academic literature on the history and culture of the island chain. Debates on the kingdom’s cultural, political, and ethnic relation to China and Japan have a long tradition that was shaped by eminent scholars such as the Japanese ethnologist Yanagita Kunio 柳田國男 (1875–1962) and the Okinawan-born Iha Fuyū 伊波 普猷 (1876–1947) (Inoue 2007: 70–97). Until today, studies on the Ryūkyū Kingdom often approach the island realm from a perspective that either stresses its connecting function between China and Japan or defines it as particular part of the Japanese cultural sphere. Proponents of the former position highlight the variety of foreign influences that reached Ryūkyū during its membership in the tributary system, and emphasise the political autonomy the kingdom was afforded by its condominium status after 1609 (Takara 1998; Xú and Tāng 2016; Akamine 2017; Liú 2019). Such depictions of Ryūkyū evoke the kingdom’s self-image as a “bridge of nations” linking insular Japan to the polities of continental Asia and the southern seas. In contrast, some studies that focus on Ryūkyūan ties with the Japanese mainland acknowledge the country’s separate historical evolution and cultural distinctiveness. However, more often than not, they conform to the official portrayal of Ryūkyū as a specific yet integral part of Japan and its culture, and not as a cultural sphere of its own (Kreiner 2001: 1–39; Smits 2018).

While the roles as intermediary and vassal certainly left their mark on the island realm’s development, conceiving of Ryūkyū chiefly as a recipient of foreign impetus disregards the kingdom’s room for cultural and political agency. Instead, characterising the Ryūkyū Kingdom as a contact zone allows for a better assessment of the dynamic nature of Ryūkyūan politics and culture. Looking at the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu as texts that were created in a process of transculturation facilitates a thorough understanding of the inherent interplay of Chinese, Japanese, and Ryūkyūan narratives and political thought. Approaching Ryūkyū as a contact zone and the two official histories as transcultural texts proposes a new perspective on the kingdom’s positioning and ever-changing culture that transcends the common tropes of intermediary and vassal, Sinicisation and Japanisation.

3 Theoretical Framework

Originally coined by Mary Louise Pratt, the term contact zone refers to “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today” (1991: 34). Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik (2022) applied the term to East Asia and explored how shifting constellations of power affected the outward positioning and internal dynamics of subordinate communities. Changing cultural dominance is a reflection of hegemonic competition among the powers that form a contact zone between them. Pratt’s understanding of multicultural dynamics is connected to Fernando Ortiz’s concept of transculturation. It describes cross-cultural creation processes, characterising them as influenced by elements that were selected or invented from materials delivered to subordinate communities by their dominating others (Pratt 1991: 36). By deliberately choosing specific aspects from the source material and reinventing and adapting them to the different conditions of the subordinate community, the latter succeeds in establishing a distinct cultural tradition and reading of its own. Transcultural texts can thus be deemed self-representations subordinate communities construct by employing modes of articulation and understanding derived from their dominating others.

Despite being formally an independent state until the 1870s, “highly asymmetrical relations of power” defined the political and cultural environment of the Ryūkyū Kingdom since at least 1609. Due to its specific position at the crossroads of the Chinese and Japanese spheres of influence, Ryūkyū can be considered a contact zone in a political, cultural, economic, but also ideological and historiographical sense. When writing the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu, Shō Shōken and Sai On faced the challenge of articulating the legitimacy of Ryūkyū’s reigning dynasty in a manner that was convincing to both their fellow countrymen and foreign suzerains. As they had to cater to different audiences, their depictions of Ryūkyūan history engaged with popular narratives and ideological elements from endemic, Chinese, and Japanese mythologies, historiographical traditions, and vernacular cultures. However, the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu do not just imitate Chinese and Japanese precepts of historiography but adapt the borrowed elements to Ryūkyūan circumstances. Hence, the two histories can be regarded as examples of transcultural writing.

4 The Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu

The Chūzan Seikan is the first official history of the Ryūkyū Kingdom. As the title suggests, it resembles the Chinese historiographical genre of jiàn 鑒 or mirror. In English, its name is usually rendered as either Mirror of Chūzan or Reflections on Chūzan.⁷ Compiled by Shō Shōken in 1650, the text is a chronological account of the reigns and lives of Ryūkyū’s monarchs (Smits 2018: xii). Whereas the preface of the Chūzan Seikan is penned in kanbun 漢文, the body of its text is written in Early Modern Japanese, with frequent quotations from Classical Chinese sources and a few Old Okinawan verses from the Omoro Sōshi おもろさうし, a compilation of ritual songs and epic poetry (Iha, Higashionna, and Yokoyama 1962: vol. 5; Serafim and Shinzato 2021: 1).⁸ The accounts of events before the reign of Shō Shin are largely based on folktales and myths which are nevertheless deemed to reflect historical processes from Ryūkyū’s early past. Shō Shōken was an advocate of Japanese culture, societal norms, and political thought. Hence, the Chūzan Seikan and its depiction of the Ryūkyūan royal lineage are infused with a narrative that presents the Ryūkyū Kingdom and its rulers as politically and culturally closely affiliated with mainland Japan (Smits 1999: 51–62).

In contrast, the Chūzan Seifu or Genealogy of Chūzan, more specifically its 1725 edition by Sai On, reflects a more Sinocentric view of the Ryūkyūan state and its ties to China and Japan. The Chūzan Seifu is labelled as a pǔ 譜 or genealogy, and structured according to the succeeding generations of Ryūkyū’s royal lineage. Sai On’s version of the history of the Ryūkyū Kingdom is loosely based on a chronicle of the same name that was completed in 1701 by his father Sai Taku 蔡鐸 (1645–1725) and a few other scholars-cum-officials. This earlier edition, however, is considered a direct rendition of Shō Shōken’s Chūzan Seikan, with the entire text converted into kanbun. Linguistically, Sai On’s Chūzan Seifu differs from its two predecessors in that it was written in a form of literary Chinese akin to the language used by officials of the Míng and Qīng dynasties. Moreover, Sai On’s edition continued the account of the royal lineage until 1725 and was thereafter extended up to the last king of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, Shō Tai 尚泰 (1843–1901) (Iha, Higashionna, and Yokoyama 1962: vol. 4; Smits 2018: xi). Sai On’s Chūzan Seifu presents the Ryūkyūan monarchy and its ideological and mythical foundations from a different angle than Shō Shōken. Mirroring the Chūzan Seikan in the overall outline of the recounted events, Sai On’s version of Ryūkyū’s history juxtaposes Shō Shōken’s Japanophile perspective with a more Sinophile vision of the island kingdom. This reorientation of Ryūkyū’s positioning was influenced by Sai On’s educational background and political career but also reflected a general recollection of cultural and diplomatic ties with China (Smits 1999: 71–80).

Some of the most obvious differences between Shō Shōken’s and Sai On’s histories can be attributed to the different objectives of their genres. A jiàn was considered an educational tool that served to instruct rulers in the proper ways of good governance (Schaberg 2001: 363). A pǔ, in contrast, was to present a genealogical depiction of past events, linking chronology to lineage history (Schmid 2002: 180–188). The use of quotations from Classical Chinese sources in the Chūzan Seikan and the lack thereof in the Chūzan Seifu indicate these goals. What the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu do have in common is their purpose to construct a shared past and ancestry that was meant to bolster the legitimacy of the Ryūkyūan state and monarchy for both insiders and outsiders. An emphasis on the interconnectedness of Ryūkyū’s royal houses parallels Japanese practice to employ an uninterrupted succession of (semi-)divine rulers as the dominant framework for writing history (Brownlee 2006: 130–133). As Dana Masayuki (2008) and Ikemiya Masaharu (2015) point out, the royal court was actively involved in the conceptualisation of the image of the Ryūkyūan monarchy that was to be presented in the official histories. As a consequence of Ryūkyū’s dual subordination to China and Japan since 1609, this image and the accompanying narrative of political legitimacy were directed towards distinct audiences. On the one hand, they were to infuse the kingdom’s political, administrative, and religious elites with a renewed sense of cultural identity and belonging as well as loyalty to the royal house. On the other hand, they were to underline Ryūkyū’s filial allegiance to China and Japan and convince its suzerains of the legitimacy and dignity of the Ryūkyūan royal lineage. To achieve these goals, Shō Shōken and Sai On had to walk a fine line between adapting their histories to Chinese and Japanese precepts of historiography and transmitting selected features of native Ryūkyūan culture.

5 The Tale of King Gihon and King Eiso

The following passages from the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu recount the transition from the second to the third royal dynasty that reigned over Ryūkyū according to the kingdom’s official histories.⁹ The protagonists of this episode are King Gihon, the third and final ruler of the Shunten 舜天 dynasty (1187–1259), and his eventual successor King Eiso, founder of the Eiso 英祖 dynasty (1260–1349). Both histories depict the general course of events in a similar manner, but diverge in the narrative frameworks, the assessments of the protagonists, and details concerning the ideological and legitimating message the tale ought to imply. Partly, this discrepancy can be attributed to the different historiographical genres of the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu. The majority of differences, however, are connected to Shō Shōken’s and Sai On’s distinct worldviews. They indicate how the two authors conceived of the Ryūkyū Kingdom and its positioning, and tried to redefine the legitimacy of its ruling house.

The account in the Chūzan Seikan reads as follows:

King Gihon was the first prince of Shunbajunki.¹⁰ He was born in the second year of the Kāixī era of the Southern Sòng dynasty, the third year of the sixty-year cycle (1206).¹¹ He acceded to the throne at the age of forty-four.¹² The following year, there was a great famine, and it continued into the next year. It [became] an epidemic, and while half of the people were dying, he [felt] very sad. He announced to his retainers: “It says that ‘The king is the source and the people are the shadow. If a sundial is upright, the shadow will be straight as well. If the source [of a river] is clean, then its waters are clear as well. These are principles of nature. The world is like a human body, when its vitality is stable, illnesses cannot intrude; after its vitality has declined, diseases will be able to enter it.’¹³ The present plague, however, is due to my unvirtuous [conduct].” He asked that, since all under Heaven was not that of one person, if he should yield the kingdom to someone.¹⁴ Then, the retainers all chose Eiso, son of Lord Eso. The ruler was very pleased, and he put Eiso and the others to the test by making them administer the affairs of the realm: “Just like Shùn ordered the Eight Gentle Ones to serve as local officials, and instructed the Eight Kind Ones to educate the people all over the country, in order to prevent immorality from rising.¹⁵ [And] just like Shùn banished the Four Evils to the Four Remote Lands.¹⁶ [Then,] Jǐngxīng appeared, and five-coloured clouds arose.”¹⁷,¹⁸ And the [epidemic] came to an end. Eiso was sessei for seven years and Gihon ruled for eleven years.¹⁹ At the age of fifty-four, he abandoned the throne and yielded to Eiso.

Personally, I think that King Gihon’s virtue was that of Yáo. King Eiso’s virtue was that of Shùn. But, [whatever] King Eiso had, King Gihon had. How was this [not] beneficial for the state? As it says in the Classic of Changes: “The sagely ruler takes good care of the worthy so as to benefit the common people.”²⁰ Regarding the worthy, their virtue is sufficient to educate the people and correct their customs, their talent is sufficient to rectify the law and social order, their wisdom is sufficient to raise attention for details and consider the future, their power is sufficient to unite benevolence and consolidate justice. On a big scale, this can be beneficial for the whole world; on a small scale, this can be beneficial for a single country. Therefore, the ruler should pay them well to ensure their wealth, confer titles of nobility upon them to make them be respected, thus take good care of one person so as to benefit all of the common people, and this is the principle of taking good care of the worthy. This is, namely, King Gihon’s nourishing of wisdom that reached the people. It is a felicitous example [for all time].

[…]

In the first year of the Jǐngdìng era of the Southern Sòng dynasty, the fifty-seventh year of the sixty-year cycle (1260), King Eiso acceded to the throne. King Eiso was a descendant of the Tenson clan and a grandson of Lord Eso.²¹ [His] mother [had a] dream [in which] Shàngdì impregnated [her], so that later people called him the Son of Heaven. He was born in the second year of the Shàodìng era of the Southern Sòng dynasty, the twenty-sixth year of the sixty-year cycle (1229). That year, there was a sacred portent, and a great bird and a dragon sang. At the age of seven, his talent and virtue were no [longer] concealed, and so there were no villagers who were not awestruck. At the age of thirteen, he [developed] a [great] intention, and his renown [grew throughout] the state. And for this reason, the people just followed him [like the sunflower follows the sun]. Moreover, [news of him] reached the ears [of the king], and so in the first year of the Bǎoyòu era of the Southern Sòng dynasty, the fiftieth year of the sixty-year cycle (1253), he was elevated to the post of chancellor at the age of twenty-five. In the first year of the Jǐngdìng era of the Southern Sòng dynasty, the fifty-seventh year of the sixty-year cycle (1260), he acceded at the age of thirty-two.²²

The account in the Chūzan Seifu reads as follows:

In the ninth year of the Chúnyòu era of the Southern Sòng dynasty, the forty-sixth year of the sixty-year cycle (1249), [King Gihon] ascended the throne. […]

King Gihon was a man of modest talents, and he was so humane that he was indecisive. After he had assumed the throne, famine rapidly increased and plagues greatly broke out, which caused half of the people to die. Greatly alarmed, Gihon summoned his retainers and said: “At the time of my late father, the country was rich and the people lived in peace. Now I have no virtue, famine and plagues both emerged, this means that Heaven has abandoned me. I need to abdicate in favour of someone who has virtue and then withdraw. You please propose someone to replace me.” The retainers unanimously said: “There were auspicious signs at the birth of Lord Eso’s first wife’s son, who is named Eiso, indicating that sagely virtue is abundantly present in him. The people respect him.” Gihon rejoiced greatly, summoned Eiso, and had him administer the country, and as expected, the plague stopped and the annual harvests were abundant. He acted as a regent for seven years, and the people all adored him. In the seventh year of the Bǎoyòu era of the Southern Sòng dynasty, the fifty-sixth year of the sixty-year cycle (1259), Gihon was fifty-four years old and had been on the throne for eleven years. Instructing Eiso, he said: “I was abandoned by Heaven, causing half of the people to die. Now you are in power, and the year’s harvest is abundant and the people are prosperous, therefore you are beloved by Heaven. It is proper for you to receive the imperial command, so to serve as a parent-figure to the people.” Eiso firmly declined. The retainers unanimously encouraged him. Gihon thereupon abdicated in favour of Eiso and then withdrew. At present, the place where he went into hiding cannot be verified, hence his later life and death are not known. [The line of Shunten arose in the forty-fourth year of the sixty-year cycle, and reached its end at the time of Gihon, in the fifty-sixth year of the following cycle. In total, it had three kings, and lasted for seventy-three years.]

[…]

Lord Eso was a descendant of the Tenson clan. At that time, Eso served as aji of Iso, doing good and accumulating virtue.²³ However, after he had married, he was completely without offspring. After many years, his wife had a dream of the sun flying towards her, entering her bosom. Subsequently, she was fond of sour and coarse rice. Eso considered this a proof of the veracity of her aforementioned dream. At the next full moon, the day of labour arrived, and he witnessed auspicious light and extraordinary splendour, coming from the middle of the house, penetrating the high clouds, and also an unusually sweet smell filling the house. Soon enough she gave birth and they had a boy. Eso was wholeheartedly happy, loved him and cherished him as an exceptional treasure. The common people of that time believed he was a child of the sun.

Eiso was sagacious and clairvoyant from birth, adoring the virtuous and esteeming the dào, and his virtue reached greatness at the age of twenty-five.²⁴ At the time he met Gihon, famine and plagues both emerged, the people could not bear their sorrows, ensuing the country’s perilous situation. Eiso received order to take on the country’s administration, and famine and plagues stopped entirely, and public feeling began to calm down. He acted as a regent for seven years, and his countrymen looked up to him like to a parent-figure, and at last he accepted Gihon’s abdication and became sovereign himself. […]

In the first year of the Jǐngdìng era of the Southern Sòng dynasty, the fifty-seventh year of the sixty-year cycle (1260), he ascended the throne.²⁵

6 Comparison of the Two Accounts

As Andre Schmid (2002: 175–178) points out, legitimacy was the chief narrative device of Confucian historiography in early modern East Asia.²⁶ Following a precedent established by Zhū Xī 朱熹 (1130–1200), the notion of tiān and associated concepts of legitimate rule became key elements in many scholars-cum-officials’ endeavours to either defend or refute the legitimacy of regimes. The origins of the conceptualisation of tiānmìng, the mandate to rule the human realm granted by tiān, are traditionally said to lie in the rise of the Zhōu 周 dynasty (ca. 1046–256 BCE) and its violent succession to the Shāng dynasty. Since the Shāng rulers had derived their authority from their hereditary position as high priests of the gods, in particular Shàngdì, the Zhōu needed a new narrative to legitimise their seizure of power. According to tiānmìng, the decisive factors that determined one’s suitability to rule were factual power and virtue, regardless of descent and social class. This reasoning linked the Zhōu dynasty’s ascent to hegemony to a claimed moral decline of its predecessor, resulting in the Shāng dynasty’s loss of the Mandate of Heaven (Eno 1990: 23–27). The proposition that morality was the most noble of virtues a king had to possess to govern the realm in accordance with the dào, and thus maintain the Mandate of Heaven, signified a radically changed conceptualisation of political legitimacy. While formerly based on shared blood, the concept of tiānmìng added the factor of merit as the principal quality that defined legitimacy. For dynastic China, this transition from genealogical to recurring meritocratic legitimacy was to be a definite one. But in some of the neighbouring polities of early modern Eastern Asia as well, the notion of tiān as a source of political legitimacy gained prominence for it allowed to infuse a disruptive cycle of dynastic change with an overall sense of continuity.

Efforts to propagate a narrative of royal continuity in the Ryūkyū Kingdom can be traced back to the reign of Shō Shin. His father Shō En’s 尚圓 (1415–1476) founding of the Second Shō 尚 dynasty (1470–1879) had not been uncontested and neither was his own succession to the throne. Accordingly, Shō Shin sought to bolster his family’s narrative of legitimacy and boost its reputation by presenting it as the rightful successor to the ruling houses of Ryūkyū’s past. Part of a more comprehensive policy to establish an official commemorative culture, he depicted the prosperity of the Ryūkyūan state and its people as closely intertwined with the fate of the royal lineage (Dana 2008: 181–196; Smits 2018: 148–157). Thus, he introduced to Ryūkyū a perception of history that was centred on the royal court and used theories of legitimacy to bridge the rifts created by political strife.

Shō Shōken and Sai On adopted Shō Shin’s outline of the royal genealogy. Due to Ryūkyū’s changed geopolitical conditions, however, they were confronted with the need to present a new narrative of legitimacy that was convincing to distinct audiences – the kingdom’s Chinese and Japanese suzerains and Ryūkyūan elites (cf. Smits 1999: 50–132; 2000: 107). This was a contentious task, since their prospective readers were accustomed to different concepts of political legitimacy. On the one hand, they had to reconcile the Ryūkyūan and Chinese reality of dynastic change with the Japanese ideal of one uninterrupted reigning bloodline. To begin with, negotiating the polar beliefs in legitimacy based on either merit or shared blood was not an easy job. Yet even regarding the more similar models of rulership of imperial China and Ryūkyū, Shō Shōken and Sai On were in need of explanation. Ryūkyū’s history up to the early years of the Second Shō dynasty was characterised by both inter- and intra-dynastic violence (Smits 2018: 107–133). Even within the more accommodating conceptual framework of tiānmìng, this constant struggle for power was hard to justify as it clearly breached Confucian principles of virtuous conduct. On the other hand, their ideological programmes to reconceptualise the legitimacy of the Ryūkyūan monarchy and its ruling lineage faced opposition among the kingdom’s elites. To appease internal conflict, they had to integrate certain demands into their novel drafts of the Ryūkyūan state.

Shō Shōken and Sai On each set out to overcome these challenges in a different manner. Reflecting the power constellation that dominated the Ryūkyūan contact zone at their respective times, they developed individual strategies to address the conceptual struggle in constructing a new narrative of legitimacy. Shō Shōken lived shortly after the 1609 invasion, a period of newly achieved stability for mainland Japan but beginning political turmoil for imperial China. In his youth, he was trained in the Confucian classics by a Japanese scholar from Satsuma, leaving a lifelong impression on him. As prime minister, Shō Shōken pursued a policy of deliberate cooperation with Satsuma, drawing Ryūkyū ever closer to its Japanese suzerains. His depiction of Ryūkyū’s history stresses the kingdom’s political and cultural proximity to Japan within a Confucian historiographical framework (Smits 1999: 51–62). In contrast, Sai On experienced a loosening of Satsuma’s grip on Ryūkyū as well as the starting heyday of the Qīng during study and diplomatic visits to their empire. His political reforms were geared to boost Ryūkyū’s self-reliance where possible and promote a cultural and diplomatic reorientation towards China. Although he preserved many of the key elements in the Chūzan Seikan, he shifted the focus of the Chūzan Seifu and expanded it considerably. His account of the kingdom’s past has a more Sinocentric outlook and reflects a more balanced and self-assertive Ryūkyūan positioning halfway between China and Japan (ibid.: 71–99). In tracing Shō Shōken’s and Sai On’s distinct legitimating narratives, the tale of King Gihon and King Eiso is of particular interest. Both Gihon and Eiso are descendants of Ryūkyū’s most illustrious bloodlines, each of them representing a specific conceptualisation of the Ryūkyūan monarchy and state. The relative positions ascribed to these two figures in the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu indicate Shō Shōken’s and Sai On’s respective ideological disposition. Gihon and Eiso and their genealogical backgrounds are thus exemplary for the strategies that Shō Shōken and Sai On developed to defend the Ryūkyūan state vis-à-vis its foreign suzerains and native elites by stressing the legitimacy of its ruling house.

Common to both accounts are their anecdotal narration and the outline of the story. In the context of Confucian historiography, David Schaberg (2001: 171–183) defines the anecdote as a narrative form that affords the illusion of spontaneous storytelling and historical immediacy. Assessing figures and deeds of the past and showing which actions generated positive or negative results, it has a moral connotation and educative purpose. Usually, anecdotes leave room for interpretation. The fact that the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu present an explicit evaluation of the events is a sign that Shō Shōken and Sai On adapted historiographical conventions when deemed beneficial to the messages they sought to convey in their histories. What the accounts are lacking is a remark about moral self-cultivation on the part of Eiso, a typical requirement for assuming supreme power in Confucian state philosophy. Furthermore, both descriptions of Gihon diverge from the traditional portrayal of a dynasty’s last ruler. Indeed, if the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu were to invariably follow the conventions, Gihon, according to the rationale of tiānmìng, would be characterised as cruel, decadent, and violent – in short, as lacking in virtue.

Finally, both accounts invoke the authority of tiān, thereby implicitly alluding to tiānmìng. The Chūzan Seikan even reports that people called Eiso the Son of Heaven, an obvious violation of Confucian terminological practice since only the legitimate sovereign of China – that is, the emperor – could claim this title for himself. Schmid (2002: 177–180) observes that Confucian scholars beyond the borders of the Míng and Qīng dynasties started to appropriate received narratives of political legitimacy by the seventeenth century. By defying hitherto respected conventions, he argues, these scholars challenged parts of the Sinocentric worldview inherent in Confucian historiography to profess a novel sense of subjectivity and affirm political autonomy. He links this new assertiveness to the rise of the Manchu Qīng dynasty that was considered an illegitimate usurper by many throughout East Asia. Schmid’s interpretation of these geopolitical trends is in line with Weigelin-Schwiedrzik’s (2022) understanding of contact zones in early modern East Asia: internal dynamics and outward positioning of subordinate communities are a reflection of political turmoil within or hegemonic competition among the powers that dominate a contact zone. From the mid-seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, the uneasy balance between the Qīng empire and Tokugawa Japan allowed the Ryūkyū Kingdom to reaffirm its positioning and assert its subjectivity. In this context, the prolific adaptation of narrative techniques, ideological imagery, and conceptual devices borrowed from Chinese and Japanese mythologies, historiographical traditions, and vernacular cultures can be considered a transcultural process that resulted in a redefinition of the Ryūkyūan state. The backbone of this endeavour was a comprehensive documentation and teleological reinterpretation of Ryūkyū’s past. The central character of this history was to be the royal lineage and legitimacy was its driving narrative device. Looking at the differences between the two accounts, this will become more evident.

Shō Shōken’s and Sai On’s versions of the tale differ chiefly in three ways: first, the Chūzan Seikan features comments by its author and quotations from Classical Chinese sources (marked by footnotes in the above translation) whereas the Chūzan Seifu does not deploy such rhetorical tools. Second, while both texts agree on Eiso’s portrayal as saviour of the kingdom, they paint distinct pictures of his predecessor Gihon. Third, the histories offer contrasting information regarding a crucial point in Eiso’s narrative of legitimacy. The first difference can be attributed to the historiographical genre of the Chūzan Seikan. As a jiàn, the text served an educational purpose to instruct rulers in the proper ways of governance. It is assumed to address policy makers in Satsuma, so the comments and citations were to enhance the credibility of Shō Shōken’s observations and promote the standing of his chronicle. He employs the quotations and personal remarks to develop characterisations of Gihon and Eiso as images of the Chinese sage kings Yáo and Shùn. Comparing Gihon and Eiso with Yáo and Shùn was a reasonable choice to advance the legitimating narrative of the Chūzan Seikan. The transfer of power from Yáo to Shùn was a well-known example of legitimate succession based on merit. Similar to Gihon and Eiso, Yáo tested Shùn’s qualification by having him administer the affairs of the realm (Yang, An, and Anderson Turner 2005: 227–229). By likening the tale of Gihon and Eiso to the story of Yáo and Shùn, Shō Shōken left no doubt about the continued legitimacy of the Ryūkyūan royal lineage in spite of dynastic transition. More importantly, though, Yáo and Shùn were regarded as epitomes of a virtuous ruler. Drawing from Yáo and Shùn thus signified that morality was the principal quality that the two Ryūkyūan kings possessed. Finally, comparing Gihon to the more senior Yáo not only exonerated him from any blame for Ryūkyū’s situation and highlighted his exemplary conduct, but also implied that his virtue was superior to Eiso’s. Shifting the focus from Gihon to Eiso, the Chūzan Seifu avoids this typification. Whereas Sai On refrained from condemning Gihon, he presented the monarch in a less favourable light.²⁷ The reasons for Gihon’s divergent portrayals and for the different conceptualisations of Eiso’s legitimacy are political and ideological. To understand them, one must explore the two kings’ genealogical backgrounds.

7 The Depiction of King Gihon

In order to comprehend why Gihon’s depiction in the Chūzan Seikan is more sympathetic than in the Chūzan Seifu, it is necessary to learn more about the royal’s supposed bloodline. According to the histories, Gihon was the third and last ruler of the Shunten dynasty, which is named after its presumed founder King Shunten 舜天 (1166–1237), Gihon’s grandfather. King Shunten is said to have established his family’s claim to the throne by defeating an illegitimate usurper who had ousted the last ruler of Ryūkyū’s mythical first royal house, the Tenson 天孫 dynasty (Kerr 2018: 52). However, what is crucial for a thorough understanding of the tale of King Gihon and King Eiso is not Shunten’s own great deeds but his alleged descent. Drawing on earlier accounts that had reached the court in Shuri from Japan, the Ryūkyū Kingdom’s historiography linked the country’s royal lineage to the famous samurai Minamoto no Tametomo 源為朝 (1139–1170). According to Ikemiya (2015: 32–36), the Chūzan Seikan was the first official Ryūkyūan source to explicitly relate the Japanese noble with Shunten, declaring that Tametomo had fathered the latter with a woman from the family of a Ryūkyūan aji.²⁸ Tametomo was a member of one of the two feudal clans that heralded the era of samurai by terminating Japan’s Heian 平安 period (794–1185). Moreover, he was an uncle of Minamoto no Yoritomo 源頼朝 (1147–1199), the founder of the Kamakura 鎌倉 shogunate (1192–1333) (Mass 1999). Following his defeat in war, Tametomo was banished from the Japanese mainland, with some Japanese and Ryūkyūan sources claiming that he eventually ended up on Okinawa Island (Smits 2018: 27–32). Since the Minamoto 源 clan descended from a side branch of the Japanese imperial house, Gihon’s purported relatedness to Shunten and Tametomo made him a distant scion of Japan’s imperial family. The Tokugawa 徳川 clan, early modern Japan’s most powerful feudal house and de facto ruler, also claimed descent from the imperial family as a cadet branch of the Minamoto (Mass 1999). As the overlord of Satsuma, it was the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1867) that Ryūkyū was officially subject to after its defeat in 1609. Hence, the Chūzan Seikan (and later the Chūzan Seifu) presented Shunten and his descendants as widely related to the Ryūkyū Kingdom’s second suzerain.

As George H. Kerr (2018: 52) notes, it seems plausible that remnants of Japanese noble families which were among the losers of the political change at the end of the Heian period wound up as fugitives to the Ryūkyū Islands. Still, he concludes, the story of Shunten’s connection to three of Japan’s leading houses can be mostly relegated to the realm of legends. Similarly, Gregory Smits (2018: 18–32) points to archaeological evidence that indicates an increase in cultural exchanges between Japan and the Ryūkyūs. Nevertheless, he views the tale as an attempt of the royal court to profit from popular accounts of fabled samurai in order to elevate the prestige of Ryūkyū’s ruling dynasty in the eyes of the kingdom’s Japanese suzerains.²⁹ However, at the time the Chūzan Seikan was written, it was not the Shunten dynasty but the Second Shō dynasty that reigned over the Ryūkyū Kingdom. This begs the question why the descendants of the dynasty’s founder Shō En would benefit from a narrative that relates a different and by then long-vanished line of rulers with three of Japan’s most distinguished families (ibid.: 124–126). As noted above, the Chūzan Seikan tied already existing stories about Minamoto no Tametomo’s escape to islands south of Japan for the first time officially to King Shunten’s ancestry. Yet, with regard to Shō En’s ancestors, Shō Shōken offers the following explanation:

[King Shō En] was born in the thirteenth year of the Yǒnglè era of the Míng dynasty, the thirty-second year of the sixty-year cycle (1415). [His birth] name was Umitokugane. His parents were originally island peasants. Today, we cannot know what [happened] before [that], but one wonders [whether they] were the descendants of early kings, and so they went there and, over the generations, perhaps became island peasants. If not, then how [could we] have been so fortunate? Thus [we know that], Shùn was the eighth-generation descendant of Huángdì. Yǔ was the great-great-grandson of Huángdì. Chéng Tāng was the thirteenth-generation descendant of Xiè, son of Dì Kù. King Wén was the fifteenth-generation descendant of Hòu Jì, son of Dì Kù.³⁰ There were no sage kings who were not [also] the descendants of kings [themselves].³¹

Stylistically, the passage is reminiscent of the first excerpt taken from the Chūzan Seikan that is analysed in this article. Once again, Shō Shōken offers his personal thoughts on the issue at hand, this time by asking a rhetorical question to which he readily provides the answer. In his reply, he refers once more to several figures from the dawn of Chinese civilisation and employs them as precedents to underpin his assessment of the situation. This rhetoric serves his portrayal of the Ryūkyūan monarchs as heirs of a long line of exemplary Confucian rulers. By applying these modes of articulation and understanding that are typical of a Chinese jiàn to a Ryūkyūan context, Shō Shōken uses them to benefit from their superior cultural authority. His message is obvious: while refraining from specifying the precise nature of Shō En’s connection to earlier monarchs, Shō Shōken makes it clear that there is no other possibility than the Second Shō dynasty’s founder being a scion of royalty. In short, although the Chūzan Seikan assures its readers of Shō En’s distinguished origins, it remains silent about a possible link to the Shunten dynasty. Still, as Dana (2008) suggests, it was widely believed that Shō En, and thus the Second Shō dynasty, descended from Gihon. Consequently, by reference to this supposed genealogy, the second house of Shō could claim a distant relatedness to the Japanese imperial family as well as the Minamoto and Tokugawa clans.

In summary, the cause for Gihon’s favourable depiction in the Chūzan Seikan can be concluded to be twofold: first, as Gihon was the imagined ancestor of the reigning royal house, the Confucian principle of filial piety demanded that he was treated with propriety. Second, given his presumed connection to three of Japan’s paramount families, Gihon’s persona served as a crucial tool to elevate the standing of the Ryūkyūan royal lineage. After Ryūkyū’s defeat in 1609, such additional prestige was deployed to legitimise the continued rule of the Second Shō dynasty in the eyes of its Satsuma and Tokugawa suzerains. Hence, the emphasis on Gihon in the Chūzan Seikan can be considered a reflection of the changed balance of power in the Ryūkyūan contact zone. The last ruler of the Shunten dynasty was a welcome medium to facilitate the portrayal of Ryūkyū’s royal families as inherently interconnected and thus of a singular bloodline. However, Shō Shōken’s frequent use of concepts, rhetoric, and imagery derived from Chinese historiography also indicates a continued impact of Sinocentric worldviews among contemporary Ryūkyūan elites. Seventy-five years later, Sai On’s version of Ryūkyū’s history would capitalise on this lingering sentiment.

8 The Depiction of King Eiso

Gihon’s critical role for the narrative of legitimacy of the Ryūkyūan monarchy was acknowledged by Sai On. However, reflecting the new geopolitical conditions that came with the rise of the Qīng dynasty, the Chūzan Seifu shifted the focus from Gihon to Eiso. Both histories give three reasons why Eiso’s succession to the throne was legitimate: the verdict of tiān; Eiso’s connection to the Tenson dynasty; and his personal, semi-divine roots. While tiān constitutes Eiso’s most obvious source of authority in a Confucian sense, his link to the Tenson dynasty and his miraculous birth recall native Ryūkyūan traditions. The accounts differ as to who impregnated Eiso’s mother. The Chūzan Seikan attributes paternity to Shàngdì, a deity that was often conflated with tiān despite their distinct origins (Pankenier 2013: 115, 194). In contrast, the Chūzan Seifu refers to the sun, evoking the importance of sun cults in early Ryūkyūan belief systems (Smits 2018: 194–195).

The Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu are not consistent in their depictions of Eiso’s relation to Lord Eso. Whether the latter was Eiso’s foster father or rather his grandfather was secondary. Either way, their relatedness provided Eiso with an exceptional pedigree, as Lord Eso was claimed to descend from the Tenson clan, Ryūkyū’s first royal family. This genealogy elevated Eiso’s societal standing and made him hierarchically equal to his predecessor Gihon. In addition to being favoured by tiān, Eiso’s alleged ancestors supplied him with another guarantor of his legitimacy that was based on his adopted bloodline. Linking Eiso to the Tenson dynasty emphasised the enduring principle of monarchic rule and assisted the histories in their portrayal of Gihon’s abdication as a legitimate act of dynastic transition. The Tenson clan’s own provenance, however, is even more illustrious.

According to both histories, the Tenson clan was Ryūkyū’s first royal house. After twenty-five generations, the dynasty was overthrown by a usurper who was in turn defeated by the later king Shunten. Tenson 天孫, the dynasty’s mythical founder, was the oldest among the offspring of a figure called Tenteishi 天帝子 who divided human society for the first time into a social class system, with each caste headed by one of his five children. As the eldest, Tenson was entrusted with the position of ruler and became Ryūkyū’s first king. His two younger brothers began the societal stratums of nobility and peasantry, whereas his sisters started the female dominance in religious affairs typical within autochthonous belief systems in the Ryūkyū Islands. By fathering the human beings that commenced societal stratification, Tenteishi became the progenitor of traditional Ryūkyūan society and served as allegorical origin to many customs and mores that structured the daily lives of Ryūkyū’s population for centuries. Moreover, Tenteishi is said to descend from the Celestial Emperor (天帝: Chinese tiāndì; Japanese tentei), and was linked to the Ryūkyūan creation gods Amamikyu 阿摩美久 and Shinerikyu 志仁禮久, connecting these deities to the Tenson clan – including King Eiso (Iha, Higashionna, and Yokoyama 1962: vol. 5, 13–16; vol. 4, 20–24).³² Although their accounts of this myth differ in some respects, the message that the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu convey is the following: through his connection to Lord Eso, Eiso and his descendants were related not only to Ryūkyū’s first royal dynasty but also to heavenly deities and other semi-divine figures.

As Dana (2008) suggests, although the creation myth involving Amamikyu and Shinerikyu is already indicated in earlier sources, the Chūzan Seikan is the first known document that explicitly associates the roots of Ryūkyūan kingship with this myth. Additionally, the text presents the hitherto unrecorded Tenson dynasty as linking the primordial gods to Gihon’s chosen heir Eiso, a narrative that was elaborated by the Chūzan Seifu. Compared to older versions of the myth, the accounts in the two histories were expanded by adding elements from Chinese and Japanese mythologies (Kerr 2018: 36). For instance, “Tenteishi” literally signifies “son of the Celestial Emperor,” evoking the Chinese notion of tiānzǐ. The figure of the Celestial Emperor stems from the concepts of Shàngdì and tiān. Furthermore, the idea of a ruling house that derives its political legitimacy out of its supposed connection to the celestial gods, including, prominently, a high-ranking female deity, is reminiscent of Japan’s imperial family and its averred relatedness to the sun goddess Amaterasu 天照. Despite notable differences in their stories, the dyad of Amamikyu and Shinerikyu resembles the Japanese creator duo Izanami 伊邪那美 and Izanagi 伊邪那岐. Similarly, parallels can be drawn between Tenteishi and the heavenly grandchild Ninigi-no-Mikoto 瓊瓊杵尊, as well as Ryūkyū’s first king Tenson (whose name can be translated as “descendant of Heaven”) and Japan’s legendary first emperor Jimmu 神武 (traditionally, 711–585 BCE) (cf. Cali and Dougill 2012).

Whereas Eiso’s claimed relation to the Tenson clan raised his societal status, Shō Shōken and Sai On likely deemed the connection not convincing enough to dispel all doubts about his legitimacy. Despite its heavenly roots, the Tenson dynasty was overthrown, indicating the clan’s moral decline if seen from a Confucian perspective. Linking Eiso to Tenson provided the former with an exceptional pedigree, but the bond between their lineage and the celestial realms had to be renewed. Hence, Eiso’s miraculous birth served the two histories as an additional argument for his legitimacy.

The narrative of a messianic hero’s divine conception by an untainted maiden is a so-called mytheme, a topos present in the mythological memory of numerous cultures around the world (Lévi-Strauss 1955). One prominent example is the Immaculate Conception of Jesus Christ by his mother Mary. Other precedents from East Asian societies include the legend of the Japanese thunder god Kamo-Wakeikazuchi-no-Mikoto 賀茂別雷命 and his mother Kamo-Tamayorihime-no-Mikoto 賀茂玉依姫命, and some accounts of the birth of the divine Chinese emperor Huángdì (Cali and Dougill 2012; Yang, An, and Anderson Turner 2005: 138). Similar to these examples, the narratives of the two histories portray Eiso as the product of a non-sexual union between an earthly mother and a heavenly father – according to the Chūzan Seikan, Shàngdì; based on the Chūzan Seifu, the sun.

The deviating explanations as to who fathered Eiso can be attributed to Shō Shōken’s and Sai On’s different priorities in compiling the Ryūkyū Kingdom’s history. The Chūzan Seikan referring to Shàngdì indicates the stringent political conditions at the time of Shō Shōken. Albeit pre-Confucian in origin, Shàngdì was later conflated with the Confucian concept of tiān and the two terms were used synonymously (Pankenier 2013: 115, 194). Drawing on Shàngdì allowed Shō Shōken to embed his narrative of the Ryūkyūan monarchy’s legitimacy into an established and widely known discourse, making it more likely to be acknowledged by China and Japan. Sai On experienced quite different power constellations, as the consolidation of the Qīng dynasty had restored a lost equilibrium between Ryūkyū’s suzerains. The geopolitical circumstances permitted Ryūkyū to assume a more balanced positioning between the Qīng as well as Satsuma and the Tokugawa, enabling the kingdom to regain some autonomy and reassert its subjectivity. Considering these conditions, Sai On’s substitution of Shàngdì with the sun becomes more comprehensible. Veneration of the sun was a relevant part of early Ryūkyūan belief systems, including features distinct from Japanese forms of sun worship (Smits 2000: 97).³³ The Chūzan Seifu presentation of the sun as Eiso’s father can thus be interpreted as a move towards a more autochthonous view of the roots of the royal lineage, evoking the concept of tedako shisō 太陽子思想 (“son of the sun ideology”).³⁴ Although Sai On’s vision of Ryūkyū’s future saw it affiliated to China in a cultural, economic, diplomatic, and ritual sense, he imagined the island kingdom in a politically more self-reliant position than Shō Shōken’s Japanocentric outlook ever did.

The complexity of the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu lies in their melding of Chinese, Japanese, and Ryūkyūan traditions, mixing them differently according to the changing power constellations of the contact zone. Both histories feature narrative elements that should ensure that royal legitimacy was acknowledged by the suzerains and elites of the kingdom. For Japanese audiences, the story of Gihon’s descent from three of Japan’s paramount families was introduced, stressing the importance of shared bloodlines. With regard to China, a meritocratic approach to conceptualising legitimacy was included by comparing Gihon and Eiso to Yáo and Shùn, and depicting Eiso as chosen by tiān. Lastly, the tale of the Tenson clan indicates Shō Shōken’s and Sai On’s efforts to provide the kingdom’s dynastic genealogy with an independent origin.³⁵ Adding this and other elements invoking native Ryūkyūan traditions, such as the implicit reference to autochthonous sun cults in the Chūzan Seifu, was to strengthen the royal house’s continued claim to authority in the eyes of domestic elites. Given the more favourable conditions in the contact zone due to the changed historical circumstances, Sai On could draw more attention to certain Ryūkyūan components of his narrative. Hence, shifting the focus from Gihon to Eiso can be considered evidence of his attempt to reaffirm the kingdom’s autonomy and positioning by historiographical means.

9 Conclusion

Throughout its existence, the socio-political and cultural evolution of the Ryūkyū Kingdom was influenced by its particular location at the boundary of East Asia’s two dominating powers China and Japan. Whereas its geographical position provided the island realm with a range of political, cultural, and economic advantages in times of peace, it also bore the potential to turn the kingdom into a place of fierce competition. In this contact zone, not two but at least three distinct cultures – Chinese, Japanese, and native Ryūkyūan – met, sometimes clashed, and continuously grappled with one another. This situation turned out to be increasingly dangerous during periods of hidden or overt conflict. Following Satsuma’s invasion in 1609, the standing of the Ryūkyūan monarchy was seriously threatened as the narratives of political legitimacy it had previously relied on no longer fitted the changed circumstances. Being aware of the kingdom’s precarious position, leading scholars-cum-officials such as Shō Shōken and Sai On strived to defend the legitimacy of its ruling house. The Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu can thus be seen as attempts to carve out a legitimately secure raison d’être for the Ryūkyū Kingdom in the eyes of both its native elites and foreign suzerains. To convince their different audiences, Shō Shōken and Sai On employed elements of Chinese and Japanese mythologies, historiographical traditions, and vernacular cultures, adapting them to Ryūkyūan conditions. In short, the two histories were created in a process of transculturation, demonstrating the Ryūkyūan capacity to fulfil the obligations to both suzerains by blending their cultures in peaceful coexistence.

This article has examined the tale of King Gihon and King Eiso, an example of what was considered legitimate dynastic transition by elite contemporaries of Shō Shōken and Sai On. Among the many events recorded in the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu, this anecdote stands out for its attempt to reconcile the Ryūkyūan and Chinese reality of changing dynasties with the Japanese ideal of one uninterrupted ruling bloodline. Hence, this example addresses a major conceptual struggle Ryūkyūan literati had to face when articulating the political legitimacy of the Ryūkyū Kingdom and its ruling house. From the perspective of mainland Japanese audiences, dynastic transition could be considered to delegitimise the Ryūkyūan royal lineage and therefore posed a possible threat to the rule of the Second Shō dynasty. But also with regard to Chinese audiences, the rise and fall of regimes had to be justified. Analysing the two versions of the tale of Gihon and Eiso thus means to investigate how Shō Shōken and Sai On each chose to negotiate the conceptual difference they encountered during the transcultural process of writing their histories.

Common to both accounts are their anecdotal structure, the outline of the recounted events, and the invocation of Chinese state ideology and associated concepts of legitimate rule by reference to tiān. Regarding the differences, the preceding discussion observed the following: first, the Chūzan Seikan features personal comments by its author and employs quotations from Classical Chinese sources to promote Shō Shōken’s evaluation of the tale and its protagonists. In contrast, the account presented by the Chūzan Seifu is devoid of a comparable rhetoric and supporting tools. The presence and absence of these elements can be attributed to the different forms of historiography the Chūzan Seikan and the Chūzan Seifu represent, the former being a jiàn, the latter a pǔ. Second, the histories offer different assessments of the two rulers, with the Chūzan Seikan depicting Gihon in a more favourable light and the Chūzan Seifu shifting the focus to Eiso. Not by coincidence, Shō Shōken compared Gihon and Eiso to the Chinese sage kings Yáo and Shùn, implying that Gihon’s virtue was superior to that of his successor. Third, the conceptualisation of Eiso’s political legitimacy provided by the Chūzan Seifu deviates from the narrative presented in the Chūzan Seikan. Although the histories agree concerning his designation by tiān and connection to the Tenson dynasty, they suggest different explanations regarding the identity of Eiso’s divine progenitor.

The second and third differences can be deemed results of Shō Shōken’s and Sai On’s different political orientations that reflected the fragile balance of power and changing cultural influences in the Ryūkyūan contact zone. These differences reveal how Shō Shōken and Sai On sought to address the problem of making the Second Shō dynasty appear legitimate for Ryūkyūan, Chinese, and Japanese observers. Shō Shōken endorsed a conceptualisation of the royal lineage that stressed its presumed relation to the Minamoto and Tokugawa clans and the Japanese imperial household. Sai On acknowledged the link between Minamoto no Tametomo, Gihon, and the Second Shō dynasty, but chose to emphasise Eiso and his genealogy. His account of the events draws on earlier Ryūkyūan notions of political legitimacy, most notably King Shō Shin’s tedako shisō. The figure of Gihon thus represents Ryūkyū’s affiliation with mainland Japan that was particularly close during the first decades after the invasion of 1609. The later focus on Eiso hints at a cultural reorientation towards China and recollection of native Ryūkyūan traditions by the time of Sai On. Finally, although both authors maintained the significance of a distinguished genealogy, their accounts equally indicate the dominance of tiān as a source of political legitimacy that was widely recognised among the participant cultures of the Ryūkyūan contact zone.

When writing their histories of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, Shō Shōken and Sai On realised the need to cater to culturally distinct audiences that resulted from the kingdom’s role as a contact zone. Using the tale of King Gihon and King Eiso as a case study, this article analysed how both authors thus selected elements from Chinese and Japanese mythologies, historiographical traditions, and vernacular cultures and adapted them to Ryūkyūan circumstances. During this process of transculturation, they had to negotiate cultural differences and faced conceptual struggles such as the polar emphasis on political legitimacy based on either merit or shared blood. While the narratives of their histories differ, Shō Shōken and Sai On approached this sensitive issue in a similar manner. On the one hand, they depicted Ryūkyū’s succeeding royal families as interconnected and therefore as forming a singular line of rulers akin to the Japanese imperial house. On the other hand, the political rifts that accompanied the transition of power from one of these families to the next were likened to the Chinese cycle of dynastic change and legitimised by reference to tiān. Ultimately, what Heaven has abandoned thus came to be employed for a renaissance of Ryūkyūan legitimacy and reaffirmation of the kingdom’s positioning.