The Rekidai Hōan (歴代宝案), Precious Documents of Successive Generations, is an official compilation of

diplomatic Diplomatics (in American English, and in most anglophone countries), or diplomatic (in British English), is a scholarly discipline centred on the critical analysis of documents: especially, historical documents. It focuses on the conventions, p ...

documents of the royal government of the

Ryūkyū Kingdom The Ryukyu Kingdom, Middle Chinese: , , Classical Chinese: (), Historical English language, English names: ''Lew Chew'', ''Lewchew'', ''Luchu'', and ''Loochoo'', Historical French name: ''Liou-tchou'', Historical Dutch name: ''Lioe-kioe'' wa ...

. Covering the period from 1424 to 1867, it contains records, written entirely in

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

, of communications between Ryukyu and ten different trading partners in this period, detailing as well the gifts given in

tribute A tribute (; from Latin ''tributum'', "contribution") is wealth, often in kind, that a party gives to another as a sign of submission, allegiance or respect. Various ancient states exacted tribute from the rulers of land which the state conqu ...

. The ten countries or trading ports are

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...

Malacca Malacca ( ms, Melaka) is a state in Malaysia located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, next to the Strait of Malacca. Its capital is Malacca City, dubbed the Historic City, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site si ...

Palembang Palembang () is the capital city of the Indonesian province of South Sumatra. The city proper covers on both banks of the Musi River on the eastern lowland of southern Sumatra. It had a population of 1,668,848 at the 2020 Census. Palembang ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

, Pattani, and Sunda Kelapa (

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

). There are 242 volumes in total, including four lists, and an extra four sections. It is believed that the documents were first formally compiled in 1697 from documents kept at the

Naha is the capital city of Okinawa Prefecture, the southernmost prefecture of Japan. As of 1 June 2019, the city has an estimated population of 317,405 and a population density of 7,939 persons per km2 (20,562 persons per sq. mi.). The total area i ...

Tempi Palace. Some documents were already lost at this time, and copies contained errors. It is not known whether the documents had been kept separately or bound prior to this. The compilation first became known to the public, and put on display, in 1932, when it was moved from the Tenson Shrine in Naha to the Okinawa Prefectural Library. This "First Series" compiled in 1697 contained 49 volumes, but by 1932 a number were missing or severely damaged. All were destroyed in the 1945

battle of Okinawa The , codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army (USA) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) forces against the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The initial invasion of ...

. Copies in

Taiwan University National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as the seventh of the Imperial Universities. It was named Taihoku Imperial University and served ...

and

Tokyo University , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

survived, and form the basis for scholarship of these documents; unfortunately, further copying errors were introduced in the 1930s-1940s when these versions were created.

References

*Kobata, Atsushi and Mitsugu Matsuda. ''Ryukyuan Relations with Korea and South Seas Countries: An Annotated Translation of Documents in the Rekidai Hōan.'' Kyoto: Atsushi Kobata (publisher), 1969. p. v-vii and "Concerning the Version of the Rekidai Hoan kept in the Higaonna Collection" (no page number). {{DEFAULTSORT:Rekidai Hoan Foreign relations of the Ryukyu Kingdom Government documents History of international relations State archives Japanese diplomatic documents Japanese literature in Classical Chinese