Five kings of Wa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The five kings of Wa are kings of Japan who sent envoys to China during the 5th century to strengthen the legitimacy of their claims to power by gaining the recognition of the Chinese emperor. Details about them are unknown. According to written records in China, their names were San, Chin, Sai, Kō and Bu.
As the name of kings recorded are very much different from the names of emperors in Nihonshoki, specifying which emperor was the one recorded in Chinese history is under longtime dispute unsolved for centuries. Most contemporary historians assign the five Japanese kings to the following emperors (two possibilities are identified for Kings San and Chin), mostly based on the individual features of their genealogies reported in the Chinese sources. On the other hand, archeological evidence, such as an inscription found from swords of this age also supports the idea that Bu is an equivalent of Emperor Yūryaku who was called Wakatakeru Okimi at his age.
- San 讃 Emperor Nintoku or Emperor Richū
- Chin 珍 Emperor Hanzei or Emperor Nintoku
- Sai 済 Emperor Ingyō
- Kō 興 Emperor Ankō
- Bu 武 Emperor Yūryaku
Since Bu is most likely to be Yūryaku, Kō, who is said to be Bu's older brother, is likely to be an equivalent of Ankō who also noted in Nihonshoki as an elder brother to Yūryaku. However, Book of Song records Kō as "Crown Prince Kō", there is a possibility that he is not Ankō, but is Kinashi Karu no Miko, who was a crown prince of Ingyō.
Some suspect that they were rulers of a non-Yamato court which in the 5th century ruled most of what is currently Japan, and who were eventually ruined by the ancestors of current imperial dynasty. However, such an idea is not widely accepted among scholars.
