page_title: Ryukyuan missions to Edo
hierarchical_section_title: Ryukyuan missions to Edo
caption_attribution_description: The Ryukyuan embassy of 1710
context_page_description: Over the course of Japan's Edo period, the Ryūkyū Kingdom sent eighteen missions to Edo, the capital of Tokugawa Japan. The unique pattern of these diplomatic exchanges evolved from models established by the Chinese, but without denoting any predetermined relationship to China or to the Chinese world order. The Kingdom became a vassal to the Japanese feudal domain of Satsuma following Satsuma's 1609 invasion of Ryūkyū, and as such were expected to pay tribute to the shogunate; the missions also served as a great source of prestige for Satsuma, the only han to claim any foreign polity, let alone a kingdom, as its vassal.
context_section_description: Over the course of Japan's Edo period, the  Ryūkyū Kingdom sent eighteen missions to Edo (琉球江戸上り, ryūkyū edo nobori, "lit. 'the going up of Ryūkyū to Edo'), the capital of Tokugawa Japan. The unique pattern of these diplomatic exchanges evolved from models established by the Chinese, but without denoting any predetermined relationship to China or to the Chinese world order. The Kingdom became a vassal to the Japanese feudal domain (han) of Satsuma following Satsuma's 1609 invasion of Ryūkyū, and as such were expected to pay tribute to the shogunate; the missions also served as a great source of prestige for Satsuma, the only han to claim any foreign polity, let alone a kingdom, as its vassal.
caption: The 1710 mission was one of the largest; in this scroll a Japanese printer depicts Ryukyuan guards and a music band escorting the envoy and his officials through Edo.
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