Ryukyu immigrants

There was a saying in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms that "I was in Cao Ying and my heart was in the Han Dynasty". It is said that after Guan Yu and Liu Bei separated, Cao Cao stayed in the camp, invited Guan Yu to work for Wei, and promised Guan Yu an official title, a beautiful wife and concubine and inexhaustible treasure.

However, Guan Yu was unmoved. As soon as he learned about Liu Bei's development, he immediately took action and returned to Shu without fear of difficulties and obstacles. Now, in the vast Pacific Ocean, there is also an island country eager to return to the embrace of China, which is the Ryukyu Islands.

Located in the eastern part of the East China Sea of China, Ryukyu Islands has a long history, with more than 400 islands and reefs and a total population of 6,543.8+200,000. Since the establishment of the first country on the island, it has been inextricably linked with China.

Although it is an independent island country, it is recorded in detail in the ancient history of China. At that time, Emperor Yang Di sent people out to sea to look for overseas, and three of them went to Ryukyu.

After the establishment of People's Republic of China (PRC) in the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang sent envoys to Ryukyu and officially issued an imperial edict entitled "Ryukyu". Since then, Ryukyu has become one of the dependent countries of China.

Zhu Yuanzhang even let people from Fujian and Guangzhou immigrate to Ryukyu. By the time the Qing Dynasty was founded, Ryukyu and China still maintained a good vassal relationship. When the new king of Ryukyu ascended the throne, he always asked the Qing emperor for a letter, and he never stopped.

In terms of language and culture, Ryukyu had frequent contacts with imperial academy in Nanjing and Peiping during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and there were often overseas students studying China's language and writing in China.

The immigrants from Fuzhou also brought the traditional culture of China to the Ryukyu Islands, so we can see a strong China color in the Ryukyu language, especially the influence of the Min language. Moreover, the Ryukyu countries use Chinese characters as the official language, and the Ryukyu people have a high degree of national recognition of China in all aspects.

Ryukyu, as the only way of maritime transportation, is a trade hub in the offshore area of the Pacific Ocean, and its maritime trade is very developed, so it is called "the bridge of all nations".

Therefore, Japan set its sights on Ryukyu early. In the Ming Dynasty, Ryukyu was invaded by Japan, captured the then Ryukyu King, and forced him to write an oath, which not only invaded Ryukyu's land, but also demanded an annual tribute to prove that Ryukyu was a vassal state of Japan.

Since then, Japan has launched a plan to gradually annex the Ryukyu Kingdom. During the Meiji Restoration, the Ryukyu Kingdom was brought under the jurisdiction of Kagoshima Prefecture in Japan by decree of the government, and was later changed to a territory directly under the government.

During the Japanese occupation of Ryukyu, in order to consolidate the rule and eliminate China's influence on Ryukyu, a large-scale massacre and suppression were carried out against Ryukyu natives.

This method is very similar to several appalling massacres caused during the Japanese invasion war. The difference is that because Ryukyu has a small population and is a small country dominated by trade, it is difficult to resist Japan where militarism prevails.

China has a large population and vast territory, so it is difficult for the Japanese to rule by one country. In this way, even if Ryukyu people obey Japan on the surface, they actually hope to get rid of Japanese rule and return to China from the bottom of their hearts.

The conflict escalated in the war. After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the Qing government ceded Taiwan Province Island to protect itself. The Qing government was too busy to say anything about the situation that Ryukyu and Penghu Islands were slowly occupied by Japan.

However, the ownership of Ryukyu has always been a gray area, and there is no clear legal basis or geographical advantage to prove the legitimacy of Japan's move.

At the end of World War II, the Japanese "Y" wing elements, seemingly unable to recover the defeat, tried to slow down the pace of the US military with the aesthetics of the Ryukyu people as a bargaining chip.

Japanese politicians brainwashed many female high school students, called on them to "die gracefully to protect national honor" and forced hundreds of thousands of Ryukyu people to commit suicide. Innocent people were treated as cannon fodder by the Japanese army, with heavy casualties and nearly a quarter of the population missing.