On 8 October 1431, the king of Chuzan 中山, one of the principalities that made up the Kingdom of Ryukyu on the island of Okinawa, sent a letter to the King of Siam.
It was a very polite letter, as diplomatic letters tend to be. But the king of Chuzan was not happy.
The previous year, the King of Chuzan had sent a ship to Siam to trade. However, many of the goods were extorted by Siamese officials.
This wasn’t the only time that this happened, and by 1431, the king of Chuzan was sick of being treated this way by the Siamese.
So, he wrote a letter to the Siamese king.
While the Siamese had repeatedly mistreated Ryukyuan traders, the king of Chuzan was now aware that the Siamese had also bullied other people as well.
In particular, at some point earlier in 1431, a Ryukyuan who had returned from a mission to Old Port, a polity in the lower Mekong region, reported that he learned from Siamese merchants that the king of Siam had overthrown the king of Kambuja.
The king of Chuzan appears to have concluded that the king of Siam needed to be reminded of the proper way to interact with foreigners. So, he wrote a letter, and in polite diplomatic language, discussed this matter.
He then requested that the men on the ship delivering his letter be treated properly and allowed to trade unhindered.
While this historical context is fascinating, what interests us here are the place names that the king of Chuzan mentioned in his letter, Sanfoqi and Old Port.
The Ryukyuan envoy who reported that the king of Siam had overthrown the king of Kambuja used the term “Sanfoqi” to refer to that kingdom.
As I have been (tediously by now) pointing out in this series, Sanfoqi is a place name that for over 100 years scholars have been thinking refers to an (imagined) polity on Sumatra that they call “Srivijaya.”
In fact, it referred to “Kambuja,” which in this time period meant “Angkor.”
This letter makes that COMPLETELY CLEAR, BLAZINGLY CLEAR, BLINDINGLY CLEAR, VISIBLE FROM MARS CLEAR, SO CLEAR THAT NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY BE CLEARER CLEAR, because we know from Siamese sources that the king of Siam overthrew the king of Angkor in 1431, and that is what is referred to here.
Sanfoqi was Kambuja/Angkor. End of story.
The other place mentioned in this letter is Old Port, and as I have already discussed, other Ryukyuan documents make it clear that this was a vassal polity of Kambuja/Sanfoqi and that it was most likely located somewhere in the lower Mekong / Saigon coastal region.
This letter was translated into English by Takeshi Hanashita (Institute of Oriental Culture, The University of Tokyo) in a paper entitled “Ayudhya-China Relation in the Tribute Trade System through Ryukyu Trade Network” that is included in the proceedings for an international workshop that was held in 1995 on “Ayudhya and Asia.”
We can see from his translation that Professor Hanashita was following the idea that Sanfoqi referred to “Srivijaya,” although he did not use that exact term. Instead, he left Sanfoqi untranslated, referring to it in brackets as “Southern Sumatra,” and translated Old Port as “Palembang.”
In 1431, Chief Envoy Ufuma Utchi visited Old Port, a vassal kingdom of Kambuja/Angkor in the lower Mekong / Saigon coastal region, and found out from Siamese traders there that their king had overthrown the king of Kambuja/Angkor.
Makes perfect sense.
From what I am reading. Does this mean that Okinawa had a connection to Angkor for a very very long time?
Thanks for your comment!
I know very little about Okinawa, but from what I’ve read right around this time (~1430), 3 kingdoms on Okinawa “unify” to become the Kingdom of Ryukyu, and there were people from Fujian who served this kingdom.
I’m quoting Wikipedia here, but I’ve read about this in scholarly works too: “Many Chinese people moved to Ryukyu to serve the government or to engage in business during this period[citation needed]. At the request of the Ryukyuan King, the Ming Chinese sent thirty-six Chinese families from Fujian to manage oceanic dealings in the kingdom in 1392, during the Hongwu emperor’s reign.”
So, it looks like this interaction was new (and there is some information in the Ryukyu records that suggest this as well).
Again, I’m not an expert on this topic, but this is what I’ve learned so far.
Hey love your theory. Someone has an explanation as well & some part he calls it fake sanfoqi. Have you checked it?
http://www7.plala.or.jp/seareview/newpage6Sri2011Chaiya.html
Thank you for your comment!!
Yes, I am familiar with this scholar’s writings. I am happy that he also looked at the Chinese sources and saw that they don’t support what scholars have said. HOWEVER, this scholar has a lot of things wrong and as a result, I find his overall ideas to be really chaotic. To explain this would require going into a very detailed discussion, which I don’t have time for right now, but yes, at some point that is something that I will have to do. Again though, when I came across this scholar’s writings I was pleased to see that he also clearly saw that the Chinese sources do not support what people have written. That should be 1,000,000% obvious to anyone who reads Chinese.