Worldbuilding: What Everybody Knows That Isn’t So

Sometimes everyone in a setting “knows” something that turns out to be flat-out wrong. The world is flat, disease is caused only by evil spirits, sacrificing hearts on an obsidian altar keeps the sun in the sky. And sometimes… everyone knows what’s actually true, but upholds a polite fiction in public so no one has to officially notice and do something about it. No one really wants to do all the paperwork to haul in someone going three miles over the speed limit on the highway, and – very often – no one wants to go to war when trade is much more profitable.

In the 1600s, given trade between China, Japan, the Ryukyu Kingdom, and Korea, this led to the invention of an imaginary country, Tokara.

The Tokara Islands actually exist; twelve small islands in a larger archipelago. Only seven are inhabited today. They have a native pony, and, on two islands, a native pit viper. What they don’t have are a lot of people. But… they existed, and were closer to Japan than Okinawa, which made them convenient for a diplomatic sleight of hand.

Long story short, the Ryukyu Kingdom had been a tributary state of the Ming Dynasty up until about 1609, when the Tokugawa Shogunate invaded and took over. The Tokugawa were not a tributary state of the Ming, very pointedly not. Which made things unexpectedly sticky. First, if the Ming had it rubbed in their faces that a tributary kingdom had been attacked, they’d have to do something about it. Ships, cannons, grand sea battles; very, very expensive to both sides. Second, and maybe worse – if the Ryukyus weren’t a Chinese tributary state anymore, the Ming might cut off trade.

Nobody wanted that.

Obviously face-saving deception had to be the order of the day. Officially, the Ming were not to know the Ryukyu Kingdom didn’t belong to them anymore. Officially, there were no Japanese on the islands. Nope, none, not ever. (They were actually supposed to hide on days the Chinese officials showed up – there were manuals written for it and everything.) And if by some accident someone turned up anyway with a Japanese hairstyle, other odd items, or speaking Japanese? Oh, silly us, that’s a traveler from Tokara! You know, that nation right next door that does a lot of trade with the Japanese, much more than we do? But they’re not Japanese, ha ha, of course not, what would Japanese be doing in the Ryukyus?

(Chinese officials in public: Solemn nod, because Of Course Not. No member of that barbarian nation that didn’t pay tribute to the Heavenly Emperor would dare. Of course not.

(Chinese officials back on the boat: Whew, crisis averted, I really don’t want to lose my head by hinting to the court that we lost control of a tributary kingdom… if the courtiers didn’t get me, the merchants would!)

This apparently kept Europeans believing there actually was a Tokara state until at least the mid-1800s.

I have to admit I find this all amusing in part because I am very bad at tuning in to what “everybody knows”. So this just strikes me as the usual social ridiculousness writ very, very large.

But also in part because this gives me a potentially interesting bit for the isekai, when Jason has to explain where he’s from to anyone who doesn’t know the whole story. He’s a historian with a focus on Early Modern Japan. He would know about Tokara.

So if he goes with “I’m from Tokara”, then anyone in trade or court-associated in Japan, China, or Korea can pigeonhole it into, “Oh, that mess No One Wants To Talk About. Got it. Moving on….”

(Info from various web searches and a very neat bit in Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai, edited by Tonio Andrade and Xing Hang.)