It has been thought that during the Muromachi Period, the "king of Japan" (the Muromachi Bakufu shogun) did not have exclusive authority over diplomatic relations with foreign countries. Diplomacy with Korea was carried out on a so-called "pluralistic" basis not only by the "king of Japan" but also by such powerful families in western Japan. as the Ouchi and Tsushima-So clans and by powerful provincial feudal lords residing in the capital and calling themselves "ministers of the capital" (ojo-daijin -王城大臣). However, we find source materials dated 1470 that confirm the existence of not only a number of embassies representing these "ministers of the capital" but also "pseudo-embassies representing the king of Japan," bring up the question of what constituted an "authentic" Japanese diplomatic mission. In this paper, the author examines whether or not we can confirm in the available Japanese sources if there actually were persons whose names were used for the purpose of conducting diplomatic missions; and if so, what similarities and differences did they possess ? The author was able to confirm only one case of an authentic, official embassy in the name of such persons, the diplomatic mission representing minister of the capital Sabuei Yoshiatsu sent in 1431. All the other cases found, beginning in 1455, were pseudo-missions carried out through the cooperation of merchants in Hakata and Tsushima. Furthermore, in order to stop these pseudo-embassies in the names of ministers of the capital and the king of Japan, Japan and Korea set up a system of diplomatic certification called the gafu 牙符 system, which eventually brought about the disappearance of minister of the capital diplomatic missions in the early sixteenth century. The significance such facts have for studying international relations in medieval Japan is twofold. First, they call for the reevaluation of the boom that occurred in sending diplomatic missions to Korea during the time. This "diplomaticboom," which lasted from the late 1460s to the early 1470s, was a phenomenon that saw a flood of embassies to Korea from Japan in the wake of storied concerning auspicious Buddhist omens occurring in the Choson Dynasty. This boom has been studied mainly from the aspect of how the diplomats responded to this phenomenon: that is, their view of korea at the time. However, the author has, made clear that the nucleus of this diplomatic boom was minister of the capital embassies that flocked to Korea in 1470; and given the fact that all of these missions were pseudo-embassies, any discussion of what the general view of Korea was at the time becomes moot. Rather, an attempt should be made to understand this diplomatic boom in terms of pseudo-embassies that took advantage of the political confusion in the capital region during the Onin era civil wars from the standpoint of how these impostor diplomats viewed Japan at the time. Secondly, with regard to the heretofore vague definition of Japan-Korean diplomacy as being pluralistic in character, the author argues that his research has shown clearly that "diplomatic sovereignty" in Muromachi Japan was concentrated in the hands of the "king of Japan," based on firm shogunal authority in the capital region within the framework of relationships between the Bakufu and its provincial magistrates (shugo 守護). In other words, in practice a central core existed called "Muromachi bakufu foreign diplomacy". This discovery has finally made possible a Comprehensive understanding of international relations under Japan's medieval state institutions that goes beyond the mere categories of Japan-Choson and Japan-Ming relations.

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