m, and
proceeded to besiege Keumsyong, the Sinra capital, but were
ultimately beaten off. "No less than twenty-five descents by Japanese
on the Sinra coast are mentioned in Korean history in the first five
centuries of the Christian era, but it is impossible to identify any
one of them with Jingo's expedition." [Aston.] Nevertheless, modern
Japanese historians are disposed to assign the Jingo invasion to the
year 364, when Nai-mul ruled Shiragi, from which monarch's era
tribute seems to have been regularly sent to Yamato. Indeed the pages
of the Nihongi which deal with the last sixty years of Jingo's reign
are devoted almost entirely to descriptions of incidents connected
with the receipt of tribute and the advent or despatch of envoys. The
chronology is certainly erroneous. In no less than four several cases
events obviously the same are attributed by the Korean annals to
dates differing from those of the Nihongi by exactly two cycles; and
in one important instance the Japanese work assigns to A.D. 205 an
occurrence which the Tongkan* puts in the year 418.

*Korean history. Its full title is Tong-kuk-lhong-kan.

Whichever annals be correct--and the balance sways in favour of the
Korean so far as those protohistoric eras are concerned--"there can
be no doubt that Japan, at an early period, formed an alliance with
Paikche" (spoken of in Japan as "Kudara," namely, the regions
surrounding the modern Seoul), "and laid the foundation of a
controlling power over the territory known as Imna (or Mimana), which
lasted for several centuries." [Aston.] One evidence of this control
is furnished in the establishment of an office called uchi-tsu-miyake
in addition to the chinju-fu already spoken of. From early times it
had been customary in Japan that whenever any lands were acquired, a
portion of them was included in the Imperial domain, the produce
being thenceforth stored and the affairs of the estate managed at a
miyake presided over by a mikoto-mochi. Thus, on the inclusion of
certain Korean districts in Japan's dominions, this usage was
observed, and the new miyake had the syllables uchi-tsu ("of the
interior") prefixed to distinguish it as a part of Japan. It is on
record that a mikoto-mochi was stationed in Shiragi, and in the days
of Jingo's son (Ojin) the great statesman, Takenouchi-no-Sukune, took
up his residence for a time in Tsukushi to assist this mikoto-mochi
and the chinju-fu, should occasion arise. Modern Japanese