Japan

the Cap and Rank System.[37] In 607, Shōtoku offered a subtle insult to China by opening his letter with the phrase, "The ruler of the land of the rising sun addresses the ruler of the land of the setting sun" as seen in the kanji characters for Japan (Nippon).[38] Through his influence, or very probably through the efforts of the Korean missionaries, the devastating war between the Japanese and Koreans was ended.[39] By 670, a variant of this expression, Nihon, established itself as the official name of the nation, which has persisted to this day.[40] Nihon The word Nihon written in kanji (horizontal placement of characters). The text means "Japan" in Japanese. In 645, the Soga clan were overthrown in a coup launched by Prince Naka no ?e and Fujiwara no Kamatari, the founder of the Fujiwara clan.[41] Their government devised and implemented the far-reaching Taika Reforms. The Reform began with land reform, based on Confucian ideas and philosophies from China. It nationalized all land in Japan, to be distributed equally among cultivators, and ordered the compilation of a household registry as the basis for a new system of taxation.[42] The true aim of the reforms was to bring about greater centralization and to enhance the power of the imperial court, which was also based on the governmental structure of China. Envoys and students were dispatched to China to learn about Chinese writing, politics, art, and religion. After the reforms, the Jinshin War of 672, a bloody conflict between Prince ?ama and his nephew Prince ?tomo, two rivals to the throne, became a major catalyst for further administrative reforms.[41] These reforms culminated with the promulgation of the Taihō Code, which consolidated existing statutes and established the structure of the central government and its subordinate local governments.[43] These legal reforms created the ritsuryō state, a system of Chinese-style centralized government that remained in place for half a millennium.[41] friendly