A Chinese History That Holds Japan's Earliest Portrait
Open this set of old printed books to its account of the eastern peoples and you reach one of the first places where Japan appears in any written record. The text describes envoys from the land of Wa arriving at the Han court in the year 57 and receiving a seal and ribbon from the emperor; further on, it names a later ruler, the woman Himiko, who governed Wa through a time of disorder. For a Japanese reader this is foundational material: the country's own beginnings, set down by Chinese historians long before Japan kept records of its own.
The volume carrying those lines is the Hou Hanshu, the Book of the Later Han, in a printing made in southern China more than eight centuries ago. It is held today at the National Museum of Japanese History in Sakura, Chiba, and registered as a National Treasure. A Chinese book, then, kept as part of Japan's heritage, partly for what it records about Japan itself.
The Book and Its Printing
The Hou Hanshu was compiled in the fifth century by the historian Fan Ye, covering the Later Han dynasty across 120 chapters of annals, treatises, and biographies. The copy in Sakura is not a manuscript but a woodblock print, produced during the Qingyuan era of the Southern Song, around 1195 to 1200, at Jian'an in Fujian, a region known for its commercial book workshops. The same workshop, linked to the printer Huang Shanfu, also produced the museum's Song-printed Shiji, and the two belong to one edition.
It survives in sixty stitched fascicles, bound in the pouch style in which each printed leaf is folded outward and sewn along its open edge. Eight fascicles hold the imperial annals, eleven the treatises, and forty-one the biographies. The impression is unusually sharp for its age. Open a volume and you find ten lines to the half-leaf and eighteen characters to the line, the commentary set in paired half-width columns, the page framed by a double border. Song printers cut their blocks cleanly, proofread with care, and shaped their characters after admired calligraphers, and this run shows why their work was so valued.
One of the Three Histories
Chinese scholars grouped three works together as the "Three Histories": the Shiji of Sima Qian, the Hanshu of Ban Gu, and this Hou Hanshu of Fan Ye. Read in sequence they carry China's story from legendary antiquity to the fall of the Later Han, and for centuries they were required reading for educated people in Japan as well as in China. The Sakura museum holds Southern Song printings of all three. The cataloguers judge that the set was originally issued and kept as one matched run, three histories of the same period and the same region.
Survival on this scale is rare. Books of such age usually reach us in fragments, with volumes lost to fire, damp, or ordinary wear. Here the run is complete and the print still legible. The Shiji was designated a National Treasure in 1966; the two Han histories followed in 1967.
From a Zen Monastery to the Uesugi
The set has a Japanese history of its own. It is thought to have passed from the Zen monk Nanka Genkō into the hands of Naoe Kanetsugu, the scholar-administrator who served as chief retainer to the Uesugi house around 1600. Kanetsugu was a committed bibliophile who sponsored printing projects of his own, and the books entered the Uesugi domain at Yonezawa, where they were kept at the domain academy, the Kōjōkan. From that line of ownership comes the name collectors still use for the set, the "Uesugi copy."
Fine annotations brushed into the margins by Japanese Zen monks survive in the related Shiji, a reminder that these were working texts, read and studied in Japan for generations before anyone thought to call them treasures.
Seeing It in Sakura
The original volumes are fragile and sensitive to light, so the museum shows them only for limited periods, usually within its galleries on early and medieval Japan. When the originals are resting, a faithful facsimile takes their place, often opened to the very page that records Wa and Himiko, which makes the link to Japan's ancient history easy to trace. If seeing the original matters to you, check the museum's schedule of limited-period displays before you travel.
The museum itself deserves a half-day. One of Japan's largest history museums, it runs through six galleries from prehistory to the present, set on the grounds of the former Sakura Castle. Sakura lies under an hour from Keisei Ueno in Tokyo, followed by a short bus ride from Keisei Sakura Station.
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Q&A
- Is the original always on display?
- No. Because the paper is light-sensitive, the original is shown only during limited-period displays, and a high-quality facsimile usually stands in its place. Check the museum's exhibition schedule before visiting if you hope to see the original.
- Why is a Chinese book a Japanese National Treasure?
- The designation rests on the object: a rare, complete, finely printed Southern Song edition, preserved together with its companion histories, with a long documented history of ownership in Japan. Its early account of Wa adds to that significance.
- What does it actually say about early Japan?
- Its treatise on the eastern peoples records an embassy from Wa to the Han court in 57 and the imperial gift of a seal, and it names Queen Himiko. Compiled in the fifth century, the account draws on earlier Chinese records.
- Can I see the other two histories as well?
- Yes. The museum holds Southern Song printings of the Shiji and the Hanshu too, all shown on rotation rather than permanently.
- How do I reach the museum?
- From central Tokyo, take the Keisei Main Line from Keisei Ueno to Keisei Sakura, roughly 55 minutes by limited express, then a short local bus to the museum. JR Sakura Station is another option, about 15 minutes by bus.
Basic Information
| Name | Song-Printed Book of the Later Han, Qingyuan Edition (Sōhan Gokanjo, Keigen kanpon) |
|---|---|
| Category | National Treasure, Writings and Books (calligraphy and classical texts) |
| Designated | 15 June 1967 |
| Quantity | 60 fascicles (8 annals, 11 treatises, 41 biographies) |
| Origin and date | China, Southern Song; Qingyuan era, about 1195–1200, printed at Jian'an |
| Location | National Museum of Japanese History, 117 Jōnai-chō, Sakura, Chiba |
| Owner | National Institutes for the Humanities |
| Viewing | Shown for limited periods within the permanent galleries; a facsimile is usually on view. Museum hours roughly 9:30–17:00 (to 16:30 in winter); closed Mondays and year-end. General admission about 900 yen. |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/201/10288
- Cultural Heritage Online (National Institutes for the Humanities)
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/159791
- khirin (Knowledgebase of Historical Resources in Institutes), National Museum of Japanese History
- https://khirin-a.rekihaku.ac.jp/database/sohangokanjokeigen
- National Museum of Japanese History, visitor information
- https://www.rekihaku.ac.jp/information/access/
Last verified: 2026.06.12