An Essay on the Extraction of the Embellishment about Mimana Nihon-fu in Nihon-shoki

In this article, I tried to remove the embellishment at the time of compilation for historical records that directly appeared in the late 5th and early 6th centuries or directly described the Yamato regime’s domination of the Korean Peninsula. Although the Mimana Nihon-fu does not appear directly, the historical records that presuppose the presence or activity of related persons appear, and after removing the embellishment, I determined that the remaining contents were original historical sources, and analyzed how close they were to the truth in light of the history of the time. The results of the review are as follows. The contents of the historical sources related to Mimana Nihon-fu in the late 5th century could be said to be about the exchanges between the countries of the Japanese and the three countries, and the officials of the Japanese country who were dispatched to Mimana and exchanged with the three countries accordingly. In terms of embellishment, in addition to the criteria proposed in this article, additional embellishment could be confirmed. Therefore, it could be said that the substance of ‘ Yamatonomikotomochi’ in the late 5th century was unclear and it was difficult to actively utilize related historical sources. In addition to the criteria suggested in this article, the contents of the historical materials related to the Mimana Nihon-fu in the first half of the 6th century also had additional embellishment related to the Japanese rule’s domination of the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. In fact, the Japanese envoy reported what happened between the three countries and participated in the discussion of countermeasures for Silla’s annexation of the Gaya Empire, which was secondarily embellished, centered on Japan. What is interesting is that in the first half of the 6th century, Yamatonomikotomochi is not visible in the Nihon-shoki, unlike the second half of the 5th century. This raises the possibility that the Yamatonomikotomochi seen in the second half of the 5th century did not actually exist.