The Landing of Drifted Aliens Entered in Nihon Shoki

     By the end of ancient Japan, it became common knowledge that the safest way to get to Kyoto from foreign countries was, besides the piracy there, to sail through the Seto Inland Sea along the seashores.  But there must have been countless trials and errors through the primitive age and the ancient times in Japan to find the safest way.  The errors could have included, intentionally or unintentionally, those from the south, along the Black Current.

     Taiwan, for example, is about 1800 kilometers away from Kumano, the southernmost area of the mainland of Japan near Kyoto.  The Black Current runs at a speed of about 3 meters per second, that is, about 250 kilometers per day.  If you can make perfectly efficient use of the current, you can reach Kumano from Taiwan in a week or so.  Only if you have enough water, you can get there alive.  Enough food?  That might be dispensable.

     We can find 2 entries of Nihon Shoki, which recorded 2 cases of aliens washed ashore.  They must have been lucky enough, or all too lucky, to reach the mainland of Japan.  If you had been captured in the middle of the main stream of the Black Current, you had had good chance to drifted across the Pacific Ocean to America, like some boats were after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, maybe with your skeletons aboard.  if you had been released to the counter-currents of the Black Current, you might have been drifted southward into the midst of the open ocean only with too few chances to find a tiny island there.  Even if you had been lucky enough to be blown north toward the mainland of Japan, you still had a good chance to be slapped onto a rocky shore.  It is not odd, accordingly, that we can only find 2 written records of aliens washed ashore alive during ancient Japan.

      "In April, Summer, 654, 2 men and 2 women from Dvaravati, and 1 woman from Shravasti were blown off and washed ashore in Hyuga Province."

     "On July 3, Autumn, 657, 2 men and 4 women from Dvaravati reached Tshukushi Province, saying they had first washed ashore on Amami Island.  Stage horses were provided to have them come to the capital."

     "April" in the lunar calendar was around May, and "July 3, 657" was August 20, 657.  Dvarati was a kingdom in ancient Thailand, and Shravasti was a city in ancient India.

     It is still controversial whether those 2 groups of aliens belonged to one convoy or to 2 different convoys.  In either case, it is almost certain that they had been navigating somewhere around the Philippines or Taiwan, might have been blown east, had been washed north by the Black Current, had been blown farther north off the current, and had been washed either on Amami island or in Hyuga Province.

     You might find "April" (around May) and "Summer" contradictory to each other.  There might have been some error or manipulation.

     While volumes 19, 20, 21 and 22 recorded 217 months in total, and had 4 leap months, 1.8%; volumes 23, 24, 25, and 26 recorded 145 months in total, and had no leap month, 0%.  After the death of Prince Shotoku (574-622), which occured during the months recorded in volume 22, the central government entered a turbulent period.  The secretariat might have been too busy, or too much troubled, to date leap months correctly.  Some scholars even argue that those 4 volumes could have been manipulated by the later rulers to rationalise their sovereignity.  In 645, Emperor Tenji restored the central government.  Volumes 27, 28, 29, and 30 recorded 352 months in total, and had 8 leap months, 2.3%.