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culture, and the yangban (兩班) aristocratic elite took the examinations primarily for prestige not necessarily to improve their position in society, which was already secure. In late Lê 黎朝 dynasty (1428–1789) and early Nguyễn 阮朝 dynasty (1802–1945) Vietnam, the examinations followed the Chinese model, but the Vietnamese educational system was relatively undeveloped by Chinese and Korean standards. Also, as in the case of Korea, the Vietnamese examinations included not only Confucian content but also Buddhist, Daoist, and even geomantic themes.38
Tokugawa Japan, like Korea in certain respects, was an aristocratic culture, in which the samurai (侍) class served as a warrior elite, and as their paramount duty was loyalty to their lord (the daimyo 大名), most of them learned what their lord wanted them to learn. Others, however, took leaves of absence or even resigned from domain service to pursue scholarly (and other) careers. Many non-samurai pursued scholarship as well, frequently interacting with samurai in scholarly and artistic circles.39 In this society, there was no place for a sustained civil service examination system. Nonetheless, Tokugawa elites, like their Korean and Vietnamese counterparts, learned classical Chinese and studied the Confucian classics and orthodox Neo-Confucian commentaries.40
The situation in the Ryūkyū Kingdom (1429–1879) is worth noting here. As with Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, significant territorial, political, and cultural changes took place in the Ryūkyū archipelago during the years under consideration. And in all of these areas a significant trend was toward ever greater geographical consolidation and political centralization.41 Not surprisingly, Japan and China exerted the greatest political, economic, and cultural influence on this string of islands, which spanned the East China Sea from the southern tip of Japan (the Satsuma domain on the island of Kyūshū) to the island of Taiwan. After Satsuma annexed the Ryūkyūs by force in 1609, the Ryūkyūs became a de facto part of Satsuma, which the Japanese domain used as a conduit to China.42
Despite “annexation,” the Ryūkyū Kingdom considered itself independent of both Japan and China. At the same time, however, it was closely