was a king of the

Ryukyu Kingdom The Ryukyu Kingdom was a kingdom in the Ryukyu Islands from 1429 to 1879. It was ruled as a Tributary system of China, tributary state of Ming dynasty, imperial Ming China by the King of Ryukyu, Ryukyuan monarchy, who unified Okinawa Island t ...

of the

First Shō dynasty The was a dynasty of the Ryukyu Kingdom on Okinawa Island in the 15th century, ruled by the under the title of Genealogy of the Kings of Chūzan, King of Chūzan. According to the official history books compiled during the second Shō Dynasty, ...

Life

Shō Kinpuku succeeded his nephew,

Shō Shitatsu was king of Ryukyu Kingdom who ruled from 1444 to 1449. Life Shō Shitatsu was the eldest son of king Shō Chū. He died in 1449 without an heir and his uncle Shō Kinpuku was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom of the First Shō dynasty. Life ...

, in 1449. A one-

kilometer The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American and Philippine English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is the preferred mea ...

-long dam, which known as , was built in 1451 by Kaiki, a somewhat mysterious figure from

Ming The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, t ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. The dam was built from

Naha is the Cities of Japan, capital city of Okinawa Prefecture, the southernmost prefecture of Japan. As of 1 June 2019, the city has an estimated population of 317,405 and a population density of 7,939 people per km2 (20,562 persons per sq. mi.). ...

harbor to Tomari harbor, connecting many tiny isles. King Shō Kinpuku died in 1453, a succession dispute erupted between the king's son and his younger brother .

Shuri Castle is a Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyuan ''gusuku'' castle in Shuri, Okinawa, Shuri, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Between 1429 and 1879, it was the palace of the Ryukyu Kingdom, before becoming largely neglected. In 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa, it was ...

was burned down in the conflict, and both of them died in the incident. After the incident, the king's other younger brother,

Shō Taikyū Shō Taikyū (1410–1460) was a king of the first Shō dynasty of the Ryukyu Kingdom of the western Pacific island of Okinawa, reigning from 1454 to 1460. Although described in the official histories of Ryukyu and the Ming annals as a relative ...

, came to the throne.

References

''Chūzan Seifu'' (中山世譜)
Kings of Ryūkyū First Shō dynasty 1398 births 1453 deaths {{RyukyuKingdom-stub