Civil War of Wa
2nd-century war in Japan
The Civil War of Wa or Great Rebellion of Wa (倭国大乱, wakoku tairan) was a period of disturbances and warfare in ancient Japan (Wa) during the late Yayoi period (2nd century AD). It is the oldest war in Japan that has been documented in writing. Peace was restored around 180, when the shaman queen Himiko (Pimiko) of Yamatai-koku took control of the region.
Chinese written sources
The war falls into Japan's protohistoric period. While the earliest Japanese national chronicles Kojiki and Nihon Shoki begin their accounts from the Age of the Gods, they are largely mythological in nature, and the account in the Nihon Shoki is reliable as a history only after about the late 6th century. The Chinese dynastic histories are an important written source for Japanese history before the 6th century and contain the only written account of this 2nd century war. Japanese history is recounted in sections on the "barbarian" neighbours of China at the end of each dynastic history in the form of a footnote rather than a major chapter. Consequently, information on the conflict is very limited. The earliest mention is in the passages referred to as the Wajinden of the Wei Zhi (ca. 297), which is part of the Records of the Three Kingdoms.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Civil War of Wa” is 2nd-century war in Japan. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Civil, 2nd-century and Japan, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “2nd-century war in Japan” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5124705. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Civil War of Wa”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Civil War of Wa primary sources, Civil War of Wa archive and Civil research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Civil War of Wa”?
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- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Civil War of Wa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.