History
The ancient chronicles state that Emperor Jimmu , considered to be Japan's first emperor, set out from southern Kyushu to found the Japanese nation in 660 BC. Though these records are open to dispute, there's evidence of human habitation on Kyushu from before the tenth century BC, and by the beginning of the Yayoi period (300 BC-300 AD) the small kingdom of Na was trading with China and Korea. Local merchants brought rice-farming and bronze-making techniques back to Japan while, in the twelfth century, monks introduced Zen Buddhism to northern Kyushu. Less welcome visitors arrived in 1274 and 1281 during the Mongol invasions under Kublai Khan. The first ended in a narrow escape when the Mongols withdrew, and the shogun ordered a protective wall to be built around Hakata Bay. By 1281 the Japanese were far better prepared, but their real saviour was a typhoon, subsequently dubbed kami kaze, or "wind of the gods", which whipped up out of nowhere and scattered the Mongol fleet on the eve of their massed assault. Three hundred years later, in 1543, the first Europeans to reach Japan pitched up on the island of Tanegashima, off southern Kyushu. Finding an eager market for their guns among the local daimyo , the Portuguese sailors returned a few years later, bringing with them missionaries , among them the Jesuit priest Francis Xavier . Within fifty years the Catholic Church, now also represented by Spanish Franciscans and Dominicans, was claiming some 600,000 Christian converts. The centre of activity was Nagasaki , where Chinese, Dutch and British merchants swelled the throng. In the early 1600s, however, the government grew increasingly wary of the Europeans in general and Christians in particular. By fits and starts successive shoguns stamped down on the religion and restricted the movement of all foreigners, until eventually only two small communities of Dutch and Chinese merchants were left in Nagasaki. This period of isolation lasted until the mid-1850s, when suddenly Western learning was again all the rage. For a brief period Nagasaki and Kagoshima in particular were at the forefront of the modernizing revolution which swept Japan after the Meiji Restoration . Indeed, it was the armies of the Satsuma and Choshu clans, both from Kyushu, which helped restore the emperor to the throne, and many members of the new government hailed from the island. In 1877, however, Kagoshima's Saigo Takamori led a revolt against the Meiji government in what became known as the Satsuma Rebellion . Saigo's army was routed, but he's still something of a local hero in Kyushu, where they pride themselves in being different from the rest of Japan - perhaps not surprising, considering Kyushu is closer to Korea than it is to Tokyo.
how to backpack over the Kyshu plainsPete says "Drink lots of water and get a alot of rest!!!
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