Tei Junsoku

Holding ueekata rank in the Ryukyuan government, he served at times in his career as magistrate of both Nago and Kumemura, and as a member of the Sanshikan, the elite council of three chief advisors to the king.

He first journeyed to China in 1683 and stayed there for four years, studying the Confucian classics,[4] among other subjects, just as many others raised and educated in the scholar-bureaucrat system in Kumemura did over the course of the kingdom's history.

While there, he met with a number of the top Confucian scholars in Tokugawa Japan, including Arai Hakuseki, chief advisor to the shōgun, who is known to have had a particular interest in the exotic Ryūkyū Kingdom, Ogyū Sorai, and Sōrai's student Dazai Shundai.

As a result of this meeting, Hakuseki would go on to write a History of the Southern Islands (南島史, nantōshi) in 1719; Shundai would likewise include comments about the Ryūkyū Kingdom and its relationship to Satsuma han in his works.

Some time shortly thereafter, Junsoku presented to the shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, via Satsuma, a copy of Six Courses in Morals (六諭衍義, rikuyuengi), a volume of Confucian maxims he compiled himself.

An official portrait of Tei Junsoku.
Memorial stele at Shiseibyō Confucian temple in Naha, Okinawa dedicated to Tei Junsoku.