Penghu Islands and Liuqiu faced each other and the envoys of 1292 visited Penghu en route to Liuqiu. In 1372, the newly established Ming China sent an envoy to Okinawa Island. Satto, one of the local rulers of the island, was given the title of King of Chūzan of the State of Ryūkyū (琉球国中山王). Historian Ikeya Machiko speculates that receiving tributes from Liuqiu was of great symbolic significance in Ming Chinese domestic politics because Liuqiu was known to have repelled the Mongol khans' attempts of subjugation. In reality, however, Ming China appears to have been aware of the fact that what it called Liuqiu was different from what the Mongol khans failed to conquer. Thereafter the Chinese distinguished Okinawa Island from Taiwan by referring to the former by Great Liuqiu (大琉球), as opposed to Little Liuqiu (小琉球). In few centuries, the Chinese ceased the use of Little Liuqiu, replacing it with Dongfan, Beigang, and Keelung before Taiwan became the standard name for the much larger island. The early Chinese narratives on Liuqiu, such as that in the Book of Sui, shaped the Japanese perception of Ryūkyū that lasted for a long time. Ryūkyū was considered to be a land of man-eating demons and thus one of the greatest fears of Japanese Buddhist monks sailing to China. The first known Japanese use of the word was of 803, when Buddhist monk Kūkai sent a letter to a Chinese official. Kūkai stated that during a voyage to China, Kūkai and others "had lost their courage at the thought of the tiger-like nature of (the people of) Ryūkyū" (失膽留求之虎性). Similarly, Enchin drifted to what he believed to be Ryūkyū during his voyage to Tang China in 853. He later described Ryūkyū as the land of cannibals (所謂流捄国喫人之地). Even as late as 1244, the Buddhist monk Keisei recorded the same perception in the Hyōtō Ryūkyū-koku ki. Ryukyu Kingdom on Okinawa Island The Okinawans embraced the fact that their land was somewhat accidentally labeled as Ryūkyū by the Chinese. In diplomatic correspondence with China and countries under the Chinese world order such as Korea, the "king" styled himself as King of Chūzan of the State of Ryūkyū in Classical Chinese. The king seems to have proclaimed himself to be the yo-no-nushi of the State of Ryūkyū (りうきう国のよのぬし) in a letter to the Ashikaga shōgun, as this phrase is attested in the shogun's reply to the