Crossword-Solution: EZO 3 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 12

When the pious Empress Jito occupied the throne (690-696), the first proselytizing mission was despatched to the Ezo, among whom many converts were won; and, later in the same reign, another rescript directed that a certain Sutra--the Konkwo myo-kyo, or Sutra of Golden Effulgence--should be read during the first month of every year in each province, the fees of the officiating priests and other expenses being defrayed out of the local official exchequers.

They inhabited that part of the Asiatic continent which lies opposite to the island of Ezo, but there is nothing to show what impulse they obeyed in making this sudden descent upon Japan.

Then Yasuhira fled to Ezo, where, shortly afterwards, one of his own soldiers assassinated him and carried his head to Yoritomo, who, instead of rewarding the man, beheaded him for treachery.

But in the volume devoted to enumeration of the constituents of the empire, they omitted the islands of Ezo and Ryukyu.

For instance, the Lever Soap Company, of England, came to Osaka, and the Armstrong-Vickers-Maxim Company, of Newcastle, the gun-founders and warship builders, came to Muroran in Ezo Island, to be near the coal mines, the iron ore being imported largely from Tayeh, China, and much of the pig iron from Hanyang, China.