The smallpox epidemic of 735-737 is recorded as having taken hold around August 735 in the city of Dazaifu, Fukuoka in northern Kyushu, where the infection had ostensibly been carried by a Japanese fisherman who had contracted the illness after being stranded on the Korean peninsula.

The disease spreads rapidly throughout northern Kyushu this year, and will persist into the next.

Many land tenants in Kyushu are either dying or forsaking their crops by 736, leading to poor agricultural yields and ultimately famine.

Also, in 736, a group of Japanese governmental officials passes through northern Kyushu while the epidemic is intensifying.

As members of the party sicken and die, the group gives up on their intended mission to the Korean peninsula.

Returning to the capital with smallpox, the officials supposedly have spread the disease to eastern Japan and Nara.