Transcript China and Japan - Spring Branch ISD

China and Japan:
• The Yuan Dynasty, founded by Mongol invader Kublai Khan
(1271) was overthrown in 1368. The Ming Dynasty (13681644) assumed power. Ming rulers managed to stabilize the
region for nearly 300 years. The Ming era saw the arrival of
the Portuguese and other Europeans, who aimed to encroach
on the Asian trade network.
•
In reaction to Mongol
power, Ming rulers
turned to the Great Wall.
The Wall had not been
maintained under
Mongol rule, but under
the Ming Dynasty it was
restored and expanded to
help keep out invaders
from the north.
• During a famine (1644) a peasant revolt led by a minor
court official Li Zicheng, conquered the capital of
Beijing. The Manchu from Manchuria saw the overthrow
of the Ming Dynasty as an opportunity to seize power.
They moved into China and pretended to help the Ming,
but the Manchu declared a new dynasty, the Qing
Dynasty. People from Manchuria migrated into China to
take advantage of the new lands and the high prestige of
being part of the ruling ethnic elite. The Qing Dynasty
was able to hold power for than 250 years, until 1911.
• One of China’s longest reigning emperors was Kangxi (r.
1661-1722) presided over a period of stability and expansion
in China. He added Taiwan, Mongolia, and Central Asia to
the empire. China also imposed a protectorate over Tibet, a
policy reflected in China’s control of the region today.
• Qianlong (r. 1736-1795), initiated military campaigns
west of China, annexing the Muslim region of Xinjiang
accompanied by mass killings of the local population.
• Still today Xinjiang remains a problem, they have never
really been incorporated into the Chinese culture.
• He also sent his armies on a successful campaign in Tibet
to install the Dalai Lama on the throne there.
• The addition of Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet to the
Chinese empire during the Qing dynasty led to the creation
of the Court of Colonial Affairs.
• Needing funds, the Qing Dynasty sold limited trading
privileges to the European powers but confined them to
Guangzhou (Canton).
• During the later part of Qianlong’s reign, the efficient
Chinese bureaucracy became corrupt, levying high taxes on
the people.
• In response to these high taxes and a desire to restore the
Ming Dynasty, a group of peasants organized the White
Lotus Rebellion (1796-1804).
• The Qing government suppressed the uprising brutally,
killing 100,000.
The Ming Dynasty wanted to return to the beliefs and customs from
China’s past, and erase the influence of the Mongol rulers. Ming rulers
brought back the traditional civil service exam, improved education by
establishing a national school system, and reestablished the bureaucracy,
which had fallen into disuse under the Mongols. Europeans began to learn
about and admire the civil service system, and in the 18th century it
became a model for some European bureaucracies.
• Like the Mongols, the Manchu were ethnically and culturally
distinctive from the Chinese. However, they were less tolerant than
Mongol leaders, and they resolved to make their culture dominant in
China. Men were ordered to dress in Manchu style, wearing queues
(braided pigtails), and those who refused were executed. Like the
Mongols, the Qing put their own people in top positions of
government.
• Kangxi allowed Christian missionaries to convert hundreds of
thousands to Roman Catholicism.
• Chinese imperial court initially welcome the Jesuit missionaries
because the Jesuits’ knowledge in mathematics, astronomy,
technology, geography, and mapmaking was useful to the Chinese.
• This relationship changed with the pope’s claim of authority over
Chinese Christians.
• The Modern novel can be traced back to “Journey to the West”
(1590), a fictional version of Xuanzang’s pilgrimage to Buddhist
sites in India.
• “The Golden Lotus” (1610) the first realistic novel.
• “The Dream of the Red Chamber” (1791), a romantic novel about
life among the 18th century aristocracy.
Ming Art:
• Ming
artisans
produced blue
and white
porcelain that
is still prized
today, as the
highest
quality China.
• The economy of China, especially the silk industry, continued
to grow during the Ming Dynasty. In the capital of Beijing,
the royal family lived in the Forbidden City, a walled
compound of royal palaces.
• Ming emperor Yongle sent a Muslim admiral, Zheng He
on the first of seven great voyages (1405). Zheng traveled
to Indonesia, Ceylon, Arabia, and the east coast of Africa,
as well as the Cape of Good Hope. The main purpose of
the voyages was to display the might of the Ming Dynasty
to the rest of the world and to receive tribute from them.
Zheng’s fleet included 300 ships and a total crew of
25,000 people.
• The expedition won prestige for the Chinese government and
opened up new markets for Chinese goods. Zheng He
returned to China with exotic treasures, such as the first
giraffe the Chinese had ever seen. He also brought back an
understanding of the world outside of China. The voyage
inspired some Chinese to immigrate to ports in Southeast
Asia.
• Zheng He’s voyages stirred controversy, Confucianism
promoted a stable, agrarian lifestyle, and scholars worried that
greater interaction and trade with foreign cultures threatened
China’s social order. Some critics simply looked down on
other cultures, seeing them as barbaric and inferior to Chinese
culture. Emperor Yongle’s successor, Zhu Gaozhi, thought the
expeditions too expensive, so he stopped them, and
discouraged all Chinese from sailing away from China. He
made building a ship with more than two masts a punishable
offense.
• China’s exports grew during the Qing Dynasty.
• Selling tea, silk, and porcelain products to Europe and India.
• The demand for silk and the availability of silver for investing
led to the creation of many silk workshops where former
peasants could work for wages.
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Women continued to have a lower status than men.
Formal education was restricted to men only.
Women were not allowed to divorce.
Widows were pressured not to remarry, and those who committed
suicide were honored after death.
•
Military leaders known as shoguns ruled Japan in the emperor’s
name from the 12th to the 15th centuries. But then conflict between
landowning aristocrats called daimyo left Japan in disarray.
• Each daimyo had his own army of warriors
known as samurai.
• Most daimyo had ambition to conquer more
territory, and wanted power to rule his fiefdoms
as he saw fit.
• Finally, just as gunpowder weapons enabled the
rise of new Islamic empires, gunpowder
weapons helped a series of three powerful
daimyo to gradually unify Japan.
• The first of these powerful daimyo was Oda Nobunaga.
Armed with muskets purchased from Portuguese
traders, Nobunaga and his samurai took over Kyoto
(1568).
• He then began to extend his power, forcing daimyo in
the lands around Kyoto to submit.
• He had unified one-third of Japan when he was
assassinated (1582).
•
His successor, Toytomi Hideyoshi, continued expanding territory
until most of Japan was under his control.
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After his death (1598)the center of power shifted to the city of Edo
(Tokyo), controlled by the daimyo Tokugawa Ieyasu (r. 16001616), who was declared shogun in 1603.
His successors would rule Japan into the mid-nineteenth century, in
an era known as “the Period of Great Peace.”
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The Tokugawa Shogunate reorganized the governmental system of
Japan from a feudal system to more centralized power.
Japan was divided into 250 hans, or territories, each of which was
controlled by a daimyo who had his own army and was fairly
independent.
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However, the Tokugawa government required that daimyo maintain
residences both in their home territory and also in the capital.
If a daimyo was visiting his home territory, his family had to stay in
Tokyo, essentially as hostages. This kept the daimyo under the
control of the shogunate, reducing them to landlords who managed
the hans, rather than independent leaders.
• Art and literature prospered during the Tokugawa Shogunate.
• Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), developed the haiku form of poetry.
•
Kabuki theater; stylized dance-drama, became popular.
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European traders were initially welcomed in the mid-sixteenth
century.
However, after thousands were converted by Christian
missionaries, Christian worship was banned (1587), and
missionaries were expelled.
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To protect Japan from foreign influences, by the early seventeenth
century all Europeans except the Dutch were expelled.
Japanese people could not travel abroad, and there was a ban on
building of large ships.
•
When looking at the reception of modern European science in
China, and Japan during the early modern era it is clear that both
cultures were selective in what they adopted from European
scientific learning.
• Essential to Japan’s trade was it silver mine in Iwami
Ginzan, one of the largest in the world.
• The emergence of Japan as a major source of silver
production in the sixteenth century contributed to the end of
civil war and the unification of Japan.
• As civil war ended in Japan, the samurai warrior class declined in
importance and many became unemployed.
• Some became ronin, samurai without masters. Some roamed the
countryside as bandits.
• The government urged samurai to become bureaucrats; but that did
not pay a well as warrior.
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The traditional warrior class, daimyo, samurai, and ronin, remained
near the top of the social pyramid, below the emperor.
Below them were the peasant farmers, with artisans and merchants
below them.
Japanese viewed merchants as parasites because they made the
profits from the work of others. Despite their low rank some
merchants became wealthier than the daimyo.
That concludes the China and
Japan.