East Asia in Global PerspectiveChapter 21

» Early 16th Century Ming China became a driving force in the 1st truly global economy, one that joined together Asia, Europe, the Americas, and to a lesser degree, Africa.

» To meet China’s demand for silver, Europeans imported silver from the Americas and then traded the Chinese for silk, spices, tea, and other precious goods back to Europe.

» Christian missionaries joined European merchants as intellectual middlemen in this global exchange.

» From 1592-1598, the Imjin War• A brutal conflict that’s brutality was only surpassed by 19th & 20th

century warfare

• Involving Korea, Japan, and China

• Japanese attempted to conquer China but failed

• This left Ming China weakened

• Korea was the devastated battleground and would not recover for centuries.

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East Asia in Global Perspective

» 17th Century, Manchu armies formed Manchuria on China’s northeast frontier succeeded where Japan had failed.

• Manchu: Federation of Northeast Asian peoples who founded the Qing Empire.

• The Ming emperor had slashed the government payroll to pay the army defending Beijing against the Manchu.

• Among those jobless was an ironworker apprentice named Li Zicheng (lee ZUH-Cheng).

• By 1630 Li Zicheng found work as a soldier

• As his fellow soldiers began to mutiny as governmental supplies failed, Li soon rose as a natural leader heading thousands of Chinese rebels in the south.

• In 1635 Li and other rebel leaders gained control over much of north-central China.

• Wedged between the Manchu armies to the north and the rebels of the south of Beijing, the Ming government tottered.

• Li’s forces moved on Beijing, promising to end the corruption and restore peace and prosperity to China.

» In April 1644, Li’s forces took Beijing without a fight.

» The last Ming emperor hanged himself in his garden bringing an end to the dynasty that had ruled china since 1368.

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Manchu Uprising of China

» Li’s victory was short-lived

» Within a year the Manchus took a new leader, an uneducated warlord by the name of Wu Sangui and his new northern allies, they took Beijing in June.

» Li’s forces scattered and a year later Li was dead, either by suicide or beaten to death by peasants whose food he tried to steal.

» Now the new leader of China, the Manchus installed their young King as emperor, declared the beginning of a new dynasty called Qing (ching), and over the next 2 decades they hunted down the last of the Ming loyalist and heirs to the throne. [Thus stomping out any feasible threats to the kingdom.]

» Throughout the early modern period, a time of great cultural, commercial, and military connectivity within East Asia; China, Japan, and Korea welcomed the European presence, but eventually sought to slow foreign influences.

» Japan and Korea would eventually experience relative peace, but China suffered greatly from large-scale warfare, rebellions and natural disasters during this period.

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East Asia’s Evolution to Early Modern Society

» For European merchants, the China trade was second in importance only to the spice trade of SE Asia.

» China’s population was vast even then, and manufacturing skills drew a steady stream of would be merchants from western Europe. But interest grew slowly at with the Ming Dynasty.

» In 1513 a Portuguese ship reached China, but was not permitted to trade.

» 1517 Portuguese embassy became confused and bogged down by Chinese protocol and was formally expelled in 1522.

» 1557 The Portuguese returned, gained permission to trade in Macao on the southern coast.

» Spain conducted trades from Manila in the Philippines with silver from South America.

» Spanish & Dutch maintained trade in Taiwan, but in 1662 they were forced to concede control to the Qing, who for the first time incorporated Taiwan into China.

» By then, the Dutch East India Company had displaced the Portuguese as the greatest of European traders in the Indian Ocean.

» Dutch then took the crown in 1641 5

East Asia & Europe: Trading Companies and Missionaries

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Chinese Influences on Europe

» An exchange of information between Chinese and Europeans was never one-way. While the Jesuits brought forward new knowledge, the Chinese displayed their own.

• E.g. EuropeanAnatomy = VariolationChina

» The writings of explorers like the Jesuits led to a trend in all things “Chinese,” or at least things that looked Chinese.

• E.g. Silk, porcelain, tea, jewelry, jade, room dividers, painted fans, carved ivory, wallpaper.

» By the mid-1770’s poems supposedly written by Emperor Qianlong were translated into French and disseminated in intellectual circles.

• These poems spoke of Chinese rulers campaigning against superstitions and ignorance, curbing aristocratic excess, and patronizing science and the arts.

» The Japanese engaged in regulated trade with Europeans, but rising suspicions caused Tokugwa to restrict foreign contacts.

» Daimyo Literally, “great name(s).” Japanese warlords and great landowners, whose armed samurai gave them control of the Japanese islands from the eight to the later 19th century. Under the Tokugawa Shogunate they were subordinated to imperial government.

» Early relationships with Europeans led to some 300,000 Japanese Christians and even some Japanese priests. But suspicions about the interactions with Europeans turned the shogunal regime against Christianity.

• A decree issued in 1614 banned Christianity and charged believers with deception to overthrow the governmental regime.

• Most missionaries left Japan, some stayed underground.

• 1617 Christian persecutions began in earnest resulting in beheadings, crucifixions, and forced recantations over the next few decades.

• Small groups of Christians practiced their religion in secret. Mission work however was far less successful than elsewhere in Eastern Asia. 7

Japan and the Europeans

» The Imjin War, the largest pre-twentieth-century conflict in East Asian history, had no European involvement.

» Named for the year of the water dragon (Imjin), it also has many Chinese names, including “the Korean campaign.”

» In Japan today, it is called “Hideyoshi’s Invasions”

» Seven years long (1592-1598)

» The war had lasting effects in Korea, facilitating the demise of the Ming Dynasty in China, and produced bad relations between Japan and Korea that have lasted down to the present period.

» Japan changed in three different dimensions between 1500 and 1800:

1. Internal & external military conflicts

2. Political growth & strengthening

3. Expanded commercial & cultural contracts

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The Imjin War and Japanese Unification

» Japan’s size and natural island boarders made political unification more achievable than in the Chinese Empire.

» Internal Japanese civil wars resulted in small Daimyobureaucracies, with a central castle and band of warriors, their samurai.

• Samurai: Literally “those who serve,” the hereditary military elite of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

» Daimyo pledged allegiance to the Japanese emperor and to the shogun residing in the capital city of Kyoto, but both were politically powerless.

» Three warlords, “three unifiers,” gradually consolidated control over parts of Japan, ending in full unification in the early 17th century under the leadership of Hideyoshi (HEE-day-YOH-shee).

» Hideyoshi planned to invade Korea in order to conquer China.

• Sending envoys to European trade centers throughout Asia demanding their allegiance.

• Then sent 160,000 men to invade the Asian mainland.

» While the daimyo armies went to Korea were skilled at land-based fighting, the Japanese navy was unprepared for serious combat.

» The Korean’s admiral Yi Sunshin successful intercepted the Japanese fleet by deploying “turtle ships,” highly maneuverable vessels with large cannons and completely covered decks.

» All told, Yi won some 23 consecutive naval battles.

» On land, the Koreans called upon China for help.

» Regarding Korea as one of it’s client states, China obliged to help. Sending 1,000 troops at first then eventually some 100,000 men.

» After 1593, the Chinese negotiated peace with Japan, but after a short time Hideyoshi decided that terms of peace were inadequate. He began to invade again in 1597, using brutal measures.

» But, the Daimyo were losing interested in Hideyoshi’s dream of conquering China. Some hoped for just gaining a small amount of territory in southern Korea.

» In ill-health Hideyoshi grew tired of war, on his deathbed he ordered a withdraw of all troops from Korea.

» Formal relations between Korea and Japan did not resume until 1617 due to the gravity of the war and the toll it took on Korea.

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The Imjin War and Japanese Unification, continue…

» Tokugawa Shogunate: The last of the three shogunates of Japan.

» Despite wartime losses, Japan flourished in the postwar era.

» After Hideyoshi died (the last of the three unifies), Tokugawa Shogunate asserted domination over other daimyo and established a new military regime in 1603.

» The shoguns created a new administrative capital of Edo (modern day Tokyo), developed roads connecting Edo and the imperial capital of Kyoto [thus stimulating the Japanese economy].

» Tokugawa Shogunate gave Japan more political unity and stability than it had had in centuries.

» With stability came power. Domestic peace transformed warriors into educated and civil. Maritime trade centers were established, further stimulating the economy.

» 1600s & 1700s—Periods of high achievement in artisanship, including pottery, lacquer ware, etc.

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Tokugawa Japan & Choson Korea to 1800: Japanese Reunification & Economic Growth

» 1700s Japan—Population Growth, strains well-developed lands in central Japan.

» Remote providences where lords promoted new settlements and agricultural expansion, the rate of economic growth was better.

» 1700s Tokugawa government

• Unable to stabilize rice prices and halt economic decline of the samurai

• Merchants kept increasing prices at the expense and devastation of the Samurai class.

• Laws attempted to regulate interest and price gouging. But these laws were not always enforced.

• Resulting in many lords and samurai becoming dependent on the willingness of merchants to extend lines of credit.

• The legitimacy/strength of the Tokugawa shoguns rested in their ability to reward and protect the interest of the lords and samurai who had supported their rise to power.

• Tokugawa government was failing.

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Japanese Elite Decline and Social Crisis

» Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603 to 1800s experienced a fast growing economy, faster than the growth of its population.

• Household items and cultural resources that in china appeared on in the cities, were common even in the countryside of Japan.

• Despite official approval, merchants enjoyed relative freedom and influence in 18th century Japan

• Vivid culture developed through Japan

• E.g. Theater, arts, colorful woodblock prints, silk screened fabrics, and restaurants.

• A social upheaval was taken place where respect was not given to the cultural “heroes” of Japanese culture.

• E.g. “Forty-Seven Ronin”

• 1701-1703—Japan transforms from a military to a civil society

• A senior minister provokes a young daimyo into drawing his sword at the shogun’s court.

• For his offence the young lord was sentenced to commit seppuku (SEP-poo-koo), the ritual suicide of the samurai.

• He did and his followers became ronin, “master less samurai,” obliged by a traditional code of the warrior to avenge their deceased master. They took the life of the minster and his household and withdrew to a temple in Edo.

• This creates a legal debate, by denying the righteousness of the ronin would be to deny samurai values. But to approve would create social chaos, undermine laws against murder and deny the government’s ability to try legal cases.

• The shogun ruled that the ronin had to die but would be permitted to die honorably by also committing seppuku.

• Modern Historians note that the self-sacrifice of the ronin for the sake of upholding civil law was necessary. 12

Japanese Decline…

» Recovery from the Imjin War was indered by Manchu invasion that lasted until the late 1630s.

» China had long dominated Korean culture, even to the point that Korea paid monetary tributes to the Chinese.

» The relationship between Korea and Japan began from the shared linguistic similarities, although Korea had developed it’s own system of writing in 1443.

» The Choson dynasty was a model Confucian state.

• Confucian State: noun. the system of ethics, education, and statesmanship taught by Confucius and his disciples, stressing love for humanity, ancestor worship, reverence for parents, and harmony in thought and conduct.

» In order to work for the government of Korea in the 16h century, one must be born into a yangban (YAHNG-bahn) class and take an examination. Only on occasion was social mobility a possibility.

• Yangban: In Koryo and especially Choson Korea, a term for the “two orders,” the civil and the military elite families who, by passing government examinations, dominated the Choson Korean bureaucracy and cultural life.

» The Korean noble class stifled recovery from wartime devestation. 13

Choson Korea

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Questions?