China and Japan:

• The Yuan Dynasty, founded by Mongol invader Kublai Khan (1271) was overthrown in 1368. The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) 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.

• 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.

• After his death (1598)the center of power shifted to the city of Edo (Tokyo), controlled by the daimyo Tokugawa Ieyasu (r. 1600-1616), 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.”

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.