Chapter 16: The East Asian World

China at Its Height

The Ming Dynasty

The Mongol dynasty in China was overthrown in 1368.
The founder of the new dynasty took the title of Ming Hong Wu (the Ming Martial Emperor).
This was the beginning of the Ming dynasty, which lasted until 1644.
Under Ming emperors, China extended its rule into Mongolia and central Asia and briefly reconquered Vietnam.
- Along the northern frontier, the Chinese strengthened the Great Wall and made peace with the nomadic tribes that had troubled them for centuries.
- At home, Ming rulers ran an effective government using a centralized bureaucracy staffed with officials chosen by the civil service examination system.
Ming Hong Wu, founder of the dynasty, ruled from 1368 until 1398.
- After his death, his son Yong Le became emperor.
In 1406, Yong Le began construction of the Imperial City in Beijing.
During his reign, Yong Le also sent a series of naval voyages into the Indian Ocean that sailed as far west as the eastern coast of Africa.
Led by the court official Zheng He, seven voyages of explo- ration were made between 1405 and 1433.
- The voyages led to enormous profits, which alarmed traditionalists within the bureaucracy.
In 1514, a Portuguese fleet arrived off the coast of China.
At the time, the Ming government thought little of the arrival of the Portuguese.
- The Portuguese soon outraged Chinese officials with their behavior.
They were expelled from Guangzhou (Canton) but were allowed to occupy Macao.
At first, the Portuguese had little impact on Chinese society.
- Christian missionaries had also made the long voyage to China on European merchant ships.
- Both sides benefited from this early cultural exchange.
After a period of prosperity and growth, the Ming dynasty gradually began to decline.
In the 1630s, a major epidemic greatly reduced the population in many areas.
The suffering caused by the epidemic helped spark a peasant revolt led by Li Zicheng
- The revolt began in central China and then spread to the rest of the country.
- In 1644, Li and his forces occupied the capital of Beijing.
The last Ming emperor committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in the palace gardens.
The overthrow of the Ming dynasty created an opportunity for the Manchus, a farming and hunting people who lived northeast of the Great Wall in the area known today as Manchuria.
The Manchus conquered Beijing, and Li Zicheng’s army fell.
The victorious Manchus then declared the creation of a new dynasty called the Qing, meaning “pure.”
This dynasty, created in 1644, remained in power until 1911.

The Qing Dynasty

At first, the Chinese resisted the new rulers. At one point, rebels seized the island of Taiwan just off the coast of China.
All Chinese males were to shave their foreheads and braid their hair into a pigtail called a queue.
The Manchus eventually adopted the Chinese political system and were gradually accepted as the legitimate rulers of the country.
The Qing maintained the Ming political system but faced one major problem: the Manchus were ethnically and culturally different from their subject population.
- First, the Qing tried to preserve their distinct identity within Chinese society.
- Other Manchus were organized into separate military units, called banners.
- The “bannermen” were the chief fighting force of the empire.
- Second, the Qing dealt with the problem of ethnic differences by bringing Chinese into the imperial administration.
Kangxi, who ruled from 1661 to 1722, was perhaps the greatest emperor in Chinese history
- Kangxi rose at dawn and worked until late at night.
- During Kangxi’s reign, the efforts of Christian missionaries reached their height.
Qianlong, who ruled from 1736 to 1795, was another outstanding Qing ruler.
Unfortunately for China, the Qing dynasty was declining just as Europe was seeking more trade.
The traders could reside there only from October through March and could deal only with a limited number of Chinese firms licensed by the government.
For a while, the British accepted this system.
In 1793, a British mission led by Lord George Macartney visited Beijing to seek more liberal trade policies.

Chinese Society and Culture

Economic Changes

Between 1500 and 1800, China remained a mostly agricultural society.
Nearly 85 percent of the people were small farmers. Nevertheless, the Chinese economy was changing.
The first change involved an increase in population, from less than 80 million in 1390 to more than 300 million at the end of the 1700s.
- The population increase meant there was less land available for each family.
Another change in this period was a steady growth in manufacturing and increased trade between provinces.
- Despite the growth in trade and manufacturing, China did not develop the kind of commercial capitalism—private business based on profit — that was emerging in Europe.
- In the first place, middle-class merchants and manufacturers in China were not as independent as those in Europe.

Daily Life

Daily life in China remained similar to what it had been in earlier periods.
Chinese society was organized around the family.
- The ideal family unit in Qing China was the extended family, in which as many as three or four generations lived under the same roof.
Beyond the extended family was the clan, which consisted of dozens, or even hundreds, of related families.
Women were considered inferior to men in Chinese society.
- A feature of Chinese society that restricted the mobility of women was the practice of footbinding.
- The process, begun in childhood, was very painful.
- Women who had their feet bound could not walk, they were carried.

Cultural Developments

During the Ming dynasty, a new form of literature arose that eventually evolved into the modern Chinese novel.
- One Chinese novel, The Golden Lotus, is considered by many to be the first realistic social novel.
The Dream of the Red Chamber, by Cao Xuegin, is generally considered even today to be China’s most distinguished popular novel.
During the Ming and the early Qing dynasties, China experienced an outpouring of artistic brilliance.
In architecture, the most outstanding example is the Imperial City in Beijing.
Emperor Yong Le began construction of the Imperial City—a complex of palaces and temples—in 1406.
The Imperial City is an immense compound surrounded by six and one-half miles (10.5 km) of walls.
The decorative arts also flourished in this period.
Perhaps the most famous of all the arts of the Ming Era was blue-and-white porcelain.

Tokugawa Japan and Korea

The Three Great Unifiers

At the end of the fifteenth century, Japan was in chaos.
The centralized power of the shogunate had collapsed.
Daimyo, heads of noble families, controlled their own lands and warred with their neighbors.
The first was Oda Nobunaga.
- Nobunaga seized the imperial capital of Kyoto and placed the reigning shogun under his control.
- Nobunaga was succeeded by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a farmer’s son who had become a military commander.
Hideyoshi located his capital at Osaka.
After Hideyoshi’s death in 1598, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the powerful daimyo of Edo (modern-day Tokyo), took control of Japan.
Ieyasu took the title of shogun in 1603.

Europeans in Japan

As the three great commanders were unifying Japan, the first Europeans began to arrive.
- At first, the visitors were welcomed.
The Japanese were fascinated by tobacco, clocks, eyeglasses, and other European goods.
The first Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier, arrived in 1549.
Hideyoshi’s edict was at first not strictly enforced.
The Jesuits were allowed to continue their activities.
European merchants were the next to go.
Only a small Dutch community in Nagasaki was allowed to remain in Japan.

Tokugawa Rule

The Tokugawa rulers set out to establish control of the feudal system that had governed Japan for over three hundred years.
- As before, the state was divided into about 250 separate territories called hans, or domains.
- Each was ruled by a daimyo.
In actuality, the shogunate controlled the daimyo by a hostage system.
- In this system, the daimyo were required to maintain two residences — one in their own lands and one in Edo, where the court of the shogun was located.

Economic and Social Changes

A major economic change took place under the Tokugawa.
By 1750, Edo had a population of over a million and was one of the largest cities in the world.
Some farm families benefited by exploiting the growing demand for cash crops (crops grown for sale).
- Most peasants, however, experienced both declining profits and rising costs and taxes.
- Many were forced to become tenants or to work as hired help.
When rural conditions became desperate, some peasants revolted.
Social changes also marked the Tokugawa Era.
The emperor and imperial court families were at the very top of the political and social structure.
- Below the warriors were the farmers (peasants).
- Farmers produced rice and held a privileged position in society but were often poor.
- Below these classes were Japan’s outcasts, the eta.
The Tokugawa enacted severe laws to regulate the places of residence, the dress, and even the hairstyles of the eta.
The role of women in Tokugawa society became somewhat more restricted.
Among the common people, women were also restricted.

Tokugawa Culture

In the Tokugawa Era, a new set of cultural values began to appear, especially in the cities.
It included the rise of popular literature written by and for the townspeople.
- The best examples of the new urban fiction in the seventeenth century are the works of Ihara Saikaku, considered one of Japan’s greatest writers.
- Much of the popular literature of the Tokugawa Era was lighthearted and intended to please its audiences.
- Exquisite poetry was written in the seventeenth century by the greatest of all Japanese poets, Matsuo Basho.
A new world of entertainment in the cities gave rise in the theater to Kabuki, which emphasized action, music, and dramatic gestures to entertain its viewers.
Government officials feared that such activities could corrupt the nation’s morals.
Art also reflected the changes in Japanese culture under the Tokugawa regime.
Japanese art was enriched by ideas from other cultures.

Korea: The Hermit Kingdom

The Yi dynasty in Korea, founded at the end of the fourteenth century, remained in power during the entire Tokugawa Era in Japan.
Korean rulers tried to keep the country isolated from the outside world, earning it the name “the Hermit Kingdom.”
In the 1630s, a Manchu army invaded northern Korea and forced the Yi dynasty to become subject to China.
Korea remained largely untouched by European merchants and Christian missionaries.