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.