Week 6: Japan's Middle Ages and Ming China

6.1 Japan’s Middle Ages

• Ashikaga shogunate (1336 - 1573) ushered in the Muromach period and moved the capital back to Kyoto.

  • believed the emperor should share power with shogun

  • some luster was restored in the imperial court and Ashikaga shogun wielded diminished powers

  • were patrons of arts, and their architectural style

  • Kinkaku-ji, built in 1397, was a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, later converted in a Zen Buddhist temple

  • internal fueding between the daimyo eventually brought down the Ashikaga

• Daimyo Oda Nobunaga (1534 - 1582) drove out the remaining Ashikaga shogun from Kyoto in 1573

  • one of the first people to unify Japan, but commited suicide when one of his people betrayed him

• Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536 - 1598), defeated others during the period of the civil wars and united Japan

  • risen in rank from peasant to most powerful man in Japan, but declined due to his family status

  • avenged Nobunaga’s death and took several actions to consolidate authority making it harder to challenge his position

  • made a decree that weapons be banned from the hands of all except the samurai

  • also made a decree for the persecution of Christianity in parts of Japan over which he wished to establish a firmer control

  • viewed Christianity as a foreign policy overly involved in politics and questioned the loyalties of those who practiced

    • lauched an invasion in Korea in 1592, after God came to him in a dream to conquer China

    • failed as the joint forces of Koreans and Chinese repelled his army

    • tried again in 1596 and failed again, which resulted in sanking fleets and costs hundreds of thousands of lives and animosty between Korea and Japan

6.2 Ming China

Yuan - Ming Transition

• Zhu Yuanzhang (1328 - 1398 CE) became the leader of the Red Turban Rebellion

  • Red Turban Rebellion — a group that worshipped the messianic Buddha Maitreya and fought to deliver China from the Yuan dynasty.

  • established Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644 ) and ruled as Hongwu emperor from Nanjing

  • reorganized government and concentrated all executive power in himself and his ministers

Hongwu Emperor

• Hongwu established his military along traditional lines, like the Tang

  • most of his one million man army was stationed on the northern frontier to guard against the resurgent Yuan dynasty

  • Tuntian — were military farmers were called when needed

  • introduced agricultural reforms , allowing more peasants to own land and brought the economy back under control

  • often passed imperial edicts that gave land to peasants and released their burden from taxes

  • paid attention to irrigation and water work projects including the dredging of the Grand Canal

  • revised the imperial exam and encouraged the return of Confucian scholar-bureaucrats to position of power

    • as well as turning his attention to building imperial infrastructure

The Yongle Emperor

• Chengzu (1360 - 1424 CE) was the most important emperor of the Ming after Hongwu.

  • was never suppose to become emperor as he was not the oldest son

  • Zhu Biao (1355 - 1392) , Hongwu first born died before him therefore it went to Zhu Biao son, Zhu Yunwen (1399-1402 CE)

  • was the Prince of Yan, located in modern-day Beijing and waged war against his nephew for years before gaining victory

  • conflict with the Confucian elite who saw him as a usurper

  • struggled to gain acceptance from the scholar official class and legitimacy issues hindered him throughout his rule

  • his style of ruling represents the aforementioned difference between Mongol-style “to the victor go the spoils” manner of succession and Chinese primogeniture.

• As Yunwen came of age and became the Jianwen emperor, his advisors feared that his power uncles would despose or dominate the emperor

  • Jianwen and his advisors began to eliminate the potential rivals one by one until the last one, Chengzu, revolted

Treasure Fleets

• During Yongle’s Treasure Fleet expeditions he dispatched one of his trusted generals, Zheng He (1371 - 1433 CE) to lead a number of expeditions into Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean

  • expeditions were meant to reestablish the tributary system and spread news of a restored Chinese empire under the Ming

  • legends say that the fleet was sent to investigate rumors that Jianwen had escaped the fire and fled to Southeast Asia

  • Zheng was a member of the Muslim Hui ethnic group and was a eunuch

  • made seven expeditions from 1405 to 1433, between the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia and as far as the eastern shores of Africa and the Red Sea

  • journies are considered legends in China and throughout Asia

  • conducted the hajj to the holy sites of Islam during his last trips

  • over a period of 28 years, explored Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and brought back envoys from over 30 countries as well as giraffes, lions, and other flora and fauna

  • his expeditions opened new trade routes for China and provided information about the peoples and countries outside of China

  • The death of emperor Yongle in 1424 was the end of their expeditions

Ming Political Dysfunction

• Tension between the social elite, the Confucian scholar officials, and the ruling family led to the emergence of a new class — the eunuchs

  • eunuch became hated entities, often held responsible for the emperor’s unpopular decisions and vilified by the Confucians for being a buffer between the scholar officials and the ruler

  • toxic political environment would remain until the end of the Ming in 1644

• Ming faced increasing threats on its borders

  • Northern Vietnam regained independence after throwing out the Ming

  • also dealt with an invigorated Japan under Toyotomi Hideyoshi

  • Japanese pirates also raided the easten coast of China, Ming were powerless to stop them

  • Mongols resurged again and threatened China’s northern border

  • centerpiece of their defense is what is known as the Great Wall of China

Focus: Great Wall of China

• Qin dynasty did not create the line of fortifications that make up the Great Wall

  • they did engage in wall building and construct extensive fortications but it the Ming made the great stone walls that are famous today

• Ming wall worked exactly as planned — not as a defense but as a cornerstone of a larger strategy to keep the Mongols weak , off-balance and focused on conquest to the west

  • Wall would remain unbroken until 1644 after the Ming dynasty had crumbled and the Manchu were invited to help restore the dynasty

Ming Politics and Social Change

• Ming politics were considered conservative but scholars of Ming culture detected signs of social change that could be described as “early modern”

  • Ming era philosopher, Wang Yangming (1472 - 1529 CE) believed that the knowlege of good and evil is unborn and that one does not need years of classical study to develop it

  • some scholars cite Wang’s approach to distinuishing right from wrong as evidence that Chinese thinking turned individualistic

  • evidence of this can be found in the arts, such as the great Ming opera, The Peony Pavilion.

    • first perfomed in 1598, opera tells a story of two lovers who overcame family opposition and even death to pursue their feelings for one another

The Ming as a Cultured and Cosmopolitan Dynasty

• later half of the Ming would be typified by a relatively stable security situation but a dysfunctional political system

  • problems of the governance were largely managed by the Confucian bureaucracy despite their conflicts with the eunuchs and the emperor

  • economy and population both grew in help of an influx of trade from newly arrived Europeans and their goods from the New World

  • Crops such as sweet potatoes, maize, peanuts, tomatoes, chili peppers, etc were introduced to China

Ming Building Projects

• the Ming built the Imperial Palace in the center of Beijing

  • construction begun in 1406, and took over 14 years to complete and was the largest in the world

  • covers over 700k square meters and reportedly has 9,999.5 rooms

  • known as the Forbidden City as it was off-limits to all but the emperor, his family, eunuchs, and those with permission to enter its gates

• urban society blossomed during the Ming as a middle class emerged with disposable income

  • led a surge in forms of entertainment, arts, and commerce

    • ceramics became world-famous for quality and clarity

  • Chinese novels emerged as well with three of the four most famous works of fiction in the Chinese literary tradition

  • growth of urban culture in the Ming is another indiciation that the Ming represented a premodern or early modern society

Focus: The Chinese Novel During the Ming

• Four great novels in China are:

  • Romance of the Three Kingdoms — focuses on the fall of the Han, the ensuing period of civil war between the three kingdoms and emergence of the Jin

  • Journey to the West — mythical tale starring the most famous Chinese character, Sun Wukong or the Monkey King. Depicts the journey to India and back to bring Buddhist sutras to China during the Tang.

  • Water Margin — tells the story of outlaws who first resisted the corrupt officials of the Song but fulfilled their patriotic duty to help fight the Khitans of the Liao

  • The Dream of the Red Chamber

• first three were written during the Ming while the last was written during the Qing

  • all four depicts different parts of Chinese history

Religion

• Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism all recieved official recognition during the Ming as it returned to ancestor worship

  • Daoist Monument called the Temple of Heaven was built in Beijing

  • Ming court handled rituals at the temple in order to ensure that all gods and spirits were appeased

  • Ming officials did not interfere with religious matters in fear of backlash

  • Europeans saw potential of the Chinese market and the tens of millions of souls that needed to be saved by the church

• Matteo Ricci (1552-1610 CE), born in Italy, was one of the leading advocates in the conversion of China

  • member of the Society of Jesus and traveled to present-day macau in 1583, studied written and spoken Chinese and mastered the Confucian classics / elements of Chinese culture

  • in 1589 CE, a imperial decree allowed Ricci to build a church in Beijing in the style of Chinese architecture

    • won the respect and administration from the Chinese aristocracy for combining his knowledge of Western technology with his mastery of Chinese culture

    • Western technology proved more enticing than Western religion and his attempt to convert China to Catholicism failed

Decline and Fall of the Ming

• 1644, the Ming dynasty ended having ruled for more than 200 years

  • many factors play a role such as the intervention in Korea to help forestall a Japanese invasion bankrupted the imperial coffers

    • political infighting also grew out of control

• Succession of emperors of the Zhu family grew further from the legacy of Hongwu.