Japanese History Notes

Major Japanese Periods

  • Heian Period: 800 CE – 1200 CE
    • Fragmentation
  • Feudal Japan: 1200 - 1600 CE
  • Tokugawa Period: 1600 - 1850
    • Tokugawa Shogunate: 1603 - 1868 CE (economic growth & social tensions building)
  • Meiji Japanese Periods
    • Meiji Japan: 1868 – 1945 CE (social reform, industrialization, empire building)
  • Current government: 1945 - Today

Early Japan (600 CE - 1450 CE)

  • Early Japan was organized around family-based clans that controlled certain regions.
  • Each family descended from a different common ancestor.
  • Each clan worshipped this ancestor as a special kami = spirit.
  • Shinto = belief that kamis live within all people, animals, and nature.

Modeling after China

  • As these clans began to unify into a Japanese “state”, Japan began to model itself after China in some ways.

  • Elements adopted from China:

    • Buddhism and Confucianism
    • Chinese-style court rituals and court rankings
    • Chinese calendar
    • Chinese-based taxation systems
    • Chinese-style law codes and government departments
    • Chinese-style writing system

  • Japan is physically separated from China, unlike Korea and Vietnam.

  • Result = Japan was never successfully invaded or conquered by China.

  • Result = any Chinese cultural elements adopted by Japan = 100% voluntary.

  • Result = Japan will retain a very unique & distinct culture.

Heian Japan

  • Heian Period = 800 – 1200
  • Capital of Japan = Heian (later renamed Kyoto)
  • Focus of this period = pursuit of beauty
  • Japanese influenced by Chinese art, literature, calligraphy, poetry, etc.
  • Spent hours each day writing letters and poems
  • Rise of literature à ex: The Tale of Genji
  • In their “search for beauty” during the Heian period, governmental responsibilities were neglected.
  • Centralized government broke down.
  • Emperor lost power.
  • Gave way to “feudal” Japan.

Feudal Japan Hierarchy

  • Mikado = emperor
    • Very little power; figurehead
  • Shoguns = generals and powerful lords
    • Most political and military power
  • Daimyos = local lords
    • Owned estates
    • Had private armies
    • Always fighting each other
  • Samurai = warriors
    • Loose-fitting armor
    • Fought with swords AND on horseback with bows & arrows
  • Peasants
    • Worked on the land; paid heavy taxes; received protection in return
  • Code of Bushido = samurai code of honor
  • Seppuku = ritualistic suicide à belly- slashing

Japanese Women

  • Escaped the more oppressive features of Chinese Confucian culture; women could:
    • Inherit property
    • Live apart from their husbands
    • Get divorced easily
    • Remarry if widowed or divorced

Japan and the Europeans (1450 - 1750)

  • When European merchants first arrived in Japan (1500s) à Japan = tied down with interior conflicts between competing daimyos (feudal lords), each with his own band of samurai
  • Result = it was easy for the Europeans to stay there
  • European ideas taken by the Japanese = shipbuilding skills, military technology, geographic knowledge, commercial opportunities, and religious ideas

The Tokugawa Shogunate

  • 1600 – 1850 = Japan unified and ruled by the Tokugawa Shogunate
  • Shogun = military ruler
  • Emperor at this time = basically powerless
  • Chief task = prevent return of civil war among the 260 daimyo
    • Feudal lords à each with their own band of samurai
  • Shoguns brought peace to Japan for more than 2 centuries
  • Early 1600s = Japan unified politically by military commanders
    • Now led by the lead commander = shogun
    • From the Tokugawa clan
    • Set up the Tokugawa Shogunate
  • Shoguns began to see Europeans as a threat to Japan’s new unity
  • Result = Japan did the following:
    • Expelled Christian missionaries
    • Violently suppressed the practice of Christianity
      • Included: Torture and execution of missionaries and converts
    • Forbade Japanese people from travelling abroad
    • Banned European traders from entering Japan
  • Result = Japan became isolated from the world of European commerce for 2 centuries (1650-1850)
  • Maintained trading ties with only China and Korea

The Tokugawa Background

  • System devised to keep the daimyo in check = “attendance-in- turn”
    • Daimyo required to build second homes in Edo (the capital) and live there every other year
    • When they left for their rural residences, their families had to stay behind as hostages
  • Daimyo still enjoyed independence in their own domains à own law codes, militaries, tax systems, currencies, etc.
  • Japan was peaceful…but not truly unified

Silver and Japan

  • Japan put its silver- generated profits to good use:
    • Shoguns used it to defeat rival feudal lords and unify Japan
    • Shoguns worked with merchant class to develop a market-based economy
    • Invested in agricultural and industrial enterprises
    • Protected and renewed Japan’s dwindling forests
  • Simultaneously = millions of families (in 18th century) took steps to have fewer children
  • Results for Japan = slowing of population growth; prevention of ecological crisis; bustling, commercialized economy
  • Laid the groundwork for Japan’s Industrial Revolution in the 19th century

Economic and Urban Changes (1750-1900)

  • Centuries of peace allowed for economic growth, commercialization, and urban development
  • By 1750 = most people in Japan lived in large towns or cities
  • Emerging capitalism à markets linked urban and rural areas
  • Encouragement of education = produced a very literate population
  • Merchants = thrived in this commercial economy
    • Had wealth, but no status à still considered the lowest in society according to the Confucian hierarchy
  • Many daimyo and samurai = found it necessary to borrow money from these “social inferiors”
  • Peasants supposed to: devote themselves to farming, live simply, and avoid luxuries
  • Many peasants ignored this “law” and moved to the cities to become artisans or merchants
  • Ignored their “status” and imitated their superiors à example: used umbrellas instead of straw hats in the rain

The Tokugawa Shogunate: Losing Control

  • In addition to these economic and social changes, other factors contributed to Shogunate’s loss of control in the early 1800s:
    • Corrupt and harsh officials
    • Severe famine in the 1830s that the shogunate could not deal with effectively
    • Expressions of frustration from the poor à peasant uprisings and urban riots

American Intrusion of Japan

  • Since the early 1600s = Japan had deliberately limited its contact with the West
    • Expulsion of European missionaries
    • Harsh suppression of Christianity
    • Japanese forbidden from leaving
    • Only 1 port where the Dutch were allowed to trade
  • Early 1800s = European countries and the U.S. were “knocking on Japan’s door” to persuade them to reopen contact with the West
    • All were turned away
    • Even shipwrecked sailors were jailed or executed
  • 1853 = U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry “opened” Japan
    • Commodore Perry demanded:
      • Humane treatment of castaways
      • Right of American ships to refuel and buy supplies
      • Opening of Japanese ports for trade
    • He was authorized to use force if necessary, but Commodore Perry approached the Japanese with gifts and a white flag
    • War was avoided
  • Japan agreed to a series of unequal treaties with the U.S. and different Western powers
    • They knew what happened to China when it resisted European demands – did not want that outcome
    • Results of this decision:
      • Loss of support for the ruling shogunate
      • Brief civil war
      • 1868 = political takeover by a group of samurai from southern Japan à called the Meiji Restoration

The Meiji Restoration

  • Goals of the Meiji Restoration:
    • Save Japan from foreign domination
    • Transform and modernize Japanese society by drawing upon Western achievements and ideas
  • This transformation becomes possible due to:
    • No massive violence or destruction in Japan as in China (Taiping Rebellion)
    • Less pressure from Western powers than in China and the Ottoman Empire
    • Japan = less sought after by Europeans because its location wasn’t very strategic and it didn’t have as many people or riches
    • U.S. ambitions in the Pacific = deflected by the Civil War and its aftermath

Modernization Japanese Style

  • First task = true national unity = required an attack on the power and privileges of the daimyo and samurai
    • Ended the semi-independent domains of the daimyo
    • Replaced with governors appointed by and responsible to the national government
    • National government (not local authorities) now: collected taxes and raised a national army
  • Development of a nation- wide economy
  • Dismantling of old Confucian- based social order with its special privileges for certain classes
    • All Japanese became legally equal
  • Official missions to Europe and the U.S. to learn about the West
  • Japan borrowed many ideas from the West and combined these foreign elements with Japanese elements
    • Goal = modernize and maintain unique culture
    • Ex: Constitution of 1889 included a parliament, political parties and democratic ideals, BUT the constitution was presented as a gift from a scared emperor descended from the Sun Goddess
    • Ex: Modern education system included Confucian principles

Japan’s State-Guided Industrialization Program

  • Government set up a number of enterprises and later sold them to private investors
  • Used own resources when industrializing
  • Became a major exporter of textiles and was able to produce its own manufactured goods
  • The Japanese government also:
    • Built railroads
    • Created a postal system
    • Established a national currency
    • Set up a national banking system

Social Results of Industrialization

  • Many peasant families slid into poverty à taxed too much to pay for Japan’s modernization
    • Protests with attacks on government offices and bankers’ homes
  • Low pay and terrible working conditions for factory workers (mainly women)
  • Anarchist and socialist ideas developed among intellectuals
  • Efforts to create unions and organize strikes à met with harsh opposition

Japan’s Experience with Europe (1900 - Present)

  • Very different than China and the Ottoman Empire
  • Did not succumb to Western domination
  • Was able to turn itself into a powerful, modern, united, industrialized nation
  • Joined the “imperialism bandwagon” and created its own East Asian empire
  • Western powers revised the unequal treaties they had with Japan
  • Anglo-Japanese Treaty (1902) = acknowledged Japan as an equal player among the “Great Powers” of the world
  • Became a military competitor and imperialist power in East Asia

Japanese Imperialism

  • Japan led successful wars against:
    • China (1894-1895) à gained colonial control of Taiwan and Korea
    • Russia (1904-1905) à gained a territorial foothold in Manchuria
  • Japan = first Asian state to defeat a major European power

The Occupation (1945 - 1952)

  • Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) - General Douglas MacArthur
  • Two main tasks:
    • demilitarization
    • democratization

Demilitarization

  • Purged almost all wartime officers and politicians
  • Disbanded almost all militaristic associations and parties
  • Prosecuted almost all war criminals
    • The issue of Yasukuni Shrine
  • Dismantled almost all war industries

The "Peace Clause"

  • Article 9 in the 1947 constitution:
    • “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes
    • “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained”