Chapter 20: Northern Eurasia, 1500-1800
Japan
Civil War & the invasion of Korea (1500-1603)
 Daimyo & Samurai
 Japan – attacked Korea
- Hoping to conquer Korea and China
- Turtle boats
- Weakened Korea and strengthened
Manchus
Tokugawa Shogunate (to 1800) - Strong more
centralized government
Japan and the Europeans
• Jesuits arrive late 1500s
• Limited success in converting the regional lords, did make a
significant number of converts among the farmers of southern and
eastern Japan
• Rural rebellion (1630s) was blamed on Christians
• Tokugawas ban Christianity, and close Japan to Europeans (with
exception of few Dutch traders @ Nagasaki harbor)
–
Required to have certificates from Buddhist temples
- shipwrecked sailors
• Even placed restrictions on # of Chinese traders
Elite decline & social crisis
Rice economy – transformation from military to civil society
- Enriches rice traders, everyone else suffers
- Samurai hurting financially – living on credit
- laws requiring forgiveness of Samurai debts
- Stability of Samurai linked to stability of Shogun
- agriculture vs. merchants
- 1603-1800 Economy grew faster than population
Forty-Seven Ronin incident
- Tradition vs civil authority
- Tradition gives way, Ronin allowed to commit seppuku
Late Ming and Early Qing Empires
The Ming Empire
 Economic Growth
Demand for Ming porcelain (“china”)
Chinese exports gobbled up the world’s silver
Little ice age effected China’s agriculture & political stability
 Government policies and corruption lead to collapse
Ming Collapse and the rise of the Qing
 Mongols – Mongolia
Unified in devotion to Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhism)
1600 – Galdan restores them to military power
 Manchus – Manchuria
Japanese sought their help in 1592-1598 invasion
1644 – claimed China for their own when asked to help Ming general
Establish Qing Empire and adopt Chinese institutions and policies
Trade and missionaries
 Trade
Portuguese first on scene (1513), embassy (1517), expelled (1522)
Portuguese trade from Macao (1557)
Spanish traded from outpost in Taiwan (1662), then Manila
 Dutch East India Company (VOC) – displaced Portuguese
Willing to kowtow to emperor,(will maintain trade privileges)
 Missionaries in China
Franciscans, Dominicans (lower classes), and Jesuits (elites)
Matteo Ricci – mastered language & classics, coopted Chinese culture into Catholicism
Jesuits also introduced latest science/technology
Emperor Kangxi (child prodigy)
 Period of economic, military, cultural achievement
 Repaired infrastructure, encouraged trade
 Contact with Russia – Amur River
Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) – Jesuits used as interpreters
Fixed border along Amur river, regulated trade
 Kangxi led troops to defeat Galdan and take Mongolia (1691)
 http://www.dartmouth.edu/~qing/WEB/GALDAN.html
 Christian compromises
Tolerated Confucian ancestor worship
Becomes a wedge, ultimately leads to missionaries expulsion
Chinese influences on Europe
 Silk, tea, wallpaper, porcelain, jade, room dividers, fans, ivory – all via Canton
 Qing political philosophy – championed by Voltaire as a model ruler
Tea & diplomacy
 Single point for all trade – Canton – Allowed control and taxation
 Britain and the Trade Deficit
British East India Co (EIC) replaces VOC
 Macartney Mission
British trade imbalance favoring China
Refused to kowtow – just a knee
“Sorry, but I don’t need you” (letter to England)
Population and social stress
 Environmental Deterioration
Population growth intensified demand for food
Building leads to deforestation
Infrastructure not maintained, corruption, inefficiency
The Russian Empire
Drive across Northern Asia
 Rise of Muscovy (center of pwr under Golden Horde)
Annexed Novgorod in (1478), threw off Mongol
yoke (1480)
Expanded South & East by Ivan IV, eventually to
Ural Mts
Promoted Moscow as 3rd Rome, Tsar (Caesar)
 Problem of seaport(s)
Only seaport (Arkhangelsk) frozen most of year
Crimean Turks to south, Sweden to northwest
Siberia to the east – untapped riches (esp fur)
http://www.worldology.com/Eur
ope/europe_history_md.htm
 First real attempt - Strogonov fur traders, move across
Siberia all the way to Alaska
Tsar’s political control follows slowly – uses Siberia as
a penal colony
 Diversity of Siberia
 Romanovs
Time of Troubles – Swedish/Polish forces in Moscow
Boyars (Nobles) support Mikhail Romanov (start of Romanov dynasty)
 Serfs
Tied to land, hereditary
Largest % of population
Russian society & politics to 1725
 Cossacks – bands/tribes living north of Black & Caspian Seas
More loyal to chieftain than political ruler
Used in the conquest of Siberia
Used to defend Russia from invaders
The Russian Empire … continued
Peter the Great – greatest of the Romanovs
 Westernization
Traveled in disguise across Europe collecting technology
Realized that Trade = $ to spend on military
 Why the big emphasis on Westernization?
Great Northern War (Sweden) gives Russia access to Baltic
Uses Scorched Earth Policy to defeat Charles XII
St. Petersburg “Window to the West”
Peter’s statement to Europe
“One ups” which French monarch
Upwards of 100,000 serfs die building it
http://www.saint-petersburg.com/video/index.asp
Elites forced to move to St. Petersburg, dress European
 Why?
Women in public, education opened up
Imitates Prussian Military
Why Prussia?
No horse!
Moscow
St. Petersburg
Growth of Russia
Oprichniki