The Heritage of World Civilizations
Brief Fifth Edition
Chapter
18
East Asia in the Late
Traditional Era
The Heritage of World Civilizations, Brief Fifth Edition
Albert Craig • William Graham • Donald Kagan • Steven Ozment • Frank Turner
East Asia in the Late Traditional Era
Late Imperial China
• Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911)
Dynasties
Japan
• Warring States Era (1467–1600)
• Tokugawa Era (1600–1868)
Korea and Vietnam
• Korea
• Vietnam
Seventeenth-century screen painting of a
Shintō river festival
Introduction
• East Asian countries shared many cultural
elements
 But differed in institutions and history
Introduction (cont’d)
• Common influence of Confucianism
 China and Japan were furthest apart
 Chinese dynastic cycle continued in Ming and
Qing
 Japan’s history was closer in some ways to
that of Europe
 Korea and Vietnam closer to China
Global Perspective: East Asia in the
Late Traditional Era
• What features of Japan or China, other
than those mentioned above, bear on their
lack of progress from commerce to
industry? What other factors presented in
the chapters on Europe are relevant?
• Why was Tokugawa Japan more open to
Western learning than Qing China? Was
population a plus, a minus, or a factor that
did not matter?
Late Imperial China
Ming (1368–1644) and
Qing (1644–1911) Dynasties
Ming and Qing Dynasties:
Land and People
• Ming-Qing continuities: longest stretch of
good government in Chinese history
• China’s population doubled from 1368 to
1644
 60 million to 125 million
 410 million by mid-nineteenth century
Ming and Qing Dynasties:
Land and People (cont’d)
• Increase in food supply
 Rice and new crops such as maize
• Yangzi valley was densely populated
• Ming cash crops – silk and cotton
Third Commercial Revolution
• Expansion between 1500 and 1800
 Followed First (Han) and Secont (Song)
commercial revolutions
 Commerce expanded in mid-sixteenth
century
- Population surge
- Relaxation of government controls
A porcelain enameled plate
Third Commercial Revolution (cont’d)
•
•
•
•
Stimulus of imported silver
Favorable balance of trade
Urban growth – mainly market towns
Women still restricted by Confucian edicts
 Spread of footbinding
Figure 18–1. A Bound Foot
Ming-Qing China:
The Emperor
• Strong emperors
• More direct control
 Secretariat abolished
 Personal government
• Despotic power
• Forbidden Palace, Beijing
 Rebuilt
 Centered on emperor’s rule
The Thin Horse Market
The Thin Horse Market
Ming-Qing China:
Bureaucracy
• Similar to Tang, Song times
• Manchus strongly centralize
• Revenues restored
 But fixed
 Emperors lose out as production rises
• Officials, later called “mandarins”
 Competition to enter civil service
 Examinations
Gentry
• More important than in the past
• Between bureaucracy and village
• District magistrate
 Lowest level
 Over population of up to 300,000 by late Ming
 “Law of avoidance” – placed outside of home
province
• Urban, not rural, not landed
Pattern of Manchu Rule
• Manchu (Qing) takeover was smooth
 Short transition
 Manchus were already Sinicized
• Manchus adopted institutions to maintain
themselves as an ethnically elite group
 Manchu troops segregated
Examination Stalls
Pattern of Manchu Rule (cont’d)
• Dyarchy
 For each key post, one Chinese, one Manchu
• Able Rulers
 Kangxi: model emperor, patron of culture and
learning, encouraged trade
 Qianlong: Kangxi’s grandson, prosperous
rule, but corruption at end
Emperor Qianlong
Chronology: Late Imperial China
Ming Foreign Relations
• Vigorous expansion under early Ming
 Tribute system
• Naval exploration under Zheng He
 First armada – 62 major ships, 28,000 sailors
 Half century earlier than Portuguese voyages
• Chief threat came from Mongols
Ming Foreign Relations (cont’d)
• Also threat from Japanese and Chinese
pirates
 Ming invasion of Korea in late sixteenth
century
Map 18–1. The Ming Empire and the Voyages
of Zheng
Giraffe with Attendant
Qing Foreign Relations, Culture
• Manchu takeover in 1644
 Threat still came from north and northwest
• Conquest of Tibet
• Increasing European contact
 Jesuits appeal to Kangxi
 Christianity later banned
• Macartney mission to China
Jesuit Missionary
Ming-Qing Culture
• Increasingly turned inward
 Reaction to Buddhism under Song
 Ming-Qing antipathy to Mongol rule
• Gu Yanwu
 Example of intellectual refusing to serve
Manchu
 Philology
 Works only rediscovered in late 1800s
Ming-Qing Culture (cont’d)
• Traditional arts favored: painting,
calligraphy, poetry, philosophy
Japan
Warring States Era (1467–1600)
Warring States Era (1467-1600)
• War of All Against All
• Foot Soldier Revolution
• Foreign Relations and Trade
Japan – Warring States Era
• Warring States Era (1467-1600)
 Ashikaga equilibrium was precarious
 Warfare among the daimyo
 “The strong eat and the weak become the
meat”
• Unification in stages
 Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598)
 Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616)
Foot Soldier Revolution
• Foot soldier replaced the aristocratic
mounted warrior as the backbone of the
military
 Warfare and society changed as well
• Daimyo took all land revenue
 Multigeniture to unigeniture
Foot Soldier Revolution (cont’d)
• Rise of larger armies – 100,000s
 New weapons
 Thrusting spear
 Musket, from Portuguese
Daimyo Castle
Societal Transformation
• In some respects, Japan resembled
postfeudal Europe
 Most of the military class were soldiers, not
aristocrats
 Military class had reached 7 to 8% of
population
 Recruitment of village warriors added
significantly to power of daimyo
 Commercial growth continued through the
dark decades of Warring States period
Chronology: Warring
States Japan and the Era
of Unification (14671600)
Foreign Relations and Trade
• Increased trade with China
 Shogun appointed “King of Japan”
 “Tribute missions” sent to China
• Progress of Japanese crafts
• “Vermilion-seal trade” after Hideyoshi
Arrival of the Portuguese in Japan
Foreign Relations and Trade
(cont’d)
• Seclusion
 Trade limited to small community of Chinese
merchants in Nagasaki
 Japanese could not leave Japan
 Large ship construction prohibited
• Arrival of European ships – Portuguese
Christianity
• Jesuit missionaries
 Jesuits directed efforts towards Samurai
 300,000 converts by 1600
• Christianity seen as new Buddhist sect
 Cosmic Buddha of Shingon and Christian
God seen as similar
 Also Bodhisattva Kannon and Virgin Mary
Christianity (cont’d)
• Hideyoshi banned Christianity in 1597
 Persecutions under Tokugawa Ieyasu
 Nagasaki uprising in 1637 – 37,000 died
Tokugawa Era (1600–1868)
Tokugawa Era (1600–1868)
• Political Engineering and Economic
Growth during the Seventeenth Century
 Hideyoshi’s Rule
 Establishment of Tokugawa Rule
 The Seventeenth-Century Economy
Tokugawa Era (1600–1868) (cont'd)
• Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries




The Forty-Seven Ronin
Cycles of Reform
Bureaucratization
The Later Tokugawa Economy
• Languages of East Asia
Tokugawa Era (1600–1868) (cont'd)
• Hideyoshi’s rule
 Problem of dealing with armed peasantry
 Hideyoshi ordered “sword hunt” in 1588
• Hideyoshi moved to freeze society
 Marrying within own class
 Clothing styles dictated
• Surveys of lands
 Standardization of weights and measures
 Made systematic land tax possible
“Picture-treading” Plaque
Tokugawa Leyasu
• Final unification in 1600
 Confiscated lands of defeated enemies
 Rewarded vassals and allies
 Reshuffling of domains
• Regulation of legal codes
• Hostage system
Map 18–3. Tokugawa Japan and the Korean
Peninsula
Tokugawa Leyasu (cont’d)
• National policy of seclusion
 No foreigners to enter Japan
• “Bakufu-domain system”
Edo Castle
Seventeenth-Century Economy
• Doubling of agricultural production
 New techniques and innovations
 Population grew from 12 million in 1600 to 24
million in 1700
 Growth of byproducts: cotton, silk, indigo,
lumber
• Growth of national economy
 Taxes
 Richness and diversity of urban life
The Commercial District of Osaka
Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Centuries
• Rate of growth and changes slow
 Different form of changes began
• Forty-seven rōnin
 Loyalty was deeply internalized
 State was above ethics
 Loyalty and idealism applied to women
Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Centuries (cont’d)
• Alternating periods of reform and laxity
 Reformist cliques of officials
 Retrench domain’s finances, eliminate
extravagance, austere way of life
Bureaucracy and Economy
• Balance – centralization and
decentralization
 No attempts to overthrow the bakufu
• By 1700 the economy approached limit of
expansion under available technology
 Commerce grew slowly
Bureaucracy and Economy (cont’d)
• Population of 26 million in the eighteenth
century
 Same in mid-nineteenth century
 Contraception and abortion were
commonplace
 Infanticide in hard times
• Scholars disagree about relationship
between Tokugawa economy and later
rapid industrialization
A Closer Look:
Bridal Procession
• Yohime, the twenty-first daughter of the
eleventh shogun, approaches the main
Edo estate of the Kaga daimyo.
Bridal Procession
Tokugawa Culture
• New urban culture with merchant influence
 New secular consciousness
• Revitalization of Zen Buddhism
 Hakuin – 1686-1769
• Two urban cultures
 Samurai – serious, Chinese styles favored
 Townspeople – lowbrow popular culture
• Bashō (1644-1694)
 The Narrow Road of Oku
Mother Bathing Her Son
Literature and Drama
• Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693)
 The Life of an Amorous Man
 The Life of an Amorous Woman
• Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724)
 Wrote for Kabuki and puppet theater
• Kabuki
 From 1600s
 Women forbidden to perform, 1629
 More human than Nō
Confucian Thought
• Tokugawa elite drawn to Confucianism
• Difficult task of fitting Confucianism to
Japan
 No room for shogun in Confucianism
- Answer – emperor had mandate of heaven –
entrusted political authority to shogun
 Japanese “feudal system” of lord-vassal
 View of China as central kingdom
- Manchus lost claim to universality
Confucian Thought (cont’d)
• Tremendous intellectual vitality
National Studies
• Attempt to find in Japanese classics the
original true character of Japan before
Chinese influence
 Japanese spirit as free, spontaneous, clean,
lofty, honest
 Chinese spirit as rigid and artificial
• Reaffirmation of Japan’s emperor
institution
National Studies (cont’d)
• Weaknesses of National Studies
 No substitute for philosophy
 Chiefly literary
Chronology: Tokugawa Era (1600-1868)
Dutch Studies
• Ban on Western books lifted in 1720
 Recognition that Western anatomy texts were
better than Chinese ones
• Also interest in Western astronomy,
geography, botany, physics, chemistry, art
• Expanded into Western Studies during
1860s
Korea and Vietnam
Korea
Korea and Vietnam: Introduction
• Chinese influences on Korea and Vietnam




Writing
Government
Buddhism
Confucianism
• Points of differentiation
 Language
 Independence
Map 18–4. Early Korean States.
Early Korea
• Peninsular geography shaped history
• Chinese commanderies (108 B.C.E. – 313
C.E.)
• Three Korean states (313 C.E. – 668 C.E.)
 Silla, Paekche, and Koguryo
 Silla unified, ruled others (668 – 918 C.E.)
 Chinese army helped with unification
Early Korea (cont’d)
• Silla drove Chinese out
 Silla became autonomous tribute state to
China
Koryo Dynasty (918–1392)
• Cultural brilliance
 Celadon vases, first history (1145), poetry
and literature, moveable type
• Buddhism
 Buddhist infrastructure, art, and scholarship
Koryo Dynasty (918–1392) (cont’d)
• Chinese influence on government offices
and laws




Weak society, many slaves
Weak economy based on barter
Weak state dominated by military
Tributary to China
Pulguksa temple
Korea: Choson Era
• Yi Songgye founded Choson dynasty
(1392–1910)
 Tied to stability of Ming-Qing China
• Yangban – elite families
 Monopolized education and elite posts
• King Sejong (1418–1450)
 Supported scholarship and reforms
• Acceptance of Neo-Confucianism
Korea: Invasions
• Korea impacted by invasions
 Japanese under Hideyoshi – 1592, 1596
 Ming troops
 Manchu troops – 1627, 1637
• Famine, death and misery
 Internal struggles between royal officials
• Literacy rose
 Cultural achievements, women writers
 Call for “practical learning”
A Badge of Rank
Chronology: Korean History
Vietnam
Vietnam
• Vietnam in Southeast Asia
• Vietnamese Origins
• A Millennium of Chinese Rule: 111 B.C.E.–
939 C.E.
• An Independent Vietnam
• The Marck South
Vietnam – Overview
• Four historical movements shaped all of
Southeast Asia
 Peoples, languages followed river valleys
north to south
 Indian traders and missionaries, first to
fifteenth centuries, brought Buddhism and
other influential ideas
Vietnam – Overview (cont’d)
• Four historical movements shaped all of
Southeast Asia
 Arab and Indian traders, thirteenth to fifteenth
centuries, introduced Islam
 Chinese diaspora, especially after 1842,
formed urban merchant class
• Fifth movement shaped Vietnam
 Conquest by China
Creation of Vietnam
• Geography
 “Two baskets on a carrying pole”
 Vietnamese, Cham, and Khmer peoples
• Chams
 More similar to Indonesians than Vietnamese
 Champa
 Seafarers
Creation of Vietnam (cont’d)
• Khmers (Cambodians)
 In modern south Vietnam
• Early history based only on archaeology
 Bronze from first millennium B.C.E.
Bronze drum
Map 18–6. Vietnam and Neighboring
Southeast Asia
Chinese Rule (111 B.C.E.–939 C.E.)
• Nan Yueh state formed 208 B.C.E.
 Controlled southeast China and Red River
basin
 Ruled by China (111 B.C.E.–939 C.E.)
Chinese Rule (111 B.C.E.–939 C.E.)
(cont’d)
• Social change
 Chinese cultural influence, especially under
Tang
 Revolt led to independence, 939
 Ly (1009–1225) and Tran (1225–1400)
dynasties
 Formal tribute relationship with China
Vietnam: Second Millennium
• Vietnamese dynastic blocks




Ly (1009-1225)
Tran (1225-1400)
Le (1428-1787)
Nguyen (1802-1880s)
• Not centralized bureaucratic states
 Tensions between center and periphery
• Problem of Chinese invasions
 Vietnamese formal submission to China
Chronology: Vietnamese History
Fifteenth Century Developments
• Two momentous developments
• Increased use of Chinese institutions and
culture to strengthen the government
 Reforms of Le Thanh Tong (1442–1497)
- Neo-Confucian learning, public works
- Civil service exams – weakened nobles
Fifteenth Century Developments
(cont’d)
• Destruction of the Champa state
 By Le Tranh Tong in 1471
 “The march to the south”
• Nguyen conquest of north, 1802
 Nguyen Dynasty, capital at Hue
Hue
Review Questions
1. What factors led to economic and
population growth in late traditional
China? Was the pattern the same in
Japan during those centuries?
Review Questions
2. How was Manchu rule like Mongol rule
during the Yuan Dynasty? How was it like
the rule by Chinese emperors during the
Ming?
Review Questions
3. What were the social and administrative
foundations of the absolute power of
Ming–Qing emperors?
Review Questions
4. Compare and contrast the bureaucracies
of China and Japan in this period. What
influences might you expect their
differences to have on the later histories
of these countries?
Review Questions
5. How did advances in military technology
change warfare in sixteenth-century
Japan? How was the strategic balance of
power reflected in the government
created by Tokugawa Ieyasu?
Review Questions
6. Did literacy ruin the samurai or improve
them? How did literate samurai “fit” the
changed society of the late eighteenth
century?
Review Questions
7. What was Dutch Studies? With what
ideas did Dutch Studies compete, and
why is it important?
Review Questions
8. Who were the yangban, and how did they
influence Korean history?
Review Questions
9. How and why did Vietnam expand to the
south?
Review Questions
10.Summarize the relationship between
Vietnam and China and between Korea
and China. Was either relationship
stronger or more significant? Explain.