Return of Chinese Rule
Ming China
1368-1644
DEFINING
CHARACTERISTICS
• Confucianism Returns
• Examination System
• Scholar Class
Mobility through merit
• Powerful Military
Best seafaring vessels
One of the largest land empires
DEFINING
CHARACTERISTICS
• Urban Revival
• Rebuilding of the Forbidden
•Beijing
Early attempts at Exploration
City…
Zheng He
Areas of Exploration
1390 Chinese govt. restricts
explorations
1430
I- Political Characteristics
A- Emperor moved the government to Beijing
1-Forbidden city was expanded
B- Revival of the examination system
1- Stayed in place until the 20th c.
2- exams were largely unchanged
C- Large armies
1- firearms not as advanced as the west
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II- ECONOMY
• A- Comerical Activity was very strong
• merchants still had low status in society
• confined merchants to one port- Macao
• B- Technological innovation was lacking during the Ming
• Many inventions from earlier Chinese times were adapted
and improved by Europeans
• Gunpowder and movable type printing
• Chinese did not adapt the improved technology and
therefore would lag behind
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TRADE AND CULTURE
• A- Voyages of Zheng He
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Ming then Qing Dynasties
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Jesuit influence in China
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Rise of the Manchus (Qing
Dynasty)
RISE OF THE MANCHUS (QING
DYNASTY)
• 1644-1911
• People from the North
• Open up trade with Europe—
Limited
• Importance of Tea
Canton
• Boom of Port Cites…
• Government Structure…
Dynarchy
Tokugawa Shogunate 16031868
Emergence of Tokugawa
-End of 1500s – Japan nears anarchy
-Ashikaga Shogunate declines; clan wars begin
-3 Lords emerge to fight for control
-Tokugawa emerges and claims Shogunate in 1603
Tokugawa Ieyasu
GREAT PEACE
• Feudal wars stopped
• Unites the daimyo
= National unification
• New capital at Edo (Tokyo)… Emperor in Kyoto
• More centralized: Shogun’s twin responsibilities
Ruling figure & in charge of own domain 1/4 of
Japan
• Samurai take on administrative duties
• Confucianism reemerges to dominate bureaucratic
and intellectual life.
Economic Changes
-Rise in commerce and
manufacturing
-Banking and common
currency
-Rise of merchant class
-Regional sea trade
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Initial period of openness with West
- curiosity about the world
- Gunpowder tech. introduced by Portuguese
- used by Shogun to defeat rivals
- Shogunate would limit production
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-Presence of Christian missionaries
-efforts led by Jesuits; Francis Xavier
-most conversions in southern islands
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Japan Emerges as an “External Society”
• Self Imposed Isolation
1612: Expelling of Christian
Missionaries
1644: Christianity banned
- triggered closing
of trade relations
with the west
Commercial Isolation
• Only Dutch Merchants were permitted
• Dutch did little to spread Christianity
• Only Nagasaki Harbor
• Japanese merchants confined to cities and
China
Cultural Isolation
- Western books were banned
-
Restricted travel abroad
Travel
- Rejected idea: “New technology is always
good technology”
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WHY ISOLATION?
• Fear of outside ideas
•Samurai Culture = warrior dominance
•Island Geography
•Shinto beliefs
- uniquely Japanese
Voyages of St. Francis Xavier
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