Traditions and Encounters, AP Edition (Bentley), 5th Edition Chapter 26: Tradition and Change in East Asia Chapter Outline - The quest for political stability
- The Ming dynasty
- Ming government (1368-1644) drove the Mongols out of China
- Centralized government control; faced new invasions from the Mongols
- Rebuilt and repaired the Great Wall to prevent northern invasions
- Restored Chinese cultural traditions and civil service examinations
- Ming decline
- Coastal cities and trade disrupted by pirates, 1520s--1560s
- Government corruption and inefficiency caused by powerful eunuchs
- Famines and peasant rebellions during the 1630s and 1640s
- Manchu invaders with peasant support led to final Ming collapse, 1644
- The Qing dynasty
- The Manchus (1644-1911), invaders from Manchuria to the northeast
- Overwhelmed the Chinese forces; proclaimed the Qing dynasty, 1644
- Originally pastoral nomads, organized powerful military force
- Captured Korea and Mongolia first, then China
- Remained an ethnic elite; forbade intermarriage with Chinese
- Kangxi (1661-1722) and his reign
- Confucian scholar; effective, enlightened ruler
- Conquered Taiwan; extended to Mongolia, central Asia, and Tibet
- Qianlong (1736-1795) and his reign
- A sophisticated and learned ruler, poet, and artist
- Vietnam, Burma, and Nepal made vassal states of China
- Under his rule, China was peaceful, prosperous, and powerful
- The son of heaven and the scholar-bureaucrats
- Emperor considered "the son of heaven"
- Heavenly powers and an obligation to maintain order on the earth
- Privileged life, awesome authority, and paramount power
- Governance of the empire fell to civil servants, called scholar-bureaucrats
- Schooled in Confucian texts, calligraphy
- Had to pass rigorous examinations with strict quotas
- The examination system and Chinese society
- Civil service exam intensely competitive; few chosen for government positions
- Others could become local teachers or tutors
- System created a meritocracy with best students running the country
- Wealthy families had some advantages over poor families
- Confucian curriculum fostered common values
- Economic and social changes
- The patriarchal family
- The basic unit of Chinese society was the family; the highest value, filial piety
- Included duties of children to fathers, loyalty of subjects to the emperor
- Important functions of clan
- Gender relations: strict patriarchal control over all females
- Parents preferred boys over girls; marriage was to continue male line
- Female infanticide; widows encouraged to commit suicide
- Foot binding of young girls increased
- Lowest status person in family was a young bride
- Population growth and economic development
- Intense garden-style agriculture fed a large population
- American food crops in seventeenth century: maize, sweet potatoes, and peanuts
- Available land reached maximum productivity by mid-seventeenth century
- Population growth: 100 million in 1500, 225 million in 1750
- Manufacturing and trade benefited from abundant, cheap labor
- Exported large quantities of silk, porcelain, lacquerware, and tea
- Compensated for the exports by importing silver bullion
- Foreign trade brought wealth to the dynasty, but threatened scholar-bureaucrats
- Kangxi began policy of strict control on foreign contact
- Western merchants restricted to Macao and Quangzhou
- Government and technology
- Ming and Qing dynasties considered technological change disruptive
- With abundant skilled labor, labor-saving technologies unnecessary
- Gentry, commoners, soldiers, and mean people
- Privileged classes
- Scholar-bureaucrats and gentry occupied the most exalted positions
- Directed local government and society
- Peasants, the largest class, esteemed by Confucius for their honest labor
- Artisans and other skilled workers, some economic status
- Merchants often powerful and wealthy
- Lower classes or "mean people": slaves, servants, entertainers, prostitutes
- The Confucian tradition and new cultural influences
- Neo-Confucianism and pulp fiction
- Confucian education supported by Min and Qing emperors
- Hanlin Academy in Beijing and provincial schools prepared students for civil service exams
- Imperial cultural projects: encyclopedias and libraries
- Popular culture expanded to include novels, romances, travel adventures
- The return of Christianity to China
- Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), an Italian Jesuit in the Ming court
- A learned man who mastered written and oral Chinese
- Impressed Chinese with European science and mathematics
- Popular mechanical devices: glass prisms, harpsichords, clocks
- Confucianism and Christianity
- Jesuits respectful of Chinese tradition, but won few converts
- Chinese had problems with exclusivity of Christianity
- End of the Jesuit mission
- Rival Franciscan and Dominican missionaries criticized Jesuits' tolerance
- When the pope upheld critics, emperor Kangxi denounced Christianity
- Jesuits had been an important bridge between Chinese and western cultures, introducing each to the achievements of the other.
- The unification of Japan
- The Tokugawa shogunate
- Tokugawa Ieyasu brought stability to Japan after 1600
- Japan divided into warring feudal estates
- As shogun, Ieyasu established a military government known as bakufu
- First need to control the daimyo, powerful local lords
- Each daimyo absolute lord within his domain
- Tokugawa shoguns required daimyo to live alternative years at Edo
- Bakufu controlled daimyo marriages, travel, expenditures
- Control of foreign relations
- The shoguns adopted policy of isolation from outside world, 1630s
- Foreign trade was under tight restriction at the port of Nagasaki
- Despite the policy, Japan was never completely isolated
- Economic and social change
- Population growth
- Agricultural production doubled between 1600 and 1700
- Population rose by a one-third from 1600 to 1700
- Then slow growth due to infanticide, contraception, late marriage, abortion
- Social change
- Peace undermined the social and economic role of warrior elites
- Merchants became prominent, and often wealthier than the ruling elites
- Neo-Confucianism and floating worlds
- Neo-Confucianism (loyalty, submission) became the official ideology of the Tokugawa
- Scholars of "native learning" tried to establish distinctive Japanese identity
- "Floating worlds"--centers of urban culture
- Included teahouses, theaters, brothels, public baths
- Ihara Saikaku, poet and novelist
- Kabuki theaters and bunraku (puppet) very popular
- Christianity and Dutch learning
- Christian missions, under Jesuits, had significant success in sixteenth century
- Anti-Christian campaign launched by Tokugawa shoguns
- Feared any movement that might help daimyo
- Buddhists and Confucians resented Christian exclusivity
- After 1612, Christians banned from islands, thousands killed
- Dutch learning was one limited connection to the outside world
- Dutch merchants permitted to trade at Nagasaki
- Japanese scholars were permitted to learn Dutch and, after 1720, to read Dutch books
- Shoguns became enthusiastic proponents of Dutch learning by mid-eighteenth century
- European art, medicine, and science began to influence Japanese scholars
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