240 likes | 369 Views
Chapter 27. Tradition and Change in East Asia 1368 - 1795. Effect of Europeans. Unlike Africa and the Americas, E. Asian societies controlled their own destinies until 1800. China remains leading economic powerhouse
E N D
Chapter 27 Tradition and Change in East Asia 1368 - 1795
Effect of Europeans • Unlike Africa and the Americas, E. Asian societies controlled their own destinies until 1800. • China remains leading economic powerhouse • In 17th and 18th centuries Tokugawa shogunate unifies Japan and lays groundwork for economic growth
East Asia Benefits from long distance trade • Silver • American plant crops
Quest for Political Stability: China • Ming Dynasty 1368-1644 • Qing Dynasty 1644-1911 • Revive Confucian traditions with bureaucracy staffed by successful takers of civil service exam
Early 1400s under Yongle • Voyages of Zheng He • Yongle’s successors halt expensive voyages - Mongol threat, perhaps bureaucrats jealous • 1500s build Great Wall • Corrupt government toward end of Ming Era, eunuchs with too much power makes enemies of bureaucrats and leads to peasant revolts
Qing Dynasty • Ruled by Manchus (pastoral nomads) • Forbid Chinese learning Manchurian and make men wear Manchu queue as sign of submission
2 Great leaders Kangxi 1662-1722 & Qianlong 1736-1795 • Kangxi - Confucian scholar applies Confucian teaching through policies such as flood control & irrigation thus helping welfare of the people and promoting agriculture • Also conquers Taiwan and parts of Mongolia
Qianlong • Makes Vietnam, Burma & Nepal vassal states • His encyclopedia compendium of knowledge • Toward the end he gives too much responsibility to his favorite eunuchs and hunting and the harem become too important
Son of Heaven and Scholar Bureaucrats • Tightly centralized state • Scholar bureaucrats appointed by emperor govern • Exams based on Confucian learning key to upward mobility - open to all males. It does help if you are from gentry
Family & Clan life hierarchal, Patriarchic & authoritarian • Veneration of ancestors • Filial piety • Chastity of widows • Infanticide of females • Foot binding
Prosperity • Increased farm yields - American food • Population boom • Global trade brings prosperity - China imports are few and silver influx is great
Limit activities of foreign merchants • Portugese on Macau & British Guangzhou (see Qianlong’s response to George III on p.736) • Discourage large scale commercial ventures of Chinese merchants such as Dutch VOC or EEIC
Economic Expansion without Innovation • Tang & Song flood of innovation encouraged by government, now government more worried about stability. Primary concern is to preserve stability of large agrarian society not to promote rapid economic development thought trade
Social structure • Emperor • Gentry scholar bureaucrats/gentry - distinctive clothing, immune to corporal punishment, labor service & taxes • Peasants • Artisans • Workers • Merchants “social parasites” - little legal protections BUT bribery and profit sharing with gentry in warehousing, money lending and pawn broking
New & Old Culture • Neo Confucianism as articulate by 12th century scholar Zhu Xi • Urban popular culture made possible by printing - novels • Catholic Missionaries - Jesuit Matteo Ricci - make only small number of conversions due to exclusive nature of Christianity
Unification of Japan • Tokugawa Dynasty late 16th - early 17th century • Also use neo Confucianism and tightly restrict foreign influence
16th Century civil war - sengoku • 1600 - 1867 (Meijii Restoration) Tokugawa Shogunate rules • Also use term bakufu (tent government) • Have to control Daimyo (have vast territories) use policy of “alternate attendance”
Edicts against Europeans 1630s • Fear European alliances with daimyo and possibility of being conquered like the Philippines • Controls trade with Asian nations (still goes on) and limits Dutch to Nagasaki
Economic and Social Change • Agriculture increases - new crop strains, new water control, use of fertilizer & increase in production of silk, indigo,sake and cotton • Brings rapid demographic growth BUT 1700 - 1850 Demographic Transition. Limits in land available. Contraception, late marriage, “thinning out the rice shoots”
Push Daimyo and Samurai to become bureaucrats • Some slide into debt to rice brokers - definitely lose status.
As China merchants increasingly wealthy and prominent • Rice dealers, pawnbrokers and sake merchants control more wealth than the ruling elites - some purchase elite status.
Culture • Like Ming & Qing, Neo Confucianism is promoted • 18th century “native learning” - scorns Confucianism & Buddhism as alien insist on importance of folk tradition and Shinto religion. Xenophobic • Urban culture centers “floating worlds” -prose and theater - Kabuki and raku
Anti Christian Campaign 1587 - 1639 • Rulers fear religion can create cultural bridge with Daimyo. • Buddhist and Confucian scholars resent due to claim it is the only true doctrine
Dutch and other learning • Astronomy, medical and scientific literature translated into Japanese