Nicholas Wallach

Pd.2
Chapter 20 outline
Northern Eurasia, 1500-1800

Japanese ReuniIication

P-Japanese experienced internal and external military conIlicts, as well as political groth and
strengthening, and expanded commercial and cultural contacts.
E-N/A
R-N/A
C-Along with its culturally homogenous population and natural boundaries, Japan`s smaller size
made the process oI political uniIication shorter than in the great empires oI China and Russia.
I-Japan also diIIered in its responses to new contacts with western Europeans.

Civil War and the Invasion oI Korea, 1500-1603

P-In the twelIth century Japan`s imperial unity had disintegrated, and the country Iell under the
rule oI numerous warlords known as daimyo. Each oI the daimyo had his own castle town, a
small bureaucracy, and an army Ior warriors, the samurai. The emperor and shogun were
symbols oI national unity but lacked political power.
E-Korea generally accepted a subordinate relationship with its giant neighbor and paid tribute to
the Chinese dynasty in power.
R-N/A
C-The Korean and Japanese languages are closely related, but dominant inIluence on Korean
culture had been China.
I-N/A

The Tokugawa Shogunate, to 1800

P-AIter Hideyoshi`s demise, Japanese leaders brought the civil wars to an end, and in 1603 they
established a more centralized government. The shoguns created a new administrative capital
at Edo. Although the Tokugawa Shogunate gave Japan more political unity than the islands
had seen in centuries, the regional lords, the daimyo, still had a great deal oI power and
autonomy.
E-Trade along the well-maintained road between Edo and the imperial capital oI Kyoto
promoted the development oI the Japanese economy and the Iormation oI the other trading
centers. In some ways, economic integration was more a Ieature oI Tokugawa Japan than was
political centralization. The shogun paid the lords in rice, and the lords paid their Iollowers in
rice.
R-N/A
C-N/A
I-N/A



Japan and the European

P-In 1613 Date Masamune, the Iierce and independent daimyo oI northern Honshu, sent his own
embassy to the Vatican, by way oI the Philippines and Mexico City. Some missionaries leIt
Japan, but others took their movement underground. The government began its persecutions
in the earnest in 1617, and the beheadings, cruciIixions, and Iorced recantations over the next
several decades destroyed almost the entire Christian community.
E-The Japanese also welcomed new trade with merchants Irom distant Portugal, Spain, the
Netherlands, and England, but the government closely regulated their activities. Aside Irom
the brieI boom in porcelain exports in the seventeenth century, Iew Japanese goods went to
Europe, and not much Irom Europe Iound a market in Japan. The Japanese sold the Dutch
copper and silver, which the Dutch exchanged in China Ior silks that they then resold in
Japan.
R-Portuguese and Spanish merchant ships also brought Catholic missionaries. By 1580 more
than 100,000 Japanese had become Christians, and one daimyo gave Jesuit missionaries the
port city oI Nagasaki. Some daimyo converts ordered their subjects to become Christian as
well.
C-N/A
I-Direct contacts with Europeans Irom the mid-sixteenth century presented Japan with new
opportunities and problems.

Elite Decline and Social Crisis

P-In more remote provinces, where the lords promoted new settlements and agricultural
expansion, the rate oI economic growth Iar outstripping the growth rate in central Japan. Also
destabilizing the Tokugawa government in the 1700s was the shogunate`s inability to stabilize
rice prices and halt the economic decline oI the samurai. The Tokugawa government realized
that the rice brokers might easily enrich themselves at the expense oI the samurai iI the price oI
rice and the rate oI interest were not strictly controlled.
E-To Iinance their living, the samurai had to convert their rice to cash in the market.
R-N/A
C-N/A
I-N/A

The Later Ming and Early Qing Empires

P-N/A
E-China had an expanding economy and European trade.
R-China had an growing doubts with Christianity.
C-N/A
I-N/A





The Ming Empire, 1500-1644

P-N/A
E-Ming ManuIactures had transIormed the global economy with their techniques Ior their
techniques Ior the assembly-line production oI porcelain.
R-N/A
C-N/A
I-An international market eager Ior Ming porcelain, as well as Ior silk and lacquered Iurniture,
stimulated the commercial development oI East Asia, the Indian Ocean, and Europe.