Chapter 13 The Spread of Chinese

Civilization: Japan, Korea, and Vietnam

B
U
D
D
H
I
S
M
 Shinto
 The indigenous
Japanese Shinto view
of the natural and the
supernatural remained
central to Japanese
cultural development.
Japanese believed in
the kami, nature
spirits, of Japan
•Taika (645-710)
•Nara (710-784)
•Heian (794-857)
 Taika Reforms
 The central purpose of the Taika reforms was to
remake the Japanese monarch into an absolutist
Chinese-style emperor.
 “Son of Heaven” was added to the Japan’s rulers
name
 The imperial administration was revamped along
Chinese lines to create a Chinese style
bureaucracy.
 Peasant conscript army
Nara 710-784
Japanese Peasants
•In the 8th century the imperial family moved from
•Nara to Heian, later called Kyoto.
Failure of the Taiku Reforms
The empress Koken at Nara
Heian Era (hey-on)
 The power of the
aristocratic families to
build up rural estates
was fully restored
 Emperor gave up
scheme to build a
peasant conscript army
 Local militias were
established in the rural
areas.
 Court Life
 A closed world of luxury
and strict codes of polite
behavior
 Pursuit of beauty and
social interaction
 The Tale of Genji- Lady
Murasaki- the first novel
in any language
 The role of women at the court at Heian

 to be as poised and
cultured as men
 Played a creative role in
Japanese productions-
writing poems, playing
the flute or stringed
instruments, and in
court intrigue.
Lady Tale of Genji
Murasaaki
973-1025
Fujiwara
Family
***
The first
novel in
any
language
 The Fujiwara Family
While the emperor and
his court were admiring
the plum blossoms, the
Fujiwara shaped
imperial policy

They increased the

number of peasants
under their control as
they competed in this
with the Buddhist.
The Decline of the Fujiwara Family
 Heian Japan was the high point of Japanese
aristocratic culture, a golden age of peace and
harmony.
The Rise of the Provincial Warrior elites
during the tenth century
The Bushi were the warrior leaders in the
tenth century in Japan who controlled
provincial areas and ruled from small
fortresses in the countryside.
Bushi Fortresses
 The Samurai
• Mounted troops who owed loyalty to the
bushi.
• Devoted their lives to hunting, riding,
archery practice and other activities that
sharpened their martial skills.
• Until the 12th century, main weapon was
the longbow and carried straight swords
 The Samurai, Heroic Warfare
• From the 12th century on, Samurai
relied on superbly forged curved steel
swords
• Battles increasingly hinged upon duels
of great champions
 Seppuku
From the 12th century onward, Japan
was moving toward a feudal order that
was remarkably similar to that
developing in western Europe during
this same postclassical period.
 The Peasantry
• The rise of the Samurai frustrated all
hopes of creating a free peasantry.
• In the next centuries the Japanese
peasants were reduced to serfs.
Pure Land Sect
 The Era of Warlords: the11th & 12th
centuries
• Armed bands roamed the countryside and the
streets of the capital
• Rampant crime & civil strife
• From the 12th century onward, Japanese history
dominated by civil wars
• Chinese influence declined
• Artisan class,
• despite strife, produced sublime creations in
ceramics, landscape architecture, and religious
poetry
 Break with China
• The emperor no longer held to the pretense
of a “Mandate from Heaven”
• The bureaucracy and centralized power and
the emergence of a scholar-gentry did not
materialize.
• Buddhism became a distinctly Japanese
religion.
• By 838 Japan discontinued its embassies to
the Tang Court
• Merchants still made the trip to China
 Bakufu
• Between 1180 and 1185 the struggle between the
two major provincial families, the Taira and the
Minamoto, were decided in the Gempei Wars.
• Bakufu (military government at Kamakura)
• In 1185 the Minamoto defeated the Taira and
established the bakufu or military government
• The feudal age begins in 1185 with the victory of
the Minamoto
 Japan
Similarities System was grounded in
political values that embraced
all participants
The idea of mutual ties and
obligations was strong with rituals
and institutions that expressed
them.
Feudalism was highly militaristic,
with values such as physical
courage, personal or family
alliances loyalty, ritualized combat
and contempt for nonwarriors.
Differences Feudalistic ties relied on group and Feudalistic ties were sealed by
individual loyalties.
Legacy was group consciousness
which in collective decision
making teams were eventually
linked to the state.
Europe
System was grounded in
political values that embraced
all participants
The idea of mutual ties and
obligations was strong with rituals
and institutions that expressed
them.
Feudalism was highly militaristic,
with values such as physical
courage, personal or family
alliances loyalty, ritualized combat
and contempt for non-warriors.
negotiated contracts, with explicit
assurances of the advantages of the
arrangement.
Legacy was the reliance on
parliamentary institutions in which
participants could discuss and
defend legal interests against the
central monarch.
 Kamakura
• The emperor and his court were
preserved
• Real power rested with the Minamoto
and their samurai retainers.
• Yoritomo was the leader of the victorous
Minamoto
 Shogun
• The title given to the military leader of the
bakufu at Kamakura
 The Hojo Family
• The Death of Yoritomo
 The Hojo Family
• manipulated the Minamoto shoguns
• The Minamoto shoguns claimed to rule in
the name of the emperor at Kyoto
 Ashikaga Shogunate
• Ashikaga Takuaji led a revolt of the bushi
that overthrow the Kamakura regime and
established the Ashikaga Shogunate, 1336-
1573
• Flight of the emperor to Yoshino
 Civil War
• Full-scale civil war raged from 1467 to
1477.
• Koyoto was reduced to rubble
• Japan was divided into nearly three hundred
little kingdoms, whose warloards were
called Daimyos rather than bushi.
 Toward Barbarism? Military Division
and Social Change
• In the 15th and 16th centuries the chivalrous
qualities of the bushi deteriorated
• Despite chaos and suffering of peasant there
was economic and cultural growth
• New crops-soybeans
Zen Buddhism
Influence of Zen Buddhism
Zen sensibilities are prominent in the splendid
architectural
 Women in daimyo, warrior elite families
• By the 14th and 15th centuries, the trend in
daimyo families was toward primogeniture
• Women of the elite classes who no longer
shared in the division of the family estate.
o Women became defenseless appendages of
warrior husbands
• Japanese women of all classes lost the role
of celebrant in religious ceremonies
 Japan Europe

Differences Feudalistic ties relied on Feudalistic ties were

group and individual sealed by negotiated
loyalties. contracts, with explicit
assurances of the
advantages of the
arrangement.

Legacy was group Legacy was the reliance

consciousness which in on parliamentary
collective decision institutions in which
making teams were participants could discuss
eventually linked to the and defend legal interests
state. against the central
monarch.
 Japan
Similarities System was grounded in
political values that
embraced all participants
The idea of mutual ties and
obligations was strong with
rituals and institutions that
expressed them.
Feudalism was highly
militaristic, with values
such as physical courage,
personal or family alliances
loyalty, ritualized combat
and contempt for
nonwarriors.
Europe
System was grounded in
political values that
embraced all participants
The idea of mutual ties and
obligations was strong with
rituals and institutions that
expressed them.
Feudalism was highly
militaristic, with values
such as physical courage,
personal or family alliances
loyalty, ritualized combat
and contempt for
nonwarriors.