Chapter 27

TRADITION AND CHANGE IN EAST ASIA

  1. The quest for political stability
  2. The Ming dynasty
  3. Ming government (1368-1644) drove the Mongols out of China
  4. Centralized government control; faced new invasions from the Mongols
  5. Rebuilt and repaired the Great Wall to prevent northern invasions
  6. Restored Chinese cultural traditions and civil service examinations
  7. Ming decline
  8. Coastal cities and trade disrupted by pirates, 1520s--1560s
  9. Government corruption and inefficiency caused by powerful eunuchs
  10. Famines and peasant rebellions during the 1630s and 1640s
  11. Manchu invaders with peasant support led to final Ming collapse, 1644
  12. The Qing dynasty
  13. The Manchus (1644-1911), invaders from Manchuria to the northeast
  14. Overwhelmed the Chinese forces; proclaimed the Qing dynasty, 1644
  15. Originally pastoral nomads, organized powerful military force
  16. Captured Korea and Mongolia first, then China
  17. Remained an ethnic elite; forbade intermarriage with Chinese
  18. Kangxi (1661-1722) and his reign
  19. Confucian scholar; effective, enlightened ruler
  20. Conquered Taiwan; extended to Mongolia, central Asia, and Tibet
  21. Qianlong (1736-1795) and his reign
  22. A sophisticated and learned ruler, poet, and artist
  23. Vietnam, Burma, and Nepal made vassal states of China
  24. Under his rule, China was peaceful, prosperous, and powerful
  25. The son of heaven and the scholar-bureaucrats
  26. Emperor considered "the son of heaven"
  27. Heavenly powers and an obligation to maintain order on the earth
  28. Privileged life, awesome authority, and paramount power
  29. Governance of the empire fell to civil servants, called scholar-bureaucrats
  30. Schooled in Confucian texts, calligraphy
  31. Had to pass rigorous examinations with strict quotas
  32. The examination system and Chinese society
  33. Civil service exam intensely competitive; few chosen for government positions
  34. Others could become local teachers or tutors
  35. System created a meritocracy with best students running the country
  36. Wealthy families had some advantages over poor families
  37. Confucian curriculum fostered common values
  38. Economic and social changes
  39. The patriarchal family
  40. The basic unit of Chinese society was the family; the highest value, filial piety
  41. Included duties of children to fathers, loyalty of subjects to the emperor
  42. Important functions of clan
  43. Gender relations: strict patriarchal control over all females
  44. Parents preferred boys over girls; marriage was to continue male line
  45. Female infanticide; widows encouraged to commit suicide
  46. Footbinding of young girls increased
  47. Lowest status person in family was a young bride
  48. Population growth and economic development
  49. Intense garden-style agriculture fed a large population
  50. American food crops in seventeenth century: maize, sweet potatoes, and peanuts
  51. Available land reached maximum productivity by mid-seventeenth century
  52. Population growth: 100 million in 1500, 225 million in 1750
  53. Manufacturing and trade benefited from abundant, cheap labor
  54. Exported large quantities of silk, porcelain, lacquerware, and tea
  55. Compensated for the exports by importing silver bullion
  56. Foreign trade brought wealth to the dynasty, but threatened scholar-bureaucrats
  57. Kangxi began policy of strict control on foreign contact
  58. Western merchants restricted to Macao and Quangzhou
  59. Government and technology
  60. Ming and Qing dynasties considered technological change disruptive
  61. With abundant skilled labor, labor-saving technologies unnecessary
  62. Gentry, commoners, soldiers, and mean people
  63. Privileged classes
  64. Scholar-bureaucrats and gentry occupied the most exalted positions
  65. Directed local government and society
  66. Peasants, the largest class, esteemed by Confucius for their honest labor
  67. Artisans and other skilled workers, some economic status
  68. Merchants often powerful and wealthy
  69. Lower classes or "mean people": slaves, servants, entertainers, prostitutes

  III.        The Confucian tradition and new cultural influences

  1. Neo-Confucianism and pulp fiction
  2. Confucian education supported by Min and Qing emperors
  3. Hanlin Academy in Beijing and provincial schools prepared students for civil service exams
  4. Imperial cultural projects: encyclopedias and libraries
  5. Popular culture expanded to include novels, romances, travel adventures
  6. The return of Christianity to China
  7. Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), an Italian Jesuit in the Ming court
  8. A learned man who mastered written and oral Chinese
  9. Impressed Chinese with European science and mathematics
  10. Popular mechanical devices: glass prisms, harpsichords, clocks
  11. Confucianism and Christianity
  12. Jesuits respectful of Chinese tradition, but won few converts
  13. Chinese had problems with exclusivity of Christianity
  14. End of the Jesuit mission
  15. Rival Franciscan and Dominican missionaries criticized Jesuits' tolerance
  16. When the pope upheld critics, emperor Kangxi denounced Christianity
  17. Jesuits had been an important bridge between Chinese and western cultures, introducing each to the achievements of the other.
  18. The unification of Japan
  19. The Tokugawa shogunate
  20. Tokugawa Ieyasu brought stability to Japan after 1600
  21. Japan divided into warring feudal estates
  22. As shogun, Ieyasu established a military government known as bakufu
  23. First need to control the daimyo, powerful local lords
  24. Each daimyo absolute lord within his domain
  25. Tokugawa shoguns required daimyo to live alternative years at Edo
  26. Bakufu controlled daimyo marriages, travel, expenditures
  27. Control of foreign relations
  28. The shoguns adopted policy of isolation from outside world, 1630s
  29. Foreign trade was under tight restriction at the port of Nagasaki
  30. Despite the policy, Japan was never completely isolated
  31. Economic and social change
  32. Population growth
  33. Agricultural production doubled between 1600 and 1700
  34. Population rose by a one-third from 1600 to 1700
  35. Then slow growth due to infanticide, contraception, late marriage, abortion
  36. Social change
  37. Peace undermined the social and economic role of warrior elites
  38. Merchants became prominent, and often wealthier than the ruling elites
  39. Neo-Confucianism and floating worlds
  40. Neo-Confucianism (loyalty, submission) became the official ideology of the Tokugawa
  41. Scholars of "native learning" tried to establish distinctive Japanese identity
  42. "Floating worlds"--centers of urban culture
  43. Included teahouses, theaters, brothels, public baths
  44. Ihara Saikaku, poet and novelist
  45. Kabuki theaters and bunraku (puppet) very popular
  46. Christianity and Dutch learning
  47. Christian missions, under Jesuits, had significant success in sixteenth century
  48. Anti-Christian campaign launched by Tokugawa shoguns
  49. Feared any movement that might help daimyo
  50. Buddhists and Confucians resented Christian exclusivity
  51. After 1612, Christians banned from islands, thousands killed
  52. Dutch learning was one limited connection to the outside world
  53. Dutch merchants permitted to trade at Nagasaki
  54. Japanese scholars were permitted to learn Dutch and, after 1720, to read Dutch books
  55. Shoguns became enthusiastic proponents of Dutch learning by mid-eighteenth century
  56. European art, medicine, and science began to influence Japanese scholars