Japanese History
Essay Preview: Japanese History
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Buddhism started on the Northern edge of India and spread around to China. Japan then got Chinas version of Buddhism
Central them of reincarnation
The bodily desires are what drag us into the next body. Ridding yourself of these desires = Nirvana.
Buddha inst supernatural. Cyclical time not linear.
Theravada Hinayana ~ original Buddha
Mahayana ~ Japanese version of Buddhism (from China)
Prayer to those who have reached Nirvana
Shinto and Buddhists were able to get along
Shinto preoccupied with spiritual purity
Death is a very large spiritual impurity
Emperors death considered the ultimate and so they moved Capitals after every death
In 794 the government moves to Heian (Kyoto) and stayed there for over 1000 years
Often times they had puppet bosses with the real Emperor running things from behind the scenes
Regents from the Fujiwara family effectively ran the government with child emperors
When one of the retired emperors tries to regain power they call in the Samurai.
Minamoto Yoritomo won the Samurai Wars and named himself Shogun
Government then run by Shogun and called the Bakafu
Had the real power until the Hojo family
Bakafu was threatened by the Mongolian invasions
Were able to defeat the Mongols but were severely weakened in the process
No one effective ruler and so daimyo controlled their territory with taxes (rice)
First European contact (Portuguese) during this time~ around 1492
First Jesuit missionaries in 1549
Worked from top down. Converted some daimyo and Samurai
Wanted to learn gun technology
Around this time some daimyo were able to concentrate power enough to unify large pieces of Japan
Oda Nobunaga got half of Japan
Hideyoshi comes from a peasant family~ becomes a servant to Nobunaga and works his way up. Eventually becomes his advisor and takes over Nobunagas empire after his death
Hideyoshi conquers the other half of Japan
Hideyoshi then makes it so that no one could change classes anymore.
Hideyoshi tries to conquer Korea
He was friendly with Christian missionaries at first but then persecuted them savagely until his death
Civil War afterwards
Tokugawa Ieyasu wins
Tokugawa Bakafu created
Created a puppet government in Kyoto (Emperor) to rule from 1603-1888
Tokugawa Bakafu (Dynasty?)
Samurai- Ruling class
Peasants- farmers (were expected to be subservient / obedient)
Peasant life centered on the household and village
Wet rice farming took a lot of coordination because of the village wide irrigation systems
Taxes collected from the village as a whole. Villages had to work out individual contributions
Mobility actively discouraged
At family level individuality comes out
Quite often upon marriage the couple lives with the husbands family
Also arranged marriages can put extra stress on the wife
Samurai more likely to be an arranged marriage as compared to peasants
viii)
After the Tokugawa Bakafu it makes it so that Samurai often times dont have to give their lives in service to their daimyo anymore.
Tokugawa Ieyasu creates the Bakafu in 1603
Most of Japan ruled by daimyo
Central Government (Bakafu) would not interfere in their Han (territory)
Every daimyo had a large army of Samurai
Edo=Yedo (modern day Tokyo)
Forced daimyo to either spend time their selves or keep their family in Edo
Could only bring a small force of Samurai with them into Edo
This system drained off money from the daimyo
The Bakafu rearranged the map and assigned the most suspicious daimyo very far away from Edo
Han of Choshu and Han of Satsuma end up overthrowing the Bakafu and were indeed the furthest
In a lot of ways it is a feudal system
Eventually after long periods of no fighting Samurai class become more administrative
viii)
Daimyo reside in Fortified castles
Towns grew around them
Luxuries available in the han were available here
Some han dont pay the low level Samurai well and thus they are forced to basically live like peasants
Japan is extremely status conscious during this time
Edo becomes the massive city under the Tokugawa Dynasty instead of Kyoto
Putting-out system Ð- all work done by hand so houses specialized in specific tasks and then passed along to another house. Central businessman coordinates it all.
Main rice trade centers were in Edo and Osaka ( the two major cities)