East Asian Stability Meets Foreign Traders

From the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, why

expand when you’re the best?

Ming Dynasty

Everything continued to

grow in the early Ming

Dynasty

Wanted to be the opposite

from the Yuan dynasty so

Mongol dress and names

were discouraged, and

brought back the civil

service exam

Tried to expand into

Mongolia, but failed to hold

the conquered territory and

instead restored and

expanded the Great Wall

The Voyages of Zheng He

A Muslim Admiral

who started his first

of 7 voyages in 1405

The Fleet at it’s

height included more

than 300 ships and

25,000 people

Brought back exotic

treasures including a

giraffe

The downside of his VoyagesConfucian scholars believed

that interaction and trade with

foreign cultures threatened

China’s social order due to the

agrarian lifestyle

Emperor Zhu Gaozhi thought

the expeditions were too

expensive

Made building a ship with

more than two masts a

punishable offense

A positive effect was it

stopped pirate activities off the

coast of China

A Portuguese Trading

Empire in AsiaPortugal visited China in 1514

after constructing ports along

the Indian Ocean

This led to others trying to get

into china including Jesuits

Tried to win them over with

their knowledge of science, but

the Chinese considered them

barbaric

Because the Portuguese

traders ignored their

government, the British

eventually forced them out of

South Asia in 1620

Qing Dynasty

The famine in 1644 led to a

peasant revolt and the

Manchu from Manchuria took

power over the next 40 years

and held it for almost 250

years

They were different like the

Mongols before them, but less

tolerant having men dress in

the Manchu style wearing

queues

They did, however, maintain

the bureaucracy and civil

service exams

Emperor KangxiPresided over the main period

of stability and expansion

Was tolerant towards Catholics

and Jesuits were respected

because they learned to teach

Chinese, after Kangxi this was

not the case

authorized the Kangxi

Dictionary with 42,000 Chinese

characters, also sponsored a

Collection of Books, similar to

Diderot’s Encyclopedia during

Enlightenment France

Emperor Qianlong

Sent armies to Tibet to install the

Dalai Lama on the throne there

Needing funds they sold limited

trading privileges to European

powers, keeping them in Canton

The bureaucracy became corrupt

later on with people paying high

taxes and rebelling

China was a proto-industial society,

while some industry existed, many

still worked on farms

Still sold Tea, silk and porcelain to

Europe and India

Chinese Society

Very conservative adherence to

Confucianism

Women had lower status, not

allowed formal education, and

widows could not remarry, and

those who committed suicide were

honored

Foot binding was practiced by the

elite as a form of beauty and

control

Some argue that the modern novel

can be traced back to Journey to

the West, a fictional version of

Xuanzang’s pilgrimage to Buddhist

sites in India

Japan

Gunpowder weapons helped three

powerful Dynamo unify Japan

Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi

Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu,

this took until 1616

Formed the Tokugawa Shogunate

to centralize control over a feudal

system

To keep the Diamyo under control,

he reduced them to landlords who

managed territories, or hans,

rather than independent leaders

Japanese Social Changes

Samurai warrior class declined in

importance, but remained

towards the top of the social

pyramid

Merchants were still low, but

some became very rich

The Eta class at the bottom is

comparable to the untouchables

in India, preforming unclean jobs

such as executioner and butcher

Silk, Agriculture, and silver

production increased and even

though they restricted fearing

trade, Chinese, Dutch, and

Korean traders did well in Japan

Japanese Art, Lit, and

contact with EuropeWealthy merchants and diary

constructed and decorated

elaborate residences

the poet Matsuo Basho,

developed the haiku

Stylized dance-drama called

Kabuki Theater became

popular

When Christian missionaries

and converts started

destroying Buddhist shines,

they banned Christian worship

in 1587 and expelled

missionaries, also banned

construction of large ships

KoreaRemained isolated

from the rest of the

world earning the title

“Hermit Kingdom”

Korea still continued to

be strongly influenced

by China and even with

their help turned away

a Japanese invasion in

1592

The Manchu took it

over in the 1630’s to

bring Korea under

China’s control