Chapter 20: East Asian Stability Meets Foreign Traders

Question 1

Jesuits

Answer 1

Portuguese Jesuits tried to win over the Chinese court elite with scientific and technical knowledge. Jesuit missionaries in Macau impressed the Chinese with their learning but were unable to win over many converts among the hostile scholar gentry, who considered them barbaric.

Question 2

Kangxi Dictionary

Answer 2

Emperor Kangxi was a Confucian scholar and poet himself, and authorized the compilation of the Kangxi Dictionary of around 42,000 characters, which became the [1700s-1800s] standard Chinese dictionary.

Question 3

Collection of Books

Answer 3

Emperor Kangxi, in addition to authorizing the Kangxi Dictionary, sponsored a massive Collection of Books.

Question 4

Journey to the West

Answer 4

[1590s] Some scholars argue that the modern novel can be traced back to this book, which was a fictional version of Xuanzang’s pilgrimage to Buddhist sites in India.

Question 5

The Golden Lotus

Answer 5

[1610] Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng published this book, China’s first realistic novel.

Question 6

The Dream of the Red Chamber

Answer 6

[1791] This book was published by Cao Xueqin, which was a romance novel regarding life among the 18th century aristocracy written in the Chinese vernacular based on Mandarin Chinese, a group of related languages spoken in northern and southwestern China.

Question 7

Matsuo Basho

Answer 7

[1644-1694] This Japanese poet developed and elevated the brief haiku form of poetry.

Question 8

haiku

Answer 8

The Japanese poet Matsuo Basho developed and created haiku, a brief form of poetry.

Question 9

kabuki theaters

Answer 9

Kabuki theaters were stylized dance-dramas which became extremely popular with audiences, who would often spend entire days watching performances.

Question 10

Macau

Answer 10

Macau was the area that the Jesuit missionaries who tried to convert the Chinese were from. They impressed the Chinese with their scientific and technical learning but were unable to win over many converts among the hostile scholar gentry, who considered them barbaric.

Question 11

queues

Answer 11

The Manchu were less tolerant than Mongol leaders and resolved to make their culture dominant in China. Thus, men were obligated to dress in the Manchu style, wearing queues, or braided pigtails, and those who refused were executed.

Question 12

daimyo

Answer 12

Conflicts between landowning aristocrats called daimyo left Japan in disarray. Each daimyo had his own army of warriors called samurai, ambition to conquer more territory, and power to rule his fiefdoms as he saw fit. Gunpowder weapons would help three powerful daimyo to gradually unify Japan: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Question 13

ronin

Answer 13

As civil wars ended in Japan, the samurai warrior class declined in importance and many became unemployed. So, some became ronin, samurai without masters.

Question 14

Eta

Answer 14

The Japanese social system had Eta at the bottom, who were ostracized because they performed unclean jobs like executioner and butcher. They were tightly regulated by the Japanese gov’t unti their [1871] emancipation.

Question 15

Ming Dynasty

Answer 15

[1368-1644] This dynasty overthrew the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. The Ming era would oversee the arrival of Europeans like the Portuguese, who tried to encroach on the Asian trade network. This dynasty wanted to return the beliefs and customs of China’s past; to do so, they discouraged Mongol dress and names, promoted Confucianism, brought back the civil service exam, improved education under a national school system, and reestablished the bureaucracy. Emperor Yongle would send Zheng He, a Muslim admiral, to voyages to display the might of the empire and legitimize his reign. They would eventually fall to the Manchu.

Question 16

Qing Dynasty

Answer 16

[1644-1911] The powerful Manchu of Manchuria seized power over China from Li Zicheng and established the Qing Dynasty.

Question 17

Beijing

Answer 17

Beijing was the northern capital of Ming China.

Question 18

Nanjing

Answer 18

Nanjing was the southern capital of Ming China.

Question 19

Forbidden City

Answer 19

In Ming Beijing, members of the royal family lived in the Forbidden City, a walled compound of royal palaces.

Question 20

Zheng He

Answer 20

1371-1433] Zheng He was a Muslim admiral who the Ming emperor Yongle sent [1405] to start seven voyages across the world to display the emperor’s strength and legitimacy as ruler. He traveled to areas throughout Indonesia, Ceylon, Arabia, and Africa. Zheng’s fleet was impressive, as it included more than 300 ships with 28,000 people at its height. The expeditions opened up new markets for Chinese goods and a new understanding of the world beyond China’s borders. However, his voyages were controversial because Confucianism’s stable, agrarian lifestyle clashed with foreign trade and cultures. Some critics looked down upon other cultures, deeming them barbaric and vastly inferior to Chinese culture, and Emperor Yongle’s successor, his son Zhu Gaozhi, thought the expeditions were too expensive, and cut off his travels. He also discouraged all Chinese from sailing away from China by prohibiting the building of a ship with more than two masts.

Question 21

Li Zicheng

Answer 21

[1644] A famine arose, so a minor court official named Li Zicheng led a peasant revolt and conquered the Chinese capital of Beijing. The Manchu saw the overthrow of the Ming Dynasty as an opportunity to seize power, so they easily moved into China to pretend to aid the Ming, but the Manchu easily ousted the inexperienced Li Zicheng and declared a new Qing Dynasty.

Question 22

Kangxi

Answer 22

[1661-1722] Emperor Kangxi presided over a period of stability and expansion in China, sending forces into Taiwan, Mongolia, and Central Asia and incorporating those areas into the empire. China also imposed a protectorate (“a state that is controlled/protected by another”) over Tibet, the mountainous land north of India, a policy reflected in China’s control of the region today. As a scholar and poet himself, he authorized the compilation of the Kangxi Dictionary, with about 42,000 characters, which became the [1700s-1800s] standard Chinese dictionary. He also sponsored a massive Collection of Books.

Question 23

Tibet

Answer 23

Tibet is the mountainous land north of India which China imposed a protectorate over.

Question 24

Emperor Qianlong

Answer 24

[1736-1795] This ruler initiated military campaigns in lands west of China, which led to the annexation of Xinjiang accompanied by mass killings of the local Muslim population, called Uighurs, Qianlong also sent armies into Tibet to install the Dalai Lama on the throne there. He brutally suppressed the White Lotus Rebellion by peasants against high taxes and for the return of the Ming.

Question 25

Xianjiang

Answer 25

This is an area that was annexed by China during Emperor Qianlong’s rule. He ordered the mass killings of the local Muslim population, called Uighurs.

Question 26

White Lotus Rebellion

Answer 26

During the later part of Emperor Qianlong’s reign, the traditionally efficient Chinese bureaucracy became corrupt. So, a group of peasants organized the [1796-1804] White Lotus Rebellion against the high taxes and for the restoration of the Ming Dynasty. The Qing gov’t suppressed the uprising brutally, killing around 100,000.

Question 27

Oda Nobunaga

Answer 27

He was the first of three powerful daimyo who gradually unified Japan. Armed with muskets purchased from Portuguese traders, he and his samurai [1568] took over Kyoto. He then began to extend his power, forcing daimyo in the lands around Kyoto to submit. He had unified about ⅓ of what is today Japan before his [1582] assassination.

Question 28

Kyoto

Answer 28

Oda Nobunaga was the first of three powerful daimyo who gradually unified Japan. Armed with muskets purchased from Portuguese traders, he and his samurai [1568] took over Kyoto. He then began to extend his power, forcing daimyo in the lands around Kyoto to submit.

Question 29

Toyotomi Hideyoshi

Answer 29

Oda Nobunaga’s successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, continued expanding the territory until most of what we now know as Japan was under his control. [1598] He died.

Question 30

Tokugawa Ieyasu

Answer 30

[1598] Following the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, [1600-1616] Tokugawa Ieyasu took over and shifted the center of power to the city of Edo. His successors would [mid-1800s] continue to rule Japan into the era known as the Great Period of Peace.

Question 31

Period of Great Peace

Answer 31

This was the era in which Tokugawa Ieyasu’s successors ruled Japan.

Question 32

Tokugawa Shogunate

Answer 32

This gov’t set about reorganizing the governance of Japan in order to centralize control over a feudal system. Japan was divided into 250 hans, or territories, each of which was controlled by a daimyo who had his own army and was fairly independent. However, the Tokugawa gov’t required daimyo to maintain residences in both their home territory and also in the capital; if the daimyo himself was visiting his home territory, his family had to stay in Tokyo, essentially as hostages. This kept the daimyo under the control of the shogunate, reducing them to landlords who managed the hands rather than independent leaders.

Question 33

hans

Answer 33

Hans were territories within Japan. The nation was divided into 250 of them, each of which was controlled by a daimyo who had his own army and was fairly independent.

Question 34

“Hermit Kingdom”

Answer 34

Except for its close links with China, as the Ming had helped Korea fight off Japanese invasions, Korea largely remained isolated from the rest of the world. This earned the nation the title of “Hermit Kingdom.”

Question 35

monopoly

Answer 35

A monopoly is complete control over a market. The Portuguese built forts from Hormuz (Persian Gulf) to Goa (western India) to Malacca (Malay Peninsula) in order to establish a monopoly. They specifically wished to control the spice trade in the area and to license all vessels trading between Malacca.

Question 36

Guangzhou (Canton)

Answer 36

The Qing Dynasty needed funds, so it sold limited trading privileges to the European powers, but confined them to Guangzhou (Canton). The British were not satisfied with these limited privileges, so they asked for [1793] more trading rights. The emperor responded with a letter to King George III stating that the Chinese had no need for British manufactured goods.

Question 37

proto-industrial

Answer 37

China was still a proto-industrial society in that although some industry existed, the vast majority of people still worked on farms. However, as the population grew, the country experienced a land shortage, which the gov’t attempted to rectify by setting laws that limited the amount of land that people could own.