China and Japan
Page 9
But when the Japa nese attacked Chinese forces in Haengju, near Seoul, they
were in turn defeated by the Chinese. The Japa nese were able to use mus-
kets, which they had learned how to make from Eu ro pe ans, but the Chi-
nese also had good technology, such as cannons that they had learned to
make from the Portuguese.
The Koreans had by then become excellent shipbuilders. Before the in-
vasion, Korean admiral Yi Sun- sin had been building up the Korean naval
force with highly maneuverable armored “turtle ships” that had very strong
firepower. Between May and September 1592, the naval force under Ad-
miral Yi fought ten battles with the Japa nese naval force along the coast of
Korea. The Korean ships were superior to the Japa nese ships, and Admiral
Yi Sun- sin was clever in surprising and outmaneuvering the Japa nese. In
each encounter Admiral Yi was successful in defeating the Japa nese. His
control of the sea lanes around Korea made it impossible for Japan to rein-
force its troops in Korea and to send in needed supplies. To feed their
troops, the Japa nese emptied out Korea’s large granaries, but their food sup-
plies still remained very tight.
During the first year of the war, an estimated one- third of the Japa nese
troops died— from fighting, cold weather, hunger, and disease.4 By the end
of the year, Japa nese forces had settled into forts from where they could de-
fend themselves, but they were unable to advance or to control the rural
areas. In April 1593 the Chinese and Japa nese, recognizing the stalemate,
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reached a truce in which the Japa nese agreed to pull back their troops from
Seoul to encampments in the Pusan area. In May 1593 Chinese negotiators
traveled to Nagoya to engage in truce talks. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who be-
lieved that Japan was the land of the gods and took a bold stance as if the
Japa nese had won the war, proposed that a portion of Korea be ceded to
Japan, and that Korea send several high officials to Japan as hostages. The
Ming demanded that the Japa nese resume tributary relations to subordi-
nate themselves to China. The truce talks continued for more than two
years, but the positions of the two sides remained far apart.
Although some Japa nese troops returned to Japan, other troops re-
mained in camps not far from Pusan. From 1593 to 1597, some of these
Japa nese even engaged in farming in Korea to supply food to their men.
They retained the capacity to defend themselves and when attacked they
could successfully ward off their attackers.
In August 1597 Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched a second invasion to end
the stalemate and enable his troops to march on to China. This time the
Koreans and the Ming forces were better prepared and they quickly mobi-
lized to stop the Japa nese attack. Japa nese forces advanced westward into
Cholla in southwestern Korea and then marched northward toward Seoul,
where they met great opposition.
Jealous Korean officials had replaced the hero Admiral Yi Sun- sin, and
in this second invasion, Japa nese naval forces initially defeated the Korean
ships that tried to stop them, enabling the Japa nese troops to get ashore. In
desperation, the Koreans brought out of retirement Admiral Yi Sun- sin,
who outmaneuvered Japan’s naval forces in a number of battles, destroying
Japa nese ships and blocking them from reinforcing their troops. Early in
1598 the Ming sent in some 150,000 troops. The Japa nese Army was
stopped on both land and sea. In mid-1598, in the midst of these battles,
Toyotomi Hideyoshi died of natu ral causes. His successors did not pro-
voke the fear among the Japa nese that he had, and therefore they could not
force as many Japa nese men to join their armies. Although the Japa nese
leaders initially tried to keep the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi a secret,
they realized that even if he had lived they had no hope of victory, so they
began to withdraw. Chinese and Korean troops massed in large numbers
to attack the Japa nese, causing them heavy losses as they retreated. The
great Korean hero Admiral Yi Sun- sin died during the naval battles.
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The war was a lose- lose- lose situation, a disaster for Japan, for China,
and for Korea. Although the Japa nese won many battles and benefited from
some of the Korean artisans who were taken to Japan as prisoners, Japan
suffered great losses and earned long- lasting enmity from both China and
Korea.
Even though Chinese casualties were high, Korean casualties were much
higher. Many cultural trea sures were destroyed, the economy suffered great
losses, and war time food shortages were difficult to overcome. The success of
Admiral Yi Sun- sin, however, made him Korea’s greatest national hero of all
time. His statue still stands in Seoul, a symbol of the anti- Japanese strug gle.
Although the Koreans and Chinese fought as allies, many Koreans were
resentful of the Chinese troops who had ravaged the countryside as they
fought and arrogantly ordered around the Korean troops. The Koreans were
also upset with the Chinese leaders who, after the fighting, negotiated with
the Japa nese without including the Koreans in the talks.
For China, the fighting was a drain on Ming resources, including people,
finances, and military equipment. This weakened the Ming’s ability to re-
sist the Jurchens, later known as the Manchus, who were strengthening their
base in Manchuria in preparation for fighting the Ming and establishing
their own Qing dynasty.
Local Development in the Tokugawa and the Qing
The Tokugawa period (1603–1868) and the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) were
each able to achieve relative stability for more than two and a half centu-
ries, but the number of contacts between them was limited. The system es-
tablished by the Tokugawa led to local governance structures that strength-
ened local economic and educational development. The system established
by the Qing enabled that large, diverse country to avoid strong local threats
to the dynasty, but it put a damper on local economic development.
Strug gles in Japan continued after the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi in
1598. He had appointed a Council of Regents to support his young son as
his successor, but the most power ful of the regents, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and
his allies decisively defeated those supporting Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s son in
a huge battle at Sekigahara, west of today’s Nagoya. The battle ended the
period of Warring States, and in 1603 the emperor formally named Tokugawa
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Ieyasu as shogun. Tokugawa Ieyasu then began the pro cess of establishing
a new order at home and a new pattern for dealing with foreign countries.
Unlike Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa had no ambition for foreign con-
quest; he first concentrated on building a stable domestic system and then
on trying to overcome Korean and Chinese anger over Toyotomi Hide-
yoshi’s invasion and to improve relations with those countries. Although
some fo
reigners mistakenly later described the Tokugawa policy as exclu-
sion ( sakoku), in fact Tokugawa Ieyasu and his successors, like the founder
of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, sought to maintain foreign trade
and relations with foreign countries but to keep them under tight control.
Tokugawa Ieyasu was remarkably successful in his efforts to establish a
stable system that brought domestic peace. He passed on the position of
shogun to his son in 1605, but in fact remained leader until his death in 1616,
giving him time to eliminate all opposition and establish the new system.
His son, in turn, passed the leadership on to his son in 1623. Ieyasu knew
he did not have the power to eliminate the other daimyo, so he established
a system of centralized feudalism whereby he kept family hostages from 270
daimyo in Edo (which after the Meiji Restoration was renamed Tokyo),
where he erected the castle that, after the Meiji Restoration, would become
the imperial palace. He acknowledged that he could not eliminate the daimyo
who fought against him at Sekigahara (notably Choshu and Satsuma), so he
gave them generous amounts of land and located them far away from
Edo, where they posed less risk. His allies at Sekigahara were given land
closer to Edo, and relatives of the Tokugawa directly ruled critical loca-
tions, such as Nagasaki, the only port on the four main islands that re-
mained open for international trade.
In contrast to the Qing system, the Japa nese system for maintaining
control over local areas, by keeping hostages in Edo while permitting daimyo
to build up their domains, al owed for strong local development. Each daimyo
was deeply committed to the long- term development of his own domain, and
therefore supported the economic development and education of every one
in the domain. Thus, the Japa nese system of “centralized feudalism”—
maintaining tight national control while allowing strong regional develop-
ment by the daimyo— gave Japan a strong economic and educational base to
face the Westerners who began arriving in the nineteenth century.
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The Manchus, like the Tokugawa, proved successful in 1644 in estab-
lishing a stable new structure that lasted until the 1911 Revolution. By 1681,
when the Manchus put down a revolt by the Three Feudatories (Fujian,
Guangdong, and Yunnan), they were sufficiently unified that Japa nese of-
ficials worried about the danger of a pos si ble invasion. Qing officials were
selected by examinations that tested their ability to devote themselves to
years of rigorous study and their knowledge of the Confucian classics. They
were not allowed to serve in their home area, so they could not link up with
local people to resist the national leadership, and they were rotated among
regions after two to three years to ensure they did not form deep roots in
one area. Therefore, officials had little incentive to promote long- term de-
velopment in the place where they were assigned. Inspectors were sent out
to make sure officials did not form special relations with the people they
governed, and officials were judged by their ability to maintain peace in their
districts. This system had remarkable staying power, but it did not support
strong local economic development.
Tokugawa Relations with China and Other Countries
When he came to power the Tokugawa shogun feared that Chris tian ity,
especially Catholicism, being promoted by Portuguese Jesuits, was causing
disorder. In 1639, following a rebellion by Christian peasants in Kyushu, he
banned trade with Portugal and Spain. Convinced that the Dutch, even if
Protestant, were the Eu ro pean trading partners least likely to cause control
prob lems, the shogun placed the Dutch on Dejima, an artificial island built
near Nagasaki, where the Japanese could continue trading. Dutch traders
thus became an impor tant win dow on developments in the West. Through
the Dutch, the Japa nese learned about Western medicine and military
technology.
The shogun allowed trade with China to continue, and even though
Japa nese residents were not allowed to travel abroad, Chinese could live in
Nagasaki. In 1689, to control smuggling, the Chinese were required to
move to a special compound within Nagasaki that eventually became a
Chinatown. In effect, the Chinese residents of Nagasaki managed the
trade with China.
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From 1611 to 1625 a series of letters were exchanged between Chinese
and Japa nese officials concerning the possibility of reestablishing tribute re-
lations. The Chinese were dissatisfied with Japan’s apologies for the inva-
sion of Korea and with Japa nese efforts to apprehend “Japa nese pirates.” But
the key issue was whether Japan would accept a subordinate status. The cor-
respondence began with a Japa nese letter to the governor of Fujian. It was
signed by a foreign- policy adviser to Tokugawa rather than by Tokugawa or
the emperor, and the Chinese did not accept it as a proper document since
it did not come from the emperor. Additionally, in this letter the Japa nese
had used Japanese- era names for the calendar years rather than Chinese- era
names. The Chinese were slow to respond, but in 1619 they hinted that there
might be some pro gress toward resuming formal relations if Japan were to
end all piracy. The Japa nese discussed the proposal for some time, but in
1621 they made it clear that they would not accept use of Chinese- era
names, which would indicate that the Chinese emperor had a higher status
than the Japa nese emperor. The Japa nese thus chose not to be part of the
Chinese world order. In 1635, when all Chinese trade in Japan was confined
to Nagasaki, Chinese ships had to be certified to enter the harbor, and not
all Chinese ships were granted such a certification. China’s ac cep tance of
this certification system gave the Japa nese a sense of superiority over the
Chinese, and the procedure allowed private trade to continue even though
the two governments had no official relations until the 1870s.
To deal with others— the Koreans, the Rus sians, and the Ryukyus—
Tokugawa delegated much of the responsibility to the daimyo whose do-
main was closest geo graph i cally to the people in question. The Tsushima
daimyo, on the island closest to Korea, was assigned responsibility for man-
aging relations with Korea. The Matsumae daimyo, the only Japa nese
daimyo on the northern island of Ezo (Hokkaido), was assigned responsi-
bility for dealing with the Rus sians and the Ainu, a minority group living
on Ezo. The Satsuma daimyo on the southern end of Kyushu managed re-
lations with the Ryukyu Islands.
Ming Loyalists Flee to Taiwan and Japan
After the Manchus defeated the Ming in northern China and established
the Qing dynasty in 1644, Ming loyalists who fled from the north to Fujian
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province in the south were able to join other Ming loyalists and continue
their re sis tance for some de cades. T
he leader of these Ming forces was
Zheng Zhilong (1604–1661), who was originally from Quanzhou in Fujian.
As a youth Zheng had gone to Macao, where he had learned Portuguese.
He then went to Taiwan, and from there to Hirado, just north of Naga-
saki, where he arrived at age twenty. As both a business entrepreneur and a
pirate, he developed many contacts with the local Japa nese. While in Hirado
he married a Japa nese woman, Tagawa Matsu, who gave birth to a son, Zheng
Chenggong (Koxinga). After several years, Zheng Zhilong returned to
Fujian, but Koxinga remained in Hirado with his mother until the age of
seven when, with her, he moved to Fujian to join his father.
Some of the Ming loyalists hoped to use the relationships between Chi-
nese and Japa nese traders to win Japa nese support for their efforts to de-
feat the Manchus and reestablish Ming rule in Beijing. Many Chinese mi-
grants to Nagasaki had come from areas in Fujian that were controlled by
Zheng Zhilong. According to historian Ronald Toby, the first contact by
Ming loyalists seeking Japa nese support was made in 1645 by Lin Gao, an
associate of Zheng Zhilong then living in Fujian. Lin Gao was dispatched
to Hirado where he, like Zheng Zhilong, had friends from earlier years, in
the hope that they might help him line up support for the Ming loyalists.
When Lin Gao arrived in Nagasaki in 1645, he brought a letter from
Admiral Cui Zhi, an assistant to Zheng Zhilong, with a request for
Japa nese support against the Manchus. The request was forwarded to
Edo, where it was seriously discussed for some weeks. In the end, Japa nese
officials, cautious because of so many uncertainties about the situation in
China, de cided not to send aid at the time but to continue to study the
situation. The Japa nese dispatched a number of people to China to gather
information about the efforts by Ming loyalists to overcome the Qing. The
Japa nese also gathered information about China from Chinese and Dutch
merchants in Nagasaki; from Satsuma, which received reports of the strug gle
via the Ryukyu Islands; and from Tsushima, which received reports via
Korea.
As Manchu forces advanced southward in 1645, to avoid large- scale
fighting in Fujian they made an offer to Zheng Zhilong, hoping that he
would abandon his anti- Manchu position. If he did, he would then be re-