warded with a position in the new government in Beijing. After some
. 55 .
china and japan
negotiations, Zheng accepted the offer and moved to Beijing. His son
Koxinga, however, remained a Ming loyalist and assumed command of
those who had formerly served under his father. Koxinga, like his father,
sought Japa nese support through the Japa nese authorities in Nagasaki.
Although there is no rec ord of the Japa nese providing such support,
Koxinga’s junks continued to operate in Nagasaki and the loyalists even
acquired some armaments through Nagasaki, despite the Tokugawa ban
on exports that had existed since 1621.
One of the people the Japa nese used to follow the developments of the
Ming loyalists was the prominent Chan monk Yin Yuan (in Japa nese, Ingen),
who was from a rural area near Fuzhou in Fujian province, where he main-
tained contacts with the loyalists. At the time he was in power, Toyotomi
Hideyoshi had been worried about the disruptive potential of the Chris-
tians converted by the Portuguese Jesuits who had come to Japan, and in
1587 he banned the practice of Chris tian ity. In 1640 the shogun required
that all the Chinese living in Nagasaki be registered under a Buddhist
temple. The Buddhist temples had some monks, originally from Fujian,
but there were not enough monks to serve all those registered, so the Bud-
dhists appealed to Yin Yuan to come to Japan. He initially hesitated, but in
1654, after a fourth invitation, he went to Nagasaki.
Although the Japa nese required all Chinese residents in Japan at that
time to live in Nagasaki, they made an exception for Yin Yuan. After a year
in Nagasaki, he went to a location near Kyoto where he was permitted to
build a new temple, the Fumonji. In 1658, he was given an audience with
the shogun, in much the same manner that the shogun welcomed diplo-
mats from other countries. The shogun, Ietsuna, used the occasion to gain
information about the Ming loyalists.
Koxinga’s loyalist forces were strong enough to mount an attack on Nan-
jing in 1659, but they were defeated. The Qing dynasty pressured Zheng
Zhilong to urge his son Koxinga to yield, but Koxinga refused and the Qing
executed his father. Koxinga and some 25,000 troops fled to Taiwan, where
they overwhelmed the Dutch fort of Zeelandia in southern Taiwan and es-
tablished control over the island. However, in the following year, at the age
of thirty- seven, Koxinga died of malaria. Koxinga’s successors surrendered
to the Qing dynasty in 1683 and the Qing incorporated Taiwan as part of
Fujian province.
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Trade without Transformative Learning, 838–1862
The Japa nese government had provided no formal support to Koxinga,
but in Japa nese lit er a ture he became a legend and a celebrated hero. Chika-
matsu Monzaemon’s puppet play, the Battles of Koxinga, was a leading hit
in Tokugawa theater from 1715 to 1717, and it remains one of Japan’s most
enduring popu lar plays. In Japa nese minds, the play links the Manchus,
along with the Mongols, as Tatars, that are outsider barbarians who took
over China’s great civilization. The stories about Koxinga, who was half Japa-
nese and therefore, in Japa nese minds, superior to the full- blooded Chi-
nese, helped strengthen the popu lar Japa nese view that Japa nese leaders
were superior to the Manchu barbarians in China.
While Koxinga and some Ming loyalists fled to Taiwan, another
Ming loyalist, Zhu Shunshui, a former scholar- official who refused to re-
main in China during the Qing conquest, went to Japan and, as one loyal
to the Ming emperor, played a role in discussions about strengthening Japa-
nese loyalty to their emperor. Vari ous currents of the Chinese intellectual
tradition remained alive during the Tokugawa period. One of Tokugawa
Ieyasu’s grand sons, Tokugawa Mitsukuni, conceived the Chinese- style com-
pilation Dai Nihonshi (A history of great Japan), and Zhu Shunshui was a
key adviser to the proj ect, which was not completed until 1720. Loyalty to
the throne was central to the thinking of Zhu Shunshui and his compilers.
By praising the continuity of the imperial line, Zhu helped reinforce the
Japa nese tradition of loyalty to the emperor.
Trade between Tokugawa Japan and Qing China
In the mid- seventeenth century, the Qing dynasty did not block the flour-
ishing trade between Nagasaki and Fujian province, and the Tokugawa gov-
ernment actively encouraged it. During the peak trading years in the
middle of the century, nearly forty Chinese junks called at Nagasaki each
year. The Japa nese had developed an appetite for Chinese silk, especially
silk yarn that could be used by the weavers at Nishijin Textile Mills in Kyoto,
which rapidly expanded its manufacturing of silk products that were then
very popu lar among high Japa nese officials. Japan also continued to import
deerskins and medicinal herbs from China. Using a mining pro cess devel-
oped by China in the fifteenth century that the Japa nese had learned from
the Koreans, Japan made great advances in silver mining. Several Japa nese
. 57 .
china and japan
domains opened new mines, producing silver that could be exchanged
for silk yarn.
The shogunate supported this trade because it earned income from
taxing the mines and the silver mints ( ginza) that refined the silver. The
shogun also required officials in Nagasaki to sell some silk imports to his
officials at lower prices, before the remainder would be sold to the yarn
guild at a higher price. The import of silk also helped the Kyoto silk weavers,
who were directly under the shogun’s control.
At the height of the conflict between the Ming loyalists and the Qing,
trade between China and Japan slowed down. From 1663 to 1673 approxi-
mately 36 Chinese junks called on Nagasaki per year, but from 1673 to 1683
the number dropped to 25 per year.5 After the Ming loyalists on Taiwan sur-
rendered in 1683, trade spurted ahead rapidly. In 1688 some 117 Chinese junks
called on Nagasaki. By that time, however, Japan had largely exhausted its
supply of silver. To stop the outflow of silver, Japa nese officials placed con-
trols on the trade. At the same time, because the Chinese wanted copper to
mint coins, Japan rapidly increased the mining of copper, which by 1685 be-
came its largest export item. Japan then placed stricter limits on imports
and passed sumptuary laws to control the consumption of imported goods.
Japan also engaged in import substitution. It expanded its own sericul-
ture in northern Japan to promote domestic production of silk. By the end
of the eigh teenth century, all the silk required by the Nishijin silk weavers
in Kyoto was produced in Japan. The Japa nese also learned from China how
to grow a variety of medicinal plants. They expanded the planting of sugar-
cane in the southern areas where there was a suitable climate, especially
in Satsuma and the Ryukyu Islands, which Satsuma had ruled since 1609.
Satsuma was greatly enriched by the income from sugar production, which
prov
ided a financial base for its military strength at the end of the Tokugawa
period.
By the end of the seventeenth century, with Japan’s controls on the ex-
port of silver and copper and its import substitution, trade between China
and Japan slowed down. For much of the eigh teenth century an average of
only twenty or thirty Chinese trading ships docked in Nagasaki per year.
Japa nese importers seeking to maintain their business diversified the goods
they bought from China and began importing books, writing brushes, ink,
and high- quality handicrafts.
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Trade without Transformative Learning, 838–1862
From its beginning in 1603 to its end in 1868, Tokugawa Japan had no
diplomatic relations with China, during either the Ming or the Qing dy-
nasty. Tokugawa leaders were so strict about prohibiting the Japa nese from
going abroad that after 1635, Japa nese fishermen who were shipwrecked and
ended up in China were not even welcomed back home. As a result, it was
the Chinese living in Nagasaki, and the Chinese abroad who visited Naga-
saki, who carried on trade relations between the two countries.
Three Tokugawa Views of Qing China: Nationalists,
Kangaku Scholars, and Traders
During the Qing dynasty, aside from the Chinese traders who traveled back
and forth between Nagasaki and China, the Chinese people continued to
show little interest in Japan. Some Buddhist texts and commentaries on the
Chinese Confucian classics that were lost in China had been preserved in
Japan, and when these works were “reimported” back into China, a small
number of people took great interest in these documents— although some
Chinese were doubtful of their authenticity. Occasionally a gazetteer in
China published information about Japan, sometimes quite detailed, but
generally books about Japan attracted little interest.
In contrast to China’s lack of interest in Japa nese culture, the Japa nese
in vari ous circles retained a deep re spect for traditional Chinese culture and
continued to learn about China, despite the ban on travel. Japa nese scholars
studied under the small number of scholars from China who had fled to
Japan after the fall of the Ming dynasty. The shogun followed developments
in China through the information obtained in Nagasaki. Japa nese Buddhists
continued to learn from Chinese Buddhist texts coming in through Naga-
saki and from Chinese monks who had come to Japan to teach Japa nese
monks. Japa nese artists continued to learn from Chinese artists in Naga-
saki; by the end of the Tokugawa, some one hundred Chinese artists and
art dealers were living there, earning a living from the Japa nese demand for
Chinese art. Imported Chinese handicrafts continued to inspire Japa nese
artisans. Japa nese medical prac ti tion ers studied the Chinese practice of
medicine, and Japa nese agriculture specialists studied the work of their
counter parts in China in the hope of improving agricultural yields within
Japan.
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china and japan
Japa nese learning from China during the Tokugawa period did not have
the transformative impact it had during the Nara and Heian periods, but
three categories of people in Japan continued to take a deep interest in
China: high officials under the shogun, teachers of Chinese studies in the
domain schools and in Edo, and traders in Nagasaki, the Ryukyus, and Tsu-
shima. Later, when Japan opened during the Meiji period (1868–1911),
these three groups would play an impor tant role in shaping Japa nese rela-
tions with China.
Nationalist Officials and Scholars
Once Tokugawa officials had united Japan and the country became more
stable, many Japa nese officials began to take great pride in Japa nese suc-
cesses. Some in Japan who had looked up to Chinese civilization believed
that the Manchus who led the Qing were barbarians, that Chinese civiliza-
tion was deteriorating under barbarian rule, and that Japa nese civilization,
never subject to barbarian rule, was prospering.
By the 1660s Japa nese officials were no longer using names like Chu-
goku (literally, “the central country”) to refer to China, for they implied
that China was the central kingdom. Japan, they believed, was also the center
of its world. The notion that Japan was unique and special, that it was the
“land of the gods,” was reinforced by Japan’s survival against the Mongol in-
vasion thanks to the kamikaze. To some, the fact that their country had never
lost any territory was a sign that Japan enjoyed special divine protection.
In the seventeenth century, some Japa nese scholars began to promote
“native studies” ( kokugaku), which stressed the purity of Japa nese tradition.
They sought to replace kangaku, Chinese studies, with pure Japa nese studies,
and they promoted Shinto, the indigenous Japa nese religion, rather than
Buddhism, which was imported from China. Although native studies
never gained the prominence of kangaku, it did attract significant numbers
of supporters, and some Japa nese began to assert that, with its version of
neo- Confucianism, Japan, not China, represented the best of the Confu-
cian tradition.
Having been overshadowed by China for so many centuries, the Japa-
nese never matched the unquestioned self- confidence in the superiority of
their civilization instinctively felt by many Chinese. Many who professed
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Trade without Transformative Learning, 838–1862
the belief that Japan would be protected by the gods nonetheless panicked
at the thought that some outside power, whether China, Korea, or a Western
power, might attack Japan. Yet they asserted pride in Japan, a pride that
would grow during the Meiji period as Japan moved ahead of China in
modernizing.
A small number of Japa nese individuals expressed visions of how Japan
might expand its power beyond its borders. Throughout the Tokugawa era
they had continued to collect materials on military technology and strategy
from Dutch sources. Hayashi Shihei (1738–1793), a military strategist in the
Sendai domain of northeastern Japan, wrote that Japan should gain better
control over Hokkaido and the Ryukyu Islands as a first step to becoming
the leader of Asia. In 1791 he published the book Kaikoku heidan (Military
defense of a maritime nation) in an attempt to alert others to the serious-
ness of the threat from Rus sia and China. From his passion about the ur-
gency of defending Japan, he moved on to espouse a grandiose vision of how
Japan could become the dominant power in the region. Japa nese scholars
today see Hayashi as representing one of many views, somewhat extremist,
and certainly not the dominant view at the time. However, some Chinese
scholars today pay great attention to Hayashi as a sign that the Japa nese
were already laying the foundation for their grand designs for Japa nese ag-
gression that began in the late nineteenth century and continued through
World War II.
Kangaku (Chinese Learning) Scholars and Buddhists
While some Japa nese elites exuded confiden
ce in the superiority of Japan
over barbarian- led China, teachers of kangaku and Buddhists, who rep-
resented the mainstream in Japan at the time, had a very diff er ent perspec-
tive on Chinese culture.
During the Tokugawa period the daimyo throughout the country
continued to support the training of youths of the samurai class, and an
impor tant aspect of their education was kangaku. Although interest in na-
tive Japa nese studies grew during the Tokugawa era, even those scholars
who criticized Chinese learning were trained in the Chinese classics, which
remained in the mainstream for Japa nese students. The Tokugawa leader-
ship sought loyalty because it contributed to the stability of society, and
. 61 .
china and japan
they strongly encouraged the study of the Confucian classics to provide
proper mental training. Each domain had kangaku scholars, especially
knowledgeable about the Chinese classics, who taught in the schools.
Whereas lower- level Japa nese teachers used the Japa nese rendering of
the Chinese language, the leading scholars of Confucianism acquired full
fluency in the original Chinese language of the texts. These scholars highly
valued the wisdom of the ancient Chinese sages and also admired Japa nese
teachers who had mastered Chinese classical studies. Kangaku teachers in
the domains typically learned to write poems in the classical Chinese style,
and those skilled in writing Chinese poems took great pride in their achieve-
ments. Scholars have estimated that more poems were composed in Chi-
nese than in Japa nese during the Tokugawa period. Most kangaku scholars
focused on reading and writing classical Chinese, but some Japa nese, such
as the leading scholar Ogyu Sorai (1666–1728), famous for applying Con-
fucian learning to government, took pride in their ability to also speak col-
loquial Chinese.
With the growth of literacy during the Tokugawa era, an unpre ce dented
proportion of Japa nese people became familiar with the Chinese classics.
During the last de cades of the Tokugawa period, not only the samurai but
also many nonsamurai were studying kangaku in the domain schools. Even
many who believed in kokugaku displayed a reverence for the Confucian
classics and for scholars in both China and Japan who preserved Chinese
civilization.
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