Asia During Post-Classical Period (600-1450)

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Asia During Post-Classical Period (600-1450)

• Chapter 10

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China

• 220- Fall of Han
• Political defragmentation
• 580s- rise of Sui Dynasty
• Reunites China
• Short-lived, falls apart in 618

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Sui Dynasty

• Strengthened defenses against nomads
• Govt. established granaries to store food
• Confucian legal system
• Scholarly gentry class
• Buddhism grows in popularity
• Big Accomplishment Grand Canal
• Over 1200 miles long
• Links north with agricultural lands of the south

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Sui Dynasty

• Military campaigns in Korea
• Conscripted a massive army
• Unsuccessful
• Drains the economy

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Sui Dynasty

• 2 rulers
• Wendi
• Yangdi
• Yangdis wars and luxurious lifestyle put a
  strain on China
• High taxes to pay for construction
• Conscripted labor
• Yangdi retreated to palaces
• Many thought he was going mad
• Assassinated in 618
• End of dynasty

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Tang

• Tang Dynasty (618-907)
• Reunites China
• Military campaigns in Korea, Vietnam, Tibet,
  Manchuria
• Fortifies Great Wall, frontier armies
• Confucianism

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Tang Dynasty

• Tang begins decline
• Internal power struggles
• Inefficient rule
• Rebellions by borderland peoples
• Dynasty ends in 907
• China enters period of fragmentation

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Song Dynasty

• Song (960-1296)
• Scholarly gentry in bureaucracy
• Neo-Confucianism
• Personal morality is highest goal
• The ed. elite are most fit to govern
• Hostility toward foreign ideas
• Women inferior to men
• Professional military
• 1 million man army
• gunpowder

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Song Dynasty

• Song began decline
• Borderland peoples rebel
• Loss of territory in north
• forced to relocate capital to Hangzhou in
  Southern China
• Military economic drain
• Mongols take advantage of weakness
• Conquer China in 1270s and create the Yuan
  Dynasty
• More on the Yuan in Chapter 12

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Tang and SongA Golden Age

• Thriving Economy
• Grand Canal
• Military to defend Silk Roads
• Junks for maritime trade
• Massive ships with compasses, gunpowder rockets
  for defense
• Paper money, banking

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Tang and SongA Golden Age

• Cities grow population over 100 million
• Agriculture grows in importance
• Champa Rice
• Broke up large estates to increase free peasantry

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Tang and SongA Golden Age

• Culture
• Patriarchal
• Neo-Confucianism during Song meant decline in
  status of women
• Foot binding
• Men allowed multiple wives/concubines
• Women excluded from ed.

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Tang and Song Culture

• Buddhism grows in popularity
• Patronized by Tang
• Backlash by Confucians, attacks on monasteries
  shrines
• Mahayana popular among masses
• Allowed them to incorporate their own deities
• Chan popular with nobility
• Could afford to meditate and surround themselves
  with beauty of natural world

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Tang and Song Culture

• A time of invention, art, creativity
• Engineering
• Gunpowder started to be used for weaponry
• Paper Money
• Kites
• Tea Drinking became an elaborate ritual
• Compasses
• Moveable type (adopted from Korea)
• Landscape paintings common
• Symbolism in art
• Poems often accompanied the art

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Japan
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Japan

• Geography
• Archipelago
• Mountainous terrain
• Early inhabitants around 20,000 yrs. ago
• Originally, hundreds of independent kingships

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Japan

• 600s-Yamato state began to consolidate power
• Government centered in Nara
• Nara period
• Institute Taika Reforms to emulate China
• Confucianism
• Centralized government
• Emperor, but he had very little power
• Chinese-styled architecture
• Buddhism became popular (spread from Korea)
• Mixed with Shinto

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Culture of Japan

• Shinto- Way of the gods
• Native religion of Japan
• Polytheistic, kami
• Emperor believed to be descendant of Sun Goddess
  (Amaterasu)
• Believed Japan was a divine creation and
  protected by the gods

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Heian Japan794-1185

• 794 court moved from Nara to Heian (Kyoto)
• Fujiwara family dominated
• Marriages to keep control
• Development of unique Japanese culture
• Elaborate court life
• Emphasis on aesthetics
• Court intrigues and love affairs
• Tale of Genji

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Heian Japan

• Gender and Family
• Marriage used to consolidate power among ruling
  families
• Intermarriage common
• Men allowed multiple wives concubines
• Women were allowed to inherit property
• Men and women occupied different spaces in society

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Rise of Warrior Class

• Aristocrats focus on court life, forget about
  warrior class
• Local strongmen build up their own powerbase
• Daimyo
• Supported by warriors (Samurai)
• Rise in power of warrior class decline of
  imperial power

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Rise of Feudalism in Japan

• Fujiwara family began to lose power
• 1180s Gempei Wars
• Rival families fight to be in control
• Minamoto family wins, establishes a military
  government with himself as Shogun
• Emperor still existed, but had no power
• Minamoto Shogunate (1192-1330s)
• Also known as Kamakura Shogunate
• Ashikaga Shogunate established in 1336-1573
• Tokugawa Shogunate established in 1603-1868

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Feudalism in Japan

• Developed about the same time as feudalism in
  Europe
• Shogun distributed land to daimyo in return for
  military support (samurai)
• Code of Bushido
• Loyalty, courage, honor
• Ritualistic suicide for dishonor (seppuku)