Transcript Early Japan and Korea - Eastern Upper Peninsula ISD

Chapter 8, Section 3
The Geography of Japan
 Four main islands:
 Hokkaido (hah-KY-doh)
 Honshu (HAHN-shoo)
 Kyushu (kee-OO-shoo)
 Shikoku (shih-KOH-koo)
 Mountainous [volcanic in origin]
 (11% can be farmed)
 Isolation
Rise of the Japanese State
 First clans settled in the modern cities of Osaka and
Kyoto.
 Clans

Local ruler offered protection in exchange for a share of the
harvest [FEUDALISM]
 Yamato clan leader achieved supremacy over all.
Chinese Influences
 Shotoku Taishu (574-622)
 Prince who wanted to unify clans to
resist the Chinese invaders.

Learned about the Chinese structure of government and
brought those ideas back to Japan.
 Centralized government with a supreme ruler.
 To limit the power of the aristocrats.
 Ruler was a divine figure and symbol of Japanese nation.
 New tax system
 Village was the basic unit of government
 Farmland belonged to the state.
The Nara Period
 Fujiwara clan brings changes:
 New capital @ Nara.
 Emperor began to use the title “son of Heaven”
 Aristocrats became stronger.

They kept the taxes for themselves.
The Heian Period
 794 capital moved to Heian [HAY-ahn] (Kyoto).
 Real power was with the Fujiwara clan.


Powerful families had the power. [FEUDALISM]
Used military force to protect their interests.
 Samurai (“Those who serve”)
 Resembled knights.
 Lived by a strict warrior code = BUSHIDO

“Way of the warrior”
 Loyalty to his lord.
The Kamakura Shogunate,
1192-1333
 Minamoto Yoritomo
 Defeated rivals and set up his power near Tokyo.
 Centralized government

Shogun = general
 Shogunate – emperor remained ruler in name only.
 Kublai Khan invaded Japan with 150,000 men.
 Almost the entire fleet was destroyed by a typhoon.

http://www.historytoday.com/blog/2011/10/13th-century-mongolian-invasion-ship-discovered-under-japaneseseabed
 1333 overthrown by another family.
Collapse of Central Rule
 Power of aristocrats grew during the 14th – 15th
centuries.
 Daimyo
 Heads of important families.

Controlled the land; owed no taxes
 By 1500 there was a lot of chaos.
 Onin War, 1467-1477
 Central authority disappeared.
 Armies burned temples and palaces in Kyoto .
Life in Early Japan
 Japanese made the most of limited resources:
 Farmed limited land available.
 Trade grew; markets appeared in larger towns.
The Role of Women
 Certain level of equality with men.
 Inheritance, could divorce if abandoned
 Subordinate to men.
 Aristocratic women at court.
 Often appear in paintings of
the period.
Religion in Early Japan
 Worshipped spirits, called kami
 In trees, rivers, streams and mountains.
 Believed that sprits of ancestors were present in the air
around them.
 Shinto: “The Sacred Way” or “the Way of the Gods”
 Divinity of the emperor
 Sacredness of the nation
 Some followed Buddhism which Buddhist monks brought
to China in 6th century A.D.
 Zen was very popular (became part of Samurai code).
 Different ways to achieve enlightenment.