A Brief History of Fuedal Japan
Japan's influence on the west has been nothing short of miraculous, in less than a century and a half they have risen from a small isolated culture to one of the preeminent superpowers of the world. Although most people know a little about modern Japan most people do not know anything about the early history of the Japanese islands. For this essay I have chosen to focus on three major points of Japanese history, Origins to 710, Early Medieval History from 710-1600, and the Tokugawa Period from 1600-1868.Origins of the People and State to 710 The early history of the Japanese people is, in many ways, similar to the history of the Native Americans and the British, French, and Spanish immigrations. To understand where the people of Japan come from you first need to understand that there are two "races" of people living in Japan now, the "Japanese" people and the Ainu, who live chiefly in the northern part of the country areas like Hokkaido and northern Honshu. The Ainu are similar to Native Americans of the United States in so far as they are the indigenous people of the land. (Henshall, 7) About thirty to fifteen thousand years ago, during the last glacial age, groups of immigrants crossed over several land bridges conn
The Soga clan had controlled much of the government of Yamato until 645 when a coup led by a man named Fujiwara no Kamatari displaced them and took control of the kingdom, he enacted several reforms including:1. They did this to the Chinese until they felt they had nothing left to learn from them. After his death a struggle rose as to who would rule the realm, either his infant heir, Hideyori, or his sometimes rival/ally Tokugawa Ieyasu. Unchecked by the shogunal or imperial powers these families fought amongst themselves. His two sons, Yoriie and Sanetomo, were controlled and eventually murdered by their own family. A Word On Japanese Philosophy There are several points on Japanese culture and philosophy that would be beneficial to the understanding of Japan's history and culture. Nobunaga's successor was a man named Toyotomi Hideyoshi; Hideyoshi served as one of Nobunaga's leading generals and served him loyally until Nubunaga's death in 1582, a very uncommon virtue in that time. The Ashikaga line of shoguns continues for two more generations until the death of Shogun Yoshimitsu in 1408, after that shogunal power begins to drop dramatically and the provincial families gained more and more power showing the beginning of the "Daimyo," feudal lords, of a later age. This closed off period continued for over a century and a half, no foreign contact, except for one Dutch trading settlement, was allowed and the nation experienced no major wars or significant rebellions. This era, called the Heian Period, was the turning point in decay of the empire, by this time the imperial court was absolutely meaningless in governing the state, its courtiers were only there in a symbolic manner, all of the functional power of the government had already passed to the provincial warriors, these early samurai are the ones who wielded the real power in the empire. In 794 the capitol, although it was merely symbolic and not functional, was moved from Nara, where it had been since 710, to Heian, present day Kyoto. Two years later, on January 3 1868, the choshu, allied with other families from the region and with the aid of a Shogun noble named Iwakura Tomomi and also with an Imperial doctrine that called for the abolition of the Shogunate, invaded and occupied the Shogun palace, effectively bringing an end to the Shogunate. In fact the nation almost stagnated with no major advancements and almost nothing of importance occurring until the late eighteenth century. During this time Japan was effectively closed off from the rest of the world, by 1639 all of the westerners had either been driven out or voluntarily left.
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Acceptance Essays
