In the early 1300’s China suffered a great population loss due to the impact of the Black Plague (bubonic plague), which later moved on to the Middle East and Europe devastating the populace there. Historians estimate the Black Death killed 30 to 40 percent of China’s inhabitants. Percentage wise, this is very close to the population losses in Europe from the plague. As a total number however, many more were lost in China. This massive population loss led to economic problems and then civil war in 1368.
In 1368, the Chinese rebelled against the Mongols and expelled them. So began the famous Ming Dynasty that reunited China. In 1420, the Ming moved their capital to Beijing and rebuilt the Great Wall. The Ming emperors also sent expeditions out to India and the coast of Africa. These expeditions concluded in 1433 because many thought the high cost was not worth the gain. It was during the Ming rule that Vietnam broke away and established an independent kingdom (again). During the Ming Dynasty China regained control of the Silk Road, linked its cities together by new canals and roads, developed additional agricultural land in southern China, produced fine pottery, and experienced a national economic and cultural resurgence placing China at the head of all oriental cultures of the era.
The Ming Dynasty lasted until 1644 when the Qing Dynasty, established by the Manchu as descendents of the Jin, overthrew the Ming. The Qing managed to conquer Mongolia then overran Korea in 1627. However, in the late stages of the Ming Empire Europeans began to arrive and establish themselves in traditional Chinese territory for trade. The Qin inherited this ominous trend. In 1683 the Qing annexed Taiwan, and in 1750 Tibet came under Manchu control. It was the emperor Kang Xi that accomplished these feats, and managed to expand Chinese influence into Central Asia. The expansion continued under Manchu Emperor Qian Long who forced Nepal, Burma, and Vietnam to acknowledge Chinese hegemony once again.
Trade with the West grew exponentially, but the Manchu limited the ports through which European trade could flow. The Manchu government also insulted Europeans with their shoddy treatment, and thus incensed the proud men who had trampled the rest of the world. Then, in a move that was boundless in audacity and malevolence, the British started importing opium from India, where it was cheap and plentiful, into China, and by 1830 Britain controlled 80 percent of the lucrative drug trade. As England made enormous wealth the Chinese population began to suffer significantly. Millions of Chinese were addicted to the drug, and it wounded the Chinese homeland deeply as enormous amounts of cash began to leave China (Compare to the drug trade in the US from Mexico in 2010). As the trade was illegal in China, the Chinese government began taking steps to stop the trade of opium. This infuriated the British, and they declared war in 1839 after the Chinese blockaded their own port city of Canton to prevent the British from using the port for opium importation. By 1842 the British had prevailed in the Opium Wars, and China ceded Hong Kong to them as part of the settlement. By now the Chinese emperors were rulers in name only as the Western powers began dividing China up among themselves. Through it all the Chinese had little interest in the outside world. The barbarians, as they called Westerners, were at the gates; but China retained its inward gaze. The Opium Wars many have been the first international drug war.
In 1911 an army revolt against the Manchu, who had refused to consider any kind of reforms, spread throughout China. By 1912 the two thousand year old imperial system was crumbling, and young revolutionary reformers set out to change traditional China. These revolts led to years of chaos and internal warfare. Because of this domestic weakness Japan was able to annex Korea in 1910, and acquire large spheres of influence in Manchuria and Shantung province in 1918. The Western World complained about the Japanese land grabs, but the League of Nations proved ineffective, and the rest of the West did nothing substantial to stop the aggression.
During all this long history China remained one unified culture. Although the transitions were not smooth, it was often the case that Chinese were conquering Chinese until the arrival of the Europeans, when Chinese history changed radically for a few years. After the communist victory in 1949 that finally ended decades of civil war, China once more withdrew into itself, and for some time rejected foreign influences.[78] Today, in 2010, China is opening up and has a powerful worldwide economic, military, and political influence. One will quickly note this is unreservedly new in the history of China. China’s communist leaders may have opened China for trade to protect themselves from rebellions, because the economic situation in China after the 1976 death of the murdering dictator Mao was extremely poor. In 2010, China has established itself as a world leader in trade and manufacturing. How long this will go on is difficult to say. Perhaps China has emerged from its long, inward-looking past to become part of a world now challenged by technology, cultural upheaval, economic interdependence, and strife as never before. One wonders if the Chinese mind can solve these problems.
Japan
This is another inward-looking nation believing it was the center of the universe, and blessed by its gods as the best place on earth with a perfect people. About 300 BC, invasions by clans from Asia bringing Bronze Age culture with them overran Japan. The island shattered into several small feudal states controlled by continually feuding warlords. During this time influences from China made their way to Japan via Korea. By AD 645 Buddhism was becoming a widely held belief replacing the ancient religion of ancestor worship. The mythological first emperor of Japan was Jimmu (660 BC to 585 BC), said to be the direct descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu, and the sea god Ryujin. He is the claimed founder of the Yamato Dynasty. The Yamato clan united Japan under a central government in AD 400. The Imperial Throne was later seized by the Soga clan that continued the Japanese traditions of rule by heredity. Eventually, the Fujiwara clan gained control of the throne by ensuring every emperor married a Fujiwara woman. (They must have been good looking gals). By this method, the head of the Fujiwara clan was always the father-in-law of the emperor.
Figure 24 Japan, Korea area map
In 1467, Japan fell back into a feudal period of war and division. This continued until about 1600 when a Japanese general named Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated Hideyoshi’s army in the Battle of Sekigahara and established the Tokugawa shogunate. (Shogun means great general) This set up military rule in Japan until 1868. From 1543 to 1600, Japan accepted foreign influences including Christianity; however, this came to an abrupt end as the Tokugawa clan gained control of the nation. The Japanese began slaughtering Christians in 1600, and by 1638 the Tokugawa clan barred foreigners from its soil. Japan went into a period of complete isolation led by the Tokugawa. This in turn led to a blossoming of a pure Japanese culture entirely separate from Chinese, Korean, and Western influence for about two hundred years. The Tokugawa’s competitor for control of Japan was the emperor; thus, the powerful clan made it a point to maintain strict control of the imperial court. The emperor became a puppet only serving to give legitimacy to the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate.
In 1853 the American Matthew Perry forced the opening of Japan to Western trade, although this led Japan to increasing hostility toward foreigners. Because of the intrusion of Westerners and the extraction of trade agreements, the Tokugawa clan weakened and was overthrown in 1858. In 1867 the resentment of foreign influence resulted in an overthrow of the shogunate and a restoration of imperial control (the Meiji Restoration). From 1867 until 1912, Japan absorbed Western ideas of manufacturing and warfare, adapting these ideas so well that they easily beat China in an Asian area conflict in 1895. In the Russo-Japanese war Japan easily defeated Russia in 1905 becoming the first Asian nation to defeat a modern European power, and thereby expanding their territorial control of areas near Japan. From 1858 onward Japan made tremendous strides in industrialization, trade, and territorial acquisitions.
Japan tried to use the Western model of a parliament by creating a Japanese Diet in 1889; however, the experiment failed as in 1926 militarists factions gained control of the government. The militarist set the nation
on the path of conquest starting with the annexation of Manchuria in 1931, quickly followed by a war with China, and the takeover of French Indochina in 1941. Japan entered World War II on the Axis side in December of 1941 with the attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor; thereby starting a war with China, the United States, Britain, Holland, Australia, New Zealand, and other US Allies. Japan suffered a complete defeat in August 1945 after the US dropped two atomic bombs on the island nation; one on the city of Hiroshima and the other on the city of Nagasaki (see World War II). Japan experienced occupation by US forces until September of 1951. Thereafter, Japan grew into the second most powerful economy in the world by 1980. This remarkable economic recovery, assisted massively by the Americans, displayed the resilience of the Japanese culture. In 2010, Japan continues to excel at trade and manufacturing, and she is poised to lead the way into the twenty-first century.
Through it all, Japan remained thoroughly Japanese. In spite of accepting the infusion of Western technology, and science it did not allow these influences to change Japanese culture. This is not an easy task, as normally accepting Western technological advancements leads to an idea that Western culture must be superior. The Japanese did not think this way, and rejected Western cultural ideology while accepting its technology.
Korea
Korea is the third area of the East that completes a kind of triumvirate of nations around which the fate of Asia has swung. Korea is a small peninsula jutting out of the Asian mainland near Japan. Korea managed to establish a separate identity from China and Japan, and maintained that separate identity through centuries of pressure, warfare, and conquest. About AD 313 Korea had Three Kingdoms that were indigenous to the peninsula. These independent states lasted until about AD 668. By 670, the clan of Silla managed to unite Korea with Chinese support. The Silla clan endured defeat by the Koryo in 935, allowing the Koryo to rule the Korean peninsula until 1392. The Mongols supported the Koryo (no wonder they won). In 1388 the Koryo sent an army to invade China and overthrow the Ming dynasty; however, that army turned on the Koryo and defeated them thereby establishing the Chosen Kingdom that ruled until 1910; although, from 1627 until about 1910 it was subservient to the Manchu of China. During the period of the Chosen Koreans built an observatory in Seoul, and they invented moveable metal type for printing.
Overall, Korea was always a land in the middle. Japan or China normally dominated the peninsula; nonetheless, the Korean people maintained their identity as a separate populace. Today, Korea remains separated between north and south because of the Second World War and the Korean War. (See the Korean War)
India
After years of battering at India’s frontiers, Turkish Muslim invaders finally captured the northern city of Delhi in 1206 and established the Delhi Sultanate (1206 to 1520).[79] Under Muhammad Tughlug the Sultanate managed to bring most of India under its rule by 1335. This conquest put the Muslim faith in charge of India; however, it did not manage to overcome either Hinduism or Buddhism. In 1398 Tamerlane, the Mongol conqueror, destroyed the city of Delhi and set the stage for the destruction of the Delhi Sultanate in 1526 by Babur, another Muslim.
Before 1500 India’s merchants helped establish the prosperous Indian Ocean trade network stretching from East Africa to Europe and Japan. This massive trading region brought affluence throughout the area. The regional trade connected the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea via trade routes across the Suez isthmus. It was this Indian Ocean trade the Portuguese began disrupting when they circumnavigated Africa on their way to India. They succeeded in reaching India in 1508 and began taking control of the sea routes in the area. Within 100 years the Portuguese began to lose out to the English, and the English Empire took control of the formerly Portuguese trading areas.
In 1526, Babur, a descendant of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan, established the Mughal Empire in India that lasted two hundred years. Akbar the Great (1556 to 1605) finished the conquest of India that his grandfather Babur started. Under Akbar, a Muslim, Hindus could hold office in the state bureaucracy, and Akbar himself married a Hindu princess. The Mughal Empire controlled most of the Indian subcontinent by 1600, going into a rather slow decline after 1700. Since Babur and his progeny were Muslim the Hindu majority were enduring the control of an outside religion. Under Islam, non-Muslims could be murdered if they refused to accept Islam or they could be left alive as second-class citizens paying extra taxes and otherwise being subservient to Muslims. Hinduism survived in spite of this oppression on the subcontinent; although, in the western regions of the Indus River, just off the subcontinent, Islam made good strides and converted many people. When India became independent in 1947 this western region, now called Pakistan, broke away and formed its own nation.
Gradually, the Mughal Empire gave way to the English Empire, mainly because of the efforts of the East India Company which was a private company chartered by the British Government. The British East India Company (East India Company) arrived in India in 1617, and began trading in the province of Bengal by way of permits issued by the Mughal rulers in 1717. The officials governing the province of Bengal objected and entered into hostilities with the East India Company. At the Battle of Plassey in 1757, an army of the East India Company led by Robert Clive, defeated the forces of Bengal. Note that a private company had the resources to defeat a sitting government. Eventually, Robert Clive became the governor of Bengal. The East India Company expanded its control until the Indian Rebellion of 1857, also called the Sepoy Mutiny or the First War of Indian Independence. This rebellion ended the Mughal dynasty and put the English crown in control of India. (The English government absorbed the Company) This English control would last until India and Pakistan gained their independence in 1947. India was the crown jewel of the English Empire, and protecting India and the sea routes to the sub-continent became a major part of English foreign policy.
The transition to independence for India and Pakistan was not smooth. After gaining independence in 1947, the partition of India from Pakistan began, and a huge movement of peoples, some 12 million, took place as individuals in the “wrong country” (Wrong religion in the wrong country actually) tried to reach the right one. Fighting began between Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims leaving about 500,000 dead. It seems freedom does not come easily to lands divided by religion and history.
Today (2010), India is one of the world’s most prosperous and populated nations. A leader in heavy industry, electronics, motion pictures, computers, and science India now thrives as a market based democracy. India has strong population growth, and its population is over 1.17 billion with a median age of 24.9. India has the world’s 12th most powerful economy as of 2010. Turns out that India is also an advertisement for the power of capitalism. From 1950 through the 1980s India was a socialist nation, and its governmental system and economy experienced slow growth because of corruption coupled with socialist inefficiency. In 1991, India changed to a market based economy and has achieved a GDP growth of 5.8 percent for 20 years making it the fastest growing economy in the world. Some estimates predict India will overtake the USA in GDP by 2043 (Since the US is going socialist after 2008 election of President Obama one can understand why). Meanwhile, Pakistan, the Muslim nation to India’s west, has not fared so well. Economically stagnant for over 10 years its main economic products remain services and agriculture. Pakistan’s poverty rate is at least 23 percent. Its population is nearly 175,000,000 and growing quickly. Political turmoil haunts Pakistan because of rogue Muslim fundamentalists, such as the Taliban, battling government troops while controlling large regions of the nation. Unfortunately, both India and Pakistan have acquired nuclear weapons and first-rate missile delivery systems, adding a dangerous edge to centuries old feuds.
Let Us Learn
The East teaches us the value of steady progress, and the dangers of pride. By progressing at a steady rate, China, India, and Japan stayed well ahead of the world century after century. Their pride, and their mistreatment of the European newcomers, l
ed to a rather rude awakening when the Europeans flexed their muscle. China, Japan, and India needed to stay in touch with the rest of the world because their isolation eventually let them fall behind the advances taking place in the land of the barbarians. We learn that keeping up with new ideas and advancing technology is critical. So, do not isolate yourself and keep learning.
Books and Resources
The New Penguin History of the World, Roberts, J, 2007, Penguin Books
Roberts divides Eastern history as follows: (all page numbers correspond to the starting page of the section in Robert’s book):
Roberts on China:
Ancient: p. 132
Classical: p. 444
Manchu Empire: p. 461
Republic and European Imperialism: p. 857
People’s Republic: p. 985
Roberts on India:
Ancient: p. 120
Medieval: 338
British Rule: p. 638
Self Government: p. 975
Roberts on Japan:
Early: p. 36
Medieval: p. 466
Modern to 1945: p. 635
Post—1945: p. 1062
Chapter 7
Africa
A Very Modest “History”
Written history is not the stuff of Africa. What we have is oral traditions and some archeological evidence from which we can build up a slight traditional style history of sub-Saharan Africa. Modern African historians normally rely on oral traditions above other methods. The northern coastal regions of Africa were settled and urbanized by people with high cultures that included writing; thus, history. In this case we know a lot about Carthage and Egypt. If we set out south, beyond the desert wastes, we hit a region where virtually nothing was written down, and the climate and building materials are such that physical evidence does not last. In this section we will briefly discuss sub-Saharan Africa.
The Super Summary of World History Page 16