Page 192 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

warfare—japan and korea 1969

History is the most aristocratic of all literary pursuits,
because it obliges the historian to be rich as well as
educated. • HENRY ADAMS (1838–1918)

century one clan, the Taira, became the de facto rulers of power to the imperial throne. The claimant’s initial
Japan, only to be replaced by a rival clan, the Minamoto, backer, the general Ashikaga Takauji (1305–1358), even-
whose leader, Minamoto Yoritomo (1147–1199), ruled tually betrayed the cause and established himself as
Japan as supreme military commander, or shogun. The shogun, but Ashikaga rule (1333–1573) was much more
Kamakura period that followed (1185–1333), named for decentralized than Kamakura rule had been, and Japan
the seat of Minamoto power, witnessed the beginnings of descended into civil war in 1467 that lasted for more
a distinctive Japanese feudalism. Samurai, as members of than a hundred years. Toward the end of this century of
the warrior class came to be known, ideally lived ascetic, war, Portuguese ships arrived bringing missionaries and
disciplined lives guided by codes of loyalty and honor. firearms, which, by making it possible for a peasant foot
They could carry two swords—a long sword for fighting soldier to kill a mounted warrior easily, portended the
and a short sword for ritual suicide to atone for failings eventual end of the samurai class.
and embarrassments. Japanese swords are famous for
their hardness and sharpness. Reunification of Japan
In the 1570s, three great unifiers ended the century of
The Mongol Invasion warfare. Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) officially brought
After establishing the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) in the Ashikaga shogunate to an end with his capture of the
China, Mongol leaders looked across the narrow waters capital city of Kyoto in 1573; he was proceeding to bring
at Japan. The result was two great, Mongol-ordered, Japan under his sway when he was killed by a vassal.Toy-
mostly Chinese- and Korean-supplied invasions of Japan otomi Hideyoshi, Nobunaga’s best general, completed
whose defeat gave rise to the kamikaze legend. In 1274 the job of reunifying Japan. Although himself of humble
Khubilai Khan (1215–1294) sent forty thousand men origins, Hideyoshi reasserted the division between war-
on nine hundred ships to Hakata Bay, on the southern riors and nonwarriors, confiscating swords and firearms
island of Kyushu. The Mongol-Korean army over- from all nonwarriors in 1588. Dreaming of vaster
whelmed the Japanese defenders with the famed Mongol empires, Hideyoshi attacked Korea with an eye toward
cavalry, explosive missiles, and powerful composite bows. China; upon his death the Japanese evacuated Korea.
As the Japanese retreated to the fortress of Dazaifu, and Hideyoshi, like Nobunaga before him, left only an infant
the Mongols to their ships in the harbor, a great typhoon heir, and like Nobunaga, Hideyoshi’s eventual successor
blew through and destroyed more than two hundred was an able general, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616),
Mongol ships, causing the invaders to retreat to Korea who established a new shogunal government with its
and China. In 1281 Khubilai Khan sent a larger army, capital at the city of Edo (present-day Tokyo).
140,000 men, back to Hakata Bay.The Japanese had pre- The most salient feature of Tokugawa foreign policy
pared by constructing a stone defensive wall, but the was its closing off of Japan from the rest of the world.The
Mongol invaders enjoyed early success. However, several Dutch—the only Europeans permitted to trade with
weeks after landing, yet another typhoon, which Japanese Japan after 1639—were allowed only on the tiny island
religious leaders called a divine wind, or kamikaze, blew of Deshima in Nagasaki harbor; the Chinese were per-
through and once again destroyed much of the Mongol mitted entrance to Nagasaki itself. All other contact
navy and ending this threat to Japan. between Japan and the rest of the world was forbidden.
Trade with Korea was permitted on the islands of
Ashikaga Rule Tsushima between the two countries. With the suppres-
The economic and military strain of defending Japan sion of a revolt of Christian peasants and masterless
from the Mongol attack contributed to weakening the samurai in Shimabara (in western Kyushu) in 1637–
Kamakura government, which in 1333 was overthrown 1638, Japan entered a period of peace that lasted more
by an imperial claimant determined to return de facto than two hundred years.