Japan in the Era of Queen Elizabeth I
In January 1593, Japanese samurai troops for real clashed with Chinese troops near Seoul in the Korean Peninsula.
Samurai generals, who were sent by the samurai king Toyotomi Hideyoshi (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/TOKJAPAN/TOYOTOMI.HTM) to the military campaign through Korea to the Ming Dynasty of China, had to face 43,000 Ming troops.
Though Hideyoshi sent 150,000 troops equipped with harquebuses or matchlock guns, the then most advanced weapon, to the Korean Peninsula, in this decisive battle with the Ming military Japan's troops were outnumbered due to the need to address other persistent combats with Koreans. Nonetheless, samurai troops won the battle; the Chinese supreme commander escaped by a hair.
Yet, samurai generals, in scracity of food and coldness of the winter in a region so near to Siberia, understood that it was something different from what they could bear psychologically and physically to advance their troops to Beijin, the capital of Ming, and occupy Korea and China as dreamed of by Hideyoshi. So, they persuaded their lord Hideyoshi into peace conference with Ming.
Hideyoshi, believing that Ming would offer a virtual surrender and show liege homage to him, agreed with his generals who were also feud lords with their own half-independent territory in Japan. Accordingly, the samurai troops pulled out of the Korean Peninsula.
This is the third full-scale war between Japan and China, following the Battle of Baekgang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baekgang) in the Korean Peninsula in the 7th century and the Mongol invasion attempts against Japan in the 13th century.
In January 1593, Japanese samurai troops for real clashed with Chinese troops near Seoul in the Korean Peninsula.
Samurai generals, who were sent by the samurai king Toyotomi Hideyoshi (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/TOKJAPAN/TOYOTOMI.HTM) to the military campaign through Korea to the Ming Dynasty of China, had to face 43,000 Ming troops.
Though Hideyoshi sent 150,000 troops equipped with harquebuses or matchlock guns, the then most advanced weapon, to the Korean Peninsula, in this decisive battle with the Ming military Japan's troops were outnumbered due to the need to address other persistent combats with Koreans. Nonetheless, samurai troops won the battle; the Chinese supreme commander escaped by a hair.
Yet, samurai generals, in scracity of food and coldness of the winter in a region so near to Siberia, understood that it was something different from what they could bear psychologically and physically to advance their troops to Beijin, the capital of Ming, and occupy Korea and China as dreamed of by Hideyoshi. So, they persuaded their lord Hideyoshi into peace conference with Ming.
Hideyoshi, believing that Ming would offer a virtual surrender and show liege homage to him, agreed with his generals who were also feud lords with their own half-independent territory in Japan. Accordingly, the samurai troops pulled out of the Korean Peninsula.
This is the third full-scale war between Japan and China, following the Battle of Baekgang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baekgang) in the Korean Peninsula in the 7th century and the Mongol invasion attempts against Japan in the 13th century.
(Foreign military forces, such as Korean troops and Chinese troops, have never invaded Japan all through history, except the US military after WWII.)
* * *
There have been many arguments on why Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of great heroes in Japan's history, ventured into the war against Ming that had taken a policy of national seclusion after having tried some expansion policies over oceans since its independence from the Mongolian Empire.
Yet, you cannot judge Hideyoshi and the war from a viewpoint of today. It was the age of Queen Elizabeth I who, as a monarch of a lesser nation, had to face the then super power Spain.
Some historians in Japan find analogy between the samurai king Hideyoshi and Queen Elizabeth I.
What's more, Japan then, putting an end to the Age of Civil Wars with Hideyoshi as the last winner, produced one third of silver of the total amount in the world, to your astonishment.
Japan was also then the largest producer of the fire arms and iron products in the world, to your astonishment.
Some of many missionaries Vatican had been sending to Asia were also active in Japan. They brought the latest information on the world to Japanese feudal lords who were all of the samurai class.
Hideyoshi was not a simple brute man who only knew how to fight. To be a samurai, you had to learn various things such as reading, writing, calculation, Buddhism, Confucianism and other Chinese classical literature, traditional Japanese culture, and so on in addition to art of warfare and specific martial art to be respected as a leader of society and a lord of his feud or territory. A samurai is an intellectual or so expected.
Hideyoshi, a son of a farmer, was a true hero and genius to unify all the feud lords under his authority, putting an end of the century-long Age of Civil Wars in Japan, while keeping good relation with the Imperial Family.
Then, why did Hideyoshi try to conquer China by sending so many troops up through the Korean Peninsula?
(Korean people even today thoroughly hate Hideyoshi as just a wicked and devilish man who irreverently started a war against China and Korea, the two superior countries to Japan in their ideology. According to Sinocentrism, the top is China, the second is Korea, and the last is Japan. Hideyoshi's act was tantamount to a revolt of the order in the East Asia based on the sequence of having enjoyed the glory of the ancient Chinese Civilization.
But, If Korea then had joined Japan to conquer Ming as Hideyoshi requested, history must have been so different, since practices of teachings of good ancient Chinese Civilization were more honestly pursued in Korea and Japan than in China even in those days.
Yet, most victims of the war between Chiana and Japan in the late 16th century were Korean people. It goes without speaking that we are extremely sorry for them.)
* * *
The then world-leading production of silver as well as gold and guns in Japan, in addition to world information brought by Vatican missionaries, could be a key to Hideyoshi's judgement on possibility of success in his plan.
But, there is another decisive factor.
It is Oda Nobunaga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobunaga_Oda), Hideyoshi's long-time boss and benefactor.
Nobunaga had a dream of conquering China and becoming a great king of Asia like the then superpower of the world Spain.
If you look at the world map, you will find a strange thing that there is a world called "Latin America" where people speak Spanish, though most inhabitants are indigenous people whose ancestors had traveled to Americas from Asia more than 10,000 years ago.
Yes, if Nobunaga's dream had been fulfilled like Spain's, there might have been "Japanese China."
Of course, maturity and refinement of Chinese Civilization is three-digit advanced than that of Indigenous Civilizations in the Americas in the 16th century.
If it is a fact that maturity and refinement of Japanese Civilization then got equal to or partly surpassed China and Korea, it is an act of madness for Japan to venture into conquest of China in the late 16th century.
(Koreans then had no matchlock guns.)
Oda Nobunaga was not an ordinary person.
* * *
A type of persons like Nobunaga cannot be successful in Japan. But, history gave the only one chance to a man with such personality to be a hero in Japan.
Since having won a miracle victory when he was a young and lesser feud lord, he continued bloody and cruel victory over other major feud lords in the central part of Japan, leveraging matchlock guns introduced by Portuguese in the middle of the 16th century and devising an innovative military system.
When he was assassinated in a Buddhist temple near Kyoto, the rest of his ambition of unifying Japan was taken over by his samurai general Hideyoshi who neatly succeeded in it.
It is said that Oda Nobunaga got an idea about the world or the globe from missionaries of Vatican. He loved a terrestrial globe presented by a missionary of Vatican. He allowed for missionaries to preach the Gospels in Japan while hating some traditional Buddhist factions. It is also said that he did not respect the Imperial Family. He was a rationalist, so cool, cold, and sometimes cruel.
But, Hideyoshi served Nobunaga with ardor and obtained the biggest trust.
In a sense, a lunacy that had haunted Nobunaga must have been partly transferred to Hideyoshi as with the case commonly found in such hierarchical relation even today.
The lunacy seems to have been amplified and intensified by introduction of European Civilization into Japan through missionaries of Vatican in the era when Spain was the superpower supported by Vatican.
(But, Hideyoshi eventually began to suppress Christians and Vatican's missionaries after unification of Japan.)
* * *
In 1597, when Hideyoshi found that Ming did not surrender but treated him as a Ming's subordinate in an official letter sent to him after having withdrawn his troops from the Korean Peninsula, he felt insulted, got inflamed, and ordered another campaign to the Ming Dynasty through Korea.
But shortly thereafter Hideyoshi died in the great Osaka Castle probably by mercy of God on Koreans; the military campaign was terminated; and the samurai lords began to think about a future regime in Japan.
* * *
There have been many arguments on why Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of great heroes in Japan's history, ventured into the war against Ming that had taken a policy of national seclusion after having tried some expansion policies over oceans since its independence from the Mongolian Empire.
Yet, you cannot judge Hideyoshi and the war from a viewpoint of today. It was the age of Queen Elizabeth I who, as a monarch of a lesser nation, had to face the then super power Spain.
Some historians in Japan find analogy between the samurai king Hideyoshi and Queen Elizabeth I.
What's more, Japan then, putting an end to the Age of Civil Wars with Hideyoshi as the last winner, produced one third of silver of the total amount in the world, to your astonishment.
Japan was also then the largest producer of the fire arms and iron products in the world, to your astonishment.
Some of many missionaries Vatican had been sending to Asia were also active in Japan. They brought the latest information on the world to Japanese feudal lords who were all of the samurai class.
Hideyoshi was not a simple brute man who only knew how to fight. To be a samurai, you had to learn various things such as reading, writing, calculation, Buddhism, Confucianism and other Chinese classical literature, traditional Japanese culture, and so on in addition to art of warfare and specific martial art to be respected as a leader of society and a lord of his feud or territory. A samurai is an intellectual or so expected.
Hideyoshi, a son of a farmer, was a true hero and genius to unify all the feud lords under his authority, putting an end of the century-long Age of Civil Wars in Japan, while keeping good relation with the Imperial Family.
Then, why did Hideyoshi try to conquer China by sending so many troops up through the Korean Peninsula?
(Korean people even today thoroughly hate Hideyoshi as just a wicked and devilish man who irreverently started a war against China and Korea, the two superior countries to Japan in their ideology. According to Sinocentrism, the top is China, the second is Korea, and the last is Japan. Hideyoshi's act was tantamount to a revolt of the order in the East Asia based on the sequence of having enjoyed the glory of the ancient Chinese Civilization.
But, If Korea then had joined Japan to conquer Ming as Hideyoshi requested, history must have been so different, since practices of teachings of good ancient Chinese Civilization were more honestly pursued in Korea and Japan than in China even in those days.
Yet, most victims of the war between Chiana and Japan in the late 16th century were Korean people. It goes without speaking that we are extremely sorry for them.)
* * *
The then world-leading production of silver as well as gold and guns in Japan, in addition to world information brought by Vatican missionaries, could be a key to Hideyoshi's judgement on possibility of success in his plan.
But, there is another decisive factor.
It is Oda Nobunaga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobunaga_Oda), Hideyoshi's long-time boss and benefactor.
Nobunaga had a dream of conquering China and becoming a great king of Asia like the then superpower of the world Spain.
If you look at the world map, you will find a strange thing that there is a world called "Latin America" where people speak Spanish, though most inhabitants are indigenous people whose ancestors had traveled to Americas from Asia more than 10,000 years ago.
Yes, if Nobunaga's dream had been fulfilled like Spain's, there might have been "Japanese China."
Of course, maturity and refinement of Chinese Civilization is three-digit advanced than that of Indigenous Civilizations in the Americas in the 16th century.
If it is a fact that maturity and refinement of Japanese Civilization then got equal to or partly surpassed China and Korea, it is an act of madness for Japan to venture into conquest of China in the late 16th century.
(Koreans then had no matchlock guns.)
Oda Nobunaga was not an ordinary person.
* * *
A type of persons like Nobunaga cannot be successful in Japan. But, history gave the only one chance to a man with such personality to be a hero in Japan.
Since having won a miracle victory when he was a young and lesser feud lord, he continued bloody and cruel victory over other major feud lords in the central part of Japan, leveraging matchlock guns introduced by Portuguese in the middle of the 16th century and devising an innovative military system.
When he was assassinated in a Buddhist temple near Kyoto, the rest of his ambition of unifying Japan was taken over by his samurai general Hideyoshi who neatly succeeded in it.
It is said that Oda Nobunaga got an idea about the world or the globe from missionaries of Vatican. He loved a terrestrial globe presented by a missionary of Vatican. He allowed for missionaries to preach the Gospels in Japan while hating some traditional Buddhist factions. It is also said that he did not respect the Imperial Family. He was a rationalist, so cool, cold, and sometimes cruel.
But, Hideyoshi served Nobunaga with ardor and obtained the biggest trust.
In a sense, a lunacy that had haunted Nobunaga must have been partly transferred to Hideyoshi as with the case commonly found in such hierarchical relation even today.
The lunacy seems to have been amplified and intensified by introduction of European Civilization into Japan through missionaries of Vatican in the era when Spain was the superpower supported by Vatican.
(But, Hideyoshi eventually began to suppress Christians and Vatican's missionaries after unification of Japan.)
* * *
In 1597, when Hideyoshi found that Ming did not surrender but treated him as a Ming's subordinate in an official letter sent to him after having withdrawn his troops from the Korean Peninsula, he felt insulted, got inflamed, and ordered another campaign to the Ming Dynasty through Korea.
But shortly thereafter Hideyoshi died in the great Osaka Castle probably by mercy of God on Koreans; the military campaign was terminated; and the samurai lords began to think about a future regime in Japan.
Ming however fatally lost its national power, which triggered its collapse in 1644.
Hideyoshi's descendants could not keep power; the Tokugawa clan took over the control of the nation through fierce battles, especially in Osaka, mobilizing every artillery guns, though explosive shells were not used in those days.
As a result, the capital of the samurai regime shifted from Osaka to Edo (Tokyo), Tokugawa's feud.
But, people in Osaka still today admire Toyotomi Hideyoshi who built the great Osaka Castle to place his headquarters in the center city of the Western Japan.
Hideyoshi's descendants could not keep power; the Tokugawa clan took over the control of the nation through fierce battles, especially in Osaka, mobilizing every artillery guns, though explosive shells were not used in those days.
As a result, the capital of the samurai regime shifted from Osaka to Edo (Tokyo), Tokugawa's feud.
But, people in Osaka still today admire Toyotomi Hideyoshi who built the great Osaka Castle to place his headquarters in the center city of the Western Japan.
(Technically, "Toyotomi" is a surname just like "Oda" and "Tokugawa" are.)
* * *
This is what was happening in the Far East when Queen Elizabeth I was trying hard to cope with the then superpower Spain on the ocean, heavily relying on British pirates who were later recognized as nobles.
* * *
This is what was happening in the Far East when Queen Elizabeth I was trying hard to cope with the then superpower Spain on the ocean, heavily relying on British pirates who were later recognized as nobles.
(The upper class of samurais in Japan had each also a title as a noble.)
This is what was happening when Japan was the major producer of silver as well as gold and firearms in the world in the era of Queen Elizabeth I, significance of which has almost been neglected by, or beyond understanding of, European and American elites, including cabinet members of the US Government and professors at Cambridge and Oxford.
This is what happened when Vatican first sent its missionaries to Japan in the 16th century.
But, what is good in knowing the history of Japan and its uniqueness?
In the late 16th century, when Japan was a world-leading producer of silver as well as gold and firearms, in addition to being the respected target of Vatican missionaries, there were no such things as Anglo Saxon, Anglo American, and Israelite American world powers.
In those years, the Spanish Empire tied up with Vatican was killing millions of native South Americans; however then 900-years old Islam was protecting Muslims somehow well from such violence by Europeans; and Japan with 1100-years old Buddhism practices was well prepared to face Vatican missionaries, significance of which has almost been neglected by, or beyond understanding of, European and American elites, including cabinet members of the US Government and professors at Cambridge and Oxford.
With knowledge of Japanese Civilization, you may more clearly understand the nature of the European Civilization and Vatican, so that you can more effectively improve them or cope with them.
* * *
Samurais as a whole did not pursue the lunatic dream of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (though they could do so like then lunatic Spanish and British, since they had funds, weapons, and information) as proven by the fact that some major samurai lords secretly rejected full cooperation with Hideyoshi. The same factor led to Japan's national isolation from the 17th century on to shut out Vatican influences.
(During Hideyoshi's campaigns, some Korean artisans and cultural figures with valuable skills and knowledge were brought to Japan and treated very well. Some of their descendants are still enjoying the legacy in Japan, though there were other unhappy and hapless cases.)
Finally, if America and Europe failed in obeying God, you can still trust in Japan, though in January 1593 Japanese samurai troops for real clashed with Chinese troops near Seoul in the Korean Peninsula.
(http://www.tokyo-shoseki.co.jp/multi/web-exe/db-movie-history/contents/douga/azuchi/Cazuchi01.htm)
"THEN THE PEOPLE OF ALL NATIONS WILL CALL YOU HAPPY"