29.6 The far east: a.d. 1401 to 1500  (Page 2/2)

There was still intermittent warfare and civil uprisings. The third Ming emperor, Ch'eng-tsu, came to power by overthrowing his nephew, after three years of civil war, but he rebuilt Peking and reconstructed the silted-up Grand Canal, thus allowing grain and textiles to come to the city from the rich southeast. He bullied Japan into nominal vassalage for the first time. In the middle of the century the emperor Ying-tsung (era name - Tien-shun) was taken captive and his court slaughtered by a Mongol raider, Esen. Rural problems also led to a number of rebellions, chiefly in the central and southeastern China, leading to a million deaths. (Ref. 101 , 8 )

Japan

Although organization and administration was sometimes neglected and chaotic, many of the dictators of the Ashikaga Shogunate were patrons of the arts and collected pieces that are prizes of collectors today. Local rulers of wide territories were called daimyos , meaning "feudal lords" and their subordinate soldiery were samurai , a word originally simply meaning "attendant". In the civil wars which raged throughout Japan, sometimes an entire clan family would be killed off and then their remaining fighting retainers would become masterless samurai or- ronin (wave-men). Some of these became pirates, terrorizing the coast of China and even the Philippines. (Ref. 12 ) In 1428, transport workers struck in protest against high prices and they, backed by farmers, rioted in the streets and wrecked warehouses, temples and houses. (Ref. 222 )

Towns developed, eventually becoming the modern cities of Osaka, Kobe and Fukuoka. Kyoto was the undisputed political and cultural capital. This was still a thoroughly Buddhist age in Japan, but intellectual life began to free itself from the bonds of religion. The Ashikaga power began to decline early in the century and the Onin War (1467-77) began a hundred years of strife between the feudal lords. (Ref. 119 , 12 )

Korea

The new Yi Dynasty was dominated by the Chinese and there was a suppression of Buddhism. Japanese pirate raids subsided somewhat and Korea had a period of great prosperity and cultural development. King Sejong (1419-1451) was a great patron of learning. It was at this time that the native phonetic script called "Onmum" was introduced and it is possible that the movable metal printing characters mentioned above were actually developed in Korea. (Ref. 233 , 260 )

Southeast asia

The Chinese Ming occupied Annam (Vietnam), through their navy, from 1407 to 1427, but then met resistance and finally allowed the region its independence in 1428. A Lao tribal monarch established the Laotian Kingdom of Lan Xang in mid-century. This included present day Laos and much of northern and eastern Thailand. The Siamese (Thai), under King Trailok, had centralized bureaucracy and a codified system of law. They ravaged Angkor in 1431 and took over a great part of the southern Khmer Empire, leaving them only what is now the general area of Cambodia and which was then called "Kambuja". After the sacking of Angkor the Siamese went home with as much loot as they could carry and when they returned for more a year later the city, where once there had been a million people, was deserted. No one knows where the people went, but through neglect the huge reservoirs, canals, roads and bridges all gave way to the jungle. (Ref. 8 , 101 , 176 ) Braudel (Ref. 260 ) says that the Siamese attacks upset the daily life and agriculture so that the rice field water cleared, allowing the malaria carrying mosquitoes to thrive and that the disease apparently decimated the population.

Northern Burma was under the Shan power while southern Burma was under the Mon (Pegu). The new Vietnamese kingdom of Dai-Viet gradually absorbed Champa territory, annexing its capital, Vijaya, in 1471. (Ref. 8 )

Since the Moluccas Islands and Malay, along with Ceylon, were the source of almost all spices, Malacca became an international port, shipping to China and the Malabar coast of India from where Arabs, Indians and Persians took over for further distribution. Built in a dismal swamp almost inaccessible by land, Malacca had been of no importance except as a pirate storage headquarters until in this and the preceding century it became a port for peaceable shipping. (Ref. 279 ) The men of Islam overthrew the old Majapahit Empire and their religion, which had been introduced into the Malayan archipelago from India in the 10th century, now finally became dominant as the Hindus were driven to Bali and a few other islands. (Ref. 8 , 68 )

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