30.6 The far east: a.d. 1501 to 1600  (Page 2/4)

The Portuguese establishment at Macao, permanent by 1557, was only a minor irritant, but at the same time China was under constant pressure from a Mongol power under Altan Khan in the north and from attacks by Japanese pirates along the coast. Huge armies also had to be sent to aid Korea, when the Japanese invaded there. All of this coincided with a decline in the authority of the Ming government, with power actually passing – into the hands of the palace eunuchs

Jurchens of Manchuria were fairly well controlled by the Chinese government until about 1580 when they fought back to again take complete control of that country.

Japan

It was mentioned in the last chapter that many samurai turned pirate. By 1550 the kings of Burma, Siam and Cambodia all employed Japanese cut-throats for their personal body guards and Japanese pirate traders were at their height, even in Siamese, Philippine and Korean waters. In spite of feudal, clan wars through the country the common people of Japan prospered and the population rose from 15 to 25 million, a figure 2 times that of France, 4 times that of Spain and 5 times that of England. The artisan and merchant classes grew rich on war profits and traders did well with lacquer and steel wares as far away as Calcutta. Some silver and copper even went to Europe. At the same time, how- ever, the imperial fortunes went down so that Emperor Go-Nara (1526-1557) even peddled samples of his calligraphy on the Kyoto streets to regain a fortune. (Ref. 292 , 12 )

In 1542 the first Portuguese ship called at ports in Kyushu and by 1573 the port of Sakai had become a free market and town. Soon powerful craft guilds extended their networks and monopolies from one town to another. In 1549 Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit, arrived and made 150,000 converts, even including some of the great lords, to Christianity in a single generation. Although closely watched, after two years Xavier extracted the taboo information that there was an emperor in Japan above the Shogun, but he never did see him and no westerner saw an emperor for yet another 300 years. The Portuguese had guns, of course, and it didn't take the Japanese long to copy and then improve on the few which they bought from the westerners. Japan had copper and got tin from Malaysia to make new bronze cannon. (Ref. 12 , 279 )

Oda Nobunaga, of both imperial and Fujiwara lineage and ruler over a small fief, including the port of Nagoya, was a military genius, who defeated all the major clan lords between Tokyo and Kyoto by 1568, using foot soldiers equipped with matchlocks. He deposed the Shogun and set up a puppet in his place as he began to build the Emperor Ogimachi a magnificent new palace. Then with the emperor 's sanction, he destroyed various feuding barons and all but one Buddhist monastery in Japan. With Christians he was lenient. In 1575, at 41 years of age, Oda met the lords of the north coast at Narashino in the biggest battle of all - commanding 100,000 men with cannon and muskets. There was no battle in Europe to compare with this for another century. Oda was finally assassinated but during his career Kyoto had climbed from a population of 20,000 in 1550 to almost 500,000.