6.25 The far east: a.d. 1101 to 1200

The far east

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China and manchuria (sung to 1127, then southern sung dynasty)

At this time there were perhaps 100,000,000 people in China. There was notable development of maritime and rivertine trade and great cities arose on the coast and along the Yangtze River, with merchant vessels going to the Indian Ocean and South Asia. Cotton sails

The Tungusic speaking tribes of central Manchuria, the Jurchen, who were the ancestors of the later Manchus, arose against their Khitan masters in Manchuria in 1114 under the leadership of Wan-yen A-ku-ta, proclaimed the Chin Dynasty

In spite of continued political and military troubles Chinese economy and culture flourished with new agricultural technology and productivity. The south coastal regions were fully assimilated and populated by Chinese and merchant ships from Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean jammed the coastal harbors. The mountainous topography south of the Yangtze hindered the use of canals and riverways there so the merchants had to take to the open seas. Commerce with other peoples could be subject to excise taxes and by 1137 about 1/5 of the emperor's government income came from those taxes on maritime trade. Hang-chow had a population in the millions. Both block and movable type was used to promote printing and great libraries were collected. The heavy military cost, the tributary payments which had to be made to the Jurchen and heavy reliance on paper money led to increasing inflation and increasing inequities between the rich and the poor. (Ref. 45 , 8 , 68 , 101 )

Chu Hsi (1130-1200) saved Confucianism for the Chinese by building upon the loose aphorisms of Confucius an orderly system of philosophy which helped the political and intellectual life for the next seven centuries. In the meantime the Jurchens had established the Chin (also Kin) Dynasty, with a capital at Peking. (Ref. 46 , 101 )

Japan

An ex-emperor, Shirakawa, effective ruler for two children emperors, in 1126 decreed a strict Buddhist rule against killing any living thing and even all fish-nets were collected and burned. (Ref. 222 ) But this was a feudal age in Japan and local sources of authority grew in power as a distant government failed to maintain security and order. The people paid taxes to Shoguns, or generals, rather than to the central government. About 1192 a member of the Minamoto clan, Yoritoma, getting his title of Shogun

Korea

The Jurchen Chin Dynasty of Manchuria forced the - Koryo kingdom of Korea to submission early in the century. This affected the people as a whole very little and there was no change then until 1170 when military officers seized the government and condemned Buddhism, describing it as dangerous. Some 26 years passed before the Ch'oe family could gain central control again and establish a new native dynasty.

Southeast asia

Burma remained a fully sovereign state in its Pagan Period. Thailand continued as part of the Khmer Empire which now reached its greatest extent in Cambodia under Suryavarman II (1113-1150), who built the temple tomb of Angkor Wat and extended the Angkor power from the China Sea to the Indian Ocean. This great power and wealth was continued under Jayavarman VII at the end of the century, even though in between these two great leaders, considerable trouble had developed with a civil uprising and a murderous invasion in 1170 by neighboring Chams, who actually temporarily took Angkor. In Indonesia, Sumatra and Java remained as separate entities, as in the last century. (Ref. 45 , 176 , 19 , 176 )

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