The Legacies of Korea and China in Japan
The images above are sections of the Great Wall of China. The wall relates to a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China. Its main purpose in the past was to protect the Chinese states and empire against the raids and invasions of various nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe. Several walls were built as early as the seventh century BCE; these, later joined together and made the whole complex bigger and stronger. The Great Wall of China measures today approximately 21,196 kilometres in length.
The Korean Legacy
A cursory glance through the geographical map of the Far East will tell us why in ancient times, exchanges of cultures and ideas, diplomatic contact and trade between Japan and mainland Asia were done through the Korean Peninsula. Independent principalities known as Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla controlled the peninsula and Manchuria as the Three Kingdoms of Korea from 57 BCE until its unification by Silla and China’s Tang Dynasty alliance in 668 CE. Directly across the Korea Strait, stood the confederacy of Kaya (aka Mimana in Japanese), which was believed until recently to have been controlled by Japan from 200 CE as an overseas colonial possession, until its conquest by Silla in 562 CE. Though nowadays this theory is largely refuted by historians on both sides, there is the agreement that Kaya was the first foreign country with which Japan established relations and until the beginning of the Kofun Period around 250 CE, Kaya remained the country with which Japan had the closest links. The introduction of the agriculture and metallurgy into the hunter-gatherer Jōmon Japan via Kaya, escorted the country’s transition to the unified Yayoi Japan.
Until the creation of its own alphabet (Hangul) in the 15th century by Sejong the Great, Korea (what is perceived today as the North and South Korea), primarily wrote using Literary Chinese (Hanji or Kanji in Japanese) alongside its native phonetic; hence, it is no surprise that the Japanese adopted officially the same alphabet by the 6th century, adapting it too to its phonetic. There is also much debate about the similarities of sounds between the Korean and Japanese spoken languages. Some experts believe that akin to German and Dutch, they have the same roots.
During the Asuka Period (538 CE to 710 CE), the Baekje Kingdom had the strongest relations to Japan. Buddhism was introduced to Japan by the Baekje’s monarchy in 552 CE. King Seong of Baekje sent a delegation to Japan, and presented Kinmei Tennō with a Buddha statue, several canopies and sacred books of Buddhism. Seong hoped to strengthen the bonds between his principality and Japan by sharing a common faith. Baekje was at constant war with Silla and Goguryeo; hence, he wished to count on his oversea ally for support against his rivals. Empress Suiko officialised Buddhism as one of the state religions in 594 CE. It was the catalytic policy that brought into the country a plethora of immigrants from the Korean peninsula. Highly skilled Korean craftsmen, scholars, monks, and architects shoved Japan into a new era of innovation and development, transforming completely its landscape. King Mu of Baekje (580–641) (r. 600–641) was the 30th King of Baekje and the son of King Beop. Early in his reign, Mu attacked Silla several times, and requested assistance from Emperor Yantg-ti of Sui Dynasty of China to attack Goguryeo. Unfortunately to Yang-ti, following his defeat in the Goguryeo-Sui War, the Sui was replaced by the Tang Dynasty in 618.
King Mu established the Mireuksa Temple in 602, ordered the repair of the Sabi Palace in 630, and the construction near his palace of the earliest known artificial lake in Korea. This policies in the latter half of his reign, which prioritised construction projects at the expense of national defence, are often thought to have contributed to the fall of Baekje which took place twenty years after his death. Mu had also briefly moved the capital from Sabi to Iksan. Archaeological evidence in Iksan, including tombs attributed to Mu and his wife Queen Seonhwa confirms this theory. Uija, the son of Mu and Seonhwa and the last king of Baekje (reigned 641-660), formed an alliance with Japan and his sons Buyeo Pung and Buyeo Seon’gwang took refuge in the Yamato court.
After the fall of Baekje in 660, Japan took in many skilled Baekje Korean refugees who helped further in its social and cultural development. Empress Jitō honoured King Zenkō (aka Buyeo Seon’gwang) in 691, by giving him the hereditary title of Kudara no Konikishi and allowed him to pass on his royal lineage to future generations. According to the Shoku Nihongi (the Japanese history text, completed in 797, published soon after the Nihon Shoki), Takano no Niigasa came from a background of the naturalised clansmen Yamato-no-Fumito, who was a descendant of King Zenkō of Baekje. She was the first wife of Emperor Kōnin and subsequently became the mother of Emperor Kanmu, one of the most renowned emperors of Japan. Japan’s official contact with China started in 607 CE, when a delegation was sent by Empress Suiko to the Sui Court. Chinese culture had always been introduced to Japan via the Korean Peninsula, but once a direct contact was established between China and Japan, the Korea-Japan relations started to slump.
Emperor Kanmu severed diplomatic relations with Silla (the unified former Three Kingdom of Korea) in 799. Between 9th and 11th centuries, Japanese pirates plundered the southern region of Korean Peninsula and Korea-Japan relations further deteriorated. During the middle Kamakura Period (1185 – 1333), Japan suffered from two invasions of the Mongol Empire (Yuan Dynasty) and its partner kingdom, the Goryeo (the Korean kingdom established in 918 by King Taejo. This kingdom later gave name to the modern ‘Korea’ country). In order to invade Japan, the Mongols ordered the Korean king to manufacture 500 warships for the first attack and 900 for the second. The two invading Mongol-Korean fleets were destroyed by ‘miracle‘ storms, giving rise to the myth of the Kamikaze, the divine winds that protected Japan from the Mongol invasions.
The Chinese Legacy
China is one of the world’s oldest civilisations; as such, alongside Mesopotamia, India, Andes and Mesoamerica, it is regarded as one of the cradles of civilisation. The earliest known written records of the History of China date from as early as 1250 BCE, falling into the Shang Dynasty (1600 BCE – 1046 BCE), but archaeological evidence confirms that civilisation in China arose millennia before that time.
In 221 BCE Qin Shi Huang conquered the various warring states and created for himself the title of ‘Huangdi‘ (emperor) of the Qin, marking the beginning of Imperial China. As part of his centralisation policy, Qin connected the northern border walls of the states he defeated, by constructing the first Great Wall of China. Another of his famous feats is the Terracotta Army, a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting an army of over 8,000 soldiers buried with the emperor, who were supposed to protect him in afterlife. Despite short, the fifteen-year Qin Dynasty (221 BCE – 206 BCE), was immensely influential on China and on the structure of future Chinese dynasties. The golden age in Chinese ancient history is applied to the Han Dynasty‘s (206 BCE – 220 CE) long period of stability and prosperity. It consolidated the foundation of China as a unified state under a central imperial bureaucracy, which was to last intermittently for most of the next two millennia. Founded by Liu Bang, during the Han Dynasty, the territory of China was extended to most of the China proper and to areas far west. Confucionism was officially elevated to orthodox status, and art, culture and science all advanced to unprecedented heights. The name ‘Han’ was taken as the name of the Chinese people, now the dominant ethnic group in modern China, and had been commonly used to refer to Chinese language and written characters (Hanji). During the Han Dynasty the mathematical method of Gaussian Elimination, was developed as early as 150 BCE, which appeared in the Chinese mathematical text Chapter Eight Rectangular Arrays of The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. A scholar innovation, achieved more than 1500 years before the Europeans came up with the method in the 18th century.
The Han visionary Emperor Wu, who reigned from 141 BCE to 87 BCE, sponsored science by founding several universities and launched many military campaigns to strengthen his power. Nevertheless, his most ambitious project was the Silk Road, which opened up China to the West. The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length. The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products and extended the Great Wall of China to ensure the protection of the trade route. Large caravans of traders travelled along the Silk Road from China and India to Asia Minor, then throughout Mesopotamia, to Egypt, the African continent, Greece, Rome and Britain. The system achieved its zenith in the third century CE, opening long-distance political and economic relations between these civilisations. Though silk was the major trade item exported from China; paper, gunpowder and spices, amongst many other products were transported from the east to the west; from where merchants bought and imported olives, wine, metal, glass and jewels to the east.
The massive economic impact of the Silk Road trade affected the life of almost everyone (directly or indirectly) living in the countries involved. Alas, deadly diseases also travelled along the network of routes, spreading plagues, such as measles, smallpox and the bubonic disease. The Silk Road was the catalyst of important cultural exchanges. Art, philosophy, technology, language, science, architecture, religion and every other element of civilisation were transmitted along with the commercial goods the dealers carried from country to country.
The first mention of the Japanese archipelago was in the Chinesehistoric text Book of Later Han. It was noted that the King of Na Gold Seal was given to the Land of Wa (Japan) by Emperor Guangwu of Han during a diplomatic visit from Japan in 57 BCE. The seal was discovered in the ShikaIsland of the modern-day Fukuoka Prefecture in the eighteenth century and is designated as the National Treasure of Japan. The first Japanese personage mentioned by the Wei Zhi (Records of Wei) is Himiko, the female shaman leader of a “country with hundreds of states called Yamatai-koku’. Modern historical linguists believe Yamatai was actually pronounced Yamato. Himiko; made a household name by the Lara Croft’s adventures of Tomb Raider Hollywood blockbuster; is still a controversial character for modern historians. Because of the time of her appearance in history, historians associate her with the legendary EmpressJingū (c. 200–269), the consort to the 14th Japanese Emperor Chūai, who, according to the Nihon Shoki, upon the death of her husband, led an army in an invasion of a promised land (supposedly the lands on the Korean Peninsula) and returned to Japan victorious after three years.
In 1881, Empress Jingū became the firstwoman to be featured on a Japanese banknote. Her portrait was also placed in the 1908/14, 1924/37 and 1939 postage stamps; however, since no actual images of this legendary figure are known to exist, the representation of Jingū is entirely conjectural. Get a FREE download of her short-story book by clicking here.
The two attempts to reopen diplomatic relationship with China was pioneered by Empress Suiko in 600 CE and 607 CE. It was a period of enlightenment of Asuka Japan (538 – 710 CE), most enabled by the adoption of Buddhism as one of its state religion. Buddhism brought into the country a plethora of scientific, engineering, art, scholar and architectural skilled immigrants from China and Korea, which shoved the country into a new era of development. Japan’s rulers sought to refashion themselves from clan chieftains into fully fledged monarchs on the Chinese model. Hence, several students were sent to China to sojourn there for extended periods of time and bring back amongst other things, the learned models of bureaucratic administration and Imperial government. To mention a few that have been adopted by Japan are:
The Twelve Level Cap and Rank System (Kan’i Junikai) in 603 – Officials wore silk caps coloured purple, blue, red, yellow, white and black, that indicated the official’s rank. The system consisted of the greater and the lesser of each of the six Confucian virtues: virtue (徳 toku), benevolence (仁 jin), propriety (礼 rei), sincerity (信 shin), justice (義 gi) and knowledge (智 chi). The primary distinction between this new system and the old kabane system by which a person’s rank was determined based on heredity, was that the cap and rank system allowed for promotion based on merit and individual achievement;
The Seventeen Article Constitution (Kenpo jushichiju) in 604 – The emphasis of the document is not so much on the basic laws by which the state was to be governed, but rather it was a highly Buddhist and Confucian philosophies inspired edict that focused on the morals and virtues that were to be expected of government officials and the emperor’s subjects to ensure a smooth running of the state, where the emperor was to be regarded as the highest authority. In any case, it was one of the earliest constitutions in history and the prototype for future constitutions, supported by complex laws. It was to become an important source among ruling authorities: the shogun, court, aristocracy, and temple establishments, for bolstering their claims to authority; The Lunisolar Calendar in the late sixth century – Also called Sexagenary Cycle, it was based on exact astronomical observations of the sun’s longitude and the moon’s phases. It consisted of two components: the celestial and the terrestrial branches. As the first branch had ten elements and the second twelve, it took sixty years to align again the first elements. For example, the first year of Jimmu Reign (660 BCE) is known as Kanoto-tori (金の弟 + 酉). It combines the eighth and tenth elements of the two branches, respectively.
The Taika Reforms (Taika no Kaishin) promulgated in 645, was a heavily Chinese influenced reform, which consisted of a series of royal edicts that further solidified the emperor as the central source of government. It basically stated that: 1. All land in Japan belong to the emperor. 2. The capital was established as the centre of political power and local government branches called koori [評] were established in each prefecture. 3. It established a census that helped delegate individual taxation. 4. It assigned land to farmers, and also taxed them for their proceeds. The Taika Reforms also influenced Japan on a cultural level. Despite Japan’s emperor no longer rules Japan, traces of the Taika Reforms are still present in the country’s culture ideology.
In 794 CE, Emperor Kanmu moved the capital to Kyōtō and modelled the entire new city (Heian-kyō) on Tang Dynasty capital Chang’an (aka Daxing). Chang’an was considered the largest city in the world at the time with over one million residents. It was laid out in a formal grid fashion but was not a perfect rectangle as it was designed to resemble the Big Dipper. Once the connection had been set up with China, Korea was no longer the conduit of transporting and filtering knowledge and skills to Japan. A direct link had been established between the master – China – who was willing to take under its wings a new apprentice – Japan – who was eager to learn and would absorb and perfect what it had learned from the advanced culture of its master. Empress Suiko introduced to the country scores of other features that were deemed to be useful to the society. They were adopted in such a way that they would blend in harmoniously with Japanese customs. This was probably not the first such instance in history, but it was the first to be documented; namely, the ability of the Japanese to borrow foreign ways and to make something totally unique out of them.
The Heian Period (794 – 1185) became in a sense, Japan’s cultural declaration of independence from China. During this period, under the patronage of the aristocracy, Japanese art flourished, particularly in literature and the visual arts. In the ninth century China was again engulfed in an internal political battle and official relations between Japan and China were severed again, not to resume for 500 years.