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98-588: The Nihon Gaishi (日本外史) is a 19th-century book on the history of Japan by Rai San'yo . The whole work comprises 22 scrolls and covers samurai history from the Genpei War to the Edo period . This article about a non-fiction book on Japanese history is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . History of Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to

196-575: A centralized government, nominally controlled by the Emperor of Japan . The imperial dynasty established at this time continues to this day, albeit in an almost entirely ceremonial role. In 794, a new imperial capital was established at Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto ), marking the beginning of the Heian period , which lasted until 1185. The Heian period is considered a golden age of classical Japanese culture . Japanese religious life from this time and onwards

294-442: A continuous rain of bullets on the enemy. They also developed bigger calibers to increase lethality. Protective boxes in lacquerware were invented to be able to fire matchlocks in the rain, as well as systems to accurately fire weapons at night by keeping fixed angles thanks to measured strings. As a result, in the year 1567, Takeda Shingen announced that "Hereafter, the guns will be the most important arms. Therefore, decrease

392-399: A decisive role in warfare. In 1549, Oda Nobunaga ordered 500 matchlocks to be made for his armies. The benefits of firearms were still relatively questionable however compared with other weapons. At the time, guns were still rather primitive and cumbersome. According to one estimate in 16th century Japan, an archer could fire 15 arrows in the time a gunner would take to load, charge, and shoot

490-463: A deterioration in already poor standards of health and nutrition, whereas contemporaneous Yayoi archaeological sites possess large structures suggestive of grain storehouses. This shift was accompanied by an increase in both the stratification of society and tribal warfare, indicated by segregated gravesites and military fortifications. During the Yayoi period, the Yayoi tribes gradually coalesced into

588-463: A firearm. Effective range was only 80 to 100 meters. At that maximum distance, a bullet could easily bounce off armour. Furthermore, matchlocks were vulnerable to humid or rainy conditions as the powder would become damp. However, firearms could be manned effectively by farmers or non- samurai low-ranking soldiers. The Japanese soon worked on various techniques to improve the effectiveness of their guns. They developed serial firing technique to create

686-467: A major catalyst for further administrative reforms. These reforms culminated with the promulgation of the Taihō Code , which consolidated existing statutes and established the structure of the central government and its subordinate local governments. These legal reforms created the ritsuryō state, a system of Chinese-style centralized government that remained in place for half a millennium. The art of

784-624: A much longer range than the smoothbore "geweer"-style guns, although, being also muzzle-loading, they were similarly limited to two shots per minute. Improved breech-loading mechanisms, such as the Snider , developing a rate of about ten shots a minute, are known to have been used by troops of the Tosa Domain against the shogunate's Shōgitai , at the Battle of Ueno in July 1868. In the second half of

882-541: A number of kingdoms. The earliest written work to unambiguously mention Japan, the Book of Han , published in 111 AD, states that one hundred kingdoms comprised Japan, which is referred to as Wa . A later Chinese work of history, the Book of Wei , states that by 240 AD, the powerful kingdom of Yamatai , ruled by the female monarch Himiko , had gained ascendancy over the others, though modern historians continue to debate its location and other aspects of its depiction in

980-418: A period of civil war . Over the course of the late 16th century, Japan was reunified under the leadership of the prominent daimyō Oda Nobunaga and his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi . After Toyotomi's death in 1598, Tokugawa Ieyasu came to power and was appointed shōgun by the emperor. The Tokugawa shogunate , which governed from Edo (modern Tokyo ), presided over a prosperous and peaceful era known as

1078-590: A rival member of the imperial family to the throne, Emperor Kōmyō , who did appoint him shogun. Go-Daigo responded by fleeing to the southern city of Yoshino , where he set up a rival government. This ushered in a prolonged period of conflict between the Northern Court and the Southern Court . Takauji set up his shogunate in the Muromachi district of Kyoto. However, the shogunate was faced with

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1176-442: A series of natural disasters, including wildfires, droughts, famines, and outbreaks of disease, such as a smallpox epidemic in 735–737 that killed over a quarter of the population. Emperor Shōmu (r. 724–749) feared his lack of piousness had caused the trouble and so increased the government's promotion of Buddhism, including the construction of the temple Tōdai-ji in 752. The funds to build this temple were raised in part by

1274-705: A substantial following in Japan reaching 350,000 believers. In 1549 the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier disembarked in Kyushu. Initiating direct commercial and cultural exchange between Japan and the West, the first map made of Japan in the west was represented in 1568 by the Portuguese cartographer Fernão Vaz Dourado . The Portuguese were allowed to trade and create colonies where they could convert new believers into

1372-497: A trading ship was blown off course and landed in 1543 on the Japanese island of Tanegashima , just south of Kyushu. The three Portuguese traders on board were the first Europeans to set foot in Japan. Soon European traders would introduce many new items to Japan, most importantly the musket . By 1556, the daimyōs were using about 300,000 muskets in their armies. The Europeans also brought Christianity , which soon came to have

1470-553: A world economic powerhouse . Since the Lost Decade of the 1990s, Japanese economic growth has slowed. Hunter-gatherers arrived in Japan in Paleolithic times, with the oldest evidence dating to around 38–40,000 years ago. Little evidence of their presence remains, as Japan's acidic soils tend to degrade bone remains. However, the discovery of unique edge-ground axes in Japan dated to over 30,000 years ago may be evidence of

1568-522: Is commonly accepted that the tomb was built for Emperor Nintoku . The kofun were often surrounded by and filled with numerous haniwa clay sculptures, often in the shape of warriors and horses. The center of the unified state was Yamato in the Kinai region of central Japan. The rulers of the Yamato state were a hereditary line of emperors who still reign as the world's longest dynasty. The rulers of

1666-474: Is supported by genetic and linguistic studies. Historian Hanihara Kazurō has suggested that the annual immigrant influx from the continent range from 350 to 3,000. The population of Japan began to increase rapidly, perhaps with a 10-fold rise over the Jōmon. Calculations of the increasing population size by the end of the Yayoi period have varied from 1 to 4 million. Skeletal remains from the late Jōmon period reveal

1764-562: The Tosa Diary , both associated with the poet Ki no Tsurayuki , as well as Sei Shōnagon 's collection of miscellany The Pillow Book , and Murasaki Shikibu 's Tale of Genji , often considered the masterpiece of Japanese literature. The development of the kana written syllabaries was part of a general trend of declining Chinese influence during the Heian period. The official Japanese missions to Tang dynasty of China, which began in

1862-727: The Abe clan , who occupied key posts in the regional government, were openly defying the central authority. The court requested the Minamoto clan to engage the Abe clan, whom they defeated in the Former Nine Years' War . The court thus temporarily reasserted its authority in northern Japan. Following another civil war – the Later Three-Year War  – Fujiwara no Kiyohira took full power; his family,

1960-672: The Battle of Okehazama , his army defeated a force several times its size led by the powerful daimyō Imagawa Yoshimoto . Nobunaga was renowned for his strategic leadership and his ruthlessness. He encouraged Christianity to incite hatred toward his Buddhist enemies and to forge strong relationships with European arms merchants. He equipped his armies with muskets and trained them with innovative tactics. He promoted talented men regardless of their social status, including his peasant servant Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who became one of his best generals. The Azuchi–Momoyama period began in 1568, when Nobunaga seized Kyoto and thus effectively brought an end to

2058-529: The Battle of Sekigahara , a rare example of a teppō unit, or musketeer unit consisting only of women. Japan became so enthusiastic about the new weapons that it possibly overtook every European country in absolute numbers produced. Japan also used the guns in the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592, in which about a quarter of the invasion force of 160,000 were gunners. They were extremely successful at first and managed to capture Seoul just 18 days after their landing at Busan . The internal war in Japan

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2156-519: The Book of Wei . During the subsequent Kofun period , Japan gradually unified under a single territory. The symbol of the growing power of Japan's new leaders was the kofun burial mounds they constructed from around 250 AD onwards. Many were of massive scale, such as the Daisenryō Kofun , a 486 m-long keyhole-shaped burial mound that took huge teams of laborers fifteen years to complete. It

2254-472: The Boshin War , most shogunate vassal troops used "geweer"-style smoothbore guns. These guns were rather ancient and had limited capabilities, with an effective lethal range of about 50 meters, and a firing rate of about two rounds per minute. Much more effective Minié rifles were also used by the armies directly under the command of the shōgun , the bakufu troops. The Daimyō of Nagaoka , an ally of

2352-541: The Edo period (1600–1868). The Tokugawa shogunate imposed a strict class system on Japanese society and cut off almost all contact with the outside world . Portugal and Japan came into contact in 1543, when the Portuguese became the first Europeans to reach Japan by landing in the southern archipelago. They had a significant impact on Japan, even in this initial limited interaction, introducing firearms to Japanese warfare . The American Perry Expedition in 1853–54 more completely ended Japan's seclusion; this contributed to

2450-584: The Five kings of Wa . Craftsmen and scholars from China and the Three Kingdoms of Korea played an important role in transmitting continental technologies and administrative skills to Japan during this period. Historians agree that there was a big struggle between the Yamato federation and the Izumo Federation centuries before written records. The Asuka period began as early as 538 AD with

2548-597: The Kantō region located in eastern Japan, its power was legally authorized by the Imperial court in Kyoto on several occasions. In 1192, the emperor declared Yoritomo seii tai-shōgun ( 征夷大将軍 ; Eastern Barbarian Subduing Great General ), abbreviated as shōgun . Yoritomo's government was called the bakufu ( 幕府 ("tent government")), referring to the tents where his soldiers encamped. The English term shogunate refers to

2646-541: The Koishikawa Arsenal had to be established to produce such new weapons. Later, Japan developed the very successful bolt action Arisaka series rifles, which was the Japanese service rifle until the end of World War II . Japan produced relatively few submachine guns during World War II, the most numerous model was the Type 100 submachine gun of which 24,000–27,000 were produced, compared, for example, with

2744-639: The Mongol Empire . Though outnumbered by an enemy equipped with superior weaponry, the Japanese fought the Mongols to a standstill in Kyushu on both occasions until the Mongol fleet was destroyed by typhoons called kamikaze , meaning "divine wind". In spite of the Kamakura shogunate's victory, the defense so depleted its finances that it was unable to provide compensation to its vassals for their role in

2842-691: The Northern Fujiwara , controlled northern Honshu for the next century from their capital Hiraizumi . In 1156, a dispute over succession to the throne erupted and the two rival claimants ( Emperor Go-Shirakawa and Emperor Sutoku ) hired the Taira and Minamoto clans in the hopes of securing the throne by military force. During this war, the Taira clan led by Taira no Kiyomori defeated the Minamoto clan. Kiyomori used his victory to accumulate power for himself in Kyoto and even installed his own grandson Antoku as emperor. The outcome of this war led to

2940-514: The Paleolithic , around 38–39,000 years ago. The Jōmon period , named after its cord-marked pottery , was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inventions were introduced from Asia. During this period, the first known written reference to Japan was recorded in the Chinese Book of Han in the first century AD. Around the 3rd century BC, the Yayoi people from

3038-720: The Satsuma rebellion in 1877, with an average of 320,000 rounds of ammunition fired daily during the conflict. After the Satsuma rebellion, Japan relied extensively on the French Chassepot. Japan finally developed its own model, the Murata rifle , derived from the French Fusil Gras mle 1874 . This was Japan's first locally made service rifle, and was used from 1880 to 1898. An industrial infrastructure, such as

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3136-584: The Taira . After seizing power, Yoritomo set up his capital in Kamakura and took the title of shōgun . In 1274 and 1281, the Kamakura shogunate withstood two Mongol invasions , but in 1333 it was toppled by a rival claimant to the shogunate, ushering in the Muromachi period . During this period, regional warlords called daimyō grew in power at the expense of the shōgun . Eventually, Japan descended into

3234-533: The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria . The Allies occupied Japan until 1952, during which a new constitution was enacted in 1947 that transformed Japan into the constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy it is today. After 1955, Japan enjoyed very high economic growth under the governance of the Liberal Democratic Party , and became

3332-413: The bakufu . Japan remained largely under military rule until 1868. Legitimacy was conferred on the shogunate by the Imperial court, but the shogunate was the de facto rulers of the country. The court maintained bureaucratic and religious functions, and the shogunate welcomed participation by members of the aristocratic class. The older institutions remained intact in a weakened form, and Kyoto remained

3430-546: The fall of the shogunate and the return of power to the emperor during the Boshin War in 1868. The new national leadership of the following Meiji era (1868–1912) transformed the isolated feudal island country into an empire that closely followed Western models and became a great power . Although democracy developed and modern civilian culture prospered during the Taishō period (1912–1926), Japan's powerful military had great autonomy and overruled Japan's civilian leaders in

3528-493: The shōgun , possessed two Gatling guns and several thousand modern rifles. The shogunate is known to have placed an order for 30,000 modern Dreyse needle guns in 1866. In 1867, orders were placed for 40,000 state-of-the-art French Chassepot rifles, a part of which reached Edo by year's end. Antiquated Tanegashima matchlock guns are also known to have been used by the bakufu however. Imperial troops mainly used Minié rifles, which were much more accurate, lethal, and had

3626-712: The 13th century during the first Mongol invasion and were referred to as teppō . Portuguese firearms were introduced in 1543, and intense development followed, with strong local manufacture during the period of conflicts of the late 16th century. Hōjutsu , the art of gunnery, is the Japanese martial art dedicated to firearms usage. Due to its proximity with China, Japan had long been familiar with gunpowder weaponry. Firearms appeared in Japan around 1270, as primitive metal tubes invented in China and called teppō (鉄砲 lit. "iron cannon"). These weapons were very basic, as they had no trigger or sights, and could not be compared to

3724-584: The 1867 Boshin War . At the same time, technological progress was extremely fast in the West, with the introduction of the rifle , breech-loading and even repeating firearms, so that Japanese armies were equipped with composite technologies, with weapons imported from countries as varied as France, Germany, the Indians, Britain and the United States, and coexisting with traditional Tanegashima guns. During

3822-470: The 1920s and 1930s. The Japanese military invaded Manchuria in 1931, and from 1937 the conflict escalated into a prolonged war with China . Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 led to war with the United States and its allies . Japan's forces soon became overextended, but the military held out in spite of Allied air attacks that inflicted severe damage on population centers. Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945, following

3920-595: The Ashikaga shogunate the country descended into another, more violent period of civil war. This started in 1467 when the Ōnin War broke out over who would succeed the ruling shogun. The daimyōs each took sides and burned Kyoto to the ground while battling for their preferred candidate. By the time the succession was settled in 1477, the shogun had lost all power over the daimyō , who now ruled hundreds of independent states throughout Japan. During this Warring States period , daimyōs fought among themselves for control of

4018-535: The Ashikaga shogunate. He was well on his way towards his goal of reuniting all Japan when, in 1582, one of his own officers, Akechi Mitsuhide , killed him during an abrupt attack on his encampment. Hideyoshi avenged Nobunaga by crushing Akechi's uprising and emerged as Nobunaga's successor. Hideyoshi completed the reunification of Japan by conquering Shikoku , Kyushu, and the lands of the Hōjō family in eastern Japan. He launched sweeping changes to Japanese society, including

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4116-578: The Asuka period embodies the themes of Buddhist art. One of the most famous works is the Buddhist temple of Hōryū-ji , commissioned by Prince Shōtoku and completed in 607 AD. It is now the oldest wooden structure in the world. In 710, the government constructed a grandiose new capital at Heijō-kyō (modern Nara ) modeled on Chang'an , the capital of the Chinese Tang dynasty . During this period,

4214-665: The British Sten of which millions were produced. During the war, the Japanese worked on a copy of the American semi-automatic M1 Garand (the Type 5 rifle ) but only a few hundred were made before the end of the war and it did not enter service. After the end of the war, with the dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Army , and the establishment of the National Police Reserve in 1952 and

4312-553: The Christian religion. The civil war status in Japan greatly benefited the Portuguese, as well as several competing gentlemen who sought to attract Portuguese black boats and their trade to their domains. Initially, the Portuguese stayed on the lands belonging to Matsura Takanobu , Firando (Hirado), and in the province of Bungo, lands of Ōtomo Sōrin, but in 1562 they moved to Yokoseura when the Daimyô there, Omura Sumitada, offered to be

4410-652: The Dutch), airguns were developed by Kunitomo Ikkansai c. 1820–1830. From 1828, experiments were made with flintlock mechanisms. The Nagasaki samurai Takashima Shūhan (高島秋帆) started to import flintlock guns from the Netherlands known as "geweer" from the 1840s. He made the first modern Western military demonstration for the Tokugawa shogunate , in Tokumarugahara (north of Edo ) on 27 June 1841. With

4508-493: The Golden Pavilion" built in Kyoto in 1397. During the second half of the 16th century, Japan gradually reunified under two powerful warlords: Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi . The period takes its name from Nobunaga's headquarters, Azuchi Castle , and Hideyoshi's headquarters, Momoyama Castle . Nobunaga was the daimyō of the small province of Owari . He burst onto the scene suddenly, in 1560, when, during

4606-508: The Japanese occurred in 1565. In the Battle of Fukuda Bay , the daimyō Matsura Takanobu attacked two Portuguese trade vessels at Hirado port. The engagement led the Portuguese traders to find a safe harbor for their ships that took them to Nagasaki . In 1571, Dom Bartolomeu, also known as Ōmura Sumitada , guaranteed a little land in the small fishing village of "Nagasáqui" to the Jesuits, who divided it into six areas. They could use

4704-531: The Jōmon. They also introduced weaving and silk production, new woodworking methods, glassmaking technology, and new architectural styles. The expansion of the Yayoi appears to have brought about a fusion with the indigenous Jōmon, resulting in a small genetic admixture. These Yayoi technologies originated on the Asian mainland. There is debate among scholars as to what degree their spread can be attributed to migration or to cultural diffusion. The migration theory

4802-412: The Kamakura period, continued well into the Muromachi period. By 1450 Japan's population stood at ten million, compared to six million at the end of the thirteenth century. Commerce flourished, including considerable trade with China and Korea. Because the daimyōs and other groups within Japan were minting their own coins, Japan began to transition from a barter-based to a currency-based economy. During

4900-407: The Kamakura shogunate. Japan nevertheless entered a period of prosperity and population growth starting around 1250. In rural areas, the greater use of iron tools and fertilizer, improved irrigation techniques, and double-cropping increased productivity and rural villages grew. Fewer famines and epidemics allowed cities to grow and commerce to boom. Buddhism, which had been largely a religion of

4998-421: The Minamoto clan was sealed in 1185, when a force commanded by Yoritomo's younger brother, Minamoto no Yoshitsune , scored a decisive victory at the naval Battle of Dan-no-ura . Yoritomo and his retainers thus became the de facto rulers of Japan. During the Heian period, the imperial court was a vibrant center of high art and culture. Its literary accomplishments include the poetry collection Kokinshū and

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5096-566: The Portuguese adventurer turned author Fernão Mendes Pinto placed himself in that first landing party, although this claim has been roundly discredited and in fact contradicts his claims to be simultaneously in Burma at the time. However, Pinto does appear to have visited Tanegashima soon thereafter. Japan was at war during the Sengoku period between 1467 and 1600, as feudal lords vied for supremacy. Matchlock guns were used extensively and had

5194-567: The Soga cause, who was of partial Soga descent, served as regent and de facto leader of Japan from 594 to 622. Shōtoku authored the Seventeen-article constitution , a Confucian -inspired code of conduct for officials and citizens, and attempted to introduce a merit-based civil service called the Cap and Rank System . In 607, Shōtoku offered a subtle insult to China by opening his letter with

5292-455: The Yamato extended their power across Japan through military conquest, but their preferred method of expansion was to convince local leaders to accept their authority in exchange for positions of influence in the government. Many of the powerful local clans who joined the Yamato state became known as the uji . These leaders sought and received formal diplomatic recognition from China, and Chinese accounts record five successive such leaders as

5390-499: The aid of Empress Shōtoku , but after her death in 770 he lost all his power and was exiled. The Fujiwara clan furthermore consolidated its power. The Heian period (平安時代, Heian jidai) is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu , moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). Heian (平安) means "peace" in Japanese. In 784,

5488-466: The arrival of Commodore Perry in 1854 and the inescapable opening of the country to trade, rapid efforts were made at reequipping Japan with modern firearms. Old matchlock weapons were recovered and converted to flintlock mechanisms. The mounting civil war in Japan and the opposition of various feudal lords against the bakufu during the Late Tokugawa shogunate led to serious rearming until

5586-441: The artistic pursuits of court nobles that it neglected the administration of government outside the capital. The nationalization of land undertaken as part of the ritsuryō state decayed as various noble families and religious orders succeeded in securing tax-exempt status for their private shōen manors. By the eleventh century, more land in Japan was controlled by shōen owners than by the central government. The imperial court

5684-529: The capital moved briefly to Nagaoka-kyō , then again in 794 to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto ), which remained the capital until 1868. Political power within the court soon passed to the Fujiwara clan, a family of court nobles who grew increasingly close to the imperial family through intermarriage. Between 812 and 814 CE, a smallpox epidemic killed almost half of the Japanese population. In 858, Fujiwara no Yoshifusa had himself declared sesshō ("regent") to

5782-562: The city directly to the Jesuits in 1580. After a few years, the Jesuits came to realize that if they understood the language they would achieve more conversions to the Catholic religion. Jesuits such as João Rodrigues wrote a Japanese dictionary . Thus Portuguese became the first Western language to have such a dictionary when it was published in Nagasaki in 1603. In spite of the war, Japan's relative economic prosperity, which had begun in

5880-464: The confiscation of swords from the peasantry, new restrictions on daimyōs , persecutions of Christians, a thorough land survey, and a new law effectively forbidding the peasants and samurai from changing their social class. Hideyoshi's land survey designated all those who were cultivating the land as being "commoners", an act which effectively granted freedom to most of Japan's slaves . Firearms of Japan Firearms were introduced to Japan in

5978-672: The conflict, in the northeast theater, Tosa Province troops are known to have used American-made Spencer repeating rifles . American-made handguns were also popular, such as the 1863 Smith & Wesson Model No. 2 Army , which was imported to Japan by the Scottish trader Thomas Blake Glover and used by the Satsuma forces. For some time after the Meiji Restoration , Japan continued to use imported weapons. The newly created Imperial Japanese Army used firearms intensively against more traditional samurai rebellious forces during

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6076-478: The continent immigrated to the Japanese archipelago and introduced iron technology and agricultural civilization. Because they had an agricultural civilization, the population of the Yayoi began to grow rapidly and ultimately overwhelmed the Jōmon people , natives of the Japanese archipelago who were hunter-gatherers. Between the fourth and ninth centuries, Japan's many kingdoms and tribes gradually came to be unified under

6174-457: The country together was Takauji's grandson Ashikaga Yoshimitsu , who came to power in 1368 and remained influential until his death in 1408. Yoshimitsu expanded the power of the shogunate and in 1392, brokered a deal to bring the Northern and Southern Courts together and end the civil war. Henceforth, the shogunate kept the emperor and his court under tight control. During the final century of

6272-492: The country. Some of the most powerful daimyōs of the era were Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen . One enduring symbol of this era was the ninja , skilled spies and assassins hired by daimyōs . Few definite historical facts are known about the secretive lifestyles of the ninja, who became the subject of many legends. In addition to the daimyōs , rebellious peasants and "warrior monks" affiliated with Buddhist temples also raised their own armies. Amid this on-going anarchy,

6370-512: The development of rice cultivation and metallurgy. Until recently, the onset of this wave of cultural and technological changes was thought to have begun around 400 BC. Radio-carbon evidence now suggests that the new phase started some 500 years earlier, between 1,000 and 800 BC. Endowed with bronze and iron weapons and tools initially imported from China and the Korean peninsula, the Yayoi radiated out from northern Kyūshū , gradually supplanting

6468-495: The elephant Palaeoloxodon naumanni , and the giant deer Sinomegaceros yabei . The Jōmon period of prehistoric Japan spans from roughly 13,000 BC to about 1,000 BC. Japan was inhabited by a predominantly hunter-gatherer culture that reached a considerable degree of sedentism and cultural complexity. The name Jōmon, meaning "cord-marked", was first applied by American scholar Edward S. Morse , who discovered shards of pottery in 1877. The pottery style characteristic of

6566-525: The elites, was brought to the masses by prominent monks, such as Hōnen (1133–1212), who established Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, and Nichiren (1222–1282), who founded Nichiren Buddhism . Zen Buddhism spread widely among the samurai class. Takauji and many other samurai soon became dissatisfied with Emperor Go-Daigo's Kenmu Restoration , an ambitious attempt to monopolize power in the imperial court. Takauji rebelled after Go-Daigo refused to appoint him shōgun. In 1338, Takauji captured Kyoto and installed

6664-404: The first Homo sapiens in Japan. Early humans likely arrived in Japan by sea on watercraft. Evidence of human habitation has been dated to 32,000 years ago in Okinawa's Yamashita Cave and up to 20,000 years ago on Ishigaki Island's Shiraho Saonetabaru Cave . Evidence has been found suggesting that Japan's Paleolithic inhabitants interacted with and butchered now extinct megafauna , including

6762-485: The first lord to convert to Christianity, adopting the name of Dom Bartolomeu. In 1564, he faced a rebellion instigated by the Buddhist clergy and Yokoseura was destroyed. In 1561 forces under Ōtomo Sōrin attacked the castle in Moji with an alliance with the Portuguese, who provided three ships, with a crew of about 900 men and more than 50 cannons. This is thought to be the first bombardment by foreign ships on Japan. The first recorded naval battle between Europeans and

6860-454: The first phases of Jōmon culture was decorated by impressing cords into the surface of wet clay. Jōmon pottery is generally accepted to be among the oldest in East Asia and the world. The advent of the Yayoi people from the Asian mainland brought fundamental transformations to the Japanese archipelago. The millennial achievements of the Neolithic Revolution took hold of the islands in a relatively short span of centuries, particularly with

6958-416: The first two books produced in Japan appeared: the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki , which contain chronicles of legendary accounts of early Japan and its creation myth , which describes the imperial line as descendants of the gods . The Man'yōshū was compiled in the latter half of the eighth century, which is widely considered the finest collection of Japanese poetry. During this period, Japan suffered

7056-465: The founder of the Fujiwara clan . Their government devised and implemented the far-reaching Taika Reforms . The Reform began with land reform, based on Confucian ideas and philosophies from China . It nationalized all land in Japan, to be distributed equally among cultivators, and ordered the compilation of a household registry as the basis for a new system of taxation. The true aim of the reforms

7154-470: The gun had become less a weapon than a farm implement for scaring off animals. A few Japanese started to study and experiment with recent Western firearms from the beginning of the 19th century especially as a means to ward off visits from foreign ships, such as the incursion by the Royal Navy frigate HMS Phaeton in 1808. Through the process of rangaku (the studying of Western science through

7252-458: The influential Buddhist monk Gyōki , and once completed it was used by the Chinese monk Ganjin as an ordination site. Japan nevertheless entered a phase of population decline that continued well into the following Heian period . There was also a serious attempt to overthrow the Imperial house during the middle Nara period. During the 760s, monk Dōkyō tried to establish his own dynasty with

7350-582: The introduction of the Buddhist religion from the Korean kingdom of Baekje . Since then, Buddhism has coexisted with Japan's native Shinto religion, in what is today known as Shinbutsu-shūgō . The period draws its name from the de facto imperial capital, Asuka , in the Kinai region. The Buddhist Soga clan took over the government in the 580s and controlled Japan from behind the scenes for nearly sixty years. Prince Shōtoku , an advocate of Buddhism and of

7448-504: The island where a Chinese junk with Portuguese adventurers on board was driven to anchor by a storm. The lord of the Japanese island Tanegashima Tokitaka (1528–1579) purchased two matchlock muskets from the Portuguese and put a swordsmith to work in copying the matchlock barrel and firing mechanism. Within a few years the use of the tanegashima in battle forever changed the way war was fought in Japan. From 1560, firearms were used in large battles in Japan. In his memoirs published in 1614,

7546-455: The land to receive Christians exiled from other territories, as well as for Portuguese merchants. The Jesuits built a chapel and a school under the name of São Paulo, like those in Goa and Malacca. By 1579, Nagasáqui had four hundred houses, and some Portuguese had gotten married. Fearful that Nagasaki could fall into the hands of its rival Takanobu, Omura Sumitada (Dom Bartolomeu) decided to guarantee

7644-550: The late Heian period after hundreds of years of decline. During the early Heian period, the imperial court successfully consolidated its control over the Emishi people of northern Honshu. Ōtomo no Otomaro was the first man the court granted the title of seii tai-shōgun ("Great Barbarian Subduing General"). In 802, seii tai-shōgun Sakanoue no Tamuramaro subjugated the Emishi people, who were led by Aterui . By 1051, members of

7742-556: The more advanced European weapons which were introduced in Japan more than 250 years later. The first documented introduction of the matchlock which became known as the tanegashima was through the Portuguese in 1543. The tanegashima seems to have been based on snap matchlocks that were produced in the armory of Goa in Portuguese India , which was captured by Portugal in 1510. The name tanegashima came from

7840-444: The number of spears per unit, and have your most capable men carry guns". At the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, 3,000 arquebusiers helped win the battle, firing by volleys of 1,000 at a time, and secured across a river and breastwork to effectively stop enemy infantry and cavalry charges while being protected. In the year 1584 Ikeda Sen led a troop of 200 women armed with firearms at the Battle of Komaki and Nagakute and in 1600 at

7938-427: The official capital. This system has been contrasted with the "simple warrior rule" of the later Muromachi period. Yoritomo soon turned on Yoshitsune, who was initially harbored by Fujiwara no Hidehira , the grandson of Kiyohira and the de facto ruler of northern Honshu. In 1189, after Hidehira's death, his successor Yasuhira attempted to curry favor with Yoritomo by attacking Yoshitsune's home. Although Yoshitsune

8036-419: The period, some of Japan's most representative art forms developed, including ink wash painting , ikebana flower arrangement, the tea ceremony , Japanese gardening , bonsai , and Noh theater. Though the eighth Ashikaga shogun, Yoshimasa , was an ineffectual political and military leader, he played a critical role in promoting these cultural developments. He had the famous Kinkaku-ji or "Temple of

8134-409: The phrase, "The ruler of the land of the rising sun addresses the ruler of the land of the setting sun" as seen in the kanji characters for Japan ( Nippon ). By 670, a variant of this expression, Nihon , established itself as the official name of the nation, which has persisted to this day. In 645, the Soga clan were overthrown in a coup launched by Prince Naka no Ōe and Fujiwara no Kamatari ,

8232-518: The rivalry between the Minamoto and Taira clans. As a result, the dispute and power struggle between both clans led to the Heiji rebellion in 1160. In 1180, Taira no Kiyomori was challenged by an uprising led by Minamoto no Yoritomo , a member of the Minamoto clan whom Kiyomori had exiled to Kamakura. Though Taira no Kiyomori died in 1181, the ensuing bloody Genpei War between the Taira and Minamoto families continued for another four years. The victory of

8330-557: The sword was simply the more practical weapon in the average small-scale Edo period conflicts; nevertheless, there were gunsmiths in Japan producing guns through the Edo period. Isolation did not decrease the production of guns in Japan—on the contrary, there is evidence of around 200 gunsmiths in Japan by the end of the Edo period. But the social life of firearms had changed: as the historian David L. Howell has argued, for many in Japanese society,

8428-409: The throne to his son Emperor Horikawa but continued to exercise political power, establishing the practice of cloistered rule , by which the reigning emperor would function as a figurehead while the real authority was held by a retired predecessor behind the scenes. Throughout the Heian period, the power of the imperial court declined. The court became so self-absorbed with power struggles and with

8526-473: The titles of shugo or jitō , from among his close vassals, the gokenin . The Kamakura shogunate allowed its vassals to maintain their own armies and to administer law and order in their provinces on their own terms. In 1221, the retired Emperor Go-Toba instigated what became known as the Jōkyū War , a rebellion against the shogunate, in an attempt to restore political power to the court. The rebellion

8624-412: The twin challenges of fighting the Southern Court and of maintaining its authority over its own subordinate governors. Like the Kamakura shogunate, the Muromachi shogunate appointed its allies to rule in the provinces, but these men increasingly styled themselves as feudal lords—called daimyōs —of their domains and often refused to obey the shogun. The Ashikaga shogun who was most successful at bringing

8722-430: The underage emperor. His son Fujiwara no Mototsune created the office of kampaku , which could rule in the place of an adult reigning emperor. Fujiwara no Michinaga , an exceptional statesman who became kampaku in 996, governed during the height of the Fujiwara clan's power and married four of his daughters to emperors, current and future. The Fujiwara clan held on to power until 1086, when Emperor Shirakawa ceded

8820-446: The victory. This had permanent negative consequences for the shogunate's relations with the samurai class. Discontent among the samurai proved decisive in ending the Kamakura shogunate. In 1333, Emperor Go-Daigo launched a rebellion in the hope of restoring full power to the imperial court. The shogunate sent General Ashikaga Takauji to quell the revolt, but Takauji and his men instead joined forces with Emperor Go-Daigo and overthrew

8918-599: The year 630, ended during the ninth century, though informal missions of monks and scholars continued, and thereafter the development of native Japanese forms of art and poetry accelerated. A major architectural achievement, apart from Heian-kyō itself, was the temple of Byōdō-in built in 1053 in Uji . Upon the consolidation of power, Minamoto no Yoritomo chose to rule in concert with the Imperial Court in Kyoto . Though Yoritomo set up his own government in Kamakura in

9016-451: Was a failure and led to Go-Toba being exiled to Oki Island , along with two other emperors, the retired Emperor Tsuchimikado and Emperor Juntoku , who were exiled to Tosa Province and Sado Island respectively. The shogunate further consolidated its political power relative to the Kyoto aristocracy. The samurai armies of the whole nation were mobilized in 1274 and 1281 to confront two full-scale invasions launched by Kublai Khan of

9114-415: Was a mix of native Shinto practices and Buddhism . Over the following centuries, the power of the imperial house decreased, passing first to great clans of civilian aristocrats — most notably the Fujiwara — and then to the military clans and their armies of samurai . The Minamoto clan under Minamoto no Yoritomo emerged victorious from the Genpei War of 1180–85, defeating their rival military clan,

9212-416: Was appointed regent to the shogun , Yoritomo's son Minamoto no Sanetomo . Henceforth, the Minamoto shoguns became puppets of the Hōjō regents , who wielded actual power. The regime that Yoritomo had established, and which was kept in place by his successors, was decentralized and feudalistic in structure, in contrast with the earlier ritsuryō state. Yoritomo selected the provincial governors, known under

9310-498: Was killed, Yoritomo still invaded and conquered the Northern Fujiwara clan's territories. In subsequent centuries, Yoshitsune would become a legendary figure, portrayed in countless works of literature as an idealized tragic hero. After Yoritomo's death in 1199, the office of shogun weakened. Behind the scenes, Yoritomo's wife Hōjō Masako became the true power behind the government. In 1203, her father, Hōjō Tokimasa ,

9408-466: Was thus deprived of the tax revenue to pay for its national army. In response, the owners of the shōen set up their own armies of samurai warriors. Two powerful noble families that had descended from branches of the imperial family, the Taira and Minamoto clans , acquired large armies and many shōen outside the capital. The central government began to use these two warrior clans to suppress rebellions and piracy. Japan's population stabilized during

9506-464: Was to bring about greater centralization and to enhance the power of the imperial court, which was also based on the governmental structure of China. Envoys and students were dispatched to China to learn about Chinese writing, politics, art, and religion. After the reforms, the Jinshin War of 672, a bloody conflict between Prince Ōama and his nephew Prince Ōtomo , two rivals to the throne, became

9604-423: Was won by Tokugawa Ieyasu , who established the Tokugawa shogunate , a powerful entity that would maintain peace and prosperity in Japan for the following 250 years. From the mid-17th century, Japan decided to close itself to interaction with the West through its policy of Sakoku . Guns were used less frequently because the Edo period did not have many large-scale conflicts in which a gun would be of use. Oftentimes

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