Asian Rulers

1. Asian Rulers Kangxi Emperor The Kangxi Emperor was an Emperor of the Manchu Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over all of China, from 1661 to 1722. He is known as one of the greatest Chinese emperors in history. His reign of 61 years makes him the longest-reigning Emperor of China in history, though it should be noted that having ascended the throne aged seven, he did not exercise much, if any, control over the empire until later, that role being fulfilled by his four guardians and his grandmother the Dowager Empress Xiao Zhuang; (Chinese: 康熙; Pinyin: Kāngxī; Wade-Giles: K'ang-hsi; May 4, 1654 – December 20, 1722). http://www.123exp-biographies.com/t/00034145147/ EXERCISE: COMPARE TO LOUIS XIV of FRANCE AND QUEEN VICTORIA of ENGLAND Hsuan-yeh (1654-1722) CHINA (Qing Dynasty)

2. Asian Rulers Kangxi was the reigning name of Hsuan-Yeh, the second emperor of the Qing dynasty. To the Chinese empire he added parts of Russia and Outer Mongolia and extended control over Tibet. He opened four ports to foreign trade and encouraged the introduction of Western education and arts and of Roman Catholicism. In 1661, his father died suddenly from smallpox at the age of 23, and the seven-year old was raised to the throne, and given the name Kangxi, meaning Peaceful Harmony. His government was first administered by four conservativeManchu courtiers from the preceding reign. One of the first political acts of the four Imperial advisers was to purge the imperial court of any eunuchs holding actual power. When he was 15, he wrested all power from the now dictatorial advisors with a clever coup, showing he was the real emperor of China. Once in power, Kangxi promptly moved to subdue five seperate rebel factions in China, first the Southernrenegadewarlords in Canton, the rebels in Taiwan, the Russian invaders in the Black Dragon River Valley, the Mogolian aggressors, then finally the Dzungars in Tibet. EXERCISE: COMPARE TO LOUIS XIV of FRANCE AND QUEEN VICTORIA of ENGLAND Hsuan-yeh (1654-1722) CHINA From: http://everything2.com/title/Kangxi%2520Emperor

3. Asian Rulers Kangxi was an accomplished military leader who was endowed with exceptional physical strength and with skill in archery; he poured his inexhaustible energy into his daily administrative duties. Under the traditional Imperial system of China, nothing in the empire was too small to come under the personal scrutiny of the Emperor. Kangxi read all the reports and memorandums presented to him, meticulously correcting even the smallest scribal errors, and he often boasted that he routinely took care of all the documents, even in wartime, when 300-400 arrived daily. The Huang He (Yellow River) was one of the subjects that commanded Kangxi's attention. Long neglected, the river repeatedly flooded the land near where it joined the Huai Ho, causing great damage to northern Kiangsu. By 1863, the annual floods have been mostly controlled. In addition to this, he repaired the Grand Canal, the vital North-South waterway that links central China. EXERCISE: COMPARE TO IMPORTANCE OF SUEZ CANAL and PANAMA CANAL Hsuan-yeh (1654-1722) http://everything2.com/title/Kangxi%2520Emperor

4. Asian Rulers After the conquest of Taiwan, Kangxi lifted restrictions on coastal trade and opened four ports, including Canton, to foreign ships. Western trade stimulated immense industrial growth in Southern China. Kangxi was very fond of learning. His avidity for study steadily increased with his age, to a degree that even when ill from overwork he did not stop reading books. In 1677 he opened a small study hall called the Nan shufang in the Forbidden City, where he engaged himself in lively discussions on philosophical and historical topics with the leading scholars of his time. His inclination toward the scholar Chu Hsi's philosophy and arduous emulation of its Confucianist ideals were a most effective means for the Manchu Qing to gain the confidence of the Chinese majority. Always eager to absorb new knowledge and technologies from Europe, Kangxi employed many Jesuitmissionaries. He learned geometry, and the Jesuits helped with the production of Chinese cannons that proved effective against the three rebellious kings and the Dzungars. Kangxi also learned mathematics and geography, and acquired a taste for Western art. EXERCISE: COMPARE TO WESTERNIZATION MOVEMENTS of PETER THE GREAT and MUSTAFA KEMAL Hsuan-yeh (1654-1722) CHINA From: http://everything2.com/title/Kangxi%2520Emperor

5. Asian RulersHsuan-yeh (1654-1722) CHINA At the Chinese New Year of 1722, K'ang-hsi celebrated his long and prosperous reign by inviting many elders to a great banquet at the court. That winter he fell ill while staying at the Summer Palace, and he died in December. The next year he was buried at Ma lan yü, to the northeast of Peking, in a mausoleum called the Ching Ling. Kangxi is counted among the ablest monarchs ever to govern the vast Chinese empire. He reigned for 61 years and laid the foundation for a long period of political stability and economic prosperity in China. EXERCISE: COMPARE TO LEGACY OF OCTAVIAN and GHENGIS KHAN

6. CHINA’S Four Classes Under Confucianism -Scholar-gentry Landed, highly literate class, staffs royal bureaucracy -Farmers Produced food, paid taxes to support the empire -Artisans Made useful objects, contributed to technology -Merchants At the bottom of the social order, made living by selling objects that peasants and artisans produced • EXERCISE: • COMPARE TO SOCIAL CLASSES OF RUSSIA and LATIN AMERICA

7. Asian Rulers King Sejong the Great And The Golden Age of Korea King Sejong, a scholar, placed great emphasis on scholarship and education. He promoted cultural, economic and scientific research. He instituted han'gul, the Korean script. Korea today enjoys many other lasting benefits of his rule. Content King Sejong, whose epithet is "the Great," is considered to have been one of the most outstanding Korean kings of the Choson Kingdom (1392-1910). Born in 1397, Sejong succeeded to the throne at the age of 22 when his father, King T'aejong, abdicated in his favor. Chosen in place of his oldest brother, the rightful heir to the throne, whose lifestyle and conduct were deemed unfit for a king, Sejong became the fourth monarch of the Choson Kingdom. His reign, which lasted until 1450, was a period of great cultural and intellectual accomplishment in Korea that is often called the Golden Age. King Sejong governed according to the principles of Confucianism upon which the kingdom had been founded. These principles included the idea that justice and righteousness should characterize the relations between sovereign and subject. King Sejong believed that the basis of good government was a ruler with broad-ranging knowledge, virtue, and the ability to recognize and utilize men of talent for government service. EXERCISE: COMPARE TO DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS and SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY

8. Asian Rulers King Sejong the Great And The Golden Age of Korea As an administrator, King Sejong introduced many progressive ideas and implemented reforms to improve the life of the common people. In times of drought and flood, he established relief programs and opened centers to provide food and shelter. For farmers experiencing unsuccessful harvests, he reinstated a loan system that had been used during the Koryo Kingdom (918-1392) in which the government's stored surplus grains were loaned out to them to be paid back in kind with nominal interest. King Sejong, a noted Confucian scholar himself, placed great emphasis on scholarship and education. He promoted research in the cultural, economic, and political heritage of Korea, and he sponsored many new developments in the areas of science, philosophy, music, and linguistics. To encourage young scholars to devote their time to study, he established grants and other forms of government support. The most outstanding of his achievements by far was the creation of the Korean alphabet, or han'gul. Previously, scholars had learned classical Chinese and had relied on the Chinese script for literary purposes, but Koreans did not have an appropriate script for their spoken language. Until the invention of han'gul, they had used clumsy and cumbersome systems that made use of some Chinese characters for their pronunciation and others for their meaning to represent the vernacular language But Chinese, a language very different form Korean in its vocal patterns and sentence formation, could not represent Korean sounds and structure adequately. Besides, the complexity of Chinese characters made the writing system too difficult for those other than the privileged few to learn and master. EXERCISE: COMPARE TO ENLIGHTENED DESPOTS and JACOBO ARBENZ

9. Asian Rulers King Sejong the Great And The Golden Age of Korea King Sejong wanted to provide Koreans with a written means of expression other than the complicated Chinese system. With this objective in mind, he commissioned a group of scholars to devise a phonetic writing system that would correctly represent the sounds of spoken Korean and that could be easily learned by all people. The system was completed in 1443. Initially, the use of han'gul was opposed by many scholars and government officials. They argued that its use would hinder education and government administration, both of which were dependent on the Chinese writing system. Despite this, however, King Sejong ordered popular poems, religious verses, and well-known proverbs to be translated into han'gul to encourage its use. Han'gul was thus a political, in addition to a linguistic, achievement. King Sejong commissioned a significant number of literary works. He saw books as a means of spreading education among his people. One of the first works he commissioned was a history of the Koryo Kingdom. Others included a handbook on improved farming methods to increase production, a revised and enlarged collection of model filial deeds, and a illustrated book of the duties and responsibilities that accompany human relations. King Sejong contributed to Korean civilization in a number of other ways, as well. He made improvements in the movable metal type that had been invented in Korea around 1234. He initiated the development of musical notation for Korean and Chinese music, helped improve designs for various musical instruments, and encouraged the composition of orchestral music. King Sejong also sponsored numerous scientific inventions, including the rain gauge, sundial, water clock, celestial globes, astronomical maps, and the orrery, a mechanical representation of the solar system. EXERCISE: COMPARE TO LINGUISTIC ARGUMENTS IN QUEBEC, BASQUE (SPAIN) and ENGLISH FIRST (U.S.)

10. Asian RulersTimeline: Dutch East India Company From: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/09/sse/ht09sse.htm • 1600s–1700s Trade in pepper and other goods enriches the Lampung region of southern Sumatra, resulting in a flowering of textile production and other art forms. • ca. 1601 Dominican monks establish the College of Saint Thomas in Manila. • 1602 The Dutch East India Company is founded. During the 1600s, the Dutch establish control over much of the Indonesian archipelago from their headquarters at Batavia (Jakarta) and continue to be the primary traders in the region until the early nineteenth century. Spices and then coffee, rubber, and petroleum are among the most valued exports. Dutch trade goods and imagery become incorporated into the archipelago's indigenous arts and cultures. Chinese and Japanese porcelains are brought to Europe and traded also in Southeast Asia. • 1626–73 Civil war ravages Vietnam. • 1627 Alexandre de Rhodes, a French Jesuit, creates a script known as quoc ngu in order to use the Roman alphabet in writing the Vietnamese language. • 1659 The Dutch destroy Palembang on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. • 1673 A French mission brings letters from Pope Clement IX and King Louis XIV to Thailand. The Ayudhya court responds in 1684 with a request for political alliance, but the French are primarily interested in gaining converts to Christianity. • 1700s or earlier Chinese porcelain and other trade goods make their way into the interior of Borneo via trade along major rivers. In addition to the importance of porcelain as a source of wealth and prestige, Chinese imagery, particularly that of dragons, also influences Borneo's indigenous Dayak artists. EXERCISE: ANSWER WHY THE DUTCH BECAME ECONOMIC GIANTS

11. Asian Rulers Timeline: Dutch East India Company • 1705–48 The life of Doan Thi Diem, one of the most celebrated Vietnamese poets. Other renowned women writers include Ho Xuan Hong, who lived at the end of the century, and another artist who is known only as the "Wife of the Chief of the Thanh Quan District." • 1709 English traders open a dock at Thanlyin in Burma. • 1751 Sri Lanka sends a mission to Thailand seeking help in revitalizing Buddhism after years of Portuguese and Dutch rule. Eighteen monks are sent to ordain clergy and establish an order of Siamese monks in Sri Lanka. • 1767 The Thai capital at Ayudhya falls to the Burmese army and the ruling family flees to Cambodia. • 1779 Thai protégée Prince Eng is placed on the Cambodian throne; he is deposed in 1782 and later anointed in Bangkok in 1790. He returns to Cambodia in 1794, builds a palace at Udon in 1796, and dies in 1797, after which the history of the region becomes unclear until 1806, when Ang Chan is crowned. • 1784 The English break the Dutch monopoly in Southeast Asia. • 1788–89 Rama I of Thailand (r. 1782–1809) convenes a council to formulate the definitive Pali-language edition of the Buddhist canon, or Tripitaka. • 1797 Literature flourishes in Thailand, including the appropriation of numerous Asian classics such as the Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Mon (Burmese) chronicle Rachathirat, several Javanese and Indian works, and the Persian Duodecagon. • 1800 The Dutch East India Company is dissolved EXERCISE: ANSWER WHY THE DUTCH FELL FROM ECONOMIC GIANTHOOD

12. Asian Rulers Southeast Asia, 1600–1800 A.D. Encompasses present-day mainland (Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam) and island (Indonesia, etc.) Southeast Asia See also South Asia, Himalayan Region, Australia, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. In mainland Southeast Asia, courtly and urban centers flourish in prosperous regional kingdoms, such as that of Ayudhya in Thailand. Conflicting relationships between these polities often lead to changing boundaries. Development of these centers is linked in part to the growing importance of trade in the region. Theravada Buddhism flourishes in Burma and Thailand due to royal patronage and direct contact with monasteries in Sri Lanka; sculptures and paintings, often depicting the Historical Buddha Shakyamuni, are produced in some number. Christianity plays an important role in the Philippines, with Chinese craftsmen producing religious images for the European and South American markets. Islam continues to flourish in island Southeast Asia and peninsular Thailand and Malaysia. Textiles, produced in a variety of regional centers, are traded throughout the region, and to South Asia and Europe. Ceramics, produced in Vietnam and Thailand, continue to play an important role in regional transmarine commerce. The period from 1600 to 1800 is one of increasing interaction between European traders and trade goods, and the indigenous arts and cultures of the Southeast Asian archipelagos. A central force in these interactions is the Dutch East India Company, which seizes control of the lucrative spice trade from earlier Portuguese and English traders and holds a virtual monopoly on European trade in the Indonesian archipelago throughout the 1600s and 1700s. Many Dutch trade items, such as cloth, beads, silver, and gold, are incorporated into the archipelago's indigenous art forms. Images of Dutch ships and coats of arms also begin to appear in Indonesian woodcarving and textiles. EXERCISE: ANSWER HOW GLOBALIZATION IS STARTING TO TAKE ROOT

13. Asian Rulers Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) Japanese military leader and statesman, founder of the Tokugawa dynasty of shoguns. Born Matsudaira Takechiyo of the Matsudaira military clan, Ieyasu grew up in a chaotic period of feuding clans. He was sent at four years old as a hostage to cement a Matsudaira alliance with the neighbouring Imagawa clan in 1547, but was captured en route by their common enemy, the Oda clan. Held until his father's death in 1549, Ieyasu returned home briefly before going back to the Imagawa as a hostage. Their defeat by Oda Nobunaga in 1560 freed Ieyasu to regain leadership of the Matsudaira, and he immediately allied with Nobunaga, changing his name to Tokugawa Ieyasu and seizing Imagawa land. EXERCISE: COMPARE INFIGHTING AND POLITICAL CONSOLIDATION IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLAND, BULGARIA and POLAND

14. Asian RulersTokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) In 1570 he moved his headquarters to former Imagawa territory and for the next 12 years expanded his lands and influence through Nobunaga's campaigns, despite being forced to kill his first wife and order his son's suicide in 1579 as proof of his loyalty to Nobunaga. He seized more land on Nobunaga's death in 1582, becoming master of five provinces by 1583. After inconclusive fighting in 1584, Ieyasu allied with Nobunaga's successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi and married his sister. Following victory at Odawara in 1590, which secured control of eastern Japan, Hideyoshi moved Ieyasu to new lands in the east to undercut his independence. Ieyasu began building an imposing new headquarters at a small fishing port called Edo, later Tokyo. Occupied in the east while Hideyoshi pursued his futile invasions of Korea, Ieyasu consolidated his new base and, shortly before Hideyoshi's death in 1598, swore with the other great generals to serve Hideyoshi's successor, his infant son Hideyori. Promptly breaking this oath, he began allying with other leaders and in 1600, aided by treachery, crushed his principal opponents at the battle of Sekigahara, normally taken as marking the beginning of the Edo period. EXERCISE: COMPARE TO IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PRESENT DAY SRI LANKA (TAMIL TIGERS) and ITALIAN MAFIA CULTURE

15. Asian RulersTokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) In 1603 he assumed the historic title of shogun, confirming his pre-eminence. In 1605 he passed the title to his son but retained paramount authority, organizing two attacks on Osaka Castle in 1614 and 1615 which finally defeated Hideyori and the remaining Toyotomi forces, thus completing the reunification of Japan under one government. He organized new laws to regulate the court and the military clans, and laid the foundations for over 250 years of peace under Tokugawa rule during the Edo period. After his death he was enshrined at Nikko as Tosho Daigongen, an aspect of the Buddha. EXERCISE: COMPARE TO THE CODES of HAMMURABI, JUSTINIAN, and NAPOLEON

16. Asian RulersTokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) JAPAN: FROM http://www.japan-101.com/history/history_period_edo.htm The Edo period is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1600 to 1867. The period marks the governance of the Edo or Tokugawa Shogunate which was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. It ended in 1867 with the restoration of the Imperial rule by the 15th and last shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu. The Edo period is also known to be the beginning of the early modern period of Japan. The end of this period is particularly called "Late Tokugawa Shogunate". EXERCISE: ANSWER HOW LONG LASTING PERIODS SHAPE CULTURE. IS HISTORY DRIVEN BY SINGULAR EVENTS OR PERIODS

17. Asian Rulers Japan From: http://www.shikokuhenrotrail.com/japanhistory/azuchihistory.html Click above for full timeline of Japanese history, including the periods. http://www.samurai-archives.com/ieyasu.html Click above for information on Tokugawa Ieyasu

18. Asian Rulers EUROPEAN CONTACT:Snippet Readings http://books.google.com/books?id=Fx4OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA103&lpg=PA103&dq=asian+rulers+1600s&source=bl&ots=Slb9Nb_Edd&sig=kovAJXfduroa5QawxXfZWQFZ1kM&hl=en&ei=1D4ESrSuCoHAtwe76ICaBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1 http://books.google.com/books?id=RrWOnM-iDf0C&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=asian+rulers+1600s&source=bl&ots=uHtOoTUsEd&sig=c7e82IJALeVZF3Q3u_ELTCTw7L8&hl=en&ei=1D4ESrSuCoHAtwe76ICaBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_seal_ships http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/stearns_awl/medialib/IM/ch28.pdf (READ THIS LAST ONE….)