Introduction to the Documents, Chapter 21

From 1400 to 1800, East Asian countries experienced important changes at all levels of society. Despite the growing presence of Europeans in East Asia, both China and Japan remained relatively free from the influence of European commercial expansion. Chinese thinkers in the Ming and early Qing periods were primarily concerned with internal development and regional conflicts involving other Asian states. In Japan, the work of the three great unifiers — Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu — ended the chaotic Warring States Period and led to the relative peace of the Tokugawa regime (1603–1867). In both countries, transitions from older to newer political orders were mirrored by changes in society and culture. In China, the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the founding of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) by Jurchen invaders from Manchuria (known as the Manchu) occasioned new unrest and social critique. In Japan, the stability of the Tokugawa family’s rule fostered domestic economic and cultural advances, and — despite careful control of international contact — afforded Dutch merchants limited but important access to Japanese society. The documents here illustrate not only the political shifts in East Asia, but also new ways that the Chinese and Japanese tried to define gender and its role in their lives.