Two semi-mythical chronicles, the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) and the Nihon shoki or Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan), the first of which was compiled in 712 AD. and the second in 720 AD, are the oldest records of Japanese history, along with Chinese accounts. These chronicles tell of events that took place between the 7th century BC. and VII A.D. and are the main sources of the ancient history of Japan.
The first settlers of the Japanese archipelago probably came from eastern Siberia during the Neolithic period, around 3000 BC, but linguistic evidence also suggests the presence of some settlers from the Polynesian islands. It is also possible that the Ainus arrived in the archipelago during this first phase, but in the early days the proto-Japanese of Mongoloid race predominated.
This dormant volcano is Japan's highest mountain and its most famous national symbol. This 3,776 m mountain is located in the south of Honshu, near Tokyo, and is a very popular place for tourists and pilgrims. On the slopes of Mount Fuji, there are numerous temples and shrines.
Official Chinese chronicles of the Han dynasty contain the first recorded mention of Japan. They say that in the year 57 AD, there was the state of Nu en Wo, which was one of the numerous states that occupied the Japanese archipelago. The chronicles also show a highly developed society with a hierarchical organization, marked by an exchange trade.
In the year 200, Empress Jingu took over the government after the death of her husband, Emperor Chuai (who reigned from 192 to 200). There are reports that the empress equipped an armada and invaded and conquered a part of Korea. Although there is little historical evidence for the existence of Jingu, 5th-century Korean chronicles record the occurrence of a major expedition from Wo around 391.
The Kofun period (c. 300-710 AD) was a stage of unification under the imperial house. Emperor Jimmu extended his domains to Yamato, who gave the imperial house his name. The Yamato government consolidated its power by creating an early form of Shinto, which also served as a political instrument. The Yamato warlords exercised indirect control over several tribes known by the name of uji, among which the most important were the muraji and the omi. The rule of the imperial clan was more nominal than royal, although their main deity, the Sun Goddess, was revered by all.
By the 6th century, the Yamato court had lost power, unable to assert itself against the uji tribes and defeated in Korea. Buddhism, which arrived in the archipelago in the year 552, quickly spread through the population and, by the beginning of the 7th century, it had already gained the status of an official religion.
The Asuka period began when Empress Suiko (who reigned from 593 to 628) ascended the throne and built her palace in the Asuka Valley. His nephew and regent, Shotoku Taishi, began a reformist program marked by the loss of Korean rule and internal problems. In 604, he established the Seventeen Articles Constitution, which comprised a set of simple principles for good government following China's centralist model and establishing court hierarchies.
The Shotoku reforms were continued by Emperor Tenchi Tenno and Nakatomi Kamatari, founder of the Fujiwara family, who in 645 inaugurated the so-called Taika reforms, which strengthened the imperial house and weakened the uji tribes, whose lands were occupied and redistributed. The great council, the Dajokan, ran the kingdom through local governors, following the Chinese model. In 663, Tenchi carried out more centralist reforms and codified these new measures in the so-called ritsu-ryo system, which imposed a structure of state ownership over the country.
During the tenure of Emperor Shomu (who reigned from 715 to 756) and his consort Fujiwara, Japan experienced a period of great cultural effervescence. Broad connections were established with China's Tang dynasty, and Japan became the eastern end of the Silk Road. Later, the ritsu-ryo system was modified in 743, and to encourage the expansion of productive lands, property rights were granted to anyone interested in exploiting them. This measure allowed the great families and temples to secure their independence and power.
In the Heian period (794-1185), Japan experienced 350 years of peace and prosperity. However, during the 9th century, emperors began to withdraw from active government, delegating the affairs of government to their subordinates. The retreat of the emperors was accompanied by the increase in power of the members of the Fujiwara family who, in 858, became the virtual masters of Japan and maintained their power for the next three centuries, monopolizing the high offices of the court and controlling the imperial family. In 884, Fujiwara Mototsune became the first official civil dictator (kampaku). The most important of the Fujiwara rulers was Fujiwara Michinaga, who ruled the court from 995 to 1028.
The character of the government changed under the control of this family, increasing the centralization of administration and dividing the country into large noble states of hereditary character, free of taxes or linked to the great Buddhist temples.
In the mid-11th century, the Fujiwara lost their monopoly on imperial consorts, and the retired emperors became the core of a new system of cloistered government, whereby emperors abdicated after taking Buddhist vows and moved away from administration in favor of the cloistered. reigning emperors. In the meantime, local groups of warriors, better known as samurai, emerged in the provinces to protect the lords of whom they were servants, thus creating the embryo of a feudal system. Taira warriors gained fame and power in the southwest; the Minamoto in the east. In the 12th century, the two great military clans extended their power to the court, starting a struggle for control of Japan.
In 1156, a civil war (the Hogen Disturbance) broke out between the retired and reigning emperors and the offshoots associated with the Fujiwara family, giving rise to the military clans. After the second war with the so-called Heiji Disturbance (1159-1160), the Taira took control of Japan. Taira Kiyomori, chief minister in 1167, monopolized court positions with his family members; his youngest son, Antoku, became emperor in 1180. In the same year, a remnant of the Minamoto warriors, Minamoto Yoritomo, built a barracks in Kamakura, eastern Japan, and promoted an uprising that, after five years of war civilian, defeated and expelled the Taira. Yoritomo took control of Japan, ushering in a military dictatorship that would last for seven centuries.
From then on, feudalism developed until it became stronger than the imperial administration. In 1192, Yoritomo created the office of shogun, commander-in-chief with authority to act against the emperor's enemies. Yoritomo was already the virtual ruler of Japan and holder of its shogunate, thus holding more power than the emperor and the court.
In 1219, the Hojo family, through a series of conspiracies and assassinations that eliminated the Minamoto heirs, took over the military leadership of Japan. No Hojo became shogun; a Hojo ruler ruled as a shikken (regent), with royal power.
The newer forms of Buddhism, especially the Pure Country sects and Zen, spread and became more popular than the older sects.
The Hojo held it in power for over 100 years. Its provincial officials and administrators gained power over the lands and united to form new military clans, the daimyo, which became the greatest challenge to the authority of the shogunate. Emperor Daigo II Tenno led a rebellion against the Hojo with the support of Ashikaga Takauji, leader of the Ashikaga clan. The revolution, called the Kemmu Restoration, culminated in 1333 with the defection of the main vassals of the shogunate and the fall of the Hojo.
Kinkaku-ji Temple in Kyoto has this famous pavilion decorated with gold leaf. Its construction was started in 1394 by Yoshimitsu, 3rd Shogun Ashikaga. Kinkaku-ji was originally a village, but over time it became a Zen Buddhist temple. The original pavilion was destroyed by fire in 1950 and the exact reproduction today was completed in 1955. Its architecture is characteristic of Zen temples. Buddhism is one of Japan's main religions and more than 75% of its population practice one of its sects.
Japan was finally reunified in the 16th century, in the Azuchi-Momoyama period, a short period of great change, named after the castles of its two main figures, Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Oda inaugurated the period by controlling the other daimyo, as well as ending the power of the monasteries and neutralizing Buddhism as a political force. The last Ashikaga shogun abdicated in 1588 and Hideyoshi secured his rule through systematic administration; however, he never established complete control over the daimyo. Other cultural influences arrived in the archipelago through the hands of Portuguese traders, the first Europeans who arrived in Japan, landing on an island near Kyushu in 1543. Among other things, local artisans copied the firearms brought by foreigners, with which they transformed the Japanese military art and created an efficient means to control feudal lords. A Jesuit missionary, Saint Francis Xavier, brought Christianity to Japan in 1549, but the excessive zeal of the preachers who followed him contributed to the shoguns forbidding the entry of foreigners in the future. In 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu became the ruler of the country.
Ieyasu proclaimed himself shogun in 1603 and established his capital in Edo (today's Tokyo). In 1615, Ieyasu enacted new legal codes, which established the feudal organization and provided Japan with a 250-year period of peace. These codes (the so-called bakuhan system) gave the Tokugawa family great power over the daimyo (han) fiefdoms and their administrators, as well as over the emperor and his court. Land confiscations made the Tokugawa family the richest in Japan. Social classes were rigidly stratified into four groups:warriors, peasants, artisans, and merchants. The form of feudalism established by Ieyasu and successive Tokugawa shoguns continued until the end of the feudal period in the mid-19th century.
Another consequence of Tokugawa domination was isolation from the West. Europeans could not land in Japan after 1624, and in the following decade a series of laws were enacted prohibiting foreign trade.
In the two centuries that followed, forms of feudalism remained static. Bushido, the code of feudal warriors, became the standard of conduct for the great lords and samurai, who played the role of followers of the former. Confucianism became the new government ideology, which provoked a strong traditionalist reaction and a defense of pro-imperial nationalism.
In the early 19th century, visits by Europeans, mostly traders and explorers, became increasingly frequent, although officially they remained prohibited. As a result of the "visit" of the North American Commodore Mathew C. Perry (in command of a threatening war fleet), negotiations were opened that led to the signing, in 1858, of a trade agreement with the United States, which was followed by others with various western powers.
The treaties gave considerable privileges to Westerners, as was the case with extraterritoriality, and with them significantly diminished the power of the shogunate. The last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, resigned in 1867 while the pro-imperial radicals decided to force the situation and, in 1868, managed to restore power to the emperor.
The armies of the Sasuna, Choshi, and Tosa fiefs, which now made up the imperial forces, overwhelmed the Tokugawa followers and shortly afterwards ensured the Meiji restoration. The young emperor, Mutsuhito, regained the position of true ruler of the government and adopted the name of Meiji Tenno (enlightened government) to designate his reign, although several rulers of Choshu and Satsuma monopolized the ministerial positions. In 1871, an imperial decree abolished all fiefs and in their place centralized administrative prefectures were created, of which the former lords were the governors. At the same time, a modern army was created, taking the Western as a model.
The Choshu-Satsuma oligarchy imposed a series of changes in the political system without, however, meeting the political demands of the people. Peasants continued to pay most of the heavy state taxes and revolts continued into the 19th century. An attempt was then made to create a constitutional regime capable of strengthening the country and improving its general situation. A cabinet was created in 1885, of which Ito Hirobumi was the prime minister. The new Constitution, drafted by Ito and promulgated in 1889, established a bicameral Diet.
The Empire also began an expansive foreign policy. In 1879, Japan had taken over the Ryukyu Islands, making them municipalities on the island of Okinawa. Conflicts with China in Korea culminated in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), in which Japanese forces had little trouble defeating the Chinese. Under the terms of the Shimonoseki treaty, signed in 1895, China ceded Taiwan and Pescadores islands to Japan, in addition to a large financial indemnity.
Because of its interests in Korea, Japan came into conflict with Russia, which was beginning to expand its borders through northeast Asia. The two countries signed a treaty in 1898 that guaranteed Korea's independence while preserving the commercial interests of both powers. In 1900, after the Boxer revolt in China, Russia occupied Dongbei Pingyuan and, from that base, invaded Korea from the north of the country.
In 1904, after repeated attempts at negotiation, Japan broke diplomatic relations with Russia and attacked the Russian possession of Port Arthur (now part of Lüda), initiating the Russo-Japanese War, which, in less than 18 months, became Japan's second military success. The peace treaty was signed at Portsmouth (New Hampshire) in 1905; Japan took Liaodong Peninsula, Guangdong territory and the southern half of Sakalina Island. In addition, Russia recognized Japan's presence in Korea, which in 1910 was annexed to Japan.
In August 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, Japan entered the war on the side of the Allies. In 1915, the Empire presented the Twenty-One Demands to China, in which it requested industrial, mineral, and rail privileges. These demands, some of which were quickly met, were the first declaration of a policy of domination over China and the Far East. In 1916, China ceded trade rights in Inner Mongolia and southern Manchuria to Japan.
Two women stroll along the bank of a canal in Osaka, Japan. This city, south of Honshu, is a major seaport and an important financial and industrial center. Because of its numerous canals and rivers, it is called the Japanese Venice.
In 1926, Hirohito ascended the throne. When General Tanaka Giichi became prime minister in 1927, aggression against China returned.
The international repercussions of the occupation of Manchuria led the League of Nations, acting with the authority of the Briand-Kellogg Pact, to create a commission to determine whether Japan was justified as an aggressor nation and as such deserved trade sanctions; Japan's response was to leave the organization in 1935. To consolidate its presence in China, Japan landed troops in Shanghai. Unable to resist the superiority of Japanese forces, China signed a truce in May 1933, in which it recognized the Japanese conquests.
In World War II, in 1940, Japan created a tripartite alliance with Germany and Italy, the so-called Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. It was defeated and capitulated after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After Japan's unconditional surrender, it was up to the United States to maintain occupation troops in the Japanese islands. Japan was stripped of its Empire. With the trust of the United Nations, the United States occupied all the islands that had been former Japanese mandates in the Pacific.
There was no resistance from the other allies to the US occupation of the Japanese islands. The objectives of the occupation policy were basically the democratization of the Japanese government and the re-establishment of a peacetime industrial economy that would meet the demands of the Japanese population. General MacArthur exercised his authority through the Emperor and the existing government structure; in 1947, an agrarian reform program began, designed to give peasants the opportunity to acquire the land on which they worked, and an educational program was created following democratic models. Women gained the right to vote in the first elections after the war (in April 1946). Subsequently, the Diet laid the foundations for a new Constitution, strongly inspired by American democracy and enacted in 1947.
Under the terms of the treaty, Japan renounced all its rights to Korea, Taiwan, the Kuril Islands, Sakalina and the islands that were former mandates, also relinquishing any claims to China; recognized Japan's right to defend itself and to negotiate collective security agreements and accepted the validity of war reparations, which it would pay in goods and services.
At the same time, the United States and Japan signed an agreement that established the permanence of US military bases in Japanese territory to protect the unarmed country from external aggression or internal disturbances capable of shaking the social order.
In 1952, the peace treaty came into force and Japan regained sovereignty over its territory. Under the terms of the treaty, US troops would remain in Japan as security forces. Throughout 1952, the Japanese government established peace treaties or renewed diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Burma, India, and Yugoslavia.
The Japanese economy began to occupy the leading positions in the world economy in the 1960s. Prime Minister Ikeda resigned and was succeeded by Sato Eisaku, also a Liberal Democrat.
Although the Liberal Democratic Party remained in power throughout the 1970s, changes in government resulting from the emergence of factions within the party were very frequent. In 1972, Tanaka Kakuei resumed diplomatic relations with China and Taiwan.
In 1982, Nakasone Yasuhiro was elected prime minister. Liberal Democrats, defeated in the 1983 congressional elections, won an overwhelming majority in 1986; to replace Nakasone, elected Takeshita Noboru in 1987.
Japanese Emperor Akihito ascended the throne in 1989 after the death of his father Hirohito. He officially christened his reign with the name Heisei ("the Peace Attained") to establish a break with his father's rule, during which tragic military actions were carried out. His marriage to a commoner, Empress Michiko, represented the democratization of the imperial institution, a necessity of modern Japan.
Emperor Hirohito died in January 1989 and was succeeded by his son Akihito, who ushered in the so-called Heisei period, which soon proved to be a time of reform.
In the 1993 elections, the Liberal Democrats lost their majority and, after 38 years in power, were removed from the government. Hosokawa Morihiro, a former Liberal Democrat, was elected to lead the government, carrying out a program of electoral reform.
Social Democratic Party leader Murayama Tomiichi was elected prime minister in 1994, becoming the first left-wing leader since 1948. In his short government, he faced a wide range of problems, from the 1995 Kobe earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people, to the public emergence of the Shinrikyo (Teaching the Supreme Truth) sect, which in the same year committed attacks with the poisonous sarin gas, killing 12 people and intoxicating hundreds, going through problems with the military of the North American bases of Okinawa.
Murayama resigned in 1996 and democratic liberal Ryutaro Hashimoto was chosen in his place. His government was marked by accusations and corruption scandals, a retraction in domestic consumption and, most importantly, the beginning of a problem almost unknown to the Japanese:unemployment. As a corollary of the instability in Asian stock exchanges in 1997, one of the largest financial organizations in the country went bankrupt, leaving a "hole" of 24 billion dollars. At the same time, Hashimoto had to face pressure from the United States to open the still closed Japanese market to external economic forces. Recession, a word unknown to post-war Japanese, began to be used more and more in the local press throughout 1998.