Author: Chen Zhonghai
Before modern times, China and Japan successively implemented a set of "closed country" policies, the reasons and specific contents are similar and different, and the implementation is more different, thus forming two different versions of the "closed country", but also for China and Japan to bring different national fortunes.
Qing Dynasty retreat
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, China generally showed a conservative posture in foreign exchanges, from the "sea ban" of the Ming Dynasty to the "closed country" of the Qing Dynasty, the conservative tendency became more and more serious, and the policy became tighter and tighter.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court stipulated that "pieces of plates must not go to the sea", and this order was issued by Zhu Yuanzhang himself, mainly for economic and military considerations. Economically, after Zhu Yuanzhang came to power, he emphasized "emphasizing the end of the world", vigorously developing agriculture and inhibiting industry and commerce, and discouraging overseas trade; militarily, at that time, the southeast coast was frequently attacked and disturbed by the Wokou, and in order to strengthen coastal defense, the imperial court tried to cut off contact with the outside world through the "sea ban" and maintain tranquility along the coast.
In the early Qing Dynasty, due to the existence of Zheng Chenggong's anti-Qing forces, the imperial court still implemented the "ban on the sea", and in the twelfth year of Shunzhi (1655), at the request of Tun Tai, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, the imperial court imposed a sea ban in the coastal provinces, stipulating that "no sails are allowed to enter the sea", and violators were severely punished. After the Surrender of the Zheng Dynasty, Kangxi ordered the lifting of the sea ban, and merchants from various countries flocked to China in large numbers for a time, and overseas trade developed unprecedentedly, which led to an increase in Sino-foreign exchanges and aroused the vigilance of the Qing government. In the twenty-second year of Qianlong (1757), the government of the Dynasty "only allowed to collect trade in Guangzhou and was not allowed to go to Ningbo", and later stipulated that Guangzhou was the only trading port, where the system of merchant houses was implemented, and all foreign trade must be carried out through the "Thirteen Lines" approved and managed by the imperial court.
In the twenty-fourth year of Qianlong (1759), at the request of Li Shiyao, the governor of Liangguang, the Qing government promulgated the "Regulations on Guarding Against Foreign Yi", which stipulated the "Five Matters of Preventing Foreign Yi": Foreign merchants were not allowed to spend the winter in Guangzhou; after arriving in Guangzhou, foreign merchants could only live in foreign firms, and the merchants were responsible for inspection and control;Chinese foreign merchants were not allowed to borrow foreign capital and were not allowed to be employed by foreign businessmen; foreign businessmen were not allowed to hire Chinese to pass on information; and after foreign merchant ships entered Huangpu Port, the marine division was responsible for bombing and inspection. These provisions are more specific and detailed, and the "closed country" policy has been institutionalized.
The shogunate locked the country
Like the Chinese Qing Dynasty, the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan at the same time also implemented a policy of "closing the country off the country". The Tokugawa shogunate was founded in Tokugawa Ieyasu after the overthrow of toyotomi Hideyoshi's forces.
Since a Portuguese merchant ship landed on Tanegashima, Japan, in 1543, Westerners and Western religions and cultures have come to Japan, and Catholicism has developed rapidly in Japan. At that time, Japan was in the Warring States period, and the daimyo who held power in various places wanted to carry out foreign trade in order to expand their power, and also hoped to get the support of European powers such as Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands, so they acquiesced or supported western missionary activities. By 1583, there were 200 churches throughout Japan, with nearly 200,000 adherents, and nagasaki's opening of the port and becoming an important trading center was related to the church, which had great power in Nagasaki and other places, and even gained administrative and judicial power, and could legitimately charge berthing fees to ships. The Church also maintained close ties with local daimyo and became an important political force.
When Toyotomi Hideyoshi took office as Sekibai of Japan in 1585 and gradually unified Japan, he was wary of the rapid expansion of the Catholic Church. In 1587, Toyotomi Hideyoshi suddenly issued the Order of Pursuit and Release of Tenren, announcing the expulsion of foreign missionaries. Previously, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had a friendly relationship with the Catholic Church, so this order came very suddenly, and there are still many different theories about the reason for its promulgation. But fundamentally, the deep-seated contradiction between Japanese traditional culture and European Catholic culture is the most fundamental reason, such as catholicism respecting God exclusively, requiring believers to absolutely believe in God and not worship other idols, which has formed a religious opposition with japan's traditional Shintoism and Buddhism and Confucianism with deep foundations. The rise of church power was seen as a threat and a hidden danger.
In 1603 Tokugawa Ieyasu replaced the Toyotomi clan and began to rule Japan, his attitude towards Catholicism was consistent with Toyotomi Hideyoshi's, and he continued to implement the policy of prohibition, and by the time of the second shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, he strengthened the prohibition of religion and issued a new prohibition order, and executed 55 missionaries and believers in Nagasaki in 1622. By the time of the third shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, the "Edo Great Martyrdom", "Hirado Great Martyrdom", and "Tohoku Great Martyrdom" had been created, and the prohibition measures were further escalated, and in order to forbid religion, the shogunate stipulated that all foreign ships were not allowed to trade in the daimyo's domain, and could only engage in trade activities in nagasaki, Hirado and several other places.
From 1633 to 1639, the Tokugawa shogunate issued a total of 5 "lockdown orders", the general content of which was: Catholicism was prohibited from spreading in Japan, Japanese were forbidden to go abroad, Japanese people abroad were not allowed to return to Japan, people and merchant ships from other countries except the Netherlands and China were not allowed to come to Japan, and the scope of activities of Dutch and Chinese merchant ships was limited to Nagasaki.
During this period, Japan successively cut off contact with Spain, Portugal and other countries, but it was "open to the Netherlands", because the Dutch had promised the shogunate that they would never preach in Japan or support any missionary activities, and in order to gain the trust of the shogunate, Dutch merchants also supported the shogunate's suppression of the religious uprising. Nevertheless, the shogunate was not entirely at ease with the Dutch, and in addition to stipulating that they could only do business in Nagasaki, they also confined their place of residence to a small island outside the port of Nagasaki, stipulating that they should not have contact with the Japanese people, that entry and exit should be strictly inspected, that the Dutch had private dealings with Japanese women, and that their children would be executed immediately upon discovery.
Similar or not
Both the Chinese Qing Dynasty government and the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate implemented a policy of "seclusion", and formally, the two have many similarities.
For example, both countries banned Catholicism, and in 1722 during the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, a "ban on religion" was issued, and more than 50 Western missionaries, including 5 bishops, were expelled, and in 1732, 35 Western missionaries concentrated in Guangzhou were expelled to Macau by the Qing Dynasty Governor of Liangguang. It has been said that the missionaries supported the Emperor's eighth son, Yin Yu, in the struggle for the Kangxi sons, and ended up on the wrong side, so Yongzheng wanted to expel them after succeeding to the throne, but this was not the root cause, and as with the starting point of the Tokugawa shogunate, different beliefs and propositions determined that Catholicism would not be accepted by the upper echelons of the Qing Dynasty.
However, unlike the Tokugawa shogunate's strict prohibition of Catholicism and the cruel persecution of Catholics, the Qing Dynasty's prohibition of religion was relatively mild, and missionaries were only expelled. According to statistics, by 1810, more than 30 Western missionaries secretly carried out missionary activities in 16 provinces of Chinese mainland, with more than 200,000 believers. It can be seen that unlike the "lockdown order" triggered by Japan's prohibition of religion, the Qing government's implementation of the "closed country" is mainly aimed at not Catholicism, and part of this policy is the continuation of the "sea ban" of the Ming Dynasty, but also has the reasons for not wanting to increase the exchanges between Chinese and foreign people, as well as the consideration of guarding against pirates along the southeast coast.
In terms of economy and trade, although Both China and Japan have adopted a "one-port trade" policy, the only port opened by the Qing Dynasty to the outside world is Guangzhou, and the only port opened by Japan is Nagasaki, but the two sides have obviously different understandings of overseas trade. The Qing Dynasty regarded itself as a "heavenly dynasty and a kingdom" everywhere, believing that it was rich in land and rich in production, and did not need to do business with foreigners, and the reason why Guangzhou was opened was out of "care" for foreigners and the embodiment of "heavenly pilgrimage", while Japan was more eager for overseas trade, hoping to do business with Chinese and European merchants, and also hoped to learn more about Western culture and technology.
Since ancient times, there has been a Confucian cultural circle in the East, and Japan has consciously or unconsciously been included in it. Unlike China, Japan's Confucian culture is not original, and for the Japanese people, they believe in Confucianism because it is advanced and is accepted out of learning and absorption. Unlike China's conservative and closed cultural view, Japan, which is also dominated by Confucian culture, actually has a strong openness. The American historian Davis Lands said in Rich and Poor: "Learning has never made them feel small, on the contrary, they think that they are inherently superior to Chinese." ”
Therefore, the same "closed country", China and Japan also have different performances in terms of ideology and culture, the Qing government not only rejected Catholicism, but also rejected all Western scientific and technological culture, strictly restricting their spread in China. The Italian missionary Matteo Ricci said in his Notes on China: "Chinese treat all foreigners as savages without knowledge, and call them by such phrases, and they do not even bother to learn anything from the books of foreigners, because they believe that only they themselves have real science and knowledge." At that time, most Chinese intellectuals had this attitude toward Western thought and culture, and until the Opium War Chinese their understanding of Westerners and Western culture was very limited.
"Same Way home"
At the beginning of Japan's lockdown, in addition to banning Catholicism, it also strictly restricted foreign books, but due to the gene of cultural openness, it was slowly allowed to import scientific and technological and cultural books that were not related to Catholicism, and Western books such as astronomy, geography, history, ships, weapons, medicine, zoology and botany entered Japan in large quantities. According to statistics, from 1771 to 1825, Japan translated more than 500 European scientific and technological cultural works, and more than 110 translators, who became the pioneers of introducing modern Western scientific and technological culture to Japan, and formed a new discipline in Japan as the center - "orchidology".
"Orchidology" literally refers to "Dutch scholarship", in fact, it refers to the entire Western scholarship, also known as "Western studies", the eighth generation of the Tokugawa shogunate Tokugawa Yoshimune was very good at "orchid studies", and sent people to Europe to learn Dutch and natural sciences. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the number of people engaged in "orchidology" in Japan was increasing, and the scope of research was becoming more and more extensive, and they also established an organization called "Shangyahui" to vigorously disseminate "orchidology". According to the statistics of Japanese scholars, before the Meiji Restoration, there were more than 30 schools specializing in "orchid studies" in various parts of Japan, which successively trained nearly 10,000 students who understood Western science, some of whom were fascinated by "orchid studies", and many so-called "orchid fetishists" appeared, including some daimyo who held real power in the localities, and people called them "orchids", a scene that was completely different from the increasingly closed and conservative China.
The Tokugawa shogunate also kept abreast of external information through the "Wind Storytelling Book", which was responsible for the "Wind Storytelling Campaign" established in Nagasaki, which had the posts of Daichi, Minor Shoji, and Shoko Tongshi, the so-called Tongshi refers to the translation, the number of people was hundreds of people at the maximum, and foreign merchant ships made various "Wind Storytelling Books" from the beginning of entering nagasaki port, the title is generally "Order of Entry + Departure Port Name + Ship Population Description", the main content comes from the narration of foreign merchants.
The "Wind Storytelling Book" is divided into "Tang Feng Shushu", "East Indian Wind Storytelling Book", "Lanfeng Storytelling Book", etc., which respectively record intelligence information of Western countries such as China, East India, and the Netherlands. After the opium epidemic in Asia, which the Japanese called "opioids," the shogunate ordered the compilation of "opioid storytelling books," and through the "wind storytelling books," what happened outside Japan would soon be known. For example, in 1840, a "Book of Opium Wind" written with information provided by a Chinese merchant named Zhou Qingting mentioned: "The emperor sent Lin Zexu to Guangdong to ban smoking, and Lin ordered foreign opium dealers to hand over opium within three days, and gave rhubarb and tea as compensation at the price." If they conceal and do not make love, not only will they practice the Dhamma, but people from other countries will also sit on their sins and will never forgive themselves... The British merchants handed over a total of twenty-thirty-six boxes. In September 1839, Chinese and British warships fought, and foreigners in Guangdong returned to China. "This information truly and accurately reflects what has just happened in China."
The "closed country" implemented by the Qing government, whether from the political, economic or cultural point of view, is a strict "closed country" and a real "closed country", while Japan, in addition to strictly prohibiting the spread of Catholicism more severely than China, is relatively relaxed in other aspects, and is a kind of selective "closed country".
It is precisely because of this that after Japan was forced to open the country under the coercion of the "black ship" of the United States, they saw the external situation more clearly and comprehensively, and their understanding of the national crisis became more profound and sober, which enabled Japan to embark on the road of the Meiji Restoration. Although China also had the Western Affairs Movement and the Penghu Reform Law, because the "closed country" was too long and implemented too thoroughly, it failed to "return to the same destination" as Japan and embarked on a completely different path.
About the author: Chen Zhonghai, columnist and scholar of literature and history of this journal, has been engaged in financial work for a long time, and in recent years, he has focused on the study of economic history and financial history, published 8 biographies of historical figures such as "Cao Cao", 6 collections of historical essays such as "Trapping China: The Great Qing Dynasty Died in Economic Warfare" and "Untying China: Financial Warfare of the Republic of China", and published hundreds of columns of various types.
This article was published in China Development Observation Magazine, No. 7, 2017
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