Beginning in the 15th century, Western European countries opened up new shipping routes to their unknown areas, and world history entered the era of geographical discovery, followed by large-scale colonial activities and overseas trade. The first countries to start the great voyage were Portugal and Spain in southern Europe, which are the "southern barbarians" mentioned in this article. At that time, Japan was influenced by Chinese Huayi thought, and the Portuguese and Spaniards who came to Japan during this period called them "Southern Barbarians", because most of these outsiders came by boat around the Cape of Good Hope and the Philippines came from the sea south of Kyushu. The Western culture brought by these uninvited guests is called "Southern Barbarian Culture".
The introduction of the "Iron Cannon"
Japan's earliest contact with the "Nanban culture" was in 1543. At that time, a Chinese sailing ship sailing to Siam (Thailand) was affected by a typhoon and drifted to Tanegashima island in Kyushu, Japan. Local officials immediately arrived and reported the matter to the island's lord Shi Yao. There were several Portuguese on board, whose appearance and dress were completely different from those of the Orientals, and their language was not clear, and everyone who saw them was amazed. Two of the Portuguese always had something in their hands. This thing is "two or three feet long, hollow on the inside, straight on the outside, and looks very heavy." Its interior is often open, and the bottom needs a dense plug. There is a hole next to it, which is a road to fire. The method of use is to put the magic potion (gunpowder) into it, add a small lead bullet, first set a small white dot on the side of the mountain, then pick it up, aim it in a straight pose, set fire from a hole, and hit it immediately. When radiated, it emits electric light, and the sound is like thunder, and the hearer covers his ears." This was the musket that the Japanese called the "iron cannon" at that time. Regarding the introduction of this musket, it is recorded in the "Iron Cannon Record": "There are more than a hundred ship passengers, whose appearance is classless, whose language is not understood, and everyone who sees it is strange." There were two people holding 'iron cannons' in their hands, and when they tried it, it was really extraordinary. The lord of the island, Shi Yao, spared no expense to become a family treasure. ”
Shi Yao bought these two "iron cannons" from the Portuguese at a high price of two thousand taels of silver, loved them, sighed as rare treasures, and ordered his courtier Shinokawa Koshiro to learn the preparation method of "magic medicine". Shi Yao played with it day and night, practicing his shooting skills diligently, and soon reached a fairly accurate point. At the same time, Shi Yao also asked the blacksmiths to try to imitate, and soon created a musket that was almost chaotic with the original gun, but did not know how to block the bottom of the barrel. It happened that the following year a Portuguese ship came to Tanegashima, and there was a gun-making craftsman on board, and Shi Yao ordered the knife smith Hachiban Kiyoshi to study from this craftsman. Later, it was taught by Yaeban Kiyonari, and Tanegashima's gun-making skills were passed on, and a town called Sakai developed into a base for musket production.
Oda Nobunaga, seeing the superiority of this new weapon, ordered 500 guns at a time and formed an army using muskets. At the Battle of Nagashiro in May 1575, the combined forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu were based on musketeers against Takeda Shingen's old cavalry, and were victorious. The introduction of muskets changed the traditional Japanese method of warfare, and the combat method changed from a single-horse combat to a musket-based infantry ("footlight") group tactic.
Xavier, the "Apostle of the East"
Of course, the core connotation of "Southern Barbarian Culture" is not the input of technological civilization such as muskets, but the introduction of Christian culture dominated by Catholicism. It is impossible to speak of the early days of Catholicism in Japan without mentioning an important historical figure. He was the first Francis Xavier to go to Japan as a missionary.
Xavier was born in 1506 to an aristocratic family in Xavierio, Kingdom of Navarre, Spain. After spending his youth in his hometown, he came to France in 1525 to study at the University of Paris. In college, he met Loyola, who later became president of the Society of Jesus (Xavier also participated in the creation of the Society of Jesus), and became a fanatical Catholic under the influence of the ideas of "mission" and "apology" instilled by Loyola. After opening up new shipping routes, Portugal seized some colonies in the east in the hope that someone would go on mission, and Xavier became the first choice.
In February 1542, Xavier and the new Portuguese governor of Goa set sail from Lisbon to India, arriving in Goa, India, on 6 May. His missionary career there was successful, establishing new parishes. In 1545, Xavier sailed from Goa to sea, crossed the Bay of Bengal, entered the Strait of Malacca, and preached in the nearby area. In 1547, Xavier encountered an incident in Malacca that affected the last years of his life. On December 7 of that year, he presided over the wedding ceremony at the Church of Notre Dame in Malacca, and someone brought him a Japanese. This man, Yajiro, was about thirty-five years old, a samurai of satsuma domain who fled abroad for murder. Xavier had heard from Portuguese merchants that there was a large island called Japan, which produced silver, and he wanted to go there to preach. Yajiro said that he had come to Xavier to confess his sins and ask God for forgiveness. Xavier took him under his wing, changed his name to Paul, and sent him to the Goa Seminary for training as his missionary assistant. Yajiro's studies at the seminary were fruitful, and it took only 8 months to write letters in Portuguese. Seeing that Yajiro had made such great progress, Xavier was deeply moved, had a good feeling for the Japanese, and was determined to go to Japan as a missionary himself.
On April 15, 1549, Xavier traveled from Goa to Japan, accompanied by Yajiro and others. While passing through Malacca, the local government hired Captain Aban's Chinese sailing ship for him. The ship encountered a storm in the South China Sea, and Captain Aban originally decided to sail the ship to China first and then to Japan the next year, but at this moment, the wind changed and the ship sailed into the channel to Japan. Arriving in Kagoshima on August 15, Xavier and his party disembarked and stayed at Yajiro's house, then went to talk to Takahisa Shimazu, the island owner of Kagoshima, and Takahisa allowed them to preach there. In his hometown, Yajiro went from a murderer of the past to a passionate preacher, his parents and wife became believers, and he was a competent translator. The accompanying Spanish missionary Fernandi was very talented in languages, and he learned Japanese from Yajiro on the boat, and by this time he was able to act as an interpreter.
Later, Xavier preached in places like The Pass. Along the way they often walked, and were treated as "begging monks" by children, throwing stones. It turned out that they were wearing rough and simple clothes, which were despised by the Japanese. In Europe, the more crude and simple the clergy dressed, the more respected they were, while in Japan the opposite was true. Xavier thus discovered the differences between Eastern and Western customs.
At the mountain pass, Xavier read aloud the catechism in the streets twice a day, and the audience gathered, many stopping to listen and ask questions, which were answered by Fernandi's translators. One day, Fernandi was preaching at the crossroads, and many people wept when he spoke of Jesus' crucifixion, but a samurai squeezed out of the crowd, shrugged his shoulders and said, "The lie is coming to an end," and spit on Fernandi. Fernandi did not change the color of his face, took out a handkerchief to wipe his face, and continued to speak. A man named Uchida was very touched to see this scene, so he became the earliest believer in Yamaguchi.
In January 1551, Xavier and his party went to Kyoto, where the emperor was located, and stayed at the home of the wealthy merchant Koshi Ronzo. Both Lonzo and his son, President Konishi, became zealous believers, and the president later became a prominent Catholic daimyō (local lord). After staying for a while, Xavier was unable to see the emperor and had to return to the mountain pass. This time he learned his lesson and no longer saw people as poor missionaries, but dressed in a luxurious and dignified manner, and went to see the Yamaguchi Lord with expensive and exquisite gifts—clocks, music boxes, muskets, satin, carved glassware, telescopes, etc. These were rare in Japan, and the lord was satisfied with the gift and wanted to give gold and silver in return, but Xavier said that he did not want anything, but only wanted him to be allowed to preach in Yamaguchi. The lord immediately agreed, promising to put up a sign in the street declaring that the local people were free to practice religion. The lord also gave Xavier an abandoned temple to live in. With the support of the lords and the efforts of everyone, 500 people were baptized in two months. One of these people, a young monk named Xi, was blind in one eye and had poor vision in the other, and he traveled all day long, holding a pipa and standing in front of people's homes, selling and singing for a living. But he was very eloquent, and people would be moved to tears when they heard his chanting. One day, he listened to Xavier's sermons in the streets and decided not to sing anymore and to become a missionary. It was this blind mage who later turned thousands of people into believers, including famous scholars and city lords.
During his mission, Xavier found that Japan was deeply influenced by Chinese culture. Someone told him: "Japan has long been attached to China, and its teachings have also come from China." China has never embraced (Catholicism), and Japan cannot be changed. "It seems to say that the Japanese will only believe if Chinese also believe in Catholicism. This made Xavier feel the need to go to China as a missionary. In November 1551, he left several priests to wait in Japan and returned to India on a Portuguese merchant ship to plan a mission to China. On the way, he passed through Shangchuan Island, just outside the mouth of the Pearl River in Guangdong, China, where he stopped for a while, asked someone to translate a catechism book with a Chinese, and made preliminary preparations for his missionary mission to China. Xavier was suggested to follow the official mission to China, which Xavier found reasonable. Upon his return to India, he persuaded the governor to send him to China as an attaché to the Pereira mission. However, when the mission passed through Malacca, because the local governor could not borrow money from Pereira, he found an excuse not to let the Pereira mission go to China. Xavier had to leave Malacca with a few aides, determined to find his own opportunity to go to China. At the end of August 1552, Xavier arrived on Shangchuan Island, a Portuguese smuggling base in Guangdong. They built huts on the hillsides of the island to live temporarily, and several times asked smugglers to take them into Guangzhou, but no one dared to take any risks. This disappointed Xavier and he soon contracted an illness and died on Kamikawa Island on 3 December. Xavier did not last long in Japan, only more than two years, but he was the first person to sow the seeds of Western culture in Japan and played an important role in the history of exchanges between Eastern and Western civilizations.
From apologetics to forbidden religion
The more famous of Xavier's successors to Japan were Villera and Frost. In September 1559, Villera shaved her beard and hair, dressed in coarse cloth and dressed as a local monk, and went to Kyoto to preach. He has been in Japan for three and a half years and speaks fluent Japanese. He rented a cottage in Kyoto and erected a cross on the roof. At first, very few people came to hear the sermon, but because of his zealous preaching, the audience gradually increased. Many monks also came to listen to the sermon, and when they heard it, they insulted and rumored that Vilera was a devil in human skin, eating human flesh, and the bones of dead people in the house were piled up, which led to his being driven away by the landlord. As a result, Villera changed her course and decided to change the method of preaching from mainly preaching among the people to enlisting the support of the upper echelons. This was done by baptizing the local daimyo and then adopting the people of his domain as believers through the power of the daimyō. These Catholic daimyōs, in order to get the novelty of the "Southern Barbarians", welcomed the Jesuits to preach.
In 1565, the missionary Frost came to Kyoto to assist Villera in his work. Civil unrest soon broke out and Kyoto was in chaos. A few years later, Oda Nobunaga invaded Kyoto with his troops and restored order. In 1569, Frost had the opportunity to talk with Oda Nobunaga on the Bridge for more than two hours, and he gave Nobunaga a special gift, the globe. Nobunaga asked them about their motives for coming to Japan, and Frost replied, "There is only one motive, and that is to say the way of salvation in Japan. For this reason the priests endured hardships and risked sailing. Oda Nobunaga was persuaded to grant permission to the Jesuits to preach, and also allocated land to the church in Azuchi Castle to build churches and schools.
In May 1582, Oda Nobunaga led dozens of retinues to Honnoji Temple in Kyoto to rescue the besieged Toyotomi Hideyoshi. On June 2, Honnoji Temple was besieged by Nobunaga's renegade minister Mitsuhide Akira. Nobunaga was washing in the temple when he was shot by an arrow. He drew an arrow and a knife to engage the enemy, was shot again in his hand, and finally retreated into the room and committed suicide by cutting his abdomen. This matter was immediately informed overseas by Frost when he learned of it. When Toyotomi Hideyoshi learned of the Honnōji Incident, he quickly made peace with his opponents, and then marched 200 miles a day to defeat Mitsuhide, control the situation, unify the whole country, and become the most powerful person in Japan.
As Oda Nobunaga's heir, Toyotomi Hideyoshi initially adopted a protective policy toward Catholicism, but only began to ban religion because he saw that Catholicism endangered his rule. In May 1586, Toyotomi Hideyoshi received a Jesuit priest in Osaka Castle, including Frost and others. Hideyoshi told them to cross the sea to conquer Korea and China, and asked the church to provide two Western-style galleons. He also said that if the conquest was successful, churches could be established throughout China and the Chinese catholic. After the meeting, Toyotomi Hideyoshi personally guided them on a tour of the newly built Osaka Castle. Finally, at the request of the clergy, he specially ordered the preparation of a writ of permission to allow the Catholic Church to preach throughout the country. This made the missionaries present very happy. Unexpectedly, the following year, he changed his friendly attitude towards Catholicism and suddenly ordered the expulsion of the priest. It turned out that he had returned after winning the conquest of Kyushu, passing through Fukuoka, sailing in Hakata Bay, and accidentally found an armed ship of the church with several cannons on board. The missionary on the ship saw Hideyoshi and hurriedly welcomed him to the ship and served him with wine and food. A few days after seeing the ship, Hideyoshi issued an expulsion order, but he still allowed the people to believe in religion, and the Portuguese and Spaniards could come to Japan to trade, and implemented a policy of separating proselytizing from trade.
After Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued a priest's expulsion order in 1587, the cross flags in the barracks and ships were removed, and churches were destroyed everywhere. But the handling of the matter is not so simple, in fact, a "Nan man" priest did not leave, they just went underground. Toyotomi Hideyoshi himself is still a fan of "Southern Manchurian Culture". In 1593, Hideyoshi watched blacks dancing on Portuguese ships at a military barracks in Nagoya. In his later years, he enjoyed cherry blossom viewing in Yoshino and asked the daimyo accompanying him to attend in "Nanman" costumes. In Kyoto, some people painted the scene of the "Southern Barbarians" coming to Japan by boat to trade on the big screen, which is the "Southern Barbarian Screen" that has been passed down to this day.
In 1598, Toyotomi Hideyoshi died, which was good news for the Jesuits. They hurried to report overseas: "Spring has come, and the flowers in the fields that are about to die due to the severe cold of winter have blossomed, and for the newborn Christian who has suffered from years of persecution by tyrants, his death is a happy spring." Indeed, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who ruled Japan after Toyotomi Hideyoshi, adopted a moderate foreign policy, and Japan opened up to the world. Tokugawa Ieyasu let the missionaries lurking underground come out. He opened japan to the goal of revitalizing trade, while adopting a tacit policy toward missionary work. At that time, Spain ignored the trade that Japan wanted, but sent missionaries one after another, which annoyed Ieyasu. At this time, the development of Catholicism in Japan entered a period of prosperity. The annual report of the Society of Jesus in Japan in 1600 stated: "Last year 40,000 people converted, and the church is developing smoothly; this year another 30,000 people converted." "At the beginning of the 17th century, there were about two or three hundred thousand Catholics in Japan, about one percent of the population at that time. Some daimyo also believed in Catholicism and were firm in their faith. The aforementioned Governor Konishi was a general appointed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the invasion of Korea. He then led an army to fight against Tokugawa Ieyasu's Eastern Army, but was defeated and captured. Because he was religious, he refused to commit suicide by caesarean section according to the custom of the samurai, and before his execution, he took out a portrait of Jesus and prayed to heaven.
The martyrdom of Keicho and the Shimabara Rebellion
In the early 17th century, Catholicism in Japan went through a process from prosperity to decline. Foreign religions were in serious conflict with state power, while the aggressive nature of Western colonial activities posed a direct threat to the Japanese rulers. A number of emergencies have also exacerbated the conflict.
On October 19, 1596, the Spanish merchant ship St. Philip was shipwrecked on its way from Manila to Mexico and drifted to Tosa, Japan, where it was towed into the bay. Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent Masuda Nagamori to deal with it locally. Masuda confiscated all the cargo on board and imprisoned the crew. During the interrogation, the ship's navigator showed Masuda Nagamori a map of the world and said that Spain was very powerful, sending missionaries first, then sending troops, and with believers as an internal response, they could conquer Japan with all their might. When this word reached Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he was furious and ordered the arrest of the missionaries and believers. On New Year's Day of the following year (the first year of Keicho), the captured people gathered in prisons in Kyoto, and then the jailers cut off their ears and ordered them to walk by land to Nagasaki, and two people joined on the way, a total of 26 people. On February 5, 26 martyrs were taken to a hill in Nishizaka, Nagasaki, where they were crucified. This is the so-called "martyrdom of the elders".
The Tokugawa shogunate's attitude towards Catholicism also went through a process from tolerance to prohibition. In 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu officially issued a ban on missionaries to Nagasaki. Believers who refused to convert were persecuted. In Kyoto, some believers were tied up in straw mats or bags, paraded the streets with their heads exposed, and even hanged upside down. In Nagasaki, hundreds of missionaries and believers took to the streets to march. Some carry a cross, some insert a knife into their strands and wrists, or pray aloud and whip themselves with a whip. These acts were officially a precursor to riots. About a third of the missionaries and hundreds of believers were exiled abroad to Macau, China, and Manila, Philippines. Tokugawa Ieyasu died in 1616, and for more than two years the church became active again. However, the second generation of shoguns, Tokugawa Hidetada, continued to strictly prohibit religious belief throughout the country, and those who harbored missionaries were to be burned at the stake, which later developed to the point where Catholic supplies were also punished. The shogunate also tested people's religious beliefs by trampling on the statue of the Virgin Mary (stepping on the painting). Although most people are forced to convert, it is not uncommon for those who are steadfast and martyred.
The most serious clash between the Japanese shogunate and Catholics in the country was the Shimabara Uprising. Shimabara was the base of the Catholic Church in Japan, which was originally the domain of the Catholic daimyo Konishi, and the people were persecuted during the prohibition of religion. The hardships of the local peasants, coupled with natural disasters and harsh government of the lords, finally rose in October 1637. The rebels elected the 16-year-old Amakusa Shisada as the "Tendo" (leader) and called on the peasants to rebel. The rebel army used the Eucharist as its flag and gathered more than 30,000 people. The shogunate attached great importance to the uprising, mobilizing 120,000 troops to suppress it, and even colluding with the Dutch to mobilize warships to shell Shimabara Castle. According to the backbone of the rebel army that guarded Shimahara Castle, most of them were samurai, and they used locally produced muskets, which were very effective in combat, and inflicted heavy damage on the shogunate army in the face of a huge disparity in strength. At the end of February of the following year, the rebel army finally ran out of ammunition and failed. On the last day of the uprising, more than 10,000 remnants of the faithful sang hymns of praise to God and launched a final attack on the enemy outside the city. Amakusa was killed in battle, and the rebel army, both men and women and children, was slaughtered, and the scene was very miserable. This uprising led directly to the Tokugawa shogunate's policy of closing the country, which led Japan to a complete isolation.
Although the "Southern Barbarian Culture" originated from the exotic culture brought about by the introduction of Catholicism, its core is of course Christian culture, but it is not limited to religion. Missionaries, out of missionary needs, also brought Western astronomy, geography, painting, music, architecture, and so on. The scope of "Southern Barbarian Culture" ranges from ideology, art, education, science and technology to customs and habits, and its contents are extensive. Taking painting as an example, at that time, Western oil painting, printmaking and other techniques were introduced to Japan, resulting in early Japanese Foreign paintings, whose style imitated Italian Renaissance paintings, but some backgrounds used Japanese painting techniques, such as "The Statue of the Virgin and Child". In the past, most Japanese paintings were based on flowers, birds, winds and moons, but at this time, facing the world, depicting the "Southern Barbarians" and the objects brought by the "Southern Barbarians" ship, it was completely realistic. In addition, missionaries instilled some Western scientific knowledge into the people in order to preach. As Xavier said, "The Japanese did not know that the earth was round or what the orbit of the sun was, and they questioned natural phenomena such as meteors, lightning, rain and snow." Thanks to our satisfactory explanations, we have their trust. At this time, European astronomy came, breaking the traditional theory of the heavenly circle and the Buddhist theory of Mount Meru's celestial realm, laying the foundation for modern Japanese astronomy. Western surveying is known as the "Southern Barbarian Flow" and involves knowledge of geometry. In terms of metallurgy, "Nanban Blowing" is to add lead to thick copper containing silver, use the different proportions of copper and lead, separate the lead containing silver, and then refine silver from it. European hats are called "Nan Man Ka", European armor is called "Nan Man Jia", and there are "Nan Man pastries" (bread, biscuits) and "Nan Man wine" (wine) in food. These are the results of the influence of the "Southern Barbarian Culture".
Although compared with the Protestant culture baptized by the Renaissance, the "Nanban culture" introduced to Japan was not the most advanced culture in Europe at that time, with obvious conservative tendencies, but it was still of great progressive significance to Japan in the late feudal era. The muskets and other new weapons introduced by it were conducive to Japan's reunification, the overseas trade influenced by it promoted the development of the Japanese economy, and although the science and culture introduced by it were stifled several times by the system of locking up the country, they still stubbornly survived, laying the initial foundation for Japan's future modernization.
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