How has Japan Survived against all odds?

Survived against what odds?

Japan is sea girt in a portion of the world in which deep ocean navigation has been until quite recently almost unheard of. Until the advent of the European powers, there was no credible threat to the survival of Japan. After Matthew Perry forced the Japanese to admit international shipping in 1853, the Japanese quickly turned to England to provide them the necessary expertise to create a modern nation on the lines of what were then known as the "Great Powers." The Japanese chose to completely reverse the anti-western policies which dominated the nation for more than two centuries during the Tokugawa Shogunate--and having so chosen, they very quickly became what they had previously abhorred as a matter of principle. I suggest that you read about the Meiji period in Japanese history. Prior to the Meiji period, the nation was ruled by the Tokugawa Shongunate, which enshrined the governance principles adapted by Tokugawa Ieyasu from the methods of the Ashikaga Shogunate which had held sway in the Muromachi Period.

I don't intend to go into too much detail here, however. Japan seemed to have been threatened from outside only at the time of the Yuan dynasty in China (the time of the Mongol rule of China). In 1274 and 1281, the Mongol ruler of China, Kublai Khan, assembled a fleet to invade Japan. Typhoons scattered and destroyed both of these fleets, and the Japanese declared that kami kazi, "divine winds," had been sent by heaven to defend them. That was the only time that Japan was ever seriously threatened with invasion until the Second World War. Given that the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty in China did not last for so very long itself, i suspect that even a successful Mongol invasion of the Japanese islands would not have long succeeded in ruling the Japanese people. There was a vigorous naval construction and exploration policy in the early part of the Ming Dynasty in China (the dynasty which succeeded the Mongols), but they ignored the Japanese.

At the time that the Mongol Yuan dynasty fell to the Ming in China, the Ashikaga Shogunate began in Japan. The Ashikaga Shoguns succeeded the Kamakura Shoguns, and had adopted their method of governance through the use of "constables." But the Ashikaga clan did not keep as close a control over the constables as the Kamakura had done--the Minamoto clan which had made the Emperor a figurehead and a virtual prisoner in the Kamakura period had appointed members of their own clan or allied minor clans to rule the nation through the office of the constable. The Ashikaga clan claimed power through the "restoration" of the Imperial authority, but in fact were only paying lip service to the principle, and the central administration was turned over to Tendai Buddhists from the Mount Hiei temple near Kyoto. These Buddhist monks and sohei (warrior monks) established their administrative offices in the Muromachi district of the city of Kyoto, and the period of the Ashikaga Shogunate is therefore known as the Muromachi Period in Japanese history.

The Ashikaga clan attempted to avoid civil war by appointing influential clan leaders as constable, and these clan leaders eventually became daimyo, which is a kind of local lord, and which has lead western observers to erroneously describe this system as feudalism. However, it does not really resemble European feudalism. All loyalties were either to one's clan, or to one's personal associates in other influential clans, and there was no formal recognition of any rights accruing to any member of society. Your prosperity, your very life, depended upon the good will of the daimyo. As a result, although clan Ashikaga produced a series of powerful and successful Shoguns and military leaders, they had actually sown the seeds of their own destruction, as local Daimyo increasingly asserted their independence. The end of the Muromachi Period, and the decline of the Ashikaga Shogunate in the middle 16th century lead to the Sengoku or Warring States Period of Japanese history. From about 1555 to 1600, a series of war lords attempted to take control of the nation. Imagawa Yoshimoto attempted to take Kyoto in 1560, but he was killed when he was ambushed by Oda Nobunaga, the black sheep son of a minor and thoroughly unimportant Daimyo in Owari. Clan Oda could not even control all of Owari, but Oda Nobunaga was married to the daughter of the then powerful former merchant and warlord, Saito in the "province" of Mino. As Imagawa was marching to Kyoto, he sent Matsudaira Motoyasu with almost half of his army to take a border fortress which lay between Owari and Mino. Matsudaira and the men of Mikawa, his home province, actually hated Imagawa (Matsudaira Motoyasu had been a hostage of the Imagawa clan), and having taken the fortress, they held back, and did not march to Imagawa's aid when Oda Nobunaga ambushed Imagawa Yoshimoto. Yoshimoto was killed in the battle.

Thereafter, Matsudaira Motoyasu became an ally and lieutenant of Oda Nobunaga. Nobunaga was friendly with Europeans in Japan, and we know a great deal about him because the Jesuits were fascinated by him, and wrote a good deal about him. He set out to destroy the Ikko Ikki sect of Buddhists who were anti-European and who routinely fomented rebellion in Japan. It took Nobunaga amost 15 years, and in the end he had to defeat the powerful Mori clan, but he finally captured the Ikko Ikki stronghold at Hongan-ji. With the aid of Matsudaira Motoyasu, who changed his name to Tokugawa Ieyasu, Oda managed to hold off the Takeda clan. Clan Takeda was on the verge of defeating Nobunaga, and had defeated Tokugawa, when the Diamyo, Takeda Shingen died. Incredibly, the weak Ashikaga Shogun had called for Nobunaga to take Kyoto from the Tendai Sohei (Buddhist warrior monks), and thereby unwittingly surrendered the last of his authority as Shogun. With the death of Takeda Shingen, Nobunaga and Tokugawa were able to defeat clan Takeda, to defeat the Ikko Ikki Buddists at Hongan-ji, and to defeat clan Mori, the last credible opposition to Nobugnaga.

To defeat the Ikko Ikki Buddhists, Nobunaga had used firearms and artillery, supplied by his many European contacts (firearms were already known and used in Japan, but were disdained by many of the Bushi--the Samurai--as being dishonorable weapons and productions of the foreign devils). Nobunaga and Tokugawa used firearms extensively in their defeat of clan Takeda. The last credible alliance to oppose Nobunaga was organized by Uyesugi Kenshin, considered by many to have been the greatest general in Japan in that period. Once again, fate intervened on Nobunaga's side, and Uyesugi Kenshin died. Clan Uyesugi was powerful, but it was divided, and with the death of Kenshin, all resistance to Nobunaga in Japan collapsed.

Nobunaga and his lieutenants then turned their attention to reducing the resistance of all of the other major clans of Japan. The Mori clan were the most threatening. Although defeated in their efforts to help the Ikko Ikki against Nobunaga, they were still powerful, and held the west of Japan agains his armies. Having destroyed the Ikko Ikki, Nobunaga had also destroyed the power of the Muromachi Buddhists, and he destroyed the Tendai temple at Mount Hiei. In a typically incomprehensible move, the Sohei warriors of the Tendai Buddhists united with Nobunaga to hunt down all of the remaining Buddhist warriors--which meant that they effectively allied themselves to the hated European devils, who were heavily supporting Nobunaga in the hope of favors when he had conquered the country.

But in 1582, Nobunaga was assassinated by one of his own officer, Akechi Mitsuhide. Tokugawa Ieyasu hunted down Akechi Mitsuhide and executed him. Oda Nobunaga was succeeded by Hashiba Hideyoshi, whom many Japanese believe had conspired in his assassination. Hashiba Hideyoshi had been raised to great power from very low origins by Oda Nobunaga, and was widely resented as well as feared. Hashiba Hideyoshi (also known as, and usually referred to by Japanese historians as Toyotomi Hideyoshi) made himself Regent, and ended the Sengoku or Warring States period by the final conquest of the islands. Because of his lowly birth, the Emperor would not make him Shogun. His son died before he did, and so did his younger brother. He adopted his nephew thereafter, but he was ignoring that the old and powerful Japanese clans would never accept a dynasty established by someone they despised.

Incredibly, Hideyoshi decided to take seriously some daydreams which he and Oda Nobunaga had woven about the conquest of Ming China by the Japanese. He demanded that the Koreans allow the passage of Japanese troops, but the Koreans refused. Hideyoshi twice invaded Korea, and although he enjoyed some initial success, his armies bogged down in the mountainous and rugged Korean terrain, and he wasted his resources to no purpose. The Koreans managed to destroy the Japanese fleet supplying the invasion force, and the Ming sent an admiral and a fleet which joined the Koreans to drive the Japanese out of Korea. Hideyoshi's second invasion of Korea was even more disasterous, with the Ming armies now present and effectively cooperating with the Koreans. By 1598, his coffers were empty, he had murdered his nephew who he had named successor and his nephew's family because he had had another son, and then he himself died--leaving his infant son to a council of Regents.

The Regents now had no money and no army to oppose any rebellion. In 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu rose in rebellion, and defeated the forces of the Regents. In 1603, he convinced the emperor to appoint him Shogun. In 1605, he abdicated in favor of his son, whom he had always associated with his rule. Thereafter, until his death in 1616, he effectively ruled from behind his son's throne.

Hideyoshi had disarmed the peasants in an episode known as "the Sword Hunt." Tokugawa went further and banned firearms to everyone except an elite Shogun's guard. Just as Oda Nobunaga and the Sohei had hunted down all of the Buddhist warriors of Japan, Tokugawa now hunted down all the Christians, and restricted all the Europeans to Nagasaki, in the far west of Japan, on the western coast of Kyushu. This was the only point of contact for European traders with Japan. All other Europeans found in Japan could be killed out of hand. The anti-Christian and anti-European policies were very popular in Japan--Oda Nobunaga was by then seen as a villain, a monster who had used supernatural influences of kami, or spirits, devils, and the Europeans were seen as the greatest devils who had supported Nobunaga. Tokugawa moved the capital of his administration to Edo (modern Tokoyo), and the period is also known as the Edo Period. He was careful to appoint influential but militarily incompetent members of the great clans to be the constables of his new administration, and he regularized weights and measures, and established trading policies which merchants would be obliged to follow in order to legally trade within Japan. He emphasized the importance of the farmers, who had by long tradition been the most important class after the Bushi (popularly known in the West as the Samurai).

Japan was only ever threatened externally by the attempted invasion of the Mongols--a notably un-nautical people. Neither the Mongols of the Yuan dynasty nor their Chinese vassals had any naval tradition--so even if they had successfully invaded Japan, i doubt they ever could have maintained control. The biggest threat to Japan was always internal instability from ambitious men, which is exactly the same as one could say of Europe from 500 CE until very recently in modern times. The question of how Japan could have survived suggested that it was threatened. Japan, in fact, was externally threatened far less than any other great nation in history, and was no more threatened by internal instability than Europe or China ever were.