Source: TW
Christian studies
Shogun & his officialdom knew & most intellectuals of significance knew, some commoners too. How could they not have known? Japanese sailed to Mexico in early 1600’s itself. Tokugawa era Japanese elite weren’t braindead kangers. The observations of these visitors to Europe, Goa, New Spain, & Philippines would play a role in Shogunate’s decision to extirpate Xtians & close Japan because those who went saw Japanese slaves being sold in Goa by Xtians, colonization of Philippines, New Spain helped along by padres.
Here is the man tasked with extirpating Xtians from Japan:
“Mexico, Lucon, and many other countries he has thus got into his power. Since Japan is hard to conquer in war, he sends his padres”
(Lucon is Luzon island in Philippines.)
By early 1800’s not only were Tokugawa intellectuals aware of the America’s, they knew about Washington, Napoleon, & Peter the Great. They wrote bio’s on all 3 of them. The 1st Japanese bio of Peter the Great was published in 1805 by Yamamura Saisuke. Aizawa Seishisai in his Shinron cited Peter the Great as a role model worthy of emulation to keep the Russians & other Western powers at bay by making Japan into a great power.
Attached is from the Russian Golovnin’s memoirs, he was a prisoner in Japan in early 1800’s for 3 yrs who noted the high literacy & common knowledge of average Japanese. He also noted that even by early 1810’s the Tokugawa elite knew of the ascendance of British power in the subcontinent & were worried about its implications for Japan, this was before 3rd Anglpo-Maratha war.
Ridiculous comparison as in the New World the Portuguese were facing people with no immunity to newly introduced diseases & divided into numerous tribes with little in common. It is not like Spanish & Portuguese didn’t internally discuss the prospects of colonizing Japan before admitting it was hopeless militarily, only way to colonize Japan was to convert enough Japanese & use them to gain influence. Once Japan was subjugated through Xtianity, J in turn were to be used as cannon fodder to conquer Korea & China.
The strength and courage of the Japanese in arms is such that there is no nation whatsoever which would dare to invade Japan; likewise their self-confidence and pride is greater than that of any other people yet discovered.
- António Bocarro, 1635
Correct, here is a passage from Samidare-sho (Rainy Season Talks) by Miura Baien, dated to 1784
Japanese who visited Qing empire in 1850’s on the Senzaimaru compared Opium & Xtianity as twin evils destroying China & paving the way for its colonization.
On the observations of the Japanese visitors about the activities of Westerners, & Xtian missionaries in the Qing empire of 1850’s, you can go through this.
Who knew more about prospects of conquering Japan? Vivero de Velasco the governor of Spanish Philippines then or some Brazilian larper 500 yrs later?
If the Portuguese had such great prospects? Then why didn’t they do fuck all when Iemitsu beheaded their mission to resume trade relations & sent Xtians into the funny pits during tsurushi?
Right - it couldn’t be because Hideyoshi was able to mount the largest pre modern naval invasion before D-Day Why r u linking me unrelated stuff? That slave trade carried out by padres & Xtian daimyo was 1 of the reasons y Xtians were exterminated.
Chinese study
During his 1592 invasion of the Korean peninsula, Hideyoshi ordered Katō Kiyomasa to explore the region north of the Tumen River in search of more precise geographic information … Katō’s ten-day foray into the region lying north of the Tumen River informed Hideyoshi that a process of state-building was taking place there. … As noted previously, Japanese leaders, who had collected information about the Jurchen since the 1590s, were keen observers of the Manchu conquest. News of the Qing capture of the Ming capital, Peking, in June 1644, was brought to Nagasaki by Chinese merchants arriving in October
- Early Modern China and Northeast Asia By Evelyn S. Rawski · 2015
Map making
Source: TW
It might have surprised Perry to learn that the “hermit Empire” was awash with information about the rest of the world. In the decades before his arrival, Japanese cartographers had designed dozens of (maps). In fact, in 1810, a Japanese official made a map that was arguably the most comprehensive available at the time anywhere in the world… How can we account for this state of affairs? How did a relatively reclusive polity gather sufficient information about the world?
At the time of his arrival in Edo Bay, the Japanese elite knew more about America than Americans knew about Japan. Indeed, despite their relative isolation, the Japanese knew more about the West than most other Asians did, including the Chinese.
- Ian Buruma
Learning about the man behind the map may help us understand how up-to-date world-images like this came to be sold on the streets of late-Tokugawa Japan. The designer of this particular image was a 24-year-old scholar named Mitsukuri Shōgo (1821–46). Genpō was sufficiently impressed with the young man to take him in as an adoptive son-in-law in 1844. Coincidentally Tadataka Ino who mapped all of Japan’s coastlines accurately 50 yrs before Meiji restoration was also an adopted son-in-law.
The “Overview of World Geography” sold prodigiously… A four-volume supplement (Kon’yo zushiki Hō) came out in 1846, treating a score of new topics: the role of oases in desert trade, the rhythms of the Indian Ocean monsoon, the English colonization of India, the independence of South American republics etc.. He also sketched in, for the first time, the findings of the secret expedition to the north (notably, its discovery that Kamchatka was not an island but a peninsula), arguably making this the most advanced world map published anywhere in 1810.
Even after forbidding their own people from venturing overseas, shogunal officials continued to collect maps, demand annual reports from Dutch and Chinese sojourners, and interrogate the rare shipwrecked sailor.. Nor was curiosity about global affairs confined to official circles