reflective of reality. In fact, the reverse was true: Merchants had become a wealthy and influential class, while the samurai’s status was badly diminished. In most cases, a town’s economy was controlled by big merchant families who enjoyed special privileges granted to them by the government.
The Tokugawa government’s main source of revenue came from tax farming, and it levied these taxes on a village as an entity, rather than on the individual land owners or cultivators. The government had a hands‐off policy as long as a village paid its taxes. This autonomy allowed the villages to manage their own business, and agricultural production surged. A vigorous economy promoted the division of labor. “Big houses” in a village would go into the manufacture of silk and sake, or operate pawn shops. “Head men” from the “big houses” would develop leadership qualities. The villages in Tokugawa Japan grew into solid social entities.
Japan’s traditional merchants enjoyed many privileges under Tokugawa rule. They had great vested interests in the existing order, and therefore had no incentive to be agents of change. As traditional Japan moved toward modernization, the traditional merchant class would fade into obscurity. This trait distinguishes the traditional Japanese merchant from its counterpart in Europe and America, where the merchant class was a driving force for change and revolution.
Tokugawa stability was not stagnation. Rather, it was a time when Japan created a sophisticated national government staffed with educated and disciplined samurai, developed a prosperous money economy, cultivated a strong and productive agricultural population, and wove a strong social fabric. Tokugawa Japan was creating the building blocks of a modern Japan. In Japan’s drive toward modernization, the samurai‐turned‐administrators would quickly assume leadership roles in civil government, the military, and business; the village “headmen” would become grassroots leaders of a modern Japanese state; and the villages would provide the initial capital for its early industrialization.
Premodern Korea
Ancient Korea: The Land and the People
The Korean Peninsula is about 600 miles long and 125–200 miles wide. It borders with China and Russia to the north, and its southernmost shore is less than 120 miles from Japan across the ocean. A massive mountain range runs along its eastern coastline, leaving most of its plains and valleys to the west and south. Only 14% of its territory is fit for cultivation.
The ancestors of modern‐day Koreans were migrants from Siberia and Manchuria who settled on the Korean Peninsula. Ethnically, the Koreans and the Japanese share a common origin with the indigenous people of Siberia and Manchuria. Linguistically, they both speak an Altaic language, which is unrelated to Han Chinese. Early Koreans were a tribal people who relied on fishing, hunting, and gathering for subsistence. As agriculture grew, they built villages and towns. Chinese know‐how, from early crop growing and animal husbandry to later metallurgy, flowed from China to Korea, and enabled Korean civilization to advance at a much faster pace than what was normal for other civilizations. This cultural influence was then relayed to Japan. The Koreans also adopted the Chinese writing system (Han Chinese characters), Confucianism, and China’s centralized bureaucratic structure of government. Korea is part of the cultural sphere of Confucianism, along with China, Japan, and Vietnam.
Archaeological discoveries suggest that humanlike beings inhabited the Korean Peninsula as far back as 700,000 BCE, they entered the Stone Age around 500,000 BCE, local bronze production began around the eighth century BCE, and local iron production began around the third century BCE.
Timeline: Premodern Korea to 1897
| 700,000 BCE | Humanlike beings appear on the Korean Peninsula |
| 10,000 BCE | Paleolithic hunters and gatherers of the Old Stone Age |
| 1500 BCE | Agricultural villages appear; rice cultivation introduced from China 1200–900 BCE |
| 800 BCE | Bronze Age begins |
| ca. 4th century BCE | GoJoseon Dynasty established; centralized kingdom |
| 3rd century BCE | Iron Age begins |
| 200–100 BCE | Jin State emerges in southern Korean Peninsula |
| 194–198 BCE | Wiman Joseon Dynasty founded by defeated rebel Han Chinese general at Pyongyang |
| 109–108 BCE | China’s Han Wudi, the Martial Emperor, unseats Wiman Joseon Dynasty and sets up Four Chinese Commanderies |
| 57 BCE–668 CE | Three Kingdoms |
| 37 BCE–668 CE: Goguryeo | |
| 57 BCE–935 CE: Silla | |
| 18 BCE–660 CE: Baekje | |
| 698–926 | Northern and Southern Dynasties |
| 668–935: Unified Silla | |
| 698–926: Unified Balhae | |
| 892–936 | Later Three Kingdoms: Silla, Later Baekje, and Later Goguryeo |
| 918–1392 | Unified Goryeo, from where the English word “Korea” comes |
| 1234 | Metal, moveable‐type printing press invented |
| 1270–1350s | Mongol conquest |
| 1392–1897 | Unified Yi Joseon Dynasty |
| 1402 | Paper currency in circulation |
| 1424 | Compilation of History of Koryo completed |
| 1446 | Hangeul, the Korean phonetic spelling system, adopted |
| 1592, 1598 | Toyotomi Hideyoshi attempts to conquer Korea but is defeated by Korean Admiral Yi Sun‐sin’s “turtle boats” |
| 1627, 1636 | Manchu Qing China invades Korea and turns it into a tributary state |
| 1880s–1890s | China and Japan work to keep Russia out of Korea |
| 1894–1895 | Japan defeats China in the First Sino‐Japanese War, ending Korea’s tributary and protectorate status |
| 1897 | Yi Joseon Dynasty collapses; Korean Empire created |
The earliest forms of agricultural society on the Korean Peninsula had emerged by 1500 BCE. Villages surfaced and grew into societies led by chieftains. In southern Korea, they engaged in intensive agriculture in dry and paddy fields, and grew a multitude of crops, such as millet, red bean, soybean, and rice. As was the case in other civilizations, bronze was only