Japanese Christian eschatology?
The Perry Expedition (Japanese: 黒船来航, kurofune raikō, "Arrival of the Black Ships") was a diplomatic and military expedition to the Tokugawa Shogunate, involving two separate voyages by warships of the United States Navy, which took place during 1853–54. The goals of this expedition included exploration, surveying, and the establishment of diplomatic relations and negotiation of trade agreements with various nations of the region; opening contact with the government of Japan was considered a top priority of the expedition, and was one of the key reasons for its inception.
The expedition was commanded by Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, under orders from President Millard Fillmore. Perry’s primary goal was to force an end to Japan’s 220-year-old policy of isolation and to open Japanese ports to American trade, through the use of gunboat diplomacy if necessary. The Perry Expedition led directly to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and the western Great Powers, and eventually to the collapse of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and the restoration of the Emperor. Following the expedition, Japan's burgeoning trade routes with the world led to the cultural trend of Japonisme, in which aspects of Japanese culture influenced art in Europe and America.
First visit to Japan, 1852–1853
Perry chose the black-hulled paddle-wheeled Mississippi as his flagship, and cleared Hampton Roads, Virginia on 24 November 1852.[8] Perry made port calls at Madeira (December 11–15), St Helena (January 10–11), Cape Town (January 24 – February 3), Mauritius (February 18–28), Ceylon (March 10–15), Singapore (March 25–29), and Macao and Hong Kong (April 7–28). There he met with American-born Sinologist Samuel Wells Williams (who had been to Japan with the Morrison in 1837), who provided Chinese language translations of Perry's official letters, and rendezvoused with Plymouth and Saratoga. He continued to Shanghai (May 4–17), where he met with the Dutch-born American diplomat Anton L. C. Portman, who translated his official letters into the Dutch language, and rendezvoused with Susquehanna.
Perry then switched his flag to Susquehanna and called on the Ryukyu islands from May 17–26. Ignoring the claims of Satsuma Domain to the islands, as well as his own orders, he threatened and bluffed local authorities by threatening to attack with 200 troops unless he were allowed trading rights and land for a coaling station. Perry landed his Marines, whom he drilled on the beach for hours at a time, and demanded an audience with the Ryukyu King Shō Tai at Shuri Castle. Knowing that his every action would be reported to Japanese authorities in Edo, Perry carefully avoided meeting with low-ranked officials and made much use of military ceremony and shipboard hospitality to demonstrate both American military power and the peaceful intent of his expedition.[9] Perry left with promises that the islands would be completely open to trade with the United States. Continuing on the Ogasawara Islands in mid-June, Perry met with the local inhabitants and even purchased a plot of land.
Kanji Ishiwara (石原 莞爾, Ishiwara Kanji, 18 January 1889 – 15 August 1949)
said:
With the first appearance of the American fleet under Admiral Perry in 1853 in Japan, the future war between the United States and Japan was doomed to occur.
For East Asians, including Japanese, the Pacific Ocean was the most feared and unknown world. So, they didn't care what kind of world and humans lived beyond the Pacific Ocean. They had no intention of sailing the Pacific Ocean.
Because the Japanese lived on isolated islands in the vast Pacific Ocean, they lived peacefully while defeating the invasions of China, Korea, and Mongolia.
The Japanese were polytheistic. They fell into pride because they believed that the Japanese gods would always protect Japan from foreign aggression. So, they claimed Japan to be the land of God.
However, the giant suddenly appeared in front of Japan, causing the Japanese to fall into fear and anger.😱
Since time immemorial, the Japanese have not sailed the Pacific Ocean because of the superstitious belief that there is a world of gods beyond the Pacific Ocean.
However, the Christian empire of America crossed the Pacific and began to threaten the Japanese.
The Japanese realized that a new formidable enemy had emerged. So, many Japanese went to America and started reconnaissance.
The Japanese were overwhelmed by the vastness and abundance of the North American continent.😳
They called America the God-Blessed World.😲
Food shortages and starvation have always been common in the East Asian world.
However, America was plentiful enough to overflow with food and resources.
The Japanese were shocked that the United States was incomparably richer than the European empires.😨
The overlords of East Asia speculated that because Europe was poor, they colonized and plundered the whole world.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion target="_blank">
The Japanese were convinced that European empires plunder Asia's resources, population, territory and money because of their poverty.
However, the United States was the wealthiest empire in the world. Americans were different from Europeans. They built schools, hospitals, railroads, factories, and missionary facilities in Asia.
The Japanese found that Americans were more kind and gentleman than Europeans.
However, Japanese Overlords argued that American kindness was more dangerous than European greed and cruelty.
In Japan, state power was created and operated through slavery for 2000 years.
Japanese royalty and nobles became horse-riding knights, and Japanese slaves and serfs became infantrymen and went to war.
Burakumin (部落民, "hamlet/village people", "those who live in hamlets/villages") is a former untouchable group in Japan at the bottom of the traditional social hierarchy.
Burakumin were originally ethnic Japanese people with occupations seen as kegare (穢れ, "defilement") during Japan's feudal era, such as executioners, undertakers, slaughterhouse workers, butchers, or tanners. Burakumin became a hereditary status of untouchability and an unofficial caste in the Tokugawa class system during the Edo period. Burakumin were victim of severe discrimination and ostracism in Japanese society, and lived as outcasts in their own separate villages or ghettos. Burakumin status was officially abolished after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, but the descendants of burakumin have since continued to face stigmatization and discrimination in Japan.
The predecessors to burakumin, called kawata (かわた) or eta (穢多) formed as a distinct group some time during the Heian period, AD 794-1185. Initially, they dealt with pollution[clarification needed] but were not considered untouchable. From the Heian period through medieval period, eta were regarded as having the ability to cleanse ritual pollution, and in some portrayals were even seen as having magical powers.[2] Kawata were associated with the tanning industry and had the exclusive rights to tan hides.[3]
Hinin, meaning "non-human", was another pre-burakumin status, applying to beggars and camp followers of samurai. Their position was more mobile and they were thought to be less polluted.[4] The Tokugawa shogunate regarded beggars as hinin and allowed them to beg in designated areas. They had to work as restroom attendants, prison officers, or executioners. One famous hinin or eta is Danzaemon (弾左衛門), who was the head of eta, kawata and street performers in the Kantō region, and was given the exclusive license of tanning, candle wicks and others and made a fortune.[5]
Shinto (Japanese: 神道, romanized: Shintō) is a religion which originated in Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners Shintoists, although adherents rarely use that term themselves. There is no central authority in control of Shinto and much diversity exists among practitioners.
Shinto is polytheistic and revolves around the kami, supernatural entities believed to inhabit all things. The link between the kami and the natural world has led to Shinto being considered animistic. The kami are worshiped at kamidana household shrines, family shrines, and jinja public shrines. The latter are staffed by priests, known as kannushi, who oversee offerings of food and drink to the specific kami enshrined at that location. This is done to cultivate harmony between humans and kami and to solicit the latter's blessing. Other common rituals include the kagura dances, rites of passage, and seasonal festivals. Public shrines also supply religious paraphernalia such as amulets to the religion's adherents and facilitate forms of divination. Shinto places a major conceptual focus on ensuring purity, largely by cleaning practices such as ritual washing and bathing, especially before worship. Little emphasis is placed on specific moral codes or particular afterlife beliefs, although the dead are deemed capable of becoming kami. The religion has no single creator or specific doctrinal text, but exists in a diverse range of local and regional forms.
Although historians debate at what point it is suitable to refer to Shinto as a distinct religion, kami veneration has been traced back to Japan's Yayoi period (300 BC to AD 300). Buddhism entered Japan at the end of the Kofun period (AD 300 to 538) and spread rapidly. Religious syncretization made kami worship and Buddhism functionally inseparable, a process called shinbutsu-shūgō. The kami came to be viewed as part of Buddhist cosmology and were increasingly depicted anthropomorphically. The earliest written tradition regarding kami worship was recorded in the 8th-century Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. In ensuing centuries, shinbutsu-shūgō was adopted by Japan's Imperial household. During the Meiji era (1868 to 1912), Japan's nationalist leadership expelled Buddhist influence from kami worship and formed State Shinto, which many historians regard as the origin of Shinto as a distinct religion. Shrines came under growing government influence and citizens were encouraged to worship the emperor as a kami. With the formation of the Japanese Empire in the early 20th century, Shinto was exported to other areas of East Asia. Following Japan's defeat in World War II, Shinto was formally separated from the state.
Shinto is primarily found in Japan, where there are around 100,000 public shrines, although practitioners are also found abroad. Numerically, it is Japan's largest religion, the second being Buddhism. Most of the country's population takes part in both Shinto and Buddhist activities, especially festivals, reflecting a common view in Japanese culture that the beliefs and practices of different religions need not be exclusive. Aspects of Shinto have also been incorporated into various Japanese new religious movements.
Japan's 1500-year-old Shinto (Japanese: 神道, romanized: Shintō) became the religious and ideological basis to justify Japanese slavery.
However, the Christian idea that all human beings are equal before Jesus is contrary to the beliefs of Shinto.
The Shimabara Rebellion (島原の乱, Shimabara no ran), also known as the Shimabara-Amakusa Rebellion (島原･天草の乱, Shimabara-Amakusa no ran) or Shimabara-Amakusa Ikki (島原･天草一揆), was an uprising that occurred in the Shimabara Domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan from 17 December 1637 to 15 April 1638.
Matsukura Katsuie, the daimyō of the Shimabara Domain, enforced unpopular policies set by his father Matsukura Shigemasa that drastically raised taxes to construct the new Shimabara Castle and violently prohibited Christianity. In December 1637, an alliance of local rōnin and mostly Catholic peasants led by Amakusa Shirō rebelled against the Tokugawa shogunate due to discontent over Katsuie's policies. The Tokugawa Shogunate sent a force of over 125,000 troops supported by the Dutch to suppress the rebels and defeated them after a lengthy siege against their stronghold at Hara Castle in Minamishimabara.
Following the successful suppression of the rebellion, Shirō and an estimated 37,000 rebels and sympathizers were executed by beheading, and the Portuguese traders suspected of helping them were expelled from Japan. Katsuie was investigated for misruling, and was eventually beheaded in Edo, becoming the only daimyō to be executed during the Edo period. The Shimabara Domain was given to Kōriki Tadafusa. Japan's policies of national seclusion and persecution of Christianity were tightened until the Bakumatsu in the 1850s.
The Shimabara Rebellion was the largest civil conflict in Japan during the Edo period, and was one of only a handful of instances of serious unrest during the relatively peaceful period of the Tokugawa shogunate's rule.[2]
From around the 16th century, European Catholicism spread to Japan, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese Catholics appeared.
Japanese Christians were strongly drawn to the idea of equality for all people advocated by Jesus.
In particular, serfs and slaves who were oppressed and exploited by the Japanese overlords came to believe in Christianity.
Christians who suffered from exploitation by the Japanese overlords eventually formed The Shimabara Rebellion (shimahara no ran, Shimabara no ran).
The Shimabara Rebellion (shimahara no ran, Shimabara no ran), which aims to build a Christian heaven on earth, gave a great shock to the Japanese overlords.
They feared that Christianity would eventually destroy Japan's slave society.
They banned Christian missions in Japan and inflicted merciless persecution.
After the 16th century, Christianity in Japan flourished with hundreds of thousands of Christians, but as the Edo Shogunate persecuted Christianity for 250 years, Christianity in Japan disappeared.
However, with the advent of the Christian empire in the United States in the 19th century, the overlords of Japan trembled with fear, anxiety, and anger.
American Christian ideology, democracy, and republicanism will destroy the slavery system that is the foundation of Japan. The overlords of Japan would then lose all their wealth and power and be relegated to a lowly status.
The Christian Empire America will be a more feared enemy than any other warring foes in Japan's past history.
Sooner or later, the Christian Empire America will conquer Japan.
The surrender of Imperial Japan was announced by Japanese Emperor Hirohito on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had become incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. Together with Great Britain and China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945—the alternative being "prompt and utter destruction". While publicly stating their intent to fight on to the bitter end, Japan's leaders (the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, also known as the "Big Six") were privately making entreaties to the publicly neutral Soviet Union to mediate peace on terms more favorable to the Japanese. While maintaining a sufficient level of diplomatic engagement with the Japanese to give them the impression they might be willing to mediate, the Soviets were covertly preparing to attack Japanese forces in Manchuria and Korea (in addition to South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands) in fulfillment of promises they had secretly made to the United States and the United Kingdom at the Tehran and Yalta Conferences.
A New Enemy - Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai Soundtrack
A genius musician in Europe described so well the feelings of fear and anger toward the American giant who appeared before the Japanese.
For 2000 years, the Japanese have repelled Chinese, Mongolian and Korean aggression. So, the Japanese have the pride that they are a land of gods blessed by gods.
However, the presence of the United States, a giant that suddenly appeared in front of Japan, plunged the Japanese archipelago into feelings of fear, crisis and anger.
The Christian Empire America was unlike any other that Japan had been at war with for 2,000 years.
If Japan conquers mainland China and does not stand on an equal footing with the United States, Japan will become a slave to the United States.
A New Enemy - Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai Soundtrack shocked me at how well it portrayed the horror, anger, and sense of crisis that a new enemy brought to the Japanese.😲
As I listened to that music, I felt the greatness of Western civilization once again!