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Both China and Korea had been relatively
highly civilised. Thanks to trips and trading with the Paekche
kingdom in the southern Korea, iron, Chinese writing, literature
and philosophy could be found in Japan.Breeding, animal
farming and craftsmanship were developing next to the agriculture.
Haniwa are the characteristic cylindrical bowls that had
paintings and carvings of people, buildings, animals, everyday
tools and objects. In that period the 'male' culture was
defining itself and social class division. The rich aristocratic
houses have developed. The court started to implement the
total power of the emperor with the central admisistration,
based on the code law from the year 702.
The Yamato regime adapted the Chinese
characters to make its own documents. The first marked Japanese
documents come from the year 430. Yamato also brought religion:
Buddhism came to Japan about 100 years later. The separation
of Japan from the continent had two advantages: you could
bring foreign culture, technology and ideas, but reaching
Japan was so hard that one could stop the unwanted influences
to enter the country. Thanks to this fact the structure
of the Yamato rule was based much upon the Chinese system:
eight different classes of court departments and a great
council, Dajokan, were ruling the country with the use of
local lords. Everything was controlled from the capital
- since 710 it was the city of Nara in Yamato province -
whereas the imperial family lived in Kyoto untill 1868.
Although Yamato had the power over
the whole Japan, since IX century the emperors had been
pulled back from the everyday governing the country. They
have become more of a symbol of power, rather than the true
rulers. When the emperors moved away from the ruling, the
power went to the hands of the court civil servants (clerks),
especially the Fujiwara family. The emperors still reigned
but did not govern the country anymore. In 858 prince Fujiwara
Yoshifusa became the regent of his one-year-old grandson
(making sure that his daughter entered the imperial family
by a marriage). Fujiwara had always cared that all of the
important functions in the court and in the country's administration
had always been run by the family members. In the end, in
884 Fujiwara Motosune was announced kampuku - a peaceful
dictator. A hundred years later he was replaced by the most
intelligent member of the Fujiwara family, Michinaga. Michinaga
got his way that the next five emperors married his daughters,
thanks to which he had strenghtened the positon of his family
in the royal court.
During the Fujiwara period the Japanese
culture began to grow independently, leaving the Chinese
roots. During Michinagi's dictatorship the classic Japanese
literature had its peak. Simultaneously, the Fujiwara changed
their ways of governing the country. The central power became
weak and corrupted. More and more lands were in the hands
of rich land owners. Nobility that held the country's institutions
was receiving tax exemption as a way of payment. Many peasants
and small land owners were lucky if they could include their
lands to such bestowals in order to get away with such high
taxes.
BIBLIOGRIAPHY
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