Page 308 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

teenth and sixteenth centuries, were beginning Nobunaga (1534-1582) became a decisive factor into Japanese waters — Europe was too expansive
to mushroom in the Philippines and other in the military reunification of the country in to be easily halted.
Southeast Asian countries. There he would have the second half of the sixteenth century. If he had been able to establish good relations
learned something of Japan and, as he did in the If the encounter had gone well, Columbus with the first Japanese villagers he met, Colum-
Caribbean, he would undoubtedly have taken and his crew might have been allowed to sail bus would quickly have asked them about his
native people aboard as possible guides and away from this first landfall in Japan unharmed. overriding concerns: gold, the prospects for
interpreters. If, on the other hand, he had But if he had mishandled the encounter, he commerce and Christian conversion, and the
found his way across the Pacific on a course to might have been attacked, in which case he location of the ruler's palace. If they had been
the north of Magellan's, he would have had little would have found the Japanese far more formid- candid with him, they would have told him that
warning or access to reliable information before able opponents than even the hostile Caribs of there was little gold or silver to be had in the
making land on one of the Japanese islands. the West Indies. Japanese samurai officials villages. Iron was abundant, and copper coins
In either case he would quickly have found would have resisted his practice of laying claim imported from China circulated in some mar-
that the inhabitants of Japan in 1492 were not to any land he found by planting the flags of kets, but gold was rare and used only by power-
poorly armed, naked islanders with a culture Castile and Leon. They might also have been ful daimyo or the rulers in the capital. They
that he and his fellow Europeans could easily angered at any attempt to erect a cross in the would have told him that merchants and free-
dismiss or exploit. Like later Iberian visitors, he name of an alien religion. He would quickly booters from Japanese ports plied Asian waters
would have realized that the Cipangu of his have realized that Cipangu, or Nippon, unlike and were active in commerce, that Japan had
dreams was both less and more than the fabu- many of the islands to which he laid claim in the wealthy cities, including Miyako (Kyoto), Sakai,
lous realm of Marco Polo's hearsay. Gold in the Caribbean, had a complex political and religious Hakata, and many smaller towns, and that local
quantities he dreamed of Columbus would not structure, and a well-developed national self- trade and commerce was spreading and flour-
have found, but instead a civilization to rival consciousness, and that claiming territory in the ishing, especially in the provinces around the
that of the Europe he knew and a people as name of Ferdinand and Isabella would be risking capital. Regarding religion, Columbus would
proud, productive, well organized, cultured, and his life. He and those who had landed with him have heard that the Japanese were devoted to
combative as contemporary Europeans. might have lost their heads on the spot or, more the teachings of the Buddha, the native gods
Columbus' first encounter with Japan might likely, been taken for interrogation to the local (kami), and Confucius. In general, these beliefs
well have resembled that of the first Portu- daimyo's castle. If his arrival had sparked were not only mutually tolerant but consider-
guese, blown ashore on the small island of Tane- Japanese alarm, later comers would have met a ably intermingled. Some Japanese might have
gashima fifty years later (1543). He would have more hostile reception than they did. Instead of been curious about the teachings of "Deus," but
been greeted not by naked, unarmed islanders initially welcoming Christianity and commerce, Columbus would probably have concluded that
but by fishermen or local samurai armed with Japanese daimyo might well have rejected West- he would make more converts if he could gain
swords and spears. As he did in the Caribbean, ern contacts from the outset, though this would the support of some daimyo.
Columbus would no doubt have gone ashore probably not have prevented the eventual push In 1492 there was no single political author-
with a small band of armed men in one of the by Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and English ity ruling Japan. The country was at its most
longboats. The Japanese, long accustomed to
contacts with their Asian neighbors the
Chinese, Koreans, and Ryukyuans, would have
greeted these red-faced, hairy "Southern Bar-
barians" with great curiosity tinged with hostil-
ity. Columbus would no doubt have presented
some trinkets (on his voyages he carried only
very cheap trade goods, hardly gifts fit for the
Great Khan or the ruler of golden Cipangu).
Although the Japanese produced the finest
sword blades in the world and exported them to
China in great quantities, they did not yet have
firearms. They would have shown great interest
in the swords Columbus and his men wore, per-
haps even tested their edges, but they would
have been more interested in the strange-look-
ing guns. As the Portuguese were to do, Colum-
bus might have been persuaded to demonstrate
the weapons he had on the ships, perhaps
impressing the Japanese samurai he met with
the military effectiveness of the cannon and
arquebus. The Japanese would certainly have
been intrigued by the new technology, as they
were by the later Portuguese demonstration of
firepower. Warrior leaders (daimyo) quickly
adopted the new technology after 1543. The
effective use of guns by warriors like Oda

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