Key Terms
What is the name of a chief military commander who ruled Japan on behalf of the emperor?
Shogun
Japan's royal family tracted its bloodline back to which sun goddess?
Amaterasu
Edo is the name of which modern Japanese city?
Tokyo
What is the name of Japan's native religion, which is based on worshipping kami (spirits in nature such as rivers and mountains)?
Shinto
The Tale of the Heike tells a struggle story betwen which two families?
The Taira (Heike) and the Minamoto
What is the name of Japanese warriors who began training at age five and served in the armies of feudal lords?
Samurai
Japan's warriors carried a long and short one of these as a symbol of honour and status.
Swords
What is the name of the battle that ended the Genpei War?
The Battle of Dan-no-ura
The samurai code was based on four values. Name two.
Bonus points for naming all four!
Loyalty, honour, respect, discipline
In the Tale of the Heike, the warrior Kumagai shouts, "Shameful! To show an enemy your back." What value does this reveal?
Bravery and honour. A warrior should never run from a battle/fight.
What is the closed-country policy that they enforced in Shogun Japan for over 200 years?
Sakoku
What happened to many warriors during the peaceful Edo period, when there was nobody to fight?
Many took up administrative jobs in the government, and fewer were trained.
In what year did Tokugawa Ieyasu win the Battle of Sekigahara, and in what year did he become shogun?
1600 and 1603
Japan's warriors believed that what form of Buddhism helped their mind and body act as one?
Zen Buddhism
A Japanese witness who saw Commodore Perry arrive in 1853 publishes a memoir in 1856. Is this a primary or secondary source? Why?
Primary, because it was made at the time, even though it was three years after Perry arrived.
What is the name of the samurai code of behaviour, meaning "the way of the warrior"?
Bushido
Swear allegiance to the shogun, live in Edo with their families, could only keep one castle
By 1721, Edo was the largest city in the world. Roughly how many people lived there?
Over one million
According to the warrior code, what was a warrior's first duty?
To honour and obey his master
When Perry's black ships arrived in 1853, what did the Japanese think they were, and why?
"Giant dragons puffing smoke." Japan had been closed to the outside world for so long that they had never seen steamships.
What is the name for the ritual suicide that bushido required if a samurai was defeated, captured or dishonoured? Why was this the case?
Seppuku. It was believed to spare the samurai and his family public shame.
How did the warrior's role change under Emperor Meiji?
They were no longer allowed to carry swords in town, and many became officers in the new, modern army and navy.
Put these in chronological order: Commodore Perry arrives, Battle of Sekigahara, emperor regains power from the last shogun, Genpei War
Bonus points if you give the year(s)! (or close estimate)
Genpei War (1180-1185), Battle of Sekigahara (1600), Perry arrives (1853), emperor regains power (1868)
By 1612, why did Tokugawa Ieyasu ban Christian worship?
He saw Christianity as a threat to the Shogun's power.
Aizawa Seishisai called Westerners "barbarians." What does this tell us about his view of the West?
He saw the West as a threat. A presator trying to find Japan's weaknesses and spread Christianity.