Centralization and Militarism in East Asia Outline 1200-1500
A. Korea from the Mongols to the Yi, 1231-1500
1. Korea's leaders initially resisted the Mongol invasions but gave up in 1258 when the king of Koryo surrendered and joined his family to the Mongols by marriage. The Koryo kings then fell under the influence of the Mongols and Korea profited from exchange with the Yuan in which new technologies including cotton, gunpowder, astronomy, calendar making, and celestial clocks were introduced.
2. Koryo collapsed shortly after the fall of the Yuan and was replaced by the Yi dynasty. Like the Ming, the Yi reestablished local identity and restored the status of Confucian scholarship while maintaining Mongol administrative practices and institutions.
3. Technological innovations of the Yi period include the use of moveable type in copper frames, meteorological science, a local calendar, the use of fertilizer, and the engineering of reservoirs. The growing of cash crops, particularly cotton, became common during the Yi period.
4. The Koreans were innovators in military technology. Among their innovations were patrol ships with cannon mounted on them, gunpowder arrow-launchers, and armored ships.
B. Political transformation in Japan, 1274-1500
1. The first (unsuccessful) Mongol invasion of Japan in 1274 made the decentralized local lords of Kamakura Japan develop a greater sense of unity as the shogun took steps to centralize planning and preparation for the expected second assault.
2. The second Mongol invasion (1281) was defeated by a combination of Japanese defensive preparations and a typhoon. The Kamakura regime continued to prepare for further invasions. As a result, the warrior elite consolidated their position in Japanese society, trade and communication within Japan increased, but the Kamakura government found its resources strained by the expense of defense preparations.
3. The Kamakura Shogunate was destroyed in a civil war and the Ashikaga Shogunate was established in 1338. The Ashikaga period was characterized by a relatively weak shogunal state and strong provincial lord who sponsored the development of markets, religious institutions, schools, increased agricultural production, and artistic creativity.
4. After the Onin war of 1477, the shogunate exercised no power and the provinces were controlled by independent regional lords who fought with each other. The regional lords also carried out trade with continental Asia.

C. The emergence of Vietnam, 1200-1500
1. The area