The Japanese missions to Imperial China were diplomatic embassies which were intermittently sent to the Chinese imperial court. Any distinction amongst diplomatic envoys sent from the Japanese court or from any of the Japanese shogunates was lost or rendered moot when the ambassador was received in the Chinese capital.
22-397: Extant records document missions to China between the years of 607 and 839 (a mission planned for 894 was cancelled). The composition of these imperial missions included members of the aristocratic kuge and Buddhist monks . These missions led to the importation of Chinese culture , including advances in the sciences and technology. These diplomatic encounters produced the beginnings of
44-400: A council of citizens was appointed as the "senate" of a city state or other political unit. The Greeks did not like the concept of monarchy, and as their democratic system fell, aristocracy was upheld. In his 1651 book Leviathan , Thomas Hobbes describes an aristocracy as a commonwealth in which the representative of the citizens is an assembly by part only. It is a system in which only
66-552: A powerful political force. The English Civil War involved the first sustained organised effort to reduce aristocratic power in Europe. In the 18th century, the rising merchant class attempted to use money to buy into the aristocracy, with some success. However, the French Revolution in the 1790s forced many French aristocrats into exile and caused consternation and shock in the aristocratic families of neighbouring countries. After
88-719: A range of schools of Buddhism in Japan, including Zen . From the Sinocentric perspective of the Chinese court in Chang'an , the several embassies sent from Kyoto were construed as tributaries of Imperial China ; but it is not clear that the Japanese shared this view. China seems to have taken the initiative in opening relations with Japan. The Emperor Yang of Sui dispatched a message in 605 which read: The sovereign of Sui respectfully inquires about
110-439: A small part of the population represents the government; "certain men distinguished from the rest". Modern depictions of aristocracy tend to regard it not as the ancient Greek concept of rule by the best, but more as an oligarchy or plutocracy —rule by the few or the wealthy. The concept of aristocracy according to Plato has an ideal state ruled by the philosopher king . Plato describes "philosopher kings" as "those who love
132-410: A system of checks and balances , where each element checks the excesses of the other. In modern times , aristocracy was usually seen as rule by a privileged group, the aristocratic class , and has since been contrasted with democracy . The concept evolved in ancient Greece in which a council of leading citizens was commonly empowered. That was contrasted with representative democracy in which
154-499: Is not in modern times understood in opposition to oligarchy or strictly as a form of government, with entitled nobility as in monarchies or aristocratic merchant republics . Its original classical understanding has been taken up by the modern concepts that can be loosely equivalent to meritocracy or technocracy . Aristocracies dominated political and economic power for most of the medieval and modern periods almost everywhere in Europe, using their wealth and land ownership to form
176-568: The Ming court were received as ambassadors. During Japan's self-imposed isolation in the Edo period (1603–1868), Japan's vicarious relationships with China evolved through the intermediary of the Kingdom of Ryukyu . Japan's view of external relations was ambivalent. Aristocracy List of forms of government Aristocracy (from Ancient Greek ἀριστοκρατίᾱ ( aristokratíā ) 'rule of
198-454: The Tang court were dispatched during the reign of Emperor Kōtoku . Emperor Kanmu 's planned mission to the Tang court in 804 ( Enryaku 23 ) included three ambassadors and several Buddhist priests, including Saichō ( 最澄 ) and Kūkai ( 空海 ) ; but the enterprise was delayed until the end of the year. The ambassadors returned in the middle of 805 ( Enryaku 24, 6th month ). They were accompanied by
220-501: The appointment of ambassadors. However, shortly before departure, the mission was halted by Emperor Uda because of reports of unsettled conditions in China. The emperor's decision-making was influenced by the persuasive counsel of Sugawara no Michizane . Japanese envoys to the Sui court were received as ambassadors: Japanese envoys to the Tang court were received as ambassadors: Three missions to
242-495: The best'; from ἄριστος ( áristos ) 'best' and κράτος ( krátos ) 'power, strength') is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class , the aristocrats . At the time of the word's origins in ancient Greece , the Greeks conceived it as rule by the best-qualified citizens—and often contrasted it favorably with monarchy , rule by an individual. The term
SECTION 10
#1732856049519264-530: The corrupted form of democracy ( mob rule ). This belief was rooted in the assumption that the masses could only produce average policy, while the best of men could produce the best policy, if they were indeed the best of men. Later Polybius in his analysis of the Roman Constitution used the concept of aristocracy to describe his conception of a republic as a mixed form of government, along with democracy and monarchy in their conception from then, as
286-534: The defeat of Napoleon in 1814, some of the surviving exiles returned, but their position within French society was not recovered. Beginning in Britain, industrialization in the 19th century brought urbanization, with wealth increasingly concentrated in the cities, which absorbed political power. However, as late as 1900, aristocrats maintained political dominance in Britain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Russia, but it
308-523: The mission was put off. In China, a steady and conservative Confucianist Song dynasty emerged after the end of the Tang dynasty and subsequent period of disunity during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period . During this time, although travel to China was generally safe, Japanese rulers believed there was little to learn from the Song, and so there were no major embassy missions to China. Ancient Japan
330-528: The monk Saichō, also known by his posthumous name Dengyō Daishi ( 伝教大師 ) , whose teachings would develop into the Tendai school of Japanese Buddhism. In 806 ( Daidō 1, 8th month ), the return of the monk Kūkai, also known posthumously as Kōbō-Daishi ( 弘法大師 ) , marks the beginning of what would develop into the Shingon school of Japanese Buddhism. New ambassadors to China were appointed by Emperor Ninmyō in 834, but
352-505: The polity. Hereditary rule in this understanding is more related to oligarchy , a corrupted form of aristocracy where there is rule by a few, but not by the best. Plato , Socrates , Aristotle, Xenophon , and the Spartans considered aristocracy (the ideal form of rule by the few) to be inherently better than the ideal form of rule by the many ( politeia ), but they also considered the corrupted form of aristocracy (oligarchy) to be worse than
374-410: The rising sun ( hi izuru tokoro ) to the sovereign of the land of the setting sun." The Japanese missions to Sui China ( 遣隋使 , Kenzui-shi ) included representatives sent to study government and technology. The Japanese missions to Tang China ( 遣唐使 , Kentō-shi ) are the best known; 19 missions were completed. A 20th mission had been planned for 894 ( Kanpyō 6, 8th month ), including
396-508: The sight of truth" ( Republic 475c) and supports the idea with the analogy of a captain and his ship or a doctor and his medicine. According to him, sailing and health are not things that everyone is qualified to practice by nature. A large part of the Republic then addresses how the educational system should be set up to produce philosopher kings. In contrast to its original conceptual drawing by Aristotle in classical antiquity , aristocracy
418-406: The sovereign of Wa . The court of Empress Suiko responded by sponsoring a mission led by Ono no Imoko in 607. A message carried by that mission, believed to have been written by Prince Shōtoku , contains the earliest known written instance in which the Japanese archipelago is referred to by a term meaning "land of the rising sun." The salutation read, in part: From the sovereign of the land of
440-414: Was an increasingly-precarious dominion. The First World War had the effect of dramatically reducing the power of aristocrats in all major countries. In Russia, aristocrats were imprisoned and murdered by the communists. After 1900, liberal and socialist governments levied heavy taxes on landowners, spelling their loss of economic power. Wa (Japan) Too Many Requests If you report this error to
462-443: Was called Wa , which had a primitive culture when compared to Tang culture. The Tang folks referred to Wa as 東夷 (Eastern barbarians). From 630 onward, Wa sent large groups of monks, students and government officials, up to 600 each time, to the Tang capital of Chang'an to learn the then advanced production technology, social system, history, philosophy, arts and architecture. Among many items adopted by Wa : Japanese envoys to
SECTION 20
#1732856049519484-416: Was first used by such ancient Greeks as Aristotle and Plato , who used it to describe a system where only the best of the citizens, chosen through a careful process of selection, would become rulers, and hereditary rule would actually have been forbidden, unless the rulers' children performed best and were better endowed with the attributes that make a person fit to rule compared with every other citizen in
#518481