JP 2700 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Ashikaga Takauji, Ashikaga Shogunate, Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Document Summary
Was a very weak shogunate since there were two courts in japan, two rivals fighting the emperor; it had a very weak central government. The samurai followed what the shogunate said in the capital, but elsewhere they controlled land outside of the capital as warlords who forced the peasants to pay taxes. During the warring states period europeans first came to japan. The europeans came through nagasaki by 1571 (this was the main port). The europeans came to japan to trade guns with the japanese as swords were harder to learn to use than guns; peasants could easily take out skilled samurai with guns! The guns completely changed the architecture of japan to withstand gunfire (they build castles with stone). Castles also had gunports in their walls, some of which were camouflaged.
