The influence of Tang culture on Japan
Chinese culture can be summed up in eight characters: "It has a long history, is extensive and profound." Especially in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, it reached a period of comprehensive prosperity, and neighboring countries competed for a while. In the Sui Dynasty, envoys from the Tang Dynasty were sent to China to learn how to stabilize the country and how to prosper culture, and Japan was one of the countries with the greatest influence.
In 2 years from 630 to 894, Japan For more than a century, Japan sent more than a dozen missions to the Tang Dynasty, each time with at least 250 people and a maximum of 600 people. They assigned the Prince of Chang'an to learn various specialized knowledge, visit and interview everywhere, and fully appreciate the customs and customs of the Tang Dynasty. They When he was in China, he formed deep friendships with some poets. The most famous example is: Chao Heng (Abe Zhongmalu) unfortunately sank when he returned to China. For a while, people thought he was dead and mourned him. Li Bai composed a poem "Crying for Chao Heng" 》. After returning to Japan, the envoys to the Tang Dynasty rose to prominence in Japan and made certain achievements in various fields.
The envoys to the Tang Dynasty were an unprecedented event in Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges, especially in promoting the development of Japanese society and promoting friendly exchanges between China and Japan. Huge contribution and fruitful results.
The contribution of the envoys sent to the Tang Dynasty should first be to introduce the laws and regulations of the Tang Dynasty, thereby promoting the innovation of the Japanese social system. During the inspection and study in Chang'an, the envoys sent to the Tang Dynasty read a lot of books. Hungry and thirsty; after returning to China, he imitated the education system of the Tang Dynasty, opened various schools for teaching, and trained a large number of talents.
The second step was to absorb Tang culture to improve the level of Japanese culture and art. A large number of Chinese Buddhist scriptures were removed, and Tang poetry in Chinese and Chinese were read by both the government and the public. Poems by famous poets such as Bai Juyi were widely circulated in Japan. Envoys sent to the Tang Dynasty also introduced Tang Dynasty calligraphy, painting, sculpture, music, dance and other arts.
Tang culture The spread of it not only relied on external factors, but also on the widely absorbed advantages of the Japanese. They were good at using the experience of other countries to improve themselves. Instigated by people who had studied in the Tang Dynasty and returned to China, in 645, with the help of the Chinese University of In order to eradicate the increasingly arrogant Soga clan, the political group with the brother princes as the core launched a revolutionary coup and changed the country's name to Dahua: promulgated an edict to implement the New Deal, established a centralized imperial state, and carried out reforms modeled on the economic and political systems of the Sui and Tang Dynasties. , known in history as the "Dahua Reform".
In terms of politics, there were two officials, eight provinces, and one unit in the central government, and the country, county, and li were set up in the local areas, which were governed by the state secretary, county secretary, and li chief respectively, and hereditary inheritance was abolished. The surnames, titles of nobles with surnames such as Chen, Lien, Guozao, Banzao, etc., were formulated to formulate the official system and title system. Based on the system of the Tang Dynasty, the New Deal formulated the "Dabao Law Order" and "The Elderly Law Order", which confirmed the new law by law. The feudal economic and political system. In the economic aspect, the land system was reformed. The "Law of Land Collection and Grant" was imitated in the Tang Dynasty, and stipulated that the people who granted land must bear the rent and grant. The promulgation of the "Law of Land Collection and Grant" , suppressed land annexation, lifted the enslavement of tribesmen by wealthy families, fixed the tax and corvee burdens on farmers, and recognized the private rights of farmers' homesteads, gardens and the use rights of mountains, forests and swamps. These greatly promoted the development of Japan's economy. As reforms deepened, economic and political exchanges between China and Japan became increasingly close. After the Dahua Reform, ancient Japanese social relations underwent major changes, and the rule of clans and slave owners finally collapsed. A political superstructure was established that opened the way for new production relations. Japanese society has since The transition to feudal society began.
The Nara period was a new climax of Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges. The new agricultural system and the class field system promoted the development of social productivity, and the advanced agricultural technology introduced from China was widely spread. , some advanced production tools are widely used; many of these tools were introduced from China, such as the hoe, also known as "Tang hoe", which was a large hoe introduced from China at that time. Due to the Japanese's ability to learn from others' strengths, they It has benefited a lot in terms of architecture, clothing, medicine, writing, etc. Today, Japan still retains some legacy of the Tang Dynasty, and nothing has the greatest impact on cultural exchanges than writing and language. The Japanese people use the phonetic notation of Chinese characters to express their meanings. He created the Japanese kana letters - katakana and hiragana, which greatly promoted the development of Japanese culture. At the same time, "Tang Tao", "Tang Li", "Tang Forge", "Tang Yu", "Tang Mo", "Tang Wu" " and other names appeared in large numbers in the Japanese language, which greatly enriched the Japanese vocabulary. At the same time, the spirit of Confucianism and Taoism also spread in Japan, deeply affecting Japanese culture and people's thinking.
From the above, it can be said that most of Japanese civilization comes from the culture of the Tang Dynasty, so the relationship between Japan and China
are inseparable, and Chinese culture has been deeply ingrained in Japanese history.