Ancient and Classical Japan
By the end of the 4th century, the Yamato clan was well settled on the Nara plain with considerable control over the surrounding areas. Five kings of Wa sent envoys to China for the dominion of the Japanese Islands and a Korean peninsula. The Nihon Shoki described that Yamato was even strong enough to have sent an army against the powerful state of Goguryeo, which dominated the Korean Peninsula at the time. Yamato Japan had close relations with the southwestern Korean kingdom of Baekje. In 663, Japan, supporting Baekje, was defeated the allied forces of Tang China and Silla in Korean Peninsula (the Battle of Hakusonko). As a result, the Japanese were banished from the Korean Peninsula. To defend the Japanese Archipelago, a military base was constructed in Dazaifu, Fukuoka of Kyushu.
Near the end of the Heian period, the samurai became a powerful political force, thus starting the feudal period.
Read more about this topic: Military History Of Japan
Famous quotes containing the words ancient and, ancient, classical and/or japan:
“It takes place ... always without permanent form, though ancient and familiar as the sun and moon, and as sure to come again.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am ... willing to admit that some people might live there for years, or even a lifetime, so protected that they never sense the sweet stench of corruption that is all around them—the keen, thin scent of decay that pervades everything and accuses with a terrible accusation the superficial youthfulness, the abounding undergraduate noise, that fills those ancient buildings.”
—Thomas Merton (1915–1968)
“Culture is a sham if it is only a sort of Gothic front put on an iron building—like Tower Bridge—or a classical front put on a steel frame—like the Daily Telegraph building in Fleet Street. Culture, if it is to be a real thing and a holy thing, must be the product of what we actually do for a living—not something added, like sugar on a pill.”
—Eric Gill (1882–1940)
“I do not know that the United States can save civilization but at least by our example we can make people think and give them the opportunity of saving themselves. The trouble is that the people of Germany, Italy and Japan are not given the privilege of thinking.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)