The Dragon Rises High
- Thread starter maverick
- Start date
All excellent points, people, glad to see someone is reading this...
My next updates will deal with China, Korea, Religious and cultural matters up to 1754, when the ITTL Seven Years war starts, although its called the English and Indian war in Japan
The Red Seal System is replaced by a virtual monopoly of the Red Seal Trade Company, which constantly attacks the commercial interests of Britain, Holland, China, Korea and even rival japanese competitors (such as the people of the Edo-Sendai-Acapulco-California routes), so yes, some people are unhappy with it.
Once again, you are right about the influx of influences, though both sides get to learn some philosophical lessons from the other hemisphere...
This should be interesting. Will the Japanese come to control the Hawaiian Islands ITTL?
It is certainly plausible. Even today IOTL, many Japanese-Americans reside in the Aloha state. Hawaii, for the purposes of TTL, strikes me as a good stopover point for the Japanese in their trading routes.
maverick
Banned
Hello, everyone.
After some careful consideration and thinking, I've decided that not only was Kang right about the issue of the Korean War ITTL, but that in fact that war had very negative effects on the TL.
Not only did the war take the attention away from Japan and the internal effects of a Date Shogunate in Nippon, which was indeed on what the TL was focused until the 1690s...
I could simply eliminate the war, but I don't have that power in this board, so I'll ask you to ignore that, since the point of this TL was Japan and the Date Shogunate, no some crazy international war that I created to gather more interest...(I thought big wars were better than internal politics, plus I needed an excuse to make Japan an eastern version of Britain)
In any case, this Timeline was never created as a Japan-Wank nor should it be considered as such...Japan is not too powerful militarily nor does it have a massive empire that stretches through the continent nor it is even considered an equal to the Europeans...this TL simply explores a path not taken...that is, a Date Shogunate in Japan...and now...the Epilogue...
After some careful consideration and thinking, I've decided that not only was Kang right about the issue of the Korean War ITTL, but that in fact that war had very negative effects on the TL.
Not only did the war take the attention away from Japan and the internal effects of a Date Shogunate in Nippon, which was indeed on what the TL was focused until the 1690s...
I could simply eliminate the war, but I don't have that power in this board, so I'll ask you to ignore that, since the point of this TL was Japan and the Date Shogunate, no some crazy international war that I created to gather more interest...(I thought big wars were better than internal politics, plus I needed an excuse to make Japan an eastern version of Britain)
In any case, this Timeline was never created as a Japan-Wank nor should it be considered as such...Japan is not too powerful militarily nor does it have a massive empire that stretches through the continent nor it is even considered an equal to the Europeans...this TL simply explores a path not taken...that is, a Date Shogunate in Japan...and now...the Epilogue...
maverick
Banned
Epilogue
Epilogue: Japan in the 19th century
By the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, the Empire of Nippon has undergone vast changes, especially considering the long and winding road taken since the end of the Sengoku period and the rise of the Date Shogunate.
And it was the Date Shogunate and its policies that allowed Japan to leave the backward, isolated and chaotic state in which the country had been since the fall of the Ashikaga shogunate and the beginning of the “Warring states” period”, and although the internal divisions that had plagued Nippon during the 16th century would not totally disappear under the Date period, a great deal of peace, stability and prosperity would nonetheless be the result of the openness and dynamism of the new government, at least in its early stages.
Not only was Japan able to discover a vast new world of new opportunities and threats thanks to the Date Embassies and the creation of relations with Europe and the Americas, but the Empire would also be able to exert by itself a great deal of influence on the world, through her culture and commerce, soon spawning a maritime and commercial empire that would rival that would spread from the Zanj in East Africa to New Spain and California in the New World, and earn Japan the title of “the Britain of the East”, even though Japan would only have a small level of control over her areas of influence and only come to control directly a limited amount of territory.
This maritime expansion of the first Japanese golden age (1616-1660) and the second golden age (1713-1734) would lead to the creation of a vast “empire of the waves”, built on commerce and a strong navy, controlling ports, bases and trading factories in California, Hawaii, Siam, Temasek and Malaysia, Ceylon and Southern India, while also controlling the islands of Formosa, the Ryuku archipelago and the Kurils.
The influence of Nippon would nonetheless reach through the oceans and spread through the seas thanks to the might of the Japanese navy and the new-found ambition for adventure and discovery.
To this day, there are considerable Japanese communities in Mexico, particularly in Mexico city and Acapulco, as a result of the strong commercial ties between Spain and Japan, which also resulted in the birth of small Japanese communities in Spain, Italy and Southern France, while a rather large amount of the descendants of the Japanese settlers in California that had come in the 17th century continued to constitute the largest segment of the population even after the Spanish conquest and the creation of the Republic of California in the 19th century.
Important Japanese populations also remain a majority in cities such as Temasek, and a considerable part of the population in ports like Trivandrum, Bangkok and Madras.
Internally, Japan would also grow, not only demographically but also spiritually and politically.
The centralizing efforts of the Date Government were of great importance to the development of the history of Japan, often leading to conflict with the most powerful daimyo and creating problems regarding religious, political and trading affairs, thus resulting in struggles such as the “Japanese wars of Religion” of the 17th century, the Satsuma war of the 1720s and the Peasants’ revolts of the 1840s.
The destruction of the Shimazu clan, the rise of the power of the Shogunal armies and the forces of their allies, and the growth of the power of Edo and Osaka as trading centers would enable the Date Shoguns to face the Daimyos in several occasions and break their power while interestingly enough creating a new series of divisions: the one between the government and the people, and more dangerously, between the nobility and the people, as a result of the rise in the use of the foot soldiers “Ashigaru”, conscripted from the peasantry and their success against the Samurai of the Daimyo in the many civil conflicts of the Date period.
The greater of these conflicts, after the Shimazu war, would finally have the consequence of eliminating the Samurai class as such and finally relegate them as an “Officer class” within the new military scheme of Japan in the 19th century. This was the “Civil disturbance of 1843”, which many would see as the final resolution to the long feud between the reformist and the traditionalist that had been born in the 1780s, as a result of the introduction of European ideals, such as the ones of Rousseau, Danton, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Hobbes and other European philosophers of the time.
The final result of the disturbance of 1843 would be the end of the Shogunate as it existed until then and the beginning of the “Kômei Restoration”, for which the emperor had joined the revolutionaries, even though the Date Shogun would remain in power until the 1860s, the shogunate relegated to a symbolic position, in a reversal of the tendency that had existed in Japan until that moment.
But culturally and religiously the Empire of the Sun has also evolved, although remaining a land of many religious and spiritual ideas in which no sect has a particular majority.
The Catholic Church of course remains as the official religion of the government, despite the influence of the Buddhists within the revolutionary government, and is still the religious faith that counts with the largest number of adepts in the country, with a strong base at Tohoku, southern and eastern Kyushu, Edo, Osaka and Kyoto. The order of Saint Michael also remains a powerful institution within the empire, now being as influential as a military order as a political entity.
Christianity has also been through a long evolution in Japan, from being a small and potentially dangerous cult to being the official and most powerful religion within Japan under the Date Shogunate, especially after the revival of the 18th century, in the aftermath of the “Expulsion of the Jesuits” in Europe, which led to the exile of many of them in Japan and a new growth of the Catholic faith, which had been decaying since the Wars of religion and had not actually enjoyed a great popularity since its introduction.
The expulsion of the Jesuits, the conflicts over the nature of Christianity and Buddhism and their ideals, along with other factors, had the interesting consequence of creating both a strong Buddhist, particularly Zen, revival in the 17th and 19th centuries and resulting in the birth of several small syncretic religions, including the popular “Church of Japan”, considered to be Japan’s version of Protestantism by many, and a large amount of smaller yet strong sects and cults that have survived to this day with growing numbers in the aftermath of the fall of the Date Shogunate and the rise of the “New Japan” in the 19th century.
Culturally, the effects have been seen in both ways, with the culture of Japan enjoying great popularity in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, at times in which the influence of Europe had already showed deep effects in the empire of Japan.
The introduction of simple things like cards, muskets or European-style shipbuilding produced great effects on Japan, while things like European music and literature had even wider consequences on the political and cultural landscape of the Far East. Not only Rousseau and Montesquieu, but also Smith, Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Danton, Cervantes, Goethe and others of the periods of the Illustration, classicism and romanticism.
And while Goya and Mozart have been greatly appreciated in Japan, painters like Yasuhiro Goto and Fernando Mifune, and musicians like Fusajiro Yamata, whose famous piece “the nymphs of the Sea” combined European and Japanese influences, came to gain notoriety and fame in Europe.
Zen philosophy, amongst other Japanese ideas have also shown themselves to have a great deal of influence in the thoughts of European philosophers and thinkers, and reach to the minds of the west to a level not reached by the Japanese music nor the “Noh” and “Kabuki” theaters, which have failed to gain the popularity Japanese painting and philosophy reached in Europe.
Epilogue: Japan in the 19th century
By the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, the Empire of Nippon has undergone vast changes, especially considering the long and winding road taken since the end of the Sengoku period and the rise of the Date Shogunate.
And it was the Date Shogunate and its policies that allowed Japan to leave the backward, isolated and chaotic state in which the country had been since the fall of the Ashikaga shogunate and the beginning of the “Warring states” period”, and although the internal divisions that had plagued Nippon during the 16th century would not totally disappear under the Date period, a great deal of peace, stability and prosperity would nonetheless be the result of the openness and dynamism of the new government, at least in its early stages.
Not only was Japan able to discover a vast new world of new opportunities and threats thanks to the Date Embassies and the creation of relations with Europe and the Americas, but the Empire would also be able to exert by itself a great deal of influence on the world, through her culture and commerce, soon spawning a maritime and commercial empire that would rival that would spread from the Zanj in East Africa to New Spain and California in the New World, and earn Japan the title of “the Britain of the East”, even though Japan would only have a small level of control over her areas of influence and only come to control directly a limited amount of territory.
This maritime expansion of the first Japanese golden age (1616-1660) and the second golden age (1713-1734) would lead to the creation of a vast “empire of the waves”, built on commerce and a strong navy, controlling ports, bases and trading factories in California, Hawaii, Siam, Temasek and Malaysia, Ceylon and Southern India, while also controlling the islands of Formosa, the Ryuku archipelago and the Kurils.
The influence of Nippon would nonetheless reach through the oceans and spread through the seas thanks to the might of the Japanese navy and the new-found ambition for adventure and discovery.
To this day, there are considerable Japanese communities in Mexico, particularly in Mexico city and Acapulco, as a result of the strong commercial ties between Spain and Japan, which also resulted in the birth of small Japanese communities in Spain, Italy and Southern France, while a rather large amount of the descendants of the Japanese settlers in California that had come in the 17th century continued to constitute the largest segment of the population even after the Spanish conquest and the creation of the Republic of California in the 19th century.
Important Japanese populations also remain a majority in cities such as Temasek, and a considerable part of the population in ports like Trivandrum, Bangkok and Madras.
Internally, Japan would also grow, not only demographically but also spiritually and politically.
The centralizing efforts of the Date Government were of great importance to the development of the history of Japan, often leading to conflict with the most powerful daimyo and creating problems regarding religious, political and trading affairs, thus resulting in struggles such as the “Japanese wars of Religion” of the 17th century, the Satsuma war of the 1720s and the Peasants’ revolts of the 1840s.
The destruction of the Shimazu clan, the rise of the power of the Shogunal armies and the forces of their allies, and the growth of the power of Edo and Osaka as trading centers would enable the Date Shoguns to face the Daimyos in several occasions and break their power while interestingly enough creating a new series of divisions: the one between the government and the people, and more dangerously, between the nobility and the people, as a result of the rise in the use of the foot soldiers “Ashigaru”, conscripted from the peasantry and their success against the Samurai of the Daimyo in the many civil conflicts of the Date period.
The greater of these conflicts, after the Shimazu war, would finally have the consequence of eliminating the Samurai class as such and finally relegate them as an “Officer class” within the new military scheme of Japan in the 19th century. This was the “Civil disturbance of 1843”, which many would see as the final resolution to the long feud between the reformist and the traditionalist that had been born in the 1780s, as a result of the introduction of European ideals, such as the ones of Rousseau, Danton, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Hobbes and other European philosophers of the time.
The final result of the disturbance of 1843 would be the end of the Shogunate as it existed until then and the beginning of the “Kômei Restoration”, for which the emperor had joined the revolutionaries, even though the Date Shogun would remain in power until the 1860s, the shogunate relegated to a symbolic position, in a reversal of the tendency that had existed in Japan until that moment.
But culturally and religiously the Empire of the Sun has also evolved, although remaining a land of many religious and spiritual ideas in which no sect has a particular majority.
The Catholic Church of course remains as the official religion of the government, despite the influence of the Buddhists within the revolutionary government, and is still the religious faith that counts with the largest number of adepts in the country, with a strong base at Tohoku, southern and eastern Kyushu, Edo, Osaka and Kyoto. The order of Saint Michael also remains a powerful institution within the empire, now being as influential as a military order as a political entity.
Christianity has also been through a long evolution in Japan, from being a small and potentially dangerous cult to being the official and most powerful religion within Japan under the Date Shogunate, especially after the revival of the 18th century, in the aftermath of the “Expulsion of the Jesuits” in Europe, which led to the exile of many of them in Japan and a new growth of the Catholic faith, which had been decaying since the Wars of religion and had not actually enjoyed a great popularity since its introduction.
The expulsion of the Jesuits, the conflicts over the nature of Christianity and Buddhism and their ideals, along with other factors, had the interesting consequence of creating both a strong Buddhist, particularly Zen, revival in the 17th and 19th centuries and resulting in the birth of several small syncretic religions, including the popular “Church of Japan”, considered to be Japan’s version of Protestantism by many, and a large amount of smaller yet strong sects and cults that have survived to this day with growing numbers in the aftermath of the fall of the Date Shogunate and the rise of the “New Japan” in the 19th century.
Culturally, the effects have been seen in both ways, with the culture of Japan enjoying great popularity in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, at times in which the influence of Europe had already showed deep effects in the empire of Japan.
The introduction of simple things like cards, muskets or European-style shipbuilding produced great effects on Japan, while things like European music and literature had even wider consequences on the political and cultural landscape of the Far East. Not only Rousseau and Montesquieu, but also Smith, Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Danton, Cervantes, Goethe and others of the periods of the Illustration, classicism and romanticism.
And while Goya and Mozart have been greatly appreciated in Japan, painters like Yasuhiro Goto and Fernando Mifune, and musicians like Fusajiro Yamata, whose famous piece “the nymphs of the Sea” combined European and Japanese influences, came to gain notoriety and fame in Europe.
Zen philosophy, amongst other Japanese ideas have also shown themselves to have a great deal of influence in the thoughts of European philosophers and thinkers, and reach to the minds of the west to a level not reached by the Japanese music nor the “Noh” and “Kabuki” theaters, which have failed to gain the popularity Japanese painting and philosophy reached in Europe.
maverick
Banned
With special thanks to:
-Freodhoric...for the idea and getting me interested in Japan thanks to it...
-Kang...for his thoughts and arguements about Korea
-The Gunrunner Rimbaud...for his thoughts on culture and religion
-Sargon...for his help with the Japanese language
-Wendell...for his support and help
-Silver...whose questions helped more than he probably thought
...and everyone else who's read and enjoyed this TL, and who have helped me in the process of making it...
-Freodhoric...for the idea and getting me interested in Japan thanks to it...
-Kang...for his thoughts and arguements about Korea
-The Gunrunner Rimbaud...for his thoughts on culture and religion
-Sargon...for his help with the Japanese language
-Wendell...for his support and help
-Silver...whose questions helped more than he probably thought
...and everyone else who's read and enjoyed this TL, and who have helped me in the process of making it...