That and expansion into Rhineland, especially the Saar
Nobunaga’s Ambition Realized: Dawn of a New Rising Sun
- Thread starter Ambassador Huntsman
- Start date
tbf I think Japan was more 'landed nobles vs merchants' during that era as the landed gentry still didn't have a lot of power.
I do think Japan being more 'crass and impolite' than otl would be interesting if huntsman wants to go into talking about the language (and hopefully counter-cultural writing being written in syllabary only), and Kanto being seen as the 'hillbilly accent' while Kansai is the 'prim and proper accent' would be a interesting inversion of otl.
Japan has plenty of coal. At one time Japan produced about 50M tonnes/year. The reason Japan has largely stopped mining its own coal is that they can buy it cheaper from foreign suppliers. Also it relieves Japanese workers of that dirty and dangerous work. Those workers are instead employed in manufacturing, making goods with export value much greater than the cost of importing the coal they don't mine.
It's true that they briefly hit a high over 50Mt a year. But their current reserves, with modern technology only amount to 386Mt, some 1.8 years worth of consumption.
How much was available with then current tech in the early 1800s, I'd not want to guess.
I'm often astounded that they have any perceptible amount, given the nation is a volcanic archipelago.
While Japan is located in a volcanic zone, much of the land was originally on the eastern edge of the Rodinia supercontinent. It was separated by plate tectonics, with plates being subducted under the archipelago. This subduction zone also gave rise to the many volcanoes of Japan. The western coast of Japan is a rough fit to the eastern coast of Asia north of Korea, just as South America's east coast is a rough fit to Africa's west coast.
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Keigo (aristocratic accent and language of courtesans) is just one of the forms of Kansai (specifically Kyoto). In addition, they explained that in modern Japan the status of Kansai is closer to Boston.
Replacing the letter will be very long - there are a lot of words that sound the same, but are written in different hieroglyphs.
So what are the largest and most important cities at this time? In approximate order I seem to believe:
Azuchi
Kyoto
Sakai
Kanazawa
Kagoshima
Kamakura
Mito
Any other important locations I've missed? Or any comments on these and other cities' importance? I wonder which will remain important to the current day?
Azuchi
Kyoto
Sakai
Kanazawa
Kagoshima
Kamakura
Mito
Any other important locations I've missed? Or any comments on these and other cities' importance? I wonder which will remain important to the current day?
So Bireitou has some coal in the north and Luson I think might have none. BUT apparently Karafuto (ie Sakhalin) has one of the biggest coal reserves in Asia and even the world. So if that is discovered…
Gifu, Iriebashi, and Shimonoseki are in the top 10 right now. Sakata has eclipsed Yonezawa to be in the top 10 as well. In the Kanto region, Musashino is the second largest, followed by Mito and then Shimoda. Meanwhile, Awari is the largest city in Luson province.
It won't, Russia has little to no interest in it plus they got much bigger fish to fry with Poland and Sweden, so whatever Far East expansion is happening is essentially independent from Moscow.
On a personal level as a Japanese person, I would love for the separation of Shintoism and Buddhism to never happen but as the writer of this timeline it could still happen but only under certain political conditions. You won't see the same kind of xenophobic backlash that drove the Sonno joi movement ITTL which did influence the eventual rise of State Shinto and loyalty to the emperor as a divine figure. However, there is a de facto partial separation of state and religion existent ITTL so from that a state Shinto could arise through some sort of political/philosophical upheaval because the separation of state and religion IOTL justified the existence of state Shinto as "national tradition" rather than religion. Especially because there is an inherent rejection of neo-Confucianism and greater philosophical separation from the rest of East Asia ITTL.
I wanna clarify this a bit. A true "imperial restoration" away from the current government is kinda impossible because the government is much more tied to the authority of the emperor ITTL, at least in theory. The difference is that as shoguns, the heads of the Tokugawa Bakufu ruled the country and even regulated the activities of the court nobility as rulers appointed by the emperor. However, the institutions of the Bakufu were entirely distinct from that of the court ranks and Ritsuryo system, and crucially the shogun is the officially recognized head of the samurai class but not of the noble class.
By contrast, the Oda chancellorate has independent magistracies and a bureaucracy distinct from that of the imperial system but the most central institutions are foundationally based in the imperial system, namely the Sangi-shu and the Shinka-in. In order to be a member of the Sangi-shu, one has to both be a Kugyo (公卿) of at least the Junior 3rd rank (従三位) and an officeholder within the Daijo-kan (太政官) at least the Suke (次官), of which the position of Sangi (参議) is the lowest level, hence why the Sangi-shu is called the Sangi-shu. The larger body of the Shinka-in, translated to be the House of Subjects, is called that to reference that the samurai and nobility are the subjects of the emperor. I know that it's a technicality and that like IOTL, the emperor has no power basically.
What I mean by "the closest thing to an imperial restoration" is that at some point the Oda clan's monopoly on the position of daijo-daijin ends and that would symbolically be an "imperial restoration" and at least in theory the emperor is restored to take on direct affairs. Whether that means an imperial dictatorship or a more parliamentary, constitutional monarchical system or if it's something else in the short term is still something I'm thinking about. I hope that clears it up even tho a lot of this is based on technicalities.
By contrast, the Oda chancellorate has independent magistracies and a bureaucracy distinct from that of the imperial system but the most central institutions are foundationally based in the imperial system, namely the Sangi-shu and the Shinka-in. In order to be a member of the Sangi-shu, one has to both be a Kugyo (公卿) of at least the Junior 3rd rank (従三位) and an officeholder within the Daijo-kan (太政官) at least the Suke (次官), of which the position of Sangi (参議) is the lowest level, hence why the Sangi-shu is called the Sangi-shu. The larger body of the Shinka-in, translated to be the House of Subjects, is called that to reference that the samurai and nobility are the subjects of the emperor. I know that it's a technicality and that like IOTL, the emperor has no power basically.
What I mean by "the closest thing to an imperial restoration" is that at some point the Oda clan's monopoly on the position of daijo-daijin ends and that would symbolically be an "imperial restoration" and at least in theory the emperor is restored to take on direct affairs. Whether that means an imperial dictatorship or a more parliamentary, constitutional monarchical system or if it's something else in the short term is still something I'm thinking about. I hope that clears it up even tho a lot of this is based on technicalities.
tbf I'd think that if we get a 'national tradition' it'd follow more western thought in that it'd probably be a mix of Japanese philosophy + confucianism + western philosophy that gets mixed into a new philosophical style popular in Japan instead of something close to state shinto. since christianity is integrated into Japanese culture alongside buddhism I'd think shinto would probably just not separate at all, instead being like the Dao-buddhist continuum in China where you could lean either way but you'd prob use both for different purposes.
a more parliamentary, constitutional monarchical system would be cool, especially if the Oda daijo-dajin just loses legitimacy, it would fit with the Japan of ittl with how they take inspiration from different pieces of western innovations and make it their own. Japan also would be very familiar with British and dutch systems of governance, and those ideas would trickle into Japanese nobles predominantly, so an oligarchical system that first makes the daijo-dajin weaker then a slow expansion of voting rights to everyone else would make a lot of sense.
So, I have a minor question about Samurai culture, that I don't think has been asked yet or mentioned. I hope this topic isn't too touchy.
Is Head-taking & Head ceremonies still a thing with the Samurai when it comes to warfare? Because, from what I remember, head-taking of enemies was how Samurai usually got rewarded after battle, and was one-way Ashigaru got promoted.
And since ITTL Oda Japan has been going to war with foreign powers such as the Jurchens and Spanish in the Philippines, has that same logic of head-taking applied to there? Or, if we go by OTL Imjin War example, is noses and ears taken in lieu of heads?
Is Head-taking & Head ceremonies still a thing with the Samurai when it comes to warfare? Because, from what I remember, head-taking of enemies was how Samurai usually got rewarded after battle, and was one-way Ashigaru got promoted.
And since ITTL Oda Japan has been going to war with foreign powers such as the Jurchens and Spanish in the Philippines, has that same logic of head-taking applied to there? Or, if we go by OTL Imjin War example, is noses and ears taken in lieu of heads?
Head-taking and head ceremonies have been a declining practice, especially in foreign wars because overseas armies are less divided by clan and more of a combination of various retinues and elite units and the tangible rewards are less so there’s less usage for advancement. Additionally, with infantry units increasingly mostly musketeers in tightly formed ranks it’s not such a practical thing to focus on claiming heads when you often don’t know who shot who. The Furuwatari War was probably the last conflict where those things occurred on a large scale, and during the Asiatic Northern War it occurred only sparingly and only with high-ranking enemy generals. The practice will die out completely within the next few conflicts outside of the samurai cavalry where it’s still a common if waning tradition.