Japan
| Japan | |
|---|---|
| 日本 | |
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| Capital | Osaka |
| Languages |
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Japan (Japanese: 日本, Nippon or Nihon) is an island country located in Eastern Asia. It is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea and Taulandt in the south.
History
Early History
Japan has been inhabited since the Upper Paleolithic period (30,000 BC), though the first written mention of the archipelago appears in a Chinese chronicle finished in the 2nd century AD. Between the 4th and 9th centuries, the kingdoms of Japan became unified under an emperor and the imperial court based in Heian-kyō. Beginning in the 12th century, political power was held by a series of military dictators (shōgun) and feudal lords (daimyō), and enforced by a class of warrior nobility (samurai).
Tokugawa Japan
Beginning of the Sakoku
In the aftermath of the Sengoku period, where the nation was in a state of nearly constant civil war from 1467 to 1615, the Tokugawa Shogunate unified the island chain. Throughout the early 17th century the Shogun started to fear the growing Portuguese & Spanish influence in the country as well as the potential for independent Daimyos armed with weapons & goods to usurp Shogunate authority. This led to a policy of gradual "closing off" of Japan to foreigners and foreign influence.
The Rangaku
In 1641 the Dutch took over the former Portuguese trading post at Nagasaki creating an artificial island in which to do business with the Japanese. Overtime western knowledge, technology and medicine diffused from these Dutch traders to Japanese merchants, elites and middle classes in a process known as the Rangaku. This eventually leads to local Daimyos allowing a merchant class to develop in order to trade manufactured goods to the Dutch (and later other Europeans throughout Japanese ports).
The Collapse of the Bakufu
In the early and mid 18th century, Russian traders started to realize the untapped market of Japan which was mostly closed off by the Sakoku (besides for several allowed trading ports, one operated by the Dutch). In 1739 after a relatively successful meeting with the Tokugawa Shogun, a consortium of Russian traders were given limited access to trade with Japan through the Maizuru port but were subject to high tariffs and strict trade regulations. In 1741 the Russian Czar hearing of the wealth the Dutch were able to gain from trade with the far east and seeking to expand Russian imperial prestige through an expansionist foreign policy decided to grant an exclusive imperial charter to these traders and form the 'Russian-Japanese Company' to manage trade between Russia and Japan.
Over the next decade the Russian- Japanese company expanded it's operations in Japan, petitioning the Shogun to allow a higher trade volume, gaining the ability to trade out of more ports, bribing influence Daimyos with illicit goods and kickbacks in order to gain allies and growing their influence over the islands of Ezo (building a strong trading relationship with the Matsumae clan). This in turn provoked the Dutch who feared the growth of Russian influence in East Asia would threaten their advantageous position in the region into gaining their own allies amongst the Japanese merchant classes and southern Daimyos. Eventually this tension would culminate in the 1754 Tokugawa succession crisis where the favored heir to the Shogunate of Japan was revealed to be illegitimate and both pro and anti Russian factions in the Tokugawa court seized the opportunity to put forth their own successor. When the anti-Russian & stanchly isolationist Tokugawa Naritami won over the court, a Shinobi spy hired by the Russian-Japanese Company assassinated the newly appointed Shogun 13 days later. This led to widespread anger in the Tokugawa court and a call to remove Russian influence from Japan; but unfortunately for the Tokugawa the Russians were ready. Over the next 8 months a alliance of Pro Russian Daimyos and allied clans rose up against the fractured Shogunate with Russian supplied weapons and mercenaries. This in turn led to the Dutch first supporting the Tokugawa and then their own alliance of southern Daimyos after a diplomatic dispute between the two parties over the role of Dutch merchants in a post-civil war Japan.
Over the next 60 years Japan became a battle ground between foreign and regional powers with Russian backed, Dutch backed, Portuguese backed and independent Daimyos along with Tokugawa remnant isolationists fighting each other over control of the Japanese islands. During this period the Dutch annexed the Ryukyu islands and the Russians annexed the ports of Maizuru & Idzu. Additionally this period saw a widespread series of social changes including the explosion of Rangaku knowledge (especially in relations to war and weapons), a lucrative and exploitive trade in Japanese slaves and servants to the European colonies in Asia & elsewhere and an expansion of the homegrown Japanese merchant class who acted as the middlemen and translators between foreign traders and local Daimyos.
Reunification of Japan under the Shogunate
Changes within late 19th century Japan
By the 1870's there some industrialization started to occur in Japan with textile factories built by the new merchant class with the support of local Daimyos. Most of this development was homegrown with the merchant class adopting western technology, but with the Daimyos making sure that foreigners didn't gain direct control of industry outside of the treaty ports. However due to the lack of organization, increased urbanization and tension between various Daimyos new administrative and social problems started to plague Japan. During this time cracks in the outdated feudal political economy and throughout the social fabric of Japanese society started to become apparent. This would lead to the rise of the Federalist party, which sought to reform the central government to better fit the new changes brought upon by the late 19th century.
The Sakura Revolution and Japanese Reform Period
In March of 1896, the last Tokugawa Shogun died without a appointed heir, leading to a secession crisis that resulted in the mostly bloodless Sakura revolution a month later. This would eventually lead to the abolishment of the Shogunate and the establishment of the Japanese Confederation lead by the Federalist faction, who would quickly bring reform to the government. By this time the Samurai class had already lost what little Bureaucratic powers they still had to the merchant class, so their abolition alongside the few still existing feudal systems faced little overall resistance. The 1899 constitution would give the Emperor (who had supported the Sakura revolution) very little, and mostly ceremonial power; however the emperor would later become a symbolic unifying figure of Japanese culture and the Japanese nation. During the 1910s the ruling Federalist enacted further reforms to central governmental power out of a necessity to streamline national administration. This led to a period of increased intranational business transactions further growing local industries, allowed for widespread infrastructural improvements, as well as the creation of a standing Army and Navy modeled off of the Kingdom of Corea’s. While this period of reform was seen by many to be the creation of modern Japanese society but to some there were widespread failures of the reforms including a discrepancy in provincial development and the failure of the national government to break the power of an autocratic local elite class.