Japan

Japan (Japanese: 日本, Nippon or Nihon) is an island country located in Northeast Asia. It shares a border with the Ainu National Republic on the island of Ezo and a maritime border with Tauland.

Empire of Japan -
Flag
Capital	Osaka
Official languages	Japanese
Government	Constitutional monarchy

History

Main article: History of Japan

Edo period (1603-1754)

The Tokugawa shogunate unified Japan by 1603. With the arrival of the Dutch in Tauland in the 1630s, Japan began passing the Sakoku Ordinances, restricting free contact with foreign powers. In 1637, the Christian peasant-led Shimabara Rebellion was crushed, and the Dutch trading post of Desjima was established in 1641. The early 1650s saw the Keian Affair, the Jōō Massacre and the arrival of Koxinga and Fukienese refugees from China after the Battle of Chiangtung Bridge led to the defeat of pro-Ming forces. These events brought about political instability and a rise in illegal commerce.

In 1655, the Lord of Ōmura executed a group of Christian peasants. This led to the Ōmura Rebellion, in which Koxinga and numerous anti-government fighters were killed. Around the same time, the failed Meiriki Putsch, the Great Fire of Edo, and revolution in the Sendai domain rocked the nation. This chaos led to the Kanbun Reforms starting in 1660, which aimed to forcibly assimilate Japanese Christians into wider society, strengthen Confucian institutions, and expand Japan's trading network to include Britain and New Spain under the auspices of the Tokugawa government.

When Emperor Takakawa ascended to the throne in 1691, his reign was immediately marked with conflict and change. Tension between Corean and Japanese fishermen under the Tottori domain led to the Takeshima Dispute. The Dutch East India Company under Petrus Hoekstra intervened in the conflict and disciplined the Lord of Tottori, eventually leading to the Tokugawa government deposing the corrupt Lord under pressure from the Dutch and the Coreans. This marked the first instance of a European power directly intervening in Japanese affairs and directly led to the establishment of a Dutch factory, Poesjan, in Corea in 1710. Competing with the Dutch, the Russians began expanding their influence in northern Japan in the 1740s. They forged close relations with local aristocracy, most notably the Sakai clan, which would establish a shogunate decades later.

The Kyōho Reforms, beginning in the early 18th century, introduced changes to Japan which would ultimately destabilize the Tokugawa regime. Financial crises, corruption, Tokugawa hubris, and an increase in disgruntled merchants, peasants, and samurai led to the Hōreki Coup of 1750, removing the Tokugawa Kii faction from power. The Owari and Mito families installed Tokugawa Muneharu as Shogun. His radical ideas and disruption to the status quo led to his sudden assassination in 1754, leaving the government without a heir. This led to a period of fragmentation in Japan. With Tokugawa power dramatically declining, several domains began fighting for dominance with the conscious intervention of the Russians and the Dutch.

Chaos and Sakai rule (1754-1896)

With the country plunging into chaos, Emperor Momozono attempted to reinstate imperial rule in the Meiwa Restoration with the support of Mito Confucians and multiple samurai, lords, & scholars. Several domains nominally recognized imperial rule, viewing it as necessary for national stability. In practice, imperial influence was completely restricted to the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and Edo. This status quo eventually began to collapse in the 1770s, creating the conditions for the establishment of a new authority on the islands.

In 1771, a tsunami hit the Loetsjoe kingdom, a vassal state of the Japanese Satsuma domain. Dutch officials in modern Tauland began intervening in the politics of the small kingdom, installing a Dutch resident official in 1775. Four years later, a Dutch invasion led to King Shō Boku accepting a Dutch East India Company protectorate. This had disastrous consequences for the Satsuma domain, which experienced economic decline and high emigration rates.

At the same time, an Ainu revolt fomented around Lake Kusuri on the island of Ezo. In 1773, the rebellion began with the support of the Russians. Due to their incompetence, the Tokugawa government removed the Matsumae clan from power in Ezo. After the suppression of the insurrection, this decision had backfired on them, with the Matsumae clan eventually siding with Russia and the Sakai clan in order to advance their own interests.

Sakai Tadamichi, the appointed Prime Minister of Japan, began forging a pro-Russian alliance of clans in response to the failure of the imperial court and Tokugawa administration to ensure stability. They became diametrically opposed to the pro-Dutch faction led by the Hosokawa clan. In 1795, the Augustine Wars greatly diminished Dutch support for the Hosokawa, leading to the Sakai clan launching an offensive, aiming to reunify Japan under their rule. In 1803, Emperor Go-Komei was poisoned by the Sakai for refusing to recognize their authority. By 1809, the Sakai clan established their influence over most of Japan. Several domains still resisted the new shogunate, most notably the remnants of the Tokugawa government in Ezo and the Okubo clan of Odawara domain.

Under the pretense of assisting the Sakai, the Russian navy invaded the Odawara domain via their post at Itō. Russian forces refused to withdraw from the Odawara domain, also seizing the cities of Maizuru, Teshio by 1815 and establishing formal claims over Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. In response, the Sakai shogunate invaded Ezo in order to assert their authority, executing the Tokugawa governor and pushing further north. In 1837, Russian troops declared their support for an independent Ainu state in Ezo, pushing the Japanese back to Oshima. By 1840, the Russians had annexed most of Ezo as a semi-autonomous state, subsequently antagonizing their once-allies, the Sakai shogunate.

In the late decades of Sakai rule, Japan began to modernize and industrialize under the Sakai shoguns. However, many were dissatisfied with their governance, keenly aware of the Russians to the north and the Dutch to the south. The democratic, pro-imperial Federalist Party was established in 1873 after the Russian Succession Crisis renewed security concerns in 1868. In 1896, the last Sakai shogun died without a suitable heir. In a mostly bloodless revolution, the Federalist Party gained power, disestablishing the shogunate and creating a constitutional monarchy with Empress Sakuramachi as the eminent head of state. This became known as the Sakura Revolution.

List of leaders

Main article: List of rulers of Japan