Keeping Promises:
Domestic Developments
Japan's first ever elected government wasted no time in exercising its newly-granted powers and responsibilities. On the first session of the Kizokuin after polling day, taxes across the empire were cut by 10%, an early concession to the Democrats. It would be one of very few. For the first time in Japanese history, the average Japanese worker or peasant now earned more than he paid back in tax – a cutting blow to the Confucian orthodoxy which had governed Japan informally for the past 900 years. Their new-found “wealth” coupled with ready-avaliable, cheap foreign goods, led to a small consumer boom, as Japan's new industrial working and middle class began experimenting with western foods, products and customs. British and Italian-made suits, paired with bowlers (or top hats for the wealthy) became ubiquitous among Japan's growing middle class, who sipped on imported French and Portuguese wines and consumed exotic meats like chicken, turkey or quail at fashionable balls, where they practiced the newly fashionable art of ballroom dancing with eligible young Japanese ladies dressed to the nines in whale-boned corsets and hoopskirts. Western-style umbrellas and American-made pocket watches became must-have accessories for any young gentleman, while ladies experimented with rouge and other cosmetics. The urban and rural poor got in on the act too, heading en masse to the trading ports on their annual holidays to try the latest French and Italian sweets and to pose for that ultimate foreign novelty; a photograph. This was of course made possible by Japan's new and efficient railway network, which by 1851 had tracks and stations in every province in all four home islands. Passengers were ferried from island to island by sail-powered ships, fully furnished with such modern and foreign comforts as padded seats and portholes. Japanese of all walks of life flocked to these new-fangled modes of transportation in their tens of thousands.
Of course the biggest innovation of the age actually wasn't very innovative at all, in fact Japan had had one since the days of Ishida Hidetaka. The newspaper may have been an integral part of Japanese life for almost a century, but unless you were lucky enough to understand English there was only one, owned by the state and written by aristocrats for aristocrats. Things were about to change. In early 1851, the Jiyu-tou in concert with their Minshu-tou allies passed their first major piece of legislation; the Licensing of the Presses Act.
Up and coming entrepreneurs wasted no time in buying up press licenses, first and foremost among them was none other than Otomo Takeshi himself. In an act which can only be described as sheer political patronage, the Jiyu-tou purchased the
Nagasaki Merchant Daily for an undisclosed sum and awarded its previous owner an official honour. Rebranded the
Japan Merchant Daily, the paper became the mouthpiece of Japanese Liberalism. A Japanese-language edition was produced, and sold in large numbers.
Takeshi didn't stop there though. He realised quickly that in order to compete with the
Nihon Shimbun and its massive market share he'd have to create a paper that was radically different. Enter the
Asahi Shimbun ; Japan (and arguably the world's) first tabloid newspaper[1]. The
Asahi Shimbun was radically different from any newspaper seen in Japan before: for starters it was filled with big pictures instead of columns of text, pictures of geisha girls, kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers – the celebrities and sportsmen of their day. Its reporting didn't focus on parliamentary reports, the markets and prices or (God forbid...) actual news, but things that actual people might actually be interested in, like sport, scandals (real and invented, but more often than not, the latter) and of course, gossip. Even the text was revolutionary, using the Hiragana alphabet rather than the more highbrow kanji characters to save printing costs. The lower classes lapped the
Asahi Shimbun up, and the paper sold so well and was so controversial that certain Japanese conservatives called for the Act to be banned, for “causing moral panic” and for “eroding our nation's moral fabric through promotion of gross immorality.” These conservatives quickly changed their tune when they realised that the could print their own tabloids and make a fortune doing so.
Political parties and groups quickly followed the Liberal example and formed their own party newspapers. (except the Constitutionalists, who of course already had one.) Apart from the
Nihon Shimbun which was still state owned, Japan would have 15 national and regional newspapers by the end of 1951 owned by either private individuals or groups, with a total readership of over seven million, or slightly over half the Japanese adult population. Even today Japanese read more newspapers annually per capita and Japanese newspapers retain a higher circulation on average than anywhere else in the world.
1851: Japan's “Annus Mirabilis”
Since modernisation in the early days of Hidetoshi's reign, Japan had been “catching up” to the rest of the world in terms of science and technology. By 1851 Japan had not only caught up, but Japanese themselves were beginning to spearhead their own scientific initiatives, making discoveries which would make the academic communities of Europe and America green with envy.
Advances in chemotherapy were all well and good, but it was the discovery that Kinine (Quinine, a substance found in the bark of the South American Cinchona plant.) could be used to combat Malaria which really captured the world's imagination. The discovery was made by a Western-educated Japanese biologist named Ito Keisuke, who was part of a Japanese diplomatic mission to Peru, serving as the group's physician. Keisuke had heard about this ancient remedy from the ancient Quechua peoples, and being the inquisitive person he was, decided to investigate. He not only discovered and isolated the compound Kinine, but also discovered that, mixed with water and taken orally, could be used as a vaccine against malaria – not merely a killer disease but a major hindrance towards foreign colonisation and domination of Africa and Oceania.
Ito Keisuke, discoverer of Quinine (Kinine)
Japan had good relations with Peru, and was therefore able to export the bark and produce Kinine in large numbers for a good profit. Jealous of Japanese success, the Dutch sent expeditions deep into Columbia to try and extract their own Cinchona seeds. The plan was to plant these seeds in plantations in Guyana and the East Indies and harvest their own “Kinine plants” thereby cornering the lucrative Quinine market and putting the Japanese and Peruvians out of business. The Colombians refused to sell the seeds and banned Dutch botanists from entering the country. Not willing to cause an international incident, King Willem II backed down and left the Japanese to their monopoly. His brother favoured an elaborate scheme whereby the Dutch would import large quantities of its prized liquor into Columbia, which would leave the Columbian economy dependant on Dutch imports, thereby allowing the Dutch to trade liquor for Cinchona. Such a scheme was far to brazen for a placid monarch like Willem II, and so it was never tried.
But by far the most ambitious venture Japan launched during this time in the name of science was inspired by what was by far the most important Japanese "discovery" of the 19th Century: nationalism. Of course Japan - like pretty much all Great Powers throughout history - had embraced nationalism or a form of nationalism for most of their history, but this new nationalism was on a global rather than a regional scale. Japanese intellectuals foresaw a world in which a Japanese Race would play an integral, if not dominant role in world affairs. To be born a son of Yamato was to have drawn first prize in the lottery of life, to have been blessed by God even, said these intellectuals - it was therefore only natural that Japan's Asiatic neighbours bow to their superiors and except "enlightened" Japanese rule. Some even foresaw a Asian superstate, dominated by Japan and built upon the three pillars of Japanese society: The Shogun, Catholicism and Bushido - a true "Eastern Roman Empire" so to speak.
These ideas would bring dire consequences: to other Asians and especially to the Japanese people themselves, but that would be some ninety years into the future. For now, Nationalism and Imperialism was the dominant positive force in Japan's military, industrial, scientific and social developments. The most important of these - from an international, scholastic point of view - were Japanese excavations in Egypt. Egypt was long seen in the western world as the cradle of civilisation, and while obviously the Indians and Chinese (and therefore their descendants: Koreans and Japanese) knew better, proving this to a narrow-minded, some would say xenophobic Western intelligentsia without hard evidence was going to be very difficult. Japanese archaeologists hoped that by doing their own excavations in Egypt, they could not only dispel this myth, but simultaneously prove their own worth as trailblazers in the fields of archaeology and science.
Fuelled by feelings of divine right and what the Americans would call "Manifest Destiny" (and perhaps, more than a little Russophobia) the Japanese government authorised the settlement of the Kuril Archipelago. These islands had little economic or strategic value, and their colonisation served only to antagonise the Russians. Nevertheless, their colonisation was a real "PR coup" for Takeshi, who proved that the colonisation of useless islands was no longer a solely European pastime.
Japan's “Annus Mirabilis” would abruptly end on November the 16th 1851, the day the Shogunate's peace treaty with the Kingdom of Siam expired. In times of war, such lofty pursuits would have to be put aside as war and patriotism take centre stage. As Kampaku, Otomo Takeshi would no longer serve as a frontline general as he had in previous colonial wars, but he would still have one final important role to play in determining the outcome of the upcoming campaign...
[1] The real life
Asahi Shimbun is a broadsheet.