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unmerged(3435)

Lurk-o-matic 2000
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Apr 27, 2001
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  • Europa Universalis IV
Hi, and welcome to my brand new shiny aar!

Anonymous4401, as our valiant Libraarian would probably like to know:

Japan! (as always)
Doomsday 1.2
1936 Campaign

Hard / Normal

(Currently played, saved and screenied up to mid-1945.)



Having got the hard facts out of the way, and yet being a little late (and on a schoolnight too!) I'm going to post a little about my point of departure and the direction planned for the aar, and leave the hard part until tomorrow night, when I can wrestle with picture hosts an HTML for hours if necessary.


The title of this aar is also the title of a book. A book written by the noted Japanese radical Kita Ikki. Written in Shanghai in 1919, a turbulent year for the world in general and for asia in particular, this text was his blueprint for the fundamental reform first of the Japanese state and society, and then the existing order in asia as a whole.

The blueprint owed much to the example of the Chinese revolution, which the author had experienced first hand and which was arguably an ongoing project at the time of publishing. It spoke broadly of a coup d'etat, which would sweep away the conservative cliques currently monopolising power in Japan, institute sweeping reform on behalf of the workers and peasants, and prepare for the inevitable war against imperialism in asia. Other people's imperialism, that is...

In our time line (popularly abbreviated OTL, a convention I'll be using here), Kita Ikki was personally involved in the abortive 26th February coup of 1936, for which involvement he was subsequently executed along with several other ringleaders in 1937. But what if the coup had succeeded? More to the point, what if Japan, like Germany, had given rise to a leader lucky enough to actually push through such a radical programme, and to have it succeed?

This is my alternate history, and it centres on the rise of the National Socialist party of Japan, a fictional political organisation which is built up around the Kodo-Ha (Imperial Way) faction and a few other groups to remain a surprise ;) OTL, this faction lost out to the opposing Tosei-Ha (Control) faction in the aftermath of the failed coup, beginning the shift in Japanese nationalism away from radical theories and towards a more strictly Fascist / militarist structure under the control of the army, and more specifically senior officers like Tojo Hideki.

In a world where the junior officers and revolutionaries at the other end of the nationalist spectrum managed to seize control of the Japanese government there is enormous scope for a completely different approach to national policy as a whole during the most crucial and decisive period of the 1930's and 1940's, and (hopefully!) something a little more succesful and coherent than that demonstrated by Japan in our history. More populist, less army-dominated. More Pan-Asian, less Japanist. More grass-roots, less old boy network. I hope to explore a world where the book from which I take the title can be seen as the Japanese 'Mein Kampf'.

Before going any further, there is one significant edit I've made to the scenario which should be explicitly pointed out, as I don't believe it's screenshotted :( This is the character of Senjuro Hayashi, the Head of Government put in place by a succesful Coup in February '36. OTL, this man served in the Russo-Japanese War, successively held military posts including chief of the Army War College, commander of the Imperial Guard Division, commander of the Japanese forces stationed in Korea, and in 1932, he became an army general. He served as war minister in the Saito and Okada cabinets.

You might be forgiven for thinking that he would be an 'Old General' in the game. However according to the minister files, he was in fact a 'Smiling Oilman'. I decided to change this, for realism purposes, and when it came to it... Germany gets a silent workhorse, why can't we? This was the trigger for the concept of a government arising in Japan more comparable with that of Germany. It also gives me an IC bonus, and hence I'm making it perfectly clear now :D After all, it's hard to argue that Japan could have been more industrially powerful, or more advanced, but the competence and decisiveness, not to mention policy making skill of the Japanese governent could most definitely have been better than it was.

Phew. OK, I look forward to hearing from anyone who's interested... Regardless, I'll be looking to speed through updating 1936 tomorrow night, Deus Vult!
 
Thank you. :nods:

Good to see an interesting alternate history. Don't really hear much of alternate Japans.
 
Interesting, I'll be reading this. I'm also playing a japan game now but have little knowledge of its (contemporary) history.

nonetheless my game is based on a similar idea as yours. I even played Haiti till 2-25 23.00 and then switched to japan just in time to accept the coup.
 
Well, how gratifying :D I can only hope I keep this level of interest once you poor, unsuspecting readAARs are subjected to my writing :p

Dirty Commie Puke: 6 hours and counting!

Lifeless: Thanks! I thought so... and I'm not giving anything away by saying that (thankfully) the other nations of the world managed to contribute some interesting moves of their own, so my take on alternate Japan won't be all we have to discuss :cool:

Anonymous4401: You're welcome. I can't count the number of great AAR's I would have missed if the LibrAARy wasn't there... Or the times I've seen you post on abortive / foolish ones :rolleyes: I don't want THAT kind of rep...

As far as the alternate Japan drought goes, I think there are a couple of reasons, both of which are relevant enough to actually go into here:

First, most folks know comparatively little about Japanese history. When you're attempting to write about a subject you're learning as you go it's so much less daunting to stick with the well documented historical course than to try and depart from it, and I think that's understandable. Most players have a Japan game now and then, and their aim is to see how far they can re-produce the Pacific / Asia war with more success. Only a real obsessive like me tends to get around to 'Oh God, not conquering China, 37-38 AGAIN!' and begin looking into varying the set up... A decade or more of daydreaming has been lovingly poured into this idea, I hope I can get it out in an intersting form!

Second, we still have to struggle against the myth of Japan which grew up in the west after the 41-42 campaign, that the empire was some sort of finely honed war machine poised to strike in a whirlwind of offensives, and which could hardly have been MORE effective. This perception tends to reduce the inclination of writAARs to look for 'What-If's' as the assumption is that everything was fairly optimised in our time line. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Historically, Japan did well because they faced little or no opposition. The US / UK decided early on in the war (late 39, early 40, I think) that they would have no choice but to let Japan run for a year or two and mop them up later and that's exactly what happened. They put about this myth of terrifying Japanese military potency to avoid awkward questions about the men they left hanging in a theatre which had been strategically written off. Even with the crushing early defeats they suffered, and a series of massive bungles by allied commanders, the Japanese were still fought to a stand-still quite quickly, what can you expect? They had upwards of a million men under arms in China aside from the other campaigns, and were doomed from the start by the multi-front nightmare. Our time line, Japans was a war of desperation.

By accepting the revisionist viewpoint (and owning the Chinese ASAP :D ) We can begin to project BETTER Japanese performance in all theatres with some semblance of credibility. Fine Alternate History territory!

So, thanks again for your support, guys. Next time I post will be with action, promise. I'm totally psyched about it, too :D
 
sabular said:
Interesting, I'll be reading this. I'm also playing a japan game now but have little knowledge of its (contemporary) history.

nonetheless my game is based on a similar idea as yours. I even played Haiti till 2-25 23.00 and then switched to japan just in time to accept the coup.

OK, I lied. No sooner had I hit 'Post' than I noticed I missed someone :mad:

I count it as a mission to push some Japanese history out through this AAR, I hope you'll find some of it interesting... I'd certainly love to hear how your game went, too! Hell, if you post a quick run down before this evening it won't even be too confusing with the AAR!

Thanks for dropping by :)
 
Interesting idea. I was actually planning on a Japan AAR (though with a RATHER different direction!) but not sure if I'll do that...
 
Arilou said:
Interesting idea. I was actually planning on a Japan AAR (though with a RATHER different direction!) but not sure if I'll do that...

Ok, I take it back... EVENTUALLY I'll post with action (5 hours and counting!) ;)

Do it. Do it. Do it! More Japan. Less everybody else :D

I'm curious, what was (sorry, IS) your direction? Promise not to plagiarise it...
 
Jon Young said:
Ok, I take it back... EVENTUALLY I'll post with action (5 hours and counting!) ;)

Do it. Do it. Do it! More Japan. Less everybody else :D

I'm curious, what was (sorry, IS) your direction? Promise not to plagiarise it...

I was thinking of doing a liberal Japan as a *real* and not just by word-of-mouth "liberator of asia", basically my idea was to attack anyone with colonies and liberate them :p
 
anonymous4401 said:
Good to see an interesting alternate history. Don't really hear much of alternate Japans.

Mememememe!!! *Points at his sig* :)

Nice to see another fellow Japan AARist. Good luck with the AAR.
 
Arilou said:
I was thinking of doing a liberal Japan as a *real* and not just by word-of-mouth "liberator of asia", basically my idea was to attack anyone with colonies and liberate them :p

A fine ideal, marred only by the speed with which you'll get frustrated ... AI problems, see? Take Indonesia as a prime example. They build infantry. Not transports, not convoys, just infantry. Which is a handicap for an archipelago nation :rolleyes:

With a determined effort at wiritng some events to sort these little gripes out, however... It would be a great story! Oh, of course you'd need to write an event for your DOW, if you're REALLY going to be liberal. Japan has not the IC to soak dissent :(
 
Jacko the Panda said:
Mememememe!!! *Points at his sig* :)

Nice to see another fellow Japan AARist. Good luck with the AAR.

Thanks, I'll surely need it, this being not only my first AAR attempt (or at least it's been so long I can't remember any others... Anyone who can locate an earlier attempt can have the Phillipines to play with!) but more importantly the VERY FIRST TIME I've dared play on Hard :eek:

Nice aar yourself, btw, cheezy title or not ;)
 
After my AAR came out all the Japan AARs have got the word sun in their name :) . Not that I can take the credit for that.
 
Commander-DK said:
Glad to see you decided to do it - despite the use of NAV's ;)

Looking forward to reading more.

:) Jesper

Oh, man... If you knew how many times I've had to discard the game and start over because all semblance of realism was lost :mad:

Although Nav's do feature, I'm making an effort to 'backstory' their adoption by Japan in an effort to explain the results they achieve and maintain some credibility :p

Hope you enjoy the ride!