• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Himeji-jo
The Great Empire of Japan

Lieutenant General Ito Mizushima sat quietly at his desk, gazing out the window of his office. Himeji Castle was one of the largest and most famous castle in Japan and it was his pleasure to requisition it. From here, he was able to oversee the continuing pacification of the countryside and the operations of his troops, as well as act as a member of the military government. It wasn't Kyoto, but then again he didn't much like Kyoto. Or maybe it was that Kyoto didn't like him. He wasn't from a good family, and his rise through the military and his exploits on the field had earned him a reputation as a brutalist who reveled in bloodshed. That wasn't true, of course; he simply needed what needed to be done. Some aristocrats just didn't understand.

Speaking of aristocrats... it looked as if he himself might soon be one. That didn't please him, necessarily, but he was an old man. His son would be much better off as a baron, he would be able to build off Mizushima's legacy and achieve even greater things. All that he did he did for his family, that they could reach for the stars boosted by their illustrious ancestor. His kami would aid them...

I support all propositions put forward by the illustrious Generalissimo, as they are beneficial for the safety and welfare and right-living of the Japanese people. However, I must humbly put forward my own idea...

The Spiritual Welfare of the Empire Act

Acknowledging the tribulations of the Japanese people, and the strife to which the spiritual life of the Empire has been subjected, the government finds it right and proper to enshrine the following provisions into law:

I. That to provide for the spiritualist welfare of our people, the Church of Japan is to be ordained and established.

II. That the Church is to be enshrined as the national religious body of the Japanese nation, exercising the rites and conducting the rituals of our common Shinto faith.

III. That His Majesty the Emperor is to serve as Head and Governor of the Church of Japan, conducting and overseeing her most important rites and rituals on behalf of the people and nation, and appoint daigūjin ((bishops)) to oversee Shinto cults at a regional level.

IV. That there is to be established a seminary for the education of kannushi ((priests)) by the Church, and that missionaries will be appointed to spread the faith in Japan's territories.

Established this day in law throughout Japan and her territories.
 
((Private))

My Lord Prince Date

Congratulations on your efforts in bringing peace to Japan abroad and at home.

It has been an honour to serve as a Minister in your Government during these trying times. However, I have noted a typographical error in your recent list of active Generals and Admirals of our Imperial forces, namely the omission of myself. I presume this clerical oversight was because of my service in the civilian administration. Nevertheless, I would humbly request that my Lord consider that I may given a command to advance the interests of the Emperor and his people as may best seem meet.

Your loyal servant

Yamamoto Gonnohyoe
Count of Nagasaki

((Traits: Uncommonly Young/Careful))
 
Leaflet From Tsuyoshi Tamotsu

I can only applaud the brave soldiers who had to sacrifice so much when they were told that they were doing so in the name of Japan. In reality however, they had to do this for the vain glory of the Date Shogunate. I trust that lower ranks of the military men, will realize this soon enough, and demand an end to the corrupt Date Shogunate. They are not afraid of sacrifice.

The National Liberals through the Date Shogunate, do not have any desire for the good Japan, but merely have their own crude lust for power and control. They have maintained power by adopting an ongoing state of war. This state of war began in foreign lands and now with peace treaties signed, is being fought against fellow Asians both in the Japanese Home Islands and in Korea.

They have spoken patriotism, but they have lied, lied and lied! They fought a useless war that saw millions of die for mere foot holds of land to our northern and south. They have turned us into a total international pariah. But most of all, they have tarnished the spirit of Japan. I have confidence that we'll stand together against this and they will pay for what they've done.
 
Last edited:
((Why are people ICing in prison?

There have been no specific government orders to arrest any individuals. I do not understand why you are all ICing in prison if no one ordered your arrest o_O ))
 
I formally order the arrest and imprisonment of all who declared their intention to organise, or actually organised, rallies in opposition to state edicts.

-- Ito Mizushima
 
  • 2
Reactions:
I formally order the arrest and imprisonment of all who declared their intention, or actually organised, rallies in opposition to state edicts.

-- Ito Mizushima

((And there you go... Guess that means Kowloon, Lief, Luft and Bio are all jailed.))
 
Smuggled letter from Tsuyoshi Tamotsu

I have been jailed by the Date Shogunate.

They may beat me, they may torture me, they may abuse us every way, but we will stand strong against this foul tyranny and we will make sure to oppose all those, yes all those who enable it.

As I speak the foul traitors to the Japanese and Asian people, seek to destroy Korean culture. So much for attempts to liberate fellow Asians from Europeans. They wish to hold down Asian culture. They wish to annihilate them and kill those who stand against them. Don't think this annihilation will be left only to foreign Asians. As they embolden they will seek to annihilate our desires and needs even more than they have already done. We must fight back now if we wish to remain free of their tyranny.
 
((Do not go pass Go, do not collect Y200.))
 
  • 2
Reactions:
Player Actions Needed: Privy Council, please advise the Emperor on continuing Martial Law for another year.

((For PC Only))
Sample Ballot:

Continue Martial Law: Yes/No/Abstain

[Noble Rank]

Voting ends tomorrow at 9:00 PM EST. Depending on how this vote goes depends on how the next vote will happen.
 
494bcdab0c786a0be35af4970d8bc4a2-360x270.jpg


Name: Ōtuma Makoto
Specialty: Politics
Bio: Born in 1858 to an affluent family of merchants in Saga province, Makato grew up along with Westernised Japan; his education was the model of that of the nascent middle-class intelligentsia of the time. He studied both politics and law at the newly-established University of Tokyo in 1877, and he travelled abroad extensively, visiting the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany between the years of 1884 to 1886. Having returned to Japan this year, Makato has joined the Freedom Party, and he wishes to see a truly liberal government promote Japanese industry rather than Japanese expansion.
 
Last edited:
Tsuyoshi Tamotsu, having written scathing condemnations of the Date Muneair Shogunate, has decided to begin taking a different approach. For months, years in fact, hes been using rhetoric against the oppression and repression of the Date Shogunate. He's talked about their refusal to follow procedure as written down by law and their constitutional inaction However, for the most part, he's yet to full exam the cold hard facts of life in Japan.

Using a combination of books allow to him by guards and material smuggled into his cell, he has gather much of the facts of Japanese industry over the years. Pouring over these for a couple weeks, he's come to some interesting discoveries. he plans to soon smuggle out this analysis, to prove once and for all that not only is the Date Shogunate and the National_Liberal party bad for the people and freedom, but it is bad for industry and business.
 
Tsuyoshi Tamotsu, having written scathing condemnations of the Date Muneair Shogunate, has decided to begin taking a different approach. For months, years in fact, hes been using rhetoric against the oppression and repression of the Date Shogunate. He's talked about their refusal to follow procedure as written down by law and their constitutional inaction However, for the most part, he's yet to full exam the cold hard facts of life in Japan.

Using a combination of books allow to him by guards and material smuggled into his cell, he has gather much of the facts of Japanese industry over the years. Pouring over these for a couple weeks, he's come to some interesting discoveries. he plans to soon smuggle out this analysis, to prove once and for all that not only is the Date Shogunate and the National_Liberal party bad for the people and freedom, but it is bad for industry and business.

Ito learns about this books and smuggling nonsense and immediately has Tsuyoshi exiled to an oubliette; because this is 19th century Japan and prison isn't supposed to be this easy.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Continue Martial Law: Yes

[Prince]


~ Marshal Prince Date Munenari, etc.
 
((Private))

Death was a real danger for Hajamoto Kiyotaka. He had marched through the Imperial Capital calling for the end of Date's reign. The march had ended in disaster, it had ended with swinging batons and falling bodies. He had been beaten to the ground, knocked unconscious and been transported to his current abode. It was a dark, dank place that smelt dangerously like human waste; to make it worse were his daily "visits". He was tortured with red hot pokers and whipped with chains of iron; they insisted that he had acted against the Emperor and that his protest was an attempt to usurp the Emperor's power, each day he felt himself fall closer and closer to giving in. They planned to kill him, if he ever did give in and "confess" to such an act he would be executed for treason.

Hajamoto suddenly started coughing up blood, his head lolled forwards and the conscious world drifted out of his reach.
 
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Hiroshima, 1887, Kirizai Zaibatsu Headquarters

Life wasn't so bad after all,
thought Hidetoshi.

He had everything he once wanted, everything that as a child he never dreamed could be his. He had money; he had a burgeoning industrial empire and was the third-richest man in Japan. He had a beautiful house, and an opulent headquarters in the city he had loved to visit as a boy; his palaces, his castles, for him at least as grand as any owned by the Emperor himself. He had a beautiful wife, and he had been blessed with a son of his own this very year. He didn't really have power, but that was all right; nobody else had any either under the Date regime, and they left him alone.

Alone.

Alone, he repeated to himself, swirling his glass of whiskey. Maybe that was it.

He had all the marks of fame and fortune, but not many of the substantial results. He was a viscount. A viscount - a higher noble title than that of Baron Ito, that warmonger stationed in Luzon - and yet he was but a gnat in terms of influence compared to him. He was rich, but it was Kishwada and Kusaribe who truly shook the earth. They owned all the best factories, owned the most land, owned all the prime resources. And what's more, they had a name. Compared to them, he wasn't a mover, a shaker. He was little better than the man on the street.

The laughs behind his back; he could hear them more distinctly. They whispered that his wife was a burakumin. So what if she was? She was his childhood friend, the only one besides Kiyo who showed him any kindness. So what if he bought his viscounty? He was as good as any of them. Japan, he thought, was run by old money. Old money and old samurai, that's what this country was.

"Hide-kun, are you still in there?" asked Ai. She carried his one-year-old son, Jun, in her arms. She was tall and thin, lanky, they said, and what's worse, a commoner - Hidetoshi used his considerable wealth to keep polite society from prying further. Commoners were fine - he was a commoner too until not too long ago - but a burakumin, whatever the law may have said, that was the true crime in the eyes of society. Damn them all, he thought. She was the love of his life, whatever they said.

"Just...thinking, dear," he said, continuing to swirl his drink. He looked out at the rows of paulownia trees planted along the road to Kirizai headquarters, the same tree his company was named for. Beautiful yet strong, said his father in his more lucid moments.

"You've been thinking an awful long time," she said, sitting closer to him. "Jun-chan hasn't seen his father in days."

"Hello, Jun," said Hidetoshi, smiling and waving. His son smiled and giggled.

"What's keeping you here? It's a Friday night. You always demand your weekends off."

"It's...Ai-chan, are you ashamed of me?"

His wife was taken aback. "Ashamed of you? Why on Earth would I be ashamed of you?"

"I have money...I have money, but that's all I have...I can't do anything. The Party is gone. No matter what I say, Date does what he pleases."

"But we've been doing well, haven't we? You always said so..."

"I'll always be number three. Kishiwada, Kursaribe, they really own this country. Men like me, they don't have a chance."

Ai frowned. "Hide-kun..."

"I'll be up late tonight, dear. I need to make plans." Hidetoshi grabbed his notebook and began to scribble furiously. Work had to be done.
 
  • 4
Reactions:
((Private))

Death was a real danger for Hajamoto Kiyotaka. He had marched through the Imperial Capital calling for the end of Date's reign. The march had ended in disaster, it had ended with swinging batons and falling bodies. He had been beaten to the ground, knocked unconscious and been transported to his current abode. It was a dark, dank place that smelt dangerously like human waste; to make it worse were his daily "visits". He was tortured with red hot pokers and whipped with chains of iron; they insisted that he had acted against the Emperor and that his protest was an attempt to usurp the Emperor's power, each day he felt himself fall closer and closer to giving in. They planned to kill him, if he ever did give in and "confess" to such an act he would be executed for treason.

Hajamoto suddenly started coughing up blood, his head lolled forwards and the conscious world drifted out of his reach.

((I question this; he's making the broad claim that he is being tortured, and whilst Ab is indeed correct that 19th century prison life wasn't easy, he's making us seem positively inquisitorial. He further claims we're attempting to kill him, but the legislation I proffered to the Martial Council suggest but a fine and a brief imprisonment, with extensions for repeat offenders. In short, he maligning us unfairly.))
 
((I question this; he's making the broad claim that he is being tortured, and whilst Ab is indeed correct that 19th century prison life wasn't easy, he's making us seem positively inquisitorial. He further claims we're attempting to kill him, but the legislation I proffered to the Martial Council suggest but a fine and a brief imprisonment, with extensions for repeat offenders. In short, he maligning us unfairly.))

((My character believes they want to kill him. Following the shooting of protesters I wouldn't consider it unusual to try to torture them. Nor do I state that the NLP or KAP are my torturers, it could simply be that the person running the prison disagrees with my political views, has some personal grudge or is simply psychotic. It was you who inferred that the bane of Hajamoto were of your government.))
 
((My character believes they want to kill him. Following the shooting of protesters I wouldn't consider it unusual to try to torture them. Nor do I state that the NLP or KAP are my torturers, it could simply be that the person running the prison disagrees with my political views, has some personal grudge or is simply psychotic. It was you who inferred that the bane of Hajamoto were of your government.))

((It is entirely reasonable for myself to make such a connection; your character was arrested on the orders of my government, and now you are implying punishment that I did not authorise, nor would I authorise; and whilst it is indeed possible that the warden is a psychopath, I believe it is heavily implied that the government endorses or condones such actions in your post, which is patently false.

Furthermore, you make a rather spurious connection between the protesters getting shot (in defiance of orders from the Martial Committee, and following an assault of at least one Imperial solider - an officer at that) with the torture of political prisoners; furthermore, your character should now be well aware that he is, at most, subject only to a fine and a brief incarceration.

In short, I find this situation borderline outlandish and little more than an effort to inspire more disdain for my government on the bases of your masochistic writings, which have no real basis in how the Martial would operate; at the very best, such treatment, on a Japanese citizen, would be an incredible aberration))
 
((It is entirely reasonable for myself to make such a connection; your character was arrested on the orders of my government, and now you are implying punishment that I did not authorise, nor would I authorise; and whilst it is indeed possible that the warden is a psychopath, I believe it is heavily implied that the government endorses or condones such actions in your post, which is patently false.

Furthermore, you make a rather spurious connection between the protesters getting shot (in defiance of orders from the Martial Committee, and following an assault of at least one Imperial solider - an officer at that) with the torture of political prisoners; furthermore, your character should now be well aware that he is, at most, subject only to a fine and a brief incarceration.

In short, I find this situation borderline outlandish and little more than an effort to inspire more disdain for my government on the bases of your masochistic writings, which have no real basis in how the Martial would operate; at the very best, such treatment, on a Japanese citizen, would be an incredible aberration))


((This is total garbage:

1. His Own RP had a single person throw a single rock.
2. Proper procedure would be to find the person who threw it and arrest him
3. Don't tell me they couldn't find out who it is, he had all his soldiers staring at the protesters
4. In his own RP, he admitted that the crowd fell silent once they saw him get it
5. This means by and large the crowd intended to be peaceful.
6. It also means the whole crowd wasn't pelting him with rocks.
7. This all means he fired on an entintire peaceful crowd when he could have located the single rock thrower.

So don't give us any sanctimonious garbage about how you would dare torture political prisoners. How you're not really doing unethical things. You your self respond to legitimate criticism of you doing something by saying "HURR DURR WE GOT GUNS"
What's outlandish is how your trying that act like you're playing so nice and justified given all the evidence. I can totally see how a single warden under a government like this would commit torture. I can also see how a government like this would explicitly order torture))
 
  • 1
Reactions:
((This is total garbage:

1. His Own RP had a single person throw a single rock.
2. Proper procedure would be to find the person who threw it and arrest him
3. Don't tell me they couldn't find out who it is, he had all his soldiers staring at the protesters
4. In his own RP, he admitted that the crowd fell silent once they saw him get it
5. This means by and large the crowd intended to be peaceful.
6. It also means the whole crowd wasn't pelting him with rocks.
7. This all means he fired on an entintire peaceful crowd when he could have located the single rock thrower.

So don't give us any sanctimonious garbage about how you would dare torture political prisoners. How you're not really doing unethical things. You your self respond to legitimate criticism of you doing something by saying "HURR DURR WE GOT GUNS"
What's outlandish is how your trying that act like you're playing so nice and justified given all the evidence. I can totally see how a single warden under a government like this would commit torture. I can also see how a government like this would explicitly order torture))

((None of ^this^ please, lets be civil.

Also if Liefwarrior wants to kick and scream that a rock was thrown at him, let him.))