Cant wait for the next part:> its a coincidence, but im playing japan in magna mundi too . i shall see what progress will i make comparing to yours at some year
-
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.
I have a feeling that with this type of set up, a whole lot more people will be playing Japan than ever did before. Very neat stuff and extremely well told, isca.
Subscribed, this is a good read! I've always thought it a shame Japan wasn't much fun in EU2 and just boring in EU3 so this looks interesting.
Now all I need to do is work out who is who!
Now all I need to do is work out who is who!
In MM paying Japan is really great and makes lots of fun. I used MM3 in my AAR so I'm really curious to see what new stuff will happen in MMG.
I think playing Japan in the Sengoku Jidaii is so interesting because you can rise from a 1-prov-minor to a supreme power in the far east and even further.
The thought of samurai armies at the gates of europe (Moskau and Istanbul) as early as 1789 is a bit scaring, isn't it?
I think playing Japan in the Sengoku Jidaii is so interesting because you can rise from a 1-prov-minor to a supreme power in the far east and even further.
The thought of samurai armies at the gates of europe (Moskau and Istanbul) as early as 1789 is a bit scaring, isn't it?
Treppe said:
There was a total overhaul of the Sengoku for MM gold. Isca was one of the two in charge of it all... the other being dharper, notedly my two favourites in writing style.
An engaging story in beautiful, crisp clear prose, isca. You set a standard which most of us can only hope to achieve one day.
I must admit though, I find it quite frustrating that I'm missing some of the finer points of the story because my knowledge of Japanese history (or the game in general) is lacking. Some of the terminology/clan names/geography is beyond my grasp at the moment, because I'm lacking a point of reference.
But so be it, I can remedy that -- and the mystery also adds to my appreciation, I'm sure.
Great work!
I must admit though, I find it quite frustrating that I'm missing some of the finer points of the story because my knowledge of Japanese history (or the game in general) is lacking. Some of the terminology/clan names/geography is beyond my grasp at the moment, because I'm lacking a point of reference.
But so be it, I can remedy that -- and the mystery also adds to my appreciation, I'm sure.
Great work!
Last edited:
Chapter Four: Hour of the Tiger
yama kawa mo
kimi ni yoru yo o
istuka min
Shall we ever see
The time your reign brings lasting peace
To all hills and streams?
- Iio Sogi
yama kawa mo
kimi ni yoru yo o
istuka min
Shall we ever see
The time your reign brings lasting peace
To all hills and streams?
- Iio Sogi
Peace with China was greeted on Honshu by a renewal of intra-national hostilities. The brief freedom of the Ashikaga was to be eclipsed, not by Shimazu Motohisa, but by the Asakura clan of Echizen. Ming China was busy elsewhere, and the conflict was brief. Rather than following Motohisa’s lead and deposing the Ashikaga, the Asakura declared the restoration of the shogunate. It was a clumsy diplomatic move, designed to bring forth a new Kamakura-style regency, in which the Asakura would wield power in the names of the Ashikaga and the emperor. The daimyo of Japan had long since parted faith with the Muromachi. A new era was materialising, and the only question on the minds of most was whether Shimazu Motohisa would emerge as the great unifier.
Throughout 1496-7, Motohisa had continued his systematic approach of forced allegiance. The Saito Clan of Mino province had fallen, followed quickly by the great horsemen of the Takeda. There were by now few enemies to threaten the Shimazu hegemony.
In March 1498, the tactics of unification changed in a way which would have profound effects on the future. The lessons of the Ming War had left an indelible impression on Motohisa. A loose conglomeration of allies and vassals might suffice to restore order throughout the home islands, but in order to prosper, to grow, and most importantly, to survive against the likes of China, a more unified country would need to emerge. Motohisa was not a ruler gifted at the finer aspects of diplomacy, and his first forays into statesmanship consisted of simple lump sums doled out to the western daimyo. The Ryuzoji and Otomo were early benefactors, and in spite of the blunt tools, his efforts did show slow progress being made. Trade agreements and treaties of mutual access were formalised. It was not the full-scale integration of coming years, but it was a start.
With the increasing nationalism of Kyushu, the local Korean artisans began to feel the pressure of renewed xenophobia. Small incidents transformed into skirmishes transformed into open rebellion by the Korean porcelain workers of Kagoshima and Nagasaki.
Similar revolts erupted in Settsu. Once again, the merchant classes were held to be responsible for societal ills. They had brought in the foreign craftsmen in centuries past, and they had fomented the ensuing crisis. The general impact of a thriving trade economy had little tangible impact on the average Japanese, and as always in history, it was far easier to hate than to understand. By 1502, the rebellions appeared quelled. In March of that year, Motohisa died. Rule passed to his son, Munehisa.
The new daimyo was a dedicated leader, to be sure, but one who was generally unskilled. If he made a wise decision during his reign, it was to stay the course. His diplomatic skills were as bad as those of his father, but he continued the ‘gifts’ to the western daimyo, which amounted to little more than bribes.
A month after he ascended to rule, a massive riot broke out in Izumo. As many a 20,000 of the revived Ikko Ikki movement marched from city to city, looting and causing general havoc. Religious devotees joined them. Munehisa made his second good decision. Rather than confront them himself, he found a dedicated general, Ishimaki Masanari. The wily samurai sped to Izumo and quickly dispatched the rebels, stringing heads from a pole, which he ordered paraded like a banner all across the mountain monasteries of western Honshu.
In spite of Ishimaki’s vivid warning to would-be enemies of the Shimazu, war erupted on two fronts, first with Korea, then with the Hojo-Mongol alliance.
The two wars raged on indecisively. A few naval victories were secured against the Koreans, but keeping the fleet in the west meant unfettered access to Hojo lands for the Mongols. In March 1506, Hojo Soshide died, and the Mongols claimed his lands for their own, setting up a Khanate representative at Kamakura. For the first time in recorded history, a foreign invader held territory in Honshu. While the Mongols insisted through diplomatic channels that the lands was still Japanese, and held by the Hojo, the Hojo themselves were an empty shell, their mon vanished, replaced by Mongol iconography.
The economy slackened amidst the turmoil, and the Kyushu woku devised a smuggling operation to work from the Sea of Japan all the way down to Hue, the Ryuzoji holding south of the Gulf of Tonkin. Kagoshima insisted on direct control of the entire operation, and within weeks, it was creating new wealth for the emerging Shimazu bakufu.
Over the next two years, peace was finally made with the Asian mainlanders. Much to the chagrin of Japanese everywhere, the Mongols retained their Honshu possessions. The Koreans had been kept from the shores completely, and went back to the peninsula to prepare for further intrigues in Southeast Asia, where their empire was growing yearly.
In March 1512, Munehisa died, having only held power for ten years. Rumours persist of poisoning, but none have been proven. His younger brother Hisatsune took charge, a whirlwind of energy and organisation. Within months of taking power, he completely redesigned the instrument of civil authority in a new Daimyo House Code.
1515 saw the first occurrence of plague, blamed (probably accurately) on the Mongol invaders. Settsu was quarantined a year later after a massive outbreak left thousands dead. The next few years were spent quelling the ravages of disease, while quietly resuming the gift-giving of previous years. This no longer took the form of simple payments, but involved settling long-standing regional disputes, and more open discussion of national unity.
The Ryuzoji were the first to acquiesce. In July 1519, their lands were merged with those of the Shimazu, and Japan took a major step toward civil reconciliation. Importantly, Hizen was acquired, but also Hue, the distant spice port in Southeast Asia. Shimazu would now keep one eye focused overseas, while the other went about the process of creating a single national polity on a scale not seen since Heian Imperial Days.
War broke out again in 1521, this time with the shogunal pretenders, the Asakura. Ishimaki Masanari stormed into Kyoto, sending the shogun fleeing north. The next stop was Echizen. The first battle was a decisive victory, but the Shimazu had few other troops in the area, while the Asakura had short supply lines, and their entire reserve within a hundred miles. The result was a series of battles, with fresh Asakura troops battering Ishimaki’s veterans. Time and time again, the elite mounted spearmen of the Shimazu would repulse the best efforts of the Asakura to take the field, often with odds of one-to-five. The first battle was a fine display of norikiri, where the cavalry suddenly charge at an enemy thrown into disarray.
The repeated failures cost Asakura his victory, then his honour, and finally, his life at his own hands. Yamashiro became part of the Shimazu protectorate, whilst the remaining lands remained in the care of a regent daimyo. The following year, General Ishimaki died, and a statue was erected of him by the Asakura in Echizen. Few samurai had fought so stubbornly as Ishimaki, and it is a testament to his skill that it was his defeated foes who placed the monument.
With new interests abroad, Hisatsune considered a bold new enterprise. Taiwan, lying halfway between Japan and Hue, would serve as a stopping point for trade between the two sites. A colonial venture was attempted in 1528. The colonists landed with the Red Sparrows. While the army put down the natives in brutal fashion, the colonists failed to create any sort of headway. Their work done, the Red Sparrows went on to Hue, where they served as military representatives of Japan in Southeast Asia for decades. In the meantime, the colonisation attempts continued, bearing no fruit over two years. Finally, the Taiwan experiment was abandoned, and the island renamed Kaidan, the Japanese for ‘strange apparition’. To this day, most Japanese ghost stories take place on these distant shores, and the word Kaidan has been generically adapted for any ghost story of the Shimazu era.
Perhaps stranger than ghosts was the arrival in 1530 of a Portuguese carrack off the coast of Tanegashima. It was the first contact between Europe and Japan, and it would seem that each side was equally unimpressed, given the general lack of further contact over the ensuing years. Shimazu Hisatsune had enough to worry about internally, and to Captain Duarte de Azevedo, the Japanese must surely have been one of many strange cultures encountered on his historic trip.
Three years later, and Hisatsune was dead. In twenty-one years of rule, he had seen more years of peace than any of his Shimazu predecessors. Trade flourished, and a fledgling overseas empire was born. The rights of all classes were expanded, and the Western Isles and central Kansai stabilised. His accomplishments were many, and he would surely have been a major figure in the chronicle of Japan had he not been followed by his legendary son, Kunihisa, the father of Japan.
Just a small glossary for the confused :
Bakufu - a feudal style of government, not quite equivalent to the European model, so the Shimazu bakufu just means the Shimazu government
Muromachi - the era of the Ashikaga shogunate (the rulers at the game's start), historically destroyed during the sengoku jidai
Heian - the era of imperial rule, before the shoguns took over in the 12th century, started in the 8th century
Kamakura - the era just before the Muromachi, when the Hojo clan ruled as shoguns, but declared themselves regents, so as not to offend supporters of the previous shoguns
Kyushu - Japan's southwestern island
Shikoku - The small southern island
Honshu - The main island
Hokkaido - The northern island
Kansai - the central region of Honshu, historically the most important region
Kanto - the plain in the northeast of Japan
If anyone has any other questions, feel free! Thanks for reading
:Bakufu - a feudal style of government, not quite equivalent to the European model, so the Shimazu bakufu just means the Shimazu government
Muromachi - the era of the Ashikaga shogunate (the rulers at the game's start), historically destroyed during the sengoku jidai
Heian - the era of imperial rule, before the shoguns took over in the 12th century, started in the 8th century
Kamakura - the era just before the Muromachi, when the Hojo clan ruled as shoguns, but declared themselves regents, so as not to offend supporters of the previous shoguns
Kyushu - Japan's southwestern island
Shikoku - The small southern island
Honshu - The main island
Hokkaido - The northern island
Kansai - the central region of Honshu, historically the most important region
Kanto - the plain in the northeast of Japan
If anyone has any other questions, feel free! Thanks for reading
Father of Japan definitely sounds like good news - though considering the current monarch was a 4/4/4 he seemed to have a pretty good fun.
Edit: isca, could you please check your PMs. Thank you.
Edit: isca, could you please check your PMs. Thank you.
Last edited:
Chapter Five: Dawn
yakeshi no no
tokorodokoro ya
sumiregusa
Violets have grown
Here and there
On the ruins of my burned house
- Yagi Shokyū-ni
yakeshi no no
tokorodokoro ya
sumiregusa
Violets have grown
Here and there
On the ruins of my burned house
- Yagi Shokyū-ni
Of all the daimyo who aspired to greatness, one name stands above all others – Shimazu Kunihisa. The son of the bureaucrat Hisatsune, Kunihisa was everything his father was not, an able military thinker and unlike any Shimazu before him, a wonderfully gifted diplomat. In one man finally stood united those traits which might see Japan restored to its former glories.
His first task was to finish a minor war his father had started with the Ashina in northern Honshu. It was here that his skills were first revealed. The war had stuttered along for some time, with neither side able to make headway. The Date were vassals of the Ashina, and it was their forces which played the spoiler in battle after battle. When General Ishimaki had the Ashina cornered, the Date would march into Shimazu lands, forcing a reaction. Or, when the Ashina seemed on the verge of defeat, the Date would ride over the horizon, the cavalry, both figuratively and literally.
Kunihisa was immediately advised to simply end the war with a white peace, and retire to Kagoshima to consider future plans. But Kunihisa was not of a mind to begin his reign in defeat. He commanded Ishimaki to face every engagement offered, regardless of the odds. The Shimazu forces would not shrink from battle. Reinforcements were mustered as quickly as possible. This carried on for two years, a long battle of attrition with still no end in sight.
Kunihisa then called to meet with Ashina Munetsune personally. The two performed the tea ceremony in a small village on the Sea of Japan, with a few attendants on hand. According to chronicles, both were impressed by the composure and refinement of the other. It must be remembered that, in spite of the violence of the times, great store was still placed in cultural refinement. Kunihisa offered his rival the post of tanka gosado, tea master of Japan, one of the highest honours available in the still-fractured land. In return, the Shimazu would work toward the peaceful restoration of a Japanese bakufu. Munetsune agreed and the war was ended. The Date were left in the lurch, suddenly isolated on their northern outcrop of Honshu.
There was very quickly a new air amongst the samurai class. Warriors ever, but a new importance was attached to ceremony, and to decorum. The Heian court of the Japanese emperors had been a model of civility and sophistication, and it was to that standard that courtiers were to aspire.
A year later, in May 1536, Kunihisa met with the western lords. Ryuzoji had already agreed to the new polity, but the others had demurred on several occasions. Now, they were brought together on the same day to Kagoshima castle. The terms of Japan’s future were laid out plainly and it was made equally clear that the boat of unity was setting sail, and there would be advantages to being aboard now rather than later. The Otomo, Ouchi and Ichijo clans all agreed to the new state of affairs, and the path to re-unification was set. In a single stroke, the west of Japan was put firmly in the hands of the Shimazu.
In the east, this turn of events caused some worry. Small daimyos turned to their fellows and began to agree unions to resist similar aggrandisements of the ‘Satsuma potato farmers’. In April 1541, Asakura Takakage became the first, and last, daimyo to resist annexation. His holdings were extensive, and he believed, rightly or wrongly, that the best future for Japan lay in conglomerate states, not in a restoration of what he considered a fragile unity. History would show Asakura to be short-sighted and lacking in vision. At any rate, it took only two years before diplomatic pressure forced him to concede. In the meantime, the proud Amago also submitted.
The independent-spirited Ainu peoples of Hokkaido managed in the intervening years to throw off the shackles of Mongol rule. The Mongol Khans were having troubles of their own on the mainland, where a resurgent Jurchen tribe was claiming lands in the name of the Manchu. Mongol claims in Japan were looking more frail by the week.
With the homeland increasingly secure, Kunihisa looked once again overseas. Hue was a growing power in Southeast Asian mercantile circles, and the daimyo made moves to convert it from a trading outpost into a genuine centre of trade. Vast sums headed south, and within a few months, Japanese merchants were plying trade from across the region. It was a bold move, sure to cause anxiety amongst Ming China and the merchants of Brunei and Malacca, but Kunihisa was not one for seeing obstacles. The income generated quickly found its way back to Kagoshima. Rather than directing it toward his own treasury, a Shinto mission was immediately created to begin the conversion of the Vietnamese around Bin Tri Thien. Over two years, the population would come to profess the new faith.
The diplomatic juggernaut rolled on in Honshu, and the Ashina were brought into the fold in September 1545. Now there were two outposts outside Shimazu rule, the Mongol holdings in Owari, and the Date possessions of Mutsu and Hokkaido. Miyoshi was nominally independent, but a vassal of the Shimazu nonetheless.
1545-49 saw the final insurgencies of the Ikko Ikki rebels. Thousands rose up in former Asakura and Ashina lands, resentful at their recently lost independence. The Byakotai, or White Tigers, dealt with them swiftly but mercifully. Leaders and radicals were singled out and killed, but farmers were allowed to return to their fields, the less zealous monks to return to their monasteries. In all, as many as 40,000 Ikko Ikki may have participated in these final rebellions, of which perhaps as few as 3,000 were killed. Given the nihilistic bloodshed so common in the Sengoku jidai these numbers are remarkable, and show a definite shift in both the means and motives of conquest. In the same years, war was waged against the Date, the final bulwark of Japanese resistance to the Shimazu. They were made vassals like so many before them, and Hokkaido placed directly into Kunihisa’s custodianship.
1550 opened with a bold proclamation by Kunihisa – the resumption of the colonisation of Kaidan. The island had already taken on mythic significance, and to the average Japanese, the notion of going to Kaidan was similar to a Christian being told he was going to make a new home in hell. In spite of the superstitions, fortune hunters assembled in Kagoshima, and expeditions mounted on an unprecedented scale. Colonisation was no longer the province of the individual adventurer, it was bakufu policy. While those ventures went forward, forces were sent to clear the natives from the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. In 1553, after numerous attempts, the beginnings of a colony were begun on Kaidan, near present day Taipei.
The other significant event of 1553 happened hundreds of miles from Japan, along the northern Asian coast. There the Jurchen Manchu finally managed to wrest their old provinces back from the Mongol Khans. Now, the steppe warriors had no access to the sea. Their possessions on Honshu were cut off. Kunihisa made immediate moves to foment rebellion in Owari. Over the next four years, shinobi spies made their way amongst the courts of the Mongol regents, disrupting rule and causing general havoc. In 1554, the revolt so long anticipated erupted. While the rebels claimed to be fighting on behalf of the once mighty Imagawa clan, their mantra was the old Shimazu cry: Sonno Joi!
1558 saw two of the final acts of re-unification. The Date were convinced to give up their vainglorious hopes of resistance, and the emergent Imagawa were attacked. Once again it was the White Tigers who made quick work of the enemy. Of all the victories scored by the White Tigers in the ensuing years, it was their defeat of the rebel Imagawa which was always remembered most fondly for with it, and the collapse of Owari, Japan was finally made whole again.
Within months, the emperor declared Shimazu Kunihisa shogun, the first recognised shogun since Ashikaga Yoshisuke. Sadly, his reign was to end three years later. He had ruled for twenty-eight years, a long period of unprecedented success. Statues commemorating both Kunihisa and the victory of the White Tigers in Owari can be found all across Japan, and even in many monuments of the old empire, from Hue to Taipei.
Err... ummm... Well, Asia. Generally. The trick is that I can't see big chunks of it, and Ming China owns much of the rest... It could be tricky from here on out!
Congrats! What year is it?
About Ming: I thought Ming nerving was kept down by MMG (and as far as i can see it they haven't got Korea and Mongolia yet).
About Ming: I thought Ming nerving was kept down by MMG (and as far as i can see it they haven't got Korea and Mongolia yet).
Excellent gaming skills, coupled with an excellent event pool, coupled with a strong gift for writing!
Bravo!
Bravo!
Treppe said:
I've written to 1561, played to 1585. Ming is NOT a Vanilla yellow blob. But they're VERY tough.
As they should be. Though I think constant wars are wearing them down. I hope constant wars are wearing them down........