What if a more conservative Japan started the first sino-Japanese war in the mid-late 1860s?

Wr1t3r

Newspapers that the dutch trade in Japan, tell the Japanese about industrializing countries smashing un-industrial ones, and industrialized countries smashing industrializing ones, and eventually after the British conquer the Sikh empire, that's the straw that breaks the camel's back and something akin to the meiji restoration happens in TTL. However as this is earlier in history there aren't huge liberal reforms (not necessary, but a part of a TL I'm working on). So, Japan's rigid class system is modified instead of abolished, so people can move up or down it, due to merit, as opposed to buying or selling nobility and the emperor doesn't establish a parliament.
So that the emperor can keep paying his army enough, to keep them happy to put down pro-parliamentary or anti-class system rebellions he starts the first sino-japanese war in the mid-late 1860s, before China has a chance to recover from the Taiping rebellion.

Which part/s of China and/or Korea does Japan conquer? How does this affect 19th century Geo-politics? How is Japan different anthropologically?
 
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WhatSantayanaSaid

Wr1t3r said:
Newspapers that the dutch trade in Japan, tell the Japanese about industrializing countries smashing un-industrial ones, and industrialized countries smashing industrializing ones, and eventually after the British conquer the Sikh empire, that's the straw that breaks the camel's back and something akin to the meiji restoration happens in TTL. However as this is earlier in history there aren't huge liberal reforms (not necessary, but a part of a TL I'm working on). So, Japan's rigid class system is modified instead of abolished, so people can move up or down it, due to merit, as opposed to buying or selling nobility and the emperor doesn't establish a parliament.
So that the emperor can keep paying his army enough happy to put down pro-parliamentary or anti-caste rebellions he starts the first sino-japanese war in the mid-late 1860s, before China has a chance to recover from the Taiping rebellion.

Which part/s of China and/or Korea does Japan conquer? How does this affect 19th century Geo-politics? How is Japan different anthropologically?
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The Dutch did in fact warn the Japanese about Western incursions (particularly Perry's Black Ships), but the Japanese ignored the warning. They also didn't have any relations with the Sikh Empire and that wouldn't have affect their judgment in the slightest.

Without the Boshin War, it's unlikely the Emperor will be able to easily take power back from the shogun, plus it leaves the issue of the tozama daimyos' antipathy towards the bakufu unresolved. It's worth remembering the Imperial faction was the side with the "Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians" mentality. That only shifted after the Western powers forcibly showed the Imperials the power discrepancy between them.

As for policy towards China, Japan had yet to sour to the idea of an alliance between Japan, Korea, and China against the West yet. It wasn't until the 1870s when Japan realized the Chinese and Koreans couldn't actually hold up as allies or bulwarks against Western imperialism, and that required China to be humiliated repeatedly, Korea to continue its isolationism to an absurd degree, and Russia to start encroaching on NE Asia to a concerning degree.

Plus, the British and French went to war with the Taiping rebels to ensure Qing territorial integrity during the 1860s. Why would they just let Japan effectively undermine their effort in keeping the Qing stable enough to exploit effectively?

You'd need an earlier PoD to get Japan involved on the mainland earlier.
 

Wr1t3r

WhatSantayanaSaid said:
The Dutch did in fact warn the Japanese about Western incursions (particularly Perry's Black Ships), but the Japanese ignored the warning.
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''What if''
WhatSantayanaSaid said:
Without the Boshin War, it's unlikely the Emperor will be able to easily take power back from the shogun, plus it leaves the issue of the tozama daimyos' antipathy towards the bakufu unresolved.
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This all still happens in my TL, it just happens earlier.
WhatSantayanaSaid said:
As for policy towards China, Japan had yet to sour to the idea of an alliance between Japan, Korea, and China against the West yet. It wasn't until the 1870s when Japan realized the Chinese and Koreans couldn't actually hold up as allies or bulwarks against Western imperialism, and that required China to be humiliated repeatedly, Korea to continue its isolationism to an absurd degree, and Russia to start encroaching on NE Asia to a concerning degree.
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this could happen earlier if Japan ended isolation earlier and saw how weakened China was from the tai ping rebellion.
WhatSantayanaSaid said:
the British and French went to war with the Taiping rebels to ensure Qing territorial integrity during the 1860s. Why would they just let Japan effectively undermine their effort in keeping the Qing stable enough to exploit effectively?
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A weaker Qing is even easier to exploit, also, Japan would go to war to conquer Korea, which is a Chinese ally, not a part of China itself.
WhatSantayanaSaid said:
They also didn't have any relations with the Sikh Empire and that wouldn't have affect their judgment in the slightest.
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Fear of ''We don't want that to happen to us'' can sure as hell affect their judgement
 

Evil Crusader

Wr1t3r said:
Even if it started industrializing shortly after the British conquest of the sikh empire?
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By injecting wankium until if floats, sure. But then we're not discussing 'what if realistic Japan could do such', rather 'what if perfect circumstance Japan could do such'.
At which point the answer to every thread would be the less constructive 'yes', because enough sixes can allow you everything short of geological changes.

The list is as such:
- Japan needs to come out of Isolationism
- as it was a very entrenched stance, only a serious departure from OTL would be realistic
- that departure can be internal, however the internal situation was very stable, so it would be a huge disruption (which tends to bring correspondingly large negatives)
- external factors work, too, but they tend to be less gentle than Japan experienced, and most importantly, Japan's forced opening pretty much was on schedule (a bit after the main prize, China, had been vigorously rocked), making a luckier or earlier turnout less than plausible

That said, it definitely can work as a story, but it'll be seen as fairly irrealistic/a wank; if such is not to your liking, then I would work on a good amount of changes in the 1750-1800 timeframe so that Japan is readier than OTL.
 

Evil Crusader

Wr1t3r said:
This actually is for a book I'm working on. So please tell me what you think would have happened
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Whatever you want. I mean: where do you want to take the story? Is War a narrative device, or (part of) the story itself to be told?
Trouble would still brew up with the UK and France. As has been said, they would throw in with the Qing and Korea to ensure the upstart stays down, so Japan has to be able to resist their pressure (or they need to be distracted a lot). If Japan still won (how so?), they'd be more willing to reuse their old models for this, and claim something along the lines of a new Mandate or such, where they feel compelled to "protect" other countries. Vassal status for Korea is likely, because such a Japan doesn't necessarily want to expand outright, just reject encroachment and build their own power base in a more traditionally East Asian way.
 

WhatSantayanaSaid

Wr1t3r said:
''What if''

This all still happens in my TL, it just happens earlier.

this could happen earlier if Japan ended isolation earlier and saw how weakened China was from the tai ping rebellion.

A weaker Qing is even easier to exploit, also, Japan would go to war to conquer Korea, which is a Chinese ally, not a part of China itself.

Fear of ''We don't want that to happen to us'' can sure as hell affect their judgement
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1. What compelling reason would the Japanese have to actually take the Dutch seriously? The Tokugawa Shogunate had been at peace for 200 years and saw the Dutch warnings as an excuse to selling more weapons to gullible fools. You'd need Japan to actually be threatened by external forces for that to work, but the Western nations that did historically threaten Japan either couldn't really threaten it prior to the 1850s due to technological or logistical considerations (the US didn't reach the Pacific until after it took the Mexican Cession in the late 1840s) or geopolitical considerations (Iberia was on the decline since the War of the Spanish Succession, Western Europe as a whole was occupied by the Corsican and fighting over India).

2. The fall of the Sikh Empire was 4 years before Perry's expedition. Japan's leadership wasn't sure they could financially couldn't support a war with China for another 40 years, due to the costs of civil war and uprisings, OTL. And even if they could, they'd have to spend valuable funds needed for industrialization and modernizing their army on rebuilding and industrialization of the flaming wreckage of China.

3. Japan had ended isolationism by the Taiping Rebellion and still didn't see China as a totally lost cause for a few more years. Hell, they'd be more likely to support the Qing in the Taiping Rebellion if they were more active on the international scene earlier. Japan would've had more economic success from trading with China/extracting economic concessions from supporting it or at least not supporting the Taiping vs. direct rule (which was a consideration that all the other powers exploiting China also faced. They all chose the former). Trade and using the local government to exploit a population is typically cheaper than directly administering, policing, garrisoning, industrializing, educating, rebuilding, etc. a region, after all. Unless the goal is to garrison like with Korea and Taiwan as bulwarks.

4. Did they have any knowledge of the Sikh Empire and whether they were a formidable power whose fate they might share or a minor barbarian tribe subdued by other barbarians of no consequence? One can connect the fate of the Sikh Empire to other non-industrialized societies due to hindsight, but one has to keep in mind that no other non-industrialized society took it that way at the time. No other nation saw the British conquest of the Sikh Empire as a warning to modernize faster. Every single one only started once the Western powers started knocking on their own doors, and some barely did.

Plus, I can't find any references showing that the Japanese had any sort of relations or respect for the Sikh Empire or even knew about the Sikh Empire at all. It's like the Byzantine Empire caring about the Aztecs conquering Mesoamerica. It's like a Swiss person hearing about the Ottomans invading the Caucasian nations. They'd perceive the victims as far away and their circumstances as too different to justify increasing defense spending when there are so many things to improve on in Switzerland itself.

Japan had spent 200 years in relative isolationism and peace, where the central court managed a fragile balance between loyalist and dissenting clans. They even went out of their way to ban foreign influence to prevent an upset of the current order. The only way to shake that, based on Korea and Japan OTL, was through military intimidation and fears of subjugation.

@Evil Crusader's advice to push forward the PoD would be the most sensible decision to make the scenario make sense. Either by keeping Japan in the hands of more expansionistic leaders (like Oda or Toyotomi) or having then confront the outside world earlier and more frequently (keeping the Iberians around longer and stronger, perhaps).
 

Wr1t3r

WhatSantayanaSaid said:
1. What compelling reason would the Japanese have to actually take the Dutch seriously? The Tokugawa Shogunate had been at peace for 200 years and saw the Dutch warnings as an excuse to selling more weapons to gullible fools. You'd need Japan to actually be threatened by external forces for that to work, but the Western nations that did historically threaten Japan either couldn't really threaten it prior to the 1850s due to technological or logistical considerations (the US didn't reach the Pacific until after it took the Mexican Cession in the late 1840s) or geopolitical considerations (Iberia was on the decline since the War of the Spanish Succession, Western Europe as a whole was occupied by the Corsican and fighting over India).
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Britain had beaten China twice in the opium war, if they can kick China's ass, they can kick Japan's way more times.
WhatSantayanaSaid said:
2. The fall of the Sikh Empire was 4 years before Perry's expedition. Japan's leadership wasn't sure they could financially couldn't support a war with China for another 40 years, due to the costs of civil war and uprisings, OTL. And even if they could, they'd have to spend valuable funds needed for industrialization and modernizing their army on rebuilding and industrialization of the flaming wreckage of China.
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And Britain's conquest of it was way more than 4 years before then. Also, if China had just finished fighting basically a civil war (the tai ping rebellion) it's very weak and vulnerable. Japan that had been industrializing for like a decade before this could pull it off.
WhatSantayanaSaid said:
3. Japan had ended isolationism by the Taiping Rebellion and still didn't see China as a totally lost cause for a few more years. Hell, they'd be more likely to support the Qing in the Taiping Rebellion if they were more active on the international scene earlier. Japan would've had more economic success from trading with China/extracting economic concessions from supporting it or at least not supporting the Taiping vs. direct rule (which was a consideration that all the other powers exploiting China also faced. They all chose the former). Trade and using the local government to exploit a population is typically cheaper than directly administering, policing, garrisoning, industrializing, educating, rebuilding, etc. a region, after all. Unless the goal is to garrison like with Korea and Taiwan as bulwarks.
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wym by garrison in this context?
WhatSantayanaSaid said:
4. Did they have any knowledge of the Sikh Empire and whether they were a formidable power whose fate they might share or a minor barbarian tribe subdued by other barbarians of no consequence? One can connect the fate of the Sikh Empire to other non-industrialized societies due to hindsight, but one has to keep in mind that no other non-industrialized society took it that way at the time. No other nation saw the British conquest of the Sikh Empire as a warning to modernize faster. Every single one only started once the Western powers started knocking on their own doors, and some barely did.
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Emperor Tewodros II attempted to modernize Ethiopia by centralizing power, reforming the military, and introducing Western technology. Witnessing the colonization of neighboring African territories by European powers, particularly the French conquest of Algeria and British expansion in East Africa, likely instilled a sense of urgency in Tewodros II to modernize Ethiopia's military and administration. He recognized the need for a stronger state to resist potential European encroachment, without any other country knocking on his doors. What was happening to the Sikh empire could have done the same to Japan.
WhatSantayanaSaid said:
Plus, I can't find any references showing that the Japanese had any sort of relations or respect for the Sikh Empire or even knew about the Sikh Empire at all. It's like the Byzantine Empire caring about the Aztecs conquering Mesoamerica. It's like a Swiss person hearing about the Ottomans invading the Caucasian nations. They'd perceive the victims as far away and their circumstances as too different to justify increasing defense spending when there are so many things to improve on in Switzerland itself.
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ok, maybe we can make it the 2nd opium war or something. Also the dutch or the jesuit missionaries could have spread word around in Japan
 

WhatSantayanaSaid

Wr1t3r said:
Britain had beaten China twice in the opium war, if they can kick China's ass, they can kick Japan's way more times.

And Britain's conquest of it was way more than 4 years before then. Also, if China had just finished fighting basically a civil war (the tai ping rebellion) it's very weak and vulnerable. Japan that had been industrializing for like a decade before this could pull it off.

wym by garrison in this context?

Emperor Tewodros II attempted to modernize Ethiopia by centralizing power, reforming the military, and introducing Western technology. Witnessing the colonization of neighboring African territories by European powers, particularly the French conquest of Algeria and British expansion in East Africa, likely instilled a sense of urgency in Tewodros II to modernize Ethiopia's military and administration. He recognized the need for a stronger state to resist potential European encroachment, without any other country knocking on his doors. What was happening to the Sikh empire could have done the same to Japan.

ok, maybe we can make it the 2nd opium war or something. Also the dutch or the jesuit missionaries could have spread word around in Japan
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1. And the 2nd time happened after Perry's Black Ships threatened to burn its way to Edo. Also, it's not like it was the first few times China had been beaten and forced to give concessions to a foreign power (the Liao and Jin with the Song, the Later Jin with the Ming). The Chinese also didn't consider the 1st or 2nd Opium Wars to be the start of a Century of Humiliation. The extent of the exploitation and other disasters couldn't have been predicted in 1830 and barely could be foreseen in the 1850s, which is when Japan finally opened up under foreign pressure.

2. Japan took 26 years from the Meiji Restoration (1868) to the 1st Sino-Japanese War (1894). And that's after another 16 years between Perry (1853) and Meiji. They didn't spend those 42 years idly. They were investing in infrastructure, military reform, and dealing with internal dissent stemming from balancing concessions to foreign power with national pride. A mere decade would've been too short to make all the preparations and the British and French were still mucking around in China. Japan couldn't defeat the Russians, who had a much weaker navy, after 50 years of modernization, so they'd be limited or entirely rebuffed by the Anglo-French forces if they seem to threaten Anglo-French interests.

3. Conquered lands need to be policed to watch out for internal threats and garrisoned with armed forced to protect against external threats (and also more intense internal threats like rebellions). Japan's subjugation of Korea was rooted in the Japanese government's perceived need to protect Japan against Russia, and so they sent troops into Korea. Those troops take money and manpower to maintain and the more land taken, the more expensive such garrisons become. All the resources dedicated to garrisoning are resources not spent on improving the metropole, which was part of why Japan didn't impose on the mainland for 42 years after Perry's expedition.

4. Seeing neighboring nations getting conquered is not the same as maybe hearing about some unknown nation 5000 km away (Nagasaki to Lahore) getting conquered by another nation you don't know much about. One is approaching the level of a personal threat, the other is news that might be hearsay, for all they knew. For another comparison, the US didn't declare war on the Japanese Empire, despite the latter's expansionism in US stomping grounds in the 1930s, until Japan attacked US territory directly. And the US had way more investment in China than Japan had in India at that point (or any point, really).

As for your example in Ethiopia, Tewodros II hearing about British incursions into East Africa instilling urgency in him makes sense because his nation was in East Africa and he knew about the other East African nations and at least a bit of their capabilities. But he, nor any other Ethiopian leader, wouldn't have cared about the Europeans conquering the Americas and India despite how those showcased European potential and ambitions for conquering overseas lands and the technology that they used for those purposes. It'd be the same for Japan, and it is was in OTL. There was anxiety about the 1st Opium War and those did contribute to a push to modernize artillery and stop firing on foreign ships (to prevent another Arrow Incident), but there wasn't enough to force the rapid modernization Perry elicited.

5. But why would the Japanese care about some Northeastern Indian empire? They didn't have direct trade with them (the Sikh Empire didn't even have a coastline) or direct communication or diplomacy. It's like hearing news about a 4rd cousin twice removed. You might recognize the name, but chances are there's not going to be much of an emotional response. Having Korea get beaten into submission and/or China getting Opium War'd earlier along with more forceful European presence in Japan would be more productive for your purposes. By that argument, the Chinese should've started wising up after the British conquest of India (which is much closer to them than it is to Japan). It took another 20-30 years, 2 Opium Wars, and the Taiping Rebellion + other rebellions for an actual concerted effort by the Qing government to reform the army and industralize to match the Europeans though.
 
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