In OTL, Japan's first contact with the West was during the height of Sengoku period, though its development was hampered by the Tokugawa shogunate in the 1600s by putting the entire country into near-total seclusion. The rest is history.
But, what if Japan opened up to the world much, much earlier?
Let's say at some point around the late Heian period up to the early feudal era, Japan decided to try and look outwards to know her neighbors more, assumed a more proactive approach with regards to trade and foreign relations with Korea and Imperial China and, maybe, decided to transform herself into a maritime-oriented power centuries earlier than OTL.
Assuming the Japanese successfully established firm and relations with the polities of East/Southeast Asia in a much earlier timeframe, how long before they venture out beyond the Pacific and, by chance, reach the Americas before (or at least around the same time as) the Europeans?
How will Japanese history turn out ITTL?
But, what if Japan opened up to the world much, much earlier?
Let's say at some point around the late Heian period up to the early feudal era, Japan decided to try and look outwards to know her neighbors more, assumed a more proactive approach with regards to trade and foreign relations with Korea and Imperial China and, maybe, decided to transform herself into a maritime-oriented power centuries earlier than OTL.
Assuming the Japanese successfully established firm and relations with the polities of East/Southeast Asia in a much earlier timeframe, how long before they venture out beyond the Pacific and, by chance, reach the Americas before (or at least around the same time as) the Europeans?
How will Japanese history turn out ITTL?
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