Challenge: Japanese Australia
- Thread starter Hermanubis
- Start date
Hm... was it the Tokugawa Shogunate that ended contact with the outside? If so, perhaps it doesn't, and the Shogunate modernizes and keeps on track with Europe for that time, and expands. As China is still strong, it looks towards places with Indonesia and the Phillipines, and Austria is a natural step from there.
Japan Conquers Korea, thus turning it to expantionism, Australia, New Zealand, the islands that Japan went to war with Russia over and the area around Oregon are latter settled by the Japanese.
There was a period of Japanese history were around 350 Japanese Merchent ships were actively trading with the rest of Asia after it was Re-United by the Tokugawa Shogunite.
Zor
There was a period of Japanese history were around 350 Japanese Merchent ships were actively trading with the rest of Asia after it was Re-United by the Tokugawa Shogunite.
Zor
I wouldn't be too confident with the Japanese taking over Australia prior to the British. Afterall the Aboriginals might have something to say about the matter. Importantly, considering illnesses, like smallpox etc, won't be coming with the Japanese invaders, the Aboriginals won't have their population decimated unlike what happened when the British arrived. Added onto this, I dare say that whatever Japanese forces arrive, will be smaller than what the British. Combine that with no muskets & the like & the Japanese may not survive.
^…I’m pretty sure that muskets were introduced to Japan well before the British arrived in Australia…
Hermanubis said:
Nonetheless they're not the main firearm of the Japanese army for some time. And we'd be talking somewhere before 1770 for this TL due to the very nature that Australia is claimed by Britiain by that year. So the further we go back the less likely Japanese forces are going to have any muskets at all.
But far more importantly you miss the entire point about muskets & Aboriginal warfare. Whether it be more conventional or the manoeuvre style of the Aboriginals, they'll rely on their Woomera's to inflict high casualties on the invader whilst disappearing into the bush should the Japanese charge their positions. Thus the Japanese advantage, close quarter combat, is lost.
Conor O'Rourke said:
I don't think smallpox was around in Japan as it's the illness in question which killed off something like 50% of the Aboriginal population between 1788 & 1790. Furthermore, it's not as if Aboriginal people didn't have contact with Asians, actually they did especially in the north of the country.
corourke
Donor
DMA said:
The Japanese did not simply have an innate ability to resist smallpox. If smallpox were suddenly introduced where it hadn't been before, the Japanese would have the same death rates (or similar, perhaps very slightly less because of better health services) as the Aboriginal people in the north of the country.
Smallpox was definitely present in Asia by the time of European contact; it very well may have originated in China, like many other epidemic virii. Also, the musket is hardly the be-all and end-all of weapons technology; its advantages lie in ease of production and ease of training, which allow for the fielding of larger, not better, forces.
I would, however, suggest that a Japanese Australia, unless it happens after the acquisition of steam engines and propellor screws, is best done by a multi-generational conquest of the Indonesian archipelago. The shipping technology to do so was certainly available on the mainland in the 15th century; if an expansionistic government built a fleet of real seagoing vessels to take Korea (a move fairly evident to them, after the repeated destruction of fleets attempting to take Japan by the Kamikaze), it's not inconceivable that they'd learn of the rich and disorganized islands and decide to get some territory not right next to an empire at least an order of magnitude larger than them.
I would, however, suggest that a Japanese Australia, unless it happens after the acquisition of steam engines and propellor screws, is best done by a multi-generational conquest of the Indonesian archipelago. The shipping technology to do so was certainly available on the mainland in the 15th century; if an expansionistic government built a fleet of real seagoing vessels to take Korea (a move fairly evident to them, after the repeated destruction of fleets attempting to take Japan by the Kamikaze), it's not inconceivable that they'd learn of the rich and disorganized islands and decide to get some territory not right next to an empire at least an order of magnitude larger than them.
Conor O'Rourke said:
I never said that the Japanese could resist smallpox. I said the Japanese probably didn't have smallpox in the first place. If they didn't, as you seem to suggest, then the Aboriginals wouldn't have caught it from the invaders. As a result, the Aboriginals would not have lost 50% of their population in the initial phases of the invasion, & thus bring their full numbers to resist the invasion. Similarly the Japanese wouldn't catch smallpox off the Aboriginals if they didn't have the illness either.
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Forum Lurker said:
It'd be interesting, in fact a very important factor, if we could assertain exactly if the Japanese had Smallpox. As that's important for what will happen in Australia. Essentially, this is really how the British won, not through feats of arms, muskets or otherwise, but because smallpox more or less ensured that the Aboriginals couldn't stop an invasion.
Forum Lurker said:
Yes, I agree with this approach.
corourke
Donor
If the Japanese didn't have smallpox already when the Europeans arrived, they would have had an epidemic EXACTLY LIKE the Aboriginals did.
A quick google search for "japan smallpox history" turns up thousands of results, one of which is this page:
http://encarta.msn.com/media_701508643_761578931_-1_1/Smallpox_Through_History.html
Which says that smallpox first appeared in Japan in the year 585.