Could the Japanese conquer China?

Is it in any way plausible that the Japanese could have allied with the Manchus and conquered China in the 1600's? Most of the opinion here says they were incapable of such; but the Ming were in decline, the Manchus were rising in power and so were they. Given that they have somewhat better luck in Korea, why couldn't they have established a Japanese dynasty?

Before Meiji, they hadn't the possibilities to ship over an army large enough. Once an emperor or shogun tried to conquer Korea, and even that didn't succeed (although I think he just wanted to get rid of the samurai who were too dangerous, could be he had them set up to fail).

So, if Japan modernizes similar as OTL, and China doesn't (you'll need Westerners interfering for that), then there's a small possibility...

Yes. Look at the shikaku-mon TL.

Max Sinister said:

Before Meiji, they hadn't the possibilities to ship over an army large enough. Once an emperor or shogun tried to conquer Korea, and even that didn't succeed (although I think he just wanted to get rid of the samurai who were too dangerous, could be he had them set up to fail).

So, if Japan modernizes similar as OTL, and China doesn't (you'll need Westerners interfering for that), then there's a small possibility...

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You are think of the the Hideyoshi expedition.

It was a bloody serious attempt. Two hundred thousand veterans fresh from the bloody civil war Sengoku period that has just ended, armed with the latest European muskets.

And it was chewed to pieces. They pushed almost to the Yalu, but a Chinese counter attack (fifty thousane men, mostly cavalry fresh from the Northern and northeastern frontiers) threw them back. And the superb Korean admiral Yi repeatedly destroyed the Japanese supply lines. Result was a perimeter around Pusan for most of the remaining war (called interestingly 'seven year's war in Korea).

That's why I was never impressed with those 'Japan conquered China' scenarios. People said the Mongols and the Manchus did it. Sure. But they were much stronger.

Is it analogous to anything? Say- Britain conquering France?

No, more to "Britain conquers Western Europe".

Strategos' Risk said:

Is it analogous to anything? Say- Britain conquering France?

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If France were tweny times larger with time times the population and more advanced organization, sure.

Off the top of my head I cannot think of an island state achieving that sort of mainland hegemony. Crete, maybe. Or Atlantis.

I wouldn't say its out and out impossible for Japan to aquire some form of leadership position in China, but its certainly not possible with any quick PoDs. If you start early enough however, just about anything is possible. If "China" was for all intents and purposes a geographic location rather than a unified entity (under changing leaders) for the greater part of its history it would certainly help.

Britain conquering France seems unlikely, but England taking France in the hundred years war seems a reasonable comparrison. On paper its completely impossible but in reality it took a long time for the English to be expelled. Similar to Japan and China in WW2 for that matter.

Could the same have been true for Japan and China by the 1600's? Maybe with a PoD that leaves the world completely changed to our own... so I guess the answer would be no.

Earling said:

I wouldn't say its out and out impossible for Japan to aquire some form of leadership position in China, but its certainly not possible with any quick PoDs. If you start early enough however, just about anything is possible. If "China" was for all intents and purposes a geographic location rather than a unified entity (under changing leaders) for the greater part of its history it would certainly help.

Britain conquering France seems unlikely, but England taking France in the hundred years war seems a reasonable comparrison. On paper its completely impossible but in reality it took a long time for the English to be expelled. Similar to Japan and China in WW2 for that matter.

Could the same have been true for Japan and China by the 1600's? Maybe with a PoD that leaves the world completely changed to our own... so I guess the answer would be no.

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It's been said before, France to England is not China to Japan, it's more like a province of China to Japan. And I don't know where you got the idea that England conquering France was impossible on paper. At various times the English crown held more land in France than the French crown; France was disunited, and the English crown held some claim to the French one. The situation with Japan and China as specified in the opening post is of course completely different. 1600. More or less our timeline (since there are Manchus).

It will be different again come the industrial age, of course, but that again is not the opening requirement. And Japan of course still failed to conquer China, despite having an overwhelming industrial advantage, against a disunited and corrupt national government, and having actually a base on the large mainland, roughly comparable manpower (Japan quickly occupied the most populous parts of China - the eastern seaboard), and fighting China alone for four years.

China can and was conquered. But it is not easy. And it takes bloody ages to pacify.

What does Japanese conquest of China mean, anyways? What part of China would be considered China proper, excluding Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Taiwan, etc.? That's a huge area, anyways.

I've always found the whole AH notion of some sort of benevolent Japanese empire not only taking over China but having the entire Han people (and others) become assimilated into Japanese culture (as in here) to be disgusting and nonsensical.

Rather than 'Japan', how about 'some Japanese guy'? He's a devout Buddhist, makes a pilgrimage of faith to the mainland, impresses somebody with his scholarship and probity and becomes an Imperial Minister and/or General under the rotting Ming; he siezes power and resists the Manchu (helpful if the actual Japanese give the Manchu a poke at the same time). It will be evolution rather than revolution--to function in the Ming court, our man must clearly be rather Sinicized--but we could use his dynasty to gradually bring Japanese ideas into China (and a little Chinese wealth spent in Japan).

Strategos' Risk said:

What does Japanese conquest of China mean, anyways? What part of China would be considered China proper, excluding Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Taiwan, etc.? That's a huge area, anyways.

I've always found the whole AH notion of some sort of benevolent Japanese empire not only taking over China but having the entire Han people (and others) become assimilated into Japanese culture (as in here) to be disgusting and nonsensical.

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I know what you mean. It engenders I think the same moral revulsion if one were to read accounts of a benevolent Nazi Germany led by Hitler presiding over most of Europe.

Shawn Endresen said:

Rather than 'Japan', how about 'some Japanese guy'? He's a devout Buddhist, makes a pilgrimage of faith to the mainland, impresses somebody with his scholarship and probity and becomes an Imperial Minister and/or General under the rotting Ming; he siezes power and resists the Manchu (helpful if the actual Japanese give the Manchu a poke at the same time). It will be evolution rather than revolution--to function in the Ming court, our man must clearly be rather Sinicized--but we could use his dynasty to gradually bring Japanese ideas into China (and a little Chinese wealth spent in Japan).

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Not in any recognizable form. The Ming were not brought down by the Manchus, it was brought down from within, by peasant rebellions, and then the Manchus moved in a cleared up the rubble... took them about a half century. To think one man could have made a difference (the late Ming did not want for good generals, including one who used Portuguese cannons to kill the first Manchu khan, Nurhaci... they were all killed by the Emperor or went over to the Manchus) is hard to imagine. Think also of a similar period in Chinese history, the Tang, where any number of foreigners from Koreans to Turks became ministers and generals... the changes they brought to China were all completely absorbed.

Besides, the obvious question is, if such a person were to, against all odds, succeed in stabilising the country and keeping out the Manchus, what incentive had he, the potentate of a much larger country, to do anything other than use it to bring himself power over his native country? If this were to occur at all we would see the exact opposite of what this thread looked for, I think.

The Japanese had already failed to conquer Korea in the 1590s, which they considered a stepping stone to invading Ming China.

NFR said:

Besides, the obvious question is, if such a person were to, against all odds, succeed in stabilising the country and keeping out the Manchus, what incentive had he, the potentate of a much larger country, to do anything other than use it to bring himself power over his native country? If this were to occur at all we would see the exact opposite of what this thread looked for, I think.

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He shares the (sometimes) Chinese conviction that they don't need to conquer tiny neighboring states because Chinese superiority is blindingly obvious? And it's not that he intends to remake China as Japanese, just that its one of the main fonts he draws ideas from, i.e. reforming the army by encouraging it to emulate samurai, that sort of thing.

I'm fully aware that this will be something that happens a little bit at a time, and will never be exactly the same (Japan has a different religious makeup and virtually no ethnic minorites, f'rex). But I don't see why a Japanese dynasty is inherently less probable than a Manchu one.

Shawn Endresen said:

He shares the (sometimes) Chinese conviction that they don't need to conquer tiny neighboring states because Chinese superiority is blindingly obvious? And it's not that he intends to remake China as Japanese, just that its one of the main fonts he draws ideas from, i.e. reforming the army by encouraging it to emulate samurai, that sort of thing.

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He'd fail spectacularly if he tried tha particular one. Chinese society just isn't adapted to the sort of feudalistic tradition that produced the samurai class warriors (which I think is what you referred to). Come to think of it, there just weren't that many useful ideas the Japanese could teach the Chinese, culture wise. Technologically, similar. Gun smithing, maybe, but the Chinese could and did just learn it from the Europeans.

Shawn Endresen said:

I'm fully aware that this will be something that happens a little bit at a time, and will never be exactly the same (Japan has a different religious makeup and virtually no ethnic minorites, f'rex). But I don't see why a Japanese dynasty is inherently less probable than a Manchu one.

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First: Japan had 'barbarians' within. That's where the title of the Shoguns came from, you know. The 'Ese', or Ainu. They were fairly important up to the period named, the 1600s.

Second:
...because the Manchus were stronger, had a strong mainland base, and has for most of the Ming dynasty been loyal tributaries of the Ming (some Manchus fought for the Ming against Nurhaci), and thus within the framework of Chinese world view. I already went into all of that. It is inherently less probable. It is, in fact, somewhat less probable than a Korean dynasty in China.

I thought once about how the Hideyoshi expedition might have succeeded. It's not outside the realm of possiblilty. They came close to taking Korea, defeated in large part by the innovative turtle ships and huge Chinese subsidies. Basically Korea and the Manchus would need to sign on, then some Chinese connivance, and bang a Japanese dynasty.
That's where it gets tricky. How could the Japanese emperor reign in Japan while some quasi-shogun lives in Beijing? How could the Chinese tolerate the rule of an emperor who wasn't in their country? Could the ingeneous system of the Tokugawa for maintaining hostages work in China? Could the Japanese maintain a cosmopolitian empire? Too many questions to work out a plausible long-term scenario.

Strategos' Risk said:

Is it analogous to anything? Say- Britain conquering France?

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The Manchu conquest of China.

I wonder what the cultural effects would be- I mean, I don't expect full-scale assimilation of either side (Manchu isn't the best comparison, as Manchuria was overrun by Chinese settlers and the Manchus were less settled, but Japan has enough people that that wouldn't happen), but some things are bound to cross over...

An obvious prerequisite for a Japanese conquest of China is the conquest of Korea. As NFR observed, it didn't play out too well in OTL, but another option would have been a gradual dynastic alliance between the Koreans and Japanese. The obvious problem is that Ming China would keep an eye on developments in the Korean peninsula, so the Japanese would have to go out of their way to make a show of submission to the Dragon Throne. After the early 1600s, once China feels comfortable with an ostensibly compliant Nippo-Korean "vassal", one may imagine the Chinese appealing to the latter to buffer the Empire against the rising Manchu threat; later still, as popular uprisings weakened the Ming, the Nippo-Koreans may be called in as the Manchus were in OTL to restore order, and, like the Manchus, overstay their welcome.

Now as Martel writes, it's difficult to imagine a Japanese emperor ruling China from Japan. It's simply too risky to give the job to anyone else, lest he decide to ditch any loyalty to the Nippo-Korean crown and set himself up as the founder of new Chinese dynasty. So the Japanese emperor would have to move to Beijing along with all his retinue. The rest of the story is easily guessed: within three generations the ruling elite has been thoroughly Sinicized and regards Japan as a quaint ancestral homeland, nice to visit every once in a while, but of little political interest. And just as in OTL, Manchuria has become the Chinese provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, so in TTL Japan may likely end up as the provinces of Jiuzhou (formerly Kyushu), Benzhou (formerly Honshu) and Beihaidao (formerly Hokkaido)*. As for Korea, it would be the province of Hansheng.

* I'm just transliterating kanji as though they were pronounced in Mandarin.