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

[Wr1t3r]

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.

But they could be forseen by the 1860s

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.

And china had long recovered from the 2nd opium war & taiping rebellion by then

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.

And in my ATL, the emperor is going to be less popular since he doesn't abolish the rigid class system or implement a parliament, so he'll need the profit margin from Korea and/or Taiwan earlier to keep his soldiers happy to keep down rebellions.

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).

that is a horrible comparison, the US's industrial capacity was multiple times Japan's in the 1930s, meanwhile Britain's was also multiple times Japan's in the 19th century

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.

which is why maybe I said the 2nd opium war. Also the french conquest of Algeria motivated Tewadros and that was in north africa, not east africa. A similar thing could happen with Japan and the Sikh empire.

5 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).

And they should have, and we all know what happened because they didn't

 

[Wr1t3r]

In 1849?

Japan would probably start a few years before that, maybe while the British are still conquering the Sikh empire. So, anytime in the 1840s.

 

[WhatSantayanaSaid]

But they could be forseen by the 1860s

And china had long recovered from the 2nd opium war & taiping rebellion by then

And in my ATL, the emperor is going to be less popular since he doesn't abolish the rigid class system or implement a parliament, so he'll need the profit margin from Korea and/or Taiwan earlier to keep his soldiers happy to keep down rebellions.

that is a horrible comparison, the US's industrial capacity was multiple times Japan's in the 1930s, meanwhile Britain's was also multiple times Japan's in the 19th century

which is why maybe I said the 2nd opium war. Also the french conquest of Algeria motivated Tewadros and that was in north africa, not east africa. A similar thing could happen with Japan and the Sikh empire.

And they should have, and we all know what happened because they didn't

1 & 2. Yes, and a decade wasn't enough for Japan to industrialize and take advantage of Qing weakness. They had their own problems that required war to deal with and that was expensive. I don't know if you're aware of the situation in Japan going into the 1800s, but the tozama daimyo, who only fell in line under Tokugawa hegemony after the Battle of Sekigahara, held a terrible grudge against the bakufu for discriminating against them. The southern tozama daimyo were particularly annoyed about the restriction of the lucrative overseas trade that benefited them disproportionately. The Shogun, meanwhile, was not going to just give up power to the emperor. And the samurai class was expensive, due to a guaranteed government stipend, and monopolized the armed forces and education. They had to be curtailed for Japan to rapidly modernize its education system and military, with the alternative being to do everything slower to accommodate the samurai, which means a slower pace for matching and overtaking China.

One can't just take the situation in the 1890s and copy-paste it back in the 1860s without considering the context for both.

3. What profit margin? Both Korea and Taiwan would've required significant investments to modernize their local economies for exploitation, not even mentioning the military cost. War indemnities from China would make sense for making money, but this is China after the devastation of the Taiping Rebellion. The indemnities would be sparser than at any other point.

Again, colonies aren't a print money function. There's a significant cost to integrating and maintaining them, both upfront and continuous. Otherwise, the Europeans would've partitioned China if direct rule was so clearly economically advantageous.

4. You're missing the point. It wasn't a comparison of industrial might I was highlighting; it was the fact that, until it became a personal problem, the US didn't see the need to directly act against an empire conquering lands on the other side of the world. You're trying assign a much more forward thinking, modern vision born of hindsight to a leadership that was focusd on maintaining the status quo and had no reason to assume they'd be in danger themselves. Japan nor China blinked an eye when the British conquered the Maratha, which was larger and arguably more powerful than the Sikh Empire in its heyday, and thus all of India. Why would the Punjab elicit a different response?

5. If you have a source for that, I'd love to see it. And again, Ethiopia might've been paying attention to North African affairs and Tewadros would've wanted tools to change the status quo of a divided Ethiopia. Japan didn't have that. The context is completely different.

6. And yet, they didn't. They didn't have the foresight, nor did they have modern hindsight to inform their decisions. And that's how it was for pretty much the entire world (barring Ethiopia under Tewadros, perhaps, but even Ethiopia was subjugated later). They didn't respond to Europeans conquering lands far away and perhaps only started after they came under direct threat. You see that in OTL China, Japan, Korea (these three with India), West Africa, North Africa, India (these with the Americas), etc. You need drastically different circumstances/context to have anything different.

 

[Wr1t3r]

the tozama daimyo, who only fell in line under Tokugawa hegemony after the Battle of Sekigahara, held a terrible grudge against the bakufu for discriminating against them. The southern tozama daimyo were particularly annoyed about the restriction of the lucrative overseas trade that benefited them disproportionately.

I'll reply to the rest later, but can you tell me what you're referring to here?

 

[WhatSantayanaSaid]

I'll reply to the rest later, but can you tell me what you're referring to here?

https://kb.osu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/f52b15e7-2080-5268-b219-1c8bf909356e/content

It was possible for fudai daimyo to be appointed to Bakufu office, but tozama could not receive such appointments. To fudai daimyo, such promotion to Bakufu offices was a very meaningful standard for measuring household status. In contrast, for the tozama daimyo there was no other route than advancement in court rank. Therefore, while all daimyo desired court rank appointments, those who were most concerned about them were the tozama daimyo. Movements to promote daimyo in court rank were largely among tozama daimyo, and Ikeda Tsunamasa was one of these.

The tozama daimyo were barred from certain offices because they weren't seen as loyal enough early enough.

Also, after Sekigahara, the tozama daimyo lost quite a bit of power, like the Mori clan of Choshu which ended up with 1/4 their pre-Sekigahara holdings in rice production. The Mori clan and other such tozama daimyo made up the nucleus of the anti-Shogun faction that ultimately won the Boshin War.

As for the trade, the southern daimyo like Satsuma benefited the most from trade with Europeans. Nagasaki was called the Rome of Japan for the number of Christians living there. When the Tokugawa took power, they saw trade with Europeans, both for the import of firearms to empower the tozama daimyo and of Christianity which could disrupt Japanese society and provide a casus belli/fifth column for Iberian invasion, as a threat and thus heavily restricted it.

 

[Wr1t3r]

1 & 2. Yes, and a decade wasn't enough for Japan to industrialize and take advantage of Qing weakness. They had their own problems that required war to deal with and that was expensive. I don't know if you're aware of the situation in Japan going into the 1800s, but the tozama daimyo, who only fell in line under Tokugawa hegemony after the Battle of Sekigahara, held a terrible grudge against the bakufu for discriminating against them. The southern tozama daimyo were particularly annoyed about the restriction of the lucrative overseas trade that benefited them disproportionately. The Shogun, meanwhile, was not going to just give up power to the emperor. And the samurai class was expensive, due to a guaranteed government stipend, and monopolized the armed forces and education. They had to be curtailed for Japan to rapidly modernize its education system and military, with the alternative being to do everything slower to accommodate the samurai, which means a slower pace for matching and overtaking China.

Maybe we'll give them 1-1 1/2 dozen years then. Maybe the Japanese government (when trying to motivate soldiers to fight the chinese) abolishes the stipend, and says they'll get a lot of riches from exploiting China. Also, their problems will be over sooner, the imperial restoration would happen sooner. How about this PoD, the shogun after hearing about European colonization of somewhere realizes ''I don't want this to happen to me'' and ends Japan's modernization, then the samurai go ''Restore the emperor, end modernization/resume isolation'' Then the emperor does what he did irl.

3. What profit margin? Both Korea and Taiwan would've required significant investments to modernize their local economies for exploitation, not even mentioning the military cost. War indemnities from China would make sense for making money, but this is China after the devastation of the Taiping Rebellion. The indemnities would be sparser than at any other point.

I think initially, just an asymmetric trade agreement in favor of Japan would start generating some money to pay the army with

4. You're missing the point. It wasn't a comparison of industrial might I was highlighting; it was the fact that, until it became a personal problem, the US didn't see the need to directly act against an empire conquering lands on the other side of the world. You're trying assign a much more forward thinking, modern vision born of hindsight to a leadership that was focusd on maintaining the status quo and had no reason to assume they'd be in danger themselves. Japan nor China blinked an eye when the British conquered the Maratha, which was larger and arguably more powerful than the Sikh Empire in its heyday, and thus all of India. Why would the Punjab elicit a different response?

''what if''

5. If you have a source for that, I'd love to see it. And again, Ethiopia might've been paying attention to North African affairs and Tewadros would've wanted tools to change the status quo of a divided Ethiopia. Japan didn't have that. The context is completely different.

I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure it was either Britannica: Tewodros II, A History of Ethiopia (Updated Edition) by Harold Marcus or ''Tewodros as Reformer and Modernizer'' I read that on JSTOR, but it's not there anymore

6. And yet, they didn't. They didn't have the foresight, nor did they have modern hindsight to inform their decisions. And that's how it was for pretty much the entire world (barring Ethiopia under Tewadros, perhaps, but even Ethiopia was subjugated later). They didn't respond to Europeans conquering lands far away and perhaps only started after they came under direct threat. You see that in OTL China, Japan, Korea (these three with India), West Africa, North Africa, India (these with the Americas), etc. You need drastically different circumstances/context to have anything different.

Again ''What if''

 

[WhatSantayanaSaid]

Maybe we'll give them 1-1 1/2 dozen years then. Maybe the Japanese government (when trying to motivate soldiers to fight the chinese) abolishes the stipend, and says they'll get a lot of riches from exploiting China. Also, their problems will be over sooner, the imperial restoration would happen sooner. How about this PoD, the shogun after hearing about European colonization of somewhere realizes ''I don't want this to happen to me'' and ends Japan's modernization, then the samurai go ''Restore the emperor, end modernization/resume isolation'' Then the emperor does what he did irl.

I think initially, just an asymmetric trade agreement in favor of Japan would start generating some money to pay the army with

''what if''

I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure it was either Britannica: Tewodros II, A History of Ethiopia (Updated Edition) by Harold Marcus or ''Tewodros as Reformer and Modernizer'' I read that on JSTOR, but it's not there anymore

Again ''What if''

The last time a Japanese ruler said, "Hey, let's invade the mainland, it'll be profitable and you'll all get benefit from this" with the intent of diverting the samurai class's dissatisfaction, over a hundred thousand Japanese soldiers died, Japan was utterly defeated, and the archipelago got thrown back into civil war (Imjin War). Doubtless, that would be brought up in decision making, since it was the last time Japan had fought a war with another nation. Not the most relevant to this discussion, but still an amusing parallel.

Back to the main point, what's the order of this? The shogun tries to end modernization (what you wrote), the samurai overthrow him for the emperor, then the emperor abolishes their stipend to promise they'll make it back after they fight China (which has historically gone not so well for Japan)?

1. Why would the shogun try to end modernization if he's afraid of European colonization? The shogunate was the faction that had more ties with the Europeans and was more active with trying to adopt their technology to avoid being colonized. In fact, that was a major part of why there was discontent against the shogunate and why people were going, "revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians." Why would they try to overthrow him if he's doing what they want?

2. That's OTL. And that took a war to resolve.

As for abolishing the stipend, that caused multiple uprisings (Saga, Satsuma) in Japan in OTL and still took 6 years to finally abolish. It almost bankrupted the state and more than doubled the national debt to crush the Satsuma rebellion. The situation you're proposing has the samurai offer to give up their stipend in return for invading China, which means they'd be giving up their cushy peaceful lives for a chance at riches that requires going to war (with all the disease, death, and discomfort that that entails) for. That alone would cause a rebellion or the complete paralysis of the state. The historical precedent of the Imjin War and how it parallels the situation would certainly not help with such a proposal either.

Aside from getting the army to sign on for this task, there's also the lack of a proper modern fleet. All the ships the Imperial faction had in 1868 amounted to the tonnage of a single French warship at the time. The Empire didn't even have a central navy for the first two years of its existence. It took more than a decade to consider naval expansion (the government had to be convinced that domestic rebellions were no longer the biggest threat to Japan) and then more than a decade to create a fleet that could take on China's on paper.

Korea and Taiwan were not rich at this point in history and trade agreements with them would not have amounted to much. Both were entirely agarian economies that Japan used mostly to feed the home islands, not for trade. But that wasn't as useful until Japan industrialized and moved the economy away from agriculture.

As for your "what if"s, you can handwave the motivations as you please. That's your prerogative. But it won't make sense simply because the historical context doesn't lend itself to supporting those hypotheticals.

Japan between 1840 and 1880 was not in a position to wage wars of expansion overseas. Industrialization was expensive, civil unrest from historical grudges and western influence would see multiple civil wars break out, and the state was focused on internal development to fund expansions of the army, navy, and economy. A large scale war like the Imjin War in that time period would've strained Japan's already precarious economic situation and made it even more susceptible to western imperialism (giving them a casus belli like payment of debts as France did to Mexico). That's why the Japanese government refused to invade Korea in 1873's Seikanron, much to Saigō Takamori's chagrin.

Hell, even into the 1880s, Japan wasn't able to (or wasn't confident that it could) contest China in Korea, as seen in the Imo Incident and failed Gapsin Coup (the latter had Japanese troops supporting the coup).

As stated in this paper, "During the building of its colonial empire Japan was unable to sustain both its overseas expansion and its economic growth."

So once again, you'd need an earlier PoD to give Japan a navy, which requires enough stability to be able to afford not focus on funding the army to put down rebellions, and an economy that can support war with the mainland without risking economic consequences. Those take time to develop and OTL showed it to be a lot longer than 10-20 years.

 

[Wr1t3r]

The last time a Japanese ruler said, "Hey, let's invade the mainland, it'll be profitable and you'll all get benefit from this" with the intent of diverting the samurai class's dissatisfaction, over a hundred thousand Japanese soldiers died, Japan was utterly defeated, and the archipelago got thrown back into civil war (Imjin War). Doubtless, that would be brought up in decision making, since it was the last time Japan had fought a war with another nation. Not the most relevant to this discussion, but still an amusing parallel.

Not what happened in the first sino-japanese war

Back to the main point, what's the order of this? The shogun tries to end modernization (what you wrote), the samurai overthrow him for the emperor, then the emperor abolishes their stipend to promise they'll make it back after they fight China (which has historically gone not so well for Japan)?

Sorry, I meant he ends Japan's Isolationism

2. That's OTL. And that took a war to resolve.

And the war should happen earlier as China hasn't recovered from the Tai ping rebellion yet

As for abolishing the stipend, that caused multiple uprisings (Saga, Satsuma) in Japan in OTL and still took 6 years to finally abolish. It almost bankrupted the state and more than doubled the national debt to crush the Satsuma rebellion. The situation you're proposing has the samurai offer to give up their stipend in return for invading China, which means they'd be giving up their cushy peaceful lives for a chance at riches that requires going to war (with all the disease, death, and discomfort that that entails) for. That alone would cause a rebellion or the complete paralysis of the state. The historical precedent of the Imjin War and how it parallels the situation would certainly not help with such a proposal either.

Sorry, should have included that those who remain samurai, get salaries on par with what the Japanese soldiers, teachers (the samurai weren't only soldiers they were also teachers and more) etc did at the time irl.

Japan between 1840 and 1880 was not in a position to wage wars of expansion overseas. Industrialization was expensive, civil unrest from historical grudges and western influence would see multiple civil wars break out, and the state was focused on internal development to fund expansions of the army, navy, and economy. A large scale war like the Imjin War in that time period would've strained Japan's already precarious economic situation and made it even more susceptible to western imperialism (giving them a casus belli like payment of debts as France did to Mexico). That's why the Japanese government refused to invade Korea in 1873's Seikanron, much to Saigō Takamori's chagrin.

And all of these things would have been gotten out of the way earlier in TTL

So once again, you'd need an earlier PoD to give Japan a navy, which requires enough stability to be able to afford not focus on funding the army to put down rebellions, and an economy that can support war with the mainland without risking economic consequences. Those take time to develop and OTL showed it to be a lot longer than 10-20 years.

You don't need THAT big of a navy to beat China in the mid 1860s, this was Before the Qing dynasty implemented many of their reforms aimed at modernizing the country, like in, y'know, it's military, transportation, and communication infrastructure. For instance, they introduced new weaponry, established modern arsenals and shipyards, and improved railways and telegraph lines by the first sino-japanese war. Also, gradual improvements in agriculture and trade helped stabilize the economy to some extent by the mid 1890s.