1651: Keian Uprising overthrows the Shogunate

It almost did.

The Keian "Uprising" was really a coup attempt plotted by one Yui-No Shosetsu. Sometimes called "the Japanese Guy Fawkes", Shosetsu was really more like a Japanese James Bond villain. T

he son of a humble dyer, by the 1640s he had built one of the country's largest business empires around the manufacture and sale of high-quality armor and weapons. Meanwhile, in the shadows, he was organizing an army of masterless samurai, _ronin_. The Tokugawa Shogunate was pushing more and more samurai into ronin status, while at the same time clamping down on traditional ronin positions such as mercenary and bodyguard. The result was a large group of disaffected men with advanced weapons training. Shosetsu carefully recruited hundreds of them into an elite secret corps of killers, utterly loyal to him personally.

The plan of the coup was brutally simple: Shosetsu intended to use gunpowder barrels to set fires all over Edo. The resulting inferno would destroy the capital. (This was not speculative. Edo was all wood and paper construction, and would in fact be completely destroyed by fire just six years later.) More to the point, Shosetsu knew the government's emergency plans in the event of a major fire or other disaster. Most of the castle guard would be spread out across the capital keeping order, while the high council of the bakufu -- all the top officials of the Shogunate -- would gather in one location, partly for safety and partly for coordination. Shosetsu could, with a single attack, bag the entire top echelon of the government at once -- like a terrorist catching the President and the whole Cabinet in a single room.

Better yet, the Shogunate was, for the first time, under a regency; the previous Shogun had died in middle age, and his son was just ten years old. The Regency had been sworn in just a few weeks earlier, and its grip on power was not yet secure. So, it was not completely ridiculous for Shosetsu to think that he could take over the government. If he could eliminate the Regents, he then need only get an Imperial rescript appointing him guardian of the heir. The young Shogun could then be dealt with a few years down the line... this was, after all, exactly what Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Shogunate, had done with young Hideyori forty years earlier.

Alas for Shosetsu, his right-hand man caught a fever and, in a delirium, babbled details of the plot. The bakufu's secret police caught wind, and all was lost. Shosetsu ended by committing seppuku, and his ronin were massacred in a Spartacus-style bloodbath of public crucifixion and torture.

But it was a damn'd close thing. So [handwave], no fever. The plot goes off, the fires are set, and Shosetsu takes out the bakufu. Within days, he's the master of Japan.

On one hand, I suspect he'd get away with it, at least in the short run. The Tokugawa Shoguns had spent the last fifty years relentlessly centralizing. The daimyo, the local lords, were increasingly neutered by a combination of a hostage system (they had to spend part of each year in the capital, with their families) and the growing power of a centralized Imperial bureaucracy. So, if Shosetsu could get firmly settled in the cockpit, it wouldn't be easy to get him out.

On the other hand, there'd be problems in the long run. While there was precedent for a peasant seizing supreme power -- Hideyoshi had done it seventy years earlier -- that was a rougher time. And even Hideyoshi failed to found a dynasty; his son and heir Hideyori was supplanted by Tokugawa Ieyasu. So, I suspect that this leads Japan into (at least) another generation of civil war. This is probably a bad thing for Japan in both the medium and the long term; OTL, Japan's 19th century modernization was firmly grounded in the long peace of the Tokugawas, with its concomitant political consolidation and economic growth. A Japan that has to hit "restart" in the late 1600s seems likely to be a poorer and weaker Japan in the long run.

Thoughts?


Doug M.
 
Interesting, and that guy does seem a lot like a villain. But since he's a business man I think that while he'd do a moderate job controlling Japan. I think more of his pursuits would be toward the economy. Of course I could be completely wrong, and he was just being greedy. Thus he takes over Japan and just tries to drain royal coffers...
 
Hmmm...what was his position on the seclusion policy, if it was in place by this time?

If he wants more foreign trade, he might end it, which could either mean:

1. Richer Japan

or

2. Colonized Japan
 
It was just recently closed for about 20 years. I doubt it would have been colonized by China if anything Japanese influence would have prevailed with some persecution probably. Maybe some "Japanese Towns" like China towns in China...
 
I dunno, aren't you underestimating the strength of the Tokugawas as well as Tokugawa Japan? They had branch families, after all. Moreover, while a non-Tokugawa Japan might be less stable, it's hard to see why this would necessarily be so.
 
This would seem to be the perfect POD for a Japan that is both internally unified and outward looking. The Keian Uprising was basically a palace coup, and with the coup successful the Shogunate system stays in place.

If there is opposition, I can easily foresee it aiding the 'opening' of Japan. The new Regent decides to reintroduce gunpowder, using his pre-existing arms manufacturing company to start domestic production. Gunpowder-armed Shogunate troops crush the rebellions against the new Regent, and now the Shogunate is both secure and open.

I've always been interested in whether an foreign-conquest oriented Japan could replace the Manchus as the new Imperial Chinese Dynasty. The Regent might not be able to aspire to be the Shogun in Japan, but in China anyone could be emperor. Gunpowder-Empire Japan successfully invades and conquers China, and the new Regent becomes the Emperor of China?
 
This would seem to be the perfect POD for a Japan that is both internally unified and outward looking. The Keian Uprising was basically a palace coup, and with the coup successful the Shogunate system stays in place.

If there is opposition, I can easily foresee it aiding the 'opening' of Japan. The new Regent decides to reintroduce gunpowder, using his pre-existing arms manufacturing company to start domestic production. Gunpowder-armed Shogunate troops crush the rebellions against the new Regent, and now the Shogunate is both secure and open.

I've always been interested in whether an foreign-conquest oriented Japan could replace the Manchus as the new Imperial Chinese Dynasty. The Regent might not be able to aspire to be the Shogun in Japan, but in China anyone could be emperor. Gunpowder-Empire Japan successfully invades and conquers China, and the new Regent becomes the Emperor of China?

Uh, sorry I find this flawed in several ways. First, it's very likely if there is major opposition by any army of comparable size he'd fail. Why? Because he didn't have a Samurai background. He didn't have the "Keuthes" (we'll call it) to pull that off if there was someone with a better handle on the throne. Next China, uh China was much tougher then you think. Even with a better army I doubt Japan could fully subjugate China...
 
Keian vs. Honnoji

Famously, on 21st of June, 1582, Akechi Mitsuhide carried out a coup against Oda Nobunaga. Nobunaga perished; but Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of several other generals of Oda, marched against Mitsuhide and 11 days later, on 2nd of July, 1582, defeated Mitsuhide in Battle of Yamazaki, where Mitsuhide perished.

Yui no Shosetsu knew the outcome of Honnoji and Yamazaki. His comrades knew it as well.

What were Shosetsu plans for dealing with the aftermath of the coup?

In the immediate aftermath of the Keian fire, how much of the samurai class of Japan would be concentrated in Edo and have perished in the fire, how much would have been killed directly by plotters, how much would have been in Edo at the hands or under the command of Shosetsu and how much would have been elsewhere and available to march on Edo?
 
^^^ This.

Indeed bad news for Japan.

That might not be true. East Asia did not see major gains by European colonialists until the 19th century. Those territories that ended up under European rule had economic or strategic value to the European Empire that held them (French Indo-China had rubber and was the richest part of the French colonial empire, European-occupied pieces of China were seen as giving access to China's huge potential market, Russia occupied Manchuria for warm-water Port Author).

Japan has little to offer in terms of mineral or strategic value to European powers. That in addition to the scant attention that was paid to East Asia by Europe before the 19th century probably means that the Japanese can have internal strife to their hearts content with few immediately negative consquences in terms of foreign conquest. Indeed, another generation of civil war could mean that the regime that ends up winning doesn't turn its back on gunpowder and other technological imports from Europe. An outward-looking Japan could really change the geography of East Asia before major European intervention in the region, pursuing resources in what is now the Russian East perhaps. Once Europe does enter the picture (and China begins its decline) Japan could pursue the same kinds of imperial goals that it had in the 20th century in an environment much more open to that kind of policy.
 
Uh, sorry I find this flawed in several ways. First, it's very likely if there is major opposition by any army of comparable size he'd fail. Why? Because he didn't have a Samurai background. He didn't have the "Keuthes" (we'll call it) to pull that off if there was someone with a better handle on the throne. Next China, uh China was much tougher then you think. Even with a better army I doubt Japan could fully subjugate China...

It was 1651. Not 1592. The Manchu had imposed Queue Order just 7 years ago. Koxinga had not been wholly expelled from the coastal islands. A Ming prince was fighting in Yunnan.

In OTL, Ming loyalists repeatedly asked Japan for assistance against Maanchu. Shogunate expressed sympathy for their plight and politely refused.

Suppose that Yui regime decides to build a major fleet, with guns and cannons, and expel the Manchu in alliance with Koxinga and any Chinese who rally to them. What would they accomplish?
 
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