AH challenege: Japan owns Kamchatka

Double the size of the initial Korean migration. With more people to start -the migration north thru the island chain will be faster.
 

birdboy2000

Banned
Post-Napoleon is too late. You want to avert isolationism in the first place, so instead of a stagnant population (IIRC) Japan can send its surplus overseas.
 
Double the size of the initial Korean migration. With more people to start -the migration north thru the island chain will be faster.

Unlikely. Over a few centuries, the population will adjust to available food. What limited the speed of migration was breeding the food plants to deal with climate.

Post-Napoleon is too late. You want to avert isolationism in the first place, so instead of a stagnant population (IIRC) Japan can send its surplus overseas.

Agreed. OTL Tokugawa Japan had in 19th century hazy and overlapping claims with Russia to Sakhalin and Kurils, which they could resolve in 1875 by giving the whole Sakhalin to Russia and the whole Kuril chain up to Kamchatka to Japan. On the other hand, Kamchatka was claimed and conquered by Russia from 1697 to 1730s.

What you might have is Tokugawa Japan who in 17th century decides that the North is not a danger to seclusion and expansion from Hokkaido is fine. But there was quite some expansion OTL - from Matsumae at the very southern tip if Hokkaido to the rest of Hokkaido, Sakhalin, Kurils... What POD could give a more successful and expansive Matsumae in 17th century?
 
It's very, very difficult with the specific timeframe constraints.

If their was an earlier Meiji type event and Japan modernized you could get it in some sort of earlier alt. Russo-Japanese War I guess.
 
Perhaps Russia does something to make itself an international pariah and in turn is ganked by the other powers surrounding it? (Not sure what could do this nor how it would work, just my two cents)
 
Agreed! What if a group of Basque whalers ends up in Japan before 1600 and teaches the Japanese their techniques. We could easily imagine Japanese whalers setting up bases in Kamchatka over the next 100 years.

They get captured and thrown in jail/executed?

IIRC (and this is far from my area of specialty, I will admit) even before the definitive isolation, Japan was notorious for the way it would intern anyone who appeared on its shores unless they were there in an official capacity. I seem to recall that the Dutch only got their trading port in 1642 (or something) after some years of being repeatedly thrown out of Japan and having to fight for the right to send traders.
 
Were there any Basque whalers in the Pacific in that time period? I've not heard word one on the subject. Seems wildly unlikely given what I know of early trading missions to the Orient.
 
Japan was first visited by Antonio da Mota, a Portuguese explorer, in 1542. From that time until 1614 when Shogun Ieyasu ordered all Christian missionaries to leave Japan, there was significant contact with Japan adopting European ideas. For example, muskets were being mass-produced locally by the 1560s. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia “Organized open-boat shore whaling began in the 1570s”. However, this remained coastal. By contrast, Basque whalers established bases in Labrador from at least 1536 and were also involved around Spitsbergen from 1612. Thus the Basques could process whales and transport the products economically over long distances. My suggestion is that someone (Spanish?) realizes that there are many whales in the North Pacific and has the idea of setting up a base north of Japan (the Kurils?) and selling the whale oil to Japan around 1550-60. Then, we can imagine that the Japanese learn the techniques and that Ieyasu allows whaling and voyages to the north to continue when he imposes his seclusion policy on contact with the Christian nations.
 
My suggestion is that someone (Spanish?) realizes that there are many whales in the North Pacific and has the idea of setting up a base north of Japan (the Kurils?) and selling the whale oil to Japan around 1550-60.


And my questions are:

  • Is there a whale oil market in Japan?
  • If so, what goods could be taken out of Japan with whale oil profits?
  • Would those goods bring enough profit to make the endeavor profitable?


The Dutch did have a trade monopoly of sorts for centuries, but Japan desired only a few of the many goods the Dutch offered usually paying in specie for them. Japan's primary export good was a type of porcelain valued more for it's rarity than anything else. Start shipping more of it and it's price drops.

By the early 1600s, Europeans had barely expanded whaling into Arctic waters. Having someone in the 17th Century decide to found a whale fishery literally half a world away on the chance they could sell oil to a hermit kingdom for unknown goods doesn't seem very plausible.
 

maverick

Banned
The parameters are too constrictive.

If the parameter is between 1798 and 1868, then I guess the best bet is to destroy Russia somehow.
 
An earlier Russo-Japanese war, maybe when Russia is busy with Napoleon or Crimean War? That would probably end with Japan holding not only Kamchatka but also Alaska perhaps.
 
An earlier Russo-Japanese war, maybe when Russia is busy with Napoleon or Crimean War? That would probably end with Japan holding not only Kamchatka but also Alaska perhaps.
OT1H, Japan is still isolationist at that point, and probably not interested in attacking Russia.
OTOH, Russia doesn't have the TSR yet, so supplying an army on the far side of the world would be ... interesting.
 
Maybe if we can use a far back POD just have Michael Romanov get killed by the Poles.... So Russias time of troubles continue, or you couldjust have IVan III get killed, so with him dead Muscovy remains an insignificant power, se simple solutions to the Russian problem.
 
Some Europeans try to set up a colony on Hokkaido- the Japanese see this as their territory even if they're not actually occupying it and send up an army to chase them out. As a side effect they become far more inetersted in settling the north and build forts right up to kamchatka, it becomes a regular event for younger sons to be granted lands of their own in the grim north.
 
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