AHC:China in Exile in...Japan
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WI legitimate Ming Emperor ends up in Taiwan rather than Yunnan as per OTL? And sails on to Japan in 1683?
Just a sketch off the top of my head:
The peak prestige of China in Japan was during the Tang dynasty, and there was something of a delay between the decline of the dynasty and the loss of its place in Japan as the indisputable center of the world. So say some close relative of Emperor Ai - the last Tang emperor - escapes Zhu Wen's net and jumps a ship that sets him down in Okinawa. A young man within sight of the Tang line of succession and enough competence and/or charisma to be a plausible threat, he's able to attract a shadow court of Tang loyalists, sycophants, idealists, and gamblers-for-position. That makes his assassination a priority for aspirants in mainland China, and after a couple such attempts, and talk of a Chinese expedition to the island, the young fellow decides he needs a protector.
So the micro-court hightails it for Heian-kyō (Kyoto). Between luck, skill, and some questionable decision-making on the part of the Fujiwara, they manage to win protection and a comfortable sinecure - offering "Chinese Imperial rituals" to the regime. This proves to be more trouble than it's worth.
Inevitably, it is ensured that the "Tang Emperor" is married to a Fujiwara daughter for safety's sake. This is the safe decision, but at some point in the next generation or two guarantees a crisis: Certain parts of the Fujiwara clan are inevitably more closely related to the local imperial line, and others to the Tang imperial line. This could easily end with the murder of all the "Tang" lineage, but let's suppose that after some nasty political infighting that mars that portion of the Heian period, the winners integrate the Japanese and Chinese Imperial lines through a series of marriages.
China is both too occupied and too embarrassed in the Five Dynasties - Ten Kingdoms period to take any effective position on the matter, so only internal issues affect things - although it does make Heian-kyō a sort of pilgrimage site for small groups from China with political ideas, and instills a Confucianist flavor and a lot of Chinese loan-words. Perhaps the new claims turn Japan outward, to intervene in the Chinese chaos or attempt to assert primacy over Korea.
Either way, by the time the Song (or equivalent) unify most of China, the ruling house of Japan would rely for legitimacy (in part) on pretensions to the throne of China. It might never lead to unification or even invasion (heck, depending on what's going on in Mongolia in the late 12th century, there could actually be fewer invasions in this timeline). But it would certainly rewrite the history, politics, and outlook of Heian Japan and Song (or *Song) China significantly. Which of course means a very different period for Korea as well.
The peak prestige of China in Japan was during the Tang dynasty, and there was something of a delay between the decline of the dynasty and the loss of its place in Japan as the indisputable center of the world. So say some close relative of Emperor Ai - the last Tang emperor - escapes Zhu Wen's net and jumps a ship that sets him down in Okinawa. A young man within sight of the Tang line of succession and enough competence and/or charisma to be a plausible threat, he's able to attract a shadow court of Tang loyalists, sycophants, idealists, and gamblers-for-position. That makes his assassination a priority for aspirants in mainland China, and after a couple such attempts, and talk of a Chinese expedition to the island, the young fellow decides he needs a protector.
So the micro-court hightails it for Heian-kyō (Kyoto). Between luck, skill, and some questionable decision-making on the part of the Fujiwara, they manage to win protection and a comfortable sinecure - offering "Chinese Imperial rituals" to the regime. This proves to be more trouble than it's worth.
Inevitably, it is ensured that the "Tang Emperor" is married to a Fujiwara daughter for safety's sake. This is the safe decision, but at some point in the next generation or two guarantees a crisis: Certain parts of the Fujiwara clan are inevitably more closely related to the local imperial line, and others to the Tang imperial line. This could easily end with the murder of all the "Tang" lineage, but let's suppose that after some nasty political infighting that mars that portion of the Heian period, the winners integrate the Japanese and Chinese Imperial lines through a series of marriages.
China is both too occupied and too embarrassed in the Five Dynasties - Ten Kingdoms period to take any effective position on the matter, so only internal issues affect things - although it does make Heian-kyō a sort of pilgrimage site for small groups from China with political ideas, and instills a Confucianist flavor and a lot of Chinese loan-words. Perhaps the new claims turn Japan outward, to intervene in the Chinese chaos or attempt to assert primacy over Korea.
Either way, by the time the Song (or equivalent) unify most of China, the ruling house of Japan would rely for legitimacy (in part) on pretensions to the throne of China. It might never lead to unification or even invasion (heck, depending on what's going on in Mongolia in the late 12th century, there could actually be fewer invasions in this timeline). But it would certainly rewrite the history, politics, and outlook of Heian Japan and Song (or *Song) China significantly. Which of course means a very different period for Korea as well.
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There were like 18 Ming Princes in Taiwan iirc.If the Zhengs had any intention of upholding the Ming Dynasty,they would have proclaimed one of them emperor.Besides,iirc,the Zhengs were hostile to Emperor Yongli and actually supported another branch of the imperial family.
At any rate,iirc,there was this claim in Japan that the descendants of the last emperor of the Han Dynasty fled to Japan after the Wuhu Uprising and became the founder of a noble house in Japan.
Very interesting, but I have great doubts on how a fallen mandate can be kept by a ruined dynasty - was the exile-Ming really stable?
Furthermore a ship in China can reach Japan within a month or two, so Japan has no reason to believe in the glory of the Tang dynasty when they hear of their exile in Okinawa. Furthermore, dynasties don't hold much significance themselves IMO - the Ming-in-Taiwan was only possible because of the enormous fleet it held. If any dynasty or ideology held great significance then the successors of Confucius should have more prominence in Chinese history, but they barely did. Institutions by themselves don't hold much significance, especially devoid of power.
Once the guy is out of China, you have to stop thinking in Chinese terms like that.
When the guy is in Okinawa, he's just like the forgettable Ming heirs in Taiwan - irrelevant, practically speaking, yet still a threat to mainland pretenders. He doesn't need to keep the mandate to be a threat - Koxinga had the mandate by no stretch of the imagination. He just needs to be there.
And neither is the fallen mandate relevant to internal Japanese politics. The Japanese attitudes towards dynastic rule were based on permanence, not on a cycle replacing the decadent with moral warlords and peasant rebellions. If a Tang heir married into the Fujiwara, the contemporary ruling class (for all intents and purposes), Japanese concepts of succession and legitimacy would obviously take precedence.
This isn't actually a Chinese dynasty running in Japan. This is a Japanese dynasty with an unusual and interesting progenitor, and a foreign flavor. However to the Japanese, it is felt to be a Chinese dynasty, so for those purposes it is so. And to the Chinese, it is felt to potential threat (because duh, it is), regardless of the fact that the dynasty will soon be 1/8 or 1/16 Chinese (and possibly unable to speak any form of Chinese fluently). Chinese dynasties didn't rely on the loss of the Mandate of Heaven to protect them from past dynasties. Despite the simplistic formula that suggests those dynasties would simply cease to matter, they usually took care to wipe out, cloister, or otherwise eliminate all potential heirs to their predecessors.
So, judging by the way the Japanese managed heritable rank in this period - the relevant metric - the purported "Tang exilic dynasty" could be expected to be stable indeed.... in the admittedly long-shot circumstances I described.
Nothing in the scenario I described required Japan to not know that the Tang have fallen. The Japanese delay in lowering their estimation of China was not due to not knowing the Tang had fallen on hard times (and then ceased to be). The continuing high estimation of China by Japan was a result of the contemporary culture having built up Tang China as an ideal. The culture's first response was not contempt of Chinese weakness, but horror at the destruction of what they still considered the greatest state and society. So there is every reason to believe that the Tang dynasty brand would have a certain cachet in the period's Sinophile Japan.
Look at the history. The Tang were overthrown in 907 - but already in 923 there was a Tang restoration attempt. That lasted 13 years, despite not having much basis to speak of. This is the period in which a plausible Tang pretender arrives at the Japanese royal court. If the Tang name had sway in Mandate-of-Heaven China sixteen years after utter collapse even when promoted by generals who in fact had little to do with the Tang.... Then why should the Japanese, with their much more immutable ideas about royalty, not see significance in a member of the Tang line of succession?
This seems... a bit off.
Dynasties don't hold much significance? Chinese dynasties for two millennia were obsessive about removing or managing anyone related to the preceding dynasties. Not that it's peculiarly Chinese; it's fundamental to dynastic politics in monarchies.
"If any dynasty or ideology held great significance then the successors of Confucius should have more prominence in Chinese history, but they barely did." Uhm? I'm not sure where to start.... Before the comma is you make a questionable assertion offering no evidence, and after the comma a claim that is directly contradicted by every take on Chinese history I've ever heard of. The successors of Confucius were barely prominent in Chinese history...? Their words were still the root of legal decisions affecting millions in the 20th century, for heaven's sake!
And the "institution devoid of power" that we're talking about is the Imperial dynasty of Japan. The one that played a significant role in world affairs a thousand years later.
I'm sorry, but you've really lost me. Could you be a little more clear, or something? I didn't propose a very likely scenario - and certainly not the most likely outcome of the first POD - but your commentary seems off base.
Of course. They wouldn't be, but people can easily maintain identities that suit them, regardless of the reality.
Absolutely. But that doesn't necessarily mean they would stop considering themselves Chinese - and certainly doesn't imply they'd stop considering their claim to the Mandate legitimate.
I agree. Any family descended from a Chinese emperor would inevitably fade to unimportance or disappear, unless they became institutionalized by their host country. Hence my suggestion for an early merger with the Tenno. We happen to know for a fact that the Japanese could maintain their Imperial family in a significant position - if mostly out of power - for over a thousand years.
This is arguably OTL!
Taiwan was an integral part of Japan prior to WW2. Then the Republic of China took it, and just a few years later ended up in exile there.
Taiwan was an integral part of Japan prior to WW2. Then the Republic of China took it, and just a few years later ended up in exile there.
How was the Later Tang actually a restoration attempt?I'm confused about this part.The later Tang was formed by Shatuo warlords with no blood relation with the rulers of the actual Tang Dynasty.
As for getting an actual pretender,it's not that hard,even after the fall of the Tang Dynasty,there still seem to be plenty of imperial house members remaining alive,just that they are mostly cadet branch members.I've read about families with apparently authentic family trees in China tracing back to the third son of Li Shimin.
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I tried to express that in the post you quote, although I suppose I could have done it more clearly and in more detail. That's what I meant by "not having much basis" and likewise by "generals who in fact had little to do with the Tang".
Your point is exactly what I was getting at: The Tang "brand" was such that even after a long decline, horrendous crises, extinction, and a decade-and-a-half interim, a group of foreign warlords could co-opt it to some useful effect.
Part of the issue may be that I think of the Chinese dynasties as systems rather than solely as being defined by the particular family they happen to center on and use as a symbol. The Qin and Sui, for example, were positive-feedback systems for turning strength into growth and growth into strength. Not unlike the Prussian system, in that way, whose ultimate fate they shared. The Han and Ming were post-revolutionary systems; the former aristocratic, the latter mixed. It's possible to read the Song as a meritocracy and the Qing as an apartheid state, from this perspective. And several northern dynasties and the Tang were cooperative ventures between Han and Turkic elites. I wouldn't be surprised if, to the Shatuo, the idea of Turks running the military and Han Chinese the government was taken for granted.
They had had by that point a fairly long association with Chinese culture - I wonder if they had the Han dynasty in mind.... That one, after all, arguably fell and then rose again with the brief Xin interlude in between.
Indeed, and supposedly there's a whole village somewhere descended from the Tang imperial house.
Of course for my sketch, the closer to the throne, the better.
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About that,yeah, it's quite common for people to claim descent from an earlier prestigious dynasty in China.There's a good number of so-called Han Dynasty regimes throughout Chinese that clearly had no relations with the original Han Dynasty for example.There's like two so-called Han Dynasties during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period existing side by side for example.Apart from trying to hike some prestige off the Tang name,I think the decision by the Shatao state to call itself Tang was influenced by the fact that Li Keyong and his father were formally bestowed the name Li by the Tang Imperial house and that the name Jin could be interchangeable with the name Tang,since the state of Jin from Zhou Dynasty was originally called Tang.