March, 1877
Kyoto
Nearly a thousand disaffected samurai, once considered among the ruling elite of Japan, had spent years grumbling about being left behind by the new army of conscripted peasants. With a modern army and navy, elite swordsmen were considered obsolete. Some noble warriors even quietly plotted insurrection to restore the old order. However, this was swiftly shut down by observant Ministers and Generals serving the Emperor. Instead, they offered these men a way to retain their honor.
In the name of the Emperor, those who remained willing to serve were ordered to sail for Sumatra, where the Dutch and Aceh Sultanate were (ironically) joining forces to resist the Japanese invasion. If the professional warriors (mostly still bearing swords), crushed the foreigners, so be it. If they were wiped out, a source of discontent was eliminated.....in an honorable way, of course. It was a cunning manner to eliminate potential rebels.
As it turned out, the latter would be the case. While neither the Dutch nor the Sultan bore the latest in armaments, the old Enfields, Dreyse Needle Guns, etc. would prove more than adequate in wiping out a bunch of Samurai. Those that bullets eluded would often succumb to tropical diseases (they were NOT given malaria medications).
In the meantime, another army of potential dissenting warriors were dispatched to Mindanao, in the Philippines. Here the Muslims would prove just stubborn but less well armed. A few thousand Samurai wreaked great havoc with the population as they sought to establish order.
The more modern draftees of the Japanese Army, however, were solidly in position in Luzon and Java, where they had crushed the worst of the native opposition in just two years.
Vladivostok
With the sudden expansion of both Japanese and Chinese power, the remote Russian outpost of Vladivostok was looking increasingly vulnerable. The only good news for the Russian Pacific Commander was that the Americans had ceased producing ships for the Oriental Nations (as both were involved in wars, America, as a "neutral" would not sell weapons to them). China and Japan were both still struggling to build shipyards capable of matching western vessels (though Japan was the closer of the two).
This allowed the Russians to reinforce their Pacific squadron to the point where Vladivostok actually stood a chance to defend itself.
One of the biggest winners in the new standoff would turn out to be the Joseon Empire. Only nominally a tribute state to China (which didn't actually WANT anything from the Joseon Kingdom), the "Hermit" Kingdom was able to regain her autonomy. The last foreign invaders on Gangwa Island (Russian, American and Japanese) had finally withdrawn over the winter (the Russians were the last to leave).
In hopes to protecting their position, the Russian Government formally withdrew any of their "grievances" against Joseons and announced that they would be "supportive of Joseon Independence". This was a rather cynical concession to the fact that Japan seemed far more likely to seek territorial gain in the region than China (which had seldom paid much attention to their tributary state over the centuries).
Grateful over their "victory", the court of the Joseon Emperor (a puppet if there ever was one to his own nobles) would seek to retain their dominance by withdrawing even further away from the rest of the world. Trade was discouraged and the Joseons largely forgotten by everyone.
Durban, Boer Republic
The British Consul was, at least nominally, the only British figure allowed in the Boer Republic. For years, the British Cape Colony and Boer Republic had growled sullenly across the border at one another. The British had been livid at being forced to concede Natal to the Boers and the Boers resented British incursion into "their lands" which had forced the Boer Treks into the Transvaal and Orange Free State to begin with.
Both had expanded greatly over the past decade as immigration was openly courted in the Republic (accepting all Europeans save Britons, at least officially) and the Cape Colony had received an influx of migrants from Britain and other parts of the world due to the stunning Kimberly diamond field production.
In truth, there were plenty of Boers who, at least temporarily, crossed the border to work the Kimberly mines. For the most part, they were left to dig if they kept quiet and didn't cause trouble. The Boers were never more than a modest minority and were not a threat to British rule.
However, the discover of gold in the Republic would cause friction between the two nations as British miners were immediately arrested and, if they were lucky, forced back across the Cape/Republic border with a rifle prodding them in the back. If the Boers were not a threat to conquer the Cape, the British certainly WERE to reconquer the Republic.
Most of the Boers were farmers and cattle-ranchers. They doubted that it would be worth the British time to conquer them. However, discovery of gold and other precious metals may tempt the British back eastwards. Thus any British citizen was immediately arrested and deported. This would cause much friction between the neighbors.
Making matters worse was rapidly escalating violence between the Xhosa tribes and the Boers. A disproportionate number of the European settlers (Dutch, German, French, Swiss, Polish, etc) were settling in the old Xhosa lands and the tribes reacting violently to the encroachment. Though the Republic "European" population had doubled in the past 15 years, the Republic could scarcely afford a full army. Thus, irregular militia, bereft of much oversight, would often blunder in to warfare with the local tribes. Eventually, in 1877, the Republic ordered all Xhosa to be expelled from Boer Territory (which was inexorably expanding north and east).
Rumors of a British-inspired "tribal insurrection" among the black and mulatto populations that were the descendants of former slaves (which, oddly, were not "tribal" in any way but few remarked on this contradiction) would lead to a decision to....."repatriate" (i.e. evict)....these black and mulatto populations back to West Africa (where many of their ancestors had largely been taken). The American Protectorate of Liberia was always accepting new migrants and the Boers would harshly board tens of thousands of South African-born blacks and mulattos back to the new "joint-protectorate" of Liberia, Sierra Leone and the former French colony of Senegal.
Guinea, Portuguese Africa
Over the centuries, the coast of Guinea had been utilized as a slaving station by the Portuguese. However, the abolition of slavery throughout the western World would see the few coastal fortifications of Guinea under Portuguese influence wane into obscurity and lack of investment. Seeking a way to physically link the southern regions of Sierra Leone and Liberia to Senegal, the British and Americans had quietly offered to "buy" the rights to these backwater fortresses which, no doubt, cost far more for Portugal to maintain than they ever generated in revenue.
However, the offer was largely ignored as the Portuguese Queen-Regent and Her government were more interested in crushing political opponents in the wake of the her husband's assassination. Thus, when yet another local war between Guinean tribes reached the gates of the handful of Portuguese settlements, the British-American African squadron (about 90% British with just enough American vessels to claim participation) would sail into the various harbors to "protect the citizenry".
Within weeks, it became apparent that Portugal wasn't even going to pretend to do anything about the matter and the British and Americans would effectively take over what passed as government in Guinea.
As neither the British nor American officers had any form of authorization to do this, the diplomatic repercussions would last for months. However, behind the scenes, the British and Americans would quietly agree upon a policy of joint-government of the Co-Protectorate which now included Guinea.
Both governments had reasons for their actions. Many Americans quietly hoped as many of their Freedmen as possible would willingly (or even unwillingly) sail for a return to their "motherland". The British Caribbean islands were rapidly descending into squalor as the old sugar production industry, which had once been the most lucrative in the world, stagnated into unprofitability. Unrest among unemployed Freedmen was causing concern on many islands and British administrators dreamed of shipping their surplus populations....well....anywhere else.
As it so happened, a religious revival was spreading through the American and West Indian black populations which called for a "return to Africa". In truth, actual migration would only moderately increase over these years from either America or the West Indies to Africa but the existence of the movement was supported by many white Americans and Britons as political unrest in the American south and various Caribbean islands continued.
With the trickle of Freedmen continuously arriving from the Americas (roughly 5000 per year), members of both governments welcomed the news that the Boers were shipping tens of thousands of former slaves "Home" to West Africa (though many of their ancestors were actually from East Africa) as it meant that there would be a "Westernized" core of people who could be counted upon to serve the interests of the governments against the tribal leaders. It was envisioned that these "Europeanized" peoples would become the new administrative and economic elites of the "Co-Protectorate".
That all of this was happening without serious oversight from the highest levels of either government (President Grant and First Lord Gladstone were not even informed until later) was rather remarkable. Without any active direction or policy, the orders of a few dozen remote officials and sailors, often working entirely at cross-purposes, would lead to radical events to come.