Sumeragi
Banned
A thing about that 3 million population: That's based on the History of Song, a not too reliable source when it comes to foreign countries. Furthermore, consider this: according to the Goryeo Dokyeong (a book on Goryeo), King Jeongjong raised an army of about 300,000 men from the private armies of the land barons and brought them together under control of the central government as the Resplendent Army, Kwanggun. We're talking about a full-time military, who did not contribute to farming, which would have made up about 10% of the 12th century population..... in the 10th century. Unless we have some ultra DPRK-style goverment back then, there was no possible way to mobilize 10% of the population while not screwing over the entire country into a famine.Goryeo's population in the 12th century was thought to be 3 million. Japan in the same period was thought to be between 5.5 and 7 million. I don't think that constitutes parity.
Either way, there is no real incentive for Japan to develop without external influence. A lack of either the Mongol invasion (gave gunpowder) or the European trades (gave guns) would retard the strength of Japan. Japan was just lucky with its luck of the right things happening at the right time (almost like the early parts of the Pacific War), and using that streak of luck as saying Japan would inevitably develop is not really convincing.
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