Korea and Vietnam Divided Between East and West

East Vietnam, the coast, being the official state could work.
West is mostly mountains and jungles, which is perfect for an insurgent state, especially with Laotian backroads.
It's not that silly given the mountains are ethnically different and historically oppressed by the Viets
 
Last edited:
Korea usually was split east and west, with the east half gravitating toward Japan and the western half toward China. Bear in mind that Korea always saw itself as "a shrimp among whales" and that it sought favor and friendship with the larger powers of China and Japan. Before the Korean War, splitting the peninsula north and south would have been seen as insane.

I am trying to remember what nonexistent period this is, given that Japan as a unified country was a threat only twice: Imjin and the annexation. Neither were a east-west divide.
 
I am trying to remember what nonexistent period this is, given that Japan as a unified country was a threat only twice: Imjin and the annexation. Neither were a east-west divide.
I think "always" here is referring to the modern era, seeing the reference to trying to balance influence in Korea the way the late Joseon did.

But there was plenty of factionalism even in the old days, naturally. Gyeongsangdo and Jeollado have been antagonistic as long as most people remember, especially given how prominent the former is in Korean politics (pretty sure the majority of Korean presidents are from the southeast despite that region being, what, a quarter-ish of the total population?). Honestly, I'm not sure if that's a new thing or the reopening of an old rivalry (heard someone refer to it as a continuation of the old Silla and Baekje dispute) but there's always been a regional divide thanks to the mountainous terrain. Always disagreeing on something, it seems like.

The whole foreign influence thing though, definitely more recent. There wasn't a pro-Japanese faction until the Meiji Restoration and, even then, there was the Russian faction in addition to the Chinese and Japanese factions (a shrimp between whales then, yes. I don't think any late Joseon officials were delusional enough to think they were capable of opposing any one of the empires around them without one of the others supporting it).

And seeing as Korea had been unified and centralized for over a thousand years, longer than most of the Great Powers had even existed, I don't think division was even in anyone's mind until the trusteeship at the end of WWII. Might be wrong but the Korean independence fighters definitely didn't expect that.
 
But there was plenty of factionalism even in the old days, naturally. Gyeongsangdo and Jeollado have been antagonistic as long as most people remember, especially given how prominent the former is in Korean politics (pretty sure the majority of Korean presidents are from the southeast despite that region being, what, a quarter-ish of the total population?). Honestly, I'm not sure if that's a new thing or the reopening of an old rivalry (heard someone refer to it as a continuation of the old Silla and Baekje dispute) but there's always been a regional divide thanks to the mountainous terrain. Always disagreeing on something, it seems like.

That's actually a military government myth instigated to justify the regional favoritism. If anything Jeolla had a bigger population than Gyeongsang until the colonial era, when among other things the Kyeongbu Line bypassed Jeolla and this completely twisted Korea's economical landscape.

So yeah, there really was never east-west divide.
 
I am trying to remember what nonexistent period this is, given that Japan as a unified country was a threat only twice: Imjin and the annexation. Neither were a east-west divide.

My source is the book "Nothing to Envy," and at that time, a north-south split seemed strange to Koreans. So it looks like that time period was from the Meiji dynasty to the war.
 
Top