Japan's Imperial Wars
The Imperial Wars saw extensive use of European-style weapons by both sides
Japan's unstable political situation continued for a number of years, as no one clan was able to claim advantage. The Toyotomi clan began to pale, while regional conflicts in the north and in Kyushu flared up regularly. Religious instability increased as in some domains Christian missionaries were given positions of authority, in others merely tolerated, and in yet others subject to exile or execution. It was in this mileau that the Emperor later known as Go-Jimmu was born in 1622, as Prince Takihito of the Emperor Go-Mizunoo and a daughter of the Toyotomi clan [1]. Young Takihito spent most of his childhood in the city of Osaka, where he was close to Hideyori. Unlike his aesthetically-oriented father, who spent much of his life working on the reconstruction of the Imperial city of Kyoto and creation of vast new palaces and gardens, Takahito from an early age took a martial bent.
In the 1640's, Takahito honed his military skills in Honshu intraclan feuding, aligned always with the Toyotomi and Mori clans. In this way, he began to make strong political connections, but also enemies. Takahito planned to make allies among the powerful clans, and upon ascension to the Imperial throne to sent about a Restoration of imperial power. There was no powerful shogunate to oppose him, but by the late 1640's a number of powerful clans had aligned together to oppose these ambitions of Restoration, the most important of which were the Kuroda and Kobayakawa clans of Kyushu, and the Date and Mogami clans of the north. These clans manipulated Go-Mizunoo and prevented him from relinquishing the throne on several occasions, and also supported young Tsuguhito[2], the prince born of Go-Mizunoo and a lady-in-waiting in 1634, as their candidate for the next emperor.
An assassination attempt in 1656 compelled Takahito into action, and he raised an army in southern Honshu. His political ambitions were backed by the force of most of the Honshu clans, and his military knowledge was sound. His enemies, meanwhile, were divided in their centres of power. Quickly he siezed Kyoto and placed most of the Imperial family under his care, while Tsuguhito fled to the north. He was proclaimed Emperor Go-Jimmu in 1558 in the rebuilt garden and canal city of Kyoto. This, however, was to be the height of his good fortune. His ambitions of unifying Japan under his rule would be foiled by the intervention of another young emperor: the Joseon Sejagun, later known as Emperor Myeongjo.
Born in 1598 as the son of then prince Gwanghaegun (and later Emperor Cheonjo) and Royal Noble Consort Mun of the Yu clan with the personal name of Yi Jil, the Sejagun was born into a victorious royal household. Growing up watching his father claim victories over the Japanese, Mongols and Dutch, he was schooled in early life by the Jesuit Johann Schreck, who had fled to the Joseon after the fall of Beijing to the Bailian, who instilled in the young prince an interest in the science and engineering of the West if not it's faith. After the death of Cheonjo in 1641, the Sejagun was proclaimed the Joseon king, but events soon took a new turn. The Liaodong peninsula, a protectorate under the Joseon, was invaded by the Bailian. Many of the nobles in Seoul pushed to simply submit to the Bailian as to the Ming before, but the Sejagun sought glory.
Allied with the Southern Ming, the Joseon professional army held onto the Liaodong peninsula against multiple attacks by the Bailian. The Bailian numbers were much larger, but their military policy was schizophrenic and perpetually distracted by their moves against the Ming in the south. It took, however, an alliance with the new Mongol khan Ejei Khonggor in 1648 to finally force the Bailian to relinquish control of the Liaodong peninsula. In this new political climate, it was decided that the earlier policy "Deferring to the Great", where Korea paid tribute to the Chinese, was outdated. The cultist Bailian had been defeated and the Ming were on the verge of defeat in the southern China. The Ming Emperor of Jinshen, ruling from Haejing [Manila], was seen as an ally and trade partner but not a superior. The Sejagun, in an expression of his personal power, declared himself the first emperor Myeongjo [3] of the Cheon "Heavenly" Empire.
Myeongju viewed the Imperial Wars in Japan with some concern. It was considered that Japan must be kept disunited, as the temporary unity by Toyotomi Hideyoshi had to the traumatic invasion of Korea. With Korea's western frontier with the quixotic Bailian maintained by a strong alliance with the Mongols, it was considered important to prevent a strong Japan from emerging to the east. The Cheon had positive political relations with the Kuroda clan of Kyushu, and through these links made positive contact with the anti-Imperial clans in the south of Japan. In 1664, Cheon armies landed in Honshu in an unexpected attack to the flank of a vast Imperial army marching south to engage the Kuroda and Kobayakawa clans. As Imperial reinforcements were tied up by attacks from the Date and Mogami, the bulk of Imperial forces were annihilated, and Go-Jimmu killed by Korean cannon fire.
The aftermath was complicated. No single clan possessed the power to dominate, and the Imperial Family had been annihilated. Most of the Imperial Family had been killed, and succession was the subject of a great deal of controversy. Most of the clans despised the presence of Cheon armies on Japanese soil, and a number of pro-Imperial clans had not been completely defeated. In addition, the Imperial wars had had a significant element of inter-religious warfare, mostly centred on Christian and anti-Christian elements. Temples, shrines and churches had been burned, and Christians and followers of Japanese syncretic Shinto and Buddhism had been massacred. Religious feuding threatened to destabilize the nation permanently, and many saw this as a prelude to the complete domination of the country by the Cheon, as well as European interests.
The system of government that was devised was influenced heavily by Jesuit advisors, despite the anti-Christian prejudices of many of the clans. The new system was based significantly on the Holy Roman Empire, though more in it's theory than it's actual practice, as well as the concept of
cuius regio, eius religio, in which the ruler of a region would decide upon its religion. The Emperor became decided by an elective monarchy, in which the leading anti-imperial daimyo, namely the Kuroda, Kobayakawa, Date, Magumi, Maeda and Kikkawa, became Senkyo, or Electors, of the Emperor of Japan. The position was to be rotated amongst the Senkyo families initially, in order of seniority, over the course over every ten years. In practice the Kuroda clan, seen as agents of the Cheon, were intrigued against by the other clans, and the first Emperor was elected of their rivals the Kobayakawa in 1666. In the future, the city of Kyoto where the Japanese Diet would meet once a decade would became a den of intrigue against the stunning backdrop of the imperial villas and gardens, but the Sengoku period of perpetual warfare was over.
[1] Name taken from OTL, but an ATL character with a different mother, birthdate and childhood than the Takahito of OTL.
[2] As above, but closer to his OTL equivalent.
[3] The first character 'Myeong' is the same as the Chinese 'Ming', as a reference to the former dynasty. The possibility of a resurgence by the southern Ming was still considered as a possibility, and it was considered a suitable reference to the former 'big brother' nation of Joseon.
(not in context of Korean imperialism though, just that there will be rather many Korean visitors to the region as many as Japanese ones IOTL, though it seems likely that it will be more....)
