The colonization of Japan

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Blair152

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Easy. Have Japan be divided up into spheres of influence for each European power, pitting rival Japanese lords against one another while taking some coastal cities for themselves. I can see Spain or Portugal taking the south, hands down.
It wouldn't be that easy. The Japanese lords were loyal to the Tokugawa
Shogunate. Plus. the Japanese, right up until the Meiji Restoration, still had
matchlock muskets. Besides, with all the gold in Japan, the Dutch would keep it for themselves, and not share it with the British, Spanish, and Portugese. Did you think the English would have shared the gold they discovered in Virginia with Spain? :D
 
Not sure how possible this would be in the 17th and 18th centuries, given that Japan had the advantage in terms of manpower compared to what European powers could realistically send there [EDIT: Not sure how aware western powers were of this, even the Dutch. The English concession in Hirado used to send a delegation to Edo once a year until it was closed, so maybe there could have been some knowledge of this, but how much this knowledge would have survived into the following decades and centuries is unclear]. Also don't forget, Japan had more guns at the time than were available in the whole of Europe.

It could however be possible in the mid-19th Century. If the Shogunate had not negotiated with Commodore Perry and opened up some treaty ports and begun to adopt western technology, it could have been possible that 1. Edo would have been flattened by the black ships and 2. the Americans would have come back in greater numbers to force Japan to open up, and with up-to-date 19th Century tech, would have made short work of the samurai. Not sure if America would have colonised it, but it could have set Japan up as a protectorate in much the same way as the Philippines were set up a few decades later. It didn't have to, but it would have made strategic sense as a place to project American forces in Asia (before the Philippines) and to act as some kind of counter to the European concessions in China.
 

Deleted member 67076

Wow, this Necro.

Anyway, have Spain keep Portugal and the Netherlands while allowing those two to keep a somewhat autonomous foreign policy as to not stifle their trade. Intervention via the Sengoku eras would allow them to slowly carve out holdings bit by bit. Successfully convert the populace under your areas of influence to Catholicism and send in settlers and slaves here and there to break the total homogeneity of the nation. Back the Ainu in the north and use native proxies in the region to ensure Divita et Impera works continues along nicely.

Then let France and Britain try to join in on this to obtain the large market that was Japans. Japan may not have the most in resources, but it has a large, educated market that would always be in need of your raw materials from other colonies.

Give it a century or 3, and Japan ends up as a mess of princely states, treaty ports and directly administered colonies.
 

CalBear

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Zombie sighted. Katana wielding clean up team on scene.

Zombie filleted.
 
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