The Fifth Island

My POD starts from the traditions of the Heike monogatari because I do not know what actually occurred and involves the relationship between Minamoto no Yoritomo and his younger half-brother Minamoto no Yoshitsune. It is ASB because it posits that Yoritomo actually likes his half-brother. Thus after the great victory of Dan-no-ura in 1185, he considers how to maintain a good relationship with Yoshitsune while making himself Shogun. He concludes that he needs to keep Yoshitsune occupied and thus send him, leading an army including other warriors such as former Taira who Yoritomo does not completely trust, to conquer Taiwan (I also considered Korea or the northern islands of Hokkaidō and Sakhalin/Karafuto but a northern expansion seemed less likely to cause significant effects while Korea could probably not be taken). Given reasonable luck, I suspect that Yoshitsune could have persuaded most of the tribes of Taiwan to give tribute (assuming that he did not demand too much) and accept Japanese rule.
Thus by Yoritomo's death in 1199 (or perhaps later if Yoritomo's horse is not startled by Yoshitsune's ghost), Yoshitsune is governor general of Taiwan. By 1280, when Japanese rule might face a Mongol challenge, I assume that Japanese is the single most spoken language on Taiwan. Thus even if the link is sometimes broken, I can imagine that it will tend to be restored whenever a new Shogunate is established, such as the Hojo to Ashikaga transition, as defeated remnants will otherwise retreat to the Fifth Island. Thus it becomes much harder for a new Shogun to avoid contact with the outside world while unifying Japan.
 
Interesting. At what point did the Japanese take over the Ryukus, and why would they not serve the same purpose that you want Taiwan to serve?
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Interesting. At what point did the Japanese take over the Ryukus, and why would they not serve the same purpose that you want Taiwan to serve?

Sometime in the 19th century, before that it was an independent kingdom under house Shimazu (also daimyo of Satsuma) but afaik was not considered part of Japan until the Meiji era, after the defeat of the Satsuma uprising.
 
Sometime in the 19th century, before that it was an independent kingdom under house Shimazu (also daimyo of Satsuma) but afaik was not considered part of Japan until the Meiji era, after the defeat of the Satsuma uprising.
So.... How would Japan go about conquering Taiwan if they don't have the Ryukus on the way?
 

archaeogeek

Banned
So.... How would Japan go about conquering Taiwan if they don't have the Ryukus on the way?

It's not terribly hard and Taiwan is not that far: the Portuguese controlled it from Goa and the Dutch from Jakarta, by comparison, even if they don't grab the Ryukyu it's right next door. Although I suspect if the Bakufu wants Taiwan, the Shimazu lords can kiss the independence of their Ryukyu kingdom goodbye: probably one of the problems I could see is the conflict with China: nominally, the kingdom of Okinawa was a chinese vassal (yes, I know, like the whole damn world if you pay too much attention to the mandarinate, but Ryukyu is a tad closer than the Netherlands or Portugal ;) ). They may not have to conquer it but could retain a vaguely complex fiction of the country being a Shimazu domain along with their principality in Satsuma, being effectively administrated with effective oversight as part of Japan and still being nominally vassal of China: basically the situation of Burgundy straddling France, the Empire, and the vague sovereignty of the borderlands of both.
 

maverick

Banned
So.... How would Japan go about conquering Taiwan if they don't have the Ryukus on the way?

When is it said that the Ryukyus wouldn't be conquered in the OP?

I can only speculate about the direction this could take, but I guess that the Song, or at this point, the Southern Song wouldn't be powerful enough to stop Kamakura Japan, but that's only a guess based on the fact that the Song are in a state of decadence and being kicked out of Northern China by the Jin in the 1190s. But then again, no Chinese Dynasty ever cared about Taiwan anyways, I just felt the need to bring it up.
 
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