Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

Japanese Asia

Written in response to Christopher Nuttall’s “Challenge: Japanese Asia”:

Something that struck me when I started to explore history in the 1600s was that the pacific was a blank slate to some extent. The Chinese were in a state where they did not have the inclination to go exploring and the Japanese were entering a state of isolation. The Dutch and the Spanish claimed a few islands, but they never found Australia or settled the area to any great extent. The British therefore got most of the important territory.

However, what if the Japanese got there first? Instead of an attempt to conquer Korea in 1590, perhaps they could head south to the Philippines and downwards. If they did that, it is unlikely that the Spanish would be able to stop them, even if they did hold a technological advantage. That would allow the Japanese a chance to take most of the East Indies and Australia (the Spanish missed it by a few miles). The Japanese were well aware of the location and the weakness of the Spanish and it would allow the Shogun a chance to export most of the troublemakers.

Now, the Japanese certainly knew the Chinese coast for quite a way south; they had been Viking-style pirate traders in the early years of the Ming Dynasty and the Ashikaga Shogunate. Apparently, though, they missed Taiwan. Everyone had missed (or ignored) it, since when the Dutch discovered it in 1624, they found only a sparse population of non-Han natives there (the Dutch were driven out in turn by the pro-Ming pirate-warrior Cheng Ch’eng-kung, a/k/a Koxinga; his grandson surrendered to the Ch’ing in 1683). We will suppose, therefore, that some Japanese trading with China gets blown off-course and discovers the island in the late 1580s.

In 1590, the surrender of the Hojo was the final stage in Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s unification of Japan. Now, however, he was faced with the problem of a large, battle-hardened army that could not simply be disbanded. Historically, his solution was to attempt a conquest of Korea with it. In this ATL, however, the report of the discovery of Taiwan has filtered up to the taiko’s court; Hideyoshi has a fit of good sense and decides to divert part of that army to its conquest. Thirty thousand samurai descend upon the island and virtually annihilate the natives in 1593-94. Hideyoshi ships over daimyo, peasants, and artisans; Taiwan becomes the “fifth home island” of Japan.

Hideyoshi dies on schedule in 1598, and the ascendancy of Tokugawa Ieyasu proceeds as in OTL. He uses Taiwan as his dumping ground for the tozama daimyo, the lords who submitted to him only after his decisive victory at Sekigahara (in OTL, he dispersed the tozama daimyo to the outer provinces). A few fudai daimyo (his hereditary vassals who fought for him at Sekigahara) are sent over (and endowed with considerable lands) to keep an eye on them; by the time of Ieyasu’s death in 1616, the population of Taiwanese, almost totally Japanese, is 750,000. A trade treaty is negotiated with the acting governor of the Philippines in 1610, as in OTL; in this ATL, however, trade is both more substantial and conducted largely with Taiwan. The Japanese of Taiwan come to know the Philippines well.

In 1636, the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu forbids foreign travel by Japanese. The status of Taiwan is ambiguous; is it part of Japan or not? The question is effectively answered in the negative by Iemitsu two years later when, after the Shimabara Rebellion, he forbids the building of large ships.

Of course, there is now no hold on Taiwan. The taishu (governor), Hokkoku Ishikabuto (d. 1649), never formally renounces his allegiance to Edo, but neither does he care about what happens there. Effectively, he is king of Taiwan; he simply takes over the Tokugawa government apparatus there. One change must be made, however. Shimabara revealed how the samurai had degenerated since Sekigahara. Chen Chih-lung (Koxinga’s father) is already a major military influence on the south Chinese coast, and has raided Taiwan. Katsumoto must rebuild his army, lest his kingdom be cut out from under him. The samurai regain their lost edge, and re-establish themselves as a light cavalry, supported by ashigaru (“light feet”, arquebusiers of peasant stock).

Koxinga decides that Japanese Taiwan is too tough a nut to crack. In 1664, however, the Dutchman Balthasar Bort, in the service of the Ch’ing, drives Koxinga’s son Cheng Chin out of Fukien. In OTL, Taiwan was a secure base and refuge for him for nearly twenty years; here, it is a forlorn last hope. Proudly, he casts himself on the mercy of Hookoku Ikkakunshu (1632-1697; r. 1662-1697), Ishikabuto’s third son and recently acceded taishu. Ikkakunshu is shrewd enough to see the value of his services; he and his sailors (and fleet) are “Taiwanized”. With the military strength of a revitalized army and a newly-acquired fleet at his command, it is not long before Ikkakunshu decides to use that strength; in 1667, his armed forces swarm over the Philippines.

The Spanish are easily displaced, only those possessing significant technical knowledge and willing to apostatize surviving (Taiwan is heir to a generation of Tokugawa suspicion of Christianity). An uprising of the natives (Hitojin) in 1668-1671 is put down with considerable (although hardly uncharacteristic) brutality. Christianity in the northern and central parts of the archipelago is gradually suppressed (by 1750, it has been eliminated or driven into hiding) and the Taiwanese interpretation of Dual Shinto (Shinto deities seen as avatars of bodhisattvas) has been substituted. In the southern, Muslim parts, however, low-level partisan warfare, often indistinguishable from banditry, persists for decades.

That persistent warfare in the southern Philippines naturally draws the Taiwanese further south, in an effort to suppress Moro sympathizers and refugees; the northern coast of Borneo, Sabah, Brunei, and Sarawak, is annexed in a series of expeditions from 1672-1686. This brings the Taiwanese into renewed contact with the Dutch East India Company, a people and organization that they have no cause to love. A potential rival to them is found in the British East India Company; although the British and the Taiwanese never come to love each other, they develop a working business relationship based on their mutual antipathy to the Dutch. Working from separate ends of the Indonesian archipelago, they limit the Dutch sphere to Java and southern Sumatra and Borneo.

On Ikkakunshu’s death in 1697, Taiwan is drawn into a dynastic conflict between members of the Hokkaku dynasty. Ikkakunshu’s son, Tsuyoikusa, triumphs over his cousin Ishiokan, in 1703. He inherits an empire of Taiwan, the Spratleys and Pescadores, the Philippines, northern Borneo, and the Moluccas. Tsuyoikusa abdicates in 1716 (but lives and controls the government as retired taishu until 1729) to ensure the succession of his brilliant but restless son Ishikusa as taishu.

The Dutch had discovered and explored the western coasts of Australia in the period 1613-1627, calling it New Holland; however, they had not undertaken colonization. The Japanese trader Jendanji Abere, looking for new markets, touched the Queensland coast in 1702 (the continuity of the land with New Holland was not, of course, recognized at the time). This discovery had no effect until after Ishikusa’s accession; in 1728, however, he decided on colonization of Kyokuchi (as it was called). A half-century of Taiwanese occupation of the Philippines, with the Filipinos considered a distinctly inferior population (they were thought of as little better that animals), had given rise to a class of Tanegawari: half-breeds fathered by samurai on Hitojin prostitutes or rape victims. Katsusure now determined to get some use out of them as other than menial laborers and low-class prostitutes. The Tanegawari were “invited” to be independent peasant farmers in Kyokuchi, with enough daimyo, samurai, and ashigaru added to the mix to ensure that Kyokuchi remained a (nominally) loyal province of the Taiwanese Empire. Given the execrable treatment of the Tanegawari in the Philippines, little persuasion was needed to get them to emigrate to Kyokuchi; even less was needed when it became clear that Ishikusa and his governors were keeping the bulk of their promises (land was assigned free to the Tanegawari; taxes were not (at first) onerous, and their lives were certainly much better as colonists in Kyokuchi than as outcastes in the Philippines).

Ishikusa abdicated in 1731, making his eldest (surviving) son Ishinaga taishu. Ishinaga predeceased him; rather than Ishikusa taking the office back, Ishinaga was succeeded by his brother Kunshurobutso, who did outlive his father. However, Kyokuchi had been in a continual state of low-level ferment. It had never been particularly valuable to Taiwan, other than being a way to siphon off Tanegawari discontent and provide new lands for loyal daimyo and samurai. The ferment crystallizes around a leader, however, one Kabeda Umamikata. Beginning in 1741 (although he is only 15 at the time), he opposes Ishikusa, Kunshurobutso (who is actually killed fighting rebels in Kyokuchi in 1760) and the last of Ishikusa’s sons, Kamitenshi, finally decisively defeating his forces at Bohinisha in 1775; independent after that, he styled his new kingdom Hanakuchi. Although Umamikata was never formally recognized as taishu, his grandson Meishokaga was by a treaty of 1820. Relations between Taiwan and Hanakuchi have generally ranged from cold to open warfare.

Taishu of Taiwan

Ishikabuto 1628-1649 (effectively an independent ruler after 1638)

Ishiriko 1649-1662 (son)

Ikkakunshu 1662-1697 (brother)

Dynastic war 1697-1703

Tsuyoikusa 1703-1716 (son of Ikkakunshu; d. 1729)

Ishikusa 1716-1731 (son; d. 1750)

Ishinaga 1731-1744 (son)

Kunshurobutso 1744-1760 (brother)

Kamitenshi 1760-1777 (brother)

Ishitenshi 1777-1833 (son)

Kokushugo 1833-1868 (son)

Kokutenshi 1868-1888 (son; deposed and executed)

Kokuyoshi 1888-1938 (son)

Kunshuyoshi 1938-1960 (grandson; deposed, executed(?) 1961)

Ikkatenshi 1960-1974 (cousin; usurper)

Ikkayasu 1974-1983 (son)

Ikkatada 1983- (son)

Taishu of Kyokuchi (Hanakuchi)

Umamikata d. 1784

Meishokosen 1784-1787 (son)

Meishokaga 1787-1843 (son; formally recognized as taishu in 1820)

Umakaga 1843-1858 (son)

Umakirei 1858-1887 (son)

Meishokirei 1887-1889 (son)

Kamikirei 1889 (son)

Umayoro 1889-1895 (uncle)

Umeiketsu 1895-1901 (brother)

Soshidono 1901-1923 (cousin)

Tenshidono 1923-1937 (son)

Eiketsudono 1937-1953 (son)

Kamihoseki 1953-1995 (son)

Kameiketsu 1995- (son)

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