Katanas of the Rising Sun: Difference between revisions

''Across the mountains, corpses in the field''

''I shall die only for the Emperor''

 

Japan, 1867. Commodore Perry has visited Japan to display some [[Gunboat Diplomacy]] a decade-and-a-half or so ago, and the potential onslaught of Westerners to dominate Japan the way they did the rest of Asia has galvanized a clique of low-ranking samurai from the southern fiefdoms of Satsuma and Chōshū into leading their Western-style private armies against the Tokugawa Shogunate. They seize the boy-Emperor Mutsuhito at his Residence in Kyoto before the Shogun can secure him. The Shogun is dealt a heavy PR-blow by this, and many lesser Daimyos refuse to come to his aid as it would appear that they were going against the Emperor. The Shogun's forces slug it out, but are eventually driven off Honshu entirely and flee to Hokkaido where they set up a short-lived Republic in Hakodate. Eventually, this too falls, and Japan is more or less united under a new government, which moves the Emperor to Edo (renamed Tokyo) and proclaims the start of the Meiji ("Enlightened Rule") era.

By the turn of the century, it had a fledgling modern army and navy. The army and navy proved themselves during the Sino-Japanese War, in which the Japanese emerged clearly victorious, and the Russo-Japanese War in which the Japanese managed to (barely) trounce the Tsarist forces, who didn't feel like going to the expense of a protracted war which they would have won. The war appeared to end in a Japanese victory, with ceasefire negotiated by Theodore Roosevelt in the Treaty of Portsmouth. This created major ripples in the world -- a tiny Asian power beating ''Russia''? -- leaving many considering Japan's potential. Japan believed they had learned an important lesson: respect was gained and maintained via the use of a plenitude of modern military hardware. The Social Darwinists rejoiced: what clearer sign could there be that the Japanese were a people ascendant, not just a "fitter" race, but the ''fittest''?

 

 

The army led Japan into an invasion of China, which was initially successful but ultimately proved an open-ended manpower sump: China was simply too large and had too many people to conquer outright. Japan could not find enough manpower to do more than take and hold several major cities and the roads that linked them. However, the invasion in turn committed Japan to a dangerous clash of interests and sentiments with America and Britain. The US in particular felt a somewhat paternal attitude towards the Chinese and embargoed strategic goods, such as oil, in response to continued Japanese aggression in China, while Japan was heavily relying on America to fuel its industrial progress.

In the aftermath of the first atomic bombing (on Hiroshima), the government continued its refusal to surrender unconditionally, while in private, the emperor prepared for the inevitable. One A-bomb later, and Japan declared its surrender on 15 August, 1945 (mostly at the behest of the emperor, over the heads of military brass who ''still'' wanted to keep fighting). This was fortunate for the US, because they had no more atomic bombs left. The military complex of Imperial Japan was forcibly dismantled, governmental power was effectively handed over to the US military (with General MacArthur having the final say on anything the Diet did), and land and economic reforms were made to break the power of the ''zaibatsu'' ([[Mega Corp|big industrial corporations]]), who had formed a core part of the military-industrial complex. While democratic reforms had their intended effect, many of the economic ones were rolled back in the face of the Korean War, and it was ramping up industrial production to help out the US in this conflict that started Japan's economic recovery in earnest. Control of the country was handed back to the Japanese in 1952, and at the same time, a National Safety Force (later renamed the [[Kaiju Defense Force|Self-Defence Force]]) was formed. This was born out of the rise of hostile Communist governments in East Asia (including China, who had a score to settle with Japan) and the realization that Japan would be effectively helpless with Occupation troops increasingly called upon to fight elsewhere. Its creation was bitterly contested well into even the 1980s, despite assurances of civilian control and non-belligerence, and its naming (which borders on [[Most Definitely Not a Villain|Most Definitely Not a Military]]) reflects this; even so, politicians continue to battle over just what the Japanese military's role should be in modern world affairs.

 

* [[Badass Army|Badass Navy]] : The IJN. [[Badass Decay|Initially]].

** The Imperial Japanese Army almost counts as a [[Badass Army]] because it had such an incredible amount of pluck. But it had almost no sophistication or finesse unlike the Imperial Japanese Navy, and Allied troops tended to fairly commonly "give" several times better then what they "received" from the IJA. The reverse was true, however, for the vast bulk of the action it saw during the wars; most Chinese 'troops' were irregulars - that is to say, militiamen - and they were almost universally ill-equipped and ill-led, and even more poorly coordinated. An exception would be the Chinese Nationalists' 'German' divisions, which were largely wiped out at the Battle of Shanghai, and their Expeditionary Force in Burma, which was trained and equipped (and supplied, and led, and coordinated) to US Army standards.

* [[Big Brother Instinct]]: Some Americans felt this toward the Chinese - they felt they had done a lot to prevent China from being carved up between the other Imperial powers, for instance, as a result of their 'Open Door' policy to China. Likewise the Japanese government promoted this kind of pan-Asian-solidarity as a post-facto means of legitimating their Asian Empire.

** The Japanese legitimately believed their propaganda. Tojo was crying during the formation of the East Asia Prosperity Sphere

* [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]: Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War. Albeit the Russians had to fight on foreign waters halfway across the globe.

** Their simultaneous invasions of the Philippines, Malaysia + Singapore and the East Indies count. Heck, the fact that they could hold off the US as much as they did (it could have done much better in several battles) is a case of sheer awesomeness.

** The rescue of the dying garrison on Guadalcanal could also qualify.

*** Some of the naval battles in Guadalcanal too.

* [[Off with His Head]]: Japanese soldiers used to have contests to see who could decapitate the most Chinese prisoners. This even made positive headlines in papers back in Tokyo.

* [[Older Than They Think]]: Japan's ambitions for a trans-Pacific empire date to 1798, when Honda Toshiaki, actually opposing British imperialism, said Japan should rule the entire Pacific Rim and relocate the capital to Kamchatka, because Kamchatka, being at the same latitude as London, [[What an Idiot!|would have the same climate]].

*** Another way of looking at the latter instance is that after Hideyoshi brought an end to the Sengoku Jidai, he needed some way to occupy the attention of all of his samurai and allied warlords while he focused on rebuilding the country. The solution? Send them off on a hopeless war of conquest that will likely get them all killed.

* [[Only Sane Man]]: Isoroku Yamamoto, mentioned above, seemed to be the only man in the country that thought an unprovoked attack on America might be a bad idea... at least in his diary. He's often portrayed as having openly protested or denounced it, but most of the quotes attributed to him may have actually been apocryphal. More recent scholarship suggests the Pearl Harbor attack may have actually originated with Yamamoto.

* [[Recycled in Space]]: [[Star Blazers]].

* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: Remember Pearl Harbor!

** While the losses were about even, and Japan gained very little out of the war, Russia still came out of the war a lot worse for wear, as the people trusted the government less, many prisoners were taken, and over fifty thousand people died due to economic deadweight.

* [[Seppuku]]: A fatalistic culture, the Japanese were extremely devoted to suicide, preferring (what they believed was) an honorable death to captivity. At least in theory (read propaganda). The people of Okinawa had been told that capture by Americans would be [[A Fate Worse Than Death]], and given what soldiers who had returned from China had experienced, it was not that far fetched. However, some survivors report having murdered their whole families against their will before being captured by American soldiers.

* [[Underestimating Badassery]]: Both America and Japan did this to each other to some degree at the start of [[World War II]]. Indeed Japan's whole plan was based on the assumption that a nation of quiet, polite shopkeepers would never have the heart to put [[Honor Before Reason]] and would give up pretty quickly unlike a true [[Proud Warrior Race]].

** Khalkin Gol, where Japan learned you never, under ''any'' circumstances try to invade Russia, as they mostly achieved a [[Pyrrhic Victory]] the first time. The earlier Russo-Japanese War was indeed a fluke as the Russians claim. The Japanese ended up losing some 30,000 soldiers, almost twice as much as the Russians, and retreating.

* [[Unobtanium]]: America and [[The British Empire]] placed an embargo on oil and other resources to Japan before [[World War II|the war]] as they really didn't want it to be used by Japan to beat up China, where they had their own interests including the local [[Balance of Power]]. The Japanese could not carry on military operations without such things and withdrawing would [[Honor Before Reason|lose face]]. Thus they decided that they should attack Pearl Harbor, Singapore, the Phillipines, Burma, and Malaya, thinking a quick strike would and a quick "magnanimous" offer of peace would end the war. [[It Seemed Like a Good Idea At the Time]].

* [[We Have Reserves]]: The Chinese attempted to use this strategy against Japan, but [[Curb Stomp Battle|it worked out very poorly]] against Japanese tanks, planes, mortars and machine guns. The Japanese themselves attempted to use this against the advanced armies of the United States and the British Commonwealth, which also ended in disaster for much the same reasons. Also, unlike China who could actually afford to replenish losses, Japan couldn't afford to have large amounts of troops killed. On paper, their empire had a very large population to draw from. In reality, they didn't have the food to feed them, the money to train them, or the ammo to equip them.