Katanas of the Rising Sun: Difference between revisions

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.

* [[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.