Nobunaga’s Ambition Realized: Dawn of a New Rising Sun
- Thread starter Ambassador Huntsman
- Start date
They may develop a path similar to the Scottish people as a widely-recognosed separate nationality that will always be distinctive from the "English" Japanese.
Perhaps, a code of law will be established for the Kakizaki's Ainu vassals so as for them to be formally recognised as legal entities, and to likewise delineate their borders. With relatively amicable relations as of this moment, both sides won't want to ruin it with a costly "war of destruction" like how it was done the Emishi of the old, or the Catholics of Pangasinan.
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I'd think the natives would like the Buddhist religion because it'd allow for easier syncretism (they can practically retain their gods) while acknowledging nirvana and as a reaction against the Catholic Spanish. I'd think Buddhist evangelists could be present to spread the Buddhist faith too, which would be an important factor in spreading the faith amongst the natives.
I do think the yamato church would have to think about whether it accepts native priests or not as the Philippines would need an answer to the issue. I think it's possible at least but weirdly it'd make Christianity a religion that the non-Japanese could get power from, which is something the Japanese won't want.
I think Japan should have a few mines but not all of them, but I do think it does make Luzon a good destination for miners and the need to secure the region with colonists loyal to the state.
Looking at the jewellery they make the designs are quite cool! It'd be cool to see the Japanese incorporate Austronesian and Ainu and maybe even native American symbols and art.
I think it'd definitely be a better end than otl, but I do think Japan would need nominal control, which probably means the Ainu bending the knee to the emperor and using force against those who don't.
It's also not just the mines, but also the peasantry that are working the land that I am concerned about. Sure, many of the koku-minded Japanese will go to Cagayan valley and Pangasinan first, but there sure still will be people who would like to engage themselves in agriculture within the Ilocos region.
The ambiguous status of the encomienda regime as of late can make for quite an administrative clusterfuck as the Japanese who are readily immigrating into the region start to establish their own plantations with abandon to that and to the province's system of land ownership and entitlements (or lack thereof). There may be room in the richer Cagayan valley for everyone to settle and move
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I'm glad the Ainu are getting better treatment compared OTL and it would be interesting to see a mix of Ainu-Japanese culture and language in Ezo/Hokkaido.
I'm not surprised about Catholics still being strong in Luzon since the natives who converted to that religion are/were the nobles who used it to keep whatever remaining power and control they had from Spain.
Also I'm wondering what's the European powers reaction to the Treaty of Gapan?
I'm not surprised about Catholics still being strong in Luzon since the natives who converted to that religion are/were the nobles who used it to keep whatever remaining power and control they had from Spain.
Also I'm wondering what's the European powers reaction to the Treaty of Gapan?
To be fair to them though, it was only in Pangasinan where Catholicism had truly become a "popular" religion, as the Spanish colonisation in much of the Ilocos region was still underdeveloped as this point of time IOTL - at least outside the initial settlements around Vigan.
Cagayan valley - meanwhile - is set to become just as Japanese as the actual home islands are.
They're going to take the Tributary System more seriously as something respectably distinct from the undeveloped-as-of-yet Westphalian diplomacy that they ha—
Oh wait, the alt-Treaty of Westphalia sure will be interesting!
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Ah ok, that makes sense. I was thinking that instead of turning Cagayan valley into completely Japanese why not a mix like what's happening with the Ainu...?
it's too empty, relatively speaking, as the Ilocano migration still hasn't happened at this point IOTL. Besides, the stratification between the natives and the readily-immigrating Japanese – compared to the rather amicably equal multiethnic relationship in Iriebashi – will make for a linguistic diglossia and even outright peasant transplantations on the part of the colonisers. Japan had the population to pull it off, after all, and the entire valley is prime farmland that can produce millions of koku worth of crops every year.
That said, the Ilocano population is still set to explode, making for the same expansion that happened IOTL. It just so happened that they are all set to compete with the Japanese-speaking plantations that settled within the valley, too.
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Well then, it'll be a problem but maybe with we have them learn both Japanese and the native's languages would help increase the stability as time moves on.
While the population boom happens it would be useful to help integrate the Filipins and northern Luzon.
Considering how rich Philippines would be for rice growing (tbf the sea is good for rice growing in general if the lands are tamed) I defo see that happening with the southern Chinese migrating with the Japanese to form the rice terraces and adopting water buffalo since they'd be useful down south (same with Beiritou, but I don't see any water buffalo in otl home islands). One thing the Japanese would have to adopt too is growing rice on drier land in the highlands, which the natives do because other crops like wheat will die due to the heat. It'd also make most farmers in Japan rich compared to anyone else back home.
One way I see pangasinan being pacified is basically a bunch of displaced Philippinos just going into pangasinan and kicking out the Catholics. I do see some turning to the yamato church tho considering the religion isn't modified much by the Japanese yet and I think they can accommodate a Philippines branch.
It'd be really interesting for parts of the interior of Luzon to be at least have Japanese majority populations. Considering how racial mixing seems to be more common down south I could see a significant amount of Philippinos just thinking of themselves as Japanese. Another fun thing I could see happen is Yasuke's descendants multiplying like rabbits from 1600-1700 as one of the main clans of Beiritou which defo should have tendrils in the Philippines too. I'd really like to see how more Africans get to the sea when they have a readily available source of unwilling menial labour source tho.
I think they'll still have something akin to the treaty of Westphalia even if the Spanish taps out early, they'd just know dealing with China and the tributary system is different until they're strong enough to say fuck it and flip the table.
Tbf I could see the Japanese being set to be a majority in northern Luzon with varying native tribes being absorbed to the Japanese which is the population that explodes. I could see some Africans also being mixed in there (not just yasuke) and some Chinese ppl.
I think it's very possible that a mixed Japanese population manages to somewhat take over some of the tribes and make it so that it'd be a mix of Japanese and philipino, especially since diseases would still be hard hitting especially in the early days.
On other things I could see the Dutch shipping some African slaves to the Japanese as oddities and as a thing they did starting from Nobunaga. Tbf are blacks being brought to bireitou and the courts of Japan ittl? I could see a mix of Austronesian, Japanese and Chinese being the primary genetic contributors with African being a small but significant part of the mix too.
I don't see why the Japanese would import Africans as slaves when there are many other labor sources in the region, particularly the Chinese.
Perhaps, but it's much harder when there are actual Japanese peasants who couldn't be bothered to adopt the Ilocano diglossia.
One thing that many AH.commers – and other writers of this genre as well – neglect to realise is that rainbows and butterflies (and pure grimdark and suckiness as well) were never an inevitability. The ease of handwaving wanks and utopias does not necessarily erase the issues that people can always point and speculate over.
Though of course, it's another matter if the author can ever be bothered to explore it; it's not as if we're omnipresent gods to comprehend the holistic entirety of a system as big as this, after all.
I think I already presented an idea on why rice terraces are also quite inefficient in terms of the small outputs that those give relative to its inputs, and its resulting uncompetitiveness in the labour market henceforth.
That said, water buffalos will always be a boon, a force multiplier that will only dispell the labour intensivity of rice cultivation and encourage the creation of larger land allotments, and something that likewise made me interested with Romanian River buffalos.
Well - the population of Cagayan valley is still none too big as this point in time to provide for much displaced emigrants. That said, maybe this is one of the main vectors of the Ilocano expansion, what with the Cagayan valley being much more crowded than it had been IOTL.
Exactly my point with the collapse of the diglossia in Cagayan valley; a "lesser language" is not much of use when more and more of your cousins and nephews are becoming monolingual.
As time passed on, Yasuke's descendants would have grown to become just as African as Alexander Pushkin was.
As opposed from the ones who immgrated on purpose, I don't see a bright future for the Africans who were "imported"; plenty of native Chinese and Japanese are already staking their interest to work on empty lands, and there isn't much of a niche for them - or at least, they need to prove themselves on its hierarchy - as day labourers (manpower industry in Japan tended to be controlled by the Yakuza), or even as villagers in burakumin villages themselves.
Considering this, alongside the lethality of the underworld, whoever Africans that were "imported" would have been more likely than not fetishised as sexual workers or cult "objects".
Well, the Cordillera Central is much more defensible and insular, after all; the same can be said of the Ilocos as well, if to a much lesser degree.
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I agree with @Gabingston and @Simeon, Japan has enough populations that they don't need slaves for the farmlands and plantations in Luzon.
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Also, one more thing: the idea of Japan and its people being the "divine race" will sure be put in full display in the socially-stratified Luzon. While it may not be like the "ableist" racism of the west, it sure still will create for a chauvinistic attitude on the part of the Japanese.
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True but as time and intermixing of races goes forward, they'll become more acceptable and view those from their colonies as the same as them.
Not necessarily; it can develop into something similar – if not worse – than the caste system, as the interests of the immigrants – who would more likely than not be much more versed in applying for the paperwork needed for land entitlement – were weighted more than that of the natives.
The natives are going to need to fight for the right to even work for the lands, all of which are now deemed as owned by the province as opposed to theirs.
The thing that also worsens this stratification is the self-segregation (whether it be intentional or not) of many natives from the Japanese, as many Christians among them refused to become part of the Japanese Church. I can see some churches breaking communion from Rome to survive, or even just to satisfy their plain acrimony with the former colonial administration, but nonetheless refuse to suborn themselves to the one in Azuchi.
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True the future is always unpredictable so we might as well wait until the time comes.
In fact, considering that the main driving force of "arzaic beliefs" is syncretism, it can be imagined how the next "New Religious Movement" can be born on the basis of mixtures of folk Catholicism and Buddhism.
I could definitely see that happening overtime, especially as the Japanese continue to colonise their portion of the Philippines, and through connections of both Yasuke and Zheng Zilong.
Although I have to wonder, as Japan will inevitably continue to fight with the Spanish for control of the local seas and the Philippines, how will the modern Japanese navy fare, and how will the Samurai adapt to fighting against the Conquistadors on land? Sure, the Spanish aren't that good or well-trained in close combat compared to the Samurai, but compared to the Spanish who have spent decades or even a few centuries getting rich and powerful, Japan has only begun opening up and modernizing for a few decades.
Whatever the case, they will pay a bloody price for full control of the Philippines.
Well, Japan's clans are far more stable financially than Spain ever was. Now that they have already invested enough of it for western-style navies and the arsenals and the financial planning that it necessitated (through a quite alien scheme from a Western PoV, I admit*), it will only snowball from there as they have now become a proper war-making nation comparable to everyone in Europe.
The only flaw – if a fatal one at that – that the Japanese have right now is their division into feudal entitlements that had legal basis to refuse functions that would have otherwise been expected from an actual state, like a centralised fiscal policy, and centralised control over the armed forces. Whatever political shake-ups that happen are done in lump-sum redistribution of lands – alongside practical sovereignty over the economic potential that those territories can give – to different clans. Relying on goodwill and the moral obligation of those entities in maintaining peace isn't really a good idea in the long run, especially as those economic potential – that are gaining experience and veterancy as arsenals and battleships, no less – can be likewise used against Azuchi.
That said, Spain is both in a political AND financial pickle, thanks to the consequences of the Price Revolution and its emptying of Castille in its quest to populate its colonies in the New World. They sure are declining when the Japanese clans are in an inexorable upswing.
*The legacy of shōen estates sure had been quite... peculiar, to say the least.
The shitshow in Pangasinan will convince many among the Japanese to turn the rest of the colony into a client state as opposed to a "clean-slate province"; there's no way that they'll see establishing Japanese plantations in the middle of densely-populated and unapologetically-Roman Catholic territories as something worthwhile, short of catching the 19th-century dick-measuring attitude that made for the Scramble for Africa.
Now, thinking about it again, I really hate the anemic borders of Pangasinan and how it left out the southern parts of the Agno river basin, not to say nothing of me having long considered the Pampanga river basin as the ultimate prize for the Japanese to begin with!
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