The Empire of Japan: Japan’s first great internecine struggle for the control of the Emperor in the late 12th century resolved in the favor of the Taira clan, who defeated their Minamoto enemies on the battlefield and assassinated the survivors who failed to commit suicide, while also driving their own hated cousins, the Hojo, into the far north of Honshu. They then cemented their reign by moving the Emperor’s court from Kyoto to their stronghold of Kobe, where it would remain until the modern day, even after the Taira clan was extinguished. More problematic was the fact that the Hojo and Takeda clans, two of the main powers in the north, were fiercely opposed to the Taira, and remained so, at one point declaring their own imperial candidate, albeit unsuccessfully.
As such, the Taira Shogunate could only hope to truly control the southern half of Honshu, despite winning several further battles against the Hojo and achieving their token submission. The decline of the Taira came near the end of the 14th century, with the emergence of several powerful new daimyo clans who openly ignored or defied Kobe, with little consequences, while the daimyo’s zone of real control gradually shrunk to the immediate environs of the capital.
In 1405, a minor retainer of the Taira, Yohorsehockyaka Hatakeyama, was appointed kita kanrei, or the northern viceroy of the Shogun, with the responsibility of bringing back to Kobe the heads of the northern lords who had again risen in rebellion, led by the Hojo. Unlike his predecessors, Hatakeyama succeeded, though not in the way his overlord had wanted. Facing overwhelming odds, Hatakeyama first defeated a coalition of Nitta and Takeda forces, then declared the Taira shogun illegitimate. He forged an alliance with the Hojo, promising them rule over the north, and then marched on Kobe, summarily executing the last of the Tairas and all of his heirs.
With the success of his alliances with the northern lords, Hatakeyama created three additional kanrei: In the south (minami kanrei), west (kansai kanrei), and the east (kanto kanrei). Along with the kita kanrei, Japan was roughly divided into four spheres of influence, aesthetically modeled after the square-grid, Chinese influenced Imperial city of Kobe. Rather than defying the shogun, local daimyo were now encouraged to compete for the shogun’s favor and prestige, with the kanrei positions giving them authority over their regional neighbors and rivals. Hatakeyama was also much better at distributing rewards to loyal samurai than his predecessors.
Thanks to this more efficient patronage system, the Hatakeyama Shogunate would remain stable throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. Trade ties were expanded with China, and overseas expeditions carved out sizeable enclaves for ambitious lords in southeastern Korea and Taiwan. The arrival of western explorers and missionaries, including a contingent of Burgundian traders and a group of priests with the Order of Santiago, would destabilize matters significantly.
The Hatakeyama had historically encouraged foreign trade, and these new gaijin and their strange religion were generally seen as little to no threat. However, dissent began to spread when several major daimyo converted to Christianity after several decades of proselytizing, including the minami kanrei. The Buddhist temple organization, supported for hundreds of years by the Shogunate and a military power in its own right, soon openly threatened rebellion if Christianity was not outlawed, as did the northern daimyo, even as the lords of Kyushu, Shikoku, and some of southern Honshu converted en masse, following the example of their kanrei, themselves threatening rebellion if their newfound faith was outlawed. Sumitaka Hatakeyama fatefully decided against the Christians, a decision he would come to regret.
The result of his decision was the Sennin War, a thirty year conflict in which the Christian and Buddhist daimyo fought to the death, the former supported by European guns and mercenaries and the latter with the full weight of the Hatakeyama Shogunate (and most of Japan’s daimyo) behind them. Unparalleled atrocities and the destruction of entire cities would follow. At the climax of the war in 1641, the Christian daimyo (with the support of European carracks) stormed Kobe from the sea, and sacked the city. The last of the Hatakeyama shoguns reportedly committed suicide as this occurred. Portuguese mercenaries killed the Emperor and most of the royal family before their Japanese allies could stop them, spurring outrage and causing the northern coalition to fight with renewed ferocity, setting up a rival court in Kyoto with the survivors.
After a series of further battles ending in stalemate, an accord was finally signed in 1650. The Emperor would return to Kobe, which was to be reconstructed. Buddhism was declared to be the official religion of the Empire, but Christian daimyo were allowed to practice their faith unhindered in the areas of southern Japan where it had become established. Equally so, trade and contact with Europeans would only be allowed in Kyushu, Shikoku, and Shimonoseki. The Shogunate itself was disestablished, and replaced with an Imperial Privy Council consisting of the Four Kanrei and a representative from the Buddhist monasteries, to placate their objections.
Japan’s development over the next two and a half centuries was somewhat stilted. While the Emperor’s power had been theoretically restored independent of a shogun, his Privy Council ruled Japan, and the Four Kanrei were by no means in agreement as to the future path that Japan should take. Perhaps unintentionally, this formalized the division of the Empire of Japan into four semi-autonomous kingdoms, all nominally led by the Emperor.
Generally speaking, the south flourished as an entrepot of maritime trade with Europe and China, accepting trading concessions for the Portuguese and Burgundians, and adding the French after the 1730’s. Consequently, while southern Japan rapidly became the most modern part of the Empire, the minami kanrei (controlled after 1680 by the Ichijō clan) was often deeply in debt to his European advisors. The Korean and Taiwanese colonies were lost to a resurgent China and its allies, though the minami kanrei now boasts an ironclad fleet staffed with French officers, strong enough to equal that of China, (or so the French promise) and more than enough to intimidate his domestic rivals. The French have also begun to encourage the separatists in the Ichijō daimyo’s court at Kagoshima.
The kita kanrei of the north (typically a Hōjō
pursued a strikingly separate path, keeping the traditional samurai lifestyle fully intact for northern Honshu, even allowing low-level wars to continue among his subjects to propagate this. The kita kanrei’s one concession to modernity has been allowing the Matsumae clan on Hokkaido, an offshoot of the Takeda, to take a fur trading lease in the far north, which has unintentionally given them access to a vast wealth of mineral resources, perhaps enough to challenge the Hōjō for northern Japanese dominance. The Matsumae problem aside, the Hojo have the largest standing army of the Four Kanrei, and have begun to adopt modern artillery and firearms while transitioning their samurai into an elite mounted cavalry corps.
The kanto and kansai kanrei are seen to be lower in strength than the viceroys of the north and south. They have also pursued more of a middle way policy, eschewing both the slavish European imitation and the backwards isolationism of the southern and northern ends of the country. Telegraph wires and railroad tracks are slowly spreading (with some resistance) across the island of Japan, and European tactics, if not uniforms, (with the exception of the southerners) have been adopted on varying levels by the armies of the kanrei and their retainers. Industrialization has begun as well. Though mostly in the south, and mostly under the eyes of foreign overseers, the benefits have begun to trickle down even if they are mostly denied to the Japanese people.
Some believe that southern Japan will break away and form a Christian, western-oriented constitutional monarchy if the Privy Council pushes them too far. Others say that the Matsumae will invade Honshu at the head of a barbarian army. Still others say that one of the kanrei will attempt to defeat the others and establish a new Shogunate. Only time will tell.