It´s the land of the animes, mangas, games and the samurais. The Rising Sun Land is the consume dream for everyone who has a nerd side. Do you want to know how did a country isolated from the world became a cultural and technological potence?
Now, in Empires AD you´ll know the history of Japan. The Japanese history is divided in periods, and the first one is the Jomon Period, that was between 15. 000 and 300 B.
C and the people there had the same name. After this whole lot of years there, begins the Yayoi Period from 300 B. C from 300 A.
C. The Yayoi would have came from the region where today is China. And it was in this period when the population spread through nearly the whole cluster of islands.
But it was during the Kofun Period when the Japanese unified thanks to the influence of the Yamato Clan, who has already occupied almost the whole region. Besides, the Yamato dinasty is the longest of history and still governates Japan up to date. In 538 A.
C, the budism gets to Japan through a Korean king and with it begins the Asuka Period. In this period, the Soga Clan begins to obtain power and even manages to control the Yamato. And here the first signs of the chaos go through Japan, that was obviously not Japan yet.
The place had a whole lot of names before this one. In this period, for example, it was Nihon. To control the Soga, who were controling everything, the Yamato Clan marries with the new Clan called Fujiwara.
They manage to mantain a certain political balance but in 710, begins the Nara Period. with a dry and starve that devastates the entire country. From 794 to 1185 begins the Heian Period with the Fujiwara obtaning the top of their power.
And here begins the chaos. In this period, a devastating plague kills pretty much half of the population and with half of its population, the government had less power too. And what happens when the government is bad and takes the people with it?
Yeah, civil war. In this period, the Clans started to have their own armies of samurais to attack weaker Clans, and that led to a whole lot of wars. Hogen Rebelion, Heiji Rebelion and Genpei Wars.
And the guy who put order in this mess was a jape called Yoritomo, who was the first Shogun, which means "Grand General Peacemaker os Armies. " The Japanese preferred to use that pretty name instead of "dictator," but it´s the same thing. The Shogunate was the name of the administration where the Shogun used to be.
This figure got the high of it´s power during the Kamakura Period, from 1185 to 1333. And they introduce a new form of government: they nominate the Daimyos, who were big feudal lords in all the region who also had their trained samurais. Japan had about 300 Daimyos, each one with it´s own armies of samurais You´re already knowing where this ends, right?
The Onin War comes as a dispute between Shoguns to rise to the throne, devasting the Muromachi Period and begining, my younglings, to the Sengoku Period, which means "Country At War. " In the end of the 15º century up to the end of the 18º century, the entire country was trapped in the most gory civil war of it´s history. During decades, the samurais had the most decisive participation in this war, that by being so balanced, just grew and became more gory.
The Ninjas, or "Shinobis," surge in this period realizing secret missions of spying and murder. But in 1543, the first Europeans arrive in Japan. The Portuguese were not just totally different people to the Japanese, they´ve brought a technology that the Japanese have never seen, The European Arquebuz.
There are historians who say that the Japanese didn´t even knew what was a firing gun until the Portuguese arrival. The Daimyo Oda Nobunaga asks help from the Portuguese who trained and provided a good quantity of these superweapons to the Japanese faction, that was known as the Tanegashima weapon. The Portuguese changed the history of Japan and finished a century of civil war.
And more, the Portuguese converted about 300. 000 Japanese to Christianity. But they only accepted Jesus beacause they wanted the Portuguese trades.
Deep down, they were budes. In 1600, a new civil war begins in Japan between the Tokugawa and Toyotomi Clans. After the battle of Sekigarahara, comes the Tokugawa Shogunate, that would be the last one to rule Japan until 1868, in the Edo Period.
This Shogunate leveraged Japan, population increase, literacy and a stellar economic high. The Meiji Period comes in 1868 bringing the Emperor figure back to scene, but by control of the oligarchs, known as the Meiji Oligarchy. But these were the guys who would destroy the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, that was a complete humiliation for the future comunists.
And it looks like this win left the Japanese with an Empire taste in the mouth, specially after the victory in World War I by the side of the Europeans. But they decided to change sides in World War II, mistreated the Americans in Pearl Harbor, but they felt the terror of the States´ atom bomb in august 1945. It was the end of the WWII and the Japanese Empire.
But like the Phoenix, the Japanese reborn from the ashes and made an example of society model and a popular culture that is admired and copied in the entire world. And younglings, it´s time for Bonus AD: In ancient Japan, women used to darken their teeth with a black paint because white teeth were considered ugly. It´s a practice known as Ohaguro that lasted until late 1800.
The only Japanese survivor of the Titanic was considered a coward in Japan because he didn´t die with the others. Drwing in Japan began in the 12º century and today the Japanese spend more paper doing mangas then to do toilet paper. An that´s it, youngs!
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So long, careful there and hugs.
