WI: Mongol invasion of Japan successful

mlp · Jul 6, 2015

IOTL the invasions failed due to storm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Japan
There certainly were other logistical problems in hte planning and execution of the invasion itself, but still: what if the storm never happened that day? What if the weather was just fine?

Would the Mongols be able to make a landing? How far can they go into the coast? Will they be annihilated? Can they successfully invade Japan to the fullest? What will such an invasion look like?

theg*ddam*hoi2fan · Jul 6, 2015

Well... It could lead to a great many changes within Japanese society. Sorry, that's kind of obvious, but let's see...

Well, first of all - assuming a successful invasion - it opens Japan more. As long as it's part of the Yuan Empire, Japan will be tied into trade and exchange of ideas - that's not going to go away even if Japan later evicts the Mongol governors.

Secondly, Japan is going to be exposed to foreign religions much earlier. IIRC, Christianity was practiced among some of the Mongols at this point, and they had Muslim auxiliaries and advisors. Expect to see Christian and Muslim converts appearing in major trading hubs. Now, this could be interesting when the Yuan Empire falls and Japan breaks away - native-born converts could gradually fuse their religion with Shinto and Buddhism (the way OTL kirishtan doctrine became more akin to Shinto in many ways, ideas of the kami being angels etc.)

So... A more culturally cosmpolitan Japan, one with improved ties to the Asian mainland, and one that could take an interest in expansionism at an earlier point - since the experience of their country being conquered could lead them to the conclusion 'If we don't want it to happen again we have to be stronger'.

Avrorrange · Jul 6, 2015

Would Japan be governed through a series of vassal states or would the samurai class and feudal lord class be obliterated and replaced by direct governors?

mlp · Jul 6, 2015

theg*ddam*hoi2fan said:
snip

I don't know much about Japanese history, wikipages only say "periods" and it makes it sound like Japan was always unified, which it obviously wasn't.
How was Japan during the IOTL Mongol invasions? Was it under central control? Divided amongst numerous factions? Low-level conflicts between domains?
Furthermore seeing as IOTL Korea and China didn't see major impacts from the Mongols, I don't think it a stretch to assume Japan wouldn't be that influenced either. There certainly will be more trade though, with less fear of pirates or bandits to attacking trade routes.

darthfanta said:
Would Japan be governed through a series of vassal states or would the samurai class and feudal lord class be obliterated and replaced by direct governors?

Most likely indirect control, by marrying the Yuan and Yamato dynasties together.

Avrorrange · Jul 6, 2015

zeppelinair said:
I don't know much about Japanese history, wikipages only say "periods" and it makes it sound like Japan was always unified, which it obviously wasn't.
How was Japan during the IOTL Mongol invasions? Was it under central control? Divided amongst numerous factions? Low-level conflicts between domains?
Furthermore seeing as IOTL Korea and China didn't see major impacts from the Mongols, I don't think it a stretch to assume Japan wouldn't be that influenced either. There certainly will be more trade though, with less fear of pirates or bandits to attacking trade routes.

Controlled by a shogunate,but they seemed to be much more centralized according to wiki compared to the Tokugawa and the Ashikaga one.It still seems to be pretty feudal though.

mlp · Jul 6, 2015

darthfanta said:
Control by a shogunate.

How much control did he have over the domains? Can he make a unified front and endure through the infamous pillaging the Mongols are famous for?

Avrorrange · Jul 6, 2015

zeppelinair said:
I don't know much about Japanese history, wikipages only say "periods" and it makes it sound like Japan was always unified, which it obviously wasn't.
How was Japan during the IOTL Mongol invasions? Was it under central control? Divided amongst numerous factions? Low-level conflicts between domains?
Furthermore seeing as IOTL Korea and China didn't see major impacts from the Mongols, I don't think it a stretch to assume Japan wouldn't be that influenced either. There certainly will be more trade though, with less fear of pirates or bandits to attacking trade routes.

Most likely indirect control, by marrying the Yuan and Yamato dynasties together.

I highly doubt the Yamato dynasty would be a thing.All male members of the dynasty would likely be forced to commit suicide or have their necks broken(given the Mongol tradition of not having royalty spill their blood).At least that's what they did with the Zhao family when the Song Dynasty was conquered.I highly doubt the Mongols would let a family who claim to be the equal of the emperor of China live.

DumbersTC · Jul 6, 2015

darthfanta said:
Would Japan be governed through a series of vassal states or would the samurai class and feudal lord class be obliterated and replaced by direct governors?

Japan being governed through vassal states are more likely than direct governors. Imagine having to send troops from half a world away to suppress just a single rebellion.

mlp · Jul 6, 2015

darthfanta said:
I highly doubt the Yamato dynasty would be a thing.All members of the dynasty would likely be forced to commit suicide or have their necks broken(given the Mongol tradition of not having royalty spill their blood).At least that's what they did with the Zhao family when the Song Dynasty was conquered.I highly doubt the Mongols would let a family who claim to be the equal of the emperor of China live.

Maybe. But I don't think the Mongols were anti-monarchal revolutionaries, more like invaders who knew how to take control - and when not to. Koryo was indirectly controlled, and the royal families constantly taken to Mongolia and educated there.

mlp · Jul 6, 2015

DumbersTC said:
Japan being governed through vassal states are more likely than direct governors. Imagine having to send troops from half a world away to suppress just a single rebellion.

Well, the Mongol cavalry was fast.

Avrorrange · Jul 6, 2015

zeppelinair said:
Maybe. But I don't think the Mongols were anti-monarchal revolutionaries, more like invaders who knew how to take control - and when not to. Koryo was indirectly controlled, and the royal families constantly taken to Mongolia and educated there.

That's because the Koreans have always claimed to be vassals of the Son of Heaven rather than be an equal or even a superior to the Emperor of China by calling themselves Heavenly Emperor/Tenno.There's also the fact that the Emperors of Japan claim that they are gods and were commonly worshiped as such.They can always become a rallying point for anti-Yuan activity.The Mongols aren't anti-monarchical revolutionaries,but neither would they tolerate threats to their rule.

Nagisaki · Jul 6, 2015

zeppelinair said:
Well, the Mongol cavalry was fast.

Cavalry only works in some areas of Japan. If you are riding across Kanto, then yeah, it would work pretty well if they play their cards right. If they are trying to invade Hokkaido or something because Hakodate existed and could be a refuge for fleeing Japanese people, then they may have some problems, since even today Hokkaido is mostly forest. It would be like the Mongols invading an island Germany without a ton of castles, figuratively.

Since I brought it up already, what more challenges would the Japanese geography give to the Mongol invaders? Japan is full of mountains, and has tons of small islands that would require a large navy to land troops and capture them all, to avoid constant rebellion.

Remember, the topic is if the invasion succeeds, not whether they actually succeed in conquering all of Japan. Or did I misinterpret that? I really don't think they could conquer it all, for reasons I mentioned above, and if they somehow did manage to conquer it all, they probably wouldn't be able to stay for too long. If they somehow managed to stay for a good 150 years or so, then they did good, but their rule in Japan will almost certainly end once the Han rebel and the Ming, or their ATL equivalent, take power. I don't think Japan would ever accept being a vassal state of China again after that...

Avrorrange · Jul 6, 2015

TC9078 said:
Cavalry only works in some areas of Japan. If you are riding across Kanto, then yeah, it would work pretty well if they play their cards right. If they are trying to invade Hokkaido or something because Hakodate existed and could be a refuge for fleeing Japanese people, then they may have some problems, since even today Hokkaido is mostly forest. It would be like the Mongols invading an island Germany without a ton of castles, figuratively.

Since I brought it up already, what more challenges would the Japanese geography give to the Mongol invaders? Japan is full of mountains, and has tons of small islands that would require a large navy to land troops and capture them all, to avoid constant rebellion.

Remember, the topic is if the invasion succeeds, not whether they actually succeed in conquering all of Japan. Or did I misinterpret that? I really don't think they could conquer it all, for reasons I mentioned above, and if they somehow did manage to conquer it all, they probably wouldn't be able to stay for too long. If they somehow managed to stay for a good 150 years or so, then they did good, but their rule in Japan will almost certainly end once the Han rebel and the Ming, or their ATL equivalent, take power. I don't think Japan would ever accept being a vassal state of China again after that...

Hokkaido is not actually a part of Japan at this time.

Napoléon Caesar Augustus · Jul 6, 2015

theg*ddam*hoi2fan said:
Well, first of all - assuming a successful invasion - it opens Japan more. As long as it's part of the Yuan Empire, Japan will be tied into trade and exchange of ideas - that's not going to go away even if Japan later evicts the Mongol governors.

This isn't Tokugawa Japan though. Were they really so adamant about excluding all foreign influences in previous eras?

mlp · Jul 6, 2015

darthfanta said:
That's because the Koreans have always claimed to be vassals of the Son of Heaven rather than be an equal or even a superior to the Emperor of China by calling themselves Heavenly Emperor/Tenno.There's also the fact that the Emperors of Japan claim that they are gods and were commonly worshiped as such.They can always become a rallying point for anti-Yuan activity.The Mongols aren't anti-monarchical revolutionaries,but neither would they tolerate threats to their rule.

Dunno if claiming anything is significant to the Mongols. Consider the following:

Mongol soldier 1: Hey, look at this!
Mongol soldier 2: What is it?
Mongol soldier 1: It's the full title of the Emperor of Japan! He claims...to be equal or superior to the Chinese one!
Mongol soldier 2: You sure about that?
Mongol soldier 1: Yeah!
Mongol soldier 2: Well why is he kneeling before us then? And we're holding his entire family hostage?
Mongol soldier 1: Oh yeah, about that...
Mongol soldier 2: Let's just take them and go, he can call himself whatever the hell he wants.

Furthermore my personal thought says that the Zhao dynasty was killed that way because it was after a long, brutal war of Mongol conquest against the Chinese. Unless the Japanese put up several decades' worth of fight such an action seems unnecessarily brutal that can lead to hostilities between the Mongols and the entire Japanese population.

Nagisaki · Jul 6, 2015

Napoléon Caesar Augustus said:
This isn't Tokugawa Japan though. Were they really so adamant about excluding all foreign influences in previous eras?

No actually. They happily traded with the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch when they first showed up. Well, some of the clans did. Others weren't too nice.

darthfanta said:
Hokkaido is not actually a part of Japan at this time.

No, but Hakodate, the city on the southern coast, did exist and was a Japanese trade port where they traded with the Ainu tribes from Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kurils. IF the Japanese were desperate, they could make inroads into the island and make the Mongol's lives hell trying to scope them out. After all, how could you claim to rule Japan when the Emperor of Japan is still just sitting only about 15 miles away from Japan?

mlp · Jul 6, 2015

TC9078 said:
No actually. They happily traded with the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch when they first showed up.

Until the Catholic-Protestant conflict became a huge issue and Japan said "fuck this, I'm leaving".

Avrorrange · Jul 6, 2015

zeppelinair said:
Dunno if claiming anything is significant to the Mongols. Consider the following:

Mongol soldier 1: Hey, look at this!
Mongol soldier 2: What is it?
Mongol soldier 1: It's the full title of the Emperor of Japan! He claims...to be equal or superior to the Chinese one!
Mongol soldier 2: You sure about that?
Mongol soldier 1: Yeah!
Mongol soldier 2: Well why is he kneeling before us then? And we're holding his entire family hostage?
Mongol soldier 1: Oh yeah, about that...
Mongol soldier 2: Let's just take them and go, he can call himself whatever the hell he wants.

Furthermore my personal thought says that the Zhao dynasty was killed that way because it was after a long, brutal war of Mongol conquest against the Chinese. Unless the Japanese put up several decades' worth of fight such an action seems unnecessarily brutal that can lead to hostilities between the Mongols and the entire Japanese population.

For some reason,I think they will resist. At any rate,the Caliph of Baghdad was similarly executed after he was captured even though the resistance he gave was a complete joke.If the Mongols doesn't purge the Yamato Dynasty,they will most likely send the entire family,including the collateral branches(Taira and Minamoto) to China.

kasumigenx · Jul 6, 2015

The best way for Mongols to do to Japan is to balkanize it, like making Kyushu an independent Kingdom like it was during the Asuka and Yayoi and force the successor state to Yamato to vassalage.

mlp · Jul 6, 2015

darthfanta said:
For some reason,I think they will resist. At any rate,the Caliph of Baghdad was similarly executed after he was captured even though the resistance he gave was a complete joke.If the Mongols doesn't purge the Yamato Dynasty,they will most likely send the entire family,including the collateral branches(Taira and Minamoto) to China.

You might be right, who knows maybe they decide it's better to put an end to the Yamato Dynasty.
At any rate the first foreign invasion on Japan would change the national ethos quite dramatically, I imagine.