Hi out there!
Wonderful to see so many interesting comments, thank you all! Maybe I can get out a new part in the evening, but I cannot promise it.
@bm79
It is not that well known, but Max von Brandt was a big proponent OTL of taking or buying Hokkaido in the 1860s. He was one of those few Europeans who early saw that if you take colonies, you need those where your subjects might settle in easily. So no deserts or glazing heat a la Africa for Europeans.
In OTL it never came to that since the Unification took precedence and when Germany was finally united, Tokyo for the first time in centuries really had begun to develop Hokkaido. So the price, which in the early 1860s would have been rather cheap, had skyrocketed so much, that Bismarck stopped all advance into that direction. ATL the situation is different...
@Hörnla
Who says it is the third war (kind of) that is butterflied away? For those with intimate knowledge of the intra-german politics it is clear that 1866 might have been very different with just a few different events before. As a hint, if austrian foreign minister von Rechberg would have gotten the guarantees he wanted from Bismarck, the war would not have happened.
In ATL unlike OTL, Bismarck will have reasons to give von Rechberg these guarantees.
The British would not have done much about Hokkaido, no matter the moaning of the "Rule Britannia" pink glases. Many of them seem unable to read the UK´s own documents if it does not support their worldview. (rant off)
At that time, Japan was a side play, Germany would stay out of China, which the UK wanted and as long as India is not in danger, London would care less or not at all, what Germany does on an Island far from the Empire´s main possessions.
@Caoster, J. Edelstein, R. Asher
It is not only the Shogun who made a political/economical "Grand Slam", Prussia did as well. With some lines of ink on paper, the number of people in the Zollverein nearly doubled! At that time, the german states represented by the Eulenberg expedition had roughly 35 million citizens, Japan had a bit over 25 million. So after October 1860 ATL, the Zollverein had 60 million people. If you look at the total population of Earth in 1860, this is a MAJOR economic factor. Even accounting for the huge distance, the economic boost for the Zollverein states will be massive.
I do not want to spoil too much, so I just say that the ATL Shogun will be the equivalent to the OTL PM.