Shogun Total War and a brief history of Japan

I have always like playing computer games since I was a child. My favourite computer game genre are real-time strategy games where you roleplay a commander of an army, and have to defeat the opponent’s army. I like the competitive aspect of strategy games, and the sense of fulfillment that comes from defeating your opponent. I grew up on playing the command and conquer series, starting with Red Alert 2 to Generals, and they gave me quite a memorable childhood playing those games.

I recently bought the Total War series from the online game vendor Steam. I was particularly interested in Shogun 2 total war because I am interested in Japanese culture, and I do like reading up on Japanese military history. Some information about Japanese military history from the top of my head – Japan in the 15^th century was fractured into many clans competing for power to become the shogun. The first unifiers of Japan consisted of an alliance between 3 clans. The Toyotomi clan became the most influential of them subsequently. Dissatisfaction with the rule of the alliance grew when Japan lost a campaign to conquer Korea. In that campaign, China assisted Korea which was under its protectorate to ward off the Japanese invaders.

The Tokugawa clan subsequently defeated the Toyotomi alliance and claimed the position of shogun for a few centuries. The clans (in particular, the Satsuma and Choshu clans) which had fought against it were banned from participating in any political position for the next few hundred years. These clans occupied the merchant classes, and traded with European powers, which allowed them to obtain wealth and increase in power from buying military equipments such as guns. The Tokugawa shogunate, threatened by the increasing power of these clans closed its trading ports, and Japan became isolationist for a few centuries.

The spark of the revolution came when the Americans defeated the military inferior Japanese and forced open its ports for trading. The clans opposing Tokugawa, sensing a weakening of power began plotting their revolt. The emperor of Japan too was keen on ridding the shogun and restoring his rule over Japan.

From my playing of Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai, the account given was that the shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, tried to expel the radical elements from the imperial courts by writing a letter to the emperor alleging treachery from these opposing clans. The Satsuma and Choshu clans blockaded the route to the palace, and defeated the Shogun’s army. Subsequently, the emperor endorsed the Satsuma and Choshu clans and raised an imperial army to defeat the Tokugawa shogunate. It resulted in the emperor gaining control over Japan in what is historically referred to as the Meiji restoration.

I find the story of Japanese history fascinating. Usually, when we read of international relations, we think of a country as a unity. But there are many players warring against one another domestically, and how these turns out would also ultimately affect the way the country would behave in its international relation towards others. I wonder whether the imperialistic behavior of Japan in the past is due to rulers harbouring nationalistic attitudes towards international relations. And the way demographics is shaped is also dependent on how the prevailing ruler acts. For example, I read that Christianity had a lot of influence in Japan at one point of time, reaching up to a third of the Japanese population. And there were daimyos who were Christian converts such as Omura Sumitada pitting for rulership of Japan. They lost in the end. And the shogun that came into power was particularly brutal towards the Christians in the land, and was so effective in purging Christians that Christianity became almost non-existent in the land of Japan subsequently. Today, Christians only make up less than 1% of the Japanese population.

There are many question about the counterfactual that can be asked. ‘What if’ such and such happened instead? How would Japan be today? Would it have acted in the ruthless imperialistic manner that it did in World War 2? The events of history shape the nature of the society of any given country. And we living in the present bear the mark of the predecessors before us.