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Post by simon darkshade on Sept 8, 2021 3:37:50 GMT
What is the earliest date that Japan could be opened up to Western trade and relations?
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 8, 2021 15:29:16 GMT
What is the earliest date that Japan could be opened up to Western trade and relations?
Assuming you mean after the founding of the Shogunate and closing to outside links possibly some time in the 1820s. With the Napoleonic wars over the European powers were free to look around the world for more trade. Also IIRC the trigger for the US intervention was the mistreatment of Americans who had ended up in Japan due to being ship-wreaked. This seems to have happened to a number of westerners, merchants or fishermen/whalers most commonly.
As such some incident(s), especially if they involved reports of death or torture of the victims and coupled with a government in the homeland coming under pressure to do something to stop/avenge this and you might get some sort of threatening visit comparable to the OTL Perry one. It might be more likely to end in open bloodshed as the westerners will be less clearly advanced technologically - i.e. no steam powered ironclads, guns still largely traditional canons etc.
I would say the party most likely to intervene would be the UK or France, because of their world wide interests and reach of naval power or Russia because it has territory in the region and hence more likely to see subjects running into problems in Japan.
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