Turning Point - Sekigahara: Toyotomi's Global Expansion and its Consequences

''PART 5'': WORLD WAR I (GOOD ROUTE)

Phase 23 - The Road to War

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This part's content is similar to the "True Route" Part, but it takesslightly different paths.

- Katsumi Fusō

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After the Japanese War, the countries that had taken vast territories from Japan rushed to colonize those regions. The reasons were obvious: to prevent the Japanese from regaining control and to ensure that these territories would not be taken by others. Furthermore, it was an opportunity to take even more from Japan while it was weakened.

Despite being a colored race, the Japanese had monopolized a significant amount of wealth until then. Therefore, returning this wealth to the "rightful rulers" was considered a duty even by white nations. While these ideas may not hold in contemporary times, they were closer to common sense in the Europe of that era.

The countries that had long believed they had been suffering from the bitterness caused by the Japanese and the Empire of Japan wasted no time in manipulating Japanese territory as they pleased.

As a result, in the former Japanese territories and spheres of influence under white rule, local Japanese, Japanese descendants, and people with Japanese connections were systematically deprived of their wealth and privileges, and a general oppression common in European colonies was imposed on people of color. In addition to government officials, military personnel, and capitalists who remained in these regions, a significant number of expelled Japanese were also affected. Some regions even had routine practices of arbitrary arrests and imprisonments. The oppression imposed by the Russian Empire, in particular, was severe.

Naturally, the resentment of the Japanese towards the Triple Entente powers (Britain, France, and Russia) grew, and in the areas colonized by white people, violent resistance erupted. And the more they resisted, the stricter the rule became, leading to a vicious cycle of further resistance. Japanese and their descendants who had been at sea since the 17th century were not only people who had embraced modern civilization but were also far from docile individuals. Furthermore, they were well-prepared for resistance.

The countries that brought Japanese territories under their control gained immense wealth but also took on significant burdens.

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In the former Hokkaishū in the northeastern part of the Eurasian continent, Japanese individuals who opposed Russian oppression staged rebellions. However, Russia dispatched its military to suppress these uprisings and implemented even stronger oppression. Nevertheless, the resistance did not cease, and the vast Hokkaishū, which covers an extremely wide area, became a region constantly plagued by internal conflicts. Yet, the Russians, having finally secured an outlet to the Pacific Ocean, were exultant, and they regarded the defiant actions of the local Japanese as "mundane matters." In reality, for the continental nation of Russia, which encompassed numerous ethnic groups, an increase of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Japanese people had only a minimal impact. Furthermore, given that these regions were so distant from the Russian mainland, it was not a place where the Emperor and the nobility in St. Petersburg concerned themselves with practical matters. Their thinking was as simplistic as "kill them if they resist, or send them to labor camps," and it was believed to be the duty of officials and military personnel dispatched to the region, not the responsibility of the ruling elite. It's no wonder that governance was harsh. On the flip side, the resistance was consistently significant, and a substantial budget had to be allocated to deal with it.