Empire of Japan

The **Empire of Japan** is a country in East Asia. It consists of the Japanese Archipelago, the Korean Peninsula, and several Pacific Islands, including Hawaii, Taiwan, Micronesia, Polynesia, and the Aleutians. Japan has direct administration over several coastal regions on mainland Asia, including Zhanjiang, Singapore, Shanghai, Weihai, Dalian, and Vladivostok.

Japan controls the majority of East and Southeast Asia through the management of various puppet governments. While Japan claims that these countries are independent, they are in actuality occupied territories of the Japanese Empire that are forced to submit in both their military and their economy. Examples of these aforementioned puppet governments are the Republic of China, the monarchy in Vietnam under Emperor Bảo Đại, among several others.

All of these countries are members of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, an alliance through which Japan controls its territories and manages relations with client/puppet states.

## History

### Pre-war (before 1939)

Japan's rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyōhei (富國強兵, "Enrich the Country, Strengthen the Armed Forces") led to its emergence as a world power and the establishment of a colonial empire following the First Sino-Japanese War, the Boxer Rebellion, and the Russo-Japanese war.

It was supposed to be only a border incident, soon to be resolved. Instead it turned out to be the beginning of total war for the Empire of Japan and the start to a full scale invasion of China. The Marco Polo bridge has become an infamous symbol of the bloodiest conflict in the history of Asia since the Taiping Rebellion.

### Second World War (1939-1945)

Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China was severely disadvantaged. Even with a seemingly unending pool of manpower, a lack of commitment to the war effort and political infighting doomed the young republic to a slow and excruciating death. Japan’s vastly superior armed forces, armed with modern guns, sailing on battleships, and riding on soaring planes tore through division after division, surprising foreign observers with their unparalleled dominance. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was busy with its own internal conflicts and crises, while U.S. President Joseph P. Kennedy was turning his nation to the beast it had fallen to a million times before; isolationism. The Kuomintang, once a home for idealistic revolutionaries and republicans, despaired. In the opening year of the war alone, the Republic of China lost the vast majority of its cities, crucial to the continuation of the conflict. Not even a second United Front between the Kuomintang and Mao Zedong’s Communist Party of China, deemed the last possible option, could halt the Japanese onslaught.

However, Japan did not emerge unscathed. No nation may emerge unscathed from the total transformation of its spirit towards total war. Old political, social, and economic structures were entirely replaced in favor of new, more efficient ways of life. The social fabric that had defined much of Japanese life was ripped apart. In its place, the Taisei Yokusankai was built from the ground up. The tattered remains of democracy, or at least the façade that remained, were finally put to rest. A new state emerged, one built for war, one not seen anytime before. A new word would arise to define these states - totalitarian. None of it would have been this way, if all had gone to plan. Chiang was to surrender and, in his place, Wang Jingwei’s Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China would have been founded in occupied Nanjing. Chiang Kai-shek refused to surrender, even as his people floundered and his nation was dying. The armed forces sputtered meekly, and shortages began to plague the nation. The war settled into a grueling slog as both sides hunkered down for the long fight. Japan sat on the cusp of victory, within reach of the great chalice.

And yet, they could not reach it. Prince Fumimaro Konoe, the head of the Taisei Yokusankai, struggled to continue to prove himself a capable leader in these times. His cabinet came to an end after public criticism by the fierce militant nationalist Yōsuke Matsuoka. Even as Konoe sought to preserve recent precious gains in China while carefully balancing relations with the specter across the ocean, America, Matsuoka believed war was inevitable. A third cabinet was formed by Konoe, in one final attempt to oust Matsuoka of his high diplomatic posts. In the end, the pressures of criticism and demands for resignation ended Konoe. The gears of history, unknowable in their ways, brought upon the world a conflict so horrific, so awful, that the word strikes a sense of dread into so many who were born in those years. War had arrived in the Pacific.

Many of Japan’s top military brass thought that an attack on the United States of America would spell an end to the empire. Yet, Matsuoka relented, and when the first torpedoes blasted into and sank the USS Enterprise, the world held its breath. Even such a devastating attack could not stop the overwhelming the American advantage in industry. It seemed, for the first time, that the tides of war might finally shift into the Allies’ favour. Instead, beginning from the complete shock of victory at Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese Navy moved from victory to victory, including the surprising outcome of the Battle of Midway in 1942. Japanese offensives took the Philippines, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, Singapore and some key Pacific islands, all in the first months of war. Yet, even after victories that no weaker nation could survive, the US retained the industrial advantage it had held for years, with the untouched contiguous mainland still distant from the hell of fire and death happening across the sea to the west. US ships churned out of harbors continuously, faster and faster, until a ship could be made in a matter of months. The Japanese could not continue to win the numbers game, and for the first time in the brutal naval war, they were on the backfoot.

In the hope of forcing Japan out of the war, the United States adopted a strategy of leapfrogging in 1943, which put Japanese forces at a massive disadvantage. With each month and year, the United States was able to steadily increase its superiority over Pacific, while Japan’s leadership adopted a strategy of defense, attempting to retain the bulk of their naval force by avoiding any pitched battles until the conditions for it would almost guarantee absolute victory. This time had finally come during the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945, when Japanese military leadership decided that this was the decisive moment they were seeking. During the next 87 days a stubborn defense by general Tadamichi Kuribayashi forced the United States to over-commit their forces, which was subsequently exploited by the Combined Fleet in a brilliant maneuver. The US fleet was decimated and all American Marines divisions on that damned island were either destroyed or forced to surrender. While Japanese casualties were enormous and would never be replaced, the battle stopped the United States from overrunning the Pacific theater and prevented a possible invasion of the Home Islands.

Iwo Jima proved to be the largest naval battle in history, surpassing even the Battle of Jutland. The two maritime powerhouses of the modern world slugged it out on the high seas, and the result was thousands upon thousands of dead bodies, and a cemetery of metal, miles in length, buried under the ocean that would never quite disappear. Japan would never recover, not in full, but the United States had the sheer manpower and dockyards to do it. Most within the navy looked forward to an eventual Japanese surrender, regardless of how long it took. America would survive. America always survived.

Then, the bomb hit Pearl Harbor. On July 4th, 1945, every clock on the island of Hawaii stopped at exactly 8.39 a.m., and from that moment on the island ceased to exist. Fifty thousand dead in less than a second; many more in surrounding islands were to perish from radiation poisoning. The remnants of the mighty Pacific Fleet, stationed in the Harbour, were annihilated, and America knew the war was lost.

A wave of atomic terror reverberated through continental America, and the United States was forced to resign itself to a humiliating defeat, the first in its history. Finally, Japan could focus on crushing its final threat, and the final bastion of liberty in the world: China.

There was one strategy left to turn to, to gain the upper hand against China. It was uncertain, and not even guaranteed to work, but it was the only one left; attrition. Japan would attempt to starve the United Front and render them unable to resist further Japanese offensives. This strategy came to fruition once again with the Battle of Kohima. The "Mad General" Masanobu Tsuji finally deprived Chiang and Mao of the US air units and supply that was acting as a lifeline to the United Front, the final nail in a coffin that refused to die. With any possibility of supplying China by land or air essentially gone Joseph Stilwell made the decision to pull out of the region and stop supplying the Chinese. Famines across the remaining free Chinese territory and a lack of arms meant that there was little resistance put up against the Ichi Go Offensive of 1945. Despite China fighting with one foot in the grave of their proud nation, their fanatical defenses declared in the name of preserving China racked up further unsustainable casualty counts. Japan’s victory was inevitable, it was only a matter of time. Chiang Kai-Shek turned down pleas for peace, and the war continued. It took two years for the Japanese to finally reach Chongqing in a ruthless, cruel military operation that made Sherman’s March to the Sea look like a peace delegation. In the last battle of the Second World War Chongqing was turned into little more than a gargantuan pile of ashes and crushed stones. On the ruins of Baidi Fortress, the triumphant Japanese proclaimed “peace in Asia and peace in the world”. In their shadows stood their chosen puppet - Chen Gongbo, horrified at the carnage and destruction of the United Front’s last true stronghold. With no hope of any resistance he could only smile, while holding sorrowful tears in his eyes.

### Post-war (1945-1962)

However, Japan’s political and economic system was now geared towards sustaining an ever expanding war machine; with the Taisei Yokusankai as its political body and Hideki Tojo as its prime minister the current government proved to be a burden. It survived ten years of total war, yet it could not survive the peace that followed. They are now fierce rivals with Germany and the United States.

The Empire of Japan appears as a world superpower, but keen observers can see the cracks hiding just under the paint.

Politically, Japan is dominated by the Goliath known as the Taisei Yokusankai, but now this giant, artificial construct, is falling apart at the seams: formed by forcing all Japanese political parties to join, because political infighting was deemed detrimental to the war effort, the Imperial Rule Assistance Association had dominated the political scene for almost thirty years, also thanks to the fact that independent candidates were *de facto* persecuted (and many "disappeared" after encounters with emissaries from the Army, always influential in Japanese politics), but now things are starting to change.

The various factions (formerly separate political parties) are constantly quarreling, just as anyone would expect from conservatives, militarists, liberals and radicals being forced to sit together, but as of late the temperature is higher than ever, and the increasing corruption scandals have brought forth a new wave of independents who actually managed to survive and win seats in parliament. Should the party completely fall apart, a functional government will be impossible, and Japan will be locked in political stagnation, something which Japan can't afford, and which may bring the Emperor to take action to avoid this eventuality.

Economically, Japan is dominated by the zaibatsus, semi-feudal economic conglomerates. They were created at the end of the XIX century by putting those noble families, which had sided with Emperor Meiji during the Boshin War, in charge of Japan's burgeoning industry and bank sectors. During the following decades, these conglomerates have only expanded, and now dominate Japan's economy by owning almost every industry in both Japan and its allies. During the war, the zaibatsus have developed a close relationship with the government and the various branches of the armed forces, which ensured they received all the contracts for the increasing supply needs of the war effort.

However, many observers (whose names are a secret greatly coveted by Japan's secret police) point out that Japan's economy is parasitic in nature: while it doesn't reach the levels of cruelty and deprivation found in some of the German Reichskommissariaten, Japan's industry is fueled by natural resources stripped at an abysmal price from its "allies" (or, as those same observers call them, "puppets"), who are then forced to buy the finished products from Japan's industries at absurdly high prices. This policy is further enforced by actively preventing any of the allied countries (with the exception of Manchuria) from developing an actual industrial sector: any fledgling industry is quickly crushed by the combined might of the zaibatsus. This policy has brought great discontent among the lower classes of Japan's sphere members, and resistance groups are increasing their sabotage actions against Japanese assets in their countries. Should an actual revolt explode, this might block raw material supply for the Empire's industries, with disastrous consequences.

Also, an upstart contender is trying to wrest the mantle of economic primacy from the zaibatsus: the keiretsus, more dynamic and versatile than the zaibatsus, are quickly carving their own share of the market, and despite active opposition from the zaibatsus, which have formed cartels in order to force the keiretsus out of the market, and even called in favors from the government to ensure that it passed legislation in their favor, the keiretsus still aren't out of business. An economic war on an unprecedented scale looms over Japan, and it might be a crippling blow to Japan's economy.

## Politics

### National Spirits

* Stability: **+5.00%**
* Monthly Tension Gain: **-1.00**

 **Nihon Ascendant** | * Offensive War Support: **-10.00%**
* Defensive War Support: **+20.00%**

 **"The Zaibatsu Question"** | * Daily Political Power Gain: **-0.20**
* Resource Gain Efficiency: **+10.00%**
* Construction Speed: **+5.00%**
* Production Efficiency Base: **+5.00%**

 **The Legacy of the 1960 Guarded Pearl Exercises** | **War shall reveal the true state of the Japanese military**
 **Tsushima Tunnel Project** | * Civilian Factory Use: **5**

The Great Tunnel Project for the Integration of East Asia in General and the Japanese Territories of the Tsushima Strait and Korean Peninsula in Particular, known everywhere outside of official press releases as the Tsushima Tunnel Project, is a concrete symbol of Japan's expansion onto the Asian mainland. For the last decade, Japanese engineers have been directing the near-constant labor of Chinese and Korean work crews from sites in the Korea, Kyushu, and Tsushima. The series of tunnels will allow high-speed rail transport from the Home Islands all the way through the famous North Manchuria Railway, ensuring the industrial heart of the Co-Prosperity Sphere can function as a single, cohesive unit.
Of course, such a monumental project requires monumental effort. Besides the dangers of the work itself, the Tunnel is the treasury's single largest non-military expense; it costs over 6 billion yen each year even as the project nears completion, slated for late 1962. Nevertheless, resources will remain committed to the project until it is finished, just as Japan is committed to cementing her place in Asia - no matter the cost.

## Military

The Imperial Army and the Imperial Navy are the pride of the nation: hundreds of thousands of men, thousands of tanks and airplanes, and hundreds of ships, from humble destroyers to imposing battleships and fearsome carriers, ensure that the Empire of Japan can project a staggering amount of power over great distances in a very short time. Hundreds of garrisons and military posts, ranging from a few dozen men to entire divisions, defend Japan's large domains, and "protect" (though some call it "threaten") The Empire's allies. From the highest general or admiral, to the lowest simple soldiers, all would die for the emperor with nothing but joy in their hearts.

While the armed forces' loyalty is unquestionable, the same can't be said for their honesty: the Army and the Navy have been locked in an inter-service rivalry for decades, always quarreling over who gets the lion's share of the military funds. Also, strange voices have started circulating about corruption, malpractice and embezzlement between high ranking officers and members of the government. While military agents suppress these "insulting rumors without any ground", they constantly resurface and grow: after all, nonexistent garrisons and scuttled ships still officially in service with their (paid) crew can only be hidden for a while before they are discovered. What will happen once the public finds out about all this is something no one knows, and very, very few actually want to know...