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For Liberty!
Part One
State Reforms and the Wars of Liberation

A Victoria 2 Japanese continuation game from Europa Universalis III

>> Click Here for the "Ethiopian Campaign!" <<
>> Click Here for the "European Expedition!" <<
>> Click Here for the "Sino-Japanese War!" (Part 1) <<
>> Click Here for the "Sino-Japanese War!" (Part 2) <<
>> Click Here for "For Liberty!" (Part 2) <<





State Reforms
100 Years of westernized imperialism had culminated in 38 million dead in a war with China to starvation and disease from the carrion in the fields shocked the people of China, Japan, and the world. Back in the home islands, even with a censored press, the casualties were felt as several hundreds of thousands of families suddenly found themselves without sons, fathers, and husbands.

The gruesome horrors of war piled themselves upon decades of government oppression. Despite the creation of the Diet and the ceding of some authority, the Emperor (or at least, the Court in the Emperor’s name) continued to rule by decree and limit the practical authority of the increasingly liberal legislature in favor of the old conservative establishment, using the protection of the emperor to form and fund roaming, violent suppression squads to quiet dissent to the old order. Unsurprisingly, these tactics only fomented further resentment, and these “citizen police” squads had already become less effective even before the war in the face of a larger, well-educated and more insistent population demanding such unthinkable horrors as citizen governance, equal representation, and a free press.





So too was the power of the socialist corner growing as the people continued to work unlimited hours for paltry pay with no state benefits despite living in an increasingly prosperous and powerful nation. Thanks to old Emperor Reigen the First’s education reforms, these poor workers were quick to organize across most of the empire and joined an unholy alliance with liberals in protest against the Emperor...which was clearly treason, resulting in even more brutal suppression; riots and armed uprisings became nearly a constant occurrence somewhere in the empire, which would eventually be snuffed by the conservative-controlled military, which in turn (of course) generated more unrest.



Reigen the Third assumed the throne at the beginning of this era, surrounded by powerful conservative ministers. Watching his country slowly weaken from within even though outwardly the most powerful country in the world, he made a calculated move to preserve his rule and strengthen his nation: first granting unconditionally the right of a free press, then granting a constitution that divested nearly all of his powers to the Diet and giving it the sole mandate to govern with true universal suffrage to all male citizens.

This immediately weakened the position of both the various armed rebel groups and the power of the conservative ministers as the reform-minded Emperor became much more popular with the people, and for a time the masses were quieted as men of various walks of life met in the Diet to determine the future of the nation, and actually have their deliberations matter. For the next 50 years, the liberal democratic government of Japan - wary of the inaction that might spring the growing socialist bloc into power - would pass various safety, wage, pension, health and other reforms that bettered the lives of the people and made the country prosper even more than it already was, though this time for all people. In time, the country would become one of the leaders in civil rights and equality, becoming the first to allow female suffrage and end the discriminatory school system for non-Japanese peoples in the empire.

Show ContentReforms in Japan:

The state of reforms in Japan, circa 1899.


The state of reforms in Japan, circa 1936.

The reforms would put paid to the riots and rebellions, which ended and would not resurface.


The Wars of Liberation
The new liberal government also changed Japan’s foreign posture. Gone were the days of imperial conquest (at least, overtly), and begun were the days of “freedom and liberty.” While the other great powers continued the game of expanding and subsuming, Japan became a champion in defense of the democracies and the smaller, weaker powers against the creeping spread of communism - and later fascism - and imperial expansionism. Japan sought to liberate those outside its region, supporting the rise of American post-colonial countries like Brazil and the Kingdom of America, the unification of Italy, and the resurgence of previously occupied old-world nations like Iran and Turkey.



These small expeditions and projects did much to weaken the power of the Ancien Regime of the Great Nations, many of which fell into internal disorder: Spain and China became communist strongholds, while even Great Britain became a Workers’ Commonwealth for some years before anti-communist insurgents seized the government and re-instituted the monarchy.



With most of Asia already free from the old European colonial rule, the largest point of contention (outside Africa, anyway) became India: split largely between the colonial powers of Britain and Portugal, with a few minor independent realms protected by Japan, the sub-continent became the last noticeable vestige of European power in Asia, a base of large European armies that could threaten Japan and the liberty of her protectorates. To end this, plans were drawn for a pair of campaigns that would liberate the various Indian people under their own nation, in a war that would finally give a real test for new Japanese tanks, aircraft, and chemical weapons.