Quote:
Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle
Empire here has a very specific meaning, ie rule by the Yamato dynasty. Otherwise practically every country in existence is an empire even present day Japan
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An empire is a sovereign state that consists of several formerly independent states that were invaded, occupied, and are then subject to a single ruling authority from the invading state. The ruler may be an emperor, or a dictator such as a Shogun.
The many kingdoms and tribes in Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku, Kyushu, and the Ryukyu Kingdom were once independent until they were invaded and conquered by the Japanese Empire.
Japan even attempted to invade Korea but they failed despite their numerical and technological superiority because the Koreans sought military support from the Chinese Empire.
Though the aid from the Chinese Empire would come at a great cost, because the Chinese Empire, under Emperor Hong Taiji, would later invade Korea and force it to become a tributary state, that is, a state that is mandated by the law of the occupying forces to pay a tribute, using a percentage of their tax revenue as the payment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle
And if you would include Yamato Takeru to give the impression the Imperial house had anything to do with Hideyoshi's decisions.....That's inaccurate. Also "industrial Japanese Empire" is a weird way to put things given that Japan's development wasn't any more or less than the Chinese next door. It was just far more militarized during the 1500s given it had spent a century at civil war. You make it sound as if Meiji era industrialization applied throughout its entire history. Or that Japan was somehow more warlike than the other Asian powers (not so.....Japan in fact before the 1500s was a relatively minor power compared to continental Asia).
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I did not say that Yamato Takeru and Toyotomi Hideyoshi lived in the same time period, and it was not just Japan that was industrialized and militarized, the whole of Asia and Europe was industrialized and militarized. The Asians and Europeans used animal mill, watermill, windmill factories, blast furnaces, and oil refineries to mass produce goods on an industrial scale.
The Asian and European Empires also had other advanced structures like the Stonehenge astronomical calendar, farms, ranches, agricultural terraces, aquaculture centers, cisterns, apartment blocks, animal mill, watermill, and windmill factories, blast furnaces, oil refineries, roads, highways, cantilever bridges, drawbridges, suspension bridges, causeways, mass transit in the form of chariots, rickshaws, hand carts, carts, carriages, wagons, ferry rafts, ferry boats, and ocean going ships, telecommunications in the form of signal horns, signal trumpets, smoke signals, zoetropes, bells, and semaphore flags, computers such as the suanpan, also known as the abacus, siege machines such as the battering ram, mobile siege ladder, mobile moat crossing bridge, armored siege tower, ballista, and catapult, oar powered battleships armed with catapults, incendiary bombs such as the fire jar, fire pot, and fire stone, and even artificial islands that were used as commercial and naval relay stations for ships.
Here is a list of Asian Empires:
China
Egypt
India
Persia
Japan
Mongolia
Islamic Caliphate
Tibet
Khmer