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Post by eurowatch on Aug 19, 2018 12:50:29 GMT
It should be but the Spanish view of the Dutch was not so positive that they were directly willing to copy one of their ideas like that. So they named the post "president of the royal government" and decided that it suffice as a sufficent variation. Did they ask help from the Spanish 2018 embassy in the Netherlands. The embassy staff was so disgusted With the actions of the Spanish government that only the most ruthless and ambitisous actually travelled to Madrid. The rest stayed in Amsterdam to help With the rebuilding effort. |
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Post by eurowatch on Sept 13, 2018 20:56:46 GMT
As their influence grew, the Dutch continued expanding their empire. It was inevitable that they would try to expand their influence in Japan, already home to a Dutch outpost on Hirado in Nagisaki from 1609. Following the shogunate's exspulsion of all Portuguese traders in 1641 they demanded the Dutch take over the trading outpost on Dejima. The VOC approached them with a very different offer. They offered to lease the entire province of Nagisaki for 99 years in return for payment in silver and gold. Furious at the foreigners disrespect, shogun Tokuwaga Iemitstu had thrown out of the castle, confiscated their gold and began to gather an army to expel the Dutch from Japan once and for all. Before he was ready to march on Hirado the VOC arrived, this time with a squadron of warships (escort ships!), five hundred soldiers and much less willingness to negotiate. The battle was a slaughter, claiming the lives of nearly ten thousand Japanese and eighty-seven Dutch. After seeing the Dutch storming his castle, Tokugawa committed seppeku rather then face defeat. His replacement was his brother Toyotomi Sadako, who agreed to the new deal of leasing Nagasaki for free and giving the VOC back their gold.
The VOC's bliss lasted for all of one week, after which the Dutch government got wind of the war and took over governing of the new colony (overseas territory). There were some discussions regarding handing the province back to Japan but it was ultimately decided that since they now had a foothold in the hermit kingdom they might as well make use of it.
For the first months after the war, the people of Nagasaki experienced no difference from their normal lives. Fields still needed to be tended to, shops still needed to be run and taxes had to be paid. The only thing that had changed was that freedom of religion and freedom of speech now became law, which pleased the city's Christian population.
Change came gradually. In school kids learned Dutch, the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals beside the standard Japanese and kanji. Many kids didn't bother much learning hiragana and kanji when the Latin alphabet was both easier to remember and considered more practical when dealing with foreigners. All schools in the county would later drop the hiragana and katakana classes from their syllabuses completely and focus solely on the most common kanji, leaving the rest for the especially interested.
This was bemoaned by the elderly as ruining the youth and a reason why the Dutch were a bad thing. What they did not think was such a bad thing was the healthcare and police force, both of which would later be copied by the rest of Japan.
Another thing the rest of the county though was a good thing was the large of amount of money The Hague was investing into the cities. Nagasaki became a processing centre, turning raw materials into products to be sold to the rest of Japan. Some of the businesses like Kurosawa Ironworks or Kazuno Labratories became so famous for their products were thought of as having mythical powers and became bywords for high-quality in their respective fields.
With those product came new inventions that the Japanese government gradually adopted themselves, even if they didn't like it that much. The metric system, Arabic numerals and the Gregorian calender, all already in use throughout Europe and its colonies, replaced their Japanese equivalents in 1688. This was less a sign of relations warming up between the two countries and more because they were the best for their assigned tasks and scholars went out of their way to replace all Western names with their Japanese equivalents.
Throughout the years the population of Nagasaki started to change in body as well as mind. Beside their language and customs, the Dutch also took with them their diet, one rich in milk and meat. Through a combination of a new diet, new genes and natural selection, the local average of height increased from 1.5 to 1.7 meters. Beside their dialect and customs, their size became a stereotypical trait of Nagasakiens among the general Japanese populace.
While somethings changed drasticly, other Things only changed in that they became more widespread. The ideal Japanese woman was the Yamato Nadeshiko (roughly equilvant to the English rose or southern belle in Western culture), a demure and feminine woman With a core of steel and fully capable of defending the her family. Previously this ideal had been reserved for nobility but With the rise of many Japanese families into the new wealthy middle class more women gained the free time and money needed to devote themselves to reaching this goal. Many also married the concept of "defending her family" with the new availibility of weaponry and began training in the use of the naginata or bow (both which are considered femine in Japanese culture), weapons previously reserved for samurai families. The less enfranchised or more subtle trained in using knifes or martial arts instead, weapons more easily concealed then a polearm.
Relations between The Netherlands and Japan were officially normalised in 1656 with the establishment of the Nederlandse-Japanese Handels Verdrag (Dutch-Japanese Trade Treaty) which ruled how trade and diplomacy between the two signatories would be done. To streamline the process the first Dutch embassy in Tokyo was built in 1658, followed by the Japanese embassy in Amsterdam being reopened right afterwards. To avoid a second war between the two or another European country trying to make an aggressive move into what was now considered the Dutch zone of influence the treaty was expanded into a non-aggresion pact in 1668.
As part of the treaty Tokyo's first modern hospital was opened in 1663 by Dr. Mizuno Ami. Tokyo Public Hospital was primary sponsored (and owned) by the Dutch government and could offer treatment to everyone at low prices. It's competitor, the far more exclusive Nishikino Hospital, didn't. It was aimed at the rich and noble and had the prices to match but became quickly became known as the best hospital in the country, even treating the shogun and the imperial family.
The goodwill (and blackmail) created by the hospitals allowed the Dutch state to expand its investments in Japan. Banks, hospitals, roads and schools shot up across the country in quick succession, all paid for by Japanese money, constructed by Dutch companies and run by Dutch officials. It was as CFA Rin Tohsaka later remarked to commission leader Luvia Edelsfelt “they are letting us build them a house, handing us the keys and trusting us not to lock them out when it starts raining.”
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