What if the Japanese Home Islands teleported away right at the start of the 2nd Mongol invasion of 1
Feb 15, 2024 23:56:54 GMT
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Post by raharris1973 on Feb 15, 2024 23:56:54 GMT
What if the Japanese Home Islands teleported away right at the start of the 2nd Mongol invasion of 1280?
What if when the during the Mongol invasion of Nagato, in Honshu, when the the first Mongol arrow that is fired from a Mongol ship clears the surf and touches the beach or anything or anyone on it, all of Japan's four major islands, Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku, and Kyushu, and their minor surrounding islands, and Japanese ships offshore, are surrounded in a blinding flash or red and yellow light and puffs of smoke for a few moments, and when it dissipates, they are vanished, replaced by open ocean as far as they eye can see?
The Mongol Eastern fleet, and the approaching Southern Fleet, and its crewmen and soldiers aboard, can't believe their lyin' eyes, but Japan, once there, is no more. The Eastern Fleet continues to reconnoiter the nearby waters for hours, finding nothing, before turning back. The Southern Fleet does the same for a couple days, unless it rendezvous with Eastern Fleet units sooner.
The Mongol Eastern Fleet Admiral, poor sap, eventually needs to head back to the mainland, and report to an irate and incredulous Kublai Khan. That 1) Japan that he was supposed to conquer disappeared, and answering, "how in the heavens that happened?", 2) I guess our archer blew it up. After he's beheaded or stomped to death under carpet or whatever, the famous archer, and everybody points fingers at him, is told to demonstrate his magic arrows, and when he demonstrates no magic, the same stuff is done to him. More witnesses who don't recant or don't make up stories satisfying to the Khan lose their heads, but in any case, eventually the Khan reaches acceptance an invasion of Japan just isn't happening.
How does a Japan-less Asia develop from 1280 AD onward develop? That is one fewer trading partner for the Asian mainland, especially China and Korea. The original source of the wokou pirate plague of the centuries ahead is gone. If piracy does start, it will have to come from totally different indigenous Chinese sources. Japan's absence will mean one less major source of silver for China. One less source of devastation to Korea. The coast of northeast Asia, Korea and Primorye in particular, should be more exposed to typhoons and tsunamis, but also should have their continental climates more moderated by ocean breezes.
As for Japan, I am imagining two different scenarios:
Scenario 1) Japan teleports to the Central Pacific - it keeps its identical latitude, but but moves to a longitude east of Midway island and west of Kauai and Maui, and aligned with the Aleutian Islands. It's weather and climate remains similar overall, and it takes its continental shelf for at least 100 miles out with it.
We will assume in this new location it remains pretty isolated from either the Asian or North American continent, although in the centuries ahead, contact with the Hawaiian islands is plausible.
Since its latitudes were not covered by the circumnavigations of Ferdinand Magellan for Francis Drake, nor the Manila galleon route, nor the Russian exploration of Alaska, I assume that Japan, newly cut off from its familiar trades with Korea and Japan after 1280 AD, not only remains cut off from them, but remains unconnected by westerners until Captain Cook's voyage in 1770. How is Japan likely to develop in these nearly 500 years in isolation? And how will it adapt to contact with the wider world once established?
Scenario 2) Japan teleports to the Western Atlantic - it keeps its identical latitude, but but moves to a longitude just east of North America. This Japan, looking to resume trade, or to conduct piratical activity, against China and Korea, would soon find North America instead, to its great surprise. It would possess demographic, epidemiogogical, technological and military superiority over the societies it encounters there after 1280 AD, and likely significantly expand on the mainland and in the Caribbean, and certainly influence natives wherever they may not be displaced. How would Japan and the Americas impact each other over the next two centuries, while both in all likelihood remain undiscovered by other countries in Europe or Asia.
ASBs intervene to ensure the Gulf Stream-North Atlantic drift waters flow around Japan properly to continue on to Europe to keep European temperatures/climate within historic norms.
If not a little earlier, perhaps in Newfoundland or Brazil, a voyage by Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean would almost certainly find a Japanese colonized Bahamas and Hispaniola. How do trans-Atlantic trade and other contacts work after the initial encounter?
What if when the during the Mongol invasion of Nagato, in Honshu, when the the first Mongol arrow that is fired from a Mongol ship clears the surf and touches the beach or anything or anyone on it, all of Japan's four major islands, Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku, and Kyushu, and their minor surrounding islands, and Japanese ships offshore, are surrounded in a blinding flash or red and yellow light and puffs of smoke for a few moments, and when it dissipates, they are vanished, replaced by open ocean as far as they eye can see?
The Mongol Eastern fleet, and the approaching Southern Fleet, and its crewmen and soldiers aboard, can't believe their lyin' eyes, but Japan, once there, is no more. The Eastern Fleet continues to reconnoiter the nearby waters for hours, finding nothing, before turning back. The Southern Fleet does the same for a couple days, unless it rendezvous with Eastern Fleet units sooner.
The Mongol Eastern Fleet Admiral, poor sap, eventually needs to head back to the mainland, and report to an irate and incredulous Kublai Khan. That 1) Japan that he was supposed to conquer disappeared, and answering, "how in the heavens that happened?", 2) I guess our archer blew it up. After he's beheaded or stomped to death under carpet or whatever, the famous archer, and everybody points fingers at him, is told to demonstrate his magic arrows, and when he demonstrates no magic, the same stuff is done to him. More witnesses who don't recant or don't make up stories satisfying to the Khan lose their heads, but in any case, eventually the Khan reaches acceptance an invasion of Japan just isn't happening.
How does a Japan-less Asia develop from 1280 AD onward develop? That is one fewer trading partner for the Asian mainland, especially China and Korea. The original source of the wokou pirate plague of the centuries ahead is gone. If piracy does start, it will have to come from totally different indigenous Chinese sources. Japan's absence will mean one less major source of silver for China. One less source of devastation to Korea. The coast of northeast Asia, Korea and Primorye in particular, should be more exposed to typhoons and tsunamis, but also should have their continental climates more moderated by ocean breezes.
As for Japan, I am imagining two different scenarios:
Scenario 1) Japan teleports to the Central Pacific - it keeps its identical latitude, but but moves to a longitude east of Midway island and west of Kauai and Maui, and aligned with the Aleutian Islands. It's weather and climate remains similar overall, and it takes its continental shelf for at least 100 miles out with it.
We will assume in this new location it remains pretty isolated from either the Asian or North American continent, although in the centuries ahead, contact with the Hawaiian islands is plausible.
Since its latitudes were not covered by the circumnavigations of Ferdinand Magellan for Francis Drake, nor the Manila galleon route, nor the Russian exploration of Alaska, I assume that Japan, newly cut off from its familiar trades with Korea and Japan after 1280 AD, not only remains cut off from them, but remains unconnected by westerners until Captain Cook's voyage in 1770. How is Japan likely to develop in these nearly 500 years in isolation? And how will it adapt to contact with the wider world once established?
Scenario 2) Japan teleports to the Western Atlantic - it keeps its identical latitude, but but moves to a longitude just east of North America. This Japan, looking to resume trade, or to conduct piratical activity, against China and Korea, would soon find North America instead, to its great surprise. It would possess demographic, epidemiogogical, technological and military superiority over the societies it encounters there after 1280 AD, and likely significantly expand on the mainland and in the Caribbean, and certainly influence natives wherever they may not be displaced. How would Japan and the Americas impact each other over the next two centuries, while both in all likelihood remain undiscovered by other countries in Europe or Asia.
ASBs intervene to ensure the Gulf Stream-North Atlantic drift waters flow around Japan properly to continue on to Europe to keep European temperatures/climate within historic norms.
If not a little earlier, perhaps in Newfoundland or Brazil, a voyage by Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean would almost certainly find a Japanese colonized Bahamas and Hispaniola. How do trans-Atlantic trade and other contacts work after the initial encounter?
