Victoria 2 how to westernize series#

Over time, merchants accumulated wealth while many a high-class samurai went hungry. A money economy developed in the merchant caste and many of them became skilled in banking and a small futures market developed in Osaka. Merchants were essential to moving goods around the country (including seeds and new technology for improving harvests) and developed skills in handling / storing commodities (including sake, silk, soy sauce, dried fish and items made by the skilled craftsmen). Other commodities (barley, millet, soy, etc) were traded but rice was like gold today. Peasants comprised the vast majority of the population (ca 80%) and owned the land the economy was based on rice production. There was one caste below, the untouchables or eta, who dealt with anything related to death including tanning. There were four castes (with the shogun and his top leaders above all four): samurai, peasant, craftsmen, merchants. The system set up by the Tokugawa regime functioned for ca 260 years as a strict caste society. In ca 1600, Japan was unified under a military regime (bakufu or Shogunate) led by the supreme military leader, the Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu who had his castle in Edo (now Tokyo). In addition to Tom Au's answer on the Meiji Restoration above, is the break down of the central coordinating mechanisms of the Tokugawa or Edo Era that preceded the Meiji Era. But there are 1.2-1.3 billion people behind this group, most of them in a very backward situation, pulling down the Chinese 'average.' So while Chinese GDP is now a bit larger than Japan's (in the aggregate), the per capital GDP is still much lower. 'Modern' China probably consists of about 100-150 million people about the same (finally!) as modern Japan. Many of China's problems persist until this day. And there were so many people in China (some fraction of one billion through most of the 19th and 20th centuries), that whatever was accomplished affected a relatively small part of the population. China is a much larger country physically than Japan, with major communications problems, so any resolutions agreed to by the central government were not fully transmitted to much of the country. This meant that the Chinese government was never fully centralized (until the time of Mao Zedong, over fifty years later).

Victoria 2 how to westernize series#

The Emperor Kuang Hsu tried to institute a series of reforms, but was defeated by his own aunt, the Empress Dowager Cixi, and warlords associated with her. Such a circle never got going in China (at least not in the 19th century).

The result was a self-reinforcing virtuous circle. (The last warlord was defeated in Hakodate, Sapporo, in 1869.) Once the centralization of power occurred, it was much easier to project Imperial power over the relatively small area represented by the main Japanese islands, well connected by sea routes, putting 'everyone on the same page.' Finally, when initiatives were undertaken by various parties, the effect of those initiatives was spread out over fewer people than in China (Japan's population was only one-fifth of China's), thereby having greater impact. This centralized the national power in the hands of the Emperor, taking it out of the hands of the warlords. The key to the successful modernization of Japan was the successful Meiji Restoration of 1868.

So, in much the same way as electron transport makes heating up metal quicker than water, the cohesiveness and economic velocity of Japanese society made their modernisation faster - but a metal teaspoon and a glass of water both heat up in the end. China's modernisation didn't necessarily start later but took longer and with more temporary setbacks. The sort of progress that isn't very visible in coal and steel production or ship deadweight tonnage. Looked at from another angle: China did start modernising in the 19th century but the sheer volume of China's internal problems at the time meant that a lot of foundational groundwork was needed. The 'blockage' couldn't really be resolved until the Qing dynasty was overthrown although young Emperor Guangxu did try. The factions within the Qing imperial court and the vested interests of provincial governors subverted the wider social and economic reforms that underpin a modern army. The government did try to modernise (the Self-Strengthening Movement) but the imperial government's authority was too weak and its civic infrastructure was too corrupt to embark on the systematic modernisation that Japan undertook in the Meiji era.

The Qing Dynasty had run out of steam by the 19th century.