Literature / Hakkō Ichiu

The contrast between that which preceded the funeral car and that which followed it was striking indeed. Before it went old Japan; after it came new Japan.

—New York Times, 1912, after the funeral of the Meiji Emperor

八紘一宇 - Hakkō Ichiu is a timeline written by Asami (formerly Sakura_F) on AlternateHistory.com.

The author described, in this TL, how would evolve an Imperial Japan after Constitutionalists and Liberals, united in the Sakurakai , managed to get in power in the 1910s against the Nationalist Imperial Alliance.

The timeline is currently in an indefinite hiatus, but you can still read this timeline here.

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This work contains the following tropes:

• Allohistorical Allusion:
  • The Long March is now held by Chen Duxiu fleeing the Kuomintang Republic. They seize land from the Yuan Empire and create a mountainous rural base to energize their revolution.
    • Zhu De later forms the Chinese Soviet Republic after defeating the Kuomintang and reactionaries.
  • After the collapse of the Transcaucasian Soviet Republic against Stalin forces, Beria is exiled to France and is eventually murdered, supposedly on Trotsky's orders, with an icepick. This is a direct allusion to Trotsky's death IOTL.
  • After assassins sent by Trotsky from Paris nearly kill him several times, Stalin threatens to send a killer if he doesn't stop wanting to kill him, and warns he wouldn't need to send a second. This is a direct allusion to Josip Broz Tito's letter to Stalin IOTL.
  • Tsarevich Alexander arrives in Tsargrad by train, sparking a general strike in a similar manner to Lenin's 1917 train ride IOTL.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name:
  • The Latin Popular Union.
  • The Russian Empire under Andrei Shkuro.
• Balkanize Me:
  • China is divided numerous times over; starting with many warlord states, many nascent republics, two rival monarchies, and a hell of a lot of chaos and confusion.
    • China later mostly reunifies under the Chinese Soviet Republic, with Turkestan, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria and Hainan Island passing into other people's hands.
  • Imperial Russia was divided between a Reformed Empire standing with Empress Tatiana, a Nicholas II-restoration movement in Siberia, a Trotsky and Bukharin-led Soviet State, later Transcaucasian Soviet Republic, who is destroyed by Stalin after the Caucasian War against the Beria-ruled regime, a Republic of Green Ukraine, a Buryat Republic and, most surprising, a Revolutionary Government of the Federation of Czechs and Slovaks in Siberia.
    • Tatiana's Russia snuffed out pretty much everyone, except for the 'Republic of Green Ukraine', which became the 'Far Eastern Republic', annexing both the Czech-Slovak state, and the Buryat state; ultimately, Russia deals with this again after staring World War II.
    • In the territories lost to the Germans have been created a Kingdom of Poland, an Hetmanate of the Ukraine, a Kingdom of Lithuania and an United Baltic Duchy. After Germany's revolution, all these states become independent, with Kaiser Wilhelm II taking up refuge in Livonia. He dies and the regime crumbles.
  • The Ottoman Empire lost Armenia, Assyria, Iraq and Cilicia.
    • The Free State of Thrace, under British suzerainty, has been established, populated with Greeks and Turks, with encouraged British settlement.
  • Austria-Hungary is divided into the Austrian Soviet Republic, Republic of Slovenia, Republic of Croatia, Republic of Bosnia, the Kingdom of Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.
    • Germany later annexes Austria and Czechoslovakia.
• Bodyguard Betrayal: How Khan Sternberg died.
• Bribe Backfire: The Siemens scandal, which saw Siemens give Japanese naval officers kickbacks, results in the Navy getting a reduced budget.
• Commie Nazis: The Communist government that takes over France after World War I is very nationalistic and anti-Semitic.
• The Coup:
  • Hardliners in the Imperial Japanese Army attempted, during the October 6th Incident, to take over so as to establish an absolute monarchy with the Emperor at the helm and the Diet dissolved after the civilian government curtailed their powers in Formosa and Korea.
  • In the United States, the Red March during the Red Summer aimed to take over and install Communism.
  • During the February 26th Incident, Prince Chichibu and others led a coup to unseat the emperor and replace him with someone more radical.
    • This leads to his execution, a rare action taken against a member of the imperial dynasty.
• Dirty Communists: They are more successful than OTL.
  • They took over Austria, China, Bavaria (only briefly) and France.
  • In Japan, they attempt to murder Hirohito, and fail.
  • The Chinese Stalinists are the dominant 'moderate' faction in the CSR.
  • During the Red Summer, they manage to take over Spain and Portugal.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him:
  • Emperor Taishou is wounded during the October 6th Incident and dies from resulting injuries four years after.
  • Lenin has been assassinated by anti-communist militants in Zurich.
  • Sun Yat-sen has been murdered by anti-KMT terrorists.
  • Michael Collins is assassinated three years earlier, in 1919.
  • Khan Sternberg is murdered on 1933 by his own bodyguards in cahoots with Wrangel after Chinese communists bomb his train.
  • Albert, Duke of York (OTL George VI) has been murdered by People's Liberation Army of Quebec.
  • Most of the people who lead the Japanese Empire into it's war against the United States get killed by the Army and government.
  • Averted with Horst Wessel, who becomes Chancellor of Germany.
• Elective Monarchy: As OTL, Yuan Shikai is elected Emperor of China but unlike OTL he and his son keep the crown, but only barely, as the core provinces of China erupt into revolt.
  • The Chinese monarchy is no more as of the 1930s.
• Emergency Authority: After the October 6th Incident, Minobe and the Diet pass the National Security Act to fight against militarist hardliners and left-wing radicals.
  • Hirota Koki basically gets this after the 2/26 coup attempt.
  • Similarly, Chiune Sugihara gets this during WWII.
• End of an Era: Literal Trope, since the Japanese eras are set from the lifetime of the Emperor: the story starts by the burial of Emperor Meiji, marking the end of the Meiji era.
• Evil Colonialist:
  • Averted with Prime Ministers Inoue and Minobe, who liberalizes policies relative to Korea to negate the need to later use force.
  • Played straight with the hardliners, who protest when more liberties are given to the natives of the colonies, against feelings of Japanese exceptionalism.
  • Benito Mussolini invades Ethiopia to drum up nationalism in Italy, and used agents to spread rumors of smuggling of weapons to Communists in Southern Africa.
• Going Native:
  • Augustus IV, originally a German prince, take the interests of his new Polish subjects against those of Germany and Austria-Hungary; later going to war against Germany in the 1930s to annex Posen and Wartheland, and subsequently leading the Liberation of Warsaw from Russia in 1945.
  • Anna Roosevelt, daughter of FDR becomes Empress of Japan, and Japan eventually begins to see immigration from white nations, which leads to a large white-Japanese population by the 21st century.
• The Great Depression: Strikes as OTL most of the main economies; Japan has stored money and stimulated the economy, among them the weapons and textile sectors, although they had to reduce their stimulus.
  • Fucks over most of everyone else, though.
• Heir Club for Men: Prince Yasuhito proclaimed the Succession Act of 1936 null and void and consequently denied Emperor Hirohito's daughters any right to rule.
  • He later revolts and loses, and gets divorced from his brains.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: Averted with the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan, the first democratic Muslim state.
  • Averted the Chinese Soviet Republic isn't very authoritarian either.
  • Played straight with France, which is a militant Sorelian state.
  • Russian Empire under Shkuro is a hyper-religious fascist state.
• The Promised Land: Far-East Zionism aims to turn the FER into a Jewish Homeland. Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Buryat, Korean and Japanese immigration is encouraged but Chinese aren't.
  • The Hebei-Chahar Republic ends up being the main place where Jews end up immigrating to.
• The Purge: The Week of Discipline is the execution of 750 ultranationalist officers after they spread rumors against Koreans and liberals in the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.
  • What the Emperor orders against all echelons of Japanese society harboring disloyalty after 1936's attempt.
• Red Scare:
  • The Sakurakai banned the Social Democratic Party in an attempt to satiate some of the less insane hardliners. They later are unbanned in the 1930s.
  • After Communists are even more successful than OTL, American isolationism collapses after Theodore Roosevelt gives the 'Tides of Change' speech and is elected to a third non-consecutive term over an isolationist regime.
  • The 1923 Tokyo Treaty, originally a naval limitation agreement, became an anti-Communist, and later, anti-Militarist concord.
• The Remnant:
  • Admiral Alexander Kolchak and General Pyotr Wrangel led a movement for the restoration of Nicholas II and lead an abortive coup in Siberia. They are defeated by Tatiana and Stalin.
  • Wilhelm II turned the United Baltic Duchy, renamed "Kingdom of Livonia," into this. After his death, his kingdom collapses.
  • The French anti-communist military personnel, led by Field Marshal Foch, have fled to Algiers after Commies took over the mainland. Civilians followed as well, but many did not.
    • It later breaks up into further pieces, after disagreements on who to succeed Foch.
  • Similarly, Spain and Portugal anti-Communist governments retreats to their colonies after the Red Summer.
  • Otto von Hapsburg is limited to rule over Hungary after the collapse of Austria-Hungary.
  • Bolshevik remnants rise up again after Russia starts losing WWII.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized:
  • After the Communists took over Vienna, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf and several other officials are shot.
  • The "French Commune" scapegoats Jews and Germans for the war, confiscating their estates.
  • The 1933 Red Summer witnesses several atrocities by Communists in Germany, Ireland, the United States, Japan, China and Mongolia, such as murders, assaults and arson.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman:
  • Mustafa Kemal Ataturk died as an anonymous revolutionary fighting against Allies and their Treaty of Sèvres.
  • Mao Zedong is leading a center-right faction in the KMT, albeit while holding Socialist sympathies.
  • Without Lenin, Stalin is the left-wing of the Tatiana Imperial government, and is far less interested in communism than OTL.
    • He became the Russian Prime Minister, though. Died of a stroke far earlier than IOTL.
  • Baron Ungern replaced Bogd Khan as Khan of Mongolia, and intends to unite China, if he can muster it after already crushing the Yuan empire. He doesn't succeed.
  • Kim Song-ju designs tanks for Mitsubishi and goes on to be a businessman.
  • Charles De Gaulle led an anti-Québéquois-secessionist regiment during the Red Summer, but later took charge of the French Algeria remnant.
  • Adolf Hitler is working with Stepan Bandera, Konrad Zuse and Otto Frank on a computer project, and testifies in front of the Reichstag on KPD atrocities against Jews.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Anglo-Japanese Alliance left World War I after an isolationist United States severed loans to Britain and the Entente.
• Serial Killer: Beria, as OTL.
• Vestigial Empire:
  • Wilhelm II's rule is limited to the Kingdom of Livonia after the Revolution.
    • Russia later dismantles it.
  • The Ottoman Empire after the Treaty of Sèvres.
    • Later replaced by a far-right republic.
  • Yuan Shikai's China, after losing all of the core parts of China, being pushed into the steppe then into oblivion after being crushed by the Khan Sternberg's troops.
• Vigilante Execution: What Japanese ultranationalists claim to do after lynching Korean nationals as perceived retribution for purported acts of rape, murder and looting done after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, eventually extending to liberals.
• We ARE Struggling Together:
  • Sun Yat-Sen berates the Kuomintang for its divisions between members and factions, before his assassination in 1919.
  • Irish rebels are divided in IRA members and Communists, and both fought themselves into oblivion, with Britain capitalizing on them and defeating them.

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