Greater Empire of Japan

Blue: Kyoto
Red: Edo
Mustard: Sapporo
Light brown: Fukuoka

Year 1467. Following a succession crisis in the shogunate, conflict explodes in Kyoto between the opposing daimyo. While the city is burned to ashes, the war expans to the rest of the isles, in what is known as the Onin war. The shogun, rather than using his authority to put an end to those violences, spends his time indulging in poetry and designing his Silver Pavillon. While the anarchy ridden country is involved in a fratricidal war, the Joseon kingdom seizes the opportunity and invades Kyushu, with the daimyo unable to assemble an opposing force. The shogunate is reduced to a pale image of his former self, with powers only slightly higher than the tenno's.

In the middle of this anarchy, the first gaijin reach the archipelago. The wrecked survivors of a Portuguese ship are the first europeans to set foot in Japan in 1543, tasting firsthand the violence of the Warring Kingdoms period. It doesn't take long for western arquebuses and cannons to appear on the japanese battlefields, further increasing the bloodbaths.

In 1592, a powerful daimyo, Oda Nobunaga, manages to control nearly a third of the islands. Using his influence, he assembles a large number of allied warlords, all determined to fight the koreans off Kyushu and wash the dishonor of the previous century. The expedition ends in failure: most of the daimyo die in battle, and Nobunaga himself, umiliated, commits seppuku. The disaster serves only to light up another century and an half of anarchy.

In 1720, Nakamikado-tenno accesses the throne. Determined to put an end to the devastations of his country, he uses his reign to expand again his powers outside the walls of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto. Using his direct descendance from the goddess Amaterasu as a powerful propaganda tool, he manages to rally a number of clans to the imperial cause. At his death his son, Sakuramachi-tenno, is the first emperor in centuries to access the trone with some real political power. Putting this power at good use, he embars in a pacification and reunification campaign. Half coerced into submission, half willingly supporting the tenno, by Sakuramachi-tenno death in 1767, the daimyo have largely bowed to the imperial authority. The next emperor, Kokaku-tenno, turns the country from a feudal kingdom into a truly centralized empire, cutting the power of the daimyo and turning them into nothing more than ceremonial province governors, granting them the franchise for the lower posts in the Dajo-kan.

By 1800, Japan is setting the stage to become a far eastern powerhouse. The sun has rised, and it won't take much for it to shine over the world.

Officially there's no state religion, but shintoism is the most practiced religion. Buddhism is the second most practised, and a slight minority professes roman catholicism. Although not officially discriminated, the catholics are de facto excluded from all government, public and military positions.

The Dai Nippon Teikoku, as the name suggests, is an empire, with mild forms of constitutionalty. The powers reside in the person of the tenno, that delegates them to the Dajo-kan, the Great Council of State, whose ministries preside over the secular affairs of the nation. The lower posts are elected by the higher classes, namely the nobility, the higher samurai castes and the emerging capitalist class.

Capitalism in name, but in fact the economy is controlled by a relatively small number of families, corresponding to the surviving old daymio clans, that presides over their possessions as if they were still ruling a province.