After a years-along hiatus, I have risen and come to share some AU musings once again. I'd been puttering around doing a bit of work here and there with various concepts I'd had, but nothing really felt like something I was excited about. Finally I stumbled across a really nice AU world built by _ProfessorDeath over on Reddit. (Links below for AU source.) It was a really nicely done concept for a fictional east Asian country with a history both similar and delightfully unique from other RL countries in the area, and it really piqued my interest! So this AU is a result of their labours.
It's also nice to be back.
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/ ... ast_asian/
https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/ ... he_nanhae/
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Republic of Nanhae
Nanhae, officially the Republic of Nanhae, is a nation comprised of the Nanhae archipelago, it's capital being Jiangju. Neighbouring countries include Japan, South Korea, the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the south. For centuries the island was inhabited primarily by indigenous peoples, as well as a small number of Ryukyuans, Japanese, and Han Chinese.
In the 16th century, a variety of events transpired that would shape the future of the islands. In 1541, Antonia da Mota sailed past the islands on his journeys, before being blown off course and 'discovering' Japan in 1542. The islands, while primarily inhabited by native islanders, were used as a haven by Japanese pirates or wokou in their raids against Chinese and Joseon merchants. 1582 saw the wokou warlord Lin Han establish a major base which he named Jiangju. That same year saw the Portuguese land in the south (in modern day Nanru County, and attempt to establish a colonial presence. By 1587, Lin Han's forces drove the Portuguese out, and he declared himself the Lord of Nanhae.
For the next three centuries, the Nanhae Realm remained a curious kingdom. The Ming, and later Qing, dynasties came into increasing contact with the islands due to their location above Taiwan and to the west of the Ryukyu islands, and used the islands as an important based for foreign and maritime trade between outside countries and the Middle Kingdom. The Lords of Nanhae pledged themselves as tributaries to the Qing, in exchange for unique trade privileges enjoyed by only them and the smaller Ryukyu islands. This, along with the islands lands saw numbers of Han Chinese make the trek from the coastal provinces, in search for a better life. Unlike Taiwan, which was a Qing province and had very specific rules in place regarding movement to the islands, the Nanhae lords agreed to allow these people to emigrate as it boosted their population and have increasing numbers of people to help quell growing tensions with the native islanders. Eventually more and more of the native islanders were marginalized or moved into more remote areas of the island to escape government efforts to assimilate them.
This continued for further decades, before a series major events changed the course of the islands fate.
In the 1850's, Commodore Perry forced the islands to open to trade. While nominally a tributary of the Qing, China was in no place to prevent the United States from opening trade due to the recent Opium Wars and Taiping Rebellion. Seeing the modern technology the US Navy had, and the faltering Qing who could not come to the islands aid as promised, in 1861 Lord Lin Heng proceeded to initiate reforms aimed at modernizing the nation, much as the reforms in Japan at the same time were doing. To this end, a large number of European and Japanese merchants, technicians, and experts came to the islands to help the government. While the reforms did see some improvements to the defence and governance of the islands, including important agricultural reforms, pressures from the Qing forced the reforms to be curtailed.
The First Sino-Japanese war in 1895 however greatly changed this. The rapidly modernizing Japanese Empire defeated the Qing in Korea and Manchuria. In the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Article Two of the treaty saw the Qing recognize Nanhae as an independent nation outside their sphere of influence. In response to this, the young Lord, Lin Hae, declared himself the first King of Nanhae and declare the islands to be the Kingdom of Nanhae. The previous reforms launched by this father, now referred to as the Pinghae reforms after his posthumous name of King Pinghae, were restarted to try and prepare the country to survive the pressures being brought to bear on it. However, the Japanese empire had other ideas.
In a series of events that paralleled those in Joseon (now renamed Korea) to the north, Japanese officials began exercising more and more control over the small island kingdom. By 1910, the Japan-Nanhae Treaty ended Nanhae's independence, and saw it absorbed as a colony of the Empire of Japan. It's history of being founded by Japanese people, as well as its small but influential Japanese population on the island, saw the Empire rule over Nanhae as a 'model colony', much like the larger Taiwan to the south. Millions of yen were invested in to the economy, education, infrastructure, and government services. At the same time, promotion of Japanese culture and language saw the majority Han Chinese population forced to learn, speak, and transact daily in Japanese. With the course of World War Two, thousands of Nanhae men and women were drafted into the Imperial military or civil defence services. While heavily bombed during the end of the war, Nanhae's location and heavy troop presence made it a less inviting target for the Allies, and so was spared a direct invasion such as what happened with Okinawa.
After the war, the United States led a brief military and then civil occupation of the islands, before returning it to local rule in 1953 after the end of the Korean War. Going through the cold wra aligned with the United State's bloc, it had the benefit of a stable if albeit unbalanced democratic government primarily led by the National Development Party. Since the 1950's, the Republic has grown to a modern day nation of 10-million people, in a vibrant and advanced society, mirroing that of Japan and Taiwan. While lacking the advanced tecnological industries of either nation, its natural resources and fluency in both languages has afforded Nanhae the ability to still be a major economy in its own right. It especially benefits from the outsourcing of service industry, manufacturing, and technological industries from Japanese firms due to the lower wages of the country relative to Japan.
And as far as the sonar placement goes, based on my understanding of the size of the relevant systems internal displacement, I was confident of the fit, but I'm happy to specific feedback on how that might now work.
