"A generation which ignores history has no past -- and no future."
History
The ancient history of Jipang is more the domain of legends, traditions, and folklore, and accounts will vary depending on the source of the information. Very little written history was kept of Jipang throughout the millennia before the year 430 AD, when the early Jipangese adopted the Chinese style of script and began to keep accurate records.
It is known that during the years between 400 AD and 900 AD, Jipang was ruled by a single powerful family of great importance, the Fujiwara. Before the reign of the Fujiwara, the land was ruled by a central Emperor, though even then this position was more a title and custom than a indication of power. The real power was in the hands of a few powerful nobles. Many of the land owning peasants and farmers handed over their land to the nobles' estates, in over to avoid the heavy taxes levied on them.
It was during the late 800's AD that the class of citizens that were to become known as samurai began to appear. Much like medieval knights, the samurai were above the common foot soldiers. Their title implied a degree of servitude to a liege, power, and a life that followed a certain code of honor and battle.
By the mid-1100's AD, Jipang was met with its first major political turmoil of recorded history. A dispute over who should be the next Emperor, following the early death of Emperor Konoe, caused the land to fall into a state of war. Nobles leading armies of samurai clashed, and in the end, the Taira clan rose to power and ruled the continent.
During the decade of 1180, a counter clan, the Minamoto, had grown strong enough to challenge the power of the Taira. The Gempei War that erupted between these two clans in 1180 lasted 5 years, coming to an end in 1185 with the bloody Battle of Dano-Ura. During the course of this battle, the sea to the north of Jipang was so tightly filled with ships, that the battles were fought from deck to deck, as if taking place on land. It came to an end with the young Emperor Antoku of the Taira clan was killed, and his deeply symbolic replica of the Ame no murakomo no tsurugi, the Cloud Cluster Sword that the Sun Goddess had given the original Emperor, was lost overboard too.
It was during this time that the whereabouts of the real Cloud Cluster Sword were lost. Some accounts indicate that the sword had been cursed by Amaterasu because of the wicked ends it had been put to use. The curse of the sword is said to have caused it to change from the brilliant, beautiful weapon it had once been, into a twisted, hideous living blade that would possess the soul of any who tried to wield it. Even to this day, it has become known as the Soul Blade, and many have invested their lives in the hope of locating it, for this cursed weapon brings with it promises of great power and immortality.
Minamoto Yoritomo assumed power by the strength of his armies, and became Jipang's first ever seiitaishogun, later shortened to shogun. The position of Emperor was weakened even further. The political situation in Jipang worsened when in the early 1200's, the Hojo clan slowly replaced the Minamoto. They did it through a clever series of murders and conspiracies that killed every Minamoto heir and many of their supporters. The new Hojo rulers, however, never bothered becoming shoguns. Instead, they appointed a series of puppets to the role, including even young children. The Hojo ruled as shikken, or regents, which meant that there was a figurehead shogun nominally ruling for a distant, symbolic Emperor, while a third person with actual power really ran the country.
With this uncertain form of government ruling the land, unrest and political distrust began to creep across the country as the corruption among the leadership drained the once thriving economy of its resources over the next four hundred years. This unrest eventually developed into violent uprisings as peasants armed themselves with the weapons so liberally distributed during centuries of war.
Watching control slip from its grasp, the government organized the Katana-gari, a campaign to quell the uprisings by confiscating all of the peasants' weapons. The goal was to establish a rigid feudal class system, separating people into tiers of samurai, merchants, farmers, and nobility. However, this effort was to meet with unexpected resistance in the form of a young man by the name of Amakusa Shirou Tokisada.
Claiming to be "The Descendent from Heaven," Shirou rallied the peasants to join together under his leadership in order to fight back against the government and establish their own rights. Though there were many doubts about his true motivations, and even greater concerns regarding the dark power he seemed able to draw upon, the poor farmer class placed in him their hope. He was armed with two powerful stone spheres; one of which granted life, health, strength, and peace, the other containing forces of death, destruction, misery, and pain. With these tools, Tokisada managed to lead the peasant farmers in an almost successful campaign against the government.
This effort fell apart when, in on Februray 28, 1728, Shirou Tokisada was killed during a battle at Hara Castle by a ruthless leader and warrior, Oda Nobunaga. The rebellion was crushed, the peasants disarmed and forced to return to their homes, and the Oda clan rose to rule the land as the victors. The fate of Amakusa's two stones is uncertain. The one with healing powers is rumored to now be an object of worship for a tribe of people living on a remote tropical island. The other, Gadama - The Treasure Pearl, has been lost to time.
The years of Nobunaga's reign of power were a dark and miserable time for Jipang. Armed men walked the streets, keeping the people oppressed, clans of conspirators rose out of the tension in the land, and the economy struggled to survive as Nobunaga hoarded the land's riches in order to construct a great Golden Fortress, which is claimed to have contained untold wealth. The greedy ruler found himself uneasy at the idea that someone might somehow get into his fortress and steal a portion of his wealth, and he obsessed over a means of making it secure.
In the late 1760's, Nobunaga, his Golden Fortress, and the land it say upon, vanished, leaving only a deep crater in the desert floor where the castle had been. Some say it was stricken from the earth by gods offended by his greed or jealous of his wealth. Others claim Nobunaga had somehow found a way to levitate the castle up into the sky, where it would be safe from any thief, stating that even today his flying castle floats somewhere over the ocean. Whatever the truth may be, not many tears were shed for the vanishing of the greedy ruler.
With the disappearance of Nobunaga, there was a struggle for power and a lack of any unity among the people of Jipang. One movement wanted to return to the old ways of a strong, powerful central government, with shoguns, Emperors, and hierarchies. The other side, inspired by the success of the American Way of government, aimed to establish a more democratic system of elected judges. Households split along ideologies, and chaos reigned in a land of assassinations, murders, conspiracies, spies, shaky negotiations, and disquieting scenes of bloodshed for over forty years.
Finally, in the summer of 1800, peace settled into the land as the nation literally divided itself in half. Those wanting to return to the stability of the old ways flocked to one side and established East Jipang under yet another token Emperor by the name of Momozono and the Shogun, Tokugawa Iyeshige. Emperor Momozono was well known for his interest in philosophy and he inspired the same interests in the nobles that surrounded him, while Tokugawa was known for being a fair and honest ruler whom the public supported proudly.
The other half of the population moved to the other side of the continent, and founded West Jipang, struggling to pull together a new form of government with a more democratic emphasis. However, instability seemed to be the primary outcome of their efforts. While the populace looked forward with a hope of a better life, free of the cast system that had held them in their social ranks, powerful and influential men fought and quarreled as they argued about how to establish this new government.
To affirm the differences between them, yet also attempt to smooth things over, the two sides united in constructing a wall that would delimitate the dividing point between them. Construction on the wall finished in the spring of 1830 and was named The Great Wall of Jipang. Though there is a massive stone gate located in the middle of the wall that could allow traffic to traverse the two countries, it has never been opened. As such, the two sides have developed independent of each other, like neighbors divided by a tall fence, each keeping to itself.
Subsequent to the completion of the wall, communication between the two new countries dropped off, as one might expect. West Jipang became consumed in an effort to establish a stable democratic government, though scandals, disagreements, inadequate central power, and a few influential men striving for higher authority have left West Jipang in a state of uncertain turmoil over the last thirty years.
East Jipang pulled together under the strong leaders that were to be found in Emperor Mozomono and Shogun Tokugawa. Although there was an overall feeling of peace in the land, there remain opposing political factions on both sides of The Wall. With the years of violent civil war becoming nothing more than memories to be passed on as glorified legends by the elder generation. Emeror Mozomono passed away without any living heirs in the year 1845, and there was none appointed to take his place.
It seems peace and prosperity has a way of breeding malcontents; perhaps the easy life causes some to seek a greater cause to struggle for... Over the last twenty years an organization by the name of Isshin Shishi began to grow out the elements of society that wanted to restore the sanctity of the nation, reuniting East with West, with one emperor to rule over them all. As this group seemed to attract individuals found to be extremely capable with their blades, and at time, even dark arts of questionable sources, another group was organized to combat them, and keep them at bay. The Shinsengumi, allied with the Shogunate, labor to maintain the status quo.
Ten years ago, a fanatical splinter group of the Isshin Shishi plotted to torch Eyoto castle to the ground, in order to destroy the base of power of the Shogun. Careful reconnaissance on the part of the Shinsengumi discovered this plot beforehand, however, and in an epic battle through the streets of Eyoto, brought an end to the members of the that hostile group. As word of the Shinsengumi's successful defense of the Shogun become common knowledge, members of this elite group of warriors began to be regarded highly in the public eye, even though sometimes their tactics are viewed as being too heavy-handed. The remaining Isshin Shishi publicly denounced the violent actions of the splinter group, and were able to avoid being persecuted further on this matter.
Tokugawa passed away in the winter of 1859, and control of the government passed peacefully to his son, Kadokawa, and has gone down in history for having ruled over one of the longest periods free of civil wars in Jipang. The last ten years of Jipang's history have been ones of relative peace. Occasional splinter organizations appear, and need to be stamped out by the ever vigilant Shinsengumi, and there are still those who are dangerous as individuals that walk the land. However, these long years of peace have been beneficial for establishing a strong economy in East Jipang, such that many European and Western countries compete to engage in trade.
The fall and winter of 1859 were plagued by a wide spread tuberculosis outbreak that infected many people across the continent. Many families lost parents and children, the illness freeing them quickly from the torment of living in continual pain. Some, however, have survived the years since, either because of their inherent stamina, will power, or perhaps the Fates have simply not seen fit to cut short their thread of life just yet.
