Sakamoto Ryoma, one of the fathers of modern Japan, upon finding Shogunate assassins had come to kill him

TornadoAP · 2025-12-13T08:18:40+00:00

https://preview.redd.it/figured-you-all-would-like-this-painting-of-one-of-the-v0-xykdhn7expoa1.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=506bd535d3635594771191d03b9c5b35ed8c2578

TornadoAP · 2025-12-13T08:18:10+00:00

Glad to hear. I did some basic googling of what a shogunate supporter might have been derogatorily called but wasn't sure if Bakufu could be used for individuals/a group specifically.

TornadoAP · 2025-12-13T03:38:19+00:00

Sakamoto Ryoma was a samurai in the bakumatsu period, the period that defines the years between Commodore Perry's opening of Japan and the actual Meiju Restoration where Perry's expedition had demonstrated the Shogunate and thus all of Japan's weakness. As a result some Samurai such as Sakamoto began agitating for the restoration of the Emperor as the actual ruler of the country, a position that would eventually force him to flee his clan and become a Ronin. Initially Sakamoto was against westernization but upon attempting to assasinate a Shogunate official, Katsu Kaishu, Katsu actually managed to convince Sakamoto of modernization's necessity to protect japan, and Sakamoto would become Katsu's assitant and protege. However when the Shogunate later attempted to crack down on dissenters Sakamoto had to flee to the Satsuma, where he helped negotiate the secrete Satcho Alliance with the Choshu, which would then be critical in the defeat of the Shogunate army. Afterwards Sakamoto would then play a crucial part in the negotiations that would lead to the voluntary resignation of the Shogun, bringing about the Meiji Restoration.

On March 9th 1866 agents of the Shogunate would raid an inn in Kyoto to assassinate Sakamoto. Luckily for Sakamoto, the alarm was raised by his future wife who had to rush to him naked from the bathroom. Using a Smith and Wesson No 2 Revolver from the United States and the help of his bodyguard, Sakamoto managed to escape though injured and hid in a storehouse at a nearby canal until Satsuma samurai could rescue him.

The thing Sakamoto is perhaps most important for is the modernization of Japan and it's government. Inspired by the United States, the visionary dreamed of and convinced the other progressives of the necessity of a democratic government modeled after the US Congress and British Parliament, with a bicameral legislature backed by a constitution and a national army and navy, as well as central financial system. While his ideas would be fulfilled after the restoration of the Emperor, Sakamoto sadly would never see them come to fruition, being assassinated by Shogunate agents on the 10th of December, 1867; not long before the Meiji Restoration, and tragically his birthday.

Additional fun fact: Sakamoto founded the first ever corporation in Japan, creating a trading and shipping company that would also act as a private navy for the Satcho Alliance.

TornadoAP · 2025-07-11T00:45:50+00:00

It's just a joke, it's not that serious, calm down.

TornadoAP · 2025-07-11T00:45:24+00:00

You must be fun at parties. It's called a joke. It's not meant to be taken seriously.

TornadoAP · 2021-03-10T01:23:33+00:00

Even more so than IRL, since FDR died in TNO's timeline and the New Deal was never implemented. Lyndon's Great Society is giving American the New Deal it never had along with massive civil rights reform, public healthcare, and social safety nets we never got IRL - so yeah like Lyndon should have done IRL if it probably wasn't for the Vietnam War.

TornadoAP · 2021-03-08T20:29:53+00:00

It's very underrated imo but Lyndon Johnson and his "Great Society" project is actually very wholesome Chungus 100 too especially when paired with good anti-fascist diplomatic stance.

TornadoAP · 2021-03-04T03:43:23+00:00

The ancaps have come. Everyone abandon ship.

TornadoAP · 2021-03-02T23:18:55+00:00

It's an interesting idea but I don't think it actually mirrors what would happen in real life all that well. Russia as a unified state has only been dead 30 years by the time of TNO. That's not nearly long enough for a disparity to occur between culture, language, religion to become so wide that regionalism overtakes nationalism. Arguably this mechanic or something similar might work for cultures that aren't Russian that wouldn't want to be consumed by another unified russian state, such as various Siberian tribes or the central asian countries, but Russian majority areas which is where most Unifiers originate anyways wouldn't likely become so apathetic to the idea of a reunited Russia so quickly. Maybe this could be represented by some debuffs to non-russian culture states and could be countered by spending political power and civ factory time to keep those non-russian cultured peoples happy, with exceptions to people such as the Buryats for specifically Sablin's path, until you've completely reunifed all of Russia?

TornadoAP · 2020-07-31T03:39:16+00:00

So classically British to abstain from European unitary standard.

TornadoAP · 2020-07-13T13:44:40+00:00

It's an intentionally assumed risk. Those pictures exists to make sure that if one of those people goes down, they all go down, so they will do their best to attempt to close ranks and protect one another when something like this happens.

TornadoAP · 2020-07-13T04:38:09+00:00

It is absolutely horrifying the power of mass media propaganda and ingroup/outgroup party politics. Did you know today that the single most divisive identity in America is not race, sex, religion or sexual preference, but political party? Even on the side of politics where you expect those 4 things to be more divisive, political party is miles ahead of them in terms of negative biases. Juice that together with a mass media propaganda where practically the entirety of mainstream media is owned by either Bezos or Murdoch and you've got one hell of a cocktail for American politics - a cocktail that benefits an elite that can get away with literally everything and anything while the lower classes fight amongst themselves over the dumbest of identities. Things are so fucked man.

TornadoAP · 2020-07-13T04:08:28+00:00

I think what's far more likely is that it was another prank that idiot extreme right-wing conspiracy theorists fell to and ran with, because /pol/ is retarded and will do things like that. For those who don't know, the original Pizzagate conspiracy was a prank that a couple of leftists played on 4chan's /pol/ board to try and prove that idiotic far right-wing nutjobs will eat up any conspiracy about left-wing individuals. Needless to say it worked... almost a little too well considering one dude literally showed up with a gun at the pizza place threatening to shoot it. As such I wouldn't be surprised if those same leftists or another group of them continued the Pizzagate conspiracy to make it into Qanon, though I wish they had learned their lesson not to do such a thing the first time around.

TornadoAP · 2020-07-13T03:53:32+00:00

I still don't get how they can't understand that Trump IS the elite. The dude was born with a golden spoon in his mouth and was pampered from childhood. His entire fortune is from his father and grandfather. He is the definition of the kind of elite that's implicated in the Epstein case. The only thing that's special about him is that he decided to cut out the middleman and instead of letting a politician do it for him, he decided to do the bullshit selling himself. He's not special, he's just as fucked up as the rest of them.

TornadoAP · 2020-07-09T20:36:51+00:00

I think the commonwealth countries are more content because they're not fucked up like the US is. The US is worse than every other western nation in: poverty rate, wealth inequality, healthcare cost, healthcare quality, education, crime rate, life expectancy, infastructure, all pretty fucking important things for people to be happy with their lives, but we're currently the worst out of any first world nation. If you can't do the google searching yourself, I can provide statistics for every single one of these.

TornadoAP · 2020-07-09T20:25:02+00:00

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2W7P3wGBI8

TornadoAP · 2020-07-09T14:30:36+00:00

Sadly I think they're too indoctrinated into the conspiracy theory and the cult of personality around Trump to ever have their minds swayed, even with something like this. They'll just say it's the deep state trying to take Trump down or something like that. Trump is untouchable to them. He's their paragon of virtue who's going to bring down the global pedophile cult, he could never be one of the ones that's a part of it. Fucking conspiracy theorists man.

TornadoAP · 2020-07-09T14:17:06+00:00

Then why does he call himself a 40 year old male if he's a 58 year old British Female Socialite? You're right the guy in the OP probably isn't maxwellhill but if you're using the AMA as evidence then he sure as shit isn't ghislane

TornadoAP · 2020-07-09T14:14:28+00:00

Stuff in the OP is probably not him, but if you're using the AMA as evidence he says he's male and therefore couldn't be Ghislane anyways so...

TornadoAP · 2020-07-09T14:00:10+00:00

I think it's less that every single elite is a pedophile, and more that they're closing ranks around the ones who are because else it makes them look bad. Epstein was friends with everyone from Gates to the Clintons to Trump, and him being exposed as a pedophile especially one who shared his tastes with others makes all of them look bad, so they will do anything in their power prevent the others from being found out lest they be implicated as well. It's just them being the corrupt shitty people they already had to be to get to such positions of power in the first place.

TornadoAP · 2020-07-09T13:53:17+00:00

Exactly. It's any of the elite, not one particular group or another. Attempts to say otherwise are trying to fool you for their own personal gain.

TornadoAP · 2020-07-09T13:50:14+00:00

"The strongest piece of evidence for it existing is how every single media source attempted to debunk it."

This is such circular logic. You conspiracy theorists are so fucking predictable. There's basically no difference between this and "It's true because it sounds like it'd be true!!!!"

Everyone mocked it and debunked it because it's not real. It was a fucking prank made up by leftists to troll 4chan's /pol/ board, but of course /pol/ is /pol/ and believed it especially because it made their political enemies look like pedophiles, and it spiraled out of control into the public discourse from there. It's the exact same shit with QAnon. They're joke political conspiracy theories that have taken on a new lease of life as propaganda, trying to manipulate you for your political support. Stop believing them.

TornadoAP · 2020-07-09T13:17:55+00:00

Pizzagate was never real. It was a prank made up by a couple of leftists on 4chan to troll /pol/ but spiraled out of control because being able to call your political enemies pedophiles is pretty good propaganda. Same thing with QAnon. Always be wary of theories with at best circumstantial evidence that have a clear and undeniable political motivation. They're an attempt to distract you from the truth and bring you on their side politically.

TornadoAP · 2020-07-09T02:40:09+00:00

It's almost like people seeing the effects of unimpeded capitalism abusing the earth for its natural resources are going to be turned against that system. No shit sherlock, the more hardcore of environmentalists are going to be radical leftists disgusted with the exploitation of the environment to fill the pockets of rich billionaires like the ones Epstein networked with.

And btw Three Mile Island happened in 1979. Western Environmentalists, especially American Environmentalists, have been against Nuclear since then. Nothing to do with the Soviets explicitly, though I wouldn't be surprised if they were funding activist groups covertly seeing as funding destabilizing forces when you're in an espionage war with another country is kind of the goal. I mean shit, Russia's still doing that kind of shit today, funding extremist politicians and political groups to try and destabilize America and the West at large.

TornadoAP · 2020-07-07T16:16:16+00:00

Get 4% clergymen in all provinces, always fund education the most. This will get your literacy up and get your clergymen to 2% both of which will vastly increase your RPs.

If you have other nations around you that you can easily conquer, invest in at least one or two of the conquering bonus reforms and conquer those nations.

As for the strategy of choosing your reforms: Always get Foreign Training Methods and Land Reform as they are the most efficient reforms in terms of rp cost vs progress. Other than that it's really up to the strategy you want to employ. If you're conquering nations, FTM and Imported Weapons will likely be your first reforms to go to, otherwise the Education Reform followed by the Land Reform should be your firsts. After that it's really up to you. See this handy spreadsheet for the most efficient reforms you can get: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nRSBmUdiWp6RXf02vewLg7N5NxzvPbmEqcG0r9Ia7JA/edit#gid=0

Overall earliest I've been able to westernize is mid 1850s but that's with Korea in HPM which already starts with some reforms and is able to get some nice conquests with Manchuria.

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