Sunday, December 17, 2023

[syydpgrw] Confederate statues in Japan

400 years ago, Japan fought a civil war, a great civilization-defining conflict between west vs. east, Osaka vs. Edo.  (much like oversimplifying the U.S. Civil War to a conflict between north vs. south, it was of course more complicated.)

Osaka lost, the capital got moved (from Kyoto) to Edo, Edo got renamed Tokyo ("East Capital"), and the rest is history (Tokugawa shogunate: "bakufu").

people in the Osaka-Kyoto region (Kansai) are still bitter about losing, and among other things, still erect monuments of leaders of the losing side as a way of expressing anti-Tokyo sentiment and their pride for western Japan.

inspired by the game Unciv in which the leader of the civilization of Japan is Oda Nobunaga, not Tokugawa Ieyasu, and its capital is Kyoto, not Tokyo.  its second city founded is Osaka; third is Tokyo.

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