Japanese history

>>1465444
Emperor was a puppet from the 1200's up to the late 1800's (roughly). The emperor had the right to look cool and have luxury stuff, religious duties and that's it. The shogun was the military leader at first, and quickly the actual leader in that time period. Of course, it didn't go smoothly, some emperors tried to rebel, it didn't really worked. Some clans try to take over the shogunate to replace it with a shogunate of their own. During the late 15th century, all of the 16th century, a vast war of clans was raging because there was no actual leader and plenty of big heads of clans (Takeda, Hojo, Oda, Date, Shimazu, Uesugi, all of those were shogun material for instance). You don't get to "be the next shogun", you kill all the shogun's family and "heh you're the next shogun now", it wasn't an election.
Clans are like very high nobilities, then they have lesser clans as vassals.

>>1465502
Oh thanks for the explanation.
Some more questions: What happened /would happen if the emperor dies and no son was aviable(he emperor had none or was just too young?) . Also why didnt the shogun just kill off every single clan. I mean how can new clans form in the first place? Can anyone make a clan who has some land?

>>1465444
Shogun started off as the commander-in-chief in the campaigns to conquer the whole mainland Japan generally against the northern natives

Eventually they basically usurped the power from the emperor and became de-facto emperors, they never called themselves that of course or tried to depose the imperial family because the imperial family was "sacred" and descendant from gods etc, that shit wouldn't have flied, it would have been open invitation to anarchy
Several times you'd have civil wars waged in the name of the puppet emperors between for example the Fujiwara regents, Minamoto and Taira in the Genpei war
Minamoto emerge victorious and become the next brand of de-facto rulers
The Ashikaga, a branch family, follow and some centuries later they've become so weak that you have several warlords fighting each other all over Japan and essentially take over the Ashikaga as their regents
The whole Sengoku shit happens when two clans support different Ashikaga heirs for Shogun and plunge Japan into a giant civil war that ostensibly lasts for centuries. In the end Hideyoshi ends up as the kampaku, de facto ruler of Japan as the regent for the Ashikaga who are already the shogun (regents for the emperor)

>>1465535
For the emperor, I guess as usual, you would find the proper successor in the family by going back for nephews and the likes, I'm really not sure, not that much of a specialist.
For the shogun, well, he needed a warrior aristocracy to rule the country locally, just like in Europe, one royal family don't go on killing are upsetting all the others for the fun of it. Families have powerful local armies, it couldn't be done that easily, and there would have been a risk to be overthrown. The shogun was the recognized leader, and the local head of clans still had a say in the political affair, especially far away from the capital, where control is harder to get (south of Japan, in Satsuma for instance). Most head of clans were ok since they were still very rich and powerful locally.
New clans forms were a small clans take over a weakened clan, usually it's a vassal replacing it's former boss, if it's ok for the shogun because old lord was getting weak anyway, it can happen. Lands were really really controlled in Japan, it was the basis of the economy after all (like in everywhere at that time really). A clan is at first a military power that took over some lands and stuck with it. Samurai clans started as mercenaries for the Emperor, before going "heh, let's topple that weak guy" and so they did. All the lesser clans were pretty much small familial armies that took over the land during the 1100's. Not anyone can make a clan, you need a strong claim, samurai blood and partners, but it happenend where their was a gap to fill, or another big clan stepped in and expanded.

The mechanics aren't that far away from everywhere else and Europe.

Ah okay i understand now. thanks guys.

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214KB, 688x1024px

>>1465571
You're welcome, maybe look at this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh5LY4Mz15o

>>1465502
>During the late 15th century, all of the 16th century, a vast war of clans was raging because there was no actual leader and plenty of big heads of clans (Takeda, Hojo, Oda, Date, Shimazu, Uesugi, all of those were shogun material for instance).
Misleading and false af

>>1465594
Please, come up with a description of the Sengoku Jidai in one sentence kind sir. I'll gladly admit mine was fuzzy, nonetheless, succession problem, war between clans, big figures dominating the background, it's not thaaat far away... or is it ?

>>1465621
The great clans weren't generally fighting to be the shogun, but to extend their territories and eat their neighbors with whom they all basically had grievances with anyway
This all started with the Onin war
Nobody was trying to even unify Japan until Nobunaga (before whom Oda were a minor provincial shit clan barely worth mentioning)

>>1465535
Couldn't tell you the first one, I assume it'd work basically the same as whatever European royalty did.

The bakufu would never have the power to kill off every single clan. It's a feudal system. The shogun usually used a system of alliances to gain power and then gave preferential treatment to the clans that supported them. So the Tokugawa gave their family members (shinpan daimyo) the best land nearest to Edo, their closest allies (fudai daimyo) good land in strategic location, and their former enemies (tozama daimyo) land far from Edo and Kyoto. So they weakened them considerably, but never had the authority to just make them go away.

Emperor = had no political power, cerimonial position. At times, poor.

Nobles = Fujiwara, Konoe. Also not a lot of power, but had a high rankings and the emperor wives came from those families.

Shogun = at times, the actual ruler of Japan.

Most of the daimyos didn't want to be Shogun. The Shimazu, for example were not exactly fond of anything outside of Kyushu. Or anyone outside of Kagoshima, for that matter, other than the Konoe family. They were not Japanese nationalists, they were Kagoshima nationalists.