Would westeros be better off with a King or a Shogun (RAR!)

[Zor]

In this scenario instead of Aegon the Conqueror coming to Westeros some 72,000 Late Sengoku Samurai and Ashigaru (a quarter of which being armed with matchlocks) on a large number of sailing ships that at the mouth of the Blackwater Rush led by Toyotomi Hideoyoshi. Said force came from a Tagaryen free Dragonstone and with them (either among the landing force or on the island to after the beachhead on the mainland) is some 144,000 japanese artisans, laborers, clerks, sailors, buddhist monks, shrine keepers and their families. Their intent is simple: conquer the seven kingdoms and once they do so impose a social order similar to that of the Tokugawa Shogunate. They are willing to accept some knights and lords who submit to their rule and fight alongside their army as new samurai and have some interpreters to overcome the language barrier.

Would this arrangement be better or worse for the people's of the Seven Kingdoms than Targaryen rule?

Zor

[Lord Revan]

When you remove the divine emperor just how different was the Shogunate from the late medival feudal systems, from what I gathered good chunk of the stability of the shogunate came from the fact that the shogun got (in theory) his rank from the emperor who was divine (son of the sun goddess), so to oppose the shogun would mean to opposing the emperor (obviously it's not that simple in practice but that's the basic idea).

basically what does the shogunate bring that westeros doesn't already have in some form or another?

[The Romulan Republic]

Guns?

I don't know Game of Thrones that well, but I don't recall them having guns.

[Lord Revan]

Guns?

I don't know Game of Thrones that well, but I don't recall them having guns.

no guns as far as I know.

That said Firearms will be both a blessing and a curse as long you'll have to deal with logistics of them, there's no pre-established factories for gunpowder meaning you'll have to build those or accept that your reign will last only until you ran out of gunpowder, if Firearms are the only thing you bring to the table that isn't "just like every other lord"

Also I'm not seeing any seige weapons on the weapon breakdown, muskets are cool but they don't allow you conquer a castle you need siege weapons for that.

[Zor]

That said Firearms will be both a blessing and a curse as long you'll have to deal with logistics of them, there's no pre-established factories for gunpowder meaning you'll have to build those or accept that your reign will last only until you ran out of gunpowder, if Firearms are the only thing you bring to the table that isn't "just like every other lord"

To make gunpower you need three things: Carbon, Sulfur and Saltpeter. Carbon can be obtained from charcoal, dragonstone stinks with sulfur and rocky islands and coastlines where seabirds live and engage in all of life's biological processes shall meet their saltpeter needs. They have artisans who can set up powder mills.

Zor

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, this just results in a Japanese-themed Kingdom of Dragonstone or "of the Isles" or "of Blackwater" or whatever, subduing the 'historical' areas known as the Crownlands and probably some distance beyond, only to peter out eventually in the face of hostile opposition. Seventy-two thousand trained soldiers, some with muskets, is a powerful force, but they're not going to be able to pull off the kind of totally one-sided blowout conquests that Cortez did against the Aztecs.

Moreover, they don't have the dragons, which were such an outside context problem for Westerosi warfare that they did a lot to make the conquest possible. A dragon can defeat an army of several thousand men... but requires none of the logistical support of such an army, and is infinitely more mobile. Moreover, dragons can accomplish feats no army could ever realistically accomplish, such as:

"As other regions of Westeros fell to Aegon, Sharra amassed the Vale army at the Bloody Gate. However, Aegon sent Visenya to the Eyrie riding her dragon Vhagar. When Sharra returned to the Eyrie she found her son sitting on Visenya's lap and asking if he could ride the dragon with Visenya. Sharra bent the knee afterward. The Arryns were declared Wardens of the East and Defenders of the Vale.[2] "

It would be extremely difficult for the Japanese invasion force to conquer the Vale, because they are lacking in heavy artillery with which to force the Bloody Gate and have no means of bypassing the defenses of the Eyrie. About the best they could do would be to camp out at the bottom of the mountain and wait for winter to come. They'd have to do that after subduing enough of the rest of the Vale to be assured of safe winter quarters for their army, because only an idiot would try to march an army back through the mountains between the Vale and the rest of Westeros in winter.

[General Zod]

Add a Shogun and you basically get Legend of Five Rings.