Rangaku

[Zor]

In 1633 the Tokugawa Shogunate enacted a policy known as Sakoku, a hard line isolationist stance. Japanese people were forbidden on pain of death from leaving Japan and access to japan was severely limited, especially westerners. Like the Chinese the Japanese of the time viewed westerners as crude uncivilized barbarians and more-over the Shogunate viewed western traders and especially western missionaries as being a threat to the order and stability of Japan. Unlike the Ming and latter Qing Dynasties the Japanese had little interest in western silver and had little desire to trade with them, even on uneven terms. Never the less, they did make one exception to the rule and allowed the Dutch (who were less intrusive) to do some limited trade in Nagasaki. The Dutch would buy silks, tea and ceramics and the Japanese would buy various western curios. Among these curios were a few of these...


...and these...


A few samurai took these new world tubers and ordered their peasants to grow them. This added to the Japanese diet and improved Japanese agriculture. Among the more artificial curios the Dutch sold to the Japanese were mechanical items such as telescopes and clocks. Both of which were soon replicated by Japanese artisans and became fairly popular in Japan before th The mechanisms of the latter would be applied to a wide range of clockwork automata which were remarkably refined and could do a lot with a minimum of moving parts.



It should be remembered that to take an interest in western items in japan would be in violation of a fair number of social taboos at the time. Even more was the case with western books, which were often illegal. Never the less, the dutch did a good business selling dutch books of science (including geography, geology, biology, zoology, electrical theory, astronomy, the mechanical sciences and anatomy) to curious samurai, many of which were translated into Japanese.



In the 19th century, European warships came by Japan more and more often, more over the Japanese were a bit spooked when China, the large powerhouse of East Asia and the center of human civilization got it's butt kicked by Europeans. As such, the Japanese began to import not only civilian curios from the dutch, but also military items to strengthen their defences. Among them being wha the Dutch called Gewher.



Even so, some things remained too radical to be replicate in Japan while the Sakoku policy was in effect to be perused without the risk of loosing one's head. However, when it was lifted these items were soon made now that the matter was less controversial. This steam engine was completed in 1853, shortly after Japan was opened.



Where Qing China sneered at western technology as being barbaric simply because it was invented beyond the middle kingdom (at least until it was used to repeatedly kick their butts), the Japanese were somewhat willing to make it their own. The information that Japan gained from the Dutch during the would be instrumental in the early stages of Japan's industrial development. Collectively this is refereed to as Rangaku (Dutch Learning).



Zor

[Siege]

As such, the Japanese began to import not only civilian curios from the dutch, but also military items to strengthen their defences. Among them being wha the Dutch called Gewher.

Geweer, rather. Gewehr is the German word for the same thing.