Japan

Japan is a country in East Asia. Historically, Japan was rather isolated from the rest of Asia until the age of the Han in China, where the Chinese established contacts with the islands and began formal diplomatic relations between the Yamato Dynasty and the Han Dynasty. Contacts were lost with the fall of the Han and the isolationist approach taken by the Song Dynasty. However, around the same time, Korean Christian missionaries began to arrive in Japan, with the Naiman Dynasty establishing formal contacts shortly after. Korean Christianity was widely popular in Japan, blending with the local Shinto and Buddhist traditions.

In the 12th century, local Christians revolted and overthrew the Yamato dynasty, allowing the ascension of the Myojo dynasty, with the Myojo claiming to be descended of a semi-legendary warrior named, Akimitsu, who was divinely chosen for kingship by Jesus Christ himself.

Around 1370 AD, the Empire of Japan fragmented into localized fiefdoms and petty kingdoms, all loosely connected by their common pledge of loyalty to the Emperor, who remained in control of the area around Kyoto.

In 1587 AD, Portuguese explorers found a trading post at Nagasaki, by 1615, around 45% of the population of Kyushu had begun to adopt the Roman Catholicism introduced by the Portuguese.

In 1613, the Oda Clan had established a military hegemony over the other fiefdoms of Japan, becoming Shogun. The Odas denounced Catholicism as a foreign influence that threatened their authority and banned all heretical sects that did not conform to mainstream Japanese Nestorianism. As a result, the Catholics of Kyushu appealed to the Portuguese to protect them, and in 1623, the island of Kyushu fell under direct Portuguese administration. Persecution of Catholics in Japan reached an all-time high in the mid-1600s.

Japan and Korea entered into a military alliance in 1723 against the incursions of China, as well as France and Portugal.

Japan is finally unified (except for Kyushu) under the Odas in 1768, as a full shogunate with the Emperor's blessing. Portugal begins to enforce lusitanification on Kyushu, ignoring calls by the local Japanese to transfer authority to locals. Kyushu rebels against the Portuguese in the Blue Turban Rebellion. As the Blue Turbans drive out the Portuguese, the Japanese begin to conquer Kyushu.

Japan entered into a civil war in the 1950s, with sectarian violence breaking out once again between Catholics and Nestorians.