First Escar-Varunan War

The First Escar-Varunan War was fought between Chisei and Yamatai from 1920 to 1923, and resulted in a major geopolitical shift in Escar, with Yamatai seizing a dominant position and setting the stage for the later Second Escar-Varunan War. Widely considered the penultimate point of the colonial conflict between Chisei and Yamatai, the war broke out after a series of escalating conflicts between the two colonial powers that dated back centuries. One of the first modern wars between competing colonial powers, the conflict spanned both powers' colonial empires and saw the widespread usage of new technologies that had been seen their debut in various preceding conflicts around the world, such as tanks, submarines, airplanes, radios, and others.

Often considered the immediate trigger for the war was the negotiation of the Treaty of Choutu between Yamatai and Shojin, which would have absorbed Shojin into the Yamataian Empire in a manner similar to how Hinomoto was annexed in 1850. Already threatened by Yamatai's already near-total control of the Sea of Yashima, Chisei declared war on Yamatai under the pretext of defending Shojin's sovereignty, also inciting a coup that installed a pro-Chisei government in Shojin shortly after.

The war began on the 1st of August, 1920, after an early morning declaration of war that was followed by the Chiseian Royal Navy launching attacks on the Yamatai Imperial Navy's defensive cordon in the Sea of Shirakawa, paving the way for an invasion of Hinomoto. As they began their invasion of Hinomoto, Chisei attempted to install a puppet government to administer Hinomoto as a buffer state between itself and Yamatai, placing Kinoshita no Toshitake IV in control of the short-lived Second Taikunate of Hinomoto. However, fighting on Hinomoto quickly devolved into a trench war between the Chiseian Royal Army and Yamatai Imperial Army with few gains by either side for years.

While the fighting on Hinomoto continued, the Imperial Navy left the bulk of its forces in the Sea of Yashima, planning to engage the Royal Navy in a single decisive battle in accordance with Yamataian naval doctrine. Submarines and fast warships were sent out on unrestricted raids against Chiseian colonial holdings across the Varunan Ocean and Crosswind Sea, forcing the Royal Navy to spread its forces out across the colonies. Eager for progress, in March 1921 Chisei expanded the war by launching an invasion of Yamataian Nanyokuni from Chiseian Masuka, facing little naval resistance. Once on land, the Chiseian troops faced strong resistance from the Nanyo Imperial Army, which faced the Chiseians in jungle and guerrilla warfare.

In June 1922, the war reached a turning point when Yamatai attempted to attack and raid Chiseian port cities to stop them from sending reinforcements to Hinomoto. After the SNLF Marines landed at Wanshu and various coastal cities on Chisei, fighting over the city quickly expanded and Yamatai soon found itself committed to a full-scale invasion of Chisei, which had actually been desired and planned for by the Yamataian leadership. Aiming to capture Eito within nine months, the Yamataian offensive caught the Chiseians off guard with its speed and use of modern weapons such as tanks and aircraft in one of the world's first examples of strategic-level combined-arms warfare. In late 1922, the remaining Chiseian forces withdrew from Hinomoto to reinforce the homeland, leaving the Second Taikunate to be crushed by the Imperial Army.

Though Yamatai's drive towards Eito initially seemed unstoppable, by early 1923 they were eventually halted at the Yenokaji Line and a major counter-offensive was planned by the Royal Army to strike at the Yamataians' exposed northern flank along the coast. The Royal Navy made a bid to break through the Sea of Yashima to cut off Yamataian troop shipments in the Sea of Shirakawa, but faced off with the Imperial Navy's Combined Fleet at the First Battle of the Sea of Yashima. This battle saw the numerically superior Royal Navy fleet dramatically routed by the Imperial Navy's smaller force, and in conjunction with a brief tactical breakthrough by Imperial Army forces at the Yenokaji Line, shocked the Chiseian government into believing that total defeat was imminent.

On 15 April 1923, Chisei's government offered a ceasefire and peace talks to the Yamataian government. The two nations eventually signed the Treaty of Wanshu, which saw the Yamataian-occupied parts of Chisei ceded to Yamatai as the New Territories, as well as other humiliating reparations and international restrictions imposed on Chisei, such as forcing them to agree not to meddle with Shojin's government.

The results of the First Escar-Varunan War were immense, shocking the world as Chisei boasted a larger colonial empire and a larger navy than Yamatai. It became readily apparent after the war that Yamatai had only just barely won the war due to the Chiseian government's timely call for peace, with many Yamataian leaders expressing that the Imperial Army could not have survived the planned Royal Army counterattack, and the Imperial Navy's fuel reserves were down to less than a month's supply due to the fighting in Nanyokuni and Chisei's interdiction of Yamataian fuel convoys from the Crosswind Sea colonies. These revelations led to a severe loss of confidence in the civilian government in Chisei, leading to the __COUP__.

The occupation of parts of Chisei was criticized by other great powers in the world as a dishonourable and overly humiliating act against Chisei by Yamatai. However, these actions were justified by the Yamataian leadership as being in accordance with the Yamataian state's Izoku Kyowa ideology, which desired the unification of all Yashiman peoples. Prior to the war, there existed a substantial fifth column element in the Chiseian coastal regions who also embraced Izoku Kyowa and welcomed the Yamataian occupation, allowing Yamatai to rapidly establish a loyal local administration.

Shiro-Yamataian Rivalry

 * Sakura revolution; beginnings of Yamataian empire
 * Following the First Northern War, Chisei began to greatly prioritize checking Imperial expansion within it's sphere of influence in the Varunan, and Yamatai's rapid ascendancy into the ranks of the Escaric great powers and rapidly industrializing economy came to greatly alarm the Kingdom's leadership. As a result of these growing anxieties, the annexation of Hinomoto in 185X sparked the Third Shiro-Yamataian War. Although the Imperial Army and Navy performed well, the Chiseian industrial and manpower advantage won out, and a few colonies were seized in the resulting Treaty of Yuzu. Both Empires would go on to find a common enemy in a resurgent Jiquan and it's Arshavati ally during the Second Northern War, but the terms of Yuzu would not be forgotten, and Yamataian colonial revanchism would continue to build throughout the remainder of the 19th century.

Chiseian decline
After the Second Northern War, the Chiseian empire began to slowly enter a period of decline. Large wartime loans and the devaluation of currency led to growing inflation in the aftermath of the war, not helped by continuing colonial conflicts in Osova well into the new century. In the 1890s, the Koizumi government would attempt fiscal reforms to rejuvenate the economy and check the failure of the currency, but muddled execution ultimately limited the scheme's practical impact.

There were also internal threats to the state itself, both in the heartland and the empire as a whole. The pace of political and social reforms since the late 18th and early 19th century had slowed, leading to the proliferation of radical groups such as the National Ashikasist Party, the Restorationist Front and the Greater Yashiman Organisation. Around the turn of the century, leftist movements also became increasingly prominent and organised, with trade unions and other opposition groups demanding improvements in labour conditions and protections for the working class, sometimes even clashing with police. In 1917, the Teishi Revolution would occur, with workers and a coalition of various political groups walking out onto the streets of Eito, Wanshu and a number of other Chiseian cities, fighting with police and military forces, and seizing government centers, post-offices, and railways by force. The accompanying general strike would be the largest in the kingdom's history, though ultimately the revolutionaries failed to secure crucial support from the Army and were unable to seize the Celestial Palace, resulting in the eventual mostly peaceful suppression of the insurrection.

In the colonies, seperatist ambitions simmered with increasing intensity as central authority weakened, and the tightening of colonial discipline in 1902 triggered a wave of revolts across Northern Osova. Despite being put down within a few months, these would serve to further cement the influence of nationalists and autonomists on the frontiers of Royal power.

Externally, Chiseian containment of Yamatai became less and less effective as the Empire grew in power, and in the late 19th century Yamatai was able to successfully expand it's holdings in southern Escar, Valeya and the Varunan, even securing the de facto recognition of the international community as a great power when it managed to attain concession cities in, and was included in the Congress of Farbai.

Anglian Wars

 * Chisei and Yamatai fight a proxy war.
 * Maybe skirmishing in the concession cities??