Did the japanese Royal family feel threatened in any way after the deposition of the last Chinese emperor and did they take any measures to guard themselves?

by [deleted]

I'm asking because european monarchies felt very threatened by the French revolution to the point of starting the coalition wars, I wanted to know if there was a similiar effect in kingdoms close to china.

wumao

Not at all. The Japanese emperor never truly held a great deal of power, and within the context of Japanese history, had served as a symbolic governor who observed rites for propriety rather than as a direct ruler. The Chinese emperors themselves never derived their legitimacy primarily through an ancient lineage in the way other kingdoms had, due to China's long history of separate dynasties. It would be impossible for them to claim descent from a royal and unbroken lineage, whereas the Japanese royal line is supposedly unbroken, stretching throughout the expanse of time to the very earliest origins of Japanese history. Within a contemporaneous context, the Manchu emperors of the Qing Dynasty were considered foreigners as well both internally as well as externally. Europeans referred to them as the "Tatar" rulers of Cathay, or Qing China as Eastern Tartaria, and such names based on a European context to separate it from the "previous" China. The Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, and especially Korean royal dynasty likewise all felt themselves in some ways more legitimate successors of ancient and medieval Chinese civilization than the Qing Dynasty of the 19th century, and definitely when it finally ended. So no, the royal line of the Qing Empire definitely was not in any way mourned either within or outside of China.