Why were they so happy to remain isolated from the rest of the world?

>wasn't a war

A conflict. Same with Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. There was never a formal declaration of war.

>hegemon over east Asia
Not when China was still strong. They would have become isolated anyway, Qing would use its influence to make other countries boycott Japan if they somewhat tried to challange their mandate. Happened first during the Sui Dynasty and during the Tang-baekje war when Japan helped baekje and they got isolated for a short while.

Damn, now this is delusion

...

Nah, bro. Just fact. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States

They tried a bunch of times to expand into Korea but got btfo.

THey should have just blobbed into the Oriental islands and used monarch mana to get a personal union with Qing

They did have larger territorial aspirations but the Tokugawa saw that after the end of the sengoku the strength of the average man of war had been reduced, and the feudal structure of the country made raising large armies in difficult.

Coupled with the superiority of European naval technology and the rapid expansion of European colonies they correctly saw their best chance of maintaining themselves was to cut off relations rather than trying to compete.

Why to deal with other countries if they had an empty Japanese islands to settle?

>Why were they so happy to remain isolated from the rest of the world?
Meme.

Japonic most likely comes from the central/southern parts of the Korean peninsula,Korean polities acted as a conduit for Sinitic civilization.

Early Japanese attempts at meddling in the mainland were put to an end when the Tang-Silla alliance crushed Baekje loyalists.

Hideyoshi had megalomaniacal ambitions to conquer mainland East Asia,as well as plans to invade Spanish held Manila(vexing them to no end) and Formosa.

>There was never a formal declaration of war.

That doesn't mean it wasn't a war. If you're going to go the simplistic route and post a wiki article I suggest you look up the definition of war and you'll see it literally applies to what the US has been doing since Korea.

Because the Americans wanted to be on near-equal footing with Europe in the international theater, and the only way to play catch-up quick enough was to abandon the insidious/perfidiousness and go in guns blazing.
>Hideyoshi had megalomaniacal ambitions
Which had nothing to do with the ambitions of Tokugawa. He scared shitless of the Europeans and their ambitions. He saw what they were doing with the rest of Asia, and he was worried about the societal consequences of a larger Christian minority (they just finished dealing with a religious zealot uprising a few years prior, and that was from within their own religious camp). At the time Japan (mostly) closed its borders to the west it was significantly armed and trained enough that it could have probably defended its sovereignty against any attempt by the Europeans. Unfortunately for them they had no idea how fast they were developing and were woefully unprepared when they (Americans) showed up only a few centuries later.

They weren't, the central government just wanted a monopoly on trade with the outside world.

Luckily good wholesome true Americans who knew the dangers of federal government arrived to open to ports, the Japanese people were happy to be free of an oppressive government and trade freely with the white man.

Its in their genes to be scared of outside

Because those damn Kristians comin' over here, smashing our ancestors shrines, they're rapists, they're muderers

Also you just had a civil war, countries tend to go isolationist after civil war to build themselves backup

Because when they did open their ports, the Portuguese sold Nobunaga enough guns to take over like two thirds or the islands and took back as many japanese sex slaves they could fit in the ships.

Soon as they learned about the outside world, they were being invaded (mongols), thankfully the Tsunamis saved them.

The next time it happened, they learned that all the world is already being taken over by the europeans. So they closed it off.

Except, you know, most guns were domestically produced copies.

They did invade Korea but got wrecked instead.

What do you mean with "isolated"?

>expecting amerilard to look anything up that's more than one wiki page with a neat list away
>ever
Oh boy

Yo sun-sin raped them too hard
PTSD kept them on their shitstained rocks for half a millennia

You're so hideously wrong that it physically hurts me.

The Japanese were at best indifferent towards westerners and at worst openly hostile.
There were state led pogroms and the populace was mistrustful even of the Dutch, with whom the Shogunate was generally in good terms with.

That didn't stop the Shimazu clan and merchants, people who were educated and didn't have an agenda.

Recognize Taiwan then.

They bought gunpowder and import goods, not guns. They made their own guns in glorious Nippon.

Just a little over a month left.

You forgot the part where
- Christian missionaries keep entering the country to preach their shit. The Japanese, who are already aware of what was happening in South East Asia, had enough reason to suspect they were emplyed as a vanguard by Catholic colonists but they let them preach anyway since theydon't seem harmful. When the rebellion of Shimabara happens, involving converted daimyos and a Christian Catholic as a leader of the peasant rabble, the shogun says enough is enough and bans all Catholic traders and missionaries from entering Japan
- Also, the trade with foreign powers was paid in gold and silver, Tokugawa sought to put a stop to the drain of gold and silver coins, as well as centralize the economy, hence why he was more than happy to keep the country as economically secluded as possible

Japan TRIED going full Hegemon.

Didn't fucking work even when they invaded all of Korea and was a moot point when China started driving them back to South Korea.

The image you linked isn't actually the Imjin but a northwestern border conflict that predates the war by 15 years.

The Ming BTFO Japanese in field battles.

5,000 elite cavalry under Li Rusong were able to fight their way out of Japanese ambush of 20,000+(not including forces under Ukita Hideie).

It was more a stalemate was it not?

>It was more a stalemate was it not?
More a accidental skirmish than a true battle,its not like the Ming withdrawal prevented the capitulation of Kaesong and Hanseong.

The Japanese vanguard suffered disproportionate casualties considering they outnumbered the Ming by fivefold(more if you include reinforcements).

At the very least Tachinbana Muneshige(who didn't participate in Haengju) lost 2,000 men.