State of Guangdong TNO RPG

Following the interim rule of Matsuzawa Takuji, representatives of the Guangdong Legislative Council swore in Masaru Ibuka of Fujitsu Limited as the new head of government. An engineer by profession and a member of Guangdong's hardline corporate faction, he vowed to build a state based on meritocratic principles and a society whose technical expertise would match the level of Fujitsu's laboratories.

A vocal opponent of the Suzuki administration's labor reform efforts, Ibuka is expected to continue his stance against improving the welfare of Guangdong's indigenous population. This is expected to generate significant opposition from reformist elements in the Legislative Council, particularly from his longtime rival and former business partner, Akio Morita of Sony.

Guangdong will follow the path of corporatocracy.

After tense negotiations, the Guangdong Legislative Council voted to confirm Akio Morita of Sony Corporation as Chief Executive. A staunch advocate of reform, Morita vowed to create a more equitable society for all Guangdong residents. Morita's support among the Cantonese-Japanese Zhujin class is particularly noteworthy, as is his close friendship and collaboration with Li Ka-shing of Cheung Kong Enterprises, Guangdong's largest Chinese corporation.

While Morita's reforms may reduce unrest among the indigenous population, they have also generated significant opposition from the government's more hardline corporate faction, particularly Fujitsu CEO and Morita's former business partner, Masaru Ibuki.

Guangdong will follow the path of corporatist paternalism.

Emerging from the political instability following Yasuda's downfall, the Guangdong Legislative Council elected Masaharu Matsushita of Matsushita Electric as the new chief executive. The adopted son of one of Japan's most successful independent businessmen, Matsushita represents a moderate figure between Guangdong's reformist and hardline corporate factions. His appointment is expected to provide security through moderate reforms and further promote business expansion and profit growth.

Matsushita is widely popular among Japanese business circles in Guangdong, but his paternalistic approach to management may alienate many, especially among the lower classes.

Guangdong will follow the path of corporatocracy.

To become CEO, a candidate must obtain more advantages than their rivals. There are two ways in which a candidate can obtain advantages in the focus tree. The first time, choosing Ibuki or Morita's plan will grant them one advantage; the second time, choosing one of the three companies during the auction will grant one advantage to that company's representative. If there is a tie for advantages at the time of the vote, the choice will be made in favor of the candidate whose company holds the most seats on the Legislative Council.

In addition to the power struggle, this mechanic includes Yasuda's auction. 30% of Yasuda's assets will initially belong to Sony and Fujitsu, another 25% is in the hands of Matsushita, and the remaining 15% is up for auction, their fate depending on the player's decision in the auction-related focus sub-branch. It's worth noting that Sony's company is guaranteed to transfer all acquired assets to Cheung-khon. After Yasuda's departure from the Legislative Council, the company's seats will be distributed among the corporations according to the shares they received during the auction.

Matsuzawa Takuji was appointed to his post with a single purpose: to make unpopular but necessary decisions to stabilize Guangdong and resolve the crisis. To overcome the fallout from Yasuda's collapse, he will have to choose between the Ibuki plan to aid Japanese investors or the Morita plan to aid Chinese and Zhuzhans. These plans have different implications for the Labor Standards Ordinance. Under the Ibuki plan, it is completely repealed; under the Morita plan, it is postponed indefinitely. In addition to pressing economic problems, Matsuzawa must deal with an influx of Japanese refugees, labor protests, and criminal gangs that have long profited from violence and drug trafficking.

To replenish liquid reserves, an auction of Yasuda's assets will be held. After an inventory, Matsuzawa will be able to choose which company to transfer the assets not yet redeemed: Fujitsu, Matsushita, or Sony. By mid-February 1964, all of Matsuzawa's main objectives will be achieved, and he will quietly leave the country. The renewed Legislative Council, where Yasuda will be replaced by the Zhuji company Chungkhon and the Manchurian Hitachi, will hold a vote, where Morita Akio, Matsushita Masahara, or Ibuka Masaru may be elected as the new CEO.

The collapse of the Yasuda Bank in Japan will have serious consequences for the shared prosperity sphere, and nowhere will this be felt more acutely than in the corporate state of Guangdong. With the onset of the crisis, government support for demographic groups will fall across all regions (by 3.00% for Japanese expatriates, 2.00% for Zhujin, and 1.00% for Chinese), and police oversight will be reduced by 2.50%. Furthermore, GDP will decline and public debt will increase. Guangdong's status will shift from "Between Two Worlds" to "Guangdong Financial Crisis," and its policing approach will shift from "Kempeitai Networks" to "Police Hard Power." Suzuki Teiichi will appeal to Sony, Matsushita, and Fujitsu to donate part of their profits to save his regime, but the three corporations not only refuse to provide assistance but also organize a vote of confidence in Suzuki. The CEO will desperately try to secure support, even resorting to the yakuza, but he is doomed to fail. An unknown businessman will bribe Matsuzawa Takuji, who is concerned about his family's situation. This will cause the vote's support among all companies in the Legislative Council to drop to zero, and Suzuki's supporters will be reduced to 12. Suzuki will be forced to resign, and the player will be given the opportunity to bribe members of the Legislative Council in future votes. Matsuzawa Takuji will become the new CEO.

Within the Guangdong corporate state, there's something reminiscent of democratic parliaments similar to those found in Japan and the UK. Although these seats are not elected, they comprise the 100 most important businessmen in Guangdong. These businessmen vote on the Guangdong State's regulations, which determine the policy and future direction of the state. Businessmen flock to where they find the most advantage, and their votes and loyalty are sold as currency by the presidents of Guangdong's major companies or, in some cases, bought to alter the dynamics of the Council.

The executive director proposes resolutions to the Legislative Council, and if 50 seats support the resolution, it comes into force. However, businessmen are not bound by loyalty to the corporation. For Guangdong provincial resolutions, the standard voting period is 30 days, although exceptions may apply in special cases. Resolutions generally do not survive without amendment and may require amendments proposed by other parties to gain greater support. However, no resolution can have more than five amendments. Whenever a vote on a bill is completed, it will be archived in the resolution history and will remain there to document the history of the Guangdong Legislative Council.

You can use decisions from the "Corruption" subcategory to spend political power and increase corruption by bribing one businessman from a rival company to your side. Each of these decisions reappears after a certain amount of time. Thus, theoretically, you could start with 0 supporting businessmen and bribe 50 council members, if you weren't limited by corruption and time. Such bribery is extremely expensive, meaning this method is generally best used when the number of businessmen supporting the proposal is close to 50.

The state of Guangdong was carved out of the Republic of China with one clear goal: to leverage Japanese engineering excellence to create wealth that would benefit both the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and investors in Tokyo. Thousands of investors who analyze Guangdong's economic indicators daily from the Tokyo Stock Exchange are demanding returns on their investments.

Each year, Guangdong will be assigned a GDP target to be achieved within the year. Successful achievement of this target will increase the ruling party's seats in the Legislative Council, support for Japanese expatriates and Zhujins, and approval ratings for Japan, while the new GDP growth target will be set at 9% of current GDP. Failure to achieve this target will lower these targets, and the target will be set at 8.5% of current GDP. During the Yasuda Crisis, the Oil Crisis, and the Guangdong Unrest, debuffs for failing to meet economic expectations will not be imposed.

After 1963, Guangdong gains a new goal: to surpass Manchukuo in GDP. Once this is achieved, the player will trigger an event that grants buffs depending on the chosen path, such as Japan's approval for the Fujitsu path. Also, after the change of power in Manchuria following Puyi's death, Guangdong will receive various decisions to boost its economic performance.

However, while growth and commodity output remain paramount, maintaining a stable balance sheet is tantamount to maintaining investor confidence. If debt-to-GDP rises sharply, the credit rating will be downgraded, Japan will become increasingly dissatisfied, political capital will decline, and confidence in Guangdong markets will decline, leading to higher inflation. Therefore, controlling spending and debt is essential to preserving the Miracle on the Pearl River.

Guangdong exists in a constant balancing act between three fundamental threats, each capable of derailing even the most skilled administrator's plans. Two of these are external forces beyond the direct control of state leadership, while the third permeates all levels of society.

The Japanese Empire—Guangdong's patron and its largest investor—has expectations that must be met, lest the CEO suffer from their disapproval and be attacked by envious colleagues. The Republic of China, meanwhile, has been inherently hostile to Guangdong—a "state" separated from its southern province—and certainly knows how to make life difficult for both companies and CEOs.

And on top of all this, corruption seeps into every crevice, clogging the mechanisms of government. Even if some believe this is the fate of a nation that worships the yen more than anything else, no one likes to deal with corruption—the corruption of souls, the cheapening of labor, and the decline in profits.

It may sound strange, but a large part of the Japanese economy simply doesn't exist. Information reaching the Japanese islands is completely disconnected from what's actually happening. Investors think they're buying shares in a company on the Asian mainland, but at every step, before their money gets there, it's being embezzled by the military and various petty officials. Those close to Prime Minister Ino Hiroya are aware of this and actively collaborate with corporations to conceal this theft, because Japan's political elite receives a significant share of all the bribes.

In early 1962, Bank manager Yasuda is murdered at the docks. After an investigation begins, the victim's body is blown up with a grenade. The detectives' attempt to uncover the grenade's origin and the perpetrator leads them into the tangled world of bureaucracy, where they realize they are witnessing a massive scandal. Over the course of a year, they gather enough information to piece together a coherent picture that links the army, navy, corporations, and government in corruption schemes of unprecedented scale.

After this information is released, hundreds of investors immediately try to dump their shares, slashing prices to speed up deals, while everyone else does the same. Overnight, corporations lose 50% or more of their value. Mass layoffs paralyze the economy, which leads to more layoffs, until the entire economy grinds to a halt. Many Japanese lose their homes and move to Guangdong, hoping to start a new life there.

Internationally, Guangdong enjoys some of the trappings of a full-fledged state and little else. China, clinging tightly to its pride, refuses to grant Guangdong's representatives the equal treatment they deserve, while Japan's attention has long been diverted from its unnatural satellite. Manchukuo, the original pan-Asian experiment, is equally contemptuous of both China's poverty and Guangdong's corporate upstarts.

Beyond the borders of Guangdong looms the Japanese Empire, defending its interests through General Nagano Shigeto and Consul General Takashima Masuo, representing the military and civilian branches of the Japanese government.

For the Republic of China, the loss of Guangdong in 1950 still stings. Consul General Song Zhiguang, a Guangdong native, offers his reluctant assistance to the corporate state, drawing on the experience of Senior Political Attaché Wang Jingxiu. It's important to remember that Wang, a representative of the Chinese military, has far less patience than his colleague.

Woshinwo, Sanyong, Shuifong—these are names every Chinese knows by heart. Heeding the "secret societies" that have populated China since the dynasties, these Triads rule the Guangdong underworld with a handful of drugs and lead. Unsurprisingly, their ranks have swelled since the establishment of the state; this growth has been followed by power and influence among China's lower class. There is a growing call for the wooing of Guangdong's new kingmakers rather than their costly elimination—a move officials warn against, wary of their northern neighbor.

Yakuza is a one-word question with three or more different answers. To themselves and their apologists, they are ninkyo dantai: noble ronin of the modern era, sharing the luxury of the rich with their brothers and other poor people. To the Chinese and the Zhuzhin, they are crazy, fingerless bandits, leaving corpses and opium wherever they go. The Legislative Council could simply label the yakuza the troublemakers they are, but some people with deep pockets prefer to deal with them above all else.

It's no surprise that crime and corruption are rampant in such a state. Triads and the Yakuza vie for control of the web of vice that stretches throughout Guangdong's underground, ignoring the understaffed police force and the indifferent Kempeitai garrison. In Guangdong, crime isn't so much an aberration as simply another way of doing business, a reciprocal relationship of favors rendered and debts owed.

While the tycoons struggle for power and political influence, the situation in Guangdong is such that the leaders of the criminal underworld, the so-called "respectable" figures - Stanley Ho of the Triads and Yokoi Hideki of the Yakuza - have as much influence as the beleaguered police commissioner, who increasingly relies on Kempeitai Colonel Miyazaki Kiyotaka for police and intelligence duties.

The native Chinese labor endlessly in the factories of Guangdong's three pearls—Koshu (Guangzhou), Hong Kong (Hong Kong), and Macau—while receiving none of the benefits enjoyed by the Japanese industrialists and expatriates who control their corporate exclave. Right in the middle are the Zhujin—educated professionals and businessmen fluent in Japanese but residing in Guangdong—who serve and benefit from Guangdong's economic order. The Chinese condemn this middle class as collaborators, while Japanese expatriates view the Zhujin as a useful tool.

Although Guangdong introduced labor legislation as part of a general replication of Japanese-inspired legal codes during its formation, the central premise of Guangdong's existence as a playground for corporate colonialism meant that its provisions were significantly weakened compared to similar legislation in the Sphere, and by 1962 they had largely atrophied and become irrelevant.

It's no surprise that crime and corruption are rampant in such a state. Triads and the Yakuza vie for control of the web of vice that stretches throughout Guangdong's underground, ignoring the understaffed police force and the indifferent Kempeitai garrison. In Guangdong, crime isn't so much an aberration as simply another way of doing business, a reciprocal relationship of favors rendered and debts owed.

Founded shortly before the Second Sino-Japanese War, Fujitsu Limited, affiliated with the Furukawa Zaibatsu, is one of the oldest IT companies in the world. However, this rich pedigree did not help the company in the post-war era. Forced to fall ever lower, Fujitsu withered. Until Ibuka Masaru came along.

Insightful, erudite, and, above all, exceptionally courageous, the upstart engineer Ibuki was recruited by Fujitsu after its acquisition of Tokyo Telecommunications in February 1952. Despite a bitter estrangement from his friend and business partner, Morita Akio, Ibuki's rise through the ranks at Fujitsu was truly stellar, and by 1959 he had become the company's president. Now, having formed an uneasy alliance with Matsushita Masaharu and turned against his former partner-turned-rival, Ibuki lives for one goal: his vision for Guangdong. To make it a haven for science and reason, where everyone receives only what they deserve.

Matsushita Electric is known as one of the few remaining independent electronics manufacturers in the Japanese home islands. Its founder, Matsushita Konosuke, runs the corporation as chairman from its headquarters in Osaka. In Guangdong, the company's affairs are managed by Matsushita Masaharu, his adopted son-in-law. Since 1961, he has led the company as its chief operating officer, leading Matsushita Electric into the Chinese and international markets from its regional office in Koshu.

Matsushita Masaharu's position as the adopted heir to the entire corporation plagues him with self-doubt, as his father and boss, Konosuke, increasingly doubts Masaharu's ability to inherit his company. The younger Matsushita is determined to make Matsushita Electric the largest consumer electronics company in the entire Co-Prosperity Sphere, intending to build a true empire for his adopted family in the Pearl River Delta.

Sony is a leading electronics company in Guangdong, founded in 1954 as Morita Akio's second business venture in response to Fujitsu's buyout of his first company, Tokyo Telecommunications.

Since the Home Islands didn't tolerate failure, Morita moved to Guangdong, where in 1955, together with small factory owner Li Ka-shing, he released the first non-Japanese transistor radio in the Sphere, the TR-56. This brought popularity and money to Sony, but also embroiled Morita in a bitter dispute with his former partner, Ibuka Masaru.

Although Li had since founded his own company, Chung Kong Enterprises, Morita and Li overcame all obstacles that stood in their way, and in 1960, Sony formed its own faction in the Legislative Council. Ever the outsider, Morita championed the interests of the Zhujings and his Chinese employees—those who gave him a second life when Japan abandoned him.

The Yasuda Zaibatsu, a massive financial conglomerate within the Showa 33, stretches far and wide across the Japanese Empire, expanding in every conceivable direction. Its operations in Guangdong, overseen by Representative Director Matsuzawa Takuji since 1959, are no exception.

Yasuda's preeminent position allows Matsuzawa to play the long game; unlike his colleagues, he is quite capable of "laying low and waiting out the difficulties" until he eventually emerges victorious. His position as the primary conduit for Yasuda's interests in Guangdong means he can afford to occasionally display magnanimity, which in itself is a source of power and something no other tycoon can afford.

But those in the know are taking a closer look at the director's position and see that he's becoming less and less enthusiastic about his position. Despite all the advantages, Matsuzawa feels that for one reason or another, he's somehow been left behind—and he's eager to find out why.

Yet, like an iron glove, the PPG is clumsy, cumbersome, and covered in rust. Their primacy brings with it law and order, true, but also the primacy of jackbooted thugs in blue, with gaping pockets and laughable ineptitude.

Although Guangdong presents itself as an independent state, the Kempeitai reminds its citizens where their true allegiance lies. Contemptible in their methods but effective in their missions, these secret policemen monitor Guangdong from their garrisons, ready to spring into action at the first whiff of dissent. More appropriate for the Council's coffers, the Kempeitai is funded by the Emperor. No one can find a better or cheaper police force, say Tokyo's sycophants. But the question arises: now the people fear the Kempeitai. What if they learn to hate it?

The Legislative Council is theoretically an apolitical advisory body appointed by the Executive Director to advise and legitimize their actions within the unified political body—the Guangdong Civil Administration. In practice, of course, the capture of the Legislative Council by corporate interests has made political factionalism a fact of life. Those who remain faithful to the vision of the appointed Executive Director, Suzuki, of placing state prerogatives above financial interests, are viewed as executors of the civil administration in the Legislative Council.

For the good of the Japanese Empire and the preservation of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, Suzuki Teiichi enters 1962 prepared to lay the foundations for a stronger, more resilient Guangdong—and to remind corporations of their debt to the Empire of the Rising Sun.

A historical penchant for small—some would say meager—government, massive financial transactions, and weak oversight have all contributed to the Guangdong provincial government becoming a hotbed of corruption and bribery. The temptation to accept "tea money" is universal and significantly complicates government work, requiring additional effort and funding to ensure compliance.

With "Honor, Duty, and Loyalty" inscribed on badges worn by men who embody none of them, the Guangdong Provincial Police serve as the armored fist of the Legislative Council in all matters within their jurisdiction. They ensure the tycoons' words are law on every street corner and opium den, assuring every citizen that they are always safe—from themselves, if necessary.

Carved out of the Republic of China as an independent entity by Japanese decree under the Canton Protocols of 1950, the state of Guangdong is an experiment unlike any other: an artificial nation dedicated exclusively to corporate colonialism. While other Imperial Japanese conquests in Asia—even its most artificial creation, the Manchu Empire—pay lip service to the pan-Asian vision of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, Guangdong stands apart in its adherence to the Japanese yen at the whim of its four companies: Sony, Matsushita Electric, Fujitsu, and Yasuda.

Thanks to a combination of Tokyo's neglect and the reckless ambitions of its tycoons, Guangdong has become a place where pretense is shed in favor of naked greed and the pursuit of profit. But all is not well within the world's only bastion of unchecked capitalism.