Xinshun 1730

471 Chapter [-]
While sighing, all Tokugawa Yoshimune could see was confusion.

Governing the country is not cooking.There is too much water this time, just add more rice next time, you can keep trying and making mistakes.

There is no chance of trial and error in governing the country. If you make a mistake, you may be lost forever.

Even without considering the suffering of the people caused by policy mistakes and trial and error, whether the shogunate's rule can be maintained alone is enough to give Tokugawa Yoshimune a headache.

Abe Masaoku is just an optimistic guess about the future, and it is really uncertain what the future will look like.

With this doubt, Tokugawa Yoshimune wanted to talk to Liu Yu.

Even though Liu Yu lied to him badly, but after careful consideration, whether it was sweet potatoes or minted coins, Liu Yu did not lie, and all the effects he said had indeed been achieved, but only concealed his real purpose.

He also wanted to test Liu Yu's views on Japan's future, and also wanted to test whether Dashun would take the next step towards the southern barbarian countries after forcing Japan to pay tribute.

He always felt that a battleship was worth 10 taels of silver.Compared with the silver taken from the Great Obedience Treaty, it seems that the price of warships is higher. Liu Yu is so profit-oriented, how could he do such a loss-making business?
Someone sent a letter to the Dashun warship stopping off the coast of Osaka, inviting them to meet in a few days.Tokugawa Yoshimune has no time these days, and he has to preside over the ceremony to welcome the return of the emperor "Kitakura".

At the same time, those samurai and bannermen who have been in Edo and have never really seen the Dashun navy ship can see this huge monster that cannot be defeated in a deadly battle, and lay the foundation for the introduction of Southern barbarian culture in the future.

On board, Liu Yu, who received the letter, agreed to the invitation to meet with Tokugawa Yoshimune again.

After the opening of the port, many details need to be discussed more clearly, and it is of great significance to persuade the shogunate to be the governor of the land.

After all, the emperor is a shrine, and it is the shogun who is really in power.

After receiving the letter, the fleet turned west and berthed at Hyogotsu, about [-] to [-] miles away from the mouth of the Osaka River. Kobe Village next to it will be one of the five ports in the future.

The samurai working on the shogunate's side and the surveying engineers on Dashun's side are doing the final delineation and handover, and calculating the lease fee for the occupied land.

Hyogotsu was originally an important port in Osaka. The water depth here is suitable, and it is not a silt area like the river estuary.

It does not require too much repair and excavation, and it is completely possible to dock the largest warship at this time, and even larger steamships in the future can also be docked.

With the help of the west-back route and the east-back route, opening a port here can basically cover most of Japan.Unlike Dashun, which has a long coastline but a deep and wide inland, Japan is surrounded by sea terrain, so Liu Yu can be sure that the impact of port opening on Japan will be more serious.

But this is very different from what has happened in history.It is very different from the situation after the opening of ports in the Manchu and Qing Dynasties in history, and the situation after the Japanese black ships.

From Busan to Xiaguan and then here, along the way, Liu Yu interviewed a large number of people, asked about their family income, inheritance law, cottage industry, tribute system, etc., and obtained quite detailed first-hand information .

In a short period of time, ordinary people in Japan do not have strong spending power.

The manpower cost of Dashun, converted into silver, is about a quarter of that of the Netherlands at this time; while the manpower cost of Japan at this time is actually nearly half lower than that of Dashun.

Dashun is really incomparable in this regard.

For example, horses in Japan do not use horseshoes, but use straw sandals to cover the horses, which are called mata.

On the one hand, because Japan lacks resources, has strong iron smelting technology, and lacks good iron ore.

On the other hand, the labor cost is really too low. Even changing straw sandals every hour is cheaper than buying a horseshoe for a long time. This is really unimaginable in Dashun.

In addition, there are still some differences from the truly self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy in Dashun.

Because of the convenient transportation along the coast, the castle town system, and the fact that samurai businessmen live around the main city, the degree of commercialization of family agriculture and handicrafts in Japan is also higher than that of Dashun.

Coupled with the remnants of the manor owner's economy before the Warring States Period, the division of labor in Japanese cottage industries was also higher than that in Dashun's countryside.Of course, it cannot be compared with places such as Songjiang and Jingdezhen where the industry and commerce are quite developed, but the rural areas as a whole are slightly higher.

Dashun is also self-sufficient, but the handicraft industry can be exported; while Japan has dried fish and so on, and there are no handicraft products that can be exported, but there is no problem with its internal self-sufficiency.

For the time being, many goods are indeed difficult to sell on a large scale in Japan.

There is a threshold here, just like horseshoes and straw sandals. When the cost of the horseshoes shipped from Dashun completely exceeds the combined service life of the sandals, it will be considered the real opening of the port.

It's like the opening of the Suez Canal in the original history, which became the last straw that weighed on Songjiang's textile industry.

This threshold is predictable, that is the moment when the group of craftsmen in Weihai used a boring machine to bore out a qualified cylinder.

Dashun's businessmen certainly don't look so far, and they don't care whether the Japanese people can afford it.As long as a port can be opened, even if luxury goods such as silk porcelain and glass are sold, extremely high profits can still be obtained.

Liu Yu thought about it, and it was a good thing.

In a short period of time, it will not cause a huge impact on the foundation of the Japanese shogunate system. Under the hierarchy of scholars, farmers, businessmen, and samurai, as long as the peasants and samurai are stable, the shogunate can still sit firmly.

If you sit still, you will gradually get used to the existence of the open port. When the threshold arrives, you will be like a frog boiled in warm water, unable to jump out even if you want to.

A few days later, under the strict protection of samurai and soldiers, Liu Yu and Tokugawa Yoshimune met in Kobe Village.

The last time Liu Yu went to Edo with a fawning attitude, for the sake of trading cards.At that time, Tokugawa Yoshimune did not draw a bamboo curtain in front of him, which seemed to give Liu Yu great face from the Japanese side.

This time the two met again, time had changed, only the guest and host were separated, and there was no cumbersome etiquette like the last time in Edo.

After meeting again for nearly ten years, it was still the same as last time. There was no interpreter present, but Chinese characters were used to communicate with paper and pen.

The first sentence Tokugawa Yoshimune wrote to Liu Yu made Liu Yu feel the pressure of the cunning and cunning on the other side.

The last time we met in Edo, Liu Yu was there to ask for a trading card, and his posture was very low. He didn't take a close look at this general who was said to be "the reincarnation of Ieyasu".

He can also be regarded as watching the enjoyment reform presided over by Tokugawa Yoshimune throughout the whole process. In his opinion, it is the level of a tinkerer, and there is nothing to mention.

Either it is a policy of slapping the head, or it is the same as the Qingtian master who catches corrupt officials. There is really no commendable depth of reform.

During the first pen-and-paper communication during this meeting, Liu Yu felt that Tokugawa Yoshimune's mind might be devoted to intrigue and balance.

The content written on the paper was simple, but the simpler it was, the harder it was for Liu Yu to answer.

"I can't complain that Mr. Liu is not afraid of the exhaustion of high birds and the possession of good bows. With Dashun's heart, Japan is not a lone bird, but there are other falcons. Mr. Liu's carved bow is still useful. Japan is barren, and Mr. Liu is so hot-eyed. The old man is really sweating for those rich lands, and I am afraid of repeating the same mistakes as Japan."

This is an obvious test, to test whether Dashun will take the next step after disposing of Japan.Although Tokugawa Yoshimune didn't want to offend Liu Yu again, in the case of the end of the bird's bow, Liangzi had already formed, and there was no way out.

The letter I wrote to Liu Yu when I was suing for peace before, has been instigating the relationship between the monarch and his ministers, and it is already a public matter.

But this time, it is not for the purpose of provoking.

Liu Yu picked up the pen, pondered for a while, and replied.

"Businessman seeks profit, and the schemer is gold and silver. Within thousands of miles, only Japan has more gold and silver. Everyone is not guilty, but he is guilty. If the general wants to blame, he will blame Arai Shiraishi even more. If he does not introduce Zhengde Xin Ling, how did Japan invite this war?"

"The general is not a Confucian scholar, and I don't use the benevolence and righteousness of a Confucian scholar to explain the truth. If you talk about etiquette, the existence of the general itself is not in line with the etiquette. Does the general really want the heaven to talk about 'benevolence' and 'propriety'?"

Taking out the ugliest colonizer's reasoning, defining the beating as the fault of the beating is directly throwing away the veil of benevolence, righteousness and morality, and bluntly speaking is for profit.

Avoiding the direction that Tokugawa Yoshimune wanted to really explore, Tokugawa Yoshimune was not angry at Liu Yu's reply.

I know this is Liu Yu's style of telling the truth.

It is indeed gold and silver, this statement is not a lie.

Arai Shiraishi is all to blame for the rest of this sentence, which has nothing to do with the facts, it is a matter of position.

The truth is that Arai Shiraishi did shrink Nagasaki's trade.

The position is that Japan does not want gold and silver to flow out, and Dashun wants gold and silver to flow out of Japan.

Involving positions and asses, facts are nothing but positive and negative interpretations when supporting evidence.

Tokugawa Yoshimune wrote back: "If you say this, Arai Shiraishi is not wrong, it is just that the maritime merchants in your country have no skills."

"Japan has always admired big countries. When issuing trade letters, businessmen in your country can get thirty or forty cards, while the Dutch can only get four."

"But the Dutch ship is big, and the goods carried by four ships are almost the same as the goods carried by dozens of ships of merchants in your country."

"According to Liu Jun, isn't it the maritime merchants in your country who are not able to build big ships to blame?"

Although Arai Shiraishi was dismissed as soon as he came to power, but this time he was beaten and left three wounds on his hands as a memory. At this time, Tokugawa Yoshimune really understood why Arai Shiraishi introduced those policies.

At this time, it is inevitable to argue, knowing that it is meaningless, but he does not want to be a good person in Japan in his eyes. To bear such a responsibility is also the last bit of pride and dignity as a shogun.

Moreover, the reason why Shiraishi Arai wanted to issue trade letters was not only to reduce trade, but also to demonstrate "Japan-centrism", which can be understood as "tributary" as self-consolation.

Just like the Ming Dynasty stipulated that Ryukyu pays tribute every ten years, if you are not allowed to come, you will not be able to come; while Arai Shiraishi used the trade letter card system to change the trade into Dashun to pay tribute to Japan in disguise, if you are not allowed to come, you are not allowed to come. It is a gift for you to come more, and the historian can record in the history books: the year, month, day, and the people of Tang Dynasty came to pay tribute.

Liu Yu is not a person of this era. After so long, he still has not fully integrated into this era, and cannot fully use the way of thinking of this era to think about problems.

He couldn't understand the Japan-centric theory behind the trade letter card system, but he didn't need to understand it either.

Now that this step has been achieved, after returning to the capital, another decree is promulgated such as "prohibition of private trade between vassals and barbarians", "trade with vassals must be made in the country, sailors must be native", "Nanyang goods must be transshipped through Songjiang and cannot directly reach the vassals", etc. Then it will be a suzerain country and a colony in one step.

With the victor's mentality, Liu Yu did not continue to argue whether it was because of the fault of Japan's seclusion of the country, or whether the Dashun maritime merchants were incapable of building large ships, and expressed "magnanimously" that this issue was like "the theory of horse liver in Han Dynasty". , there is really no need to argue.

Then he turned against the guest and asked Tokugawa Yoshimune a very sharp question.

"What is the general's plan for the future of Japan?"

(End of this chapter)