Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1082 Ilu Flower

The 22-story building is a rare high-rise building on Naha Island. There are three huge Chinese characters written on the building: "Iruka".

"This is it." Downstairs, Zheng Shijie stood there like a visiting salesman.

He remembered that when he was a child, he had come here many times - the headquarters of Iluhua Department Store.

"I remember when I was a kid and came here with my father, he always put me in another lounge and went to talk to the old chairman here."

"Is it an official visit?"

"That's not the case. The characteristic of Lan Fang is that we can choose to have a formal government visit or ordinary business cooperation. Iruhua Department Store is the economic pillar of the Ryukyu Kingdom. According to the principle of 'no diplomacy for ministers', we will not have direct contact with the Ryukyu officials. Therefore, we come here in an unofficial capacity. Well, this is another sneak visit."

As he spoke, a smile appeared on his face. "Ah, I remember when I was a kid, my dad went in to discuss business with the old men, and I was put in the lounge. There were many lovely older sisters in the lounge, and there was endless candy. At home, I was controlled by everything I ate, but here, someone would call me 'young master~~' and feed me candy. I was six or seven years old at the time, but I was already very happy. Now thinking about it, it was simply the pinnacle of my life."

【Tsk. It’s hard to hold it.】

Shangluo looked at the sign above his head:

"By the way, what does Iruka mean?"

"'Iruhua' is the symbol of the 'head of the Ryukyu alphabet' - Miss Phaethon should be more familiar with it. The three characters of Iruhua are the first three characters of the Ryukyu alphabet."

"But this is actually a Japanese kana. The Ryukyuan Iruka is the Japanese Iroha."

"How did you know???" Zheng Shijie was stunned for a moment, "Oh, by the way, you can also see what you recognize over there, right?"

Ryukyu and Japan are very close. This well-known secret was not yet "well-known" enough for everyone in Kinai to understand. It was just that among the stakeholders, including the imperial court itself, everyone consciously tried not to talk about it.

Because in tradition, Ryukyu and Japan are two different tributary states. Korea commented on this as "my country is a filial son, Japan is a thief". If Korea is a filial son, then Ryukyu is simply the best child in the family. Ryukyu's reputation is even better than that of Koreans, because until the Imjin Japanese invasion in the Wanli period, Korea had not yet entered the state of "filial son" without reservation. Ryukyu has always been consistent and serves the court like parents.

But in fact, Ryukyu is not a pure filial son. If we still use children as an analogy, then Ryukyu is the youngest child in the family who is the most spoiled and loves to ask for candy. Ryukyu's inner self is far from being as pure as it looks. Ryukyu has made many foreign exchanges behind the scenes, and it can be said that it has turned a deaf ear to the principle that "there is no diplomacy for a minister".

But then again, "If you are not stupid or deaf, you can't be a patriarch", and the court certainly knew all of this. But in line with the principle of judging by deeds rather than intentions, Ryukyu only needed to do a good job on the surface, and the court had no intention of revealing the root cause of Ryukyu's motives behind the scenes.

But this matter must be kept secret. Because some things cannot be weighed, and once weighed, a matter of three taels can become a thousand pounds. For example, the famous saying in North Korea, "Our country's filial sons are Japanese thieves," is not actually a statement of loyalty, but a complaint. This sentence is followed by "Although parents are only kind to their children, how can they love their thieves as much as their filial sons?"

This means that parents should not treat filial sons and thieves the same, and should not indulge thieves as much as they love filial sons. During the Imjin War, the imperial court planned to bypass Korea and directly recruit Toyotomi Hideyoshi, so someone in Korea said this.

The situation is still the same today. North Korea is the same inside and outside, and there are no secrets anymore. If the little secret of Ryukyu is exposed, it will be difficult for the head of the family to "not be stupid or deaf". When everyone is weighed together and the matter is exposed to the sun, it will tear everyone's face.

"Shangluo, if you really know, please remember to say less."

"Okay, there's no need for me to be this wall-breaker." Shangluo nodded, "But do you have any questions?"

"So how did you know?"

"Over here, the Ryukyu Kingdom is finished, the entire empire is finished, so there is no need to keep these things about the Ryukyu Islands secret. So the Ryukyu Islands actually use the same phonetic alphabet as Japan, right?"

"How should I put it?" Zheng Shijie thought for a while, "You can say yes, or you can say no. Because in principle, Ryukyu's Iruka and Japanese Iroha are both intercepted from part of Chinese characters. For example, the sound of 'ah' can be traced back from the simplification of several characters such as 安, 爱, 噩, etc., and the writing methods are also different. Anyway, they are all phonetic, so you can write them anyway. But why did Ryukyu choose to write the same way as Japan? You can understand it the other way around, Japan chose the same font as Ryukyu."

"So Ryukyu has been doing business with Japan, right?"

"Well, so, in fact, the Edo Shogunate's isolation of the country was not a complete isolation of the country."

"Then I only want to ask one thing." Shangluo intended to dig deeper into this question - because it was very important. Now that the emperor was away, Zhu Xianxun had handed these matters over to him, and since he knew about it, he had to ensure that he was informed no matter what.

The father-in-law can pretend that he knows nothing, but he cannot really know nothing.

"So Ryukyu now belongs to both the Imperial Court and Japan? I mean Satsuma. I know that Ryukyu was once controlled by Satsuma for a period of time in history. When our envoys came to Ryukyu, the Ryukyu Kingdom even put on a show. I know that in history it was a last resort, after all, the Imperial Court did not have the surplus food to help Ryukyu expel the occupying forces of Satsuma. But is this happening now?"

"Of course not. When Kokusei succeeded in conquering the sea, he also liberated Ryukyu from the control of Satsuma. Since then, Ryukyu has completely maintained the independence that a tributary state should have, and has only accepted the guidance of Lanfang."

"So you guys have taken Ryukyu into your possession, right?"

"Hey, guidance, guidance, and occupation are different. We only provide business guidance to Ryukyu, and we did not use force to coerce Ryukyu like the Japanese did. Do you see Lan Fang's chariots on the streets of Ryukyu? Are there any Lan Fang battleships in the harbor? No. It's just that Lan Fang has invested in many companies in Ryukyu."

(End of this chapter)