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Chapter 401: Forbidden and unforbidden are both business

When Hong Tao heard Hatano Shinji talking about this matter, he asked twice specifically, for fear that Otani Mitsuru might have made a mistake in his translation. He really couldn't figure out what Tokugawa Ieyasu was thinking. He watched the Ming Dynasty gradually decline because of this, and even Liaodong was abandoned. Why should Japan do it again?

Regardless of whether he thought it through or not, Tokugawa Ieyasu had already begun to implement it. The first step was to ban Catholicism.

Around the same time that Catholicism was introduced to the Ming Dynasty, the Portuguese first landed on Kyushu Island in the mid-16th century and were welcomed by the local daimyo. Next, he went to Honshu and obtained asylum from Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru in Kyoto, and was allowed to preach. Later, Ashikaga Yoshiteru was killed, and the Portuguese turned to Oda Nobunaga.

During the Warring States Period, Buddhism was not loved by the daimyo. The main reason is that Buddhism is too powerful. It not only participates in political affairs but also supports monks and soldiers. In particular, it is not interested in Oda Nobunaga's ideas and opposes them everywhere.

Oda Nobunaga simply supported Catholicism, which could weaken the power of Buddhism on the one hand, and obtain more matchlock guns from the Portuguese on the other. As a result, Catholicism was able to develop rapidly throughout Japan. At its peak, there were hundreds of thousands of believers, including some daimyo.

But the good times did not last long, and the situation took a turn for the worse after Toyotomi Hideyoshi came to power. Guan Bai was very disgusted with the Catholic doctrine of equality and monogamy, and issued the "Bantianlian Emancipation Order" in 1587. Japan is declared to be the Kingdom of God, and Catholicism violates the imperial laws of the world and is an illegal cult.

Bantianlian is the Japanese transliteration of Portuguese priest. This order requires priests in Japan to leave within twenty days. If they do not leave voluntarily, they will face arrest and deportation. However, it does not prohibit Portuguese and Spanish businessmen from continuing to trade in Japan.

The decree was promulgated, but some daimyo had converted to Catholicism and had close contacts with Portuguese and Spanish businessmen and were unwilling to implement it thoroughly, so the effect was not very obvious. Toyotomi Hideyoshi did not want to fall out with European businessmen, so he did not go into details.

Just like this, more than ten years later, at the end of the Keicho era (1596), a Spanish merchant ship "San Felipe" accidentally drifted to Tosa, Shikoku Island due to a typhoon. Due to the language barrier, it was regarded as an enemy of unknown origin. Seized.

After Toyotomi Hideyoshi heard about it, he sent his capable ministers to deal with it. During the interrogation of the crew, the captain told the truth, perhaps out of fear or being forced into torture. The true purpose of the missionary was to confuse the people to subvert the rule.

This frightened Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Many of his daimyo converted to Catholicism, such as Yukinagako Konishi, who led troops to invade North Korea. If the missionaries really wanted to rebel one day, they would have to be assassinated by their subordinates before they could protect themselves.

Once those in a superior position feel that someone is threatening their own safety, most of them will adopt the attitude of preferring to believe the person's presence rather than trusting the person's absence, and would not let one go if they kill a thousand by mistake. Of course Toyotomi Hideyoshi was no exception, and he immediately launched a purge of Japanese Catholics.

First, 26 missionaries and believers were burned to death in Nagasaki, where Catholicism was the most popular, and then they forced Catholic daimyo to convert to other religions. All of a sudden, the development momentum of Catholicism was completely curbed, and the number of believers dropped sharply except on Kyushu Island.

If this trend continues, Catholicism will soon be uprooted from Japan. I don’t know whether it was luck or bad luck, but Toyotomi Hideyoshi suddenly died of illness at this time. His successor, Toyotomi Hideyori, was too young to take charge of the overall situation.

So Tokugawa Ieyasu's Eastern Army began to compete with the Western Army for control of the shogunate. Not only was it unable to clean up the Catholic Church, it also had to rely on missionaries to purchase muskets and artillery from Portuguese and Spanish merchants. Japan's Catholic Church gained a precious respite. Chance.

However, after Tokugawa Ieyasu won the war and gained control of the shogunate, he began to promote Neo-Confucianism and Confucianism, emphasizing unconditional obedience to the king. Now there is an irreconcilable conflict with Catholic thought, which is not pleasing to the eye no matter how you look at it. However, Western missionaries came with European galleons. It was obviously impossible to simply ban the spread of Catholicism and allow overseas trade, so Tokugawa Ieyasu began to think about sea bans.

According to Hatano Shinji, discussions about sea bans and bans on the spread of Catholicism had been started among the Tokugawa shogunate and many daimyo a few years ago, but no progress had been made due to too much opposition.

At first, Hong Tao thought it was the Satsuma Domain, Hirado Domain, Kumamoto Domain on Kyushu Island and some daimyo from the Chinese regions of Shikoku Island and Honshu Island who were uniting to oppose the maritime ban. These princes are located on the west side of the Japanese archipelago, relatively close to China, North Korea and the Philippines, and have always been the main beneficiaries of maritime trade.

Unexpectedly, I was completely wrong this time. Most of the people who opposed the maritime ban were the daimyo of the Kanto and Gyeonggi regions, while the daimyo of Kyushu, Shikoku, and Chugoku were the supporters of Tokugawa Ieyasu's maritime ban policy.

Why is this so? Hong Tao was puzzled and finally got the answer from Hatano Shinji. It's quite interesting to say that it is exactly the same as the Ming Dynasty civil servant group's attitude towards the sea ban. To put it bluntly, it can be said in one word, money!

The shape of Japan's land is a long strip from west to east. Due to terrain restrictions, the princes in the west generally have less cultivated land. Youdao relies on mountains and rivers. The western region is a bit like Guangdong, Fujian and southern Zhejiang in China. It has always relied heavily on maritime trade.

Why did the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty oppose the opening of the sea ban? The fear of cultural invasion and external harassment is just rhetoric. In essence, they are afraid that they will not be able to eat alone and earn monopoly money.

Under the maritime ban, they could use their power to join forces with merchants' capital to engage in smuggling trade. They didn't have to pay a penny of tax to the court, and they could sell the goods at high prices.

Many scholars in later generations explained that maritime trade was very developed in the middle and late period of the DPRK, and the annual silver trading volume was huge. They used this theory to prove that the DPRK was not closed to the country. How should I put it? Most of these scholars are pretending to be confused, but a few are really confused.

Seclusion and maritime trade do not conflict and can be combined organically. Seclusion is a real thing, but continuous maritime trade is also a reality, and its core is smuggling. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the scale of smuggling by civil servant groups was extremely large, and the trade volume even exceeded the total national income of the Ming Dynasty.

This problem also exists in Japan. The feudal lords such as Satsuma, Hirado, Kumamoto, Nagato, and Tosa do not have much stone height, but their economic strength is not as high as that of daimyo who have hundreds of thousands or even millions of koku. Well, it relies on maritime trade.

If there is no maritime ban and merchant ships from the Ming Dynasty, Korea, Ryukyu, the Philippines, etc. are allowed to dock at will, Japan will have excellent ports everywhere, with a more concentrated population and higher purchasing power, and their advantage will be gone.

On the contrary, daimyo in areas like Osaka and Edo have never had much share of maritime trade, so they naturally support opening up. The purchasing power demand in the areas under their jurisdiction is stronger and they are not afraid of fair competition.

(End of this chapter)