If I fail to overcome the tribulation, I can only return to the Ming Dynasty and become a prince.

Chapter 369 Kaicheng of Kyoto

The person who bribed Xiaobingwei was naturally Jinyiwei's spy.

Zhu Zhanjun did not intend to attack the city, but he also did not intend to waste time just standing around here, so naturally his men had to find ways to achieve the goal for the prince.

This is quite familiar to Jin Yiwei. After all, Jin Yiwei is a spy, and bribery and spying are their starting point. Bribing a few spies to defect in battle is nothing new.

There is really no challenge in bribing these spies. After all, the shogunate is now in ruins. Even the ordinary Ming army has no chance of winning, not to mention that this time it is the Ming army with the character Zhongtian. The number one elite Jade Guard!
The Battle of Wulanhu Wenwen not only achieved the invincible reputation of the Ming Dynasty and Zhu Zhanquan's title of the best general in the world, but also created the strongest army in the Ming Dynasty today.

Ever since the last Northern Expedition, when the Qingyu Guards finally broke through the Tatar cavalry, and Zhu Zhanquan beheaded generals, captured flags, and captured the enemy chieftains on the battlefield, the Qingyu Guards have been known as the strongest army in the world.

In that battle, the Jade Guard's cavalry faced off against a Tatar cavalry that was several times their own. What they created was a new glory achieved based on the prestige of the Mongolian cavalry, and a huge reputation as the most powerful army in the world.

And what this huge reputation brings is the deterrent power that can stop children crying at night in the countries surrounding the Ming Dynasty.

And Zhu Zhanju himself is even called the most powerful general of the Ming Dynasty by people who do good things.

After all, taking the head of a general among thousands of armies is already a great achievement that will be famous throughout the ages. Throughout the ages, all those who have been able to do it are peerless warriors, let alone capture the enemy chieftain alive in the chaos of the army.

From this point of view, there is really nothing wrong with calling Zhu Zhanquan the most powerful general of the Ming Dynasty.

When the Ming Dynasty's most powerful general led the world's most powerful army to block the door of your home, and also took out all the friendly forces around you within a month, anyone who faced this posture would feel weak.

For the Japanese who were besieged in the city, if they had the opportunity to surrender, unless they were really stubborn and die-hard people, they would want to surrender.

It’s not just low-level samurai who were recruited like Kobei and small figures like Ashigaru who have this idea. In fact, even some senior people within the shogunate are also considering how to surrender gracefully.

The fact that Zhu Zhanji married the female Japanese king of the Southern Dynasty as his concubine was a well-known thing to the senior officials of the Japanese state.

After all, if the Ming Dynasty wanted to take over the entire Japanese country in a reasonable and legal manner without bearing the name of a big country bullying a small country, orthodoxy and legal principles were necessary, even if it was just justified on face value.

And this also gave those Japanese high-level officials a reasonable excuse to surrender.

They could have said that they were loyal to the Japanese royal family, rather than surrendering to the Ming Dynasty.

Even the Japanese kings of the Northern Dynasty were not without their words. They could have brought out the agreement between the north and the south to govern together and said that they would return power to the Southern Dynasty.

But sometimes the person in the upper position has a way out, which does not mean that the person in the lower position also has a way out.

It doesn't matter to the lower-class people. Anyway, the changing of the king's flag on the city head has nothing to do with them. As long as they are not particularly cruel people, they usually won't deliberately massacre the city.

Instead of being affected by the war or being used as cannon fodder, the people at the bottom have to face only the collateral disasters caused by the war.

Although life and death are difficult, death is not certain.

Even for ordinary people in the Japanese country, it is easy to live and die at will, but as long as they are willing to put a little more thought into it, there is still no problem in surviving.

As for upper-level leaders, as long as they are willing to give up their position of power, sometimes it is easy to find a way out.Especially for a country like Japan, where the Japanese king has long since lost power, the royal family has long been just a mascot.

As long as they give up the throne and become a rich man, life is not difficult for the Japanese kings of the Northern Dynasties.

After all, the Ming Dynasty wanted to save face, and usually would not kill all the small royal families who surrendered. Instead, they would confer humiliating titles and raise them as mascots.

Of course, Daming is not always a nice guy. If he offends Daming too harshly, he will still be killed.

However, for the royal family of the Northern Dynasty of Japan, there is no need to worry. They are just mascots and not the real decision-makers. They cannot be blamed for offending the Ming Dynasty.

But people like the shogun's family and the shogun's retainers were not so lucky.

Most of these people will be liquidated, and it will be difficult for them to surrender. After all, their power and status rely on their loyalty to the shogunate and are highly bound to the shogunate itself.

surrender?If they were facing the army of the Japanese kings of the Southern Dynasties, they would naturally have nothing to say and just surrender.

At most, a few unlucky people will be forced to commit seppuku, and the matter will be over. After the family titles are reduced and the land is reduced, they will still be nobles.

But they couldn't do this in the face of Ming Dynasty, because Ming Dynasty did not need them to continue to exist.

This has been confirmed in the territories of several vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty. After capturing the territory, the first thing the vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty did was to clean up the wealthy families and people in the territory.

All the land in the feudal kingdom belongs to the feudal king. If you want to keep your family's territory, you are competing with the feudal king for property. How can the feudal king tolerate you?

Not to mention, today's Ming law does not allow someone to occupy a large amount of land and possess powerful force.

Of course, except for the feudal lord.

Even in Zhu Zhanchun's territory, although many samurai families who surrendered to him were left behind and were allowed to retain their own territories, that was only land ownership. In the past, they were able to collect taxes and recruit soldiers from the territory. All series powers have been taken back.

To put it simply, they are just landlords who own land. In this regard, they are not much different from the landowning gentry of the Ming Dynasty.

The difference is that Zhu Zhanquan gave these warriors some low-level positions in the palace, making them the basis for his rule.

But this was only limited to the middle and lower class samurai. In the past, all the old and important ministers under the daimyo were slaughtered.

Because of this, the upper echelons of the shogunate actually didn't have much hope in surrendering. After all, surrendering could save one life at most, and the family's territory and power would be gone in the future. This was unacceptable to many people.

They can die by themselves or drag others with them, but in their eyes, the family cannot die.

However, it is clear that not everyone wants to die with them.

So when the flames ignited in the city of Kyoto, the city gate was quietly opened, and the Ming army entered the city amidst the chaos.

(End of this chapter)