I'm sure of the prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong!

Chapter 674 Ronin Riot
During the Edo period, Japanese farmers rioted every year.

Those idle and wandering ronin warriors were not willing to be lonely. Even though the shogunate and local daimyo tried to find ways to suck out the peasants' bones and marrow, they also treated the ronin warriors in the same way.

This seems difficult to understand. After all, the shogunate and the daimyo are all samurai groups, and the foundation of their rule is samurai.

But in fact, in Japan during the Edo period, samurai and samurai were also different.

Broadly speaking, Japanese samurai during this period were usually divided into two groups. The samurai living in the castle towns were called castle corporals, and they were also the real ruling class.

In contrast, samurai who lived in the countryside were called country warriors, and their status was only slightly higher than that of farmers.

Not only did they lose a lot of privileges, but most of the time, the status of rural scholars themselves was not recognized.

At the beginning, the rural warriors must have all come from orthodox martial arts families. Some of them were dismissed due to the separation of soldiers and farmers, and some of them did not serve as officials in the new lords because their original owners were removed from the vassal or moved to a feudal state.

As a result, he gradually lost his samurai rights and was demoted to a ronin with the right to wield a sword.

These are traditional rural scholars, and there is another type of "gold attendant", which as the name suggests is similar to the official donation in China.

Many daimyo even formed private customs, called "Cunzhiyu Family", which were responsible for selling the right to bear swords, thus increasing the fiscal revenue of the domain.

Among the wealthy countrymen bought by these "donors", the most famous one is Sakamoto Ryoma in "The Shinsengumi" (since I watched Gintama, I can no longer look directly at him).

Isamu Kondo: Is Mr. Sakamoto also from a civilian background?
Sakamoto Ryoma: I am a country scholar. In my hometown, samurai are divided into city warriors and rural warriors.

Kondo Isamu: Still a samurai after all!
Sakamoto Ryoma: There is a huge difference between a city scholar and a country scholar! If someone like me resists the city officials, they will be killed without mercy, and they will not even be allowed to wear clogs.

Kondo Isamu: That means going barefoot?

Ryoma Sakamoto: Yes! Not treated as a human being at all. I didn’t want to live like an ant all my life, so I came to Edo.

Even one of the protagonists who promoted the Meiji Restoration could be in such a miserable situation, let alone those rural ronin.

These Japanese ronin once launched riots, and their demands were quite nonsense. They actually just forced the daimyo to implement good governance.

Throughout the more than a thousand riots from the Edo period to the Meiji Restoration, the endings of these people were basically the same.

Moreover, in the later stages, as riots became more frequent, they even summed up some experience. Smart rebel lords would start preparations several years in advance to connect the rebel forces in various villages, and often a riot could quickly sweep across a large area.

But that’s about it.

From beginning to end, no one thought about overthrowing the daimyo and shogunate, or even seizing land ownership.

This is why, except for China, the history of other countries in the world is basically unwilling to discuss the peasant uprising.

Because their peasant uprising is really just...a peasant uprising.

But things are different now. With the inflow of Chinese ideas and policies, and often exaggerated versions, those businessmen almost brainlessly praised Emperor Zhu in order to promote China's strength.

The result made these Japanese ronin excited, and their thinking was opened. Is this how the uprising works?

In the past, everyone was just playing house, and we couldn't just kill corrupt officials. All the famous lords should die!

At the same moment when Kang Zifei discovered the New World, the Ronin rebellion that had been brewing for several years in the Satsuma Domain finally broke out.

The rebel army first started in Kagoshima, led by the ronin samurai group, which was mainly composed of rural warriors. They burned farmers' houses everywhere, robbed farmers' food, and forced these farmers who had no houses and food to join them in rebelling against the daimyo.

This was the case in every riot in the past, and the same principle was used by the bandits in China. Regardless of whether the farmers joined in or not, their houses would be burned down and their food taken away. Otherwise, how could they have grown the army so quickly?

Many Japanese farmers were actually unwilling to rebel at first, because they would be killed if they rebelled, but they could still survive. But they have no choice. Their houses and food have been taken away by the rebels. If they don't join in the rebellion, next month's taxes and rent alone will be enough to crush them.

Dozens of villages were burned down by the rebels, and large-scale fires were almost caused. The number of farmers participating in the rebellion exceeded 10,000 in a short period of time.

Such a miscellaneous rebellious peasant army quickly went straight to Kagoshima Castle. In order to encourage the peasants to work hard and die, the leader of the rural warriors promised to distribute all the land in the domain equally to these low-class people.

This kind of empty promise instantly doubled the combat power of the peasant army (relatively speaking), and its momentum became unprecedentedly powerful. Before Shimazu Yoshiki even had time to gather his troops, the rebel army had already arrived at Kagoshima Castle.

The peasant army is really made up entirely of peasants, let alone serious weapons. Many simply fight with hoes. Even the core and main force, the country folk and ronin, are mostly in ragged clothes.

The Shimazu family really can't defeat such a mob.

It should be said that all the tribes in Japan are similar now. Japan has been closed to the country for too long, and has not fought a war for many years. Everyone has been in peace for a long time, and their armaments have been weakened. The daimyo lord only knew pleasure, and the samurai class was largely unemployed and turned into an unstable factor such as ronin, so how could they still have the ability to suppress the uprising.

The Shimazu family fought another battle with the Ming army many years ago and lost the important financial income of the Ryukyu Islands.

Moreover, in order to pave the way for his concubine's son, Shimazu Yoshiki is busy reorganizing and improving the political status of his own family. This is spending a lot of money. Foreign debts have not decreased but increased, and the money earned from smuggling is not enough for his son. Money to recuperate in Edo.

The reason why Japan can still maintain its rule is that it has not capsized in the turmoil of riots every year.

Thanks to Japan's excellent matching mechanism, the rioting ronin peasants just want the daimyo shogunate to implement good governance.

That would be simple, just agree to the demands first, and the peasant army will disperse after they get what they want. After getting wind of this, secretly kill the leader of the rebellion, and then double the tax back.

Then, the peasants continued to riot, and the local lords continued to deceive and then kill them.

But this time it was different. Those rogues were influenced by China and began to demand more benefits.

Mere good governance no longer works, or it is hard to cheat.

Shimazu Yoshiki urgently acted as regent in the name of "Hami (Guardian)", summoned the ronin of the castle town to help defend the city, and requested reinforcements from the shogunate.

It's a pity that the ronin in the castle town are not happy.

It is purely because they have been deceived too many times before, and they also yearn for China across the sea.

They heard from Chinese businessmen that Japanese ronin who went to China could all gain the respect of Chinese "lords" (officials) and get stable jobs (ten-year employment contracts).

Even if they really can't find a job, the "lord" will help them settle down, give them land, provide food and accommodation, and help them find a new territory (Heilongjiang) to work and live.

It can only be said that distance brings beauty!
There is a saying that is quite good. China is too powerful. Even if it does nothing, it will affect the surrounding small countries all the time.

Before the siege started, the ronin who helped defend the city cooperated inside and outside to help the peasant army outside capture the city.

Shimazu Yoshiki committed seppuku in the castle lord's palace, and most of the other noble retainers were killed indiscriminately by the peasant army, and Kagoshima Castle was burned to the ground. There were merchants and common people everywhere who had lost their real estate, and these people were quickly absorbed by the peasant army and continued to grow.

The further growing peasant army began to conquer the entire Kagoshima.

The rebel army was unstoppable along the way, almost unstoppable wherever they passed, and any warrior lord was nonsense.

Then the peasant army split.

The ronin, who were mainly countrymen, were also the backbone of the rebel army. They were always determined to overthrow the daimyo lords, so as to force the shogunate to compromise, give them land, and recognize the power of their samurai nobles.

The ronin, who were mainly city corporals, naturally did not belong to the same class as the rural gentry. Rural people live in the countryside, they live in the city. Countrymen can only go barefoot, but they can wear wooden clogs. The city corporal can beat the country people, but the country people cannot resist.

But now this uprising is too big, and the local people are taking the lead, and they are the ones who brought money to the train halfway. Moreover, they do not want land, but stable jobs, and their demands are different from those of the Xiangshi Group.

Finally, there are the Japanese farmers who are the main body of the peasant army. They originally did not want to kill the daimyo lords, but just wanted the lords to implement good governance and reduce some exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes.

As for Shimazu Yoshiki's death, that doesn't matter. This guy was not a daimyo in the first place. The real daimyo was Shimazu Tsutoyo who was far away in Edo, and he was also Shimazu Yoshiki's concubine son.

Just let Shimazu Tsutoyo come back and continue to manage Satsuma Domain.

As the peasant army occupied more and more territory, the internal divisions between the three factions became more serious.

(End of this chapter)