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

Chapter 676 Choshu Domain and Osaka Castle

Next year's Ming Dynasty will have two battles to fight.

The first is to attack Japan and force it to open its borders. The second is to conquer the Western Regions. We cannot wait any longer to waste time on Yarkand and Junggar.

Twenty years after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, coastal industry and commerce developed rapidly, and there were various high-yielding crops and standardized farming. In addition, the New Deal reforms reduced harsh administrative labor for farmers, and the state treasury became increasingly full of money and food.

Now three years have passed since the Mobei War, and the previous expenditure of millions of taels of silver and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians has been almost recovered.

Just two wars will not affect civil affairs too much. At most, there will be a small fluctuation in rice prices.

Java Island’s prime fertile farmland, rice from Quang Nam Province, rice from Siam, and the western plains of Taiwan have also rapidly become important overseas grain-producing areas after two decades of continuous development. These can provide China with massive amounts of food. food.

As winter entered, two teams of envoys were dispatched from Nanjing.

One team went to the Western Regions, reprimanded the Junggar Khan King Galdan for Ce Ling, and ordered him to retreat immediately. Yarkand was already a vassal state of China.

Another team took a boat to Edo, Japan, reprimanded and ordered the Japanese shogunate to immediately open and close the port, and return the confiscated property of Chinese merchants in Japan.

Not surprisingly, neither of them listened. Galdan Celing's words were even more intense, and he directly threatened to start a war with the Chinese Emperor after defeating Ye Erqiang.

As for whether it is true? That must be true!

After all, the Ming envoys who went to the Western Regions almost died in Yili.

The Japanese shogunate also did not take the Chinese envoys' words to heart.

How could the Chinese emperor, who had so many things to do, start a war with Japan over some despicable businessmen?
The next spring is coming, when the snow is melting.

The Shenyang army set off. It did not mobilize many troops and horses. It only brought 10,000 soldiers and 15 army heavy artillery. It also brought a lot of squatting tiger cannons and cone-shaped explosive shells. They were all stored in the Liaodong Army's warehouse. Now it was terrible. It comes in handy.

Liaoyang Marquis Wang Zongtan personally led the troops and boarded the ship at Port Arthur.

There are a lot of civilian ships here, all because of the dilemma of Chinese maritime merchants who were forced to stay in Port Arthur after Japan closed the country.

They were stranded at Port Arthur for nearly half a year, unable to get rid of a lot of goods. Although most of the goods were furs, pearls, etc. that could be stored for a long time, no one could replenish the money they lost.

If there is anyone who most hopes that the imperial court will send troops to fight, it must be these maritime merchants who are forced to stay in the port and continue to lose money.

Seeing that the imperial court was about to cross the sea to attack Japan, these merchants did not hesitate to temporarily unload their goods and directly contributed their own civilian ships to transport logistics grain and grass for the imperial army, without even requiring the imperial court to pay compensation.

If Japan is defeated early, they can return to Japan for smuggling. Otherwise, they will lose money now and business profits will plummet in the future. Many businessmen may be on the verge of bankruptcy because of this.

Thanks to the enthusiastic participation of these private merchants in the war, the Ming army did not have to recruit civilian ships to transport food, and dispatched troops from Port Arthur in mid-February.

The Denrai Marine Division was the vanguard, and the civilian ships and warships behind formed a mixed fleet. From a distance, the sea was a dense mass of giant sailing ships. With so many ships alone, it was not something that the Japanese shogunate could withstand.

The Ming army dispatched troops from the port of Lushun, crossed the Tsushima Strait, and marched first to Xiaguan City.

This is one of the most important coastal ports in Japan, and it is also the only way from Honshu Island to the Seto Inland Sea.

Xiaguan was still a tourist attraction in later generations, known as the "Hometown of Pufferfish". Pufferfish cuisine is famous in East Asia. Every year, millions of foreign tourists must come to Xiaguan to taste the pufferfish here.

When the Ming warships approached Xiaguan City, the Changshu Domain garrison here were all stunned. The Changshu Domain had not experienced war for hundreds of years. There were only a few dozen token garrison troops left in Xiaguan, and they were all sword-wielding ashigaru, and their daily attire was no different from that of a ronin samurai.

There is nothing we can do about it, who makes Changzhou Fan poor? In other words, all the feudal lords in Japan are poor yuppies.

This was also a unique political method used by the Edo shogunate to suppress the feudal lords and control the real power of the country.

Promoting extravagance, and allowing the feudal lords to live in Edo for a period of time every year, taking advantage of Edo's high consumption, depleting most of the finances of the feudal territories, so that they could not develop and grow, thus threatening the rule of the shogunate.

The Ming army didn't even land. The naval guns of the navy warships bombarded the Xiaguan fort.

The garrison of Xiaguan immediately broke up and fled, and the city of Xiaguan was captured.

The whole war process lasted almost less than a stick of incense, and it still included the time when the Ming army landed and occupied Xiaguan.

Shimonoseki became the transit station for the Ming army here. Wang Zongtan left 500 garrison troops and three warships for garrison, so he took the opportunity to lead the fleet through the Seto Inland Sea and went directly north to attack Osaka Castle. The governor of the Choshu domain, Mori Munehiro, who actually controlled Shimonoseki, had just gone to Edo Castle a few months ago to participate in the exchange of duties (as a hostage) and the annual rice tribute (spending money was reduced to hostage time), leaving only his young son Mori behind. The important thing is the feudal land.

When he heard that his port had been captured, Mouri Shige pretended to be angry: "Immediately summon the samurai from our castle town. I will send troops to recapture Shimonoseki. Then quickly go to Edo and inform the shogunate and father that the heavenly soldiers are coming to Japan."

What nonsense is it to send troops to recapture Xiaguan?
The current Choshu Domain has not yet reached the period of respecting the king and fighting the barbarians during the Meiji Restoration. The Choshu Mori clan, which has not undergone reforms, is a complete poor man. In order to save finances, frugal orders have been issued several times to reduce expenditures in the domain, but this is completely useless. Instead, foreign debts have accumulated, and there is no spare force to mobilize troops to recapture Shimonoseki.

By the way, this one of the four powerful vassals who later respected the king and fought against the barbarians also made an outrageous operation during the reform period, that is, the foreign debt owed to the merchants would be paid off in 37 years.

Of course, compared with the 250-year repayment period of Satsuma Domain, another top four domain, it is still too young.

The Maori family owes so much foreign debt that even austerity orders cannot recover it. Before smuggling with Chinese businessmen, although most of them were swallowed by the Chinese businessmen, Maori still drank the soup and gnawed a few bones.

But the Edo shogunate closed the country to the outside world, directly cutting off the Mori family's financial path.

The so-called cutting off people's wealth is like killing their parents, not to mention these Japanese celebrities who are almost driven crazy by foreign debt.

Defaulting on a debt can only be regarded as a last resort. Once you default on a debt, it may seem like you don’t have to pay back the money, but the price you have to pay is also painful.

The Ming army's attack can be said to be playing into the hands of the Choshu Mori clan. They are now looking forward to the Ming army rushing to attack Edo Castle. It is best to force the shogunate to reopen the sea this year, so that they can be "happy again" "I made a lot of money by smuggling with Chinese businessmen.

After Mao Lizhong said that he wanted to gather troops, he sent someone to inform the Ming army in Xiaguan.

The Choshu Domain will not really go to war with the Heavenly Soldiers. Even if they have to gather troops now, they will at least find ways to delay him for more than half a year. Moreover, if the Heavenly Soldiers don't have enough food, they can also use money to buy it in the Choshu Domain territory.

Anyone who dares not to sell it to the Heavenly Soldiers will be punished by the Changshu Domain.

This traitorous traitor could not be punished by the Ming army generals in Xiaguan.

The Changshu clan cooperated so well that they wanted to betray the country by sending grain to the Ming army.

If they didn't have actual information about the shogunate's army, it would be useless even if they knew it. I'm afraid they would have to tell the Ming army even this.

In contrast to the cooperation with the Choshu clan, Osaka Castle further north has quite the same hatred.

For no other reason, the Ming army sent troops because the shogunate locked down the country and cut off Sino-Japanese sea trade. The people of Osaka hate the Chinese army, and even hate all Chinese people, because of Sino-Japanese maritime trade.

Osaka in the Edo period was already the heartland of Japanese industry and commerce. Oda Nobunaga felt the importance of Osaka and spent ten years capturing Osaka. Immediately afterwards, "the enemy was at Honnoji Temple"...

After Toyotomi Hideyoshi came to power, he also built a city and lived here.

However, the arrival of Chinese maritime traders completely crushed Osaka's commercial prosperity. The various Chinese commodities brought by smuggling maritime trade, especially textile commodities, greatly impacted Osaka's commodity economy.

Countless Osaka merchants and workers went bankrupt as a result. They all hated the Chinese maritime merchants who loved smuggling and destroyed Osaka's monopoly.

Facing the arrival of the Ming army, the Japanese in Osaka could share the same hatred and defend the city together.

The people of Osaka hate the Chinese army, and the Chinese army must attack Osaka.

Not only because Osaka is the only way to go north to Edo, but also because Osaka is also the "Kitchen of the World" in Japan. Like China's "Granary of the World", it is the most important rice and grain production center in Japan.

Among all Osaka people, the only ones who do not hate the Chinese army are Osaka rice merchants.

Because China imports a lot of rice from here every year, all Osaka rice merchants make a lot of money.

Osaka exported too much rice, which caused rice prices across Japan to continue to rise. One of the reasons for the ronin riots in Satsuma was that they could not stand the ridiculously high rice prices.

As long as Osaka can be taken, the Edo shogunate will not only starve to death, but also quickly start a food shortage.

Without Osaka rice, the Edo shogunate would be unable to afford the food and fodder consumption of the army. The Ming army would win 90% without fighting, and the remaining 10% would be regarded as saving some face for Japanese Bushido.

By the way, in addition to controlling the national rice price, Osaka has always been an important copper smelting base in Japan.

It’s not a homophone! It is really used to refine copper ore. Copper ore mined from mines in various places will be transported to Osaka, refined into pure copper, and then exported to foreign countries through Nagasaki.

(End of this chapter)