Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 74 The two sons are good at planning
The Japanese pirates, a group that began to rise in the late Song Dynasty, were originally formed because Japan implemented a maritime ban policy, and Japanese merchants were determined to search for goods from the Central Plains and were prohibited from going to Zhejiang and Fujian in the Yuan Dynasty to do business.

At that time, Japan's handicraft industry had been separated from agriculture and developed independently, but it was not yet developed.

Many daily necessities in Japan, such as silk, cloth, pots, needles and medicinal materials, are supplied by the Central Plains market.

When there is a shortage of Chinese goods in the Japanese market, prices rise rapidly.

For example, raw silk in the Central Plains of Jiangsu and Zhejiang is only worth five or six taels of silver per hundred pounds, but its price in Japan is ten times that in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

This phenomenon greatly stimulated Japan's feudal lords, nobles, samurai, and merchants. They usually disguised themselves as merchants and also worked part-time as pirates. Their ships flew the flag of Hachiman Bodhisattva to plunder the coast of the Central Plains.

When there is goods, we are merchants; when there is no goods, we are bandits.

Facing the encirclement and suppression by the Yuan Dynasty, they hid on Yedao in the sea. When the Yuan army retreated, they plundered the merchant ships of various countries on the route.

Not only that, they would also seduce Han merchants along the coast and hire local Han people to guide them, thereby plundering Fujian and Zhejiang.

In the end of the Yuan Dynasty, they were still unable to completely eliminate them, and could only endure the continuous plundering of Japanese pirates along the coast.

After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, they did not change their ways many times and continued to invade. So much so that Zhu Yuanzhang promulgated the "Sea Ban Order", which required that all maritime merchants except coastal fishermen for daily fishing were not allowed to go to sea privately, and merchants on land were not allowed to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty privately. Merchants from various countries outside the system conduct trade.

Such a "sea ban" was essentially intended to cut off the economic sources of Japanese pirates and at the same time force North Korea, Japan and other countries to jointly encircle and suppress Japanese pirates.

From an institutional perspective, the maritime ban in the Ming Dynasty was a form of economic warfare.

If you obey me, I will allow you to pay tribute. If you cause trouble to me, I will reduce your tribute or even prohibit you from paying tribute.

Once the country is prohibited from paying tribute, official and private trade will be cut off. This loss will not be serious for the Ming Dynasty, but the damage to the interests of overseas countries will be considerable.

Zhu Gaoxu had to admit that from an economic and political perspective, his grandfather's method was very useful.

Since the Northern Dynasties unified Japan, in order to qualify for tribute, the Ashikaga Shogunate has continuously mobilized manpower and material resources to cooperate with the Ming Dynasty in arresting Japanese pirates. However, they have just ended the war and can only capture some small Japanese pirates in their own coastal waters. Regarding the chaos of Japanese pirates along the coast of the Ming Dynasty, Bureau does not have much effect at all.

The same thing happened in North Korea and Ryukyu, but the two countries had no way to intervene in the Japanese pirates.

As the Ashikaga Shogunate unified Japan in the 25th year of Hongwu's reign, the samurai, politicians and ronin of the Southern Dynasties began to face multi-national encirclement and suppression, and had to move their base camp southward.

At present, most of them are entrenched in Nanyang, and from time to time they go north to plunder along the coast of Ming Dynasty.

If you want to clean them up, you can only form a huge fleet to go south and clear out the entire Nanyang like in history.

In some analysis videos that Zhu Gaoxu watched in his previous life, he vaguely remembered that there were more than 780 Japanese invasions in the Ming Dynasty, including more than [-] in the Jiajing dynasty and more than [-] in the Hongwu, Jianwen, and Yongle dynasties.

However, it is worth mentioning that since Zheng He's voyages to the West during the Yongle period, the so-called Japanese invasion has become less and less frequent, and it did not even break out once during the 11 years of Hong Xi and Xuande.

It was not until the fifth year of Zhengtong that the Xuanwei Envoy Department in Jiugang was annexed by Manchu Boyi, and the Japanese pirate rebellion broke out again.

After Zhu Qizhen learned about it, he also ordered Guo Yan to supervise the construction of Western ships in the eighth year of Zhengtong. He wanted to send to the Western Seas and Pandu commanded Ma Yun to sail to the Western Seas again.

However, this voyage to the West was put on hold due to the Tumu Fortress Incident and the Miners' Uprising in Fujian. Dozens of built treasure ships also became decayed over a long period of time.

Fortunately, Zhu Qizhen's plan to sail to the West frightened Majapahit, and he promised to maintain the situation in Nanyang and not allow Japanese pirates to live here permanently. In this way, he gained peace along the coast of the Ming Dynasty for nearly a hundred years. It was not until the Jiajing period that Japan and the Nanyang Manchus Zhe Boyi was in civil strife, and the peaceful situation along the coast was broken.

Zhu Gaoxu knew the cause and effect, so he also knew that the Japanese pirates now had no sources of troops, which meant killing one group and one group less.

As long as the Ming Dynasty sends a fleet to clear out Nanyang, the Ming Dynasty will maintain peace along the coast for nearly a hundred years, just like in history.

But he knew that he knew it, and Zhu Yuanzhang could not deny his words.

"Although your words make sense, Nanyang is vast and it is unrealistic to wipe out Japanese pirates. Even sending tens of thousands of naval troops can only solve the problem temporarily, but cannot permanently eliminate it unless a permanent garrison is stationed in Nanyang."

Zhu Yuanzhang in the Wuying Hall analyzed Zhu Gaoxu's suggestion, but still shook his head:
"What our Ming Dynasty needs to do now is to bridge the north and the south, instead of going far across the ocean and stationing a garrison thousands of miles away."

Zhu Yuanzhang's analysis was correct, which made Zhu Gaoxu a little happy, but his last words made Zhu Gaoxu a little disappointed.

He knew what to do to eliminate Japanese pirates, but in his opinion, the most important problem of the Ming Dynasty was still its internal problem. As for the maritime problems, it could be solved slowly by using the tribute system.

Are there any problems with this approach?At least from the current point of view, there is no problem with this method. It is one of the cheapest and best ways to expand Ming's influence.Although Zhu Gaoxu's method can further expand the influence of the Ming Dynasty, it is too expensive and expensive. This is Zhu Yuanzhang's view.

In this regard, Zhu Gaoxu also bit the bullet and argued hard:

"My grandson has read the shipbuilding journal of Longjiang Shipyard. The cost of building a warship with 75 materials is only 180 guan, and the price of each material is only more than [-] guan."

"If the country is willing to spend [-] guan to build ships, it will be able to obtain more than [-] warships with [-] guan in six months."

One thousand materials in the Ming Dynasty was 325 tons in later generations. According to Zhu Gaoxu's investigation, the Ming Dynasty only needed to pay 10 taels of silver to obtain more than 100 warships with a displacement of close to one thousand tons.

Such infrastructure capacity and production capacity are enough for one country's fleet to fight against fleets from all over the world. This is also the background for Zheng He's successful voyages to the West.

To put it bluntly, the productivity of the Ming Dynasty in the early Ming Dynasty was too strong. As long as the court wanted to, it could become an empire on the sea where the sun never sets, but the problem is...

"Although your words are good, that's not what the country wants to do now."

Zhu Yuanzhang still rejected Zhu Gaoxu's suggestion, and then said:

"According to what you said, it is cheap to build ships, but what about the sergeants who control them?"

"More than a hundred warships with three thousand materials require tens of thousands of soldiers. Each of these warships eats horse chews, which means they eat seven to eight hundred guan every day."

"If we go to Nanyang for one year, the country will spend more than [-] to [-] yuan, not to mention their military pay, food and other salaries."

"If we calculate it, it would cost 70 million yuan to go south to clean up the Japanese pirates in Nanyang for one year."

Lao Zhu looked at Zhu Gaoxu with a bit of disappointment, as if he felt disappointed that Zhu Gaoxu could not understand the current direction of the Ming Dynasty:
"If the imperial court invests this money in immigration, at least 30 people will be able to go north. In the coming year, [-] million arable land will be cultivated and thousands of soldiers and horses can be fed."

"..." Listening to Zhu Yuanzhang's words, Zhu Gaoxu didn't know what to say.

He naturally knew that bridging the north and the south was important, but he believed that the south was equally important.

He knew the direction of history, but Zhu Yuanzhang did not, and even if he said it, Zhu Yuanzhang would not believe it. This is why Zhu Gaoxu did not know what to say.

"Haha..." Laughter came, and Zhu Yunwen, who had watched the argument between his grandfather and grandson for a long time, suddenly smiled and bowed:
"Grandpa Huang, don't be angry. Brother Xu is still young, so naturally he doesn't know the importance of bridging the north and the south, but those Japanese pirates do deserve to be punished."

"My grandson thinks that, leaving aside Nanyang for the time being, the Japanese pirates in ports such as Shuangyu in Zhejiang, Zhangzhou in Fujian, and Qiongzhou in Guangdong that Brother Xu mentioned can still be dealt with first. After all, they are too close to the country."

"Well..." Zhu Yuanzhang responded, and then looked at Zhu Gaoxu:
"Although you proposed this matter, you don't know how to command the navy, so I let Wei Guogong take charge."

"You go to him with the imperial edict and tell him if there is anything you need to pay attention to."

After saying that, he looked at Zhu Yunwen and said, "Tell the Ministry of Household Affairs to allocate [-] guan to the Dudu Mansion to build ships and quell the Japanese."

"Yes..." Zhu Gaoxu and Zhu Yunwen agreed one after another, and then returned to their positions.

Because he had an errand, Zhu Gaoxu had no chance to deal with the memorial, so he had to take the imperial edict he had just drafted out of Wuying Palace and go to the Wei Guogong Mansion.

Looking at his back, Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head, while Zhu Yunwen caught a glimpse of this scene and couldn't help but have a smile on his face.

Just when this smile appeared on his face, Zhu Yuanzhang, who was picking up the memorial next to him, said:
"Send someone to check out the mines this guy mentioned before."

"..." After hearing Zhu Yuanzhang's words, Zhu Yunwen put away his smile, turned around and bowed in response.

Obviously, what Zhu Gaoxu said to the Japanese pirates today had to make Zhu Yuanzhang pay attention to what he said about the mine before.

Looking at Zhu Yunwen's busy back, Zhu Yuanzhang really hoped in his heart that what Zhu Gaoxu said was true.

If there is really a big mine in Yunnan, then this place will be more stable.

"Hope it..."

(End of this chapter)