Ming Zhengzhi, I am Zheng Kezang

The first half of the reign of General Tokugawa Tsunayoshi is called the rule of Tianhe. During this period, Tsunayoshi tried his best to prohibit the atmosphere of killing and hunting in the previous Warring States period, and advocated the culture and politics of emphasizing virtue. Life is relatively stable.

However, Tsunakichi, like his elder brother and former shogun Jia Gang, was extravagant by nature, and his unrestrained spending led to the depletion of the shogunate's treasury, although the shogunate later made a lot of money by recasting gold and silver and replacing good coins with bad coins. The wealth of righteousness, but natural disasters and disasters followed one after another, and Tsunayoshi's habit of lavishness remained unchanged, and finally he couldn't support it.

The helpless shogunate finally set its sights on the pockets of the vassals and the common people. Take the extremely absurd "order of mercy for creatures" as an example. As a dog shelter, Ping has built 29 "royal dog huts" and raised more than 16 wild dogs.

The "Biological Mercy Order" is obviously Tsunayoshi's contribution to the gods and Buddhas for his own blessing, but he insisted on apportioning the project of about 20 taels of silver to the lord of the Marugame Domain, Kyoko Or Mori Changcheng, the lord of the Tsuyama domain. As for the food expenses of nearly 10 taels of silver per year for the wild dogs, the farmers and Edo townspeople of the shogunate will pay an additional tax to solve it.

This cannot but arouse the dissatisfaction of daimyos and Japanese people everywhere, but that alone will not shake the foundation of the shogunate.The frightening thing is that the social atmosphere has undergone great changes during this period. Officials at all levels of the shogunate accepted bribes under various guises.

It's not that the shogunate didn't realize the problem, and also knew that the root of all problems was the outflow of gold and silver, but they were powerless to really solve it.For this reason, some sober people in the shogunate turned their eyes of hatred on Zheng Fan and the Huaxia Dynasty who had made excess profits in trade, and the Huaxia side instigated drug smuggling to further accelerate the outflow of gold and silver from Japan, which led to Hardliners in the shogunate repeatedly demanded that the Nichika trade be cut off.

But for Sandu merchants who control the lifeline of Japan's economy, completely interrupting the Japan-Natsu trade would be a catastrophe for them. They have already lost a lot in the shogunate's reform of currency, and they are willing to say anything to the shogunate to pass such a decree.However, for Sandu merchants, it would be a good thing if they could use this to force Huaxia to give up huge profits. Therefore, despite the opposition in terms of results, Sandu merchants sided with the hardliners in public opinion.

It's a pity that the Sandu businessman's winking eyes are thrown to the blind. Huaxia Dynasty, which has reached an agreement with the Netherlands, has no intention of giving up substantial benefits. Even the drug smuggling trade cannot be stopped. Japan is completely dissatisfied.

For this reason, in the third year of Huaxia Wucheng and on the second day of May in the 14th year of Genroku in Japan, the shogunate officially notified Huaxia's trading house in Nagasaki and promulgated the "Genroku Rixia Trading Specification" to restrict the arrival of Chinese ships. For daily trade, the limit is four per year, and any excess will be captured and confiscated.

In addition to restricting the size of merchant ships, the "Genroku Rixia Trading Specifications" also prohibits legally traded Huaxia ships from selling 42 items of goods in Nagasaki, including paper, pen and ink, books, pearls, fragrant wood, lacquerware, porcelain, mercury, sumac, and sulfur. The upper limit of the price of silk and raw silk was stipulated. What's worse, the shogunate also stipulated that the price of the goods sold by the Huaxia ship last time must be settled on the next voyage, and the equivalent payment is only copper bars and Kanei copper coins.

On the third day of May, the shogunate ordered the reporting of opium dens throughout Japan, and confiscated small and medium-sized trading companies and merchant alliances suspected of being involved in smuggling. The merchant organizations were also frightened, and drug smuggling was temporarily stopped.

"How dare a small country in Japan issue such an absurd decree." When the news of Japan returned to Wuchang, maritime merchants in Jiangnan, eastern Zhejiang and other places were already in commotion. "If the imperial court doesn't react, what will the Taixi barbarians think of the imperial court?" Lin Xian, Minister of the Ministry of War, spoke angrily. "So we must send troops to severely punish."

"Master Lin, please be safe and don't be impatient." Huang Liangbi, who was transferred from the governor of Ganzhou and other places to the Minister of Rites and Minister of the Cabinet, was also a warrior who was used to seeing corpses and blood. View. "I think it's better not to fight or not to fight, not to mention that Japan was a country that was not conquered in the previous Ming Dynasty. Even if this dynasty uses navy to control the border, the sea is far away and thousands of miles away. It is no better than North Korea. , please let the governor’s yamen talk about it first, courtesy first and soldiers later.”

The full name of the so-called governor's office is the governor's foreign countries and commercial affairs office. When there is a problem with Japan's trade, it is in charge of this unit. Therefore, Huang Liangbi's words are in line with the procedure. However, his good intentions are not rewarded. The minister of the governor's office But Ke Dingkai held the same tough stand as Lin Xian.

"Although Master Huang's words are in line with the usual practice, he still doesn't know anything about the negotiations with the Tokugawa shogunate."

Ke Dingkai is Zheng Chenggong's son-in-law Yibin, who can also be regarded as Zheng Kezang's uncle. In addition, he is a former cabinet counselor and now the nephew of Ke Ping, a minister of the Bute Academy. His status should be detached, but who made him He and Huang Liangbi had competed for the position of cabinet minister before, so even though both sides have made progress, there is still some vague hostility between them.

"The shogunate didn't put forward such harsh conditions on a whim. They threatened me many times a few years ago. It was only because I firmly disagreed with the Japanese extortion that I managed to maintain the trade with Japan. Now I see you If the court can’t get benefits from the hands, the Japanese are in a hurry to jump over the wall, so they will promulgate such a violent law.” Ke Ding paused, and then said: “So I agree with Master Lin’s opinion, and we must teach the Japanese side a lesson. Maybe it will open the door to Japan and make it easier for me to do business with merchants."

Zhang Riyao, Cabinet Counselor and Minister in charge of the Yantie Yamen Office, shook his head: "It will cost a lot to send troops to Japan. The imperial court's financial resources have been tight these years, and there is no money left to support such a large-scale battle."

At the beginning of the third year of Wucheng, the Huaxia Dynasty made an adjustment to the central system.

Among them, in terms of personnel, the older generation of Prime Minister Zheng Yingping and Counselor Ke Pingping became the Ministers of the Bute Court, and the former Minister of the Supreme Court Lin Liangrui, the Minister of Du Branch Zhang Riyao, and the Minister of the Ministry of War Lin Heng took over as Prime Minister and Counselor and Cabinet Ministers. position;

In terms of organizational structure, the original Yantie Department, Duzhi Department, and Water Department were reduced to the Yantie Yamen, Duzhi Yamen, and Water Conservancy Yamen respectively. In the outer dynasty—the political division of the Huaxia Dynasty, the internal, middle, and foreign dynasties—a new pattern of six departments and six yamen, and the separation of powers between the Supreme Court and the Supervisory Yuan was formed;

In the Chinese dynasty of China, the most important are the two courts, one of which is the Privy Council, so of course there is no need to talk about it;

The other is Tongzhengyuan, also known as Yintai, which is responsible for the transmission of internal and external documents. Although it is just an intermediate institution, its position is very important. Although its chief official, Zhengqing, cannot be directly promoted to a cabinet minister or a higher status Cabinet counselors and cabinet prime ministers, however, can participate in all cabinet meetings just like the supervisory minister, and supervise the cabinet records during the meeting. After the meeting, a copy of the transcript must be reviewed, and one of them will be submitted to the inner court;

The status of Gezhiyuan, Taiyuan Hospital, and Secretary Supervisor, which were also in China and North Korea, was relatively low. However, due to Zheng Kezang's attention, their status has been improved compared to previous dynasties. The Imperial Hospital was upgraded to a Welfare Office of the Outer Dynasty, but the courtiers did not understand and the financial resources of the Huaxia Dynasty were limited, so it was temporarily put on hold;

As for the inner court, it does not refer to the inner court of Zheng Kezang's empress palace, but is composed of the Bute Academy and the Hanlin Academy. Work, in order to replace the responsibility of the Ming Dynasty Si Li Jian who was responsible for drafting edicts and sorting out the opinions of the cabinet.

"It is precisely because there is no money that we have to fight a war." In the three years of Wu Cheng's central restructuring, a new situation has emerged, that is, under the prime minister of the cabinet, a counselor who does not care about the ministry, the former Ministry of War Shang Shu Lin Heng was the first full-time counselor. "Although a large amount of gold and silver flowed out of Japan, which endangered the rule of the shogunate, after all, a dead camel is bigger than a horse, and the gold and silver reserves in Japan are still extremely amazing."

Lin Heng's tone was somewhat greedy: "Therefore, whether it is to force Japan to accept the outflow of gold and silver or to obtain high compensation, we must fight Japan."

Before Zheng Kezang, no one thought that wars could make money, but Xia Jun had tasted a lot of war dividends in Annan, Vietnam and even North Korea in recent years. Counselors with military backgrounds were naturally willing to engage in bigger wars.

"In addition to money, the imperial court also has to force Japan to abandon the lock-up order, and at least agree to let the Japanese who have stayed overseas return home, so that they can explain to the overseas Japanese who have supported the dynasty for many years."

The Japanese descent in the Huaxia Dynasty system is indeed a problem, but how to solve it, not everyone agrees with Lin Heng's point of view, so Prime Minister Lin Liangrui coughed lightly: "Counselor Lin, let's talk about the issue of the lock-up order separately."

Since he didn’t talk about the issue of the lock-up order, Lin Heng asked for a vote. As a result, the two counselors each had one vote in support of sending troops and one vote against going to war. Among the other three cabinet ministers, there were two votes in favor of going to war against Japan, so the ball was kicked. To Lin Liangrui's feet.

"Lord Lin," Lin Liangrui pondered for a moment, then looked at Lin Xian. "Japan is a big country. Does the Privy Council have a complete plan?" Lin Xian gave a clear answer, saying that the plan for fighting against Japan had been drawn up several years ago. "Then report it to the Holy One and ask the Holy One to make a decision." Lin Liangrui was a good setter, and kicked Cuju to Zheng Kezang's feet, but this was also normal, after all, the emperor was in charge of the conquest, so he, as a minister Naturally, I dare not be good at it. "Master Chen, please report immediately, I will meet you immediately"