Begging in late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 597

Does Tokugawa Iemitsu have a choice?
The Japanese are good at Go, and every part can be sacrificed, even the high-ranking shogun. 25 troops were all thrown on the battlefield. Tokugawa Iemitsu's prestige in the Edo shogunate has dropped to freezing point. Now the shogunate faces What matters is the issue of life and death. If it is not handled properly, it is likely to follow the old path of the Toyotomi family.

You must know that after the Osaka Summer Battle broke through Osaka Castle, Tokugawa Ieyasu carried out a brutal massacre. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the widow of Toyotomi Hideyoshi who once swore allegiance to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and his youngest son Hideyori were all forced to commit suicide. Not to mention, even Toyotomi Hideo Lai Shangqie's infant baby was also removed to prevent future troubles. If the Edo Shogunate was breached, it would be difficult for the Tokugawa family to imagine what would happen to them.

It can also be regarded as experiencing the panic and helplessness of the Toyotomi family back then. On the one hand, the Yusan family and the Zong family began to gather all warriors who could fight in the territory. On the one hand, with a huge gift, Tokugawa Iemitsu and his trusted retainers also had to embark on the road of Shangluo, Kyoto.

This meeting, which attracted the attention of the entire Japanese nation, brought countless big names, and the unwillingness of the ambitious, dragged on until July. There were five or six assassinations along the way, and dozens of ninjas were lost. Banner's shogun and his party just now Arrive at My Grandson City in the southeast of Kyoto.

This meeting was a bit of a legend. Barefoot, the Tokugawa family walked into my grandson city on foot with wooden sticks on their backs. The crimes of using ministers to defeat the emperor, ignoring the emperor, and bullying the royal family.

But Tokugawa Iemitsu first kowtowed his head to apologize, and then he opened his mouth to explain.

In Japan, the meaning of the emperor can be completely different from the meaning of the emperor in China. Although the emperor of Ming Dynasty is called the emperor, he is still a human being. As the descendant of Amaterasu, the emperor of Japan has become a god in the hearts of Japanese people.

Since it is a god, it should naturally be enshrined in a golden outfit, and the world is so chaotic, let it be managed by humans!Emperor, you old man, eat fast, chant Buddha, and concentrate on serving Amaterasu Omisami!

In fact, since the Heian period, the power of the emperor has been emptied by his relatives, and the emperor is just a symbol. First, the family of Wushoguan, represented by the Fujiwara family, was in power, and the regent and Guanbai had an overview of the government. Then the royal family took measures to After the emperor abdicated, the emperor who became a monk came to review the government affairs, and the emperor organized his own court to control the court, which is called the age of the government.

This is also the source of legitimacy for the existence of the shogunate. Since the emperor is only a religious symbol, the emperor can rule, and the government can rule, so why can't the more powerful general conquering barbarians rule?

Of course, you can’t say that on the surface. Tokugawa Iemitsu once again talked about the emperor’s myths, talking about all kinds of mouthful lotus flowers, and he was imaginative, and finally added a sentence helplessly, how can the earthly world defile the emperor?
Although not reconciled, the shogunate is also the foundation of samurai politics. More than a dozen daimyos represented by Shimadzu Genyoshi, Mori Hidemoto, and Date Tadamune also knelt down, expressing the correctness of Tokugawa Iemitsu's explanation.

As for Song Qingshu, he naturally accepted this explanation with a sudden realization, but since the army of the Celestial Dynasty was dispatched, how could Tokugawa Iemitsu be right?Immediately Song Qingshu continued to accuse Tokugawa Iemitsu of treating the imperial family harshly. The Tokugawa shogunate and the Yusan family had territories with millions of shi, while the royal family only had fiefs of [-] shi. It was not even as good as some high-end banner books. It was too much up!

Tokugawa Iemitsu naturally had no choice but to agree to this crime, and immediately expressed his chest that he would take out the land from the Tokugawa family's clan and increase the emperor's fief to 20 shi.

In the end, Song Qingshu did not enter the capital city either, and this battle, which can be regarded as "the world's attention", mobilized nearly 40 troops, spent millions of taels of military pay, and killed more than [-] soldiers and civilians, just came to an end.

However, things are far from being as simple as they appear!
Song Qingshu is not a bad guy. He came to help the emperor to set up his goals. His fundamental interests are still the interests of the West India Company. Since the Tokugawa family gave the hope of retaining the shogunate on the premise of a truce, the Tokugawa family had to come up with an alternative to the shogunate. , to the greater good of the West India Company!
Three days before Jai Mitsu met, Tadakatsu Sakai came again with the shogunate's bottom line for negotiation. This time the negotiation made substantial progress. The first was the compensation for military expenses and the compensation for the family members of the victims of the Ming Dynasty. Song Qingshu opened his mouth wide. He demanded 50 million taels of silver in one breath. Of course, the shogunate would definitely not be able to afford such a huge amount of money. After bargaining, it was finally reduced to 5.00 million taels of silver. The shogunate paid it off in [-] years and added [-]% interest every year.

Then there is the cession of land. Here Song Qingshu wanted the lifeblood of the shogunate again, and cut off Sado Island. You must know that this is the largest gold mine discovered by the shogunate after the Koshu gold mine was exhausted. It can provide at least two to three million taels for the shogunate every year. A cornucopia of income, but Sado Island, a small island with a population of less than 300, is better than ceding Shikoku Island with a population of more than 2 million, right?

However, even though Shikoku Island still belongs to the shogunate in name, it is actually no different from ceding it. The 96 stone seals of the entire Shikoku Island were given to the Changzong Gabu family who returned home, and the Changzong Gabu family was owned by the West India Company. The spokesperson of the Japanese archipelago, in addition to collecting 30 million taels of tribute every year, the Tokugawa family here don't want to mobilize a single soldier.

The last port of trade has been opened. Nagasaki, which was closed last time, is open again. From north to south, the four port areas of Kanagawa, Niigata, Kobe, and Osaka are also opened as trade ports. The West India Company has the right to build stores in Japan. factory, and enjoys diplomatic immunity, the Ming Dynasty broke the law and needs to be extradited back to the Ming Dynasty for trial, and the Japanese country has no right to deal with it.

The last one is the righteousness that the traditional scholar-bureaucrats of the Ming Dynasty valued most, but Song Qingshu least valued. The shogunate must organize a mission to go to the capital to pay homage to the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, pay tribute, and officially declare it to be a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty!
After three days of arduous negotiations, the treaty was finally won with difficulty under the premise that both sides clamored to continue the war. However, Tadakatsu Sakai wanted to sign the treaty immediately, while Song Qingshu procrastinated and demanded a certain amount of time. It has to be signed at the southernmost tip of Honshu Island, the strait bordering Kyushu Island, and it is said that there is good geomantic omen, and the signed contract can only be long-lasting if the sea god testifies.

As a last resort, the content of the treaty was finalized, and a team of shogunate bannermen pulled a group of commissioners from the West India Company and ran south for thousands of miles to the sea to sign the treaty.

In fact, Feng Shui and other things, such as Sea God, are all Song Qingshu's excuses, and he has to sign there, just because of one reason, it is called Maguan!More than 200 years later, after the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War of [-]-[-], Japanese Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi and Beiyang Minister of Commerce and Industry Li Hongzhang signed the largest unequal treaty in modern times, the "Treaty of Shimonoseki"!

Here is of special significance to Song Qingshu.

In August, this world dispute was completely dissipated. The warriors of each feudal clan were disbanded and returned to their respective feudal towns. The West India Company also showed the greatest sincerity. The 16 Japanese army was also disbanded. Fudai daimyos and foreign daimyos who did not join the camp of the West India Company were also released one after another. However, the more than 5 shogunate core troops who went to Southeast Asia to work as labor coolies will have to wait for a while. The West India Company only released the daimyos first. The more than 5 samurai in the country were taken as mortgages, and they could only be released when the shogunate paid off at least half of the indemnity.

In 25 years, it is estimated that even if he returns with his life, he will no longer be sent to the battlefield as a samurai.

Although everything seems to be restored to the past, in fact, the majesty of the shogunate has been greatly weakened, and the various clans who once joined Song Qingshu's command, regardless of whether you were forced or voluntary, have all buried with the shogunate. Deep suspicion, under this suspicion, it is no longer possible for the vassals to be as loyal to the shogunate as before, and with the support of Daming, the Tokugawa family still dare not cleanse the various vassals. In this case, the authority of the shogunate is Being further weakened, a weak shogunate undoubtedly has great benefits for the West India Company to intervene in Japanese affairs.

However, in this incident, the most disappointed ones were the Kyoto imperial family and the Wusheguan family who had been watching from the sidelines. In the past 600 years, this was the only time they had seen hope of regaining power. However, from beginning to end, they It just became the target of being used, even Song Qingshu did not enter the capital once in the end.

Although there have been some changes in the form, the royal fiefdom has been increased to 20 koku, Tokugawa Iemitsu has also announced the integration of public and military forces, and went to Kyoto to meet the emperor, but the existence of the emperor's hereditary inheritance as a decoration has not been changed at all. For this reason, the angry Empress Mingzheng simply ordered her abdication, and the lineage of the next emperor became a doll manipulated by Tokugawa Iemitsu and other powerful daimyos.

Of course, Song Qingshu's opinion was also indispensable this time, although it was nominally participated in by the daimyo of the four kingdoms, Chang Zongwo and his assistant.

After this incident, in just two months, the part-time job of Jiangnan merchants from Daming was like crucian carp crossing the river. Various Ming shops and Ming workshops also sprung up in the treaty ports, and Sado Island The gold mine is also being taken over in full swing. The miners directly recruit Japanese people from Honshu Island, and all the senior managers use West India Company employees. For the loyalty here, Song Qingshu even sent his family, the Juren Song Yingxing who wrote "Tiangong Kaiwu" Come here to dig for gold.

Compared with Zheng Zhilong's era, the Ming people gained unprecedented benefits in the Wa country. On the street, the Ming people in the past wore a little more clothes, and those Japanese could only humbly put on a smiling face and call Taijun. The Ming people are emerging The bourgeoisie colluded with the Japanese daimyo, samurai, and feudal lords to oppress the lower-class Japanese people. In just a few months, the social structure of the Japanese people underwent earth-shaking changes.

"Hmph, the era of China!"

Standing in the towering castle tower of Dakosaka Mountain City, while putting the newly signed "Treaty of Shimonoseki" in his sleeves, Song Qingshu hummed and sneered.

(End of this chapter)