New Shun 1730

With a sigh, all Tokugawa Yoshimune could see was confusion.

Governing a country is not like cooking. If there is too much water this time, just add more rice next time, and you can keep trying and making mistakes.

There is no chance of trial and error in governing a country. If you make a wrong move, you may be doomed.

Even if we don't consider the suffering of the people caused by policy mistakes and trial and error, whether the shogunate's rule can be maintained is enough to give Tokugawa Yoshimune a headache.

Abe Masafuku was just an optimistic guess about the future, and it was really hard to say what the future would look like.

With this doubt, Tokugawa Yoshimune wanted to talk to Liu Yu.

Even though Liu Yu had deceived him badly, he thought carefully that whether it was sweet potatoes or coins, Liu Yu did not lie, and the various effects he said were indeed achieved, but the real purpose was hidden.

He also wanted to test Liu Yu's views on Japan's future, and whether Dashun would take the next step against the southern barbarians after forcing Japan to pay tribute.

He always felt that a warship was worth hundreds of thousands of taels of silver. Compared with the silver that Dashun took from the treaty, the price of the warship seems to be higher. Liu Yu is so profit-oriented, how could he do such a loss-making business?

He sent a letter to the Dashun warship that was staying off the coast of Osaka, inviting him to meet in a few days. Tokugawa Yoshimune had no time these days, and he had to preside over the ceremony to welcome the emperor back from the "Northern Hunt".

At the same time, it also allowed the samurai and hatamoto who had been in Edo and had never really seen the Dashun navy ship to see this behemoth that could not be defeated without a fight to the death, so as to lay a foundation for the introduction of southern barbarian knowledge in the future.

On the ship, Liu Yu, who received the letter, agreed to the invitation to meet Tokugawa Yoshimune again.

Many details after the opening of the port need to be discussed more clearly, and it is of great significance to persuade the shogunate to be a good defense officer.

After all, the emperor is a shrine, and the real power is still the shogun.

After receiving the letter, the fleet turned west and anchored at Hyogojin, about 20 to 30 miles from the mouth of the Osaka River. The nearby Kobe Village is one of the five ports in the future.

The samurai working for the shogunate and the engineers surveying on the Dashun side are making the final demarcation and handover, and calculating the lease fees for occupying the land.

Hyogojin was originally an important port in Osaka. The water depth here is suitable, and it is not a silt area like the river estuary.

It does not require too much repair and excavation. It can fully dock the largest warships at this time, and even larger steamships in the future can also dock.

With the help of the West Return Route and the East Return Route, opening a port here can basically cover most of Japan. Unlike Dashun, which has a long coastline but a wide inland depth, Japan is surrounded by the sea, so Liu Yu can be sure that the impact of opening a port on Japan will be more serious.

But this is very different from what happened in history. It is very different from the situation after the opening of the port by the Qing Dynasty in history and the situation after the Japanese black ships.

From Busan to Xiaguan and then to here, along the way, Liu Yu visited a large number of people, asked about their family income, inheritance law, family handicrafts, tribute system, etc., and got quite detailed first-hand information.

In a short period of time, ordinary people in Japan did not have strong consumption power.

The labor cost of Dashun, converted into silver, was about a quarter of that of the Netherlands at that time; and at that time, the labor cost of Japan was actually nearly half lower than that of Dashun.

Dashun really couldn't compare with this.

For example, Japanese horses did not use horseshoes, but straw shoes woven from straw, which were called horse shoes.

On the one hand, Japan lacked resources, had strong iron smelting technology, and lacked good iron ore.

On the other hand, the labor cost was really too low. Even if you changed straw shoes once an hour, it would be cheaper than buying a horseshoe for a long time. This was really unimaginable in Dashun.

In addition, there were some differences from the truly self-sufficient small peasant economy in Dashun.

Because of the convenient transportation along the coast, the castle town system, and the samurai businessmen living around the main city, the degree of commercialization of family agriculture and handicrafts in Japan is also higher than that in Dashun.

In addition, the remnants of the manor owner economy before the Warring States Period made the degree of division of labor in Japanese family handicrafts higher than that in Dashun's rural areas. Of course, it cannot be compared with Songjiang and Jingdezhen, where industry and commerce are quite developed, but the rural areas are slightly higher overall.

Dashun is also self-sufficient, but handicrafts can be exported; while Japan has no handicrafts that can be exported except for dried fish, but its internal self-sufficiency is not a problem.

For the time being, many goods are indeed difficult to sell on a large scale in Japan.

There is a threshold here, just like horseshoes and straw sandals. When the cost of horseshoes shipped from Dashun completely exceeds the straw sandals with a combined service life, it can be considered a real port.

Just like the opening of the Suez Canal in history, it became the last straw that crushed the textile industry in Songjiang.

This threshold is foreseeable, that is the moment when the craftsmen in Weihai use the boring machine to bore out qualified cylinders.

Dashun merchants certainly don't look so far, and they don't care whether the Japanese people can afford it. As long as the port can be opened, even if they sell luxury goods such as silk, porcelain, and glass, they can still make extremely high profits.

Liu Yu calculated that this is also a good thing.

In the short term, it will not cause a huge impact on the foundation of the Japanese shogunate system. Under the hierarchy of scholars, farmers, merchants, and artisans, as long as the peasants and samurai are stable, the shogunate can still sit firmly.

If you sit still, you will slowly get used to the existence of open ports. When the threshold reaches the threshold, it will be like boiling a frog in warm water. You can't jump out even if you want to.

A few days later, under the strict protection of samurai and soldiers, Liu Yu and Tokugawa Yoshimune met in Kobe Village.

The last time Liu Yu went to Edo with a flattering attitude, in order to trade letters. At that time, Tokugawa Yoshimune did not have a bamboo curtain in front of him, which seemed to the Japanese side to have given Liu Yu great face.

This time the two met again. Times had changed, but they were divided into guests and hosts. There was no more cumbersome etiquette like the last time in Edo.

After meeting again nearly ten years ago, it was still the same as last time. There was no translator present, but communication was done with pen and paper using Chinese characters.

The first sentence Tokugawa Yoshimune wrote to Liu Yu made Liu Yu feel the pressure of the cunning opponent.

The last time they met in Edo, Liu Yu went to ask for a trade letter. He kept his posture very low and did not carefully observe the general who was said to be "Ieyasu's reincarnation".

He could be regarded as watching the whole process of the Kyoho reform presided over by Tokugawa Yoshimune. In his opinion, it was just the level of a tinkerer and lackluster.

It is either a slap-on-the-head policy, or it is similar to the Qingtian Master style of catching corrupt officials. There is really no depth of reform worthy of praise.

During the first paper-and-pencil exchange during this meeting, Liu Yu felt that maybe Tokugawa Yoshimune's brain was used in conspiracy and balancing techniques.

The content written on the paper was quite simple, but the simpler it was, the harder it was for Liu Yu to answer.

"I can't blame Mr. Liu for not being afraid of all the high birds and hiding the good bows. With great kindness, Japan is not a lone bird, it still has its falcon. Mr. Liu's carved bow is still useful. Japan is barren, and Mr. Liu is still so hot-eyed. I am really worried about those wealthy places, fearing that they will make the same mistake as Japan.”

This is an obvious test to see if Dashun will take the next step after dealing with Japan. Although Tokugawa Yoshimune didn't want to offend Liu Yu anymore, the relationship was already forged over the matter of Tonjin Gongzang, and there was no way out.

The letter he wrote to Liu Yu when he was suing for peace had been instigating the relationship between the king and his ministers, and it was already a public matter.

But this time, the reason for mentioning the bird is gone, the bow is hidden, is not to provoke.

Liu Yu picked up the pen, thought about it, and replied.

"Businessmen seek profit, and they seek gold and silver. Within thousands of miles around, Japan is the only country with the most gold and silver. The ordinary man is not guilty, but he is guilty of having a jade. If the general is to blame, blame Arai Shiraishi for locking the country up even more. If he does not introduce the Masanori New Year "How could Japan cause this war?"

"The general is not a Confucian scholar, and I don't use the Confucian benevolence and righteousness to reason. When it comes to etiquette and law, the existence of the general itself is not in line with etiquette and law. Does the general really want the heaven to talk about 'benevolence' and 'propriety'?"

He brought out the ugliest colonial logic and characterized the beating as the fault of the person being beaten. He also directly threw away the veil of benevolence and morality and bluntly stated that he was seeking profit.

Avoiding the direction that Tokugawa Yoshimune wanted to really test, Tokugawa Yoshimune was not angry when faced with Liu Yu's reply.

I know this is Liu Yu's style of telling the truth.

It is indeed gold and silver, this statement is definitely not a lie.

The whole blame behind this sentence is Shiraishi Arai. This has nothing to do with the facts. It is a matter of stance.

The fact is that Arai Shiraishi did reduce Nagasaki's trade volume.

The position is that Japan does not want gold and silver to flow out, while Dashun wants gold and silver to flow out of Japan.

When it comes to positions and buttocks, facts are just positive and negative interpretations when supporting evidence.

Tokugawa Yoshimune wrote back: "If you put it this way, Arai Shiraishi is not wrong. It's just that your country's maritime merchants are incompetent."

"Japan has always admired big countries. When issuing trade letters, businessmen from your country can get thirty or forty pieces, while the Dutch can only get four."

"But the Dutch ships are big, and the cargo carried by four ships is almost the same as the cargo carried by dozens of ships of your merchants."

"According to Liu Jun, isn't it to blame that your country's maritime merchants are unable to build large ships?"

Although Arai Shiraishi was dismissed as soon as he came to power, this time he was beaten and left three wounds on his hands as a memory. Only at this time did Tokugawa Yoshimune truly understand why Arai Shiraishi introduced those policies.

At this time, he couldn't help but argue. He knew it was meaningless, but he didn't want to be a good person for Japan in his eyes. Taking on such a responsibility was the last bit of pride and dignity as a shogun.

Moreover, the reason why Arai Shiraishi wants to issue trade letters is not only to reduce trade, but also to demonstrate "Japan-centrism", which can be understood as "tribute" in a self-consoling way.

Just like the Ming Dynasty stipulated that Ryukyu should pay tribute every ten years, and if you are not allowed to come, you can't come; and Shiraishi Arai used the trade letter system to disguisedly turn trade into a tribute to Japan. If you are not allowed to come, you are not allowed to come. It is a gift for you to come more often, and the historian can record it in the history books: year, month, day, and people from the Tang Dynasty came to pay tribute.

Liu Yu is not a person of this era. After all this time, he still has not fully integrated into this era and cannot fully think about problems in this era's way of thinking.

He doesn't understand the Japan-centrism behind the trade letter system, but he doesn't need to understand it either.

Having now achieved this step, after returning to the capital, he promulgated another decree such as "Private trade between vassals and barbarians is prohibited", "Trading with vassals must build ships in the country, and nine sailors must be in the country", "South Sea goods must be transported through Songjiang and cannot go directly to the vassal", etc. Then we can directly establish the suzerain state and colonies in one step.

With the mentality of a winner, Liu Yu did not continue to argue whether it was because Japan was wrong to close its borders to the outside world or because the Dashun merchants were incapable of building large ships. He said very "magnanimously" that this question was like "the horse liver argument in the Han Dynasty" and there was really no need to argue.

Then he turned the tables and asked Tokugawa Yoshimune a very sharp question.

"What plans does the general have for Japan's future?"