prosperous age

"Make two copies of this and send them to Minister Zhu and Minister Tan's residences to let them know about this."

The Ministry of Revenue wanted to take over the financial power of the Ming Dynasty. Although only the Ministry of Revenue was discussing this matter, Wei Guangde could more or less see that Zhang Juzheng must have tacitly approved it.

The Ming Dynasty’s fiscal and taxation system was indeed too complicated, which was actually not conducive to the rational allocation of fiscal funds.

Wei Guangde knew that if this news was released, it would definitely cause an uproar in the capital, but he still decided to do it.

It was like throwing a stone to test the water. Although he supported this reform measure in his heart, he knew that the probability of it being passed was extremely low, so there was no need to get on board Zhang Juzheng's ship and let them deal with it on their own.

Zhang Ji agreed, took the note from Wei Guangde and put it in the box, then took out another note and handed it to him, whispering to Wei Guangde: "Master, this is from Commander Liu, saying that it is the latest situation in Japan, and it seems that there is complete chaos over there."

"Chaos? After Oda Nobunaga conquered the Muromachi shogunate and exiled Ashikaga Yoshiaki, Japan was in a state of civil war between the Oda clan and the Takeda clan. How could it be in chaos?"

Wei Guangde frowned and reached out to take the note handed to him by Zhang Ji.

"Bring the light closer."

Wei Guangde only glanced at the words on the note and frowned before giving orders.

There were many small words densely written on the note. To be honest, although Wei Guangde had good eyesight, he still found it difficult to read.

Zhang Ji hurriedly moved the candle on the table closer and brought two candles from the side. Only then did Wei Guangde carefully look at the contents of the note.

"It is indeed a mess, but it is almost a mess."

The note contained news sent back by the Jinyiwei spies from Japan, which naturally focused on the Battle of Nagashino that was currently brewing in Japan.

If the Shogun's faction still had the upper hand a few years ago, the situation was reversed with the death of Takeda Shingen, and the Shogun's army could no longer suppress the Oda army on the battlefield.

Oda Nobunaga used the emperor to command the princes and protected Emperor Go-Omi-no-Machi. In the name of regaining power, he continued to launch offensives against the shogunate troops.

In the battle that is now brewing, both sides will send out their best troops, and the outcome of the war will be enough to affect the future course of Japan's history.

Wei Guangde had no memory of Takeda Shingen, but he knew of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu who were active in Japan at that time. However, he had never seen another famous figure, Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Yes, thanks to the island strategy game he had played before, Wei Guangde still remembered that the influential figures in Japan during this period should be Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Wei Guangde didn't need to guess that in this battle, the one who would have the last laugh would definitely be Oda Nobunaga. After defeating the remaining shogunate forces represented by the Takeda clan, Oda Nobunaga began the journey to unify Japan.

It seems that he was betrayed by his subordinates and died in some temple.

Wei Guangde didn't know when Oda Nobunaga died, but it was definitely not now.

The intelligence analyzed the strength of the Oda army and the Takeda army in detail, and judged that the Takeda army had a slightly greater chance of winning, but the Oda army's commander, Oda Nobunaga, was more experienced and shrewd, and if he commanded properly, there was a possibility of a turnaround.

Well, the Ming Dynasty at this time actually had a similar understanding of the battlefield as Japan, and was also optimistic about the Takeda army, which had superior cavalry.

Finally, there is the latest information such as the names of major Japanese figures collected by the Jinyiwei spies, including daimyos and court nobles from all over the country, as well as the so-called famous generals.

"Still no Toyotomi Hideyoshi?"

Wei Guangde looked at the names one by one in the candlelight, but he didn't see Toyotomi Hideyoshi's name.

It feels bad to not be in control.

Wei Guangde couldn't help rubbing his temples. It was impossible that he was the Monkey King who popped out from a crack in the rock, and as soon as he appeared, he defeated the Japanese daimyos and replaced Oda Nobunaga.

Skipping those familiar "celebrities", Wei Guangde mainly focuses on the names of Oda generals and family elders.

It can be said that the reason why Oda Nobunaga was able to build his current empire was due to the outstanding talents under his command. Among them, Akechi Mitsuhide and Hashiba Hideyoshi, two retainers of the Oda family who were known as the two arms of Oda, came into his sight many times.

Such a famous general naturally attracted Wei Guangde's attention.

Of course, among them, Hashiba Hideyoshi was once specifically named and investigated by Wei Guangde, after all, his name contained the word "Hideyoshi".

However, the final investigation results showed that Hashiba Hideyoshi's childhood name was Hiyoshimaru, and his original name was Kinoshita Tokichiro. He was later given the name Hashiba Hideyoshi by Oda Nobunaga. He was born in a poor peasant family in Nakamura Township, Aichi County, Owari Province. He was originally a foot soldier, but later rose to prominence because of serving Oda Nobunaga.

With such a family background and not being a Toyotomi, Wei Guangde naturally rejected him.

But deep down, Wei Guangde had some favorable impression towards Hashiba Hideyoshi. It was because he was similar to Ma Fang, both of them had risen from small soldiers to become generals step by step.

If you can seize the opportunity, you will be lucky.

"Master, how can you say that Japan will be well governed soon? They are fighting so fiercely over there now, with tens of thousands of people involved in the war."

Zhang Ji on the side asked in a low voice at this time.

He was not a military idiot and knew a little about military matters.

He had read some intelligence about Japan, and every time he saw one side in a battle would have tens of thousands of troops, to be honest, it felt more intense than the war in the Ming Dynasty.

At the very least, Zhang Ji was very clear that if the Ming Dynasty wanted to mobilize tens of thousands of troops to fight, it would almost require the entire country's strength to accomplish this.

Take the current war in the southwest as an example. The Ming Dynasty has dispatched nearly 100,000 troops to Yunnan. Previously, in order to raise military supplies, Wei Guangde had been negotiating with people from the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Revenue, and forcing money and grain from local treasuries to support them.

Don’t just look at the generals fighting for their lives in the front. In fact, the court in the rear is the key to victory or defeat in the war.

If soldiers don't have enough food to eat and don't get their pay, they will cause trouble, they will not obey orders, and ultimately they will suffer defeat.

But look at Japan, a tiny country that can mobilize so many troops, it really cannot be underestimated.

No wonder the Japanese pirates were able to mess up the southeast like that. This was all because they fought in big battles and had rich combat experience.

"The outcome will soon be decided."

Wei Guangde just smiled at Zhang Ji's words, although he could not say that the Oda army would definitely win.

"The strongest clans in Japan right now are the Oda clan and the Takeda clan. Even if one war cannot determine the winner, one side will eventually be completely defeated after fighting them time and again.

Two years ago, the Takeda army had a huge advantage, but because of the unexpected death of Takeda Shingen, the Takeda family failed to destroy the Oda clan in one fell swoop.

But the situation has reversed in the past two years. The Oda clan has been suppressing the Takeda clan, and this time they were forced to fight a decisive battle. The Takeda clan's potential is probably exhausted, and a defeat will leave them with no chance of turning things around.

On the other hand, the Oda clan seemed to be getting stronger as the battle went on.

In the next battle, Oda Nobunaga will be able to mobilize tens of thousands of troops, but the Takeda clan may not be able to do so. "Wei Guangde analyzed.

Every time after Oda Nobunaga finished a war, he would occupy a piece of territory, and the local people would become his subjects. The next time he went to war, these people would have to follow him, so his soldiers did not suffer too many casualties in the war.

The Takeda family has lost many places in wars of all sizes in the past two years. Although the losses are not large each time, they accumulate over time and the final losses are huge.

"The Takeda army should have taken advantage of their victory a few years ago and defeated Oda Nobunaga in one fell swoop. I can only say that the head of the Takeda family is really incompetent."

Zhang Ji whispered his opinion on the side.

"Haha, when the old one dies, the young one inherits his legacy. There has to be a stabilization process before you can take over everything.

The opportunity was only seized by Oda Nobunaga, so it is understandable that the Takeda family suffered heavy losses in the past two years.

As for pursuing victory, you haven't discovered the characteristics of Japanese warfare. They always wage war during the slack season. That's why they can mobilize tens of thousands of people or even more every time they fight. They are all farmers carrying hoes. "

Wei Guangde smiled, but soon a hint of bitterness appeared on his face.

In fact, it is somewhat wrong to say that the Ming Dynasty took the path of professional soldiers, so it was difficult to support an army of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people.

How many of the so-called soldiers in the Ming Dynasty were truly professional soldiers?

Perhaps, only the battalion troops can be considered as such because they are recruited soldiers.

  And what are the differences between the garrison troops and the farmers in Japan?

The wars fought by Japan during the Warring States Period were mainly concentrated in the slack farming season. This was because during the busy farming season, farmers needed to devote a large amount of labor and time to farming and were unable to participate in or support war activities.

Therefore, in order to ensure that there are enough manpower to participate in the battles, and to obtain the supplies and food needed for the war, wars are usually scheduled during the slack season.

In this way, the lords could mobilize more manpower and resources to support the war, while also ensuring that basic living needs were met during the war.

During the Warring States Period in Japan, due to the policy of integrating soldiers and farmers, farmers engaged in agricultural production in peacetime and participated in military training and combat during the slack season.

This system ensured that when necessary, peasants could be quickly transformed into warriors and provide the necessary military support to the lords.

In addition, due to the limitation of war resources, such as the need to provide weapons and equipment by oneself, as well as the problem of army supply, the army could only concentrate its forces to fight the war during the slack farming season to ensure the smooth progress of the war.

This is also why the main weapons of Japanese soldiers during this period were bamboo spears. After all, bamboo spears were easy to obtain. All they had to do was find some longer bamboo and put an iron spear tip on the tip.

Well, this is an upgraded version of the bamboo spear. In fact, the original bamboo spear was made by sharpening the end of the bamboo so that it could be used on the battlefield.

But don't underestimate such weapons. During the Warring States Period in Japan, bamboo spears have always been the most important weapons.

The five weapons in ancient Japan were the Japanese sword, bow and arrow, spear, pheasant sword, and wakizashi.

For a long time, Japanese swords and bows and arrows have been the most valued weapons.

The samurai sword can not only be used in combat on foot, but can also be wielded on horseback, so it is popular among samurai, especially those on horseback.

However, there was a shortage of iron in Japan, and it was very expensive to make a qualified samurai sword.

Japanese bows and arrows are represented by heavy rattan bows and maruki bows, which are also very popular weapons among samurai.

Relatively speaking, the spear was not valued in Japan at first, and was only used by the foot soldiers.

For a long time, the barefoot infantrymen known as ashigaru, or attendants to the mounted samurai who fought on foot, played only a supporting role and were sometimes not even allowed to charge enemy samurai.

On the contrary, the primitive indigenous people such as the Ainu people living in Hokkaido, Sakhalin and other places in Japan, who have not developed a combat form of samurai groups and mainly fight on foot, instead attach more importance to the use of long weapons.

Later, after Mongolia unified China and established the Yuan Dynasty, it crossed the sea from Goryeo in the northeast to invade Japan twice and launched the Bun'ei Campaign.

Although the Mongolian army, which was unfamiliar with sailing, was defeated and capsized by a typhoon, most of the Mongolian soldiers from China went ashore to fight with guns and spears, while the short Japanese only had weapons such as the katana and pheasant sword to resist.

Because this battle left a deep impact on Japanese samurai, the Japanese combat mode gradually changed from mounted archery combat of mounted samurai to infantry group combat.

Because most of Japan's land is narrow and rugged and mountainous, it is not suitable for large-scale samurai cavalry to carry out galloping operations.

The Japanese also gradually realized the importance of guns in infantry combat. While the samurai gradually abandoned bows and arrows, they also began to use guns extensively, which eventually became one of the most commonly used and important weapons in ancient Japanese wars.

The total length of the Japanese spear is not long, and 2 meters is the most common. These are generally distributed by local daimyo to their generals and elite soldiers for use.

This length is more conducive to leveraging the advantages of spear combat.

But for the Ashigaru, the longer the better, of course, as it is safer to stay away from the enemy.

As a result, extra-long bamboo poles of five or six meters appeared, and the longest reached ten meters, which can be called the limit of oriental spears.

Someone has calculated that the most common injuries in hand-to-hand combat in Japan are gunshot wounds, stab wounds, arrow wounds, and knife wounds.

The percentage of sword injuries from sword fights was surprisingly low, and in hand-to-hand combat, the most valued weapon was the spear.

This is because with the improvement of Japan's armor-making technology and the lightweighting of armor, a large number of lower-level retainers could also wear armor to fight.

In this regard, the lethality of the sword could not keep up with the needs of the times, and the advantages of the spear, which could pierce the enemy's armor with a single thrust, were greatly enhanced, so the spear eventually became the mainstream one of the five weapons in Japan.

Moreover, they were just a large number of foot soldiers, and the lords did not care about their lives, so letting them make weapons with local materials was the best option.

In fact, the foot soldiers who made extensive use of bamboo spears were also very powerful.

This made the Japanese lords quickly realize that instead of buying a famous sword to equip a samurai, it would be better to recruit a hundred foot soldiers armed with bamboo spears.

Moreover, this extended spear did cause great trouble to the weak Ming army at the time.

"According to this calculation, Japan can mobilize at least hundreds of thousands of troops, which is enough to give people a headache."

Wei Guangde couldn't help but sigh when he thought of this.

The Oda clan and the Takeda clan alone can mobilize more than 100,000 people to fight, and there are many similar princes in Japan.

Although they do not have such a large population to command, they can still gather hundreds of thousands of people. They really have to be cautious when dealing with a country with such huge potential for war.

If the Ming Dynasty really wants to take action against Japan, it needs to make more preparations, otherwise it will inevitably repeat the mistakes of the Mongols.

Wei Guangde reminded himself in his heart at this time, so as not to underestimate the enemy and suffer defeat. (End of this chapter)