The sun never sets in America

Chapter 144 Japan and Orientalism
Nagasaki, Japan…

An external port controlled by the Tokugawa shogunate, in Japan, which is still relatively poor and weak today, it is also a prosperous place in the entire Japan.

The original Nagasaki Port, to put it harshly, was considered a good place in Japan, but in Asia at the same time, it was actually at the bottom.

Apart from anything else, Guangzhou Port, Ningbo, and even the not-yet-large-scale Magic City in East Asia are actually larger, more prosperous, and have more merchant shipping than Nagasaki Port.

And if you compare those colonial port cities in Southeast Asia, such as Batavia, or even Malacca City, with Nagasaki, there is a fundamental difference between heaven and earth, and they are not the same at all.

But all this quietly changed as Nagasaki became the second port to open trade with Han.

On the Nagasaki dock in August, Japanese workers wearing coarse cloth and Japanese-style turbans were carrying goods on a merchant ship flying the Chinese dragon flag.

Most of these goods are sugar, canned tropical fruits, Han light industrial products, and alcoholic beverages including the Fortress series.

Speaking of trade between Han and Japan, we have to mention the immigration transit trade that has been going on for more than a year.

This agreement, completed in the hands of the contemporary shogun Tokugawa Ieyaki and the Han Immigration Minister Hu Junding, still plays a huge role today.

Even in several subsequent talks, the Han Dynasty signed a treaty of friendship and trade with the shogunate. The treaty stipulated that Han merchant ships had the right to dock in the two cities of Edo and Nagasaki, and in accordance with the laws promulgated by the shogunate, they could legally Trade and sell Han products.

The main reason why the closed-door shogunate was willing to sign such a trade treaty was that it benefited from the Sino-Japanese trade.

The original treaty stipulated that Han must purchase Japanese goods worth 50 yuan every year. This alone brought huge benefits to the shogunate.

The Han also sold a large number of Han-style weapons to the shogunate every year. Although many of them were second-hand (the shogunate had limited financial resources), it also fundamentally enhanced the strength of the shogunate.

So far, the shogunate has trained a total of more than 1 new troops. This army has completely abandoned the current Japanese army's combat mode of mixed cold weapons and firearms, and adopted a full set of Chinese tactics... and the Han Dynasty 1840 Standard flintlock rifle. (The shogunate called it the [-]-type fire gun)
As well as more than a hundred Chinese-made artillery purchased from the Han Dynasty, the largest number of them were six-pound cannons. The reason was still due to Japan's geographical reasons.

There is only the Kanto Plain in the whole of Japan, which is considered a relatively large plain area. The other places are hills and mountains, as well as small plains. There are not many large-caliber artillery roads in Japan today, and there are dirt roads everywhere. Just how to transport them is Big problem.

The Han instructors suggested that the shogunate purchase a large number of draft horses, and the shogunate did purchase hundreds of draft horses, but in the end they found that such European-style horses could not be raised by the current productivity of small farmers in Japan.

Misao and famine often break out in Japan, and farmers and refugees starve to death every day. If the horse property is appropriated to raise horses and the farmland that the Japanese people rely on for survival is used, then it will not be the opposite. .

And it is very easy for a group of people to rebel.

By that time, it will really be like a meat bun beating a dog, and there will be no return! !

In fact, the main reason is that there are currently too many poor people in Japan, and Japan is a small-scale peasant economy with a typical East Asian model. This kind of economy seems to be very closed-loop. As long as you don’t require eating meat and drinking wine every day, it’s basically fine. Satisfaction, but it is only basic. In fact, this basic means not starving to death.

But the reality is often so weird, because those famous Japanese landowners control a large amount of land, and Japanese profiteers hoard large amounts of rice and sell it at higher prices during difficult times, so that Japan has several rice-related disasters every year. The riots, this kind of riots, are also called Misao...

(The staple food of Japan is rice, which is also the only food that Japanese people can eat besides vegetables. As for meat, there is very little or even no food at all. Therefore, the Japanese in this period are very short and are much shorter than those in later generations during the Meiji Restoration. Encourage After eating a lot of meat and drinking milk, people are shorter than 1.5 meters. Many people are not even 1.5 meters tall.)
The continuous oppression of misao and daimyo landowners has also led to the situation where Japanese joints will sell their children with grass tags in the event of slight hardship. Most of them are selling their daughters, and many of them are sold to nearby people. They were bought in Kabukicho and brought home to be trained as geishas.

To put it nicely, she is a geisha, but to put it badly, she is a prostitute! !
As for these Japanese girls, the immigration officials of the Han Kingdom naturally accepted as much as they could. After all, the male-to-female ratio in the Han Kingdom was actually beginning to show signs of collapse.

During this period, most of those who were willing to venture to other places were actually men, and there were actually very few women. The so-called Nyonya in Nanyang were actually the descendants of early Chinese and local indigenous people.

Due to the large number of immigrants and the existing population of Han, it was difficult to find more women of the right age to match with immigrants from the Far East for marriage.

Therefore, Han’s current policy is to reduce some male immigrants and increase female immigrants.

Ensure that the ratio of men to women in Han is normal...

Some of the female immigrants were recruited from China, while most were recruited from Japan and Southeast Asia.

Among them, Japan alone accounts for half of the foreign immigrants in Han, most of whom are female immigrants.

The rest are male immigrants represented by Japanese samurai.

The allocation of female immigrants is relatively simple, but the allocation of male immigrants, especially those warrior immigrants, is actually very particular and has a butterfly effect.

After the Han Dynasty recruited idle Japanese warriors to go to North America, although most of these people were placed in the Han-Mexican border and a small number were recruited into the army, it also objectively eliminated the hidden danger of the shogunate ruling Japan.

After all, in the overthrow movement in later generations, this group of wandering and idle samurai caused trouble to the shogunate.

Emotionally and logically, the shogunate should be grateful to the Han. It was the emergence of the Han that changed the history of the overthrow of the shogunate in the future.

Of course, the shogunate at this moment is still immersed in the dream of Zhongxingdu.

Apart from anything else, since the formation of the new army, those daimyo who had violated or even publicly opposed the shogunate have become much more at ease recently, making Tokugawa Ieki's reputation as the shogun directly surpass that of the previous generations. Shogun.

And more importantly, the economy of the shogunate has been greatly improved after contact with the Han Dynasty. Not to mention the regular purchases of goods every year, it is said that hundreds of thousands of immigrants move to Edo controlled by the shogunate every year. For Edo, Everyone can clearly see how big the economic stimulus is.

This is evident from the fact that Kabukicho in Edo required people to speak Chinese, and how great an economic impact this actually had.

Not to mention Han’s current demand for Japanese raw silk.

As we all know, silk products are widely used. From the textile industry to industrial products, many industries require the use of raw silk.

China produces the most raw silk in the world, followed by Japan. However, in the early days, Japan's raw silk production was actually not large, mainly due to technology and the fact that most raw silk was produced in small family workshops, with low output and poor quality.

It is difficult to compete with the raw silk industry in the Jiangnan area of ​​China.

The Magic City of later generations (currently Songjiang Prefecture) will be the largest raw silk export port in Asia and even the entire world in the future. It can be said that the rise of Paris in the East in later generations, the raw silk trade will definitely play a decisive role...

Japan's early raw silk industry can basically be described as small and poor.

The summary is that the scale is small and the quality is poor.When Han capital intervened, Japan's raw silk industry underwent earth-shaking changes. Not only did they introduce the latest machines, but they also established raw silk processing plants. (Many of them are female workers)

At present, due to domestic consumption and even the expansion of the American market, the demand for raw silk in Han Dynasty has also increased. After all, wearing cotton clothes is still not as comfortable and cool as silk.

Currently, two-thirds of the raw silk produced by Japan's production teams are bought by Han merchants, and the remaining one-third belongs to Japan and other overseas merchants.

The current Japanese raw silk industry can bring at least more than 300 million yuan in tax revenue to the shogunate every year, which greatly promotes the shogunate's fiscal revenue.

But at the same time, there is also a problem here, that is, except for sericulture, which is done by Japanese farmers, other industries, including the cleaning, processing, selling, and even payment collection of raw silk, are all controlled by the Han people.

In the words of the new director of the Textile Bureau under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of Han Dynasty:

"In the raw silk industry, we are limited by skilled silkworms and raw silk workers. The local raw silk industry has progressed relatively slowly, but our control over Japanese raw silk has almost reached an abnormal level. Those Japanese silkworm farmers have worked hard to The silk produced through hard work is purchased by us at a low price, and then made into qualified raw silk and sold at a high price... In this raw silk industry chain worth tens of millions of dollars, we Han people eat the most delicious food without providing any raw materials. That piece of cake." When talking about this, the textile director was obviously a little proud.

“But at the same time, we must also see that although we have benefited the Japanese shogunate to a certain extent through taxes and other methods, this is completely the difference between wine bottles and wine caps compared to the benefits we have obtained in Japan. The Japanese only got the wine bottle. As long as Japan is not stupid, sooner or later they will ask us for the wine bottle. But before that, we try to drink enough wine and try every means to keep it. A wine bottle that belongs to a big man..."

Speech by the Director of Textiles at an internal meeting of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

It can also be seen from this that Han is actually wary of Japan. After all, Han has sucked so much blood from Japan in the raw silk industry. Although Japan's raw silk industry was cultivated by Han people, but understand The Japanese will not care so much. They will only see how the Han people took away the wealth belonging to Japan and used their money to manage their own country's affairs...

This is the most difficult thing for Japan to accept.

Although Japan and Han are still in the honeymoon period, economic exchanges between the two sides are very frequent.

Han needed Japan's raw silk, population, and market, and Japan also needed Han to provide them with enough industrial products to consume. They even relied on Han merchants to pay taxes to maintain the stability of the shogunate.

Even the current new army of the shogunate needs the supply of Chinese-style weapons and ammunition, and even the instructors are Han Chinese.

So much so that some Japanese people once said in a strange way that the relationship between Han and the shogunate was father and son...

Han people in Japan are like a father in his son's home, they can come and leave whenever they want.

And Japan also needs to provide samurai and girls.

(Referring to the idle warriors who immigrated to Han and the girls who were sold)

Although this is a statement promoted by a group of anti-shogunate people, and there is a subjective dislike of the shogunate in it, it can also be seen from an objective perspective that some people in Japan currently have extremely high expectations for cooperation between Han and Japan. vigilant...

This vigilance mainly comes from several aspects. The first is the economic and cultural exchanges between Han and Japan, although Han has added some private goods into it.

(The Han Dynasty’s propaganda to Japan is that the Han Dynasty is Chinese orthodoxy and another dynasty after the Ming Dynasty. The Chinese and the Japanese are related by blood. This is mainly based on the theory of cross-breeding that is widely circulated in Japan. There are also Some cultural propaganda, the most important thing is to make the Japanese let down their guard)
In addition to these, there is also propaganda against the West. In the context of Han Dynasty's propaganda, the West has directly become a heinous villain, a thug full of evil, and then brought out what the United States did to its Indian compatriots (in the Han Dynasty Under the propaganda, the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Indians are one family, and North Vietnamese may be added. They are one race, born out of one culture, that is China (China), and the good things done by British and French colonists in the world.

Among them, India is the most talked about place. It is said that India's [-] million people were conquered by tens of millions of British barbarians. It can be seen that Eastern civilization has reached its most critical moment. If we do not unite, it will really be doomed...

After saying so much, I finally came up with the idea and said this sentence:

"The people from the East are the descendants of the gods, and the people from the West are the devils of barbarism. Today we are facing changes that have not happened in 3000 years. The Western barbarians are arrogant and cruel, and they are always watching us in the East. As for the races in the East, only China is the leader, and China is divided into China. The five tribes of India, Japan, and Vietnam are facing great changes in the world. The King of Han ascended the throne in America, drove out Mo Ba, and regained the West Sea. He is the leader of the East respected by the world... The people of the East should unite around the Han Kingdom to resist the barbarians..." ( The Qing Dynasty, Japan, North Korea, and Vietnam: when did they respect each other??)

Although this article has many loopholes, such as sharing respect for Eastern leaders, etc., it has actually been a great impact to the literati of this era, especially to some elite Japanese people. It seems that a legal basis has been found. (Japan currently worships Han mainly businessmen who have had contact with Han, and even ordinary farmers and idle samurai who want to immigrate to Han)

Although this article was privately denounced by some Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese literati as crooked, nonsense, and with ulterior motives.

Any word that could be used, they used.

But it still didn't stop them from becoming interested in the Han Dynasty. Such interest revealed a big problem, which seemed to be reasonable...

Because according to the above, the Han Dynasty was a dynasty after the Ming Dynasty, and the Manchu and Qing Dynasties were a puppet dynasty. So according to the original history of China, isn't this China's monarch the monarch of the entire East? ?
Especially Vietnam, which used the Huayizhi theory learned from the Central Plains every day and invaded small countries everywhere in the Indochina Peninsula, knew very well what it said.

Although this group of Vietnamese literati tried their best to refute it, they could only cover up the panic in their hearts with crazy and arrogant words.

Even this article called "Orientalism" has only been quietly circulated among the people and has not been popularized. The main reason is suppression, the suppression of local literati collective.

But here’s the funny thing. The more you suppress it and the more you write articles to refute it, the more people want to see it. The local demand for Han products has also increased a lot...

Many of the people who bought it were from local educated and wealthy families. It can be seen that these people cursed the Han Dynasty, but in their hearts they really wanted to understand the Han Dynasty.

And the more I know about it, the more shocked I am, because according to the news circulated in Han Dynasty.

The first Han king of the Han Dynasty was a merchant in the Jiangnan area of ​​China, and he was considered a wealthy family. Later, he was persecuted by the Qing court because of his work as a maritime merchant, and had no choice but to flee to America. (It turns out that being a pirate and killing people and stealing goods has been banned by Liu Peng and Liu Yan. People who know the truth now never talk about what happened back then. They wish they could find a famous ancestor for their family. After all, they are now nobles.)
Finally, it established a foothold in the Western Sea of ​​America. In the past two years, it fought a bloody battle with Mexico and captured a large area of ​​territory. It was larger and had better land than Japan, Korea and Vietnam combined.

The current Han King Liu Peng took charge of the army on behalf of his father when he was a teenager. Liu Peng almost conquered the Han Dynasty. This year, the old Han King Liu Yan became Liu Peng.

All of this makes people think of the story of Li Shimin and Li Yuan.

And what’s even funnier is that Liu Peng also has two brothers, but the Xuanwumen incident didn’t happen.

A coincidence can be a coincidence, but a pair of coincidences can hardly be called a coincidence! !
Coupled with the current immigrants of Han in Japan and even Southeast Asia, Han's reputation is actually better than Han itself imagined.

And that Oriental Theory was actually concocted by a group of Chinese literati from Jiangnan who came to the Han Dynasty to please the King of Han, hoping that Liu Penglong would be happy and reward them with an official position...

But what he didn't expect was that Liu Peng had no reaction at all after reading it, and handed the article to the Immigration Department. The purpose of this article is hard not to remind people of something...

Although this article on Orientalism was vigorously refuted and belittled by Far Eastern literati, it still did not affect the popularity of this article. This can be seen from the current sharp increase in immigrants from Eastern countries.

The most important thing is that, except for Japan, several other countries came to Han at their own expense! !
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(End of this chapter)