Red Mansion: I am Jia Lian

Chapter 595 Assistance
Jia Lian was sincere in helping the shogunate. The so-called emperor must continue to exist, and whoever wants to take control of the country should go to Luoyang.

This model is very good, don’t change it, that’s the decision.

In the winter of the 21st year of Chenghui, ships loaded with weapons from the Zhou Empire appeared in Edo Bay.

The Minister of the Honglu Temple personally visited Edo and met with Tokugawa. The two sides had a friendly meeting and reached consensus on some issues.

The Shaoqing said that the Tokugawa shogunate has made outstanding contributions and efforts to the stability of relations between the two countries. His Majesty the Emperor is deeply gratified and will never sit idly by and watch traitors overthrow the shogunate.

On behalf of the Zhou Empire court, the Shaoqing donated 10,000 rifles, 20 field guns, and a team of military instructors to the shogunate.

The purpose was to help the shogunate build a capable army in the shortest possible time. To this end, these military equipment did not require money, but only required the use of prisoners of war to pay for the expenses after the war.

It is not known whether the shogunate saw Lord Jia’s sinister intentions, but he had no choice anyway.

As for the loyalty of Japanese immigrants, is this still a problem? During World War II, there were Japanese regiments fighting in Europe, and their fighting spirit was the best in the entire army.

At the same time, with the help of the merchant group and the monk group, the thirteen daimyo headed by the Choshu clan united and shouted the slogan "Respect the king and repel Zhou, return power to the king."

These people were not stupid. They knew who they could not afford to offend, so they sent a special delegation to the Zhou Empire, hoping to persuade the Zhou Empire not to interfere.

Unfortunately, they were a little late. The Zhou Empire's actions were more efficient and all the equipment was landed.

Although the Beiyang Fleet was in a shabby state and could not be compared with the Nanyang Navy, it was still the most powerful maritime force in this sea area. Among them, the ten third-class battleships were the invincible force in this sea area. The emperor gave Jia Lian the responsibility for the military operation against Satsuma Domain and did not deal with the memorials from the Ministry of War. In order to facilitate Jia Lian's actions, Emperor Chenghui granted Jia Lian the title of Minister of War and commanded the navy and army.

In general, Emperor Chenghui did not trust the Ministry of War from the bottom of his heart, as this kind of action to demonstrate national power and deter disobedience. In other words, after Emperor Chenghui learned about some of Yue Qi's actions, he no longer trusted him.

Jia Lian was not in a hurry to send troops immediately. Instead, he sent someone to Guangzhou to pass on a message, requesting that a squadron of eight main warships and eight auxiliary ships from the Nanyang Fleet be dispatched northward. He also dispatched six third-level battleships and six auxiliary ships from the Beiyang Fleet to form an eastern expedition fleet with the northward-bound Nanyang squadron.

The mission of this fleet was simple: to blockade the Satsuma Domain.

Any ship found in this area will be sunk immediately.

Of course, the first priority was not to blockade the waters near Satsuma, but to save Ryukyu.

The General Staff formulated a plan to have the Beiyang Fleet cut off the route from Satsuma to Ryukyu, and the Nanyang Squadron would cover the landing of the Marines.

That’s right, the Nanyang Fleet now has a Marine Corps, although it only has two units.

The existence of the Nanyang Fleet actually undermined the Navy Yamen. The Navy Yamen had reported this matter to the emperor, but there was no response.

Of the Navy Office's original grand plan for four naval divisions, only the Beiyang Fleet and the Nanyang Fleet have been implemented, while the other fleets remain the same.

However, the funding has not been reduced. No one knows where the 10 million yuan of funding each year has gone.

The current situation is that the emperor does not investigate, and the cabinet officials pretend not to see it. You can call it a compromise or an unspoken rule, anyway, this is the current situation.

In short, the 2 million yuan of funding for the Nanyang Fleet was directly intercepted from the Guangzhou Customs. The rest of the funding was left alone, as the hands were not that long.

If you carefully check the Navy Yamen, you will easily find that a group of former nobles all received a salary from the Navy Yamen.

Commander of the Nanyang Squadron, Cai Shiba, stood on the bridge, holding the latest telescope in his hand, looking at the fleeing ships on the sea with a look of dissatisfaction on his face.

"Our skills are so advanced, but we still can't catch up. If Lord Jia finds out that we are not doing our job well, we will all be punished."

The deputy next to him said nothing, but his face was livid and he gritted his teeth.

Finally, the fleeing turtle ship was caught up by a warship. The booming sound of the cannons made the deputy look better.

"Finally we hit it! Fortunately there are no naturalized foreigners in the fleet, otherwise they would laugh at us to death." Ten minutes later, Cai Shiba finally showed a little smile, but it was very forced.

After eight warships blockaded the port, the Marines began to land. The first team of soldiers had just stood firm when a general wearing armor and riding a pony appeared five hundred meters away, followed by thousands of short-headed soldiers.

The Marine officer saw the enemy through the telescope and shouted, "Attention, the enemy has muskets! Raise the flag and the naval guns will open fire to cover! Don't let them shoot at our own people."

The signalman immediately turned around, stood on a high place and waved the small flag in his hand to send out the message.

Soon, the covering warship replied: "The shells don't have eyes, hide yourself and don't charge so hard."

The captain who landed ashore later was so angry when he heard the signalman's answer that he started to curse: "How can we hide at such a short distance? These bastards are trying to scare us."

Just as he finished speaking, there was a loud bang and an armed merchant ship 200 meters away from the shore opened fire. The shells flew over his head and landed 300 meters ahead.

After stirring up smoke and dust, it rolled forward for dozens of meters before stopping. The enemy troops that were advancing stopped.

After a burst of screaming, these people continued to move forward like crazy, and no one knew what they were shouting.

Because of the water depth, the third-class battleships could not get too close to the shore, and the thirty-six twelve-jin cannons equipped on the armed merchant ships became the main force of cover.

Boom, boom, boom! The three armed merchant ships, risking a run-aground, approached the shore and opened fire one after another.

The continuous artillery fire finally fell on the crowd, like plowing the land, plowing bloody grooves in the crowd.

The team of thousands of people, after being devastated by dozens of bloody trenches, suddenly turned around and ran away. A closer look revealed that the general hiding behind had run away first.

The Marine, who hadn’t fired a single shot, was furious and told the signalman to reply, “Don’t fire so hard next time!”

The warship on the sea replied: "Next time we won't give you artillery cover."

After seeing the flag communication between the two sides through the telescope, Fleet Commander Cai Shiba instructed his deputy: "Find out who is chatting using flag language, and let them go to clean the toilet for three days."

The landing of a target Marine Corps was very smooth. The landing began in the morning. At dusk, the Marines captured the dock and the fleet was finally able to enter the port smoothly.

The next day, after the Marines surrounded the palace, they learned that the enemy had escaped and held the Ryukyu King hostage, and left on three ships. What made Cai Shiba even more angry was that the Beiyang Fleet, which was responsible for intercepting the route, did not stop the escaping enemy general and the hostage Ryukyu King.

This time the attack was a dud, and Cai Shiba was so angry that he kept cursing.

The local wealthy families in Ryukyu were all happy to welcome the royal teacher, but to their regret, the royal teacher suddenly turned against them and detained the representatives of the four major families.

Then they were asked separately whether they were colluding with the Japanese pirates and why the four major families did not resist or serve the king, even though there were merchants from the Great Zhou here before and their armed merchant ships could provide help.

Faced with the sudden change of hostility from the king's teacher, the four major families were completely powerless to resist. They all knelt on the ground and begged for mercy, trying desperately to explain that it was not that they would not resist or serve the king, but that they simply did not have the strength to do so.

While the four major families were explaining, they all pointed out that the other three families had colluded with the Japanese pirates to plunder and traffic in human beings.

After the investigation results were compiled into a book, Cai Shiba didn't care about them anymore and left it to his staff to deal with.

After resting for three days, the main force of the fleet continued northward using the port of Naha as a supply base.

The interrogation records and Cai Shiba's memorial impeaching the lieutenant general in charge of the Beiyang Fleet were sent to Tianjin and then to the capital.

To be honest, when Jia Lian saw the impeachment memorial and the interrogation records, he was not curious at all.

It was already the 22nd day of the first lunar month in the 22nd year of Chenghui. While others were busy celebrating the New Year, Jia Lian had already been in Tianjin for half a month.

In other words, Jia Lian was a kind person and did not occupy the naval office. Instead, he set up his headquarters in a manor near the dock.

"It's the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. The Nanyang Fleet acted quite quickly, landing on the tenth day and taking the royal palace on the thirteenth day. What are those people in the Beiyang Fleet doing? Forward this report to the Navy Yamen and ask them to send someone to explain it clearly." Jia Lian still gave face to Niu Jizong and did not send it directly to the capital.

After Niu Jizong received the official document, he immediately sent his subordinates to negotiate. He personally did not come, not because he did not want to come, but because he could not come because he was sick.

This time his illness was not an excuse, he was really sick. He collapsed due to heart disease on the third day of the first lunar month. After the imperial physician examined him, he thought that he could not manage his affairs and needed to stay in bed to rest.

Niu Jizong chose to be the leader of the so-called nobles and became the Prime Minister of the Navy Office. For him personally, it was undoubtedly not a good choice, but for the nobles as a group, it was a good thing. As the nobles were constantly marginalized in the Beijing camp, the Navy Office became their last bastion.

Jia Lian, who was also born into a noble family, chose another path. He went out to sea to explore and built the Nanyang Fleet and the Nanyang New Army. In name, the Nanyang Fleet and the Nanyang New Army were respectively under the jurisdiction of the Nanyang Minister and the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, and the Governor of Guangdong. In fact, the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi had been vacant for many years, and no successor had been appointed. The emperor was not in a hurry, and the cabinet was not in a hurry either. The Nanyang Minister was led by Li Yuanyao.

The key point is that the officials under the Nanyang Minister's Office are all criminals. They were all people who committed crimes while serving as officials in the mainland and were exiled to Nanyang.

The biggest wish of these people is to return to the mainland to become officials, and their biggest hope is Li Yuan.

Can you still expect these people to get involved in the military power of Nanyang? That would be a joke.

In contrast, officials in Guangdong and Guangxi were more self-conscious. Although Jia Lian did not enter the cabinet, they still consciously gathered under Jia Lian's tutelage, but they did not raise the banner.

Together with the Ministry of Industry, the Research and Development Department, the Honglu Temple, some Qingyun faction, and some young officials, Jia Lian's power is actually quite large. And this is not counting the power left by Zhang Tingen and the group of people under Lin Ruhai.

There is a popular saying in official circles that although Jia Gong has not entered the cabinet, he is actually a cabinet minister.

This is all very implicit. Some people with ulterior motives have already spread the word privately that the cabinet is Jia Buqi's cabinet.

In other words, Jia Lian is a low-key person and the emperor still trusts him very much. If it were any other minister, he would have been impeached countless times by the Inspectorate.

The charges are ready-made, and they have their own troops.

In fact, many censors impeached Jia Lian, but every time the impeachment was sent to Fang Song, Fang Song would call the censor over and have a face-to-face talk.

When the results of the talks were good, the censors would stop their activities. When the results were not good, the censors would be transferred away.

The transferred censors were all sent to the same place, either Guangxi or the new province. The Ministry of Personnel was also quite cooperative and never questioned anything.

Some ministers have already cried out in grief and anger at private gatherings, saying that Mr. Jia has absolute power in the officialdom!
When Jia Lian heard this, he felt very wronged. What did I do? I did nothing.

There are still people impeaching Jia Lian, and there are many charges against him, such as being late for work and leaving early, and being untidy in dress.

An angry Jiangnan official wrote an article in the newspaper to criticize Jia. [When the censor impeached the ministers for their performance, they always accused some young officials of misconduct. This is like scratching an itch through a shoe. If this continues, it will not be able to correct the atmosphere in the court and the country. It can be seen that they are in collusion with each other, colluding with each other to deceive the emperor.]

Then this newspaper was closed down, and this famous scholar from Jiangnan failed the exam for the Nth time.

Can Jia Lian mention it? Yes, he can. Some shameless newspapers have a deep understanding of journalism and know what people like to read, so they write about it.

These newspapers also "attacked" Jia Lian, often using the name of "a certain young important official", attacking him for his chaotic private life and for having many mistresses. Wherever he went, he would have multiple mistresses.

That’s the extent of it. If you say anything else, people won’t believe it.

In fact, everyone in the capital city knew who the "young and important official" referred to, and everyone believed the gossip about that person.

Newspapers sold very well with titles like [A night out with a famous Kunqu opera artist, group sex].

In just one year, Jia Lian maintained more than one hundred famous Kunqu opera actors and more than eight hundred concubines in the newspapers.

What's even more outrageous is that some people have written a special "Jia Sheng Series" about the emperor's uncle, such as Jia Sheng's meeting at the Broken Bridge during a visit to West Lake, Jia Sheng rescuing a prostitute during a trip to Suzhou, and meeting Jia Sheng while selling himself to bury his father.

There are all kinds of postures. Anyway, among the top ten best-selling books of the year, books of this category account for half of the top thirty.

In other words, no one dared to write about other types of drama besides Kunqu Opera, as this was a taboo. Someone actually wrote "The Story of Jia Sheng and a Certain Famous Actor That Must Be Told", and the author is still fishing on an isolated island in Southeast Asia. The truth is widely circulated among the authors: gender must be fixed, otherwise, without making any money, one would go fishing on an isolated island in Southeast Asia.

The affairs of Satsuma Domain were all minor matters. A mere name could not cause much trouble. What Jia Lian really cared about was the situation of the shogunate. The Tokugawa Shogun really couldn't be too useless.

In fact, the current Shogun is still very capable. After obtaining the original assistance of the Great Zhou, he quickly assembled an armed force of 20,000 people.

(End of this chapter)