The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 250 Times have changed
When Tokugawa Shigetoshi was escorted to Liu Biao, he still couldn't accept the reality and kept muttering to himself:
"Why? How is this possible?

“How many warriors have you organized to come here?
"How did you train these warriors to this state?"

Liu Biao ignored these inexplicable questions.

The other party was more likely to vent his surprise rather than actually asking or confirming anything.

Liu Biao asked casually:
"Do you know if other feudal lords are planning to use Kenjin to launch a rebellion against the King of Japan and His Majesty the Great Ming?"

Tokugawa Shigetoshi was stunned for a moment, then he said very loudly:

"I know, of course I know, now almost all the feudal lords in the west have user emperors.

"It won't be long before hundreds of thousands of troops arrive to support the king.

"Don't think that this war is over just because you have defeated the Kii clan and defeated me."

Liu Biao nodded slightly after hearing this, and Tian Yiming clapped his hands in satisfaction:

"Great."

Tokugawa Shigetsu was a little confused when he saw the reactions of these two people.

He was just bluffing and threatening, but his opponent didn't show any panic at all. Instead, he seemed very satisfied and even excited.

Tokugawa Shigetsu asked subconsciously:

"What do you mean? What do you want to do?"

Liu Biao was too lazy to explain anything to him:
"Take them away, along with the captured prisoners, and send them to Africa to open up wasteland and do reeducation through labor."

Tian Yiming listened to Liu Biao's arrangement, subconsciously took two steps forward, and whispered to Liu Biao from behind:
"General, this Tokugawa Shigetsu is different from other common daimyo in that he can be considered a double rebel.

“He had been ordered by the previous king to retire and become a monk, but at this time he staged a coup and seized the Kii Domain.

“Then he led the people of Kii to fight against the current king and Ming.

“And he didn’t surrender voluntarily in the end. He was captured by the peasant soldiers he forcibly conscripted and sent here.

"So should the punishment and arrangement be different from other ordinary feudal lords?"

After hearing these reminders, Liu Biao glanced at Tokugawa Shigetoshi again:
"Then let's detain him in Kyoto first. When we gather other special criminals of this kind, we can ask His Royal Highness the Crown Prince for instructions on how to deal with him."

Tokugawa Shigetsu didn't know what was happening, and didn't know that his fate had changed drastically in the blink of an eye.

Before he could figure out what was going on, he was dragged away by the guards and continued to be detained.

Liu Biao began to stay in Kyoto, commanding 150,000 samurai divisions and 30,000 Ming Dynasty troops stationed in Japan, and began to attack the areas around Kyoto.

He attacked from all sides and completely conquered and controlled the daimyo of the Reito system provinces such as Tamba, Wakasa, Settsu, Kawachi, Izumi, Kii, Yamato, and Iga around Kyoto.

At the same time, as Tokugawa Shigetsu said, the final enemy anticipated by Liu Biao and Tian Yiming also showed signs of large-scale activities.

When Liu Biao divided his troops to take over the Osaka Plain, the feudal domains west of Kyoto finally completed the initial connection.

Liu Biao was worried that these feudal lords would build castles to defend themselves, turning Japan into a country full of castles like in the Warring States Period. It would be extremely disgusting if a war broke out at that time.

However, among these feudal lords, those who decided to try to make enemies with the Ming Dynasty Japanese King were worried about exactly the opposite.

They were worried that if they could not organize a resistance quickly, they would be defeated one by one by the rebel Tokugawa Ienari.

They couldn't imagine that Tokugawa Ienari would need to wait deliberately, and they didn't think they had the time to slowly build the city and defend it.

Only by organizing enough forces as quickly as possible and taking the initiative to attack as soon as possible can we have a chance of winning.

Among these daimyo, in fact, only a few truly supported the emperor, and most of them were planning for their own status and power.

They knew that they would most likely not win completely, after all, the Japanese king had the support of the Ming Emperor behind him.

However, they took it for granted that they would only be taken seriously if they achieved certain results on the battlefield. The mountainous geographical environment of Japan, an archipelago, determined the ancient political system of Japan, which was naturally suitable for the feudal system where each place had its own way of doing things.

Even if a certain local force is strong enough, it is difficult to truly unify the entire archipelago under the technological conditions of the agricultural era.

This geographical and political environment also influenced the way of thinking of Japan's feudal rulers.

But now times have changed. With the advent of steam sailing ships, Japan's archipelago environment is easier to connect than the interior of the mainland.

At the same time, Ming began to interfere in Japanese affairs five years ago.

Recruiting lower-class samurai and young and strong men in Japan through the channels of the Edo Shogunate of the Japanese King can be considered a positive impact on Japan.

But after the Ming Dynasty opened the door to Japan, Ming Dynasty merchants began to dump industrial products produced by Ming Dynasty factories through the shogunate's territories scattered throughout Japan.

This directly led to the bankruptcy of urban handicraft producers, and then to the bankruptcy of Japan's small peasant economy, and finally the bankruptcy of Japan's financial businessmen.

The trade impact of the Ming Dynasty on Japan was completely different in nature from the historical trade between Japan and Britain, the Netherlands and other countries.

The Ming Dynasty was too close to Japan, and its representative traditional industrial products were very similar. After the Ming Dynasty's Industrial Revolution, it suppressed Japan's handicraft industry in all aspects.

Ming merchants would even invest in rural land in Japan...

The Ming Dynasty's influence on Japan was the dumping of the colonial market by the suzerain power rather than a trade relationship.

Except for the Ming Dynasty court which specifically asked merchants to leave some room for survival for the more cooperative shogunate, most other local governors were in mourning.

Especially in the feudal towns west of Kyoto, on Kyushu Island and the western end of Honshu Island, more and more farmers and samurai have gone bankrupt in recent years.

A more important issue is that when many merchants went bankrupt and liquidated, their debts were bought out by Ming Dynasty merchants.

As a result, many debts owed by samurai and daimyo were transferred from Japanese merchants to Ming merchants.

Japanese daimyo and samurai could refuse to pay debts owed by ordinary merchants. The worst consequence was that it would become more difficult to borrow money again.

If the merchant pushed too hard, the warrior might even feel insulted and start attacking him with a knife.

However, when faced with merchants from the Ming Dynasty, these samurai and daimyo had no way to default on their debts.

When facing Japanese samurai and daimyo, Ming merchants were not as cautious and polite as Japanese merchants. They would directly block the door and demand debts.

It didn’t matter if Japanese samurai and daimyo couldn’t come up with the money, they could just use their land and estates as collateral.

In Japan's original social system and economic system, all the land in Japan was owned by the samurai and could not be sold to ordinary people, but could only be distributed to subjects.

As for the peasants, they can basically be regarded as appendages of the fiefdom.

But the merchants of the Ming Dynasty did not care about this. In their view, land can be traded, and it is most appropriate to use land and manors to pay off debts when one cannot pay back the money.

The mortgage, loan and transfer contracts written by Ming merchants in accordance with Ming customs were recognized by the Ming envoys arranged by the Ming Dynasty, and the shogunate was ordered to enforce them.

The merchants of the Ming Dynasty also treated the people differently according to their circumstances. For ordinary warriors of the middle and low levels who were in debt, they would directly force them to give up their fiefdoms and mortgage the fiefdoms directly to the merchants.

As for the daimyos in various places, they would not really force them to death, but would adopt the method of infiltration.

Demanding privileges such as the Ming Dynasty's tax agency rights and material monopoly rights was actually an attempt to undermine and erode the power of these daimyo through commercial means.

In recent years, Japanese farmers, samurai, and daimyo have been driven to death by Ming Dynasty merchants.

This is also one of the most important reasons why other daimyo, besides the Edo Tokugawa family, rebelled against the Japanese king and opposed loyalty to the Ming emperor.

The lord of Satsuma Domain, Shimazu Shigehiko, the lord of Choshu Domain, Mori Haruchi, and the lord of Tosa Domain, Yamauchi Toyosaku, respectively connected the domains of Kyushu Island, western Honshu Island, and Shikoku Island.

The main thing was to defeat the small number of feudal lords who decided to follow the Japanese king and control these fiefdoms and samurai.

They eventually integrated the samurai they could control, recruited a group of peasant soldiers, and divided them into three groups to go to Kyoto and Osaka to participate in the war.

(End of this chapter)