Jiajing Chengming

"Do I have any other choice?"

Xu Jie asked with a smile.

Wang Shizhong sighed and said, "But this is already a directly governed area of ​​the imperial court. If it really flourishes and brings a lot of profits to the imperial court, it will make the scholars of the world even more spineless in front of Your Majesty!"

"Yes, I thought that Japan only had a lot of silver and bandits, but I didn't expect that they also had a lot of fertile land that could be cultivated into good fields."

"Now it seems that the emperor is indeed wise and knows that expanding borders is more beneficial than maintaining the status quo."

"If you can maintain the status quo, the scholars will be more respected; if you expand the border, the emperor will be more powerful and blessed."

Tong Rui followed up and looked at Xu Jie:
"By the way, among the scholars, the upright and old scholars will no longer be as precious as before, and becoming a general or a prime minister may become the aspiration of the ministers, and make the world return to the pursuit of the Han and Tang dynasties!"

Wang Shizhong nodded and said, "That's right. Otherwise, a scholar like Xu Qianxian would not stay in the Hanlin Academy to be a governor, and would not take the initiative to come here to be a governor. He would also take the initiative to seize the profits of the wealthy families in Jiangnan for the court, and force them to convert their mulberry and cotton fields into rice fields."

Xu Jie couldn't help but smile again: "Don't tease me, both of you! But what you said is also true. The current situation is controlled by the emperor, not the gentry! If I don't do this, I'm afraid I will really be laughed at as a corrupt scholar."

As soon as Xu Jie finished speaking, he saw several large sailing ships flying the Ming Dynasty national flag "Beidou Flag" passing by Hinode Town.

at that time.

There was even a small boat that came over to the makeshift pier.

Then, a Ming soldier on a small boat ran up to Xu Jie with a letter tube on his back and said, "We are here to ask, but has Xu Qianxian waited here?"

Xu Jie replied: "Exactly, what are you doing?"

"Reply to the Minister, we are transporting the second batch of silver back to the court."

The Ming army soldier replied.

After hearing this, Xu Jie nodded.

The Ming soldier then took the letter tube off his body, handed it to Xu Jie and said, "Our Huo Chenxian has an official document for Xu Chenxian, saying that if Hiji Town cannot accommodate too many Japanese, they can all be sent to Iwami. Iwami is still in great need of miners."

Xu Jie took the letter box, opened it, took out the letter, and said as he read it, "I understand. You can go back now."

The Ming army soldier then left by boat.

After the Ming soldiers left by boat, Wang Shizhong murmured to himself, "Another shipment of silver is coming back to the country! Your Majesty, it is possible that you will become the most benevolent and holy ruler in history by expanding the border!"

"That's right, Your Majesty loves the people like his own children, and will benefit all the people as soon as he has money! And now, there really is so much money overseas, I'm afraid he can really become a king like Yao and Shun."

Tong Rui followed up.

Wang Shizhong smiled bitterly when he said this: "Although scholars are determined to make their rulers and fathers like Yao and Shun after becoming officials, when they really see that their rulers and fathers have the potential to become rulers like Yao and Shun, they can't help but be like Ye Gong who loves dragons."

"Then there can only be real good dragons, not fake good dragons."

"Like Xu Qianxian, he should no longer pursue being a clean official and let the emperor treat him with courtesy, so that he can be worthy of being called Yao and Shun. Instead, he should take the initiative to be a law-abiding official and be driven by him, so that the world can truly become the era of Yao and Shun."

Tong Rui said this and sighed, "It's a pity that Peng Ze, Ma Lu and others are so despicable that we are now implicated by them and stranded here. Otherwise, if we were in the court, we would be more loyal than Zhang Fujing and others!"

Wang Shizhong nodded, staring at the sea and said, "Yuan Shishou taught the emperor so well, no one in the world expected it. But, I wonder how much Yang Xindu regrets his decision now!"

While the two were talking to each other, Xu Jie had already returned to the Sunrise City and Fuyuan Yamen that the Ming army had organized the Japanese to temporarily build for him.

As soon as Xu Jie arrived at the yamen, he saw a group of Japanese servants kneeling there.

Xu Jie was quite surprised and asked Gao Ke, the captain who stayed behind in the court:
"Is this what happened?"

Gao Ke replied: "They are the local servants among the Japanese recruits. They came to express their gratitude to us. They thanked the governor for setting up a clinic for them, distributing land to them, and even teaching them how to grow mulberry and cotton, so that they could escape the suffering of war."

After hearing this, Xu Jie frowned slightly in thought, then smiled and asked, "I'm afraid there are more than these?"

"They also want to work for the Qianyuan and be qualified to carry a sword for the Qianyuan Miaozi."

Gao Ke replied.

Before coming to Japan, Xu Jie made a quick study of the situation in Japan.

Therefore, he knew that the Japanese Ji Shi was a prestigious person among the peasants in the Japanese countryside, equivalent to the local celebrities of the Ming Dynasty, and the word "daidao" in the surname meant that one had the right to carry a sword.

But the hierarchy in Japan was stricter than that in the Ming Dynasty, so non-samurai nobles were not allowed to carry swords.

If a local servant wants to be named after a warrior and carry a sword, he must rely on the lord and obtain the official title and surname granted by the lord.

Xu Jie knew that these people came here because they wanted to get promoted and seek official positions and status.

"Let them all come into the hall."

to this end.

Xu Jie gave just this instruction and entered the lobby of the Court first.

Soon, these Japanese servants came into the hall one after another and knelt in front of Xu Jie.

"The government has provided us with food relief, freed us from the suffering of war, and given us land to cultivate. We are deeply grateful! We would like to be the people of the government!"

The people of the country are the same as the servants in the Ming Dynasty.

As soon as these local servants arrived, they expressed their gratitude to Xu Jie with tears in their eyes, and also expressed their desire to be Xu Jie's servants.

But Xu Jie did not dare to become a big shot in Japan, nor did he want to become a big shot in Japan.

First, his power came from the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

If he really dares to establish his own regime, the emperor will punish him, and the domestic ruling class will not tolerate him.

After all, the national conditions of the Ming Dynasty and Japan are different. Thousands of years of historical experience have made people from top to bottom in the country dislike division and are afraid of the emergence of separatist regimes.

Secondly, being a daimyo in Japan, especially a small daimyo with only one town, is not as profitable as being a nobleman in the country, especially not as great as the pleasure of power that will come from becoming a court noble in the future.

After all, if you become a minister in the Ming Dynasty, you can participate in the decision-making of the fate of hundreds of millions of people. Therefore, Xu Jie instructed the interpreter at this time: "Tell them that if they want to thank someone, they should thank the current emperor of the Ming Dynasty. It is because of the current emperor's great grace that he allowed me to come here as an envoy to comfort them and let them settle down."

When Xu Jie's words were conveyed to the ears of these local servants through the interpreter, they all opened their mouths in shock.

Mainly because of the collapse of rituals and music in Japan, it has been a long time since there has been a local minister with real power who truly respects the emperor.

So, these land attendants will be very surprised.

"As for them, if they want to be qualified to carry a sword, they must be educated!"

"First, we must have the moral integrity of loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness. Loyalty means being loyal to the great emperor of Ming Dynasty, filial piety means being filial to parents, benevolence means loving the weak and young, and righteousness means not harming others and only helping others."

"Secondly, you must speak the Chinese language and write Chinese characters. You must not act like barbarians anymore!"

"Finally, we must change our customs and habits, abandon foreign ways, from small things like clothing to big things like etiquette."

"As long as they are willing to accept, I will ask the emperor to grant them a surname, and first allow them to wear a sword, so that they can teach the barbarians for the emperor."

Xu Jie then said to the interpreter: "Let them think about it. If they agree to follow the teachings and be loyal to the current Ming emperor, they should kneel on the left. If they disagree, they should kneel on the right."

After hearing this, all the servants knelt to the left.

This is mainly because Japan is now in a state of disarray.

The upper class Japanese people did not take the emperor and the shogunate seriously. In each state, the situation of the inferior overthrowing the superior was everywhere, and it was common for them to rebel in the morning and surrender in the evening.

The lower-class Japanese would work for anyone who gave them a bowl of rice, and some would even work as mercenaries for Chinese pirates and Western barbarians.

Therefore, these local servants did not have any psychological burden when accepting the Ming Dynasty's unification of them.

Xu Jie then gave them swords and allowed them to live under the Sunrise City and obey orders.

These samurai were very happy because in other Ritsuryo provinces in Wa, only samurai were qualified to live in castle towns.

Simultaneously.

Afterwards, these local servants were deeply impressed by the differences between the nobles of the Ming Dynasty and their own Japanese nobles.

There were some local samurai who had studied with some country samurai because of their good family background, such as local samurai Tanakamaru, who could not help but sigh and said: "Ming is a more civilized and well-educated country. The guardian sent here is so loyal that he refuses to raise his own soldiers and only asks us to be loyal to their emperor!"

"No wonder we Japanese are not as good as them in farming, weaving, shipbuilding, and medicine. They really know more about etiquette and observe more manners. This is the noble cultivation of the people of the superior country!"

After Tanakamaru said this, a ground attendant named Abaomaru also echoed:
"Yes, perhaps they are generally wiser than us, knowing that loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and love are the foundation, and that respecting sovereignty will bring long-term peace to the world, instead of being like our daimyo, who fight everywhere for their own selfish desires. So even if this Xu Qianyuan came here to serve as a guard, he did not ask us to be loyal only to him, but to the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty!"

"That's right. This is why they have always insisted on unification and why they have refrained from using military force. Even when the poor Japanese among us went to plunder the Ming Dynasty, they did not attack us on a large scale. Instead, they patrolled and stopped the war, intending to educate us so that we can settle down. How noble this is!"

Tanakamaru continued to sigh.

The middle and lower classes in Japan, who had suffered from war and power dispersion, could easily accept the ideas of great unification and centralization, and were even eager for it, hoping that they could use this to keep everything in order here.

That’s why Tanakamaru and Abaomaru have so many sighs.

However, the national concept of this era was still very weak. Even Japan's awareness in this regard was not as good as that of the Han people in the Ming Dynasty.

Because the Ming Dynasty had experienced the Invasion of the Five Barbarians and the Mongols, and had really been treated like a two-legged sheep and a fourth-rate person.

Historically, most people in the Ming Dynasty accepted the rule of the Qing Dynasty for this reason.

So, what about the Japanese, who were still in a period of war at that time.

"We are here to protect the envoys. The Ouchi clan has violated their promise and brazenly invaded our Anyi. Please, His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, make the decision!"

After meeting the local servant who came to the Ming Dynasty's direct control area, Xu Jie received a letter from the daimyo of Aki Province in Wa, Amago Nobuhisa.

It turned out that the Ouchi clan was currently attacking the Amago clan, and the Ming Dynasty was able to obtain the Iwami Silver Mine because the inspecting ministers Huo Tao and Zhang Tong intervened in the war, assisted the Amago clan in repelling the Ouchi clan, forced the Ouchi clan to hand over Iwami, and at the same time agreed to their recovery of Aki, thus mediating the reconciliation between the Ouchi clan and the Amago clan.

But now, the Ouchi clan is attacking the Amago clan again, and it is obvious that they are still determined to destroy the Amago clan and unify Japan.

Xu Jie’s main responsibility was to maintain peace in Japan on behalf of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, he immediately sent out a force of 500 musketeers and 200 artillerymen to assist Amago Nobunaga, and brought a letter to the Ouchi clan through the Otomo clan, saying that if the Ouchi clan insisted on continuing to invade the Amago clan and bring disaster to the people, he would attack the Ouchi clan on behalf of the Emperor.

It took more than ten years for Japan to have firearms, which were what the Japanese themselves called iron cannons. Therefore, after the Ming Dynasty's 500-man musketeer and 200-man artillery team joined, Amago Nobunaga defeated the Ouchi clan's offensive at the beginning of the seventh year of the Jiajing reign. Tao Xingfang, an important official of the Ouchi clan, was even killed by the sudden appearance of the Ming army's vehicle-mounted machine guns and large muskets.

The head of the Ouchi clan, Ouchi Yoshioki, and his son Ouchi Yoshitaka had no choice but to withdraw their troops.

"Why should the Ming Dynasty interfere in our affairs? The Shogun doesn't care about us raising an army to attack, but he wants to!"

Ouchi Yoshioki was so angry about this that he complained to Ouchi Yoshitaka.

Ouchi Yoshitaka was also very depressed about this, and he just said: "Of course they don't want us to unify, so they don't allow us to destroy people. It's just that the Ming Dynasty is so powerful, and they want to intervene. We can't do anything. If we don't listen to them, they may join forces with other daimyo to destroy us!"

"hateful!"

“It’s really abominable!”

Ouchi Yoshioki, who had great ambitions but was unable to realize them due to the intervention of the Ming Dynasty, could only roar in frustration, and eventually fell ill prematurely, instead of falling ill at the end of the seventh year of Jiajing as in history.

Soon after, the depressed Ouchi Yoshioki died, and Ouchi Yoshitaka became the new head of the family.

Because of the intervention of the Ming Dynasty, Ouchi Yoshitaka voluntarily gave up his political ambitions, began to indulge in entertainment and cultural undertakings, and therefore began to rely on his retainer Sagara Taketoshi, who was from the civil faction.

After witnessing the power of Ming firearms for the second time, Amago Nobunaga again proposed the idea of ​​purchasing firearms to Xu Jie, and his reason was that the Ouchi clan was still determined to destroy him and might invade him again, even though Ouchi Yoshitaka no longer had any political ambitions.

Xu Jie reported this matter and the matter of the concubines in Zhitong District being asked to carry swords with their surnames to Emperor Jiajing.

Jiajing convened a court meeting for this purpose.

"Your Majesty, I am against selling firearms to the Niko clan. Those who are not of our race must have different hearts. We cannot export firearms to foreigners, otherwise there will inevitably be trouble! Moreover, the Niko clan said that it was for self-protection, but it may be to realize his greater ambitions!"

At this time, the cabinet minister Lin Jun first put forward his own opinions. (End of this chapter)