The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 540: Tokugawa Shogun, the big one needs strength
It can be said that most political systems have a unique template of extreme decadence, or an ultimate conservative form.

For example, the central civil service system, which was popular in China for thousands of years and was represented by Confucianism, immediately began to become conservative and inward-looking after losing all its enterprising spirit in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty.

This conservatism does not refer to the conservatism of social atmosphere, but the conservatism of attitude.

This is mainly manifested in the expectation of following an orderly and unchanging routine, weakening the class and other aspects of the country, and shifting from balanced development to focusing on only one aspect, which is the most conducive to this group's permanent control of power.

These civil servants have set aside the throne and treated the people as serfs. They tolerate external affairs as much as they can, but will kill anyone who dares to touch their interests.

He claims to be a gentleman and speaks for the people of the world, but in fact he only cares about the interests of his own small group.

They will cry and wail if the national treasury spends a penny, and turn a blind eye to their own extravagant lives. Occasionally, if there are two outliers among them, they will rise up and attack them.

So during the period of reflection in the Republic of China, some people scolded the literati and scholars of the Qing Dynasty as stinking dogs, and Lu Xun said they were cannibals.

At this time, the Tokugawa shogunate was not much better than the civil service group on the mainland, but it was also a rival.

When the shogunate system of Japan came to the Tokugawa family, it had the same behavior.

He has deprived himself of power and treated his compatriots like serfs, exploiting them madly. He has isolated himself with a conservative attitude, hoping to enjoy power forever until he grows old.

However, although China and Japan reached such an extremely conservative state at the same time, the lives of the two sides were still very different.

In China, life can still be sustained under this situation. After all, the vast land and abundant resources are no joke.

In Japan, in this era without modern breeding and modern fertilizers, this land is a truly desolate place.

Even the Kanto Plain, which sounds very rich, is actually a place with a low annual temperature, with an average temperature of 24 or 25 degrees Celsius in summer and around zero degrees Celsius in winter, which is not very suitable for growing crops.

In addition, the Kanto Plain is prone to flooding, the low altitude makes it easy for seawater to flow back, and the soil is highly acidic. The elements are simply all gathered together.

Historically, the Tokugawa family went to great lengths to govern this place. It is estimated that the bodies of the dead civilians could be used to build a seawall in Tokyo Bay.

What kind of place does this resemble? It's a bit like the terrifying offshore low-temperature swamp in early northern Germany, or the terrifying Black Forest in Württemberg in southwestern Germany.

With such a harsh geographical environment, the first problem faced was food insecurity. That is why Japan has always had a small population and a hard life in history. Most of the time, it was even worse than Korea on the peninsula.

At least North Korea still has a coastal delta with a suitable climate formed by the four rivers: the Chongchon River, the Taedong River, the Han River, and the Nakdong River.

Not only are the productivity and soil poor, but the Tokugawa shogunate also loves to make trouble.

The founding patriarch of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the old turtle, really brought the characteristics of a turtle and his ability to hide to the extreme.

Unlike before, he did not try to suppress other daimyo by force, but chose to stay in Edo and impoverish other daimyo through economic means.

The series of systems he created, such as the Sankinkotai, successfully brought down the finances of all the daimyo in Japan.

Then, in order to maintain the status and grandeur of Edo and the extravagance in Kyoto, the Tokugawa family collapsed its own finances.

By this time, the entire Japanese nation was a group of miserable paupers, each one poorer than the other.

"Lord Wei, the chief is waiting in the hall. Please pay attention to your manners and do not be disrespectful."

Edo Castle, in the Honmaru Palace where Shogun Tokugawa lived.

Hearing the reminder from the young man next to him, Wei Yonghe, who was already dressed like a Japanese man except for his Chinese-style bun, nodded solemnly in agreement.

But in fact, he was quite disdainful in his heart. The small country of Japan, with its short people and short palaces, was more imposing than the Central Plains of China.

Wei Yonghe is a Tang person, but his four generations of ancestors were all born in Nagasaki.

It turns out that their Wei family was originally from Yongqing, Fujian. More than a hundred years ago, the Ming Dynasty collapsed, especially after Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the Qing Dynasty.

Wei Yonghe's sixth-generation ancestor Wei Zhiyan was unwilling to shave his head and change his clothes, and he had been engaged in trade from Japan to Annan, or more precisely, from Nagasaki to Hoi An.

So he simply took his family, sold his ancestral property, left his hometown, and sailed directly to Japan.

After that, Wei Zhiyan and his descendants continued to engage in this trade route and received support from the Nagasaki Bugyo of the Tokugawa shogunate. They were one of the few maritime merchants who could trade from Japan.

Wei Zhiyan even lived in Hoi An for several years, married a Chaozhou woman from Annan as his concubine, and left a group of people in Hoi An.

Such a family is naturally a fellow traveler of mine, Emperor Mo.

Wei Yongqing, a descendant of Wei Zhiyan who stayed in Hoi An, sent two hundred Japanese people from Hoi An to serve as soldiers when Mo Zibu started the rebellion, and continued to make bets afterwards.

Although Wei Yongqing made some mistakes in judgment afterwards and did not have time to make a big bet to become a meritorious official, he was still doing well.

Now that the small branch of the Wei family in Hui'an has risen, the direct lineage of the Wei family in Nagasaki will naturally follow suit.

After passing through several small houses, you will arrive at the Teikanma Hall of the Hakushoin in the Honmaru Palace. This is an important place in the Tokugawa Shogun's palace in Edo Castle.

It is called the Emperor's Mirror Room because this is a relatively large hall. On the partitions of each Japanese-style tatami room, which are paper doors that can be closed by sliding, there are many portraits of Tang Dynasty emperors, as well as pictures of their travels and hunting trips.

Well, if Mo Zibu saw this, he would scold me for having evil intentions.

Because these imperial portraits and hunting pictures of the Tang Dynasty emperors were added after Jiashen, their intention is naturally self-evident.

In Japan before the Meiji Restoration, no matter how hard the upper-class culture struggled, it could not escape the Chinese debate on Hua and Yi. Even when they later abandoned the debate on Hua and Yi and tried to break away from Asia and join Europe, they actually failed.

Therefore, the sliding doors between the imperial mirrors, which the Japanese call shoji, are painted with pictures of Tang Dynasty emperors, the sudden rise of Tang style in Japan around this time, and the seemingly generous attitude of Shogun Tokugawa in taking in many Ming survivors.

The reason is the same as why the Joseon Dynasty insisted on using the Chongzhen era name, and why Nguyen Hue of Vietnam wanted to be Chen Guojun, then Zhao Tuo, and even Chen Baxian.

They all used the debate between Hua and Yi, believing that the Qing Dynasty used Yi to rule Hua, and that the Hua and Yi in China were reversed. It was not that the Yi entered Hua and became Chinese, but that Hua was destroyed by the Yi.

And those of them, the so-called Little China on the Peninsula, Little China in the South, Tang Dynasty in Japan, etc., who inherited Chinese civilization, inherited the Chinese tradition and transformed themselves into Chinese by using barbarians.

The person who summoned Wei Yonghe this time was Tanuma Okitsugu, the senior councilor of the Shogun Tokugawa Ieharu.

The so-called Laochu can be understood as the chief of staff of the Tokugawa shogunate. Of course, there was originally a Dai Lao above the Laochu of the shogunate, who was the real chief of staff.

However, since the position of the elder was too powerful and the qualified people had too high prestige, it was somewhat suspected of usurping the position of the elder. Therefore, after the then elder Ii Naoki retired in 1714, no new one was appointed.

Tanuma Okiji glanced at Wei Yonghe who was kneeling in front of him, showed his usual Japanese signature fake smile, and nodded with a hint of arrogance.

"I have long heard of the deeds of the Great Yu Emperor in the Middle-earth who restored the country. He is truly a great man of his time."

Tanuma Okitsugu was not of high birth, but he was favored by Shogun Tokugawa Ieharu, so he was able to summon a businessman who did not have a high status in Japan at that time to the Shogun's Hakushoin.

This guy is also very interesting. In Japan, which has always emphasized agriculture and suppressed commerce, in order to solve the financial problems of the shogunate, he actually did the opposite and implemented mercantilism.

A series of copper seat monopolies and a series of systems to stimulate the commodity economy were established.

For example, efforts are being made to develop mines and increase the export of foreign trade products, namely Japan's traditional three dried sea cucumbers, dried abalone, and shark fins, etc., which are drastic policies.

Well, how should I put it, it did solve some of the shogunate's financial problems in the short term. At least the Shogun Tokugawa Ieharu's food and clothing became more affordable, and he became much more generous in rewarding his attendants, memorial officers, and other people around him.

The Koga Hundred-Man Cannon Group finally got new cannons, and occasionally they were willing to fire them just to hear the noise.

But the problems left behind are too serious. Given Japan's productivity and land quality, and more importantly, the shogunate system and the quality of its officials, emphasizing commerce and encouraging the circulation of goods is no different from outright robbery.

So, Tanuma Okitsugu collected money from above, and the wealthy merchants who had good relations with the shogunate below hoarded goods everywhere, bought low and sold high, and even bullied the market and monopolized it.

The Shogun got the money, but the people below him, from the lowest common people to the samurai class with hundreds or even thousands of koku, suffered a lot.

This is like a time traveler who goes back to ancient times and finds that the country is in chaos and serious division, and the court economy is on the verge of collapse. He then ignores productivity and plays with the commodity economy, collecting huge commercial taxes.

There is also a kind of Hayek beauty in Mile playing invisible big hands in Argentina.

But all this has nothing to do with Wei Yonghe, no, it has to do with him. He hopes that Japan will be as chaotic as possible, so that people like him who have strong backing will have more opportunities to fish in troubled waters.

However, although the relationship between the two parties is mutually necessary, Wei Yonghe did not respond to what the elder Tanuma Oji said. Instead, he looked at this guy who was only about 1.5 meters tall, kneeling on the tatami, and looked like a macaque in a robe, with a strange look.

What is your identity and status? Where do you get the courage to criticize the emperor of Middle-earth as a minister of a small country in a remote area? Are you worthy?

When Tanuma Okitsugu saw Wei Yonghe looking at him strangely, he knew that he had said something wrong, so he immediately covered his face with a Japanese round fan and took a sip of hot tea to cover up the embarrassment.

"This year, the trade volume between the Kingdom of the Rising Sun and the Kingdom of Middle-earth has increased significantly. The Prime Minister is very satisfied. I hope that Lord Wei can inform the Fuxing Trading Company and determine the trade volume for next year so that the shogunate can know how to plan."

At this time, when Japan was interacting with foreign countries, especially with China, it would not call the Tokugawa Shogun "Seii Taishogun".

Because according to the law, your country is the barbarian, how can you conquer the barbarians? And the Tokugawa Shogun is a tyrant, it is not a good thing to say it out loud.

Therefore, when interacting with the Central Plains court, the shogunate often used official positions in the Japanese court that were nominally conferred by the emperor.

The so-called Prime Minister refers to the Shogun of this generation, Tokugawa Ieharu, which comes from the fact that he served as the Second Rank Minister of the Interior in the court. The Tang Dynasty name in Japan was Prime Minister.

Wei Yonghe knew why Tanuma Oci was so anxious, because for some reason, the weather had become increasingly drier and drier in recent years, the winters were still cold, and grain production had been declining year round.

Moreover, Tanuma Okitsugu had a sudden idea. He wanted to drain the water from Inpan-numa and Tega-numa near Edo and develop them into farmland, but this plan suffered a major failure.

These two swamps are located near Abiko City, Chiba Prefecture in later generations, but their area is very large at this time, and they are not the two small lakes in later generations.

In order to develop these two large lakes, Tanuma Okitsugu spent a lot of manpower and material resources for nearly twenty years, but it ended in failure, leaving the shogunate with a heavy financial burden.

At that time, although Japan had various gold coins and silver coins as currency, the main tax and equivalent was still rice.

So after Tanuma Okitsugu gained benefits from the trade with the Fuxing Company, he began to have some ulterior motives.

He wanted to take advantage of the fact that rice was cheap and silver was expensive in Japan, and obtain silver from Dayu through trade, and then convert the silver into rice to fill the huge financial gap.

This is really the opposite of what happened. Japan has always exported silver mines in exchange for Chinese goods, so much so that it even exports more than it needs. I have never heard of the reverse import of silver.

Well, it’s not that they don’t want to, but almost all of Japan’s products have to be used to exchange for various urgently needed goods from China, so they are not qualified to import silver in return.

But for Mo Zibu, that's quite acceptable.

"Of course there is no problem. However, the boss of the trading company, Zheng Gong Jinshui, a close minister of the emperor, asked me to bring a message. Zheng Gong suggests that Your Excellency the First Lord should directly use the silver dollars of Dayu." As he said that, Wei Yonghe handed over six or seven Dayu silver dollars.

Tanuma Okitsugu took it and looked at it. It was indeed well-made with exquisite patterns. There were also denominations of ten taels of silver, five taels of silver, one tael of silver, five cents, one cent, etc. It should be very convenient to use.

However, it seems not enough.

“Of course, the silver coins of Dayu were made according to the Kuping standard of seven coins and three cents. For the Taixi Yi people, His Majesty the Emperor naturally forced them to exchange them at one ounce of silver.

However, the culture of the Kingdom of the Rising Sun originated from China, and we are considered one family. His Majesty the Emperor is willing to exchange the silver coins for the Prime Minister at the rate of eight cents and three fen. China will only charge the Prime Minister 17% for the forging, loss, and transportation costs."

A satisfied smile appeared on Tanuma Okiji's face. This way, he could earn an additional 17%.

However, he did not show it, but instead imitated the Han people and bowed to the upper right.

"The Emperor of China is benevolent, and the foreign nations are deeply grateful. However, our small nation is poor and in dire straits. I would like to ask the Lord of Wei to speak to the Duke of Zheng and ask him to make it known to His Majesty that he will be more lenient."

When Wei Yonghe heard this, he realized that this was bargaining, so the deal was done.

Seeing that Tanuma Okitsugu's attitude was no longer so condescending, he pretended to be hesitant and said with embarrassment:

"This matter is of great importance. Even if we give up a single cent, it will still be a huge profit. It's not easy for me to argue with you without any evidence."

"If you have any requests, just tell me." Tanuma Oji raised his hand, signaling Wei Yonghe to speak directly.

Wei Yonghe coughed, cleared his throat, and moved his head slightly closer to Tanuma Oci!
"Emperor Guangzhong is indeed benevolent, but he also relies on the advice of Mr. Zheng, the elder of the Fuxing Trading Company. He is now planning to develop Taiwan Island and is in dire need of food. I hope the First Lord will continue to provide him with some assistance."

After hearing this, Tanuma Okitsugu's face became gloomy and uncertain, because he was a little confused about what Zheng Jinshui, the emperor's close minister and the boss of Fuxing Trading Company, was going to do?
Over the past two years, Fuxing Trading Company has been purchasing Japanese copper, sulfur, saltpeter, mounting materials, raw silk, Chinese medicinal materials, etc. at a premium of 15% to 20%.

Except for copper, there are plenty of these things in China. Is it necessary to buy them at high prices in Japan?
After acquiring it, can he sell it? Even if he sells it, can he still make a profit?
In theory, those who can be close to the emperor should not be fools, but why do they do this?

Perhaps, it is just to allow Dayu's silver dollars to enter the Kingdom of the Rising Sun and earn the 17% minting money?

Tanuma Okitsugu really didn't understand, but if you have money and don't make it, you're a bastard. The high-priced acquisitions in Central China over the years have made the shogunate and some wealthy merchants with close ties to the shogunate rich.

Now, only Tanuma Okitsugu knew that the shogunate and the various feudal domains had converted a large number of rice fields into mulberry fields and medicinal herb fields.

A large number of coastal farmers abandoned their land and went out to sea to make food, but it still could not satisfy China's appetite.

The money is so easy to make that everyone is smiling.

Could it be that they want to use this to force the Kingdom of the Rising Sun to surrender, and if they don't obey, they will not do business with us?

Isn't this just an enhanced version of tribute?
This is something the Land of the Rising Sun has been longing for!

Of course, some people also reminded Tanuma Okiji that if this continued, Japan would not have enough food.

However, Tanuma Okitsugu's financial hole was too big, and he did not dare to give up this important source of income.

There is not enough food, but if there is some trouble and the financial hole cannot be plugged, one day a hatamoto might stab him to death under the Pine Corridor of the White Academy.

You know, during the Ako Incident, the lord of the Ako domain, Asano Takumi, stabbed Kira Yoshio in the thigh with a knife, but it is still talked about today.

This Edo Castle is full of samurai and hatamoto who are qualified to carry swords, so it is not easy to kill someone.

Besides, Lord Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Edo shogunate, once said, "To make the peasants suffer half their lives worse than death is the secret of politics."

It’s easy to deal with the lack of food. There are too many people in the Land of the Rising Sun anyway. If some of them starve to death, the food problem will be solved.

Well, there is nothing wrong with it, but Tanuma Okitsugu will soon understand the meaning of the era name Tenmei in Japanese history.

(End of this chapter)