The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 542 The Key to Conquering Japan
"Hey, hey, hey!" The excited training sounds rang out from the Zoshikan located in the center of Tsurumaru Castle in Kagoshima, Shimazu Domain. However, despite the loud sound, no one paid attention.

Because most of the people who could come to Tsurumaru Castle, the inner castle of the Shimazu domain, were samurai of the Shimazu family, and the samurai of the Shimazu family basically studied at the Zoshikan, so it was nothing strange.

This is also a major feature that distinguishes the Satsuma domain from other domains. Satsuma samurai would enter schools such as Zoshikan from the age of eight, and sometimes would not graduate until they were in their twenties.

However, although the Satsuma Domain was a poor clan among the daimyo of the Tokugawa Shogunate, it was still considered wealthy.

But asking samurai from the feudal domain to study full-time in this way was unimaginable, not only in Japan, but also in China, Britain and France.

Because in this era of relatively average productivity, the cost of this kind of full-stage education is really too high, and it may not be of any use, and it can even be said to be dangerous.

A very simple example is that when you educate a person for more than ten years, making him capable of killing people with a sword and reading books to broaden his horizons, you can't let him go to the countryside to farm or go to the city to carry manure.

Education is indeed a good thing and is the biggest booster of human development, but this does not mean that you only need to educate. Instead, after you educate a person, you must give him a path.

A platform that is worthy of his hard work from 8 am to 9 pm for more than ten years and allows him to put what he has learned into practice.

As for the Satsuma Domain, looking at its poor appearance, it is clear that it is definitely unable to provide a platform for the samurai trained in the Zoshikan to display their skills.

Therefore, there are so many Zoshikan, Yenbukan, Meijikan, and Medical Hall in Kagoshima's outer castle and inner castle, Tsurumaru Castle.

It’s all because the 25th head of the Shimazu family and the 8th lord of Satsuma Domain, Shimazu Shigehiro, is a complete psychopath.

This is a famous daimyo of Rangaku in Japanese history. The so-called Rangaku refers to Western science and technology and philosophical thoughts introduced to Japan by the Dutch.

Shimazu Shigehō had a serious obsession with Dutch studies, to the point that he felt uncomfortable if he didn't study for a day. He was truly addicted.

God knows what's wrong with this guy. Is it true that he is addicted to studying?
Gradually, Shimazu Shigehiro was not satisfied with learning by himself, he also asked everyone around him to learn, so that he could find enough like-minded people to communicate and debate with.

At the same time, he also truly felt that Dutch studies was a very good subject and wanted to share it with everyone in the Satsuma domain.

So, driven by what was truly an addiction to reading, Shimazu Shigehiro opened a large number of Dutch studies schools in Kagoshima Castle and Tsurumaru Castle, invited a large number of famous teachers to teach, and cultivated a large number of talents.

In order to run a school, Shimazu Shigehiro even disregarded the dignity of the feudal lord and personally went to the market to borrow high-interest loans from merchants.

At the same time, Confucianism, brought by Ming loyalist Zhu Zhiyu and known as Zhu Xi's school of thought, also known as Mito Hangaku in Japan, began to spread rapidly among the samurai class of Satsuma Domain.

Zhu Zhiyu is the famous Zhu Shunshui.

This person's influence on Japanese culture is extremely profound. It can even be said that he was the one who truly spread Confucianism to Japan.

In 1659, Zhu Shunshui failed in his attempt to seek help from Annan and returned to participate in the Battle of Nanjing, where Guo Xing succeeded. After the defeat, the entire Ming Zheng group suffered unprecedented losses and setbacks.

Because Zhu Shunshui could speak Japanese, he was successfully sent by Guoxing to Japan to ask for help from Shogun Tokugawa.

It’s a pity that the Tokugawa shogunate’s political system was most afraid that the samurai class would run away. After gaining their horizons, they would no longer be willing to live in poverty and stability, so they would not support the success of the national surname at all.

Even after Zhu Shunshui arrived in Nagasaki as an envoy, no one paid any attention to him except the Chinese people such as Zheng Erguan, Tianchuan Shizaemon, and Guoxing Chenggong's younger brother.

Immediately afterwards, just when Zhu Shunshui was looking for help everywhere like a headless fly, news came that Guo Xingcheng had passed away.

Now, not to mention the support from the Shogun, even the Chinese in Nagasaki began to lose heart and stopped actively supporting.

Zhu Shunshui was almost in despair and had no choice but to settle down in Japan.

At the same time, there were also a large number of Ming Dynasty officials and scholars staying in Japan with him. These people were like stars in Japan, which was still culturally backward at the time, and were recruited and invited by daimyo from various domains.

Zhu Shunshui, the most famous one, was respected and admired by Tokugawa Mitsukuni, the second-generation lord of Mito Domain and grandson of the old turtle Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Zhu Shunshui then began to teach in Mito Domain, forming the famous Mito Domain School.

The Confucian thought brought by Zhu Shunshui immediately helped Japan, whose cultural thought had always been in chaos and complexity, find its own direction.

After listening to Zhu Shunshui's commentary on Confucianism, Tokugawa Mitsukuni, the lord of Mito Domain who supported him at the time, said with great pride:

"The Land of the Rising Sun has never been ruled by foreign races, and the Emperor's line of succession will forever enjoy glory. Isn't this the true Chinese nation?"

Among them, the most exaggerated one is the great Japanese thinker Yamaga Soko, who received personal instruction from Zhu Shunshui and later opposed Zhu Shunshui's Confucian thoughts and put forward his own views.

This person opposed the Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism represented by Zhu Shunshui, and instead advocated the Confucianism of the Han and Tang dynasties, and created his own ancient school of Confucianism.

This madman believed that the true Confucianism in the Middle-earth continent had been extinct since the Song Dynasty, and that all that came after it were fake Confucianism, including his teacher Zhu Shunshui. He advocated that the Japanese should learn Confucianism and should learn directly from Confucius.

This. This is really an anomaly and fate!

A Japanese who had little contact with Confucianism in the first half of his life could actually see at a glance that Chinese Confucianism had been heading towards a conservative, inward-looking and lame path since the Song Dynasty.

Later, under the promotion of Yamaga Soko, a craze for studying ancient Confucianism arose across Japan, and then they dug out the idea of respecting the king and expelling the barbarians.

You idiot, you actually went to do archaeological research, damn it!
The idea of respecting the emperor and expelling the barbarians was quite consistent with the Tokugawa shogunate's requirement to maintain its rule.

Therefore, the shogunate began to actively sponsor Yamaga Sokyo, asking him to interpret Son of Heaven and Exorcism as (the Tokugawa family) respecting the emperor (taking office as the shogun, acting on behalf of the emperor) to expel the barbarians and stabilize the country. He was indeed a pillar of military men and was indispensable to the country.

Yamaga Soko, who received support, further improved his theory. He interpreted the four classes of scholars, namely scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans, as guardians of the country and human ethics.

And these guards are none other than the warrior class.

When agriculture, industry and commerce harm the country and violate human ethics, the samurai class must fulfill their duties, punish them, and even punish the traitors with divine punishment.

In order to ensure that the samurai class has the ability to punish, the samurai must pay equal attention to civil and military affairs. When virtue can win people over, then do so. If virtue cannot win people over, then they must win people over with (martial) virtue.

Yamaga Sokyo believed that those who could not wield a samurai sword and conquer others were not worthy of being called samurai.

You see, the Japanese samurai spirit that later generations have come to know actually has a very short history. It wasn't until Zhu Shunshui led the way, Yamaga Sokyo completed the theoretical development, and the Tokugawa family provided material support through the government that the so-called Bushido spirit that we later generations know was formed.

At the same time, Yamaga Soko also believed that after the fall of China and the reversal of Chinese and foreign cultures, and Japan's acceptance of Confucianism, the essence of China naturally shifted to Japan.

Since then, the Japanese Sinology and Japan-centrism have been formed in Japan, which have had a great influence on later generations.

What can I say about this set of theories? It is not perfect and a bit narrow, but it is quite useful and is very similar to what later generations of Qidian book friends believed in Confucianism.

However, after only a few decades of use, this theory was severely suppressed by the Tokugawa shogunate, which had promoted it.

The reason is that after the Tokugawa shogunate gradually stabilized, it was unable to provide more platforms for lower-level samurai to display their talents.

These warriors learned the skills of chopping people with swords and winning people over with virtue, but in the end they could only become poor, which made them very dissatisfied as they considered themselves the ruling class.

Gradually, Son of the Emperor and Exorcism came to be interpreted as: (the samurai) respect the emperor and expel the (shogun) who (the tyrants who usurped power) (for the emperor).

My goodness, this is no longer ordinary Confucianism, we must strike hard, Koga Group, kill them!

Therefore, under the attack of the Tokugawa shogunate, this faction of the idea of respecting the emperor and expelling the barbarians could only move westward and came to the Satsuma, Choshu and other domains where the shogunate's control was weakest.

Then, Mars hit the Earth.

The Satsuma clan was promoting Dutch studies with the support of Shimazu Shigehiro. The collision of these two schools of thought gave rise to a new school known as the Kinshiroku school.

The name of the Jinsi Lu School comes from the book Jinsi Lu.

This book was co-authored by Zhu Xi and Lu Zuqian. It has rigorous theory and grand intentions.

It is full of Zhu and Lu's painful reflections on the southward migration of the Song Dynasty, or the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty, and gives a profound explanation of the four lines of Hengqu shouted by Zhang Hengqu.

Among them, Zhu Xi, after painfully reflecting on the Song Dynasty's migration to the south, or the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty, put forward summary suggestions for the Southern Song Dynasty, which was struggling to survive in the north and might collapse at any time.

This is actually a very excellent work of reflection and synthesis of Confucianism. Zhu Xi even implicitly expressed his pessimism about the future of the Southern Song Dynasty and the future of the Han people it represented when talking with Lu Zuqian.

However, in the Ming Dynasty, after seeing the unstoppable power of Zhu Yuanzhang and Hongwu, Confucian scholars did not truly understand the meaning of this book. Instead, they put it aside and continued to follow and carry forward the extremely conservative form of Confucianism in the Song Dynasty.

However, this book played a huge role in the Satsuma Domain, which was constantly being provoked and even attacked by the Netherlands, Britain, and France.

The deeply worried samurai of Satsuma regarded this as a life-saving straw. Under the influence of these two forces, a class of southwestern samurai who were concerned about their country and their people and integrated the ideas of self-cultivation and peace-building with the Four Sentences of Hengqu were born.

At this point, the true and progressive Bushido spirit was formed.

In the end, they miraculously saved Japan against the backdrop of the Western world's global dominance.

This is really fate. The Han people's own painful summary, the reflection of the Ming survivors, and the collision of thoughts of ancient Confucian scholars from the Han, Tang and pre-Qin periods were actually absorbed and carried forward by a group of Japanese.

Of course, the Japanese have a characteristic, which is that they are very skilled at turning good things into extreme things that can cost them their lives.

When most of the heroes of the Meiji Restoration passed away, the Japanese immediately turned the Bushido spirit into blind loyalty, and into stupid freaks who shouted "Heavenly Prison Black Card" and went to fight for their lives, and finally succeeded in killing themselves.

Zheng Jinshui was strolling along the streets of Tsurumaru Castle, and swaggered into the bustling Zoshikan.
Zheng Jinshui, who is 30 years old this year, has always been so courageous.

When he was fourteen years old, his father was killed by local mobs in Luokun in order to protect Zheng Jinshui, and he followed the emperor who came to rescue him.

From then on, Zheng Jinshui was always kept by the emperor and raised as his own son.

Their relationship was so close that even the emperor's eldest son Asen, who was now nicknamed "Big Brother Sen" by the nobles of Fujian and Guangdong, directly called him brother.

With such a close relationship and being equivalent to being half a royal family member, Zheng Jinshui naturally knew the importance of Japan to the emperor and the empire.

By conquering Japan, at least five million serfs could be added to the Nanyang economy and be sent to work like slaves. This is very important for the current development of the Nanyang region.

With a stable source of cattle and horses, Chinese nobles and wealthy people would continue to invest money in colonization in Southeast Asia.

At the same time, the Jinyiwei arrested more than 30 human traffickers who attempted to smuggle illegal immigrants from India to Southeast Asia this year alone.

It is foreseeable that in the future, due to the considerable profits, this trend will become more and more intense. It cannot be stopped by blocking alone, and there must be a substitute.

Then the best source is the Koreans and Japanese who can be used as semi-serfs.

At the same time, with these people, the law that Chinese people should not be enslaved can be better implemented, preventing Chinese people from using their compatriots as slaves.

The second important reason is that Japan is right on the edge of the Kuroshio Current. Traveling to North America from Japan is much more time-saving and labor-saving than traveling from Middle-earth, and it can serve as a perfect outpost.

Even if China wants to go to North America, Japan must be taken over.

The last step is to eliminate hidden dangers. Japan is mountainous and transportation is inconvenient. It looks small, but it actually has strategic depth.

Japan is a big country with a population of 30 million and a certain national consciousness. If China cannot conquer it, once it is supported and controlled by the enemy, it will be China's biggest threat.

We are always faced with the hidden worry of disaster coming from under our noses. If we cannot subdue or even merge with it, then the only option is to fight.

But if we want to fight a country with complex terrain, no border with Middle-earth, national consciousness, a population of 30 million, and foreign aid, which can be called a great power, well, will it take 20 or 30 years?
Therefore, Zheng Jinshui had to go deep into the tiger's den and come to the Satsuma Domain, which was secretly entrusted by the emperor and best represented the future of Japan, to see what was so special about these dwarfs.

Only after seeing it with his own eyes and even communicating with them could Zheng Jinshui write a targeted memorial for the emperor's reference in order to improve the plan for the Japanese Islands in the most important cultural aspect.

　This chapter will definitely be said to be popular science history. Book friends who don’t like it should be patient. If this period of history is not explained clearly, the subsequent cultural absorption of the Japanese will not make sense.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)