The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 555: Open the door, a soldier is missing
Nagasaki Club.

This club is not the club of young models in later generations, but an agency set up by the shogunate in Nagasaki to manage import and export trade.

During the Edo period, Nagasaki's status was equivalent to that of Guangzhou, which had the Thirteen Hongs, before the Treaty of Nanjing.

Therefore, those who were able to go to Nagasaki to serve as Nagasaki Bugyo were all hatamoto who were highly trusted by the shogunate, such as the famous Takaie hatamoto.

The current Nagasaki Bugyo Kusase Hirotomi is from the Uesugi family among the Takaie hatamoto, and is a close confidant of the Senior Councilor Tanuma Okitsugu.

However, later generations imagined that the Nagasaki Bugyo should be a role like the Governor-General of Nagasaki or the Governor-General, but in fact he was not. The Nagasaki Bugyo was only responsible for foreign trade and superficial supervision of the southwestern feudal domains.

This doesn't look like the Governor-General of Nagasaki, but more like the eunuch of the Maritime Customs who collected taxes in Jiangnan during the Ming Dynasty, or the Jiangning Weaving Commissioner of the Qing Dynasty.

To sum up, there are certain administrative and supervisory powers, but no military power.

The responsibility of guarding Nagasaki was entrusted to the Fukuoka domain of the Kuroda family and the Hizen domain of the Nabeshima family by the shogunate.

In the Nagasaki Club, Kabuki actors from Edo were singing the famous Japanese drama - The Battle of Koxinga.

Japanese drama is divided into two types: Kabuki drama and Joruri drama. Kabuki is a live-action drama performed by Kabuki actors, while Joruri drama is a puppet drama performed with puppet dolls.

These two are the main forms of Japanese drama, which has various genres and is very complicated.

On the stage, the protagonist, who is dressed completely in Japanese style, is called Watonai, and this Watonai actually refers to the national surname Chenggong.

This name is not chosen casually, but has a deep meaning. The "和" in it refers to the Yamato of the Japanese people, the "腾" in Japanese is homophonic with the "唐", and the "内" means "not".

So the meaning of "Wa Fujinai" is neither Japanese nor Tang, or half Japanese and half Tang, but because his name is Japanese, he should actually be classified as a Japanese.

This "Battle of Koxinga", together with "Koxinga's Later Battles" and "News of Koxinga Brought by Chinese Ships", is known as the Koxinga Trilogy.

This trilogy has had a profound influence in Japan. Not only people in Nagasaki like to read it, but people in Edo also like to read it.

But it is difficult to evaluate the creation, plot and ideas of this drama.

At this moment, the stage was performing the part where He Fujinai was canonized as the Prince of Yanping by Emperor Yongli, and his Han surname Zheng was restored, and he was given the national surname, Zhu Chenggong.

The Japanese geisha (male) who plays Zhu Chenggong looks up at the sky at a 45-degree angle, his eyes filled with endless anger and a bit of pride. His emotions are really well-placed. He sings in a humming voice:

"The people of Erming often slander us, the Land of the Rising Sun, as a small country. But a Japanese like me can even subdue tigers and drive out Tartars. Have you seen my ability? Do you know that the Land of the Rising Sun is not a barbarian country?"

This is also a combination of inferiority and arrogance, with a very distinct Japanese flavor and is a typical Japanese thought.

Historically, after Japan was severely beaten in the Wanli Korean War, it began to complain about itself again.

However, since this beating was not as severe as the one at Baijiangkou, there was still a bit of unwillingness to accept it amidst his self-pity and inferiority.

Therefore, these Japanese people still hope that the Chinese will look up to them and recognize them as Chinese. They are also eager to live in the prosperous mainland.

What's more, they use the fact that you Ming people cannot defeat the Tatars, but Koxinga from Japan can, to prove that the Japanese are no worse than the Tang people, or even more powerful.

When they heard this line being sung and recited on the stage, the Japanese people in the audience collectively went wild. They cheered and praised as if all this was real.

Of course, this was the plot at that time. After the Meiji Restoration, the plot of this trilogy was constantly deleted and revised, and eventually became demonized.

In the end, it became the national surname. He was able to drive out the Tatars and recapture Nanjing, not by being a personal hero, but by the talisman his mother brought for him from the Ise Shrine.

This talisman can use the power of Amaterasu, so Guoxing became invincible and quickly expelled the Tatar king.

The ending was not the Confucian style of success and fame, but he was granted a title of great fame on the mainland. The Japanese who followed him also became great names on the mainland, and their names will be passed down for generations.

What this actually reflects is Japan's ambition towards the mainland and the rapid development of militarism at the grassroots level in Japan.

However, the current version is still relatively mild. It is the Japanese imagining that they can successfully promote the power of Japan on the mainland by following the national surname, and become a member of the Chinese people, as well as secretly hiding their fantasies about the mainland.

Hirotoshi Kusase watched with great interest. During this period, there were usually two Nagasaki Bugyo who took turns going to Edo to take charge.

The one who went to give instructions this time was another magistrate, Tsuchiya Morinao, so only Kusase Hirotomi was here.

"That's wonderful! If the warriors of the Land of the Rising Sun could really follow Koxinga to the prosperous mainland of Tang, they wouldn't have to stay on this barren island. Nigiri sushi would be a delicacy, and eating yakitori would be enough to make me write a beautiful article about it."

"Yes, yes!" someone flattered Kusase Hirotoshi. "The shogunate is having a hard time. Even the hatamoto families with more than 1,000 koku have to live frugally. I heard they can't even compare to a local tycoon with 200 acres of land on the mainland."

"No, no!" Kusase Hirotomin waved his hands repeatedly, "In Wu, after paying the land tax and grain tax, the annual income from one acre of tea or mulberry garden can still leave eight silver dollars.

It can buy four dan of white rice, which is more than two dan of mine. Two hundred acres of land means almost five hundred dan.

In my country of the rising sun, a hatamoto with a population of 1,000 koku of rice can only get about 400 koku of brown rice.

This is my brown rice. Compared with their refined rice, if we use brown rice as the calculation, the difference is 20% to 30% greater.

Moreover, a hatamoto of ours with a salary of 1,000 koku needs to support at least 70 or 80 people, and also needs to maintain the appearance. A Tang Dynasty landowner with 200 acres of land, including tenants, can only have 30 people at most."

Kusase Hiromitsu spoke very clearly and it was obvious that he understood these things very well. He spoke very fluently, proving that this was not the first time he had said these things.

The people around who heard it were also amazed. Some people said mysteriously, "I heard that Emperor Guangzhong of the Dayu Dynasty of the Tang Kingdom has already taken over all of Nanyang. Many Tang warriors, without taking anything with them, have acquired hundreds of dan of land in Nanyang."

"Hey! You are still behind the times." Kusase Hiromitsu looked at the Japanese merchant who had connections with the Tang Dynasty merchant Wei family and waved his hands quickly.

"According to the past, we should have called the Tang Kingdom the Yu Kingdom, but it seems that His Majesty Guangzhong doesn't like outsiders calling it the Yu Kingdom, so now we generally call it China.

Moreover, the Tang Kingdom has long since lost its warriors. Emperor Guangzhong is not the emperor of Yamashiro Province. He is a great emperor whose words are written into law, so those nobles also came into power."

"Then, if it's not the warriors going to Southeast Asia, then who will go? The nobles?" a warrior asked unhappily.

"Anyone can go. As long as you have the ability and dare to chop the natives of Nanyang with a knife, you can go to Nanyang and become a vassal. Even if you are a farmer at home, you can become a hatamoto.

The only downside is that everyone can go to Southeast Asia as a vassal, so fewer people are willing to farm. The locals are not able to use the land, so although there are many fields, most of them are abandoned." After listening to Kusase Hiromitsu's explanation, a castle town resident standing nearby, who only earned a salary of ten koku, blushed.

"How could these Tang vassal officials be so ungrateful and let such good land go to waste? What are they doing with their knives? If the farmers don't cultivate the land, can't they just chop it down with a knife?"

Perhaps because he was in a good mood, Kusase Hiromitsu actually explained to a little fellow what it meant to "Han Er not be enslaved" and the embarrassment caused by this policy.

This made the warriors even more confused, and they all felt that Emperor Guangzhong's policy was wrong. If farmers did not farm, they should be killed with knives and not be indulged.

But some people also heard something else. A wealthy businessman from Osaka who had just made contact with Kusase Hirotomi approached him quietly and said, "Sir, there are plenty of farmers in the Land of the Rising Sun!"

Kusase Hiromitsu said so much just to find someone who understood his implication. So, regardless of the crowd, he coughed lightly and said in a low voice, "Not only are there many farmers, but there are also many docile Japanese women."

The Osaka merchants' eyes immediately lit up, as if they saw a huge amount of gold and silver falling directly from the sky.

As one of the very few open ports in Japan, Nagasaki has active thinking and open-minded people. Naturally, there are many people who dare to sell ropes to hang themselves for 100% profit.

However, before they could further agree on a time to discuss the details, they heard the sudden sound of muskets and the sound of dense footsteps coming from outside.

A look of shock and fear appeared on Hisase Hiromitsu's face. This guy said he was a samurai, but people like him who came from the Kanto region had nothing to do with martial arts.

Moreover, the Nagasaki Bugyo's guards consisted of only twenty or thirty people. Although there were several hundred others, they were all serving as clerks and police officers in the castle town.

As for the soldiers from the Fukuoka and Hizen domains, they were not stationed in the city and could not come over in a short time.

If someone really came in with a musket, Kusase Hiromitsu would have no ability to fight back at all.

However, what you fear will come to pass. Soon, with the screams of the kabuki actors and the fleeing of a large number of guests and servants, more than 300 samurai, half of whom were Tang and half were Japanese, broke in.

When Kusase Hiromitsu took a look, he realized that those Japanese warriors were the Nagasaki wealthy merchant group that he had hinted or even explicitly asked to join him in human trafficking some time ago, but they were unwilling to cooperate?
Well, the Tang warriors here are not unfamiliar. The Wei family has been in Nagasaki for four or five generations and is basically almost integrated. It is said that they even got a Japanese surname called Julu.

The rest are indeed a bit unfamiliar.

Seeing Kusase Hiromitsu looking at him, Zheng Duan chuckled and put the pistol he had just fired back into the belt around his waist.

"I am Zheng Gongqing, Marquis of Yanping, Governor-General of Liangnan, and the younger brother of Lord Zheng. I am currently the Deputy Commander of the Dongying Division of the Jinyiwei of the Great Yu.

There is a fairly well-known ancestor, and that is the King of Yanping, the King of the Country!"

"Ah!" There was a commotion and exclamations in the house. After all, they had just watched Koxinga's battle, and now Koxinga's descendants were here. This really gave people an extremely magical feeling.

"I recognized you. You are Zheng Bangzong of the Zheng family, the fifth-generation grandson of Tagawa Jirozaemon, the younger brother of Koxinga." Finally, someone recognized the warrior next to Zheng Duan.

This proves that there are practical reasons why these Japanese people worship Koxinga. If they simply worshipped the hero, there would not be only a few people who recognized Zheng Bangzong.

Kusase Hiromitsu understood. He knew why these wealthy businessmen in Nagasaki were unwilling to do human trafficking business with him, because these people were doing bigger business.

The leader of the wealthy merchants in Nagasaki, Ibe Kamimura, smiled faintly, "Sir Matsudaira, buying and selling people is not as good as buying and selling a country.

Koxinga's mission to expel the Tartars has already been carried on. Shouldn't the people of Nagasaki follow him to the death and receive the supreme reward from the Great Emperor?"

. . . .

Choshu Domain, the domain hall Hagi Castle.

"What? The Tang Fleet is requesting to enter Hagi Castle to search for criminals?"

Mori Shigenari, who had just retired and passed the lordship of Choshu domain to his son Mori Haruchika, looked puzzled and thought he had misheard.

The spread of news at this time was very slow, and the Satsuma domain deliberately controlled the spread of news.

After all, it is not a glorious thing, and the relationship between the surrounding feudal lords and the Shimazu family is just like that. If the news gets out, there will probably be few people who will help, and there will definitely be a lot of people who will laugh at the joke.

Therefore, now Maori Shigeki only knew about the Shimazu clan of Satsuma Domain. Because Ryukyu had angered the great emperor of the Central Plains Tang Dynasty, there was a possibility of being attacked. Apart from that, he knew basically nothing.

"Yes, not only are they entering the castle town to search for the criminals, they also claim that the criminals bombarded their fleet sent to punish the Satsuma Domain, and that the ship they were operating bore the three-star crest of our Mori clan."

The person who reported the news was Mori Hirotada, cousin of Mori Hirotada, lord of Tokuyama domain, a branch of Choshu domain.

Tokuyama Domain was a very small domain, about the same size as the Sadowa Domain of Shimazu Tadamichi, who led the Oyu fleet to attack the Choshu Domain, with a reserve of about 30,000 to 40,000 koku.

When Mori Shige heard what Mori Hirotada said, he was immediately overwhelmed. At first, he really thought that a ship from the Choshu clan had passed by, but then he thought, this is impossible!
Even he, the feudal lord, didn't know that the Tang fleet was already teaching the Satsuma domain a lesson, so how could his subordinates know?

Moreover, as for gunboats, the Choshu clan was not strong in its navy. They only had a few larger warships, so how could they have any gunboats!
"They are looking for trouble!" Mori Shigenori was furious, but he was a little confused. If the Tang people just wanted to punish the Satsuma clan, they could just take over Kagoshima Castle.

If you want to conquer the Land of the Rising Sun, shouldn't you attack the shogunate?

Why would they go after the Choshu Mori clan, the most unpopular clan in the Land of the Rising Sun? Shouldn't they be given money, food, and guns to join them in fighting the shogunate?

Or, is this solicitation?
"What a bastard!" Mao Lizhong thought he had guessed the intention of the Dayu fleet, and immediately cursed out loud in shame and anger.

"Do these Tang people think that the Choshu clan and the Mori clan are the Koreans on the peninsula? They can just send a few ships and envoys and we're going to kneel down and act like dogs."

After cursing, Maori Shigeki shouted loudly: "Let all the branch clans and the first clan bring their men to Hagi Castle, the clan headquarters, and order all the samurai of the Choshu clan to assemble!"

Mao Lizhong decided to teach these Tang people a lesson and not to treat others as soft persimmons easily.

And Mori Shigeki had the qualifications to be so arrogant, because the Mori clan of Choshu Domain had always been dissatisfied with the defeat in the Battle of Sekigahara, and successive domain lords had been accumulating strength to prepare for a rebellion against the shogunate.

In history, the main force behind the overthrow of the shogunate was actually the soldiers of the Choshu clan. They alone resisted the first expedition to Choshu, and only then did the Satsuma clan and others join the anti-shogunate army.

Therefore, in terms of military strength, Choshu Domain is undoubtedly the number one in the southwestern Kyushu region, Chugoku, and Shikoku regions.

But what Mao Lizhong didn’t know was that if you weren’t number one, the Chinese Dayu would not come to fight you.

(End of this chapter)