The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 584: There is no Tokugawa Shogunate anymore

Tokugawa Ieharu had thought that returning to Edo would be difficult, but he never imagined it would be this difficult.

According to his imagination, when he returned to Edo and tried to rely on this base to make a last-ditch effort, he would still get support.

Well, he was indeed right in this estimation. With the Tokugawa family's more than 200 years of rule and the emergence of ethnic consciousness, there are indeed many people who support them.

However, most people do not have the ability to support it.

Only then did Tokugawa Ieharu realize that although the Tanuma Okitsugu reforms he thought had exploited the shogunate's hatamoto, samurai and close daimyo, the entire Kanto region might not have escaped the fate of being severely drained by the shogunate using Edo Castle.

But at least the shogunate's finances were healthy, and the low-level samurai below benefited and improved their lives.

But what he saw now was far from the case. The entire Kanto area, except for the core urban area of Edo Castle, was in a very dilapidated state.

Originally, only the lower-class samurai and farmers were poor, but during the years of Tanuma Okitsugu's reforms, a large number of hatamoto and imperial retainers began to fall on the brink of bankruptcy.

Tokugawa Ieharu was shocked to find that a hatamoto family with a salary of 1,000 koku could not even come up with savings equivalent to ten taels of silver dollars, and was basically only able to make enough to support their annual expenses.

Most of the samurai with less than 1,000 koku were bankrupt.

Of course, what Tokugawa Ieharu saw, or what he, the Shogun, could see, was actually very superficial.

Now it is not a question of bankruptcy for samurai with less than 1,000 koku. Bankruptcy only means that they cannot pay back the various loans they have borrowed, but the food, pickles, etc. they use for daily food and clothing can still be supplied.

But now, the situation is that samurai with less than 1,000 stones can no longer afford to eat.

"As for you, I have already found out that it was Sagara-dono who allowed the wealthy merchants of Edo to corrupt the government to such a state."

Matsudaira Sadanobu, who made suggestions many times but failed many times, but did not have the courage like Matsudaira Yosho to pay for his failures, has become a little crazy in order to protect himself.

Or perhaps, reality forced him to the point where he had to start attacking the elder councilor, Tanuma Okitsugu, the lord of Sagara Domain.

"These merchants, instructed by the Tangren Fuxing Company, raised the price of rice when it was not yet on the market, and then sold off the rice they had previously purchased when it was on the market, causing the price to plummet.

Many farmers and even samurai families suffered greatly from this. Even after selling the new rice, they couldn't even make back the money they spent on fertilizer and labor, leading to widespread bankruptcy. This was shaking the foundation of the shogunate!

It is said that Matsudaira Sadanobu has no ability and thinks he is doing things for the country and the people, but in fact he is just standing on the moral high ground to make trouble.

Because he actually didn't even understand who the Fuxing Company under Heshen's leadership was mainly hurting and what it was doing.

The operating mode of this operation is actually like this.

When the new rice was not harvested, the Fuxing Company joined forces with wealthy merchants in Edo, raised the price, and purchased large quantities of rice.

This will lead to anyone who can get food going to buy it, and even forcibly buy the food from farmers.

Although Japan produces silver and copper, there is not much silver and copper in the country due to the huge trade deficit over the years. Therefore, these people borrowed money to buy rice from Edo wealthy merchants and the Fusion Company behind the Edo wealthy merchants.

After purchasing the rice, they sold it to Fuxing Company at a high price, repaid the loan, and deposited the excess money in the money house controlled by Fuxing Company.

When the new rice is really on the market and Fuxing Company sells rice in large quantities, they will take out their money and buy a large amount of it, hoard it and wait for Fuxing Company to harvest the rice next year so that they can make a huge profit.

You see, this is a Ponzi scheme similar to the high-interest loans in later generations.

However, the difference is that in a Ponzi scheme, you want the interest and the other party wants your principal, while the Fuxing Corporation is simply trying to disrupt the Japanese market and destroy their rice-based economy.

The loss from the price difference was borne by the Fuxing Company, or in other words, by the emperor himself.

When Mo Zibu sent Heshen to take charge of the business of the Fuxing Company's Japanese branch, he set a limit of 1.5 million silver dollars per year that he could accept, and later raised it to 2 million silver dollars.

In fact, the annual loss was around 1.8 million silver dollars, and it had been losing money for four consecutive years.

This was simply giving away money for free. All the Japanese in the Kanto region, especially the citizens of Edo, were used to making money from this. Many people even lost their fortunes and invested their money in the wave of rice collection.

Later, it even developed into futures and virtual warehousing, that is, many people bought a large number of receipts with the seals of the wealthy merchants from Edo, but did not actually collect the rice.

When selling at a high price, what is being sold is not rice, but this kind of receipt, which goes directly from the physical world to virtual finance.

Then when it was time to close the cracks this year, Fuxing Company suddenly stopped buying rice at high prices at the beginning of the year. This put many people who had borrowed high-interest loans to stockpile rice into a desperate situation, and many people could not hold on at all.

When the new rice came on the market, Fuxing Company came and, as usual, started dumping the rice, accompanied by all kinds of rumors and bank runs, which directly drove the price of rice down to only one-eighth or even one-tenth of the price when they purchased it.

This has led to an extremely strange phenomenon. On the one hand, this year's cold weather has caused a sharp drop in grain production, while on the other hand, grain prices have collapsed.

This desperate scene caused a large number of Edo citizens to go bankrupt, and every day people jumped from the city walls and bridges to heaven.

And it was not over yet. Just when everyone started to make a fuss, the person in control of the Fuxing Company, the wealthy businessman, and the one who stayed behind, Tanuma Okitsugu, suddenly issued a notice.

They claimed that after discussions, they could still buy rice, but the purchase price would be only half of that in previous years, and they would not accept receipts, only accepting those who actually had rice.

This was terrible. Many people went to the wealthy merchants in anger to settle accounts, but they found that not only were their shops empty, but even their mansions were deserted.

However, there was an abundance of rice on the market, and the price of rice could not even reach the price promised by the shogunate, and it was falling every day.

As a result, many lower-level warriors and farmers did not understand why the price of rice was still low in the disaster year, but seeing that others were selling rice frantically, they started selling too.

By the time a larger-scale disaster was revealed, 60% of Edo's rice had already been purchased with the help of the remaining shogunate agencies.

What finally arrived was the scene that Tokugawa Ieharu saw. Rice prices soared, and the citizens of Edo, including many hatamoto samurai and even daimyo, lost their fortunes overnight. The market was so depressed that it didn't look like Edo at all, but more like Ezo.

People starved to death every day, and desperate warriors looted everywhere with their katanas, some even indiscriminately hacked and killed passersby, and then committed suicide.

This operation was not as simple as buying low and selling high as Matsudaira Sadanobu believed. It was a financial tsunami in which huge amounts of foreign capital colluded with the top government officials, aristocrats and local wealthy merchants to plunder the entire social class.

Haha, is it so easy to get Emperor Mo’s money of more than 7 million taels of silver in four years?
In order to make his plan successful, Mo Zibu, a man with such a high level of moral obsession, even promised titles to corrupt officials like Tanuma Okitsugu and his son Tanuma Ochichi.

If you Japanese don't lose everything, how can you be worthy of the emperor's uncomfortable feeling like Akagi?

However, although Matsudaira Sadanobu only saw the surface, it still made Tokugawa Ieharu very angry, because Tokugawa Ieharu also only saw the surface, and the two people's brain waves matched perfectly.

"You're avoiding the topic, is it because you've been hit on the head and are speechless?"

Seeing that he was talking until his mouth was dry and he had described Tanuma Okitsugu as having sores on his head and pus on the soles of his feet, but the other party did not react, Matsudaira Sadanobu continued to question him.

But Tanuma Okiji didn't even look at the young man, Matsudaira Sadanobu, but directly said to Tokugawa Ieharu, whose face showed dissatisfaction and anger:
"Sir, I request to speak to you alone."

Hearing what Tanuma Okitsugu said, Matsudaira Sadanobu wanted to laugh. You have committed such a serious crime, and you still want to play a solo duel. Are you kidding me?
But the next second, he couldn't laugh anymore, because Shogun Tokugawa Ieharu listened to what Matsudaira Sadanobu said, nodded, and walked directly into the innermost part of the large hall, the Shogun's study, which was not open to anyone.

Not only was Matsudaira Sadanobu dumbfounded, but the hatamoto and retainers who had joined him in the riot also immediately stopped their activities. On the tatami mat in the study, Shogun Tokugawa Ieharu and Tanuma Okitsugu sat opposite each other, a scene most often seen when the two were alone.

Tanuma Okitsugu was born in 1719 and is now 1737 years old. Tokugawa Ieharu was born in and is now years old.

The two were eighteen years apart in age. In the year Tokugawa Ieharu was born, the eighteen-year-old Tanuma Okitsugu became the Shudenta, a rank below the Junior Fifth Rank, which means he was one of the chief officials in charge of the palace ladies and servants around the shogun.

Tanuma Okitsugu's main job was to take care of the newly born Tokugawa Ieharu and ensure that the future Tokugawa Shogun grew up healthy.

It can be said that Tokugawa Ieharu was raised by Tanuma Okitsugu, and he spent more time with Tanuma Okitsugu than with his parents.

In Tokugawa Ieharu's heart, Tanuma Okitsugu was not only a minister he could rely on, but also his father and master. The depth of their relationship was something outsiders could not understand at all.

The two men sat opposite each other, and familiar memories came to their minds. Tokugawa Ieharu was suddenly not so angry anymore. In the silence, it was he, the Shogun, who spoke first.

"Is everything Matsudaira Sadanobu said true?" Tokugawa Ieharu still found it hard to believe that Tanuma Okitsugu would do such a thing.

Tanuma Okitsugu did not answer Tokugawa Ieharu's words, but instead showed a fatherly and loving expression on his face.

"Kumiu-fu, is there any point in asking these questions now? The moment Takechiyo died in my arms, all of this should have ended."

When Tokugawa Ieharu heard Tanuma Okitsugu mention his assassinated son, the only son who was seventeen years old and could inherit the family business, he immediately became unable to hold back.

"The reform policies of these years were painstakingly formulated by the public officials and me. Could they really lead to the current situation?

No! We all know that this reform can save the Tokugawa family.

However, those rats who enjoy the people's money and do not produce anything will complain or even sabotage secretly if their interests are damaged even a little bit.

They have deliberately ruined countless strategies that benefit the country and the people, just to prove that we are wrong and that we are harming the people.

Finally... Woo woo woo woo, in the end, they actually extended their evil hands to Takechiyo.

Wuuwuwu, after so many years, I will never forget the moment when Takechiyo breathed her last in my arms."

Either Tanuma Okitsugu was a powerful minister, or he had the full trust of Tokugawa Ieharu.

He never mentioned the reforms he and Tokugawa Ieharu had made. In fact, they were just made up on the spur of the moment without going down to the grassroots level to understand the actual situation, and they could not be implemented at all.

Instead, they put all the blame on the opponents.

Moreover, there is almost no flaw in this statement, because this is what Tokugawa Ieharu thought, and those policies were indeed discussed and formulated by him and Tanuma Okitsugu.

Hearing Tanuma Okitsugu crying, Tokugawa Ieharu's tears also fell and he sobbed.

"They killed my Takechiyo, they killed my Takechiyo!"

Tokugawa Ieharu had a strange temper and had some mental illness. The assassination of his only grown-up son dealt him a huge mental blow.

Whenever his deceased son Tokugawa Iemoto was mentioned, his spirit would be on the verge of collapse.

At this time, Tanuma Okitsugu took out a Fuxing Bank deposit slip with the seal of "The Great Emperor Chengtian Yingming's Treasure" and handed it to Tokugawa Ieharu.

"Sir, this is the deposit slip from the China Renaissance Company. The two million silver dollars on it represent the benefits I've gained from cooperating with the China Renaissance Company over the years. It's directly stamped with the Great Emperor's Treasure.

The whole of China can exchange it, and anyone can withdraw it. Even if you commit a heinous crime, the money will not be confiscated."

Tokugawa Ieharu did not expect Tanuma Okitsugu to admit it in this way, and looked at this minister who was like his father in shock.

"Taro went to China and was received by the Great Emperor. He also presented Chongji to the Great Emperor. This was enough to guarantee the status and safety of the Duke. And these two million silver dollars can guarantee the Duke a rich and luxurious life."

Tanuma Okiji said this with a cruel look on his face, "After the failure of the reform, the Tokugawa family's rule is doomed to be short-lived.

With the passing of Takechiyo, this family business lost all its meaning.

Although Jiaqi is a good child, is it true that the Ichihashi family did not participate in the conspiracy to murder Takechiyo? I can only say that the possibility is relatively low, but it cannot be ruled out. "

The current heir to the shogunate is Tokugawa Ieharu, who was personally selected by Tanuma Okitsugu from the Hitotsubashi Tokugawa family. This ten-year-old boy is already the adopted son of Tokugawa Ieharu.

Hearing what Tanuma Okitsugu said, Tokugawa Ieharu nodded. His emotions had been completely controlled by Tanuma Okitsugu, so he gritted his teeth and agreed:
"Yes, the Ichihashi family cannot be completely ruled out as a suspect. All of them could be the murderer of Takechiyo."

"So, instead of leaving this world to these murderers, it is better to dedicate this world to His Majesty the Emperor of China." Tanuma Oji lowered his voice and roared.

"If we take advantage of the fact that the Duke still has power and offer this world to him, it will at least provide him with security for the rest of his life.

As for the future, the Great Emperor has already agreed. He will let his son with Shigeki, your grandson, inherit the family business and become the Prince of Edo."

Tokugawa Ieharu was stunned when he heard this, but he was already quite moved in his heart, because this defeat and the experience of this war put a lot of pressure on Tokugawa Ieharu.

It also made him realize one thing, that is, he, Tokugawa Ieharu, did not have the ability of his ancestor Tokugawa Ieyasu, and he was simply unable to shoulder the responsibility of being the pillar of the military family.

At the same time, even if Lord Ieyasu were to be resurrected, it would be extremely difficult for him to stop China today.

Seeing that Tokugawa Ieharu was interested, Tanuma Okitsugu used his final killer move, "Besides, the Shogun is still very young and has not yet lost his ability to reproduce.

In Edo, there were hostile villains everywhere who did not want the Shogun to have a healthy offspring so that the current reform policy could continue.

But if the Duke went to live in China, those villains would no longer be able to harm the Duke's descendants in the slightest.

You still have plenty of time to have one, maybe even three or five healthy children.

They can inherit your Chinese title and countless wealth, and live forever in health and happiness as Chinese nobles! "

Tokugawa Ieharu was tempted. The temptation was too great.

He doesn't need three or five, as long as he has one of his own bloodline, Tokugawa Ieharu will be satisfied. As long as there is someone to continue the family line, he will be worthy of his ancestors.

"What about you, father-in-law?" Tokugawa Ieharu looked at Tanuma Okitsugu with emotion, calling him by the name they had privately called a long time ago.

"Jiazhi left with his title and wealth. Will you also go to China with me?"

"No, I won't go!" Tanuma Oji said with a determined look on his face, "I want to stay in Edo and serve His Majesty the Emperor.

I will use the great emperor's hand to eradicate those rats who have troubled us, find the real murderer who murdered Takechiyo, and tear him into pieces!"

(End of this chapter)