The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 431 What Can You Do
During this period, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's life became increasingly difficult.

Originally, it was a good thing for him that the Ming Dynasty could release a large number of prisoners.

The problem is that the Ming Kingdom is playing tricks on him again.

This time, the warships that the Ming Dynasty released captives on were filled with colorful flags with large words in Japanese that were unfavorable to him printed on them. They also deliberately circled around Honshu Island.

The entire Honshu Island is now full of discussions. Many people believe that the Ming Dynasty will not attack the Japanese mainland, and fewer and fewer people believe his theory of the Ming Dynasty threat.

This threat from the Ming Dynasty is the key to his ability to retain his position as Taiko and even the entire Toyotomi clan. Without the threat from the Ming Dynasty, he would be in danger.

The Ming Kingdom obviously did it on purpose, but he had no way to stop it.

They were here to send the prisoners home, so he couldn't stop them.

If this is stopped, he will probably be condemned by other daimyos immediately, and it is possible that Tokugawa Ieyasu will use this opportunity to unite with other daimyos to force him out of power.

This is a conspiracy.

He couldn't stop it.

The Ming Dynasty did this deliberately to make everyone think that it did not want to attack the Japanese mainland.

Without the external threat of the Ming Dynasty, the other daimyo would turn to internal strife.

Taiko was in danger because he used the Ming Dynasty's territory to attack the Ming Dynasty, which led to the defeat of the vassal state of Korea.

If this continues, even without the Ming Dynasty attacking, the other daimyos will join forces to attack.

How to do it?

These days, he has been spending less and less time drinking tea, and more and more time sitting on the top floor of the castle tower, frowning and thinking.

The situation is so unfavorable to him, how can he turn it around?

He did not despair, as he saw nothing as unsolvable.

Perhaps, it was precisely because of his unyielding tenacity that allowed him to gradually climb from a lowly pauper to the position of Taiko and become the lord of Japan.

He never gives up easily. No matter how big the difficulties are, he will try his best to solve them.

The current situation is not as critical as when he was defeated by Tokugawa Ieyasu.

He believed that there was always a way to solve it.

Time passed slowly, and in the blink of an eye it was July.

Osaka Castle has entered the peak of summer now. It is very hot during the day, but it is a little cooler at night.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was also very annoyed by the hot weather, and his temper was getting worse day by day.

Early in the morning at about noon that day, he was sitting cross-legged on the top floor of the castle tower, frowning and thinking, when a dark shadow suddenly walked in from the door, and the bright lobby suddenly became dark.

Who is so reckless?

A fierce light flashed in Toyotomi Hideyoshi's eyes, and he frowned and looked up.

This is a call to anger.

However, he did not get angry after seeing who the person was.

Because the person who came was Kuroda Rusui, his right-hand man and his most trusted confidant.

Kuroda Josui bowed and said, holding a piece of paper, "Your Highness, someone is distributing Japanese tabloids again. They were scattered everywhere last night."

Japanese tabloid?
This time, no one threw this tabloid into his palace to slap him in the face.

Because Osaka Castle was so heavily guarded, let alone his residence, no one outside the main city could break in, not even an army of 100,000 or even 200,000.

This is also one of the things he is proud of.

Osaka Castle is the most powerful castle in Japan and is almost impossible to break through.

He took the tabloid calmly and took a look at it, and his face instantly turned dark.

Printed by the Ministry of Rites of the Ming Dynasty!

The Ming Dynasty was too arrogant. They actually did such a thing openly.

In fact, he already knew that this thing was printed in the Ming Dynasty after the tabloid was distributed last time.

However, knowing is one thing, and doing it openly is another.

The Ming Dynasty secretly printed tabloids and distributed them randomly in Japan, and he could still say that they were shameless and would resort to such despicable means.

It is obvious that it would be different if it was printed with "Printed by the Ministry of Rites of the Ming Dynasty". This is clearly a slap in his face!
What I mean is, I did it, what can you do about it?

When he looked at the content of the tabloid again, he couldn't help but get so angry that his veins popped out and his face turned red.

Baga, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty is going too far!

This guy actually pushed all the responsibility onto himself, as if he was dragging the entire Japan into fighting against the Ming Dynasty just for his own selfish reasons.

Is this the fact?
Not at all.

He had some selfish motives when he first led his army to attack the vassal state of Korea, but he was also considering the overall situation.

If he could conquer the vassal state of Korea or even the entire Ming Dynasty, it would not only benefit him, but other daimyo would also be able to seize a lot of property, women, and even territories.

More importantly, the population of the three islands of Japan is so small, but it has already skyrocketed to more than 10 million. Once peace is restored in the world, the population will certainly continue to skyrocket.

With so many people, don’t they need to eat?
Can Japan’s arable land feed so many people?

The reason why he led his army to expand the territory was for the future of the entire Japan!

The Ming emperor actually said that he was acting purely for his own selfish interests.

What's more, the Ming Dynasty is a country of etiquette and rituals, and it doesn't want to fight wars?

How did you manage to fight against Korea, your vassal state? Over 400,000 troops, and you swallowed them all in one gulp!

Does this mean that the Ming Dynasty doesn’t want to fight?

Also, you offered me a sky-high compensation of 200 million taels of silver and 140 million dan of grain, and you are not satisfied yet. You also want me to pay you another 100 million taels.

I can't afford to compensate you, yet you actually accuse me of disregarding the lives of two or three hundred thousand soldiers for my own selfish interests!

You are confusing right and wrong and talking nonsense.

Is this what is called a country of etiquette?
The more Toyotomi Hideyoshi watched, the angrier he became, and he was so angry that he almost jumped up and cursed.

If he could reach the capital of the Ming Dynasty, he would definitely give the Ming emperor a good beating.

The problem is that he can't attack the Ming Dynasty at this moment.

He suppressed his anger and finished reading the tabloid. Then he said in a deep voice: "Kanbei, what do you say we should do?"

Kanbei was the official position of Kuroda Josui.

The Japanese like to call officials by their titles. For example, others respectfully call him His Highness Taiko.

The position of Kanbei is unique to Japan.

The Bingwei were originally the guards of the imperial palace, and the Guanbingwei was the commander of the imperial palace guards, a fourth-rank official, equivalent to the commander of the imperial guards and the commander-in-chief of the Jinyiwei in the Ming Dynasty.

This official position was already very high, because Mori Terumoto was only a third-rank middle councilor.

Of course, Kuroda Josui, the military officer, was not in charge of the imperial palace guards, but of the personal troops under Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

At the same time, he was also Toyotomi Hideyoshi's military advisor.

The reason why Toyotomi Hideyoshi was able to achieve what he had today had a lot to do with the advice of Kuroda Josui.

In fact, the reason why their initial invasion of their vassal state, Korea, was so smooth had a lot to do with Kuroda Josui.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was the Taiko of Japan, so it was naturally impossible for him to personally talk to the traitors in the vassal state of Korea.

All these were done for him by Kuroda Josui.

The vassal state of Korea seemed to offer no resistance at the beginning, and they captured Wangjing in just 19 days.

This shows how powerful the military strategist Kuroda Josui is.

However, no matter how powerful Kuroda Rusui was at this moment, he could not do anything to Wanli. He could not go to the Ministry of Rites of the Ming Dynasty and smash the seal pad and lead type to prevent others from printing.

He frowned and pondered for a while, then said carefully: "Your Highness, we have no way to deal with Ming Country for the time being, we can only start from the mainland of Japan.

You can see that there is a clear date and the number of the first issue on the title page. This proves that the Ming Dynasty will not just print one issue this time, but will continue to print it.

After they print it, they have to send it to Japan. Moreover, someone here has to distribute it. It is impossible for them to spread their people all over Japan. If that were the case, Japan would have been taken over by the Ming Dynasty long ago."

Well, that makes sense. If you can’t cut off the source, then cut off the middle.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi nodded slowly and said, “Kanbei, you should know that this matter is very important.

The Emperor of Ming is trying to compete with me for the hearts of the people. If all of us in Japan are loyal to Ming, believe that they are a country of etiquette, believe that they do not want to fight, and believe that they will not attack the Japanese mainland, then it will be over.

If the Ming Dynasty really attacks, Japan will not be able to withstand it.

Therefore, you must find out who is distributing this tabloid, from the distributors to the people who pay them to distribute it, and arrest them all."

Upon hearing this, Kuroda Rushui bowed without hesitation and said, "Hai."

Can he find out?

This doesn't seem very difficult.

After all, Japan is their territory, and this tabloid is thrown everywhere, which proves that many people are throwing it, so they just need to sit back and wait.

Kuroda Rusui ordered his men to stake out the situation for more than ten nights, and they actually found the person distributing the tabloids.

However, they haven't caught anyone yet.

Not only did they fail to catch the person, but many of their own people were beaten up and couldn't even get up!

It was only at this time that they discovered that there were large ronin camps near the port cities along the coast of Japan, and all the ronin seemed to have gathered in these ronin camps.

That guy, there are at least a thousand ronin in each ronin camp, and the largest one has over ten thousand.

The people they sent to stake out the situation were only a little over a hundred in total, and they were divided into more than a dozen small teams.

It was a blessing that the ronin didn't surround them and kill them all, there was no way they could catch anyone.

When Kuroda Rusui received the news, he couldn't help but feel overwhelmed.

Ronin are not easy to deal with. To put it bluntly, these guys just run around everywhere, wander around, and look for food everywhere.

It was difficult to deal with the situation when people were not gathered together, let alone now that they are all gathered together.

Unless he sent a large army to encircle and suppress the Ronin camp, there was no way he would catch a single Ronin who distributed tabloids.

The problem is, if he mobilizes a large army to encircle the Ronin camp, those Ronin will definitely resist.

If it were just a few ronin camps or a few thousand ronin, it would be fine.

But now there are ronin camps everywhere, and there are probably more than 100,000 ronin gathered together.

If he sent a large army to encircle and suppress them, it would cause chaos in Japan.

He wouldn't dare to make a decision on his own on such a matter.

He could only ask Taiko Toyotomi Hideyoshi for instructions.

(End of this chapter)