Kyoto, Japan.

At the Imperial Palace, early in the morning, the old man in charge of food, Matsudaira Nobutsuna, with a sad face and a sweaty face, came to see Sakai Tadakatsu.

"Your Excellency, something is wrong! Yesterday, the government office went to collect grain for three silver yuan and one stone, and today when I went to collect it, it has risen to five silver yuan and one stone! And it's still rising...... If it continues to rise like this, not to mention that the shogunate will collect 30,000 stone of military rations, I'm afraid it will be difficult to collect 10,000 stones......"

During the Tokugawa Shogunate period, the currency circulation in Japan was characterized by "heavy gold in the east and good silver in the west", and the eastern part of Japan, centered on Edo, was dominated by gold coinage, and gold coins were used for market transactions and price markings, while the western part of Japan, centered on Osaka, was dominated by silver coinage.

After the Treaty of Osaka tomorrow, Zhu Cihong specially requested that the trade between Japan and the Ming Dynasty be settled by the Ming Dynasty's dragon yuan.

Matsudaira Nobutsuna's words struck Sakai Tadakatsu like a lightning strike, and he hurriedly asked, "Do you know the reason for the rise in food prices?" ”

Matsudaira Nobutsuna shook his head, nodded again, and said, "It has risen overnight, and the situation is still unknown.......

Sakai Tadashi just wanted to ask again, but he heard the words of the old man Abe Tadaaki come from outside the door: "It's crazy, the price of grain is crazy, the price of grain in the market has risen to five silver yuan and one stone, and every household in the city is desperately rushing to buy it, and they don't divide the new grain and old grain!" ”

Abe Tadaaki, who sent the envoy to Daming, came back safely, and Sakai Tadashi was still able to clear the situation and did not kill him in Daming.

Today, the shogunate is mainly carried by three people, one is the elder Sakai Tadakatsu, and the other two are Abe Tadaaki and Matsudaira Nobutsuna, one is the main military and the other is the main internal affairs.

There used to be four people, and the other was the uncle of the shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna, Hoshina Masayuki, but that guy was killed by the Ming army in the Battle of Yamakawa a few years ago.

In recent days, Abe Tadaaki has been unhappy with the shogunate's dispatch of troops, and has repeatedly complained about Sakai Tadakatsu: Lao Tzu went out on a trip, and you killed the emperor? Didn't you say that you don't send troops?

Sakai Tadakatsu fully showed the elegance of the prime minister's belly to support the ship, and he valued peace, so he did not get along with him, but patiently analyzed the benefits of the shogunate to Abe Tadaaki.

Abe Tadaaki didn't make trouble for the leader, and after a few days of trouble, he was cleared, because he felt that what the leader said was very reasonable.

The current situation of the shogunate seems to be much better than before, I don't know if I don't fight, I am frightened and startled, and the Shogunate Alliance is a group of scumbags who will be broken when they are stabbed.

However, now that the shogunate's worst enemy has changed from the Shogunate Alliance to the Ming Dynasty, the situation seems to have gotten worse again......

Sakai Tadashi knocked on the hand of the Taishi chair and said, "Don't panic, don't mess up, with the three of us here, the sky in Japan will not fall." ”

What he said was an understatement, but in fact, he was panicked in his heart, and if it went on like this, the shogunate army that was "suppressing" everywhere would run out of food.

What does it mean for the army to run out of food, the politicians know very well, it is a more terrible scenario than the chaotic people!

He closed his eyes and pondered, and only after a while did he speak: "It may not be a coincidence that the merchants hoarded Juqi and disrupted the market, I think there are forces behind the scenes deliberately targeting the shogunate and ruining our counterinsurgency plan!" ”

Matsudaira Shintsuna said: "I also suspect this matter, and I sent someone to investigate last night." ”

When it comes to the possible forces behind it, the three of them invariably think of the people of the Ming Kingdom in their hearts, but no one wants to bring it up.

Thinking of the bombing of Edo a few years ago, the shogunate was all apprehensive and unwilling to touch the Ming Dynasty, but fortunately, the Ming Dynasty sent an envoy some time ago, but on behalf of the Ming Emperor reprimanded the shogunate with words, and did not act radically.

In order to test the attitude of the Ming Dynasty, Sakai Tadashi proposed to buy arms from the Ming Dynasty, but the Ming envoy agreed, and added 300 more artillery pieces, promising to deliver them to the shogunate in two months, which made the shogunate breathe a sigh of relief.

However, Sakai Tadashi still does not trust the Ming court, and too much has happened in the past month.

With the murder of Emperor Shohito, the situation in Japan was turbulent, the Shogunate Alliance collapsed, many daimyo went bankrupt, and Kyoto Castle was filled with uneasy prison men (samurai who had lost their domains and their fortunes).

Half a month ago, a group of prisoners such as Izaya Tadaya and Maruhashi Xiangxue planned to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate, and launched an uprising in Kyoto in the name of the general of the expedition to "kill the king".

This incident alerted the shogunate, which had lax rule in Kyoto, to take strong measures to prevent the many samurai from becoming ronin due to the loss of their lords, and to stabilize them by distributing money and food.

As a result, the financial pressure on the shogunate was even greater, and Sakai Tadakatsu received information from the arrested leaders of the rebel prisoners that they had been commanded to revolt.

As for the person behind the scenes, Maruhashi asked Yukii that he didn't know, but he only knew that the other party gave a lot of money, and in the end, the shogunate didn't find out.

At this time, a side servant (close attendant, equivalent to the chief eunuch of the celebrant supervisor) pushed the door into the room in a hurry, put an official document on the table in front of Sakai Tadakatsu, and said, "The elder and all the elders, please take a look.......

Sakai Tadakatsu unfolded the official document, his brow furrowed even tighter.

Matsudaira Nobutsuna looked at him and was silent, anxious for a while, and asked, "Elder, what's the matter?" Is it tricky? ”

Sakai Tadakatsu was noncommittal, put the official document on the table, and pushed it forward: "You can take a look......"

Matsudaira Nobutsuna was an anxious man, and he couldn't wait to pick up the official document, glanced at it a few times, and immediately changed his complexion: "Sure enough, someone secretly planned, yesterday fifty grain shops in Kyoto Prefecture took the lead in raising prices at the same time, and today there are more grain shops following suit to raise prices, and the owners of these grain shops are all from the Ming Kingdom!" ”

"Really?"

Abe Zhongqiu exclaimed, and hurriedly grabbed the official document to look at it in person, and the more he looked at it, the more his face sank.

Sakai Tadashi pointed at him and said hatefully: "Abe, this is what you call it, they will not interfere in the internal affairs of my shogunate?" ”

Abe Zhongqiu smiled awkwardly and said, "Your Excellency, this matter may just be that the Ming profiteers took advantage of our Japanese civil war and wanted to make a war fortune, and it does not mean that it was done by the Ming court......."

Sakai Tadakatsu's face became more and more solemn, and he couldn't help but say: "Shut up, do you still believe the nonsense that the envoy of the Ming Kingdom said?" People have already laid out to deal with my shogunate! ”

Seeing that the two were about to fight again, Matsudaira Nobutsuna hurriedly diverted the topic and said, "If the Ming Imperial Court controls Japanese grain prices behind the scenes, then what should we do?" ”

As soon as these words came out, both of them immediately shut up, and the hall was so quiet that they could hear a pin.

Sakai Tadashi was the first to say: "The fish in the oil pot will still be dying, let alone my shogunate!" ”

Having said that, the shogunate still has to have a strategy to deal with it, but the high-end game of economic warfare, how can the three of them be stubborn and think of dealing with it for a while?

The three of them pondered for a long time, and for a while they couldn't do anything, so they could only stare at each other so widely, and no one even spoke anymore.

Just as the shogunate was thinking hard about what to do, the shogunate's supervisor, Ometsu, came to report again: "In just half a day's work, the price of grain in Kyoto Prefecture has risen to six silver yuan and one stone!" ”

According to the description of this high-ranking Japanese official, grain is now priceless and unmarketable, almost all rice shops inside and outside Kyoto are closed and sold out, and layers of people gather outside the grain stores, and it has become an impossible luxury to buy a few bowls of rice to go home and cook.

At this time, the three elders of the shogunate were completely panicked, and the old man in charge of food, Matsudaira Nobutsuna, was about to become an ant on a hot pot, and he was anxious to circle around the hall, but he couldn't come up with any way to stop the situation from continuing to deteriorate.

He knew very well that these grain stores were the property of the Ming merchants, and according to the "Osaka Treaty" signed between the two countries a few years ago, the shogunate must not infringe on the interests of the Ming merchants in Japan, otherwise it would cause the relations between the two countries to deteriorate, and the Ming would not sit idly by.