At the same time as the shogunate reform, each feudal domain also carried out self-help reforms.

During the reigns of the two feudal lords of the Choshu Domain, Mori Saimoto (1824-1836) and Mori Saihiro (1836), they also adopted measures such as austerity, preventing hoarding of goods, suppressing prices, and improving agriculture, but they did not do much to achieve much success.

The turning point in Choshu occurred in the 8th year of Tenpo (1837), when the thirteenth generation of the Choshu Mori family, Mori Keikin, succeeded to the throne.

Because the previous feudal lord Qi Guang did not have a son and adopted son (Jing Qin was the son of Qi Yuan, the head of the next generation, Qi Yuan succeeded to the Fukuhara clan as an adopted son and later inherited the head of the Maori family, and the previous head of the family, Qi Guang, was the adopted son of Qi Yuan), theoretically the shogunate could ask the Maori lord to "remove the country" or "change it" or "reduce the seal", although since the 4th year of Kean'an (1651 AD), the shogunate relaxed the samurai family's "deathbed heir" system, but the Maori family still had to come up with a large amount of money to dredge the joints.

According to later rumors, in December of the seventh year of Tenpo, the head of the Maori family, Qi Guang, died of illness, because he had no heirs, and the retainers were afraid that the Maori family would be removed from the country, and there was no mourning for the time being, and in the first month of the eighth year of Tianbao, the eldest son of the head of the family Maori Qiguang was sent to Edo to visit the Hajj on behalf of the family, and in March, the Maori family asked the shogunate to pay homage to the prince, and in August he got the permission of the shogunate, and then the Maori family falsely reported that the head of the family Qi Guang died of illness, and Jingqin succeeded to the throne as the thirteenth generation of the head of the Maori family in Choshu. Later, the public Tokugawa Iekei gave the word "kei" in his name to Jingqin and changed his name to "Maori Keijin".

In the previous year, the two feudal lords had died one after another, and the funerals and succession ceremonies had cost a lot of money, and the Tenpo murderous situation continued, and Choshu's finances were heavily indebted, forcing the head of the family, Mori Keiko, to continue reforms.

The Maori Qingqin who has just succeeded to the throne is a wise and foolish figure, because he inherits the main family from the branch, so he is usually very cautious in his words and deeds, and always answers to the retainers' advances, "what the Qing says is very true", according to modern words, the Qingqin is "with a pig's face and a bright heart".

In the 9th year of Tenpo (1838), Keiko continued to implement the policy of frugality, appointing Murata Shiro Saemon and Kagawa Sabei to reorganize the finances, and later explicitly appointed Murata Shiro Saemon to lead the feudal reform.

Murata Shiro Saemon was called "Murata Seikaze" in later generations, and his Miao character was Murata, whose name was Shunyuki, and later changed his name to Seifu, nicknamed Kaminosuke, and the character Nori, Matsusai, Toyo, etc., Shiro Saemon is the hereditary name of the head of the Murata family for generations, and the head of the Egawa Eilong family has been named "Egawa Taro Saemon" for generations.

Guided by Murata's "Opinions on the Correction of Abuses," which he wrote, he proposed the rectification of discipline, the recruitment of qualified personnel, the improvement of education, the reform of the military system, the reform of the civil and military sectors, and the revitalization of industry.

The decree issued focuses on the financial consolidation:

1. The feudal government and the feudal clan practiced strict economy, and the samurai uniformly used cotton cloth for clothing.

2. The gold and rice that were originally repaired by the temple were converted into a fund for sorting out the finances.

3. Samurai and civilians were allowed to borrow money using their products as collateral.

4. The head of the Māori family and his/her family shall allocate funds for consumption according to the standard of expenses during the period of entitlement. It's actually a cost cut, but it's traditionally a good reputation.

5. The establishment of the "Vietnamese-Dutch side" in Shimonoseki, which is a government-run structure responsible for external loans and warehousing operations, and grants the qualifications of the wealthy businessmen Shiraishi Shoichiro and Nakano Hanzaemon to carry knives, and appoints them as the managers of the Vietnamese-Dutch side.

Shimonoseki was the main point of the sea route between Kyushu and Hokkai, and many feudal clans and merchants transported their goods to Osaka through Shimonoseki to sell, but the price of goods in Osaka was high and low, and the feudal clan or merchants could choose to store the goods in the "Etsu-Dutch side" of Shimonoseki, and then ship them to Osaka when the market was good to avoid unnecessary losses when the market was bad. At the same time, merchants could also borrow money from the Choshu clan to expand sales or make emergencies.

Sixth, build a shrine warehouse and a righteous warehouse to prepare for famine, and reduce the proportion of Shi Gao's contribution to the feudal clan. Agricultural technology was promoted, and technical improvements and privileged management were carried out in the defense of the four whites.

(The famous specialties of the Choshu Domain, rice, paper, salt, and wax, because they are all white, are collectively known as the four whites of the defense chief.) ）

7. The "Law on Public and Domestic Loans" unilaterally stipulates low interest rates on the debts of the former Choshu officials and samurai, and Choshu is responsible for repaying the principal for a period of 37 years.

In addition, Murata Kiyokaze also made an exception in recruiting talents, rectifying education, expanding and reforming the military system, establishing the Orchid Academy, and implementing the "exemption system" -- registering existing commercial, handicraft, and shipping operators, authorizing franchises for existing operators, and restricting the number of new account holders.

When Mori Keiko first took over as head of the family, the Choshu Mori family had a debt of more than 90,000 taels of silver (guan, which was a unique weight unit of fuso at the time, which was always equivalent to 37.5 kilograms), which was equivalent to 1.8 million taels of gold according to the shogunate's guide price at the time. At that time, the annual income of Changzhou was only 5,790 guan silver, and the annual net income was only negative 3,400 guan silver. However, after the reforms, the Chōshōshū Domain's economy improved dramatically, and six years later, 30 percent of its debts had been repaid.

However, because there were many people who opposed it, Murata began to lose ground from this year, and next year the first year of Honghua will officially retire.

Naohide considered the current situation in Choshu in Ryokago, and was worried that Murata Kiyofu's loss of power would affect Shiraishi Shoichiro, and then he would not be able to enter the interior of Choshu and not see Yoshida Kikata.

And Shiraishi Shoichiro was also busy at this time because of Naohide's visit.

The Choshu Mori clan did not get along well with the Shogunate from the time the Edo Shogunate was not established, because in the Battle of Sekigahara, the head of the Mori clan, Mori Terumoto, was promoted to the commander-in-chief of the Western Army, leading the coalition against the Western Army led by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Edo Shogunate. In the Battle of Sekigahara, the "war that decided the world", the Western Army won, and three years later the Tokugawa family was officially opened.

After the defeat in the Battle of Sekigahara, the Mori family was downgraded from 1.2 million koku across the Kukoku to 290,000 koku (later increased to 370,000 koku through land acquisition and reclamation), and the prestige, power, and livelihood of the lord family and samurai at all levels were dealt a heavy blow.

At the same time, the Tokugawa shogunate also continued to tease the Mori family through the Iwakuni Yoshikawa clan, a division of the Mori family, and the Tokugawa shogunate gave 30,000 koku to the Yoshikawa Hiroshi family (the second generation of the Yoshikawa clan head Hiromasa was increased to 60,000 koku).

What made the faces of the Mori family and their subordinate samurai even more gloomy was the various ridicules of Jeongfuso at that time, the most famous of which was "the prime minister's empty bento".

During the Battle of Sekigahara, Mori Terumoto, the general of the Western Army, remained at Osaka Castle, and Mori Hidemoto was the front-line commander of the Mori Army in the Western Army, and the head of the Yoshikawa family, Hiroie, served as the vanguard of the Mori Army. Yoshikawa Hiroke had been rebelled by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the commander-in-chief of the Western Army, before the war (using tactics to betray his opponent), and he was slow to enter the battle position, and Yoshikawa Hiroke was blocked in front of the troops of Mori Hidemoto, Nagamune Ibu Morikin, Nagashu Masaie, and Ankokuji Keikyo, and as long as he did not move, the troops behind could not move forward. As the Western Army's position collapsed, the Maori Army retreated in an inexplicable defeat without a major battle.

During the battle, Mori Hidemoto urged Yoshikawa Hiroke to move forward many times, but Yoshikawa Hiroke found various excuses to delay, such as "I'm eating a bento". The later families kept urging the Maori army to advance, and Maori Xiuyuan had no choice but to reply "Our army is eating bento, so we can't march into the army", and Xiuyuan's official position at that time was Senate - "Prime Minister".

The other name of the ancient official senator of Fuso was the "prime minister" of the Tang Dynasty. The Senate is an official position that consults with ministers and ministers on political affairs, and is an important position that succeeds Nayan.

The Mori family's hesitation in battle led to defeat without a fight, and then they were molested by the Tokugawa shogunate, which made the Mori family a laughing stock in the world. The "Prime Minister's empty bento" spread in Fuso, and the princes and samurai of the world used the "Prime Minister's empty bento" as a metaphor for hesitating and missing a good opportunity.

Originally, this hesitant laughing stock was the contemporaneous "Momoyama period" Hojo family, in the battle of Odawara Castle, the Hojo family held a long meeting around the "battle" or "surrender", known as the "Odawara Castle Assessment", the meeting was held for a long time without a clear result, and at this time Toyotomi Hideyoshi had already brought a large army to fight, and finally the Hojo family, which had been a million stones, was defeated and reduced to 9,000 stones, and became the laughing stock of the world.

Later, people used the "Odawara Castle Assessment" as a metaphor for hesitation and missed opportunities.

As a result, the Maori family was "blue out of the blue", and the "Prime Minister's empty bento" replaced the "Odawara Castle Assessment". The Maori family lost their lito and lost face in Quanfuso, and in the future, the Tokugawa shogunate also teased the Maori family from time to time, so the Maori family has been silently hating the Tokugawa shogunate. At the end of the curtain, Changzhou was the first to jump out and raise troops to fall the curtain, so it is said that you must be kind so as not to be struck by lightning.

In addition, in April this year, the Maori family secretly carried out a major event under the cover of the shogunate -- the "Hagadai Exercise," in which more than 10,000 people conducted a military drill centered on cannons and foreign guns. During the Edo period, the princes had to apply to the shogunate in advance for military drills. According to the shogunate's thinking, what do you want to do with large-scale drills? Do you want to hit your neighbor or do you want to hit me? As a result, large-scale actions were largely not approved, and were reprimanded and punished by the shogunate.

Originally, Naohide was suspected of being the hermit of the shogunate, and Metsuke (both of whom were secret agents of the shogunate secretly spying on the princes), but he caught up with the military drill of the Maori family, and Shiraishi Shoichiro's head was about to crack, and as the person in charge of the "Viet-Dutch side", he originally had the responsibility of collecting intelligence and monitoring the merchants who came and went in Shimonoseki, but now Naohide directly found him, and he couldn't pretend not to know.

He scolded in his heart that the bow of the ship was troublesome, and the cargo ship carried passengers for his fleet, but he couldn't bring the disaster star home. When he was in a hurry, the servant came in to inform the adults of the Shimonoseki Station that they had come to visit.

The customs office is a checkpoint to guard against all kinds of lawbreakers. Naohide and the others went to the Shimonoseki Sekisho to report during the day, and the samurai at the Sekisho were shocked when they saw that the person was from Edo, and let people secretly follow Naohide and his party to Shiraishi Shoichiro's mansion from a distance. The samurai of the Sekisho did not suspect Shiraishi, because Shiraishi's net worth and life were maintained in the Maori family, but it happened that he also had a headache Naohide may be a hermit, and he came to listen to information, and he had a relationship with Shiraishi, Shiraishi's hands and eyes were big, and his hands and eyes were all over the sky, so it happened that this trouble was pushed to Shiraishi.

After careful discussion with the samurai of Sekisho, Shiraishi felt that either he would kill the three of Naohide halfway, or he would not let Naohide go to the "Hagi" Castle of Choshu Zhisho, otherwise he would inevitably be found out about something unfavorable. In the past, hermits and eyes were secretly probing news as merchants and monks, but the shogunate "patrol envoys" who informed the princes in advance of the cooperation of the shogunate were the hermits of the information. But businessmen, monks, and other civilians die when they die, and it is not common for Fuso to have such a bad climate and nothing happening, and it is not common for typhoons, earthquakes, and heavy rain to cause mudslides. But Naohide is a samurai who is on an open study tour, and if he dies, it will arouse the vigilance and attention of the shogunate, and if the Maori family is not thoroughly investigated, how can Naohide not go deep into the territory of Choshu?

Shiraishi's brain turned fast, and he slapped his thigh, and he didn't have to go to Hagi Castle to get Yoshida Jufang to Shimonoseki Naohide. The samurai of Sekisho also agreed with this idea, so the two discussed, and the Sekisho side reported to the top to find an excuse to send Yoshida to Shimonoseki for a business trip, and Shiraishi found a way to drag Naohide and his party in Shimonoseki and so on.