The next morning, because Saigo Takanaga was going to study at the Brewhouse, Naohide could only visit Okubo Ichizo. The general age requirement for each feudal school is 15 years old, but Okubo is 13 years old this year, so he has not yet entered the school.

Speaking of which, these corporal children of Saigo also have to thank Shigehao, the head of the Shimazu eight-generation family. Before Shigeho, the Satsuma Shimazu family did not have a formal feudal school due to financial difficulties.

Chonghao was born in the second year of Yanxiang (1745), died in the fourth year of Tianbao (1833), succeeded to the throne in the fifth year of Baoli (1755), and retired in the seventh year of Tianming (1787). After retiring, he fought with the next two heads of the family, and until his death, he firmly controlled the power of the domain.

Shigetsu built the Shojo Hall by forceful means, and it took three years to complete the initial construction from 1770 to 1773. After the establishment of the Restoration Government, the museum was renamed Kagoshima Shoshikan High School, and later renamed Fuso Shoshikan High School, which was the predecessor of Kagoshima University.

Shigeho's spirit was so great that at that time, the shogunate's official school, Shohei Spring, also known as the shogun shoban school, only accepted high- and middle-level samurai disciples, while the Shoshikan allowed the disciples of lower-ranking samurai to enter the school from the time it opened, and the medical hall established in 1773 even allowed the children of the townspeople to enroll.

Educational institutions such as the Brewikan improved the overall quality of the Satsuma samurai, and Saigo Takamori, Okubo Ritsu and others all came to the fore after emerging from the Brewikan Temple.

The Okubo family's yashiki is only one street away from the Saigo house, and when Naohide came to visit, the head of the Okubo family, Okubo Jiemon, was not there. Because Okubo Ichizo did not have a motofu, Mrs. Okubo was also present to accompany him.

Saigo's family is not rich, compared to Okubo's family is poor, his mother is frail and sickly, and his three younger sisters are still young.

Later generations said that the visit of the black ships of the United States in 1853 sounded the death knell of the shogunate, others said that the 1858 incident of the courtiers of the Eighty-eight Secretaries caused the loss of the authority of the shogunate, and others agreed that the collapse of the shogunate began with the change outside the Sakurada Gate in 1860, and that "the Teradaya incident in 1862 caused the fall of the shogunate" and "the second Choshu Raid in 1866 was the beginning of the fall of the shogunate", etc., but in fact, after the great famine "Tenpo Murder" (1833-1839), Various changes had already begun within the shogunate and the feudal domains, and the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate, which had lasted for more than 200 years, was silently challenged by the feudal domains.

The Okubo family is a victim of the Satsuma Domain's internal political reforms, and it may be worse if they don't change, but who can tell the difference?

In 1616, when the first lord of the Satsuma clan was Shimazu Tadashi, the feudal debt was already 20,000 taels, and in 1640, when the second lord Shimazu Mitsuhisa took office, the feudal debt swelled to 350,000 taels, and in 1801, the feudal debt had risen from 900,000 taels to 1,200,000 taels when the eighth lord Shigehiro succeeded to the throne.

The financial impoverishment of the Satsuma Domain was due to a number of samurai and samurai families, which accounted for more than 26% of the total population, and the samurai population was the largest among the Fuso princes at that time.

The Satsuma Domain adopted a unique system of separation of soldiers and peasants, such as the outer castle system and the gate cutting system, and in fact, many samurai still had the "Chi Xing system", that is, they received their own domains.

At this time, the shogunate and the feudal domains generally implemented the "Yuroku system", and only high-ranking samurai were able to know the system. The advantage of the system was that the samurai were separated from the land and the people on it, and the shogunate and feudal offices were able to manage the territory deeply, while at the same time reducing the growth rate of the number of samurai and reducing fiscal expenditures.

At that time, the number of samurai in Fuso had increased for a long time, and it was not until the end of the Edo period that the shogunate and the feudal domains desperately laid off their staff - which, by the way, was one of the reasons why there were so many ronin of "shishi" at the end of the shogunate.

The retainers of the Shimazu clan were divided into castle corporal and outer castle priests, just like the other princes. A castle priest was a samurai who was directly under the jurisdiction of the feudal prefecture and generally lived in the castle town of the prefecture. Waicheng warriors were village warriors who lived in the countryside and did not usually have the opportunity to visit their family masters and high-ranking samurai in the "city".

In the Edo period, the castle resembled a medieval castle in the West, and the Tokugawa shogunate stipulated that there would be "one castle for one domain", in which the feudal lords and high-ranking samurai lived and the feudal government also worked in the castle.

The castle corporal of Shimazu price included: four "Ichigai", Kajigi, Taruisui, Echizen, and Imai, all of which had more than 10,000 koku in their territories; Thirty-one "one holds", and the territory of one holds occupies at least one township; Thirteen families hold one qualification, and the status is equivalent to one holding; Nineteen consignees (group heads) and five consignees. All of the above belong to the sergeant.

In addition to the sergeant, there are "Taira Scholars", of which there are 760 small families (Ma Huizhi), 24 new families, these samurai families belong to the intermediate samurai, and the "corporals" of the "Taira Clan" have more than 3,000 small surname groups (apprentices), and force.

The outer city was renamed the township in the Tianming period, the outer city scholar is the village scholar, there are a total of 13 townships in the Satsuma territory, the township is the "Lu", also called "Fuben", similar to a small fortress, there are the village priests Nian Ji, Yokome and the head of the group of feudal officials, most of the villagers live in their respective village houses (villages), similar to small landlords.

Although many of the villagers cultivated their own land, a large number of the remaining samurai were separated from the land, and the lords had to support these warriors, causing the feudal economy to be embarrassed and the people to live in hardship.

In addition, the cultivated land area of Fuso is small, and agriculture is congenitally insufficient. In later generations, about 75% of Fuso's land was mountainous and hilly, and small-scale mountain basins and plains were scattered throughout the country, and the largest proportion of mountainous area to total land area was Shikoku Island (79.9%), followed by Kyushu Island (64.8%), Honshu Island (63.6%), and Hokkaido (49%).

Satsuma is located in the southernmost part of Kyushu Island, and there are no large plains in the territory, and later generations have said that Kagoshima has lush forests and abundant hot springs, but what is not said is that there is little arable land.

What's even worse is that the soil in the domain is all volcanic ash, which is suitable for dry land cultivation, and later became a famous national vegetable production area. But at this time, the main food crop of Fuso was rice, and the main harvest of land rent was rice.

At this point in time, the Satsuma Domain's Satsuma taro (sweet potato) was growing well and yielding a high yield, but the samurai were determined to rely on rice as their staple food, and the feudal economy was not good, so the result of forced rice planting was that the harvest was not good.

In addition, in the Satsuma Domain, there are many natural disasters such as typhoons, storms, and earthquakes.

In short, in the Edo period, when agriculture was dominated by rice cultivation, the agriculture of the Satsuma clan was full of sorrow.

Originally, the economy within the domain was sluggish, but as an external prince, the early shogunate played a game of "everyone comes to find faults" with Satsuma from time to time. As courtiers, the princes of various regions had to undertake some of the civil engineering and hydraulic works of the shogunate, and the shogunate symbolically contributed some manpower and material resources, and each feudal domain took the lion's share and bore the main manpower and material resources. Satsuma was tossed back and forth several times by the shogunate, and then his vitality was greatly damaged.

During the reign of Shigehiro Shimazu, the head of the eighth family, Shigehiro vigorously improved relations with the shogunate and the princes, and he adopted a marriage strategy to improve the diplomatic situation of the Satsuma domain. Shigehao, who had 26 children, improved his diplomacy by entering into a political marriage. He himself married the daughter of Tokugawa Soyin of the Gosankei Ichitsubashi family as the main family, and later passed on several sons to the Nakatsu domain, the Fukuoka domain, the Hachinohe domain, and the Maruoka domain, all of which became lords of these domains. Shigehao also married his daughter into the Matsudaira family and the Yanagisawa family, which were shogunate powers, and the most shining moment of Shigehao's marriage was when the third daughter Shigehime (1773-1844) married the 11th shogun, the Tokugawa family, Qi Masamu (1773-1841), and became the Imperial Observatory (main room).

Traditionally, the shoguns of the Tokugawa family usually married women from the five regency or the palace family, and it was unprecedented for Shigehao to marry the daughter of a daimyo of the outside world, but Shigehao perfectly circumvented this problem by sending his daughter to the Konoe family, one of the five regents, as an adopted daughter.

However, the marriage also brought a lot of financial burdens to the Satsuma clan. In the mid-to-late Edo period, luxury was in vogue, and it is said that Shigehime's wedding queue stretched from the Satsuma Domain's Satsuma Domain in Shibuya to Edo Castle, the shogun's residence, and it took several months just to deliver the wedding supplies.

At the same time, Chonghao also vigorously renewed the feudal government during his reign:

Shigehiro established the Shoshikan (1773), the Medical Museum (1773), the Yoshino Yakuen (1773), the Meitokikan (1779), which was later renamed the Planetarium, and the Sata Yakuen, and the establishment of these educational and research institutions cost a lot of money, and the later operation was a large long-term investment.

In order to change the image of the Satsuma samurai as rude and aggressive in the outside world and to promote the feudal domain's Bunji, Shigeo encouraged various amusements in Satsuma, introduced Kyoto-style theater, organized geisha performances, sumo wrestling tournaments, and encouraged and rewarded feudal warriors.

In addition, the sexually curious Chonghao is also very fond of orchid and is known as the name of orchid. Chonghao and his great-grandson Qi Bin had met Dr. Siebold of the Lan Guo Merchant House together. Because of the purchase of too many orchids, Chonghao also deliberately built a "Treasure Museum" to collect.

In addition, Chonghao's life is also very luxurious.

The three famous losers of the late Edo period were the 11th shogun of the shogunate, Tokugawa Ieqi, the eighth head of the Satsuma Shimazu family, and the ninth lord of the Saga Nabeshima family, Sainao.

In addition to the main room, the Tokugawa family had 16 side rooms and 23 concubines, with a total of 28 sons and 27 daughters.

Nabeshima's straight silk clothes were thrown away once after being worn, and he set off fireworks for a whole night.

These two famous losers and heavyweights competed for riches, and as a result, they lost and lost.....

The general's family Qi was famous for his extravagance, and even he bowed to the extravagance of Chonghao. Once, he said enviously to Mohime, "I really want to live like my father-in-law."

Shigeho's expenses for foreign marriages, domestic affairs, personal collections, and extravagant living expenses all came from loans, illegal smuggling through Naha, and the oppression of samurai and feudal lords in the domain.

In 1609, the Satsuma Shimazu family sent troops to attack the Naha Kingdom, forcing the Naha Kingdom to take over the "掟fifteenカjo" and seize the Amami Islands. After that, the Shimazu family began smuggling with Chinese private merchants through Naha – which was of course not allowed by the Tokugawa shogunate.

In the second year of Tenpo (1831), it was said that the total foreign debt of the Satsuma Shimazu family had reached an astronomical amount of 5 million taels, so Shigeho had to carry out a feudal reform. In the third year of Tenpo (1832), he promoted the 56-year-old chakusho Hirogo (1776-1849), a low-ranking samurai, to be the head of the Satsuma clan and take full charge of financial reform. The bureau was the first low-level samurai in the Satsuma Domain, and the news shocked the world.