"Exams?" Matsudaira Nobutsuna's brows were still furrowed, "Elder, how many people are you going to take?" Now there are hundreds of thousands of samurai who have no family to inherit...... Recruiting a few hundred people, I'm afraid it won't solve the problem! ”

"Then recruit 20,000 people!" Tokugawa Mitsukuni gritted his teeth, "You can let them form a new army and use it to crusade against the rebellion of the Western Kingdom!" As long as you can pacify the rebellious parties of Toyotomi, Shimazu, and Maori, you can harvest at least 1 million koku, enough to feed 20,000 new troops! ”

This imperial examination is also a bit miserable, and only after passing the examination can you become a soldier...... But it's better to have a pawn than a ronin!

"But what now?" Matsudaira Nobutsuna said, "Now that the shogunate's finances are tight, how can it afford to raise 20,000 new troops?" And to run a new army, you have to have guns and gunpowder...... It all costs money! ”

"You can borrow it!" Tokugawa Mitsukuni said, "Borrow money from the banks of the Celestial Empire...... With 1 million taels, it should be possible to build 20,000 new troops. ”

"The Celestial Empire may not be willing to borrow it, right?" Matsudaira Nobutsuna said, "The Celestial Empire is only afraid to see the Higashi-Tokugawa and Nishi-Toyotomi ......"

Tokugawa Mitsukuni shook his head and said, "No, if Nishitoyotomi doesn't have 3,000 Spaniards to join, the Celestial Empire may sit idly by." But now...... The Celestial Empire would not allow Spain to take root in Japan.

Moreover, the emperor of the Celestial Empire was very ambitious, and he had long wanted to expel the power of the Westerners from the South Seas, but he suffered from insufficient troops...... There aren't that many samurai in the Celestial Empire! So I have always wanted to recruit troops in my country, and this time we held the imperial examination, which also gave the Celestial Empire an opportunity to recruit troops on a large scale! ”

......

"Your Majesty, this is the Tokugawa Shogunate's recital, in the name of the Japanese king Minamoto Ietsuna!"

As soon as the Ming Ministry of Foreign Affairs received the letter sent to Wuhan by the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who stayed in Yingtianfu through the Zuo Tong Political Division, he went to the Donghu Palace to ask for a meeting.

Emperor Zhu was dancing with the little Yanma Mancini in the Western Pavilion of the East Lake Palace — a very strange European court minuet that looked a bit like two penguins and a dance music played by a eunuch band.

If it weren't for Mary. Mancini promised to be a model for Zhu Cihong, who recently liked sketching, for an hour, so that Zhu Cihong would not accompany her to dance the penguin dance!

When Grand Duke Luo arrived at the dance floor of the Western Pavilion, Zhu Cihong and Mancini had just finished dancing and were sitting and drinking afternoon tea - it was Mancini's own milk tea, which was very sweet and delicious.

This kind of milk tea has recently become popular in Europe, and it is said that Louis XIV liked the taste of Mancini milk tea very much, and under his leadership, milk tea quickly swept the aristocratic circle in France, and is now spreading to Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy.

"In the name of the king of Japan?" Zhu Cihong sipped the milk tea and smiled, "What did you say in the concerto?" ”

Grand Duke Luo had already taken a seat in a circle chair, and then from Mary. Mancini took a cup of milk tea in his hand, and before he could drink it, he heard Zhu Cihong's question.

"Your Majesty, the Yuan Jiagang said that Japan is going to hold the imperial examination, and I hope we can send someone to guide it."

"Japan...... Imperial examination? ”

"Yes!" Luo Dagong said, "If it weren't for this, the minister wouldn't be in a hurry to ask for a meeting." ”

Zhu Cihong nodded: "It's indeed a good thing...... Japan has finally taken this step. North Korea and Annam have long held the same imperial examinations as our dynasty, so Confucianism has been greatly flourished, and the country has been able to settle down.

And Japan has Confucianism but no imperial examination, so Confucianism is not prosperous, the country is unstable, civil strife is not stopped, samurai fight, and the people are uneasy, it is really like hell on earth! ”

Emperor Zhu said that Japan is a hell on earth, and that is well-founded!

Whether it is Zheng Jiangong, who has been in Japan for many years, or Tokugawa Takashi and Takada Miho, who came to Emperor Zhu's harem from Japan, they all say that Japan is a hell for peasants - what do so many samurai eat in Japan? What to drink? What to take to play geisha to raise a mistress? In the final analysis, it is still about eating farmers! Moreover, this group of samurai are all professional households in cutting people, and they are not afraid of peasant rebellion at all, and if the peasants do not rebel, they may be caught and tested with knives, and if they dare to rebel, they must not be chopped up?

So the peasants of Japan are living in hell! And the reason why they can live in hell "peacefully" is because the people in hell have developed a set of effective methods to control population growth and alleviate the contradiction between man and land - the inheritance of the eldest son and the dedication of Ding Zhi.

The former basically deprives the non-eldest male in the family of the right to inherit and reproduce! In ordinary farming households, those who have reached the age of 10 and are not the eldest men usually leave home to work in the municipality to earn a living, called chozhi hogong, and become cheap labor in commerce and handicrafts.

Japanese industry and commerce, which were severely suppressed under the feudal system, actually did not have the ability to absorb these surplus rural laborers. Therefore, the vast majority of non-eldest men who serve the public (part-time) cannot make up the money to start a family until they die, and finally have to live alone...... And their sacrifice was exchanged for the stability of Japanese society.

Of course, the eldest male inheritance did not only exist in ordinary private households, but also in most samurai families. Because most samurai families did not have much to pass on, the non-eldest men often became village warriors or ronin, and they became a factor of instability in Japanese society!

In other words, the non-eldest male of a peasant family who could not cut people became a cheap laborer, did not marry, did not have children, and served the public until death, which made the Tokugawa shogunate's Antai. And the non-eldest man of the samurai family who can cut people, wandering around the country with a big sword, will make trouble at every opportunity, so that the shogunate can't eat and walk around!

There should be nothing wrong with saying that such a country is hell.

"Your Majesty," Grand Duke Luo still knows a little about Japan, he also knows that Japan is hell, and he also knows the reason for the formation of this hell, "I'm afraid that relying on a single imperial examination is not enough to solve the dilemma in Japan, right?" ”

"Isn't there still a Celestial Empire?" Zhu Cihong smiled, "Grand Duke, why do you think Tokugawa Mitsukuni asked for guidance in the name of the family platform?" Do you think he really doesn't know how to take exams? ”

Yes, Tokugawa Mitsukuni is so smart, don't you know how to take the exam? It's nothing more than using difficult problems to eliminate most people...... But the problem is that those eliminated professional slashers still have to make a fuss!

In fact, the biggest headache for Guangguo now is not the Toyotomi Western Army, but the fact that there are more and more professional households in Japan who can't arrange it!

"Your Majesty, what do you mean ......"

Zhu Cihong said with a smile: "The Tokugawa shogunate has behaved very deferencingly in the past few years, and I am very satisfied!" Now they have begun to study the implementation of the imperial examination in the Celestial Empire, which shows that they really want to take refuge. So why shouldn't I help? The difficulties encountered by the Tokugawa shogunate were nothing more than that there were too many samurai and there was no way out...... I'll just give them a way out!

It's nothing more than 40 taels of silver a year, and if you recruit 108,000 yuan, it's only 4 million a year. It's still very cost-effective to use in Nanyang! ”

It turned out that the purpose of Tokugawa Mitsukuni's performance of the Celestial Empire was to imply that the Ming Dynasty would participate in this Japanese imperial examination - the Tokugawa shogunate recruited a group of officials and a samurai army through the imperial examination, while the Daimei Dynasty took the opportunity to recruit a group of non-eldest male samurai who failed to go abroad to serve as cannon fodder......

The losses in the land battles in the South Seas in this era are calculated in this way, and the number of deaths in the battle is another matter, and all kinds of epidemics will destroy you half first!

How could Zhu Cihong be willing to let the new army that he had so hard pull up go to Nanyang? And the ordinary new army can't bear such a mortality rate at all, only the Nine-Sided Youth Army can bear it, and the Nine-Sided Youth Army is so precious, how can it be consumed like this?

Moreover, Emperor Zhu also wants the Nine Sides Youth Army to go to the New World to fight the world!

They don't have much to worry about in the Ming Dynasty, so they can go to the New World to serve for a long time, and the training level is high, they can top a few of them, which is the most suitable for going to the New World.

As for the Nanyang side, you have to use worthless Japanese samurai to rush it!

Zhu Cihong had already stood up and said to Luo Dagong with a smile: "I have long wanted to fight in Nanyang, but I am reluctant to give up the lives of the new army.

Well, now with the Japanese samurai charging into battle, the land of the South Seas will be owned by the Celestial Empire sooner or later! ”