Isn't afraid of anything, of course it's not the lord of the Shimazu family, Shimazu Mitsuhisa, as the lord of the Satsuma Domain's 725,000 koku, the first daimyo in Kyushu, Japan, how can he not be afraid? It was precisely because he was afraid that he had to pretend to be fearless, gritting his teeth and raising the banner of the fall!

This may sound contradictory, but it's not at all. Because failure to fall the curtain does not necessarily mean death - there are so many Spanish warships on the sea in Kagoshima Bay, it is too big to walk away...... Even if you can't run, you have to cut your stomach in the end, isn't there still a process? Death after the curtain is a reprieve, how can it be delayed for two or three years, right? Even if the shogunate is arrested in the end, there will still be a chance to "ask for mercy", right?

If Shimazu Mitsuhisa does not fall, he chooses to give in...... Then there's really no way out! The submission of the Satsuma clan was not pulled down by kowtowing and making amends, and at worst it was confiscated and at least it was changed and reduced. And confiscation, change, and reduction of seals all mean that a large number of feudal scholars will lose their jobs, and a large number of villagers will lose their status - the actual stone height of the Satsuma Domain must be above one million! If you look at the population of the Satsuma Domain, if there are only 605,000 koku, how can 450,000 people have enough to eat? The actual stone height of the Satsuma Domain is more than 1 million koku! It's just that there are many villagers who don't pay the annual tribute, and the nominal stone height of Satsuma is lowered. If the Satsuma Domain was changed, how could the new lord and shogunate allow so many villagers who did not pay their food to exist? Their ancestors have never fought for the Tokugawa family, so why should they enjoy the treatment of villagers?

And for the shogunate, the villagers were more troublesome than the ronins - the ronins had no family business, were adrift, and it was difficult to pass on their descendants, which was a short-term trouble. And the townsman has land and property, and can marry and have children, leaving many children and grandchildren...... Most of these descendants will become wandering ronins who are not allowed to become a samurai or inherit the family business (samurai families generally practice primogeniture).

Therefore, destroying the countryman now is equivalent to destroying the ronin for the future!

And if the ronin of the Satsuma clan wants to keep what little privilege, glory and dream he has (the townsman is still a scholar, and there is still a chance to become a priest, and the descendants can also receive training in the domain school, if they become farmers, then it will be over), and they will definitely fight hard! Anyway, if you lose the battle, you will die at most, and if you don't die on the battlefield, the big deal is to farm and become a farmer...... What if you win? The Shimazu family became a general, and these people were the heroes who created the shogunate, so how could they get a banner, right?

As for the ronin who doesn't have a fart, he is even more afraid...... Even if they are defeated or killed, they can still enjoy the scenery for a few years - most of these ronins are descendants of the samurai of the generation who lost their lord or lord after the Battle of Sekigahara, and after struggling for so many years in the peaceful and prosperous life of the Tokugawa family, now they finally have the opportunity to realize their samurai dream (ronins are not real samurai anymore), even if they die on the battlefield, it is worth it!

So under the pressure of these two groups of people, Mitsuhisa Shimazu and the important ministers of the Shimazu family were all forced to a dead end!

Whoever dares to publicly propose subjugation will be punished by heaven......

Just as Mitsuhisa Shimazu was trying to pretend to be fearless, Kagoshima Castle welcomed visitors from Edo.

The person who came was Shimazu Mitsuhisa's daughter Shimazu Yoshino, who is fourteen years old this year, but she is very small, her facial features are very delicate, her eyes are large, her eyelashes are slender, her skin is snow-white, and she looks like a porcelain doll - this girl is the illegitimate daughter of Mitsuhisa and an Oiran when she was in Edo, and she looks like her mother, and she is extremely small and cute. Originally, he had promised to marry the heir of the Otomo family (the descendant of Otomo Yoshitomi, the Gao family of 1,000 koku), but because the Shimazu family was accused of being an enemy of the dynasty, the marriage was dismissed.

Because he was about to marry into the Otomo family, Shimazu Yoshino lived in the Satsuma Domain in Edo for the past two years, and after the Shimazu family was accused of being an enemy of the dynasty, he was placed under house arrest by the shogunate along with the other Shimazu family and retainers.

However, the shogunate did not embarrass the Shimazu family who were under house arrest, and everything was provided as usual, and rejected Shimazu Tsunadahisa's "seppuku request", and then asked Shimazu Yoshino and several worthless Shimazu families to return to Kagoshima Castle to report to Shimazu Mitsuhisa that he was safe.

In addition, Shimazu Yoshino also brought a handwritten letter from Tokugawa Mitsukuni, who had returned to Edo due to being blocked in Nagasaki.

In the letter, on behalf of the shogun, Mitsukuni promised that as long as the Shimazu family was willing to surrender, they would be transferred to the Shimazu family—that the shogunate could give about 130,000 koku to the Shimazu family the territory east of the Takamatsu Castle and the Takaliang River in the country.

130,000 stones!

And it can survive......

Of course, Shimazu Mitsukuni was moved, his enemy was not only one shogunate, but the Eight-Nation Alliance! The possibility of winning the battle is very small, and the best ending is to go into exile in New Spain, how can it not be as good as the feudal lord of 130,000 stones, right?

"Lord, the Tokugawa family is too deceitful!"

"My lord, the Shimazu family must not give in to the traitor Tokugawa!"

Mitsuhisa Shimazu's good wishes were immediately shattered by his two good brothers, Hisakuni Ijiin and Hisasho Kayama!

It turned out that today with him in the city to listen to Shimazu Yoshino's talk about the situation of the Edo Domain, there are also Shimazu family of the Shimazu family, Kiyo Kamada, Ijiin Hisakuni, Ise Sadaaki, Kayama Hisasho and others, although these people are not surnamed Shimazu, but they are all Shimazu Mitsuhisa's own brothers - Mitsuhisa's father Tadahiro is super capable and has fourteen sons!

In order to settle these good sons, he blackened his conscience and stuffed seven of his sons to the foreign surname Shigechen as adopted sons—those foreign surnamed Shigechen did not have no sons (no sons and nephews), but were forced to be good fathers to the sons of the Shimazu family! In fact, the Shimazu family seized the family business of the retainers by inheriting it by their adopted son......

And these good brothers and nephews of Shimazu Mitsuhisa, who have a family business of several thousand stones, of course, are resolutely opposed to the submission of the Shimazu family...... The Shimazu family now has 725,000 koku, and a few of them are only a few thousand koku, if the territory is reduced to 130,000 koku, what will they do? Isn't there only a few hundred or thousands of Shi Jialu left? These hundreds of stones are enough for their own family to spend, but there are retainers below them!

Japan's feudalism is layered feudal, and there are a bunch of middle and low-level samurai to feed under the high-level samurai who receive thousands of stones!

If it is reduced to a few hundred stones, I don't know how many people will lose their family business, they were originally forcibly arranged by Shimazu Tadashi to take away the family business, and now they have to lay off their employees, and they must not let people chop them into meat sauce? Shimazu Mitsuhisa has a group of genealogy clansmen around him who can desperately escort them, they are all airborne, and they are all outsiders, and they die every second!

Mitsuhisa Shimazu sighed and waved at his daughter, signaling her to retire.

After sending his daughter away, he set his sights on his confidant, the old man Yu Qingxiong.

"My lord," Kiyoo You, who is Mitsuhisa's nephew, and of course opposes the subjugation of the Shimazu family, "You don't have to worry, because we also have the Eight-Nation Alliance!" ”

"Really?" A little hope ignited in Shimazu's eyes, "Which eight countries?" ”

"There are the Kingdom of Spain, the Holy Roman Kingdom, the Great Shun Kingdom, the Great Mongolian Kingdom, the Manchukuo Kingdom, the Tianzhu Kingdom, the Rakshasa Kingdom and our Satsuma Domain!" You Qing Xiong snapped his fingers and said, "It's also eight countries!" ”

"Really?" Shimazu Mitsuhisa thought about it and felt that it was wrong, "How can there still be Manchukuo?" Could it be that the stable capital of the Ming Dynasty is ready to rebel? In that case, North Korea should be on our side! ”

"The minister has just received reliable information," said your nephew Qingxiong, "that the Ming Dynasty will be the protector of the Ming Dynasty, and that the position of the protector of the capital will be inherited by his eldest son, Jin Doni." And this Jin Doni is different from his father Jin Duoduo, he is not willing to become a subordinate of the Ming Dynasty in the name of stabilizing the Dadu Protector, but wants to be the king of Manchuria and become the foreign vassal of the Ming Dynasty...... For this reason, Jindoni has always maintained close contacts with the Spaniards, secretly training troops to prepare for war, and preparing to raise troops to resist when the Ming refused to recognize Manchukuo! And the possibility of the Ming Dynasty recognizing Manchukuo is very small! ”

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The whole book