When the huge diplomatic mission of the Ming Dynasty entered Europe, it quickly received a positive response from various countries, and at this time they were in the midst of the "Thirty Years' War", and the behemoth of the Ming Dynasty naturally vied with each other, hoping to win the war through the power of the East and get a share of this wave of trade.

In view of the performance of England and Portugal, King Philip IV of Spain sent an envoy to Zhu Youxiao to send a personal letter apologizing for the Ming Dynasty's concern about the Luzon tragedy, and offering to punish the governor of the East India Company and the hired Japanese as compensation. At the same time, he recognized the Ming dynasty's suzerainty over the Philippines and asked the Ming dynasty to allow their merchants to live and do business in Manila, using it as a trading hub to jointly operate the markets of Southeast Asia and the Japanese Kingdom.

In addition, the Netherlands (Netherlands), which was anxious to break free from Spain, took the initiative to go to England to negotiate with Zhu Yihai, saying that it was irrational to invade and occupy the Penghu Islands, and that the Dutch side recognized the Ming Dynasty's sovereignty over Taiwan and its affiliated islands, and hoped to establish an equal and mutually beneficial trade partnership with the Ming Dynasty and jointly send troops to safeguard their interests in the Japanese Dynasty. Other local powers, such as Bavaria and Cologne, which had long been oppressed by France, also went to Lisbon to find Zheng Zhihui and asked the Ming Dynasty to send troops to help them establish their own country.

After receiving the letter from Philip IV, Zhu Youxiao thought that God really helped me, and immediately ordered Zheng Zhilong and Jiang Dejing to lead the South China Sea Fleet to Manila, take over the castle and dock built by the Spaniards, declare Luzon Island as the territory of the Ming Dynasty, and change it to Luzon Xuanwei Division. In return, he recognized the Spanish permanent concession in Cebu, but it was valid for fifty years, and the territory was subject to Ming law and under the command of Ming officials.

At this time, there were many tribes in the entire Philippine archipelago, and there were hundreds of kings alone, who were exploited and oppressed by the Spaniards and the Japanese because of their weak power. When the Ming Dynasty announced the establishment of the Luzon Xuanwei Division with Manila as its capital, these tribal leaders came to join them, demanding that the Celestial Empire accept their subjects as emperors.

Zhu Youxiao was not very interested in the enthusiasm of the Luzon people, and the Ming Dynasty did not have the energy to formally take over Nanyang at the moment, and his main purpose in occupying Manila was to cut off the southward route of the Japanese and buy them off to become the Belt and Road Party by squeezing their trade activities. Together with previous operations in Taiwan (Greater Ryukyu), the Ryukyu Islands (Small Ryukyu), Busan, Jeju Island, and Telin, the Ming Dynasty had already formed an offensive against Japan, and Operation Sunset was about to emerge.

The so-called Sunset Operation of course refers to the occupation of the four Japanese islands and the elimination of the Japanese pirates who had traveled to Korea and the Ming Dynasty. To say that the name of Japan originated from a seven-character quatrain by the great poet Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty:

Japan's Chao Qing resigned from the imperial capital,

The sail is a canopy pot.

The bright moon does not return to the blue sea,

The white clouds are full of sorrow!

During the Tang Dynasty, all states came to the dynasty, and Chang'an gathered officials, merchants, courtesans, etc. from all over the world, and the Wa Kingdom also sent a large number of Tang envoys to the Central Plains, not only to learn the advanced culture of the Tang Dynasty, but also to find Han people to borrow and improve their genes, and this activity continued until the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. They felt that Li Bai's poem was exactly what said that the Wa Kingdom was the place where the sun rose, so they called themselves Japan to the outside world.

After the First World War of Yashan, when Japan saw that the teacher was defeated, they claimed to be the descendant of the Central Plains culture. Especially after the failure of the Yuan Dynasty's two sea-crossing operations, Japan became even more crazy, believing that the Central Plains Dynasty was not inviolable. When Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified Japan, he immediately launched the first large-scale war of aggression against Korea, and the conquest of China has been a national policy that continues to this day. In this way, it seems that the industrious and simple Chinese taught a white-eyed wolf, and the lessons of the past are not profound, but easy to forget.

When Japan attacked Korea on a large scale, the Ming Dynasty sent Li Rusong and other famous generals to fight against the invaders, although they eventually won, but the impact on the Ming Dynasty was very serious.

The first was the weakening of the control of the Nuer Gandusi, which made Liaodong a nominal territory, and the Jianzhou Jurchens took the opportunity to rise to become the great enemy of the Ming Dynasty. Secondly, after the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the daimyo in Japan became dominant, and a large number of samurai became ronin after losing their lords, and followed the Spanish and Dutch caravans into the South Seas, among which they were involved in the Luzon tragedy. These people not only slaughtered overseas Chinese, but also operated on the southeast coast, forcing the Ming Dynasty to interrupt trade with overseas and gradually withdraw from the Age of Discovery.

In modern times, Japan became the only industrial country in Asia after the Meiji Restoration, which led to a vigorous downfall movement due to the Black Ship Age. At this time, the late Qing government was already rotten, and Japan took the opportunity to launch the First Sino-Japanese War, not only obtained an indemnity of 200 million silver, but also invaded Liaodong, Penghu, and Taiwan.

In the thirties of the twentieth century, when the capitalist world entered the Great Depression and Japan's domestic industry and agriculture were in serious decline, in order to divert internal contradictions, the military began to embark on the road of aggression against China through the "226 Mutiny" and began a 14-year war of aggression against China.

After the war, Japan was taken over by the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France, but soon became a bridgehead for the United States against Soviet power in the Far East, and received a large amount of economic aid. After the outbreak of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Japan became a supply base for the United Nations Army, and a large number of military orders helped it quickly restore its industrial production capacity, and by the sixties and seventies it had become the world's second largest economic power.

After repeating so much, the reader may be impatient, but what I want to express is that every time Japan has an internal crisis, it will choose to invade China to divert internal contradictions, and it can be said that they have paved their way with the blood and blood of the Chinese nation. Although the cherry blossoms are beautiful, I don't know how many souls are buried under the trees, but unfortunately many people have forgotten this history and don't know their own patheties.

The first step in the implementation of the sunset operation is to select the right talents, such as Yan Siqi, Li Guozhu, Yang Tiansheng, Zheng Zhibao, Chen Xinji, Gan Hui and other pirate merchants who have been active in Japan for a long time, they have a natural advantage in taking the lead. In addition, naval warfare experts such as Nan Juyi, Xiong Wencan, Shang Zhouzuo, Jiang Dejing, Shen Yourong, and Zheng Zhilong were also entrusted with important tasks.

The second key factor in the cross-sea war was money, at this time the Ming Dynasty had already controlled the shipping routes east of the Strait of Malacca, and joined forces with England, the Netherlands, and Portugal to gain a huge market for raw materials in India, and the huge trade profits gave Zhu Youxiao enough confidence to fight a twenty-year war of attrition with Japan.

However, if you have to calculate the economic accounts alone, the conquest of Japan is a loss, which also leads to constant disputes within the imperial court, and conservatives fear that if they fail, they will repeat the mistakes of Emperor Yang of Sui's three expeditions to Goryeo, and then not only will the Ming Dynasty lose its territory in the north, but even face pressure on the coast.

In the face of the bitter words of these old ministers, Zhu Youxiao changed his usual arbitrariness, patiently moved with affection and reason, and finally moved out the allusion of Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang. In that year, Zhu Yuanzhang sent envoys to Japan with a letter of state, asking them to pay tribute and solve the problem of the Japanese invaders, but Japan not only tore up the letter of state, but also cut off the head of the envoy, indicating that it would fight against the Ming Dynasty.

At that time, the reason why Prince Huailiang, the regent of Japan, dared to argue with the Ming Dynasty was because he felt that the Central Plains Dynasty was a continental empire, and there was no record of conquering sea island countries, let alone large-scale naval warfare. Although Japan did not yet have the strength to defeat the Ming Dynasty, he concluded that the Ming Dynasty would not advance like the Mongol expeditionary force, so he had no fear.

This mentality continued until the Tokugawa shogunate, when they were not worried about the Ming Dynasty launching cross-sea landing operations, so they adopted a policy of seclusion and seclusion, devoting all their energies to annexing the local daimyo and suppressing Catholic uprisings.

When Zhu Youxiao said this history impassionedly, he suddenly pulled out his sword angrily, cut off a corner of the dragon case, and then pointed at everyone and said

"Insulting my ancestors, beheading my envoys, killing my people, and robbing my wealth are unbearable! Although Japan is barren, it is a hidden danger for our dynasty, and I plan to use ten years to conquer Japan, completely eliminate the threat from the east, and then the navy will go south to control the Strait of Malacca, and prohibit Westerners from entering the South Seas. At the same time, the army continued to expand westward, using our swords to secure more land for our plows. ”

Zhu Youxiao's anger stunned all the military and political dignitaries and think tanks present, the overseas businessmen represented by Yan Siqi only wanted to control the maritime frontier and develop trade, the naval forces represented by Nan Juyi wanted to guard the Daming maritime frontier, and the traditional conservative forces represented by Huang Kezhang wanted to promote the national prestige to the outside world, and Huang Kezhang, who was over seventy years old, had long lost his ambition to be competitive, and only looked forward to the day when his granddaughter Huang Mengxuan would change from a concubine to a harem mother, and he would return to his hometown as a prince.