The assassination of the Minister of the Interior outside Kyoto's Sokokuji Temple soon spread along the streets connecting Kyoto to other places, and the incident was also known as the Sokokuji Outside Incident.

The reaction to this incident also varied, and the Eastern Japan feudal clans and the Edo shogunate were completely unconcerned about the assassination of the Minister of the Interior. They were all puzzled why the Honorable Ministers wanted to assassinate a well-known minister, who could not hinder the cause of the Emperor at all, not to mention that the Minister of the Interior was also a supporter of the founding theory.

To some extent, it is more likely that the princes or the shogunate sent someone to assassinate him. Because of this consideration, the daimyo of the Eastern Japan feudal clans and the Edo shogunate initially kept silent so as not to burn themselves if they said the wrong thing.

The feudal clans of western Japan were divided into two factions, one faction was dominated by the Choshu and Satsuma feudal domains, and it was a great conspiracy to think that the assassination of the Minister of the Interior must be someone else, and by assassinating the Minister of the Interior to set the blame on the patriots who were being honored by the king, and by the way, to threaten the imperial court. The Satsuma clan advocated that the matter should be thoroughly investigated and that the Minister of Internal Affairs should not be left blind.

The Choshu Domain, on the other hand, was even more intense, with some high-ranking samurai of the Choshu Domain openly claiming that the assassination of the Minister of the Interior was no different from rebellion, and that the person who murdered the Minister of the Interior was an enemy of the DPRK and that the people of the world should discuss it together, and the spearhead of his remarks was faintly pointed at the Osaka Shogunate.

Some feudal priests and ronin, who were already dissatisfied with the theory of seclusion, immediately pointed the finger at the comrades who held the position of seclusion and demanded that they publicly explain whether they had really sent people to Kyoto to carry out the assassination.

Naturally, these secludation theorists would not accept this, but the Emperor was originally a very loose political alliance, and no one could guarantee that there would be no hot-headed ronin who would do such a thing in order to become famous, so the seclusion theorists refused to ask them to swear an oath from the founders who came to question it.

If it weren't for the fact that there were still some relatively calm feudal lords and ronins in the middle, I am afraid that the founders and country-lockers in various places would have to fight first. However, these more sane feudal lords and ronin were not able to hold back for long, as Kyoto soon announced the names of the traitors.

Except for a few who really participated in the assassination for the future of Japan, most of them participated in the assassination with the mentality of becoming famous all over the world. Therefore, when the Osaka shogunate forged the Choshu Domain, most of the names and origins of these samurai were true.

When the imperial court announced the names of these assassins to the world, for a while the people of the world believed that it was the venerable elements who planned this operation, especially after some samurai of the Choshu and Satsuma domains recognized these names, and things became a little unpredictable.

First of all, some founders in various parts of Japan announced that they had severed ties with the country-blockers, and that the path they wanted to take was not consistent with those of the country-lockers. Then came the rebel forces in China, where they were the most powerful, began to fight on their own, no longer under the command of the other faction, and unwilling to cooperate with the other.

However, the biggest blow to the king-honoring elements is the rich country and strong army theorists who have been suppressed by them, and they take this opportunity to wantonly attack the king-honoring elements are thieves and bandits who disrupt the social order, and they are conspirators who want to bring disaster to the country and rise to power. If we really want to save Japan from the status quo, we need to carry out gradual social change under a strong organization.

The people, who had always supported the idea of respecting the king, finally changed their attitude and began to choose a new position under this overwhelming news and theoretical propaganda. Of course, these people were the peasants and burghers with some capital, and although they supported the emperor's rebellion, they did not want the social order to be completely destroyed, otherwise their family property would be lost in the turmoil.

These people used to support the Emperor's Rebellion because they were on the verge of bankruptcy under the pressure of the feudal lords and the shogunate, and they would soon slip to the bottom of the house without food and clothing. Therefore, there was an urgent need for someone to rebel against the feudal lords and the shogunate, thus giving them some respite.

When they saw that these king-worshippers were making a move, it seemed that it was possible to cut themselves first, so they simply sided with the shogunate, hoping that they would survive to the end. The division within the reverence of the kings and the people at the bottom who supported them was undoubtedly extremely beneficial to the Osaka shogunate.

In particular, when Takaki Yakoji arrived in Osaka with the Osaka Shogunate to send troops to quell the rebellion in the Chugoku region and to comfort the Minister of the Interior with the imperial decree of the Heavenly Spirit, the Osaka Shogunate finally had the righteousness of sending troops to quell the rebellion, and now the western Japanese feudal clans could not even find an excuse to oppose the shogunate's suppression of the rebellion in the Chinese region.

Mizuno Nobuko and Mitsumasa Ikeda accepted the imperial court's decree on behalf of the Five Hojo and the Five Elders, respectively, and the two began to discuss the dispatch of troops to quell the rebellion. However, unlike the five Fengchang, who are one-hearted, the five elders are now in a divided situation.

Since the Osaka Citizens' Council instigated the citizens to drive out of Osaka Tadahiro Kato, the lord of the Kumamoto Domain, who was bent on being the cabinet behind the scenes, the members of the Osaka Citizens' Council called this incident a victory for the common people.

So from then on, the five elders refused to join the Osaka council, but only appointed their own retainers to come to Osaka for rotation, and the time became a rotation every three months. This time period happened to be the meeting of the five elders of the Okayama Domain, Mitsumasa Ikeda, the chief retainer of the Okayama Domain, but he could only make decisions for the Okayama Domain, and could not answer for the other four feudal clans.

Although Mitsumasa Ikeda was only the chief of the Okayama Domain, because the lord of the Okayama Domain, Mitsunaka Ikeda, was only 10 years old, and he himself was the lord of the Tottori Domain, so the matter between the two domains was almost decided by him alone. It should be said that his power is actually not lower than that of the other feudal lords, but as the grandson of Ieyasu, he is very aware of his embarrassing status in the Toyotomi shogunate, so he has always kept a low profile in the five old councils, and is unwilling to make any dictatorial moves.

However, this time there was the will of the imperial court, and the rebellion was located in the Chugoku region adjacent to the main domain, so Ikeda Mitsumasa agreed to a series of proposals from Mizuno Nobuko, and as the five elders on duty, he agreed to send troops to the Five Hojo Council to preside over the dispatch of troops, and sent a letter to each feudal domain, asking for troops to help the shogunate quell the rebellion.

Mizuno Shinko's cooperation was also a little surprising to Mizuno Shinko, although the opponent used delaying tactics and he was able to take measures to circumvent it, but after all, it was more authoritative without the active cooperation of the other party.

Under the design of Ye Yuxuan, the former governor of Osaka, the power structure of the Taiko shogunate was actually very different from that of the traditional Japanese shogunate. Ye Yuxuan designed the decentralization of power according to Chongzhen's intentions, in order to prevent the various departments of the shogunate from gaining overwhelming power, so as to unite against the rule of the governor's palace.

In general, it was the Governor's Office that held the supreme military command, the supreme judicial power, the power of customs control, and the power to supervise the officials of the shogunate. The Osaka shogunate, on the other hand, had executive power, ordinary judicial power, military build-up, and day-to-day administrative powers. The Japanese National Assembly, which was transformed from the Osaka Municipal Assembly, had the power to collect taxes and legislate civilly, and the Congresses of the feudal clans had the power to legislate criminal crimes and conscripts in addition to examining and deliberating bills put forward by the Assembly.

At first glance, the power of the shogunate was largely in the hands of the Japanese themselves, but without the coordination of the Shogunate, it would not be possible for these departments to make any policy that could be passed by all of them. This is why the Satsuma and Choshu feudal domains were so disgusted with the current Osaka shogunate, because they felt that the power that should have been controlled by their five old councils had been hollowed out by the five feudal lords and the people's assembly.

The people were dissatisfied with this, and all the policies they adopted in favor of the people were always vetoed by the councils of representatives of the various feudal clans controlled by the daimyo and samurai. This is also their support for the king's reverence and the hope that they can use their power to attack the shogunate and expand the power of the Minry.

Of course, with the court's refutation of the king's refuge, believing that these feudal warriors and ronins were selling dog meat on sheep's heads, and shouting for the king on the surface, but in fact they wanted to threaten the court in an attempt to misbehave, the wind of public opinion began to change, and the people's thoughts also changed.

After Mizuno Nobuko and Mitsumasa Ikeda had a discussion, they discussed it with the rest of the Bongsei, and then went to the governor's palace with Yoshikawa Kosuke to report to Zhou Kangeng.

Yoshikawa Kosuke said to Zhou Kangeng: "After discussion, the lower officials and others thought that the troops should be divided into two routes, one way from Kobe to China by land, and one way from the sea to Kyushu and then cross the sea to attack the Choshu Domain; Politically, it was necessary to first force the surrounding feudal domains to express their stance in the name of the imperial court, and then unite with the surrounding feudal domains to force the Satsuma feudal clan to change their position, and then unite with Satsuma and other powerful feudal clans in the southwest to attack the Choshu feudal domain.

The purpose of this battle was not to eliminate a few rebel armies of ronins and peasants in the Chugoku region, but to dismantle the Sacho alliance and deter Kumamoto and other powerful feudal clans in the southwest. After this battle, the lower officials hoped to change the shogunate system from the loose system of the five elders and the five lords to the more centralized cabinet prime minister's system, and follow the example of the Ming Dynasty to establish various ministries to weaken the power of the feudal daimyo and samurai.

In this way, the shogunate was better able to purchase various materials from various places to supply the needs of the Ming Dynasty. In addition, the power of these daimyo and samurai was weakened, and the burden on the peasants was reduced, which in turn reduced their resentment against the policies of the shogunate and outsiders. I wonder what adults think? ”

Zhou Kangen thought about it for a long time, and finally felt that the most urgent thing at present was how to efficiently loot Japan's supplies, rather than how to better control Japan. So he nodded and said, "But, but to end this war as soon as possible, I don't want this war to affect Sino-Japanese trade next year." Otherwise, I would have chosen to compromise with the Satsuma and Choshu feudatories. ”

"Of course, sir." Kosuke Yoshikawa suppressed the ecstasy in his heart and replied calmly. At this moment, the fate of Japan finally returned to the hands of the Japanese.

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