When Ye Yuxuan was summoned to take his chamberlain to a mansion outside Dong'anmen, he was stunned to find that he was not the only one who had been summoned today. Zheng Cai of the Taiwan Strait Patrol Office, Wang Fengyuan, governor of the Central Bank, and a young military attache all sat in the main hall in the front yard and waited.

Seeing Ye Yuxuan's arrival, the three people sitting in the hall just looked up at him, nodded at him, and continued to be silent. Ye Yuxuan found a seat near the door and sat down, silently joining in waiting.

The four of them sat for a while, and then saw Lu Qi turn out of the back hall, nodded at the four of them and said, "You all come in with the miscellaneous family, Your Majesty is already waiting for you in the inner hall." ”

The four of them agreed in unison, and then consciously followed behind Lu Qi and walked into the inner hall. The inner hall is much smaller than the main hall outside, so the furniture inside is not as hierarchical as the outside. Several chairs were placed in close proximity, and it was clear that this was a place for comfortable conversation.

Zhu Youzhen asked the four of them to sit down, and then said: "I called you here today, in fact, there is only one thing to discuss with you, and you should have already read the information sent to you before." So to make a long story short, the purpose of calling you here is to teach the Japanese shogunate a good lesson and make them correct their behavior. ”

Except for Wang Fengyuan, who was a little surprised, the other three seemed to know what the emperor was talking about, and everyone looked at the emperor and waited for him to continue.

"Of course, with the current sea power of the Ming Dynasty, even if the power of the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Britain is added, it is still a little difficult to force the Japanese shogunate to submit. The shogunate claimed that the Edo flag was 40,000 horsemen, but I didn't see 40,000, but 20,000 was always there.

Coupled with the conscripted peasant soldiers and the army loyal to the shogunate daimyo, if a war really started, it would be easy for the shogunate to gather an army of about 100,000. The combined ships of the Ming and Europeans were able to transport 10,000 people to Japan, which was almost to the limit of capacity, and no amount of logistics would be able to supply it.

Although Japan is an island nation, once the naval power is destroyed, the shogunate loses the ability to fight back against us. But as a mountainous island nation, if we attack everywhere, the loss of personnel will be too great. Directly attacking Edo Castle, which the Tokugawa had been running for decades, would be insufficient for us. Once the war is at a stalemate, the shogunate will be able to drag us down with time, after all, crossing the ocean to replenish supplies consumes not a fraction of the resources.

Therefore, by force alone, we can defeat the Japanese shogunate, but we may not be able to make the shogunate surrender. Then it will be difficult to achieve the war goal of teaching the Japanese shogunate, and the war will be tantamount to failure.

In order for the shogunate to submit, it is necessary to shake the shogunate's will to resist from within, so that the shogunate will bow its head in the face of our show of force. I summoned the four of you here to talk about how to shake the shogunate's will to resist from within. Judge Ye, first of all, what is the current situation of the two feudal domains of Choshu and Satsuma, and will they meet with the shogunate swordsmen? ”

Hearing the emperor call his name, Ye Yuxuan immediately reacted, and recalled the information about the two domains of Choshu and Satsuma in his mind, and began to introduce to the few people present the background and strength of the two domains of Choshu and Satsuma, the historical relationship between them and the shogunate, and the current contradictions and current situation between the two sides.

In the end, he concluded: "In the opinion of the ministers, the Choshu domain had 370,000 koku and the Satsuma domain had 600,000 koku, and the two feudal clans together were less than one million koku. And just in the Kanto Plain around Edo, which was controlled by the shogunate, the stone height has exceeded 2 million koku, not counting the many daimyo controlled by the shogunate.

Although the two feudal domains of Choshu and Satsuma put on a fierce attitude in front of my Ming Dynasty and were incompatible with the shogunate, if the shogunate adopted gentle measures, the ministers estimated that these two feudal domains would not be able to do their desperate moves. The attitude of the shogunate is not very clear, but with the skill of the second shogun, he should not risk using force to solve the next policy of the two feudal domains.

As long as the shogunate can persuade one of the feudal clans to give in, and let the shogunate send officials into the domain to search for the whereabouts of Tenshuni, then the other feudal clan will have to give in to the shogunate. ”

After listening to this, Zhu Youzhen did not express any opinions, but turned his gaze to the young military attache to the side and said: "Zhao Chenfang, at the beginning of the year, you have taken over the intelligence affairs of the Japanese Edo side, can you tell me what the current situation of the Edo Shogunate is, and does Tokugawa Iemitsu have all the power of the Shogunate?" Will Tokugawa Tadanaga turn against his brother? ”

Zhao Chenfang, who personally went to Japan and picked up Tianxiuni from Dongqing Temple, although his face was still very green, he was extremely meticulous and detailed when answering the emperor's questions.

“… Therefore, after the Great Imperial Palace fell ill, it is now almost impossible to hear how the Great Imperial Palace is, but how the Shogun is, which shows that the third generation of shoguns has controlled the basic situation in Edo Castle.

A few decades ago, Edo Castle was nothing more than a wilderness city built on a swamp. However, after decades of reclamation, the area around the current Edo Castle is the Kanto Plain, which is one of the richest in eastern Japan. Whoever occupies this castle is equivalent to controlling the Kanto Plain, which is equivalent to grasping the foundation of the shogunate.

Although Tokugawa Tadanaga held the two kingdoms of Suruga and Kai, and the territory was 550,000 koku high, the government of these two countries was not fully presiding, but was managed by officials appointed by the shogunate. Tokugawa Tadadenaga's slight influence is also in Suruga.

However, according to information received by the minister, there have been several recent personnel transfers in Suruga Castle, and several samurai close to Tokugawa Tadanaga have been transferred to Edo Castle, and their positions have been replaced by Edo dispatches. Originally, there were 1,100 troops in Suruga Castle, but after the personnel transfer, only 600 troops were left under the direct command of Tokugawa Tadadenaga.

With the distance between Suruga and Edo, Tokugawa Tadanaga may not be enough to rely on this manpower to resist his brother. And the three families of the same bloodline as the shogunate, although they are dissatisfied with the current shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, they still bow down to the orders of the great imperial office. Even if Tokugawa Tadanaga wanted to contact these relatives to challenge his brother, he would probably not be able to get support. ”

After Ye Yuxuan and Zhao Chenfang told them what they knew, Zheng Cai and Wang Fengyuan, who were originally a little relaxed, couldn't help but get nervous, and their eyes were fixed on the emperor, wanting to see his reaction.

Although what he heard was not good news, Zhu Youzhen's expression remained unchanged, he clapped his hands and said: "These are really two good news, the Tokugawa shogunate's ass is already full of dry wood, and the only thing that is lacking now is a fire that can make the Tokugawa shogunate burn." We'll give it to them. ”

The four people present did not keep up with Chongzhen's jumping thinking, and Zhao Chenfang, who had always been close to the emperor, couldn't help but blurt out: "What is the fire that Your Majesty is talking about?" ”

Zhu Youzhen smiled at him and said, "Don't be so unbreathable, Ye Duanguan, the Osaka rice market has always been under the attention of the East China Sea Patrol Office. Tell me, what is the transaction amount in the Osaka rice market this year? What is the actual amount of rice delivered? What is the price of rice in the market? ”

Ye Yuxuan thought about it for a long time before he replied carefully: "The transaction amount of this year's Osaka rice market is 4 million taels of gold, and the gold and silver price ratio in Japan is: 4 guan, last year's rice price was 20 yuan a stone, but this year it has risen to 25 yuan a stone, which means that before mid-August this year, 8 million stone of rice has been traded."

However, the actual delivery of physical rice in the rice market is 1.5 million koku, which means that 6.5 million koku of rice is only traded on the books. According to our statistics, the total production of nearly 300 feudal states in Japan is between 30 million and 40 million stones. The amount of rice that can be traded each year will not exceed 10 million stones. As a result, the trade quota of the Osaka rice market has almost reached its limit, and if it is further increased, it will be difficult to deliver the physical goods. ”

Zhu Youzhen smiled and said: "1 Japanese stone is equivalent to 18 akashi, and 2 Japanese stone rice, which is already quite a high price, which is almost the limit that the Japanese can afford." Zhao Chenfang, tell me, what is the annual income of an ordinary samurai in Edo? ”

It took Zhao Chenfang a long time before he finally remembered and said: "A low-level warrior's salary is about thirty tables and two people's support, among them, one person's support is five brown rice a day, two people's support is one liter a day, and a year's three stones, six buckets and five liters." And one table is three buckets and five liters, and thirty tables are ten stones and five buckets, plus the allowance for two people, the total annual income should be fourteen stones, one bucket and five liters.

However, the shogunate samurai paid the rice income, and the rice income of the sub-domain was paid directly by the shogunate granary. The former has little to do with the shogunate, but in the case of the latter, it depends on the level of reserves in the shogunate's granary, and it is distributed three times a year. In the past, due to the tension between the shogunate and the southwestern feudal domains, both sides were hoarding rice, which contributed to the high price of rice in the market, and the samurai who received the grain made a small fortune. ”

Zhu Youzhen said: "The price of rice in Japan is the spark we need, and through the transaction of the Osaka rice market, the price of rice will continue to rise, so that those rice merchants and daimyo can sell the rice on their books in excess of the amount of rice they own." Then when it comes time to deliver, if they can't deliver the rice, they will either go bankrupt or default, and there will be no second way.

The Osaka Rice Market was created with the help of merchants who served the shogunate, and if these rice merchants and daimyo paid their debts, the shogunate's property would be lost, and the daimyo would lose so much of their fortune from the shogunate.

In addition, in order to promote the increase in the price of rice in the rice market, we will join forces with Choshu, Satsuma, and as many daimyo as possible. They will benefit from the skyrocketing price of rice, but it will inevitably exacerbate tensions with the shogunate. Then the opportunity for détente between the two sides will no longer exist.

The rise in the price of rice in Japan was a good thing for lords and samurai, but bad news for ordinary civilians. Rice grabbing will inevitably break out among urban civilians who cannot afford to eat rice, and the Tokai Patrol Office should contact Tokugawa Tadacho to guide public opinion to plant the cause of the skyrocketing rice price on the bald head of the current shogun, the Tokugawa family.

Next, the army trained for Tokugawa Tadanaga was sent back, so that he could raise troops on the side of the Qing monarch, and the southwestern feudal domains responded. We chose the right time to use the banner of Toyotomi to win the hearts and minds of the people, and then the combined fleets of the Ming Dynasty, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Korea Chen Bing Edo demanded that the shogunate explain the ban on overseas trade. ”