Gamo's eyes were a little fluttering, and he unconsciously lowered his voice and asked, "My lord, can we really save Japan?" It's been a few days since I returned to Japan, but why do I feel that life in Japan is more difficult today than it was when I left three years ago?

In the past few days, I have talked with businessmen from all over Japan, and I have found that there are only two types of industries that are most prosperous in Japan today: the grain business and the meat business. In the past, the cheapest prostitutes in Shinmachi Flower Street cost fifty or sixty wen, but now they can let those old prostitutes serve once for only 24 wen.

In the past, brothel owners would go to the countryside to choose and buy women, but today even the commoners in the city will take the initiative to send their wives and daughters to Flower Street. Even so, according to the businessmen who came to Osaka to do business, life in Osaka was no less than paradise for the common people. In this way, the patience of the Japanese people has indeed reached the limit, and how can the reform of the shogunate convince the people?

Can't we make a request to the Ming Kingdom to ease their oppression of Japan a little bit and let the people take a breather? In this case, perhaps the conflict between the shogunate and the Sacho and other feudal clans can be postponed for a few more years..."

Yoshikawa Kosuke interrupted him unceremoniously and said, "Have you stayed in Daming for too long and become naïve?" Do you think His Majesty the Emperor really cares about the people outside the Ming Dynasty? When His Majesty the Emperor used the Southern Barbarians and our Toyotomi clan to subvert the rule of the Tokugawa clan over Japan, the current Ming Dynasty is no longer the great power that talked about benevolence, righteousness and morality in the past.

In the eyes of His Majesty the Emperor, all the countries under heaven are just tools used by the Ming Dynasty to re-emerge, and what we can choose now is nothing more than to make Japan the most useful tool in the hands of the Ming Dynasty. If we make His Majesty the Emperor think that Japan is no different from other countries, and that he still puts Japan's interests before the interests of the Ming Dynasty, will he still allow Japan to become an independent country like Korea?

Don't you see that Vietnam, Cambodia, Siam, the Philippines, Java, these South Asian countries are now being divided into fish and meat that are difficult to resist the invasion of outsiders by the Ming Dynasty? Japan can still rely on the system of one capital and two prefectures to maintain a superficial unity, not because the Ming Dynasty looks at Japan differently, but because we have always met the needs of the Ming Dynasty over the years, and have never said a word to the Ming Dynasty.

Because of this, the Ming people are willing to maintain the current system in Japan. If this system hinders the Akito's claims to Japan, then the Akito may not hesitate to dismantle the system and find a more suitable way to rule Japan. Without the ostensible central imperial court, Japan will truly degenerate into the Warring States Period, from which we will no longer be able to unify the whole of Japan with the help of the imperial court and the Ming people.

There is no other way for Japan today than to continue to be patient. ”

Although Gamo Naoru was intellectually persuaded by Yoshikawa Kosuke's words, his heart was still very depressed, and he couldn't help but sigh and said, "But, when will this patience come to an end?" Can the Japanese people really hold on? ”

Yoshikawa Kosuke was silent for a moment before replying: "As long as we show more love for the Ming Kingdom than the Ming people, and think about the rise of the Ming Kingdom everywhere, then the Ming people's suspicion of Japan will gradually fade after all, and then it will naturally not prevent Japan from being unified under a complete central power."

As for the people of Japan. If Japan is compared to a rice field, the people of Japan are just rice growing in the rice field, and as long as the rice field is still there, are they afraid that the rice will not grow? As long as we keep Japan as a country, the people of Japan will have a future. If Japan no longer exists, what's the use of having these people? ”

In the face of such an explicit explanation from Yoshikawa Kosuke, Gamo Naorou was speechless for a while, and could only drain the wine in the cup in one gulp, and the spicy liquor went down his throat, as if a line of fire burned from his tongue to his stomach, which made people frown involuntarily, but the ensuing smoky feeling of climbing up his head made Gamo Naorou's heart finally feel a little relaxed, and there was no longer the heavy feeling that pressed on his heart just now.

Seeing this expression of Gamo Naoyu, Yoshikawa Kosuke also shook his head in his heart, so he diverted from this heavy topic and asked, "You know the ins and outs of the whole matter in the most detail, why don't you tell me first, how should we deal with this matter most appropriately at the moment?" ”

Pu Sheng shook his head and waved away the frustration in his heart, re-energized himself and thought about it for a while before he spoke: "I have been thinking about this matter since I left Beijing. I thought that it was not difficult for the shogunate to deal with this matter, but it was rare how to use this matter to obtain the desired benefits for the shogunate. ”

Yoshikawa Kosuke immediately asked with great interest: "What kind of benefits do you think the shogunate can take advantage of?" ”

Gamo Naorou groaned for a while, and then replied: "The greatest advantage is to use the Sacho Rebellion to conquer the southwestern feudal domains, further abolish the feudal politics, and penetrate the management power of the shogunate into the feudal state, thus laying a foundation for the unification of administrative and military power in western Japan."

Taking a step back, it was also necessary to suppress the samurai privileges of the feudal domains and further expand the discourse power of the common people, so as to lead the people to hate the feudal lords and draw closer to the shogunate.

The most important thing to do was to quell the peasant rebellions in various places and cut off the outstretched hands of the two feudal domains in order to deter the feudal states of western Japan, so as to continue to maintain the current situation in Japan and wait for future changes. ”

Yoshikawa Kosuke couldn't help nodding and said, "The analysis is good, you can continue to talk about what the shogunate should do to achieve the conditions of these three situations..."

The conversation between the two lasted until late at night, and after sleeping for two or three hours, when the sun had just risen, Kosuke Yoshikawa and Naoyuki Gamo both woke up in unison. The two ate something in the brothel, and then left the Shinmachi Flower Street in the morning when no one went out.

When he walked out of the gate of Flower Street, Kosuke Yoshikawa suddenly stopped, took out a pen and paper from his arms and hurriedly recorded it. Gamo Naorou suddenly asked with some curiosity, "What are you recording here, my lord?" Time to go out? ”

"No, I just remembered that in the future, knives should not be allowed in the flower street, so as not to cause trouble for those ronins and samurai in the flower street and cause trouble to the local police station, they don't have so many people to enter the flower street to conduct a blockade search..."Yoshikawa Kosuke replied casually while bowing his head to record.

After sending Gamo Naoyu to the shogunate prison in the castle and imprisoned with his accomplices, Yoshikawa Kosuke hurried to the governor's residence and made a detailed report to the governor Zhou Kangeng, of course, he also hid a lot of inconvenient things.

Zhou Kangeng sighed softly with a cup of tea, and said without raising his head: "In this way, the current extremely powerful peasant rebellion in China turned out to be supported by the two feudal domains of Satsuma and Changzhou. So the slogans played by these people to respect the king are not only aimed at those Europeans, but also the Ming Dynasty and the Osaka shogunate? ”

Kosuke Yoshikawa, who was kneeling on the tatami mat, bowed his head respectfully and said, "My lord is right, this time the peasant and ronin trouble is not just a simple rice riot, but a conspiracy against the Osaka shogunate and the governor's palace. If we fail to take drastic measures, not only will the scale of the rebellion continue to grow, but the southwestern vassals will probably join the chaos as well. ”

Zhou Kangen was silent for a long time, but he didn't show any worried and anxious expression, he thought for a long time before he calmly asked: "Since this matter involves the southwestern domains, then the five elder councils and the joint meeting of representatives of the western Japanese feudal clans may not support the shogunate's large-scale use of force." So, as an administrative bureaucrat of the shogunate, did the Goho Standing Council discuss any countermeasures? ”

Yoshikawa Kosuke replied without hesitation: "Before receiving instructions from the Governor's Palace, the lower officials have not thought of convening a meeting of the Five Bong Standing Committee to discuss countermeasures. The lower officials thought that the positions of the shogunate and the governor's office on this matter should be the same, so after receiving detailed information, the lower officials first came to ask the lord for instructions. ”

Zhou Kangen put down the teacup at this time, looked at Yoshikawa Kosuke and said calmly: "Your loyalty to Daming, I see it in my eyes." However, if I Daming directly intervenes in this incident, I am afraid that it will only attract the resentment of the Japanese people to Daming, and it will be difficult to guarantee the safety of Ming businessmen who do business in various parts of Japan. And our action to buy grain and ship it out of Japan will also be attacked by these ignorant villagers, and this may damage the friendship between the two countries tomorrow. So, I want to know one thing, if I, the Ming Dynasty, only provide a small part of the assistance, can the shogunate suppress this incident? Do you have a preliminary plan in mind? ”

Although Zhou Kangen was calm on the surface, he was not at all calm in his heart, and in the year of the great disaster and famine in China, he would never want to have any more conflicts with the local princes of Japan. Although the standing army of West Japan had been expanded to seven divisions, the Osaka 1st and 3rd Divisions, the Kobe Division, the Kumamoto Division, the Satsuma Division, the Choshu Division, and the Osaka Supplementary Division.

Among these seven divisions, the Governor's Office controlled the Osaka 1st and 3rd Divisions and the Kobe Division, and the Shogunate controlled the Kumamoto Division and the Osaka Supplementary Division.

Moreover, Zhou Kangen was not willing to spend Daming's money to suppress the rebellion of the local feudal states for the Osaka shogunate, so he hoped that Yoshikawa Kosuke could come up with a way to quell the rebellion on his own, otherwise he would rather adopt a delaying tactic and drag it out after this year. In this way, even if the west of Kobe is in ruins, it will only lose some trade interests for the Ming Dynasty, and it will not shake the Ming rule in Japan.

After listening to the governor's inquiry, Yoshikawa Kosuke was silent for a moment, and then said, "My lord, I couldn't sleep all night last night, but I really thought of some way, and I asked my lord to make a decision..."

(. = )