Although Matsudaira Nobutsuna was articulate, Ye Yuxuan and the other three were unmoved, and still reiterated the conditions put forward by their side.

Matsudaira Nobutsuna naturally could not comply with the shogunate's request to surrender, after all, the two highnesses sent him to seek a decent reconciliation, not to be sent to the door and slapped in the face by the coalition forces.

Matsudaira Nobutsuna could only return to Nara temporarily, preparing to discuss the next step of negotiations with Naotaka Ii.

However, when he left Osaka, Li Chenfang couldn't help but ask his two colleagues: "If we don't give in to anything and let him leave like this, can this negotiation continue?" ”

Xu Xinsu also said to Ye Yuxuan with some worry: "Although in my opinion, there is no difference between negotiation and business negotiation, it is nothing more than asking for a price to pay back on the spot." But are we asking too much? Demand that the shogunate formally surrender and make reparations to us. To be honest, unless the shogunate no longer has the ability to fight a war, it is unlikely that such a condition will be agreed. ”

Ye Yuxuan glanced at the two colleagues before he spoke: "I said before that the war should be over, but it doesn't mean that we have to pray for peace with the shogunate.

The purpose of the negotiations was to let the shogunate know that if the two sides continued to fight, the shogunate would not exist, and that only peace negotiations could save the shogunate's fate.

I don't want to give the shogunate the illusion that the coalition forces are making peace with them and that we can't fight anymore. A shogunate that miscalculates its own power, even if it signs a peace treaty with us, will sooner or later be torn up by them. We don't have to take such a risk, and then we have to pull our allies to Japan again. ”

Xu Xinsu nodded thoughtfully, but quickly asked out loud: "Then if the shogunate doesn't accept our conditions and really wants to continue the war, what are you going to do?" Do you want to keep the war going? ”

Ye Yuxuan was silent for a moment before replying: "For Japan, that is the worst choice. We are not obligated to make peace in Japan, but until then, I will try to avoid such an outcome..."

Xu Xinsu and Li Chenfang still did not interfere with Ye Yuxuan's decision in the end, they felt that when their side had an advantage, there was no need to compromise with the shogunate in such a hurry.

Four or five days after the meeting of the princes of the Western Kingdom in Osaka Castle was held, Ye Yuxuan thought that the heat was almost over, and he had a full understanding of the attitude of those princes, and the princes who participated in the conference also urgently wanted a result.

So on December 1, Toyotomi Chiyo officially adopted a righteous son, the son of Kato Tadahiro of the Kumamoto domain. On the same day, Tadahiro Kato, together with Tadayuki Kuroda and other Kyushu daimyos, proposed at the general meeting of the princes to rebuild the Taiko system of the Toyotomi clan, and asked the participating princes to submit a table to the imperial court and canonize Toyotomi Chiyo as the new Taiko Highness.

Ye Yuxuan then announced Chongzhen's will to the participating princes in the name of the Ming Emperor, and Toyotomi Chiyo, as the descendant of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, will inherit the title of Japanese king canonized by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the Ming Dynasty. In order to protect the future king of Japan, the adopted son of the Toyotomi clan would be sent to the Ming Kingdom to be educated, and then return to Japan when he reached adulthood.

Toyotomi Chiyo later announced that it was difficult for her to hold the important position of Taiko as a woman, but in order to maintain the peace of Japan and revive the Toyotomi clan, she would still temporarily accept the position of His Royal Highness Taiko before her adopted son became an adult.

However, she said that she would not exercise the powers of the Taiko after becoming the Taiko, and that the affairs of the state would be handled jointly by the Princes' Assembly and the five feudal lords of Satsuma, Choshu, Kumamoto, Okayama, and Okura, and that the Toyotomi clan would be supervised by a representative sent by the Emperor of the Ming Kingdom. Of course, when the princes' assembly and the five elders disagreed, she would make the final ruling.

The successive statements of the princes of Kyushu, Toyotomi Chiyo and the representatives of the Ming Kingdom suddenly made the princes' meeting move in a clearer direction. The successive statements of the princes of the Western Kingdom also led the Satsuma and Choshu feudal domains to finally accept the advice of the Ming Kingdom and support the reconstruction of the Toyotomi Taiko system.

The contents of the meeting of the Osaka princes soon spread to Edo, which made Hidetada realize that the princes of the western kingdom had completely escaped the control of the shogunate, and even if the Akito left, it would be difficult for the shogunate to return to the western kingdom in a short time.

It was also during this time that the shogunate received an urgent document from Matsudaira Tadamasa, the lord of the Echizen Fukui domain, saying that a large fleet appeared near Sado Island, and after receiving a request for help from Kanayama on Sado Island, he sent a naval force to support him, but he was forced to retreat to the mainland because of the current situation, and this fleet should have occupied Sado Island.

Sado Gold and Silver Mountains, Iwami Silver Mountains, these were important financial sources for the shogunate. The loss of these two gold and silver sources amounted to the loss of nearly one-third of the shogunate's annual gold and silver mining revenue.

Although the shogunate still had some gold and silver mountains in Koshu and Echigo, the scale and reserves were far inferior to those two. After successively losing the two trading ports of Nagasaki and Osaka, as well as the vaults of Mt. Kuno, the four million taels of treasury that the shogunate once relied on to pride are now only about a quarter of it.

Although food is enough to recruit soldiers, if you want to buy all kinds of military supplies, you must have gold and silver. There are even some military supplies that money can't buy, such as saltpeter and lead.

Edo, which was already in a state of blockade by the coalition fleet, if even gold and silver were gone, would it still be able to buy high-priced supplies from those adventurous merchants?

In addition, Sado Island is very close to the Tohoku Sea in the Ou region, and if the coalition forces can easily reach it, it means that the entire Tohoku region of Japan will no longer be safe.

The shogunate was about to face not a battle front to the west, but a situation where it might be caught between the east and west by the fallen shogunate. After all, the Tohoku region of Japan, like the southwestern feudal domains, was driven to the periphery by the shogunate because the shogunate found it unreliable.

The reason why the shogunate built Toshogu Palace in Nikko was to station troops here in the name of guarding against and monitoring the princes of Tohoku. Once these southwestern princes were brought into contact with the northeastern princes who were dissatisfied with the shogunate, and the Tokugawa clan was besieged by the princes of the world, the battle of Osaka in the past was to be staged outside Edo Castle.

Hidetada finally had no choice but to give instructions to Naotaka Ii and Nobutsuna Matsudaira in Nara, saying that he could agree to Akito's proposal and expand the negotiations to the negotiations between the shogunate and the coalition forces that had fallen to the shogunate, and the content of the negotiations could also be based on the ultimatum proposed by Akito.

However, the shogunate could not accept the conditions of open surrender to the coalition forces, and any words of surrender on paper were unacceptable. Of course, in order to facilitate the negotiation smoothly, the shogunate was willing to submit a petition to the imperial court to revoke all charges against Toyotomi Hideyori and restore the Toyotomi clan's domain and title to show its sincerity in the negotiations. In return, the coalition forces should immediately cease all military operations and withdraw from the Kanto region such as Sado.

On December 8, Naotaka Ii and Nobutsuna Matsudaira came to Osaka Castle, and negotiations between the two sides officially began. During the day, the two of them negotiated with a delegation of more than 10 people composed of the Ming people, the Nanban people, and the southwestern princes, while at night, Ye Yuxuan, Xu Xinsu, and Li Chenfang had a separate secret conversation with the two of them.

Due to the shogunate's sincerity, the coalition forces finally halted their military operations, but refused to withdraw their fleet to Sado Island and Edo Bay.

As the weather gets colder, this winter has become the best season for negotiations between the two sides. However, for Houjin, this winter is about the worst since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

The failure of the invasion of the Ming Kingdom for two consecutive years made the two expeditions of the Houjin in a state of serious losses, which also meant that there was a shortage of domestic materials. However, they still have a trading port like Yingkou, and the northeast has the big wood needed by the Ming people. Only then did trade alleviate the tight domestic demand for materials.

After returning to Shenyang from Jinzhou at the beginning of the year, even Huang Taiji could only follow the advice of his ministers and put the handling of Houjin's internal affairs and material production in the first place.

However, when the wartime system of the Houjin developed in the direction of peaceful production, the Houjin suddenly felt the pain of lack of manpower. The vast land of Northeast China is full of endless forests and grasslands, as well as extremely fertile black soil and abundant water sources.

As long as the whole country of Houjin is mobilized, this land is like a gold mine with all kinds of treasures buried, which can give Houjin great returns.

However, Huang Taiji and the Eight Banners soon discovered that the Mongolian men, who were originally treasured by the banners, were completely wasted once they were put into production, and they were not as good as their mothers-in-law.

These Mongols, who rode inferior horses and drew inferior bows, were only inferior to the Jurchen soldiers on the battlefield, but they could not bear the work of chopping wood and planting fields. If one Mongol on the battlefield is worth five Han or Koreans, then in production activities, the ratio is reversed.

The most unbearable thing for Huang Taiji is that these Mongolians' love for alcohol is really unattainable by others. Although he repeatedly ordered that wine should not be made in the country, and set a maximum tax on alcohol, these Mongols had to drink a bowl of good wine from the Ming Kingdom, even if they mortgaged their boots.

It is precisely because of the performance of these Mongols that the Eight Banners Banner Owners Beile began to secretly reduce their supplies to the Mongols under their banner, which made many Mongolian herdsmen below begin to complain.

Huang Taiji is very clear that the reason why this situation is happening now is entirely because of the lack of the stimulation of war, so that these Mongols cannot integrate into the Later Jin country as soon as possible.

It is only when a common enemy is found that the Mongols and the Jurchens will truly unite. However, for the proposal to attack the Ming Kingdom, all the banners have temporarily lost interest, and the Ming army, which has a strong city to rely on, is really a bone that is not easy to gnaw.

As a result of the previous two wars, the flags gained nothing except casualties, but the flags that traded with the Ming Dynasty gained a lot of benefits, and the voices of the flags inclined to peaceful trade naturally gradually rose.

But for Huang Taiji, if he didn't start a war, he would lose control of the Eight Banners. Only in war could the Great Khan bypass the banner-lord Beyler and directly intervene in the internal affairs of the banners, thus further centralizing power.

Therefore, when the right wing of the Outer Khalkha Department of Mobei Mongolia sent an envoy to ask for help from Houjin, Huang Taiji immediately began to act, preparing to launch a war against Mongolia to reverse the war-weariness of the military and civilians at home.