When Yodowa Musashi came to Honmaru with representatives of the Municipal Assembly to swear allegiance to Li Chenfang and ask him to lead the citizens of Osaka to defend Osaka, Li Chenfang and Xu Xinsu were also deeply shocked by such a change in the situation.

After all, although they had roped in a few members of parliament and asked them to embarrass him a little when they met with the shogunate's envoys, they did not think that this would change the situation.

With the loss of the Tokugawa Tadanaga banner, it would be difficult for the citizens of Osaka to support their continued hostility with the shogunate, even if they had the fleets in the bay as a backup. After all, they can't beat them and they can pat their butts and leave, while those Osaka citizens still have to live in the local area.

But no one expected that the shogunate envoy helped them do what they couldn't do, so the citizens of Osaka took the initiative to ask them to stay and help defend the castle. In this way, the situation of master and slave changed, and the shogunate envoys easily helped the coalition forces to integrate the internal contradictions with the citizens of Osaka.

After sending away the citizen representatives of Yodogo Musashi, Xu Xinsu couldn't help but sigh and said, "With an enemy like the shogunate, what other allies do we need?" ”

The representatives of the Osaka City Council, after the departure of the shogunate envoys, understood that Osaka would inevitably usher in a tragic revenge from the shogunate army. The two battles of Osaka launched by the Tokugawa family sixteen years ago are still fresh in the memory of the surviving citizens of Osaka.

Although the Tokugawa clan claimed that Toyotomi Hideyori's mother and son set fire to Osaka Castle because they saw defeat in the Osaka Summer Battle, and martyred themselves with the castle. However, it has always been rumored that Tokugawa Ieyasu set fire to Osaka Castle because he wanted to completely destroy the foundation of the Toyotomi family.

Regardless of whether the latter rumor is true or not, it is always a fact that the Tokugawa clan abandoned the Toyotomi family's Osaka Castle and rebuilt the Tokugawa family's Osaka Castle. The cruelty of the Tokugawa clan towards the enemy is also evident from this.

Therefore, when the Osaka City Council began to spread rumors about the shogunate among the citizens, everyone was convinced that the shogunate was going to send troops to retaliate against the civilians in the Osaka area, in order to wash away the humiliation of the fall of Osaka Castle to the townspeople and rebels.

With the exception of some former shogunate ministers and businessmen who fled from Osaka with their families for fear of reprisals by the shogunate, most of the citizens of Osaka were angry because of the Diet's propaganda.

In particular, in order to defend the tax policy of the four princes and six citizens, the peasants in the vicinity of Osaka sent representatives to the citizens' assembly to express their willingness to support the Osaka Diet in its rebellion against the shogunate, which further inspired the courage of the citizens of Osaka to oppose the shogunate.

At the suggestion of some citizens' representatives, the original two and a half divisions of Osaka Castle were asked to expand to five divisions. The Municipal Assembly also announced a war tax to cover the daily expenses of the five divisions.

In order to be able to recruit enough soldiers, the Diet also announced compulsory military service, and every family with a male in the Osaka area was obliged to submit to the Diet's recruitment. From now on, residents who do not have the approval of the Diet will be prohibited from leaving Osaka, and violators will be treated as spies of the shogunate and punished by law.

The representatives of the coalition army were all observing with great interest the actions of the Osaka City Council, which was no stranger to the Europeans, and although the Ming officials of the coalition knew that this town council was born out of the merchants' council, they also saw for the first time that the town council was above the ordinary administrative officials and had the final say on local affairs.

Under Li Chenfang's hand-holding, the Osaka City Council took over almost all the powers other than the command of the army. It should be said that no official has done more than parliament in the matter of mobilizing the masses to prepare for war in time of war.

In just ten days, the newly recruited soldiers had been sent to the allied military camps, and the war materials collected by the Osaka Council from all over the country had also been delivered to Li Chenfang.

The old samurai of the shogunate, represented by Yuta Higuchi, also changed their hesitant attitude after feeling the fanatical support of the citizens of Osaka for the war, and claimed that they were willing to live and die with Osaka Castle under the leadership of His Royal Highness Yoshi.

The observation of the actions of the Osaka Municipal Assembly over the past ten days has also caused the representatives of the coalition forces to have mixed feelings. At first, the Spanish and Portuguese delegates dismissed this as a farce, but after the citizens' assemblies mobilized a large number of soldiers to deal with their lords, the delegates who believed in the divine authority of kings suddenly changed their attitudes and considered the actions of the citizens' assemblies to be immoral.

In the eyes of the British, however, the actions of the representatives of the Osaka City Council were very effective, and at least they were able to use the recruited soldiers and supplies to protect the city from being destroyed by the brutal lords.

Of course, Osaka's citizens are too docile to power, so that the deputies of the parliament are not really representatives of the people, but a group of new bureaucrats appointed by the Chinese with no fixed positions.

For Chinese officials such as Li Chenfang and Xu Xinsu, the Osaka Municipal Council, although seemingly disrespectful, was better able than ordinary local officials to communicate the emotions of the local people and figure out how to govern them, which was a good way to manage the areas conquered overseas.

While the Osaka City Council was busy preparing to deal with the incoming shogunate army, Edo was not idle. Although Hidetada managed to quell the rebellion in Sunfu Castle, the sympathy for Tadashi Tokugawa Yoshinao revealed by the 563,206 stone daimyo Tokugawa Yoshinao before also made Hidetada wary of this younger brother.

After the opening of the Tokaido, information from the Kansai princes and the Kyoto region began to be sent to Edo unhindered, and the vague reports of the Tokushima and Kishu domains on the situation in the western country were finally punctured by Edo.

Whether it is Satsuma, Choshu, or Kumamoto, the whole island of Kyushu has fallen; China and the Southern Barbarian countries formed a coalition to attack Japan; Or the fact that there was only one Awaji Navy left after several battles with a large loss of strength was an earth-shattering rumor for Edo. For the shogunates of Edo, it was clear that the situation in the western country was on the verge of spiraling out of control.

Overnight, three enemies emerged from the shogunate, the Tadanaga rebel army that occupied Osaka, the three powerful feudal clans in the southwest, and the combined fleet of the Tokyo. The quelling of the rebellion at Sunpu Castle was a heavy blow to the Tadanaga rebels in Osaka, and it was possible to bring the Osaka area back under the shogunate if only a little time was given.

However, the two forces of the three great feudal clans in the southwest and the combined fleet of the Association of the East are obviously not so easy to dismiss. Especially now that the Southwest Rebels and the Osaka Rebels are under the contact of the ASEAN Combined Fleet, there is a faint tendency to become one, which also worries Hidetada and the important ministers of the shogunate.

At the suggestion of Matsudaira Nobutsuna, Hidetada decided to let the current feudal lord of the Hikone Domain, Ii Naotaka, and Tokugawa Yoshinao of Owari lead the troops in the Gyeonggi area to attack Osaka, and then ordered Abe Shoji to cooperate with the Kishu Domain to make a forced landing or capture of Osaka Castle as soon as possible, so as to cut off the combined fleet of the Southwest Three Feudatories and the Tokyo Association from receiving the Gyeonggi area.

In order to guard against the Kyushu-Maori alliance in Kamiraku, Tadao Ikeda, the lord of the Tottori Domain, and Asano Nagasaki, the lord of the Tottori Domain, and Asano Nagasaki of the Hiroshima Domain, led the armies of the local Chinese domains to reorganize and fight.

In addition, Hidetada also had the shogunate send people to contact Mori and the Kyushu feudal domains separately in an attempt to buy off and divide the coalition forces. Date Munemasa, who had previously sent troops to the Sunhouse, was recalled to Edo to replace Naotaka Ii to handle the daily affairs of the shogunate with the elders.

After determining these countermeasures with the shogunates, Hidetada ordered Matsudaira Nobutsuna to bring the Ming envoy to Edo, the monk Shinfu, to him.

In a modestly decorated longhouse in Nishinomaru, Tokugawa Hidetada, the Grand Imperial Palace, invited the monk Shinfu to sit across from him on a coffee table, with Matsudaira Nobutsuna cooking tea for them.

Xiuzhong did not rush to accuse the Ming of the rebellions set off in various parts of Japan, and directly formed a combined fleet to invade Japan. While waiting for Matsudaira Shingang to cook tea, Xiuzhong first thanked Shen Fu, who had previously asked the Ming Emperor to bring him the medicine that had made him feel a lot better recently.

Shen Fu, who was originally prepared, was confused by Xiuzhong's current attitude, and was a little caught off guard for a while, not knowing how to respond to Xiuzhong's overtures.

Just when Shen Fu was holding a cup of hot tea and listening awkwardly, Xiuzhong was talking about the friendly relations between China and Japan before, the other party suddenly said in a changed tone: "... Since the Ming Dynasty sent envoys to Edo to reconcile with our country, what is there about the Ming Dynasty that is sorry for the Ming Dynasty and wants to bother His Majesty the Emperor to send troops to conquer the Ming Dynasty?

In addition, those southern barbarians are all overseas barbarians who do not obey the king, they do not understand the scriptures, they do not worship the saints, they forget their righteousness in their daily lives, they do not follow the teachings of Buddhism, but use the evil way of Chezhi Dan to deceive our people.

I really don't know what the reason why His Majesty the Emperor and these barbarians join forces to attack their overseas friends and neighbors who live in harmony. Is this also in line with the words of Confucius and Mencius, the etiquette of the Heavenly Empire? ”

Hearing Xiuzhong's sudden questioning, Shen Fu was also dumbfounded for a while, not knowing how to respond. Compared with Chongzhen, who had no scruples about breaking all the old rules, the other Daming people had not yet completely emerged from the thousands of years of the Celestial Empire's upper Chinese language realm.

The Celestial Empire has always sent troops to the heavens, just to crusade against those barbarians who do not obey the king, not to rob other people's things. Only those barbarians who do not know how to be righteous and shameless will start a war in order to rob things.

Being questioned so by the king of an overseas country, Shen Fu felt that his face was a little hot.

However, Shen Fu is not a Confucian scholar after all, he is just a monk who has read books. Therefore, being red-skinned does not mean that he will be ashamed, and instead echo what Xiuzhong said.

Of course, the rhetoric he had thought of before would be completely changed, and now he grabbed a few crew members to talk about it, I am afraid that he will be regarded as unreasonable by Xiuzhong. After all, the other party blames each other for righteousness, and the lives of a few little people are a little insignificant.

Soon he continued: "Your Highness's words are not true, and China and Japan are not friendly neighbors. There was the Battle of Baijiangkou in the Tang Dynasty, there was the Wako Rebellion on the southeast coast of China a hundred years ago, and even decades ago, there was the Wanli Korean Expedition, how can China and Japan be regarded as friendly neighbors? ”

Xiuzhong couldn't help frowning and said: "Isn't it a bit reluctant to say this, can these old and bad things also affect the harmonious relations between the two countries today?" ”

Shen Fu finally clarified his thoughts, and said very smoothly: "Your Highness, don't you hear: the ninth generation can still take revenge, even if it is a hundred generations." This is the righteousness of the Spring and Autumn Period, how dare Your Majesty forget it.

Besides, after the Wanli Korean Expedition, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was crowned King of Japan by Emperor Shinzong. Ran Hideyoshi was slaughtered later, isn't this a great disrespect to the Celestial Empire? ”

Xiuzhong looked at Shen Fu for a long time, and couldn't help but say calmly: "Hideyoshi's son Toyotomi Hideyori acted perversely, and the imperial court ordered the princes of the world to ask for it, and finally he was defeated and *, not slaughtered by others, I am afraid that His Majesty the Emperor was deceived by others." ”

Shin Fu did not dwell with Hidetada on the issue of Hideyoshi's descendants, but said: "Even so, the king of Japan who was canonized by our country should be succeeded by the descendants of Toyotomi." I heard that His Royal Highness Hideyori has a daughter, and His Majesty the Emperor has allowed his daughter to rebuild the Toyotomi clan, and his daughter's bloodline should be the king of Japan.

As for those southern barbarians, I'm afraid His Highness's guess is wrong. It was not our country that summoned these barbarians to fight against Japan, but it was only when these southern barbarians heard that our country was the suzerainty of the East Asian states that they interceded with His Majesty the Emperor, saying that they had been subjected to inhumane treatment in Japan, and that His Majesty sent troops to Japan with them to demand justice..."