Shang Yi heard this and didn't dare to object, but he agreed, and he didn't have this authority.

He is only the second son of King Shang Feng of Zhongshan, who is now in charge of Ryukyu state affairs, and his eldest brother Shang Zhen will become the legal son of Ryukyu after the Ming canonization of Shang Feng as King of the Ryukyus.

He, the second prince, was in a position that was not embarrassing or embarrassing, and he really didn't know how to answer Emperor Ming's question.

Shang Yi was still thinking about how to answer.

Cai Tong, a retainer of the Shang family who followed him over there, had already spoken.

Cai Tong said: "Your Majesty's good intentions are also beneficial to the Ryukyu Kingdom. In the opinion of the ministers, there is no reason why the lord of our country will not agree. However, with regard to the permanent naval fleet in the Ryukyus, our lord did not have any other authorization before we left. Xiaochen and others came to Daming Jingshi to meet His Majesty this time, in order to ask His Majesty the Emperor to canonize my lord. If the ministers and others make promises without authorization, they are not loyal to our lord. Your Majesty, please be wise! ”

These words can be regarded as leaky, but it is difficult for the current Chongzhen Emperor.

Emperor Chongzhen immediately said: "Since this is the case, I am not in a hurry!" Wait for the Ryukyu envoys and return to China first to ask for instructions, and wait for you to ask for permission from the lord of the country, and then it is not too late to come to the Ming Dynasty to meet the master! ”

After Emperor Chongzhen finished speaking, he picked up the tea bowl and took a sip of tea, and then said to Jiang Yueguang and other officials of the Imperial Court: "Is there still a messenger waiting outside?" ”

Jiang Yueguang hurriedly bowed down and replied, "Your Majesty!" There are still several Mongolian envoys, as well as Dutch envoys from Hongmaoyi and Pulidoga waiting! ”

Hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen turned his head to look at Shang Yi and Cai Tong again, only to see that the two of them were red-faced, trembling, kneeling on the ground and prostrating.

Cai Tong's ancestor is the Ming Dynasty Nanzhili people, although moved to the Ryukyus for more than 100 years, but under the residence of the Ju clan, he is still very familiar with the customs of the homeland.

Thinking of this, Cai Tong hurriedly went to see Shang Yi, and Shang Yi was also looking over, so Cai Tong took advantage of Emperor Chongzhen's tea to drink tea, and nodded vigorously to Shang Yi.

When I came down, I saw Shang Yi kowtowing and saying, "Your Majesty the Great Emperor forgives your sins!" The island kingdom of Ryukyu has always been a vassal of the Ming Dynasty, and the Shang family is also a retainer of His Majesty.

"If the Ming Dynasty wants to be stationed in the navy to protect Ryukyu from being invaded by Japanese slaves, and to protect the smooth shipping route between Ryukyu and the Ming Dynasty, with the intention of a minister, my father and my brother have no possibility of not making a promise!

"It's just ——, I don't know where the Great Ming Sailor wants to stay when he goes to Ryukyu? How many warships are there? What is the need for food? ”

As soon as Shang Yi said this, Emperor Chongzhen knew that they were too worried, so he said with a smile: "Wait and relax!" Although the Ryukyu Islands are not large, they are not a single Shuri Castle.

"When I go to Ryukyu and do not stay in Shuri, the monarchs and ministers of the Erguo Kingdom can choose a good port as the anchorage place for our sailors and hand it over to the Ming sailors and the resident envoys. The specific choice of where, the lord of the country and the Ming envoys discussed.

"As for the number of warships, how much will it cost, this issue is agreed upon by the Governor's Office of Fujian and Zhejiang and the Ryukyu State, and it will not be unaffordable for the Ryukyu State, nor will it be borne by the Ryukyu State, so good?"

There is only one dotted castle on Ryukyu Island, called Shuri.

More than 200 years later, the area was occupied by Japan and renamed Okinawa.

Today, Shuri Castle is the capital of the Ryukyu Kingdom.

The Ryukyu Kingdom is geographically located as the only route for Southeast Asia to pass through Japan, so commerce has always been thriving.

Because the Ryukyu Kingdom was located on the trade route from Southeast Asia to Japan, the Ryukyu Kingdom has been occupied since the 16th century, especially after the Portuguese, Spaniards, and Dutch discovered the Ryukyus.

If it weren't for the protection of the Ming Dynasty, Ryukyu would have become a colony of Western countries long ago.

However, even though it is not yet a colony, it has been harassed by these countries.

The Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, and even the Japanese of this era repeatedly demanded the opening of a merchant house and the stationing of envoys in Shuri Castle, the capital of the Ryukyu Kingdom.

Shang Ning, the previous king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, was also a figure, and he had always used the Ming Dynasty as his shield, so that he could withstand the demands of those Western countries.

And the reason why he was able to block these Western countries and not become colonies of the West was entirely because the Ming army won all the foreign wars in the last years of Wanli and the early years of the Apocalypse.

These included wars with the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the Dutch.

These wars, which have never been written about in history, not only protected the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty, but also protected some of the subject states of the Ming Dynasty at that time, including the Ryukyus.

However, although the king of the Ryukyus held the shield of the Ming Dynasty to block the Western powers, he was not able to stop the small Japan that was close at hand.

The Kagoshima Domain of Little Japan, also known as the Shimazu clan of the Satsuma Domain, from the 37th year of Wanli, repeatedly sent troops to invade the Ryukyus, hoping to bring the Ryukyus under their rule.

Fortunately, the Japanese, who had just been beaten by the Ming Dynasty's army on the Korean Peninsula at that time, were afraid of the intervention of the Ming army, so they did not dare to invade Ryukyu with great fanfare.

However, they have adopted a method of continuous encroachment.

By this time in the third year of Chongzhen, the small army of the Satsuma clan had already entered several northern islands of the Ryukyu Islands, and had forced the current king of the Ryukyus (who had not yet been canonized by the Ming Dynasty) to agree to open a "Wakan" in Shuri Castle, the capital of the Ryukyu Kingdom, monopolizing the entrepot trade of the Ryukyus to Japan.

Therefore, under such circumstances, the introduction of the Ming Dynasty's troops and embassies to a certain seaport on the Ryukyu Islands was not a good thing for the Ryukyu Kingdom.

Of course, the Ryukyu Kingdom is too small, whether it is Shangyi or Cai Tong, deep down in the hearts of these two people, of course, they also have a deep fear of the entry of the Ming Dynasty army.

They are worried that the front door has just turned away the wolf, and the back door has entered the tiger.

After all, it is a good thing that the Ming Dynasty helped the Ryukyus drive out the Japanese, but what if the Ming Dynasty wants to annex the Ryukyus after driving away Japan, what if they want to change it?

Because of this, the two hesitated.

However, Emperor Chongzhen's statement made them unable to hesitate any longer.

Ryukyu is far away, and it is not easy to come once.

In particular, it is not easy to get the reception of the Ming Emperor smoothly.

I finally came once, and before the serious errand was done, I went back to the house to ask for other things, isn't this a joke?

Besides, the Ming Dynasty is the suzerainty of the Ryukyus, and even the royal family name of the Zhongshan Kingdom Shang was given to them by the emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, after the death of the previous Ryukyu king Shang Ning, his son Shang Feng sent envoys to ask for canonization, but according to the custom, the Ming Dynasty sent envoys to canonize the Ryukyu king, which required the construction of a sealed boat, that is, a kind of oversized lucky boat.

This required a considerable expenditure for the imperial court at the beginning of the Apocalypse, so many ministers in the court stood up against it.

Especially at the beginning of the Apocalypse, in the southeast coastal area of the Ming Dynasty, there were not many shipyards and shipwrights who could build this kind of sealed boat.

Although the maritime ban policy had been loosened at that time, the government-run shipyards had stopped building large ships for a long time.

Ordinary private shipyards mostly built small boats near the sea, and when the imperial court needed them, they couldn't build the treasure ships when Zheng He went to the West.

Therefore, in order to avoid embarrassment and embarrassment, the imperial court did not send envoys to the Ryukyus for a long time.

Shang Feng, who had the authority to handle the affairs of the Ryukyus, was sent to Zhejiang or Fujian many times to request the transmission of the credentials and canonize him as the king of the Ryukyus as soon as possible.

But it was rejected again and again by the government in Zhejiang and Fujian.

The canonization of the king of the Ryukyus, which can demonstrate the authority of the suzerainty and exercise the sovereignty of the suzerain, has been delayed because of such a seemingly absurd and deeply studied but very embarrassing reason.

The construction of the sealing boat was originally to demonstrate the prestige of the great power Celestial Empire, but in the end, because it was too expensive to build, he gave up his suzerainty power.

Many things in the late Ming Dynasty were so strange.

As for this time, of course Emperor Chongzhen will not care about whether the boat is closed or not.

The face of the Ming court, his own face, is by no means earned by this thing.

Even if he had the ability to build it now, he wouldn't have spent the time and effort to build such a flashy thing.

The status and prestige of a country are not highlighted by this thing.

After the prince of the Ryukyu Kingdom, Shang Yi, and the envoy Cai Tong were forced to agree to the Ming Dynasty's dispatch of sailors to be stationed on the spot, everything else was solved.

At the suggestion of the two cabinet ministers, Emperor Chongzhen quickly decided on the time and permanent person to go to Ryukyu to be crowned King of Ryukyu with the Golden Book of Sacred Decrees.

The minister who went to the canonization, recommended by Xu Guangqi and supported by Li Guoyi, Emperor Chongzhen finalized the candidate of He Ruzhong, the waiter of the Ministry of Rites.

As for the deputy envoys, just as Li Xin and Zhang Pu were asked to follow Jiang Yueguang to North Korea to increase their experience, Emperor Chongzhen sent Zhan Shi Huang Daozhou, the Shao Zhan Shi of Zhan Shifu, and Wu Weiye, a Zhongshu scholar beside him, to take the pedestrians of the Li Fan Yuan to Ryukyu with He Ruzhong, the attendant of the Ministry of Rites.

At the same time, Emperor Chongzhen also finalized the garrison of Weng Zhiqi of the Zhejiang Naval Division, and led a partial division of the Zhoushan Water Division to transport the canonized envoy to Ryukyu.

After the event, He Rupet took Wu Weiye back to Beijing, and Huang Daozhou and Weng Zhiqi were stationed in Ryukyu on the spot, with Huang Daozhou as the Ming Dynasty's permanent envoy to the Ryukyu Kingdom, and directly under the management of the Li Fan Yuan, with Weng Zhiqi as the Ming Dynasty's permanent military attache in the Ryukyu Kingdom, and continued to be controlled by the Fujian and Zhejiang Governors' Office and the Zhejiang Governor's Office Zhang Cunren.