Chapter 82: The Emperor's Perception
Emperor Yuanrong lazily pushed away the woman who was pressing on him. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info
He raised his head and looked at the gilded ceiling of the palace, looked at it for a while, and then ordered, "Bring me water." ”
"Yes, Your Majesty." On either side of the rosewood bed where he was lying, the voices of two maidservants came out, and then a glass of crystal glass filled with water was served.
Emperor Enami was very fond of this transparent glazed cup, and since the beginning of its popularity in the streets of Tokyo, he has introduced this rather expensive luxury item to the Imperial Palace.
It is said that this thing can only be fired in the Central Plains, and the manufacturing method is very troublesome, only a dozen old people who are over half a hundred years old can be fired.
The former Emperor Yuanrong was also convinced of this, and such a delicate and beautiful glass cup was not too much to fire even if it took thousands of people to fire.
But now, Emperor Yuanrong has more and more doubts about the origin of this glass cup.
If it is a rumor of the glass cup itself, Emperor Yuanrong will never doubt that this crystal clear, smooth crystal cup has a rigid appearance and exquisite details, and Emperor Yuanrong can be sure that this thing is definitely not something that ordinary small workshops can produce.
But the problem is not in the glass cup itself, but outside the glass cup.
That's the price of the glass cup.
Since the appearance of glass cups in the market in Tokyo, which caused a wave of glass cups, this kind of transparent glass cup has been in the limelight for a while, and many wealthy merchants and aristocrats are even willing to bid hundreds of dollars of silver to buy a cup.
But only three months have passed, and the price of today's glass jars has fallen to fifty taels of silver, and after the rapid depreciation, although the price is still not affordable for ordinary people, fifty taels is still not the same concept as hundreds of taels a few months ago.
If there is only one glass cup in Japan, it can be sold for thousands of taels, but if there are more and more of these things, the price will of course drop.
The glass cup came from the New Song Kingdom in the Central Plains, and it is said that it was a small country with only one state and county, and this small country was still separated from the Great Song Dynasty.
For the Central Plains, Emperor Yuanrong has not sent envoys to contact him for many years, because in his impression, since the end of the Tang Dynasty, after the collapse of the Tang Dynasty, the Central Plains has been a matter of disputes among the princes, complicated and chaotic, but since the beginning of the New Year, especially in the past few months, it seems that more and more new things in the Central Plains have appeared in the city of Tokyo.
The goods of the Central Plains, the teahouses of the Central Plains, and even the Central Plains people also opened newspapers and schools in Japan, and what made Emperor Yuanrong feel most uneasy was the Jiaozi issued by the Central Plains people in Japan that was convenient for trading.
This kind of jiaozi is just a piece of paper printed with delicate patterns, but with this thing, as long as you go to the money bank belonging to the local city, you can exchange the same amount of silver taels as the amount on the jiaozi.
As soon as this thing was launched in the Japanese market, it was widely acclaimed, and some of the Japanese chaebol bigwigs expressed high praise for this kind of portable Jiaozi, of course, under the exemplary role of these chaebols, as long as Japan is trading bulk goods, it has become popular to use Jiaozi currency.
In just three months, it became the national currency of all of Japan, and in Kyushu, Shikoku, Honshu, and Hokkaido, it was used not only by merchants, but also by ordinary people.
Emperor Harmony instinctively felt uneasy about the phenomenon, but he couldn't say what he was worried about.
From his accession to the throne at the age of sixteen, he has been in power for ten years, and ten years have made him no longer a teenager who did not understand what royal power was to grow into a calculating young man.
This large-scale shift in the use of currency throughout the country made Emperor Enrong smell of conspiracy, so he also secretly sent people to start an investigation into these circulating Jiaozi in the market.
Layer by layer of investigation, layer by layer, all the evidence points to a family, the Fujiwara family in Nara, Kyoto.
The Fujiwara family, this is the name that Emperor Yuanrong doesn't want to hear anyway, this towering tree, although he is the emperor, but if he wants to shake it, it is just a mayfly shaking the tree, and he can't do it.
The Fujiwara family is one of the most prominent families in Japanese history.
After the emperor moved the capital to Heian in the late 8th century, the Fujiwara family manipulated the Japanese imperial family for more than 300 years. But the power and prestige of the Fujiwara family was achieved not by bravery and skill, but by numerous political stratagems. For example, the Fujiwara family married a female member of the family to the emperor, which means that the grandson of the Fujiwara family is the future emperor. As a result, the patriarch of the Fujiwara family, whether in the court or in the opposition, can influence the court.
The Fujiwara family also used Buddhism to seize power, often using the example of several emperors who believed in Buddhism to persuade independent-minded emperors to ignore government affairs and retire. At the same time, the Fujiwara family did not neglect to lay a solid economic foundation for their political power. They encouraged the nobles to entrust their land to the Fujiwara clan. On the one hand, this greatly reduced or even completely exempted the landowners from paying taxes, and on the other hand, it allowed the Fujiwara family to enrich the state with its own money.
In a sense, Emperor Enrong can even be regarded as the emperor elected by the Fujiwara family, so the affairs of the Fujiwara family are also considered the affairs of his own family.
Through more investigations, Emperor Enrong gradually investigated the person in the Fujiwara family who was very close to the Central Plains, that is, Fujiwara Yoritada, a cousin appointed by Fujiwara Kanetsu at the time of his death.
This Fujiwara Yorita was originally just a small person, but Fujiwara Kanetsu, a big man, entrusted his last wishes to him before he died, and he could not even enter the center of power in Japan.
But after this Fujiwara Yorizhong got the will and soared to the sky, he also quickly fought with the New Song Dynasty regime in the Central Plains, according to the spies to report, the envoys of the New Song Kingdom would pull a cart to Fujiwara Yorizhong every month to offer a large number of property, Fujiwara Yorizhong is also very close to this new Song Dynasty.
After learning the news, Emperor Yuanrong finally understood the real mastermind behind the scenes, and it turned out that the recent trend in the Japanese market was related to this little-known Fujiwara Yoritada.
Although the Fujiwara family is very large, it is not difficult to get rid of a Fujiwara Yoritada, and before Fujiwara Yorita has made more moves, Emperor Yuanrong intends to get rid of this uncertain factor first.
He gathered a group of samurai overnight, and then ordered this group of samurai to find an opportunity to infiltrate Fujiwara Yoritada's mansion within a week, kill Fujiwara Yoritada, and then drive all the merchants of the New Song Kingdom out of Japan......
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