readx; In the history of Zhu Youzhen's memory, since Qi Jiguang repeatedly defeated the Japanese in the Jiajing period, the Japanese have gradually disappeared from the southeast coast. www.biquge.info In the Wanli Dynasty, the Sino-Korean coalition defeated Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invading Japanese army, which dealt a blow to Japan's ambition for expansion. From then on, Japan embarked on a path of seclusion until the Meiji Restoration a few hundred years later.

But in this time and space, the Japanese are so arrogant, and even hit the hinterland of the Bohai Sea, what is going on?

After listening to Qi Xianzong's introduction, Zhu Youzhen understood a general idea, and also learned about Japanese history by the way. Originally, Japan was a small country in the Middle Ages, but later the Yamato Province in the middle of Honshu Island conquered most of Japan, and its leader was renamed "Emperor".

During the reign of Emperor Yang of Sui, Prince Shotoku, the ruler of Japan at the time, sent his minister Ono Meizi to meet Emperor Yang and submit his credentials, which included the words "Emperor Dong respects Emperor Baixi", which made Emperor Yang of Sui furious. Later, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty stubbornly conquered Korea three times, and more than half of the reason was that he wanted to use Korea as a springboard to destroy this small country that did not know the height of the sky.

Later, Japan cleverly took the Tang Dynasty as its teacher, called the feudal tribute, and sent Tang envoys to China many times to learn the cultural system, and even copied the Chinese language. This led the rulers of the Tang and Song dynasties to mistakenly believe that Japan was similar to other vassal states, and did not recognize Japan's enormous ambitions.

Later, the Mongol Yuan destroyed the Song Dynasty, and Japan severed official ties with China. Kublai Khan once sent the Southern Song Dynasty to cross the sea to attack Japan twice, but they were all broken and sunk in the sand due to typhoons, which is the "divine wind" boasted by the Japanese. Since then, Japan's ambitions have gradually swelled, and it no longer takes China into account, believing that "there will be no China after Yashan", and that Japan is the legitimate successor of Chinese civilization.

In the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, the cunning Japanese rulers sent envoys to "pay tribute" on the one hand, in fact, they wanted to make more economic benefits; On the other hand, it connived at the Japanese to attack the southeast coast and test the bottom line of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang didn't take Japan into account at the beginning, and since there were envoys to pay tribute, he naturally wanted to meet them. Zhu Yuanzhang asked him "how are the customs of Erguo", in fact, he was polite and perfunctory, but Lima had already prepared, and replied with poems, and said a lot of nonsense: "The country is better than the Central Plains, and the people are the same as the ancients." The well-dressed Tang system, the courtesy of the Han monarchs. The silver urn stores sake, and the golden knife is covered with scales. Every year in February and March, the peach and plum spring from Yangyang. ”

Between the lines, there is a statement that Japan is the successor of the Han and Tang Dynasties. Zhu Yuanzhang was naturally furious, so he refused to pay tribute to Japan, and specially added a note in the "Ancestral Teachings" to his descendants: "Although Japan is really deceitful, the secret adulterous minister Hu Weiyong is wrong, so he will not do it." ”

This is largely the case with Japan's historical ties to China. Domestically, the country is strange because the people believe in "Shinto" and believe that the emperor is not a human but a god, and of course the imperial family also uses this to maintain their rule. Therefore, in the strict sense of the word, Japan was once a theocratic country.

Due to the fact that Japan is an island country, its unique geographical environment has made it almost immune to foreign invasions. After a long period of peace, the emperor was inferior from generation to generation, and power gradually fell into the hands of the nobility. The most typical of these is the "shogun", from the perspective of the Chinese more easily understood, this "general" is equivalent to the first-class figure of the Wei king Cao Xiang, who opened the shogunate outside Kyoto, and the emperor was basically completely overthrown. However, since the emperor was still the leader of the "Shinto" and was still out of consideration for maintaining his rule, the "shogun" did not abolish the "emperor" but kept this puppet all the time.

With the continuous expansion of the power of the local feudal lords and the continuous decline of the shogunate, in the 15th century, the "shogun" was hollowed out again, and the "daimyo", that is, the feudal lords, fought for territory, which was the "Warring States Period" in Japan. But the strange thing is that the "emperor" and "general" have been retained, two puppets in one country, looking at the history of various countries, Japan is also the only scorpion poop.

After that, Oda Nobunaga rose to prominence and gradually defeated the daimyo in various places. Just when he was about to become the new "general", due to the rebellion of his subordinates, Oda Nobunaga raised fire**, and the fruits of victory were picked by his subordinate Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Another problem with the Japanese is that they can change their names at will. In the case of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, his original name was Kinoshita Fujiyoshiro, because of poverty and malnutrition when he was a child, coupled with genetic problems, his short stature resembles an ape, and he is often called "monkey". After becoming a retainer of Oda Nobunaga, he felt that he was from a humble background and did not look good, so he took one character from each of Oda's two retainers, "Niwa" and "Shibata", and changed his surname to "Hashiba". In the eyes of the Chinese, this is a typical "three-surname domestic slave" behavior, but the Japanese feel that it is very honorable.

And the word "show" can only be used by people with status and merit. So Kinoshita Toyoshiro became Yushiba Hideyoshi, but this person was extremely ambitious, and after defeating the daimyo in various places and gaining actual control of Japan, he felt that the surname "Yushiba" was not enough to pull the wind, so he forced the emperor to give the surname "Toyotomi" and became Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was extremely arrogant, not satisfied with the unification of Japan, and delusionally wanted to annex the Ming Dynasty and move the capital to Beijing. So he dispatched 200,000 troops to brazenly launch a war of aggression against Korea, intending to use Korea as a springboard to attack China.

However, at that time, the national strength of the Ming Dynasty was not weak, and the Wanli Emperor sent troops into the DPRK to fight, and after several years, he won many victories and effectively curbed the expansion of Japan. Within a few years, Toyotomi Hideyoshi fell ill and died, and the Japanese army in Korea was in a hurry to return to the civil war, and retreated in a hurry, only to be defeated by the Sino-Korean coalition forces at sea, which was the Battle of Rolianghae.

After the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Japan re-entered the shogunate period, and the first shogun was Tokugawa Ieyasu. This man was more cautious and abandoned Toyotomi Hideyoshi's expansionist policy, so it was considered a pause in Japan for a while.

However, Japan is a small country, lacks resources, and has a heart higher than the sky, so it always feels superior to others, so it is inevitable to expand outward. Moreover, although the shogunate was established, the daimyo in various places did not disappear and still had strong strength. Some daimyo quietly expanded their power, plotting internally to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate, and externally contacting Westerners to obtain their advanced weapons, and reorganizing the Japanese to plunder everywhere to replenish their military resources.

In particular, the Satsuma Domain, located on the island of Shikoku in the southwest of Japan, invaded the Ryukyus, a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, without authorization and captured the Ryukyu King Shangning. It is really touching that the Ryukyus were originally a sovereign country, but because they were too weak to defend themselves, they were now reduced to a vassal of a local power in Japan.

When Zhu Youzhen heard this, he couldn't help asking: "Father-in-law, according to this, the Satsuma Domain is equivalent to disobeying the orders of the shogunate and has the intention of self-reliance, doesn't the shogunate care?" ”

Qi Xianzong frowned and said: "The shogunate is now too busy to take care of itself, and the minister thinks that within a few years, the political situation in Japan will inevitably change greatly. The current Japanese can only be regarded as a pathfinder, and the minister is worried that in a few years, Japan will be reunified, and maybe it will come out again! ”