After Downing came to Japan, he was in no hurry to leave, and the Great Eastern became an Edo museum, and the people of Edo came to visit it for free every day, and even the actual rulers of the shogunate, Masahiro Abe and Naobu Ii, who did not have the name of the first old man, visited here, and of course this great opportunity attracted a large number of tourists.

Abe and Ii have been discussing with the feudal lords how to send missions to Europe these days, and the two feudal domains are certainly the focus, and of course the domain of Masamu Horita, the nominal head of the old middle school and also the founding faction, is located.

These three feudal clans were all founders, and there were also four enlightened feudal lords who were "masters of the country" among the feudal lords: Matsudaira Harugake (who originally advocated strengthening coastal defenses to conquer the country, but after communicating with Abe Hiromasa, he thought that the foreigners were too powerful and it would be difficult not to be good students first, but now he has gradually moved closer to the founding faction), Date Sojo (reformed the feudal government with a focus on the development of the colonial industry in the era of the previous feudal lord, and carried out the monopoly of wood wax and the investigation of coal mineral resources). At the same time, he sheltered Nagahide Takano, who was wanted by the shogunate, recruited talents from the Choshu Domain, Kuroroku Murata, and began to modernize the military system of the Uwajima Domain. The Choshu Domain is at the heart of Japan's view of the world as a way to learn from foreigners. ), Yamochido (continued to promote Western armaments, coastal defense, financial reform, sent feudal lords to Nagasaki to study, and reformed the identity system, rewarded academics, and other measures to promote the reform of the feudal government, and was quite decisive. However, he also calls himself "Drunken Marquis of the Whale Sea", giving people this impression. When you drink alcohol, your opinions change often. ), Shimazu Saibin (the lord of the Satsuma domain is the farthest place from the center of the government, Japan, Japan is divided into Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu three major islands, Edo is located in the center of Honshu, and Kyushu is at the southern end, separated from Honshu by a strait, Satsuma Domain is located in the southwest of Kyushu, so far away, so the Satsuma Domain has always been quite **, dare to do all kinds of things that are not in the right way with the shogunate. ）

As soon as the Opium War sounded, the Great Qing Kingdom, which had always been regarded as the boss of Japan, was beaten by the foreign people, and the whole country of Japan was shocked, and the Great Qing Kingdom was busy covering up its own beaten bear-like appearance, and continued to regard itself as the superior country of the Celestial Empire, and the Japanese feudal domains were the first to seek reform to strengthen themselves.

The shogunate was also extremely reluctant to open the country, and the shogun (the official name of the shogun, the large number established during the conquest of Ezo in Japan), which had the ability to self-determine, was delayed for a year when Perry arrived in 1853, citing the need for the emperor's consent.

This excuse gave a good excuse for the later rise of the emperor, and the princes looked at it, and it seemed that the emperor, the "imaginary head of state" who had not interfered in politics for hundreds of years, still had such a strong theoretical appeal, and they gathered under the banner of the emperor, and the current Tokugawa Qizhao was the leader of the Yiyi faction, and his wife was the sister of the wife of Prince Chihito of the imperial family, but Tokugawa Qizhao's political status was actually higher than that of the imperial family that had been poor for hundreds of years.

There were six feudal lords who were candidates for the Shogun of Seiyi, and they were called the "Gosanke" and "Kiyosanke". The Imperial Three Family is the family of the heir candidates established earlier, with the highest status and the highest fiefdom, while the fief of the Qing Three Family is managed by the shogunate, and the standard is 100,000 quintals. However, it was precisely because the Qing three families did not need to run their own fiefdoms, so they went all out to engage in political affairs and conspiracies in Edo, and in fact, the Qing three families were more likely to win the victory, and the Tokugawa Saiaki of the Itotsubashi family, one of the three Qing families, planned to let his son inherit the current Tokugawa Iesada (no children), the general of the Shogun.

In these days, Hotta Masamu, the first of the old middle schools, formally made a plan with the Shogunate to recommend the personnel to go to Europe for inspection, and finally the Shogunate approved the number of people, with a total of 50 people. Probably the founding faction and the Yiyi faction accounted for half of each other, and during the Great Eastern, according to the norms of foreigners, everyone was equal, and commoners did not need to bow down to high-ranking nobles, and of course, they were not allowed to carry knives. Half of the cost of the expedition was paid by the feudal clans and half of the cost of the expedition, which was paid in advance by the Downings and settled after their return, but all the feudal domains that benefited from it had to allow the Downing's telegraph company to be open to business (Nippon Telegraph Company). At present, only Nagasaki is open to the public, and there are secret stations in Edo and Osaka, and not many people know about it, and Yamamoto Otoyoshi's friend Fukuzawa Yukichi only knew how to find a telegraph company in Edo because he had spent time in Nagasaki. The telegraph is a good thing, and Downing's request is not excessive, right? Even if you don't open the country, it's good to open a telegraph company, and the Japanese people's openness to Lanxue determines that they are not averse to such things as telegraphs.

The Great Eastern Museum of Downing was held in Edo for several months, and the 50 expeditions were finally identified, including Murata Kuroroku (professor of Western military science at the shobusho) sent by Date Sojo, Yoshida Toyo (feudal reformer) sent by Yamamoto Do, and his two disciples, Goto Zojiro and Iwasaki Yataro (later the founders of the Mitsubishi Zaibatsu).

Shimazu Saibin, the lord of the Satsuma Domain, personally went into battle, taking with his right-hand men Saigo Takamori and Okubo Toshimitsu. Influenced by his great-grandfather, Shigehiro Shimazu, the eighth lord of the Satsuma Domain, Shimazu Shigehiro had a strong interest in Western science from an early age, and he was fascinated by his great-grandfather's extensive collection of Western supplies, such as clocks, musical instruments, telescopes, microscopes, and weapons. He was familiar with Latin and had invented a personal code using the Japanese method of converting Roman characters. Chonghao also introduced Qi Bin to the famous Japanese naturalist, the German Lan doctor Philippe? Franz? Every? Siebald, which makes Saibin one of the few Japanese who has had personal contact with Westerners. However, the so-called "orchid fetish", which was the same as that of his great-grandfather, also made the feudal conservatives quite suspicious, because the research related to orchidology and the establishment of a modern military industry would cost a lot of money, and Shimazu Shigehao's style of spending money had brought the Satsuma domain to the brink of bankruptcy, and the total debt of the domain was as high as 5 million taels.

Shimazu Saibin was a man who would not hesitate to pay for reform, he lived in Edo for a long time, formed an alliance with Masahiro Abe, and sought the position of feudal lord, and China's defeat in the Opium War was quite shocking. As soon as he took office, he began to actively introduce Western industrial technology, and began to build Japan's first modern Western-style factory complex centered on the Kagoshima area, which involved shipbuilding, smelting (construction of reverberatory furnaces and ore melting furnaces), textiles, military industries (artillery, mines, mines), and glass manufacturing. Western colonialism also learned quickly, and a few years ago sent Saigo Takamori to secretly survey the island of Taiwan, and when he landed in Keelung, he found that it was guarded by Qing troops. It is surprising that the Qing court imposed a sea ban and moved the islanders to Fujian, and it was surprising that there were garrisons in Taiwan, and perhaps the Qing court was also afraid that the surrender of this large territory to foreign hands would be detrimental to national defense.

The Choshu domain was full of talents, and the most notable of them was Yoshida Shoin. No one has a stronger desire to go abroad than Yoshida Shoin, who wanted to board the Russian ** ship anchored in Nagasaki and go abroad as early as 1853, regardless of whether he understands foreign languages or not, but the Russian ** ship left early because of the Crimean War, and Yoshida Shoin failed to do so.

In 1854, when Perry returned to Japan after hearing Japan's reply to the founding of Japan, Shoin took the opportunity to embark on another trip abroad with Kaneko Shigesuke, who also belonged to the Choshu domain, and the two took a small boat from the shore of Kakizaki Village near Shimoda at the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula to the American fleet anchored in the sea off Shimoda, hoping that Perry would allow them to return to the United States with the ship in order to learn from the West. In view of the fact that Brigadier General Perry had just signed a Japan-US peace treaty with the Tokugawa shogunate in Yokohama on March 3, and did not want to get involved in a diplomatic dispute with Japan that would lead to assisting the Japanese to smuggle out of the country, he politely refused the request of the two men, but promised to keep them a secret and then sent them back to shore.

However, afterwards, Shoin and the others still chose to immediately surrender to the shogunate's commissioner in Shimoda, which shows that he advocates fairness and integrity, and has a subordinate character. In April, they were escorted from Shimoda to Edo, and in October they were returned to their hometown of Choshu to serve their sentences. Shoin was imprisoned in Noyama Prison, where samurai were imprisoned, but because of his outstanding learning, the shogunate and feudal lord allowed him to lecture in prison, giving him the opportunity to lecture at the Shogunate of the founding of the country. On the other hand, Kaneko Shigesuke, who accompanied Shoin, was imprisoned in Iwakura Prison, which was used by civilians, due to his low status, and finally died of illness in the second month of the following year.

Due to his criminal nature, Shoin himself could not represent the Choshu Domain on the Great Eastern, but Kobayashi Torizaburo, who was called Nihu by his mentor Sakuma Zozan and Shoin, who advocated the founding of the country, had this opportunity, and Shoin's students Katsura Kogoro and Takasugi Shinsaku also joined Choshu's team.

The Japanese like to change their names back and forth, this Katsura Kogoro is the later Kido Takayo, Tang Ning doesn't know much about the history of Japan, but the Meiji Restoration Sanjie still knows, he looked at the list of European expeditions in his hand with emotion, Kido Takayo, Saigo Takamori and Okubo Ritsu all got on his boat, alas, if he had a grudge against the Japanese and threw these 50 people into the Pacific Ocean to feed the sharks, Japan's Restoration would be at least fifty years later. This is the same reason that the Soviet Union wiped out Poland's elite at the Katyn massacre and devastated Poland ever since. However, this is the same as the massacre of Chinese in Indonesia by the unconfident Dutch, and the confident Grand Duke of Windsor does not bother to do such a thing.

The 50 members of the Japanese delegation were confirmed, and the Chinese edition of the Tangning Tongguò Telegraph also sent invitations to the Great Qing Kingdom, and even directly asked the Reuters network to send invitations directly to the governors. However, how many influential people in the Great Qing Kingdom in the war were willing to go to Europe, it was not something he could control.

To be honest, Tang Ning is not familiar with the history of the Qing Dynasty, he is a lover of the history of science, there is no science in the Qing Dynasty at all, he knows only a few people, he only knows the three heroes in the Japanese expedition, and the three heroes all came to the Great Orient, but when the Great Orient returned to Shanghai and stayed for a few months, there was only one person he noticed a little - Zeng Jize, the son of Zeng Guofan, 17 years old, the young man saw the erosion of the situation in the Qing Dynasty, and decided to abandon the career of the imperial examination and stay abroad!

The young man not only dared to go to Europe, but also dared to use his real name, the son of the soldier Lang, and the son of the leader of the Hunan army, the main force fighting against the Taiping Army, Tang Ning had a good impression of Zeng Guofan, this famous minister of the late Qing Dynasty was really far-sighted.

However, compared with the 50 people in Japan who are eager to try and full of vigor, I only got more than 30 people in the end in the Qing Dynasty, and Zeng Jize's master and servant accounted for 5, and many other officials sent a lot of people with thieves, and it is estimated that even the names are fake. Also, the Taiping army is now arrogant, in Zhenjiang by the power of the Great Eastern to achieve a great victory, Gilhanga was defeated by the eastward Taiping army Li Xiucheng, Qin Rigang, and then lost Zhenjiang, in May, Yangzhou was occupied by the Taiping army, one of the two camps used by the Qing army to surround Tianjing, Jiangbei camp was conquered. On June 1, the Qin Rigang army surrounded the Qing army at Yandun Mountain, and Gilhanga committed suicide. Now, even if Qi Taiyu borrows 3,000 chengguan, he can't take revenge, and the Qi brothers seem to have lost the motivation in life.

Compared with Japan, the Great Qing Dynasty is obviously cunning and cunning, Japan is obviously divided into the founding faction and the Yiyi faction, that is to say, they advocate that the founding ministers are at least sincere, and the Great Qing Dynasty since Emperor Xianfeng and below all think that the Nanjing Treaty is just a delaying tactic, Ye Mingchen, the governor of Liangguang, understood the mind of Emperor Xianfeng, and during his time as governor of Guangdong, he and Xu Guangjin, the governor of Liangguang, launched a mass movement in Guangzhou to prevent the British from entering the city of Guangzhou, killing a foreigner and rewarding how much silver, etc., which is obviously a breach of contract. Ye Mingchen was even awarded by the baron. In short, the opening of Guangzhou stipulated in the Treaty of Nanjing has dragged on for more than ten years from the signing of the treaty to 1856, and the British still cannot enter the city of Guangzhou.

The current consul of Guangzhou, Pa Xiali, recently married a beautiful wife in London, and at the moment of his heroic appearance, he was ready to change the fact that the British could not enter Guangzhou, Ye Mingchen borrowed the hands of the people, and Pa Xiali has been looking for an excuse to get rid of the Qing Dynasty, and now the territory of the Qing Dynasty is not very peaceful, and Pasha Li kept making suggestions to his leader, the Governor of Hong Kong, Bao Ning, asking for another dozen Qing countries, so as to remove a qiē trade barrier.

When the Great Orient sailed from Shanghai to Hong Kong, Tang Ning took this matter to test the Chinese and Japanese inspection groups and asked them to express their views. Sixty percent of the members of the Japanese side believed that Ye Mingchen's practice was problematic, and of course there was also a problem with the Qing court's practice, and since Ye Mingchen was "unable to restrain the people," he should be held accountable and replaced with an official to govern Guangdong. The British are really patient enough, it has been more than ten years, Saigo Takamori and Murata Kuroroku both said that if they were the British, they would have fought a long time ago. （http:／/.）。

Most of the Chinese members were "Yiyi faction", only Zeng Jize said that since the contract was signed, it should be kept, and that trade was good for China and Japan to understand the world, except that it did not conform to the traditions of China and Japan, but he opposed the religious invasion of the British and the legalization of opium. Not only that, but he was quite interested in the separation of powers that Xu Rongcun had been explaining to the Chinese members in recent days, which was being popularized in Europe. Tang Ning felt that this child's worldview was quite in line with his expectations. Britain is good for everything, but not Christianity and opium.

Although Tang Ning did not say anything, he finally said: "In the future, Gui Kogoro will be the representative of Japan and Zeng Jize will be the representative of the Qing Dynasty to organize this delegation." ”

Downing's account of the entire process of Britain from the Age of Discovery to the Industrial Revolution was the most important educational lesson for the entire delegation, because Downing's account was too profound, one was the Industrial Revolution, and of course, the well-functioning social system also ensured that Britain was full of vitality, and perhaps the most important reason why Britain finally defeated the Iberian duo (Spain and Portugal) who opened the Age of Discovery. Downing expressed his concern in this regard, because it is difficult to turn back once the power is on the road, and it may lay a good foundation for heavy industry in a short period of time, and it seems to be a strong country on the surface, but the people are not rich and happy, and they may even have a big war with the real power, so that they end up in a very miserable end. That's all he can do, if China and Japan still take this road, he won't withdraw, and it is likely that it will be Tang Ning himself who will defeat China and Japan.