After the New Year, Li Guifei found out that she was pregnant again. She found that she was very lucky, there were more and more concubines in the palace, even if she was a concubine, it was still difficult to get the emperor's presence, but the few times she was called to serve the bed, but she was lucky to be pregnant with the dragon again.

Although she is a concubine from North Korea, after all, she is the honor of the noble concubine, and the eldest son she gave birth to is the second son of the emperor, and the son is more precious than the mother, and her status in the palace is relatively transcendent. In terms of origin, she is the princess of the king of North Korea, and in terms of title, she is the first concubine of the four concubines, second only to Queen Lu, and she also gave birth to the second son of the emperor.

Li Guifei's father, King Li Jian of Joseon, recently went to Beijing to meet His Majesty the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, and when he heard that his daughter was pregnant with a dragon again, he couldn't help but be happy for his daughter. Li Jian came here and brought a lot of Korean native products to pay tribute, and by the way, he also brought many hometown items to his daughter.

Li Jian is in his fifties, and he didn't want to go across the ocean to Middle-earth. But the emperor had a call, and he had to come. However, when he set foot on the land of the Han Dynasty, he sighed and sighed that it was worth the trip.

Originally, he thought that North Korea had developed rapidly and become very prosperous in the past two years. But compared with the big Han, it is too far away. Along the way, he was simply dizzying.

Yang Yang Tian - the kingdom of the dynasty, and it really lives up to its name.

What impressed him the most was the water and land transportation in all directions, countless cities, villages, vertical and horizontal Qianmo, and commercial market towns everywhere, even if it was a small ferry, there could be a market town. The market town has a full range of goods, and it seems that everything is available, and the people of Dahan seem to be extremely wealthy.

Along the way, Li Jian has become a shopaholic, buying wherever he goes. As a result, every time he went to the next stop, he could always find more, better and more exquisite goods, and when he arrived in the capital, Li Jian had already purchased more than a dozen carts of goods. But after he walked around the front gate and East and West Street in the capital, he sighed that he had lost money, and there were more things here. And it's not expensive.

Li Guifei couldn't help but chuckle as she listened to her father's endless talk about her tributary (shopping) journey. However, she listened very interested, although she was a noble concubine and lived in the most luxurious Forbidden City, but she usually did not have the opportunity to contact the bustling and lively outside.

When Liu Jun was not yet emperor, she lived outside the palace at that time, and visited Beijing with Liu Jun several times. But after entering the palace, there was no such opportunity, and the few times she occasionally went out of the palace, it was the emperor who took her to the temple outside the palace to worship the Buddha. But in and out, there are guards guarding the way and isolating the people.

She knew that the emperor often went out of the palace in micro-clothes, and every woman in the palace was very envious, but no one would ask the emperor to take them out of the palace with micro-clothes, which was not in line with their identity.

"Jingshi is indeed prosperous and lively, so my father might as well live in Beijing for a few more days."

Li Jian shook his head, "I can't leave Korea for too long, I'll go back in two days, and the battle for the Japanese will begin." We in Korea will also send troops to assist the empire in the war. ”

When it came to attacking Japan, Li Jian did not show the slightest worry and heaviness.

The strength of the Han Empire was there, it was incomparably strong, and the Japanese were no match at all. Especially the imperial conquest of Japan. And didn't give them anything heavy. Although some of the grain and grass were collected from North Korea, they were all purchased at market prices, and North Korea sent troops to help, and they were not dissatisfied. On the contrary, they hoped that the Han would let them send more soldiers and horses into Japan, so as to take the opportunity to seize the opportunity and take revenge on the Japanese people.

Korea was without the aggression and oppression of Japan and Jurchens. Especially after the Han garrisoned troops at one north and one south, the Koreans were finally able to live with peace of mind for a few days.

North Korea, which calls itself Little China, is also a relatively developed agricultural civilization. During the heyday of Silla's unification, the capital city of Silla even had a population of nearly one million, making it one of the largest capitals in the world at that time.

Even in the era of the Li Dynasty, which experienced the invasion of Japan and Jurchen, the population was still very large.

Now Korea has 240,000 troops and several fleets. Among these armies were the Gyeonggi Guard, which was completely equipped with Han style equipment and modeled after the Han style, and a Korean fleet equipped with warships and warships purchased from the Han Dynasty.

The party struggle, which was once more powerful than that of the Ming Dynasty, has now become a situation in which the Chinese Party is in power because the pro-China faction is dominant. Being fully pro-China, without any external troubles, and being able to enjoy the profits of trade with Han, the DPRK has indeed had a taste of burning oil and flowers in the past two years.

The whole North Korea feels good about themselves, and at this time, the big Han wants to teach the arrogant Japanese people a lesson, and the whole North Korea naturally praises each other, and after giving the big Han a praise, they have to step on the two feet in person.

"North Korea has developed rapidly in the past two years, the scene of the prosperity of Little China, if you have the opportunity, you can go back to North Korea to have a look."

Li Guifei said to her father, "North Korea can have today, my father can have today, don't forget that all this comes from the grace of the Han Dynasty and His Majesty the Holy Emperor." ”

She hoped that North Korea would maintain this close relationship with the Han so that she could have a stronger position in the palace.

"Don't worry, I won't forget the kindness of the Great Han, and neither will the North Korea." Li Jian knew very well that if it weren't for the Han Emperor, he would not have been able to become the king of Joseon. Without the protection of the Han Dynasty, Korea would still be enslaved by the Manchus.

At lunchtime, Liu Jun came, he asked the imperial dining room to prepare a sumptuous meal, and then there were no outsiders, just Liu Jun and the emperor Liu Xiu father and son, plus Li Guifei and the father and daughter of the Korean king Li Jun, this meal was also a family banquet, and the two fathers-in-law also met for the first time.

Such a simple family banquet made Li Jian feel more and more honored.

"I heard that you plan to return to North Korea in three days?" Liu Jun asked Li Jun.

Li Jian nodded hurriedly.

"Why don't you wait a few days and take my boat in a few days."

"Your Majesty is going to North Korea?" Li Jian was surprised, not only him, but also the other two. Liu Jun nodded, "Well, there have been gratifying changes in the war of conquest, and I am going to go over in person." ”

Kyushu, Japan.

Hizen Kuni, Saga Domain, Saga Castle.

Nabeshima Katsushige presented his family heirloom sword to the Han envoy.

Offering the sword also means that the Nabeshima clan has finally taken that step. From then on, the Nabeshima clan of the Saga domain betrayed the Tokugawa clan of the Edo shogunate and defected to the Great Han.

"Hey!" Nabeshima Katsushige's eldest son, Nabeshima Tadanao, let out a long sigh, and this sigh lowered his voice, but there were still many Nabeshima retainers next to him who heard it, and they all had mixed feelings in their hearts.

"Don't talk." An old man.

These elders understand the choice of the head of the family.

The Nabeshima family is only on the side of the winner.

Originally, the Nabeshima clan was only the general of the Ryuzoji clan, the largest powerful feudal clan in Hizen Province during the Warring States period, but later the governor of Ryuzoji Temple fell ill because of the young son-in-law. In order to stabilize his power, he wanted Katsumao's father Naoshige to be his adopted son and changed his surname to Ryuzoji clan, and then made his young sister-in-law Naoshige's adopted son. I want to use this to strengthen the loyalty of Naoshige's son.

However, Naomao did not agree to this arrangement, and he let his son Katsushige directly become the adopted son of the Ryuzoji family, and then finally calculated the territory of more than 300,000 stones of the Ryuzoji family.

During the Battle of Sekigahara, Naoshige specially instructed his son Katsushige to let him, who led the troops, passively participate in the battle and watch in secret. As a result, he did not make it to the Battle of Sekigahara, and then, after the defeat of the Western Army, Katsushige pleaded guilty to Tokugawa Ieyasu. After the Edo Shogunate established the domain, the Nabeshima clan officially became the lord of the Saga domain.

The Nabeshima clan is notoriously betrayal, and as long as the bargaining chips for betrayal are enough, they can betray anyone.

The Han army put a lot of pressure on the Nabeshima clan, and in the face of Nabeshima's initiative to surrender and take refuge, the chips given were also quite tempting.

After reporting to the Son of Heaven, Liu Yunsheng, the general of the expedition, received the emperor's personal approval, accepted the submission of the Nabeshima clan, and gave them a generous bargaining chip. Grant the Nabeshima clan a million stone territory.

That's a pretty attractive price.

The stone height of the Nabeshima clan is no more than 360,000 stones, and it also includes the territory of the branch clan and the elders of the family.

In Japan, ishigaka refers to the basis for granting fiefdoms or rokumi and undertaking military service, such as the ishigakachi military service system. For every 100 stones, five people were sent for military service. According to this standard, 360,000 stones, nearly 20,000 people were sent out of military service.

There are more than 200 feudal domains in the Edo shogunate in Japan, and the total stone height is only more than 30 million stones.

How much rice is produced in Japan? At this time, the average yield of the high-level fields was about one stone and five buckets of rice.

One reverse is equal to ten acres. It is about one and a half acres of Han City, so ten acres in Japan is equivalent to one and a half acres in China. Its rice yield is also about equal to about one stone per mu in the city.

The total stone height of the whole of Japan is only about 30 million, of which the Tokugawa family, the shogun, has a direct domain of 6.8 million stones, accounting for nearly a quarter of the territory of the whole of Japan. The Tokugawa shogun also used about 2.6 million of them as a fief and gave them to about 5,000 samurai-banners directly under the Tokugawa shogun.

In addition, the total amount of territory occupied by the royal family, the nobles, and the temples was about four or five hundred thousand stones.

The rest of the domains were all conferred on more than 270 feudal lords.

Most of these feudal lords had more than 1 million koku, and the fewest was only 10,000 koku. But only seven of them reached more than 500,000 stones. There are fifteen for those with 200,000 to 500,000 stones, 32 from 100,000 to 200,000, 46 from 50,000 to 100,000, and 166 for less than 50,000.

Moreover, like the shoguns, these daimyo had to divide most of their domains, except for a small number of territories directly under their jurisdiction, and they had to divide most of their domains into feudal domains, and they were divided into feudal feudal domains, and they were also divided into feudal

In this way, the layers of sealing form a pyramid.

The entire Edo shogunate's feudal system was based on the measurement of the land area and the calculation of the harvest, and as a benchmark, all agricultural productivity was converted into rice, which was then expressed in the form of rice.

However, all the land that has been divided is only the rent of the land. The ownership of the land was still vested in the shogun, so the Tokugawa clan was often able to easily reduce or even take away the feudal title of the daimyo.

The domains that were given to them could not be transferred or bought or sold, and there was only nominal ownership of one generation, and the next generation had to continue to receive permission from the general. The same is true of the fiefdoms that the daimyo gave to their retainers.

A samurai generally had a hundred stone high fiefs.

An ordinary peasant family, with four to six people cultivating one town or one town and five antis, can harvest ten to fifteen stone of grain. One town is 100 Japanese acres, and the other is 10 Japanese acres, and the rice yield of one Japanese mu is only about one bucket. About six and a half acres of Japanese mu, about equal to one mu of land in Han City, Japan's mu yield is lower than that of rice in southern China, only reaching about one stone per mu.

However, the taxes of the Japanese people are very high, and the annual tribute they pay usually reaches four gongs and six people, or five gongs and five people.

Compared with the current fifteen taxes of the Han Dynasty, the tax rate of two taxes and one tax for Japanese peasants can be much higher, and the Japanese people still have to bear a large number of labor tasks from the feudal lords, while the Han people have already been divided into the mu and do not need to bear heavy labor.

Compared with Japan, the people of the Han Dynasty live in the sky.

At this time, Japan, like Korea, was an agrarian country, and the vast majority of the population was farmers. Therefore, the status or income of the lords are all according to the territory, and the stone height is the benchmark for everything.

The Nabeshima clan originally had a stone height of about 360,000, and now the Han promised them a million stone high, which is quite amazing, except for the shogun Tokugawa family's direct domain as many as several million, the rest of the more than 500,000 are only seven, of which more than one million, only the Maeda family of the Kaga Domain has 1.2 million stone, and the second highest is the 720,000 stone of the Satsuma Port Domain.

Moreover, the Han also promised to give them richer territories in the future.

can not only preserve the family name, but also expand the territory several times, what is there to hesitate about Nabeshima.

At the gates of Saga Castle, a large number of samurai and civilians were gathered as they witnessed the scene of the governor presenting the family heirloom katana to the Han envoy.

The smell of fishing wafted in the air, and the onlookers, whether it was the people or the samurai, were very quiet, and many people even breathed a sigh of relief.

The samurai were loyal only to their own governors, and when the daimyo made the decision to submit to the Han, they had no choice but to comply. Japan's shogunate lord system is very similar to the Spring and Autumn period in China, where the king of Zhou divided the princes, and the princes divided the princes, and everyone was only loyal to their own feudal monarchs, and not responsible for the feudal monarchs of the feudal monarchs.

The vassals of the princes were loyal only to the princes, and did not obey orders to be loyal to the king of Zhou.

The samurai, the retainers of the Japanese daimyos, were loyal only to the lords, and in addition, they were not directly loyal to the shogun, nor directly to the emperor.

His Majesty the Emperor accepted the sword of the Nabeshima family, and then put away Nabeshima's letter of allegiance, and he waved his hand to let his entourage take out a firework and light it.

The fireworks flew into the sky and then exploded, blasting a red flower in the air.

Many people of the Saga Domain were still looking up at this beautiful firework, and suddenly there were several thunderclaps from the sea.

The Han envoy smiled and said to Nabeshima, who looked surprised, "Don't panic, this is the response of the Imperial Navy, they already know that the Nabeshima clan has returned to the Empire." ”

Three more cannon shots rang out, and the Han envoy said, "The Imperial Navy is asking us if we can already enter the port and land?" ”

Nabeshima's face remained extremely calm, "Of course, our Nabeshima family of Saga Domain welcomes the arrival of the Imperial Navy very much!" (To be continued.) )