On the way back to the Zhenguo Mansion, Li Yuntian's brows were slightly furrowed, when he was bidding farewell to Zhou Zheng in front of the Forbidden City Palace just now, Zhou Zheng whispered to him to put down the affairs at hand and walk around the palace more recently, and to spend as much time as possible to accompany Emperor Xuande and the crown prince.

Li Yuntian knew very well that Zhou Zheng would not say this to him for no reason, although he had been diligent in government affairs for the past year, he knew the situation in the capital well.

As Emperor Xuande's health deteriorated, all parties in the imperial court became more and more active, united with each other, and actively planned for the political situation after the crown prince ascended the throne.

The crown prince is only seven years old, and it seems that it will be difficult to survive two years in the current situation of Emperor Xuande, and then the Ming Dynasty will have a situation where the young son of heaven is in the dynasty, which is bound to form a situation where the monarch is weak and the minister is strong, so that the monarchy of the Ming Dynasty is firmly suppressed by the ministers.

This is exactly what Li Yuntian is worried about, when the monarchy is strong, the civil and military officials will naturally submit honestly, but once the monarch's power is weak, then the courtiers will definitely take advantage of the situation to rise, and then not only will the monarch's power be suppressed, but also the forces of the court will fight each other because of the struggle for power, this is by no means a scene that Li Yuntian wants to see.

However, Li Yuntian was quite helpless in the face of the shape in front of him, he did not have the ability to influence the government now, so he could only take one step at a time to respond to all changes.

"Xianggong, are those woe who are in trouble with Zhejiang and Nanzhili really so fierce, so many officials and soldiers can't take them?"

In the evening, in the Zhenguo Mansion, Zhou Yuting, whose face was flushed, put her cheek on Li Yuntian's chest, and asked suspiciously while reaching out to caress Li Yuntian's strong chest, The most troublesome in the capital recently are the forty or fifty Japanese who have turned Zhejiang and Nanzhili upside down.

To tell the truth, Zhou Yuting found it hard to believe that Nanzhili, who was stationed with more than 200,000 troops, allowed forty or fifty Japanese to run rampant.

"Madam, although the officials and soldiers of Zhejiang Dusi and Nanzhili have been derelict in their duties, those Japanese robbers are not ordinary people, but ronins from Japan." Li Yuntian knew what Zhou Yuting meant, and smiled and took her in his arms.

"Ronin?" Zhou Yuting couldn't help but look up at Li Yuntian when she heard this, it was the first time she had heard of this term.

Li Yuntian smiled, lowered his head and kissed Zhou Yuting's forehead, explaining to her the background and origin of the ronin.

The term ronin refers to the samurai who lost their land.

In Japan, during the Shogunate period, the samurai class, led by the shogun, ruled the country, and the emperor and the nobility of the court were only used as spiritual symbols of supreme rule.

The shogunate divided society into four classes: "scholars, farmers, workers, and merchants", collectively referred to as the "four peoples", and the "scholars" in the four people referred to the samurai class, which belonged to the ruling class, while the farmers, workers, and merchants were the common people who were ruled.

At the same time, the shogunate divided the samurai class into different classes:

The shogun was at the top of the samurai pyramid and housed many of his immediate retainers; Below the shogun were the various princes, that is, the "guardian daimyo", and these guardian daimyo supported their own armies and divided one side, and their respective territories were called "feudal states", and the countries of Japan's Sengoku period referred to these feudal states; The daimyō's retainers were called "feudal lords", and the feudal lords kept a group of retainers and soldiers.

In this way, a huge pyramidal samurai class was formed, from the shogun to the soldiers.

It is worth mentioning that the "soldier" here does not refer to ordinary soldiers, but to people such as personal guards, and ordinary soldiers cannot be called samurai.

As a member of the ruling class, the number of samurai was not large, even the great princes of the Oda Nobunaga rank in the Warring States period, although there were tens of thousands of horses, but the number of samurai was only two or three thousand.

The samurai received rigorous military training from an early age, usually practiced kendo, possessed skillful swordsmanship, and were often able to defeat several people on the battlefield, and were the elite force under the daimyo of the Japanese feudal kingdoms.

Due to the backward economy of Japan in ancient times, even the samurai diet was very restricted, usually miso or miso soup, plus vegetables and pickles, dried plums, tofu, and better dried fish, as for the miscellaneous soldiers and peasants, they only ate some grains and fruits to eat.

Those who were able to eat white rice belonged to the middle and upper classes of the samurai class, while the lower samurai, who made up the vast majority of the samurai class, were not treated so well, and if they could not rely on a rich and powerful lord, they often lived in poverty.

In the Edo period, there was a joke that said, "In addition to the quilt and pot, the little samurai's house also has a large stone, because when he feels cold, he can lift the stone to keep warm." ”

If the subordinate lord is dismissed for committing a crime, or if the lord's financial difficulties must be reduced, those lower-level samurai can only be reduced to ronin if they can't find a new lord to vote for, and some join the **** to become thugs, because the dignity of the samurai does not allow them to engage in lowly careers such as agriculture and commerce.

The Japanese Japanese were mainly led by samurai and ronin, and were inextricably linked to the daimyo in Japan, who accumulated money through guò raids and provided them with protection, which was also an important reason for the rampant Japanese plague.

In fact, the samurai and ronin in the Wako are very easy to distinguish between them, because they use a special weapon, the katana.

Generally speaking, only samurai and ronin are armed with katanas, not to say that there are any special regulations, but because the value of katana is too expensive for ordinary people to afford.

The process of making the katana was a complex process, which involved many different types of iron and steel, heated in a furnace and vigorously beaten by craftsmen, which took a long time and could not be mass-produced.

Because the katana is made of suò and the ratio of iron to steel is reasonable, it has both toughness and hardness, so it is very effective for both chopping wood and chopping people.

However, the katana has two unavoidable drawbacks, that is, once the blade is cracked, it cannot be repaired, and it cannot collide with heavy weapons, otherwise it can easily break in two.

Therefore, it is not easy to have a katana, even if you can afford it, it is difficult to maintain, because the knife is made of iron and steel alloy and is easy to rust, so it must be carefully maintained, and you often have to find someone to sharpen the knife, not to mention, you have to polish the knife with oil every day, which is very troublesome and troublesome.

Therefore, except for the Japanese samurai, who wore the katana as a symbol of honor, no one had the leisure and elegance to spend energy on maintaining the katana every day.

According to the report of the official army of Nanzhili, the forty or fifty Japanese who plundered many places in Zhejiang and Nanzhili seemed to be loosely organized like a plate of loose sand, but the individual combat ability was very strong, and the most important thing was that the weapons used were all samurai swords.

This means that the forty or fifty Japanese robbers who participated in the looting were not ordinary people, either ronins or samurai, coupled with their swift actions and the fear of the Zhejiang Dusi and the official army of Nanzhili, which finally led to the occurrence of this shocking Ming Dynasty, and then prompted Emperor Xuande to attack the Japanese plague that still plagued the Ming Dynasty.

"I see." After listening to Li Yuntian's explanation, Zhou Yuting's eyes suddenly showed a thoughtful look, she didn't expect that there was such a hidden secret in it.

"Although those ronins are more fierce, if the local guards have an absolute advantage in numbers, it is not difficult to destroy them, it seems that the guards of Zhejiang Dusi and Nanzhili have come to rectify, otherwise the combat power will be worrying in the long run!" When Li Yuntian heard this, a helpless smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

Although the main force of the Ming army in Nanzhili was transferred to Shanxi Xingdu Division and Wanquan Division by Emperor Xuande the year before last, and as a result, nearly fifty percent of the troops were lost, but after a year's rest, the vitality has recovered a lot, and there are only forty or fifty of them, so in any case, the Ming army of Nanzhili should not let it cause such a big storm in Nanzhili, which makes Nanzhili's defense regarded as nothing.

"It's a pity that the emperor is probably powerless now." Zhou Yuting also felt that Nan Zhili's Ming army was too bad, and said faintly, "Now that Cining Palace and Kunning Palace are in full swing, the families of the major officials in the capital have gone to meet the Queen Mother and the Empress, which is very lively. ”

"People are not sages, so it is impossible to be free from vulgarity, so let it be." Li Yuntian heard that Zhou Yuting was a little sad, and said with a smile, after all, Emperor Xuande is still alive, but the families of those adults are already thinking about what happened after the prince ascends the throne, which really makes people feel warm and cold.

Then, he lowered his head and kissed Zhou Yuting's forehead, although after so many years, Zhou Yuting's jealous and hateful temperament has not disappeared, but forcibly pressed it in his heart, and now he was stimulated by Emperor Xuande and couldn't help but sigh.

"Xianggong, the emperor can relax the sea ban this time, which is a great thing for the people along the coast." Zhou Yuting realized that her feelings were a little sad, so she changed her words and said to Li Yuntian with a smile that with the issuance of Emperor Xuande's decree to relax the sea ban, the number of coastal residents who were forced by life to join the Japanese will be greatly reduced.

Li Yuntian smiled when he heard this, hugged Zhou Yuting in his arms tightly, and raised the corners of his eyebrows slightly unnoticedly, in fact, although Emperor Xuande's relaxation of the sea ban this time was good, it undoubtedly touched the interests of those powerful clans engaged in sea smuggling along the coast, so it was inevitable that there would be many incidents at that time.

Since the late Yongle Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty never sent fleets to cruise the South Seas, which led the countries of the South Seas to urgently need Ming goods, so the phenomenon of private overseas trade along the coast increased dramatically, and armed maritime merchants and Japanese robbers were engaged in the smuggling trade.

Obviously, these smugglings needed the assistance of those powerful clans along the coast of the Ming Dynasty, otherwise they would not be able to safely transport the goods in and out of the coastline, and the officials of the yamen in the coastal areas and even the sergeants of the coastal defense posts were involved.

Since they had made huge profits from the smuggling trade, the officials of the yamen in the coastal areas and the sergeants of the coastal defense posts naturally turned a blind eye to the smuggling activities in the areas under their jurisdiction.

Historically, although Emperor Xuande ordered several times to strictly abide by the sea ban, the local officials who benefited from it would not seriously implement it, and they just prevaricated and dealt with the matter.

According to historical records, when Zheng He went to the West for the last time in the fifth year of Xuande, the maritime merchants along the coast of Fujian had begun to develop, and in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, during the Chenghua and Hongzhi periods, the private overseas trade in the southeast coastal areas had broken through the barriers of tributary trade and sea bans, and developed extremely rapidly

During the Jiajing period, it was even worse, "If its private traders are endless, the guards dare not ask, the sentry cannot be stopped, and it is difficult to suppress it because of the vast area." It has always been a blind to public law, and it has been followed for hundreds of years. However, human affection is content with the convenience of memorization, and it is passed on internally and externally, thinking that it is normal for physiology."

In the Zhengde period, "the wealthy people privately built giant ships, sailed foreign transactions and made profits" more, and the Zhangzhou Yuegang family built large ships to and fro, and the number of people who traded goods in various countries increased unabated.

It can be seen that under the Ming Dynasty's policy of banning the sea, private smuggling was rampant, and what followed was an intricate entanglement of interests, and even the Ming court could not do anything about it.

On the surface, the relaxation of the sea ban does not seem to have anything to do with private smuggling, but in fact the two are closely related.

First, the relaxation of the ban will allow coastal residents to have more means of livelihood and no longer have to risk smuggling at sea, which will greatly reduce the number of crew members involved in smuggling.

Second, with the presence of many fishing boats along the coast, smuggling fleets will be easier to detect and report to the local authorities, making it difficult for the local authorities to cover up.

In the end, Li Yuntian had already reorganized the coastal defense post and organized a naval division unit, and although the size and number of coastal defense troops have been greatly reduced, it is even more difficult to be bought.

The smugglers are not actually worried about the sailors, and the vast coastal waters of the Ming Dynasty are not able to effectively control the coastline at all, which will always give them an opportunity.

The most worrying thing for the smugglers is that someone will report it to the sailors, so that the smugglers will fall into the net, and the coastal residents will definitely not rely on the smugglers as they did in the past after they have other livelihoods, and even take the initiative to report them out of jealousy or coveting the government's bounty, which is something that the smugglers absolutely do not want to see.

Therefore, a "war" will definitely break out between Li Yuntian and the smuggling forces along the coast around the maritime ban, and Li Yuntian does not want Zhou Yuting to worry about this, so he does not disclose it to him.