"......" Dongxiang Shigekata's face changed suddenly.

He is a retainer of the Shimazu family, and there are many people outside who know him, if the matter is really revealed, even if he commits suicide, the Shimazu family will be held accountable, but at that time, the feudal lord can take everything on himself, claiming that he is the one who has an affair with the Han and preserves the last foundation of the Shimazu family. Maybe not long after he committed suicide, the lord of the feudal clan would apologize for his guilt.

He understood that the lord had made his final realization.

Then, as if a thousand burdens had been pressed on his shoulders, he bent down slightly.

"Yes!"

Shimazu Tadashi did not speak again, and rode unhurriedly towards the place where the retainers were waiting.

When Zhou Pu and Shimazu Tadashi returned to the place where they had just met, the entourage brought by Zhou Pu was also relieved. When he was taken away by Shimazu Tadashi, Shimazu Tadashi's retainers also faintly surrounded them, and there was a great sense of doing it when they got the order, and they were vigilant and hoped that Zhou Pu would be able to successfully complete the predetermined goal.

"How's it going, sir?" An official in the merchant hall asked him cautiously.

"Everything went well, we finally lived up to the country's grace." Because of his excellent mood, Zhou Pu is now full of spring breeze.

Then, he turned back to the two Shimazu retainers who were following him. "These two were sent by the feudal lord to contact us, and they will usually follow me in the future, they are familiar with the local situation in Kyushu and can assist me. In addition, you can work with him to find a way to send all the weapons in the merchant house to the Satsuma Domain. ”

"Yes!" The official immediately became as excited as Zhou Pu.

After introducing Jiang Xia Mingxian and Dongxiang Shigekata to the entourage he brought over, Zhou Pu immediately bid farewell to Shimazu Tadashi. Shimazu Tadashi didn't leave him any longer, and just let them go.

By the time they left, Shimazu had a solemn face, and he was no longer as relaxed as before.

"Have all the feudal priests in the domain been gathered?" He whispered to an old retainer next to him.

"We've started to convene secretly, but for the sake of secrecy, we're now gathering the most loyal and reliable vassals, and there are some less reliable people who haven't been summoned ......."

"Well done." Shimazu Tadashi glanced at him approvingly, "It's still early, I'd rather have fewer conveners than keep it secret." Also, don't do anything else during this time, check all the people in the domain who have signs of instability, and make a list. Not only those who have private dealings with the shogunate, but also the remnants of Shimazu Yoshihisa's party must also be on guard! ”

The retainer bowed his head.

"When the weapons of the Han people are in hand, they will be given priority to these gathered feudal warriors." While riding a horse, Shimazu Tadashi ordered in a very calm tone, "You wait for my order, and when it is time to start an incident, you must kill all these people, and no one will be allowed to slip through the net." ”

However, the retainer reacted greatly, and his whole body trembled on his horse.

"The remnants of the righteous long-term public will also ......"

Before he finished speaking, Shimazu Tadashi had already turned his head to look at him, and this solemn gaze made the retainers immediately freeze.

"Yes." He slowly bowed down and fell on his horse's back.

Shimazu Tadashihiro's father is Shimazu Yoshihiro, he is the younger brother of the previous Shimazu family governor Shimazu Yoshihisa, Shimazu Yoshihisa was a famous daimyo during the Warring States period, that is, under his leadership, the Shimazu family greatly expanded their power on Kyushu Island, and defeated the Otomo family, the largest daimyo family in Kyushu at that time, in the Battle of Otagawa, becoming the most powerful force in Kyushu Island.

With the help of their shrewd and capable brothers and retainers, they took most of Kyushu, and were full of ambition to take the whole of Kyushu and then go north to chase the deer. However, at this time, the regimes of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi on the Japanese island of Honshu suddenly rose to nothing, and their dreams suddenly came to naught.

When Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched the Kyushu Expedition, because of too much pressure, Shimazu Yoshihisa chose to surrender to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi did not intend to fight to the death with them, but only restrained their expansion and recognized their fiefdoms in Satsuma and Osumi and some prefectures in Hyuga.

Later, Toyotomi Hideyoshi died of a serious illness, and his regime was crumbling again, and the ambitions of the Shimazu family were revived, but in the Battle of Sekigahara, because the Shimazu family initially stood against the Tokugawa family, they faced a very dangerous situation after the Tokugawa victory.

In order to curry favor with Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Shimazu family let Shimazu Tadashi inherit the position of family governor, and then went to Edo to apologize, and obtained Ieyasu's forgiveness, and finally avoided the tragic consequences of the family's demise, and barely kept most of the previous family territory.

However, although Shimazu Tadashi got the title of family governor, everything was not so smooth.

Although Shimazu Yoshihisa nominally gave up the position of governor, because of his previous years as a governor, he cultivated a large number of cronies, and through these cronies, he firmly grasped the real power in the domain.

Shimazu Yoshihisa did not live to be an adult son, only three daughters, so in order to justify the inheritance of the Shimazu family's domain, he married all three of his daughters to members of the Shimazu family, among which Shimazu Tadashi, who was his nephew, married his youngest daughter Shimazu Kametoshi and became his adopted son, and Shimazu Tadashi was also selected as the family governor.

However, the relationship between Shimazu Tadashi and Shimazu Kameitoshi, who is both a cousin and a wife, is not good, and there is still nothing to show after more than ten years of marriage, which leads to a greater conflict between the father and the husband, and Shimazu Yoshihisa and Shimazu Tadashi have launched a very fierce struggle for power.

Fearing the prestige and pressure of the old feudal lord Shimazu Yoshihisa, Shimazu Tadashi had always adopted a strategy of forbearance and struggle, and it was not until Shimazu Yoshihisa became seriously ill and then died of illness that he began to take extremely cruel revenge.

One of the most representative of them is the Hirata family, who has assisted the Shimazu family for generations.

The elder of the family, Hirata Masumune, was ordered to be executed by him because he had always supported Shimazu Yoshihisa, and among the sons of Masumune, one was ordered to commit suicide, and two were exiled to the offshore islands; Hirata Masumune's younger brother, Hirata Soki, was slaughtered along with his two sons, and the old Hirata family, who was originally famous in the Shimazu influence, was forced to disappear under his cruel hand.

Under the intimidation of the fate of the Hirata family, other forces within the Shimazu family who were dissatisfied with Shimazu Tadashi were also silent, and they no longer dared to oppose him, so Shimazu Tadashi really enjoyed the power of the family governor.

His wife, Shimazu Kameiju, was also ordered by him to move to live in the Kokubun Castle in the territory shortly after Shimazu Yoshihisa's death, and died of depression a few years ago. And after re-establishing his absolute authority, Shimazu Tadashi was finally able to show his desires, married a number of side chambers, and gave birth to dozens of children.

After Shimazu Yoshihisa's death, it has always been Shimazu Tadashi's policy to exclude Shimazu Yoshihisa's remnants and consolidate his power and authority in the Shimazu family.

No one could have imagined that he was still not satisfied with this state of affairs, and that he was ready to exterminate all these remnants - you must know that many of these people were members of the Shimazu family, and they were his relatives.

Shimazu Tadashi has already made up his mind to participate in the actions of the Great Han against Japan, in his opinion, as long as he bets on the press, he will be the ruler of Kyushu Island in the future, and with the weapon support of the Great Han, he no longer has to look at anyone's face, and he does not need to have any scruples. There is no longer a reason to spare the lives of those who oppose it.

The wind was constantly blowing through the trees and the trees, and from time to time there was a rustle among the trees, as if thousands of horses were passing through it, as if he felt something, and Shimazu Tadatsune straightened the buttons of the haori.

"Today's mountain breeze is really noisy."

When Zhou Pu contacted the Shimazu family, the cabinet of the capital of the Han Dynasty finally received the news that the Dutch, who had been transferred from the embassy in Nagasaki, wanted to unite with the Han to attack the Spaniards.

Because the embassy in Nagasaki had a very special status, and it was under the dual leadership of the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in order not to offend the superiors, the envoy in Nagasaki issued a secret letter to both departments at the same time, and then because they felt that the matter was very important, the two departments also uploaded the news to the prime minister's desk at the same time.

So after getting the news, the prime minister of the Han Dynasty and the prince of Yongguo, Wang Zhaojing, immediately asked the secretaries to send a document to inform the officials directly under the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and to meet him in the afternoon of the next day in order to discuss countermeasures.

Such meetings are added on an ad hoc basis, and according to the regulations, other matters cannot be delayed, and they can only be dealt with in addition to the original working hours. The Ministry of Commerce and the Department of Foreign Affairs are both yamen with many affairs, so the heads of these two departments, Zhou Xuezhi, the minister of commerce, and Kong Zhang, the director of the foreign affairs department, are secretly complaining, but who dares not to come when the prime minister is called? So after receiving the notice, they had to put off all their schedules and came to the Forbidden City Wuying Hall in the afternoon of the same day to meet the prime minister.

Fortunately, the prime minister has always handled state affairs quickly, and they didn't wait long, so the prime minister came to the side hall of Wuying Hall with several secretaries and clerks.

Adhering to the usual pragmatic style, after a little courtesy, the prime minister sat down directly, and then went straight to the topic. "I haven't reported the matter of the Dutch to the emperor yet, but this is a major matter, and it must be reported today, so today we will discuss and make a suggestion, attach it to the chapter and hand it to Your Majesty."