Since the signing of the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Hiroshima, the whole of Japan has changed almost dramatically.

The Japanese troops who confronted the Xia army in the Chugoku region were all sent back to their hometowns, and the shogun and the emperor left Hiroshima in humiliation.

When the news spread, the whole of Japan was shaken, and the prestige of the shogunate plummeted as the daimyo of the feudal lords sneered at the shogunate's bowing and begging, and most of the feudal lords began to disobey the shogunate's orders and take their families who had settled in Edo back to their fiefdoms.

Although the shogunate was prepared for this, they were still angry at the "rebellion" of the feudal lords, and after the shogun personally sent the emperor back to Kyoto, he returned straight to Edo to punish the feudal lords and daimyo who challenged their majesty.

However, the outbreak of local rebellion was faster than the Tokugawa shogunate had expected, and before Tokugawa Ietsuna returned to Edo, Date Munekatsu, the de facto ruler of the Sendai Domain where the Treaty of Hiroshima was signed, was overjoyed and thought it was the best time to challenge the dominance of the Tokugawa shogunate.

The Sendai Domain was established by Date Masamune, a famous general of the Warring States period, known as the "One-Eyed Dragon Masamune", the Date family of the Sendai Domain has always had the ambition to dominate the world, and has always been a big problem for the Tokugawa Shogunate, and the Shogunate tried to weaken the strength of the Sendai Domain several times, but did not find a chance, and could only win over the Sendai Domain as much as possible by means of Huairou marriage.

However, this did not discourage the Sendai Domain's ambitions for world domination, and upon learning of the signing of the Treaty of Hiroshima, Date Munekatsu, the de facto ruler of the Sendai Domain, reacted quickly by ordering the gathering of troops from all over the Sendai Domain and writing a letter against the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Date Munekatsu declared in the text that the Tokugawa shogunate's rule was unruly, causing the wrath of the heavens and the anger of the people, which made Amaterasu angry, and that the Edo fire that occurred in the third year of the Ming Dynasty was a manifestation of divine punishment, and the defeat of the Xia army forced the emperor to be humiliated and vain.

Under the pretext of respecting the emperor and seeking treachery, he was about to overthrow the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and maintain the majesty of the emperor, and called on people with lofty ideals from all over Japan to join the army of the shogunate faction.

After the Sendai Domain took the lead in firing the first shot against the Shogunate, the daimyo of the feudal lords who were dissatisfied with the rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate responded one after another, announcing that they would join the army of the Shogunate and fight against the army loyal to the Shogunate.

The shogun, Tokugawa Ietsuna, was still on his way to Edo at this time, and when he heard the news that there were rebellions in various places against him, he suddenly became angry and fainted.

Tokugawa Ietsuna's body was already weak all the year round, and this rush added fuel to his already unhealthy body, and when Tokugawa Ietsuna woke up, he actually suffered a stroke because of it, lying on the bed with the corners of his mouth twitching, unable to control the flow of saliva, and almost no administrative ability.

Ietsuna's illness made the shogunate even more chaotic, and by the time the elder Sakai Tadashi remembered to block the news, it was already too late, and the news was leaked by someone and spread outside, which made the supporters of the Tokugawa shogunate panic in their hearts, and it was not a good sign that the shogun fell ill at this time and lost the ability to govern, and if it was used by political enemies, it would be a heavy blow to the power of the shogunate.

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Sure enough, when the news of the shogun's illness spread, Date Munekatsu took the opportunity to make a big splash and attack Tokugawa Ietsuna himself, claiming that Tokugawa Ietsuna's illness was due to the anger of Amaterasu because of his governance methods, and the gods punished him and wanted to deprive him of his power.

Although this rhetoric sounded so nonsense, it was able to gain many supporters for a while, and they shouted the slogan "Respect the emperor and fight against adultery" and engaged in fierce battles with the shogunate's army.

The rumor outside soon spread to the Emperor's palace in Kyoto, and the emperor ...... Oh no, now it should be called the King of Japan, the king was surprised and delighted to learn that there were people outside who opposed the shogunate under his own banner, although he knew that this was only against the shogunate in his name, but there was still some luck in his heart - maybe he could really take this opportunity to regain power.

The news of the outbreak of the civil war in Japan also reached the Xia army, and Su Fu, the governor of the eastern expedition who was preparing to leave for Jiangning, immediately canceled the idea of returning, he thought that this was an excellent opportunity to dismember Japan, a unified Japan was very dangerous to the imperial court, if it could take this opportunity to return Japan to the divided Warring States period, Japan would not have the ability to recover the lost territory.

However, this also means that Japan is unable to pay the annual war reparations of two million taels of silver in the Treaty of Hiroshima, which is not a problem, after all, if the Japanese side is unable to pay, the Xia Dynasty will have enough reasons to start another war, or force the Japanese side to cede some benefits to make up for it.

Su Fu was a full man of action, he immediately wrote a note, ordered someone to send it back to the imperial court to report the matter, and while mobilizing and sending Jinyi Wei to secretly contact the leader of the Shogunate faction, the Sendai Domain, wanting to see the attitude of the Sendai Domain towards the Xia Dynasty, so as to decide whether the strategy against the Sendai Domain was to cooperate or attack.

At the same time, he also sent an envoy to contact the shogunate to ask if he needed assistance - in any case, Japan was now a vassal of Bactria and how could it turn a blind eye to the internal turmoil and the suzerainty. At the very least, it's necessary to be pretentious.

In the face of the envoys sent by the Xia Dynasty, the attitude of the Sendai Domain and the Shogunate was to adopt a cooperative attitude, although they were hostile to this so-called suzerain, but they had to admit that the suzerainty was stronger than they imagined, and even made many people hate and worship the Xia Dynasty.

The Xia Dynasty's war against Japan woke many Japanese people to think that the Tokugawa shogunate's policy of closing the country was very stupid and wrong, and they hoped to learn from the Xia Dynasty again, just like the Tang envoys sent hundreds of years ago, to learn the military system, weapons and equipment and technology of the Xia Dynasty, and only by completely emulating the Xia Dynasty could Japan become strong.

Even, some people loyal to the king also stood up to spread their ideas - they believed that the reason why the Xia Dynasty was so powerful was because they were ruled by the emperor, and only the country ruled by the emperor could centralize power and make the country strong, so they shouted the slogan of returning the great government to the king, hoping to return power from the shogun to the king, and imitate the administrative system of the Xia Dynasty in Japan, abolish the feudal prefectures, and concentrate power to the center, so that the king can become the real ruler of the country.

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Of course, these ideas are nothing more than empty words in Japan today, and there is no suitable soil for them to gain a foothold, and both the Tokugawa shogunate and the Sendai clan advocated that the shogun should govern the country.

After receiving the envoys from the Xia Dynasty, although the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Sendai Domain had hatred for the Xia Dynasty in their hearts, they still showed respect on the surface, and they hoped to get assistance from the Xia Dynasty, and the Sendai Domain knew very well that the Xia Dynasty would not provide assistance in military operations, so they asked the Xia Dynasty to help with a batch of weapons and equipment and money to strengthen the strength of the Sendai Domain.

For this reason, Date Munekatsu put forward the condition that as long as the Sendai domain could enter Edo and become the general of the whole of Japan, then he was willing to add another one million taels to the annual war reparations of two million taels and provide many conveniences.

However, the Xia Dynasty was not satisfied with this, because they had their eyes on another piece of fat - that is, the gold and silver deposits on Sado Island.

Sado Island, also known as Treasure Island, was discovered in 1542 in the Sawada area of present-day Mano Bay, Sado Island.

In 1601, the discovery of the Aikawa Gold and Silver Mine on the north side of the mountain range where the Tsuruko Silver Mine is located began, and the mining history that lasted for 400 years began, and the Sado Gold and Silver Mine was actually a general name for 55 mines, including the Aikawa Gold and Silver Mine, which shows how rich the gold and silver deposits on Sado Island were.

The envoys of the Xia Dynasty rejected Date Munakatsu's condition and directly demanded that they open the mining rights of Sado Gold Mountain and allow the Xia Dynasty to participate in the mining on the island, which immediately made Date Munakatsu feel unacceptable.

Although he was not in charge, he was well aware of the importance of the Sado Gold Mountain, and if the Sado Gold Mountain was allowed to be mined by the Xia Dynasty, the annual income that the government could obtain from the Gold Mountain would be sharply reduced, and it was not impossible for the finances to shrink.

Therefore, Date Munekatsu did not hesitate to refuse the request of the envoy of the Xia Dynasty, saying that it was categorically impossible, and the Xia envoy saw this, and did not dwell too much on it, and left the Sendai Domain directly.

On the side of the Tokugawa shogunate, the Xia envoy also offered to provide the shogunate army with ordnance and artillery and other material assistance, and said that the Hokuyang naval division stationed in Yokohama could provide fire support for the shogunate army, but the condition was that the shogunate opened the mining rights of Sado Gold Mountain, this condition was also rejected by the shogunate, but the shogunate did not say too much, they expressed the hope that they could use gold and silver to buy ordnance and artillery from the Xia dynasty to increase their advantage in the civil war.

After some consideration, Su Fu agreed to the shogunate's request, but he was not prepared to sell the Type II rifle equipped by the military to the shogunate, and only agreed to sell backward firearms such as the bird gun and the three-eyed gun that were sealed in the arsenal to the shogunate, and in terms of artillery, only the tiger squat cannon and the Furlong machine gun were opened.

Subsequently, after some bargaining, the shogunate bought 10,000 bird guns, 5,000 three-eyed guns, 200 tiger squat guns, and 100 franc cannons for 10 taels of silver, 8 taels of silver for a three-eyed gun, 250 taels of silver for a tiger squat cannon, and 500 taels for a Fran cannon, plus a total of 280,000 taels of ammunition.

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When the envoy returned to Hiroshima, Su Fu wrote a letter to return to China, and asked the imperial court to start preparing the weapons for trading, and the imperial court learned that Su Fu had finalized a deal that could clear the inventory before leaving, and it was also happy, and the firearms of the bird and the three-eyed gun had been eliminated, and it was also a place to be sealed in the arsenal, so it was better to sell them to the Japanese, so that the Japanese could fight more intensely.

Therefore, the imperial court began to mobilize ordnance with all its might, and it only took more than half a month to transport all the ordnance on the trade list to Weihaiwei in Shandong, from which it was loaded and sent to Japan.

On the Japanese side, Su Fu did not forget to publicize it after finalizing a deal, he pretended to leak the news, so that those forces of the Shogunate faction knew that the Shogunate had purchased a large number of ordnance from the Xia Dynasty, although the forces of the Shogunate faction had an advantage in the early days of the civil war, they all knew that as long as the Shogunate army came to its senses and deployed the army with all its strength to respond to the battle, the advantage would not last long.

And now, the shogunate has purchased a large number of ordnance from the Xia Dynasty, and the leaders of the Shogunate faction suddenly couldn't sit still, and in order to close the gap in armaments, they sent envoys to contact the Xia army, hoping to buy ordnance from the Xia army.

Su Fu did not refuse to come to the forces who had the desire to buy, but he did not personally participate in it, but handed it over to his cronies cultivated during the Japanese conquest to deal with it on his behalf, and he himself embarked on the journey back to Jiangning City at the behest of the emperor.

"Jiang Ning, I'm back."

Su Fu stood on the deck, looked at the endless vast sea, and said with nostalgia.

……

At the same time that the Xia Dynasty made a temporary cameo as an arms merchant in Japan, on the other hand, the Dutch envoys also arrived in Malacca from Sri Lanka, and they had already learned the news of the fall of this port from the Malacca troops who had fled back to Sri Lanka before they set off.

The East China Sea Division stationed in Malacca did not dare to slack off, and immediately set off to escort the Dutch envoy back to Jiangning City.

On May 18, the 14th year of Wu'an, the Dutch mission arrived in Jiangning City under the escort of the East China Sea Division.

The arrival of the Dutch mission did not bring any waves to Jiangning City, at this time the imperial capital was in full swing for the upcoming emperor's birthday, only the officials of Honglu Temple received the Dutch envoys, and told them that the imperial court had no time to take care of them during this time, and asked them to stay in Jiangning for a month or two.

In addition to the Dutch mission, there were also missions from several other countries that had already moved in, not to mention the Portuguese, the Spaniards, and even the British envoys, who were familiar to the Dutch.

However, the relationship between these countries and the Dutch was not very good, the Portuguese were their defeated men, the Spaniards also clashed with the Dutch on several occasions in the South Seas, and as for the British, the Anglo-Dutch war that broke out in 1665 is still not over.

Therefore, after the Dutch mission moved in, it was soon met with the common hostility of the other three Western missions, and the British temporarily put aside their feud with the Spaniards, and with the help of the Portuguese, the Dutch mission was attacked that night, and the Dutch inside were violently beaten......

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When the news reached Su Yan's ears, he couldn't help crying and laughing, although he was happy to see the infighting of these foreign devils, but no matter how he said it, it was on his territory, in order to prevent these foreign devils from continuing to fight, he still asked the officials of Honglu Temple to choose a courtyard far away from the missions of the other three countries for the Dutch as a new station.