Eastern Ezo, Western Ezo, Toshima Ezo, and Watakue Ezo obtained the supplies and weapons of the Ming Dynasty, and became a great threat to the shogunate.

The extermination methods carried out by the Ezo people for a long time in the Japanese kingdom have even left more than 10,000 Ezo people in later generations, and now the Ezo people have the ability to retaliate, so they will naturally not be soft, and they will return all the suffering they have endured for generations to the Japanese people.

In the face of the well-armed Ezo people who are not afraid of death, Ashikaga Yoshiji is miserable, and the Ezo people who have the support of the Ming Dynasty and the Ezo people who do not have the support of the Ming Dynasty have undergone earth-shaking changes in their strength, and they are no longer the weak opponents of the year.

"General, we can't back down any longer."

The family elder below reminded that after hearing it, Ashikaga Yoshitsugu was speechless, and his face was still hesitating.

The Ezo people are fierce, if their own army fights against the Ezo people, even if they defeat the Ezo people, their strength will be greatly damaged, and their own small army is consumed on the side of the Ezo people, and when the eldest brother comes back, won't he be powerless to resist.

However, the recent plundering of the Ezo people, as well as the fact that they have gone further and further into the interior, are all situations that affect their own judgment, and too many soldiers want to take revenge.

Eventually, Ashikaga Yoshitsugu made a decision.

sent an army to fight against the Ezo people, so that the Ezo people suffered a few defeats and returned to their island, not daring to offend the main island of the Japanese country again. However, the shogunate's letter for help arrived.

Ashikaga Yoshitsugu and others were shocked when they heard the news of the defeat ahead.

No one thought that they could easily defeat the Ming Dynasty, the purpose of this counterattack was to make the Ming army retreat, after all, the Ming army had no supplies on the mainland, everything needed to be transported across the sea, such a high consumption, even the Ming could not afford it.

"Big brother, what's going on with them, it's clear that they should be safe." Ashikaga Yoshitsugu said dissatisfiedly.

"The navy of the Ming Dynasty."

The person below explained.

In any case, saving the shogunate is what Ashikaga Yoshiji must do, and the shogunate exists in order to gather the power of the Wakoku, otherwise even he will be powerless, and in the end he can only be torn apart.

"Is the emperor still in the hands of the eldest brother?"

"When the general retreated, he sent someone to pick up the emperor."

Ashikaga Yoshitsugu breathed a sigh of relief, if the emperor fell into the hands of the Ming army, the Ming army would use the emperor's appeal to break up the shogunate's resistance, which would have a great effect.

Don't dare to delay any longer, Ashikaga Yoshiji took his army to the south, as for the Ezo people, the Ezo people are just a small trouble, and after surviving this catastrophe, they will come back to clean up the Ezo people.

In the northern part of the main island, the troops withdrew.

There are more and more Ezo people.

The most hurt are the common people, in fact, their land belongs to the ancestors of the Ezo people, who have been expelled by the Japanese people for many years, and have shrunk more and more to the north, even to the point of extinction.

Such hatred is by no means a trick such as co-optation and division, it must be the kind of life and death, from top to bottom, only pursuing revenge.

East Ezo, West Ezo, Wajima Ezo, and Watarikaku Ezo began to slaughter the enemy.

Where there were castles, the samurai who remained in the area formed groups to protect themselves, and where there were no castles, they suffered, and one village after another was exterminated by the Ezo people, and not a single one was left.

Under the leadership of Yamamoto Kiyoshi of East Ezo, the Ezo people broke through Taneri Castle for the first time, and relied on the gunpowder obtained from the Ming army to blow up the earthen village. Therefore, the method of using gunpowder to blow up the city wall quickly spread in the hands of various Ezo people.

It took only three months from the looting of the countryside to the beginning of the slaughter of the city, but the consequences were very serious.

There was no shortage of materials and weapons, and gunpowder could also be obtained from the Ming army. The entire Ezo tribe, regardless of men, women, and children, joined this battle of revenge, and the heart of revenge was very firm.

Even if the people of the Wa Kingdom began to resist one after another, in the face of the organized and more advanced Ezo army, even if they exhausted their strength, they often waited for the end of defeat.

Killing 1,000 enemies and self-inflicting 800 losses, although the casualties of the Ezo people were not so serious, but the number of the Ezo people had long been much less than that of the Japanese people, and the Ezo people also suffered a lot for the revenge this time.

But no amount of pain made the Ezo people flinch.

They are Ainu and are the indigenous people of the area.

The destruction of Shichinohe Castle, Sanhe Castle, Hachinohe Castle, Ishikawa Castle, Oura Castle, and one city after another represented the victory of the Ezo people, and they began to continue their southward march to kill all the Japanese people in one fell swoop.

On the other hand, in addition to letting Ashikaga Yoshitsugu lead the army south to support, and let all parts of the country supply grain, grass and troops, while sending envoys to meet the Ming Emperor to sue for peace.

Of course, Zhu Di would not agree, and said to the envoy of the Wa Kingdom.

"Over the years, the Ming Dynasty has given the shogunate enough preferential treatment, but the shogunate imprisoned the emperor, bullied the Ezo and Ryukyu people, repeatedly invaded and harassed the dog slave country, etc., never respected the upper dynasty, and regarded the clan system as child's play."

"Since the beginning of this year, it has invaded the dog slave country on a large scale, and there has been an action to destroy the dog slave country, so I have raised troops to crusade against the ministers, since the heavenly soldiers and the heavenly generals have arrived, how can it be that you can make peace."

Hearing the accusations of the Ming Emperor, the messenger of the shogunate tried his best to explain.

What you can't get on the battlefield, how can you expect to get it at the negotiating table, and it's not the Qing Dynasty, which doomed the shogunate's envoys to return disappointed.

Knowing the attitude of the Ming Emperor, the shogunate no longer had luck.

The territory of the Wa Kingdom is divided into eight parts.

Hokkaido, which is still the territory of the Ezo people, has been suppressed by the shogunate army for many years.

Tohoku, the main island of Wakoku and Hokkaido across the sea. Then there are Kanto, Chubu,, Chugoku, Shikoku, Kyushu.

Kyushu and Shikoku and Hokkaido are islands.

Kyushu has been divided into the Dog Slave Country to the Ming Dynasty and renamed Tsukushi. The four countries were nominally classified as dog slave countries, but in fact they also fell into the hands of the Ming Dynasty.

The southern tip of the Wa Kingdom is called Chugoku, and now it is the territory of the Dog Slave Kingdom, but fell into the hands of the Ming army due to the war, and the shogunate's civil and military forces retreated to the central region.

The central region is bordered by Kanto to the south and Tohoku to the north.

The northernmost area of the Tohoku region was slaughtered by the Ezo people, and the rest of the five regions, Akita, Yamagata, Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima, could not count on the shogunate's army, so they had to organize their own manpower to fight in order to save their lives.

Therefore, the materials and young people in the Northeast region cannot be counted on, and the local people are too busy to take care of themselves, and they will not pay attention to the shogunate's requests at all, which means that the shogunate now only has two areas in its hands: the central part and the Kanto region.

The period when Kanto really took off should be counted as the Edo period.

The Edo shogunate regarded Edo as its center of governance, and later changed it to Tokyo, which became the Kyoto of later Japan, and it was not only due to political reasons, but also because the rise of Edo's heroes was accidental and inevitable.

The Kanto Plain, the largest plain in Japan, is characterized by a flat terrain, a warm and humid climate, and fertile soil, suitable for agricultural and industrial development.

In the past, the population and culture of the Wa Kingdom were concentrated in the southern region, but with the development of the productive forces, it gradually expanded northward, but in fact, at the beginning of the 15th century, the Kanto region already had the foundation for a leap forward.

That is, everything is ready only to owe the east wind, and the powerful Edo who rose in later generations dominated the shogunate and mastered the political power of the Wa Kingdom, relying on the developed Kanto Plain, and even if they lost the war, they could quickly recover their strength if they had food in their hands.

In a nutshell.

The Kanto region has enough capacity to support the shogunate, but the shogunate doesn't have enough prestige in the Kanto region, so why give you the grain of the white flowers.

Because of its proximity to, the central region had a lot of influence in the local area and was more supportive of the shogunate, while the Kanto region had little political power in the shogunate and Gyeonggi and was looked down upon.

In order to win over the Kanto region, the shogunate promoted officials to win over the local heroes, and based on this, the local heroes happily sent money and food, and pulled out their own troops.

If you want to develop industry, you must have a stable social environment that is unified.

This is a theory put forward by Western scholars.

The same is true of Japan in later generations, which strengthened the influence of the Japanese emperor, overthrew various places, and unified the social environment of Japan, and Japan successfully carried out the industrial revolution.

There are pros and cons to everything.

A unified society will make the social division of labor detailed and the development of productive forces more efficient, but the requirements for organizational strength are very high, and if the imperial court economy goes bankrupt, the consequences will be great.

On the other hand, although the situation of local separatism is not conducive to the development of social productive forces, the upper and lower limits are not large.

This is also why the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, a vassal state, fought for a long time, and can hold on until the end of the battle, it can also pull the old, weak, women and children, and the more the country in the later period of unification, when the imperial court economy is not good, it can't pull out an army.

The brutality of the Inu slave army in and the capital made the daimyo in the central and Kanto regions have no choice but to support the shogunate, so after suffering a crushing defeat, the shogunate regrouped an army of 70,000 or 80,000 in addition to recollecting the rout troops that had fled from the front, plus the support of the daimyo from all over the country.

Although the army of 70,000 or 80,000 was gathered around, there was no unified order, and the morale was different, which was not the same as the nearly 200,000 army in the hands of the shogunate.

Clear-eyed people know that the 200,000 shogunate troops that were strong in the past could not defeat the Ming army, let alone the 70,000 or 80,000 miscellaneous troops now, and defeat was only a matter of time.

No one thought that the Ming army would lose.

From the scholars of the Ming Dynasty to the common people, everyone thought that the Ming army was very victorious, including the merchants.

At the exchange meeting held by Heji, hundreds of large and small commercial firms participated, and Zhang Bo, who was in his sixties, was much more low-key than when he was young, and the reporter asked curiously: "Although many businesses do not have a brand with the name of Heji, they actually belong to Heji or its subordinate firms. ”

Zhang Bo responded with a smile: "We are old friends of the Daming Industry Bureau, and we have always acted as the pioneers of the Daming Industry Bureau, all for the development of Daming." ”

The reporter did not continue to ask, and accepted it when he saw it.

With the prosperity of the newspaper industry, the traditional way of relying on local submissions in the past could not keep up with the development of the situation, and newspaper houses began to have their own reporters to collect news from all walks of life.

The importance of newspapers, the imperial court is not stupid, it knows that it is related to public opinion, so the management of reporters is also very strict, and every reporter must obtain the permission of the newspaper industry and have the qualifications to become a reporter.

No one dares to underestimate the influence of reporters, even Zhang Bo will not be easily offended.

Many commercial houses want to open a newspaper business, but the imperial court has not opened up, there are policies at the top and countermeasures at the bottom, and there are many tabloids of all kinds in densely populated places such as docks and railway stations.

Compared with regular newspapers, these tabloids are more eye-catching, and they have all kinds of content, which makes people very surprised to see.

Zhang Bo, the manager from the Daming Industry Bureau, a self-made genius, learned the advantages of the Daming Industry Bureau to the fullest, and gave full play to his own advantages and learned the essence of the Korean stock bank.

Hop Kee is no longer an ordinary trading house, nor is it anyone's own.

When it comes to comprehensive business systems such as coal and iron, shipping, shipbuilding, grain, cotton, and herbal medicine, the shareholders involve many people.

Relying on his ability and prestige, Zhang Bo was still selected as the helmsman of Heji.

"The behavior of the Daming Industry Bureau in the country is actually a good opportunity for us."

Domestic.

On the second day, a small-scale exchange began, with not only representatives of Hezhong, but also Korean merchants, as well as some strongly-dressed Jinyi guards.

The law is getting thicker and thicker, and no institution or individual can violate it.

The sanctity of the law has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people under the instillation of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince for decades.

Although Jin Yiwei does not want to miss anything, he can only do things within the framework of the law, not arbitrarily.

The meeting was closed, and the Jinyi guard could not enter.

Zhang Bo said with a smile when he saw his old friend Wang Ren.

There were not many people who were qualified to participate in the closed-door meeting, and it was mainly a group of people from the country, but now some newcomers have been added, mainly the Korea Lianji Company, and no one can deny the achievements of the Korea Lianji Company.

Compared with the suppression and contempt of the Daming Industry Bureau, the domestic business gang was the first to extend a hand of friendship, and the two sides hit it off.

"That's true, as you said, whether it is the Daming Industry Bureau or our firms, they are all contributing to the Ming Dynasty, in no particular order, since the Daming Industry Bureau wants to give it to him."

It's all old foxes, Wang Ren responded to Zhang Bo with a smile.

Even if the size of the Ming Industry Bureau is large, there is an upper limit, if the Ming Dynasty development footsteps are small, it is naturally not enough for the appetite of the Ming Industry Bureau, but the development of Nanyang, and even the conquest of the Japanese State, as well as the construction of overseas enclaves, have long exceeded the capacity of the Ming Industry Bureau.

The Daming Bureau wants to eat it all, unless Daming puts down the pace of development and waits for the Daming Bureau to digest it before developing.

The imperial court will not allow it, and neither will social development.

The tough attitude of the Daming Industry Bureau did not arouse the opposition of the private firms, and the private firms did give up the competition for the interests of the Japanese state, but instead went southward in a big way, represented by Heji, Hezhong, Lianji, etc., and developed overseas islands in a big way.

In addition to building the infrastructure of the island, the relocation of personnel to the island will participate in the construction of the island, explore local coal mines and other energy sources, and accelerate local mining production, which will play a supporting role in the development of the Nanyang railway.

Based on this, Zhu Gaochi did not object, and there was no reason to oppose it, but the imperial court also began to strengthen the bureaucratic system in the island, and the private commercial houses did not care about this, and they all buried themselves in construction.

The power of the Daming Gonggong Bureau was extended, and the current and future interests were guaranteed by relying on the administrative means in Goryeo and the dominance of the Wa Kingdom. And the power of private trading houses began to go overseas. (End of chapter)