The Ryukyu king Shoning was captured by the Shimazu family and taken to Japan for several years, and after his release, he was forced to cede the five northern islands, including Amami Oshima, and signed a series of treaties that humiliated the country.

As a result, the Ryukyu Kingdom was completely reduced to a vassal state of the Satsuma Domain.

Now he couldn't help but be overjoyed to see the Ming army calling, he didn't expect that he would be able to get rid of the control of the Satsuma Domain in his lifetime.

The Ming Dynasty can be said to be a kind and rebuilt for the Ryukyus, and the agricultural and shipbuilding techniques of the Ryukyus were all taught by the Ming Dynasty.

Even the surname "Shang" was given to the king of Ryukyu by Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, the Ming Dynasty did not force the Ryukyu kings to change their surnames, because they only had a first name and no surname before.

King Shoning of the Ryukyus is now 57 years old and has reigned for 31 years.

However, in the face of the envoys of the Celestial Empire, he still personally led the officials of the Ryukyus to greet him, and gave Li Xianzhong a "kowtow salute".

On the one hand, Shang Ning is really grateful to the Ming Dynasty for saving him from fire and water, and on the other hand, as long as he is humble enough in front of the Ming envoy, he can not only get the protection of the Ming Dynasty, but also continue to use the wool of the Ming Dynasty.

Shang Ning's little abacus jingled, but unfortunately Li Xianzhong was not the Ming envoy he was expecting.

After completing the bow to the Ming envoy, what he was waiting for was not the envoy's words of comfort asking him to get up, but the other party's questioning.

Li Xianzhong scolded loudly: "Ryukyu King Shangning, are you guilty? ”

Shang Ning didn't expect the Ming envoy to attack directly, he knelt on the ground and said tremblingly: "Xiao Wang has always admired the Ming Dynasty, I don't know where to offend the Celestial Empire, and ask the angel to speak clearly?" ”

Li Xian said with a smile: "Ryukyu, as a vassal state of my Ming Domain, pays tribute to the Satsuma Domain every year; King Shōnin swore allegiance to the Shimazu clan and signed a treaty recognizing the status of a vassal state. ”

"With such an act at both ends of the rat, how dare you claim that you are not guilty?"

Shang Ning knew that these things would be known to the Ming sooner or later, so he cried bitterly: "Japan has long had the intention of annexing the Ryukyus, and I, as a vassal of the Ming Dynasty, naturally resist to the death. But after all, the country is small and the people are weak, and Xiao Wang was caught by the Shimazu clan and was forced to sign these treaties. ”

"Although there is a loss of moderation, but there is nothing to be done, it is definitely not a betrayal, and the angel is still asked to see?"

"The Ryukyus are thousands of miles away from the Celestial Empire, and the families of the tributary envoys are all threatened by the Satsuma Domain, so they can't tell the truth to the Celestial Empire, and they are definitely not deliberately deceiving!"

Shang Ning didn't say that the tribute was okay, but when he talked about the tribute, Li Xianzhong was even more angry.

Although Ryukyu was quite deferential to the Ming Dynasty on the surface, they actually regarded the Ming Dynasty as a "wronged leader".

The price of pepper and other spices sold by the Ryukyus to the Ming through tribute was much higher than that of the vassal states such as Nanyang.

Li Xianzhong said: "You didn't tell the truth to the Celestial Empire because you were coerced by the Shimazu clan, and you were also coerced to ask for a sky-high price from Daming with cheap spices?" ”

"Ten pounds of pepper in Nanyang, Zhenla State, Java State, and Zhancheng State, these Nanyang vassal states sold to the Ming Dynasty for 3 taels of silver. You Ryukyu is good, and you actually let me buy it at a price of thirty taels and one catties, is this also forced? ”

"It is true that my Ming Dynasty's tributary system is a gift from the suzerain's state to the vassal state, but I have never seen any vassal state dare to open his mouth like you Ryukyus?"

"King Shangning, do you dare to do this in the face of the Satsuma Domain?"

"Do you obviously think I'm weak and bullied?"

At this time, Shang Ning was already sweating profusely, and he was speechless in the face of Li Xianzhong's questioning.

Since you are willing to be this "wronged leader", my Ryukyu will naturally not be soft.

To put it bluntly, you Ming spent money to make Ryukyu "call Dad", since you are not bad at money as a father, I am naturally a lion as a son.

But where did he dare to say this?

He could only brazenly say: "The price of the Ryukyu tribute to the Ming Dynasty has not changed over the years, and Xiao Wang is just following the convention!" ”

Hearing this, Li Xianzhong only smiled slightly.

The tributary system of the Ming Dynasty is indeed a joke, and in the end it is nothing more than spending money to raise a group of "white-eyed wolves".

Once these vassal states become strong, they will naturally not be grateful for the kindness of the Ming Dynasty, but will think about the land of the Ming Dynasty.

Even if it is weak like the Ryukyus, once it is remembered by other countries, it will become a help to support other countries, and eventually it will be eaten back on the head of the Ming Dynasty itself.

Therefore, Li Xianzhong must completely break this system.

He said, "Rise up the king of the Ryukyus, what is the practice of the world that is immutable?" ”

"Ben Bo is the governor of the Ming Dynasty in Korea, I am not here to rescue you in the Ryukyus, this time I am just here to do business in the Ryukyus. I didn't expect to be blackmailed and robbed in your Ryukyu territory, and I suffered heavy losses! ”

"And your Ryukyu officials are helping these Japanese to blackmail my caravan together, what do you say?"

Li Xianzhong's words directly made Shang Ning gasp, originally he thought that the Celestial Empire had sent someone to rescue him.

As a result, the other party mentioned the loss when he opened his mouth, what were you doing when you were robbed by the Japanese and looking for this king?

This is clearly for extortion.

But he is not afraid now, because the treasures in his royal city have long been emptied by the Satsuma Domain, and now he is poor and white!

Shang Ning said: "This king has been imprisoned in the royal city, and domestic affairs are controlled by the demon monk Juyin, so he really doesn't know anything about it!" ”

"I don't know what angels mean?"

Li Xianzhong said: "Ben Bo said, I came to Ryukyu this time to do business, not to make an envoy, and King Shangning doesn't have to call him an 'angel'. ”

"Benber is a businessman. This time, I drove out the Japanese for you, so I won't ask you for a commission, but the losses caused by this will always be borne by you, right? ”

From a business point of view, it is not too much to get paid for your work.

But for the vassal states that have always prostituted the Ming Dynasty in vain, this is really a bit unacceptable.

Hasn't Da Ming always been face-saving and doesn't care about money?

But how dare this fashion Ning say a "no".

He had to say with a smiling face: "That's natural, the uncle contributes to the Ryukyus, so naturally the uncle can't let the uncle bear the loss himself." ”

Soon, Li Xianzhong asked Zheng Zhilong to hand over a list of losses to Shang Ning.

A shipload of goods was extorted by the Japanese invaders, totaling 4,700 pieces of porcelain, 800 pieces of bronze ware, and 200 pieces of ginseng.

Worth 76,000 taels of silver.

There were 178 dead soldiers, and each of them received a pension of 200 taels of silver.

28 people were seriously injured, and each person received a subsidy of 100 taels of silver.

The loss of shells, shells, gunpowder and depreciated silver of guns totaled 57,000 taels.

All the expenses on this list of the Ming army add up to 280,000 taels of silver.

Faced with this "sky-high list", Shang Ning really couldn't laugh or cry.

This Ming Count is even more ruthless than the Satsuma Domain, he directly said that he can't do anything, and Ryukyu has no money.

However, Li Xianzhong seemed to have thought about it a long time ago, and he said: "It doesn't matter if you don't have money, you can compensate for it with Ryukyu customs duties and other taxes." ”

"But the interest still has to be charged!"

"Anyway, the power of Ryukyu has never been in the hands of King Shangning, so let Benbo's people take care of Ryukyu for you in the future until the debt is paid off!"

Soon Geng Zhongming was appointed regent of the Ryukyus by Li Xianzhong, under the command of the Joseon governor, as the highest military and political governor of the Ryukyu region.

As the spiritual symbol of the Ryukyu people, the Ryukyu King Shangning was the responsibility of the regent.

50 Ming soldiers took over the defense of Shuri Castle in the royal city!

It is clear that the royal city is now a veritable prison.

Now that the Ryukyu Kingdom owes Li Xianzhong so much money, the Ryukyu King naturally wants to reduce expenses, and in the end, only 60 people are left in this royal city to be responsible for the king's family's diet and daily life and maintain the basic operation of the royal city.

Out of humanitarian considerations, Li Xianzhong still gave the royal family a living allowance of 500 taels per month.

In addition, on the first day of the new year and the king's birthday, Ryukyu officials were allowed to enter the royal castle to meet their king.

The defense of Naha Port is still very important, especially since the Liaodong Naval Division currently has only a few capital ships, and it is impossible to be stationed in Naha all the time.

So Li Xianzhong decided to build a small fortress on the site of the previously bombed fortress to strengthen his control over the port.

Currently, the population of the Ryukyus is about 110,000, of which more than 90% are concentrated on the main island of the Ryukyus.

Fortunately, there are still more than 1,000 Han Chinese and their descendants on the island, most of whom are Fujianese, some of whom have migrated to the Ryukyus for many generations, and some are maritime merchants who have stayed here.

The presence of such a group of people can help to take full control of the Ryukyus.

Some important positions can be filled by these people.

However, Ryukyu is still mountainous, and the area of arable land is not too large.

Although sugarcane can be grown on the island, these cultivated lands can barely sustain the food rations of the islanders, and cannot solve the problem of grain storage at all.

In the past, the annual tribute of grain to the Satsuma clan was only 10,000 koku, which shows that Ryukyu did not have much grain in stock.

If you want to store a lot of food, it seems that you have to find another place.

Geng Zhongming, who had previous experience managing copper mines, was no stranger to this colonial model.

However, Li Xianzhong still decided to hand over the tariff to Huang Cheng.

Ryukyu implemented differential tax rates, and continued to implement a low tax policy of one out of ten goods for Ming merchants.

Merchants from other countries raised the price to 1 out of 7.

After all, this is not Liaodong and North Korea, and Li Xianzhong's influence is not so strong, and it is impossible to implement that kind of high tax of more than 30%.

Huang Cheng was still somewhat well-known among the Fujian merchants, and it was more conducive to attracting the Ming merchants who were scattered in various places to transfer their industries to Ryukyu.

As long as these businessmen come, they will naturally drive related industries.

Ryukyu Island still needs to relocate some Ming people, and I believe it won't be long before Ryukyu will be completely sinicized.

Li Xianzhong decided to set up a "East Ryukyu Company" using these Spanish galleons in his hands and the 300,000 taels of silver obtained from the sale of goods as capital.

The young Zheng Zhilong was in charge of the sea trade of the East Ryukyu Company, and was mainly responsible for the development of trade routes between East Asia and Southeast Asia.

Of course, in addition to business, the East Ryukyus Company also took care of robbery and the development of maritime colonies.

Zheng Zhilong himself is also very interested in this East Ryukyu company.

He said excitedly: "My subordinates are Hokkien people, Fujian has many mountains and few fields, and it is impossible to feed a family by farming, so Hokkien people mostly rely on the sea for a living." ”

"Now that this East Ryukyu company has been established, it can solve the livelihood of many villagers."

"As for grain, my subordinates suggested that the development master (Taiwan); Last year's drought, many people in southern Fujian could not live anymore, and as long as they could provide them with some seeds and farm tools, they would definitely be willing to open up wasteland and wasteland. ”

"The main reason why the big players haven't been developed on a large scale is because of the safety issues. Some pirates have a stronghold there, and the island's natives are fierce. ”

"The subordinates believe that these are not problems for Ning Yuanbo."

Li Xianzhong is very clear about the reason why Taiwan has not been developed.

Neither the island's natives nor pirates pose a threat to him, the real threat is the miasma of the rainforest.

He was unable to exploit the depths of Taiwan until he got the cinchona, but there was no problem in cultivating some wasteland near the coast.

At present, the biggest problem is still the lack of ships, and they need a large number of new warships to ensure the safety of sea routes.

At present, it has only three shipyards, Yingkou and Lushun Tongincheon, and in order to prevent the Koreans from mastering the technology of building warships, the Incheon shipyard only builds merchant ships, not warships.

These large sailing ships will also have a shipbuilding cycle of more than a year at the earliest, and it seems that it is still necessary to design some light capital warships with short construction periods.

Shipyards are also being built in the Ryukyus.

As for Taiwan, the Intelligence Department can be asked to recruit disaster victims in southern Fujian to prepare for the development of Taiwan.

Considering that there are still many pirates in southern Taiwan, and that Penghu is under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, in order to reduce disputes, the targets are still selected in the two ports of Tamsui and Keelung in northern Taiwan.

After the completion of these two ports, the East Ryukyu Company will also be equivalent to two more supply ports.

However, Taiwan is more complicated than the Ryukyus, not only to face the "potbelly kingdom" established by the Taiwanese natives, but also to face the subsequent invasion of the Dutch and Spaniards, and to fight all kinds of piracy.

Zheng Zhilong at this age will definitely not be able to cope with it.

After thinking about it, only Mao Wenlong is more suitable for this kind of work.

However, the most important thing at the moment is to solve the problem of the Satsuma Domain, otherwise his Liaodong Navy Division will always be contained in the Ryukyus.

Now that the Tartars have not been completely resolved, it is impossible for them to launch a large-scale attack on the Japanese mainland.

Judging from the current situation of his own confrontation with the Japanese soldiers under the Satsuma Domain, the ability of these Japanese soldiers to fight in the white is still relatively strong, and the number of Ming soldiers killed and seriously injured has reached 200.

The impact ability of these Japanese soldiers even exceeds that of the Eight Banners who are now seriously flooded, that is, the Japanese soldiers in the Ryukyus do not have many war horses, otherwise they may really crush the Ming army's fire array when they are superior in numbers.

Of course, Geng Zhongming led the Ming army under Yingkou Road, and most of these soldiers were recruits who had been in the army for less than a year and had no actual combat experience.

There must be a gap with the elite troops of Kaiyuan Third Road under Li Xianzhong.

Even if it was the main force of the Tokugawa family itself, it had no chance of winning in the face of the Liaodong Iron Cavalry.

Moreover, Li Xianzhong did not believe that the 3,000 people left in the Ryukyus by the Satsuma clan could all be dressed in iron armor.

This part of the Japanese soldiers led by Shimazu Mitsuyoshi himself should be the most elite troops of the Satsuma Domain in the entire Ryukyus.

Today, dozens of remnants of the Satsuma clan in the north of the main island of the Ryukyus have also been annihilated, bringing the total number of Japanese soldiers on the island of Ryukyu to 1,300.

Coupled with the fact that the Liaodong Naval Division sank more than 20 of their troop-transporting ships at sea, the losses of the Satsuma clan must have exceeded 2,000 men.

At this time, the Shimazu family's troops in the Amami Islands were less than 1,000 people, and the Ming army naturally wanted to take the opportunity to take the Amami Islands and completely drive the Satsuma Domain back to Japan.

Soon the three warships and six Spanish galleons under the command of the Liaodong Navy Division left the port of Naha, and Amami Oshima was still relatively far from the main island of the Ryukyus, a distance of 250 kilometers.

The Amami Islands consist of five islands from south to north: Yoronjima, Okinerabu Island, Tokunoshima, Amami Oshima, and Kikai Island.

Soichiro Kayama looked extremely nervous when the huge mast of the galleon's galleon appeared on the surface of the sea, and he felt that things were not so simple after the Ataka ship that was on its way to reinforce the Ryukyus was sunk by these huge ships yesterday.

Sure enough, now these Ming warships have come to Amami Oshima again.

And it's not the three ships mentioned in the intelligence, but there are as many as 9 ships.

This era was full of pirates, so armed merchant ships also had to fight, and Spanish galleons were also equipped with 12 guns, which also had a certain amount of firepower.

Fortunately, he had withdrawn the troops of the naval division to land in time.

Today, he has 900 Japanese soldiers from the Satsuma domain and 500 Ryukyu soldiers from the island.

However, unexpectedly, the Ming army did not attack the island directly, but a canoe rowed directly towards them.

The person who came was a messenger of the Ryukyus!

The messenger said, "As long as you return Amami Oshima, the King of the Ryukyus will allow you to leave here safely, and this is his letter of promise to you." ”

After saying that, the messenger handed a letter to Soichiro Kayama.

Soichiro Kayama knew that this was the enemy's tactic, so he directly cut off the head of the Ryukyu envoy.

He scolded angrily: "The oath of the Ryukyu King Shangning is like a fart, before he swore that he would never betray the Shimazu family, and now he has recruited the Ming army. ”

As the messenger fell to the ground, the wooden box in his hand also fell to the ground, and Shimazu Mitsuyoshi's head rolled out of the wooden box.

However, the Ming army's plan to attack the heart was still successful, and there was a commotion in the team behind him.

Shimazu Mitsuyoshi was the supreme governor of the Satsuma clan in the Ryukyus, and his killing meant that the compatriots on the island of Ryukyu must have been murdered; The reason for the riot of the Ryukyu soldiers was simpler, the Satsuma Domain was defeated, and the Ryukyus were about to recover Amami Oshima.

Soichiro Kayama knew that something was wrong, and that these Ryukyuan people were probably about to rebel, so he immediately swung his knife and looked at the two Ryukyu soldiers who were making trouble.

Almost at the same time, the Ming naval guns launched a fierce bombardment directly at them.

At this time, the fleets of the Ming army were already lined up on the sea, and hundreds of artillery pieces were firing at the same time, which can be imagined.

The shells didn't have long eyes, and soon the Japanese soldiers and Ryukyu soldiers were scattered and fled.

Soon after, 1,500 Ming troops and 500 Ryukyu troops rushed directly towards the Japanese stronghold.

At this time, the Japanese army could be described as suffering from internal and external troubles, and had no fighting spirit.

Soichiro Kayama had to lead the remnants to retreat to another castle inland.

However, it didn't take long for them to be surrounded by the Ming army and the Ryukyu Legion.

In the end, under the attack of the Ming army's 6-pounder Buddha Franc machine gun and Lu Mi gun, this gang of Japanese was quickly wiped out!

At this point, Amami Oshima has also been recovered, and the 3,000 men and horses left in the Ryukyus by the Satsuma Domain have been completely explained!

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