At the beginning of the Edo period, with the end of large-scale wars and upheavals, the population of Johei Japan grew rapidly, almost doubling in a century. In the 11th year of the reign of the shogunate (1726), according to the rough statistics of the shogunate, the population reached more than 26.9 million, second only to Qin and Qi in the entire Eastern world, and can be regarded as a regional power.

Although the huge size of the population greatly enhanced Japan's overall strength, it intensified the increasingly tense tension between man and land, and frequent domestic famines occurred.

Not to mention the tragic famine that occurred in the third year of Yeonpo (1675) - the famine broke out at the same time as the Qi-Japanese War, and Osaka, as Japan's "kitchen of the world", was captured by the Qi army, which caused the stagnation of grain transportation throughout Gyeonggi and the Kanto region, and increased the severity of the famine that year - that is, in the last 40 years, almost every five to eight years, a widespread famine broke out in Japan.

Abnormal weather, drought, lack of rainfall, typhoons, and large grain exports will bring a deep food crisis to more than 20 million Japanese people, and then lead to a famine.

Due to the deterioration of the trade situation and the persistent trade deficit, the Japanese feudal domains generally suffered financial difficulties, which led to the vast majority of the feudal clans borrowing large amounts of money from Osaka merchants, and as a result, rice (rice is also a currency in Japan) had to be shipped to Osaka in order to repay the money and pay interest. This act of ignoring the food needs of the domain and forcibly exporting rice has also led to man-made famine disasters many times.

During the famine season, the hungry people of the Akita, Morioka, and Sendai domains in the Tohoku region believed that they could avoid starving to death by going to the Ming Province Anchofu (in the present-day Mutsu region in the northeastern part of the country) or Unshu, which was rich in herring, so many begged for a ride or smuggled away in private, and some drowned in the sea in pursuit of the sail shadows, and some starving people were chased and killed by the samurai of the clan when they fled to the border of the Hokumei region on the mountain road, or they were brought back and severely punished.

In the event of a famine in the Choshu, Fukuyama, and Hiroshima domains north of Hengguan, the hungry people in the domains would cross the vast mountains and flee to the territory of Qi to beg for their lives.

Except for some of the Japanese hungry people and refugees who fled to Hengguan and were transported by Qi migrant ships to distant Yinzhou, the cold and desolate Beiling Peninsula (Kamchatka Peninsula), and the Arctic Region of Rinzhou (present-day Alaska), the rest lived temporarily in the area where Hengguan and Choshu were bound, and built wooden houses and shacks dotted around, gradually forming a special settlement area called Fuso Castle.

"There are almost 40,000 Japanese refugees gathered here, and they are temporarily organized into more than 80 cantonment teams, and the main managers are selected from among the refugees to implement simple self-government. Over the past few decades, the government has organized them to reclaim 50,000 or 60,000 acres of arable land in the surrounding valleys and hillsides to meet the needs of the refugees. Of course, this amount of land output will certainly not be able to feed so many refugees. For this reason, the Governorate of Hengguan had to get a large amount of grain from Korea and Yunju, and gave them some food subsidies so that they could beg. ”

Li Yanliang and Fan Changchen, the governor of Hengguan, stood on a mountain ridge, overlooking the Fusang city in the distance, densely packed with shacks and simple wooden houses, arranged in a disorderly manner throughout the valley.

At this time, it is mid-afternoon, and most of the refugees are probably working in the fields under the organization of government personnel, or have been taken to a construction site to build houses and roads, making the whole city seem relatively quiet.

Some of the elderly sat in front of the dilapidated houses, seemingly enjoying the warm sunlight and feeling the presence of life, and not caring about the constant buzzing of flies.

Groups of Japanese children, barefoot and wearing only strands of clothing, or simply naked, chased and frolicked through the densely woven residential areas.

It is clear that these people are not included in the register of the colonial government, and belong to a group of people who have been completely ignored. The reason why the local government did not expel him, but kept him in captivity, is probably to increase the local low-end labor force, and at the same time to meet the population needs of the immigration department and overseas territories.

As for whether or not to improve their living conditions, I am afraid that it is not in the plans of the colonial government at all.

For them, it is very worthless to spend this money, and it is better to invest their limited funds in the construction of the main city of Hengguan, or actively improve the roads and docks.

Otherwise, you can also divide the "superfluous" money privately to enrich your own purse.

These refugees, who had no government help, built shacks on the vacant land with wood, stones, grass and mud and discarded wooden planks. Later, as the number of refugees increased, these simple shacks were added with one or two floors and expanded to the surrounding areas, and gradually these houses were connected to the city, and finally formed the current Fusang City.

To put it bluntly, this is a huge squatter area, or refugee camp, slum.

It is precisely because of the large population, poor environment, and complex personnel of Fusang City that it has become a key security place in Hengguan City, and the garrison headquarters has specially deployed a company of army and two companies of garrison troops nearby, supplemented by a large number of police, to suppress all kinds of violent incidents that may break out.

Ten days ago, after Li Yanliang made a simple handover with the outgoing Cao Zhengjia, he officially assumed the post of deputy commander of the Hengguan garrison and commander of the first battalion of the Fifth Regiment. But in the following days, he was invited to a banquet by various colonial institutions, government departments, and wealthy businessmen in turn, and there was almost no chance of separation.

Royal background, His Majesty Yonglong's former attendant military attache and close friend, has also been on the battlefield, has made military exploits, and more importantly, is still so young.

The new deputy commander of the garrison can be described as a promising and proper star of the future of the empire.

If you don't take the opportunity to have a good relationship with him and make an emotional investment in advance, it will be too politically unsightly!

It has been nine years since Li Yanliang graduated from the military academy, and he has long since faded away from the youthfulness and naivety of the past, and he has also become a little more politically mature, so naturally he will not rashly refuse the invitation of those officials and colleagues to a banquet.

Taking a step back, if he wants to make some achievements in Hengguan, he can't do without the full support and cooperation of his colleagues in the local colonial government and the garrison command.

Although the commander of the garrison is concurrently held by the governor of Hengguan, the specific military deployment and wartime command authority and responsibility are performed by the deputy commander of the garrison who holds the military post. However, the provision of various logistical supplies and daily supplies is inseparable from the support of the local colonial government, and the two sides must maintain a cooperative and coordinated attitude in order to maintain and stabilize the effective operation of the entire colonial territory.

In addition, Aogaoka Island (present-day Hirado Island) and Yasuen Island (present-day Iki Island), located on the western side of Kyushu Island, were also under the jurisdiction of the Garrison Command, which was responsible for the safety and defense of the two islands.

However, with Qi's maritime deterrence in the region, no hostile forces would dare to rashly attack the above-mentioned colonial territories and deploy military forces purely to assert their sovereignty.

The entire garrison command had only one battalion of the army and one battalion of the local garrison force, with a strength of less than 1,000 troops.

However, Li Yanliang, who had just taken office, had a different idea about this in his heart, believing that the strategic positioning of the Hengguan Garrison Command should not be so passive, but should be positive and bold.

Although with less than a thousand troops, it is not possible to make a big battle, but we must always make a difference, forge ahead, and create a little more opportunities for ourselves.

A few days ago, during a banquet with the merchants in the city, he learned a lot about the Japanese shogunate and various feudal states.

In general, the shogunate's desire for national political reform was still very strong, and it wanted to carry out a broad and far-reaching "major political reform" against the backdrop of drastic changes in the social formation, so as to achieve the goal of centralizing power.

To put it bluntly, the Tokugawa clan wanted to take power and was ready to deprive the local daimyo of their feudal power, and they wanted to follow the model of the Qin State and the Northern Ming Dynasty, and implement the "county system" throughout Japan, with local governments directly appointed by the shogunate, to establish a truly "unified" state.

Naturally, the daimyo of the feudal states in various regions were strongly opposed to this.

Why, if it weren't for the support of our vassal states, would you have been able to obtain the title of Shogun of Seiyi?

Without our feudal state, would the shogunate be able to rule the whole country in name?

If there were no feudal kingdoms and the daimyo stood on their own, would this still be a samurai world?

What's the matter, if you Tokugawa clan want to take back our territory now, aren't you afraid of the resurgence of the "Warring States"?

In that year, in order to raise war reparations of up to 15 million taels of silver, the Tokugawa shogunate forcibly distributed most of the indemnities to the daimyo in various regions in order to raise war reparations of up to 15 million taels of silver.

Several powerful feudal clans, such as the Kaga Domain, the Sendai Domain, the Satsuma Domain, and the Choshu Domain, were "shared" with a share of the indemnity of 700,000 taels to 400,000 taels, and those small feudal clans with a stone height of only a few thousand koku were more or less divided into several thousand taels of silver, and even if they were repaid in 30 installments, they also made the feudal clans resentful.

In that year, the Satsuma clan provoked the Qi State without authorization, but was beaten by others with a blue nose and swollen face, not only lost the Ryukyu swallowed in the stomach, but also was blocked to the door of the house, more than 10,000 feudal troops were defeated, and finally surrendered in humiliation.

It's good that your Tokugawa clan didn't learn this lesson and took the initiative to avoid Qi State, but instead detained other people's merchant ships and killed their crews, so that they were beaten by a group of younger brothers gathered by Qi State.

Sure enough, the battle ended, the shogunate army was defeated again and again, tens of thousands of soldiers were lost, Osaka, Nara, and Kyoto fell successively, and finally they were forced to Edo Castle by the Qi State. If it weren't for the fact that the other side didn't want Japan to fall into complete chaos, they might have taken Edo Castle in one fell swoop and overthrew your Tokugawa rule.

However, after the defeat of the Tokugawa clan, you passed on all the consequences to the heads of the domestic feudal clans and carried the matter for you.

It's so unsophisticated!

What made the local daimyo even more jealous was that more than 40 years ago, in order to reverse the predicament of the country's lack of gold and silver—in fact, more to save the shogunate's finances from bankruptcy, the Tokugawa shogunate embarked on a financial reform to recoinage currency.

That is, the gold and silver currency circulating in the market is mixed with more base metals, reducing the quality of the currency.

Well, this was later known as quantitative easing, which is also known as the so-called monetary release.

According to statistics, in the process of more than 10 years of currency recoinage, the shogunate's total amount of recoinage exceeded 35 million taels of gold, which increased the amount of money in circulation in the entire society by 35 percent.

Through this strategy, the Tokugawa shogunate pocketed all the differences after the recasting. According to rough estimates, the Shogunate's income from recasting alone was as high as 3.8 million taels in ten years.

During this period, the annual tribute of the feudal domains under the control of the Tokugawa shogunate did not increase in any way, and even decreased to varying degrees during the famine years, but it relied on the profits from currency remining to support about 40% of the entire shogunate's finances.

After that, for a long time, the Tokugawa shogunate also used this method to make up for the drastic reduction in annual tribute during the famine, and successively built a new army of all firearms on an increasingly large scale.

The shogunate, in the name of "national righteousness", could use such shameless means of accumulating money, but what could many weak feudal daimyo rely on to alleviate the increasingly embarrassing finances?

In order to maintain the feudal government, in addition to the extreme oppression of the people in the domain, the feudal states in various regions could only continue to borrow money from usury merchants, and the profits were getting more and more profitable, and the finances became more and more difficult.

In addition, the shogunate shamelessly relieved itself of the burden of repairing the country's river embankments, frequently collecting "sponsorship fees" from daimyos, "state official fees" from farmers, and borrowing money to supplement public funds in the name of developing wasteland and child rearing subsidies, and obtaining huge revenues in addition to the annual tribute.

This series of measures has been dubbed by many as "explicit fiscal filling policies".

Under these circumstances, the Tokugawa shogunate, as the lord of the world, did not want to actively assist the troubled feudal states, but instead pondered what kind of "major political reforms" should be carried out, centralize power and reclaim land, and realize the true unification of the country.

You Tokugawa clan are unloading the mill and killing donkeys!

What else is there to say, if you don't hurry up and secretly develop force in order to protect yourself, do you still wait for the shogunate to send someone over, forcibly deprive the territory, become an ordinary samurai, or even become a lonely and helpless wild samurai, who can only go overseas to work for others?

"Governor Fan, according to the information revealed by the merchants in Hengguan City, the opposite Changzhou Domain has formed a new army of more than 1,500 men. The weapons of this unit are all smuggled from Hengguan over the years, and there is even a powerful 75-millimeter caliber marine gun. After chatting for a while about the security management of Fusang City, Li Yanliang pondered for a moment and then turned the topic to arms smuggling.

"Oh, is Captain Li going to rectify the border security and crack down on this kind of smuggling?" Fan Changchen's eyebrows jumped, and then he asked quietly.

In other words, basically all levels of the colonial government were involved in this smuggling, but it should not be disturbed in the name of prohibiting arms smuggling because this brave deputy commander of the garrison had a hot brain.

This is to be hated!

"The main responsibility of our Hengguan Garrison Command is to protect local security and maintain the overseas interests of the Empire." Li Yanliang said with a smile: "Cracking down on smuggling should be the work of the local customs and police departments. I'm just a little curious about the development of the Choshu Domain. ”

"Captain Li is too worried." Fan Changchen couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief and smiled, "With the strength of the Changzhou Domain, I don't dare to provoke my Qi State." With only more than 1,000 new troops, there is no need to worry, I am afraid that Captain Li can easily defeat them by only leading the first battalion of army children. ”

"Yes, it's just more than a thousand new troops, and they are not well trained, and their quality is uneven, so it will not be difficult to defeat them." Li Yanliang said: "If the shogunate issues a land inspection order to deprive the Choshu Domain of its territory, most of them will not dare to resist strongly, which will inevitably make people deeply sympathetic!" ”

"Huh? ......" Fan Changchen looked at Li Yanliang with some puzzlement when he heard this, "What does Captain Li mean by this?" ”

"Governor Fan, Japan has more than 20 million people, and the people are tough and hard-working, and there are thousands of years of samurai tradition. If the shogunate is allowed to centralize power and eliminate the division of feudal states in various places, it will be a potential threat to both the Northern Ming and our Qi country. ”

"Captain Li means ......" Fan Changchen suddenly had a bad feeling.

Nima's, this army leader seems to be going to make trouble!

"We might be able to help the Choshu Domain." Li Yanliang said meaningfully.

(End of chapter)