I

On behalf of the shogunate, Lin Efeng came to Kagoshima again.

He was taking a whole delegation with him on a ship to China to see the emperor in Nanjing. It is nothing more than reaffirming the relationship between the two countries, clarifying this misunderstanding, and planning to set an annual Sino-Japanese transaction limit.

There is no doubt that Japan is a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty.

During the period of Emperor Kenbun, the Muromachi shogunate held a grand acceptance ceremony at Kinkakuji Temple in Kitayama, officially accepting the canonization edict of the Ming Dynasty.

After Zhu Di ascended the throne, the Muromachi shogunate took the initiative to send envoys to congratulate him, and in the credential, he called himself "King of Japan, Chen Yuan". The following year, Zhu Di sent an envoy to Japan to re-canonize him and bestow the "King of Japan" with a turtle-shaped golden seal. To show their sincerity, the Muromachi shogunate steamed and killed more than 20 Japanese pirate leaders in front of the Ming envoys.

When the Tokugawa shogunate came to power and Japan was formally unified, it wanted to repair relations with the Ming Dynasty.

Unfortunately, just a few years after China and Japan fought the Korean War, the Ming Dynasty monarchs and ministers were always wary of Japan. The Tokugawa shogunate had no choice but to continuously convey goodwill, and the relationship between the two countries gradually improved. However, every time there was a substantial breakthrough, the "Japanese pirates" would inevitably come out to cause trouble again, bringing the relationship between China and Japan to a freezing point immediately.

Historically, Japan tended to support the Southern Ming Dynasty and disliked the Tatar barbarians emerging from the ravines. There is also the influence of the Ming Dynasty survivors, including Zhu Shunshui. Many Ming Dynasty survivors took refuge in Japan and even became lecturers in the shogunate, constantly instilling the cruelty, barbarism, and unfaithfulness of the Manchus.

This influence was so far-reaching that the Japanese martial arts of all dynasties did not recognize the Manchu Qing Dynasty as the Chinese orthodoxy, and certainly did not accept Japan as a vassal state of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Therefore, in the Qing Dynasty, Japan has always been China's "mutual trading country", which means equal status in doing business.

The Manchu Qing Dynasty wanted to take Japan into a vassal state. They showed goodwill as soon as they entered the customs and returned shipwrecked Japanese many times. However, the Tokugawa shogunate did not appreciate it at all, and still regarded the Manchus as barbarians, and even regarded Japan as Little China.

Now that the new dynasty of Datong has been established, the two countries do not have much grudges. The Tokugawa shogunate took the initiative to ask for the title a few years ago.

Liu Xiangke stood at the bow of the boat, smiling and clasping his hands, pointing to the shore and saying, "Your Majesty, please take a look."

Lin Efeng's expression was very embarrassing, because the Datong Army on the shore was withdrawing its troops, but the people around Tsurumaru City were kneeling and begging the Datong Army to stay.

What is this all about?

In fact, it's not that mysterious, and don't talk about the love between the military and civilians. Up to this point, the Datong Army was only dealing fairly with the people. Not only did they not burn, kill, and loot, they were also maintaining public order in the castle town.

And these actions are enough to make the local people return home!

What's more, the Datong Army once gave food to the people here and paid local women to help the soldiers wash their clothes. These are real benefits, especially for the five hundred women who were washing clothes. Their whole families came and knelt on the dock, crying and begging the Datong Army to stay.

Lin Efeng had been familiar with Confucian classics since he was a child. At this moment, he said with embarrassment: "He is a true teacher of benevolence and righteousness. The people are eating pots of pulp to retain Master Wang, and today we know that it is not an empty talk."

The wild warriors who had defected to the Datong Army were all kneeling now.

Miyazaki Shiro climbed up to Li Dingguo, hugged the thigh of Tang Guo Wushuang, and cried: "General, please take us away, we will be the general's loyal dogs for generations to come!"

Guitou Forty-eight kept kneeling on the shore, kowtowing to Li Dingguo.

Li Dingguo accepted these people just to facilitate the war, and he had no right to bring them back home. Seeing that the other party was so humble and loyal, he was inevitably a little moved and said: "Shimazu family samurai, many of them died in this battle. I have recommended you to the current family governor, and the Shimazu family governor also agreed. You can all be his samurai from now on." "

Miyazaki Shiro said: "We only want to be the general's samurai!"

The benefits of fighting with the Datong Army are better than being a samurai of the Shimazu family, and they also want to use this opportunity to become famous.

Li Dingguo said: "Well, there are some surplus cotton armors in the army. Each of you will be given one pair as a gift. Maybe it is too generous, so you can find craftsmen to make it smaller by yourself. As for the weapons and horses, I have no right to decide what to reward you. Everyone. Farewell!"

More than twenty sets of cotton armor were moved from the ship and given to these wild warriors.

The wild warriors were happy and excited when they got the cotton armor, and at the same time they respected Li Dingguo even more. Even after Li Dingguo had boarded the ship, they were still kneeling on the shore, crying and kowtowing.

Returning to Fuzhou, the Japanese envoy followed Liu Xiangke to Nanjing to meet with the emperor.

Li Dingguo rested in Fuzhou while replenishing casualties nearby. In fact, there were not many casualties. More than ten people died, and more than ten people were forced to retire due to serious injuries.

Next, Li Dingguo will go to Hainan Island to familiarize himself with the tropical climate for two months.

The two Guangxi divisions of Liu Xinyu and Ding Jiasheng will also go to the Vietnam border to display troops. At that time, the three divisions will attack Vietnam together.

As for Huang Yao, he led a division to sit in Yunnan to prevent anyone from taking the opportunity to cause chaos, and he could rush to the Vietnam battlefield to support at any time.

On the way back to Beijing, Lin Efeng took the initiative to chat with Liu Xiangke, wanting to test China's attitude.

Liu Xiangke said with a smile: "The shogunate issued a trade order. This is Japan's internal affairs. Our country will not interfere. However, the general of the shogunate may shoot himself in the foot. Qian Ming is familiar with this kind of thing. very."

"Oh, it's true!" Lin Efeng sighed with emotion.

However, it was Zhao Han who encouraged sea trade, which led to more and more merchant ships heading to Japan, which far exceeded the number of foodies in the shogunate.

Although the shogunate conducted trade through wealthy merchants from the three capitals, not all wealthy merchants from the three capitals could participate. You must have a good relationship with the shogunate to get an official license, and the amount of food these wealthy businessmen can eat is also limited.

Therefore, Tokugawa Iemitsu planned to set a trade volume and only allow a certain number of goods to be traded in Nagasaki each year.

This kind of thing has happened in history.

After Kangxi destroyed the Zheng family, he felt that there was money to be made from Sino-Japanese trade, so he issued the "Sea Exhibition Order", allowing ordinary people to go to sea for business. The number of Chinese merchant ships going to Nagasaki for trade increased several times.

The Tokugawa shogunate could not afford so many goods, so it immediately issued the "Charity Order", which stipulated annual trade quotas for Nagasaki: the total trade volume of Chinese merchant ships should not exceed 6,000 guan each year, and that of Dutch merchant ships should not exceed 3,000 guan.

In the early days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a guan was equivalent to about one tael of silver. 6,000 guan was estimated to be worth 7,500 taels of silver.

The annual trade volume between China and Japan is actually limited to 7,500 taels. Are you kidding me?

Those Chinese merchants who arrived too late to carry out official trade were naturally unable to ship their goods back. It will inevitably lead to large-scale smuggling, and the Tokugawa shogunate is equivalent to getting the Ming Dynasty's script. In addition, official trade also began to deceive and falsely report transaction amounts to the shogunate.

The Tokugawa shogunate immediately tightened control and did not set a certain amount of trade per year, instead stipulating that the annual Sino-Japanese trade amount should be 80 ships. After twenty years of this, due to the massive outflow of Japanese copper materials, the quota was reduced from 80 ships to 30 ships, and efforts were intensified to combat smuggling.

It is unknown how much Chinese maritime smuggling was at that time, but the Dutch East India Company had detailed accounts, which far exceeded the daily trade volume stipulated by the shogunate.

What really gave the Tokugawa shogunate peace of mind was that the Qing Dynasty itself began to implement maritime bans.

Kangxi stipulated four major treaty ports. In fact, there were more than 100 treaty ports at that time, and the coastal provinces did not strictly control maritime trade. Qianlong was so powerful that he closed all the seas and was only allowed to go to sea from Guangzhou. In fact, it was to imitate Japan and leave only one trading port to facilitate the court's control.

Now that China's maritime trade is booming, the stricter the shogunate's regulations are, the more rampant the smuggling trade will be in the future.

What's more, the Hirado and Satsuma clans still had to pay huge war reparations. Even if they risk committing seppuku, they will still support smuggling so that they can pay off the compensation as soon as possible. Could the shogunate still provoke a war because of this?

After arriving in Shanghai to change ships, Liu Xiangke and the Japanese envoys took the opportunity to disembark and rest.

Liu Xiangke went straight to the Shanghai Post and said to the newspaper seller: "Give me a copy of all the official newspapers in the past few months."

The "Datong Monthly" that cannot be sold out that month can continue to be sold at the post station and will be taken back to the central government after three months.

The postman smiled and said: "It just so happens that the superiors haven't come to collect the newspapers yet. There are all the newspapers from the past three months."

Lin Efeng followed Liu Xiangke, but he didn't know what "Datong Monthly" was, so he also bought three newspapers.

The first newspaper was published before Li Dingguo led his army to sea, and it was particularly thick than before. It actually used five pages to print territorial maps of Han, Tang, Yuan, Ming and Tong.

As a map template, use the "Kanyu Wanguoquantu" from the Wanli period to intercept that part of Asia, and then draw the territory of China through the ages based on historical data.

None of these could be printed with movable type, and all were made by craftsmen.

The territory of the Han and Tang Dynasties was extremely vast!

The territory of the New Dynasty of Datong seemed very small, with only Liaoning in the northeast, Yanshan in Hebei, Hetao and the Western Regions were not incorporated, and even Qinghai and Tibet were marked as the territory of Gushi Khan.

Lin Efeng compared the five maps repeatedly and suddenly felt inexplicable fear.

Do you have to guess what the Chinese emperor’s idea was when he published and distributed the territorial maps of past dynasties to the world?

Liu Xiangke was smiling all over his face. He could imagine how readers across the country would react when this issue of the newspaper was released.

Liu Xiangke opened the second newspaper. This time there was only a map, but it was an abbreviated version of "The Complete Map of Kanyu and Ten Thousand Kingdoms". Most readers across the country had never had access to world maps before, and for the first time they learned about the vastness of the world through newspapers.

Opening the latest issue of the newspaper, there are no maps, only excerpts from the "Datong Constitution" and reports of the Tatong Army sending troops to Ryukyu.

Liu Xiangke read an excerpt from "The Constitution of Datong" and was stunned after reading only a few paragraphs. He subconsciously turned around to look at Lin Efeng.

Lin Efeng was still looking at the world map, and it was not until he returned to the ship that he read an excerpt from the "Constitution of Datong". After being stunned, he sighed: "He is indeed a heroic figure. As soon as the Constitution came out, the world became a world of great strife! "

The butt determines the head. These two Confucian diplomats unanimously set their sights on the content of the Constitution that encourages foreign development.