I

  Chapter 642 639 [Promulgation of the Constitution]

  Lin Efeng came to Kagoshima again on behalf of the shogunate.

  He took a whole delegation of envoys to China with the ship, and went to Nanjing to meet the emperor. It is nothing more than reconfirming the relationship between the two countries, clarifying this misunderstanding, and intending to set an annual Sino-Japanese transaction limit.

  Japan is a vassal state of Ming Dynasty, there is no doubt about it.

  During the period of Emperor Jianwen, the Muromachi shogunate held a grand reception ceremony at Kinkakuji Temple in Kitayama, Kyoto, officially accepting the imperial edict of Ming Dynasty.

  After Zhu Di ascended the throne, the Muromachi shogunate took the initiative to send envoys to congratulate him, and in the letter of credence, he called himself "the source of the king of Japan". The following year, Zhu Di sent an envoy to Japan, recanonized, and bestowed the "King of Japan" with a turtle-shaped golden seal. In order to show their sincerity, the Muromachi shogunate steamed and killed more than 20 Japanese pirate leaders in front of the Ming envoy.

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

   It's a pity that, a few years after the Korean War between China and Japan, the emperors and ministers of the Ming Dynasty have always been wary of Japan. The Tokugawa shogunate had no choice but to continue to convey goodwill, and the relationship between the two countries was improving day by day, but every time there was a substantive breakthrough, the "Japanese pirates" would inevitably come out again to make trouble, and the relationship between China and Japan immediately dropped to a freezing point.

  Historically, Japan tended to support Nanming, and was very disgusted with the Tartar barbarians emerging from the valley. There is also the influence of Ming Dynasty survivors, including Zhu Shunshui, many Ming Dynasty survivors took refuge in Japan, and even became lecturers for the shogunate, continuously instilling cruelty, barbarism, and unfaithfulness in the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

  This kind of influence is very far-reaching. The Japanese samurai of all dynasties did not recognize the Manchu Qing as the orthodox Chinese, and of course they did not accept Japan as a vassal state of the Manchu Qing.

  So in the Qing Dynasty, Japan has always been China's "mutual market country", which means doing business on an equal footing.

  The Qing Dynasty wanted to accept Japan as a vassal state, and immediately released its goodwill when it entered the customs, and returned the Japanese who had been shipwrecked many times. But the Tokugawa shogunate didn't appreciate it at all, and still regarded the Manchus as barbarians, and even regarded Japan as a small China.

   Now that the Datong New Dynasty has been established, the two countries have no great grievances. The Tokugawa shogunate took the initiative to invite the seal a few years ago.

  Liu Xiangke stood at the bow of the boat, smiled, pointed at the shore with his hands behind his hands, and said, "Your envoy, please watch it."

  Lin Efeng's expression was very embarrassing, because the Datong Army on the shore was withdrawing troops, but the people around Tsurumaru City knelt down and begged the Datong Army to stay.

   What is this all about?

   Actually, it’s not that mysterious, let’s not talk about military and civilian fish and water. Up to this point, the Datong Army had only traded fairly with the common people. Not only did they not burn, kill or loot, but they also maintained the law and order in the city town.

   And these behaviors are enough to make the local people return to their hearts!

   What's more, the Datong Army once gave porridge here to help the people, and spent money to ask local women to help the soldiers wash clothes. These are real benefits, especially for the five hundred laundry women whose whole family came to kneel on the pier, crying and begging for the Datong Army to stay.

  Lin Efeng has been familiar with Confucian classics since he was a child. At this moment, he said with shame: "The teacher of true benevolence and righteousness. The common people eat pots and milk to keep the king's teacher. Today we know that it is not a lie."

  Those wild warriors who took refuge in the Datong Army are now kneeling together.

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

  Ghost Forty-eight, on the other hand, knelt on the shore, kowtowing to Li Dingguo non-stop.

   Li Dingguo accepted these people for the convenience of fighting, and he has no right to bring them back to the country. Seeing that the other party was so humble and loyal, it was inevitable that he was a little moved and said, "The Shimadzu family samurai suffered a lot of casualties this time. I have recommended you to the current family governor, and the Shimadzu family governor has also agreed. You can all be his samurai from now on. "

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

   Fighting with the Datong Army, the treatment is better than being a samurai of the Shimadzu family. They still want to use this to make a fortune.

Li Dingguo said: "Well, there are some extra cotton armors in the army, and each of you will give you a pair. Maybe it's too lenient. You can find a craftsman to modify it yourself. As for weapons and horses, I have no right to decide and reward you. Ladies and gentlemen Farewell!"

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

  While the field warriors got the cotton armor, they were happy and excited, and at the same time, they respected Li Dingguo even more. Until Li Dingguo boarded the boat, they were still kneeling on the shore, crying and kowtowing.

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

  Li Dingguo rested in Fuzhou, and at the same time replenished casualties nearby. In fact, the number of casualties was not many. More than a dozen died successively, and more than a dozen were forced to leave the army due to serious injuries.

   Next, Li Dingguo will go to Hainan Island, where he will get familiar with the tropical climate for two months.

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

  As for Huang Yao, he will lead a division to sit in Yunnan to prevent people from taking the opportunity to cause chaos, and he can go 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 the attitude of the Chinese side.

Liu Xiangke said with a smile: "The trade order issued by the shogunate is Japan's internal affairs, and our country will not interfere. But, the general of the shogunate may shoot himself in the foot. This kind of thing is familiar to the former Ming Dynasty. very."

   "Oh, that's true!" Lin Efeng was very emotional.

   It was Zhao Han who encouraged maritime trade, which led to more and more merchant ships going to Japan, which far exceeded the amount of goods eaten by the shogunate.

  Although the shogunate conducts trade through wealthy merchants in Sandu, not all wealthy merchants in Sandu can participate. You must have a good relationship with the shogunate in order to obtain an official license, and the amount of food these wealthy merchants have is limited.

  Therefore, Tokugawa Iemitsu intends to set the trade volume, and only how many goods are allowed to be traded in Nagasaki each year.

   This kind of thing has happened in history.

   After Kangxi destroyed the Zheng family, he felt that Sino-Japanese trade was profitable, so he promulgated the "Maritime Expansion Order", allowing ordinary people to go to sea to do business, and the number of Chinese merchant ships going to Nagasaki for trade increased several times.

  The Tokugawa shogunate could not eat so much goods, and immediately promulgated the "Order of Chastity", stipulating the annual Nagasaki trade quota: the total trade volume of Chinese merchant ships shall not exceed 6,000 kans per year, and the Dutch merchant ships shall not exceed 3,000 kans.

  In the early days of the Tokugawa shogunate, the consistency was roughly equal to more than one tael of silver, and the 6,000 guan was estimated to have 7,500 taels of silver.

  The annual trade volume between China and Japan is actually limited to 7,500 taels. Is this just kidding everyone?

  Those Chinese merchants who went too late to carry out official trade, naturally it was impossible to ship the goods back. It will inevitably lead to large-scale smuggling, and the Tokugawa shogunate is equivalent to getting the script of Ming Dynasty. Moreover, the official trade also began to falsify, deceiving the shogunate and falsely reporting the transaction amount.

  The Tokugawa shogunate immediately strengthened its control, and did not stipulate the annual transaction volume. Instead, it stipulated that the annual trade between China and Japan should be 80 ships. Over the past 20 years, due to the large outflow of Japanese copper materials, the limit of 80 ships has been reduced to 30 ships, and at the same time, efforts have been stepped up to combat smuggling.

   At that time, the amount of smuggling by Chinese maritime merchants was unknown, but the Dutch East India Company had detailed accounts, which far exceeded the Japanese-Dutch trade volume stipulated by the shogunate.

   What really relieved the Tokugawa shogunate was that the Qing Dynasty itself began to impose sea 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 of them and only allowed to go to sea from Guangzhou. In fact, it is to imitate Japan, leaving only one treaty port for the convenience of the imperial court to control.

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

   What's more, Hirado and Satsuma have to pay huge war reparations. Even if they take the risk of harakiri, they will support smuggling, so that the compensation can be paid off as soon as possible. Can the shogunate still start a war because of this?

  Arrived 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 office, and said to the postman who sold the newspaper: "Give me a copy of the official newspapers for 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 returned to the central government after three months.

  The postman said with a smile: "It just so happens that the superiors haven't come to take back the newspapers, and they have all the newspapers in the last three months."

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

  The first newspaper was published before Li Dingguo led his army to sea, and it was much thicker than before. It actually took five pages to print the territory maps of Han, Tang, Yuan, Ming, and Tong.

  The map template, using the "Kan Yu Wan Guo Quan Tu" in the Wanli period, intercepted the part of Asia, and then drew the territory of China in the past dynasties according to historical materials.

   These cannot be printed with movable type, and all of them are engraved by craftsmen.

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

  The territory of the Datong New Dynasty appears to be 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 Gushhan.

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

  The emperor of China published the map of the territory of the past dynasties and distributed it to the world. Do you have to guess what it is?

  Liu Xiangke was all smiles. He could imagine how scholars across the country would react when this issue of the newspaper was released.

  Liu Xiangke opened the second newspaper again. This time there was only a map, but it was the abbreviated version of "The Complete Map of the World". Most of the scholars in the country did not have access to the world map before. For the first time, they knew the vastness of the world through newspapers.

   Open the latest issue of the newspaper again. There is no map, only excerpts from the "Datong Constitution" and reports that the Datong Army sent troops to Ryukyu.

  Liu Xiangke read an excerpt from the "Constitution of Great Harmony", and was stunned after reading only a few paragraphs. He subconsciously turned to look at Lin Efeng.

Lin Efeng was still flipping through the world map until he got back to the boat and finally read an excerpt from the "Constitution of Great Harmony". After being stunned, he sighed: "As expected of a generation of heroes, once the "Constitution" comes out, the world will be a world of great struggle! "

  The **** decides the head. These two Confucian diplomats, by coincidence, set their sights on the content that the Constitution encourages to open up to the outside world.

  (end of this chapter)