Chapter 49: Acting General of the World
"Are you afraid?"
Hearing that Naohide was still teasing, Oguri Tadashi couldn't help but get furious.
However, since the spring of the first year of Keio last year (1865), he was promoted and demoted secretly because of his proposal to "return the original territory". After he was transferred from the appointed envoy and the foreign envoy to the Edo Minami-machi envoy, his temper has calmed down a lot.
So after Oguri snorted, he waited quietly for Naohide's next words - if you can't tell me one, two, three, four, I will ask Daozi to find Eiko to sue you, and make your backyard grape trellis completely fall down!
Naoxiu looked at his friend's anxious look and couldn't help but sigh. If they hadn't known each other for more than 20 years, he would really have thought that the other person was a drama queen:
Emperor Fuso is dead, and you, the Edo Minami Town, are being punished!
Besides, brother, you are like this. You have been removed from the "yet another" vanguard of the New Deal reform. Why are you still thinking about it?
Thinking of this, even though he thought his friend was stupid, Naohide couldn't help but admire his courage.
In the spring of the first year of Keio (1865), after submitting the "Recommendation for Fusang Propagation and Industrial Development" two years ago, Oguri Tadatsun brazenly wrote to the central government of the shogunate, proposing to "return the original territory."
What is "return of original claim"?
Isn’t the flag of the shogunate as high as the hereditary stone? Everyone has a book of knowledge and deeds in their hands. However, the shogunate has continued to take away power for two hundred years. Today, the territory of the flag of less than 500 stone is actually long gone. They are all acting officials.
In management, just sit and wait for decimeters every year.
Moreover, even for direct-sense flags of more than 500 koku, because all flags are required to live in Edo and are not allowed to leave except for official duties, there are also many generals who are entrusted with the management of acting officers - all over the world, and it is inconvenient for them to return to their posts.
Rather than letting the retainers fiddle around, it would be better to hand it over to the shogunate, which would not guarantee the harvest despite droughts and floods.
The "return of original territories" proposed by Oguri is to return all the flags and lands to their original owners. Whose land should be managed by whoever owns it.
Once this proposal was presented, it immediately caused an uproar:
Although not everyone is opposed to it, most of the more than 10,000 banners are extremely angry about it!
In fact, Oguri made it very clear in Jianbai that "returning the original leader" has several benefits:
First, because of the boiling prices, there are real riots in various parts of the imperial territory.
Therefore, after a large number of bannermen are restored to their original duties, the shogunate's local manpower and force will increase, which can play a role in stabilizing the four sides.
The second thing is that in Edo, most of the flags were flashy, and they lost the character of the samurai family.
Even if I can't cheer up immediately after returning home this time, I can still learn something useful if I start running my own territory.
Finally, Oguri bluntly pointed out that from the Tenpo Reform (1841-1843), the Ansei Reform (1854-1857), the Bunkyu Reform (1862-1863), until the colonization officially started in the first year of Yuanji (1864),
In order to promote industry and industry, the shogunate repeatedly requested to reduce redundant labor and conserve finances, but because the flag base was concentrated in Edo, it made every step difficult.
Is Oguri right?
At the very least, Naohide and other reformist ministers thought it was right.
If we make an analogy, the samurai, a specialty of Fuso, are basically no different from the Western aristocrats or the Eight Banners disciples of the Qing Dynasty.
Big airs, lots of pomp and show, even if it cannot be said that all banners are like this, but 80% of the time they will not be able to escape.
And because of the large base and deep connections, even though the shogunate mentioned the selection of talented people in many reforms, in the end, most of the positions still fell into the hands of these people.
In fact, it would be impossible not to give these dandies a service position. There are more than 10,000 banners, and several times that number of children, and they all claim that they have shed blood and sweat for the Tokugawa family for hundreds of years. Not only is it difficult to shirk from the logic, but
And it doesn’t make sense from a procedural point of view – if we don’t select candidates for service from among the top samurai banners, wouldn’t the foundation of the Tokugawa family be shaken? Where is the decree of heavenly law?
Of course, now that the West is encroaching on a large scale, capable imperial family members and even ordinary townsfolk, businessmen, craftsmen, and ordinary people have become successful. For example, a second half like Naohide has also risen to the top.
However, one stinky fish can turn a pot of soup into a fishy mess, not to mention there are more stinky fish than fresh fish in the pot, so everything is difficult to do.
Xiaoli has endured this for a long time, but she really can’t bear it.
It’s unbearable:
As the head of Nagasaki, he presided over the secret trade of "Exchanging Fuso Gold for Overseas Silver". At that time, he made a profit of 2.55 million natural deposits, which is equivalent to 8.5 million Wanyan small deposits today!
Even if it is converted into pounds, it is still 2.05 million. How much can this do?
But in the end, even though the elders Jingyi, Oguri and others at the time were strictly guarded, 35% of the money was still misappropriated under clever pretexts, and those who subsidized it were the families of various banners - if you have money, you can't work hard, so give out more rewards and use it as cash.
Let a few more children serve as officials, build a few more palaces, open a few more general invitation projects to feed the gods and gods, and the money will just flow out.
In addition, in order to quell the dispute with the Lu people, the elder Jingyi handed over Yingfo and paid compensation, and a total of 1 million was spent on natural insurance.
It was a pity that he had worked so hard to get this money, even when the port was about to open, and he did not hesitate to cause turmoil in gold, silver and copper. As a result, in December of the first year of Wenjiu (1861), he led a team on an envoy to Europe to prepare to buy warships.
When I bought the machinery, I only had more than 20% left, equivalent to less than 500,000 pounds!
In this way, what finally fell into the hands of the mission was only 100,000 pounds. Isn't this funny? Even if you don't save one out of ten, it should be 200,000 pounds.
Moreover, this kind of thing became more and more excessive after that.
The new shogunate army established by Bunkyu's reforms later took the bayonet on the rifle as an example. One-third of the purchase cost was actually a kickback to the samurai in charge of the shogunate. As a result, all the bayonets were crudely made and could not be used at all.
However, his good friend Fu Komai Asahan, who helped him investigate the matter, was surprised to be transferred. Later, he only punished a few pawns and then let it go.
After the "Aoi Festival Incident" in April of the first year of Yuanji (1864), the shogunate, which had the upper hand, accelerated the pace of colonization and industrial development. Therefore, Oguri Tadjun could not tolerate these flags of vegetarian meals:
In order to raise funds, the shogunate not only levied taxes on various wealthy merchants, but also increased taxes on the townspeople and ordinary people.
Moreover, in order to unite the princes, many projects also opened their channels to raise funds from them.
This is going to be messed up. Not to mention that the Oguri family who initiated this matter will be shattered into pieces, I am afraid that the foundation of the shogunate will also be greatly shaken.
Therefore, Oguri wrote a letter asking for the "return of the original leader", hoping to take the opportunity to eliminate a large number of redundant servants to improve efficiency and at the same time reduce the personnel expenditure of the shogunate.
At that time, Naohide tried hard to dissuade him, but his friend looked impassioned and didn't stop him - Oguri and his father Tadaka became seriously ill due to anger and almost didn't survive.
As a result, Oguri was relieved, but later he was transferred from the designation department. Although the position of the Edo Minami Town department was higher, who doesn't understand the rise and fall?
If it weren't for the concern that he was a leader in promoting industrial development, I'm afraid Oguri would have been relegated to another category.
Moreover, this incident also aroused the vigilance of many ministers about the establishment of colonial industry and reform.
In addition, after the "Aoi Matsuri Incident" the previous year, the shogunate regained the upper hand on the surface. After this difficult situation has passed, it is inevitable that some people will have other ideas.
Therefore, after this incident, the reformers began to change from being proud to being passive - the so-called reformers were the name given to the forces supporting this matter by all parties in Fusang after the "Fusang Proposal for Promoting Industrial Development" was formally proposed in the third year of Wenjiu (1863).
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Qingyong, the leader of the reformists and political president, began to lose his status as the leader of the party. Although he was still nominally inferior to ten thousand people, the people below him worked against each other, and he was mostly helpless.
Originally, after the "Aoi Matsuri Incident", Shogun Iemoge had an unusual attitude toward the Reformers' followers, and the shogunate also had high hopes for the Reformers, which resulted in a very good situation that year:
Shimazu Saibin, who has always firmly supported the shogunate's "national participation", was appointed by the shogunate as the first "big boss" of the external vassal. After the merger of the public and military forces, the road to the integration of the shogunate and shogunate was opened.
As for political president Keinaga's schemer, Yokoi Tokitomi, his idea of entering the Sozoin was also successfully passed. From then on, each domain could send powerful people to participate in political discussions in Edo. Compared with the previous superficial curtain
The feudal chief judged that entering the memorial hall made the voices of the princes, especially the outsiders, much louder.
Moreover, the shogunate also began to drastically break down barriers and invited princes to recommend talented people for middle and low-level service positions.
For example, Naohide's Kan
That's how it comes about.
The straight show was selected because of his special status:
Originally, Naohide was the Tokugawa family's daihaitamoto. Although his son Shigetoshi later established the country as a white master of the Matsudaira family, his status as an odaikanhamon was retained by the shogunate as a traditional means of beauty.
Although Naohide's main job was to coordinate the feudal princes and families to cooperate with the shogunate in the establishment of industries, many secrets were not allowed to be shared, and he had to bring his own beanbags - donations from Shiro's Matsumae family to the shogunate. These expenses were comparable to what Naohide received.
The labor costs are much higher.
But in any case, Naohide, as the de facto "Goreneda Daimyo" aide, was able to deeply participate in the shogunate affairs, which was undoubtedly the beginning of the integration of the shogunate and feudal lords.
Isn't there a saying that says everything is difficult at the beginning, so a thousand gold buys horse bones.
Although no one in the daimyō or even the daimyō's accompaniment could reach such a high position as Naohide at that time, everyone at that time believed that the Fuso Unanimity proposed by the shogunate was definitely not an empty talk.
Even because Naohide was a different kind of appointing official, in addition to the imperial leader of the shogunate, he was responsible for coordinating the economic affairs of all Fuso regions. At that time, some people called Naohide the "general agent of the world."
The situation at that time was so good that the princes who were close to the shogunate even proposed in the Jinzouyuan that each family's customs office should be abolished as soon as possible, and each family within Fuso would not tax each other!
However, in the spring of the first year of Keio (1865), Oguri Tadjun proposed to "return the original territory", and this promising situation began to be suppressed:
First, the shogunate began to become more wary of the reformists.
For example, the decline in the prestige of political president Qingyong is just a representative of various uncooperative people.
Secondly, many ministers began to reject external officials.
These shogunate ministers began to exclude a small number of accompanying ministers from various families who entered the shogunate in the name of being unable to guarantee their loyalty if they were not under the banner.
Moreover, the attack was very broad. Not only were the ministers of foreign princes not allowed to smoke, but also the ministers of the vassal family, Yulianzhi and genealogy were also discriminated against in various ways.
As for attracting new people to join the shogunate to govern, it has become even more difficult.
For example, the original president of the Yokohama Quanye Bank, which was making a lot of money every day, was Keinaga's confidant Hachiro Mikaoka.
However, under the operation of the ministers with good intentions, through the new investment of wealthy businessmen, Migan was actually sidelined. It was difficult for these people to understand the concept of Western directors, which caused Migan to be overwhelmed by the board of directors formed by gods from all walks of life.
As for the Yokosuka Iron Works jointly operated by the Tokugawa clan, it escaped the disaster.
This is because the second world economic crisis had begun to take shape in 1867. Starting from 1864, the British vigorously suppressed the American shipbuilding industry.
Therefore, the Vanderbilt family began to shrink ship manufacturing. After persuasion, they transferred two shipyards and a large number of machinery to Fuso and began to sell them to Yokosuka Steel.
As the Mi Ren minister, Little Vanderbilt, he expressed his concern about this matter. No matter what the reason was, no one would dare to cause trouble for Suga Iron Works.
But these dissatisfactions are all Oguri Tadashi's fault.
Although even if he did not propose the "return of the original territory" in the spring of 1865, as the shogunate and feudal lords merged and colonial industry advanced, all kinds of internal strife would accumulate due to conflicts of power and interests.
But at that time, Oguri didn't listen to Naohide's advice and waited for the opportunity to take revenge. Naohide had been waiting for a long time - it was not because he was grudged, but because he was afraid.
Oguri is so daring, if you don't teach him a lesson, you won't be able to expose him in the future!
Naohide remembered that Oguri later supported a large loan from the French, but the French broke the contract at the critical moment, and the Tokugawa shogunate was completely ensnared.
Now that Emperor Fuso, who had always favored the integration of public and military affairs, has passed away, and in the second year of Keio (1866), Fuso has begun to be in turmoil again. Oguri is worried about the future of the shogunate, so he cannot sit still at the end of the year, so he goes to the well-informed
Find solace here.
If you don't tease him and say "I'm afraid" at this time, I'm afraid there will be no chance in the future.
To be honest, the current situation of Fuso is much better than what Naohsiu knows.
Chapter completed!