On November 8, 1790, after a week of continuous sailing, the southward fleet of the Northern Navy arrived in the waters of eastern Fujian and Zhejiang. Of course it was very close to Ryukyu, so close that Deng Fei felt that he would be sorry if he did not go there.
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His idea was strongly supported by Zhao Xin, who was thousands of miles away. Zhao Xin's original words in the telegram were, it's always good to take a look! If you can borrow a piece of land to use as a transit base for going south in the future, then
More perfect.
In another time and space, there was a theory that Ryukyu once escaped the control of the Satsuma clan by surrendering to the Manchus. Unfortunately, this is just the imagination of some people.
In fact, the Ryukyu Kingdom is closer to the island country than ancient China. The dispute between the Ryukyu Kingdom and the Satsuma Domain began in the early 16th century. As the saying goes, a poor man meets a hungry ghost, and they get together.
As early as the era of King Shoei in the 16th century, the Ryukyu Kingdom had borrowed money from the Satsuma Domain. However, because Ryukyu was too poor, the loans were often unpaid. There was once a national loan of 250 kiwi, and the Satsuma Domain suddenly sent someone to ask for it.
I didn't come back five times.
According to the records of "Zhongshan Genealogy", in 1562, 1579, and 1606, the Ming court sent envoys to seal Ryukyu three times. As a result, ships from the island countries swarmed in after hearing the news and clashed with the sealing fleet. The Kingdom of Ryukyu didn't give a damn.
If you dare to let one go, you can see how afraid it is.
Beginning in 1593, Ryukyu, under the intimidation of Monkey Hideyoshi, sent Aya ships to send half of the domestic grain and grass to Southern Kyushu in lieu of sending troops to assist in the attack on the Li Dynasty. In the thirty-seventh year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1609), due to
Ryukyu refused to help the island country restart trade with the Ming Dynasty, and the poor Satsuma domain had long coveted Ryukyu trade, so it used this as an excuse to launch an aggressive war, known in history as the "Battle of Keicho Ryukyu".
On September 19, the 39th year of Wanli (an auspicious day!), King Shonin and his ministers were forced to sign the "Fifteen Articles" with the Satsuma Domain in Kagoshima. From then on, the Satsuma Domain controlled the foreign trade of the Ryukyu Kingdom.
and internal affairs, even weights and measures were switched to those of the island country, and since then the latter has become a vassal of the Satsuma Domain.
After the Manchus entered the customs, starting from the third year of Shunzhi, Ryukyu began to request the Qing government for canonization. In the eleventh year of Shunzhi, King Shangzhi sent envoys to Fujian and handed over the imperial seal of the Ming Dynasty before he was canonized.
He was the King of Zhongshan. Since the war along the coast had not yet ended, the envoy was forced to stay in Fujian. It was not until the second year of Kangxi that he officially became a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty.
You must know that a vassal state is very different from a vassal state. A vassal state is not subject to the suzerain state in terms of domestic affairs, diplomacy and economy, and only expresses submission in name. A vassal state refers to a state that retains certain sovereignty in name, but actually maintains a certain degree of sovereignty in internal affairs, foreign affairs and foreign affairs.
To a certain extent, it is subordinate and controlled by other countries in terms of economy and economy.
Since the Momoyama period of the island country, the Ryukyu Kingdom has to hand over thousands of koku of rice to the poor Satsuma every year, and it also has to bear half of the expenses of the Shimadzu family's garrison on Amami Oshima. In order to profit from Ryukyu's trade with China, the Satsuma clan has
And because they were afraid that China would question them, they tried their best to conceal the truth about the invasion of Ryukyu. On the one hand, Ryukyu was afraid of offending the Satsuma clan, and on the other hand, it was afraid that the Manchus would cut off trade between the two sides because of this incident, so they also helped cover up the truth.
This means that Ryukyu is not only a vassal state under the Chinese canonization system, but also a vassal state of the Satsuma Domain under the Japanese shogunate system. It is called "two vassals" in a good way, but "riding on the wall" in a bad way.
The relationship between China and Ryukyu during the Qing Dynasty can be summarized as a close and friendly sect-vassal relationship. Compared with other sects and vassals, there was never any territorial dispute. For about two hundred years, although there were celestial dynasties and vassal-states,
However, the Manchu Qing Dynasty had no intention and never actually interfered in Ryukyu's internal affairs.
It is precisely because of this that the Ming and Qing dynasties only exerted a subtle and superficial political influence on Ryukyu. Similarly, the impact of Chinese culture on Ryukyu people's ideology, behavioral patterns and lifestyles was also extremely superficial.
Historically, until the 1870s, the Manchus were not aware of the fact that the Ryukyu Islands were two islands. By the time later Chinese people realized the importance of the Ryukyu Islands, they had been ruled by the island nation for more than 300 years.
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Because of its poor products, Ryukyu relied heavily on intermediary sea trade. The purpose of becoming a vassal state of China was to pursue "tributary trade." They would send the goods they received as tribute to overseas countries for trade, and then purchase goods from Southeast Asian countries.
Shipped to China for tributary trade again. For the vassal states surrounding ancient China, economic and political interests were the purpose of tribute and canonization.
Although Taizu of the Ming Dynasty had given the Ryukyu Fujian people thirty-six surnames who were good at boating, those people were loyal to the Shang family after all. Even if the Chinese in Kume Village could become the first-class Sansiguan, they could not completely control it after all.
North Korea Bureau.
In the thirty-seventh year of Wanli, Zheng Jiong, a third-level officer who was born in Kume, led an armed resistance and was eventually captured by the Satsuma Domain. The Satsuma Domain sent him to Kagoshima for residential surveillance. During his imprisonment, Zheng Jiong also passed through a prison in Nagasaki.
A famous businessman wrote to the Ryukyu Museum, asking him to forward it to the then governor of Fujian, begging the Ming court to send troops to rescue. As a result, the businessman met the Ryukyu mission on the way to Beijing, and finally sold the secret letter to the uncle of the Ryukyu king at a high price.
Mao Andun and Yu Meiyu from Naha handed over to Satsuma Domain.
Two years later, the Satsuma clan took the captured Ryukyu monarchs to Daxingji Temple and forced them to sign a surrender letter. Zheng Zong refused to sign the surrender letter. The Shimazu family was so angry that they finally cooked Zheng Zong in a cauldron...
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Three years ago, in order to avenge Date Shigemura, the patriarch of the family, the Sendai clan asked for help from Hokkai Town. After a great battle at Mount Hito, the previous patriarch of the clan, Shigehao Shimazu, the father-in-law of the Seago clan, died in the battle, and the successor clan leader, Shimazu Sai, abandoned the country.
He fled to Ryukyu. Of the twenty-one counties in Minami Kyushu, Sendai Clan took eighteen, while Hokkai Town took the three most important counties of Izuku, Isa and Hisikari.
Since then, the Shimazu family's six-hundred-year rule on Kyushu Island has collapsed, and the Sendai clan, with the support of Hokkaido Town, has officially turned against the Tokugawa shogunate.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Although the Shimadzu family was defeated in the island country, the skinny old bird is bigger than an ant after all. Unfortunately, Ryukyu is that ant. Back then, Tokugawa Ieyasu had acquiesced in Amami
The islands are the direct territory of the Shimazu family, and the Satsuma Domain has been cultivating them for nearly two hundred years. So Shimazu Sainobu took a group of retainers and fled to Michinoshima (Amami Oshima), and he also completely inherited
Satsuma Domain has a fleet of sixty Benzai ships.
Although Amami Oshima is larger than Lake Biwa and is large enough for Shimazu Sainobu to dominate, it is too close to Minami Kyushu. The straight-line distance is only more than 700 miles.
You can bring your fleet to kill them in minutes.
At first, Shimazu Sainobu asked Ryukyu merchants to negotiate with Date Muracho, and exchanged for handing over one thousand koku of rice and two thousand tons of brown sugar every year in exchange for an armistice. However, with the support of Beihai Town, Date Murachang scorned this, and I himself
Wouldn't it be nice to bring over the sugar cane fields and sell brown sugar? Besides, Beihai Town also promised to teach him the technology of refining white sugar.
So the exiles of the Shimadzu family thought together, forget it, hope that the shogunate will definitely have no chance, and continue running south. The next stop for this group of people was Okinawa, 1,200 miles away from southern Kyushu. Shimazu
His family had a military base in Naha Port, and Shimazu Sainobu planned to use force to force the monarchs and ministers of the Zhongshan Kingdom to control the Zhongshan Kingdom.
It is said that Ryukyu, which is isolated in the sea, has almost no external enemies except for the time when it was invaded by the Shimadzu family more than a hundred years ago. There has been no war for many years, and the military equipment is useless. After the remnants of the Shimazu family landed, the Zhongshan Kingdom had only a hundred or so royal palaces.
Guards, the common people only had wooden sticks, kitchen knives, hatchets and bamboo poles to defend themselves against the enemy. How the hell could they defeat a group of vicious exiled warriors?
From then on, the tragic era of the walled country began. In just half a year, King Shomu was completely ignored, and Shimazu Sainobu gradually ascended to the position of the Shadow King of Ryukyu.
Not only important departments such as the Prime Minister's Office, the Legal Affairs Bureau, the Tozhiguan, the Iron and Metallurgical Bureau, the Gold Mining Bureau, the Transportation Left Storehouse, the Transportation Right Storehouse, Guangfengcang, the Armament Department and even the following departments were controlled by Shimadzu's feudal lords.
Even royal institutions such as the inner palace, inner kitchen, and dining room are under control.
Although the Hokkai No. 1 has passed by Ryukyu twice this year, because it did not dock at the port and it was a sailing ship, the uninformed Shimazu family thought it was a ship belonging to foreigners.
But Shimazu Sainobu will never forget the blue and white Thor until his death. When the Northern Navy fleet passed through Sakurajima, it was the Thor that led the way.
So when the "Foresight Office" located southwest of Naha Port sent someone back to report that a huge white ship with the word "Thunder God" written on it was approaching the port with two large sailing ships, Shimazu announced
I was so scared that I almost peed, and then I became inexplicably sad and angry.
"I'm hiding so far away, you guys are trying to kill me all!"
However, the indignation was indignation. The Northern Navy was really not something that a defeated general like the Shimazu family could afford to offend. So if he couldn't afford to fight, he could always hide. So he first told his subordinates that they must control it.
King Shangmu and several ministers must not let them have contact with Beihai Town, and then led a group of personal warriors to Gaomiya Castle, twenty miles south of Shuri.
When the Thor and the two fleets of sailboats arrived at the sea five kilometers outside Naha Port, they did not break through forcefully, but waited for contact from Ryukyu.
King Shomu, who had been warned by Shimazu Sainobu, warned his officials to uphold the fine tradition of "gentleness, courtesy, thrift and concessions" and never offend the people of Beihai Town, otherwise it would be a disaster for the country.
Then the Prime Minister of the Ryukyu Kingdom appointed a third-rank official to Naha. This person was specifically responsible for conducting tribute trade with the Qing Dynasty. His name was Lin Shichang, a Kume native, and a descendant of the Fujianese with the thirty-sixth surname.
Some people say that the "Aragaki" surname of the later island country originated from the Lin family of Okinawa. However, in Chinese history, "Aragaki" was also one of the compound surnames; during the Ryukyu Kingdom period, there was a place on Okinawa called Aragaki, which was called "Aragaki" in Ryukyu dialect.
Arasaka".
After Lin Shichang boarded the ship and left Naha Port, the closer he got to the Northern Navy fleet, the wider his mouth opened, and the look of shock in his eyes became more intense. Just two 1,500-ton wind turbines
The sailing ship was big enough, and the Thor was even scarier. He had heard from the Shimadzu feudal lord that the whole body of the ship was made of fine iron, which was completely beyond his knowledge.
When he boarded the Thor with his two "envoys", his jaw dropped at the sight on the deck, his eyes were running wildly, and his legs were shaking a little.
This time the fleet went south. Although Deng Fei was responsible for all external negotiations and Wang Yuanfang was only responsible for combat, Wang Yuanfang was still very curious about Ryukyu, so he accompanied Deng Fei to receive him. When Lin Shichang arrived, he saw this man wearing a yellow hat.
He was wearing a round flat-topped silk hat, a dark blue robe, a red belt around his waist, and a pair of wooden clogs on his feet. The two men following behind him were only wearing bunting attire, with hair tied in their hair.
She has a bun and wears straw sandals on her feet.
Deng Fei and Wang Yuanfang looked at each other and said to themselves that although they were handed over to each other, this was not Hanfu. It seemed that they had been deceived by the rumors of the people in the power plant again.
After waiting for a long time, Lin Shichang finally realized his gaffe, so he blushed, smiled and cupped his hands at Deng Fei and Wang Yuanfang in front of him, and said in Mandarin with a Min and Zhejiang accent: "My official, the Ryukyu Kingdom is discussing
Doctor Lin Shichang. I wonder who you two are?"
"I am Deng Fei, the head of the navy in Beihai Town, and I am also the captain of this ship. This is Wang Yuanfang, the head of the army department in Beihai Town. We are passing through your country on our way south this time and made a special trip to visit."
Lin Shichang blinked and said in surprise: "Navy? Army?"
After listening to Deng Fei's explanation, Lin Shichang was even more frightened. He understood the official position of Dai Qing across from him, and thought to himself, okay! One of them is the admiral of the Navy, and the other is the chief military officer. However, how could he dare to mention Dai Qing?
He was afraid that the other party would use this as an excuse to find trouble, so he quickly said: "Although our country is small, we admire China. Since the Hongwu period of the previous Ming Dynasty, we have sent envoys to pay tribute, and we have had exchanges with the Central Plains. We have been a vassal of the Ming Dynasty for a long time."
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "Oh," Deng Fei suddenly asked with a smile on his face: "Then what is the status of the Shimazu family in your place?"
"Uh..." Lin Shichang thought to himself, "How come this guy doesn't open the pot?" However, he was already prepared and said with a smile: "Although the Shimazu family has perished, they have been in contact with our country for many years. I, Wang Lian,
Please don't be offended by the fact that he was given an island to stay temporarily."
Deng Fei nodded after hearing this and didn't take it seriously. Because he wanted to set up a transit base here, he deliberately shocked the other party and immediately invited Lin Shichang to sit in the poop. When he walked into the poop, Lin Shichang's two
His eyes were completely exhausted. Whether it was the style or the furnishings, everything shocked him. After entering the conference room on the second floor, he was even blinded by the transparent glass portholes.
Ryukyu has always connected to Nanman and China in the west, and Japan in the east. Their fleets have shuttled between Siam, Buddha Dayi (Pattani), Annan, Manlaga, Old Port, Java, Li Dynasty, island countries and other places since the Ming Dynasty.
The trading business is booming.
Although he had seen many rare and exotic items, such a large piece of transparent glass was unheard of. Not to mention that Lin Shichang had noticed the windows on the stern of the ship before on the deck, and his eyes were dazzled by the number.
After waiting for tea, Deng Fei said that he had heard that Ryukyu was rich in sulfur and that he wanted to explore the way and buy some on the way. When he heard that the other party wanted to buy sulfur, Lin Shichang finally felt relieved.
The sulfur produced in Ryukyu was called "white sulfur" in ancient times. It is as hard as stone, smooth and moist, and has no smell. In addition to being used for medical purposes and making gunpowder, it can also be used for plastering and caulking on sea ships. Historically, Ryukyu has
In the kingdom's tribute trade, white sulfur is the main tribute.
For Beihai Town, sulfur can be used to make sulfur soap for disinfection and sterilization, and can also be used to make pesticides, which are used in agriculture and daily life.
Lin Shichang asked with a relaxed tone: "I wonder how much you want to buy?"
"Ten thousand catties, twenty thousand catties is better. And twenty thousand catties per year."
Good guy, Lin Shichang's hands trembled in shock, and the tea in the cup almost spilled. You must know that the annual sulfur production in Ryukyu is less than 20,000 kilograms, so the other party is willing to accept everything.
"My country has few people and few resources, so I'm afraid we won't be able to reach the number your envoy wants."
"This is not simple yet," Deng Fei said with a smile: "You and I can jointly develop it. We will provide the machinery and you will provide the manpower. Quadrupling the output is not a problem."
Lin Shichang looked happy and said: "In this case, please wait for a few days. I will rush back to Shuli and report to my king."