At noon, when the emperor was having dinner, he summoned Zhu Chenggong to dine with him. Every morning, the internal affairs office would present a list of ministers who wanted to see him that day, and the emperor would decide whether to summon him or not.
As soon as Zhu Chenggong uttered his words, he seemed to be saying something that was not shocking, but he directly said that he would send troops to Japan.
"Your Majesty, Japan has been very dishonest recently. The Shimazu family of the Satsuma Domain and the Matsuura family of the Edo Domain have secretly organized many Japanese pirates to rob at sea recently, which has seriously threatened our route to Japan. There have even been Japanese pirates.
On the coast of Taiwan.”
"As the Royal Navy, we must not sit back and let the Japanese be so rampant. I think that instead of looking for these Japanese pirates everywhere, it is better to capture the thieves, capture the king, and directly attack their lair, so that we can get rid of them once and for all. And I heard that the Japanese have recently restricted trade with the Ming Dynasty.
, banned the export of gold, and reduced the export of silver and copper. Originally, 10 million jins of Japanese copper of the Ming Dynasty flowed into our country a year, but now only one million jins are exported. The Japanese also banned the export of our Ming Dynasty porcelain to the Japanese country, etc. We must not sit back and watch like this.
Last month, the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate unreasonably seized several Ming Dynasty copper merchant ships. They said that we were illegally selling copper and confiscated all the copper we bought. If the imperial court did not fight back, they would become more and more aggressive.
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The imperial court raises troops for a thousand days and deploys them for a short period of time. Our navy consumes countless money and food from the imperial court every year. How can it be useless? Your Majesty, please allow me to lead the navy to send troops to Japan to teach those arrogant Japanese people a lesson."
After hearing this, Zhu Yihai couldn't help but put down the knife and fork for cutting the deer steak.
He felt a little dazed.
He felt that the progress was a bit too fast. Two years ago, he was still fighting against the Qing Dynasty with Japan. At that time, some ministers even proposed borrowing troops from Japan. Later, when the situation improved, he still took the initiative to contact Japan and engage in friendly trade with them.
Unexpectedly, just a few years ago, the Ming Navy actually proposed to send troops to Japan and force them to open their ports to trade. This is a bit like the opium war.
Is the Ming Dynasty already as strong as this?
Or is it that Zhu Chenggong and the others are overconfident?
Or maybe you are jealous after seeing the Royal Army making great progress in the past two years, beating up the Tartars, driving them out of the country, and making many military exploits?
In the past two years, the court, especially the military, has been quite controversial about the navy. Many generals, especially the army generals, feel that the navy is useless now and cannot be used in wars. As a result, building ships every year is like making dumplings.
non-stop.
Macau Shipyard, Manila Shipyard and other joint venture shipyards with foreigners put sailing ships into service one after another. They even purchased sailing warships from Batavia, the Netherlands, and the Indian and Bengal colonies.
The Ming Dynasty not only bought ships, but also built ships in Ningbo, Fuzhou, Lushun, Qingdao and other places through digging shipwrights and workers, including Western-style sail warships, Chinese-style hard-sail offshore ships, inland river ships, and even sail-oar warships, armed merchant ships, etc.
, the number is astonishing.
The investment is also huge.
Not only did it buy and build ships, the imperial court also successively established many naval academies, naval schools and even ship technical schools in recent years, as well as artillery factories, naval artillery schools, naval officer schools, etc. that specialized in supplying the navy.
This is a comprehensive investment in the entire system. The number of naval forces is not large, but its military investment, plus surrounding shipbuilding, officer, technician and other training costs, is very high.
Even the treatment of naval officers and soldiers is generally better than that of the army.
The army has always emphasized that those who have the ability eat meat and those who have no ability drink soup. Why can the Navy's treatment not be proportional to merit?
Why does the Navy get so much from the military budget every year?
Amid these accusations, the Navy has also endured a lot of pressure.
They train hard and have strict military discipline. However, in recent years, except for escorting grain at sea and protecting trade routes with arms, which means catching pirates and cracking down on smuggling, they have not been able to participate in the raging war in the Central Plains. They can only watch the show.
Zhu Chenggong, the admiral of the navy, even went to Nanyang to fight in the past. He, the admiral of the navy, led a marine team to besiege the city. It is funny to say that although his fleet sailed into the Yangtze River and entered Dongting Lake,
Thousands of miles away from him.
Others laughed at their navy and said it was useless.
Zhu Chenggong was indeed very aggrieved, even though he also led the camp to capture Taiwan and drive away the Dutch, and later besieged Macau and forced the Portuguese to surrender.
But in the past two years, there really hasn't been any success.
Recently, the Japanese are trying to kill themselves, and the daimyo of Satsuma and Hirado have started to become pirates again, and the Tokugawa shogunate actually ignored the previous agreement and began to impose various restrictions on Ming Dynasty's trade with Japan.
The admirals all became energetic.
Finally found a place to use it. Everyone ran around, including the Ministry of War, the Fifth Army Governor's Office, and the cabinet, to publicize the threat of the Japanese, hoping that the imperial court would send troops to the Japanese.
They even patted their chests and said that they could deal with the Japanese ruthlessly and even occupy Hirado Island. They could also occupy Kyoto, capture the Japanese Emperor, and snatch back their Supreme Queen to warm the Emperor's bed.
Zhu Chenggong is a representative of the Navy.
He is also a very active representative who wants to send troops to Japan.
He also represented the Zheng family in Fujian and the interests of many merchants involved in Japanese trade.
"Lao Zhangge planned to send troops to Liaoshen. Geng Zhongming and North Korea were also very active. The Ministry of War and the Governor's Office of the Fifth Army thought that they could fight. The imperial court planned to use Geng Zhongming, the North Korean army and Sauron's army to march from the east, while the Liaodong imperial camp would march from the east.
The Liaodong Peninsula went north along the Liaohe River, while the Chahar tribe and the newly formed Liaoxi Imperial Camp went eastward through the Liaoxi Corridor.
The navy also joined the battle, escorting supplies and food at sea, and sending troops and ships into the Liao River, reaching the vicinity of Liaoyang."
Zhu Chenggong also heard that the imperial court was going to attack Liaoshen, but the navy was not very interested in it. The reason was that even if they participated, they would only be there to assist and cooperate, and they would not have a share in meritorious service. Others would be eating meat if they went there.
, they can only drink soup.
They want to conquer Japan, and then they will be the absolute protagonists.
And they are very confident. The navy has been engaged in dumplings for several years. Now the ships are strong and the artillery is strong, and the soldiers and horses are well-trained. Everyone is hungry and thirsty. They also say that Japan is a treasure island. The output of the silver and copper mountains there is amazing, and the long-term growth is huge.
Saki, there are piles of silver and copper ingots in Kyoto. When they attack them, they will bring back the gold and silver mountains on ships. How much credit will this have?
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! It’s enough to listen to the army’s gossip every day.
Everyone wants to show off their strength.
It proved that they could match the money the emperor gave to the navy.
"Your Majesty, if the imperial court wants to launch the Liaoshen Campaign, it is enough for our navy to deploy a fleet to cooperate. We have four fleets. We cannot keep spending a lot of military expenditures but cannot guard the sea. Now the Japanese at sea dare to attack our great power. , we, the guardians of the maritime borders, will never tolerate it.
I request your Majesty to issue an order for us to form a fleet to conquer Japan. It does not require many troops and horses, more than 10,000 people, no, three to five thousand people will be enough."
"Our plan is to capture Hirado Island first, which was once the home base of Japanese pirates. It was also the earliest foreign trade port of Japan. Later, in order to control trade, the Japanese shogunate moved the foreign trade port to Nagasaki in the south.
However, there are many merchants from the Ming Dynasty in Hirado, and I was also born in Hirado. Previously, Japan and the Ming Dynasty signed a mutual trade agreement, and they agreed to open the port of Hirado to the Ming Dynasty again. The Ming Dynasty also established a consulate in Hirado. Many Chinese businessmen were in Hirado. Build a chamber of commerce and a guild hall there."
Zhu Chenggong believed that Hirado had a good location and good port conditions. Even the Ming Dynasty was familiar with it. There were also many Chinese businessmen there and they had a certain foundation, which was conducive to rapid occupation and control.
Then he used it as a base camp and sent troops to Nagasaki, a large trading port.
After capturing Nagasaki, they went south and wiped out the Shimazu family of the Kagoshima Satsuma Domain who dared to rob merchant ships in the waterway.
The Navy had a very wild plan. It planned to use Hirado Island as its base, then defeat Nagasaki, then destroy Satsuma, and then send troops to Kyoto to capture the Tenno. If there was a chance, they would defeat Tokugawa in Edo.
There is no need to directly occupy Kyoto, Edo, etc., plunder, return to Hirado, first use Hirado and Nagasaki as strongholds, slowly expand port strongholds along the coast, and then conquer and colonize Kyushu Island.
If we can conquer Edo, we can also force the Tokugawa family to cede Kyushu. If not, it doesn't matter. We can slowly devour it and build a bastion. With the help of the navy and artillery, we can slowly erode it with the power of the bastion.
The navy is ambitious.
Their appetite is not ordinary, they actually want to annex Japan.
Zhu Chenggong even came up with another plan, first leasing a port on Jeju Island from North Korea to use it as a naval expedition base, stocking military supplies, establishing a ship repair yard, etc.
Then attack from Jeju Island to the five islands of Japan, seize a port, and then attack Hirado Island to implement island hopping tactics.
Reasonable and well-founded.
The plan is practical yet bold.
Zhu Yihai felt a little moved.
Originally, there was a two-year honeymoon period of cooperation with Japan. After Zhu Yihai fully launched trade with Japan, Zhu Yihai imported tens of millions of kilograms of Japanese copper a year just for the precious resource of copper. Tomorrow's trade will bring half of Japan's new All the silver mined flowed into the Ming Dynasty.
Especially after Zhu Yihai continued to increase the ratio of gold to silver, the ratio of gold to silver reached an astonishing 1:16. In the past, like Japan, the Ming Dynasty had a ratio of 1:4 or 1:5. In the past, the Spanish, Portuguese, etc. So they used a large amount of silver to capture the Ming Dynasty's gold.
Now, not only copper and silver from Japan have flowed into the Ming Dynasty through trade deficit, but even gold has been drained away in large quantities. Japanese daimyo and businessmen don't care about the long-term, they only know that gold in the Ming Dynasty is expensive, so gold begins to rush to the Ming Dynasty.
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The result was a massive outflow of gold, silver and copper from Japan. The speed and quantity of the outflow were so alarming that the money shortage in Japan actually worsened. Daimyo from various places even began to print and issue banknotes. Although these banknotes of each domain could solve the problem,
The problem of local money shortage seriously endangered the rule of the shogunate, and even led to inflation and price disorder because many feudal daimyo printed feudal letters indiscriminately.
The shogunate also wanted to control this massive outflow of gold, silver and copper, but it couldn't, because after comprehensive trade with the Ming Dynasty, Japan produced a huge deficit. Their goods simply couldn't compete with the Ming Dynasty, and things in kind were not enough.
Naturally, large deficits can only be offset by gold, silver, and copper.
The entry of a large number of high-quality and low-price Ming Dynasty goods also impacted many industries in Japan, such as the textile industry, papermaking industry, iron smelting industry, porcelain, shipbuilding, etc. Many industries went bankrupt because they could not compete with the Ming Dynasty.
The market was full of Ming goods, and massive amounts of gold, silver, and copper flowed out. Even raw materials such as iron ore, raw silk, cotton, and linen from Japan flowed out. Ming merchants transported them back, processed them, and then shipped them back to Japan for sale.
The shogunate was also panicked.
The entire society began to fall into chaos, and even some of the feudal lords gained a lot of profits through trade, relying on resources or port advantages, and their power expanded and gradually became beyond the control of the shogunate.
Under this situation, many retainers of the Tokugawa shogunate wrote letters requesting to resume the isolation policy, strictly limit the number of merchant ships from the Ming Dynasty to trade with Japan, and even restrict all Ming Dynasty ships from trading in Nagasaki Port.
The Ming Dynasty was naturally injured by this change in the Japanese state.
The import of Japanese copper alone could reach a new high of tens of millions of kilograms a year. Most of these copper materials were shipped back and used to make coins. The cost of importing Japanese copper was very low, much lower than the copper mined by the Ming Dynasty.
After casting copper coins and copper yuan, there is a huge profit from minting.
Not only did it earn seigniorage, but it also increased currency circulation, which was helpful to the development of the industrial and commercial economy. On the other hand, the imperial court could also sell some of the Japanese copper on the market to produce some bronze mirrors, incense burners and other bronze wares.
Can make a lot of profits.
Now that Japan has banned copper exports, the export volume has been reduced by 90%. This alone has caused huge direct losses to the Ming Dynasty, which is annoying.
The same goes for silver. During the Ming Dynasty, more than 100 million taels of silver were imported from Japan through trade over the years. It can be said that one-third of the Ming Dynasty's silver came from Japan.
Since the Ming Dynasty, silver has become the main currency of the Ming Dynasty. Now that the two yuan reforms have been abolished and silver coins have been minted, the silver standard has been established. While the silver imported from the Americas is decreasing, the silver inflow from Japan is even more important.
Now the Japanese want to close the country and stop importing silver and copper. How can this be done?
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! This seriously endangered the currency security of Ming Dynasty and damaged the economic interests of Ming Dynasty.
And it's very serious.
As for the Japanese bandits in Satsuma and Hirado, they were just small troubles, but they still had a legitimate reason for sending troops.
Raising troops for a thousand days and using them for a short period of time. The navy has spent so much military expenditures, so it cannot go to the sea to fish every day.
Zhu Yihai has been insisting on building ships for the navy in the past few years. He also knows that the navy's combat power has a long period of improvement. It is not as good as the infantry. A stick can be used as a gun. A group of farmers can hold up a long gun and be able to fight.
If the navy of this era wants to compete in the sea, it must have huge ships and cannons. Both are indispensable, especially experienced captains and sailors. Otherwise, they will just go to the sea to feed the fish.
Zhu Yihai planned to regain the world in the future, and then go to Southeast Asia to fight for supremacy.
Unexpectedly, the first maritime target now is Japan.
I pondered for a long time.
Zhu Yihai said to Zhu Chenggong, "Plan before taking action, step by step. I support teaching Japan a lesson that breaks its promises, but there is no rush. In this way, the imperial court will first send envoys to North Korea and Japan, and at the same time discuss with North Korea the lease of Jeju Island or the
Regarding a port in Jeju, I went to see the Japanese shogunate and warned them of condoning daimyo pirates robbing merchant ships that threatened the shipping routes, and asked them to abide by the trade agreement and continue to open trade."
"As for you, be prepared. First draw up a list of the expedition fleet, integrate the ships and people, and conduct exercises and training first. When you are ready, you can then move to Jeju Island to prepare for the attack on Japan.
You must also make a comprehensive plan. Even when a lion is fighting a rabbit, you must go all out. You must not be careless. If you don't roar, it will be enough. If you roar, it must be shocking.
The first battle is the last battle, do you understand what I mean?"
Zhu Chenggong stood up excitedly and said, "Your Majesty, please rest assured that our navy will never betray your Majesty's trust."
