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The negotiation between Zhao Junchen and Xuan Ye lasted from Chen time in the morning to Shen time in the evening.
Moreover, during the negotiation, Zhao Junchen and Xuan Ye spent most of the time alone and talked in private. The guards on both sides were screened out, so no one knew the specific content of the exchange between Zhao Junchen and Xuan Ye. .
In the beginning, Zhao Junchen mainly expressed his opinions, emphasized sincerity, and repeatedly explained the feasibility of his proposed plan, while Xuan Ye mainly listened, questioned, and criticized.
But soon, Xuan Ye began to take the initiative to ask questions and put forward his own suggestions. He spoke more and more and his attitude gradually became more positive.
By the end, the nature of the meeting had completely changed, from armistice negotiations to a joint conspiracy and discussion between Zhao Junchen and Xuan Ye.
Lasting until the evening, Zhao Junchen and Xuan Ye finally ended the meeting with unfinished business, and the negotiation came to an end for the time being.
But it is only temporarily coming to an end. The follow-up cooperation between the two parties is undoubtedly of great importance. Both parties have invested huge amounts of money and taken great risks. Xuan Ye is counting on this plan to help Jianzhou Jurchens successfully survive the crisis in recent years. There was a food shortage, and Zhao Junchen not only coveted the food of the Japanese lords, but also gambled his political reputation to a certain extent, and invested nearly half of the number of ocean-going ships that he had finally accumulated. It can be said that he spent a lot of money. …
Such a major matter cannot be discussed in just one day, so after the day's meeting, Zhao Junchen and Xuan Ye agreed to meet again at the same time tomorrow to discuss it in detail.
After the agreement, Xuan Ye quickly left the negotiation location. He wanted to confirm as soon as possible whether the information provided by Zhao Junchen was true or false.
Since the Jianzhou Jurchens forced the Joseon Dynasty to pay tribute and become vassals, the Jianzhou Jurchens would force North Korea to send troops to assist every time they invaded Liaodong. Therefore, Xuan Ye was always accompanied by several North Korean envoys, and it was easy to verify Zhao Junchen's intelligence. Authenticity.
But after Xuan Ye left in a hurry, Zhao Junchen still stayed where he was, watching Xuan Ye's retreating figure with his troops, frowning and lost in thought.
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In Xuan Ye's view, Zhao Junchen's plan to travel to Japan to collect grain had three main purposes. The first was to use this cooperation to persuade the Jurchens in Jianzhou to withdraw their troops, and the second was to add a new grain source to the Ming Dynasty's treasury. The third is to enhance the military strength of the Joseon Dynasty, encourage the Joseon Dynasty to get rid of the control of Jianzhou Jurchen, and allow the Ming Dynasty to once again have a strategic advantage in the Liaodong region.
But in fact, Xuan Ye still underestimated Zhao Junchen. The far-reaching plan of Zhao Junchen's adventure plan completely exceeded Xuan Ye's imagination. It wanted to achieve multiple goals at the same time, but Xuan Ye only guessed Less than half won!
In addition to the three goals that Xuan Ye guessed, Zhao Junchen also has a fourth goal. He wants to use this plan to win over the senior officials of Liaodong Town and the Wu family of Shanhaiguan, and take the opportunity to slightly ease the conflict between the senior officials of Liaodong Town and the Wu family of Shanhaiguan. own hostility.
When the situation in Liaodong has developed to this point, Zhao Junchen has taken almost all the benefits. When he ate meat and drank soup, he didn't even leave any bones and dregs to the Wu family in Shanhaiguan and Liaodong Town. He also directly destroyed the Wu family in Shanhaiguan. The ambition to annex Liaodong Town has also weakened the prestige of Liaodong Town and will inevitably completely worsen the relationship between the two parties.
But Zhao Junchen doesn't want to completely break up with these warlords yet, so he wants to bring the Shanhaiguan Wu family and Liaodong Town into his plan.
Shanhaiguan itself is an excellent fishing port, and the Wu family also owns several sea-going ships. Liaodong Town has many good ports within its sphere of influence, and it also has a coastal defense fleet that is better than nothing. These resources can be mobilized to help It will increase the chance of success of Zhao Junchen's plan to travel to Japan to collect grain, and the subsequent division of interests will also help Zhao Junchen alleviate conflicts with them.
The central monarchs of the Ming Dynasty were absolutely unwilling to openly support Zhao Junchen's plan, so it was impossible for the Shanhaiguan Wu family and Liaodong Town to directly send troops to land in Japan, but they could be responsible for escorting the fleet crossing Japan, and by the way, preventive construction. Zhou Jurchen suddenly turned against Zhao Junchen and hijacked Zhao Junchen's ocean-going ship, which was also an indispensable and important part of Zhao Junchen's plan.
As for Zhao Junchen's fifth intention, he wanted to take the opportunity to train a usable ocean-going fleet to pave the way for his subsequent ocean-going plans.
The ocean-going ships that Zhao Junchen currently controls are mainly from the former "Eight Kings Shipping Company". Recently, many smuggling merchants from Jiangsu and Zhejiang have also joined. The scale is not small, but it is far from being well-trained. Not only are they extremely lacking in ocean-going experience, but they also have very few sailing talents. In fact, these ocean-going ships were just acting as middlemen most of the time and were simply unable to meet Zhao Junchen's future ocean-going plan needs.
In Zhao Junchen's ocean-going plan, Nanyang is the top priority. Compared with the complicated situation in Nanyang, the situation in the East Ocean is much simpler. Not only is the route shorter, extreme weather is relatively rare, and the number of pirates is relatively small. Not much, and the Japanese navy of this era is far inferior to the navies of the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain in the Southeast Asia, let alone the British and French navies that will appear in the future. It is undoubtedly a very suitable whetstone.
As for Zhao Junchen's sixth intention, he sincerely wanted to help the Jurchens in Jianzhou overcome the current food shortage dilemma.
Zhao Junchen knew very well that under the influence of the Little Ice Age, the food shortage dilemma faced by the Jianzhou Jurchens was not a short-term problem, but would inevitably continue for a long time. It is very likely that the Jianzhou Jurchens would suffer from natural disasters and food shortages for a long time. And declined rapidly.
But Zhao Junchen did not want the Jianzhou Jurchens to decline too quickly.
This is because, in Zhao Junchen's future plan, he has designed a plan to divert trouble to the Jurchens in Jianzhou!
But this so-called "disaster" does not represent the Japanese shogunate in the east, but the Junggar Khanate in the west!
In fact, considering the closed status of the Japanese shogunate and the many conflicts between the central shogunate and local feudal lords in Japan, Zhao Junchen believes that after the feudal lords in various places in Japan are robbed and attacked, the Tokugawa shogunate will probably take a more gloating attitude. , it will only add insult to injury and take the opportunity to annex, instead of uniting all forces within the country to retaliate.
Comparatively speaking, outside the northwest frontier of the Ming Dynasty, the Junggar Khanate, which was rising rapidly, already dominating the Western Regions, and had the Tsarist Russian Empire as foreign aid, was the real and serious threat, and it was even more threatening than the Jianzhou Jurchens now. .
Although Zhao Junchen completely annihilated the Mongolian coalition led by the Junggar Khanate in Shaanxi and Gansu last year, Zhao Junchen also knew very well that this war was just a small test for the Junggar Khanate.
At that time, the Junggar Khanate was making every effort to extinguish the internal rebellion. It did not send out elite troops, and it did not even have much equipment with muskets and artillery. The vast majority of the Junggar troops that entered the territory of Shaanxi and Gansu were just servants of various countries in the Western Regions. Once it was the future of the Junggar Khanate If you make up your mind to invade the south, it will definitely be a catastrophe, and the three sides of Shaanxi and Gansu will definitely be unable to resist!
Fortunately, Zhao Junchen took advantage of the great victory of Shaanxi-Gansu and planted several internal spies within the Junggar Khanate. He also secretly contacted the rebel forces within the Junggar Khanate who were fully engaged in rebellion. Moreover, after the Junggar Khanate conquered the tribes on the right wing of Mongolia, Next, they will inevitably covet the left-wing Mongolian tribes that have surrendered to the Jianzhou Jurchens. Therefore, Zhao Junchen is very confident that he can take the lead in provoking a conflict between the Junggar Khanate and the Jianzhou Jurchens before the Junggar Khanate makes up its mind to invade the Ming Dynasty southward. conflict.
However, considering the strength of the Junggar Khanate, even when the Qing Dynasty's military power was at its peak, it was difficult to get an advantage. In this historical time and space, the Jurchen power in Jianzhou has not yet been able to rise and grow, and its scope of influence is far less than that of the Qing Dynasty. The Liaodong region only occupies a small part, and it may not be an opponent of the Junggar Khanate in the first place. If the Jianzhou Jurchens are allowed to further decline due to years of food shortages, they may not be able to contain the Junggar Khanate.
Therefore, Zhao Junchen teamed up with the Jianzhou Jurchens to travel to Japan to collect food. He also hoped that the Jianzhou Jurchens could use the food to take a breather and play a more important role in the future competition with the Junggar Khanate.
As for Zhao Junchen's last intention, he wanted to take the opportunity to examine Xuan Ye's strategic vision, military and political capabilities, and character style while he and Xuan Ye were discussing and perfecting the relevant plans, and to also take the opportunity to find out more about the Jianzhou Jurchens. Interior details.
And now, after a whole day of arguments and discussions, Zhao Junchen has roughly figured out the specific details of Xuan Ye.
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After watching Xuan Ye lead the troops to leave, Zhao Junchen returned to his seat and sat down. After thinking quietly for a long time, he finally slowly shook his head and said: "Xuan Ye's vision, ability, and knowledge are all far below expectations. Ah! It’s okay if you don’t understand maritime affairs at all. After all, there are not many people in the Far East countries of this era who are skilled in maritime affairs. But even their understanding of the situation in the Ming Dynasty and the prediction of future wars are not qualified at all. For Jianzhou The Jurchens' control was also weaker than expected, and they did not completely overwhelm the Eight Banners leaders...
Oh, compared to the so-called 'Kangxi Emperor' who claimed to be knowledgeable in Chinese and Western studies, wise and martial, it was really far behind! I don’t know whether the historical evaluation of Emperor Kangxi was exaggerated by later generations, or whether it was due to differences in fate and opportunities that limited the upper limit of the growth of the Great Khan Xuan Ye..."
And just as Zhao Junchen was muttering to himself, a member of the Ming Army Qianhu strode into the awning.
Zhao Junchen looked up and found that it was Qian Hu Gao Dejie from Guan Ning's cavalry!
"Gao Qianhu, I have ordered you to stay and guard Qinghe Fort. Why did you leave your post without authorization and show up here?"
Zhao Junchen was confused and asked with a frown.
Gao Dejie replied loudly: "I am humbled to see that the negotiations between you and the Tatar Khan have not ended yet, and I was worried. I wanted to come to investigate the situation in person, but I did not dare to leave my post without authorization, and it happened that There are two important news at Qinghe Fort that need to be reported to the cabinet ministers as soon as possible, and someone has taken away the power of defense from my humble position, so I came here in person."
"Oh? What's going on?"
"First of all, Li Zehe, the middle commander of Liaodong Town, has led his troops to Qinghe Fort to support him. By the way, he has taken over all the defense of Qinghe Fort. And... my Governor Wu also sent an envoy to Qinghe Fort. It's Fang Guangchen, an important staff member of Shanhaiguan, and he wants to see Zhao Cabinet Minister as soon as possible."
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