No coincidence.
After King Naresuan of Siam also learned that the Ming Emperor issued an edict condemning the Tokugawa clan for establishing a shogunate and asked them to stop violating etiquette, he directly took action and said to Minister Pasen and others:
"This is the greatness of His Majesty the Emperor!"
"With the authority of the country, we must uphold the rules of etiquette. The Holy Emperor raised a large army to fight against the Mang clan in Myanmar before. This time he did the same to the Tokugawa clan. He truly deserves to be the hero of the world!"
After hearing this, Pasen replied at this time: "Your Highness is wise, with such a great co-owner of the world, we should cooperate and safeguard the great gift of the world together, so that it becomes the consensus of the world and no one dares to violate it!"
"In this way, the Sheji Ancestral Temple in our country can be sustained for a long time."
"That's right! Since the Holy Emperor has the great ambition to help the world, I am regarded as an orthodox descendant and should continue to support the whole country."
"Pass my decree to His Majesty the Ming Emperor, saying that our country, Siam, is willing to send troops to Japan to conquer the Tokugawa clan on behalf of His Majesty the Ming Emperor."
Narixuan said at this time.
Pa Sheng hurriedly said that he obeyed the decree.
In this era, the Ming Dynasty and many surrounding vassal states had their own international standards.
And this principle is to prevent usurpation of the throne in every country.
Usurping the throne is considered a bad gift.
As the suzerain state, the Ming Dynasty also gained international fame by maintaining this kind of etiquette.
Whenever the Ming emperor was willing to uphold this kind of etiquette, other vassal states would become more devoted to the Ming Dynasty. After all, they did not want to be usurped by domestic careerists.
Now Zhu Yijun asked the Tokugawa clan not to establish their own shogunate, which really hit the hearts of these foreign vassals, so that they were more active than Zhu Yijun himself.
In fact, Zhu Yijun's decision to deal with the Tokugawa clan was not just a courtesy that he had to decide by himself to maintain his orthodox status, but also because the Tokugawa clan was not as easy to control as the Ashikaga clan.
At the same time, there are also reasons why the weak can gain a higher status politically and gain greater economic benefits.
Of course, it is also beneficial for Zhu Yijun to maintain the orthodoxy of any vassal state and must be recognized by himself, the Ming emperor. That is, if these orthodox kings want to maintain their orthodox status in the future, they must make more economic contributions to the Ming Dynasty. concession.
Otherwise, Ming Dynasty may break up the vote at any time and abolish his orthodox status.
In short, Zhu Yijun's ambition is to establish an international order that maximizes the interests of the Ming Dynasty by transforming etiquette and law.
Those who abide by the etiquette and laws set by the Ming Emperor can continue to be the slave owners of their own country. Those who do not abide by it will have to wait to be eliminated by all the vassal states united by the Ming Dynasty.
these years.
The benefits brought by Zhu Yijun's transformation of etiquette are visible.
Not to mention anything else, even the intensity of punishing domestic prisoners has been reduced a lot. It no longer focuses on genocide and killing, but begins to focus on exile.
The main reason behind this is that the internal conflicts are not so violent and there are ways to deal with them that are more in line with the interests of the winner.
Take the luxury tax recently implemented by Qi Jiguang’s cabinet.
Former Xiangcheng Bo Li Yingchen and Chengyi Bo Liu Shiyan should feel lucky now. After all, the emperor did not choose to kill them because they blocked and resisted the luxury tax, but just exiled them.
However, Li Yingchen and Liu Shiyan are not too lucky now.
Exile was also hard on them.
You know, these veteran nobles have long been accustomed to pampering themselves, and when it comes to serious matters, one becomes more useless than the other.
For example, in history, whether when Li Zicheng entered Beijing or the Qing army entered Nanjing, most of the nobles surrendered and knelt to greet them without any blood. However, they were more active than others in bullying the people and annexing them, so that each one became extremely rich. Alas, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were wealthy people who would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy famous prostitutes as concubines.
Therefore, for veteran nobles like Li Yingchen and Liu Shiyan, being exiled to the barbaric wilderness was like killing them.
"I might as well just die, wuwu! Then I might still be buried in Middle Earth."
"Is Ezo a place for humans? I really would rather die than live!"
Li Yingchen was standing on the boat to Ezo, crying in the wind.
The few righteous servants who came with him did not shed tears, but saw this and became more and more sad for their master, so they gritted their teeth. At the same time, they also kept an eye on Li Yingchen, fearing that Li Yingchen would really commit suicide by jumping into the sea.
When Li Yingchen arrived in Ezo and saw the mountains and plains of Ezo and the small population, he became even more sad. For a while, he only asked Mu Changyong, the commander-in-chief of the Ming army who came to receive him:
“How long can the people currently exiled here live?”
"I don't know about this. It hasn't aged out yet."
Mu Changyong replied.
Li Yingchen asked in surprise: "No?"
Mu Changyong glanced at him: "Uncle Li, how can I lie to you? I also came here because of my exile. I was originally the second wife of the Duke of Guizhou. I was exiled here because I opened a gold mine privately. Now I have It’s been six years, and not only am I living well, I’ve also become the boss here.”
"Are you also a distinguished person?"
"Or from the Duke of Guizhou's mansion?"
Li Yingchen then smiled and hurriedly asked: "Then how did you survive?"
"How can we still live? There are slaves here, the local white people. They are very poor. Just give them some food and cotton and they can become your slaves."
"As long as you ask your servants who can raise horses to raise official horses for you, the wages earned can support several white slaves."
The natives of Ezo Island are basically white people who migrated from the north. It was only the expansion of the Japanese later in history that caused the local natives to basically disappear.
Therefore, Mu Changyong only mentioned Bai Nu at this time.
After Mu Changyong said that, he pointed to Lubo City in front of him, where the red flag with bright Chinese characters was flying, and said: "Let's go to the city first. Don't worry too much about getting sick. The people who get sick most here are the local white people. They are isolated from the outside world and are infected with the disease." It’s not easy to survive common diseases like ours, so the longer we stay here, the fewer of them there are.”
Li Yingchen nodded after hearing this.
Liu Shiyan, who was in the same exile as Li Yingchen, was on his way to Ezo at this time. He was also reluctant to part with China, especially Jiangnan.
Moreover, it was only at this time that Liu Shiyan showed regret, so he looked at the most loyal servant who also came with him and said:
"Bao Yun, you send someone back and ask them to ask their relatives and friends to write a note for Your Majesty, saying that I, Liu Shiyan, knew I was wrong and should not allow my children to go their own way, nor should I arbitrarily discuss government affairs because I am the founding minister of the country. I beg your Majesty to let me go back, even if I go back and raise horses."
As Liu Shiyan spoke, he squatted down and covered his face, sobbing.
Obviously, Liu Shiyan is also very afraid of going to Ezo.
Leaving a familiar place and going to a strange place is not an easy thing for modern people to accept, let alone the ancient times when they have settled down and relocated.
He is still someone like Liu Shiyan.
Moreover, he was going to a place that was rumored to be far away in a foreign country, and even a very remote place in a foreign country.
But civilization needs criminals like them to develop it.
After all, we cannot allow people who have made meritorious deeds to settle in these wild lands and then develop civilization, so why should they actively make meritorious deeds?
However, many people who have made meritorious services in the Ming Dynasty are also migrating abroad.
This is related to the fact that the civilization of the Ming Empire itself was expanding externally.
There are already many officials and generals who have made meritorious deeds in places like Torai, Hirado, Nagasaki, Luzon, and Mubang in Myanmar, and they are moving their families to these places.
Mainly because these places already have a lot of fertile land and industries after initial development.
Naturally, they moved their families to these places because the experience of living in these places surpassed those in Middle-earth.
For example, in Middle-earth, for a low-level official below the seventh rank, because the people in Middle-earth cannot be enslaved and oppressed at will, and there are fewer and fewer people selling their sons and daughters, the cost of using manpower is very high, and it is difficult to experience the human power. The Master's life is poor, and the land that can be annexed is getting less and less, so it is better to come out.
In this way, there will be a large amount of fertile land that can be annexed, and you can also more truly experience the life of the superior people. After all, the natives in these places can be enslaved at will.
What's more, these places have already been initially developed, and many Han people have migrated here, so living there is no different from living in China.
These are the effects of reforming etiquette.
Because Zhu Yijun transformed the etiquette and law, it is now easier to implement the luxury tax. As the Ming Dynasty expanded many teaching areas overseas and stationed troops in Ryukyu, Korea, Siam and other countries, it was in the name of safeguarding the etiquette and law, but in fact Tax supervisory offices were also set up in these places. All luxury goods that went to various enlightenment areas and vassal states would first be checked by the Ming Dynasty tax supervisors to see if they had tax stamps before they could be sold in these places. This naturally led to the smuggling of luxury goods. The increased difficulty is conducive to the collection of luxury goods.
Now, through the imposition of luxury taxes, the revenue of the state treasury and the internal treasury is indeed increasing.
Although taxes go into the national treasury, because the national treasury borrows debt from the inner treasury, the income of the inner treasury also increases.
As a result, Zhu Yijun's funds for going to Jiangnan became more and more abundant.
However, although there are fewer and fewer people who openly oppose the imposition of luxury tax, there are still many people who violate it openly and covertly.
The most important thing is that the military generals themselves were acting against the will, especially some people in Qi Jiguang's old army who began to rely on Qi Jiguang as the chief assistant to believe in themselves, and began to do things that were both overt and covert, just to maximize their personal interests.
There is no way, there are always greedy people in this world.
Not all of Qi Jiguang's old subordinates were people who were righteous and not greedy for immediate benefits. They were also people who were greedy for profit.
Hu Can, the director of the National Tax Department of Linqing Prefecture, did not levy luxury tax on merchants who bribed him in advance, but he did not want the tax he paid to look too small, so he forcibly claimed that the ordinary goods sold by ordinary merchants were luxury tax. This resulted in many traders complaining.
Hu Can naturally knew that this would be discovered sooner or later, so he sent his younger brother Hu Rong to Beijing in advance to meet Qi Jiguang, handed over an account book to Qi Jiguang, and said to Qi Jiguang:
"This is the account book of the silver dollars that my brother collected for the Duke's Mansion at Linqing Chaoguan. Please take a look at it."
The Hu brothers were originally servants of the Qi family, but they became Qi Jiguang's old subordinates after they were released from the government and set up their own business as court officials. However, they still called Qi Jiguang "Master" in order to show that they were superior to other old subordinates and Qi Jiguang. Family ties are closer.
(End of chapter)
