In early February 1791, people across the country. ． ． ． ． ． Ahem, on the occasion of the winter for the people of Beihai Town, a massive "escape incident" broke out in the island country of Kyushu, which shocked the shogunate and the Kansai vassals.
You must know that the current total population of Kyushu Island is only more than 3.2 million, and the number of farmers who participated in this escape incident accounted for one-tenth. This time the farmers voted with their feet, not so much because of the "rumors" spreading from south to north, but because of the exploitation of the vassals and the suffocating annual tribute, which made the farmers unable to live any longer.
To put it bluntly, the peasants of the Qing Dynasty in the 18th century were considered the luckiest peasants in East Asia as long as there were no disasters or wars. At least they could still have enough to eat.
But the farmers in countries like the Li Dynasty and the island countries were living in hell. They were called farmers but were actually serfs. These people work hard day and night, but they have to pay taxes on 70% to 80% of their annual income, which is not enough to support their parents and wives.
Even though Ruan Phuc Anh had a good reputation in Annan, his oppression of the farmers under his rule was only a little lighter than that of the Xishan Dynasty. Although the Mekong River plain is rich in rice, the people in Quang Nam eat only taro, and the rice has to be given to Nguyen Phuc Anh in exchange for arms.
On the other hand, in the island country, in the past few years since the dawn of famine, the Kansai feudal lords have not only failed to reduce taxes, but have repeatedly shipped the rice they produce to Edo and Osaka for sale and profit. Although Matsudaira Sadanobu adopted a policy of focusing on agriculture and suppressing business during the "lenient reform" period, farmers were still hungry.
To put it bluntly, the characteristics of the shogunate system determine the economic policies of various parts of the island country. In order to limit the strength of his daimyo, the shogunate had to let them undertake heavy "official duties", including attendance, expenses for the Edo feudal residence, military service, general invitations, security at various gates in Edo Castle, and firefighting in Edo Castle. and receiving emissaries sent from Kyoto, etc.
Even Date Murakusa, who manages the Satsuma clan in the south, is the same. In order to divide the Sendai Domain, Matsudaira Sadanobu specially asked the Sea Dog Lord to confer the title of Lord of the Satsuma Domain on Date Village Tsune. Although Date Murakusa didn't need to go to the Tokugawa Shogunate, he had to go back to Aoba Castle every year to "participate in the explanation."
If a certain daimyo doesn't want to abide by it, the only other option is to rebel, other than cutting off the title and changing the family head. The problem is that even if he wins the rebellion and becomes a general, under the premise of a closed-off small-scale peasant economy, he will still have to play this trick and have no choice.
This was true for the Tokugawa Shogunate, and even more so for the Sendai Domain. Of course, Beihai Town has no intention of helping the Sendai clan change its feudal system, so it's fine to just leave it like that.
The incident originated from a dispute over cultivated land between the Kumamoto Domain's Ashikita Town and the Sagara Domain's Kuma Village and Tsunagi Town. The Shogunate Appraisal Office decided to implement a "land inspection site", which was to resolve the dispute between the three villages belonging to the two domains. The land was re-measured and inventoried.
From the time when Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Tokugawa Shogunate, until the 1820s, the island nation experienced a total of five national land clearings, namely the Keicho Land Clearance Land, the Kanei Kei Security Land Clearance Land, the Kanbun Enho Land Clearance Land, Yuanlu inspected the land, and Xiangbao Xintian inspected the land. After enjoying the land inspection, the shogunate never conducted large-scale land inspections, but small-scale land inspections were still carried out in various places.
The purpose of the original inspection of the newly developed fields was to get rid of the predicament at that time, hoping to alleviate financial constraints by increasing annual tribute income, and to collect as much annual tribute as possible from these developed new fields. The Tokugawa shogunate divided the world's farmland into seven levels, namely, upper, upper, lower, middle, lower, lower, lower, and isolated.
After being graded, if there is a flood or drought that causes a bad harvest, if you want to appeal to the acting officer. ． ． ． ． ． Deserve it! You have to pay as much as you need to pay, not even a grain of rice less! Even so, the people still bowed their heads and accepted their fate. Anyway, these days, the island country's farmers are living like serfs.
Unexpectedly, the servant Kawai Tokubei sent by the lord Hosokawa Saizu of the Kumamoto Domain, for his own selfish reasons, only let his subordinates work with him when the land was cleared, and did not let the people in the village intervene at all. As a result, after the land measurement, Ashikita Town was The annual tribute burden increased by four thousand tons of rice.
The problem is that it is already winter, so even if the annual tribute is to be increased, we can wait until next year to prepare the people. As a result, Kawai Tokubei ordered Ashihoku Town to make up for the four thousand warriors immediately. In addition, this guy also forcibly collected the liquor store tax that was exempted in the town, causing a lot of complaints.
Of course the people of Ashiboku Town don't want to do this anymore. The rabbits bite people when they are anxious. But if there were not the three counties occupied by Beihai Town in the south, these farmers would at most go to the Shogunate Office in Nagasaki to petition. The final punishment of the shogunate is usually fifty-fifty strikes each; Kawai Tokubei should be punished for his crimes, and the people should sue the officials. If you rebel, you will be exiled!
However, when the villagers were discussing, some people mentioned the rumors they had heard about the three counties to the south, and everyone immediately exploded. What! Is there another way to live?
After some discussion, someone suggested that it would be better to sue the official for the divine code. The world is as dark as crows. Why don't we all smuggle to the south collectively, and let the bastard master grow the four thousand tons of rice himself? We Zhu Bajie will smash the rake and stop serving us!
The reason for this is that the three counties under the rule of Beihai Town have completely changed from other places. Compared with farmers in other parts of the island country, farmers in the three counties are living in paradise.
Since Beihai Town actually controlled the three counties of Southern Kyushu, it has begun to implement the regular annual tribute of "three public officials and seven citizens". Apart from this, there are no miscellaneous taxes, and even if the corvee is collected, money will be paid. Not only that, the township government with civil affairs in the three counties has also opened up the mountains and forests, allowing people to go hunting in the mountains, but logging needs to be reported.
At the beginning of last year, the Ministry of Civil Affairs considered that the two counties of Isa and Hishikara had too much land and poor output, so they simply encouraged farmers to carry out poultry breeding, mainly Satsuma chickens. This is a specialty of the Satsuma region in another time and space, and the production time is only 60 sky. The Ministry of Civil Affairs not only dispatched personnel to the villages to provide breeding training, but also provided interest-free loans through Beihai Trading Company, and all livestock were purchased after they were slaughtered.
In June last year, a large meat processing plant was built at the foot of Akune, Izumi County, employing nearly a thousand people. All purchased chickens will be sent here, cut up and frozen before being transported to Beihai Town.
With interest-free loans and purchase guarantees, farmers began to raise chickens on a trial basis. After two or three months, when they saw that the families raising chickens had made money, the enthusiasm of all the people suddenly increased, and every family started raising chickens.
The reason for doing this is actually to supplement meat nutrition for the soldiers and the people under their control. When the total number of soldiers of the Northern Navy reaches 55,000, and will continue to rise, it will also lead to the army's daily demand for meat, poultry and eggs alone being several tons, not to mention those immigrant workers and schools who have become wealthy. Children also need increased nutrition.
The problem is that although the lives of farmers in the three counties have improved, it is even more difficult for farmers from other vassals to come over. The reason is that each clan has set up checkpoints at various levels on the roads entering the three counties of Izuku, Isa and Hisikari. The surroundings are so airtight that even a piece of paper cannot pass through. Once a person is caught, his head will be lost at every turn.
However, just when hundreds of farmers in Ashihoku Town were preparing to abandon their homeland with their families, the news spread out for some reason, and dozens of other villages, including Kuma Village, Sanji Village, Sagara Village, Nishiki Town, and Asagiri Town, dozens of miles away, The village also began to move.
These people thought that there was strength in numbers, or that the law would not punish the masses, so one night in early February, more than two thousand men, women, and children held torches and began to enter the mountains to the south, heading towards the three counties of Izuku, Isa, and Hisikari. .
The Tokugawa shogunate set up a "separation station" on the mountain road of Yatake Mountain. The soldiers on duty at the Yuanban (lookout point) saw a torch suddenly light up on the mountain road to the north, like someone in the snow-capped mountains. Painted it with a gold pen. Seeing that the situation was abnormal, the soldiers on duty rang the alarm bell.
It is said that during the Edo period, the checkpoints on the post roads between the feudal clans were directly managed and controlled by the shogunate, and each clan was not allowed to set up privately. These checkpoints were important nodes in the shogunate's regime, used to monitor the flow of population and materials across the country, and to obtain intelligence on public opinion events.
Originally, because Kyushu was far away from Edo, each feudal clan set up its own customs post with the approval of the shogunate. However, after the Shimazu family was destroyed, since the southern part of the Kumamoto clan and the Sagara clan bordered the three counties of Hokkai Town, the Tokugawa shogunate decided to Since the year before last, several checkpoints have been specially set up here. The large one has a capacity of 100 people, and the small one has 50 people.
As the bell rang, the guards who had fallen asleep were awakened. As soon as Masanobu Okubo, the samurai who served as the "head accompanist", lit the lantern, the shoji door was opened.
"Sir, something is wrong! Someone is trying to break through!"
"Have you caught him?" Okubo Masanobu, who was only wearing a shirt, was not panicked. Although there have been incidents of breaking through the border in the past two years, he was just a thief and could not escape the "discernment" of the shogunate.
The samurai who served as the "Changbanren" said anxiously: "You'd better come out and take a look. It seems that a lot of people have come. I estimate there are thousands of subordinates."
"How, how is it possible!"
After a while, Okubo Masanobu, who climbed up to the lookout, also saw the approaching fire dragon. He immediately ordered all his men to be on alert, string their bows, and load their muskets.
There are fifty people in this checkpoint, and Okubo Masanobu is the assistant, that is, the person in charge. He has one Yokomatsu, eight Tsunebans, and forty pawns. In addition to this, there is also a "human-meeting woman" who is responsible for checking women.
When the fire finally approached, everyone in the prison could see clearly through the fence gate that a group of farmers in ragged clothes were coming from the opposite side. These people were carrying large and small bags, including men, women, old and young. When they saw the locked gate, they immediately slowed down. It wasn't until a warrior shouted to stop that they stopped ten steps outside the door. .
"What do you want to do if you don't sleep well at home late at night?!"
Hearing the samurai's scolding, a man in his thirties wearing straw sandals walked out of the crowd. He handed the torch in his hand to others, walked five steps away from the door, and knelt down in the snow. , lamented: "I beg you, gentlemen, to take pity on us, give us a way out, and let everyone pass."
After saying that, the men, women, and children behind him also knelt down.
"this!"
Okubo Tadanobu said sternly: "Are you planning to defect to Beihai Town? It's really lawless! The government has an agreement with Beihai Town. Even if you pass through the customs, Beihai Town will not take you in! Go back quickly, my officer. Let bygones be bygones! Otherwise, swords and guns are blind!"
A warrior immediately said: "Have you heard what Mr. Bantou said?! Get back quickly!"
The man seemed to have expected it. He immediately stood up and said loudly to the people behind him with a look of sorrow and anger: "We work hard every day under the stars and the moon, but the government is oppressing us day by day and we don't even give them a way to survive! If this is the case, how can we be afraid? What?! It’s all death anyway, as long as you rush through here, there is a way to survive!”
"If you fight them, everyone will die! Instead of starving to death, it's better to kill them and make a living for your family!"
"Everyone who wants to live, come together!"
As the inciters shouted, the peasants who had been pleading just now suddenly turned into menacing figures. They took out hatchets, wooden sticks and other objects from their packages, and rushed towards the gate of the gate with a roar of mountains and tsunamis. Come up.
