Although it was late December and the Spring Festival was about to come, the castle towns of Edo, the de facto capital of Japan, looked particularly deserted and even a little depressed. The once bustling streets are now mostly deserted, with only sad-looking bosses and listless waiters waiting for customers to come to their doors. The small industrial zone near Edo Bay, which carries the hope of Japan's rise, would not stop work even on New Year's Eve in previous years. However, this year it is only the twelfth lunar month, and most of them have stopped work because there are no orders. .
As for the three financial streets that originally symbolized wealth and were called Ginza, Kinza, and Zenza, they are now in a terrible state of depression. On both sides of the open and grand streets, which are rare in Japan, closed doors can be seen everywhere. People go to the empty ryotaiya (Japanese money bank)!
Obviously, a terrible economic crisis is ravaging Japan!
This economic crisis is actually a global crisis, and this is probably the first global economic crisis in history. The cause of this crisis is the overproduction caused by the rapid growth of production capacity after the start of the second industrial revolution. The overproduction crisis not only exists in the United Kingdom, but also exists in the Ming Dynasty and under the rule of the Ming Dynasty. The Southeast Asian vassal states, Malacca, the East Indies and other places naturally also violently impacted Japan, whose economy was quite fragile.
For an industrialized power and superpower like Ming Dynasty with rich wealth and leading technology, the crisis of excess can be alleviated through large-scale construction and military expansion and war preparations - after all, this is the initial stage of the second industrial revolution, even if it is as leading as Ming Dynasty, Industrial countries also have huge demand for infrastructure investment.
It’s just that there are very few “non-redeemable” credit currencies in the world. The currencies of almost all advanced countries are linked to gold and silver. Therefore, when countries face insufficient demand, it is difficult to respond through large-scale financial expansion.
Moreover, before this oversupply crisis, various countries experienced a period of overheated investment and shortage of production raw materials. Therefore, many factories that have carried out high-cost expansion and hoarded raw materials at high prices have fallen into a huge crisis. A large number of bankruptcies will soon occur. The crisis was transmitted to the financial institutions that lent money to them.
However, the losses caused to financial institutions due to factory bankruptcies are not unbearable. The real place where financial institutions in various countries suffer heavy losses is the financial market itself.
It turns out that when the economy was overheating, the securities markets of various countries experienced a surge. Among them, the average price index of 100 stocks on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in the Ming Dynasty rose five-fold in the ten years after the end of the Napoleonic War, and the stock price index in London rose more than four-fold. The Osaka Stock Exchange in Japan only opened three years ago. It has skyrocketed since its opening. The average stock price of all listed companies has increased more than ten times in less than two years! When the economic crisis hit, stock markets in various countries experienced a sharp decline, and the stock market in Osaka, Japan was no exception. The stock price fell by 90% in less than a month, almost returning to its original shape.
Since the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan was quite lax in supervising financial institutions, almost all ryotaiyas invested a large amount of money in the stock market. After a sharp decline, they naturally suffered heavy losses. The collapse of ryotaiyas swept across Japan.
The large number of bankruptcies of ryotaiya has further aggravated the financial difficulties of Japanese industrial and commercial enterprises, forcing some companies that could still survive to close down. The entire Japanese economy is in a downward spiral, seemingly bottomless.
Of course, there will always be losers and winners in the financial market, even in the event of a crash, and this is no exception in Japan!
At this time, on the bleak streets of Edo Castle Town, a luxury carriage pulled by four tall Western horses, escorted by dozens of black-clad samurai, was marching in the direction of Edo Castle. .
A tall warrior walking at the front of the team carried a rectangular black flag on his shoulders, with two eye-catching white characters "大黑" on it.
There were still some pedestrians on the street. When they saw this flamboyant team, they all stopped and cast hateful looks - everyone knew that this was the leader of the Daikoku Zaibatsu, one of Japan's "Four Tengu". to Tokyo.
The "Four Tengu" are the four major chaebols, Daikoku, Goto, Sumitomo and Zheng. The leaders of the four major chaebols live in Shanghai all year round. Only when there are important events or important holidays, they will cross the ocean and return to Japan. Show your face, go to Edo to see the shogun, and give them a generous gift, and then go visit a group of powerful feudal lords and important ministers of the shogunate, and give them generous gifts one by one. After the New Year, these "Big Tengu" will board their luxury cruise ships and return to Shanghai, the most prosperous economic center of the Ming Empire.
As for the Ming Empire, the superpower that ruled the Eastern world, in the eyes of most samurai in Japan, especially the middle- and lower-level samurai whose lives were becoming increasingly difficult, it was the source of Japan's suffering and the mountain pressing on Japan's head... .No, it’s the mainland! The entire East Asian continent is pressing on the Japanese archipelago, with almost all-round suppression, completely depriving Japan of its space for development.
Although Japan has the most industrious and hardest-working workers in the world, their income is extremely low, less than one-tenth of the wages of workers in the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, in order to obtain the capital and technology needed to develop industrialization, Japan even does not hesitate to export its own girls as commodities. Japanese laborers are also willing to work as coolies in places such as Nanyang, Sakhalin, Kigata Peninsula, and New Manchuria where conditions are very difficult. Do the hardest, most tiring and most dangerous work. But Japan’s industrialization just can’t take off!
One of the reasons why Japan cannot industrialize is because of the Zhuge family! But the Zhuge family's military advisers were all bad. They had already figured out Japan's little idea, so they implemented the "industrial raw material export quota and tariff system" in a targeted manner - a must for the development of industrialization. We need raw materials, such as coal, iron ore, rubber, soybeans, oil, cotton, and other miscellaneous non-ferrous metals, etc., all of which are subject to export controls!
It's about control. It's not about not selling to Japan. Otherwise, the Japanese will give up and just settle down and not bother. The Zhuge family's policy is to sell raw materials to Japan, but they have to sell them at high prices and have a tight neck. Japanese factories can only buy expensive and scarce raw materials, which will not form international competitiveness at all, and can only be passed on to their own people at high prices.
What? Doesn’t Daming sell it to others?
I really can’t count on it!
There are not many people in western North America these days, and it does not belong to the United States. The Panama Canal has not been dug, so there is no hope for American resources. Australia doesn't have a population either...it's only a few hundred thousand people, so it can't support a large-scale mining industry. Moreover, the British Empire implemented the "White Australia Policy", and the Japanese couldn't even help develop it!
As for the resources of Malacca and the Dutch East Indies, although they were not administratively controlled by the Ming Empire, the companies controlled by the Zhuge family had a firm monopoly on the sales of rubber, tin and coal, and Japanese trading companies could not buy them at all.
The only country that can supply large quantities of Japanese coal, iron ore, cotton and other raw materials is India under the rule of the British Empire... However, the commercial routes from India to Japan are all under the control of the Ming Empire, so India's coal , iron ore, and cotton suppliers had to sign a "flat-price contract" with the Zhuge Family, and could only sell a small amount of coal, iron ore, and cotton to Japan at a high price.
Under such circumstances, Japan can still develop some heavy industry. It can only be said that it is working very hard.
But sometimes, hard work can’t solve the problem!
Faced with this situation, two completely opposite routes have emerged in Japan. One is the "pro-Ming faction" represented by the "Four Tengu", hoping to soften Ming's position by currying favor with Ming in exchange for Japan's development space.
The other faction is the "arbitrary faction" with the majority of middle and lower-level samurai as the backbone. They hope to break the suppression of the Ming Dynasty through war and obtain enough space for Japan's development.
And now sitting in the carriage of the Daikoku family are the leader of the pro-Ming sect, Daikoku Changshi, and his daughter, Daikoku Kong. Both father and daughter are dressed in costumes, sitting in the carriage, frowning, looking at The deserted street outside the window.
"Father," Daikokusora suddenly said at this time, "it's too depressed... Isn't Edo a metropolis with a population of 1.5 million?"
Dahei Chang just smiled slightly: "Akong, no matter how depressed Japan is, it is still the root of our Dahei family! The reason why Dao Zigong accepts you as his concubine is also because of the status of our Dahei family in Japan."
"Daozi...Mr.?" A hint of surprise flashed across Daheikong's face as white as snow, "Father, he..."
"Well!" Dahei Chang nodded, "After the new year, he will become the military advisor of the Zhuge family! Ah Kong, you are so lucky! Not only can you become Zhuge's military advisor's side chamber, but you can also become Lord Gongfang's adopted daughter. "
"What? Mr. Gongfang..." Daheikong looked at his father.
"Yes," Daikoku Tsunesa said, "Akong, you are about to become Sora Matsudaira... Although it is not Tokugawa, it is still a great honor! And this move will also bring the Zhuge family closer The relationship with the Tokugawa family will help resolve the Ming Dynasty's containment of Japan, which is especially beneficial to our Daikoku family."
Daheikong also laughed: "That's really great."
Just when the father and daughter were talking enthusiastically, the carriage they were riding in had already turned a corner at an intersection. At this intersection, a group of ronin wearing white washed kimonos and samurai swords slung around their waists were holding their hands in their wide sleeves. They all held their heads high and looked at the Daikoku family's carriage with sinister expressions. and guards. The leader was a one-eyed man with a shaggy beard. He cursed viciously: "Baga, a national thief!"
