The Imperial Guard Headquarters is commonly known as Beijing North Camp among the people. After several years of construction, it is now the symbol that best represents the powerful force of the capital. In the past few years, the Imperial Guard has been fully paid, equipped with fine soldiers and equipment, and has been trained for a long time by top military training experts like Qi Jiguang. In terms of combat effectiveness, it is no less than ten times higher than the remaining production and construction corps in the old Beijing camp. It is by no means a Han general of the Imperial Guard. It can be compared with the pure army composed of eunuchs.
In this battle to destroy the Yuan Dynasty, the emperor's greatest support for Gao Pangshi was not only to give the title of Manager of the Yuan Dynasty to Meng Yuan, but also to give the most powerful "Shang Fangjian Privilege" to date. All the imperial guards were handed over to him as the core of the Chinese army of the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties.
However, although the war started at the beginning of spring, due to the getting colder and colder in recent years, the beginning of spring showed signs of delaying each year, so that the imperial court delayed the formal sword-giving ceremony until mid-February, leaving Shang Fang. The sword bestows high pragmatism as a symbol of authority.
The next day, a swearing-in ceremony was held at the Beijing Camp, where Gao was awarded the pragmatic commander's seal, the king's command flag, and the tiger talisman of the Imperial Guard.
At the same time, the Imperial Guards also conducted several simple drills, showing the emperor and court officials who rarely visited the Beijing Camp, such as queue changes, three-stage firing platoons, artillery salvos, and cavalry shootings. Receive common tactical moves such as rushing into formations.
Seeing a large number of straw men being beaten to pieces with legs and arms flying around, both the emperor and the princes were very satisfied with the performance of the Imperial Guards - although Gao Jingshi felt that most of them did not understand the secret at all. , it was just a grand ambition, but it did not prevent him from being a Mongolian and Yuan strategist to provide some benefits to the Imperial Guards in advance, and to ask the emperor for rewards on the grounds that the Imperial Guards had worked hard and performed well.
Although the emperor is an emperor, he is still a normal young man after all. He is definitely good at watching soldiers, so he is in an extremely happy mood and is very easy to talk to.
Gao Pragmatic's original idea was to let the emperor follow suit and just say "a generous reward from the Ministry of Revenue". Anyway, Gao Situ had already prepared the money and materials for this reward. Unexpectedly, when the young emperor was happy, he did not ask the Ministry of Revenue to reward him. Instead, he waved his hand and issued an oral order: "I will take three hundred thousand taels of silver from the internal funds and give it to you. I will wait in the capital for the triumphal return of our three armies!"
The soldiers haven't even been sent out yet, but the three hundred thousand taels of silver have already been poured down like water. The domineering spirit of Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty filled the camp in Beijing and North, arousing the imperial guards' cheers. The voice of "Long live my emperor" resounded through the sky!
The proud Emperor held his head high and gladly accepted the worship of the Imperial Guards. When he left, he walked like a breeze, as if he never had any foot problems.
This amount of money was an unexpected blessing. The emperor had not prepared it before he came, so the Chief of Ceremonies had to coordinate it quickly. It would definitely not be distributed today. However, Gao Pragmatic did not secretly save money because of the emperor's extra reward. After the emperor and the officials left, he still announced his reward.
Of course, Gao Pragmatic's reward was issued in his capacity as a Mongolian Yuan manager. According to the account transfer department, it was impossible to give 300,000 taels of cash, but to the "Ming Fed Reserve" with a small amount of banknotes, with a face value of one tael. Two pieces for each person; five hundred pigs, two thousand chickens, and one cotton coat. Everyone has a share of banknotes and cotton-padded clothes, and pigs and chickens are slaughtered on the spot to supplement today's meal.
Seriously speaking, the bulk of this is still issuing money, but giving banknotes and giving cash are actually very different. As mentioned before, this large-scale replacement of cash with banknotes can increase the Federal Reserve Bank of Banknotes - - That is, the credibility of banknotes, of course, the premise is that they can be redeemed.
Of course, the 120,000 taels of silver can be redeemed, not to mention that the Ming Fed is not only a financial institution, but also has the collective endorsement of the entire Beijing and northern large business groups since its operation for a year. What is collective endorsement? Just take the banknote to buy things from pan-Jinghua merchants such as Jinghua or Sea Trade Alliance. The banknote will definitely buy the corresponding goods in full. This is an endorsement.
If you still don’t understand this truth, just think about how the Red Dynasty helped the Mi Emperor stabilize the crisis caused by the overflow of rice yuan at a certain time in later generations. If there is too much currency, it will cause inflation if there is a shortage of goods. However, if a super-producing country continues to provide high-quality and low-price goods, the inflationary impact of this over-issuance will be offset accordingly.
In fact, there was no basis for inflation in the Ming Dynasty because there was always insufficient currency on the market. This is also the reason why the middle and late Ming Dynasty became a bottomless pit of silver in history. It is an excess of productivity relative to money, and in fact it has always been in deflation. In the Wanli Dynasty, prices were so cheap. At its most expensive, a cow cost no more than four taels of silver, and at its cheapest, it only cost more than two taels. This was typical deflation.
Because of this, Gao Wuchen is not worried about overissuance of banknotes at all, and even wants to find ways to issue more banknotes. Not only did the Ming Dynasty invest heavily in paper currency, he was also engaged in another kind of financial war against neighboring countries.
For example, in Japan, Gao Pragmatic used his strong trading power to earn a large amount of silver and some gold from Japan. At the same time, he manufactured Yongle Tongbao in the Ming Dynasty and spent it in the Japanese market. As mentioned before, Yongle Tongbao is the most popular in Japan because of its good quality. Absolute hard currency.
In this way, a large amount of Japanese silver flows out and becomes the reserve of the Ming Dynasty Federal Reserve. The Ming Dynasty Federal Reserve overissues some silver bills in proportion, which can alleviate the domestic deflation of the Ming Dynasty. But to a certain extent, Japan has not lost, because the quality of Japan's own copper coins is very poor, and there has always been a currency shortage in the market. Now that there is a large influx of genuine Yongle Tongbao, it can stabilize Japan's currency market.
But this is not all of the plan. Next - in fact, it has already begun - Jinghua will gradually use Mingfed Bank Notes to settle trade with Japan's big businessmen, and then gradually promote it to the whole country of Japan, eventually forming Mingfed Bank Notes as a Japan’s de facto legal tender situation. At that point...well, there's a lot that can be done.
Just imagine that one day in the future, the Japanese court, various lords, and big businessmen will have a large number of Ming Dynasty Federal Reserve banknotes in their hands. At this time, Gao Pragmatic suddenly threatened: "If you do anything, the Ming Dynasty Federal Reserve will not exchange it."
That scene... tsk tsk, it's so beautiful that I can't even imagine it. Of course, with a highly pragmatic approach, we will definitely not threaten all the forces together, but threaten a certain part of them individually. How can the threatened ones resist?
If Gao Pragmatic added, "If the other famous names in Japan can exchange their banknotes for their banknotes, I will tell the Federal Reserve to still honor them." Then the unlucky guy who was refused payment would probably have to be quartered by other famous names.
Therefore, productivity is combat effectiveness, because productivity can support financial capabilities, and using financial means to control the enemy does not have to kill many of your own people, but you can also harvest leeks in a "civilized" way, and even control the life and death of the opponent, which is much less dangerous than fighting. Yes, the price is also much smaller.
As a hegemon, you must make good use of your power. Wasn't it true that Dai Ying, who was stronger than him at a certain period, was also disgraced by the Boer War? The Ming Dynasty's current military strength is relatively inferior to that of Dai Ying during that period. There must be no restrictions on the use of this power. It's such a stupid thing to spend twenty years in a mountainous area to spend two trillion yuan and achieve nothing... Gao pragmatically expresses his gratitude but is not sensitive.
After the money and supplies from the Ministry of Finance were distributed, Gao Pragmatic did not stay to have fun with the imperial guards. Instead, he went to Jianxinzhai Villa not far from the main camp in Beijing.
Ever since the Mongol-Yuan Dynasty's hat was put on and troops could not be sent out immediately due to weather conditions, Gao Pragmatic had a reason to openly skip work - he lived in Jianxinzhai close to the Beijing North Camp, so he didn't have to go to the Ministry of Household Affairs every day to work. So since Narita Kai arrived in the capital, he basically lived in Mianshinsai.
Huang Zhiting also received new news at the right time. Although she returned to Beijing last year for a short period of time, she was not pregnant. Therefore, this time she was specially reminded that Narita Kai was in her late teens, and even according to her husband, she was suitable for adulthood. The age of pregnancy, so... in short, there are not enough children, and the husband must work harder.
Gao Pragmatic is quite satisfied with Kafei Ji, after all, she is "the most beautiful woman in the Eastern Kingdom". Moreover, she was a warrior Ji who could go into battle and kill generals. Although she was a head shorter than Gao Jingshi, she was already taller than many adult men among ordinary Japanese. This made Gao Jingshi feel relieved when he saw her. .
What makes Gao pragmatic even more satisfied is that Ji Feiji can actually speak Chinese. Although she is a bit stumbling, she can at least communicate. After asking, Gao pragmatically learned that she had actually learned some Chinese when she was a child, but the focus was on written language rather than spoken language, because many books in Japan at this time were purely in Chinese.
As a princess of the Fujiwara Kita family with a high family status, Kaihime started learning Chinese at the age of five. However, because she only read books at most, she rarely had the opportunity to communicate with others in Chinese, so her oral skills were very poor.
After arriving at the Narita family and negotiating the important matter of marrying her to Gao Jingshi, Kaiji took advantage of the fact that she didn't have to come to Ming Dynasty immediately to make up her speaking skills. She asked Luo Yuan to help buy several Chinese girls as maids, and communicated with them in Chinese every day. When she came to meet Gao Jingjing, she basically didn't have to worry about language issues.
Gao Pragmatic actually has a special liking for Kaiji's speaking style, because compared to Chinese, which has four tones, the characteristic of Japanese is that almost all of it is unstressed, and the ratio of vowels to consonants is very good, making it sound soft and waxy. It has Wu Nong's soft-spoken style, which Gao Pragmatic thinks is very suitable for women of this era.
Kafiji, who is accustomed to this kind of pronunciation, is still soft and soft when speaking Chinese, which makes Gao Pingshi feel like she used to feel like when she was watching anime in the past. If Gao Pragmatic hadn't planned to learn Japanese, he might have asked Kaiji to just speak Japanese as a way of remembering the past.
However, he didn’t have to learn Japanese, he still needed to know a lot of first-hand information about Japan. The two people Gao pragmatically cares about most are Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. However, Kaihime didn’t know much about Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and her knowledge of Tokugawa Ieyasu could only be said to be general. Most likely, Ieyasu occupied Takeda’s old territory after the Honnoji Incident, became an in-law with the Hojo family, and was almost married to the Narita family. I only heard about some of them after visiting my neighbors.
However, Kaiji didn't know much about Tokugawa Ieyasu in recent times. She only knew that Ieyasu was appeasing the local area while preparing to control floods, but she didn't know much about other aspects. If there is anything else, I probably heard that he is also wooing the Kanto Fleet of the Maritime Trade Alliance in Misaki Castle - but there is no need for Kafei to tell this, Gao Pragmatic knows much better than her.
However, there was one thing that happened around Kanto. The news brought by Kaibihime was clearer than the report submitted by the Kanto fleet, and that was the Kasai Osaki Kazuki incident.
As early as the beginning of October of the 18th year of Tensho in Japan, the old territory of Osaki, that is, the Miquan area of Nakashinda in the current territory of the Kimura family, was dissatisfied with the ancient Fenggong people (old ministers of Osaki) and local people due to the issue of horse service. Among them, more than thirty A person was killed, and this incident was considered by Kafihime to be a precursor to Osaki Kasai Ikku.
Later, many old ministers of Osaki and Kasai did not leave their duties and were taxed by Kimura's retainers, which led to the accumulation of dissatisfaction among these old ministers. First, an outbreak broke out in the Baishan area of Danzawa County, killing Kimura's retainers, and later spread to Kesen, Iwani, Tamazou County and other places. Some of Kimura's retainers escaped and were attacked by Ikku halfway. He escaped into the Date Territory with the help of Ujie Kanetsugi, an old minister of the Osaki family and a pro-Date kata.
Kaihime said that in the document sent by Date Masamune to Maeda Toshiie's retainer Tokuyama Hidegen on October 18th, only Senhoku Ikeke was mentioned but not Osaki Kasai Ikeke. However, it was mentioned on the 23rd, maybe on the 18th At that time, Date Masamune didn't know that a fire broke out in Kasai Osaki's territory, or he pretended not to know.
After receiving the news, Masamune immediately organized troops to go into battle and planned to go out in person on the 26th; while the Kamamo clan, which was newly moved to the area under the order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, planned to go out into battle on the 1st after receiving the news on the 26th. The intention of Ujigo's letter to Masamune was to let Masamune wait for the opportunity, and Masamune was constantly maneuvering his forces and achieved certain results.
But for some reason, it seemed that the Kamo clan could not trust Date Masamune and delayed going out until November 5th. After taking Meisei Castle on November 20th, they could not go out because of illness. On the 24th, Kimura and his son were rescued by the Date Army. On the 28th, Masamune and Ujigo exchanged letters of invitation.
Kaihime believed that the Kimura clan's suppression of Osaki Kasai's former ministers had caused local forces to form a group to resist, and it seemed that Masamune's actual participation was not visible at this time. However, after Date and Kamao sent troops one after another, the two sides were unable to effectively win each other's trust, which made Ujigo very uneasy about Masamune, and both sides reached the point of exchanging invitations.
Moreover, Suda Boqi, who had a grudge against Masamune, reported to the clan that Masamune had contacts with Ikkei. Kaihime believes that there are two possibilities here. One is that Suda Boki has a grudge and framed Masamune; the other is that in addition to Suda Boki, there is also Sone Shirousuke, who is Masamune's right-hand writer and has the opportunity to contact the Date family's scribes. , so it is possible that Masamune did have contacts with the forces in the west of Osaki Katsura. For example, Osaki's former minister Nakame Shigeuche and Ikkakata's Itato Kyusai and others later defected to Masamune - of course, it is also possible that they simply surrendered.
All in all, Kaihime believes that the situation in the northeastern part of Kanto is very unstable at this time. For some reason, Toyotomi Hideyoshi has not made much action or even expressed his position. At the same time, although Tokugawa Ieyasu did not express his position, he seemed to be nervous. It was said that he mobilized some troops to the northeast in a cautious defensive posture.
Although Kaiji expressed some personal guesses, she did not use a word of certainty and left the right of judgment to Gao Pragmatic.
Gao Pingshi stepped on the half-melted snow and stopped after walking a few steps. He shook his head slightly and said: "Toyotomi Hideyoshi pretended to be calm, and Tokugawa Ieyasu pretended to be nervous. It's interesting."
Kafiji only said "Hey" in a slightly surprised voice, but did not ask any more questions, but there was some confusion in her eyes.
Gao Pragmatic laughed and said to her: "Toyotomi Hideyoshi deliberately let the Kamo clan suppress Date Masamune. This is to establish the prestige of the Kamo clan. After all, he is also one of the important figures who will look after Tokugawa Ieyasu in the future. ; Tokugawa Ieyasu was busy developing Kanto, and he was afraid that Toyotomi Hideyoshi would miss him too much, so he pretended to be nervous. This was for Hideyoshi's heart, and the other was to keep himself out of irrelevant matters... "
"You are so wise, sir!" Kaiji complimented in a very Japanese style.
Gao Pragmatic was speechless for a moment, and after a while he smiled bitterly and said, "Do you know that the way you talk like this is very much like sarcasm? In other words, it's very sarcastic."
Kafei Ji was very surprised: "How could that happen?"
Gao pragmatic laughed again, shook his head and said: "I will go on an expedition in a few days. You can talk more with Secretary-General Liu... and Meng Guzhezhe. There are some contextual issues that you will understand once you get familiar with them."
"Hai...oh, yes sir, I will do as you ask."
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