Chapter 533 PS: Please do not subscribe to this chapter either. It is for claiming a spot and earning dirty money. It is expected to be modified to normal in three days.
Old Master Chen, Old Master Hu, and others looked at Qi Feng, who was speaking eloquently, with blank faces, completely unable to believe that these words were coming from Qi Feng's mouth.
However, Qi Feng didn't care about the gazes of others. Instead, he looked at Old Master Chen, Old Master Hu, and the others and said, "How about it? If you're willing to do this with me, Qi, we'll do it together. If you're not willing, you can leave on your own, as long as you don't cause trouble for me, Qi. We'll still be good brothers in the future."
Old Master Hu couldn't help but frown and say, "Brother Qi's idea is good, but where can we find a daimyo willing to cooperate with us? According to Brother Qi's words, this daimyo should not have too much power, should not be too smart, and should not be too foolish. Most importantly, he must be able to intimidate those short, ugly dwarves from Wa. It's not easy to find such a daimyo, is it?"
Qi Feng couldn't help but sneer, "Toads with three legs are hard to find, but there are plenty of people with two legs! To tell you the truth, I have already identified a daimyo. This person also studied in Great Ming for a period of time and has a rough understanding of medicine, which should be enough to fool those short, ugly dwarves."
Old Master Hu's eyes lit up, "The person you're talking about, is it Zhang Wenhong of the Kinai諸蕃?"
Qi Feng stroked his beard and nodded, smiling, "Exactly, it's him. This person was originally an orphan without parents and lucked out to get the favor of the Shogunate, receiving the bestowed name Inukai Wenhong. Later, because he served Tokugawa Ienari's daughter well, he had the opportunity to study in Great Ming."
"Judging from how he served Tokugawa Ienari's daughter, Inukai Wenhong is not stupid. However, his performance during his studies in Great Ming was extremely poor. He was caught cheating in several examinations and only barely graduated. Yet, no one expected that Inukai Wenhong would actually transform himself after returning to Wa and become a minor daimyo."
Old Master Chen, Old Master Hu, and the others present smiled and remained silent, with meaningful expressions on their faces – Tokugawa Ienari's daughter was notoriously ugly but also known for her wild ways. For Inukai Wenhong to have satisfied her and even become a daimyo because of it, he did possess some ability.
Daimyo are not all the same.
Daimyo originated from the term "myoshu" (名主), which referred to named land, meaning private land. Daimyo referred to people who owned a large amount of land.
In the late Heian period, a large amount of state-owned land and manors in Wa were granted to nobles like the Fujiwara clan or occupied by nobles. Wa's original banded land system also collapsed. Nobles governed and amused themselves in Kyoto, while their lands and manors were managed by their house vassals. Later, these house vassals, who had a basic understanding of martial arts and archery, gradually evolved into the samurai of later times.
In the late Heian period, the retired Emperors in Wa implemented cloistered rule (院政), enlisting samurai as their pawns to counter the Fujiwara nobles. The nobles, unwilling to have their interests harmed, also began to enlist samurai to counter the retired Emperors. The confrontation between the retired Emperors and nobles caused the leaders of the Taira and Minamoto samurai groups, Taira no Kiyomori and Minamoto no Yoritomo, to seize the opportunity and successively establish the Taira regime and the Kamakura Shogunate. The lands owned by the samurai who were loyal to them were also legalized, and those samurai became myoshu. During the Muromachi Shogunate period, the samurai leaders who raised armies with Ashikaga Takauji were appointed shugo (守護) and governed samurai of one or several provinces, collectively known as shugo daimyo.
After the Ōnin War, the "gekokujō" (下克上) trend prevailed in Wa. Most shugo daimyo declined, and minor lords rose to become sengoku daimyo.
In the Edo period, the Shogunate divided the daimyo of the country into fudai daimyo and tozama daimyo.
Daimyo like Inukai Wenhong, who climbed to power by flattering Tokugawa Ienari's daughter, actually had little social standing because their own strength was not enough to be listed as fudai daimyo. The Shogunate did not care about their survival, often treating them as playthings.
Even more crucially, the Wa imperial court also did not trust these daimyo who rose to power by flattering Tokugawa Ienari's daughter, resulting in the awkward situation where daimyo like Inukai Wenhong were neither loved by their elders nor cared for by their juniors.
For such a situation, anyone with a bit of backbone would find it unbearable. However, Inukai Wenhong could endure it. Not only could he endure it, but he had also found a way to comfort himself – whenever he felt unhappy, Inukai Wenhong would recall how happy he was during his studies in Great Ming and then comfort himself: "It's not that I, Inukai Wenhong, am too useless, but that Wa, from top to bottom, lacks the ability to recognize talent, and my skills have been buried for nothing! If Great Ming were to rule Wa..."
This kind of rambling behavior naturally angered the Shogunate and the Wa imperial court even more. However, no matter how displeased the Shogunate and the Wa imperial court were, and no matter how much they wanted to kill Inukai Wenhong with one blow, they ultimately had to tolerate it with gritted teeth.
Because Inukai Wenhong said, "If Great Ming were to rule Wa..."
This statement was absolutely correct in Wa. Opposing this statement by Inukai Wenhong was equivalent to denying Great Ming, and denying Great Ming... The last fierce person who dared to curse at Great Ming was called Hameis, who was probably old enough to start attending community school by now.
Therefore, Inukai Wenhong became increasingly arrogant. Besides frequently promoting Great Ming to the samurai and commoners in his domain, he also privately published a Wa version of a newspaper, often attacking Tokugawa Ienari and Kōkaku- Tennō in the newspaper, completely disregarding the fact that Tokugawa Ienari was the Shogun and his nominal father-in-law, and also disregarding Kōkaku-Tennō's so-called divinity.
He even publicly declared that Kōkaku-Tennō, as the King of Wa, possessed not only no divinity but also not an iota of humanity. His actions had not brought welfare to the people of Wa and had辜负 (let down) the trust of the Emperor of Great Ming in him. Kōkaku-Tennō should commit seppuku to atone for his sins.
In the rigidly hierarchical Wa, by acting so boldly in his scolding and criticism, Inukai Wenhong quickly gathered a large group of followers, most of whom were samurai and rōnin who were extremely dissatisfied with the Wa imperial court and the Shogunate.
Now that Qi Feng proposed to use Inukai Wenhong to create chaos in Wa and make a profit, Old Master Hu, Old Master Chen, and the other Great Ming merchants present were naturally extremely tempted.
Old Master Hu chuckled, stroked his beard, and said, "With just Inukai Wenhong, at most he can only cause chaos in the territory he governs. The money we brothers can earn will naturally be very limited. In my opinion, we should find ways to bring more people in."
Qi Feng smiled and nodded, spitting out another name: "What about Nojiri Nishiki?"
Upon hearing the name Nojiri Nishiki, the Great Ming merchants present chuckled again.
If judged purely by social standing, Nojiri Nishiki was far inferior to Inukai Wenhong. Because no matter how you look at it, Inukai Wenhong was a daimyo, while Nojiri Nishiki was merely a country bumpkin who usually called himself a scholar of Dutch studies.
The key point was that Nojiri Nishiki was not just a simple scholar.
Although Nojiri Nishiki did not dare to openly criticize the Wa imperial court and the Shogunate like Inukai Wenhong, or even dare to rally a group of dissatisfied Wa individuals to run a newspaper, Nojiri Nishiki played fiercely by attacking the lords and daimyo all over Wa, while also making sarcastic remarks about the Wa imperial court and the Shogunate.
In the eyes of the Wa imperial court and the Shogunate, Nojiri Nishiki was like a toad – he couldn't be killed but could disgust people to death. After all, he wore the skin of a Dutch studies scholar and usually associated closely with Great Ming merchants. The Wa imperial court and the Shogunate did not dare to deal with him directly.
Now Qi Feng remembered Nojiri Nishiki.
To put it bluntly, Wa, which was praised to the heavens by countless incurable people, was actually similar to the situation in Tianzhu. Tianzhu had a caste system, and Wa also had a class system.
For example, why did those ronin samurai who lost their masters remain ronin instead of finding jobs?
This meant that for Tokugawa Ienari to complete the blockade thoroughly, he had to deal with those ronin first.
The lords of Chikuzen, Chikugo, Buzen, Bungo, Hizen, Tsushima, Hyuga, and others also responded accordingly. However, the other lords and daimyo couldn't help but frown.
This geographical difference naturally led to uneven development among the various domains. Some domains were relatively wealthy, while others were extremely poor.
The difference in wealth and poverty would be directly reflected in the number of ronin in each domain.
The poorer the domain, the more ronin it had.
More importantly, Satsuma Domain and the lords of Chikuzen, Chikugo, and others also shared a common designation: the Kyushu Domains.
These domains were originally scattered across the island of Kyushu. Satsuma Domain had even sent troops to capture the Ryukyu Islands, forcing the Ryukyu King to pay tribute to Wa.
If they were willing, they were definitely not willing. Shimazu Hisamitsu and the lords of Chikuzen, Chikugo, and others had also thought of resisting. At least they should have gotten a better location, right?
Then Shimazu Hisamitsu and his group quickly moved to Ezo, completely ceding the island of Kyushu.
Let them obey the orders of their lords and ignore Tokugawa Ienari. What would the Shogunate think? If they dragged each other down and argued, how could they possibly achieve anything?
This was even more unacceptable to the various lords than directly providing money to support Tokugawa Ienari!
After Tokugawa Ienari finished speaking, the lords present secretly breathed a sigh of relief, but at the same time, they couldn't help but feel a bit suspicious.
As everyone knew, Tokugawa Ienari's biggest flaw, besides being lustful, was his greed. The rapaciousness of his sons and daughters was entirely inherited from Tokugawa Ienari. Shimazu Hisamitsu, this Ezo barbarian, was so poor that he was like a dog, yet he still sent samurai and ashigaru to help Tokugawa Ienari. Now, he was the first to jump out and scold the other lords, acting like a loyal dog willing to shed the last drop of blood for the Edo Shogunate. Yet, Tokugawa Ienari seemed displeased?
After pondering in secret, a flash of inspiration struck Matsudaira Nobunobu's mind – thinking optimistically, Tokugawa Ienari might genuinely want to eliminate those samurai, and his current behavior towards Shimazu Hisamitsu was just a show, intended to lure the other lords into the trap.
If he thought pessimistically, perhaps Tokugawa Ienari's true goal was not to completely eliminate the ronin, but to target the lords themselves! Once a large number of Shogunate samurai and ashigaru were allowed to enter the territories of various domains, it would be difficult to predict what would happen next!
Thinking of this, Matsudaira Nobunobu's expression couldn't help but turn grim. He then glanced at Shimazu Hisamitsu and said loudly, "Lord Shimazu is absolutely right. This is precisely the time for us to unite and overcome difficulties. We cannot afford to be hesitant at this moment!"
With Shimazu Hisamitsu and Matsudaira Nobunobu's statements, the other lords no longer had any way out. Whether they understood or not, they had to follow Shimazu Hisamitsu and Matsudaira Nobunobu in expressing their willingness to send their samurai and ashigaru to help the Shogunate eliminate those ronin.
Tokugawa Ienari, however, was secretly filled with hatred.
Old Master Chen, Old Master Hu, and the others looked at Qi Feng, who was speaking eloquently, with blank faces, completely unable to believe that these words were coming from Qi Feng's mouth.
However, Qi Feng didn't care about the gazes of others. Instead, he looked at Old Master Chen, Old Master Hu, and the others and said, "How about it? If you're willing to do this with me, Qi, we'll do it together. If you're not willing, you can leave on your own, as long as you don't cause trouble for me, Qi. We'll still be good brothers in the future."
Old Master Hu couldn't help but frown and say, "Brother Qi's idea is good, but where can we find a daimyo willing to cooperate with us? According to Brother Qi's words, this daimyo should not have too much power, should not be too smart, and should not be too foolish. Most importantly, he must be able to intimidate those short, ugly dwarves from Wa. It's not easy to find such a daimyo, is it?"
Qi Feng couldn't help but sneer, "Toads with three legs are hard to find, but there are plenty of people with two legs! To tell you the truth, I have already identified a daimyo. This person also studied in Great Ming for a period of time and has a rough understanding of medicine, which should be enough to fool those short, ugly dwarves."
Old Master Hu's eyes lit up, "The person you're talking about, is it Zhang Wenhong of the Kinai諸蕃?"
Just as Matsudaira Nobunobu thought, the reason why Tokugawa Ienari proposed that the Shogunate dispatch samurai and ashigaru to eliminate those ronin was partly because he genuinely wanted to eliminate those ronin to avoid any unexpected incidents during the subsequent blockade.
As for sending ninja or some patients with leprosy to cause trouble in Kōkaku-Tennō's territory, Tokugawa Ienari did not have such thoughts for the time being.
Unfortunately, Tokugawa Ienari's well-laid plans were now being ruined by these two scoundrels, Shimazu Hisamitsu and Matsudaira Nobunobu.
The lords and daimyo present couldn't help but be a little confused, not knowing what this scoundrel Tokugawa Ienari wanted to say next.
The lords and daimyo continued to be confused – Great Ming is the superior country, the father of Wa, isn't that a matter of course?
Heavenly Emperor's Noble Lineage reminds you: Remember to collect after reading.