Volume 2: Soaring! The Overlord of the Region Chapter 406: The Shogunate’s Death Struggle (I)
"Your Majesty, our army has already assembled in Korea, and all kinds of supplies are being shipped to Busan . But..."
"Just what?"
On March 1, 1619, the State Council held a meeting in Beijing. The theme of this meeting was naturally to discuss how to proceed with the next step of the war: landing on the Japanese mainland. But at the beginning of the meeting, the Minister of War Wang Xiangqian raised a difficult question.
"Your Majesty, currently, with the more than 80,000 Japanese surrendered soldiers and the 59,000 allied forces that entered Korea from the north bank of the Yalu River, there are a total of more than 24,700 combat soldiers in the entire Korea. If we count the logistics support personnel and the civilian laborers and craftsmen who have been with the army for a long time, there are more than 300,000 people. Although the surrendered people such as Date and Uesugi handed over 300,000 stones of grain , this amount of grain is only enough for the above personnel to consume for two or three months... Of course, the court collected all kinds of taxes very well last year, and there is still no shortage of food. What I actually want to say is that if we want to land on the Japanese pirates' homeland, we must send these 300,000 people up and ensure enough food. The more than 3,000 civilian ships we have currently requisitioned are not enough for transportation."
"So that's how it is..." After listening to what Wang Xiangqian said, Zhu Youdong turned to look at Cao Sanxi.
Cao Sanxi stood up immediately and said, "Your Majesty, rest assured. I will immediately mobilize civilian ships from the south to go north. The relevant mobilization expenses will be paid from the war fund. However, because the Strait of Malacca has been opened, most southern merchants are eager to do business in Southeast Asia. Therefore, I have to mobilize southern civilian ships. A 700-ton Dafu ship will cost more than 200 yuan per month to rent. This cannot last too long, otherwise not only will the rental fee rise sharply, but it is expected that in the first year of Tianqi, the commercial taxes received by the five states in Central and South will also drop sharply. Between the inflow and outflow, I am afraid that this alone will lose more than 5 million yuan."
After Cao Sanxi said this, the Minister of Revenue Xu Honggang, who had closed his eyes and pretended to be dead at the meeting, suddenly opened his eyes and stared at Wang Xianggan with a bad look.
"Hmph!" Wang Xiangqian snorted with disdain at the miser and stood up. "Your Majesty, as long as the military has enough transport capacity, the landing plan is ready. After the civilian ship captain Cao from the south is deployed here, we will spend at most half a month to train and organize the new civilian ships, and then we can choose a date to cross the sea in large numbers. Because the specific landing date and location involve the highest military secrets, I will not talk about it in this State Council meeting. I will report separately in the operations room later."
"Okay, I got it." Zhu Youdong knocked on the table and said loudly: "My lords, since the Japanese pirates and Siam launched an undeclared war against our Ming Dynasty in the 44th year of Wanli, this war has lasted for three years. In the past three years, thanks to the tenacity of the people and the bravery of the soldiers, our dynasty has gradually turned the situation of this war from passive defense to a complete turnaround. However, although our Ming Dynasty is now sure of victory, my lords must remember that the journey of a hundred miles begins with a single step. This final battle against the Japanese landing is the most critical battle. I also ask all the lords to cooperate sincerely to put a successful end to this three-year war."
"In compliance with the Emperor's order, the might of the Ming Dynasty will surely descend upon Yingzhou."
…
When Zhu Youdong was preparing to deal the final blow to Japan, what was Tokugawa Yoshinao doing?
Busy killing people.
In the Korean War in late February, the Ming army only annihilated and incorporated the main Japanese forces in Korea. It was impossible for the Ming army to wipe out the small garrison troops in some places outside the three cities of Ping, Kai, and Han, as well as the ninjas scattered around to gather intelligence within six days. Therefore, among these people, there are certainly some who escaped back to the Japanese mainland. For example, the news that the Date and Uesugi families betrayed the Tokugawa shogunate and surrendered to Toyotomi Tohide was naturally reported back to Japan.
After receiving such news, Tokugawa Yoshinao had to take action whether he wanted to or not: although big families such as Date, Uesugi, Mori, and Maeda have brought their main relatives, families, and core samurai groups to Korea in recent years, their side branches and concubines who stayed in the homeland must be killed now. Otherwise, the prestige of the entire shogunate will be completely destroyed.
Therefore, starting from March 1619, the Tokugawa family sent out several new armies to attack the former territories of the upper-level daimyo and launched massacres against the family members of these families in various places.
This kind of thing would undoubtedly arouse the resentment of all the outer daimyo and local nobles, but it had to be done. Overall, it was really worse than eating a fly.
Speaking of eating flies, Tokugawa Yoshinao was fed more than one fly by Zhu Youdong. At the end of January, the Korean royal family was sent to the bottom of the Liaohe River. When the news came back to Japan, facing the trembling daimyo and common people, Tokugawa Yoshinao had to "admit" that he had sent out this team of ninjas, and expressed his gratitude for the "fruitful" work of Hattori Hanzo and others, and increased the territory of the Hattori family...
In fact, since the victory of the East China Sea decisive battle in February last year, Tokugawa Yoshinao knew that Japan was doomed: an island country that had lost its control of the sea, what else could it do? All it could do was let the shrine maidens dance desperately, and see if Amaterasu could blow up the divine wind again and blow the Ming fleet to the bottom of the sea.
Of course, as I said before, no one is willing to give up their life until the last moment. So, we still have to struggle.
Also on March 1st, in Edo Castle, the Shogun's residence.
The hall was crowded with people. If one carefully observed the family crests on these people's clothes, anyone who had a little understanding of the situation in Japan at that time would be surprised to find: Why were there only Tokugawa, Matsudaira, Honda, Sakai, Ii, Sakakibara, Yagyu... and no other family crests could be seen at all?
Yes, at this point, although the outer vassal states of Japan have all had their own thoughts, under such circumstances, the Tokugawa family's close vassal states and hereditary retainers have become more closely united - if the shogunate collapses, the outer daimyo will at most have their fiefs reduced, and if things go wrong, they will even have their fiefs increased. But the Tokugawa clan will definitely die without a burial place!
Therefore, Tokugawa Yoshinao can fully trust this group of people here.
"Your Majesty, welcome."
After taking the main seat, Tokugawa Yoshinao did not hesitate to get straight to the point: "Everyone, I won't say much. The war is not going well and the country is in crisis. If we cannot repel the upcoming Ming invasion, the shogunate will cease to exist. Therefore, today's meeting is to determine how to deal with the Ming invasion!"
Actually, the defeat of Korea was acceptable to Tokugawa Yoshinao: although 15,000 new troops and nearly 10,000 foot soldiers under the command of the lords of the clan were lost, from another perspective, nearly 100,000 unstable factors were thrown out - the army under the command of the powerful outer daimyo, and the ronin who lost their territory due to the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. At this time, they were all in Korea instead of in China. This made it less likely that he would be stabbed in the back in the future landing blocking battle.
It's just that guys like Date and Uesugi were too shameless and surrendered without even fighting a battle. In this way, the power of the outer daimyo was not weakened, and it seems that not many Ming soldiers were killed . This is indeed a bit regrettable.
But it doesn't matter. Japan is not a weakling like Siam, surrounded by vassal states of the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, the shogunate's control over the country is unprecedentedly high. As long as the Ming Dynasty dares to land, he will definitely let Kaiyang experience the tenacity and perseverance of the Yamato people!
