eldest son of Ming dynasty

In late July, Zhu Houzhao had already passed Hangzhou and arrived in Ningbo.

This is also the last stop of his southern tour.

Here, he summoned Wu Wending, the admiral of the Ming Dynasty Navy, and announced that Jing Shaokui would be appointed governor of Yingtian. At the same time, he called Wang Bing, the temporary "substitute", to Ningbo.

In Ningbo, reading the Daming Navy is of course an important event.

But this ceremonial thing is not to show off for good looks, but to receive foreign envoys again and clarify with them some rules for country-to-country interactions.

Zhu Houzhao attaches great importance to this work.

It is not easy for Chinese people to completely overthrow the things of their ancestors. The Ming Dynasty opened the sea and the Central Plains interacted with so many foreign countries for the first time. Although he cannot be called the ancestor in this regard, he can create a legal regulation. Then later There are precedents to follow when people do this work again.

After Gu Zuo was transferred to the position of Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, the most important thing was to work in this way.

Of course, we have to start with the navy first.

The Ming Dynasty Navy in the 120th year of Zhengde is no longer an army with only a few broken ships and a few sailors, and sometimes its combat power is not as good as that of pirates. After several years of construction, Wu Wending now has more than 5000 warships and nearly one usable troops. [-] people.

In addition, there are three military ports in Ningbo, Fuzhou and Quanzhou.

Because the emperor wanted to inspect the navy, half of the warships were concentrated in Ningbo Port. From a distance, it looked like there were many masts and there was no end.

This was Zhu Houzhao's confidence when he met with foreign envoys.

Ningbo Palace,

The emperor was listening to Jiang Yong, the governor of Zhejiang, and Fu Yihui, the port chief of Ningbo, report on typical foreign-related cases. This was something he had already ordered Gu Zuo to do.

And not just recently, but also the most typical major and important cases in the past few years.

One of the cases has caused quite a stir from last year to this year.

The origin needs to be traced back further,
It is said that in the late spring of the seventh year of Zhengde, a Japanese businessman named Hyugatani landed in Ningbo. He was probably running for his life, so his original purpose was to find a way to stay in the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, after arriving ashore, he was not interested in business at all. Instead, he looked for ways to bribe government officials. Finally, he found the official in charge of this aspect, named Yi Renze.

Yi Renze first extended the period of his residence permit illegally, and then helped him issue a pass.

Because he was escaping for his life, Hinagaya didn't want to stay in Ningbo. It could be said that he could go anywhere, just not along the coast.

Later, he ran and ran and arrived in Henan.

For Yi Renze, the Ming Dynasty was so big that one more person or one less person wouldn't matter. There was so much money in front of him, so don't be a bastard.

Originally, he didn't know the famous names all over Japan, so the probability of running into them was not small.

But who knew that Hinagaya was the son of some daimyo? Even if he fled to the Ming Dynasty, someone would kill him.

That's bad.

A corruption case became a diplomatic incident, and people there felt that Ming was protecting their mortal enemy.Therefore, we sent many missions to negotiate, and even threatened to sue the capital.

When the capital city was mentioned, Yi Renze panicked.What if their greed for ink comes to light?

At this time, the simplest way is to arrest this person named Hinata and hand him over to others.

Yi Renze did the same thing.

He knew where Hinata Gu had gone and sent a dozen of his men all the way to Henan. For him, catching someone was really a piece of cake.Originally, the Municipal Shipping Department would also contact the local government to jointly arrest smuggled foreigners.

It was considered a near miss, and the matter passed just like that.

But Yi Renze still thinks too simply. Who are the Japanese?

In the eighth year of Zhengde's reign, these people came again.

When we arrived in Ningbo, we went to him directly and said that we had lost Hinata Valley before, but now we found out that Hinata Valley’s two younger brothers had also fled to Ming Dynasty!You need to hand it over immediately!

This time, Yi Renze was dumbfounded, handing someone over?Where can he pay it?
Not at all!

But the Japanese didn't care. If they didn't surrender, they would just do what they did last year. They sent envoys to Beijing to negotiate with the Ming Emperor!By then, Hinataya’s bribery will definitely not be concealed!

Only then did Yi Renze realize that these people knew his weakness, so they came to extract money!
But what can he do?
Those who held their noses and swallowed their anger had no choice but to hand over the money.

In the eighth year of Zhengde, this was just a matter of money.But what's behind it?
It was an official from the Shipping Department of Daming City who was manipulated by the Japanese.

Later, the Japanese began to extend their hands to technologies such as sericulture and silk reeling. If this is related to the economy, then the later information about the two thousand treasure ships was leaked, and it is related to the military!

The case broke out at the end of the ninth year of Zhengde. All officials in the Ming Dynasty, including Mei Kejia, couldn't figure out why Japan had recently opened its eyes.

They were asked to learn raw silk and weaving!

Later, Jin Yiwei secretly investigated and gradually got some clues...

How could Zhu Houzhao, a later visitor, not be angry when he heard about this kind of case, so he specifically asked them to report these foreign-related cases in detail one by one.

Now, Yi Renze has been arrested, and he has provided the names of the Japanese who blackmailed him, and they are all in front of him.

The results of the outbreak that started at the end of last year and have been detected in half a year are put together...

Zhu Houzhao clenched his fists and almost wanted to wipe out Yi Renze's nine tribes, but thinking about it carefully, he was still needed for this case, and it would not be too late to kill them. "Is there an envoy from Japan in Ningbo?"

Gu Zuo carefully replied: "Yes. I wonder, Your Majesty, if you want to summon him?"

Zhu Houzhao did not reply, but asked Fu Yihui from the Ningbo Shipping Department, "What you just said is Yi Renze's confession? Have you checked it? Is this really the case?"

"Back to the emperor, I have checked and found that the case did arise because of this."

"That's too much!" Zhu Houzhao slammed the table and stood up suddenly, "The ministers of the Ming Dynasty made mistakes, and I will punish them. But how dare these Japanese people do such shameless and bold things? It cannot be tolerated! Some people told me before that it was indeed us who hid people secretly, fart! From today on, we will set a rule. From now on, if Japan asks for people from the Ming Dynasty, they will never have them! Who dares to open this Damn it, I want his head!!"

Gu Zuo, Jiang Yong and others were so frightened that they knelt down and said, "Your Majesty, calm down and don't hurt the dragon's body."

"Calm down? It's a good thing you don't get angry when things like this happen! You Zhi, go and bring the Japanese envoy! Now it's my turn to ask them for someone!"

"Yes, the servant will go here."

"And Wu Wending, let me ask you, can the navy of the Ming Dynasty reach Japan?!"

Wu Wending straightened his upper body and said proudly: "Your Majesty, of course I can!"

"Can we intercept Japanese merchant ships?!"

"Return to Your Majesty, of course you can!"

"Okay!" Zhu Houzhao said decisively, "I believe what you said! I was thinking about this case on the way to Ningbo. How could Ming officials who read sages' books and Japanese people conspire to make 20 taels of silver? The corruption case, I never thought there were all these tricks in it.

I will tell you beforehand that there are various means of commercial competition. Let’s leave this aside for now, but spying on the military situation of the Ming Dynasty is a particularly serious case.So I will put my ugly words out of the way first. There are many foreigners in Ningbo. If anyone walks out of this door and makes blind promises to them in private, don’t blame me for turning against them! "

Zhu Houzhao was a little angry and his face turned red.

Jin Gui looked scared, squeezed his palms and said: "Your Majesty's will, all ministers will do it. Please calm down, your Majesty."

"Wang Bing."

"The old minister is here."

"Reply a letter and send it to the capital to prepare them."

Wang Bing was puzzled. Are you ready?What preparation?
"This old minister is stupid, please make it clear to your majesty."

Zhu Houzhao frowned and said word by word: "Be prepared to conquer Japan!"

"Your Majesty!" Yang Tinghe said quickly, "The imperial court has just deployed troops in the northwest. It would be a bit risky to conquer Japan at this time. Even if we want to conquer Japan, I think we should wait a few more years? Besides, Your Majesty has plans to personally conquer Japan next year."

Zhu Houzhao gradually calmed down at this time, and he said: "It doesn't matter, if necessary, the personal expedition can be postponed."

This……

They all know the emperor's attitude towards this matter very well. If they can say this, it means that there is no more persuasion.

The so-called preparation for personal expedition means raising food and grass and preparing various combat materials.

Anyway, it is already in the process, and it will be the same when used in another war.

Zhu Houzhao said seriously: "Sometimes there is such a struggle between countries. This is a breath. I fought for this breath! It is also a breath that I will leave for future generations!"