Zheng Sen angrily rebuked: "My king's master has not arrived yet. Not only did he not surrender, he even dared to flee in fear of crime. He really deserves to die——"
Ryukyu King Shangxian and others were all stunned.
"The power of angels can intimidate thousands of miles away, and the people of small countries really admire them."
The King of Ryukyu had no choice but to step forward and cooperated respectfully.
"That's all, I'll settle the score with you later."
Zheng Sen said with an unhappy face, and then entered Shuri Castle without any worries.
For Ryukyu, it was the first time to see such a huge fleet, and it was also the army of the Chinese Empire. This was simply an unexpected surprise.
The small Shuri Castle was filled to the brim by the Ming army.
At the same time, the Kagoshima Domain and the Shimazu family.
The governor of the family, Shimazu Mitsuhisa, held a meeting to discuss Ryukyu affairs.
"Since the shogun closed the country, although our domain controls Ryukyu's foreign trade, it has to accept Edo's conditions, and the benefits are equal to nothing..."
"Instead of still controlling Ryukyu and offending the Ming Dynasty, it is better to withdraw from it and please the shogunate..."
An elder said.
"No!" At this time, another person said: "Although Ryukyu is small, there are tens of thousands of people, and the stone is 120,000 stone high. This is an important cornerstone of our Kagoshima Domain."
"It is better to wait for the Ming army to retreat and then send a general to Ryukyu."
At this time, the Kagoshima Domain had been weakened by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Tokugawa family, and the kingdom's stone height was only 720,000 koku. If Ryukyu was lost, the stone height would only be 600,000 koku.
This is definitely an unacceptable blow to the Shimadzu family.
"But, the Ming army has arrived at Shuri Castle."
Shimazu Mitsuhisa sighed: "Even if we admit defeat, we are still afraid of being held accountable."
"The head of the family is the head of the Kagoshima Domain and the shogun's servant. As the pillars of the samurai family and the shogunate, how can the Tokugawa family just sit back and watch?"
"Faced with the invasion by the Ming army, my family should also seek help from the shogunate and ask for food, grass, gold and silver support."
"good!"
Shimazu Mitsuhisa was overjoyed and hurriedly went to the shogunate to ask for help.
At this time, the new year has turned and it is the fourth year of Qing'an.
Tokugawa Iemitsu was seriously ill, so he was naturally lingering on his bed. His face was pale and his whole body was weak. Almost all government affairs were left to Masayuki Yasukuni and Tadakatsu Sakai, the elder.
At this time, the elder (chief assistant) Tadakatsu Sakai was sitting in the main seat, and Masayuki Hoshina was sitting with him.
Seniors Matsudaira Nobutsuna and Abe Tadaki sat on both sides, each with serious faces.
"Master, you have heard about the situation of the Kagoshima Domain, right?"
Sakai Tadakatsu's huge body was sitting on his knees, putting great pressure on everyone. At this time, his eyes were wide open, and his eyes were extremely stressful:
"During the Zhengdan court meeting, Emperor Ming asked us to withdraw from the Ryukyu Kingdom. Now the army has arrived in Ryukyu."
"I don't know, how should our shogunate deal with it?"
Matsudaira Nobutsuna lowered his head and said calmly: "Ryukyu Kingdom is originally a vassal state of Ming Dynasty. Kagoshima Domain sent troops to occupy it just to covet the benefits of maritime trade."
"The trustworthy shogun closed the country and only allowed foreign trade to one city, Nagasaki. Therefore, the only one who the Kagoshima Domain valued Ryukyu was Ishidaka."
"Shimazu is a famous name outside of Japan, so it is just right to weaken his stone height."…
During the Tokugawa shogunate period, there were three types of daimyo: clan daimyo, genealogical daimyo, and foreign daimyo.
The lords of the shogun belong to the same clan as the shogun, and are all Tokugawa clan. For example, the Gosan family, and later the Gosankyo, are all qualified to inherit the position of shogun.
The Shodai daimyo refers to the lord family that surrendered to Tokugawa Ieyasu before the Sekigahara War. They formed a close relationship with the Edo shogunate of "both prospered and suffered losses", and most of them served in the shogunate.
The soteri daimyo refers to the feudal lord families that surrendered to Tokugawa Ieyasu after the War of Sekigahara, such as the Shimazu family, Date Masamune of the Sendai clan, etc.
These people have never been trusted by the shogunate, and later they were also important in forming the overthrowing faction.
"I'm afraid it will affect the reputation of the shogunate." Abe Tadaki said bluntly: "After all, it involves the Ming Dynasty. The shogunate is now in charge of the whole country. If I sit back and watch the Kagoshima Domain being attacked, I'm afraid it will be a bit embarrassing -"
Once the face of the shogunate is involved, it will affect the reputation.
The veterans immediately calmed down.
"Why don't you ask the general?" Masayuki Hoshina shook his head and said cautiously: "After all, the matter is so important that we can't make the decision."
When Sakai Tadakatsu heard this, he actually nodded in agreement: "Yes, only General Shogun can make the decision on this matter."
In this way, several people went to Ooku to ask to see Tokugawa Iemitsu, regardless of his serious illness.
Tokugawa Iemitsu was awakened and had to brace himself to listen to the words of several veterans.
His many years of imperial career allowed him to think about government affairs from a high point. He immediately noticed something was wrong: "The Ming Dynasty is going to Ryukyu this time. In essence, I am afraid that it is our Japan."
"General -" Several senior middlemen were shocked and thought this was too incredible.
Ryukyu is at most involved with the Satsuma clan, so how could it have any intentions against the shogunate?
"This matter is nothing more than speculation."
Tokugawa Iemitsu waved his hands weakly and confided word by word:
"As for the Kagoshima Domain, we can ask them to hand over Ryukyu. If the Ming army approaches, we can ask Kyushu's foreign daimyo and Shodai daimyo to come to support. We don't want to win too many battles, just hold back the Ming army."
"The Ming people are not in Japan at all. They can't stay long. If they don't have enough food and grass, they have to retreat——"
Tokugawa Iemitsu said so much in one breath that his spirit immediately became depressed, he closed his eyes and fell asleep directly.
Sakai Tadakatsu could only choose to obey.
At this time, the Ming army, at the request of Ryukyu King Shangxian, sent troops to the Amami Islands, defeated hundreds of Japanese troops, and recovered more than a thousand people.
This aroused strong repercussions in Ryukyu.
Shang Xian diligently visited the military camp every day and constantly persuaded Zheng Sen to send troops to attack the Kagoshima Domain to avoid future troubles.
However, the daimyo in the Kyushu region also received instructions from the shogunate, and coupled with the sad mentality of the rabbit dying and the fox dying, they quickly gathered in Kagoshima with a scale of more than 20,000.
Zheng Sen took this opportunity and went in and out of the palace to persuade:
"Your Majesty, these Japanese are so evil that they have gathered 20,000 people——"
"We can drive them away today, but they will come back and bully them even more in the future. After all, Ryukyu is too far away from the Ming Dynasty and too close to Japan..."
After repeated threats, everyone in the Ryukyu Kingdom has come to believe that the next time the Japanese come to Ryukyu, they will carry out horrific island massacres.
Even if ordinary people can survive, the princes and nobles will definitely not survive.
The public opinion and the large-scale troops gathered by the Kagoshima Domain made it difficult for the Ryukyu Kingdom not to believe it.
In mid-March, King Shangxian of Ryukyu personally talked with Zheng Sen and stated the following:
"I don't want to regain the power of a country. I only want to protect my family and keep my wealth. Now, the thousands of people in Ryukyu are left to the general -"