Chapter 259: Taking Chestnuts from the Fire (18) A Lot
The reason why almost any transaction cannot be successful is because the price cannot be agreed upon. In the same way, the necessary prerequisite for the success of almost any transaction is that the price cannot be agreed upon.
However, if the Toyotomi family wants to find Jinghua to customize the warship, although the hull itself is not a problem, there are still some troubles beyond the price that need to be avoided in terms of shipboard weapons.
In fact, the laws of the Ming Dynasty can be regarded as a civil law system to a large extent, that is, statutory law. The emphasis on private rights is "freedom without prohibition by law." However, the Ming Dynasty did not impose a ban on the sale of iron or weapons against Japan.
.Theoretically, Gao Pragmatic can indeed sell any weapons to Japan, including muskets and artillery.
Why is there no ban on sales to Japan? Because Japan is among the fifteen "countries that cannot be conquered" designated by Emperor Taizu, and the official relationship between the Japanese court and the Ming Dynasty is pretty good.
Yes, although the Japanese pirate issue has troubled the Ming Dynasty for more than a hundred years, the Japanese pirate issue itself is a private cooperation between Japanese pirates and Ming pirates, and has nothing to do with the Japanese court (actually the shogunate). Even when the shogunate was relatively strong, they assisted the Ming Dynasty.
The Japanese pirates were wiped out by the Qing Dynasty, but the Muromachi shogunate... was too stretched, and the so-called period of prosperity was really too short.
The issue of "a country without conquests" has always been a shackle for Gao Pragmatic to some extent since he "debuted", which is a very bad thing.
These fifteen countries are in order, and the order is Korea, Japan, Da Liuqiu, Xiao Liuqiu, Annan, Chenla, Siam, Champa, Sumatra, Western, Java, Pahang, Baihua, Srivijaya, Bohai
mud.
Some of these countries have died naturally, let alone mentioning it. In the case of Annan alone, Zhu Di's reason for sending troops was "God's gift". The specific reasons have been mentioned before, so I won't repeat them. In short, he was to restore the Chen Dynasty.
They sent troops under the banner of the Qing Dynasty. As for why they occupied it directly later...it was because the Chen family was exterminated by the rebels.
Later, it was even more troublesome for Gao Pragmatic to send troops. He relied on luring snakes out of their holes and framing them, and then only used private soldiers and chieftains and wolf soldiers to complete the conquest. The whole process did not use a single Ming Dynasty's economical army. This approach was largely for the purpose of
Avoid Zhu Yuanzhang's setting of "a country without conquests".
The setting of "Countries Not Conquered" is similar to some of Zhu Yuanzhang's other arrangements, making the mistake of "keeping his eyes still". In other words, when Zhu Yuanzhang was alive, there were sufficient reasons not to attack these countries. The problem lies in the situation at the time.
It was impossible not to change after a period of time, but Zhu Yuanzhang did not consider these possible changes at all, and simply threw down the ancestral system and banned it. Therefore, the descendants of the Zhu family could only stare blankly even if they were capable of conquering.
During the Hongwu period, the main energy of the Ming court was to restore production and maintain internal governance. In addition, the main targets at that time were still the Mongolian tribes in the north. These "countries that did not conquer" actually had no energy to conquer in the first place.
After the "Huang Ming Ancestor Instructions" was completed and promulgated, Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang required the descendants of emperors to strictly follow and implement it. In fact, he was still somewhat worried that the temptation to expand territories would cause the descendants of emperors to ignore the threat from the north and fight against those in remote areas.
A small country in a corner. Zhu Yuanzhang probably thought this was a foolish waste of people's power, so he banned it.
In the fourth year of Hongwu's reign, Zhu Yuanzhang said in an edict: "If any overseas barbarian country causes harm to China, it must be punished. If it does not harm China, it cannot raise its own troops. The ancients said that a vast land cannot be settled for a long time, and it is easy to plan the work of the people.
The source of chaos.
For example, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty recklessly raised an army to conquer Ryukyu, killed the barbarians, burned their palaces, and captured thousands of men and women. The land he obtained was not enough to provide food, and the people he obtained was not enough to command.
All historical records will be ridiculed by future generations.
I have used the small barbarian countries to block the mountains and seas, and secluded them in a corner. They are not a patient of China, and I will never attack them. However, the Hu Rong in the northwest are a danger to China in the world, so we must be careful. Please remember what you said.
You know what I mean."
The above is Zhu Yuanzhang's explanation for setting up a "country without conquest". Simply put, it is "it is inconvenient to fight, and it is useless to defeat it." Therefore, it is reasonable not to fight.
However, if you take a closer look at Zhu Yuanzhang's original words, you will find that he actually left a backdoor: "If he is not a Chinese patient, I will never attack him" - then, if "he is a Chinese patient", will it be possible?
Cut it down? Theoretically it should be.
At this point, the key factor changes and becomes how to define "the other is China's trouble."
Yang Guang's reasons for attacking Goryeo are actually the same as Li Shimin's reasons for attacking Goryeo. For example, Li Shimin said: "Today we have made a decision, but Liaodong has not been visited. The descendants have strong soldiers and horses, and the advisers have led the conquest, and the chaos has just begun. I therefore sincerely
Take it without leaving any worries for future generations."
Look, for a pioneering emperor like Li Shimin, when he wanted to decide who to attack, his thinking was not that the other country was already "invading China", but just "not to worry about future generations." Relatively speaking, Zhu Yuanzhang's thinking was too
I am a little more conservative and seem to really believe that "governing all nations while living in China" is the absolute truth. I have never thought about the changes in the situation due to the changing times and whether these changes can "remain unchanged in response to all changes."
Of course, given the situation Zhu Yuanzhang faced at the time, this was justified. For example, North Korea was speculative in the late Yuan Dynasty, but there were several hidden dangers after Li Chenggui seized power. Its internal political forces needed to be integrated, and there were Japanese pirates nuisance externally.
, during his reign, he solved the Japanese rebellion, and the measures he took towards the Ming Dynasty were small things but big things, and he was very respectful.
This kind of obedience comes first from the strong military power of the Ming Dynasty, and secondly, it is to use the momentum of the Ming Dynasty to maintain its rule - in fact, as early as the second year of Hongwu, the Goryeo Dynasty had already sent envoys to pay tribute. Li Chenggui
After seizing power and establishing North Korea, Zhu Yuanzhang held the title of King of North Korea for many years in the name of usurping the throne.
As for Annan, the political consciousness at that time was also very high. In the second year of Hongwu, at Renwu, King Chen Rixuan of Annan sent his young ministers Simong Min, chief minister Ji Ti, Li Anshi and others to pay tribute to Fang Wu and asked for the title of a knight.
.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Because of its good attitude, the Ming Dynasty also received good feedback. It ordered Zhang Yining, a scholar in the Hanlin Academy, and Niu Liang to go to his country, and granted him the title of King Annan.
The camel buttons were painted with gold and silver seals. At that time, Annan came to pay tribute from time to time, and also liked to pay tribute to elephants, which made Zhu Yuanzhang quite satisfied.
Later, during the Yongle Dynasty, Li Dabiao violated a taboo. He thought that the tribute system was the diplomatic program of the Celestial Empire. You could just kill Prince Annan's family and pretend to be an impersonator, but you still had nothing to do. So Zhu Di sent General Zhang to slap him in the face.
Of course.
All in all, Zhu Yuanzhang's setting of these "countries without conquest" was not only related to the current situation at that time, but also related to the diplomatic principle of the tributary system that China had always insisted on implementing, and also related to Zhu Yuanzhang's understanding of these small countries at that time - an intuitive view
The benefits are limited.
Most of these countries that are not conquered are included in the tribute system, which is a manifestation of the Ming Dynasty's maintenance of the so-called Celestial Dynasty status. As for these settings restricting the Ming Dynasty's diplomacy and expansion... Zhu Yuanzhang's considerations are obviously different from Gao Pragmatism.
, for him, what could he gain by conquering Vietnam? Even later, when Zheng He went to the West to conquer the indigenous people along the way, what could he gain in the eyes of the emperor? Coconuts? Sappan wood? Spices? Or giraffes?
From the perspective of most people at that time, none of these things were necessities. Considering the distance of the journey and the high cost of maintaining these territories in the future, it was probably a loss-making business. It would be better not to fight them than to fight them.
Most of the small countries in the south have been accepted by Beijing, so there is no need to talk about them for the moment. Just talk about Japan. In fact, it has escaped from the "tasteless food" situation in Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes at the time. The huge amount of silver output alone is highly pragmatic.
Currency reform must be taken seriously and even indispensable now.
Due to the restrictions of the country without conquests, Gao Pragmatic could not take the initiative to send troops to Japan, and had to wait for Toyotomi Hideyoshi to send troops to Korea. However, in the original history, after the Ming Dynasty fought the Korean War, it not only disabled the main force of the Li family army in Liaodong, but also destroyed the national treasury and internal funds.
Empty.
These two major problems forced the court to rely on Li Chengliang's prestige and let him control Liao for the second time. The emperor sent Gao Huai to conquer Liaodong and collect money to make up for the shortfall in internal funds. In the end, Liao's difficulties became more and more uncontrollable, and Nurhaci took advantage of the opportunity to become powerful.
Gao Pragmatic's current suppression of Nurhaci is quite good. Of course, he mainly needs Nurhaci's military threat to ensure the loyalty of Ye He, Hada and other ministries to the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, it is inconvenient for him to kill Nurhachi in advance. Now he has to play with balance.
Nurhachi cannot die now, which actually means that during the North Korean war, Liaodong cannot be crippled and exhausted, so that he can lose control and quickly unify the Jurchen tribes. This requires the Ming Dynasty center to have enough financial resources to support the North Korean war, and it is best not to fight.
In six years, we must try our best to solve the problem as quickly as possible.
To sum it up, we need to have money and enough transportation capacity to support overseas operations. Only in this way can we concentrate the army and directly push the Japanese army into the sea.
Before Luo Yuan came to Japan, Gao Jingshi personally briefed him on the matter, and then granted him considerable authority, including authority over arms transactions.
However, the authority Gao Pragmatic gave him was not to allow him to trade, but to tell him what he could not trade. Gao Pragmatic's original words at the beginning were "My most important weapon cannot be given to others."
However, it was Luo Yuan's first time to shoulder an important task, and he was afraid that his understanding would be biased, so he asked "What are important weapons?" Gao pragmatically replied: "Among the weapons assigned to the garrison, the strongest and latest ones are the most important weapons.
"Now Luo Yuan is relieved.
According to Gao Pragmatic's explanation, Luo Yuan believes that the arms purchase proposed by the Toyotomi family is overall feasible - because the largest battleship they want is less than the size of an armed transport ship, and the armament on the ship is of course mediocre, at least it is impossible to carry the No. 1 gun
.
The No. 1 gun is the largest artillery currently equipped by the Jinghua garrison and various armed servants in the Ming Dynasty. It is generally used for bastion defense in key areas, mainly in southern Xinjiang.
Of course, more of them may be installed on warships in the future - only pure warships will be equipped with them, and armed transport ships will not be installed, because the load-bearing capacity of the artillery deck is not enough, and the deck may be damaged during salvo firing. Due to the current number of pure warships
is limited, so the number of "production lines" for the No. 1 gun has never been large, and the production capacity is also relatively limited.
In Luo Yuan's opinion, the No. 2 cannon is no longer within the highly pragmatic ban on sale, and can be sold to the Toyotomi family - in fact, the Toyotomi family had originally obtained it from some nobles in the Sea Trade Alliance.
Some, in fact, I can't help but think the difference is not big.
So Luo Yuan asked Toyotomi Hidenaga in detail, and the latter said that the new Daifuku ship they wanted should be equipped with twenty giant large barrels (No. 2 guns). However, Luo Yuan told Toyotomi Hidenaga based on his own professional vision that with the new type of ship
The size of the Daifuku ship cannot carry more than eighteen artillery pieces. Otherwise, if the cannons are fired, the deck may be shattered. Secondly, it may also affect the speed and seaworthiness. It is definitely not worth the gain.
At first, Toyotomi Hidenaga thought that Luo Yuan was just selfish and didn't want Japan to get more artillery. After careful questioning, he found that Luo Yuan spoke eloquently, and he didn't understand many of the explanations at all - but he "didn't know how serious it was", so in the end
Adopting Luo Yuan's opinion, the number of guns carried by the Dafu ship was set at eighteen, including six No. 2 guns and twelve No. 3 guns.
The new-style Kofuchuan is actually not small, and is one size larger than the ordinary Kansai ships in Japan. It was finally determined to carry two No. 2 cannons and ten No. 3 cannons.
Next it’s time to negotiate the price.
Although Luo Yuan is not from the shipyard, he has worked his way from an ordinary technical employee in Beijing to the captain of the pure warship "Left Cavalry". He knows the cost price and ex-factory price of the ship very well. Therefore, he first quoted: New model
The price of a single big fortune ship is 60,000 taels of kuping silver, and the price of a new small fortune ship is 40,000 taels of kuping silver.
Toyotomi Hidenaga was shocked when he heard this and asked Luo Yuan why it was so expensive. Luo Yuan said: "After all, it is customized. Jinghua has to specially redesign and form a new production system to build it, so the price is naturally a bit more expensive.
"
The good one is "a bit" more expensive. The armed transport ship is about 30% larger than the new Daifuku ship. It carries 28 guns, including eight No. 2 guns, but the price of a single ship is only 55,000 taels. It is obviously smaller than it.
He actually quoted a price of 60,000 taels for a circle of new big fortune ships, and a new small fortune ship that was only two-fifths the size of an armed transport ship, he actually quoted 40,000 taels. This is not robbing a person, it is killing a pig!
However, Toyotomi Hidenaga had done his homework and knew the price of armed transport ships within the Ming Dynasty, so he immediately raised a tactful question. However, Luo Yuan said plausibly without a blushing face and a heartbeat: "Your Majesty the Great Nayan is right.
I'm a bit of a layman. My husband is not His Majesty the Emperor. Why shouldn't we deal with this important matter of selling military weapons to our neighboring countries? How expensive is it to deal with it? Dai Nayan might as well think of the Japanese ministers."
Toyotomi Hideucha was stunned and speechless. What you said makes sense, but I was speechless. However, he finally came up with a trump card and said: "What if our Toyotomi family purchases in large quantities? This can always reduce the price a little."
Are you more accommodating?"
Luo Yuan had been waiting for the words "bulk purchase" for a long time. When Toyotomi Hideucha said this, he immediately asked: "What is a large quantity? How much is this large quantity?"
Toyotomi Hideucha laughed: "Your Highness, to be honest, our Toyotomi family will need as much as these two new types of lucky ships Kyoka can build!"
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Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi" and "Stephen XIE" for their monthly support, thank you!
