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The way Huang Zhenlin fooled the Japanese envoy reminded Qin Mu of the words "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere". Of course, this is completely different.
Huang Zhenlin used a gentle lobbying approach that the Japanese were happy to accept.
In order to strengthen its rule, the Tokugawa shogunate highly respected Zhu Xi's and Cheng Yi's Neo-Confucianism. Zhu Shunshui, who lived in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, fled to Japan and was highly respected.
In other words, exporting Zhu Xi's and Cheng Yi's Neo-Confucianism to Japan was something the Japanese shogunate wanted very much, and it had nothing to do with "invasion".
As for the circulation of commodity economy, in order to strengthen economic and trade and prosper the market, Tokugawa Ieyasu even tacitly allowed missionaries to preach in Japan.
This shows that the Tokugawa shogunate did not want to develop economic and trade, but the rapid spread of Christianity made the Tokugawa shogunate feel greatly threatened, so they implemented a policy of seclusion.
By developing economic and trade relations with Daqin, Japan would not only not have to worry about being threatened by Christianity, but would also be able to benefit from it.
The Tokugawa shogunate did not completely block trade with non-Christian countries such as China, the Netherlands, and Korea because Japan had trade needs.
No matter how you look at it, developing relations with China is beneficial to Japan, which makes Huang Zhenlin's lobbying much smoother.
Of course, when Zheng Zhilong and others were preparing to launch an attack in an attempt to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate, the Tokugawa shogunate was still very wary of such things. This is one of the reasons why the Tokugawa shogunate even imposed strict restrictions on Chinese merchants.
In order to eliminate the Tokugawa shogunate's fear, the Qin government must make certain commitments and express its support for the Tokugawa shogunate.
Daqin does not have the energy to deal with Japan now, so it would be best to open up the Japanese market through diplomatic means.
If that doesn't work, once Daqin is stabilized, Qin Mu doesn't mind sending the Royal Navy's warships to Edo and using cannons to blast open Japan's gates. Anyway, Huang Zhenlin has even found an excuse for Daqin.
As the New Year approaches, the festive atmosphere in Nanjing becomes more and more intense. There are too many people. The streets in the capital are often blocked. Even the carriage of Concubine Xiang is blocked. After returning to the palace, Qiaoer mentioned this matter. His Majesty the Emperor of Qin was furious and immediately issued an order: pedestrians should walk on the right.
From then on, except for the emperor's imperial carriage, no matter how high-ranking an official was, he could not walk in the middle, but had to walk on the right. He also sent patrol officers to patrol the streets, and even the carriages of cabinet ministers would be impeached if they did not obey the emperor's order.
As soon as this order was issued, the traffic conditions in the entire city of Nanjing immediately improved greatly.
Different from the prosperous and festive atmosphere in the city, in the Huagai Palace, Qin Mu, the cabinet ministers, and senior officials from the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Revenue gathered around the map and had a serious discussion before the war.
This time, the Qin Dynasty did not attack Guangdong and Guangxi together, but divided them into two groups and used a small number of troops, only 40,000 troops, of which 20,000 troops led by Ai Nengqi went by sea.
Therefore, the scale of the troop mobilization in Huguang and Jiangxi was not large. In the eyes of Emperor Yongli of Guangxi, it seemed that the Qin Dynasty had only strengthened its troop deployment, and it did not seem like a large-scale attack on Guangdong and Guangxi.
Gu Jun'en, the left assistant minister of the Ministry of War, pointed to the map and said, "Your Majesty, there are only five routes to attack Guangxi by land. One is from Hengzhou to Guilin. Another is from Tongdao County through Gulong Pass, Rong County, to Liuzhou Prefecture.
Another route is to go from Duyun Prefecture in Guizhou through Dushan and attack Nandan Prefecture, Hechi Prefecture, and Qingyuan Prefecture in Guangxi. The next route is to enter Anlongsi, Tianzhou, and Guohua in Guangxi from Anlongso in Guizhou and attack Nanning Prefecture. The last route is to enter Gaoping of the Mo family from Guangnan Prefecture in Yunnan and attack Longzhou, Taiping Prefecture, and Nanning Prefecture in Guangxi.
Guizhou currently has limited military strength. In terms of distance, the two routes through Guizhou are the longest and the roads are difficult to travel, so they have been abandoned in the military's combat plan.
The two routes we have chosen are mainly from Hengzhou to Guilin, and from Guangnan Prefecture in Yunnan via Jiaozhi Gaoping to Longzhou in Guangxi. In addition, there are 3,000 troops on the route from Tongdao County to Liuzhou. If the attack on Guilin from Hengzhou fails, we will attack Liuzhou from Tongdao County.”
Qin Mu nodded and said, "I think the Ministry of War's plan is feasible, but I don't know if Yunnan's Ma Liuliang can be delivered in time."
"Your Majesty, Marquis Jiande is marching from Yunnan via Gaoping. The journey is actually shorter than entering Guangxi from Guizhou. Mo Jingyu will support him during the journey. There are no obstacles on the road. With the Mo family providing supplies, the progress will not be slow. As long as Marquis Jiande can take the enemy by surprise and open up the line from Longzhou to Qinzhou in one fell swoop, the two armies in the south can be connected."
"That would be good."
The timing of this southern expedition was well chosen. In the Guangdong and Guangxi regions, if it is spring or summer, there is a lot of rain and the roads are difficult to travel. Soldiers are prone to acclimatization due to the hot and humid climate.
The situation was much better in winter. The winter in Guangdong and Guangxi was not very cold and the rainfall was little, so many soldiers fell ill due to acclimatization.
The battle plan has been arranged, and all Qin Mu can do now is wait for the battle report from the front.
After the high-level meeting, Qin Mu had just left the Huagai Palace when Han Zanzhou came to report happily: "Your Majesty, it's done. Your Majesty ordered the cement to be fired. The craftsmen mixed it with sand and stone and tried it. After a few days, it was as hard as stone..."
Qin Mu couldn't help but interrupt him and said, "Where's the cement? Send some to the palace quickly. I want to see it with my own eyes."
"Your Majesty, I have asked someone to bring back half a bag."
"Take me to have a look."
“Yes!”
Qin Mu roughly knew that cement was made of limestone, peat rock, loess, clay, shale and other raw materials. After returning from Ningbo at the beginning of the year, he asked Han Zanzhou to find craftsmen to develop it in Nanxiang.
The things he ordered to be developed were not just cement, but many other things, from lathes to soaps and clocks, etc. Basically, anything he could think of, he had the Internal Supervision Bureau set up a research and development project.
The advantage of being an emperor is that you don’t have to develop these things yourself. You just need to tell Han Zanzhou an idea and he can find the best craftsmen to develop it.
No one had ever heard of these various things. If he wanted the Ministry of Revenue to allocate funds for one or two things, it would be fine, but it would be troublesome if there were too many types. So Qin Mu simply used his own treasury's money and let the Internal Supervisory Office be responsible for each research project. This was to prevent the officials in the court from making irresponsible remarks, and secondly, when there were results in the future, the transfer of patent rights would allow the treasury to earn a large sum of money.
It would be too hopeless to occupy mines everywhere to make money like Emperor Wanli did. Qin Mu believed that in the future, with the invention of the Internal Supervisory Department, he would be able to make a lot of money in his inner treasury.
The research and development of cement has been going on for nearly a year, and it has cost Qin Mu nearly ten thousand taels of silver. Now he has finally produced some samples.
As the saying goes, if you want to be rich, you must first build roads. Qin Mu was of course very interested in cement, a good thing that could completely improve the appearance of Daqin's roads. How could he not see it with his own eyes
Qin Mu was busy watching the young eunuchs mixing concrete, while Emperor Yongli of Wuzhou was busy trying to mediate a fight. Yesterday, the pro-peace faction and the pro-war faction had a fierce fight in the Golden Palace, and the scratched land had not yet healed, but they started fighting again today.
The reason was that new news came from Huguang that Qin army generals Liu Tichun and Qin Zuoming had assembled more than 10,000 troops in Hengzhou, preparing to attack Guangxi. The news had been confirmed.
The pro-war faction, led by Qu Shisi, urged Zhu Youlang to lead the army in person to boost morale and strive to defeat the Qin army of more than 10,000 in one fell swoop.
The peace advocates led by Ding Kuichu would never agree to this. If you let the emperor go to the front with you, wouldn't you be holding the emperor hostage to control the princes? Who knows how you will plan to suppress us later
The two sides soon quarreled over this matter and eventually broke out into a fight again.
History always repeats itself in a surprising way. The situation during the Hongguang Dynasty was similar to this. There was also a powerful enemy at the front, and the two factions within the dynasty were fighting each other.
In the end, the cowardly Zhu Youlang sided with Ding Kuichu and insisted on staying in Wuzhou. Qu Shisi was greatly disappointed and took the initiative to ask to go to Guilin.
In order to appease the pro-war faction, Zhu Youlang promoted Qu Shisi to the rank of Grand Tutor and ordered him to lead the army in Guilin, with full responsibility for fighting against the Qin army.
As a result, most of Guangxi's military forces were actually in the hands of Qu Shisi. In addition, Wu Zhenyu, who was also a pro-war faction, was in charge of the Ministry of Revenue. With both soldiers and money, the pro-war faction benefited greatly, and the dispute was barely calmed down.
Ding Kuichu was not panicked. It was true that Wu Zhenyu was in charge of the Ministry of Revenue. Cao Ye, the governor of Guangxi, and most of the county officials at all levels were his people. If the lower counties did not pay the tax silver, Wu Zhenyu, the Minister of Revenue, would not even have porridge to eat.
Besides, he is the prime minister of the cabinet, and whether to allocate money or not is not decided by the Minister of Revenue alone.
Although Qu Shisi could think of these things, there was nothing he could do. The key now was to take control of the troops on the front line, strive to win one or two wars, and enhance the prestige of the pro-war faction, so as to gain more initiative.
After discussing with the pro-war faction members Wu Bing, Wu Zhenyu, Zhang Tongchang, Li Ruyue and others, Qu Shisi rushed to Guilin... ... ...
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.(To be continued..)
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