Chapter 732 0727 [Farmers Encounter Cavalry]

During the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty, Japan implemented the Taika Reform, comprehensively learned from the advanced experience of the Tang Dynasty, and strengthened the centralized rule of the emperor.

One of the most important measures was to establish the public land citizen system: the people and the land belonged to the state, and no private person could occupy them.

Specifically, in terms of land, it was the land allocation system, which was similar to the equal field system of the Tang Dynasty.

About a hundred years later, the "Law of Eternal Private Ownership of Reclaimed Land" and the "Three Generations One Body Law" were successively introduced. The nobles and powerful people took the opportunity to drive their subjects and slaves to reclaim wasteland, legally took the newly reclaimed land for themselves, and even illegally stole the old public land to turn it into private land.

After another hundred years, the land allocation system began to collapse.

The situation was exactly the same as in the Tang Dynasty. The nobles and powerful people occupied a large amount of land but did not pay taxes, and all the state taxes were placed on the public land farmers.

As a result, the public land farmers fled one after another and were accepted and hidden by the nobles and powerful people, and Japan began to have a private manor economy.

The emperor of the Tang Dynasty was so hungry that he often ran from Chang'an to Luoyang for extra meals.

The Japanese emperor directly chose to move the capital from the old capital where the nobles and temples were intertwined, and moved to Heian-kyō to start anew.

The Heian period thus emerged.

Successive emperors cracked down on corruption, implemented performance appraisals for officials, carried out a series of institutional reforms, and completely abolished the slave system.

The Bantian system evolved into the Tiandu system, which is simply the public land contract responsibility system. In name, the public land is still owned by the state, but wealthy farmers are allowed to contract and collect land taxes through contract contracts.

After a few decades, the contracted land actually became private land, and the contract could be traded and transferred, and the landowner also added his own name to the land.

The owner of the signed land is called the name owner.

Those who own less land are called "small name owners".

Those who own more land are called "big name owners".

The term daimyo was born from this.

And the small name is actually a small landlord and a self-cultivating farmer. If there is insufficient labor at home, the land will be rented to the poor, and tenants will appear.

The daimyo's land, except for the directly managed fields, was all rented out, and the rent and labor service of the court was passed on to the tenants.

Above these daimyo, there were real manor lords who had to pay annual tribute to the manor lords (generally there were manor lords in border areas).

Therefore, the manor lords were the local overlords, and the daimyo were powerful people.

Still evolving.

After the manor lords obtained economic privileges, they began to seek political and military privileges.

The daimyo sent the land to the daimyo, the daimyo sent the land to the lord, and the lord sent the land to the powerful nobles.

So everyone paid tribute to their superiors, and the top one was a tax-free noble, so they simply did not pay taxes to the court.

Half of the land in the country was tax-free.

The emperor sent the royal family or confidants to manage the other half of the land to ensure the stability of the tax source of the central court.

However, the royal family and confidants took the opportunity to reach out and make the remaining half of the land increasingly lord-like.

In order to suppress the lords' centralization, the emperor also revived the system of provincial governors, that is, the central government sent governors to local areas.

This thing was completely corrupted by the Fujiwara clan. The Fujiwara clan was regent as a relative, and those who wanted to be governors of provinces and counties could just pay money.

Since it was a purchased local chief position, why bother to govern it?

Those who had a sense of responsibility let their sons or nephews take over, and this was called "medai".

Those who had no sense of responsibility, as long as the counties paid taxes on time, they were too lazy to ask about the local areas, and they all stayed in Heian-kyo to be free and happy.

At this time, the provincial governor of Iwami Province was in Heian-kyo, and even medai was not sent.

All local affairs were handed over to the local officials (local officials).

And the positions of the local officials were controlled by local powerful families, and could even be passed down from father to son for hereditary.

The Masuda clan was the most influential powerful in Iwami Province, and the most powerful official in the province.

Two hundred years ago, their ancestors were just small businessmen who made money from business to buy land for cultivation, and gradually grew from small lords to daimyo.

Their land was not the largest in Iwami Province.

But they were rich from business. They bribed the Fujiwara clan to buy the position of an official in the office, and the position was passed down from father to son.

…

Iwami Province, the capital.

Its specific location is about 18 miles southwest of the urban area of ​​​​Datian City in later Japan, and 4 or 5 miles away from the coastline.

The core area is a small mountain city, where the officials in the office work in the city, and their residences are distributed around the mountain city. In addition to residential areas, there are also commercial areas outside the city.

The governor was having fun in Heian-kyo, and the meeting was chaired by Masuda Akiaki, the head of the official in the office.

Masuda Akiaki said in a sad tone: "I just received news that the emperor has passed away."

Everyone was shocked when they heard it, and then wiped their tears and cried.

Their grief was not completely pretended.

Emperor Shirakawa gradually became the retired emperor Shirakawa and the imperial emperor Shirakawa. He outlasted his own son, controlled his own grandson, and dealt with disobedient relatives and lords many times.

The officials in the Iwami Province had to bribe the imperial emperor's confidants to maintain their positions.

A new emperor has his own ministers. Now that the imperial emperor Shirakawa is dead, Emperor Toba will definitely start a new government, and everyone has to send people to Heian-kyo to bribe again.

The powerful mourned for the imperial emperor for a while, and then discussed the bribery.

This thing can't be rushed. We must wait until the court has established a good team and figure out who are the new nobles. Then get close to the new nobles' confidants and send money to the people who are really in charge.

There is no need to send too much, because there is an annual tribute every year, just a token of appreciation at a critical moment.

The powerful gathered their confidants, took the travel expenses and set off immediately.

Suddenly, a merchant ship of the Masuda family escaped back, saying that foreign ships were approaching Iwami Province and beat the navy of Nagato Province halfway.

"It must be the Daoyi pirates again, quickly gather the samurai and peasant soldiers!" Masuda Akiaki said in panic.

Daoyi is the name of the Jurchen tribe in the northeast of them by Goryeo.

The invasion of Daoyi a hundred years ago is still fresh in the memory of the Japanese, and many legends have been derived.

The pirates drove more than 50 offshore boats and turned the Japanese coast upside down. It was only with the joint efforts of local powerful people that the pirates were defeated. (The descendants of these pirates are very likely to be the main force of the Jin navy that Han Shizhong faced in Huangtian Dang in history. However, they were beaten and fled by the Ming navy in the Yalu River last year.)

Masuda Akiaki personally put on armor, and the officials in the hall also turned into warriors and sent people back to the countryside to recruit their own peasant soldiers.

When Zhu Xiaozhong landed at a fishing port, Iwami Province had already gathered hundreds of soldiers.

But the fighting power was touching.

At this time, the Japanese armor was not the kind of glamorous and cheap stuff in the Warring States Period. It was much simpler in appearance.

Or, it was a copycat beggar version of the Tang and Song armor!

Even the hairstyle and the crown are very similar to those of the Tang and Song dynasties. If you don’t care about the height, you might think they are Song Dynasty soldiers at first glance.

Some powerful people don’t even have the identity of a proper warrior. They all wear the same hakama-style armor.

This thing originated in the Japanese Kofun period and was improved by combining the Tang and Song armor.

The armor skirt extends to the thigh, the neck and armpits are completely exposed, the shoulder armor extends to the outside of the elbow, but the inside of the elbow is not protected by armor. The material is mostly iron or copper sheets in series, and the forearm is wrapped in leather.

The hundreds of powerful families in Iwami Province have only a dozen or so sets of simple iron armor.

There are also dozens of leather armor or bamboo armor, all of which are in the shape of hakama-style hanging armor.

The rest of the peasant soldiers, let alone armor, even their clothes are tattered, and they come to the war with bamboo spears in their hands.

It's just the armed forces of the powerful, what else can you ask for?

At this time in Japan, only the borders or key counties had lords and lords' armed forces.

Where is the border of Japan?

Of course, it is the place next to the barbarians, otherwise why would there be a general.

Several samurai were sent to inquire about military intelligence. They rushed to the small fishing village on horseback and were shocked by the navy ships at first. Then they plucked up the courage to continue approaching. Teams of Ming Dynasty armored soldiers disembarked, which made these guys stunned.

"Catch them all!" Zhu Xiaozhong ordered.

Zhu Xiaozhong brought few cavalrymen, only dozens of light cavalrymen, all of whom were from Shandong horse bandits.

But even the light cavalrymen of the Ming Dynasty had armor comparable to that of the Japanese tyrants.

The war horses had not rested after crossing the sea, and the light cavalrymen of the Ming Dynasty rode in pursuit. Compared with the Japanese ponies, these second-rate horses raised by horse owners in the Northern Song Dynasty were also very fast when they ran.

"Run fast, the armored cavalry is coming!" the Japanese warriors exclaimed.

Dozens of light cavalrymen of the Ming Dynasty quickly caught up with the Japanese warriors.

The three-meter-long spears in their hands were simply bullying people, and they could hit them with one poke when attacking.

The warriors' leather armor exposed too many places, and there was no armor covering the inside of their arms, armpits, ribs, and necks above the clavicle. And the lances in their hands were less than two meters long.

What kind of fight is this?

In order to catch people, the light cavalry of the Ming Dynasty did not even need to stab, but directly swung the long spears across.

After sweeping off the horse's back, he took it back as a tongue.

Masuda Akiaki waited for a long time, but no samurai came back to report. Until this moment, he thought that the coming people were pirates, and he actually led hundreds of powerful armed forces to attack the small fishing village.

It was not until he ran into the Ming Dynasty light cavalry halfway that Masuda Akiaki exclaimed: "These are not pirates, they must be Goryeo's armored cavalry. Quickly retreat to the city and defend it, waiting for the emperor to send reinforcements to rescue!"

"Kill!"

The cavalry officer was Zhu Ming's other adopted son, named Zhu Shouyi. He was only seventeen years old this year. He had been with Li Yanxian in Hebei for a year. He had seen big scenes but had never fought fiercely.

At this moment, Zhu Shouyi led dozens of light cavalry and rushed straight towards hundreds of Japanese powerful armed forces.

Masuda Akiaki saw this and knew that he could not retreat anymore, otherwise his subordinates were all infantry, and sooner or later they would be chopped down by the Ming Dynasty cavalry.

"Form a formation, archers shoot arrows!"

Japan has been at peace for a long time, and these hundreds of peasant soldiers have never fought a war. They were forced by the powerful to form a formation in a hurry.

A small number of elite strongmen did not stand in the front, but hid behind the messy peasant soldiers' formation, taking out arrows and shooting at the Ming cavalry.

After a sparse rain of arrows, Zhu Shouyi had already led the cavalry to the front of the formation, and all of them shot an arrow during the charge.

After being hit by a round of horse shooting and being rushed in front of the cavalry, hundreds of peasant soldiers collapsed and fled in an instant.

Those powerful men and their men also fled in panic, and Masuda Akiaki rode the fastest.

In Iwami Province, except for suppressing peasant riots, there has been no war for hundreds of years...Not to mention the peasant soldiers, even the powerful warriors don't know what a real battlefield looks like.