Chapter 639 The Arrival of the Black Ship (Part 1)

1845, Edo Castle.

In a magnificent Japanese palace, the breeze blew through the wind chimes, making crisp sounds, and beautiful cherry blossoms fell.

The person sitting cross-legged on the tatami was Abe Masahiro, the chief elder of the shogunate, one of the most powerful people in the country.

He became the chief elder at the age of 27, which is unprecedented in the history of the Edo shogunate.

However, Abe Masahiro at this time did not have the high spirits of "young ambition" at all, nor was he in the mood to listen to the pleasant sound of wind chimes. The falling of cherry blossoms made him feel inexplicably sad.

Abe Masahiro was called "Gourd Catfish" within the shogunate, which shows how high people's expectations of him were.

Legend has it that there is a huge catfish carrying the Japanese islands on its back. When it moves, an earthquake will occur, so the god Ebisu used a gourd to press the catfish.

In addition to the meaning of destruction, catfish also means revival and transformation, and is called "the catfish that transforms society."

The gourd itself in Izumo means to be free from disease and stop disasters, so the gourd, catfish and gourd have the meaning of turning misfortune into good fortune and eliminating disasters.

However, Abe Masahiro, the chief elder, knew better than anyone that the shogunate was already on the decline at this time, and taxes and labor service had reached an unprecedented level, but it still could not pay off the debts owed to merchants.

The weakness of the central government caused the whole of Japan to be in turmoil, and the ambitious people continued to gain more powerful power through foreign smuggling trade and further exploitation of the people.

Once, making the peasants half dead was the secret of ruling.

However, at this time, the peasants could no longer survive, and riots occurred repeatedly, and even some low-level samurai and merchants joined the rebellion.

The shogunate could only borrow money from merchants to deal with the crisis at hand. At this time, the actual status of many big merchants was far higher than that of the samurai class.

What Abe Masahiro didn't know was that the fundamental reason for this vicious circle was the development of the market economy. The market share of tribute rice and the simultaneous decline in rice prices meant that the wealth of the shogunate lords had dropped sharply.

At that time, Japan's taxes were mainly paid in the form of corn, so this caused general financial difficulties for the daimyo, and also meant that the actual value of the rice for retainers and samurai decreased.

As the saying goes, when the granaries are full, people know etiquette. Now these samurai can't even eat enough, so how can they be loyal, filial, chastity, and righteousness?

(The Japanese pay attention to loyalty and filial piety as one, or loyalty and filial piety as one, so there is no comma to separate them.)

At the same time, the cash-strapped samurai class was increasingly dissatisfied with the current social situation. After all, according to their traditional concepts and what they learned, merchants should be the last industry.

But at this time, they were riding on their heads and acting arrogantly. What's more hateful is that those samurai who swore allegiance to the daimyo actually colluded with the merchants. This is simply intolerable.

Some samurai began to try to change this situation, but the most capable and smartest samurai usually chose to be loyal to the merchants.

In fact, it was not easy to be loyal to merchants at that time, after all, there were too many monks and too little meat, but this did not bother this nation that was familiar with "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

Many samurai chose to "recognize the thief as their father" and become the adopted sons of merchants. Merchants also began to covet higher power and become the adopted sons of those daimyo and nobles.

However, these adopted sons did not intend to "fulfill their filial piety" but to seize power. The culture of adopted sons in Japanese history is very complicated, so I will not go into details in this book.

Just remember that adopted sons have the right of inheritance, and can also inherit the position of family heir (clan leader), and because of their own power, they usually have more advantages in the inheritance war.

In the middle and late Edo period, there was even a saying that "when merchants are angry, the world is afraid." (The original version was "When Osaka merchants are angry, the princes of the world are afraid", but I thought it was not very impressive, so I changed it.)

In fact, the ruling class of the shogunate was not unaware of this chaos, and at the same time took a lot of reform and self-help measures.

I won't talk about the conventional methods, but I will talk about the most outrageous measure, which is to use "rude collection" on those who want to pay.

(Rude collection is the privilege of samurai to kill people at will, but in fact, the scope of application of this right has been extremely narrow after many revisions.)

Yes, you can openly refuse to pay and kill those merchants who demand debts. However, soon the power of money overwhelmed the power of the military, and rude collection was no longer used to collect debts.

Generally speaking, these reforms of the shogunate did not play a big role. After all, with the development of productivity and commodity economy, the decline of feudal landlords is almost inevitable.

At the same time, the emergence of wealthy farmers and wealthy merchants is essentially an early product of the development of capitalist economy.

The wealthy farmers are the agricultural bourgeoisie through land annexation, and the wealthy merchants are analogous to the financial capitalists in Europe.

After these people have the initial primitive accumulation, they want to develop further, but that will inevitably further weaken the power of the original ruling class (shogunate, daimyo).

This situation will continue to repeat with the strength of wealthy farmers and wealthy merchants and the decline of the shogunate until the status of both parties changes.

However, the budding capitalism in Japan was still very weak at that time, and there was no tradition of business autonomy and sufficient social status to support their revolution, so they seemed very different.

Abe Masahiro's predecessor Mizuno Tadakuni was a very interesting person. On the one hand, he held high the banner of anti-corruption, and on the other hand, he privately accepted bribes crazily.

However, the war in Asia shocked the shogunate so much that even its senior officials could not accept this fact.

The strong sense of crisis made a senior official of the shogunate named Shioya Dangye, regardless of his own life, make a lot of information about the war public.

At that time, Tang-style storytelling (Qing Dynasty) and Lan-style storytelling (Netherlands) in Japan were top secret, and only a few senior officials of the shogunate had the right to know.

Shioya Dangye's behavior immediately caused an uproar in Japan, especially for the samurai class, it was like the collapse of the sky and the earth.

Because their faith collapsed, and then the traditional art of the Yamato people - committing suicide by seppuku.

"Alas, the huge cannons shook the sky and the strong city was destroyed, the barbarian ships entered the port and the Han army left. Alas! A million gold for peace talks, go to buy the barbarian chief for a day!"

This is a poem written by a poet who lived in the Tenpo period, which to a certain extent reflects the shock that the war brought to the Japanese.

So the shogunate began a reform under the leadership of Mizuno Tadakuni. At that time, the two biggest problems facing Japan were insufficient food production and the lack of money of the ruling class.

At this time, Japan was hit by natural disasters. Even the richest Osaka region suffered from famine, not to mention other areas with poor land.

Farming does not produce food, and people cannot stay where they are and starve to death. So a large number of Shuitun and Kozen (the lowest class of poor Japanese farmers) began to flee to the city in order to seek a glimmer of hope.

In a sense, this provided a large number of cheap labor for Japan's industry and commerce, but as more farmers fled, grain production naturally became lower, grain prices continued to rise, and more people went bankrupt.

In order to break this cycle, Mizuno Tadakuni issued the "Return Order" to let those farmers go back to where they came from.

This practice not only offended farmers, but also offended businessmen.

The former believed that they could make money in the city, but they could only wait to die in the countryside, so why should they continue to work like cows and horses?

The latter felt that they had finally got so many cheap laborers, and the smuggling trade had finally improved. Now that they were gone, what else could they use to compete with foreign countries?

Then Mizuno Tadakuni regarded merchants as the biggest enemy of his reform. He knew that the cause of famine was not only natural disasters, but also merchants hoarding, so he issued the "Price Limit Order" to break this situation.

But the merchants united and refused to sell food, and the shogunate did not have enough food to help the victims. This situation can be tolerated by wealthy merchants, but the victims cannot.

So the "Price Limit Order" failed.

Mizuno Tadakuni wanted to improve coastal defense and build new warships, but the problem came again, there was no money. The above plans can only become empty talk.

Finally, he retreated to the second best and issued the "Fuel and Fresh Water Supply Order". The actual content of this decree is similar to Cixi's routine, that is, as long as foreign ships have fuel, food, fresh water and other needs, the local government must meet them immediately, so as not to make friendly countries resentful.

Later, Meiji Restoration patriot Sakamoto Ryoma angrily called it a "comfort order".

Mizuno Tadakuni's reforms finally triggered an assassination, and his reforms also failed.

In fact, Japan at this time was a bit like Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. From 1819 to 1845, Japan's currency was devalued 21 times, which eased the economic pressure on the shogunate, but it was passed on to the samurai class.

The soaring prices and the fact that the salaries of samurai who were not in war had not increased for several years made their lives extremely difficult. Many of them had to borrow money to make ends meet, and even turned to manual production.

At that time, the daughters of wealthy merchants were the objects of pursuit of many samurai, and the daughters of samurai families were also willing to marry those merchants who they used to look down on as wives or even concubines.

The social status was also reversed.

In short, Mizuno Tadakuni's reform would not succeed, and it was impossible to succeed.

The failure of the Tenpo reforms dealt another heavy blow to the shogunate, which was already on the decline.

At this time, Abe Masahiro was facing the same dilemma as his predecessor, and he had to face more challenges than Mizuno Tadakuni.

Since the first Russian ship appeared in Shimo-Ezo Island (Hokkaido), the northernmost island of Japan, in 1778, the Russians have been trying to trade with Japan.

The Russians have always been a group of guys who will do whatever it takes to achieve their goals. After several unsuccessful requests for trade, they started to think crookedly.

The Russians began to pretend to be pirates to harass the northern part of Ezo Island, and even directly robbed the population and established schools to teach Russian.

In 1821, Tsar Alexander suddenly got tired of this sneaky game, so he announced:

"The North Pacific coast and its affiliated islands between the Bering Strait and 51 degrees north latitude belong to the Russian Empire."

Although protested by many countries, Alexander I still went his own way. It was not until Nicholas I came to power that the invasion of the Far East and the North Pacific was eased.

After the war in 1840, Russia was worried that the expansion of the British would affect its interests in the Far East and the North Pacific.

So Tsar Nicholas I formulated the infamous East Russia Plan, the first step of which required establishing trade relations with Japan, using its abundant fur, whale oil, and torpedoes in exchange for food, coal and other daily necessities for the establishment of permanent settlements.

Then they tried to obtain the Japanese ports and prepare for further southward movement.

In 1845, Russian envoys came to Japan again with a personal letter from Nicholas I, but were still rejected by the shogunate.

The Governor-General of East Siberia, Muravyov, threatened to retaliate, but the plan failed due to the great rebellion in Chechnya.

After all, the Caucasus threatens the southern Russian steppes, which is a much greater threat to Russia than the Far East.

However, the shogunate had no way of knowing this, and they could only live under the shadow of war.

In 1808, British warships disguised as Dutch merchant ships broke into Nagasaki Port, kidnapped hostages, and extorted fuel and fresh water, which made Nagasaki so ashamed that he committed suicide.

Around 1820, a large number of British and American whaling ships entered the North Pacific and began to harass coastal areas, and even broke out into direct armed conflicts.

Among them, the Americans were most interested in Japan. In 1837, they even brought a group of Nanyang Japanese to try to enter Edo Bay, but were expelled by Uraga's artillery.

In fact, the Americans were planning a new contact. As the most powerful president in American history, Bowker was ready to knock on Japan's door with force, and for this he was ready to use two of the latest American frigates

(In fact, Perry only brought four ships later.)

However, what made Abe Masahiro most worried at this time was the letter from the King of the Netherlands. "Merchant King" William II suggested that the shogunate should either abolish the policy of isolation, because it was out of touch with this era.

Or establish relations with a more powerful dynasty, and by the way, it also revealed that a fleet of the Austrian Empire was heading to Japan at this time.

The Netherlands was the only Western country that was allowed to trade with the shogunate during the Edo period, and the relationship between the two sides was maintained quite well.

Lanfeng storytelling and Tangfeng storytelling have always been important tools for the shogunate to understand the world. When the shogunate tried to understand what kind of country the Austrian Empire was from the Dutch merchants, the answers they got were all powerful and terrifying diplomatic powers.

Yes, this country seems to be not very good at land warfare, naval warfare, and economics, but it has been able to stand in the West for hundreds of years.

The Dutch have a much higher evaluation of the Austrian Empire than Britain and Russia. After all, Austria helped the Netherlands regain the Flemish region and improved its economic strength to a certain extent.

Britain is the Dutch enemy, and it is not realistic for the latter to say good things about the former. As for Russia, it is regarded as a barbarian at all, and its practices are indeed worthy of the word barbarian.

When asked about the relationship between the Netherlands and Austria, Dutch merchants said that the latter is the chairman of the German Confederation, and the Netherlands is one of its members.

If we must use words that the Japanese can understand, then we can understand it as the relationship between the daimyo and the general.

This answer shocked the high-ranking officials of the shogunate, including Abe Masahiro, because in their minds, the Netherlands was already very powerful, especially the fourth-level battleship responsible for delivering letters to William II, which simply refreshed their understanding of warships.

You should know that at this time, the largest sea battleship in Japan, Tenchi Maru, was only 500 tons (600 tons).

The total weight of the fourth-level battleship of the Dutch Navy exceeded 1,500 tons, and the two sides were not on the same level at all.

At this time, a war horse neighed from the direction of the palace gate, and Abe Masahiro clenched the bone paper fan in his hand.

There were chaotic and urgent footsteps from the side of the corridor, and he knew that this day would come sooner or later.

"My lord! Something bad has happened! Something bad has happened! The fleet of the Austrian Empire has entered Edo Bay."