Chapter 3615
Chapter 3615
Chapter 3615
Just as the troubled Tokugawa Ietsugu was busy arranging a new supply route, a Hai Han merchant had already sneaked into Kyoto and had a secret meeting with a royal family member.
His identity as a businessman was of course just a cover. Being able to represent Hai Han in meeting with royal members of another country was not a task that an ordinary person was qualified to undertake. And the person he was meeting was obviously well aware of this. The entire contact process was very serious and conducted entirely in accordance with diplomatic standards.
To prevent information from leaking, this unofficial meeting was conducted in a one-on-one manner, with no third party present and no minutes of the meeting. Therefore, outsiders had no way of knowing what the two sides discussed specifically during the half-day meeting.
But soon after the secret meeting, the royal family took the initiative to speak out, expressing concerns about the prospects of the Tokugawa shogunate launching this war, believing that the war had caused great damage to people's livelihood. After the war lasted for half a year, a large number of civilians in the western regions of Honshu and Shikoku had been forced to flee their homes, and the peace that the people longed for was still a long way off.
In order to mitigate the damage caused by the war, the imperial family will provide a large amount of money and grain for relief activities and build a large camp near Kyoto to accommodate refugees. At the same time, it urges the warring parties to settle the dispute as soon as possible and end this meaningless war.
Of course, everyone in Japan knows that the emperor in the Kyoto Imperial Palace is just a puppet controlled by the shogunate, and the one who really has the final say is the Tokugawa Shogun of the shogunate. But the puppet emperor is still an emperor, an existence that is difficult for mortals to touch. His political status is second only to the shogun, and he still has a very high prestige among the people.
The royal family's statement naturally won the favor of ordinary people immediately. After hearing the news, thousands of refugees fleeing the front-line areas flocked to Kyoto, hoping to get the help they needed there.
Soon, some daimyo who were close to the imperial family began to speak out, supporting the imperial family's views on the civil war and demanding that the shogunate end the war as soon as possible.
At this critical juncture of the war, the emergence of such discordant voices within the own camp was undoubtedly a serious act of hindering the team's progress in the eyes of Tokugawa Ietsugu.
However, the anti-war sentiment among the people was growing stronger, and the royal family's statement was undoubtedly something that the people were more willing to support. Considering the current situation and the direction of public opinion, it was not convenient for Tokugawa Ietsugu to stand against the royal family. He could only announce to the public that he would seriously consider the royal family's suggestions and would also raise a batch of money and grain to support the royal family's relief activities in Kyoto.
Tokugawa Iematsu's statement was only made under pressure from the situation, but it was by no means voluntary. He immediately ordered the royal family's salary to be reduced by half as a punishment for his self-willed behavior.
Although the Emperor of Wa was the nominal ruler of Japan and owned some land, properties and exclusive businesses, he actually had no stable income. In addition, he had no right to access the national treasury and taxes, so most of his food, clothing and daily necessities were actually provided by the shogunate.
The Japanese emperor announced that he would provide relief to refugees in Kyoto, and the shogunate paid the bulk of the cost. At a time when the shogunate's military logistics were in serious trouble, the royal family had to use the shogunate's money and food to buy people's hearts. It was no wonder that Tokugawa Ietsugu was very dissatisfied with this.
However, Tokugawa Ietsugu still did not fully realize the seriousness of the incident. He just thought that the royal family wanted to take this opportunity to show off and gave a little punishment as a warning. Anyway, the shogunate controlled the royal family's financial resources, so no matter how much trouble they made, it would not cause any big waves.
As for those daimyos who followed the royal family and cheered, he didn't even take them seriously. As long as the powerful feudal lords in various regions still stood on the side of the shogunate, these small movements could be ignored. They were nothing more than a group of buzzing flies.
For the shogunate, the most urgent task at the moment is to deal with the enemy across the Kanmon Strait as soon as possible. As long as the Kyushu coalition is defeated, all current problems will be solved. Just when the shogunate thought that this would calm domestic public opinion, the situation quickly took a turn for the worse. Tokugawa Ietsugu received a report that among the refugees pouring into Kyoto, some people actually publicly advocated "supporting the emperor to regain control of the world", "dissolving the shogunate to end the civil war", and other treasonous remarks, and they have already received the support of many people.
Moreover, those who spread these views were not ordinary refugees, but some unidentified wandering samurai. They called the Tokugawa shogunate "a usurper of power and a traitor" and called on the people to support the emperor in taking back power from the shogunate and implementing benevolent policies that benefited all people.
This is no joke. After hearing these reports, Tokugawa Ietsugu realized that the situation in Kyoto might have been out of the control of the shogunate. In this chaotic situation, someone is trying to overthrow the shogunate.
Tokugawa Iematsu was not worried that the wandering samurai would rebel. No matter how many people there were, they were just a group of ronin. In front of the regular army equipped with armor and firearms, they were nothing more than a mob.
But he realized that behind these ronin who were causing trouble, there must be another master who was planning and directing them. It was impossible for these ronin without any foundation to create such a big fuss.
In addition, the royal family did not make a clear response to this. This ambiguous attitude was also considered a dangerous signal by Tokugawa Ietsugu.
Before this, he never even thought that the royal family had the ambition to rebel against the shogunate. After all, the royal family had no financial support and no armed forces. Even if they wanted to rebel, they did not have enough strength.
However, the current situation in Kyoto has allowed Tokugawa Ietsugu to see another possibility, that is, in addition to the royal family, there may be other forces that intend to take advantage of the chaos to pursue greater goals.
The reason for this idea is that as the current shogun of the shogunate, Tokugawa Iematsu is also very clear about how the power of the shogunate has been replaced in the past few hundred years and has continued to this day.
The Kamakura Shogunate was created by Minamoto no Yoritomo with the military power in his hands. At that time, the Shogunate coexisted with the Japanese imperial court and the imperial power had not yet been completely hollowed out.
The Kamakura shogunate ended in 1324 when Emperor Go-Daigo raised an army to overthrow the shogunate, and destroyed the Kamakura shogunate in 1333. However, Emperor Go-Daigo's rule did not last long. Just two years later, he was overthrown by his former supporter Ashikaga Takauji, who established a puppet emperor in Kyoto, ushering in the Muromachi shogunate.
However, during the more than 1590 years under the rule of the Muromachi shogunate, Japan was plagued by civil wars, which led to the formation of many local separatist forces within a country. It was not until that Toyotomi Hideyoshi completed the great cause of domestic unification.
However, Toyotomi Hideyoshi did not enjoy his good fortune for many years. Soon after he died of illness in Fushimi Castle in Kyoto in 1598, Tokugawa Ieyasu quickly raised an army to replace him, and the Tokugawa shogunate thus became the third shogunate period to date.
Throughout history, the power of the imperial family has been weakened to the point where it is not a direct threat to the shogunate, but any ambitious person can use the excuse of supporting the imperial family to launch subversive activities against the current shogunate. The Tokugawa family is not the first to taste the sweetness, and of course it is very likely to become the target of others.