New Shun 1730

Shi Shiyong finally understood why Liu Yu was reluctant to let the sailors go ashore to fight.

On the chaotic battlefield, after killing people, the sailors were busy grabbing spoils. Fortunately, beheading is not counted as military merit these days, otherwise the battle would be completely messed up.

A sturdy sailor carrying four Japanese swords was checking the body of a Japanese warrior, opening his mouth to see if there were any gold teeth or something like that, and took off the armor on the Japanese warrior without hesitation. After groping out a few silver coins, he attracted the envy of his companions next to him.

However, these sailors are quite good at close combat. They are all trained to board and seize ships after bombardment. Liu Yu also invested a lot of money, and each of them has two flintlock pistols.

If they line up to attack the enemy, it will not work, but they can intercept and kill them on the road, which is exactly what they are good at.

Fortunately, what Liu Yu told Shi Shiyong did not happen. These sailors did not kill with red eyes, but fought for various spoils with red eyes. They did not spontaneously rob the people, perhaps because they saw that the local people were poorer than they were in the past, and they knew they could not rob anything.

When Liu Yu arrived, the sailors had already taken away everything they could, and there were corpses lying all over the ground.

The results of the battle were quickly counted.

"Ying Suo Bo, a total of 400 Japanese were killed. The seriously injured were not killed according to your order. They will be carried upstream to wait for the Japanese to take them away. How to deal with the nearly 300 people who were slightly injured and captured?"

"Tie them up first. Clean up the battlefield, deploy defenses in this dangerous place by the river, and send some people to the nearby mountain to check the situation."

This place is about five or six miles away from Urado Castle. The hill that isolates the observation of Kochi Castle lies across here. There is only one road along the river leading to Kochi Castle.

According to the rules of defense, some people should be sent to occupy the hill, and the rest will gather by the river.

This time, the Tosa clan was seriously injured, and it left a huge psychological shadow. Perhaps they could try to capture Kochi Castle.

Going around the small mountain, Kochi Castle can be seen.

There is a river in the north, and the river channel is used as a natural moat. Inevitably, there is a trench dug at the entrance, which is also full of water.

It seems that Kochi Castle was originally called Hezhongshan Castle. As a result, after taking this name, there were floods every day. The Yamanouchi family felt that it was unlucky, so they changed it to Kochi Castle with the same pronunciation. Of course, it is a homonym in Japanese, and it is not pronounced after translation. It can be seen that this broken place is surrounded by water, and it is not easy to capture it.

The river channel that enters the sea has another main stream in the south of Kochi Castle. The other side of the river is already defended by Japanese iron gunners.

Kochi Castle is not high, and the mountain is only forty or fifty meters, but many places are built very disgustingly, and some places are extremely steep, making it difficult to pass.

After watching for a while, Liu Yu sighed and said helplessly: "It's useless. It's not that we can't take it down, it's just a bit troublesome. Although it's meaningful to take it down, it doesn't seem to be worth the casualties caused by the attack."

The warship couldn't enter the inland river. It was too narrow and the wind direction was not right. If it was a steam paddle steamer that could go upstream and didn't have to look at the wind, it would be much easier.

Once the warship came, it would be easy to fire. Now the guns on the warships can't be dismantled just to take down this Kochi Castle.

After watching for a while, Liu Yu had no choice but to retreat. He left some people to occupy a hill on the south bank of the river, about one mile away from Kochi Castle and 300 meters away from the river. He asked people to stay there and raise a hot air balloon to draw a defense map of Kochi Castle.

He went back to ask the captured prisoners and learned that the return time given by the audience in Edo in previous years would take more than a month. I have to return to the capital before August. Considering the possible typhoon, I have to arrive in Edo at least in early July.

I don't have much time left. How can I give the shogunate the greatest shock without conquering Kochi Castle?

A few days later, the merchants on the seaside and riverside opened their doors. The people here saw that Liu Yu's troops did not kill, set fire or rob food. On the contrary, they traded fairly and used real gold and silver instead of the banknotes issued by the Tosa domain.

Moreover, after the separation of farmers and soldiers, farmers were farmers and soldiers were soldiers. The people didn't care about the war. They just had to work hard and pay tribute to rice.

Liu Yu was not busy promoting some terrible ideas in the eyes of the shogunate, but spreading a very subtle rumor to attract favor.

If you look closely, it can't be considered a rumor. It's just that after the famine in Japan, the shogun couldn't say that the Tang people gave him the book on sweet potato famine relief, and he took credit for it. Liu Yu just exaggerated the incident, boasted about himself, and said that the Tang emperor saw that the Japanese people were starving and had no food, so he sent him to Japan to spread the method of sweet potato cultivation.

The Kyoho famine had just passed, and Tosa Domain was one of the hardest-hit areas. Many people did survive by relying on sweet potatoes.

They didn't have rice to begin with, and had to pay a quota of rice to the upper level every year. Sweet potatoes were much tastier than radishes.

Liu Yu pretended to be a royal teacher every day, leading his guards to look around, buy some fish, exchange some crabs, and from time to time took out some rock sugar from his arms, squatted on the ground, touched the child's head, said "yo", and then gave the candy to the child.

Within a few days, he asked the local people a series of questions about taxes, labor, income, food, etc. He was good at instigating, and often brought out the people's sufferings in just a few words. Some people burst into tears while talking about the oppression they had suffered.

Nominally, the public sector is 40% and the private sector is 60%, but there must be middlemen who make a profit from the price difference, various farms, group heads, and civilian agents. In addition, the Tosa domain has always been in financial difficulties. If the people want to survive, they can only rely on secretly cultivating some private fields to grow sweet potatoes and radishes. The fields included in the official register must be planted with rice to basically meet the tax needs.

There was a famine over there, and many people starved to death in the Tosa domain. This incident was not long ago, and many people still remember it.

The farmers were dissatisfied, and the small merchants were also dissatisfied, especially because many profitable industries in the Tosa domain were monopolized by privileged merchants, and some of them spent money to obtain samurai status and even official status.

Below the scholars, farmers, merchants, and artisans, merchants are the lowest. Although some wealthy merchants can lend money to various domains, they are naturally not lowly, but the status of small vendors is really the fourth class of people, only slightly higher than the workers below the four classes of people.

After roughly grasping the resentment and dissatisfaction of the lower classes of the Tosa domain, Liu Yu estimated the right medicine and asked someone to ask about the nearby Terakoya.

He wanted to find someone who could write and read.

The common people are basically illiterate, so this can be done through preaching.

But some things are nominally for the common people, but actually for the shogunate and daimyo, which requires a certain level of education.

But it can't be too high, too flowery, it's an official article at first glance, and the shogunate won't take it seriously.

Liu Yu is very skilled in talking about rebellion, but according to what he said, the shogunate won't be too moved after reading it: the Dashun officials can't talk about these, don't worry, it's just bluffing.

So we have to talk about rebellion, and we have to talk about it in accordance with benevolence and righteousness, but it can't be too profound, and we can't talk about it in plain language. My Japanese is not very good, and the Japanese used by Shi Shiyong and those who translate it is just a business level, and professional benevolence and righteousness vocabulary and rhyme are probably not available.

Terakoya is similar to a village school. The teachers in it at least know how to talk about it, benevolence, righteousness and morality, so it's easier for such people to write articles. The level is not high or low, it can be circulated in the middle and low levels, and can talk about benevolence, righteousness and morality.

I strolled slowly to a temple in a town near Urado Castle and listened carefully. The children inside were reading. It sounded like they were reading Zhu Yuanzhang's "Six Edicts".

The teacher of the temple was talking about the "Six Edicts" when Liu Yu sent it to Edo. The shogunate liked it very much and immediately asked the Confucian master Murojima to translate it.

The rulers attached great importance to this kind of book that requires people to be moral. At this time, the children in the temple were reciting.

"When they are six or seven years old, boys and girls are not allowed to sit on the same table or eat from the same utensils. As for girls, they are not allowed to leave the boudoir when they are ten years old. They are taught the methods of needlework and weaving, the way to cut clothes, and the things about food, drink and wine..."

It can be seen that the local people have become accustomed to the arrival of Liu Yu and others. Even the temple has opened a school, which is also in line with Liu Yu's expectations: since farmers and soldiers are separated and the feudal lords are feudal, then farmers are farmers, merchants are merchants, and the samurai masters fighting, what does it have to do with us?

After waiting at the window for a while, until the class was over, the master inside had already noticed Liu Yu and hurried over to pay his respects.

The earl of the Tang people is also an earl.

Liu Yu was invited into the house. Liu Yu casually flipped through the master's collection of books and found that the collection was quite rich. It might be that his ancestors were warriors, and he was not the eldest son and could not inherit, but his family background was definitely not that of an ordinary farmer.

There was also a book on the table. After glancing at it, Liu Yu blushed a little. As soon as he saw the title of the book, he felt that the book was a bit interesting.

"Sheng, Yin Yu".

It was a Han version. The market novels in the late Ming Dynasty were very developed. When he saw the name, Liu Yu subconsciously thought that this must be that kind of book.

He flipped it open casually, and thought that what caught his eye were words such as Bodhi Dew, Pistil Honey, Sweet Dew, and Condensing Xuanpin to exercise imagination, but it was not.

On the contrary, the page he flipped through casually said something like: Guarding against desire is like pulling a boat against the current, as soon as you stop, it will flow down; exerting goodness is like climbing a tree without branches, as soon as you stop, it will fall down. Therefore, the heart of a gentleman is always in awe. When a good thought arises, before expanding it, hold it first, this is the storehouse of all goodness. If you let it come and go, and don't keep it in mind, it will be like a post, and you will have no master for life...

Even if he has no culture, he knows that this is not what he thinks.

Sure enough, the master asked: "What classics does the adults of Tang Guo study? Although this book "Sheng, Yin Yu" is not written by Mr. Yangming, it follows Mr. Yangming's academic path. I wonder if Tang Guo is studying Zhu Xi's school of thought at this time? Or Yangming's mind school?"

Unexpectedly, as expected, Liu Yu did not answer, but asked: "Are you studying Yangming's mind school?"

The master shook his head.

"Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism?"

The master still shook his head, and after a while he said: "I am studying ancient Confucianism. Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism focuses on the principles of the text, and if you don't pay attention, it will become empty talk; Yangming's School of Mind only focuses on the original heart, and is biased towards the ideas of sages."

"Song and Yuan Neo-Confucianism all deviate from the words of Zhou Gong, Confucius, and Mencius. We should directly read the ancient books of the pre-Qin period to restore the teachings of Confucius and Mencius..."