Chapter 663 Rangers Attack (Fourth update, please subscribe)
A country cannot be without a ruler for a day, but the throne of the Japanese emperor remained vacant for a month and a half.
Finally, on March 17, 1874, Princess Kazunomiya inherited the throne and changed the era name to "Xinghua". This sister of Emperor Komei, aunt of Emperor Meiji, wife of the former Tokugawa Shogun, and now widow, finally became the Emperor of Japan.
After ascending the throne, Kazunomiya issued an edict in the name of Emperor Koka, requiring the former feudal lords who had left Tokyo to return immediately, and at the same time ordered Saigo to disband his army. She naturally rejected the samurai's demands to restore the old court meeting system. Of course, in order to comfort the samurai, she said that the court would seriously consider some of their suggestions, especially the livelihood issues of the lower-level samurai.
Although many samurai welcomed the emperor's order, the vast majority of them still did not believe in him. After all, Emperor Meiji had almost destroyed his credibility. Moreover, for thousands of years, the samurai had served the daimyo and the shogun. What was the outcome for them after they violated tradition and decided to work for the emperor in the past few years?
It was the Emperor and the imperial court who betrayed them! Since they had already betrayed them once, they would definitely betray them again in the future. Therefore, most of the samurai did not believe in the so-called promises of the Emperor at all.
Who knows if the imperial court will betray them again in the future? So compared to this imperial court that betrayed its integrity, they were more willing to trust their former lord.
For at least several hundred years, the lords had never betrayed the samurai under their command, and the samurai had never betrayed their lords.
At about the same time, Tokugawa Shigemitsu raised the banner of "expelling the barbarians and eliminating traitors" in Wakayama Prefecture. It must be said that things are unpredictable. Less than ten years ago, the banner of the anti-shogunate faction was "respecting the emperor and expelling the barbarians", but now the Tokugawa family and the pro-shogunate faction are "expelling the barbarians and eliminating traitors, restoring the kingly way". What barbarians are being expelled? It is not known whether they are barbarians, but they are definitely the ministers of the Meiji Restoration. As for restoring the kingly way, it is of course the status of the old samurai that is being restored. Compared with the emperor's promise, it is more convincing to go straight to the front and get back the lost rights.
The flames of the Japanese civil war spread from Kyushu to Honshu. The brave samurai, filled with anger towards the Meiji government, repeatedly repelled the government army, which was mainly composed of peasants.
After all, destroying someone's financial resources is like killing their parents!
Facing these samurai rebels who wanted to avenge their father's death, the government army was no match for them, and more importantly... someone was fanning the flames. An arms dealer provided weapons to the rebels, and there was no doubt that the arms dealer was from Ryukyu.
Uh, no, it’s from the Qing Dynasty.
The Qing Dynasty was also changing its equipment. At this time, as the Heavenly Kingdom replaced its equipment with the high-performance Type 71 rifle, the seven-shot Spencer rifle that once carried the backbone was quickly eliminated. Some "illegal profiteers" colluded with Qing officials to sell a large number of second-hand seven-shot Spencer rifles to Japan, selling them to anti-government rebels.
1874 was an ominous year for Japan. From Kyushu to Honshu, the raging flames of war dragged this country, which had just begun to "seek knowledge from the world", into the shadow of civil war.
While civil war was shrouding Japan, many Japanese female workers still left Japan by ship every day in ports such as Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Even in the midst of war, more women left Japan.
This was a good thing for the Ming Dynasty. After all, the Ming Dynasty needed these women. The only regrettable thing was that the labor exported by Japan dropped sharply. After all, the outbreak of the war and especially the return of the feudal lords allowed those unemployed samurai to find jobs again, and the ronin naturally no longer needed to go overseas.
Generally speaking, this was the extent of the impact of the war on the world. It affected the supply of Japanese laborers in Ming Dynasty, but the number of female workers increased rapidly. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise.
The civil war in Japan will not have much impact on the world. After all, Japan at this time is not worth mentioning to the world.
In September, when the Japanese civil war was becoming more intense, an iron-hulled steamship sailed into Yingyu Gate, and after entering Yingyu Gate, it arrived in Haizhou.
Standing on the top deck of the "Chengfeng", Zhang Wenjie looked at the Yingyou Mountain in the distance. The Yingyou Mountain in the sea was desolate. Then he picked up a cigarette, lit it, took a puff, and talked to himself.
“I hope everything goes well!”
As a police officer, Zhang Wenjie never thought that he would return to Tangshan one day. In fact, his hometown is in Shandong, north of Haizhou. If he wants, he can even go back to his hometown to visit. But what can he see?
There are not many people in my hometown anymore, at most I just go back to burn some paper.
However, this time he came to Tangshan not to show off his wealth, but to arrest some opium merchants who exported opium to the Ming Dynasty.
In Ming Dynasty, selling opium is punishable by death, but in Tangshan it is a "legal business". Their purpose of coming here is to arrest several "legal businessmen" and bring them to Ming Dynasty to accept legal sanctions.
A few months ago, the National Police Agency established the "Anti-Drug Special Forces". With the authorization of the Ministry of Justice, they have the right to arrest criminal suspects who export drugs to the Ming Dynasty in any country or colony in the world.
The members of the rangers are elites selected from police stations across the country, and Zhang Wenjie is among them. They came to Tangshan this time for this reason.
"We are about to arrive in Tangshan. After completing the mission, if you need to go back to your hometown, you can take a month off."
Li Chengliang looked at his team members and smiled.
"But you need to pay for your own trip home!"
Naturally, everyone burst into laughter at this, and the empty deck was filled with their laughter.
As in the past, the "Chengfeng" immigrant ship was empty, with less than two hundred passengers. Although nearly one million people leave Tangshan every year, only a handful return.
After all, not everyone can afford the travel expenses, and many of them never return to this land until they die.
Tangshan...
No one knows when this name became popular, but compared to "Qing Dynasty" or "China", the people of Ming Dynasty prefer to call this ancestral land "Tangshan". After all, to a certain extent, Ming Dynasty did not recognize Qing Dynasty.
With the sound of the whistle, the ship sailed into Haizhou Port. Because the tonnage of "Chengfeng" was too large, weighing more than 10,000 tons, Zhang Wenjie and his party could only go ashore by taking a transfer barge.
Unlike the Ming Dynasty, as passengers, they did not need to go through customs inspection or submit visas. Even the pistols in their suitcases were legal to carry. According to the decrees of the Qing Dynasty, respectable foreigners could bring two pistols into the country, and double the number if they went deep into the interior. Of course, no one paid attention to the laws of the Qing Dynasty at all, and they could carry as many long and short pistols as they wanted in the suitcases.
Although they do not need to go through customs inspection, they still need to go through the customs channel when disembarking from the dock.
"You came from Nanhua?"
The customs officer, who was wearing a suit but had pigtails, looked at these Nanhua people. According to the unwritten rule, they were not allowed to call "Da Ming" "Da Ming" in any occasion, but "Nanhua". It seemed that for the Qing Dynasty, as long as they did not say "Da Ming", "Da Ming" would not exist.
"Yes, we are from Ming Dynasty."
Zhang Wenjie's answer made the customs officer look at him thoughtfully, and then he passed through customs silently.
When they walked out of the dock, several carriages were waiting for them there. A young man holding a card saw the words "Shengji Company" written on it, Li Chengliang, and walked over.
"Hello, I'm Li Chengliang from Shengji."
The young man put away the sign and said.
"Welcome to Haizhou...Westerners call this a paradise for adventurers!"
(End of this chapter)
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