My father is Jiajing

The third year of the Longqing reign.

More than a year has passed in the blink of an eye.

During this year and a half, many things also happened in the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, all these events were actually brewing for the same thing.

For example, a major event that occurred in the twelfth month of the first year of the Longqing reign.

At the time, it was rumored that Luo Longwen had a huge amount of illicit silver, and it was also rumored that Japan was rich in silver.

But these are all just legends. Apart from the first people who came into contact with them and know that they are true, for the rest of us, even if we believe them, it's more hype than fact.

However, when Zhao Wenhua and Tan Lun ostentatiously transported the three million taels of illicit silver that Luo Longwen had hidden in Korea from Tianjin, allowing the onlookers to see the silver cart loaded with three million taels of silver, the scene became a spectacle.

The ordinary people who were originally just watching the show became really excited.

That's three million taels of silver!

Even if an ordinary person worked hard for ten lifetimes, they might not be able to earn even a fraction of that.

However, as long as there is an opportunity to go to sea, an opportunity to go to Japan, and an opportunity to obtain Japanese silver mines.
Then all of this will no longer be a dream!
So from that moment on, the ordinary people who were just watching the spectacle transformed into a massive tsunami of public opinion, all of whom unequivocally and firmly supported the imperial court's campaign against Japan.

Zhu Zaiji was deeply moved upon witnessing this scene.

He originally didn't want to use public opinion in this way, since public opinion used in this way is very easy to get out of control.

However, using education to leverage public opinion is a process that is far too lengthy.

After all, there were no TV dramas or radio stations in this era, and the transmission of information was subject to far too many limitations.

Even when Zhu Zaiji ordered some music bureaus to compile theatrical stories about the Japanese pirates' invasion of coastal areas, it was still difficult to achieve the same results.

However, these opera talents who have been living in peace and comfort for too long simply cannot create operas that depict the suffering of ordinary people.

The story they finally came up with was so distasteful that Zhu Zaiji shook his head after reading it once.

Therefore, it is quite difficult to use cultural dissemination to publicize the viciousness of the Japanese pirates, the suffering of the coastal people, and the bravery of the Ming Dynasty soldiers.

Therefore, in the minds of most ordinary people, even if they have heard some stories about the coastal areas ravaged by Japanese pirates, they just listen to them as stories and do not feel any empathy.

After all, they were not the ones who suffered from the Japanese pirates.

Therefore, it was truly not an easy task to mobilize the public opinion of these people to support the imperial court's military campaign against Japan.

As emperor, Zhu Zaiji could disregard public opinion and simply decide on military action based on interests and political considerations, summoning his officials to make decisions.

However, this kind of war, which lacks popular support, is short in duration, yields substantial results, and suffers relatively few losses, so it is still acceptable.

However, if the war becomes stalemate and drags on for too long, some voices of opposition will emerge in the court and among the people, who will believe that the court's actions are a waste of resources and manpower and that it is waging an unjust war.

The longer you persist, the greater the backlash will be.

Just like the Sui and Tang dynasties' conquest of Goguryeo a thousand years ago.

If this war were fought based on public opinion hundreds of years later, it would be an absolutely just war, and the people would certainly support it wholeheartedly.

However, at that time, apart from the high-ranking officials of the dynasty who saw the threat and risks posed by Goguryeo, most ordinary people did not know where Goguryeo was or what the point of attacking it would be.

Therefore, when Emperor Yang of Sui repeatedly conscripted large armies and laborers to launch a war against Goguryeo, the common people could not understand it.

Moreover, if the battle at the front were to fail, leading to extremely serious chain reactions, then as the person primarily responsible for initiating this great war, Emperor Yang of Sui, no matter how well he could shift the blame, would still be held accountable in a more severe way.

Therefore, after Emperor Yang of Sui's three campaigns against Goguryeo ended in failure, no matter what spectacular achievements he made to salvage his reputation, the hearts and minds of the people within the Sui Dynasty were already waning.

Therefore, the final result was predictable: eighteen rebel kings emerged in the local areas, and within the class base of aristocratic rule, many disloyal aristocratic families secretly obeyed but secretly defied the authority and status of Emperor Yang of Sui.

This is the consequence of not having a sufficient foundation of public opinion.

Moreover, in Zhu Zaiji's historical memory, the same story also happened in the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, this historical memory is from the original timeline.

In the original timeline, during the mid-to-late Wanli period, the Liaodong Jurchens began to rise and unify, and their emergence was nothing short of a recurrence of the Goguryeo of the Sui and Tang dynasties.

If the Central Plains dynasty had simply let it grow too powerful, it would have been a disaster.

No one can guarantee that these newly powerful separatist forces, once they grow in strength, won't covet the Central Plains.

Therefore, any ruling group with a sound mind would not allow such a threat to exist.

Therefore, regardless of who is in power or who rules this vast empire, they will not hesitate to send troops to conquer and eliminate this separatist force that may threaten the stability of the Central Plains.

Unfortunately, sometimes the ruling class sees the terrible threat from a high vantage point, but the common people at the bottom are completely unaware of it.

All they knew was that if the imperial court went to war, it would definitely impose various labor services and taxes, making their lives even more difficult.

Therefore, as long as the imperial court is not adept at controlling this type of war and cannot resolve the problem in a short period of time, it will be a disaster.

This led to the normalization of war, and the court's demands on the people became a regular and unavoidable form of levy. In the long run, the court would inevitably be unable to balance both ends.

Not only were the dangers that were initially foreseen not contained, but internally, the aftermath of the war has led to a dangerous phase of loss of public support.

Ultimately, with both ends spiraling out of control, the dynasty's demise became a mere countdown.

Now that Zhu Zaiji wants to wage war against Japan, he certainly can't make the decision on a whim, carrying the hatred and memories from his previous life before he transmigrated.

After all, these hatreds were merely Zhu Zaiji's personal memories of hatred, not the collective hatred of the entire Ming Dynasty.

If one fails to clearly understand this point and assumes that a decision made on a whim will gain the support of countless people throughout the Ming Dynasty, then serious problems are bound to arise.

Moreover, from a legal perspective, Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, in order to maintain stability at the time, specifically created a white list of fifteen countries that would not be conquered.

Japan happens to be on this white list, so in order to conquer Japan, in addition to mobilizing public opinion, it is also necessary to first resolve a number of legal issues. In this regard, Zhu Zaiji also cited some of the reasons given by Emperor Yongle for his southern expedition to Jiaozhi as a reference.

Therefore, after more than a year of preparation, Zhu Zaiji has not only resolved the legal basis for conquering Japan, but also gained popular support by leveraging Japan's wealth and its past crimes against the coastal areas of the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, during that year, both the Longjiang Shipyard in Nanjing and the shipyard in Tianjin were operating at full capacity, working overtime to build warships capable of sailing at sea.

To make full preparations for the upcoming war.

Otherwise, when Zhu Zaiji was about to issue an edict to conquer Japan, he found that neither his own Eastern Ocean Fleet nor the Southern Ocean Fleet had more than three hundred warships in total.

If a war breaks out and they fail to seize a piece of Japanese territory that can be used for development and as a future base, then something terrible will happen.

After all, once a war begins, the amount of money, food, and supplies consumed is astronomical.

If not handled carefully, it could really drag down the national treasury.

Therefore, during this year and a half, Zhu Zaiji did not let the two shipyards sit idle. He kept allocating resources to them, urging them to work overtime to build warships and expand the scale of the shipyards.

After all, the number of warships needed in the future will only increase.

However, with the current production capacity, it is simply impossible to meet the court's future demand for warships.

Therefore, in addition to these two large shipyards, Zhu Zaiji also simultaneously ordered the construction of shipyards in Jeju Island, Dalian Port, Quanzhou Port, Weihaiwei, Zhangjiagang and other places, so that these places could cooperate with Longjiang Shipyard and Tianjinwei Shipyard to produce escort warships that could accompany ocean-going warships.

As a result, after more than a year of preparation, the Ming Dynasty built nearly twenty new ocean-going warships equipped with cannons, as well as nearly a hundred supply ships that could accompany the army on voyages.

Although these smaller escort warships could not be equipped with many combat weapons, they could be used as landing ships, provided that the naval battles ahead were won.

Then these hundreds of escort warships, loaded with manpower and resources, could seize the opportunity to directly carry out a land-based combat operation by storming the beach.

If a major victory is achieved in the land battle, then the Ming Dynasty navy, which has traveled thousands of miles across the ocean, can dock nearby and receive supplies from Japan, without having to expend excessive resources to requisition supplies to replenish their consumption.

This not only opened up a path to victory in the war, but also enabled the Ming Dynasty to establish a firm foothold in Japan and continue to expand its conquest of Japan.

This was to achieve the ultimate strategic goal of gradually occupying Japan.

However, Zhu Zaiji currently has little interest in these strategic needs.

All he wants now is the silver-rich regions of Japan, and the plains where large-scale grain cultivation can be achieved.

As for the impoverished and inhospitable Japanese territories where the cost of governance was too high, Zhu Zaiji was not interested for the time being.

After all, Zhu Zaiji was no longer an ordinary person; he needed to consider the current interests and needs of the Ming Dynasty in a comprehensive and realistic manner.

It's not that the bigger the territory you occupy, the better. After all, some places are really unprofitable and don't have any real strategic value.

Therefore, Zhu Zaiji would rather leave such a useless territory alone than foolishly increase costs by trying to rule it.

This situation is similar to the colonial enclaves occupied by some developed countries hundreds of years later, even though these colonial enclaves desperately want to vote to join their overlord country and obtain the same passports as the overlord country.

However, their suzerain states, after considering the cost of governance, would still shake their heads and refuse without hesitation.

After all, these poor places are really useless except for providing some military value in the open ocean.

If, in a moment of madness, you agree to their request to join, you could turn all the people in these places into civilians just like your own natives.

Then their suzerain states had to expend a great deal of resources to supplement the infrastructure of these poor areas, as well as various subsidies for people's livelihoods and various disaster relief and resettlement responsibilities.

However, if one merely occupies a favorable position in a territory and realizes only the strategic value one needs, then even if the people in that place are impoverished, it has nothing to do with the suzerain state.

Moreover, if these people dare to resist, their suzerain state can carry out bloody and brutal armed suppression without any psychological burden, and doesn't need to consider any other moral issues.

Therefore, Zhu Zaiji planned to first emulate the successful experiences of some of the colonial powers he had encountered before his transmigration and seize strategic locations.

All that's needed is a few verbal favors; let the rest fend for themselves and reduce the cost of governance.

If they disobey and cause trouble, then there will be plenty of bullets and shells.

Therefore, in formulating his next strategy, Zhu Zaiji had already begun to plan where the future Japanese would go.

For example, Ezo (Hokkaido Island), the northernmost part of Japan, was the place that Zhu Zaiji chose for them to live. It not only has beautiful scenery and endless charming snowscapes all year round, but also abundant fishery resources.

Presumably, the Japanese people who are relocated here in the future will live a very happy life.

Therefore, Zhu Zaiji was a kind-hearted person.

If these Japanese had been in the hands of other time travelers, they would have been massacred, with not a single one spared.

However, our Great Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, upholding the benevolence of ruling over all people by divine mandate, chose to show leniency towards the ordinary people of Japan, allowing them to enjoy life in Ezo and occasionally go to other places to work or mine.

After all, if all these laborers were killed, who would mine Japan's silver mines?

We can't just transport miners from the Ming Dynasty regardless of the cost, can we?

It's important to know that working in a mine is no easy job; miners frequently rebelled within the Ming Dynasty.

If Zhu Zaiji fails to make good use of waste resources and indiscriminately mobs everyone, then when it comes time to get people to work, they'll be completely bewildered.

Therefore, even though the Japanese are hateful and despicable, they cannot be killed outright. Their actual benefits must be maximized, which is in line with the actual interests of Zhu Zaiji and the Ming Dynasty.

After all, as the Ming Dynasty expands its overseas territories, there will be more places where bridges and roads need to be built, and these Japanese can be put to good use.

Moreover, Zhu Zaiji was also thinking that if high-yield crops such as potatoes were discovered in the Americas in the future, should we also conduct a wave of potato planting experiments in Siberia?
After all, it would be a real waste if such a large area couldn't be used effectively!

Therefore, His Majesty the benevolent Emperor of the Ming Dynasty truly had the world in his heart and bestowed grace upon all under heaven! He would never indiscriminately kill or wrongfully slaughter the people of the world!

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