.Chapter 22, In addition to the most basic language learning in the long journey, for the senior commanders of the army, the political, economic, military status of the Japanese island countries, and the actual status of the Far East Army of the Naserel Empire in the other side are also a compulsory course for them.

"In our country, the strength of the territory of the princes in various places is not measured by population and territory, but by grain output, that is, "high stones," stone is a unit of measurement in our country. Each stone is about 200 pounds, and how should we calculate it? I would like to give you an example. The direct jurisdiction of the shogunate is 10,000 stones, which means that the annual output value of the shogunate territory is 10,000 stones of rice. Perhaps one year the weather will be good, it will increase to 10,000 stones, or it may be due to natural disasters, which will shrink into 10,000 stones. In short, on average, it is basically 10,000 stones. And for the Ma Fan, 10,000 stones, the Changzhou Fan, and the Satsuma Fan sword, it also means almost the same.

In the past, the Shigao of the territory was a symbol of strength. "The Wanshi territory could maintain a long-term battle for a strong soldier, and the Shogunate's purchase of the Wanshi territory could easily pull up the old Wan army. But nowadays, tens of thousands of bald farmers and muskets and cannons with barefoot hands were forced to fight desperately. Well, it seems a bit unrealistic. Moreover, the country has been peaceful for hundreds of years, and even most samurai have forgotten how to fight with the enemy, let alone ordinary farmers and citizens."

In the narrow but neat sea chart room, the old monk Jingshui Youhu pointed to a simple picture of the entire Kuzakla that he had painted himself, while eloquently introducing various basic information about his homeland. "In our country, there is no military service system, and there are no things like the National Army."

In fact, just in terms of political structure, the situation between Kuzakra and Naserel is actually very similar.

In Kuzakra, the Edo Shogunate, as the central government, can actually only control the land of 4 across the country, while the remaining 3 belong to nearly 300, basically independent vassals. The relationship between the shogunate and vassals is more like a hegemonic and vassal state than a monarch and a minister.

In Neseril, the territory controlled by the central government of the empire was also only about half, and the other half of the territory was the territory of various autonomous regions. The only place that surpassed Kuzakra was the General Staff that could coordinate the joint operations of the entire ** team, an imperial congress that united and won over the upper class of various places, and a joint meeting of great arcane masters who could contact magicians across the country. But now, with the change of power of the central government, these institutions have also fallen into a complete paralysis and collapse.

The Tokugawa shogunate, established in Edo Castle, is the supreme ruling institution in the actual sense of Kuzakra. However, in this Kyoto Castle in the middle of the country, there is also an imperial court with only empty affiliation and an emperor with only a false name, as the nominal master of the country. This emperor is said to be the descendant of Amaterasu Daiji, the Goddess of the Sun in Japan, who has been passed down from the beginning of the country's creation. However, many centuries before the establishment of the Edo Shogunate, the emperor and his court had basically become decorations and could not capture a single trace of real power.

On the head of the Second Empire of Naserel, there was also an empty throne. The bloodline of the imperial royal family was completely cut off as early as the early days of the restoration of the country. But at least in law, Naserel did not become a republic. In fact, the power distribution of the First Empire of Naserel in ancient times was similar to that of the state system.

Kuzakra is the country of warriors. The warriors with double swords hanging around their waists are the rulers of the country. Warriors at all levels legally control most of the country's land, monopolize all government positions, and even have the so-called "slaying and abandoning the emperor" that is, the terrifying privilege of slaying people at will without being responsible in the street; Naseril is the country of magicians and priests, and the level of magic and magic is an important indicator for measuring a person's status. Although it is not as exaggerated as Kuzakra, the more powerful a magician is, the more privileges he can have. Otherwise, the fat lich Otti, who committed a heinous crime in his country, would not be able to live so easily now.

This is exactly the old saying: Those who have the strongest power should and must obtain the highest power.

The only difference is that warriors are hereditary from generation to generation, but magicians are not. Therefore, today's magicians still have the strongest force, and as for those warriors, it's a bit hard to say.

In order to resist the invasion and infiltration of overseas forces, avoid the loss of precious metal deposits such as gold and silver, and maintain the purity of domestic religious thought and academic atmosphere. "The Shogunate has issued a lockdown order from centuries ago, prohibiting all foreign merchant ships from entering the country at will, and also prohibiting people from leaving the country without authorization. However, due to domestic political division, the implementation has not been very good. No matter how the Shogunate repeatedly makes the orders, a large number of ronin samurai ventured to sea to enter the world.

Considering that this approach can effectively reduce domestic instability and avoid these vicious violent elements from harming their own territory, the shogunate basically turned a blind eye to this and just insisted on the principle of allowing them to go abroad but not entering: it would be fine if you want to go abroad. But once you go out, you will definitely not be allowed to come back again. Of course, some guys who smuggled back to their country always exist. Can money make the devil push the grinding?

But in this way, Western merchants basically lost Kuzakra's: a rich overseas market, and cut off the important differences in imported gold and silver; Kuzakra can always have the reputation of "Treasure Island" in the West, and the small amount of smuggling trade that still exists always makes them feel like a drop in the bucket.

In order to open the door of this Far East island country, the trade chambers of traders of the Feren continental powers conducted many failed negotiations, and then dispatched the regular national navy to intimidate, but none of them worked. Nearly thirty years ago, Admiral Garlusdu Denperry finally commanded his Naserel fleet to launch a strong attack, breaking through the interception of the coastal defense fortress around Edo Castle, and directly bombarding the German general's castle. He also sent griffon knights to threaten the city, and finally successfully forced the shogunate, who was strong outside and the middle, to sign an open trade agreement. Then, the Naserel Far East fleet also occupied Yokohama Port near Edo Castle as its trading concession and military base.

Until this time, there was still a complete hostile relationship between the Edo Shogunate and the Naserel Far East Fleet. The Shogunate did not think that opening a Hong Kong trade would be of any benefit to them, but was just a helpless move after the failure of the War of Resistance. As for Admiral Perry, he also did not think that the Edo Shogunate was a good partner, but regarded them as a group of rebels who needed to be beaten up from time to time.

However, shortly after this, the relationship between the shogunate and the Neseril Far East Fleet gradually changed subtly.

The "God" shogunate has been established for nearly four hundred years. Although it seems quite glorious now, its foundation has been gradually corroded and empty. The shogunate claims to have 80,000 samurai warriors, as its most critical core force and its ruling foundation. All samurai are hereditary system. As long as the ancestors fight for the shogunate blood and fight for their lives, their descendants can earn their iron rice bowls and earn their salary from generation to generation.

If the shogunate is regarded as a big business, they are equivalent to the lowest-level small shareholders. They can also pay dividends without working with their ancestral stocks. If they seek any official position in the shogunate, there will be another position allowance.

However, since there was no war for hundreds of years, these flag-based samurai basically did not suffer any casualties, and they were born from generation to generation, and the population was large, and the shogunate finances gradually could not support so many idle people. Moreover, in this peaceful period when there were no wars for hundreds of years, the upper-class powerful people actually did not value these military forces very much, but instead regarded them as a burden to a large group of people who were free to eat.

As a result, the shogunate gradually began to deduct the salary of the samurai warrior for a long time. The salary of the major shareholder unreasonably infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of the small shareholders, which caused complaints from the following sources and no longer had any loyalty to the shogunate. In order to support their family, they began to fight for the shogunate to seek work, but the shogunate position was very limited, and there were tens of thousands of bankrupt samurai, which was not enough for so many people to allocate them.

What's worse is that due to the strict classification of domestic scholars, farmers, industrial and commercial commerce, our country's samurai, as a privileged class, not only does not work in production, but also generally regards farming and business as a shame. It is also difficult to make them change jobs or engage in side jobs. Some violent people are unwilling to endure poverty. They simply give up their positions and become ronin, and make a living by robbing their families. This has led to serious deterioration of domestic security. As I know, most samurai families in Edo Castle are so poor that they have to pawn the ancestral weapons and treasures, sell houses and residential land allocated by the government, eat one meal a day, can't afford to be married, and in winter, they have no money to buy firewood to make stoves, and even a decent set of clothes cannot be afforded. These poor samurai occasionally seek temporary missions. In order to be able to attend the duty, they must first borrow clothes from the pawnshop, and then go straight to the pawnshop to take them off when they come back.

Speaking of this, the old monk Jingshui Youhu couldn't help but feel a little sad. "I was originally the youngest son of a lower-level samurai family in the shogunate, but because of the difficulties in family planning, I had to be sent to the temple by my parents as a little novice monk. The Mr. Tadao Kuroshima who had been fighting side by side with you for a long time was also because the Kuroshima vassal was extremely financially tense and could not support so many children. He was forced to take the risk of leading his subordinates abroad to explore and want to be self-reliant.

Any regime is based on military power. Since the military power of the shogunate has gradually collapsed, its dominance will naturally gradually shake. The poor performance of recent generations of shogunate generals has further aggravated this degree of shake-off.

"The previous shogun General was in power for more than 30 years and had no achievements in people's livelihood and national economy. However, he believed in Buddhism because his zodiac sign was a dog, so he issued the "Person Order of Life": On the one hand, the people were strictly prohibited from killing any animals, and those who killed dogs were even more guilty of murder; on the other hand, he spent huge amounts of money to build a large number of public houses, recruiting people from all over the country to accommodate street wild dogs, and buying dog food for feeding at their own expense, so he was scolded as a dog general." In those days, more than 3,000 people were executed for harming wild dogs, and more than 20,000 people were exiled or imprisoned for poor care of wild dogs. More than 100,000 people were forced to wander overseas, and there were many of them who became slaves.

Jingshui Youhu introduced with a sarcastic and resentful look on his face, it was obvious that as a chef who was good at cooking dog meat, he absolutely hated the animal protection laws before the ideology was severe.
Chapter completed!