Ming Dynasty: Traveling through the harem, Zhu Yuanzhang was dumbfounded

Chapter 223 Lan Yu Conquers Japan
A few months later
It was the eighth day of the fifth month in the thirteenth year of Hongwu, which meant that there were less than twenty days left in June until the summer solstice.

A lot of things happened in the Ming Dynasty during these six months.

First, let’s take Japan.

After entering Japan, Li Wenzhong began a series of vigorous reforms.

The reforms were mainly targeted at the backward culture in the Southern Dynasties. After the reforms carried out by Li Wenzhong and his subordinates, the Southern Dynasties began to burst with vigorous vitality.

The most notable thing is that the entire Southern Dynasty abandoned its previous ugly aesthetic and began to develop a certain level of industry.

Of course, these industrial levels are only relative to the previous Ming Dynasty.

In any case, the productivity of the Southern Dynasty did begin to explode to an upward level under the influence of Li Wenzhong.

At the same time, Japan's Northern Court, led by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, began to have many frictions and conflicts with the Southern Court.

At first, these Japanese families thought that this was just an old trick between the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and that everyone was just playing along. They never thought that a war of life and death would really break out.

As time passed, gradually, those on both sides who wanted to get away with it realized that this was not acting at all.

The Southern Dynasty did have a strategy to turn defeat into victory, so, under the leadership of Li Wenzhong, the entire Southern Dynasty began to slowly recover many territories of the Northern Dynasty.

From the initial advance of ten kilometers a day to the final recovery of a large city every day.

Now, the Southern Dynasty has completely taken back the capital that was previously occupied by the Northern Dynasty.

But those Japanese who followed Ashikaga Yoshimitsu were miserable. None of them had expected that they would end up like this.

at the same time.

The Ming Dynasty began to send caravans to Japan to monopolize business.

Li Wenzhong returned to Ming Dynasty in May. Not only him, but also all the spies who had entered Japanese territory to gather information left.

When Li Wenzhong was about to leave at the beginning, Emperor Changqing and his people were reluctant to let him go.

During this period of time, Li Wenzhong had completely transformed from a general of a foreign country into an object of worship for all men, women, young and old in the Southern Dynasty. Some even believed that Li Wenzhong was the god of war bestowed upon them by the Ming Empire, and that it was the appearance of Li Wenzhong that restored Japan to its former prosperity.

In order to be able to follow Li Wenzhong, Fujiwara no Nagano Hiroshi even took the initiative to erase his own identity, just wanting to catch up with Li Wenzhong's ship returning to Ming Dynasty.

It’s a pity that Li Wenzhong could not accept these people’s followers.

Of the tens of thousands of people he brought with him, only less than five hundred were sacrificed.

Without exception, these people encountered accidents while exploring the situation in Japan.

There is no way, many mineral veins or high places in Japan are near volcanoes.

In addition to Mount Fuji, Japan has nearly 300 volcanoes of various sizes, even though Yang Chen has already prepared the spies for defense in advance.

However, the environment in many places is too harsh, which leads to people accidentally dying outside.

Each and every one of these people was a hero of the Ming Dynasty. Without their courage to sacrifice, the Ming Dynasty would have had almost no way of obtaining specific intelligence about Japan. For this reason, Zhu Yuanzhang gave an order.

Write down the names of these people and then carve them on a stone tablet.

The stone tablets will be located in various famous mountains and sacred places.

This monument is called "Tuoshi Monument"

A pioneer in opening up the world.

As Li Wenzhong and others left Japan, the leaders of the Northern Dynasty suddenly began to lose their direction.

It turned out that in previous battles, he had always obeyed Li Wenzhong's orders.

Those who led Japan to take the initiative to attack were basically Ming Dynasty generals, that is, the thousand households under Li Wenzhong.

As this group of people left the Southern Dynasty, the Southern Dynasty suddenly became like a headless fly. They took the initiative to ask the generals who came to replace Li Wenzhong.

Coincidentally, the new general who came to Japan was Lan Yu!

That's right!

It’s Lan Yu!

Ever since Zhu Yuanzhang gave Lan Yu the task of clearing up the Jiangnan region, Lan Yu completed these tasks as quickly as possible.

Zhu Yuanzhang originally thought that it would take a long time to get rid of these dirty guys, but since Lan Yu took action, anyone who wanted to show up would be killed without saying a word!

Many businessmen were killed so that they had no intention of cheating the people.

In the end they had to submit to the Ming court, and every merchant was supervised by the court.

At the same time, those businessmen in Zhenjiang Prefecture who had joined the state-owned enterprises also took the initiative to cooperate with the local government so that everyone could make money together.

The Ming Dynasty, which had been experiencing a sluggish economy, actually gradually got better under such circumstances, which was something no one expected.

In fact, the most important thing is that the Ming Dynasty successfully spread the three American warriors among the people.

According to the previous assessment system, as long as local government officials could grow these crops with the people, they would be able to obtain a considerable sum of money.

To this end, officials from all over the country did not hesitate to go to the fields to farm themselves.

At the same time, vaccination against smallpox was popular in the Ming Dynasty. Nowadays, except for a small number of people infected with smallpox, the rest of the people in the Ming Dynasty are basically immune to smallpox.

This group of people infected with smallpox were brought to Japan by Lan Yu himself.

Compared with Li Wenzhong, who appeared to be polite and amiable, Lan Yu was notoriously bad-tempered.

It would be strange if Lan Yu had a good character after going so far away from the Ming Dynasty to Japan.

So, when the entire Japanese Southern Dynasty royal family went to ask him what to do next, they all left the house crying and yelling at Lan Yu.

And now Lan Yu is planning something big.

According to Yang Chen's plan, Japan still has a population of several million. If he doesn't find a way to deal with these excess population, it will be difficult to rule Japan in the future.

Therefore, Yang Chen has asked a group of people infected with smallpox to go to the Japanese military camp to do things.

They will be responsible for the food, clothing and daily life of many Japanese people.

At first, the Japanese in the Southern Dynasties were surprised. Why would the people of the Ming Dynasty help them?

But later, these people gradually accepted the fact that people from the Ming Dynasty really helped them.

Then, under Lan Yu's special arrangement, the Southern Dynasty had an unprecedented conflict with the Northern Dynasty.

This time, the Northern Dynasty's already weak power was completely wiped out.

This victory made the Southern Dynasty go to their heads and they held a grand fireworks party in Kyoto.

Holding a banquet means that people will gather together, and what a coincidence.

This is the environment that Tianhua likes most.

So, without knowing it, Yang Chen let the smallpox patients that Lan Yu brought from Daming start to infect these Japanese with their own viruses. These smallpox would not affect Daming's own people at all.

Because now, all the soldiers in the Ming Dynasty have taken the initiative to be vaccinated against cowpox.

With their natural immunity, how could the Ming soldiers be affected by these junk viruses?
Soon, the whole of Japan fell into a crazy situation.

When smallpox was rampant, no Japanese could escape the disease.

Two months later, the widespread death toll in Japan finally frightened the royal family members who were in hiding.

For the first time, they clearly felt how easy it was for fate to kill a person.

These people took the initiative to ask for help from the Ming army. Unfortunately, Lan Yu had no intention of paying any attention to them. Not only that, he took the rest of the soldiers away.

that's it.

Without the help of the Ming army, the whole of Japan instantly became an island with a terrifying atmosphere.

Those people infected with smallpox were completely at a loss. They thought it was a punishment from God.

Then they madly worshipped various emperor statues and shrines.

Unfortunately, smallpox is smallpox, and the number of Japanese islanders infected with this stuff is decreasing at an extremely crazy rate.

In just less than two months, the entire Japanese population decreased by almost one million.

All the Japanese casualties were thrown into the sea to feed the fish.

In the sea one hundred miles away from the Japanese islands.

Lan Yu stood at the bow, listening to the reports from his men.

"General! Japan is now completely defenseless. All families have suffered severe losses due to smallpox. Only one in ten of the Emperor's family has survived. Just yesterday, Emperor Nagakura, under the pressure of the people, had to jump off a cliff in search of hope for survival. Unfortunately, when I sent people to look for him, I found that the Emperor's body had been almost eaten by fish near the reef.

In addition to the imperial family, other large families also suffered heavy losses, and many people even voluntarily left the Japanese islands in order to survive.

There are not many people who want to survive on the Japanese islands. As long as the Ming Dynasty wants to settle in Japan, it can do so anytime and anywhere."

Japan was facing collapse in a matter of moments. Lan Yu certainly understood this, but although he could do so, he would not choose to do so.

"According to this trend, how long will it take before we can officially enter Japan?" Lan Yu put down the telescope and walked to a table. The table was surrounded by topographic maps of Japan and markings of various mining areas.

These are what the spies left behind by Li Wenzhong did.

They spent half a year traveling all over Japan, visiting all the iconic places of interest.

Then they will mark what minerals are found in which places, and there will be some special marks left by them.

As long as they are from the Ming Dynasty, they can be accurately identified.

"General, we can enter Japan now, but there are still a lot of Japanese people, and the time when smallpox was rampant has passed." His deputy general answered him.

"Those Japanese who survived are now very hostile to us. The fact that they survived speaks volumes."

"Hostile?" Lan Yu sneered repeatedly. Now he was not worried at all about the attitude of the Japanese towards them, because Lan Yu had to take these people down no matter what.

Daming can’t wait any longer!

As long as he can conquer Japan, a new achievement will appear above Lan Yu’s head!

"How many people did we bring out this time?"

"General, there are a total of 200,000 naval forces in the Ming Dynasty, and 50,000 veteran soldiers," the deputy general replied.

During these six months, the Ming Dynasty was not idle. Yang Chen knew that the future battlefield of the Ming Dynasty would be on the sea. He told Zhu Biao about this, so Zhu Biao began to recruit a large number of navy in Fujian, Guangxi, Guangdong and other southern places that were good at water.

After half a year of training, the Ming Dynasty has a very powerful navy.

These people have strong combat capabilities on the sea.

After mutual inspection, it was found that these Ming Dynasty naval forces were not modern armies at all. The only difference was that the weapons they used were still very ancient.

However, Zhenjiang Prefecture has not been idle during the past six months.

Yang Chen has successfully researched the steam equipment. Unfortunately, the quantity is limited and can only be loaded on the Ming Navy warships that Lan Yu brought to Japan.

This war is also destined to be a test of their strength.

"With hundreds of thousands of troops, are we still worried about those guys who are still lingering on? Immediately send people to charge forward and take control of the major cities in Japan as quickly as possible.

In ten days, I will see that there will be no voice of resistance in Japan.

Besides, all the bodies we killed will be thrown into the sea to feed the fish. I don't care how many bodies there are. I just want the Japanese territory to become part of my Ming Dynasty!"

"General! I will never let you down. Give me ten days! Ten days! I will conquer Japan!" the deputy general replied forcefully.

It was from this time that the Ming Dynasty officially showed its fangs to Japan for the first time.

The deputy general led a total of 10,000 troops from the Ming navy, as well as infantry, cavalry, mobile forces and other forces into Japan from Kyoto.

On the first day, this force began to quickly occupy important cities in Japan, including Kyoto, and captured nearly 50,000 Japanese in total.

The moment they saw the Ming Dynasty sending back troops, they thought that the savior had come and that the Ming Dynasty was here to help them. However, they did not expect that the Ming Dynasty would use weapons to treat all of them.

By the time people realized what was happening, they realized that their country had long been in name only.

The Emperor's rejection and the spread of smallpox put the whole of Japan in a precarious situation. Now that the Ming Dynasty had sent troops to land, they had no power to resist at all.

On the second day, all major cities in Japan fell into the hands of the Ming army.

Lan Yu looked at the map, which was full of Ming Dynasty flags. He had never felt such a strong ambition in his heart.

"One person destroyed a country. The last person to do this was Tang Xuance, and now that person is me."

Lan Yu smiled slightly and said:

"How many Japanese slaves do we have now? Where are they all?"

He did not forget the real purpose of coming to Japan and followed the white paper plan given to him by Yang Chen.

When Japan becomes the territory of Ming Dynasty, we will first rebuild the important cities and make sure the people of Ming Dynasty can live well enough.

These would then become absentee slaves.

Therefore, population is extremely important.

The deputy general asked his subordinates to confirm the number of people, and then reported to Lan Yu:
"General, there are nearly 170,000 prisoners in western Japan alone. Among these people, except for 30,000 women and children, the rest are all men."

"In addition, there are a large number of captives in the east, west, and south. The total number is almost 800,000!"

"Eight hundred thousand?" The moment he heard this number, Lan Yu had only one thought.

"There are still too many. I'll give you three days to streamline these people. Remember, I only need women and children with good appearance. Other than that, any male who can't work will be thrown into the sea to feed the fish!"

(End of this chapter)