Bai Le agrees with Li Junwei's opinion very much. Now the situation in Japan has maintained an apparent calmness. Of course, this calmness did not happen. After all, Bai Le accidentally entered Edo Castle and was blocked by the hungry people who protested. This calmness means that for a long time, the land under the Tokugawa Shogunate had been like this.

Human spirits are prone to fatigue. Rebellions and riots occurred in Japan, and they are the kind of news that they are used to in the imperial newspapers.

But Bai Le believed that the situation in Japan reached a critical point and could break out at any time, but it is obvious that even the center of the empire, no agreement was reached with him on this issue.

"Now, if the Tokugawa shogunate wants to make good friends with us, the specific cooperation needs to be promoted step by step. I think Tokugawa Yoshizo urgently wants an attitude, right?" Li Junwei was well aware of the tricks in the field of diplomacy and asked Bai Le.

Bai Le nodded: "Yes, we doubt whether Tokugawa Yoshizun really wants to turn to the empire in full, and Tokugawa Yoshizun also doubt whether the empire really supports him."

"So, what thing did he choose to test it?" Li Junwei asked.

Bai Le carefully glanced at Pei Yuanqi and said, "Tokugawa Yoshizo hopes that we can refuse to deliver the two frigates to the Satsuma clan."

Pei Yuanqi looked a little embarrassed when he heard this, because the two frigates were a fault of his slightest mistake.

After Pei Yuanqi returned to the empire from Nishijin, he has always served as deputy prime minister, in charge of the domestic economy, especially the economy related to state-owned companies. Over the years, the empire's private shipyards have risen, and the rise of Japan's shipbuilding industry has led to operational difficulties for some state-owned shipbuilding companies.

Pei Yuanqi carried out drastic reforms to state-owned shipbuilding companies and merged many companies, which once alleviated this problem. But the problem is that the empire's navy had absolute military strength and technological advantages over the imaginary enemy. Nowadays, the naval technology is constantly changing. Often, when a warship is designed, it is still the most advanced, and when it is launched, the technology it uses is completely behind.

Therefore, the Navy reduced its equipment investment, while state-owned shipbuilding companies monopolize naval shipbuilding, and the Navy reduced orders, causing little trouble to the state-owned shipbuilding industry.

Obviously, Pei Yuanqi could not create orders for the navy for some shipyards, while Pei Yuanqi set his sights on the friendly countries of the empire.

It is almost impossible to get friendly countries to buy warships, but with the rise of global trade, some countries need to purchase steam-powered law enforcement ships. These law enforcement ships need to be armed and speed, which is a low-end version of warships, which is suitable for these shipbuilding companies.

This solved the problem very well. At this time, Japan came to buy a warship.

At that time, western Japan had established a customs alliance. Although it still held the title of customs alliance, it actually had political and economic cooperation. After all, this alliance needed to deal with the giant Tokugawa Shogunate, and the two most important forces in the alliance, the Choshu clan, the Satsuma clan and the Tokugawa Shogunate territory, were not bordered by the two most important forces in the alliance.

Therefore, the Customs Alliance established a joint defense force, which was deployed at the border area of ​​the Tokugawa Shogunate. This force was not large in size and was mainly sent by the two vassals, of which the Choshu family occupied the majority. The Satsuma family established a navy, with only some patrol ships in the early days, and later purchased some steam-powered merchant ships and transformed them into armed ships.

This time, the Satsuma clan took this opportunity to order a frigate from the Empire, but was directly rejected.

Because Japan's east-west battles almost nothing involves the navy. The empire has always supported the construction of maritime forces by Sanben and control the Seto Inland Sea.

The Satsuma clan chose to save the country on a curve, allowing a small vassal state that did not join the Customs Alliance to order frigates and not to be armed. The shipyard at that time knew that this was Li Daitaojun's plan, but in order to survive, he agreed.

This incident was later exposed because the small vassal state also wanted to join the customs alliance, so the Satsuma State simply transferred warships directly from the small vassal state.

This problem was finally properly resolved because Britain and the Netherlands recommended the ironclad ships built by their country to the Satsuma family. For reasons to deal with these two countries, the empire turned a blind eye.

Now that the warship has been built, Tokugawa Yoshizo asked not to deliver it, it is obviously a test of the empire's attitude.

"This business itself is fraudulent, turning arms trade into commercial trade. I think it is completely possible to refuse payment and return the money to them." Lin Junhong said.

Pei Yuanqi shook his head: "This will destroy the credibility of the empire and force Japan to really order warships from Britain."

"Ask a bit, the competition is more than cooperation between us and the Japanese Western Alliance." Lin Junhong was very calm.

"King Cheng, you are not in charge of the family and don't know that the food, rice, oil and salt are expensive. The current economic situation is not good. If you get stuck with the Western Alliance, you will cause trouble. That is the most active and developed economy in the East outside the empire, and it can't be easily separated. And it's not that time to tear the face. With such a report, we must prepare for the future to the point where a hero cuts his arm." Pei Yuanqi refused to give in at all on this issue.

Li Junwei sat there drinking tea, and at the same time winked at Bai Le, indicating that he should not take the initiative to participate in the debate.

Pei Yuanqi and Lin Junhong faced each other's tit-for-tat. After a while, the emperor who had been silent said, "Third brother, don't always watch the fun. This is the area you are in charge."

Seeing that Li Junwei could not escape, he smiled and said, "To put it bluntly, it is a question of whether it is worth it. Whether it is worth it is the empire's judgment on the changes in the internal situation in Japan."

"What about your judgment?" asked the emperor.

Li Junwei said: "I have no judgment, I suggest waiting."

"You said it yourself just now. Japan is very important, and it is not OK to hide." The emperor knocked on the table.

Li Junwei nodded: "But nothing happened in Japan now. If you need to do it, you still have to seize the initiative and take the initiative. We can only take the initiative first and find trouble if we have nothing to do."

The emperor shook his head slightly. The second Japanese civil war was actually a Japanese civil war that the empire had nothing to do. In order to deal with the Shangtun issue, he deliberately provoked the Japanese civil war. The person who led this matter was the current emperor, and this incident gave the emperor a lot of points in the original throne dispute, because it at least proved that the emperor was not a person with moral integrity.

"Then you say, Tokugawa Yoshizo, how to respond." Pei Yuanqi directly raised the practical question.

Lee Junwei shrugged: "It's very simple. We can sell the same or even better warships to the Tokugawa Shogunate, it's that simple."

Seeing that everyone was puzzled, Li Junwei continued: "This is the attitude of the empire. We accept the reversal of the Tokugawa shogunate and support the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate, but we cannot harm the interests of the empire. It is the Tokugawa shogunate who is completely turning to us, not us turning to them. We don't do the two things, we want them all."

Lin Junhong asked: "Why did you refuse to cooperate with us after joining Tokugawa Yoshizo?"

"That's just to maintain the status quo. The status quo is pretty good for us." Li Junwei spread his hands and did not think it was a difficult problem. Instead, he said: "Everyone, we should have a basic judgment in our minds, that is, Japan, which has a population of more than 30 million, will be unified as a major threat to the empire. If Japan does not kneel down and be a dog, it can only be fed unfamiliar wolf cubs.

What everyone should be more clear is that there are two nations in the world that have tens of millions of people but have not achieved national unity. One is Prussia and the other is Japan. In this era when the wave of nationalism is surging, these two places will inevitably become the focus of the world.

But the problem is that in Europe where Prussia is located, many forces participate in the competition, either win over or suppress it. The situation there is very complicated. However, in the East, at our feet, Japan's unification and rise are us, and after Japan's unification and rise, the only threat is us.

This means that we cannot escape this. Early and late, the Empire will fall into a war on the issue of Japanese unification. When will this war break out, we can control it, but how it ends, we cannot control it."

"From your opinion, Japan's unification is imperative and cannot be stopped." The emperor asked with a frown.

Now that the words have been spoken, Li Junwei will naturally not hide it anymore. He said: "Of course it can be stopped. There are two ways..." Li Junwei said here, shook his head slightly, raised a finger, and said: "There is one way, that is, the empire intervenes directly, which will cause costs. Now, the empire has not done anything that costs outweigh the benefits. The unification of Japan is likely to be the first thing.

How much price should we pay to stop Japan's rise? This is a brand new proposition. Everyone here, including the emperor, can't give the answer, because our country has been going too smoothly. When did the emperor feel stretched after being the emperor for decades?"

Li Junhua shook his head helplessly because King Yu was telling the truth. His father left him a powerful and mature empire. During the decades of being the emperor, there were wise ministers and capable officials at home and brothers outside to expand externally. After decades of foreign strategy led by King Yu, there were two large-scale expansions of King Yu's westward expeditions and stewards America. The western expedition laid the foundation for the empire's hegemony on the Eurasian continent because it used the Mongolian-style expedition, and actually did not cost much.

When struggling in America, there was a big armed robbery. Not only did it not lose much, it made a lot of money.

In addition to these two major expansions, there are also large and small external actions. King Yu carefully maintained the intensity and time. It can be said that over the years, the empire's internal praise for the external expansion hosted by King Yu was too much criticized, mainly because King Yu spent a small amount of money to do big things, and the House of Assembly rarely approved special funds for King Yu's external actions, and the empire's fiscal budget rarely changed because of King Yu's actions.

As for tax increases, things that easily cause resentment from heaven and man, they have never happened. It can be said that Li Junhua's career as an emperor was also happy. An emperor who only worrys about spending money and not raising money is the only one in ancient times.

"You just mentioned two methods, but changed your words again. What is the second one?" the emperor asked.

Everyone was also interested and looked at Li Junwei, because everyone couldn't think of any other way, hoping to hear a refreshing and unique insight, but it failed. Li Junwei smiled and said, "I'm just a little bit of random thoughts, and I don't even need to say it, because it's too bloody and not operational."

Everyone nodded, and two words appeared in their heads - massacre. But what they didn't know was that Li Junwei's words were completely an excuse. He had a second way, or to hear successful cases from his father in the future.

A single nation-state cannot be unified, and there will be a real case of the Korean Peninsula in later generations. But the problem is that this is an era dominated by national narratives, and that is the product of class confrontation and world polarization, which is obviously not comparable.

"In addition, I hope everyone understands, especially you Bai Le, you have to understand one thing." Li Junwei took a sip of tea and changed the topic.

"Listen to King Yu's advice." Bai Le bowed and said.

Li Junwei said: "Nobusuto Goto said that the so-called reform of Tokugawa Yoshizo is to repair and repair the old system. Tokugawa Yoshizo is a papermaker. This is a good metaphor, and it also applies to what we are discussing today.

Even if Tokugawa Yoshizo leads the shogunate to us, even if we provide various support for its reforms, that is, for our empire's strategy to Japan. Don't have too many fantasies about the feudal rulers. No matter how wise the monarch is, they cannot change their essence. They are destined to be eliminated by the times. External support or other special resources exist, it will only allow this backward political system to survive for a period of time."

Bai Le nodded. Although he could not agree with Li Junwei's view because he still had hope for the reform of Tokugawa Yoshizo and believed that this might be the reform of the Tokugawa shogunate, he was willing to support Li Junwei's view because it meant that he did not have too high expectations for the work he was in charge, which was beneficial to the evaluation of his work results.

After the meeting, Bai Le went directly to Prince Yu's mansion, but after waiting for a long time, he did not see Prince Yu coming back.

"Master Bai, the prince arranged for me to send you to the second young master." A servant said to Bai Le.

"Second Young Master? No, I'm here to meet Prince Yu." Bai Le explained.
Chapter completed!