Chapter 2463
The cultural transformation of North Korea is not a task that can be completed overnight. The Executive Committee also knows that this matter cannot be urgent. However, in order to prevent the North Koreans from delaying and shirk the responsibility, the Executive Committee requires King Li Zhen to pay homage to the existing civil servants in North Korea. In addition to the Liucao Yamen, a special agency was added that was responsible for promoting the application of Chinese characters in Chinese and revising Korean historical records.
Haihan's intention to establish such an organization outside of Liucao was also very clear, that is, to allow this organization to be free from the hostage of other yamen and have the authority to operate independently.
Of course, it is not objective enough to say that it operates independently. After all, the function of this organization is to implement the instructions issued by Haihan. Therefore, in terms of the selection of officials, Haihan also proposed that the two countries should jointly select officials to manage this special agency. To put it bluntly, they do not trust the North Koreans to operate it on their own and must keep this agency in their own hands.
Regardless of whether Li Zhi and senior officials were willing to accept such an arrangement, the matter was finally settled and quickly began to be implemented with the promotion of Haihan officials. About 100 acres of land were quickly designated outside Seoul and construction began as the future office space for this emerging organization.
In the spring of 1646, the Korean Culture Promotion Association was established in Seoul. Although the name of this yamen sounds unofficial, its actual authority is even higher than that of the Liucao yamen. Chen Yixin, commander of the Haihan Beihai Theater, also serves as the honorary president of this organization. This alone is enough to prove how profound the background of this organization is.
The office space is still in the construction stage, and the Cultural Promotion Association issued the first batch of instructions after its establishment. Within this year, the Chinese literacy teaching materials provided by Haihan will be promoted in North Korea, and the proverb education system that has been used for 200 years will be completely stopped. The Cultural Promotion Committee will send commissioners to all parts of the country to supervise the implementation. Anyone who objects and fails to comply will be punished as disobeying the king's order.
The revision of Korean historical records will also start within the year. At that time, the Cultural Promotion Association will organize scholars from many countries in East Asia to compile a Korean national history and pass it down as the official history. Of course, scholars who are qualified to participate in the compilation of this national history must first be recognized by Haihan. Those Korean literati who want to insist on the so-called inheritance are basically unlikely to have the opportunity to participate in this work.
These methods used by Haihan will cut off the possibility of North Korea seeking cultural independence to a certain extent, so as to alleviate the inherent distrust of the Executive Committee.
Of course, it will take several more years of observation to draw a clearer conclusion as to whether this approach can achieve the desired results of the Executive Committee. Regardless of whether these operations of the Cultural Promotion Association in North Korea are useful or not, they will become valuable reference materials. In the future, there will be many vassal countries that need to be managed during Haihan's external expansion. How can these countries maintain long-term control over Haihan? Awe, the operational experience in North Korea will become a model.
While exerting control measures on North Korea, Shi Diwen, who was in Kyushu, Japan, was not idle either. Haihan sent troops to occupy Sasebo Bay, which greatly shocked Japan's Tokugawa shogunate. Everyone in the shogunate believed that this was a typical foreign invasion. But unlike the Yuan army that crossed the sea to attack Japan in the past, the Kaihan army had attacked Hirado Island at the northwest tip of Kyushu Island several times before, and retreated unscathed every time. After capturing Sasebo Bay, the Kaihan army had not retreated. Realizing what he meant, he quickly built a port and a fortress locally, and it seemed that he planned to stay there for a long time.
Naturally, the Tokugawa shogunate would not sit back and watch the invasion of foreign enemies, but there are continuous mountains near Sasebo Bay, which is not conducive to large troop marches and formation operations. If you want to attack this semi-enclosed bay from the sea, you will undoubtedly take a huge risk. After all, the Hirado navy, known as Japan's number one naval force, was completely wiped out by the guns of the Haihan fleet a few years ago. Now Japan cannot pull out another armed fleet that can compete with it.
Later, under the coordination of Portuguese businessmen, the shogunate decided to send people to negotiate with Haihan first. After all, it was not easy to fight Haihan. If a war could be avoided, the shogunate did not want to use its limited resources to negotiate with Haihan. Monsters fight to the death. The current shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu pursues a policy of seclusion, leaving only Nagasaki as the window for foreign trade. Therefore, he is relatively resistant to Shi Diwen's trade requirements. Shi Diwen had expected this and said that if the shogunate insisted on opposing trade, Haihan would attack Nagasaki and other important coastal cities next.
As Japan's only window for foreign trade, Nagasaki has great interests in all aspects. Therefore, after the news was spread back to Edo, the vested interests believed that the outbreak of war should be avoided as much as possible, and it was completely burned by Haihan. Hirado is a lesson learned from the past.
However, opening up trade is undoubtedly contrary to Japan's current national policy, and Tokugawa Iemitsu still has many doubts about this. After all, the Haihan people are not as easy to deal with as the Europeans they have dealt with before. This is a person who really knows how to take action.
Because the speed of information transmission was extremely slow, and the officials sent by Japan to negotiate had to consult the shogunate in Edo for everything, the progress of the negotiations was also very slow, and no results were achieved in several months.
Shi Diwen, who finally lost his patience, took the initiative to interrupt the negotiations, mobilized his troops, and led the main force of the East China Sea Fleet from Sasebo Bay, southward around the southern tip of Kyushu Island, and then headed towards Kanto. On the way, the fleet also stayed for several days near Osaka and Nagoya Castle of the Owari Domain. The last stop was Edo Castle, where the shogunate was located.
After the fleet sailed into Edo Bay, Shi Diwen did not rush to order the use of force. Instead, he sent people to land to contact the shogunate and asked Tokugawa Iemitsu to send people aboard to visit the maritime exercises of the Kaihan East Sea Fleet.
After a series of artillery strikes and amphibious landings, the shogunate naturally realized the gap in force between the two sides and basically gave up the idea of a head-on confrontation with the Haihan Army.
In the summer of 1646, the two countries signed the "Sea-Japan Trade Treaty" at the Kaihan military base in Sasebo Bay. In addition to the original Nagasaki, four places including Fukuoka, Osaka, Nagoya, and Yokohama were added for the exclusive use of Kaihan. Treaty port, and allowed Haihan merchants to purchase real estate and engage in business activities there.
In addition, Sasebo Bay on Kyushu Island will be leased to Haihan indefinitely at a price of 10,000 taels of silver per year. This condition is of course just a formality to make Haihan's occupation of Sasebo Bay legal. change.
The Black Ship Incident, which originally occurred two hundred years later in history, was abruptly advanced by two centuries by Shi Diwen's fleet.