Edo Traveler - Vol 13 Chapter 59

In 1864, the first month, Edo.

It is another year of the National Princes Conference, but this year’s Princes Conference is no longer a simple and pure unified coordination and deployment conference for the raw silk industry, but a serious political consultation conference.

The session is no longer one day, but several days in a row, because there are a lot of things that need to be discussed and dealt with at this session. Even the shogunate issued an outline for the meeting, so that all the princes were prepared in advance.

Of course, the princes are most concerned about withdrawing from their feudal lords!

Since last October, the Marquis of Kagoshima and Shimadzu have written a letter to withdraw from the clan, the last two months have been a turbulent situation. The news spread like wildfire, or there was no cover up, and it spread that day.

Just as people were talking about it, the Marquis of Changzhou Mori Jingqin actually echoed the definition of Shimadzu, and wrote a letter to the shogunate to ask the shogunate to withdraw the clan. Maori Jingjin himself is willing to resign and accept the land, and the book will be returned.

After all, he is now participating in the state affairs of the Tokugawa shogunate enjoying the treatment of the old middle school. His response immediately set off a wave of small high (shielding) among the princes of Edo.

And normal people want to come, the shogunate wants to withdraw the vassal, and the first echo should be the generation or the vassal, especially the princes who can serve as old middle school and have less than 20,000 stone territories.

As a result, what I never expected was that the Shimadzu family of Kagoshima domain was the first to advocate the withdrawal of the feudal domain, and the Mouri family of Changshu domain was the first to echo the withdrawal of the domain.

Do you have any grudges against the shogunate?

Really have no grudges?

What is even more exaggerated is that the Hiroshima domain and the Fukuoka domain also wrote to the shogunate to ask the shogunate to withdraw their domain, mix the country, and unite the political affairs, in order to face the trend of the world and the turbulent general trend.

A group of foreign vassals all knelt one after another, and the opinions of the remaining small vassals naturally became less important. The shogunate immediately ordered that a final decision on the matter would be made at the National Princes General Assembly in the New Year.

It’s just that this matter is the grand finale. At the beginning of the meeting, there must be other slightly lesser matters discussed. The first one is also the layout for the last big play.

Abolish the unequal treaty between the United States and Japan!

On behalf of the Tokugawa shogunate, Ueno Jinryu Marquis Oguri Tadashun, who had been on an envoy to the Americas for many years, signed a new pact with the United States of America, the northern government of the United States, to abolish all unequal treaties between the United States in Japan.

On behalf of the Tokugawa shogunate, Oguri Tadashun promised to fully support the North. As long as the shogunate has it, the North can buy it with the money. Even the shogunate allowed the north to pay in two or three to three to five years to purchase guns, ammunition and other military supplies.

In order to repay the kindness of His Majesty Tokugawa, the King of Japan, President Lincoln in the north, unified the Republican Party that controlled the Congress, and formally approved the new US-Japan Treaty.

The two sides conduct diplomacy on an equal footing. The tariff agreement rights, Hakodate settlement, garrison rights, and other economic priorities that the United States obtained in Japan will be abolished!

Now that the new treaty has been signed and the United States Congress has approved it, Oguri Tadashun rushed back to Japan with the new treaty and asked Chuemon to sign it immediately and exchange the treaty with the United States.

Needless to say, Chuemon signed it very quickly. The shogunate did not have a parliament, and the emperor was abolished. As long as Chuemon’s signature was approved, the treaty would take effect immediately.

From now on, the U.S. customs officers stationed in Yokohama, Nagasaki and Hakodate will resign and return to China on their own. The U.S. embassy and consulate areas at various commercial ports are naturally reserved, but the Hakodate residential area is fully taken over by the Ezo pioneers. U.S. troops and warships stationed in Japan are required to fully report to the shogunate, and are prohibited from exceeding the limit of reasonable protection for diplomatic missions.

When the news was announced, there was a lot of discussion.

The shogunate was really strong, and even the ghosts of the United States bowed their heads. This is the so-called genuine “repudiation”!

The so-called “removal of foreigners”, the right to speak, was officially taken over by the shogunate. You bunch of idiots have been fighting for decades, but the birds are useless. Through diplomacy, the shogunate achieved a real “break the contract and shun the foreigners”. All American privileges in Japan have been revoked. Is there a more suitable way to fight foreigners?

After the first news was announced, the second news began to be published immediately. This also has a certain relationship with the United States, and is also the result of Oguri Tadashun’s diplomacy in the United States.

By acknowledging, and only acknowledging, the northern government, Oguri made the U.S. public statement to renounce its interests in Hawaii, and to accept the claim of the Japanese king Tokugawa Tadasa about Hawaii.

How did the claim come about?

That naturally comes from the new King Kamehameha V of Hawaii!

Hawaiian Houlot, who received military aid from the shogunate, strongly defeated the rebellion of the American forces on the island, and his younger brother Kamehameha IV also formally established the succession of Luot in the Hawaiian parliament.

After executing and exiling a group of summer traitors, Lot became the Prince Regent, taking over power in Hawaii. His younger brother Kamehameha IV stood up for another two months, and Yan returned to the sky, honored by his Holy Father.

Lot then succeeded as King Kamehameha V. Because of this wave of military coups and the change of thrones, the power of Japanese descent has soared in Hawaii.

As the Majesty of Japan, and also the former minister of the Japanese King Tokugawa Chuzheng, the Japanese forces began to enter Honolulu smoothly. After the United States announced it had renounced its interests in the island, Chuemon was backed by Britain and France.

The Hawaiian Protectorate is established!

Of course, it was impossible for Chuemon to completely destroy the Hawaiian Kingdom at once, but it was only because Kamehameha V was a former vassal and established a protectorate with the recognition of the foreign powers.

In the future, the diplomatic and military affairs of the Kingdom of Hawaii will be managed by the Honolulu consulate sent by the shogunate, and the rest of the economy, people’s livelihood, trade and commerce will be decided by Hawaii.

As soon as this second major event was announced, the princes were not as enthusiastic as they had just discussed. One of today’s news must be very exciting, and the other is the matter of the shogunate’s vassal of Hawaii. It’s too far away from them, and they really can’t be of much interest.

It’s just that the shogunate has expanded its territory again, and the prestige of Chuemon has risen again. There is no one who can challenge the prestige of Chuemon in the country.

U.S. Minister Prune was also on the side of the venue at this time, and he also signed the treaty when the preceding countries signed the treaty. Now that he has completed the agenda passed in the “Japanese Parliament”, he will send the text of the treaty back to Washington for ratification.

Prune didn’t think it was too much to give up a small island in the Pacific because of the American Civil War. After all, he had amassed a fortune by buying arms from Japan and then repatriating them back home.

It can even be said that he hopes that the relationship between Japan and the United States can be further strengthened, so that he can make a lot of money in Japan and earn enough pension money for three lifetimes.

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