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The students present knew that breakfast today wouldn't be anything good. Because Cui Baoguo returned quickly and came back quickly. Not to mention that Cui Baoguo's attitude towards the students was not good to begin with, just preparing breakfast for over three thousand people in such a short time, it would be a miracle if anything good could be prepared.
But these students never expected that the breakfast Cui Baoguo prepared for them would be so plain and watery that it was truly just clear soup!
To the surprise of the students, Cui Baoguo had also specially brought a portion of breakfast for Emperor Zhu. This included a whole boiled chicken, a bowl of sauerkraut and pork belly soup, a serving of shredded potatoes, a small plate of pickles, and two plump white steamed buns.
Looking at the breakfast Cui Baoguo prepared for Emperor Zhu, and then at their own distributed breakfast...
If it were just a matter of treating breakfast differently, it would be understandable. After all, Emperor Zhu was the dignified emperor, and it was indeed reasonable for him to eat better. The problem was that Cui Baoguo had mobilized all the villagers of Cui Ge Village to deliver breakfast quickly!
Heaven knows, although Cui Ge Village was not a very large village, with only about a thousand people at most, eating under the watchful eyes of over a thousand villagers made these students feel a sense of social death.
Just as the students were feeling secretly displeased, Emperor Zhu stood up, smiled, and greeted the people of Cui Ge Village, "We are uninvited guests today, and we have caused you so much trouble. We are truly grateful for your hard work!"
After Emperor Zhu finished speaking, the people of Cui Ge Village were a bit at a loss. Some knelt and shouted "Long live" like in the opera, some stood there helplessly, and some bowed to Emperor Zhu.
At the same time, the villagers also chattered back, "It is the honor of Cui Ge Village that His Majesty can visit our village."
"It is our duty, no trouble at all."
"We dare not accept His Majesty's words of trouble."
"..."
Emperor Zhu smiled and waved his hand. After the crowd quieted down, Emperor Zhu said, "Today, we are bringing these students to experience the hardships of farming. If any of you have things to do at home, please go back. If you wish to stay and watch, then stay and watch."
Cui Baoguo's face turned red, and he cupped his hands and bowed, "Your Majesty, we villagers have no great knowledge. We may not see an emperor even once in our lifetime, so everyone wants to come and see..."
Emperor Zhu smiled and nodded, "We also have one nose, one mouth, two ears, and two hands, just like everyone else. However, if you want to see a novelty, then watch here."
After appeasing the people of Cui Ge Village, Emperor Zhu smiled and said to Cui Baoguo, "Please have my breakfast changed to be the same as what they have."
Cui Baoguo immediately became anxious, "Your Majesty, this was specially prepared for you by the people of the village. The chicken is from our own family, the pork is from a good pig we butchered recently for the New Year, the pickles are pickled by ourselves, and the steamed buns are also steamed by ourselves. These are not valuable things, and we can eat them usually. You are the Emperor of Great Ming, and you are also the emperor of the people of Cui Ge Village. There is no need to eat the same things as these fools."
Emperor Zhu smiled, but his smile was tinged with bitterness, "However, we are also the emperor of these fools. If they make mistakes, it means that we and the court have not done enough. It is only right that we eat the same things as them."
But no matter what Emperor Zhu said, Cui Baoguo and the people of Cui Ge Village absolutely refused to let Emperor Zhu eat that plain and watery breakfast.
Cui Baoguo knelt down with a thud and bowed, "If Your Majesty insists on eating the same things as those fools, then I will not get up from here!"
With Cui Baoguo taking the lead, the villagers standing behind him also knelt down, "Yes, if Your Majesty insists on eating that breakfast, we will not get up either!"
"They are Your Majesty's subjects, and so are we! If they don't care about Your Majesty, we do!"
"Why should they make mistakes and make Your Majesty eat bad food? This is unfair!"
The firsthand accounts of Zeng Cheng and Liu Hemeng were like heavy hammers striking the hearts of these scholars.
Fairness?
While Tokugawa Ienari was troubled by the issue of Kōkaku and Prince Kanenari refusing to take surnames, Kōkaku and Prince Kanenari were also troubled by a series of actions by the shogunate.
However, the crucial issue was that some people were already shouting their support for Tokugawa Ienari to ascend the throne!
Prince Kanenari shook his head slightly, "No news has returned yet. After all, Japan and India are one hundred and eight thousand miles apart. It is uncertain if messengers can even reach India now."
Receiving this answer, which was both within expectation and outside of anticipation, Kōkaku couldn't help but sigh again, his face full of decadence and helplessness.
Japan, after all, was not Great Ming.
For a battlefield where situations changed rapidly, even a mere fifteen-minute advantage in message transmission could determine the victory or defeat of a major battle, let alone several days!
Take the simplest example.
Suppose the Emperor of Great Ming suddenly decided to attack Japan, and the army's advance was unstoppable. And Japan happened to plan to use a feigned surrender to delay time.
From Japan to the capital of Great Ming, wouldn't a round trip take a month? Wouldn't Japan have bought itself a month's time?
While feeling envious, Kōkaku couldn't help but feel a bit of hatred in his heart.
Although I usually call myself "Tenno" behind closed doors, when it comes to you, the Emperor of Great Ming, I, Kōkaku, have always adhered to the path of a subject!
Now, the ambassador of Great Ming to Japan is colluding with the traitor Tokugawa Ienari and defecating on my head. Doesn't your Great Ming Emperor bear any responsibility?
As the saying goes, anger arises from the heart, and malice arises from the mind. As Kōkaku thought more and more unpleasantly, he naturally started thinking about how to annoy Great Ming.
After thinking for a moment, Kōkaku decisively instructed Prince Kanenari, "Go find the people of Kōga and tell them to arrange for some people to impersonate samurai from the shogunate and go to Ming."
Kōkaku let out a cold snort and raised his hand to signal Prince Kanenari to shut up, "When did I ever say I wanted to send Japanese pirates to Ming?"
Prince Kanenari was immediately stunned.
However, Prince Kanenari couldn't think of any good way to annoy Great Ming, including the Japanese pirates that Prince Kanenari had just mentioned.
What is this?
This is useless! They can't even catch up to the hot poop!
After thinking for a long time without coming up with any countermeasures, Ishikawa Iin bowed to Kōkaku and asked, "May I ask Your Majesty, Tottori Domain..."
Kōkaku seemed to be suddenly awakened. He said "oh oh" twice and then looked at the assembled daimyo and asked, "May I ask if any of you lords have any good solutions?"
As Kōkaku finished speaking, the assembled daimyo and lords all maintained a posture of looking at their noses and their noses at their mouths, and no one answered Kōkaku's question.
This was not the script they had agreed upon!
Or rather, the problem that the Japanese court was currently facing was no longer how to solve the problem of lepers, but how to deal with the large number of civilian patients flooding in from the shogunate.
Since Tokugawa Ienari dared to drive the lepers near Tottori Domain to Tottori Domain, it meant that he dared to drive civilian patients from more domains to domains that were close to the court.
When a large number of civilian patients flooded into domains close to the court, it would be followed by a huge shortage of food and medicine, as well as safety hazards.
The more he thought about it, the angrier Kōkaku became. He wished he could kill Tokugawa Ienari immediately - this was a typical case of walking the path of the Japanese court and leaving the court with no way to go, you bastard!
Ishikawa Iin then continued, "I believe that instead of passively responding, why not... why not proactively accept civilian patients from the shogunate?"
The other daimyo and lords also turned their attention to Ishikawa Iin.
Instead, Kōkaku suddenly slapped the table and shouted, "Quiet, everyone! Lord Ishikawa, please continue?"
After pondering for a moment, Kōkaku gritted his teeth and said, "I will find a way to solve the food problem. You just need to do a good job of treating those lepers."
However, what Ishikawa Iin and Todo Takayoshi, among others, did not expect was that Kōkaku actually smiled and waved his hand, "No, we have thought about this matter too complicatedly."
With Kōkaku saying this, the assembled daimyo and lords were even more dumbfounded.
However, compared to the bewilderment of Ishikawa Iin and Todo Takayoshi, Prince Kanenari had figured out Kōkaku's strategy.
For the current Japanese court, whether or not the leprosy problem could be solved was not that important, because it was an obviously unsolvable problem.
Compared to that, how to compete for popular support with the shogunate and win over more Japanese civilians and outcasts to the court was even more important.
Take Kōkaku's strategy as an example. The biggest advantage of this strategy was that it could take advantage of Great Ming's need for a large number of laborers and supervisors to divert the young and strong of Japan.
The second advantage was that it could earn a certain reputation for the court and Kōkaku – Tokugawa Ienari, as the Shogun, only drove away the civilians and outcasts under his rule when facing leprosy, while the Japanese court and Kōkaku, who had always been oppressed by Tokugawa Ienari, were trying to find a way out for the civilians and outcasts of Japan. The comparison was stark.
After Prince Kanenari explained it in a few words, Ishikawa Iin and Todo Takayoshi, among other daimyo, also understood.
However, understanding Kōkaku's tactics was of no use – no matter how good Kōkaku's promises were, they were still just promises. Even if this old coffin lid found a way to export labor and supervisors to Great Ming, that was something for the future. But the civilians and outcasts driven away by the shogunate were right in front of them, and the consumption of supplies and medicines for each domain was also a real fact!
Ikeda Yoshio, the leader of the Ikeda family of Tottori Domain, who was the first to suffer, even cried out, "Your Majesty, please reconsider! I know of Your Majesty's love for the people, but Tottori Domain is ultimately just a small domain. Not to mention whether the food can support it, it is already beyond our capacity to manage those good and bad people from the shogunate!"
Todo Takayoshi also bowed and said, "Adding a cup of water to a wooden basin will not overflow, but pouring a basin of water into a cup will definitely overflow – now, if we calculate solely by the number of good and bad people, then Tottori Domain is like a water cup, and the shogunate is like a large basin. Tottori Domain cannot bear it at all!"
Even Ishikawa Iin, who had initially proposed to accept a large number of good and bad people from the shogunate, sided with Ikeda Yoshio and Todo Takayoshi, saying, "Your Majesty, please reconsider! This approach is too risky!"
Kōkaku, however, had a dark expression on his face and snorted coldly, "Do I not know that doing so is risky? But now the shogunate is powerful, and a large amount of land and samurai and ashigaru are controlled by the shogunate. The Kinai domains are adjacent to those domains that are close to the shogunate. If we simply defend, how long can we hold on?"
Ishikawa Iin and Todo Takayoshi, along with the other daimyo, wished they could crack open Kōkaku's dog head and see what was inside his skull.
Because they couldn't defend, they decided to take a gamble by accepting the civilians and outcasts driven away by the Tokugawa shogunate?
This is bullshit!
Especially Kōkaku's so-called strategy of reputation, which Ishikawa Iin considered to be bullshit within bullshit.
Because Tokugawa Ienari would not allow Kōkaku to buy reputation – as long as Tokugawa Ienari's brain wasn't too stupid, he would definitely cause trouble as soon as Kōkaku started buying reputation.
In fact, most of the power in Japan was now in the hands of the Edo shogunate. If Tokugawa Ienari was determined to block information or even slander Kōkaku, the "all people follow" scene that Kōkaku envisioned would only be a fantasy. Worse, he might even be cursed by the short, stout civilians and outcasts of Japan.
By then, forget about competing with Tokugawa Ienari by buying reputation, Kōkaku would be considered fortunate if he wasn't overthrown and killed by those short, stout people of Japan, assuming his ancestors had deep blessings!
After Ishikawa Iin and Todo Takayoshi had indirectly persuaded him, Kōkaku had to give up the idea of attacking Tokugawa Ienari through reputation.
Kōkaku had a dark expression on his face, frowned, and said, "Since we cannot accept the good and bad people driven from the shogunate, wouldn't the shogunate win without a fight?"
The matter had returned to the starting point – if they couldn't accept the good and bad people driven away by the shogunate, it meant that the court and the pro-court daimyo and lords could only respond passively. They couldn't gain any reputation now, but they still needed to prepare medicines, doctors, and food.
If this problem could not be solved, the shogunate wouldn't even need to drive away lepers to make the court overwhelmed. By then, Kōkaku would also lose without a fight.