Yuan Jixian stood in front of the sand table and looked at Korea and Japan, which had now been planted with the dragon flag of the Han Empire. "It was unbelievable that it destroyed Japan in half a year and the empire was merged into the empire. When the old minister first received the news that North Korea was incorporated into the empire, he thought it was a joke."

"This matter seems a bit magical, but if you think about it carefully, it is not surprising. You can only say that this is a natural result." Swallowing Japan and North Korea was also the most successful and magical opening of Xinjiang since the founding of the Han Empire.

By annexing the two countries, the Han Empire increased by nearly 50 million people, and the newly added territory of North Korea and Japan for the Han Dynasty were equivalent to sixteen Taiwan islands.

It is roughly equivalent to the sum of the four provinces of Hebei, Henan, Shanxi and Shandong of the Han Empire.

In terms of newly developed territory, the two places of Korea and Japan are not as good as the newly developed areas outside the empire, not to mention the four provinces on the frontier, the northern desert and the southwest provinces, and there is also a wider Xibool Province.

But although those places are large, there are few people. They rely on the imperial court to immigrate, and they can truly develop within a few decades. But North Korea is different from Japan. It is an already developed farming area. This 50 million population alone is a huge and valuable resource.

The merger of these two places is no less important than the heterodyne in the pass. In terms of economic population and arable land, it even throws the provinces in the border areas to a distance of 18,000 miles.

With this 50 million people, the man will install the engine.

"The court originally thought it would take five years or even longer to conquer Japan. As for North Korea, no one thought that the Empire would annex them."

"I believe there must be many people who have criticized the merger of North Korea, right?" Liu Jun smiled.

"It is true. Many people think that there is no need to merge North Korea, and they think that doing so is not benevolent and righteous. Many people think that North Korea has always been a vassal of the Central Plains and is loyal. The court's merger of North Korea is not authentic enough."

"Benevolence and righteousness? Authentic?" Liu Jun shook his head, "Maybe, but God will not take it. He will suffer the consequences. Nowadays, the great opportunity, the court can merge North Korea, which will be extremely important for the Han Dynasty. Benefiting for thousands of years. Why should I miss such opportunities by ignoring those false reputations? Don't think that North Korea is our vassal, but you really treat them as your own people."

Liu Jun's annexation of North Korea is indeed a bit of a bully. But from the perspective of the country, this behavior is correct. It does not matter whether it is justice or not. It is due to interests. Don't think that North Korea is harmless. If the strength of the two countries is large, North Korea will naturally not dare to have any ideas, but if the Central Plains are weak, who can guarantee it?

"But now it seems that they are too worried, and the whole country of North Korea is still very supportive of the merger." Yuan Jixian also felt that the emperor was a bit too arrogant and destroyed Japan and swallowed North Korea. This was not a benevolent person, but for the Han Dynasty, it was indeed a thousand years of benefit.

But what surprised the court the most was the attitude of the Koreans. Although the Han Dynasty used the word merger, annexation was annexation, but the matter was so smooth that a few Koreans who stood up to oppose it were quickly suppressed, and then the Han and North Korea happily completed the merger.

It's simply incredible.

"Thinking back then, the Japanese also wanted to invade Korea. The troops of the invading country were dispatched. After several years of war, countless casualties were killed or injured, but they eventually returned in disgrace." Yuan Jixian sighed. "The Japanese planned for a long time and first entered Korea, it was like entering a deserted state, almost sweeping. However, the Korean king and the court would rather go into exile in the Ming Dynasty than surrender. The Korean people even had many spontaneous bravery to resist and vowed not to surrender."

"How can it be the same? Japan was invading, and they were robbers, attacking Japan, burning, killing, looting, and doing everything. But the Han Dynasty was different. Not to mention that the Han Dynasty has always been the sect leader of North Korea, and in the Wanli period, it was a reinvention of Japan. Since then, I have led my troops into the Korean Kingdom to relieve the suffering of being enslaved by the Jurchens."

When Liu Jun talked about this, he was indeed a little proud.

When Liu Jun entered the country, he supported the pro-Han faction and abolished the former king Li Jue and supported Li Jue as king. At that time, he had already cleaned up the North Korea once, and then all the North Koreans were basically pro-Han faction. In addition, in the following three years, the Han Dynasty set up concessions in North Korea, dispatched troops to trade with each other. The Han Dynasty cooperated in North Korea, which made the whole North Koreans profit a lot.

Under this influence, the Han Dynasty had a good reputation in North Korea, which provided an excellent environment for mergers.

Liu Jun also sent many benefits to the North Korean ruling authority, protecting their property, retaining their official positions, setting up a house of parliament, sending officials to the capital to study, allowing two teams of children to study in the Central Plains, and allowing them to participate in the imperial examination.

This is not the occupiers' attitude towards the occupied, but the real merger. With the help of kindness and power, unless all North Korea is broken, they will not firmly oppose this matter.

Liu Jun gave great sincerity to the merger of North Korea. This was a real merger rather than annexation, especially with the support of the North Korean king, the resistance was even smaller.

Without the opposition from the royal family and the two nobles, the ordinary people of North Korea would not object. This kind of thing was not something that ordinary people could participate. Many rebel militias rose to resist Japan's invasion because the Japanese invaded Korea, burned, killed, looted, and the Korean people were greatly hurt. The king and North Korea called on them to rise up and resist. Now the king and the nobles did not object, and their own lives would not be affected. Even since the Han people came, their lives have been better, so how could they object?

In this era when nationalism is not very popular, the country and nation are just tools used by the ruling parties to maintain their interests. Since the interests of the Great Han Dynasty are not damaged, and they can even get more benefits, why do they oppose it?

Isn’t it better to be the nobles of the Han Dynasty than the nobles of the North Koreans?

"Your Majesty has a far-sighted vision and has already calculated everything." Yuan Jixian smiled. As the chief minister of the cabinet and presided over the state administration, he of course clearly saw the great benefits for the Han Dynasty after annexing Japan and North Korea. Especially Japan was completely annexed, with more than 20 million people becoming important laborers of the empire, digging land for the empire, building roads and bridges for the empire, and mining. Especially the property that Japan obtained was almost the wealth of the entire Japanese country, and it fell into the empire's treasury. This money made the empire's treasury fill with unprecedented amounts.

As the chief assistant, he doesn't have to worry about the money collection problem for at least ten years.

It’s just that the merger of North Korea is relatively mild and reserves too many rights and interests for those North Koreans. But he can understand that North Korea is not Japan, so it has to be treated differently. Giving generous treatment to the North Koreans now completely disintegrates the last bit of resistance from the North Koreans.

As for the fact that the North Koreans have a somewhat high status, this is not a problem. Only when the court gradually takes over and controls the situation in North Korea, these people will naturally be unable to maintain this transcendent privilege. Even if they are unwilling to give up, they will not be able to change anything.

"I have appointed the Minister of War Zhang Guowei as the Governor of North Korea, and will next draw a large number of North Korean officials to study in Beijing. Taking this opportunity, the cabinet will quickly select a group of capable officials to serve in North Korea. The court strives to take over North Korea within five years."

"North Korea will be a military region of the empire. The two provinces of Goryeo and Silla must also implement the same system laws and tax laws as the Central Plains. This workload is relatively large, and the cabinet is harder to strive to complete the adjustment of officials in the two provinces of the Korean military region before the New Year, and implement the national and Korean law tax system, etc.."

As long as the Han system is implemented in North Korea, if the military and political and fiscal tax separation is separated, if the Han Dynasty stationed troops in North Korea, even if the former North Korean officials will be the main ones in the early stage, under the framework of the Han Dynasty, Liu Jun is not worried about any chaos in North Korea.

"By the way, the census registration of North Korea will be completed this year. For the property of the North Korean nobles, a new contract will be issued to protect their property from infringement and free contract exchange."

When the Han Dynasty founded, it took advantage of the opportunity of exchange for contracts to collect property taxes on the noble landlords, but now Liu Jun does not intend to collect the tax on the North Koreans. There is no need to anger the North Koreans for the sake of some money. Anyway, the court is not short of money now.

"In North Korea, the court's laws and tax system?"

"Of course, since North Korea has become a military region of the Han Empire, how can one country, two systems?"

"Don't worry, although the country's tax laws and regulations may have some impact on the Korean nobles, they will not suffer any losses. Paying some tax is just a small amount of blood, but they have more opportunities to participate in the business activities of the empire. Their money invested in the business of the empire is also more than the tax they saved."

"The Right Privy Councilor Liu Yun was promoted to the Governor of Nanyang. Now the Minister of War Zhang Guowei was appointed as the Governor of North Korea. The East China Sea Fleet Governor Liu Yunzhen was appointed as the Governor of Japan. Your Majesty, the only one Majesty Fu is left in the central center." Yuan Jixian reminded the emperor.

"Does the Grand Tutor have any opinions on my preparation for military use in Southeast Asia?" Liu Jun heard what Yuan Jixian meant.

Yuan Jixian said, "The old minister just thought that one by one is the king. The court has successively used troops this year, destroying Japan first and then merging Korea. The southwest is also a military service company. The old minister thought that one should rest and two."

Compared with North Korea's unexpected progress in the East China Sea, the war in the west was very unsuccessful. Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting stabilized the peace in the northwest. The Han Dynasty and Gu Shihan, who entered Tibet, reached a vassal relationship, and there was no war for the time being. However, in the southwest, Zheng Zhilong's battle in Myanmar was not smooth at the beginning.

The tropical climate of the southwest rainforest is not even much better than the plateau climate in the Qinghai-Tibet region. It happened that it was rainy season when he sent troops. The rainy season and malaria and other epidemics in the rainy forest, as well as the Central and South anti-Han alliance that the Dongyu people unexpectedly pulled up, all made Zheng Zhilong unfavorable progress.

Due to the rainy season and epidemics and the resistance and harassment of the Dongzhao people, the artillery and muskets of the Han Dynasty seemed to be difficult to exert there, especially the court had previously miscalculated the resistance strength in the southeast, which led to Zheng Zhilong's lack of troops and difficulty in launching a large-scale sweeping attack.

To this day, Zheng Zhilong has lost more than 10,000 people. Although the real Imperial Army lost less than 3,000, most of them died of infection due to epidemics, and the rest are indigenous militias from Dali, Laos and other places. However, this loss also shocked the court.

Since the founding of the Han Dynasty, it has never experienced such a large casualty.

Whether it was a contest with the Jurchens in Liaodong, a conquering Mongolia on the grassland, or even an eastern expedition to Japan, Yunnan and Guizhou quelling the rebellion, there had never been such a large casualties.

Because of this, many censors in the court impeached Zheng Zhilong and wanted to remove him from his position as the Governor of Central and Southern and General of the Conquest of the South.

Yuan Jixian and other prime ministers even felt that transporting supplies in the southwest was difficult, and they were far away from the Han Dynasty. There was no need to go to conquer. Some even felt that the expedition against the Dongyu Kingdom should be stopped, as long as the current borders of the three provinces of Central and South Yunnan, Dali and Laos should be maintained.

But as soon as the emperor conquered Japan, he no longer discussed with the Prime Minister's political participation, and directly appointed the general of the Japanese conquering the Japanese. The right Privy Councilor Liu Yunsheng was transferred to the Governor of Nanyang.

The empire currently has only one small island in Singapore in Nanyang. Liu Yun was promoted to Governor of Nanyang. The dignified Privy Councilor went to a small island to be Governor of the island. Isn’t this obvious intention?

Especially the empire's re-arrangement and adjustment of the naval fleets, the empire's navy has begun to deploy multiple fleets to the Nanyang Ocean, which further proves their speculation.

Not only did the emperor not want to withdraw his troops, he also planned to expand the war in Nanyang. This was to prepare to clean up the situation with Nanyue, Nanzhang, Dongxu and other countries, and even planned to carry out a large-scale siege strategy. The navy cooperated with the army and wanted to copy Dongxu's backyard.

Many ministers thought that the emperor was a bit too wary, and it was already hard for them to accept it when they beat Dongshu. Now they have to fight with Nanyue and other countries. There is nothing to fight in this miasma land that is thousands of miles away. Didn’t it be lost when it was possessed by Nanyue during the Qin and Han Dynasties? The Ming Dynasty also recaptured Nanyue, but later withdrew. Those places were too far away.

Liu Jun had heard of such remarks for a long time, and he had no intention of paying attention to them.

"Can the Taishi know that the Western barbarian countries in the South China Sea are currently planning to send troops to invade our Han Dynasty, intending to seize the territory of our Han Dynasty and block the merchant ships of our Han Dynasty's maritime trade?"

"Is this really a matter? All these Western barbarians have been crazy about their heartbrokenness. How dare they?" Yuan Jixian was extremely surprised.

"Driven by interests, there is nothing you dare to do." Liu Jun said.

"These Western barbarians are really crazy." Yuan Jixian asked, "Why did the transfer of the commander-in-chief Liu to the governor of the South China Sea and several fleets to go south, not to deal with Dongxu and Nanyue?"

"No, those who dare to offend the power of our great Han will be punished even if they are far away. No matter whether he is Dongxu, Nanyue, or Spain, the Netherlands, or England, anyone who dares to provoke the great Han will fight back."

Yuan Jixian was already a little confused about what to say. The emperor was not only planning to send a fleet south to attack Dongshuo, but also to fight with the Western barbarians on the Nanyang islands. (To be continued.)

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Chapter completed!