Shang Yi said: "Dear friends, today's meeting is over. After the meeting, Zhou Shaohuan, Cheng Jin, Cheng Gang and Li Dingguo will prepare to go according to the arrangements of the meeting just now. After two or three months, they will prepare to fight against Japan. The next step is the Netherlands, striving to resolve the South China Sea and control the Strait of Malacca within this year."

The four active-duty soldiers stood up together and said, "Yes."

Shang Yi also said: "In terms of the cabinet, we must also fully cooperate with the work of the Ministry of Defense and the United Front Work Department, prepare and allocate grain and other materials, and we must also do our best to meet the needs of the army."

Wang Fuzhi nodded and said, "Don't worry, your elders, we will definitely support the affairs of the army."

At this time, Li Yan said: "Master, we are now ready for these things. What if the Congress cannot pass by then?"

Because now it is only for pre-war preparations and mobilization of food and resources, so it does not require approval from Congress, but the real power to start a war is in the hands of Congress. If Congress cannot handle Congress, no matter how well the preparations are done, it will be useless.

Shang Yi said: "Don't worry about this, I have my own way."

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In the following time, the two newspapers mastered by the government significantly increased their relevant content on Japan and the Netherlands. In addition to factual news reports, there were other comments, introductions, etc.

Of course, the report on the whole is not a good thing. The reports on the Netherlands mainly focus on the harm caused to China by blocking the Strait of Malacca, which reduced export volume and affected China's economic development; and the Netherlands also intercepted Chinese ships, killed Chinese crew members, attacked Luzon, and caused significant losses to Luzon, etc. At the same time, it also dug out all the old accounts of the Netherlands during the colonial rule of Taiwan, explaining in detail how fierce, brutal, narrowed the Chinese in Taiwan, and did not regard the Chinese as human beings at all, let the Chinese be cattle and horses, and even bought China into Batavia to be slaves, etc.

In response to Japan, we are targeting the Tokugawa shogunate in light of the current domestic situation in Japan. Because the Tokugawa shogunate has always been an enemy of China, the wars launched between China and Japan were initiated by the Tokugawa shogunate. Now the Tokugawa shogunate has formed an alliance with the Dutch. Therefore, once the Tokugawa shogunate gains power, it will not only completely interrupt trade with China, but also attack China.

At the same time, I did not forget to revise history with Tokugawa Shogunate. First of all, starting from Tokugawa Ieyasu, I defined him as the Japanese Cao Cao. At that time, Tokugawa Hideyoshi was not bad at Tokugawa Ieyasu and was named the leader of the five elders. Before his death, he also entrusted his son Tokugawa Hideyasu and his wife to Tokugawa Ieyasu. In theory, Tokugawa Ieyasu should do his best to protect the young. As soon as Tokugawa Hideyoshi died, Tokugawa Ieyasu immediately forced Tokugawa Hideyasu to give way and launched the Second Osaka War to kill all the Tokugawa people. Now there is only one daughter left in the Tokugawa clan, and the Tokugawa Shogunate still refuses to let her go and is forced to flee to China to take refuge. Therefore, Tokugawa Shogunate is simply a disloyal, unfilial, unkind, unrighteous, etc.

In short, neither the Netherlands nor the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan were good things. They have been colluding with each other for a long time and tried every means to fight against China.

This is the method that Shang Yi chose, which is to create momentum, and the method is not complicated. He is to desperately create public opinion, smear Japan and the Netherlands, render them into evil and cruel, and is an enemy who is specifically against China for revenge.

In fact, this method is often unpleasant in the international community in later generations. As long as it dislikes a certain country and prepares to launch a military operation, it will first open a propaganda and public opinion machine, desperately smear the other party, and put dictatorship, cruelty, undemocracy, no human rights, create terror, rogue state, pose danger to itself, etc., etc., and gain support from the domestic and international community. Then, it will openly take the banner of justice and launch a military attack. It is a perfect match, and it can indeed deceive many people.

Shang Yi is of course very clear about this set. He has used it before, but he has not used it much, because even when Shang Yi was not yet emperor, he was the supreme ruler of the group and was basically determined. Moreover, most of the previous wars were fighting against the Qing court, so there was no need for mobilization at all. Therefore, except for a few times, there was not much need to create public opinion.

After the cabinet's overseas expansion plan was rejected by Congress, Shang Yi also realized that the times had changed, and he could not speak out like in the past, and at the same time he could not follow the old path. Therefore, new methods must be adopted. Congress members were elected from private elections, so they should make full use of public opinion, create pressure on them, and achieve their goals.

The so-called democratic politics does not mean that the people can make the decision, and enforce the people to elect the people who make the decision, and form a balance of power. Therefore, within the scope of this framework, there are many means to be used. To put it bluntly, the vast majority of people cannot understand the country and the world situation very clearly. They can only understand through various media in their own country. To a considerable extent, public opinion can be used in a unified way. Therefore, democratic politics is not a perfect system. From then on, the world is peaceful and the world is harmonious. Although it is indeed a great progress compared to autocracy. Those in power can no longer completely ignore public opinion like the autocratic era, but there are also many conspiracies, insiders, and dirty transactions.

Now Shang Yi needs to use another way to achieve his goals. The newspapers he worked hard to build at the beginning were prepared for this time. Of course, the only way to promote is not only one newspaper, but also various other ways. They have all used all their strength to spare no effort to promote and create momentum.

Moreover, in the initial stage, Shang Yi was very clever in smearing and demonizing the other party, and did not incite the people to demand a war, because the time for a war is not yet ripe, so members of Congress did not discover Shang Yi's true intention and believed that this was just a normal report.

Others oppose newspapers have little reason to object, because although the various reports are true and false, there are many exaggerations, most of them are based on facts. In addition, the Chinese in this era cannot have such a source of information as they do in later generations. Even if they want to oppose it, they have no way to start. We can't say that these actions of the Netherlands and Japan are correct.

In fact, at this time, the Chinese did not have any good feelings towards the Netherlands and Japan, so under the vigorous publicity of all aspects, their disgust towards these two countries was also increasing without realizing it.

In addition, because Japan is now China's most important trade exporter in Asia, many merchants and factories have a large amount of exports to Japan, so once the domestic situation in Japan is turbulent or the complete stopping of trade with China will bring them considerable losses. Therefore, many merchants are also worried about the situation in Japan, which is another result of the momentum.

While China is building momentum, the situation in Japan is becoming increasingly sharp. Within the Tokugawa shogunate, the four auxiliary ministers were divided into two groups and launched a fierce struggle. Masayuki and the eldest son Tadaoka Sakai advocated toughness, while the old son Matsuhira Nobutsu and Tadao Abe advocated compromise.

Of course, the current struggle between the four ministers of the regent is quite different from before, because the Tokugawa Iegawa Iegami was still in the past. No matter how these four people make trouble, the Tokugawa Iegami Iegami can still suppress the situation, but now Tokugawa Iegami has died. The successor Tokugawa Iegami Iegami, Tokugawa Iegami, is only twelve years old and cannot be in charge of the director at all. It is entirely due to the support of these four ministers of the regent. Therefore, the current struggle actually contains many other factors and is also mixed with many power struggles. Of course, the four people are not as good as the two people who assist in the regents.

At the same time, there are no ones who can stop at the scene now, and the struggle is also developing in an out-of-control direction. Other officials of the shogunate were divided into two groups, each supporting their respective candidates. Relatively speaking, most of the old-age officials of the shogunate supported the compromise faction, and the younger generation of officials and a large number of young samurai supported the hardliners. They all advocated sending troops immediately to attack the Nagagawa clan because the Nagagawa clan was the leader of the downfall, and now the Nagagawa clan has just changed the vassal lord, and the new lord is also young. It is a great time to send troops to attack the Chauzhu clan. Once the Choshu clan defeated the Chauzhu clan, most of the power of the downfall faction was lost. In addition, after Japan received the muskets and cannons sold by the Netherlands, the hardliners consciously increased their strength, believing that they were fully confident of defeating the Chauzhu clan.

Young samurai generally represent the grassroots forces in Japan, and the base is quite large. Yuanlunji occupies a very important position in Japan's social composition and political structure. Most of them are radicals, and they have made a huge noise at the moment. Therefore, the hardliners not only quarreled in the court, but also vigorously promoted it among the people. They must take tough actions against the anti-shog faction, and even some people shouted to attack China.

However, although the number of officials who advocated compromise was relatively small, they occupied relatively high positions and controlled most of the power of the dynasty. Therefore, they tried their best to suppress the young samurai and prevent their proposals from being approved. However, Matsuhira Nobutsu and Abe Tadaki also knew that the voices of grassroots samurai should not be underestimated, so they also looked for supporters among the samurai, promising high officials and generous salaries to divide and disintegrate the samurai class. The struggle between the two factions became increasingly fierce and was about to break out.

And at this moment, a new event became the fuse, igniting this pile of gunpowder, and finally breaking the brief balance in Japan.

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