1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 549 Satsuma Domain's Unwillingness
September 1645, 9, Ryukyu Island.

Today's Naha Port on Ryukyu Island has become the most prosperous port on the island, and its population size is second only to Shuri, the royal city, but its business prosperity is even better.

Two years ago, after the free trade agreement was signed between the people of Qi on Hanxing Island and the Shimadzu family of the Satsuma Domain in Japan, the two sides made bilateral trade flourish in Ryukyu. Saki.

The Satsuma domain smuggled a large amount of goods from the Ryukyu trade back to Japan, and then resold them to the nearby Kyushu domains such as Osumi, Hyuga, and Higo, earning a lot of money and greatly alleviating the distress in the domain. financial.For this reason, the Shimadzu family even increased the trade volume in Ryukyu. Almost all the various industrial products shipped from Hanxing Island were bought and brought back to Japan for resale.

As the trade continued to expand, the Satsuma domain gradually felt a little embarrassed, because there were almost no commodities in Japan that could be exchanged for Qi, except for sulfur, saltpeter, copper, sulfur, camphor, wheat flour, rice, etc., but these goods The relative value is not high. Faced with the steel bars, iron ingots, sugar, honey wine, cloisonne produced locally in Hanzhou, and the raw silk and porcelain resold from the Ming Dynasty, Satsuma has long been in trade because of its trade deficit.

If the Satsuma clan exploited a large amount of silver mines (silver mines) in the territory before the country was locked down, there would be no problem at all to deal with this kind of trade deficit.However, in order to ensure the implementation of the lock-up order and to limit the power of other daimyos in the country, the Tokugawa shogunate forbade all feudal lords from digging and collecting silver mines without permission.Therefore, in less than a year, Satsuma almost ran out of money on hand. Although it earned a lot of silver from other daimyos by relying on entrepot trade, it was still difficult to pay for the large amount of goods shipped from Hanxing Island. cost.

Later, when I heard that the Hanzhou people also listed young women as trade goods, the Satsuma clan frantically used the large amount of goods and grain produced in the domain to start exchanging young women from the domain and other daimyos, and then Shipped to Ryukyu Island to trade with Hanzhou people.

Before it was too late, I heard that the Hanzhou people needed to hire some force to conquer the natives in Luzon Island. For this, the Satsuma clan happily helped the Hanzhou people recruit hundreds of dilapidated warriors at a very small price, and sold them to Driven by Hanzhou people.

Through more than two years of trade, the strength of the Satsuma domain has grown rapidly. It not only provides generous salaries to officials at all levels in the domain, but also maintains a standing armed force of 3000 people. Not to mention that its strength is the highest in the entire Kyushu Island. Even in the whole of Japan, it is also a force that cannot be ignored.

The actions of the Satsuma clan naturally attracted the attention of the Tokugawa shogunate, and specially sent an old middleman to Kagoshima to severely reprimand the Shimadzu for their bold and reckless conduct of overseas trade and breaking the shogunate's shogunate order.He also ordered the Shimadzu family to transfer Ryukyu Island directly to the shogunate, and Shimadzu sent officials at all levels in Ryukyu and handed over customs and taxation to the shogunate-appointed acting official (the name of the official of the governing body of the territory directly under the shogunate).

Mitsuhisa Shimadzu, the lord of Satsuma, was astonished, and then burst into strong resentment and unwillingness.You know, when Shimadzu Yoshihisa was in power decades ago, their Satsuma clan controlled almost half of Kyushu.If it weren't for the 15th year of Tianwen (1587), Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent an army to pacify Kyushu, Shimadzu had to retreat to Kagoshima, and expressed his surrender, maybe give the Shimadzu family some more time, they would be able to unify Kyushu, and then It is not impossible to split the land and rule, even to become king.

Today, the Tokugawa shogunate asked the Shimadzu family to transfer Ryukyu to the shogunate directly. This is clearly because they saw the prosperity of commerce and trade here, and they could obtain a large amount of foreign goods and taxes, and wanted to use this to subdue the Satsuma clan and weaken their growing strength.If obeying the order of the Tokugawa shogunate, the hundreds of years of ambition of the Shimadzu family will be destroyed, just like the mediocre daimyos nearby.

"So, your Satsuma clan is going to fight against your emperor?" Shi Chengfeng, the representative of Hanxing Island in Ryukyu, looked at the Japanese in front of him in surprise, his eyes widened, "And you also want us to provide the necessary artillery from Qi State And muskets, and warships, and your Satsuma clan?"

Yoshio Ueda, the old Satsuma family who presided over Ryukyu affairs, shook his head and said seriously: "We are not fighting against His Majesty the Emperor of Japan. What we have to deal with is the shogunate, um, a general who controls our Japanese regime. Now we have met Their threats require a certain amount of force to safeguard some of the basic interests of our Satsuma clan. Please understand this."

"I understand, I understand." Shi Chengfeng nodded with a wry smile, "Your Japanese shogun is similar to those powerful ministers who controlled the government in our history. The problem is, only with the strength of your Satsuma clan, can you resist a regime that controls the whole country?" the shogunate?"

"No, no, no..." Yoshio Ueda shook his head and said, "We don't really want to fight against the shogun...We need some weapons to show the shogun our strength and determination, so that he can take back some damage to us Satsuma Acts in the interest of the clan."

"That shogun of yours should have the power and status to recruit other daimyos in the country. Then, their threat to your Satsuma clan must be serious, right?"

"So, our Satsuma clan needs the assistance and support of you Hanzhou people." Yoshio Ueda said: "We need high-quality swords, armor, cannons, firearms, and gunboats that can be used for sea combat. Of course, we may temporarily We cannot pay for the required ordnance, but we can issue you a bond, with the gold mountain in Nagano (now Nagano, Satsuma County, Satsuma County, Kagoshima Prefecture) in our Satsuma domain as collateral."

"As for your request, I can't give you a clear answer right now. I need to report this matter to my superior." Shi Chengfeng said with a smile: "But I personally think that apart from the difficulty of gunboats, our Qi Congress will use swords and armor And sell military supplies such as artillery and muskets to you."
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September 9, Hanxing Island (today's Miyako Island)

Chen Dalang, the general manager of Hanxing Island, had just returned from Nanchangshan Island. At this time, he was organizing many officials and clerks to resettle the swarming immigrants.

After more than six years of development, Hanxing Island has now become Qi's most stable sea base near Daming.Several islands (including several islands such as Xinghe Island) have built five large and small fortresses, more than ten settlements, reclaimed more than [-] mu of cultivated land, and widely planted rice, wheat, corn and other food crops. Island and Denglei area, providing a large amount of food supplies.

In addition, on Yutou Island in the northwest of Hanxing Island (today’s Irabu Island in the northwest of Miyako Island), a fixed base was also established to use the many fishing boats here to fish for the abundant bonito resources nearby. The stranded immigrants not only provide supplementary meat, but also make use of idle immigrant manpower to marinate large quantities on the spot and transport them to Denglei.

When Chen Dalang heard that the Satsuma Fan asked Qi to provide them with the necessary military supplies to prepare to fight against the shogunate, he was a little hesitant.

Today, although the Denglai area has defeated Jiannu's attacks several times, the overall situation is still grim, and the military pressure of Jiannu has not been relieved much.There are a lot of artillery and muskets on Hanxing Island, as well as a lot of swords, spears and armor, but these are all prepared for the marines on Changshan Island and the Ming army in Denglai area.

If they resell the stockpiled ordnance to the Satsuma clan, not to mention whether they have the ability to fight against the shogunate government with huge manpower and material resources on their own, even if they can compete with it, but our small Hanxing Island base, but because of a Satsuma clan , facing the danger of offending the Japanese shogunate.You know, Japan is a big country with a population of tens of millions. Even if its sea power is a little weaker, it can't hold back its large army.

What if the shogunate defeated the Satsuma clan in the end, turned their anger on Hanxing Island to support the military supplies and the Shimadzu clan, and then sent a large army to attack, wouldn't it lead to the war on Hanxing Island, and maybe it would delay our unity? regular immigration to the country.

"General Manager, Your Majesty once said that if there is an opportunity, we must weaken Japan." Hanxing Island Commander Qiu Chengdu reminded cautiously.

Chen Dalang was taken aback when he heard this.I remember when I was working in Xinxiangcheng, I knew that the king was very disliked by the Japanese, and I don't know why.

However, there are sporadic Japanese in the mainland and several overseas territories. There are also many Japanese in the Marine Corps, and many even serve as grassroots officers.They can bear hardships, endure hardships, and have a high degree of obedience. They are recognized by many Hanzhou officials as the best immigrant group other than Ming people.In the army, he was fully affirmed by the officers for his bravery and skill in fighting, not fearing death.

But Qi Tian said that the Japanese are a very fickle nation who respect the strong and bully the weak.They are aggressive yet very gentle; militaristic yet glamorous; proud and polite; obstinate yet effeminate; submissive yet repulsive; loyal yet rebellious; brave and yet rebellious. And cowardly; conservative and very welcoming of new ways of life.In terms of national character, it is a perfect combination of softness and toughness, and in culture, it is a unity of opposites between openness and conservatism. Hearing these comments, Chen Dalang always feels that Japan seems very dangerous and difficult to tame.

"Take one hundred muskets, five cannons, five hundred steel knives, and one thousand spearheads from the material reserve on the island, and ship them to Ryukyu Island." Chen Dalang said immediately.

Now that the Satsuma clan is determined to resist the Japanese shogunate, there is no better opportunity to weaken Japan than supporting them in a civil war.Although, we, the Qi National Assembly, have taken certain risks for this, and may be retaliated by the shogunate afterwards.However, if the Satsuma clan can be supported and allowed to rule Kyushu, it may bring unexpected gains to Hanxing Island, which is also unknown.

(End of this chapter)