Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1543 A Game of Chess in the Far East ([-])
Gao Wushi remembers that there are three major copper mines in Japan, namely Besshi Copper Mine, Akasawa Copper Mine, and Ashio Copper Mine. He also specifically asked Liu Xin before to confirm that these memories are correct.

In the original history, the Besshi Copper Mine was discovered in 1690, and the Sumitomo family obtained the hereditary mining qualification of "Eternal Responsibility" from the Tokugawa Shogunate, and then continued mining until the Showa era, supporting a huge Sumitomo Zaibatsu;

Akasawa Copper Mine was bought by Funosuke Kuhara (he was the Communications Minister of the Tanaka Cabinet) during the Meiji period, renamed Hitachi Copper Mine, and founded the Kuhara Zaibatsu (this is the foundation of Hitachi Manufacturing Co., Ltd.). Kaoru Inoue’s grandnephew Yoshisuke Ayukawa (he is Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Konoe Cabinet) took over and renamed it Nippon Industry, referred to as Nissan, thus laying the foundation for the two major enterprises of Hitachi and Nissan;

Ashio Copper Mountain is also called Ogozawa Copper Mountain. Although it ranks third, it is the first to be mined. The "Hetong" in the name "Hetong Kaiping" refers to Ashio Copper Mountain.This copper mountain was mined intermittently until the Meiji period, and it was taken over by Yataro Iwasaki of Tosa, and Iwasaki's company, named Mitsubishi Trading Company, was formerly the sea aid team of Tosa Sakamoto Ryoma.

The strength of the three major copper mountains can already be seen from this.However, mining copper mines in Japan is currently somewhat troublesome.

Of the three major copper mines, Besshi Copper Mine should be the most important in terms of scale and reserves, but Besshi Copper Mine is located almost in the middle of the northern part of Shikoku Island, just on the Seto Inland Sea.

The Seto Inland Sea is the place the Jinghua Fleet is least willing to go to. First, there are many islands there, and second, it is an area where land and sea winds often change.Considering that it may affect the mobility of the fleet and cause a decline in the strength of the fleet, Jinghua rarely sends fleets to the Seto Inland Sea.

Specifically, that area is now the domain of Yoshiaki Kato.Kato Yoshiaki, also known as "Mosheng", and his childhood name "Sun Liu", is one of the so-called "Seven Guns of Chiyue", born in Mikawa.

He became an official Hideyoshi at the age of 13. He has a calm and calm personality, doesn't like to talk too much, and never panics when things happen. He is called "the man of Shen Yong".As the main force of the Toyotomi Navy, it performed prominently during the conquests of the Four Kingdoms and Kyushu.

In the Korean War, he also led the navy into battle as "Zhou Fengxing".Later, he participated in the attack on Ishida Mitsunari, and in the Battle of Sekigahara, he belonged to the Eastern Army. The siege of Ishida Mitsunari's troops was successful, and the territory was sealed to 20 shi after the war.After the Battle of Osaka, Mutsu Aizu Wakamatsu Castle was sealed again with 40 koku.

It can be said that in the era of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he was Hideyoshi's hardcore, and after Hideyoshi's death, he may have become Tokugawa Ieyasu's hardcore because of his birth in Mikawa-Ieyasu's old home is the Mikawa Kingdom, which has been moving to Kanto before it was sealed off. Take Mikawa Samurai as the basis of rule.

Therefore, considering these two points, it is very dangerous to develop the Besshi copper mine now. Although Gao Yushi is not worried that he will win the final victory, he will probably lose control of the copper mine for a period of time.

However, the locations of Ashio Copper Mine and Hitachi Copper Mine are not very friendly to Gao Yushi.Both of these two copper mines are located in Kanto, of which the Ashio copper mine is located in the Ashio area of ​​Nikko City in later generations, and the Hitachi copper mine is located in Ibaraki Prefecture.

The distance between the two is not very far, only about 90 kilometers, or 180 miles.However, the Ashio Copper Mine among them is coincidentally located at the junction of the spheres of influence of Date Masamune, Shirakawa Yoshin, and Nasu Ziqing.

Theoretically speaking, Date Masamune is obviously the strongest among the three daimyos. As long as he has his support, he should be able to secure the possession of the copper mine.

However, not to mention how to persuade this supposedly handsome one-eyed daimyo, at least the timing is unlucky right now.

Three years ago, in October of the 14th year of Tensho (1586) in Japan, Date Masamune's father-in-law Kiyoaki Tamura died suddenly before he could designate an heir, and the family split.Tamura Yuezhai and others supported Xianlai, and Tamura Mei Xuezhai and others supported Xianji, and the new leader had been undecided for a long time.

Date Masamune took advantage of this opportunity to win over Yuezhai and suppress Mei Xuezhai and his backer Mrs. Soma (Qingxian's second wife).The final result was that Mrs. Soma retired to Funakoshi Castle, Date Masamune entered Miharu, the main city of the Tamura Clan, and Kiyoaki's nephew Zongxian became the new governor.

As a result, the original independent daimyo Tamura lost his autonomy and became a vassal of Date.At this time, the ruling area of ​​the Date family bordered on the south of the Qiang Fan Lu Mingjia.

Here is a little bit back to the history of the Ash family: As early as the third year of Tianzheng (1575), Ash Ming Shengxing of the Ash family died of illness. Since his son was still young, the Sheng family, who was still old and not dead, took the lead. He remarried Shengxing's wife Yida Yuqian to his adopted son Shenglong, and Shenglong succeeded him as the family governor.

His original intention was to take the opportunity to continue to maintain peaceful and friendly relations with the two princes, one is the Date clan, and the other is the Nikaido clan who was born in Shenglong.However, a large number of relatives in the same family were not taken care of (such as Inawashiro, Arai, Tomita, Sebu, etc. of the clan), but the throne was passed on to outsiders, which planted the bitter fruit of family strife.

So five years later, the 60-year-old Ashina Mori died, and Ashina's last turmoil began.

As soon as the Ashina Mori family died, the head of the Ashina clan, Shenglong, and his son, Kiwakamaru, who was only three years old, were assassinated by retainers, and the clan family line was cut off.

Therefore, corresponding to different heir candidates, the family began to split.The Satake faction elected Yoshihiro, the second son of Satake Yoshishige, and the Date faction elected Date Masamune's younger brother Kojiro Zhumaru, and the two factions fought endlessly.

In the end, the Satake faction gained the upper hand, and Yoshihiro Satake was ushered in as the head of the Ashina clan. He changed his name to Morishaga Ashina at the age of 13.

Of course Date Masamune was not satisfied with this result, so he instigated Ashina's retainers to rebel.The flustered Ashina Morishi hurriedly went to visit Toyotomi Hideyoshi, it was quite smart to find a solid backer for himself.But as soon as he left, he handed over all family affairs to the important minister Jin Shangshengbei.

However, at this time, Hideyoshi had just defeated Shibata Katsuya, his biggest internal opponent after the death of Oda Nobunaga, and he was still out of reach of the distant Eastern Kingdom. But he has already started his fierce battle for the Austrian unity.

At that time, Masamune drove straight to the Abukuma River, and the Ashina army bit the bullet and stepped forward to fight, but naturally they were defeated. Sheng Shige had to ask his own father, Satake Yoshishige, for help.

Satake Yoshishige was also a famous general at the time, known as "Oni Yoshishige", he took the opportunity to reach out to Mutsu, joined forces with the Ashina clan to join forces with [-] soldiers, and surrounded the Date clan's Koriyama Castle, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi was quite the demeanor of being a big brother. Hundreds of iron cannons were sent from thousands of miles away as support.The offensive and defensive battle was very fierce, and the outcome was difficult to distinguish for a long time. Finally, the war was temporarily suspended because of the mediation of the daimyo Iwaki.

Well, now that it's mentioned, let's talk about Mr. Iwaki by the way.The Iwaki clan, who is also a descendant of the Heira clan, had been swaying between the Date clan and the Ashina clan before, but after this war, he completely fell to the side of Ashina and Satake, so he was attacked by Date Masamune later.Fortunately, the timing fell from the sky, and when the lord Yancheng Changlong hurried to Odawara to join the battle to help Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he barely kept the family line-this is a later story.

Speaking of Ashina’s family, this year is the 17th year of Japan’s Tensho (1589). Ashina Morishi felt that his rule had been stabilized, so he sent troops to Sukagawa again, hoping to establish a real chapter with Date Masamune.At the time of the fierce battle, Inawashiro Shenguo, the important minister in the family, suddenly conspired to rebel and led Date's army straight to the main city of Kurokawa.

Sheng Zhong rushed back with his troops. On June [-]th, he ran head-on at the Date army at the fold of Bandai Mountain.

This battle was the second key battle in Date Masamune's life after Ren took the bridge.About 7000 people from the Ashina Army and 5000 from the Date Army took part in the Ozuehara War. The battle was first fought between Ashina General General Tomita Shoken and Inabashiro Morokuni who had just surrendered to Date.

The battle lasted for a long time, because Ashina's army rushed forward with the west wind on their backs, and Inawashiro retreated after being defeated. Still at a disadvantage.

At the critical juncture, the wind direction suddenly reversed and a strong easterly wind blew.The strong wind made it difficult for Ashina's soldiers to open their eyes. Seeing the opportunity, Date Masamune immediately led the iron artillery team to shoot from the side, and finally saved the situation and gradually gained the upper hand.

At this time, some of the troops in the Ashina Army who were dissatisfied with the fact that their main family had turned to the Higashiro Satake clan were defeated first, which finally led to the complete collapse of the entire front.In this battle, the Ashina clan killed and injured 500 people. The leader Sheng Zhong fled back to his own city, Aizu Kurokawa Castle with only thirteen riders, and escaped from Kurokawa Castle on the evening of the [-]th to the Hitachi Kingdom controlled by the Satake clan.

The next day, Date Masamune entered Kurokawa Castle and won the final victory of the battle.The Ashina family, a century-old powerful clan in Nanluo, declared its demise.

The reason why this time is embarrassing is that it is less than a year away from the Battle of Odawara launched by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. It is important for Ashina Mori to resist for a while, or if he does not take the initiative to send troops at all, it may still be able to use it. The family name lingers on.

After all, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who became Guanbai, has always been very considerate of the daimyos who voluntarily expressed their surrender to him. After the Battle of Odawara, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had no obvious opponents. At that time, Date Masamune naturally He didn't dare to do anything to Ming Lu's family.

At this moment, when Gao Wushi and Huang Zhiting are taking a walk after dinner, Toyotomi Hideyoshi should have issued the Odawara Expedition Order (1589.11), but Date Masamune could not decide what position he should take in this war .

The Ash family had surrendered to Toyotomi Hideyoshi and was regarded as his younger brother, so Date Masamune knew that he had offended Toyotomi Hideyoshi.Therefore, whether to obey Kanbai Toyotomi Hideyoshi and expect him to let him off the hook, or to stick to it and join hands with Hojo to fight against Hideyoshi to unify Japan. Date Masamune, who is very ambitious but not lacking in reason, is now hesitant.

On the one hand, he knows that under the current situation, Hideyoshi has become a powerful force, and it may be difficult to resist him; And he very much hopes to join forces with Hojo to completely destroy the sworn enemy Satake family (the power of Satake family is located between Date and Hojo).

In history, Date Masamune was first ordered to crusade by Hideyoshi. Later, after a series of operations and changes such as softness and see-saw wrangling, Hideyoshi finally made another decision that greatly affected the Ashio Copper Mountain area. That was in 1591. Hideyoshi It was decided to change the title of Masamune to Iwade Mountain City for 58 stones (because Yonezawa and other places were confiscated, the transfer of title was actually a reduction in relocation).

After Date Masamune transferred the title, the vacated land of Tongshan belonged to the Uesugi family who was transferred from Echigo, that is, Uesugi Kagekatsu, one of the five elders.

The reassignment of the daimyo had already affected the stable mining of Copper Mountain. To make matters worse, the Uesugi family was the reason for Tokugawa Ieyasu to provoke the Battle of Sekigahara (that is, Uesugi sent troops to crusade because of his conspiracy), which led to the collapse of the area. Always in turmoil.

Even though Gao Yushi actually couldn't remember whether that area had ever been a battlefield, at least if a large copper mine was developed there, it would definitely become a key area of ​​contention, which would be too bad.

Besko and Ashio Copper Mine are not very easy to manage, so the target has to fall on Hitachi Copper Mine.However, there is another coincidence here: Hitachi Copper Mountain happens to be located in the territory of the Satake family just mentioned.

As mentioned earlier, the head of the Satake family at this time is Satake Yoshishige who is known as "Oni Yoshishige".In Japan during the Warring States period, if the word "ghost" was included in the nickname, generally speaking, it was more commendatory, which meant that the person was very powerful and possessed "the ability of ghosts and gods" - you see, the Japanese even like to play games To describe Lu Bu as a ghost is to know the habits of the Japanese.

For this reason, even those who have never played games with the background of the Japanese Warring States Period, as long as they see characters such as "Oni Shimadzu", "Oni Sakon", "Oni Shibata", "Oni Yoshikawa", "Oni Mino", "Onimu" in the game If a person's name or skill name begins with the word "ghost" such as "Tibetan", it is basically certain that this is an extraordinary character or skill, and it is very likely to be very good.

That being the case, Gui Yizhong is of course very awesome.His father, Satake Yoshiaki, was weak and sick, so he gave up his throne to 32-year-old Yoshinaki early in his prime at the age of 16. He himself died of illness three years later.And Satake Yoshishige ushered in his first battle in the same year as the successor to the family governor, and fought against Soma Shengyin in Yuwenzhiyuan.

Yoshishige, who was only 16 years old, won a complete victory in this battle, and took the heads of seven enemy generals in a row in the battle, and shocked Hitachi.

It can be seen from this that there are no less powerful characters among military generals than talented teenagers among scholars.Satake Yoshishige's performance is like that of Liu Ting, who was his father's vanguard when he was 13 years old and defeated the extremely dangerous Jiusi Man in one fell swoop. The records are quite similar.

At that time, the Hojo family was already the overlord of the Kanto, and Yoshishige Satake relied on this not very strong Satake family to contend with it by relying on both horizontal and vertical connections and his own military capabilities. Family annexation, and even expanded the sphere of influence through various means in the Nan'ao area-for example, pushing his son to the head of the Ash family as mentioned just now is one of them.

If this is the case, it stands to reason that a daimyo who is not too strong but has a good patriarch should be a good partner, but Gao Yushi knows that the situation of the Satake family will also change.

After the Ashina family was destroyed by Date Masamune, Yoshishige also took this opportunity to accuse Date of violating the "Ordinance of Nothing to Do" with Ashina's son, Ashina Morishige, who inherited the Ashina family name, in an attempt to restore Ashina's leadership. Therefore, the Satake family participated in the Odawara The Crusade and the Ou Crusade, and with the support of Ishida Mitsunari, mainly attacked Ueno and Musashi's Hachigata Castle.

It is a pity that although Hojo was successfully destroyed, Hideyoshi ignored the request to restore Ashina's old collar, and instead transferred the Kamo family township to Aizu, disillusioning Yoshishige's hope.

After the Hojo crusade, Yoshishige seized the opportunity to attack the pro-Hojo daimyo Edo clan and seized Mito Castle. Hitachi, Shimono and some Mutsu totaled 55 shi, and Satake thus reached the most powerful.

After receiving Hideyoshi's written statement, Yoshishige and his son Yoshinobu (has succeeded to the throne, but Yoshishige still holds the power) began to govern the South Hitachi. resolute struggle.

In view of this, Yizhong planned and gave the meaning to invite all the famous people in Hall 33 to attend the famous "Meijian Banquet".At that time, Hall 33 thought that Satake had nothing to do with them, so they held a banquet and negotiated.

During the Mei Banquet, Satake showed all his hospitality and made everyone in Hall 33 relax their vigilance. When everyone was drunk, Yoshishige and Yoshinobu immediately dispatched musketeers to shoot everyone one by one. From then on, Hall 33 completely collapsed , Satake successfully took over Nanchanglu, and then unified Changlu.

However, Hideyoshi reduced Satake's 33 koku by 1595 koku in the 54th year of Bunroku ([-]) on the grounds that Satake had not received an order to attack Hall [-].Yoshishige was very angry about this, and he also lost respect for Toyotomi's regime. For this reason, he handed over the real power to Yoshinobu, formally lived in seclusion, and then moved to Mito Castle.

Later, his son Yoshinobu Fushimi made friends with Ishida Mitsunari. In the same year, the Utsunomiya family was changed because of falsely reporting the total amount of Ishigaka in the Taiko inspection ground.Since Satake and Utsunomiya are related by marriage, they need to be held together, but because of Ishida Mitsunari's mediation and pleading with Hideyoshi, the Satake family is finally freed from being implicated, and since then, the relationship between Mitsunari and Satake has become closer.

After Tokugawa Ieyasu launched the Uesugi Crusade, the Battle of Sekigahara (a series of wars) broke out. Satake Yoshinobu clearly declared to join the Western Army, but due to the extremely inconsistent internal opinions in the family, he failed to actually send troops in the end.

But at that time, the Satake family made such a declaration, and Ieyasu could not ignore it, so the Satake family was questioned by Ieyasu after the war.Faced with the great danger of being confiscated, Yoshishige had no choice but to come forward again and go to Edo to plead guilty and plead with Ieyasu.

Considering that Satake's military strength should not be underestimated, Ieyasu was finally persuaded and gave up the punishment of confiscating the fief, and only reduced Satake to Dewa Akita 20 shi. The catastrophe.

But here comes the problem. After his family was reduced to Deyu Akita, he and Tongshan will also say goodbye. If Gao Wushi cooperates with his family, what will we do then?
Who owns the area where the Copper Mountain is located at this time?It is Tokugawa Laifa, the eleventh and youngest son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, whose baby name is Tsuru Chiyo, the first generation of the Mito Tokugawa family, one of the three royal families of the Tokugawa shogunate.
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Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi" and "Chi Yu Jing Feng Chen" for their monthly support, thank you!
(End of this chapter)