Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1544 A Game of Chess in the Far East ([-])
The two major copper mountains in Kanto are not far from each other, and the Kanto water system is well developed, so transportation after mining is also very convenient.If this was in Daming or Southern Xinjiang, then Gao Yushi would definitely order copper mining without hesitation, and set up mints in Edo or nearby areas, and influence the whole of Japan through financial means.

But Japan is not Ming, nor is it Southern Xinjiang. Even if the strength of the Maritime Trade Alliance is underestimated, except for the Matsuura family who rely on a trading port for survival, and the Shimadzu family who have "big ambitions" Apart from the famous daimyos, other daimyos would not dare to treat Toyotomi Hideyoshi as nothing and hand over precious metal mines such as gold, silver and copper to outsiders for development.

You must know that Toyotomi Hideyoshi, adhering to the habit of the Oda family, has always attached great importance to money.Even a powerful vassal like the Mori family had to hand over the bulk of the Iwami silver mine output to Hideyoshi after surrendering.Whether it is Date Masamune, Satake Yoshishige at this time, or Uesugi Kagekatsu in the future, I am afraid that they would not dare to privately embezzle minerals.

As for the future Tokugawa Lai Fang, there is no need to mention it.The Tokugawa shogunate continued to strengthen the centralization of power from the beginning of the establishment of Ieyasu in view of the fact that the Muromachi shogunate was weak and weak, leading to a weak center and chaos in the world.The management of mining is also extremely strict, and it has been firmly in its own hands.

Unless the Tokugawa shogunate cannot be established at all, Gao Wushi would never want to obtain the mining rights of the copper mountain in the territory of one of its three royal families.

The output of these major copper mines in Japan was quite high at that time. For example, the Ashio Copper Mine had an annual output of 1200 tons, or 240 million jin.What is this concept?It means that if all of them are used to make copper coins, at least 3 million pieces can be made. Even if the domestic ratio of Daming is used, that is, 1000 coins are equal to one tael of silver, then this is also worth 30 taels of silver.

But this is only an equivalent conversion. In fact, if the 30 million copper coins are in Gao Yushi's hands and used in Japan, their value is by no means comparable to a mere [-] taels.This power, which is equivalent to the "right to issue currency", coupled with Jinghua's sufficient production capacity, can give Gao Pragmatic the ability to influence Japanese prices at any time!
Controlling prices through currency issuance means that Gao Pragmatism can plunder all kinds of wealth produced by the Japanese as he pleases—as long as he wants and doesn't mind the consequences.

By the way, the current money shortage in Ming Dynasty can basically be solved by relying on foreign silver, but the shortage of copper coins can actually be solved through internal development.

For example, the famous Yunnan Copper, that is, the copper mine produced in Yunnan, currently only 10,000+ catties are mined in Daming every year.However, after the large-scale development of Yunnan copper in the Kangxi period of the Tartar Qing Dynasty, the output of Yunnan copper reached more than 1000 million catties per year during the Qianlong period, and its production accounted for [-]% of the country. It is almost "the national coin depends on Yunnan copper".

However, Gao Yushi has always been adhering to the attitude of digging or not digging for this kind of minerals that China itself does not have extremely rich reserves, and try to find a solution from places other than Daming, so he has not proposed so far. The matter of developing Yunnan Copper.

Although he has some plans for the future of Japan in his heart, he is actually not very sure whether the Japanese strategy can achieve long-term success, so he is more interested in mining various minerals in Japan.

The Besshi Copper Mine is located on the Seto Inland Sea in Shikoku Island. Looking across the sea, Osaka Castle is not far away, which is equivalent to being under Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s eyes. Moreover, the current local situation is very stable, and Kato Yoshiaki belongs to Hideyoshi. Hardcore, so this copper mountain must be hard to get right now.

Masamune Date's Ashio Copper Mine will change its owner soon, and it is relatively far away from the sea, which is not conducive to the deterrent effect of the Maritime Trade Alliance, so it has to be temporarily ruled out.Looking at it this way, the Hitachi Copper Mine of the Satake family is a little easier to manage.

To be honest, although the three major copper mountains in Japan were very prominent in the original history and became the foundation of several big chaebols, in fact, in terms of reserves and total output before the final closure of the mountains, they are not as good as China's big copper mines. Compared with copper, both are not too big.

For example, the largest Besshi Copper Mine produced a total of 280 tons of copper in 70 years, and the Hitachi Copper Mine, which has attracted high pragmatism, has a total output of about 44 tons before the closure of the mountain, according to later generations of Japan. tons of copper.

However, China only mentions one Dexing Copper Mine in Jiangxi, and its proven copper reserves are as high as 1000 million tons (and it is still an open-pit mine), not to mention the Yunnan Copper that has been dug for an unknown number of years, and there is a lot of copper from the name "Tongling" and other places.

But it doesn't matter, because it is not yet the [-]th century. In terms of the current development capabilities and demand of high pragmatism, Japan's Tongshan can solve many of his problems.What's more, even if Japan is really difficult to deal with, he also has the Xiengkuang Huishan Copper Mine and Champasak Copper Mine in Nanzhang Kingdom as backups on hand.

However, from a certain emotional point of view, he is still more willing to dig the Japanese mine first.

Hitachi Copper Mountain, which is located in the territory of the Satake family, is close enough to the sea for Gao Pragmatic at the moment. This place is located in the later Hitachi City, which is a coastal city.

But the problem is not without it. The biggest problem is that there is no port in the area now.From later generations until the 21st century, the Hitachi Port in Hitachi City was never fully completed. There were only three jetties. A total of 16 berths were planned, but only 13 were completed.

The number of berths is already very limited. What's worse is that there are only 4 berths above 7500 tons, and 6 berths for [-] tons.As for the rest, whether they are built or to be built, they are just small berths of a thousand tons.

The reason for this phenomenon is that the water depth in the port area is not enough, the deepest berthing area is only 10 meters, the other is about 7 meters, and many of them are only 4-5 meters.

Although Gao Pragmatism does not know why Japan in the 21st century did not choose to dig deep into the Hong Kong area, but anyway, he does not have the ability now, so he can only discuss the facts, knowing that this place is not very suitable for building a large port.

The inability to build a large port means that Jinghua or the Maritime Trade Alliance cannot form a long-term strong force here. In other words, once the copper mine is mined, even with Jinghua's strength, it will be difficult to guarantee the safety of this place for a long time.

Unless... before that, the Maritime Trade Alliance has obtained a large port in the Kanto region as a place of residence.

Gao Wushi stopped, turned to Shichahai and began to think.

It doesn't seem impossible. For example, the Hojo clan is now facing a crusade, and before that, I have decided to provide a certain degree of secret support to the Hojo clan in order to prolong Hideyoshi's time in Kanto and waste more of his money and food.

And because the Hojo family is the overlord of the Kanto region, it was the main trading partner of the Maritime Trade Alliance in the Kanto region before (Jinghua did not participate in Japan's internal hegemony before, and only did business), and now accepts the "good intentions" of the Maritime Trade Alliance's secret support, then if The Maritime Trade Alliance proposed to lease a port in the Hojo clan's territory, presumably the Hojo clan in distress would not refuse.

As for the demise of Hojo after the Battle of Odawara, Hideyoshi transferred Tokugawa Ieyasu to him...

Judging from Ieyasu's nickname of "raccoon cat", he should not be so stupid as to choose to offend the Maritime Trade Alliance when his foothold is not stable and Hideyoshi is still encircling and marking him.

Gao Yushi's previous judgment that the Tokugawa family would not allow him to open mines in Kanto was based on the establishment of the shogunate by the Tokugawa family after the Battle of Sekigahara, but before that, he was not worried that Ieyasu would do anything he was not sure about. thing.

The only trouble is Hideyoshi, who understands the value of the seaport, otherwise he would not have built the city of Osaka near the sea, let alone take Ningbo as his planned future residence in his grand plan for the Ming Dynasty.

Tokugawa Ieyasu's acquisition of a port where the Maritime Trade Alliance can berth at will may make Hideyoshi worry that Ieyasu will have strong financial resources and strongly oppose it.

However, with Ieyasu's wisdom, if this port was leased to the Maritime Trade Alliance before the Hojo family fell, he would probably seize this point and tell Hideyoshi that he just couldn't break his promise in front of the Ming people, thus losing Japan's face.

This is a face-saving statement, and Hideyoshi may not agree with it.However, the victory of the Odawara battle meant that Hideyoshi's unification of Japan was a foregone conclusion. After that, Hideyoshi's airs became bigger and bigger, and he became more and more concerned about showing his honor.

Ieyasu should take advantage of this by then to get Hideyoshi to admit, or at least acquiesce, that the Maritime Trade Alliance has a port because of Hojo's promise.

Taking a step back, even if Hideyoshi is still dissatisfied, he should still consider the strength of the Sea Trade Alliance itself and its ability to influence the situation in Japan—just as he hopes that the Sea Trade Alliance's headquarters in Japan will be located in Osaka instead of Satsuma.

After the exploration and cooperation trade was interrupted by the Ningbo incident, Japan wanted to trade with Ming Dynasty but was unable to obtain it, which led to Japan's money shortage.Later, Gao Gong opened the sea, and the high-practice fleet soon came and formed a maritime trade alliance. The scale of trade between the two sides expanded day by day, and Hideyoshi also gained a lot of profits through the various pursuits he set up.

This is the most direct. In fact, because the Sea Trade Alliance is doing business all over Japan, it has also made many trading ports in Japan more prosperous, and each daimyo can get a lot of benefits from it.In the words of later generations, it probably "greatly promoted the commercial prosperity of Japan's major cities and castle towns".

Therefore, Gao made a pragmatic judgment. If the Maritime Trade Alliance really rented the territory of the Hojo family to build a port, Hideyoshi could only accept it after the Battle of Odawara.Of course, considering that Hideyoshi is extremely utilitarian in his work, he may ask the Sea Trade Alliance to provide an additional tax.

Gao Yushi thought, this is fine, and this incident can be used to test Hideyoshi's views and attitudes towards the Maritime Trade Alliance.

After thinking about this, she turned her head to look at Huang Zhiting, she had already finished talking about the previous thing, and she was also looking at the winter scenery of Shichahai.

"I was distracted just now, sorry." Gao Wushi saw that it was night now, and although there was no snow today, the temperature under the snow was still not high, so he asked, "Is it cold? Do you want to go back inside?"

"Based on the previous experience, I dressed much warmer this time, and it's not cold yet." Huang Zhiting turned her head and asked, "Seeing that you're preoccupied, I didn't bother you... What are you thinking?"

Gao Wushi didn't hide it, but he just covered up why he knew that there would be a copper mountain in a certain place in Japan. He had done enough of this, and Huang Zhiting didn't care.

After hearing what he said, Huang Zhiting frowned slightly, and said, "Before Miss Liu left, I discussed the situation in Japan with her on purpose, and there is one thing that I find strange."

"Which point?" Gao Wushi knew that Huang Zhiting didn't really pay attention to Japan. The reason she paid attention was only because she cared about it. She always changed her goals according to her husband's goals.

"The situation in Japan has changed a lot in the past few years. If the master had intervened a few years ago, maybe there would not be so many problems now, but the master did not intervene in the past few years, but now he is pouring his energy into it. Why is this? ? Is it just because you have been busy a few years ago?"

This is indeed very reasonable. The great change in the situation in Japan occurred after the Honnoji Incident in 1582.Oda Nobunaga had gained superiority on all fronts, and when he was only one step away from the "people of the world", he was suddenly besieged by the rebellious Akechi Mitsuhide in Honnoji Temple. After a fierce battle, he knew it was inevitable and committed suicide in the temple.

At that time, Oda Nobunaga's prestige and power were in full swing, and he controlled the most affluent half of Japan with Kyoto as the center. The surrounding separatist forces, even Maori, Uesugi, Hojo, etc., were far from comparable in scale.

For Nobunaga at this time, it was only a matter of time before he reunified Japan and created a new form of central government that was different from the previous imperial court or shogunate.In the previous few years, he had started to create several large regional armies, preparing to attack from all directions and wipe out the remaining princes who refused to obey.

But the change of the Innoji Temple broke out, and all this became a dream.When this shocking change occurred, Hashiba Hideyoshi was besieging Bichu Takamatsu Castle where Soji Shimizu was located, and fighting against the Maori army.

Due to a mistake, Mitsuhide sent a messenger to the Maori Army to go to the wrong camp, so that Hideyoshi received Nobunaga's bad news on June [-] of that year, and hurriedly sought peace with Maori.

Three days later, after seeing Maori's withdrawal, Hideyoshi led his army back and arrived in Settsu on the [-]th.There, he joined local generals Kiyohide Nakagawa, Ukon Takayama, Tsunexing Ikeda and others, and marched to Kyoto with Nobutaka Oda and Nagahide Niwa in Sakai.On the thirteenth, he defeated Mitsuhide in the Battle of Yamazaki and achieved the first victory in rebellion.

Afterwards, he made use of his strengths, mobilized various parties, and fought against the famous Oda family's famous general Shibata Katsuya. He first defeated Shibata at the Qingzhou Conference, and the next year, around March of the 11th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, he fought in the "Battle of Jianyue" in one fell swoop. Defeated Shibata Katsuya in the middle of the battle, and then attacked Zhuangcheng in the north of his home city.

Since Shibata Katsuie committed seppuku, and his wife Aichi also died, most of the Oda forces after Nobunaga's death fell into the hands of Hideyoshi.

What Huang Zhiting wanted to express was very pragmatic and clear. She thought that with her husband's grasp of the timing, the period after Nobunaga's death was probably the most critical time.Even though Gao Yushi was very busy at the time, Jinghua was fully capable of interfering in Japan to a certain extent.

Whether it is supporting Shibata Katsuya as Hideyoshi's opponent to form a tug-of-war with him, or supporting the Mori family to take advantage of the gap, or even supporting Tokugawa Ieyasu in the subsequent battle of Komaki Nagakute to hit Hideyoshi more severely, etc., it seems that it can make Hideyoshi cannot become a "man of the world".

Even Jinghua doesn't need to send a single soldier, as long as it provides money or armaments to the target forces, this matter seems to have a good chance.For example, food and grass can be supported for Shibata and Maori, and muskets can be supported for Tokugawa Ieyasu. These are actions that are very likely to change the overall situation.

Even in Huang Zhiting's opinion, it's okay to support Hideyoshi in turn, because as long as Hideyoshi can feel the strength of Jinghua, judging from his style, he should not forget to share the benefits with Jinghua afterwards.

However, at that time, Gao Yushi chose not to interfere with the situation in Japan at all, and only focused on doing business. This is very suspicious, and it does not look like his usual style.

It was difficult for Gao Yushi to explain why he wanted to see Japan send troops to North Korea to shed its own blood and train troops for the Ming Dynasty. Myanmar and other places. Compared with Japan, southern Xinjiang was my first goal at that time, so I was unwilling to intervene in Japan's affairs at that time."

Although Huang Zhiting was a little puzzled, she accepted this explanation, but she asked again: "However, it's too late to intervene now, and the first target of this intervention is the Shimadzu family, but I don't understand it." .”

She paused, frowned, and said, "Isn't it good to choose Hojo or even Mori? According to what I asked Ms. Liu today, the strength of these two companies is far superior to Shimadzu's."
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Thanks to the book friend "Cao Mianzi" for the reward support and monthly ticket support, thank you!

PS: I fell asleep while coding last night. When I woke up, it was already 4:2500 in the morning. After reading the previous code, I reached about [-] characters, and then I finished coding at this point... It’s really embarrassing. This chapter is still yesterday, today I try to update as early as possible, because it seems that my biological clock will be messed up when it comes to holidays.

(End of this chapter)