Prime Minister Bizen

Chapter 260 Reviewing the Ezo Incident
The Hide family is quite satisfied with the brother-in-law Todo Takatora. First of all, he has outstanding abilities, and he is one of the few warriors who can stand alone at the end of the Warring States Period.

Secondly, now he owns 2.1 shi Zhixing in Yuxi Family, and he is the pen of the new members of the family.

Most importantly, this is a political union in itself.

The Xiu family needs to tie Fujido Takatora to their chariot through the bond of marriage contract, otherwise, even if they have the opportunity to lead troops out in the future, the Xiu family will not feel at ease in handing over so many troops to an outsider.

And Gao Hu also needs such a political marriage, so that he can integrate himself into Yuxi's retainer system from a foreigner.

Osafune Sadakin and Mingshi Jingqin were not originally retainers of the Ukita Nao family. After continuous marriages, aren’t they now also members of the Ukita family’s elders?
For a foreigner like Fujido Takatora, there is a lack of a bond between him and the Uki family.And Lianzi is this link, helping him to bypass the complicated political rules, directly participate in politics as a member of the Yuxi family, and be promoted to the seat of the elders.

For Yuxi's family members, tolerating the new senators was a kind of compromise, and the Xiu family deliberately avoided getting involved in their core interests.

But such a situation cannot last for a long time, the Xiu family must mix sand among the old family members, and Todo Takatora who married the elder sister of the Xiu family is this sand.

With the identity of Yuxi's family as a family clan as a cover, those samurai who regard the elders as the backyard of the genealogy family can also accept this reality, and carry Fujido Gaohu into the old family without excessively stimulating them.

For Lianzi, consent is regarded as a political tool. Instead of marrying far away and being angry with other families, it is better to marry at home and be a high-ranking princess. What's more, compared to Yoshikawa Hirojo, Todo Takatora is obviously more like a potential share.

To sum up, the marriage arranged by the Xiu family did not harm the interests of one party. It can be said to kill four birds with one stone, and it is a model of mutual benefit and win-win.

After Fujido Gaohu went back, his complexion was obviously different, and his fighting spirit became more excited, which attracted the attention of other extremely new participants around him, and he took the initiative to ask Gao Hu, "What is your Highness looking for you?"

It's just that this kind of matter involving Yu Xi's family and Princess Lianzi's innocence can't be said in public, not to mention that this matter is just an exchange of opinions between Xiu's family and himself. How can it be said.

So Fujido Takahu casually said something nonsense, "Your Highness asked me to discuss the matter of Iyo's local assessment." Just fooled around.

In fact, when the marriage contract was finalized and announced by the Xiu family, the Xiu family's act of marrying their own sister to a retainer really scared many people.

After Fujido Takatora left, Hideo finally found a chance to read the "Ezo Raiders Diary" that the Seto family was sending.

Due to the war last year and this year, Hideka was unable to meet with the Seto family in Okayama Castle at the beginning of each year.

And because of the relationship between ocean currents and trade winds, the Seto family travels back and forth at a fixed time every year, so there can be no delay.

As a result, Xiujia has not listened to his report on Ezo in person for two years, but Xiujia has indeed read the Ezo Raiders log he submitted every year, and will attach the content as a reply. give him.

Last year, the development of the Ezo area stagnated, and there was no special growth compared with last year. This was mainly because the Xiu family reduced the migration of local residents.

After all, in Hoki, Inaba, Sanuki, and Iyo four countries, there are still large tracts of land that have not been developed, and the local people have no subjective initiative to cultivate new territories in remote places.

It was only on the premise that the Hide family forcibly relocated Nichirenzong and Kiritan sect that they ensured the annual relocation scale of about 5000 people.

According to the information that the Seto family brought back to Ezo last year, Ukita’s pioneering team currently only controls an area in the southern part of Ishikari, the western part of Hidaka, and most of Ishiki in Hokkaido.That is, the area around Tomakomai City in later generations.

The selection of this area is actually not good. The area is full of swamps. Even in the 21st century, a large area of ​​this area is used as a flood discharge area, and effective water conservancy development has not been carried out.

However, this is the landing base closest to the Sapporo Plain in the central area of ​​Hokkaido in later generations. The purpose of Hideka's initial choice to log in here was to use this as a base to colonize Sapporo.

But in its northeast, there is the Tokachi Plain, which is not inferior to the Kanto Plain. The output here accounts for 1/10 of the grain output of later generations in Japan.

It's just that due to the limitation of the Little Ice Age, this piece of land in the north is like a chicken rib to the Xiu family, it's tasteless to eat, and it's a pity to discard it.

Wouldn't it be half the effort to farm in that place?

But the area isn't completely useless.At the junction of Tokachi North and Kitami is the Hongzhimai Mine, which is extremely rich in reserves in later generations.

This mine is the third largest gold mine after Japan's Hishikari Kinzan and Sado Kinzan. Although the reserves and output of the previous two gold mines are slightly lower, this mine is better than the buried gold mine.

It is rumored that even on the banks of the Zaobie River next to the Hongzhiwu Mine Lode, you can make a fortune by washing the sand with a dustpan. A large amount of gold is exposed on the river bed as the river washes away. The entire Zaobie River is like gold. the average.

Although the above statement is a bit exaggerated, it is enough to show that the Hongzhiwu vein is relatively buried and has a huge output. In the first year of mining, it produced 1 ton of gold and 10 tons of silver.

In the 58 years of its mining, 73 tons of gold have been mined according to official records, not to mention the fact that the sub-mines on the side were torn up and stolen, the actual mining volume will only increase.

You must know that Hokkaido in Japan at that time was no different from other parts of Japan. It was the place where Japanese criminals were exiled at that time, and later generations directly used North Korean miners to dig pits.

The lives of these people are the least valuable, and the Japanese government did not begin to increase investment in Hongzhimai to equip industrial mining facilities until after the end of World War II.

In other words, the annual output of about 1 ton of gold and about 10 tons of silver in the initial stage of Hongzhiwu's mining was all mined by manpower.

These gold and silver alone are equivalent to about 80 equivalent copper coins in Japan, and converted into Zhixing is almost equal to the output of Zhixing from the eight states of Kanto in the Tokugawa Ieyasu era.

How not to make people hungry.

Last year, Hideo said that his own map of Ezo was handed over to Seto Jiazheng. Regarding the division of the territorial countries, Hideka referred to the division of Japan in later generations, and divided it into 11 countries after removing the Thousand Islands. , with a slight name change of course.

They are: Matsumae country (Dushima), Houzhi country, Danzhen country, Hidaka country, Ishikari country, Tokachi country, Kushiro country, Nemuro country, Tianyan country, Kamikawa country, Kitami country.

There is no boundary and it is completely divided according to the 11 countries of Hokkaido in later generations. Among them, Ishikari country is divided into two, with Ishikari country in the west and Kamikawa country in the east.

The Tianyan Kingdom divided by Xiujia includes the northern part of the Kamikawa Comprehensive Development Bureau of the later generations, that is, the Shibetsu Basin of the later generations and the Soya Comprehensive Development Bureau in the northwestern part of the north. In other words, all the northwest corner of Hokkaido is included in the territory of Tianyan Kingdom .

The territory of Kitami country was greatly reduced, and the long tail in the northwest corner of the map of later generations was removed. Of course, Kitami's most important Konomai Mine was still covered.

Hideka also marked on the map the land that Ezo Mahogany is expected to prioritize expansion, including Hidaka, Ishiki, Ishikari, and Kitami Shikoku.

During the land survey in Hokkaido in the fifth year of Meiji (1872), Shihou Kingdom stood out with 265 stones. Even the Toshima (Matsumae Domain) in southern Hokkaido, which has been developed for 580.84 years, could not compare.

But here is too close to Hanguan, Hideka decided not to communicate with the local daimyo Oyezaki's family prematurely in order to hide their strength, because they were afraid that this person would have no way to speak, and told Hideyoshi about Ukido's territory in Hokkaido .

And we must know that Zhihou country is mountainous, even so, it still produces 26 stones. Compared with it, Hidaka, Danzhen, Kitami, and Tianyan countries should have the same number of stones after development.

As the production bases of later generations, the grain output of the five countries of Ishikari, Kamikawa, Tokachi, Kushiro, and Nemuro will undoubtedly be the future of the country.

It should be known that the Ishikari Promotion Bureau in central Hokkaido, the plain area within the Sorachi Comprehensive Promotion Bureau, and the basin area within the Kamikawa Comprehensive Promotion Bureau are important rice-growing areas in Japan.

According to the statistics when the pioneering mission was abolished in Meiji 15 (1882), the Ishikari Promotion Bureau had a property output of 235 shi and 120.57 people; the Sorachi General Promotion Bureau had a property output of 94 shi and 577 people.

The sum of these two is the area of ​​the Ishikari country planned by the Hideka. The total amount of Zhixing is no less than 40 shi. Even if it is placed on the island of Honshu, Japan, it is a proper upper country.

Kamikawa Comprehensive Promotion Bureau followed closely with 301 shi and a population of 046, which was a rare big country in Hokkaido at that time.

Due to the late development of Tokachi, Kushiro, and Nemuro countries, the data is seriously distorted. In the last statistics in Meiji 15 (1882), Tokachi only had 35 shi, Kushiro 578, and Nemuro 88.

These three large granaries in later generations of Japan have not undergone large-scale water conservancy facilities renovation. We can only estimate the data after they are fully developed, which is roughly comparable to Ishikari and Kamikawa.

After all, at that time, even the original version of Tianyan Kingdom already had 98 stones of Zhixing because of its earlier development.

According to the latest news sent back by the Seto family this year in the diary, they have already established a colony in the later Monbetsu area in the northern part of Bimi country designated by Hideo.

The reason why I did not choose the Obashiri and Yubetsu areas in the southern part of Kitami, which are more suitable for farming in later generations, is entirely because there are swamps everywhere, and the effort to open up swamps is far more than that along the river.

Even though it has the most abundant water resources in Hokkaido in later generations, Hideka is unwilling to let the precious pioneers waste time here.

Even the southeastern part of the Hidaka country, which has already been developed, was stopped by the Hideo family because of the swamp, and continued to develop towards Ishikari and Kamikawa in the north.

The second reason is that Xiujia hopes to develop the Hongzhiwu Mine as soon as possible.The Saobie River on the edge of Monbetsu is the best landmark. If you search southwest along the Saobie River, you will find the Motoyama Mine in the south of the former Maruse Fumachi in the later Engaru Town.

According to Seto Yamasa's report, they established a base in Monbetsu last summer. Based on their experience in Tomakomai, they chose to build a fortress in Fumi, which is 8 kilometers away from the coast and leeward, and named it Fumi Castle.

Due to the short development time, they did not have time to develop the fields, and the supplies here still needed to be provided by the Southern Xuanzhu City.

However, they have discovered the existence of gold sand in the Zaobie River, and they plan to start washing the sand in the spring of this year after the ice and snow melt.

This is undoubtedly a very good signal. The purpose of Xiujia to let them open up Kitami prematurely is not to open up wasteland.

To open up wasteland in Ishikari and Kamikawa, there are fertile fields for them to reclaim, and it is much more convenient to go to Tokachi and Kushiro than here.

The reason why Xiujia let them log in to Kitami as soon as possible is for the Konomai Mine.Now that gold sand has been discovered in Zaobie River, it is only a matter of time before the Wonsan Mine is discovered along Zaobie River.

After the Yuanshan Mine is mined, it can provide nearly a thousand catties of gold and over a ton of silver to Yuxijia every year, which is equivalent to 1 taels of gold and about 10 taels of silver. This money is not as good as farming in Kanto ?

As for the development of the two countries, Danzhen and Rigao, due to the deliberate stop of the Xiu family, they have come to a standstill. Now there are 13 cities in the two countries, and the high-quality output is 4.8 shi and 2.7 shi, respectively.

The Ezo Temple headed by Xuanzhu has put its main energy on the development of the north. Today, the development of the Ishikari area has built seven cities of Chitose, Izumigo, Aoba, Changdu, Anping, Mizuho, ​​and Oifen.

Among them, the three cities of Changdu, Ruisui, and Zhuifen were built by the affiliated Ainu tribe with the help of Ukita. They have changed from fishing and hunting to farming under the intervention of the Ezo Temple, and have integrated with the people of the Yamato nation. .

The city lords of the three cities are the leaders of the local Ainu tribe, and they gave themselves Japanese names directly using the three cities as Miao characters.

The proportion of the Yamato ethnic group in these three cities is not high, but some of the residents choose to marry local Ainu women.

Originally, lowly peasants who couldn’t even get a wife in the western country had tribal chiefs scrambling to give them away when they arrived in Ezo. Everyone married more than 4 wives. man in a windproof hut.

Quanxiang, Chitose, Anping, and Sancheng are three integrated cities. The Ainu and Yamato people in the city are divided in half.

These low-level warriors who were originally only a few dozen stones in a small village in the Yuxi family, became intermediate warriors with a hundred stones and a thousand stones per capita in Ezo, and what's more, they had a city with a thousand stones.This is something they didn't even dare to think about in Bizen and other countries.

(End of this chapter)