Prime Minister Bizen

Chapter 94 The Second Ezo Report of the Seto Family
Just a few days before Hideka's soldiers were temporarily released home for the New Year, a large ship with three tall masts sailed from the Seto Inland Sea and sailed into the port of Okayama. As soon as the large ship driven by the port came into view, onlookers were welcomed.

Hideya in Okayama Castle Honmaru also relied on the height of the castle to see the big ship sailing into the port, and the shape of the bow of the ship has a hint of Chinese blessing ship.

Not long after, Yoshiyuki Terashima, Minamimachi, who was in charge of the Okayama port, came to report that the person who came was a wealthy businessman from the Uki family, Seto Kichizaemon, who came from Ezo to meet Hideo.

Xiujia was very happy that after a year, there was another news from Ezo.Immediately ordered someone to pass Seto Yoshizaemon.

Seto Kichizaemon brought a few middle-aged men in animal skins to get off the boat. These people were generally 1 meters tall, and some even reached 6 meters. Compared with the Japanese, they were like giants.

These giants came to Japanese cities for the first time, saw the bustling Okayama Town for the first time, and the Okayama Castle standing on the mountain and rising with the mountain, they all expressed their admiration.

Not long after, Kichizaemon went to the city with five giants to meet the Hide family, and as the sliding door of the side hall was opened, the attendants announced "the main hall is here~"

Under the leadership of Seto Kichizaemon, the five people saluted in the direction of the steps.He said in unproficient Japanese, "See the main hall."

When the Xiu family greeted them, they realized that the person sitting there was a young boy in his teens, and all of them showed surprised expressions. It was hard for them to imagine that the "king" who ruled such a huge and wealthy kingdom was just a young boy.

Seto Kichizaemon introduced to Hideyoshi, "Your Highness, these are representatives of the Ezo tribe who surrendered to the main family."

Then he pointed to a dark-faced man in his 30s who was slightly older and said, "This is the chief of the Hongyu Tribe in the north of Xuanzhu City. He has a population of 7500 and ten thousand cattle and sheep. .”

"Hongyu Anping, greeting Your Highness."

Pointing to a young man in his teens, he said, "This is the second son of the chieftain of the Shiko tribe by the lake of Shiko on the west mountain of Xuanzhu City. Their tribe has lived in Lake Shiko for generations. Although there are only more than 3500 tribesmen, But the status in the Ainu tribe is very high."

"I am the disciple of Master Xuanzhu. The master named me Nobuhisa Lihara. I came here to visit the main hall on behalf of my father."

The Xiu family heard this completely daily name, and Master Xuanzhu also gave him his original surname Liyuan. It seems that Master Xuanzhu valued this young man very much.The Xiu family had a sense of intimacy with this young man,

"This one is."

After listening to Seto Kichizaemon's introduction, Hideo accepted the visit of these Ainu representatives, and was very pleased. Afterwards, he gave each of them 5 pieces of brocade, a set of celadon tea bowls, a group of long boat samurai swords, The world has a collar to bring back as a gift.

After thanking the five people with gratitude, they left first, and Kichizaemon Seto handed over the Ezo diary to Hideo for his review, and at the same time narrated important events.

It turned out that after a year of development, Bizen's stronghold in Ezo no longer stopped at Xuanzhu.

The Jiushan Shige family built the new Jiushan Castle on the original site of the original Tomakomai tribe, relying on the mountain at the foot of Zunqian Mountain.

Due to Hideka's immigration policy, political and religious immigrants from Bizen began to fill this vast land. The territory controlled by Ukita has reached Nishioka in the west, Parrot River in the east, and the vast land of Zhimiao in the north.

Cities such as Xuanzhu, Jiushan, Hamada, Yingwuchuan, Zhimiao, etc. were established one after another in Lingnei, and even some families in the southeast of the northeast and Kasai could not survive and immigrated here.

In addition, throughout the winter, due to the heavy snow blocking the mountains, the first 1000 navy members had no winter activities, and could only stay in their own battle houses and mate with Ezo women.

So much so that when Seto Kichizaemon left Xuanzhu, there were 2.3 Dingkou in the territory, 1.4 Japanese, and more than 7000 Ezo people, most of them were women, and there were hundreds of new Dingkou, most of whom were He is a half-breed descendant.

Good guy, this is a winter when you don't do anything, you know how to mate!Only after ten months can such a large population be born.

At the same time, Xuanzhu established relationships with the surrounding tribes through trade and diplomatic means, conquered the disobedient tribes and forced them to relocate, and strengthened ties with the few friendly tribes through various means to further assimilate them.

The Hongyu tribe just mentioned stayed in the Chitose area of ​​the later generations. It is a very powerful tribe in the local area. It participated in the attack on Xuanzhu City before. tribe.

Strictly speaking, the Ainu people are not nomadic tribes, but fishing and hunting tribes with relatively stable residences. Therefore, Xuanzhu divided the land for these tribes and taught them to cultivate the cold-resistant wheat in the northeast.Both have had a good harvest this year.

Due to the extreme cold, the food can only be cooked once a year. Now, the land directly under the jurisdiction of Ezo has 8000 koku of grain, Jiushan’s family has 1800 koku of land, and Shimiao’s family has 1250 koku of land. They already belong to the big landowners in Ezo.

In addition, there are more than 800 square meters of land for planting sugar beets. Coupled with the fish and meat resources obtained from hunting, the local food supply in Ezo has basically been balanced.Hideya looked at the pickled venison and pickled trout presented by Seto Kichizaemon, and heard the proportion of meat eaten by the local residents, and felt that they ate better than the local farmers in Bizen.

Hideka expressed his gratitude to the achievements of the Ezo pioneers led by Master Xuanzhu, and handed over the land policy "Shitian Law" that Ukita was about to implement to Seto Kichizaemon to take it back, and handed it over to Kichizaemon. To Xuanzhu, carry out the implementation.

Then he inquired about making longbows from corkwood.

"Our family has just reached a friendship with the Shikotsu tribe in the second half of the year, and the production of longbows has just started in front of Daxuefeng Mountain. It is expected to present a sharp weapon to His Highness next year."

Well, it seems that it will take a few years to have the firepower of the British longbowman, but it's okay, a good meal is never afraid of being late.

"What happened to the two lucky boats at the port?" Xiujia asked again
Seto Kichizaemon was obviously surprised that the Hide family knew Fukufune, but then said, "The current main trade route of the family is to take the longest line to communicate with merchants in Hirado, Kyushu.

"Sell the fur and sugar of Ezo to Ming Dynasty and North Korean merchants, buy rice, pottery, and cloth from Kyushu and transport them to Ezo to sell to the Ainu people. Although the journey is longer and across the whole of Japan, the income is higher than before. The deal with the Northeast is quite impressive."

"Previously, furs were mostly controlled by Shanxi merchants in the north, and the prices in the south and the Central Plains were extremely high, while most of the sea merchants were southern merchants, and their furs were in short supply for them."

"In addition, southerners like sweetness, and sugar is scarce. The brown sugar produced by our family is out of stock as soon as it is shipped to Hirado. I heard that some Ming merchants want to set up a business office in Xuanzhu directly to trade with us. They set out to ship transportation."

"It's just that Japanese-style closed ships are not suitable for long-distance voyages. Therefore, I specially purchased two Fuchuan from Chinese businessmen stationed in Hirado for ocean trade. The population immigration still uses closed ships."

The Xiu family did not expect that the Eizo trade had become so big, and it did not expect that Ming merchants would dare to sell anything for Qian Zheng's sake. With artillery on the side, it is a battleship.

"Fuchuan is tall, and can sail and sea without manpower. It is indeed much more advanced than Guanchuan. You continue to trade with Ming merchants. I heard that the life of Korean people is difficult. If Ming merchants and Korean merchants are willing to transport these people to Ezo , You also accept it completely and fill the population." "In addition, after the trade expands in the future, buy a few more Fuchuan and see if you can copy one or two."

"As more and more acres are reclaimed in Ezo, the demand for meat will decrease. These cured meats can be transported to Okayama to fill the food gap for Okayama residents."

"Ha Yi, I will convey it on my behalf"

Speaking of this, I have to complain about the troubled times of the Warring States Period in Japan. There has always been a saying in China that "it is better to be a dog of peace than a person in troubled times".

However, after Japan experienced the 200 Warring States Period, the population of the Tokugawa Shogunate was actually 500 million more than before. However, in the troubled times of the Warring States Period, the land was affected by military disasters all the year round, food income was not stable, and refugees died of hunger all the year round.

The lords were also very helpless about this, and even felt that these refugees staying in their own land might cause chaos.The Seto family took a fancy to this situation, and under the guise of Ming merchants, under the pretext of transporting them to the Ming Dynasty to reclaim the manor, they secretly transported these excess population to Ezo, plus the population directly transported from Bizen , This has caused the population of Ezo to increase by more than [-] people a year.

It’s just that Bizen is Hideka’s ability after all, and it also needs population to reclaim wasteland, especially under Hideka’s new policy, it can already be predicted that Shigao of the Three Kingdoms of Yuxi will expand in the past two years, so the population of the skill will no longer be rich.

The Xiu family has decided to suspend the transfer of population to Ezo except for the political and religious population, and the transfer of refugees from other neighboring countries must be very secretive, and the number cannot be too large at one time, so the Xiu family will pay attention to North Korea and the On Ming Guo's head.

After a hundred years of development in the Ming Dynasty and North Korea, most of the land was in the hands of big landlords. The farmers who lost the land either became tenants, or they could only enter the city to become manual laborers for a living. The winners went to the mountains and forests to cultivate here. a piece of land.

And every year, refugees who can't survive will rise up and cause civil strife.The ruling classes of the two countries only know how to block, but do not know how to unblock.If they had taken advantage of the demographic dividend to colonize overseas earlier, then the countries around the Pacific Ocean would have hung the Sun and Moon flags and become the neighboring countries of the Ming Dynasty.

However, the limitations of history made them miss this wave of dividends, and they were harmed by it. Their own population was regarded as rice bugs by their own ruling class, and they were forced to rebel and killed as military exploits.

The Xiu family thought that so many compatriots died innocently, so it is better to give them a way to survive. Those who voluntarily come to Eizo to reclaim wasteland will be given land, seeds and tools according to the preferential policies of Bizen people, and evacuate these compatriots who lost their land. Save as many lives as you can.

Of course, the Xiu family is extremely disgusted with the human trade. Human trafficking and coercion are absolutely not allowed. They must be people who voluntarily go to Ezo to farm, and each person will be given 5 taels of silver as a settling fee for their families. Seto Kichizaemon wrote it all down and assured Hideka that there would be no forced human trafficking.

At this point, Seto Kichizaemon's Ezoko report came to an end. Hideka thought that he had made great achievements, but his posthumous status was not very high, so he decided to promote Seto Kichizaemon as a samurai in recognition of his achievements.

"I have seen all your achievements. Now that all the Ezo soldiers have plowed the land and become warriors, I will also reward you with 100 stone knowledge and give you the status of a warrior. Continue to serve the family."

Seto Kichizaemon was originally a vendor selling Bizen yaki. He was funded by the Ukita Hide family to start the Ezo trade, and suddenly became a wealthy businessman. He had no shortage of money, but his status in the Ezo Hall was still very low.

Now he was bestowed with the status of a warrior by the Xiu family. Even though Baishi Zhixing was the only one who knew what to do, he leaped into the dragon's gate and crossed the class gap. After that, he had the power to wield a sword and became the ruling class.

Seto Kichizaemon was extremely happy, and thanked Hideo with a sob.

"I will give you my family name, and you will be called Seto Yoshizaemon Isho from now on"

"Ha Yi, thank you very much for your name, my Seto family is being smashed to pieces, there is no repayment!"

"Ezo is a nascent land, and it is a good place to implement policies. You bring the Ukita military system there, select elite soldiers from local immigrants for training, fill them in as armaments, defend the frontiers and open up land, and open up Ezo for your family. Contribute."

Later generations of Ezo seized land during the wise period, and the total stone height of the island is 173 million stone. This is the result of 120 years of passive development by the Tokugawa shogunate only through the exile of sinners, defaulting refugees to move to Ezo.

Today's Xiujia adopts the method of active development, adjusts and integrates the local Ainu people, and at the same time immigrates Japanese, Koreans, and Ming people to the island to fill the population. The shogunate is much faster.

When it came to the Battle of Sekigahara, Xiujia estimated that the Ezo had a territory of at least 15 shi, and provided the Xiu family with no less than 3000 Ezo soldiers and more than 5000 vassal tribal soldiers.

In this way, the Xiu family possessed an additional strength that was out of Taige's control, so the Xiu family paid special attention to the development of Ezo.

Previously, it was the Tadakaya of Ukita who was in contact with Xuanzhu. Now that the Tadakaya has become a monk, Hideka will handle related matters in person for the time being. However, the outflow of people in the territory still cannot escape the eyes of Masayuki Hanabou, the governor. On the scene, he called Hanabang Masako and confessed his plan to him.

Hanafang was very shocked when he heard about Hideka’s plan to develop Ezo and the current results. He also understood the potential of this land and expressed that he would continue to support it.

(End of this chapter)