Chapter 2070
Chapter 2070
Chapter 2070
When Yu Yao came, he wasn't sure how much the Dutchman knew about the relevant information, but he knew very well what the Dutchman's weakness was, and he also knew how to make the other party compromise.Although a small place like Dayuan Port would not be considered by Haihan, it was of great significance to the Dutch. The East India Company needed this colonial port to maintain its trade relations and international influence in Northeast Asia. There is absolutely nothing to lose.
So he hinted to Hans in the conversation that if he refuses to cooperate, the East India Company will not only lose control of Dayuan Port, but Haihan may hand over the place that the Dutch have been operating for more than ten years to the rival Portugal hands.
The competition between the Netherlands and Portugal around the world has begun since the last century, and it has never stopped in the East.In the South China Sea, the two control the two key waterways connecting the Strait of Malacca and the Strait of Sunda to the Indian Ocean, and they have been competing in the process of expanding northward. One occupies Haojingao at the mouth of the Pearl River, and the other is in Fujian. Strait down.
However, due to various reasons, the relationship between the Dutch East India Company and Haihan has not been very harmonious, far less than that of Portugal and Haihan.In recent years, Portugal has evolved from a mere trading partner to Haihan's military ally, and has gained more trust and support from Haihan in exchange for sending troops several times.
Although the Portuguese are being expelled from the local market by the Japanese shogunate, their merchant ships have been allowed by Haihan to enter the area north of the Yangtze River Estuary, and because they sent troops to Korea to help the war with Haihan last year, they have obtained the chartered trade qualification of the Korean state. It is faintly more advanced than the Dutch in Northeast Asia.
It is already an unrealistic goal for the East India Company to squeeze the Portuguese supported by Haihan from the area north of the Fujian Strait.The Dutch can only strive to continue to expand the scope of trade northward while maintaining the existing colonial ports and trade routes.
It can be said that it is the minimum requirement to ensure that Dayuan Port is still under the control of the East India Company for a foreseeable period of time in the future. If Hans can't even do this, it will probably be difficult for him to return to Bada. Via turned over to the company's board of directors.
Hans spread his hands and said: "To be honest, I still don't quite understand why you are interested in Shibazhi again after a few years. Hasn't this organization been completely disintegrated by you?"
For reasons of confidentiality, it is of course impossible for Yu Yao to tell Hans all about the previous series of events. He can only explain the reasons for doing so in a very brief way: "Recently, we have discovered that some people are trying to move around and try to get in our hands. There is evidence that these people may be hiding in Japan, and apart from the Shiba Zhiyu Party who fled to Japan at the beginning, we really can’t think of anyone there who would try to fight us.”
Yu Yao paused, and signaled the translator to pass on his words to Hans first. After the translator finished speaking, he continued, "I know that the East India Company has trade channels and contacts in Japan, and they should treat the local forces better than us. I know better, so I hope that Mr. Hans can provide relevant information in as much detail as possible to help us find out the truth as soon as possible."
Hans wanted to evade again, but Yu Yao didn't give him a chance at all, and then said: "If we can't catch these people, then we have no choice but to cut off all Japan's foreign trade channels for the sake of safety. Time will inevitably affect the operation of the East India Company."
Well, first they threatened to change the owner of Dayuan Port, and now they claim to cut off Japan's trade channels. Such "negotiations" simply did not leave Hans room to turn around.The most terrible thing is that Hans knows that Yu Yao is not bragging, Haihan can really realize the means he said, but his side has no effective way to counter it.
Either cooperate or get out, these are the two choices Haihan gave Hans.But for Hans, there seemed to be two choices, but in fact he had no choice at all, and being out was definitely an unacceptable option for him and the East India Company.
"About Shibazhi... I really don't know much, and the general must also know that I have hardly left Dayuan Port in the past two or three years, so most of the information I know about the situation in Japan comes from Local merchants and sailors in the past." Hans began to think about responding to Yu Yao's request, but compared to the previous answer, he obviously began to let go.
"In the Hirado Domain in Japan, as far as I know, there are indeed some Han people related to Shibazhi doing business there." Hans said slowly: "But there have always been a lot of local Han people, so for Chinese businessmen, Their identities are only trade objects, and they are no different from other Han people.”
Hirado Clan is one of the two trading ports currently open to foreign businessmen in Japan. It is the sphere of influence of the Matsuura Party, a samurai group famous for its naval forces. Its ruling area is based on the three islands of Tsushima Island, Iki Island, and Hirado Island. Lord, it was the main den of Japanese pirates in the early days, and North Korea called it Mishima Japanese pirates.Later, in the era of the Muromachi shogunate, the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu began to strictly ban and crack down on domestic piracy in order to develop trade with Ming Dynasty, and the Matsuura Party also began to turn to trade.
Later, the Matsuura Party simply opened Hirado Castle as a free port, allowing merchant ships from various countries to complete trade here.After a hundred years of operation, Hirado has become one of Japan's most important trading ports.
However, perhaps because this place was originally a nest of Japanese pirates, the Han people who made their fortunes here in history are also the most famous pirate leaders. There was Wang Zhi, a pirate businessman in the Wanli period, and Li Dan, who was called Jiabidan by Western businessmen. Zheng Zhilong, who was just eliminated by Haihan a few years ago.
According to the information currently available to Haihan, Tagawa Matsu, whom Zheng Zhilong married in Hirado, should have some relationship with the Matsuura family of Hirado feudal lord.According to the available historical data, the Aritagawa clan was a retainer of Matsuura, and Aritagawa Matsu was the adopted daughter of the feudal lord Takanobu Matsuura's mother.But no matter which one it is, Zheng Zhilong's Japanese wife seems to have a certain official background, which is the main reason why Haihan focused his investigation on Hirado.
But for more detailed information, you must find someone who is familiar with the local conditions. Although Hans said that he didn't know much, he was still much better than Haihan, who only knew Hirado from written information. .After Yu Yao questioned patiently and slowly, he finally obtained some valuable information.
According to Hans, after Hai Han went to war in the southeast sea area and wiped out Shibazhi, a group of Han people did move to the vicinity of Hirado City.The reason why we know that these people are related to Shibazhi is actually very simple. Most of the people who were sent to Hirado were not very capable of combat, but they were familiar with commerce and navigation. Among them, they had fought against the East India Company. There are quite a few people to communicate with.When the Dutch merchant ships went to Hirado Port for trade, these people took the initiative to appear, relying on their acquaintance with the Dutch merchants to take over various resale businesses.
Although these people will get a transfer fee from the transaction, it saves a lot of trouble for the Dutch businessmen. They no longer need to deal with difficult Japanese officials, as long as these local Han people are in charge of the transaction. , and even the delivery of money and goods does not need to be handled personally.Soon these Han Chinese who were familiar with cross-border trade monopolized the local trade agency business. Whether it was the Dutch or the Portuguese, they had to go through them to complete the transaction smoothly.
Later, it was through these people that the Dutch persuaded Hirado to start expelling the local Portuguese, and gradually prohibited Portuguese merchant ships from sailing into Hirado Port for trade.Although this method is a bit shady, it really worked, allowing the Dutch to temporarily win once in the competition with their Portuguese counterparts.
Although Hans did not go to Hirado to participate in these matters in person, as the chief of Dayuan Port, he is already the closest senior official to Japan, and the relevant plans and implementation processes are naturally recorded with him.
But to put it bluntly, the East India Company's local focus is obviously different from that of Haihan because of its different goals.The Dutch are concerned about whether the partners can realize their interests, but not so much about their true identities.What Hans said earlier is actually partly true. These Han agents who are active in Hirado are just temporary business partners for the East India Company. As for whether they used to work for Shibazhi or other It doesn't matter what power it is to the East India Company.
Yu Yao asked: "Mr. Hans, do you think these people have other resources besides the influence in the local area? For example, a large amount of funds, sales channels and personal connections in Daming, leading to Trade lanes in other seas, and private armed forces . . . whatever comes to your mind."
Hans thought for a while before answering: "I think...they should have the resources mentioned by Your Excellency General. The wealth accumulated by Shibazhi back then is unimaginable, even if it is only [-]% for them Bringing it to Japan is enough for them to start a new business locally. As for the others... After having enough money, is there anything they can't do?"
Yu Yao took a deep breath, calmed down his emotions, and then continued to ask: "Can you confirm that they have formed a private armed force? What kind of weapons are they using?"
"I don't know if it's the army, but some businessmen have indeed mentioned that there is a Chinese armed force loyal to the Matsuura family in Hirado. As for weapons... who knows? Maybe it's a sword? Maybe it's a musket? I really don't know Got it. We're just businessmen, not militants like the Spaniards, and we don't want to fight people everywhere we go." Hans was a little unhappy when he said these words, although he used Spanish He used people as an example, but in fact the militants he thought of were actually Haihan people.
"Then is a large proportion of the local army equipped with muskets?" Yu Yao did not let go of this question, and asked the question from another angle.
Hans shrugged his shoulders and said: "Your Excellency, the Portuguese sold guns to Japan many years ago. Do you know the war when Toyotomi Hideyoshi led an army to invade Korea? At that time, guns had been introduced to Japan for 50 years, of course they would It is used by the army. But how many musketeers there are, who knows? I don't know much about the military. If you ask me for this information, I'm afraid it will be difficult to give you a satisfactory answer. But the muskets they use are only arquebuses That's all, it probably won't be able to fight against the Haihan army on the battlefield."
Historically, the Portuguese brought muskets to Chiogi Port, Tanegashima, Japan in 1543. At that time, the 16-year-old Tanegashima feudal lord Tanegashima Shiyao bought two matchlocks from the Portuguese at a sky-high price of 2000 taels of silver. gun.After learning how to use it, the retainers of Shiyao Tanegashima imitated it quickly and named it the Tanegashima Gun. Soon this new weapon spread in Japan, and the Japanese called this incident the "The iron cannon comes."
According to historical records, Oda Nobunaga's entourage was equipped with hundreds of muskets in 1553, and when Nagashino joined forces in 1575, the Oda army was said to have as many as [-] muskets.
However, due to the limited production efficiency of this era, the cost of this advanced weapon remains high, and there are still many shortcomings in its performance, making it impossible to form a single-armed unit to participate in the battle. effect.Under many restrictions, the proportion of matchlock guns in the Japanese army is actually not high, and it is difficult to achieve even two percentage points.Compared with a large-scale army equipped with muskets like the Haihan Army, its combat effectiveness is indeed not at the same level.
But what Yu Yao wanted to inquire about was actually whether those Eighteenth Party members were equipped with more advanced muskets provided by the Spaniards.But Hans obviously didn't understand this, and he didn't understand Yu Yao's intention at all.Naturally, he couldn't give him a satisfactory answer.
Yu Yao also expressed his understanding of this, and then changed the subject and asked another question: "Mr. Hans, please recall carefully, have you ever heard of the name Tagawa Kenji? Or any Japanese with the surname Tagawa .”
Hans pondered for a while before responding: "No, I have no memory of it. I only remember the names of a few feudal lords. I must admit that I don't really remember the names of the Japanese."
This answer disappointed Yu Yao a little. If the name of Kenji Tagawa can remind Hans of some relevant information, and even connect him with the Hirado Clan, it will save Haihan's investigation work a lot. .However, Hans, who hadn't left Dayuan Port for a long time, obviously had little information and could not provide relevant information.
Yu Yao said: "Okay, the last question, I want to know whether there are Japanese businessmen in Dayuan Port, or business establishments opened by Han Chinese from Japan."
(End of this chapter)
When Yu Yao came, he wasn't sure how much the Dutchman knew about the relevant information, but he knew very well what the Dutchman's weakness was, and he also knew how to make the other party compromise.Although a small place like Dayuan Port would not be considered by Haihan, it was of great significance to the Dutch. The East India Company needed this colonial port to maintain its trade relations and international influence in Northeast Asia. There is absolutely nothing to lose.
So he hinted to Hans in the conversation that if he refuses to cooperate, the East India Company will not only lose control of Dayuan Port, but Haihan may hand over the place that the Dutch have been operating for more than ten years to the rival Portugal hands.
The competition between the Netherlands and Portugal around the world has begun since the last century, and it has never stopped in the East.In the South China Sea, the two control the two key waterways connecting the Strait of Malacca and the Strait of Sunda to the Indian Ocean, and they have been competing in the process of expanding northward. One occupies Haojingao at the mouth of the Pearl River, and the other is in Fujian. Strait down.
However, due to various reasons, the relationship between the Dutch East India Company and Haihan has not been very harmonious, far less than that of Portugal and Haihan.In recent years, Portugal has evolved from a mere trading partner to Haihan's military ally, and has gained more trust and support from Haihan in exchange for sending troops several times.
Although the Portuguese are being expelled from the local market by the Japanese shogunate, their merchant ships have been allowed by Haihan to enter the area north of the Yangtze River Estuary, and because they sent troops to Korea to help the war with Haihan last year, they have obtained the chartered trade qualification of the Korean state. It is faintly more advanced than the Dutch in Northeast Asia.
It is already an unrealistic goal for the East India Company to squeeze the Portuguese supported by Haihan from the area north of the Fujian Strait.The Dutch can only strive to continue to expand the scope of trade northward while maintaining the existing colonial ports and trade routes.
It can be said that it is the minimum requirement to ensure that Dayuan Port is still under the control of the East India Company for a foreseeable period of time in the future. If Hans can't even do this, it will probably be difficult for him to return to Bada. Via turned over to the company's board of directors.
Hans spread his hands and said: "To be honest, I still don't quite understand why you are interested in Shibazhi again after a few years. Hasn't this organization been completely disintegrated by you?"
For reasons of confidentiality, it is of course impossible for Yu Yao to tell Hans all about the previous series of events. He can only explain the reasons for doing so in a very brief way: "Recently, we have discovered that some people are trying to move around and try to get in our hands. There is evidence that these people may be hiding in Japan, and apart from the Shiba Zhiyu Party who fled to Japan at the beginning, we really can’t think of anyone there who would try to fight us.”
Yu Yao paused, and signaled the translator to pass on his words to Hans first. After the translator finished speaking, he continued, "I know that the East India Company has trade channels and contacts in Japan, and they should treat the local forces better than us. I know better, so I hope that Mr. Hans can provide relevant information in as much detail as possible to help us find out the truth as soon as possible."
Hans wanted to evade again, but Yu Yao didn't give him a chance at all, and then said: "If we can't catch these people, then we have no choice but to cut off all Japan's foreign trade channels for the sake of safety. Time will inevitably affect the operation of the East India Company."
Well, first they threatened to change the owner of Dayuan Port, and now they claim to cut off Japan's trade channels. Such "negotiations" simply did not leave Hans room to turn around.The most terrible thing is that Hans knows that Yu Yao is not bragging, Haihan can really realize the means he said, but his side has no effective way to counter it.
Either cooperate or get out, these are the two choices Haihan gave Hans.But for Hans, there seemed to be two choices, but in fact he had no choice at all, and being out was definitely an unacceptable option for him and the East India Company.
"About Shibazhi... I really don't know much, and the general must also know that I have hardly left Dayuan Port in the past two or three years, so most of the information I know about the situation in Japan comes from Local merchants and sailors in the past." Hans began to think about responding to Yu Yao's request, but compared to the previous answer, he obviously began to let go.
"In the Hirado Domain in Japan, as far as I know, there are indeed some Han people related to Shibazhi doing business there." Hans said slowly: "But there have always been a lot of local Han people, so for Chinese businessmen, Their identities are only trade objects, and they are no different from other Han people.”
Hirado Clan is one of the two trading ports currently open to foreign businessmen in Japan. It is the sphere of influence of the Matsuura Party, a samurai group famous for its naval forces. Its ruling area is based on the three islands of Tsushima Island, Iki Island, and Hirado Island. Lord, it was the main den of Japanese pirates in the early days, and North Korea called it Mishima Japanese pirates.Later, in the era of the Muromachi shogunate, the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu began to strictly ban and crack down on domestic piracy in order to develop trade with Ming Dynasty, and the Matsuura Party also began to turn to trade.
Later, the Matsuura Party simply opened Hirado Castle as a free port, allowing merchant ships from various countries to complete trade here.After a hundred years of operation, Hirado has become one of Japan's most important trading ports.
However, perhaps because this place was originally a nest of Japanese pirates, the Han people who made their fortunes here in history are also the most famous pirate leaders. There was Wang Zhi, a pirate businessman in the Wanli period, and Li Dan, who was called Jiabidan by Western businessmen. Zheng Zhilong, who was just eliminated by Haihan a few years ago.
According to the information currently available to Haihan, Tagawa Matsu, whom Zheng Zhilong married in Hirado, should have some relationship with the Matsuura family of Hirado feudal lord.According to the available historical data, the Aritagawa clan was a retainer of Matsuura, and Aritagawa Matsu was the adopted daughter of the feudal lord Takanobu Matsuura's mother.But no matter which one it is, Zheng Zhilong's Japanese wife seems to have a certain official background, which is the main reason why Haihan focused his investigation on Hirado.
But for more detailed information, you must find someone who is familiar with the local conditions. Although Hans said that he didn't know much, he was still much better than Haihan, who only knew Hirado from written information. .After Yu Yao questioned patiently and slowly, he finally obtained some valuable information.
According to Hans, after Hai Han went to war in the southeast sea area and wiped out Shibazhi, a group of Han people did move to the vicinity of Hirado City.The reason why we know that these people are related to Shibazhi is actually very simple. Most of the people who were sent to Hirado were not very capable of combat, but they were familiar with commerce and navigation. Among them, they had fought against the East India Company. There are quite a few people to communicate with.When the Dutch merchant ships went to Hirado Port for trade, these people took the initiative to appear, relying on their acquaintance with the Dutch merchants to take over various resale businesses.
Although these people will get a transfer fee from the transaction, it saves a lot of trouble for the Dutch businessmen. They no longer need to deal with difficult Japanese officials, as long as these local Han people are in charge of the transaction. , and even the delivery of money and goods does not need to be handled personally.Soon these Han Chinese who were familiar with cross-border trade monopolized the local trade agency business. Whether it was the Dutch or the Portuguese, they had to go through them to complete the transaction smoothly.
Later, it was through these people that the Dutch persuaded Hirado to start expelling the local Portuguese, and gradually prohibited Portuguese merchant ships from sailing into Hirado Port for trade.Although this method is a bit shady, it really worked, allowing the Dutch to temporarily win once in the competition with their Portuguese counterparts.
Although Hans did not go to Hirado to participate in these matters in person, as the chief of Dayuan Port, he is already the closest senior official to Japan, and the relevant plans and implementation processes are naturally recorded with him.
But to put it bluntly, the East India Company's local focus is obviously different from that of Haihan because of its different goals.The Dutch are concerned about whether the partners can realize their interests, but not so much about their true identities.What Hans said earlier is actually partly true. These Han agents who are active in Hirado are just temporary business partners for the East India Company. As for whether they used to work for Shibazhi or other It doesn't matter what power it is to the East India Company.
Yu Yao asked: "Mr. Hans, do you think these people have other resources besides the influence in the local area? For example, a large amount of funds, sales channels and personal connections in Daming, leading to Trade lanes in other seas, and private armed forces . . . whatever comes to your mind."
Hans thought for a while before answering: "I think...they should have the resources mentioned by Your Excellency General. The wealth accumulated by Shibazhi back then is unimaginable, even if it is only [-]% for them Bringing it to Japan is enough for them to start a new business locally. As for the others... After having enough money, is there anything they can't do?"
Yu Yao took a deep breath, calmed down his emotions, and then continued to ask: "Can you confirm that they have formed a private armed force? What kind of weapons are they using?"
"I don't know if it's the army, but some businessmen have indeed mentioned that there is a Chinese armed force loyal to the Matsuura family in Hirado. As for weapons... who knows? Maybe it's a sword? Maybe it's a musket? I really don't know Got it. We're just businessmen, not militants like the Spaniards, and we don't want to fight people everywhere we go." Hans was a little unhappy when he said these words, although he used Spanish He used people as an example, but in fact the militants he thought of were actually Haihan people.
"Then is a large proportion of the local army equipped with muskets?" Yu Yao did not let go of this question, and asked the question from another angle.
Hans shrugged his shoulders and said: "Your Excellency, the Portuguese sold guns to Japan many years ago. Do you know the war when Toyotomi Hideyoshi led an army to invade Korea? At that time, guns had been introduced to Japan for 50 years, of course they would It is used by the army. But how many musketeers there are, who knows? I don't know much about the military. If you ask me for this information, I'm afraid it will be difficult to give you a satisfactory answer. But the muskets they use are only arquebuses That's all, it probably won't be able to fight against the Haihan army on the battlefield."
Historically, the Portuguese brought muskets to Chiogi Port, Tanegashima, Japan in 1543. At that time, the 16-year-old Tanegashima feudal lord Tanegashima Shiyao bought two matchlocks from the Portuguese at a sky-high price of 2000 taels of silver. gun.After learning how to use it, the retainers of Shiyao Tanegashima imitated it quickly and named it the Tanegashima Gun. Soon this new weapon spread in Japan, and the Japanese called this incident the "The iron cannon comes."
According to historical records, Oda Nobunaga's entourage was equipped with hundreds of muskets in 1553, and when Nagashino joined forces in 1575, the Oda army was said to have as many as [-] muskets.
However, due to the limited production efficiency of this era, the cost of this advanced weapon remains high, and there are still many shortcomings in its performance, making it impossible to form a single-armed unit to participate in the battle. effect.Under many restrictions, the proportion of matchlock guns in the Japanese army is actually not high, and it is difficult to achieve even two percentage points.Compared with a large-scale army equipped with muskets like the Haihan Army, its combat effectiveness is indeed not at the same level.
But what Yu Yao wanted to inquire about was actually whether those Eighteenth Party members were equipped with more advanced muskets provided by the Spaniards.But Hans obviously didn't understand this, and he didn't understand Yu Yao's intention at all.Naturally, he couldn't give him a satisfactory answer.
Yu Yao also expressed his understanding of this, and then changed the subject and asked another question: "Mr. Hans, please recall carefully, have you ever heard of the name Tagawa Kenji? Or any Japanese with the surname Tagawa .”
Hans pondered for a while before responding: "No, I have no memory of it. I only remember the names of a few feudal lords. I must admit that I don't really remember the names of the Japanese."
This answer disappointed Yu Yao a little. If the name of Kenji Tagawa can remind Hans of some relevant information, and even connect him with the Hirado Clan, it will save Haihan's investigation work a lot. .However, Hans, who hadn't left Dayuan Port for a long time, obviously had little information and could not provide relevant information.
Yu Yao said: "Okay, the last question, I want to know whether there are Japanese businessmen in Dayuan Port, or business establishments opened by Han Chinese from Japan."
(End of this chapter)