Chapter 2070

When Yu Yao came, he was not sure how much the Dutch knew about the relevant information, but he knew very well what the Dutch's weaknesses were and how to get the other party to compromise. Although a small place like Damuan Port would not be let go by Haihan

In the eyes of the Dutch, it was of great significance. The East India Company needed this colonial port to maintain its trade relations and international influence in Northeast Asia, and it could not afford to lose it.

Therefore, he hinted to Hans in the conversation that if he refused to cooperate, the East India Company would not only lose control of the port of Damian, but Heihan might also hand over the place that the Dutch had run for more than ten years to their rival Portugal.

in human hands.

The competition between the Netherlands and Portugal around the world has begun in the last century, and has never stopped in the East. The two countries respectively control the Strait of Malacca and the Strait of Sunda in the South China Sea, two key channels connecting the Indian Ocean.

There was constant competition during the process. One occupied Hao Jing Ao at the Pearl River Estuary, while the other settled in the Fujian Strait.

However, for various reasons, the relationship between the Dutch East India Company and Haihan has never been very harmonious, and is far less close than that between Portugal and Haihan. In recent years, Portugal has evolved from a mere trading partner to a military ally of Haihan.

, using several military expeditions to win more trust and support from Haihan.

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 accompanied Haihan to send troops to Korea to help the war last year, they have obtained the chartered trade qualification of Korea.

It is vaguely more advanced than the Dutch in Northeast Asia.

It is already an unrealistic goal for the East India Company to squeeze the Portuguese, who are supported by Haihan, from the area north of the Fujian Strait. The Dutch can only maintain the existing colonial ports and trade routes at the same time.

, and then strive to continue to expand the scope of trade northward.

It can be said that this is the minimum requirement to ensure that Damuan Port will remain under the control of the East India Company for a foreseeable period in the future. If Hans cannot even do this, then it will probably be difficult for him to return to Bada.

Via submitted a report to the company's board of directors.

Hans spread his hands and said: "To be honest, I still don't understand why, after a few years, you have become interested in Shibazhi again. Hasn't this organization been completely disintegrated by you?"

For reasons of confidentiality, it was of course impossible for Yu Yao to tell Hans everything about the previous series of events. He could only explain the reason for doing so in a very brief way: "Recently we have found that some people are trying to get things done in our area.

Creating trouble right under our noses. There is evidence that these people may be hiding in Japan. Except for the Eighteen Chi Yu Party members who fled to Japan, we really can’t think of anyone else over there who would try to go against us.”

Yu Yao paused and signaled to the translator to convey his words to Hans first. After the translator finished speaking, he continued: "I know that the East India Company has trade channels and connections in Japan, and it should be more influential to the local forces than us.

We know better, so I hope Mr. Hans can provide relevant information in as much detail as possible to help us find out the truth as soon as possible."

Hans was about to shirk again, but Yu Yao didn't leave him a chance at all, and then said: "If we can't catch these people, then for safety reasons, we have no choice but to cut off all Japan's foreign trade channels.

It will certainly inevitably affect the operations of the East India Company."

Well, first he threatened to change the ownership of Taiyuan Port, and now he claimed to cut off Japan's trade channels. Such "negotiations" simply left no room for Hans to turn around. The most terrible thing is that Hans knew that Yu

Yao was not bragging. Haihan could really implement the methods he mentioned, but his own side had no effective way to counter it.

Either cooperate or be eliminated. These are the two choices Haihan gave Hans. But for Hans, it seems that there are two choices. In fact, he has no choice at all. Being eliminated is not good for him and the East Indies.

The company is definitely not an acceptable option.

"About Shibazhi... I really don't know much, and the general must also know that I have almost never left Taiyuan 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 passing by." Hans began to consider his response to Yu Yao's request, but compared to his previous answer, he was obviously beginning to relax.

"In the Hirado Domain in Japan, as far as I know, there are indeed some Han people related to Shiba Shiba doing business there." Hans said slowly: "But there have always been a lot of local Han people, so for Chinese businessmen,

Their status is just that of trade objects, other than that there is no difference from other Han people."

Hirado Domain is one of the two trading ports in Japan currently open to foreign merchants. It is the sphere of influence of the Matsuura Party, a samurai group famous for its navy. Its ruling area is based on the three islands of Tsushima, Iki Island, and Hirado Island.

In the early days, it was the main hideout of Japanese pirates, and Korea called it Mishima Japanese pirates. Later, in the Muromachi shogunate era, the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu began to strictly ban and crack down on domestic piracy in order to develop trade with the Ming Dynasty. The Matsuura Party also

From then on, he started 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.

But perhaps because this place was originally the nest of Japanese pirates, the Han people who prospered here in history were also the most famous pirate leaders. There were pirate merchants Wang Zhi during the Wanli period, and later Li Dan, who was called Kapitan by Western merchants, and

Zheng Zhilong 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, the lord of the Hirado domain. In the historical information that can be found, the Aritagawa clan is a Matsuura retainer.

There is also a theory that Tagawa Matsu is the adopted daughter of the mother of the feudal lord Matsuura Takanobu. But no matter which way it is, Zheng Zhilong's Japanese wife seems to have a certain official background. This 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 situation. Although Hans claimed that he did not know much, he was much better than Haihan, whose knowledge of Hirado was only based on written information.

After Yu Yao patiently and slowly interrogated him, he finally obtained some valuable information.

According to Hans, after Haihan launched a war in the southeastern sea and wiped out Shibazhi, a group of Han people did move to settle near Hirado Castle. 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 a group of people who did not have much combat capability, but were familiar with trade and navigation, and there were quite a few of them who had dealt with the East India Company. During the period when the Dutch merchant ship went to Hirado Port for trade

, these people showed up on their own initiative and relied on their familiarity with Dutch businessmen to take over various resale businesses.

Although these people will receive 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. They only need to let these local Han people be responsible for the buying and selling transactions.

, even the delivery of money and goods did 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 successfully complete transactions.

Later, it was through these people that the Dutch persuaded the Hirado clan to start expelling the local Portuguese and gradually banned Portuguese merchant ships from entering Hirado Port for trade. Although this method was a bit shady, it was actually effective.

It worked, and the Dutch finally temporarily won the competition with their Portuguese counterparts.

Although Hans did not personally go to Hirado to participate in these matters, as the governor of Taiyuan Port, he was already the senior official closest to Japan. The relevant planning and implementation processes were naturally recorded with him.

But speaking of it, because the East India Company wanted to achieve different purposes, its local focus was obviously different from that of Haihan. The Dutch were concerned about whether the partners could realize their interests for themselves, but did not care about their true identity.

I don’t care that much. In fact, part of what Hans said before is true. These Han Chinese agents active in Hirado are just temporary business partners for the East India Company. As for them, they used to work for the 18th

It made no difference to the East India Company whether it was India or some other power.

Yu Yao asked: "Mr. Hans, do you think these people have other resources besides their local influence? For example, a large amount of funds, sales channels and connections in Ming Dynasty, leading to

Trade routes in other seas, private armed forces... you name it, whatever comes to mind."

Hans thought for a moment before responding: "I think... they should all have the resources that the General mentioned. The wealth accumulated by Shibazhi back then was unimaginable, even if it was just 1% given to them

Taking them to Japan is enough for them to start a new business there. As for the other things... once you have enough money, is there anything you 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 are the weapons used?"

"I don't know if it's an 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 a sword? Maybe a musket? I really don't know.

Got it. We are just businessmen, not militants like the Spaniards. We will not think of fighting with others wherever we go." Hans was slightly unhappy when he said this, although he used Spanish

He gives an example, but in fact the militants he has in mind are actually the Haihan people.

"Does the local army have a large proportion of muskets?" Yu Yao did not let go of the question and asked from a different angle.

Hans shrugged and said: "Your Excellency General, the Portuguese sold muskets to Japan many years ago. Do you know about the war in which Toyotomi Hideyoshi led his army to invade Korea? At that time, muskets had been introduced to Japan for fifty years. Of course,

Will be used by the army. But who knows how many musketeers there are specifically? I don't know much about the military. If you want to ask me about this information, I'm afraid it will be difficult to give you a satisfactory answer. But the muskets they use are just match ropes.

It’s just a gun, so it probably won’t be able to compete with the Haihan Army on the battlefield.”

Historically, the Portuguese brought muskets to Akaogi Port in Tanegashima, Japan in 1543. At that time, Tanegashima Tokiyao, the lord of Tanegashima, who was only 16 years old, bought two muskets from the Portuguese for a sky-high price of two thousand taels of silver. A matchlock gun. After learning how to use it, Tanegashima Tokiyao's retainers quickly imitated it and named it Tanegashima Gun. Soon, this new weapon spread in Japan, and the Japanese took this The incident was called "The Iron Cannon Lai".

According to historical records, Oda Nobunaga's entourage was equipped with hundreds of muskets in 1553, and during the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, Oda's army was said to be equipped with as many as 3,000 muskets.

However, due to the limitations of production efficiency in this era, the cost of this advanced weapon remains high. In addition, its performance still has many shortcomings, making it impossible to form a single unit to participate in the war. It must cooperate with other units to be effective. Role. Due to many restrictions, the proportion of matchlocks installed in the Japanese army is actually not high, and it is difficult to even reach 20%. Compared with troops such as the Haihan Army, which installs muskets on a large scale, the combat effectiveness is indeed not at the same level. superior.

But what Yu Yao wanted to find out was actually whether the Eighteenth Chi Yu Party was equipped with more advanced muskets provided by the Spanish. But Hans obviously had no idea about this and had no idea of ​​Yu Yao's intentions. Naturally, I couldn't give him a satisfactory answer.

Yu Yao also expressed his understanding of this, and then 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 thought 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 in fact I don't remember the names of Japanese people very well."

This answer made Yu Yao slightly disappointed. If the name Tagawa Kenji could remind Hans of some relevant information, or even connect it with the Hirado clan, it would make Haihan's investigation work a lot easier. .However, Hans, who has not left Taiyuan Port for a long time, obviously has relatively little information and cannot provide relevant information.

Yu Yao said: "Okay, last question, I want to know if there are Japanese businessmen or commercial institutions opened by Han people from Japan in Dazhuang Port."
Chapter completed!