Chapter 902 Going north for inspection (4)

The two warships Wu Sen brought were expedition-class and exploration-class. They were equipped with more than thirty cannons in total. It was easy to deal with the Japanese pirate hachiman ships on the shore. It was not that no one on the Japanese pirate ship was noticed.

He was outflanked, but almost everyone landed and attacked the targets on the coast. No one was wary of the sea. As a result, they could only watch the two ships approach and open fire.

Although the Yawata ship has high-erected planks on the side of the ship as a cover, this kind of bunker can only block bow arrows and low-speed musket lead bullets, but a piece of paper is not much in front of the cannonballs.

The difference. After a round of shelling, the scattered fragments of the ship's plank became the best weapon to kill the deck crew. Few of the Japanese pirates who tried to hide behind the ship's plank to resist with matchlocks were directly killed by the shells, and most of them were injured.

It was injured by fragments of the ship's planks. Fortunately, the Kaihan warship's target was near the waterline of the Yawata ship. In order to paralyze the enemy ship's ability to move, it did not concentrate its firepower on clearing the deck, otherwise it would probably not be able to survive at all.

What's going on?

When the cannon sounded, the Japanese pirates on the shore remembered that the target of their trip should be those large Haihan ships. They originally thought that the Haihan people had hidden the ships in a hidden harbor somewhere and were waiting to capture them on the shore.

These people then slowly began questioning them, but they did not expect that the Haihan sailing ship actually came out to surround their retreat, and was also equipped with such powerful artillery. Now it was really hard to say who was causing trouble for whom.

In front was the hard-to-break-through defense line of the Haihan camp, and behind was the Haihan ship that was attacking and bombarding its own sailboat with artillery. This situation of riding a tiger and being unable to get off immediately put the Japanese pirates into a dilemma.

Naturally, Chen Yixin would not miss such a great opportunity to counterattack and immediately ordered an attack. After all, the Japanese pirates are just a group of bullying bandits, not an army with a strong will to fight. Fighting against the wind is not a combat environment they are good at. Once they find that they have no way to reverse the situation of the war,

Hope, they fled immediately. Of course, escaping back to the ship at this time was basically suicide, so they could only flee along the coast of Sasebo Bay to the uninhabited inland.

Chen Yixin did not intend to spend more time and energy to annihilate this group of Japanese pirates. He only ordered to close the formation and compress the Japanese pirates who had not had time to escape into a narrow area on the coast. These people did not have the determination to fight to the end. When they discovered

With no way out, he quickly gave up resistance and chose to surrender to save his life.

After the two ships commanded by Takemori on the sea found that the battle situation was under control, they stopped continuing the bombardment. However, at this time, several Yawata ships anchored on the coast had been bombarded beyond recognition, and two ships had too much water in their cabins.

The ship's hull has already tilted significantly.

The soldiers briefly cleaned and counted the battlefield and found about fifty Japanese pirate corpses. The reason for the vague number "about" is because the shelling of the Haihan warship caused several corpses that could not be put back together.

Broken corpses. In addition, there were more than 70 Japanese prisoners of war, but judging from the preliminary interrogation results, the leader of this group had already escaped in the chaos.

But this is not harmful. According to the prisoners' accounts, this group of people is almost out in full force. Almost all the people who can participate in the battle are here, and the only twenty or thirty people who escaped just now took advantage of the chaos. They can no longer change the direction of the war. They

Originally, I wanted to follow Haihan's fleet all the way to a secluded place to start, but obviously I didn't do enough homework beforehand, and I didn't know that Haihan's tiger's butt was untouchable. I think so many armed forces on the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty wanted to

They attacked Haihan, but in the end they all fell into the hands of Haihan. Although the number of participants in this Japanese pirate force was almost the same as that of Haihan's fleet, the actual combat effectiveness of the two sides was too far apart, and the battle was one-sided from beginning to end.

The situation was basically brought to Haihan's doorstep for training.

Chen Yixin and others were actually mentally prepared for such an episode during the trip. As the saying goes, wealth should not be exposed, but their fleet not only exposed its wealth in Nagasaki Port, but also was very high-profile, and it was also unreasonable to be targeted.

It was reasonable. But after what happened, Chen Yixin could no longer take the risk of splitting up the team to carry out inspection missions. This time, he was lucky and only encountered a small group of Japanese pirates. If he ran into the Japanese pirates next time in the Five Islands area,

The Japanese pirate gangs differed greatly in strength, and Chen Yixin could not guarantee that his group would be able to escape unscathed.

Xu Ke, who was accompanying the Xu family on behalf of the Xu family, seemed very calm about this sudden battle. He had already seen the power of the Haihan militia in Zhoushan, and he had already had a vague concept of "the Haihan was invincible" in his mind, and what he did today was

The small-scale battle that took place only further solidified his view. Although the expedition team only consisted of two to three hundred people, Xu Ke felt as if he was being protected by thousands of troops.

, there is nothing to worry about in terms of safety.

Amakusa Shiro gathered the prisoners together and asked them to dig a big hole on the coast and bury the bodies of the dead Japanese pirates. How to deal with the remaining Japanese pirates became a thorny problem. Haihan was not here.

There was no base set up, and it was impossible to hold such a large number of prisoners on the ship. But it would be too inhumane to execute all these prisoners on the spot.

Amakusa Shiro had to ask Chen Yixin for instructions and handed over this problem to his superior. But Chen Yixin didn't feel embarrassed. The fleet had a long inspection schedule, and it was impossible to take such a group of prisoners on the road, which would be inconvenient to manage.

, and consume a large amount of supplies, it is definitely not worth the gain. After thinking about it, Chen Yixin can only order the prisoners to be released on the spot when the fleet leaves here.

Two days later, the Haihan fleet, which had completed its inspection of Sasebo Bay, finally set off. Before leaving, they released the Japanese prisoners who were detained on a damaged Yawata ship. These Japanese pirates probably would not be able to leave here in a short time.

, because this was the only one left among the ships they came, and all the others were scuttled in the bay. The Haihan people also destroyed the mast, sails and stern rudder of the ship, citing the local environment.

The condition is probably difficult to repair.

The Japanese pirate prisoners who were released all knelt down on the coast and did not dare to raise their heads. They were indeed lucky to be able to save their lives. Some were even mentally prepared to be executed. However, the following days were still extremely difficult for them.

A big test, the Haihan people were not kind enough to leave them any supplies and tools. To survive in this deserted bay, they still had to face the test of nature.

After the Haihan fleet sailed out of Sasebo Bay, it continued to sail north. It was only about thirty nautical miles away from the Goto Islands where Japanese pirates had frequent activities. In addition, the Japanese pirate attacks they had encountered previously caused Chen Yixin and Wu Sen to fight for twelve Be careful. The next stop of the fleet is Hirado, one of Japan's former foreign trade ports located at the western end of Kyushu Island. The journey is not long, and it can be reached in one day.

Hirado Island is located in the west of the Matsuura Peninsula, about ten kilometers wide from east to west, and more than thirty kilometers long from north to south. It is separated from the Matsuura Peninsula by only a strait that is only more than 500 meters at its narrowest point.

Hirado Port is located on Hirado Island and is a territory belonging to the Hirado Domain. The Matsuura family that controls this area has long been a samurai group known for its navy. Due to its geographical location close to the Korean Peninsula, In the past, there were many Japanese pirates. Because their bases were Tsushima Island, Iki Island and Hirado Island, they were called Mishima Japanese pirates by North Korea. After Japan entered the Muromachi shogunate era, the third shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu told Ming Dynasty The Matsuura family began to focus on the development of trade after the North showed good will to develop joint trade and began to strictly ban piracy.

Later, the prestige of the Muromachi shogunate gradually declined and its control over local daimyo declined. The Matsuura family returned to their old business and opened Hirado Castle as a castle, allowing fleets from various countries to enter and exit. They relied on smuggling trade and maritime The plundering accumulated a lot of wealth. In 1599, Matsuura Jinnobu, the 26th generation governor of the Matsuura clan, built Hirado Castle on the basis of Hinodake Castle on Kameoka Mountain in Hirado Island. This castle is located on the highest point of the hills surrounded by the sea on three sides. , the geographical location is excellent, and you can clearly see Kyushu Island across the strait from the top of the city.

As a free trade port, the trade volume of this place once exceeded that of Nagasaki Port. However, with the seclusion policy implemented by the shogunate in recent years, Hirado has inevitably gone downhill. Currently, Hirado Port has been canceled as an officially recognized foreign trade port. status, the prosperous situation of the port city is gradually becoming a thing of the past. It is worth mentioning that the merchant house established by the Dutch in Hirado still exists. According to historical records, it was not moved from Hirado to Nagasaki until 1641. Saki.

However, in Haihan's view, the original history will definitely change. Because of the appearance of Haihan, an uninvited guest, the Dutch's activity space in the Far East has been severely compressed. Currently, only the city of Relanja in Taiwan remains. It is barely maintaining normal operations, and the commercial store in Hirado is already facing the painful situation of being unable to make ends meet. It is only a matter of time before the establishment is abolished, and it is unlikely to continue for another seven or eight years.

On August 1, the Haihan fleet bypassed Minami Ryuzaki, where the Hirado Bridge was later built to connect Hirado Island and Kyushu Island. After bypassing this cape, you can see the east coast of Hirado Island. Hirado Castle. There is a bay on the north and south sides of Hirado Castle, which is the famous Hirado Port. However, the area of ​​these two bays is relatively small, and the scale of the docks that can be developed is also relatively limited, let alone Compared with Sasebo Bay, even it is far inferior to Nagasaki Port. It is no wonder that the shogunate moved Japan's foreign trade center to Nagasaki Port. The layout of Hirado Port is really too small.

Chen Yixin is not worried about being refused entry to Hirado Port. Although this port has been removed from the list of foreign trade ports by the shogunate, judging from the intelligence collected by Haihan before, it is actually still in operation and is only operated by the public.

It just turned to a semi-public underground transaction. The Matsuura family neither wanted to confront the shogunate head-on, nor was it willing to give up the way of making money that had been in business for generations. Anyway, there were policies from above and countermeasures from below. The Matsuura family supported the shogunate's decision on the surface.

But in private, we should still do what we do. For the Matsuura family, the Haihan people, who are financially strong and good at doing business, are undoubtedly an excellent business partner, and there is no reason to refuse such a good thing that comes to their doorstep.

Perhaps considering the feelings of the Dutch, the head of the Matsuura family did not personally come out to receive the "Haihan Business Group" who came from afar, but only sent a young man named Matsuura Shinichi to receive Chen Yixin and others. But this

Matsuura Shinichi is not easy at all. He can speak Chinese better than Amakusa Shiro, who has been joining Haihan for several years, which saves him the trouble of translation.

"I have been to the Ming Dynasty in my early years, including Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo and other places. It was at that time that I learned the language of the Ming Dynasty." Matsuura Shinichi seemed to have noticed Chen Yixin's doubts and took the initiative to explain to him that he could speak Chinese.

The reason: "There are many merchants from the Ming Dynasty in Hirado Port. It will be more convenient to talk to them after I go to the academy."

Chen Yixin was stunned after hearing this explanation. I dare say this little Japanese has also been to Ming Dynasty. No wonder the Chinese he speaks has the flavor of Jiangsu and Zhejiang dialects. Since the other party can understand it, it will be much easier to communicate, and there is no need to worry about translation problems.

This caused a misunderstanding. Chen Yixin first explained to him the purpose of his visit - he came to build a trade route from Zhoushan to Hirado.

"Before, there were merchants from the Ming Dynasty who trafficked a small amount of Haihan goods for sale here, and each piece was very expensive. If you can transport the goods here by yourself, the price will definitely be more advantageous." Matsuura Shinichi saw this at once.

the nature of the problem.

Chen Yixin did not deny it, nodded and said: "After many discussions, we believe that the Matsuura family will be an excellent business partner, so I would also like to take this opportunity to ask if the Matsuura family is willing to cooperate with us?"

Matsuura Shinichi did not immediately respond directly to this question, but asked: "Can I take a look at your goods samples first?"

"Of course there is no problem. In fact, I have prepared a sample, which I can treat as a gift for Matsuura-kun." Chen Yixin clapped his hands twice, and someone immediately came in carrying the box.

Of course, what Chen Yixin gave away was not a sample, but a gift specially prepared by the Ministry of Commerce. Simply put, it was a specially customized version of various flagship products that could never be found on the market. Although the cost of this box of gifts was not too high,

But if you want to judge the price based on the product, it is definitely not a small amount. After Matsuura Shinichi saw it, his expression became much more relaxed. He repeatedly praised Chen Yixin for being so polite and said that he would try his best to meet the requirements of Haihan, such as in Hirado.

Set up commercial offices and the like in Hong Kong.

Chen Yixin did not think about such long-term matters. He was now thinking about how to complete his inspection mission. As for whether to set up a commercial hall, that was a matter for the Ministry of Commerce and would not be decided by the military.
Chapter completed!