"Teacher, I don't quite understand what you just said. These trees are inedible, so why can growing them feed more people than growing rice?" Akashaemon asked in stuttering Mandarin during class.
Xiang Tianying adjusted his glasses: "The climate in Mize is relatively cold, which is not suitable for the growth of rice. Even if all the land is planted with rice, it will still not produce much rice. Planting mulberry trees can raise silkworms, and planting mulberry trees can To make paper, grow lacquer trees to make lacquerware, grow hemp to make cloth, and grow indigo to make dyes. In Japan, one stone and two buckets of rice can be exchanged for one tael of gold, but if the bark of the mulberry tree is made into paper and then painted into Ukiyo-e, it only takes One hundred coins can be exchanged for one tael of gold. In this case, wouldn't it be much easier to produce ukiyo-e paintings and sell them for rice than to grow rice directly? Moreover, the leaves of the mulberry tree can also be used to feed pigs, and the fruits and juice can be used as medicine. If you make good use of it, you will be full of treasures. An important source of wealth for Duke Qianxin back then was green ramie. Green ramie cannot be eaten, but it can be used to weave linen, and the clothes made are not expensive, and many ordinary people can afford them. , so many businessmen came to the Uesugi family to buy green ramie. The more businessmen there are, the more taxes will be collected, and the country will be rich."
Akashaemon nodded: "Then why doesn't my lord grow these... cash crops? I heard that when Lord Kagekatsu was alive, Naoe-sama planted a lot of mulberry trees, lacquer trees and mulberry trees in Yonezawa, but later he stopped planting them. Planted."
Although the benefits of cash crops are much higher than that of food, the risk factors are also much greater. A large number of scams in agriculture in the old days almost all took advantage of farmers' ignorance of the characteristics of cash crops to defraud. Cash crops require large investment, Most of them require special growing environments or planting conditions; secondly, they are greatly affected by market fluctuations. Unless there is a disaster or severe inflation, the price changes are stable. Cash crops are different, they are expensive. When it is available, it can be sold for hundreds or thousands; when it is cheap, it can only be used as fertilizer and firewood.
Xiang Tianying organized his speech and said: "There are three reasons for this. First, you see here in Kaohsiung, there are all kinds of technologies. No matter what you plant, you can save labor and have high yields, but Yonezawa doesn't With these technologies, it is difficult to achieve good harvests by planting cash crops; secondly, Yonezawa lacks good roads and ships, and does not have a sales network for products. The paper, raw silk, lacquerware, linen, and dyes produced cannot be transported out by themselves. You can only rely on merchants who come and go. Since you don’t have your own sales channels, you have no right to choose. You can only sell it at a low price according to the merchant’s price. The price of rice sold by merchants is high, so the people are still short of food. The third is planting. Cash crops require capital, but the shogunate keeps arranging various general tasks for the Uesugi family, including repairing Edo stone walls and temples, and they can't save a penny. The Uesugi family can only borrow usury from merchants, and the loan sharking keeps getting worse. The more the rice grows, the more it will eventually become endless. The people have worked hard for a year, but the rice they grow is not enough to earn enough interest."
"So it's all the businessmen who are to blame?!"
"You can't say that." Xiang Tianying thought for a while, "Merchants are actually very important. Although they are not involved in production, they circulate goods from all directions and move more to fill the gaps. They are indispensable to the economy. However, you can't count on it. Merchants are conscientious. After all, they use their own capital to do business, travel thousands of miles, and take huge risks. For example, when going to your domain, there will not only be storms on the sea route, but also navy thieves. If something goes wrong, not only will everything be lost, Money and goods are so simple that he can't even save his own life. So he inevitably pursues the highest profit. What's more, transportation and travel itself means huge costs. Think about it, a trip to Edo for pilgrimage costs How many?"
At this time, the most famous money-burning activity in the Edo shogunate period, the participation in the pilgrimage, had not yet formed a formal system. However, starting from the Shimazu family, the soteri daimyo had begun to carry out this activity one after another in order to show their loyalty.
Akashaemon thought for a while: "Then...teacher, will the Senate go to overthrow the shogunate?"
Most of the Japanese in Kaohsiung are from Chichichitan in southwest Japan, but Akashaemon is different. His hometown is Yonezawa in the northeastern border of Japan.
The Yonezawa Uesugi family, like the Satsuma Shimazu family and the Choshu Mori family in the southwest, is one of the few Warring States daimyo that survived until the Meiji period. The history of the Yonezawa Uesugi family begins with the Uesugi family, known as the "Dragon of Echigo"
It started when Kenshin inherited the famous Uesugi family in Kanto. The Uesugi family escaped from the desperate situation and grew into a famous name in several countries during the Warring States Period. However, after the death of Uesugi Kenshin, his two adopted sons fought for each other.
A civil war broke out over the succession, and the strength of the Uesugi family plummeted. In the end, Uesugi Kagekatsu won, but he was about to face the overwhelming force of Oda Nobunaga's troops. Just when the Uesugi family was in danger, the Honnoji Incident broke out.
Oda Nobunaga was killed by his subordinate Mitsuhide Akechi, and the Uesugi family narrowly escaped death for the second time.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who eliminated Akechi Mitsuhide, quickly inherited Oda Nobunaga's legacy, and Uesugi Kagekatsu also joined Toyotomi Hideyoshi. According to Toyotomi Hideyoshi's request, Uesugi Kagekatsu's wife, Kikuhime, was to go to Osaka as a hostage.
It was at this time that Eemon's father, Akasha Nobutsuna, came to Osaka as the mistress's wife.
In Osaka, Kikuhime met a famous Kirishidan, the daughter of Akechi Mitsuhide, and the wife of Hosokawa Tadaki, Akechi Tamako, whose Christian name was Garosha. The two women with strong personalities soon became best friends and often communicated with each other. Amakasu
It was through this that Xingang came into contact with Catholicism and was eventually baptized as Chechiten.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi's ban on teaching did not have much impact on Amakasu Nobutsuna. After all, his lord Uesugi Kagekatsu was Toyotomi Hideyoshi's entrusted minister and one of the five elders of Toyotomi. Few people dared to embarrass him, as long as he stayed out of the streets.
Just claim that you are Kirishidan. However, shortly after the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Battle of Sekigahara, which determined the fate of Japan, broke out. The defeated Uesugi family was reorganized, and only Yonezawa's territory of 300,000 koku was left.
Most of the changed daimyo such as the Mori family relied on large-scale layoffs to maintain financial balance, but Uesugi Kagekatsu believed that these retainers who had shed blood for the Uesugi family could not be left alone, so he gritted his teeth and refused to lay off any one person. It was only 300,000 koku.
The territory had to support six thousand retainers. When the Uesugi family first arrived in Yonezawa, it was a difficult situation. Even the senior samurai could hardly have a full meal. After finally breathing a sigh of relief, the shogunate continued to ask the Uesugi family to undertake various projects.
The Tokugawa shogunate's ban on Christianity was more stringent than that of the Toyotomi regime, but Uesugi Kagekatsu still resisted it, because there were not many kirikidan in the north, and the activities were not as conspicuous as in the south, so the shogunate couldn't take care of it for the time being.
them.
However, in the ninth year of Yuanwa, two major events occurred that caused a devastating blow to the Uesugi family's Kirikidan. One was the death of Uesugi Keigatsu, and his son Uesugi Sadakatsu succeeded him. The other was the second-generation general Tokugawa.
Hidetada abdicated the throne in favor of his son Tokugawa Iemitsu.
The Tokugawa Iemitsu era was a period of harsh rule by the shogunate, a period known as "arbitrary politics". Countless daimyo were changed, even if it was a generational daimyo, it was inevitable, let alone the "remnants of the Western Army" like the Uesugi family, and the Uesugi family condoned Kiriji Dan
It was a perfect excuse. In the fifth year of Kanei, Uesugi Sadakatsu finally could not withstand the pressure of the shogunate. In order not to implicate the Uesugi family, Amasa Nobutsuna and several other Kirishitan retainers manfully chose to commit seppuku, and his
His son, Amakasouemon, who was only seven years old, was taken by his fellow believers and fled Yonezawa in the snow.
The few Yonezawa Chichidan who fled got on the boat at Sakata, and then went to Hirado, and from Hirado to Okan. Originally, they wanted to go straight to Manila, but when they ran out of Yonezawa, they didn't have much with them. They had to beg the boat owner to get on the boat from Hirado to Okanagan. They only paid half of the money to get on the boat. They really had no money to go to Manila anymore. So they had to go to a Japanese village near Okanagan. He stayed in the country and supported his family by working as a mercenary for the Dutch.
The life of working for the Dutch was very unpleasant. The Dutch did not allow these Catholics to worship according to Catholic rituals. But the more severe test was the climate here. The northern samurai who came from the ice and snow of Echigo and Yonezawa could not adapt to the hot flashes in Kaohsiung. After three years of poor weather, they either died of illness or died in conflicts with the indigenous people. In the end, only Amakasouemon was left among this group of exiles from the northern country.
Amakasouemon was barely able to make ends meet by doing odd jobs. He was young and not in strong health, so he couldn't actually do much work. Most of the time, he relied on charity from others. He suffered like this for about a year. He heard about dog hunting in the south. Strange pirates came, built a camp on the shore, and recruited people as soldiers. They wanted everyone.
Anyway, since we don’t have enough to eat, we might as well join the pirates. Amakasouemon came to Dago with this idea in mind, but the sight in front of him shocked him.
Roaring machinery, snow-white buildings, neat roads, and groups of soldiers with short hair in strange uniforms, each carrying an iron cannon with a gleaming short sword stuck on it. Could it be the legendary Bishamon? Heavenly soldiers led by Tentong. However, his brain no longer allowed him to think about it any more. With a bang, Amakasouemon, who had not eaten for a day, fainted.
After spending two months of purification in the quarantine camp, eleven-year-old Akashaemon was sent to Kaohsiung National School.
During the entire period of Operation Engine, Kaohsiung received 40,000 refugees, including a large number of school-age children. Although the sign of "Kaohsiung National School" was hung up, the team was not established at all. At the beginning, there was only one veteran teacher, Xiang Tianying, who was naturalized. There were not many civilian teachers, so Xiang Tianying had no choice but to persuade Wei Bachi to send naturalized civilians from various departments who were not on duty to teach instead. It was enough to educate children about literacy. Even so, Wei Bachi was still very dissatisfied and even complained that the national school occupied too many manpower.
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
The second volume is a separate independent story. The main line is the work and life prospects of several elders in Taiwan, including part of the plot of developing Taiwan. The timeline is independent and not a follow-up to the volume of Changning Kingdom. Book friends please pay attention.