Shibata Kakuzo and his party of three carefully followed Katsu Kaishu. Riyoshi held the pistol in his jacket pocket and followed slowly.
As Katsu Kaishu opened a door in the cabin and entered first, Shibata Kakuzo and the other three people who were following them suddenly felt their eyes light up. In the cabin of about seven pings (one ping equals 3.3 square meters), the bright
Light shines from the roof, and the three one-foot-sized portholes have gauze curtains drawn on them.
There was a huge rectangular table in the room. Opposite the table sat two tall people with short hair and wearing strange clothes. Both of them had oriental faces, no beards under their cheeks, and they looked very capable.
"Everyone, please take a seat." After Sheng Haizhou finished speaking, he walked to the other side of the table, stood behind the two of them, and continued: "This is my lord Zhao, and the Thunder God is my lord's boat. This is
Mr. Liu is my lord’s deputy.”
Upon hearing this, Shibata Kakuzo and the others quickly bowed to Zhao Xin and Liu Sheng and introduced themselves.
"You three don't have to be formal. Please sit down. Drink some water first." Zhao Xin said with a smile.
After discovering that the "lord" across from him also spoke a strange but very fluent island dialect, Shibata Kakuzo and the others couldn't think of drinking water, and their foreheads were filled with questions.
After sitting down on the chair, Shibata Kakuzo first looked around at the furnishings, then his face sank, and he glared at Zhao Xin and asked: "Why did you bombard Matsushima Town and kill the feudal warriors yesterday?! Why did you come here to block it today?"
My Ishinomaki Port route?!"
"Our time is limited and we don't have time to chat with you." Zhao Xin showed a sneer on his face and said to Sheng Haizhou behind him: "Tell them our conditions!"
"Yes, lord!" After Sheng Haizhou said this, he picked up a piece of paper full of writing on the table.
This was a notification statement that Zhao Xin had written in advance. What he meant was to directly read out the situation and conditions to the other party. If he heard it, he would comply with it. If not, he would just fire as a deterrent. Anyway, it only takes four days at most to get there from Beihai Town.
, the Thor came to visit us when he had nothing to do to see who could bear it.
"You!" Shibata Kakuzo saw the other party's rudeness and became furious. He clenched his fists hidden under the table and wanted to kill the three people opposite him with his knife immediately.
"Hey! Little devil, please be more honest!" Liu Sheng looked at Shibata Kakuzo opposite, raised his hand and picked up a black Marlin 1894 lever rifle. The length of this gun is less than one meter, and the bullet is
The box capacity is nine rounds.
"Asshole!" Shibata Kakuzo saw the other party pointing the black hole of the gun at him, and immediately stood up and slapped the table angrily, and his hand touched the handle of the knife at his waist.
"Master samurai, I advise you not to draw your sword, otherwise you will die ugly." Rikichi, who was standing at the door, took out the pistol in his jacket pocket and said to Kakuzo Shibata.
The business owner and tax collector who accompanied Shibata Kakuzo saw the tense situation between the two sides and quickly stood up to smooth things over: "Shibata-sama, you must not get angry! Have you forgotten to fulfill the purpose of sending you here?"
This is the effect we want! Shibata Kakuzo couldn't help but admire his wit. He chose the right two companions. Who doesn't know how to pretend to be a grandson? The problem is to pretend to be a grandson in a polite and polite manner. This is called wisdom. So.
He put his hands down from his waist with an angry look on his face, snorted and sat back in his seat.
The owner of the shop quickly said to Zhao Xin and Liu Sheng in front of him: "I am the boss of Katsuyama Shuzo, Katsuyama Denzo, and I am the accompanying deputy envoy designated by the Lord. Please don't be offended. There will be a ship for you later.
We present you with the fine wine brewed by me, and please accept it, adults."
(This "Katsuyama Shuzo" is real. It has opened a brewery and shop in Sendai Domain since 1688. It is said that his Junmai Daiginjo is still very famous; don't be too quick to "Dassai"
, that’s a famous brand that only came out in 1990, it’s pure hype.)
"Are you from the Tang Dynasty? Are you from the Qing Dynasty?" The tax official stood up suddenly and asked.
"Yes and no. We are Tang people, but not Qing people. Please remember this." Zhao Xin explained lightly.
After hearing this, the tax officer slowly sat down with a puzzled expression.
Zhao Xin turned to Katsu Kaishu and nodded, Katsu Kaishu bowed and saluted, then looked at the stack of paper in his hand, cleared his throat, and began to read: "First, because the Sendai clan maliciously sent troops to ambush our personnel.
, causing damage to our ships, we require the Sendai Domain to compensate for 10,000 taels of gold."
"What?! Bastard!" Shibata Kakuzo stood up and roared.
The ship was damaged? Your ship is made of iron from top to bottom. What damage did you suffer? Even if you hit it with a big gun, it would probably be just a piece of paint! Besides, leaving aside the ship, nearly three hundred warriors of this domain died in the battle.
, three hundred! These are not radishes scattered all over the floor, you can just pull them out.
Zhao Xin smiled. He waited for Shibata Kakuzo to finish his roar before he said lightly: "How about you start a war?"
"I" Shibata Kakuzo immediately withered. I really wanted to pick up the pot that I didn't want to pick up. The problem is that even my words don't count.
"Second, release Matsushima Town Tongxin and Katayama Kanbei who were captured by you, and return them to us; and pay compensation of five thousand taels of gold."
Shibata Kakuzo was so angry that his whole body began to tremble.
"Third, we must not be prohibited from transporting refugees onto the ship. For every hundred healthy adult refugees, we are willing to exchange for three stones of polished rice, or an equal weight of wheat."
"Huh?" Shibata and the others couldn't help but be stunned.
"Fourth, starting from today, if the Sendai clan, including the Edo shogunate, launches an attack on us, we will blow up Ishinomaki Port, Matsushima Port, and even Sendai Castle until you completely surrender."
"Devil! This is definitely an act of the devil! Buddha and Bodhisattva, please transform into the Angry-Eye King Kong and punish these people!" Shibata Kakuzo was so angry that he clenched his teeth and wanted to pounce on him and kill him.
"Fifth, to demonstrate our determination, our artillery will fire four times into the uninhabited area of the sea in the port at midnight this afternoon to prove it!"
"Clang!" Two voices sounded, and the winery owner Denki Katsuyama and three others brought their chairs to the ground. Shibata Kakuzo suddenly stood up and knocked over the chairs under him; but the tax collector lowered his head in thought.
"Asshole! You can't do this!!" Shibata no longer bothered to pretend to be angry at this time, he shouted anxiously.
Zhao Xin leaned back on the chair, glanced at Liu Sheng with a smile, turned to Shibata Kakuzo and said: "You can let the homeless and beggars die helplessly, why can't we do the same?"
"Those people are all filthy and inhumane. They are all untouchables!" Shibata Kakuzo shouted.
"This samurai master, I am also a pariah." Liji said coldly to Shibata.
"And me!" Huji walked in from the door.
"We all are!" A dozen sailors shouted angrily outside the door of the conference room.
"You, you want to rebel?!" Shibata Kakuzo stared at the crowd pouring in at the door, pointing at Li Ji and others.
Zhao Xin sneered disdainfully: "You can't even support yourself, who has the time to waste time with you? Go back and tell Ishinomaki Port and the people in Sendai City that I will only give you two days. If within two days,
If there is no reply, I will blow up Ishinomaki Port! See you off!"
"What a disaster, what a misfortune!" The acting official of the Ishinomaki Port Government Office almost fainted after hearing the reports from Shibata Kakuzo and the others. He covered his head and lamented in his heart: "Why am I so unlucky?
I've been in Ishinomaki Port for a year and I haven't made much money yet, so disaster is coming!"
After a while, the agent slowly came to his senses and immediately ordered his men to go to Qingye City to report the news. He couldn't handle this matter at all, so he should leave it to the adults in the feudal city to handle it.
"Sir, my subordinate has something to say, and I don't know whether to say it or not?" The tax collector from the tax office had been silent since he came back, and now he suddenly spoke.
"It's already here. If there's anything else you shouldn't say, please say it quickly!"
"Haha. Sir, the person on the boat mentioned the third item."
"Huh?" Fengxing was stunned. He was so angry just now about the compensation and the cannon fire in the afternoon that he didn't even pay attention to the third item.
"Hey~~ You mean, they are going to take the refugees out to sea? Are they planning to exchange them for rice?"
"That's right, they said they would exchange it for polished rice or wheat of equal weight." the tax official said with certainty.
"I heard it very clearly, I mean, that's what they said." Denzo Katsuyama, the owner of the winery, quickly leaned over and added.
Fengxing suddenly calmed down, sat down slowly, and fell into thought.
How much is fifteen thousand taels of gold? It is nothing to the Sendai Domain. Besides, this matter can be discussed. There are so many abalone, sea cucumbers and shark fins in the warehouse, which are all worth a lot of money! This thing is still worth a lot of money.
It’s not about having as much as you want.
That Katayama Kanbei is nothing, just a small sympathy, just give it to them. His wife and children are all on the boat, so there is no use in arresting him alone.
But the matter of rice replacing people is very exciting!
Now the mountains and forests outside the port, along the roads and even inside and outside the towns, are full of landless refugees. Even if these people return to the countryside, they will have no land to farm. This is the burden of this feudal lord. If these people can be exchanged for rice, then
The achievement is too great.
Besides, what would happen if Edo knew about this? Is the shogun going to use his own grain reserves to open a warehouse for relief? What a joke! The rice on the market in Edo is pointed at Sendai Domain and Ishinomaki Port, sir.
Even if they knew about it, they would still pretend to be stupid. They are just a bunch of untouchables. They didn’t expect that they could be exchanged for food.
Thinking of this, Fengxing asked Shibata Kakuzo with a serious face: "Have the people on the ship said where they will bombard in the afternoon?"
"It's said to be the no-man's land on the sea inside the port." Shibata Kakuzo lowered his head and replied.
"Hmm." Fengxing thought for a while and said: "Notify all cargo ships and fishing boats in the port that they are not allowed to go to sea within two days without an order from the government. They will all be parked at the pier. Inform the town that no one is allowed to go to the pier this afternoon.
If you wander around on the street, you will be punished with a fifty-fifty rod and a one-hundred-dollar fine."
"Yes." Everyone left immediately and started to get busy. Some people went to write notices, while others were busy riding horses to inform every household in the town.
Shibata Kakuzo left the official hall without saying a word and stood at the door in a daze. Katsuyama Denzo followed him. Seeing Shibata's appearance, he also guessed something in his heart. To be honest, they had learned from Thor in the morning.
When the ship left, the scene really frightened him.
Speaking of Shibata Kakuzo and the others, after Zhao Xin issued the eviction order, they walked to the deck in disgrace and were about to get off the gangway when Liu Sheng stopped them behind them.
The tax collector could listen and speak some Tang dialect, so he stepped forward and bowed and asked, "What does this gentleman want?"
Liu Sheng said with a smile: "Nothing else, just to open your eyes. Don't think that you can be a samurai with only a sword and only five people and six people."
"You!" The tax collector was furious when he heard this. The katana represents the soul of the samurai. How could he insult him casually?
Liu Sheng signaled to Hu Ji, who was standing beside him. There were seven or eight porcelain bowls at Hu Ji's feet, all taken from the ship's mess hall. Seeing Liu Sheng's signal, he picked up a bowl and threw it toward the sea.
"Bang!" A gunshot sounded, and the porcelain bowl was smashed to pieces.
Torogyoshi continued, throwing all the bowls on the floor one after another.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!" Liu Sheng shot one by one, breaking all the porcelain bowls.
All the sailors on the deck cheered together, except for Shibata Kakuzo, who was ashen-faced and had trembling legs.
Shibata Kakuzo could see clearly that the opponent's iron cannon could actually fire continuously. The man just pulled an iron ring under the gun body, and he could fire continuously and hit the target.
He thought that when he was pretending to be angry in the cabin just now and wanted to draw the sword, the other party used this iron cannon to point at him. If it were all hit on him.
Shibata Kakuzo suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, and was blown by the sea breeze, almost fainting on the deck.