All of Endo Moranobu's considerations about how to negotiate disappeared after this bombardment display.
Don't think about what is there and what is not. Returning to the back house of Murataya's shop, Endo Moritsu instructed Ishinomaki, who would come later, to negotiate immediately!
Denzo Katsuyama, the boss of Katsuyama Shuzo, was appointed as the secret envoy for negotiations, responsible for the contact with the Thor on the surface, while Endo Morinobu secretly controlled the ship.
The person who delivered the letter to Aoba Castle was dispatched in the evening. In addition to a detailed description of the bombardment scene of the Thor, Endo Morinobu also requested Aoba Castle to send Katayama Kanbei, who was in custody, to Ishiba overnight.
Volume port.
After a discussion with Ishinomaki Port, it was finally decided that Murataya and Katsuyama Shuzo would jointly advance the compensation requested by the Thor, and then the feudal clan would make the compensation privately.
The two unlucky business owners agreed with a sad face. It is said that lending money to daimyo these days is basically like a meat bun beating a dog. In the end, the daimyo couldn't pay back the money, and there were many defaulters.
The most awesome (shameless) thing is to reward the creditor with the position of a retainer in the end, which is regarded as paying off the debt.
Because of the Tokugawa family's ginseng transfer, the finances of the island nation's feudal lords are very tight, and more than 70% of their annual income is spent on ginseng transfer. Although the Sendai clan is only eight or nine days away from Edo, the cost should not be high.
Gao, but I can’t stand it and have to put on a show every time.
So early the next morning, after receiving clear instructions from Endo Morinobu, Denzo Katsuyama brought his home-brewed sake; the boss of Murataya took his own sea goods and boarded a five-hundred-koku cargo ship.
Thor.
After the two people expressed their intention to come and met Zhao Xin, they first presented them with a gift list; then they conveyed Endo's conditions of trustworthiness:
The compensation of 15,000 taels of gold was delivered within three days; Katayama Kanbei was already on his way; the two business owners were responsible for the specific handling of the food exchange for refugees, and Sendai Domain officials were not allowed to come forward during the entire process in order to tacitly agree (
Pretending to be invisible), the Katsuyama and Murataya families sent boats to transport the refugees to the outer sea to board the ships and exchange them for rice or wheat.
However, Endo Moranobu suggested that three kilo of rice for every one hundred refugees was too little, and hoped to exchange it for ten kilo of rice or wheat.
After hearing this, Zhao Xin made an estimate in his mind. Before the Thor went through the formalities and sailed to sea, he purchased 5,000 tons of rice as the goods to be declared for customs clearance.
If converted according to the measurement of this era, five thousand tons is 38,000 shi (one stone equals 130 kilograms). Calculated in this way, he can actually obtain a population of 380,000!
This is a bit scary. Without the Sendai Domain to come forward, do the two business owners in front of them have the ability? Of course, they don’t have 380,000, but they can send 100,000.
Based on the current average of three or four people per family, 100,000 people would be 25,000 families, properly arranged from the mouth of the Sila River to the Twin Castles.
It is said that the island country has 100,000 farmers working on the land, and next year, 100,000 Shandong men will work on the land and train troops. This is very beautiful when I think about it~~
Faced with the question raised by Zhao Xin, Denzo Katsuyama and the boss of Murataya agreed that the number of refugees in Sendai Domain alone is no less than 100,000. Many refugees now go to the beach of Mutsu to make a living by fishing for seaweed, not to mention
Now that the weather is getting warmer, more people are going to the sea.
(In real history, the Sendai Domain starved to death between 140 and 150,000 people during the Tianmei Famine, and these were only official statistics, and the actual death toll was far higher.)
Zhao Xin thought about it over and over and decided to agree to the other party's conditions. After all, the farming season waits for no one, and this year he must cultivate 5,000 acres of land in the north of Beihai Town no matter what.
When he thought of the tall and dense primeval forests on both sides of the Xila River, Zhao Xin felt increasingly pressed for time.
Okay, so Zhao Xin proposed that he would come to Ishinomaki Port every ten days and pick up at least 3,000 refugees aboard the ship. He also made a request to the two of them, that is, they would not accept single people and only accept refugees with families and children.
After hearing that Zhao Xin agreed to the terms of ten stone rice's substitution, Katsuyama Denzo's heart moved.
The business of making sake is also difficult to do now. The most important thing is that the price of rice has skyrocketed. When it comes to brewing sake, based on five kilograms of rice, one kilogram of koji rice, four kilograms of cooked rice, and an appropriate amount of water, the final product can be produced
The wine weighs about nine kilograms.
So Katsuyama Denzo tentatively asked if he could buy some rice from Zhao Xin.
Zhao Xin opened his mouth and asked: "How many tons do you want?"
Denzo Katsuyama asked curiously: "Excuse me, sir, what does this ton mean?"
Only then did Zhao Xin react and said: "This is our weight specification, one ton is about 7.7 stone."
The two bosses rolled their eyes, calculated secretly, and asked hesitantly: "Excuse me, how much does one ton cost?"
In normal times during the Edo period, one or two yuan of gold could buy two measures of rice for one stone in Edo Castle. Now the price of rice has skyrocketed and has gone through the roof.
Zhao Xin thought for a while and then understood what the two people in front of him meant. So he smiled and said: "Five taels of gold."
Just kidding, US rice only costs 1,400 per ton shipped to the country; even if the five taels small premium is converted into purified gold, it is still 34 grams. According to the buying price of gold in another time and space, that is ten times the profit. Only fools would not do it.
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"Hiss~~" Katsuyama Denzo took a breath and asked quickly: "How is the quality of the rice?"
"Last year's new rice."
When the two store owners heard the price, they almost fainted with joy. Even if they didn't eat it themselves and sold it all, after counting all the expenses, the profit would be nearly doubled.
The two men immediately privately ordered a total of two hundred tons of rice with Zhao Xin. It was really not much, the total was only one thousand taels of rice, which was a drizzle.
Subsequently, Zhao Xin ordered Sheng Haizhou to formally write down the agreement drawn up by the two parties in duplicate, and the two businessmen brought it to the officials sent by Sendai City and Ishinomaki Port to sign it.
Seeing the embarrassed look on Katsuyama Denzan's face, Zhao Xin smiled and assured that this agreement was a secret agreement and neither party was allowed to disclose it to a third party. Otherwise, the Sendai Domain had the right to regret it.
However, if he does not sign, Zhao Xin immediately changed his face and said with a sneer: "You can do whatever you want."
So, after Endo Morinobu got the agreement and thought hard for a long time, he finally sighed and signed his name on the agreement.
If we don't agree with this and provoke the other party to bombard Sendai City, our family will be completely ruined. Anyway, I won't live for a few more years, so I will bear all the blame.
In the afternoon of that day, Katsuyama Denzo brought to Zhao Xin the secret agreement signed by Endo Moritsu and Ishinomaki Minato, as well as himself and the four bosses of Murataya.
At the same time, he also sent Katayama Kanbei who had been tortured.
After Zhao Xin looked through it, he immediately signed his name.
This agreement was called the "Ishiko Secret Treaty" in later generations of this time and space. As the first secret treaty signed between a local daimyo and a foreign country in the Edo period, it had a major historical impact on the subsequent shogunate rule.
For Beihai Town headed by Zhao Xin, the "Stone Harbor Secret Treaty" determined the outcome of Beihai Town's military invasion of the island country, and at the same time gradually tied the Sendai Domain to Beihai Town's chariot.
With the signing of the secret treaty, starting with the rice trade, in the next ten years, Beihai Town further expanded the dumping of goods and capital exports to the island countries. The island countries accumulated the accumulated wealth from the implementation of mercantilism in Tanuma Yi's second era.
A large amount of wealth was put into the pockets of Beihai Town.
All this laid a solid foundation for Beihai Town to resist the Qing Dynasty's massive offensive in the following years.
(This book will never be finished.)
A few days later, the head of the Date family, Date Shigemura, who was far away in Edo, had just received the first news from the domain messenger, but before he could reach a conclusion with his family elders, the second messenger arrived.
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Date Shigemura was dumbfounded after reading the contents of the secret letter, and other important ministers also looked at each other in astonishment after reading it.
Is this the end? Three hundred warriors of this domain died, and in the end both parties cooperated and exchanged refugees for food? In this case, did you still make a profit?
Look at what they said. If I had known better, I would have fought.
Date Shigemura and several important ministers secretly discussed for a long time, and finally decided to report the incident to the shogunate. However, he did not mention a word about the agreement, only saying that the foreign barbarians' blackmail was fruitless in the end, and left sadly.
Date Shigemura finally wrote in a secret letter to the elders of the Sendai clan that if anyone dared to reveal this to the outside world, his whole family would be given to the barbarians in exchange for rice.
At the same time, Zhao Xin finally raised anchor and set sail with the 3,000 refugees brought by Denzo Katsuyama and the owner of Murataya, as well as the more than 1,000 refugees he had received in Matsushima Town.
This time, Liu Sheng did not sound the whistle again. The Thor slowly disappeared into the sea.
"Ten days, they will come again in ten days." Ishinomaki Minato said standing on the dock. Lord Endo Moribu has returned to Aoba Castle, and this place is finally back in his hands, and he can happily make money.
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"Sir, don't worry. There are at least hundreds of thousands of refugees gathered in this domain now. Even if this domain is not enough, there are still many in Shirakawa domain. Our business is really easy." Denzo Katsuyama comforted him from the side.
Yes, there is rice and food, so I don’t panic. Master Shengxing finally felt comfortable: “Let’s go back and drink.”
Two days later, Beihai Town.
The refugees who were fishing for seaweed at the dock saw the slowly approaching ship on the sea in the distance. They threw the bags in their hands excitedly and ran back to the camp without paying attention to the seaweed.
"Back! Master is back!"
Hong Tao didn't understand the broken Mandarin. He was about to ask again when he heard the whistle coming from the sea.
At this moment, the whole camp suddenly became excited, and everyone began to work nervously.
Over in the big kitchen, Rikichi's wife Shino and Manzo's wife greeted a group of women and started washing rice and preparing to cook porridge.
Chen Qingsong took Wan Zao, Shigesuke and others to check again whether the passage to the isolation camp was secure.
Wu Siyu and Ding Guofeng, along with Pan Xiucheng and others, escorted a dozen Qing prisoners who were about to go out to log wood back to their tents, and Serdan and others were responsible for taking care of them.
Afterwards, Wu Siyu took Pingtai, Jiuzang, Elu and dozens of others to the dock to maintain order when the refugees disembarked.
"Quick! Get ready, Zhao Xin is back!" Hong Tao was about to ask Liu Siting and others to prepare when he saw Liu Siting coming out of the tent with a dozen women from the island country.
These women either went to call for help or went back to their tents to change clothes. Hong Tao and Liu Siting also found a coat made of rough white cloth and put it on.
Director Liu always despised this kind of white cloth coat that looked like a sack and had a belt around the waist, calling it "mourning clothes". He said this was not what a doctor would wear!
Hong Tao comforted her to make do with it for a while. It’s not easy to buy a doctor’s uniform. When Zhao Xin comes back, he will ask him to buy a hundred pieces, and we can wear one and play with each other.
Soon, more than thirty women stood in line wearing simple white coats, and A Miao also wore one and stood at the front. However, the coat was worn on A Miao, like a sack, dangling.
Liu Siting immediately said loudly: "According to what we have practiced these days, we will start preparations immediately. We will disembark and disembark in an hour!"
After A Miao listened, she repeated it loudly in the island dialect.
After hearing this, the women shouted "Yes" in unison. Then they took scissors, brushes, and identification number tags in buckets, and hurried to their respective locations to prepare.
At this time, everyone in the camp, except the elderly and children, began to take their places, preparing to welcome the arrival of new residents.