The two major copper mountains in Kanto are not far from each other, and the water system in Kanto is developed, so transportation after mining is very convenient. If this was in the Ming Dynasty or southern Xinjiang, then Gao Pragmatic would definitely have ordered the mining of copper mines without hesitation, and in Edo or
Mints were established in nearby areas, influencing the entire Japan through financial means.
But Japan is not the Ming Dynasty, nor is it Southern Xinjiang. Even if no one underestimates the strength of the Maritime Trade Alliance, except for daimyo like the Matsuura family who rely on one trading port to survive, and "ambitious" people like the Shimadzu family, they have other plans.
In addition to the daimyo, other daimyo did not dare to regard Toyotomi Hideyoshi as nothing and leave gold, silver, copper and other precious metal mines to outsiders for development.
You should know that Toyotomi Hideyoshi followed the habits of the Oda family and always attached great importance to money. Even a powerful lord like the Mori family had to hand over a large portion of the output of the Iwami silver mine to Hideyoshi after surrendering. Regardless of this
Date Masamune, Satake Yoshitaka at that time, or Uesugi Kagekatsu in the future, probably would not dare to embezzle minerals.
As for the future Tokugawa Yorifou, there is no need to mention it. In view of the weak branches of the Muromachi shogunate, which led to the weakness of the center and chaos in the world, the Tokugawa shogunate continued to strengthen centralization of power from the beginning of Ieyasu's establishment. Specific to the management of mining.
Extremely strict and always firmly in his own hands.
Unless the Tokugawa shogunate could not be established at all, Gao Pragmatic would have no chance of obtaining the mining rights of Copper Mountain in the territory of one of the three imperial families.
The output of these major copper mountains in Japan was quite high at that time. For example, the annual output of Ashio Copper Mountain reached 1,200 tons, which is 2.4 million jins. What is the concept of this? It means that if all of them are used to make copper coins, at least 3
More than 100 million pieces. Even if we use the ratio in Ming Dynasty, that is, 1,000 Wen is equivalent to one tael of silver, then this is still the value of 300,000 taels of silver.
But this is just a proportional conversion. In fact, if 300 million copper coins were in Gao Pragmatic's hands and used in Japan, their value would not be comparable to a mere 300,000 taels. This power, which is equivalent to the "currency issuance power" plus
Jinghua’s sufficient production capacity allows Gao Pragmatic to gain the ability to influence Japanese prices at any time!
Controlling commodity prices through currency issuance means that Gao Pragmatism can plunder all kinds of wealth produced by the Japanese at will - as long as he is willing and does not mind the consequences.
By the way, Ming Dynasty's current money shortage can basically only be solved by relying on external silver, but the shortage of copper coins can actually be solved through internal development.
For example, the famous Yunnan Copper, which is the copper mine produced in Yunnan, is currently mined in the Ming Dynasty only a few hundred thousand kilograms per year. However, after the large-scale development of Yunnan Copper during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the output of Yunnan Copper reached one thousand tons per year during the Qianlong period.
With more than 10,000,000 kilograms, its output accounts for 95% of the country's total, which is almost like "the whole country relies on Yunnan copper to mint money."
However, Gao Pragmatic has always adhered to the attitude of not digging if possible, and tried to find solutions from places other than the Ming Dynasty, so he has not proposed it so far.
The development of Yunnan Copper.
Although he has some plans for the future of Japan, he is not very sure whether the Japanese strategy can achieve long-term success, so he is more interested in digging Japan's various minerals.
The Besshi Copper Mine is located on the Seto Inland Sea in Shikoku Island. Not far away across the sea is Osaka Castle, which is equivalent to being right under the nose of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Moreover, the local situation is currently very stable, and Kato Yoshiaki is Hideyoshi's.
Hardcore, so this Copper Mountain must be difficult to get at the moment.
Date Masamune's Ashio Copper Mountain will soon change its lord, and it is relatively far from the sea, which is very unfavorable for the Sea Trade Alliance to exert its deterrent effect, so it has to be temporarily excluded. Looking at it this way, Satake is still the one
Our Hitachi Copper Mine is a little easier to handle.
To be honest, although Japan's three major copper mountains were once very prominent in the original history and became the starting point of several major chaebols, in fact, in terms of reserves and total output before the final closure, they are not as big as those of China's major conglomerates.
Compared with the copper capital, they are not that big.
For example, Besshi Copper Mountain, the largest, produced a total of 700,000 tons of copper in 280 years. Hitachi Copper Mountain, which currently interests Gao Pragmatic, later Japan estimated that it produced a total of 440,000 tons of copper before the mountain was closed.
tons of copper.
However, China only talks about one Dexing copper mine in Jiangxi, which has proven copper reserves of up to 10 million tons (and it is an open-pit mine), not to mention the Yunnan copper that has been mined for who knows how many years, and the name tells you that there is a lot of copper.
"Tongling" and other places.
But it doesn’t matter, because it’s not yet the seventeenth century. With Gao Shi’s current development capabilities and demand, Japan’s Tongshan can solve many of his problems. What’s more, even if Japan is really difficult to deal with, he has the
There are also backup copper mines in Xieng Khouang Huishan and Champasak Copper Mine in Nanzhang State that can be substituted. If there is a long-term plan, the Luzon Islands are also available.
However, from a certain emotional point of view, he is still more willing to dig the mines in Japan first.
Hitachi Copper Mountain, located within the Satake family territory, for the current Gao Pragmatism, the biggest advantage is that it is close enough to the sea - this place is located in Hitachi City in later generations, and the city is originally a coastal city.
But the problem is not without problems. The biggest problem is that there is no port at this place. Later until the 21st century, Hitachi Port in Hitachi City was never fully completed. There were only three jetties. It was planned to have a total of 16 berths, but only 13 were built.
The number of berths is already very limited. What is even worse is that there are only 4 berths above 10,000 tons, and 6 berths of 7,500 tons. As for the rest, whether they are built or to be built, they are only 1,000 tons.
A small berth with a ton capacity.
The reason for this phenomenon is that the water depth in the port area is not enough. The deepest berthing area is only 10 meters, while the others are about 7 meters, and many are even only 4-5 meters.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Although Gao Pragmatic is not sure why Japan in the 21st century did not choose to dig out the Shenzhen-Hong Kong area, but anyway, he does not have the ability now, so he can only discuss the matter, knowing that this place is not very suitable.
Build a great port.
The failure to build a large port means that Jinghua or the Maritime Trade Alliance cannot form a strong force to stay here for a long time. In other words, once the copper mine is mined, even with Jinghua's strength, it will be difficult to ensure the security of this place for a long time.
Unless... before that, the Maritime Trade Alliance had obtained a large port in the Kanto region as a base.
Gao pragmatic stopped and faced Shichahai to think.
It doesn't seem impossible. For example, the Hojo clan is now facing a crusade, and I have already decided to provide a certain degree of secret support to the Hojo clan in order to prolong Hideyoshi's stay in Kanto longer and waste more of his money and food.
Because the Hojo clan is the overlord of Kanto, it was previously the main trading partner of the Sea Trade Alliance in the Kanto region (previously, Kyoka did not participate in Japan's internal struggle for hegemony and only did business), and now it accepts the "goodwill" of the Sea Trade Alliance's secret support, then if
The Maritime Trade Alliance proposed to rent a port within the Hojo clan's territory, and the Hojo clan in crisis would not refuse.
As for the demise of Hojo after the Battle of Odawara, Hideyoshi transferred Tokugawa Ieyasu over...
Judging from Ieyasu's nickname of "tanuki", he would not be stupid enough to choose to offend the Sea Trade Alliance when his own foothold was not stable and Hideyoshi was still encircling and guarding him.
Gao Pragmatic's previous judgment that the Tokugawa family would not allow him to mine in Kanto was based on the Tokugawa family establishing the shogunate after the Sekigahara War. But before that, he was not worried that Ieyasu would do anything he was not sure about.
thing.
The only trouble was Hideyoshi, who understood the value of the seaport, otherwise he would not have built Osaka Castle near the sea, let alone used Ningbo as his future residence in his great plan to conquer the Ming Dynasty.
Tokugawa Ieyasu received a port where the Maritime Trade Alliance could dock at will, which may make Hideyoshi worried that Ieyasu would have strong financial resources and would strongly oppose it.
However, based on Ieyasu's wisdom, if this port was leased to the Maritime Trade Alliance before the collapse of the Hojo family, then he would probably seize this point and express to Hideyoshi that he just could not break his trust in front of the Ming people and thereby lose Japan's face.
This is a face-saving statement, and Hideyoshi may not agree with it. However, the victory of the Odawara Battle means that Hideyoshi's unification of Japan is a foregone conclusion. After that, Hideyoshi's airs became bigger and bigger, and he became more and more interested in showing his honor.
things become more important.
Ieyasu will probably take advantage of this and get Hideyoshi to admit or at least acquiesce that the Maritime Trade Alliance has a port because of the Hojo clan's promise.
To take a step back, even if Hideyoshi is still dissatisfied, he should consider the strength of the Sea Trade Alliance itself and its ability to influence the situation in Japan - just as he hopes that the Sea Trade Alliance's headquarters in Japan will be located in Osaka instead of Satsuma.
After the Kanhe trade was interrupted by the Ningbo incident, Japan wanted to trade with the Ming Dynasty but was unable to do so, leading to Japan's money shortage. Later, Gao Gong opened the sea, and Gao Pragmatic's fleet soon came over and formed a sea trade alliance. The scale of trade between the two sides gradually expanded, and Hideyoshi
He also made great profits from it through various pursuits he set up.
This is still the most direct. In fact, due to the Sea Trade Alliance doing business all over Japan, many trading ports in Japan have become more prosperous, and various daimyo can gain a lot of benefits from them. In the words of later generations, it is probably "
It has greatly promoted the commercial prosperity of major cities and castle towns in Japan."
Therefore, Gao pragmatically judged that if the Maritime Trade Alliance really rented the Hojo family's land to build a port, Hideyoshi would have no choice but to accept it after the Battle of Odawara. Of course, considering that Hideyoshi is extremely utilitarian in doing things, he may ask Maritime Trade
The alliance provides an additional tax.
Gao pragmatically thought that this would work, as he could use this incident to test Hideyoshi's views and attitude towards the Sea Trade Alliance.
After thinking about this, she turned around and looked at Huang Zhiting. She had already finished talking about what she had said before and was looking at the winter scenery of Shichahai.
"I was distracted just now. Sorry." Gao Pingshi saw that it was already night and although it had not snowed today, the temperature under the snow was still not high, so he asked: "Is it cold? Do you want to go back inside?"
"Based on the experience last time, I'm wearing much warmer clothes this time. It's not cold yet." Huang Zhiting turned her head and asked, "I saw you were thinking so much that I didn't bother you...what are you thinking about?"
Gao Pragmatic didn't hide anything, he just covered up why he knew there was a copper mountain somewhere in Japan. He had already done this enough, and Huang Zhiting didn't care.
After listening to what he said, Huang Zhiting frowned slightly and said: "Before Ms. Liu left, I specifically discussed the situation in Japan with her. There is one thing that I find strange."
"Which point?" Gao Jingshi knew that Huang Zhiting didn't really care about Japan. The reason why she cared about Japan was just because she cared about it. She would always change her goals according to her husband's goals.
"The situation in Japan has changed a lot in the past few years. If I had intervened a few years ago, maybe there wouldn't be so many problems now. But I didn't intervene in the past few years, but now I am pouring my energy into it. Why?
?Is it just because I was busy in the past few years?"
This is indeed very reasonable. The situation in Japan changed drastically after the Honnoji Incident in 1582. Oda Nobunaga had gained advantages on all fronts, and was suddenly betrayed by Akechi when he was only one step away from the "people of the world".
Mitsuhide was besieged at Honnoji Temple. After a fierce battle, he realized that he was inevitable and committed suicide in the temple.
At that time, Oda Nobunaga's prestige and power were at the height of his power, and he controlled the richest half of Japan centered on Kyoto. The surrounding separatist forces, even Mori, Uesugi, Hojo, etc., were far incomparable in scale.
For Nobunaga at this time, it was only a matter of time before he could reunify Japan and create a new form of central power that was different from the previous imperial court or shogunate. In the previous few years, he had already started to create several regional governments.
The large army was ready to attack in all directions to mop up the remaining princes who refused to obey.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! But the incident at Honnoji Temple broke out, and all this became a dream. When this shocking incident occurred, Hashiba Hideyoshi was surrounding Bitchu Takamatsu Castle where Shimizu Soji was located, and
Maori army battle.
Due to some strange combination of circumstances, the messenger Mitsuhide sent to the Maori army went to the wrong camp. As a result, Hideyoshi received the bad news from Nobunaga on June 3 of that year and hurriedly sued for peace with the Maori.
Three days later, after seeing Maori's withdrawal, Hideyoshi also led his troops back and arrived at Settsu on the 12th. There he met the local generals Nakagawa Kiyohide, Takayama Ukon, Ikeda Tsuneki and others, and met Oda Nobutaka in Sakai.
Niwa Nagahide and others joined forces and marched to Kyoto. On the 13th, they defeated Mitsuhide in the Battle of Yamazaki, achieving the first victory in the rebellion.
After that, he gave full play to his strengths and mobilized all parties to fight against the famous fierce general Shibata Katsuie of the Oda family. He first defeated Shibata at the Qingzhou Conference. The following year, around March of the 11th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, he won the "Bay Yuehe" in one fell swoop.
Defeated Shibata Katsuie in the "Battle", and then captured Shojo Castle, where he lived in the north of the city.
As a result, Shibata Katsuie committed seppuku and his wife Aichi also died. After Nobunaga's death, most of the Oda power fell into the hands of Hideyoshi.
What Huang Zhiting wanted to express was very clear to Gao Jingshi. She believed that based on her husband's grasp of timing, the period after Nobunaga's death was probably the most critical time. Even though Gao Jingshi was very busy at the time, Jinghua was fully capable.
Intervene in Japan to a certain extent.
Whether it is supporting Shibata Katsuie as Hideyoshi's opponent to form a tug-of-war with him, or supporting the Mori family to take advantage of the situation, or even supporting Tokugawa Ieyasu in the subsequent Battle of Komaki Nagakute to severely attack Hideyoshi, etc., it seems that everything can be done
Hideyoshi could not become a "people of the world".
Kyoka doesn't even have to send a single soldier. As long as it provides money or weapons to the target force, it seems to have a good chance. For example, for Shibata, Mori can support grain and grass, and for Tokugawa Ieyasu, it can support muskets. These are extremely important.
Actions that have the potential to change the situation.
Even in Huang Zhiting's view, it is not a bad idea to support Hideyoshi in turn, because as long as Hideyoshi feels the power of Jinghua, judging from his style, he will not forget to share the benefits of Jinghua afterwards.
However, at that time, Gao Pragmatic chose not to interfere at all in the situation in Japan and only focused on doing business. This was very suspicious and did not look like his usual style.
It was difficult for Gao Pragmatic to explain that he wanted to see Japan send troops to Korea and bleed its own blood for the purpose of training troops for the Ming Dynasty. He could only explain: "Trade with Japan was still in its infancy at that time, and Annan was settled. I was still considering it."
Burma and other places. Compared with Japan, southern Xinjiang was my first target at that time, so I was not willing to get involved in Japan's affairs at that time."
Although Huang Zhiting was a little confused, she accepted the explanation, but she asked again: "But it's too late to intervene now. The first target of the intervention is the Shimazu family, but I don't understand it either."
.”
She paused, frowned and said: "Isn't it good to choose Hojo or even Mori? According to what I asked Miss Liu today, the strength of these two companies is far superior to Shimadzu."
----------
Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward support and monthly ticket support, thank you!
PS: I fell asleep while typing last night. When I woke up, it was already 4:30 in the morning. I looked at the 2500 words I had coded before, and then I finished coding at this point... It’s really embarrassing. This chapter was from yesterday, and today
I try to update as early as possible because my biological clock seems to get messed up when I go on holiday.