"By the way, you said Lord Edo, I just wanted to write a letter to him. I have something unclear, so please enlighten me."
Seeing that the other party began to lighten the atmosphere, the two envoys breathed a sigh of relief, but the sinister flow always exerts its force at this time:
“Should I be called ‘Japanese Maharaja’ or ‘Japanese King’?”
"Ever since Lord Hideyoshi received the seal of the King of Japan, people all over our country have called him the Great King."
"Okay." Ping Qiusheng took out a folder, "Look, the certificate of credence of Duke Hidetada bears the seal of 'King of Japan'."
When Japan and Korea were negotiating peace in 1607, Tsushima was entrusted by Tokugawa Ieyasu to request Korea to send envoys. The Korean side asked Japan to submit credentials to extradite the criminals who destroyed the royal tomb. Soyoshi, family elder Yanagawa Tomonaga, and monk Xuansu forged a document.
They also captured a few criminals and made them mute and sent them over. The North Koreans knew that the other party was lying, but they still sent a "reply and return mission". Bilateral relations were restored, but one lie requires thousands of lies.
Lies cover up.
Since the shogunate did not actually submit the credentials, the North Korean side responded with a letter of credence and put Zong Yiji on the fire. So the trio of the Zong family tampered with the North Korean credentials. Tokugawa did not know that North Korea was replying with the credentials.
, so another copy was returned to North Korea, and the Zong family trio tampered with this one... So back and forth, the Zong family trio tampered with more than a dozen copies of the credentials, until all of them died of illness, and their descendants continued to inherit the glorious tradition of their ancestors.
He continued to tamper with the cause until 1634 when Yanagawa stirred up trouble and reported the matter. In the end, Shogun Iemitsu spared the clan again and exiled the Yanagawa clan after repeated weighings. After that, the credential seen by the rulers of the two countries was the original one.
This incident is the famous "Yanagawa incident" in the history of East Asian diplomacy. This kind of thing that seems unbelievable in modern times was not uncommon in East Asia at that time. For the sake of "face", "legitimacy", and "national character" issues, East Asia at that time
The three countries have never been troubled in this regard. During the Wanli period of aid to Korea, China and Japan also had similar incidents of fake envoys and fake credentials. At that time, the information was blocked, and the speed of information transmission between countries was very slow. People who spoke foreign languages
There are few talents, and even those in high positions have to rely on a very small number of people to communicate, leaving a lot of room for fraud.
Before D-Day, Yu Eshui had specially collected a lot of tampered PDFs of credentials from electronic libraries in Japan and South Korea. In this time and space, Yanagawa had not reported anything yet... The two envoys were already sweating with shock.
Although both Longchuan and Zhuwu had heard rumors about it at the wine table, they had not verified it. Now this group of people from Australia and Song Dynasty with unknown origins actually threw something exactly like the original on the table.
In fact, both sides were thinking of the same person at this time - the third generation general Tokugawa Iemitsu.
Tokugawa Iemitsu was born with the name "Takechiyo" - this is the hereditary nickname of the eldest son of the Tokugawa family. Before Ieyasu's death, he specially arranged for the second-generation general Hidetada to abdicate and let Iemitsu succeed the third-generation general. This shows that
The Imperial Palace's ardent expectations for Iemitsu.
And Iemitsu lived up to his grandfather's expectations. He was almost the personification of Japanese family politics. He inherited the scheming and caution of the Tokugawa family, the stubbornness and conservatism of his maternal Asai family, and the domineering attitude of his maternal grandfather, the Oda family.
And decisive... In short, he is a powerful figure who can make the world's famous people tremble and die. The "arbitrary politics" of the Tokugawa family has developed to its highest peak in his hands. Not only has he added many samurai laws, but he is also ruthless in enforcing them.
Many famous daimyo during the Warring States Period were brutally changed in his hands due to various "violations". No matter whether they were close lords, descendants or outsiders, no one dared to challenge the authority of the shogunate.
At this time, Tokugawa Iemitsu did not have such a strong reputation as he later did. However, since the death of Tokugawa Hidetada, the second generation of the Imperial Palace, in January 1632, Iemitsu officially took charge of the government and took over the power, gradually showing his true character as a strongman.
The difference between the two sides is that on the Fuchu clan side, the Shogun is a being who can decide the life and death of himself, his family and even the lord with one sentence, while on the Ringao side, Iemitsu is nothing more than the one with a more stable rule among several opponents, at most.
It's just a matter of how to make it submit at the minimum cost.
Nagafune Genshichirobei and Takeya only flipped through a few pages of the document before they started sweating like rain. Since this group of guys called Australians could get the rubbings or something of the criminal evidence from that year, they would naturally have a way to get it in front of the general.
.This is going to kill me: Nagafune and Takeya are the people directly related, not to mention the general or the lord, even Yanagawa, Susana and other family elders can't afford to offend them. Not only death is not a pity, but even the integrity and loyalty will be shattered.
——Once the incident comes out, I am afraid that the feudal clan will not be able to escape. The important officials in the clan involved will most likely commit seppuku. At that time, the Nagabune family will become a sinner of the Fuchu clan. Even if he is lucky enough to survive, he will still be chased.
Kill all the people.
For the current plan, the only way is to weigh the price to pay. The opponent's trump card is obviously not to change the Fuzhong Domain.
Yan Qilang leaned over and said, "Please let me know clearly!"
"I, the Song Dynasty, only make friends with loyal and righteous people. You two are worthy of the word loyalty and righteousness." Seeing the two envoys sweating like rain, Ping Qiusheng threw down the life-saving straw he had prepared.
"We will be loyal from generation to generation"
"Since I am a loyal and righteous person, I, Da'ao Song, would like to make a three-part agreement with your family..."
The next step is to discuss the trade agreement. There are three main provisions in the trade agreement:
1. Tsushima followed the example of Japan and Korea and professed vassalage to the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty granted the Zong family the title of deputy envoy to Tsushima. At the same time, the Zong family was appointed to be responsible for the communication between Lingao and the Edo shogunate, and tried to establish trade relations with Edo.
2. Jeju and Tsushima open their ports to each other, and merchant ships from both sides can enter and exit freely with their seals, and enjoy the most preferential treatment from each other;
Third, the two sides set up consuls for each other to negotiate tariffs and trade quotas for both sides. The Tsuima feudal lord sent a concubine to preside over the consulate on Jeju Island, which was equivalent to a hostage. The business was handled by Bamboo House. Australia and Song Dynasty could set up a trade consulate in Tsushima and at the same time in Changchun.
Saki's Bamboo House dispatched a number of specialized personnel, mainly for the Intelligence Department.
The annex to the treaty has very few restrictions on the types of exports from Japan: except for the ban on the shipment of Japanese knives, all other goods are allowed. Generally speaking, Japan can export very few things at the moment: mainly Japanese knives, fans, gold, silver, copper,
Pottery (dried seafood) and silk fabrics. Anyway, in addition to Japanese swords, these things are useful to the Senate, and they can at least be used for re-export. In order to increase Japan's exports, it was also specifically pointed out that Japan can sell wood - but
For an island feudal clan like the Fuchu Domain, which has no forests of its own, there may not be much profit from logging, transporting and exporting from the main island.
Takeya was shocked when he saw the samples of goods displayed by Taira Akimori - forty years ago, the Kaiko merchant Naya Sukezaemon was the same Luzon Sukezaemon who later brought Murasaki Shuji to Nanyang, from Quanzhou
He smuggled a batch of blue and white porcelain as a gift to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and fabricated it as Luzon porcelain. Toyotomi Hideyoshi had never seen such good utensils, and rewarded him with more than 100,000 koku in one breath. Then he and Rikyu layman sold "Luzon porcelain"
"Song Tea Bowl" made him famous all over the world. After Hideyoshi died, he had to flee to Cambodia. Now Australians not only have high-quality blue and white porcelain, but also jade-like bone china and various crystal-like glasses.
The price is not too expensive according to Japanese eyes. If you resell it, you will get ten times or a hundred times the profit!
Especially the complete set of glass and porcelain tea sets, which are subdivided into Ming style and Australian and Song Dynasty styles - the so-called Australian and Song style refers to British black tea tea sets and oolong tea tea sets from the old time. Of course, the strange shapes and colors used in Japanese tea ceremonies are also indispensable.
of.
As for bulk consumer goods, there were cloths of various textures, which were also Japan's main imported commodities at that time. The shogunate at that time stipulated that common people could only wear cotton and linen products, and the cotton from the main island of Japan, whether it was kapok or straw cotton, was not enough.
Therefore, cotton cloth must be imported from the Ming Dynasty and North Korea every year. Especially the kapok cloth from North Korea is a bulk commodity in Japan-North Korea trade.
Although the Senate has not yet set up a cotton spinning mill, the East India Company shipped a large amount of cheap cotton from India. Songjiang Prefecture in the Ming Dynasty was also the place where clothes and quilts were everywhere, and Hainan and Guangdong were traditional kapok producing areas, and the amount of home-woven cotton cloth was also very large.
Considerable. So the Japanese can provide them with whatever they want, and the price-performance ratio is much better than Korean products.
As for the various other goods samples: especially small hardware and machine-made agricultural tools, the Zong family is dizzy - although these things are not high in value, they have always been popular items on the market, and how many can be sold. Not to mention the Australians.
The iron quality of these products provided is very good at first glance.
The samples from Australia and Song Dynasty were packed in dozens of boxes, which made the Tsushima envoy feel ashamed of his gift: most of the 200 Japanese knives sent were used to pack ordinary goods for Japanese pirates - that is, they were exported to the Ming Dynasty for three taels of silver each.
That kind of thing. According to Taira Akiumori's instructions, Murasakikawa Hideji first rebuked the other party's unreasonable gifts, then tied his right arm with gauze and held a light sword as thin as willow leaves in his left hand and cut off several of them on the spot.
On the contrary, art works full of Japanese characteristics have been welcomed: folding fans and screens are very popular with Ping Qiming for their unique Japanese aesthetic taste, and they can be sent to Lingao as gifts to the elders. There are also Japanese specialties.
Silk fabrics: velvet. This was Japan's main export silk fabric and was very popular with Europeans at the time - but Japan imported a large amount of raw silk from China mainly to manufacture silk fabrics for export.
The gifts given to Ping Qiu Sheng were obviously carefully selected and quite valuable: a good tachi and a wakizashi - although they were "new swords", they were also made by a famous smelting master and were worthy of the sword.
It is said to be valuable. Two pieces of velvet, ten pieces of small gold medals, and fifty pieces of silver.
Ping Qiusheng then showed a smile: Although all gifts must be handed over to the Planning Institute, this generous gift fully reflects Taima's "respect" for himself - flattery is always useful.
ps: Note: The so-called new knives refer to knives made after 1600 - of course only those made by famous smelters.