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"By the way, you said Lord Edo, I just wanted to write a letter to him. I have something unclear, so I would like to ask for your advice. [Read the full text]"
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 power at this time:
"Should I be called 'Japanese Maharaja' or 'Japanese King'?"
"Ever since Lord Hideyoshi received the seal of the King of Japan, everyone in our country has 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. So Yoshitomo, the family elder Yanagawa Tomonaga, and the monk Xuansu forged a document. He obtained a certificate of credence, and also captured a few criminals, rendered them mute, and sent them over. The North Koreans knew that the other party was lying, but they still sent a "response and return mission". Bilateral relations were restored, but one lie had to be covered up by thousands of lies.
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 North Korea's credentials. Tokugawa did not know that North Korea was replying with credentials. , so another copy was sent back 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 inherited 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 authentic 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, the three East Asian countries at that time did not struggle in this regard. During Wanli's aid to Korea, China and Japan also had similar incidents of fake envoys and credentials. At that time, there was little information available, and the spread of information between countries was very slow. There are very few talented people who speak foreign languages. 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 many PDFs of tampered credentials from electronic libraries in Japan and South Korea. In this time and space, Yanagawa had not reported anything... The two envoys were already sweating with shock.
Although both Longboat 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 the same as 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 is almost the personification of Japanese family politics. He inherited the scheming and cautiousness of the Tokugawa family, the stubbornness and conservatism of the maternal Asai family, and the domineering and decisiveness of his maternal ancestors, the Oda family... In short, he was a powerful figure who could make the world's famous people tremble and die. The "arbitrary politics" of the Tokugawa family developed to its highest peak in his hands, and not only added many samurai laws. It is even more ruthless in its execution. Many famous names during the Warring States Period were tragically changed due to various "violations" in his hands. No one dared to challenge the authority of the shogunate, whether they were relatives, descendants, or outsiders.
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. He has gradually revealed his strongman character.
The difference between the two sides is this. For the Fuzhong clan, a shogun was a being who could decide the life and death of himself, his family, and even his lord with just one sentence. However, from the perspective of the Rinaka clan, Iemitsu was 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: Longship and Zhuwu are directly related people, not to mention the general or the lord. Even family elders like Yanagawa and Susana can't afford to offend him. Not only would it be a shame to die, but his integrity and loyalty would also be shattered to pieces - once the incident comes out, the feudal lord may not be able to escape. Most of the important officials in the domain involved committed seppuku. At that time, the Nagasaki family will become a sinner of the Fuzhong Domain. Even if they are lucky enough to survive, they will be hunted down by everyone in the family.
For the current plan, the only way is to measure the price to pay. The opponent showed his trump card and obviously did not want Fuzhong Domain to change.
Yan Qilang leaned over and said, "Please let me know clearly!"
"I, the Song Dynasty, only make friends with loyal and righteous people.
The position can be worthy of the word loyalty. "Seeing that the two envoys were sweating like rain and their bodies were like chaff, Ping Qiusheng threw down the life-saving straw he had prepared.
"We will be loyal from generation to generation"
"Since I am a loyal 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 to try to establish trade relations with Edo.
2. Jeju and Tsushima open 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;
3. The two sides set up consulates for each other to negotiate tariffs and trade quotas for both sides. Tsuima feudal lord sent a concubine to preside over the consulate on Jeju Island, which was equivalent to a hostage. The business is handled by Takeya. Australia and Song can set up a trade consulate in Tsushima and dispatch a number of specialized personnel to Takeya in Nagasaki. This is mainly for the Intelligence Department.
The annex to the treaty imposes 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, there are very few things that Japan can export at the moment: mainly Japanese swords, fans, gold, silver, copper, tawamono (dried seafood and silk fabrics). Anyway, besides Japanese swords, these things are all useful to the Senate. , at least it can be used for re-export. In order to increase Japan's exports, it was also pointed out that Japan can sell timber - but for an island domain like Fuchu Domain that has no forests of its own, there may not be much profit in logging, transporting and re-exporting from the main island.
Takeya was shocked after seeing the samples of goods displayed by Taira Akimori - forty years ago, the Kaiko businessman Naya Sukezaemon was the same Luzon Sukezaemon who later brought Murasaki Shuji to Nanyang, from Quanzhou A batch of blue and white porcelain was smuggled and presented to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and some were fabricated 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 sold "Luzon tea bowls" with Rikyu layman, and made a lot of money in the world. After Hideyoshi died, he had no choice but to flee to Cambodia. Nowadays, Australians not only have high-quality blue and white porcelain, but also jade-like bone china and various crystal-like glassware. The prices are not expensive according to Japanese eyesight. If you resell it, it will be ten times or a hundred times the profit!
In particular, the full set of glass and porcelain tea sets 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 and space. Of course, the weird shapes and colors used in Japanese tea ceremonies are also indispensable.
As for bulk consumer goods, there were cloths of various textures, which were also the main imported goods of Japan at that time. The shogunate at that time stipulated that the common people could only wear cotton and linen products, and the cotton from the main island of Japan: neither kapok nor straw cotton was enough for use. Therefore, cotton cloth is imported from Ming Dynasty and North Korea every year. In particular, North Korea's kapok cloth was 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 cloth 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. Therefore, the Japanese can provide them with whatever they want, and the price-performance ratio is much higher than that of Korean products.
As for the various other samples of goods: especially small hardware and machine-made agricultural tools, the Zong family is dizzy - although these things are not of high value, they have always been popular items on the market, and they can sell as many as they have. Not to mention that the iron quality of these products provided by Australians 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, Murasaki Chuan Xiuji 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 were welcomed: folding fans and screens were very popular with Ping Qiming for their unique Japanese aesthetic taste, and they could be sent to Lingao as gifts to the elders. There is also Japan’s specialty silk fabric: 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 Qiucheng were obviously carefully selected and quite valuable: a good tachi and a wakizashi - although they were "new swords", they were also made by famous smelting masters and were worthy of their reputation. Called valuable. Two pieces of velvet, ten pieces of small gold coins, 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 something that people can use.
ps: Note: The so-called new knives refer to knives made after 1600 - of course only those made by famous smelters.
