In the twelfth lunar month of the twentieth year of Wanli, when the Ming Dynasty had just appointed a new privy envoy and the new cabinet minister Zhang Wei was ordered to enter North Korea, a Japanese ship from Edo also arrived at Songshan Port in the Dongying Education Zone of the Ming Dynasty.
In addition to carrying 300 young Japanese women and other goods and money, this ship was Masuda Nagamori and his party.
The moment Masuda Nagamori arrived at Songshan, he saw many Ming Navy warships moored throughout Songshan Port.
Most of these warships have masts that tower into the clouds, reaching a height of more than 18 to 20 feet. The ships are even more than two or three feet high, and have more than ten to twenty or thirty cannons.
The red seal boat he was riding on seemed particularly small compared to it.
then.
When Masuda Nagamori took the boat and continued to go deep into the port, he saw that there was a larger warship in the military port next to it, parked in the direction of Shimonoseki (Maguan), and there were thousands of soldiers training on it. There are dozens of knights racing horses on it.
Masuda Nagamori couldn't help but take a breath of cold air, and couldn't help saying to Sakai Keji who came with him:
"The gap between us and the Tang people is too big! Unification of the four countries may be far away!"
Sakai Ieji also looked depressed: "I heard that this is not the headquarters of the Tang Navy, but in Nagasaki! We have seen so many warships of this size in Matsuyama now. I really didn't know that Nagasaki would be What the situation is, and Nagasaki will undoubtedly be more difficult to recover."
"I originally wanted to join the Tang Dynasty, but I didn't expect that I would be joined by the Tang Dynasty instead!"
Masuda Nagamori gritted his teeth and said, and then he continued to look at Matsuyama Port.
Then.
Masuda Nagamori saw the dense population and endless stream of people in Lingang Town, and there were as many shops as stars, so he couldn't help but sighed again and said:
"Today's Shikoku is really prosperous. Even the Songshan Mountains are crowded with commercial ports. In addition, when passing by, I saw many villages with endless fireworks and fields with no weeds and dense canals. Compared with the withered villages, stagnant rivers and ridges that I saw when I came here before, Compared with the desolation of the fields, it is really not so sad.”
"Yes, we in Edo still have many fields that are deserted due to heavy taxes, and the villages are still very sparse. I didn't expect that the Shikoku, occupied by Akito, would be better than Edo."
"Don't Ming people charge heavy taxes?"
Sakai Ieji also felt very complicated.
Masuda Nagamori couldn't help but hold the Japanese sword in his hand, and he had the intention to go and plunder for a day.
Because houses and granaries can be seen everywhere here, and there are people working on the fields. There are also many shops in the town, and the products listed are also dazzling, including luxury goods such as gold, jade, and jewelry.
Especially after seeing many people wearing silk and cotton-padded clothes here, Masuda Nagamori and his samurai felt that even grabbing a few clothes would be a very profitable thing.
To know.
Today's Japanese country has just ended its war.
Honshu was ruled by the Tokugawa clan.
Kyushu and Shikoku, except for the territories of Ryuzoji Temple and Otomo daimyo, as well as Hokkaido, have become Daming enlightenment areas.
Here, Honshu has finally ended the war, so it is still very poor, and productivity has not yet recovered. Not only is there a shortage of silk, but there is also a shortage of cotton.
Therefore, Masuda Nagamori now wants to lead his samurai to grab one.
But Masuda Nagamori, Sakai Ieji and the other samurai in their group held back.
First, he remembered that the task assigned to him by Tokugawa Ieyasu was to show goodwill to Mingguo.
Second, he also knows that the current Ming Dynasty is not easy to mess with. If he really dares to plunder here, it will give the Ming Dynasty a reason to continue to expand in this state.
What's more, these giant warships in front of them and the Ming soldiers on the deck, which are as strong as towers and murderous, are right in front of them, and they will feel fear at the first sight, which makes them have to restrain themselves even more. Be sharp and make your posture more respectful.
That's why.
After they were stopped by a Ming Dynasty Shipping Department patrol boat at the entrance, they still behaved very politely and bowed down to explain that they were not robbers who came to rob, but were tribute envoys who were ordered to go to China to pay tribute to the Ming Emperor.
However, the officers of the Ming Dynasty patrol boat still ordered them to disembark and be interrogated first.
Masuda Changsheng and others also need to complete the survey and cooperation at the Municipal Shipping Division here before they can visit or trade in the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, they still obeyed, handed over their weapons, and climbed onto the ship through the rope thrown by the Ming army.
After boarding the ship, Masuda Nagamori smiled more honestly after seeing the rocket launchers and heavy artillery on the ship. When he saw an officer coming over, he nodded and bowed. After seeing the chief officer, he knelt down directly. down.
Tokugawa Ieyasu told him to treat Ming officials politely, so he tried to make himself as humble as possible, and would kneel down when he saw Ming officials, so as to make Ming officials relax their vigilance towards him, and even go to him. Be your own support.
"You Japanese like to go to the Middle Earth when you have nothing to do. Don't think that I don't know what you are thinking, and you don't want to come back after you go, right?"
Feng Jixu, the customs clearance officer assigned to this patrol ship by the Municipal Shipping Division, did not have a good look towards the Japanese such as Masuda Nagamori. He said this as soon as he saw them, and then patted his green robe official uniform.
Masuda Nagamori replied: "I dare not not come back!"
Feng Jixu just laughed at this, and while looking at the application documents Masuda Nagamori had written long ago, while enjoying the massage from a Japanese woman behind him, he immediately asked: "How long do you plan to go?"
Masuda Nagamori was confused because Tokugawa Ieyasu did not set a time limit for him.
"Our master is asking you something!"
A Japanese slave next to Feng Jixu couldn't stand it. He pointed at Masuda Changsheng with a Japanese fan and shouted sharply, and said to Feng Jixu:
"Master Shengming, I think these people must just want to go and don't want to come back."
"Those who come back will definitely come back. We plan to go there for a year."
Masuda Nagamori replied.
Feng Jixu asked: "So long? Are you going to find out about the reality of my country?"
"Don't dare!"
"We just want to pay homage to His Majesty the Ming Emperor and pay homage to his holy face."
Masuda Nagamori hurriedly replied cautiously.
"Take him down and search him carefully to see if there are any other documents or sharp weapons on him."
Feng Jixu ordered.
As a result, Masuda Nagamori and others were dragged off like prisoners and queued up to undergo more stringent inspections.
Only if they pass the inspection can they be personally interviewed by the Supervisor of the Municipal Shipping Department in the county. After passing the interview, they can be stamped and leave for Nagasaki, and then take a boat to China.
The reason for queuing up is because there are many Japanese who go to the Ming Dynasty Japanese Educational Area and Zhongtu every day, and many of them never come back.
Especially those who speak Chinese well will never come back once they arrive in China. Instead, they will pretend to be Han Chinese and live a Chinese life with no corvee, low business taxes, and high welfare protection. Through such methods, one can obtain household registration, then obtain qualifications for the imperial examination, and then pass the examination to become a scholar or even an official.
Even if you can't speak Chinese well and can only go to the Ming Dynasty as a slave, you will still have a good life.
Therefore, the Ming Dynasty is now particularly strict with foreign barbarians entering the country.
After a rigorous interrogation, Masuda Nagamori and others were finally qualified to go ashore to Songjiang County. This was mainly because he had a political mission and wanted to apply for a title for Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the officials below did not know the emperor's attitude. , naturally it would be difficult to directly stop Masuda Nagamori and others.
As a result, Masuda Nagamori and others finally landed on the shore of Songjiang Port and headed for Songjiang County.
But they still looked down upon him. Even when he came ashore and was accidentally hit by a child who was driving a hoop in the market, he held back and did not kill the child. He even supported the child and squeezed out a little bit of anger. He smiled, and then asked the kid in Chinese where to go to the branch of Shibo Division.
The child showed him the way, and Masuda Nagamori and his party continued to walk to the gate of Songshan County near the Shibo Division.
On the road, Masuda Nagamori continued to look at everything in front of him.
Masuda Nagamori found that the closer to Songshan County, the more densely populated the villages were. There were already many Han people farming here, making the place full of fertile farmland and not many Japanese.
"Will we Japanese have a miserable life here?"
Masuda Nagamori therefore asked.
Sakai Ieji suddenly pointed to an oil mill and said to Masuda Nagamori, "Look! There are us Japanese there!"
Masuda Nagamori looked over and saw many Japanese workers working in the oil mill. Although they looked very hard, they were all wearing cotton jackets. Some Japanese workers who were waiting for dinner were still eating white rice.
Therefore, Sakai Ieji came over and asked these Japanese people eating:
"How come the oil shop allows you to eat so well?"
"Is this good?"
"When we used to work in the oil mill opened here by the Ningyuan Marquis Mansion, we could still eat a fatty meal every day!"
"Now this evil new owner, because Ningyuan Houfu no longer does business, and bought us as slaves from Ningyuan Houfu, he said that we have to work for more than five hours a day before we can eat meat."
A Japanese worker replied at this time.
Another Japanese worker said: "Be content. It's good to have enough to eat. It's better than being a slave in Kyoto."
Masuda Nagamori and Sakai Ieji both looked at each other, speechless and returned in silence.
"There is no shortage of food in China. Even slaves can eat white rice."
When they arrived in the county town, Masuda Nagamori looked at the Akito and the shops opened by various Akito people coming and going in the city, but he couldn't help but say this to Sakai Keji.
Sakai Ieji did not answer, but looked at the coolies who were working hard to carry grain into the warehouse with a smile on their faces, and the supervisor who was wearing Hanfu but speaking Japanese and instructing these coolies.
It wasn't until he reached a newsstand that he grabbed Masuda Nagamori and pointed to a Ming Dynasty official newspaper:
"Look, the Han people in Songshan have used oil cake fertilization and new waterwheels to achieve a paddy field yield of up to five shi per mu!"
"If possible, I really want to capture a few Han people and return them to Edo as serfs!"
"Perhaps the people of the Tang Dynasty are really more favored by gods than us, and they are really more intelligent."
In this era, for the Japanese, a yield of two stones per mu was already a high yield, so the Sakai family was very surprised by this.
The same goes for Masuda Nagamori.
He stared at the newspaper for a long time, and then thought of the large number of grain ships and granaries he saw at the port, and couldn't help but say:
"Now I want to go to the Middle-Earth even more. Is it true that no one knows the pain of hunger and cold there?"
(End of chapter)
