Zhao Xin wanted to go to Sendai Domain to attract people, but what he didn't know was that Sendai Domain was already in huge trouble due to famine at this time.
It is said that in addition to the four great famines that occurred in the Edo period, the "Horeki Famine" that occurred from the second year of Horeki (1753) to the sixth year of Horeki (1757), centered in the northeastern region of Honshu, is considered to be the second largest famine. The most serious regional famine occurred in Tianming and Tianbao.
Due to the famine in Hori and the general request of the shogunate, the financial burden of the Sendai Domain was greatly increased.
You must know that the shogunate's general invitation during the Edo period was based on the stone high system. For example, the Date family, a daimyo with a height of 620,000 stone in public but more than 2 million stone in private, the Tokugawa family had already The investigation made it clear.
I'll kill you while you're sick! Hurry up and start the large-scale project. This bridge will be built by the Ida family, and this city wall will also belong to you.
However, the Date family still insists on saving face. Not only is it difficult to save money, but it still insists on maintaining its gorgeous and majestic style.
Because when Date Masamune was in power, he went to Kyoto to meet Hideyoshi and held a grand parade of 3,000 people. Later generations began to call those who behaved in exaggerated and gorgeous manners "Date people" or "Date men". Therefore, even if the successive lords of the Sendai Domain do not compete with the Tokugawa family for the world, they must inherit the one-eyed dragon family tradition. The ginseng transfer became an excellent occasion to compete with the Tokugawa family and various feudal lords.
The finances are so tight that the number of people attending each duty cannot be less than 3,000. (The largest number of people in history was during the reign of the Eighth Generation Shogun Yoshioka. The Sendai Domain’s attendance team was as high as 3,480 people. Not only did it completely defeat the Satsuma Domain, its scale was the same as that of the Kaga Domain, which was known as a million stone high. Not much different.)
Under the huge financial pressure caused by the sacrifice of face and suffering, the Sendai Domain restored the previously abolished "Law of Buying Rice" since the first year of Tenmei. The first is to forcefully purchase the tribute rice distributed to retainers within the domain at a low price. The second is to purchase the remaining rice after farmers have paid the annual tribute at a lower price and transport it to Edo for sale to make up for the financial shortfall of the domain.
The consequence of what the Sendai Domain did was that the peasants in the domain did not have rice stored in their homes, and the local tycoons did not store rice either. As a result, rice smuggling was rampant and the price of rice soared.
When the "Shanbei" freeze hit in the second year of Tianming, the Date family didn't take it seriously at all and did not buy grain from other high-yield areas. Therefore, at the beginning of spring in the fourth year of Tianming, famine immediately broke out in the territory under its jurisdiction. Big bosses at all levels in the domain immediately panicked because there was no food to help them!
By the end of February in the fourth year of Tenmei, townspeople and farmers in Sendai Domain had begun to starve to death. Of course, those landless peasants who fled to Sendai Domain were "non-humans". Inhumans are not human beings at all, so no one cares about how many people die every day, and they are not included in government statistics.
Katayama Kanbei, the co-worker of the Matsushima Town Administrative Office, dragged his exhausted body back home. Since Zhengdan, he has been busy dealing with robberies and fights every day. Due to the outbreak of famine, Matsushima Town, which was originally peaceful, was also in chaos.
As the disaster continues to intensify, cannibalism has begun to appear in surrounding villages.
This morning, Katayama received an order from the town. On a black market outside the town, someone was selling human flesh disguised as dog meat, and he needed to lead a team to arrest him immediately.
After Kanbei Katayama led a dozen of his men and more than a hundred others to kill all the black market dealers, he discovered that those bastards chopped up the flesh of the recently deceased and mixed it with weeds and leaves. At the same time, it is sold in baskets pretending to be dog meat.
Katayama Kata'er was so angry that he flew into a rage on the spot. He pulled out his knife and was about to kill those bastards. Fortunately, everyone held him tightly, so those bastards selling human flesh escaped.
However, the final end of these bastards was to be taken to the river beach and "shot". They were tied to a rack and then stabbed to death with two spears, one on the left and one on the right.
However, one of the few bastards who was caught sneered at Katayama Kanbei who was being hugged with an indifferent expression: "If you samurai masters hadn't taken away all our food reserves, we would Why bother doing this! Master, tell me, what are we going to eat?!"
Yeah, what do they eat? !
After Katayama Kanbei came out of the training camp, all he could think about was that man's roar. Not to mention farmers, even low-level samurai like them are in trouble at home.
The feudal clan forcibly purchased the tribute rice distributed as wages at a low price. At the same time, the price of rice on the market soared, and the little money in exchange could not buy much food at all. After the famine broke out, the price of rice doubled again.
If Katsu Kaishu hadn't presented him with twenty taels of fine before leaving last year, Katayama Kanbei's family would have starved to death.
"Master, we don't have much rice at home." During dinner, his wife Duohe mentioned it gently.
Hearing this, Kanbei Katayama couldn't help but put down his chopsticks and rice bowl.
"Master, tell me, what shall we eat?!"
The contemptuous and angry face of the farmer appeared before his eyes again.
"Master, what's wrong with you?" The wife put down the bowl and chopsticks in her hands and looked at Kanbei Katayama worriedly.
The two daughters are still young and can eat. Now I am holding a bowl of brown rice, with some pickles and home-pickled seaweed, it is very delicious.
"I had a full meal at lunch, so I'm not hungry now. You can eat." Katayama smiled at his family, then stood up and left.
His wife Duohe stared at her husband with a worried look on her face.
Katayama Kanbei's home is only about thirty square meters, which was left behind by his grandfather. Otherwise, with his small salary, he would not be able to afford it. In the small yard, my wife Duohe planted a dozen radishes, a few eggplants, and some green onions.
Katayama Kanbei was sitting on the porch, looking into the distance, wondering what he was thinking. "Gu~gu~" A protest came from his empty stomach, and he raised his hand to rub his stomach with a wry smile.
There were footsteps beside him, and Dohe took the bowl of rice he had left and only had two bites of it and placed it in front of Katayama, along with a pot of hot tea.
"The rice is cold, so let's soak it in tea soup and eat it." Duohe did not point out that her husband was lying about being full for lunch. She was just worried that the only man and head of the family must not fall down.
"Today I went to buy rice, but I didn't expect that the price of a liter of rice in the rice store had risen to 100 yuan. I didn't bring enough money at the time, so I ran back and took out some more money. When I went back, the price of rice had risen to 105 yuan. Money. Many neighbors scolded the shop owner for being evil."
(As mentioned earlier, in the Edo period, one stone of rice equaled ten bushels, or one hundred liters, which is about 130 kilograms today. In an era when rice was the main source of food, a family of four would have to eat 2 kilograms of rice a day. OK. If you are a coolie, at least 1.5 to 2 kilograms of rice a day is enough for one person.)
"Oh? No one cares?" A trace of anger flashed in Katayama's eyes.
"I heard that the owner of that rice shop has attached himself to Mr. Ishikawa. Who dares to take care of it?"
Ishikawa-sama is the master of the Sendai clan's multi-biography sect, Ishikawa Muramon. This man was the ninth generation head of the Tsunoda Ishikawa family. In the twelfth year of the Hori calendar (1762), the thirteen-year-old Ishikawa Murafumi succeeded the family governor and became the head of the town of Tsunoda Ishikawa.
Duohe's tone was relaxed and flat, as if he was talking about other people's parents' shortcomings.
"Does the family still have enough money?" Katayama Kanbei turned to look at his wife and asked in a low voice.
"Don't worry, I still have a lot of twenty taels of gold given by your friend last year. I plan to buy more rice tomorrow to prevent the rice store from raising the price again."
Katayama nodded upon hearing this, expressing his agreement with his wife's decision.
"Master, when do you think this famine will end?" Duohe asked worriedly.
Katayama shook his head and sighed. Judging from the current situation, where is the beginning?
Suddenly, a person flashed in his mind. He remembered that person had said to him last year that it seemed that the famine would take at least five or six years to end.
"Ah, I don't know what happened to that young man Sheng Haizhou?" Katayama patted his forehead, and then, the figure of Zhao Xin and the weird boat appeared in his mind.
"Eat quickly, the tea will be cold soon." His wife Duohe reminded Katayama worriedly, then got up and returned to the house.
"It's been a long time since I had eel rice." Katayama thought silently.
The Takasakiya restaurant in the town that specializes in eel rice suddenly closed down a month ago, and the owner and his wife have left Osaka to join relatives.
"Sheng Haizhou, spring has arrived, will you come back?"
...
"Lord, the dock has been completely laid." Sheng Haizhou said after saluting Zhao Xin.
Zhao Xin said that he immediately got off the watchtower and prepared to go to the beach to take a look at the situation. Sheng Haizhou and Li Ji followed Zhao Xin closely.
Liu Sheng and the others have been gone for seven days. If nothing else happens, they should be back the day after tomorrow. If the aborigines who launched the attack could be dealt with by them, then Zhao Xin could lead the team away with peace of mind.
Walking to the beach, Zhao Xin saw that the simple dock modules he bought had been assembled. The long light red trestle is like a pair of big hands, stretching out from the beach to the sea. The longest one extends more than 200 meters.
"Have you measured the water depth there?" Zhao Xin turned to ask Sheng Haizhou.
"I tested it with a rope tied to a hammer. The shallow water area here is very short. At the southernmost trestle, the water depth has exceeded 40 bays." Li Ji said quickly from the side.
A room in the ancient island country was 6.3 feet, which is about 1.82 meters in modern times. Zhao Xin did some calculations in his mind, okay! The water depth is already more than seventy meters. What a natural deep-water port!
He then said to the walkie-talkie on his shoulder: "Deng Fei, Deng Fei, do you hear it? It's over."
Soon, Deng Fei's answer came from the walkie-talkie. Zhao Xin immediately told Deng Fei that the dock had been set up and the water depth at the southernmost end of the trestle was more than 70 meters, so the Thor could be driven to the shore.
A few hours later, the Thor, which weighed anchor again, slowly docked beside the five-meter-wide simple trestle. Veterinarians Liu Zheng, Pan Xiucheng, Hengji, Yalha and others are preparing to bring the horses down.
"Sir, we also want to help." On the beach, a Qing prisoner took two steps toward Zhao Xin and suddenly said in Chinese.
"Go back and sit down!" Jiuzang drew out his sharp samurai sword and shouted sternly at the Qing soldiers.
Zhao Xin turned his head and squinted his eyes, staring at the Qing soldier who came up to speak for a while, and then asked: "Can you speak Chinese?"
When the prisoner saw Zhao Xin asking him, he quickly stood up and knelt down and said, "I'll know a little bit. I once went to Sichuan and followed Ajunmen to fight against Xiao Shaluoben."
"What's your name? Are you an old Manchu or a Kurkhachi?"
"The villain's name is Samusu. He is from Kurkhaqi. His home is in Hunchun. His ancestors moved to Xianghuangqi in the third year of Tiancong's reign. In the fifty-fourth year of Kangxi's reign, they moved to Hunchun from Suifen, Wusuli."
Historically, Nurhaci and Huang Taiji conquered the outer northeast and gathered various ethnic minorities in the Suifen River, Ussuli River, and Heilongjiang river basins under their control. Among them, the Xibo people were killed the most. Although these aborigines also put up constant resistance, it was a pity that the aboriginal tribes, which lived in scattered areas and had backward weapons, could not defeat the wolf-like Manchu Bajala soldiers, and they had to surrender in the end.
Zhao Xin thought about the information he had read before, nodded and said: "This place is thousands of miles away from Hunchun. Even if you escape, you will not come out of the mountain alive. Do you all know this?"
Samusu lay on the ground, kowtowed and said, "I know. Sir, you and your men are gods from heaven. I don't dare to think anything wrong. All we ask for is a few meals in exchange." Eat well. If a villain tells lies, he would rather be struck by lightning."
After listening to Samusu's weird Chinese accent, Zhao Xin showed a subtle smile on his face.
