All of Endo Morinobu's considerations about how to negotiate evaporated after this bombardment display.
Stop talking about the things that are there and not have them. Returning to the back house of Murataya's shop, Endo Morinobu instructed Ishinomaki, who would come later, to negotiate immediately!
Denzo Katsuyama, the boss of Katsuyama Shuzo, was appointed as the negotiating envoy, responsible for the contact with the Thor on the surface, while Endo Morinobu secretly controlled the ship.
The person who delivered the letter to Aoba Castle was dispatched in the evening. In addition to a detailed description of the bombardment scene of the Thor, Endo Morinobu also requested Aoba Castle to send the imprisoned Katayama Kanbei to Ishiba overnight. Volume port.
After a discussion with Ishinomaki Port, it was finally decided that Murataya and Katsuyama Shuzo would jointly advance the compensation requested by the Thor, and then the feudal clan would make the compensation privately.
The two unlucky business owners agreed sadly. It is said that lending money to daimyo these days is basically like a meat bun beating a dog. In the end, the daimyo could not pay back the money, and there were many defaulters.
The most awesome (shameless) thing is to reward the creditor with the position of a retainer in the end, which is regarded as paying off the debt.
Because of the Tokugawa family's attendance transfer, the finances of the island nation's feudal lords were very tight, and more than 70% of their annual income was spent on attendance transfer. Although Sendai Clan is only eight or nine days away from Edo, the cost should not be high, but I can’t afford to have to put on a show every time.
So early the next morning, after receiving clear instructions from Endo Moritsu, Denzo Katsuyama brought his home-brewed sake; the boss of Murataya took his own sea goods and boarded a five-hundred-koku cargo ship. Thor.
After the two people expressed their intention to come and met Zhao Xin, they first presented them with a gift list; then they conveyed Endo's conditions of trustworthiness:
The compensation of 15,000 taels of gold will be delivered within three days; Katayama Kanbei is already on the way; the two business owners are responsible for the specific handling of the food exchange for refugees, and the officials of the Sendai Domain cannot come forward during the entire process in order to tacitly agree ( Pretending to be invisible), the Katsuyama and Murataya families sent boats to transport the refugees to the outer sea to board the ships and exchange them for rice or wheat.
However, Endo Morinobu proposed that three kilo of rice for every one hundred refugees was too little, and hoped to exchange it for ten kilo of rice or wheat.
After hearing this, Zhao Xin made an estimate in his mind. When the Thor's formalities were completed before going to sea, he purchased 5,000 tons of rice as goods for customs clearance declaration.
If converted according to the measurements of this era, five thousand tons is thirty-eight thousand shi (one stone equals 130 kilograms). Calculating this way, he can actually get a population of 380,000!
This is a bit scary. If the Sendai Domain does not come forward, do the two business owners in front of them have this ability? Of course, if we don’t have 380,000, we can send 100,000.
Based on the current average of three or four people per family, 100,000 people would be 25,000 families, properly arranged from the mouth of the Xila River to the Twin Castles.
It is said that the island country has 100,000 farmers working on the land, and next year, 100,000 Shandong men will work on the land and train troops. It is very beautiful to think about it~~
Faced with the question raised by Zhao Xin, Denzo Katsuyama and the owner of Murataya agreed that the number of refugees in Sendai Domain alone was no less than 100,000. Many refugees now go to the beaches of Mutsu to make a living by fishing for seaweed. What’s more, now that the weather is getting warmer, more people are going to the sea.
(In real history, the Sendai Domain starved to death between 140 and 150,000 people during the Tianmei Famine. However, these are only official statistics, and the actual death toll is far higher.)
Zhao Xin thought about it again and again and decided to agree to the other party's conditions. After all, the farming season waits for no one, and 5,000 acres of land will be reclaimed in the northern part of Beihai Town no matter what this year.
When he thought of the tall and dense primeval forests on both sides of the Xila River, Zhao Xin felt increasingly pressed for time.
Okay, so Zhao Xin proposed that he would come to Ishinomaki Port once every ten days and pick up at least 3,000 refugees aboard. He also made a request to the two of them, that is, they would not accept singles, but only accept refugees with families and children.
After hearing that Zhao Xin agreed to Shishi Rice's substitution conditions, Katsuyama Denzo's heart moved.
It is said that the wine making business is also difficult to do now. The most important thing is that the price of rice has skyrocketed.
(When brewing sake, based on five kilograms of rice, one kilogram of koji rice, four kilograms of cooked rice, and an appropriate amount of water, the final product can be about nine kilograms of sake.)
So Katsuyama Denzo tentatively asked if he could buy some rice from Zhao Xin.
Zhao Xin opened his mouth and asked: "How many tons do you want?"
Denzo Katsuyama asked curiously: "Excuse me, sir, what does this ton mean?"
Only then did Zhao Xin react and said, "This is our weight specification. One ton is about 7.7 stone."
The two bosses rolled their eyes, calculated secretly, and asked hesitantly: "Excuse me, how much does one ton cost?"
In normal times during the Edo period, one or two yuan of gold could buy rice for one stone or two bushels of rice in Edo Castle. Now the price of rice has skyrocketed, and it has gone through the roof.
Zhao Xin thought for a while and then understood what the two people in front of him meant. So he smiled and said: "Five taels of gold."
Just kidding, the price of American rice shipped to China is only 1,400 per ton; even if the small 5-tael fine is converted into purified gold, it is still as much as 34 grams. According to the buying price of gold in another time and space, that would be ten times the profit. Only a fool would not do it.
"Sss~~" Katsuyama Denzo took a breath and asked quickly: "How is the quality of the rice?"
"Last year's new rice."
When the two store owners heard the price, they almost fainted with joy. Even if you don't eat it yourself and sell it all, after taking into account all the expenses, the profit will be nearly doubled.
The two men immediately privately ordered a total of two hundred tons of rice with Zhao Xin. It's really not much, only a thousand taels of gold in total, just a drizzle.
Subsequently, Zhao Xin ordered Sheng Haizhou to formally write down the agreement drawn up by the two parties in duplicate, and the two businessmen brought it to the officials sent by Sendai City and Ishinomaki Port to sign it.
Seeing the embarrassed look on Katsuyama Densan's face, Zhao Xin smiled and assured that this agreement was a secret agreement and neither party was allowed to disclose it to a third party. Otherwise, Sendai Domain has the right to regret.
However, if you don't sign... Zhao Xin immediately changed his face and said with a sneer: "You can do whatever you want."
So, after Endo Morinobu got the agreement and thought hard for a long time, he finally sighed and signed his name on the agreement.
If we don't agree to let the other party bombard Sendai Castle, our family will be completely ruined. Anyway, I won't live for a few more years, so I'll have to bear all the blame.
In the afternoon of the same day, Denzo Katsuyama brought the secret agreement signed by Endo Morinobu, Ishinomaki Minato, himself and the boss of Murataya to Zhao Xin.
At the same time, he also sent Katayama Kanbei who had been tortured.
After Zhao Xin looked through it, he immediately signed his name.
This agreement was called the "Stone Harbor Secret Agreement" in later generations of this time and space. As the first secret treaty signed between local daimyo and foreign countries in the Edo period, it had a significant historical impact on the subsequent shogunate rule.
For Beihai Town headed by Zhao Xin, the "Stone Harbor Secret Treaty" determined the outcome of Beihai Town's military invasion of the island country, and at the same time gradually tied the Sendai Domain to Beihai Town's chariot.
With the signing of the secret treaty, starting with the rice trade, in the following ten years, Beihai Town further expanded its commodity dumping and capital export to the island country. The island nation transferred a large amount of wealth accumulated by Tanuma Yoshiji's mercantilism into the pockets of Beihai Town.
All of this laid a solid foundation for Beihai Town to resist the Qing Dynasty's massive offensive in the following years.
(End of this book........................................ ................................................................. ..........No.)
A few days later, the head of the Date family, Date Shigemura, who was far away in Edo, had just received the first news from the domain messenger, but before he could reach a conclusion with his family elders, the second messenger arrived. .
Date Shigemura was dumbfounded after reading the contents of the secret letter, and other important ministers also looked at each other in astonishment after reading it.
Is this the end? Three hundred samurai died in this domain, but in the end both parties actually cooperated and exchanged refugees for food? If you say that, you still made money?
Look at what they said. If I had known earlier, I would have fought.
Date Shigemura and several important ministers secretly discussed for a long time, and finally decided to report the incident to the shogunate. However, he did not mention a word about the agreement, only saying that Yang Yi's extortion failed in the end and left sadly.
Date Shigemura finally wrote in a secret letter to the elders of the Sendai clan that if anyone dared to leak the matter to the outside world, his whole family would be given to the barbarians in exchange for rice.
At the same time, Zhao Xin finally raised anchor and set sail with the three thousand refugees transported by Denzo Katsuyama and the owner of Murata House, as well as the more than one thousand refugees he had received in Matsushima Town.
This time, Liu Sheng did not sound the whistle again. The Thor slowly disappeared into the sea.
"Ten days, they will come again in ten days." Ishinomaki Minato said while standing on the dock. Mr. Endo Morinobu has returned to Aoye City. The place is finally back in his hands and he can happily make money.
"Don't worry, Sir. There are at least hundreds of thousands of refugees gathered in this domain now. Even if this domain is not enough, there are still many in Shirakawa Domain. Our business is really easy." Denzo Katsuyama comforted him from the side.
Yes, there is rice and food, so don’t panic. Master Fengxing finally felt comfortable: "Let's go back and drink."
Two days later, Beihai Town.
The refugees who were fishing for seaweed at the dock saw the slowly approaching ship on the sea in the distance. They threw the bag in their hands excitedly and ran back to the camp without paying attention to the seaweed.
"Back! Master is back!"
Hong Tao didn't understand the broken Mandarin. He was about to ask again when he heard the whistle coming from the sea.
At this moment, the entire camp suddenly boiled, and everyone began to work nervously.
Over in the large kitchen, Rikichi's wife Shino and Manzo's wife greeted a group of women and started washing rice and preparing to cook porridge.
Chen Qingsong took Wan Zao, Shiosuke and others to check again whether the passage to the isolation camp was strong.
Wu Siyu and Ding Guofeng, with Pan Xiucheng and others, escorted a dozen Qing prisoners who were about to go out to log wood back to their tents, and Serdan and others were responsible for taking care of them.
Afterwards, Wu Siyu took dozens of people including Pingtai, Jiuzang, and Elu to the dock, preparing to maintain order when the refugees disembarked.
"Quick! Get ready, Zhao Xin is back!" Hong Tao was about to ask Liu Siting and others to prepare when he saw Liu Siting coming out of the tent with a dozen women from the island country.
These women either went to call for help or returned to their tents to change clothes. Hong Tao and Liu Siting also found a coat made of rough white cloth and put it on.
Director Liu always disliked this kind of white cloth coat that looked like a sack and had a belt around the waist, calling it "mourning clothes." You said this is not what a doctor wears!
Hong Tao comforted her to make do with it for a while. It's not easy to buy a doctor's uniform. When Zhao Xin comes back, let him buy a hundred of them, and we can wear one and play with each other.
Soon, more than thirty women stood in line wearing simple white coats, and A Miao also wore one and stood at the front. It's just that the coat was hanging around A Miao's body like a sack.
Liu Siting immediately said loudly: "According to what we have practiced these days, we will start preparations immediately. We will disembark and disembark in an hour!"
After A Miao heard it, she repeated it loudly in the island dialect.
After hearing this, the women shouted "yes" in unison. Then, taking scissors, brushes, and ID tags in buckets, they hurried to their respective locations to prepare.
At this time, everyone in the camp, except the elderly and children, began to take their places, preparing to welcome the arrival of new residents.
