The interview process was actually very fast. Considering that most of the refugees were illiterate, Zhao Xin and Liu Sheng were just going through the motions, and the person who checked them was Katayama Kanbei.
The main purpose of Zhao Xin sitting here is to let these refugees know whose food you are eating.
That is to say, there are not many people here in Beihai Town now, so he has the leisure to do this; in the future, if there are tens of thousands of people, except for one or two departments that need Zhao Xin to personally control, the rest will have to be delegated.
The fifty people recruited this time are to be trained as a teaching team. The security police recruited later will be led by these fifty people, and a large part of them will be assigned to Yubari, Sapporo and Otaru Ports in Ezo.
Katayama Kanbei knew that this was the first time that he had shown his ability in front of Zhao Xin, so he used his many years of experience in doing things in the town to see people, and he was very energetic and carefully selected.
Zhao Xin followed the contents of some psychological analysis books he had read before and observed these people through micro-expressions. In fact, when he usually talks to people like Chen Qingsong, he will also observe their micro-expressions.
For example, it is actually very difficult for people to remember all the details in a period of time. Usually when people recall the details of that time period, they will repeatedly correct themselves and straighten their thoughts; then during this process, the speaker will be a little stuttered.
But liars don't do this at all. They have already imagined the hypothetical scenario in their minds, and they will speak it very fluently; and they will often raise their tone and repeat their lies.
Another most obvious characteristic is that liars touch their noses unconsciously.
In addition, there are also tone of voice, smile, eyes and so on.
For example, when a person says something, if he blinks rapidly, it means that he must be hiding something.
Fortunately, no one has studied these in this era. The ancients said that to see if a person has a problem, they usually look at the eyes first.
"Mencius" said, "There is nothing better than the eyes", which can be regarded as the originator of modern micro-expression psychoanalysis.
Yajiro, who was ranked in the first group of applicants, passed the first step of the interview. Afterwards, Katayama would go to the camp to inquire about his family situation.
However, according to Yajiro himself, his eldest brother Yajiro is currently recruited to the Security Department to participate in training. Katayama feels that this young man is not a big problem.
This interview with the security police took half a day. Fifty people were eventually selected from more than three hundred adult men. These people will join the previous fifty people in a few days to receive training from Wang Yuanfang and the others.
After Zhao Xin finished this matter, he was about to prepare for his second trip south to Sendai Domain. At this time, the ten-day period agreed between him and Katsuyama Denzo had passed.
On April 19, the forty-ninth year of Qianlong's reign (1784), the Leishen set sail again after two days of preparation.
The people on board this time include Zhao Xin, Liu Sheng, Ding Guofeng, Wu Siyu, Deng Fei, Zhang Bo, Sheng Haizhou, Jiuzang, Pingtai, Lu Shoushan, thirty "old" sailors from the last trip, and two newly recruited sailors. ten people.
Zhang Bo was very excited when he went to sea for the first time, but he also became the most seasick. An hour after the Thor sailed on the sea, he started to get seasick.
Liu Sheng found seasickness medicine for Zhang Bo and asked him to rest in the cabin. The sea is calm at the moment, but when we reach the Tsugaru Strait, the bumps will be even more severe.
In fact, Zhao Xin is also seasick, but every time Zhao Xin goes to sea, he will take medicines such as Chengxuning, and then he will find a place to close his eyes and rest.
On April 21, the Thor arrived off the coast of Ishinomaki Port.
Katsuyama Denzo, who had been waiting anxiously for a long time, finally felt relieved after receiving the news from his subordinates.
Because the Thor arrived two days late, Katsuyama Denzo was afraid that the four thousand refugees who had gathered would fall into his hands. The Sendai clan would never come forward in this matter.
The first thing dispatched from Ishinomaki Port were two Senshi "Benzai Ships".
In the Edo period, there was no specific type of ship called a Sengoku ship. As long as it could carry one thousand stone meters, it could be called a Sengoku ship. As a result, the Thousand Stone Ship has become synonymous with large return ships.
As for the Benzai ship, it is the most popular mainstream merchant ship in this era. The total length is 20 meters. There is a main sail at the amidships and a small sail at the bow. The main sail post can be lowered when berthed to maintain the stability of the ship.
After the refugees transported on the ship boarded the Thor, the two hundred tons of rice previously ordered by Katsuyama Denmi and Murataya boss were hoisted onto the Benzai ship through the ship crane installed on the Thor.
Denzo Katsuyama, who originally thought it would take a day to ship rice, was so surprised that he was speechless when he saw the hoisting machine on the Thor easily hoisting dozens of tons of rice to his ship at one time.
"These people have too many weird things!" Denzo Katsuyama and the boss of Murataya looked at each other, and they both saw the shock in each other's eyes.
Especially when Katsuyama Denzo was inspecting the goods, he was overjoyed to see that the rice provided by Zhao Xin was all polished rice.
During the Edo period, whether rice in tsubo rice or in various other packages was distributed on the market, it was calculated as genmai, that is, rice that has not been shelled. If anyone dares to say that rice bran is not food these days, farmers will fight for him.
In this era, most islanders ate brown rice on a daily basis, and only rich merchants and generals and daimyo could eat polished rice. Therefore, many nobles in Edo City suffered from beriberi.
Among the nobles who died of beriberi, the most famous was Tokugawa Iemo, the fourteenth shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate. He died of beriberi at the age of twenty-one, leaving behind a mess.
The 200 tons of rice transported by the Thor this time amounted to just over 1,500 dan in total. This small amount of rice flowed into the Sendai Clan, which was two million stone high, and it couldn't even make a splash.
Now in the second year of the Tenmei Famine, all daimyo territories in the Mutsu region have implemented "inspection orders", including reducing meals, stopping entertainment activities, and all food-related commercial production such as sake manufacturing. . To put it simply, we have entered a period of very strict rationing.
For the Sendai Domain, at least 40,000 to 50,000 俵 (two 俿 and one stone) of food are needed in the territory a year to meet the minimum ration, which is the level of the people under his command who will not starve to death. In addition, we must try our best to transport food to Edo.
As for the refugees in the territory, sorry, these people are not counted as territorial residents.
After the implementation of the "Inspection Order", many shops engaged in dessert making and wine brewing have closed down. As for the two owners of Katsuyama Denzo and Murataya...unfortunately, one is a brewer and the other is a wagashi maker.
If it weren't for the fact that they still had semicolons in Edo and Osaka, they would have closed down a long time ago.
In fact, the Sendai clan elders were a little tempted after they learned that Katsuyama Denzo had ordered a batch of rice. However, out of caution, they still planned to see the quality of the first batch of grain before making a decision.
As for why we are concerned about this mere 200 tons of rice, we have to start with the matter of grain outsourcing.
For example, in the Echigo area, which was less covered by volcanic ash and had relatively more food income, the excess food was bought by the feudal lords of the shogunate. Daimyos like the Date family could not buy much of it, and it was expensive. to death.
The reason is simple. The Tokugawa family is eager to take advantage of your illness to kill you. It would be best if the Date family is completely destroyed.
But even a close clan like the Shirakawa Domain only transferred 4,000 taru of grain from Echigo, and bought 6,000 taru at a high price from its relative Aizu Domain; at the same time, the annual tribute tax rate in the territory had to be increased. to 100%. Otherwise, people will starve to death.
Under this situation, as soon as the Sendai clan elders heard that Tang Yi (because they discovered that Zhao Xin and the others claimed to be Tang people, but were not from the Qing Dynasty, they gave Zhao Xin and the others the strange name of "Tang Yi") were selling When a stone of rice is less than one tael of gold, it would be strange not to think about it.
As soon as Captain Benzai docked at the port, Ishinomaki couldn't wait to order his men to board the ship to inspect the rice.
After his subordinates randomly checked more than a dozen bags of rice on the ship, they told Ishinomaki with great excitement that the quality of the rice was very good. There was no old rice, and all of them were polished rice that had been shelled.
Ishinomaki was very surprised when he heard this. Now there are idiots selling polished rice for less than one or two gold per stone!
He immediately ordered people to take some samples and sent Pegasus to report to the elders in Qingye City.
Looking at the small handful of polished rice in his hand, Ishinomaki was also tempted. He also wanted to try this business.
So, he asked the sailors on the ship to send a message to Katsuyama to help him buy two thousand shi of rice; he planned to smuggle the two thousand shi of rice to Shirakawa Domain.
When Zhao Xin heard Katsuyama Denzo's request, he shook his head repeatedly and said that Ishinomaki's ambition was too small. He told Katsuyama Denzo that the entire eastern part of the island country is now short of food, and what you bought can't even be counted on the tip of your little finger. If you want to do it, you might as well make it big and buy 5,000 tons at a time. The total is only more than 3,000 taels of gold.
"You have to know that the Qing Dynasty has implemented a policy that grain is not allowed to go abroad. Apart from me, only the Dutch in Nagasaki can transport grain from the south. But when the grain reaches the port of Nagasaki, you people will not be able to get it. "
Katsuyama Denzo thought about it and felt that this was also the case. But what Zhao Xin said next moved him even more.
"Sir Katsuyama, do you need sugar here?"
"Oh? Mr. Zhao also has good things like sugar? How much can you provide?" Katsuyama Denzo's eyes lit up.
Zhao Xin smiled slightly: "I will have as much as you want. I think Mr. Shengshan is a pretty good person, so I will give you a way to make a fortune..."
Katsuyama Denzo's throat was tight at this moment and he couldn't help but swallow a few times, waiting for Zhao Xin's next words.
Zhao Xin stared into Katsuyama Denzo's eyes and said, "Do you want to become the largest sugar merchant in the island country?"
Katsuyama Denzo felt like a big gold brick was about to fall from the sky and hit him. He looked around and saw that the boss of Murataya was still watching the rice being loaded onto the ship, so he quickly asked in a low voice: "Only for me? Then he..."
When Zhao Xin saw the other party turning his head and gesturing to the owner of the village house not far away with his chin, he said with a smile: "I still have a lot of raw silk."
These words were like a bolt from the blue, leaving Katsuyama Denzo stunned.
(End of chapter)
