It is said that the trip of the Thor from Sendai to Nagasaki was not smooth. With the ship's navigation radar, the Thor has been sailing close to offshore. As a result, the journey of nearly a thousand nautical miles went slowly and leisurely, and we also experienced a storm during the process.
This storm made several modern people who had always thought that the Thor was invincible finally realized how dangerous it was to go out to sea in an era without satellite positioning and weather forecasts.
Kakuzo Shibata, the head of the Sendai clan, and the two business owners were extremely shocked by the results of this boarding visit!
They didn't expect that this big iron ship was flying smoothly on the sea. It only took five days to get from Mutsu to Hizen, and they only lost one day to avoid the storm on the way. At this speed, Mr. Zhao actually kept saying "slow". I really don't know what he thinks of "fast!"
Shibata Kakuzo wanted to find out the secret of the Thor's power along the way. When the Thor left Ishinomaki Port before, it was too far away to see clearly. But this time he finally discovered that there were no sails on this big iron ship! Could it be that Tang Yi arranged thousands of people to paddle below the deck?
With this question in mind, the three people consulted Zhao Xin shortly after leaving Ishinomaki Port.
Zhao Xinxin said that if I had thousands of people who could paddle for me wholeheartedly, I would have liberated Ning Guta long ago. So, he asked Liu Sheng to take the three of them to the engine room for a look, and they could only stand outside the door and watch.
When Liu Sheng returned to the cabin with three sweaty visitors, he winked at Zhao Xin.
"What do you guys think?" Zhao Xin asked with a smile.
Katsuyama Denzan's face was stained with sweat, and he said with a smile on his face, "It's amazing, it's amazing!"
Well, the three of them couldn’t understand it at all.
Looking at the backs of the three people who were anxious to go back to the cabin to take a shower, Zhao Xin asked Liu Sheng, "What did you show them?"
Liu Sheng burst into laughter. "I didn't do anything. The three of them came to the door and looked at it for a while before they couldn't bear the heat. I asked Pingtai to ask them what they wanted to see, but the three of them asked Pingtai where the rowing sailors were."
When modern ships are sailing, the most difficult conditions are in the engine room, with the average temperature being around 50 degrees Celsius. Normally, Deng Fei and Liu Sheng would take turns taking two sailors in the Thor's engine room for maintenance. Because it was too hot inside, and it would be easy to catch a cold if the cool breeze blew after you came out, so no one else went.
Five days after leaving Ishinomaki Port, Zhao Xin finally saw Nomuja at the southern tip of the Nagasaki Peninsula through his telescope. He had been to this place once in another time and space, and also stopped by Gongen Mountain Park south of Yemujia to take a look.
But the main purpose of coming here that time was not to see the cherry blossoms, but to visit the "Atomic Bomb Museum". Regardless of what others would do after the visit, Zhao Xin went to have a big meal of seafood after the visit to express his pleasure.
At this time, Zhao Xin informed Liu Sheng to reduce the speed and he would hold a plenary mobilization meeting before entering the port. After all the crew members gathered together, Zhao Xin asked all personnel through the ship's broadcast to be on alert to deal with the upcoming battle.
You must know that since the "New Zhengde Order" was promulgated in 1715, some Qing merchant ships without credit cards have anchored in the offshore waters of various island countries on the grounds of "avoiding wind and waves" and "temporarily anchoring", waiting for opportunities to conduct private trade. Of course, some of them were really "drifted", but in order to combat smuggling, the shogunate did not make any distinction at all.
The Eighth Generation Shogun Yoshimune adopted a tough policy of "burning and beating" against the smuggling trade. The three feudal clans of Choshu, Chofu, and Kokura often dispatched troops to carry out expulsions. Either they sent officials to the scene to command the expulsion; or they used "baits" to lure Chinese ships out to carry out large-scale maritime operations; at the same time, they severely cracked down on those island businessmen involved in smuggling, and some businessmen were sentenced to death.
The most famous one among them is the "Susakabune Expulsion Incident" sixty-two years ago.
In September 1726, a Qing ship from Nanjing encountered wind and waves and drifted near Susana, Awu County, Choshu Domain (north of Kyushu and west of Hiroshima). The local fishermen reported it immediately after discovering it. The local official Ito Hanzaemon then reported the matter directly to the feudal castle, and the Choshu Domain Nagadai family elder sent a boat to conduct reconnaissance.
The next day, the Nanking ship was brought into Susana. The bow (captain) of the ship submitted a request to the Choshu Domain, saying that there were 42 people on board because it had drifted here due to a storm, and he hoped to receive supplementary food and water. As usual, officials of the Choshu domain asked the Nanjing ship to submit a letter plate. Later, the Choshu clan asked for two more hostages from the ship.
However, the Choshu Domain expressed doubts about whether the ship was a legitimate trading ship, and after some identification, they finally believed that the letter plate submitted was a forgery. So it was decided to immediately evict them by force.
In order to prevent the Nanjing ship from being suspicious and leaking the expulsion plan, the Choshu clan's preparations were very covert. First, the Choshu clan pretended to accept the request for funding from the Nanjing ship and carried water, wine, dishes, etc. to the ship; privately, they were intensively preparing for a general attack. They sent a large number of clan soldiers from Hagi Castle to Susana.
In the evening of that day, while the Nanjing ship was not paying attention, the Changzhou soldiers launched an attack. They surrounded the Nanjing ship in dozens of large and small boats and bombarded it with artillery and muskets. The Nanjing ship immediately resisted and put out the fire on board.
On the second day, the Choshu clan began to increase its troops and intensify its attack, sending hundreds of small boats to besiege.
On the third day, the Nanjing ship finally couldn't resist and was forced to set fire to the ship. Under the blow of muskets and iron cannons, the crew held hands and jumped into the fire, killing all of them. The two Chinese hostages were also secretly killed afterwards.
Afterwards, when the Choshu clan reported to the shogunate, they concealed the content of the Nanjing ship's request for food and water, as well as the fact that it had asked for hostages, and presented the incident as an incident in which the "unknown" ship was defeated, thus making its own behavior It became self-defense.
This was the first time that Zhao Xin told Liu Sheng and others about this matter, which aroused strong indignation from Liu Sheng and others. Even Zhao Liang believed that he could no longer be kind to these warriors.
After exposing the ugly faces of the shogunate and the vassals, Zhao Xin took a sip of water and continued: "If they dare to use force, we must resolutely fight back! Regardless of our small number, you have all seen the weapons on the Thor. There is no force in the world more powerful than ours.
I order that after entering the harbor and anchoring, no hostages will be handed over, and no supplies will be required! If Nagasaki wants to send troops on board to monitor, we will tell them to get lost!
Remember, we are Beihai Town, not those untouchables who are allowed to be bullied! If the shogunate wants to send ships and troops to attack us, we will send them all to the bottom of the sea to feed fish and shrimps! "
"Victory!!!" Dozens of sailors and soldiers on the deck raised their arms and shouted loudly, their faces flushed with excitement.
During these days on the ship, Zhao Xin insisted on convening sailors and soldiers every night to talk and complain as long as he had time. Through this form of "brainwashing", everyone was deeply disgusted with the inaction and more cruel exploitation of the shogunate and the vassals during the famine years; during this period, some people even called for overthrowing the Tokugawa family and making Lord Zhao the general of the island country.
This made Shibata Kakuzo and the two businessmen who had been listening in the audience feel frightened and their ears were buzzing.
However, Zhao Xincai was not interested in being the general who was so troublesome. He was only interested in the gold in the general's pocket.
After the mobilization meeting, everyone on the Thor began to get busy. Lu Shoushan, Pingtai, Hu Ji and ten others who had just recovered from a serious illness received newly issued lever rifles; other soldiers and sailors also received cold weapons such as spears and bows.
Speaking of which, Lu Shoushan was really unlucky. From the day he arrived in Ezochi, he got dysentery and started to have a fever. Even though he was usually as strong as a cow and rarely got sick, once he got sick, he almost died. Zhao Xin gave Lu Shoushan a bottle of water for two days and finally rescued him.
After leaving Ishinomaki Port, Zhao Xin, who had already planned, selected ten soldiers and sailors with outstanding performance, and together with Heita, Torayoshi, and Lu Shoushan, they practiced shooting lever rifles against the sea every day. . In a few days, under the training of Ding Guofeng and Zhao Liang, these thirteen people fired nearly a thousand rounds of bullets, and their shoulders were almost swollen; but their shooting skills improved quickly.
The eight M2HBs on the deck were all loaded with bullets, and in order to avoid being noticed, they were all covered with gun jackets.
The plan discussed by Zhao Xin and Liu Sheng was that once the Thor was besieged, the eight M2HBs and thirteen of them, Ping Tai, would be responsible for the small morning boats and customs ships; as for the large troops assembled by the shogunate on the shore, they would use artillery to deal with them.
Although corruption was rampant within the shogunate and vassals in this era, the ability of the army to assemble should not be underestimated.
In order to prevent foreign ships from knocking at the gate, the shogunate built two banshu (military camps) at Tomachi at the entrance of Nagasaki Port and Nishimari on the other side, and stationed troops to guard them. These two military camps are exclusively managed by the Nabeshima family of the Saga Domain and the Kuroda family of the Fukuoka Domain. At the same time, when necessary, Nagasaki pursued the right to mobilize the neighboring Omura and Isahaya clans to send troops to support.
(In the fourth year of Shoho (1647), two Portuguese warships suddenly sailed into Nagasaki Port. The shocked shogunate mobilized the troops of all the vassals of Kyushu and four countries, with a total of 50,000 troops on guard in Nagasaki.)
His eyes turned to the Ye Mu Xia Lookout Point.
The officials of the execution office who were on duty today received a report from their subordinates that a ship seemed to be coming to the sea in the distance. Why do you say it seems like? Because the subordinate was also confused. If what he saw was really a boat, it would probably be huge and scary.
The official of the observation station slowly took out the monocular telescope given by the Dutch. When he walked to the observation platform and looked at the target, his hands suddenly trembled and he almost dropped the telescope.
The officials of the execution office who couldn't believe it raised their binoculars and looked for a long time, and found that the big ship was sailing towards the port, and its speed was faster than the Dutch sailboat.
After a while, when he finally saw the appearance of the big ship clearly, he was so frightened that he fell down on the watchtower.
"Hurry! Lead the horse!" The official shouted at his subordinates at the top of his lungs. After saying that, he stumbled down the watchtower, mounted his horse and galloped towards the port. Something big is going to happen now!
An unidentified foreign giant ship has arrived. It seems that it is coming to knock on the gate!
(End of chapter)
