Li Rusong thought that the location of the flower viewing party in Xishan Villa was specifically chosen for him, but in fact he was overthinking it. The real reason why Zhang Yuangong chose Xishan Villa was that it was the closest to the pragmatic Baiyu Tower.
This seems to be the same thing, but it is not, because Zhang Yuangong's purpose of doing this is just to facilitate Gao Pragmatic to come over earlier, and he has important matters to discuss with Gao Pragmatic. As for Li Rusong, Zhang Yuangong would never have thought of inviting him if it weren't for Gao Pragmatic's hint.
When Li Rusong was already halfway through the journey, Zhang Yuangong and Gao Pangshi were taking a bath in the hot springs in the Xishan Villa.
Chinese people have known how to enjoy hot springs since ancient times. Not only did Bai Juyi have a famous saying, "The spring cold gives you a bath in Huaqing Pool, and the hot spring water washes away the gel." Legend has it: "The First Emperor was traveling with a goddess, but disobeyed her, and the goddess spit on her, causing sores. The First Emperor was frightened, but the goddess washed her away in order to get out of the hot spring. Later generations thought it was a good idea."
Here it is said that the "goddess" used hot springs to cure Qin Shihuang's facial sores, so Qin Shihuang called Lishan Hot Spring "goddess soup".
Although the hot springs in Xishan Villa are not as effective as the "Goddess Soup", they are quite famous in the capital. Zhang Yuangong specially arranged a larger hot spring pool for several distinguished guests to enjoy, and he himself accompanied them.
What surprised Gao Jingjing was that this time Zhang Yuangong and others actually came to talk to him about a serious matter. It was a very important matter that the Xungui Group thought they could not handle without Gao Jingjing.
The nobles took a fancy to the Maori family, or to be precise, they took a fancy to the Maori family's silver mine.
What Gao Pingshi didn't expect was that Zhang Yuangong, Zhu Yingzhen and others not only found out that the Maori family had a silver mine, they even found out how the Maori family obtained the silver mine.
The nobles knew Japan better than Gao Pingshi, and this was the first time they introduced the situation in Japan to him.
The silver mine was of course no other silver mine. It was the Iwami Silver Mine, also known as Iwami Silver Mine, which was quite famous in later generations.
Gao Pragmatic also knew a lot about this silver mountain. It was located in Ota City, Shimane Prefecture, Japan. It was the largest silver mine in Japan in the late Warring States Period and early Edo Period. It is estimated that its output was as high as one-third of the world's production at that time. About one. During Japan's Warring States Period, the father and son of Ouchi Yoshihiro and Ouchi Yoshitaka, the ancestors and grandsons of Nizi Yu, Nizi Haruhisa, and Mori Motonari and other neighboring princes and lords fought for the dominance of Ginzan. Many wars broke out.
However, Gao Pragmatic was actually not familiar with the history of this series of wars. This time, it was actually a few distinguished young men who gave him some popular science, which was really a bit surprising.
Following the introductions of the two princes, Gao pragmatically gradually understood this period of history. It was roughly like this: In the 16th year of Jiajing (1537, the 6th year of Japanese astronomy), the Izumo Kingdom The daimyo Nizi captured Iwami Ginzan for a long time. Two years later, the Ouchi clan regained control of Ginzan. Two years later, the Nizi clan teamed up with the Iwami and Ogasawara clan to capture Iwami Ginzan again. After that, the two families fought over Ginzan. Continuous scramble. After the death of Ouchi Yoshitaka, Morimoto also joined the battle for Iwami Ginzan.
After the victory in the Battle of Itsukushima, Mourimoto immediately sent troops to attack Shufang and Nagato. Ouchi Yoshinaga, who was supported by Tao Qingxian, was finally forced to commit suicide, and the Ouchi clan was destroyed. At the same time, Motonori sent Yoshikawa Motoharu to attack Iwami's Yamabuki Castle, with the purpose of robbing Iwami Ginzan.
The Ouchi and Nizi families were fighting to the death for this treasure mountain - no wonder, with it, there is a financial source. Without an economic foundation, where is the superstructure?
Yamabuki Castle is an important fortification built by Ouchi Yoshiko. It is located on the top of Yamabuki Mountain, overlooking Ginzan Mountain. Yixing's purpose in building it was to protect the hard-won silver mountains, and anyone with a discerning eye could see that. Yamabuki Castle is an important stronghold for protecting Ginshan. Occupying Yamabuki Castle is equivalent to occupying Ginshan.
At this time, the person guarding Yamabuki Castle was the retainer of the Ouchi clan, Asashi Naganobu. Yuanjiu asked Yuanchun to offer conditions to lure Changxin to surrender. Changxin saw that the conditions were not bad, so he obediently handed over Shanchui Castle. The condition is to let Naganobu continue to serve as the lord of Yamabuki City.
At first glance, this condition seems very ordinary, but when you think about it, if he doesn't agree, he may not be able to save his life. As a result, the control of Yinshan fell into the hands of Yuan Yu smoothly, thus bringing a huge source of wealth to the Maori family.
But the matter was not over yet. In March of the thirty-seventh year of Jiajing (1558, the first year of Yonglu in Japan), Nizi Haruhisa ordered Chang Guang of the city to surround Yamachui City in order to compete for Yinshan, and strictly prohibited merchants from providing rice and salt to the city.
Naganobu quickly asked Motoharu for help. Although Motoharu immediately sent troops to rescue, the Maori army could not get even half a step closer to Yamabuki Castle in the face of strong obstruction. In desperation, Yuanchun organized eighteen suicide squad members, prepared to risk their lives to transport food and grass to the city to meet the urgent need.
The grain transport team was besieged by 200 enemy troops on the way. To their surprise, they repelled the enemy soldiers and successfully transported grain and grass to Shanchui City. When the soldiers guarding the city saw the grain and grass, they all cried with joy.
However, Qingjiu was not willing to accept defeat and personally led an army of 10,000 to attack Yamabuki Castle. In late July, Yuan Jiu ordered Yuan Chun to personally lead 10,000 troops to reinforce. Unexpectedly, the brave and capable Maori army suffered a big loss this time, was defeated and retreated in embarrassment.
Isolated and helpless, Naganobu surprisingly behaved righteously this time - he proposed to Qingjiu that he was willing to give his own life in exchange for the soldiers guarding the city to leave safely. After Naganobu committed seppuku, Yamabuki Castle fell into the hands of the Nizi family. The proud Haruhisa appointed Honjo Tsunemitsu as the Lord of Yamabuki Castle, and then returned to Tsukiyama Tomita Castle in triumph.
Obviously, Maori Yuan could not accept this result, so in July of the 39th year of Jiajing (1560, the third year of Yonglu in Japan), Yuan sent more than 14,000 troops to the mountain to blow the city in a frenzy in order to seize Yinshan again. attack.
The city's Chang Guang commanded it well and relied on the dangerous mountains to resist the Maori army's repeated attacks, causing the Maori army to fall into a bitter battle below the city. At this time, conflict broke out between Otomo Zonglin of Kyushu Island and the Maori family again, so the main force of the Maori army turned to guard against the Otomo family, and the siege of Iwami Ginzan was solved.
In the twelfth month of the forty year of Jiajing (1561, the fourth year of Yonglu in Japan), Qingjiu passed away, and his son Nizi Yoshihisa succeeded him as the family governor. Chang Guang was not optimistic about the future of the Nizi family, so in June of the following year he led his people to join the Maori family. Yuan Yu regained Yinshan effortlessly this time, and the surrounding lords who also disliked the Nizi family also switched sides and supported the Maori family.
Soon, Yuan sent envoys to propose to the court and shogunate that Silver Mountain should be regarded as royal property, with himself as the administrator. This proposal was naturally passed without any controversy, so the Mori clan legitimately gained control of Ginzan, and money poured into Motonari's pockets.
With the financial support of the silver mine, the Mori clan quickly pacified the entire Iwami. In July of the same year, the Maori army began to attack the Nizi clan's base: Izumo.
The terrain in Izumo is complex and mostly mountainous. Numerous trails between the mountainous areas connect Getsama Tomita Castle and other branch cities. After many years of management by Nizi, Tsukiyama Tomita Castle has become an indestructible military fortress for Japan at that time, which can accommodate tens of thousands of people and can carry out long-term operations.
The "Ten Banners of Nizi" are ten important cities in Nizi's territory. With Yueshan Futian Castle as the center, they form the skeleton of Nizi's entire branch city defense system and lay out a powerful defense network in the territory.
In order to fight steadily, Yuan divided the battle plan into two steps. The first was to uproot various important branch cities of Tsukiyama Tomita Castle to avoid being threatened by the branch cities during the attack: that is, the "Nizi Ten Banners" defense line - composed of Bailu, Shenxi It consists of ten branch cities including Takase, Onishi, Sandowa, Kumano, Ushio, Misawa, Mamu, and Akaya. The owners of the cities are local wealthy families.
In the forty-second year of Jiajing (1563, the sixth year of Yonglu in Japan), Bailu and Kumano fell one after another. The following year, with the fall of Jiangmeicheng in Boqi's country, Nizi's family's food supply line was cut off. The next year, Motonari Mouri's army had already reached the gates of Tsukiyama Tomita Castle. There was a shortage of food in the city and morale gradually declined.
What's worse is that at this time, Nizi Yoshihisa fell into Motonari Mouri's alienation plan - he listened to Yamato Sanemon's slander and killed his important minister Uyama Hisakane. This unjust case made the retainers even more disappointed, and Nizi's family fell into a state of collapse. In November of the first year of Longqing (1567, the ninth year of Yonglu in Japan), Nizi Yoshihisa surrendered in Kaicheng and was sent to Anyi for confinement. Nizi's family perished.
From then on, Iwami Ginzan fell firmly into the hands of the Mori clan, and the Mori clan became a powerful feudal lord in western Japan. In later generations, the Choshu in Japan's so-called "Satsuma Navy, Choshu Army" refers to the Mori clan.
Gao Pingshi asked Zhang Yuangong and others why they investigated so carefully, even three generations of their ancestors were investigated.
Zhang Yuangong opened his eyes wide and said: "Then we can't check it out? If we don't check it out, how can we know the strength of Changzhou, and whether our attempt to move Yinshan will involve other Japanese forces?"
Zhu Yingzhen also interjected: "Yes, Nixin, you see, there is a very important clue in the story just now: Maori Yuan once sent envoys to the Japanese court and shogunate to propose Silver Mountain as royal property, and then their court agreed Yes - this is definitely not a casual agreement, we all think there must be some agreement to share the spoils.
In other words, Maori Yuan will definitely give a part of his silver as the price for obtaining this title. On the other hand, we now have a question, that is, if the Beiyang side takes action against the Mori family, how will the Japanese court react? To be precise, how will the monkey named Toyotomi Hideyoshi react. "
Gao Pragmatic himself had ideas about Iwami Ginzan, but his previous idea was to wait until Japan consumed a huge amount of national power in Korea and a decisive battle between the East and West armies occurred in the country before the Ming Dynasty or Beiyang Sea Trade intervened. Because this can minimize losses and losses.
Gao Pragmatic also did not expect that after the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance organized transactions with Japanese forces for many years, this butterfly wing has really changed too many things: for example, most of the nobles in the original history did not know Iwami Ginzan at all. Even if I knew about this, I could only look back and sigh. However, at this time, they not only knew the existence and importance of Iwami Silver Mountain, but even felt that they could obtain it by force with the power of the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance.
Does the Beiyang Sea Trade Alliance have such power? It depends on how it is calculated, especially how Jinghua's strength is calculated in the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance. Today's Jinghua is not all part of the Beiyang Sea Trade Alliance. Jinghua has two fleets, the North and South, but only the Beiyang Fleet belongs to the "regular establishment" of the Sea Trade Alliance.
In other words, the area south of Zhejiang, starting from Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi, and then to the entire southern Xinjiang, belongs to the Nanyang Fleet system and does not belong to the Beiyang Fleet system.
So according to this standard, the major garrison forces in southern Xinjiang will naturally not be counted as the strength of the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance. At the same time, Jinghua Trading Company is also a land-based trading entity of Jinghua Company that is independent of sea trade. This means that Jinghua Trading Company’s cavalry and cavalry all over the western and northern borders do not belong to the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance.
In addition, the more important point is that the factory protection teams and mine protection teams in various factories and mines in Jinghua all take orders from our own factory and mine, and our own factory and mine directly take orders from Gao Pragmatic himself. Therefore, the huge number of Jinghua armed servants in the Ming Dynasty do not belong to the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance. They have one and only one real "superior", that is, Gao Pragmatic himself.
What is the strength of the Beiyang Sea Trade Alliance? It is a joint maritime force with the Beiyang Fleet as the core, and the Marine Corps affiliated with the fleet. However, the "Marine Corps" at this time was only a preliminary concept and had no actual organization, and its strength was also very mixed.
As for Beijing, some of the domestic armed servants have always been sent to the Beiyang Fleet for training (the original intention is to be sent to southern Xinjiang after training). Its size has been maintained at about 3,000 people for a long time, and only about 50 people are stationed on each ship at a time. It is used to scare the local daimyo when they go ashore for trading.
The situation for nobles is even more complicated. Although they are protected by Beijing, they inevitably need their own weapons. For example, the transactions in some areas do not involve Jinghua's sales, so they have to go there on their own. At this time, certain weapons are needed to ensure the safety of the fleet after landing.
So the nobles also carefully selected some guys who seemed to be more willing to sacrifice their lives among the servants in their houses as their "Marine Corps". The origins of these people vary from family to family, but most of them are basically consistent with the status of the honorable minister. For example, several princes have prepared "marine troops" of four to five hundred people; the princes generally have about three hundred marines; I'm not sure, there are less than a hundred people, and there are more than two hundred people, which is close to the standards of the marquis.
At this time, the Ming Dynasty's nobles who stayed in the capital included the Dukes of the Three Kingdoms, the Thirteenth Marquis (including relatives who were granted the title of marquis), and the Twenty-first Uncle (including relatives). All the nobles without exception have joined the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance. This means that This brings the total number of servants they serve as "Marine Corps" to more than 8,000. Adding Jinghua's 3,000 servants, the number of "Marine Corps" servants in the entire alliance exceeds 10,000.
I don’t know if Zhu Yingzhen and Zhang Yuangong regarded their servants as the servants of the frontier generals, and actually thought that the strength of more than 10,000 people was enough to take down the Changzhou Maori clan.
The reason why they came to Gao Jingshi was, firstly, because Gao Jingshi was the leader of the Beiyang Alliance, and without his help from the Beiyang Fleet, the nobles felt a little unsure; secondly, they were worried about the interference of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Japanese Guanbai who had been Two hundred thousand troops were dispatched to fight Satsuma. Just by hearing this number, they knew that they were not easy to mess with, so they would not dare to mess around without being pragmatic.
But Gao Pragmatic frowned and said to Zhu Yingzhen: "Mr. Cheng, when I mentioned the strength of various Japanese vassals to you last time, I mentioned Shi Gao. Do you know how many Shi Gao there are in the Maori family?"
Zhu Yingzhen smiled and said: "Don't worry, Rixin. We have checked this. His family is 1.2 million stone tall, which is indeed quite strong. However, our people have also evaluated it and believe that the combat effectiveness of their vassal soldiers is actually relatively average." , although there are more than 30,000 troops in name, the number that is truly usable is probably around 15,000, probably less than 20,000, which is not much better than the extremely poor Satsuma Domain."
Oh, have you reviewed it yet?
Gao Pragmatic was a little surprised: "How are you sure?"
Zhu Yingzhen replied: "The Maori family attacked Yamabuki Castle in Iwami Ginzan at least twice, but never succeeded in a real attack. This can at least show one thing: they seriously lacked artillery, especially heavy artillery that can attack the top of the mountain. According to Beiyang's experience, the lack of artillery will cause them to be unable to deal with artillery, and this is our strength - of course, uh, it is Jinghua's strength... So as long as Nissin nods, we will definitely be able to attack with surprise troops. Yamabuki Castle!”
Gao pragmatic frowned and said, "What then?"
"Then...what next?" Zhu Yingzhen was stunned: "We only want Yinshan. We can take Shanchui City and that's it. What else is there?"
Gao Jingshi almost rolled his eyes, and after a long while he said helplessly: "Even if we rely on the advantage of the fleet to land at close range and capture Yamabuki Castle in a sneak attack, can the Maori family be able to swallow this breath?"
"It's okay if you can't swallow it. Didn't I just say that they don't have heavy artillery, so they can't take down the mountain and blow the city." Zhang Yuangong interrupted.
Gao Pragmatic sighed: "Maybe they don't have it. Does Toyotomi Hideyoshi have it? Can any of you guarantee this to me?"
"This..." The two princes winced in their eyes, and Zhu Yingzhen smiled dryly and said, "Probably...probably not."
Gao Pragmatic was silent for a moment, and finally sighed again, and said: "Among the heavy artillery produced by Jinghua last year, 146 heavy artillery that can be used on land and sea were sold abroad. Beiyang sold 84 of them, of which only ten Eight of them were bought one by one by scattered small shipowners, and the remaining sixty-six were purchased within the Sea Trade Alliance.
However, according to the Maritime Trade Alliance's port inspection records, in fact, except for the Jinghua Beiyang Fleet, the other ships actually only had 24 additional heavy guns. Sirs, do you know where the remaining forty-two heavy cannons have gone? "
Zhu Yingzhen and Zhang Yuangong's expressions changed, they looked at each other secretly, and said awkwardly: "This..."
Gao Jingshi suddenly waved his hand: "You two have known each other for nearly twenty years, and you also know who I am. If things are still within my control and my friends make some small oversights, I will not I will worry about it. However, if things develop to the point where I cannot even control them..."
"No, no, how is it possible!" Zhu Yingzhen said hurriedly: "Jinghua produced a total of thousands of artillery pieces last year, including no less than 700 heavy artillery pieces, although most of them were sold to the Imperial Guard and various To suppress the border troops, some were shipped to southern Xinjiang, but our foundation in Beiyang is strong. After so many years, the Jinghua Beiyang Fleet alone probably has thousands of heavy artillery pieces..."
Gao Qingshi said calmly: "But they can't get to the shore, let alone Shanchui City."
Zhu Yingzhen was stunned when he heard the words, and smiled dryly, not knowing what to say. Seeing that the situation was not going well, Zhang Yuangong was heartbroken and simply said: "Brother Rixin, this... As a brother, let me just tell you this: Do you know how much money you can make selling cannons to the Japanese?"
Gao pragmatic glanced at him and said nothing.
Zhang Yuangong stretched out his fingers and gestured: "I don't know the cost of the No. 2 heavy artillery model of the 14th year of Wanli. I don't know the cost of Jinghua, but the internal price of Beiyang is 420 taels per gun, and the independent price in Ming Dynasty is 500 taels." Door... But Brother Rixin, guess what the price will be after it is sold to Japan."
Gao pragmatic shook his head and said, "I don't know."
Zhang Yuangong smiled mysteriously and lowered his voice: "If you sell less than ten doors at a time, the price is one thousand six hundred taels of silver. If you sell more than ten doors at one time, the price is one thousand five hundred taels of silver."
Boy, nearly four times that amount? This news shocked Gao Pragmatic.
More importantly, Gao pragmatically knew that after he guided the technical points of iron smelting, steelmaking and gun body casting, Jinghua's artillery yield rate increased significantly (the low yield rate was the main factor affecting the cost at that time), so the Wanli fourteenth year model The cost price of the No. 2 heavy artillery was only about two hundred taels of silver. The price sold by Jinghua to Beiyang's interior had actually doubled, and the price sold to other Ming merchants was almost two and a half times the cost price.
Who knew that once these artillery pieces were sold to Japan, they would be sold over and over again, with the price rising all the way to one thousand five hundred and six hundred taels of silver each! No wonder it is said that the most profitable business in the world is drugs and arms. Imperialism will not deceive me.
Thinking of this, Gao Pragmatic suddenly realized that it was no wonder that the two of them - or the nobles - came up with the idea of Imagin Yinshan. Japan was able to spend so much money to buy artillery. If it wasn't because they had mountains of silver, could it be because they had the magic pen Ma Liang?
These nobles only have money in their eyes. Since the money is there, and it is not easy to get guns from Beijing, why not just go and grab it?
Gao Pragmatic felt speechless for a moment. He had so many words to say that he didn’t know where to start. The two top nobles of the Ming Dynasty looked at him eagerly, hoping that he would give them an answer that would make them ecstatic.
Unexpectedly, at this moment, the voice of a maid from another courtyard suddenly came from outside the hot spring to report softly: "My lord, Uncle Ning Yuan is here to attack. The Governor of the Right Palace and the Commander-in-Chief of Liaodong, Li Zongrong, have arrived."
Zhang Yuangong and Zhu Yingzhen both looked at Gao Pragmatic with disappointed expressions.
Gao Jingshi said calmly: "Let's wait until I see Li Yangcheng." After that, he stood up and walked out of the hot spring.
The two princes looked at each other, stood up without interest, and sighed at the same time. Zhu Yingzhen couldn't help but said: "Rixin, this matter... er, I mean the cannon selling thing... Well, after all, the Japanese country is not Mongolia, nor is it Jurchen. Now that the Japanese pirates have subsided, it should be no big deal. ?”
Gao pragmatically twitched the corners of his mouth and paused. He wanted to say something, but in the end he shook his head slightly and left without saying a word.
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Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and monthly ticket support, thank you!
PS: Today’s chapter is actually a chapter added temporarily. The reason is that I saw a book friend asking a question a few days ago, saying that according to the plot of this book, the strength of the Ming Dynasty has strengthened a lot, and I have also hinted many times that in In the war to aid Korea, the Jurchens would also be used as cannon fodder. In this way, wouldn't the combat effectiveness of Japan be greatly inferior to that in the original history? Is it still worth fighting? I replied below that there will be the influence of butterfly wings. After thinking about it, although leaving this paragraph completely blank would make the subsequent plot more ups and downs, it might also be more abrupt, so a chapter is inserted here to show why Japan has "reinforcements." Well, in this case, maybe there will be a "Meet Li Rusong (End)" tomorrow...
