Gao pragmatically remembered that there are three major copper mountains in Japan, namely Besshi Copper Mountain, Akazawa Copper Mountain and Ashio Copper Mountain. He had also specifically asked Liu Xin before to confirm that these memories were correct.
In the original history, Besshi Copper Mountain was discovered in 1690. The Sumitomo family obtained the hereditary mining qualification of "Eternal Request" from the Tokugawa Shogunate, and then continued to mine it until the Showa period, supporting a huge Sumitomo Zaibatsu;
Akasawa Copper Mountain was purchased by Kuhara Fusanosuke (this person was the Minister of Communications in the Tanaka Cabinet) during the Meiji period, and was renamed Hitachi Copper Mountain, establishing the Kuhara Zaibatsu (the foundation of Hitachi Manufacturing). Later, it was purchased by Kuhara's brother-in-law and Meiji veteran Inoue Kaoru's grandnephew Ayukawa Yoshisuke (he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Konoe Cabinet) took over and renamed it Nippon Industrial, or Nissan for short, thus laying the foundation for the two major companies of Hitachi and Nissan.
Ashio Copper Mountain is also called Orizawa Copper Mountain. Although it ranks third, it was the first to be mined. The "Watong" in the name "Watong Kaiju" refers to Ashio Copper Mountain. This copper mountain was mined intermittently until the Meiji period, when it was taken over by Yataro Iwasaki of Tosa. Iwasaki's company, called Mitsubishi Trading Company, was formerly the sea aid team of Tosa Sakamoto Ryoma.
The power of the three copper mountains can already be seen from this. However, mining copper in Japan is currently a bit troublesome.
Among the three major copper mountains, Besshi Copper Mountain should be the largest in terms of scale and reserves, but Besshi Copper Mountain is located almost in the middle of the northern part of Shikoku Island, right on the Seto Inland Sea.
The Seto Inland Sea is the place that the Keika fleet is least willing to go to. Firstly, there are many islands there, and secondly, it is an area where land breezes and sea breezes frequently switch. Considering that it may affect the fleet's maneuverability and cause the fleet's strength to decline, Kyoka rarely sends fleets to the Seto Inland Sea.
Specifically, that area is now Yoshiaki Kato’s territory. Kato Yoshiaki, also known as "Mosheng" and his childhood name "Moriku", is one of the so-called "Seven Guns of the Base" and was born in Mikawa.
He became an official Hideyoshi at the age of thirteen. He had a calm and collected personality, didn't like to talk much, and never panicked when encountering difficulties. He was called "a brave man". As the main force of the Toyotomi Navy, he performed outstandingly during the Shikoku Conquest and the Kyushu Conquest.
In the Korean War, he also led the navy into battle as a "boat soldier". Later, he participated in the attack on Ishida Mitsunari. In the Battle of Sekigahara, he belonged to the Eastern Army and successfully besieged Ishida Mitsunari's headquarters. After the war, the territory was increased to 200,000 koku. After the Battle of Osaka, Mutsu Aizu Wakamatsu Castle was sealed again with 400,000 koku.
It can be said that during the era of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he was Hideyoshi's loyal supporter. After Hideyoshi's death, he became Tokugawa Ieyasu's loyal supporter perhaps because he was born in Mikawa. Ieyasu's hometown was Mikawa Kingdom, and he had been a loyal supporter of Hideyoshi before moving to Kanto. Take the Mikawa Samurai as the basis of rule.
Therefore, considering these two points, it is very dangerous to develop the Bezi copper mine now. Although Gao Pragmatic is not worried about his final victory, he will probably lose control of the copper mine for a period of time.
However, the locations of Ashio Copper Mountain and Hitachi Copper Mountain are not very friendly to Gao Pragmatism. These two major copper mountains are both in Kanto. Among them, Ashio Copper Mountain is located in the Ashio area of later Nikko City, and Hitachi Copper Mountain is located in Ibaraki Prefecture.
The distance between the two is not very far, only about 90 kilometers, which is a distance of 180 miles. However, one of them, Ashio Copper Mountain, happened to be located at the junction of the spheres of influence of the three daimyo: Date Masamune, Shirakawa Yoshinori, and Nasu Suharu.
Theoretically speaking, among the three daimyo, Date Masamune was obviously the strongest. As long as he had his support, he should be able to secure possession of the copper mine.
However, let alone how to convince this one-eyed dragon who is said to be quite handsome, at least the timing is unfortunate.
Three years ago, in October of the 14th year of Japan's Tensho period (1586), Date Masamune's father-in-law, Tamura Kiyaki, suddenly died suddenly before he could designate an heir, and the family was divided. Tamura Tsutsusai and others supported Hiroyai, while Tamura Uisetsusai and others supported Hianki. The candidate for the new leader has been debated for a long time.
Date Masamune then took advantage of this opportunity to win over Tsukusai and suppress Mei Xuezai and his backstage, Mrs. Souma (Kiyoaki's second wife). The final result was that Mrs. Souma retired to Funakoshi Castle, Date Masamune entered Miharu, the main city of the Tamura clan, and appointed Kiyoaki's nephew Munehiro as the new family governor.
As a result, the originally independent daimyo Tamura clan lost its independence and became a vassal of the Date clan. At this time, the Date family's jurisdiction bordered on the powerful Ashina family in the south.
Here we need to go back a little bit to the history of the Ashina family for a period of time: As early as the third year of Tianzheng (1575), Ashina Shengxing of the Ashina family died of illness. Since his son was still young, the Sheng family who was still old and not dead took the decision. He remarried Shengxing's wife Ida Gozen to his adopted son Shenglong, and Shenglong succeeded him as the family governor.
His original intention was to take the opportunity to continue to maintain peaceful and friendly relations with the two major princes, one was the Date clan, and the other was the Nikaido clan who was born in Shengtaka. However, leaving a large number of relatives in the family without taking care of them (such as the Inaashiro, Arai, Tomita, Aachio, etc. clan) and passing the throne to outsiders has sown the bitter fruit of internal strife in the family.
So five years later, the sixty-year-old Ashina Mori passed away, and Ashina's final turmoil began.
Immediately after Ashina Mori's death, the head of the Ashina family, Moritaka, and his son, Kamewakamaru, who was only three years old, were assassinated by retainers, thus severing the clan line.
As a result, the family began to split according to different choices of successors. The Satake faction elected Yoshihiro, the second son of Satake Yoshige, and the Date faction elected Kojiro Tamaru, Date Masamune's younger brother. The two factions fought endlessly.
In the end, the Satake faction gained the upper hand, and Satake Yoshihiro became the head of the Ashina clan and changed his name to Ashina Morishige at the age of thirteen.
Of course, Date Masamune was not satisfied with this result, so he incited Ashina's retainers to rebel. The panicked Ashina Morishige hurriedly ran to visit Toyotomi Hideyoshi, which was quite smart to find a solid backer for himself. However, as soon as he left, he handed over all the family affairs to the important minister Jin Shang Shengbei.
However, at this time, Hideyoshi had just defeated Shibata Katsuie, his biggest internal rival after the death of Oda Nobunaga. He could not reach the distant East Country at all. This backer was completely ineffective, and the one-eyed dragon Date Masamune was right in front of him. But he has already begun his fierce battle to unify Oshu.
At that time, Masamune marched straight in and reached the edge of the Abu Kuma River. Ashina's army stepped forward to fight, but naturally they received a huge defeat. Morishige had no choice but to ask for help from his own father, Satake Yoshige.
Satake Yoshige was also a famous general at the time, known as "Oni Yoshige". He took the opportunity to reach out to Mutsu and join forces with the Ashina clan with 30,000 troops to surround the Date clan's Koriyama Castle. Toyotomi Hideyoshi also had the demeanor of being a big brother. Hundreds of iron cannons were sent from thousands of miles away as support. This offensive and defensive battle was very fierce, and the outcome was indisputable for a long time. Finally, due to the mediation of the Daimyo Iwaki clan, the war was temporarily suspended.
Okay, since I mentioned it, let’s talk about the Iwaki clan by the way. The Iwaki clan, both descendants of the Taira clan, had been swinging between the Date clan and the Ashina clan before. After the war, they completely fell to the side of Ashina and Satake, so they later suffered a fierce attack from Date Masamune. Fortunately, an opportunity fell from the sky. When Tsunetaka of the main rock city hurried to Odawara to join the war to support Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he barely managed to save his family line - this is a story for another day.
Talking back to the Ashina family, this year was the seventeenth year of Tensho in Japan (1589). Ashina Morishige felt that his rule was stable, so he sent troops to the Suga River again, hoping to establish a true seal with Date Masamune. In the midst of a fierce battle, Inanodai Morikuni, an important member of the family, suddenly plotted a rebellion and led the Date army to invade the main city of Kurokawa.
Morishige hurriedly sent his troops back, and on June 5, he ran into the Date army at Oriagehara on Bandai Mountain, and the two sides launched a battle, which was the famous Oriagehara Battle.
This battle was the second key battle in Date Masamune's life after taking the bridge. There were about 7,000 Ashina troops and 5,000 Date troops participating in the Origamihara war. The battle first started between the Ashina side's general Tomita Shogun and Inaashiro Morikuni, who had just surrendered to Date side.
The battle lasted for a long time, as the Ashina army rushed forward with the west wind on their backs, and Inadai Morikuni retreated after the defeat. Date's second division, and also Date Masamune's most trusted man, Katakura Keizuna, hurriedly led his troops to support, but Still at a disadvantage.
At the critical moment, the wind direction suddenly reversed and a strong east wind blew. This strong wind made it difficult for Ashina's soldiers to open their eyes. Date Masamune saw the opportunity and immediately led the iron artillery team to shoot from the side. Finally, he saved the situation and began to slowly gain the upper hand.
At this time, some of the Ashina army who were dissatisfied with their master's defection to the Hitachi Satake clan were the first to be defeated, which finally led to the complete collapse of the entire front. In this battle, the Ashina clan suffered 2,500 casualties. Lord Morishige fled back to his home city of Aizu Kurokawa Castle with only thirteen cavalrymen. On the evening of the 10th, he escaped from Kurokawa Castle and fled to Hitachi Kingdom controlled by the Satake clan. .
The next day, Date Masamune entered Kurokawa Castle and won the final victory in the battle. The Ashina clan, a century-old strong feudal lord in Minamimutsu, was declared extinct.
The reason why this time is embarrassing is that it is less than a year away from the Battle of Odawara initiated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. If Ashina Mori resists for a while longer, or simply does not take the initiative to send troops, he may still be able to use it. The family name lives on.
After all, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who was a Kanbai, had always been very concerned about the daimyo who took the initiative to express their surrender to him. After the Battle of Odawara, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had no apparent opponents. At that time, Date Masamune naturally I don't dare to take action against the Ashina family.
At this moment, when Gao Jingshi and Huang Zhiting were taking a walk after dinner, Toyotomi Hideyoshi should have issued the Odawara Expedition Order (1589.11), but Date Masamune couldn't decide what stance he should take in this war. .
The Ashina family had surrendered to Toyotomi Hideyoshi and was considered his younger brother, so Date Masamune knew that he had offended Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Therefore, whether to obey Sekiba Toyotomi Hideyoshi and hope that he will be more liberal and let him go, or to keep doing nothing and simply join forces with Hojo to fight against Hideyoshi and unify Japan. Date Masamune, who is very ambitious but also rational, is now hesitant.
On the one hand, he knew that under the current situation, Hideyoshi was already on his way, and it would be difficult to resist him. On the other hand, he did not want Hideyoshi to really complete the unification of Japan, so that his ambition could only lie dormant forever. And he very much hopes to join forces with Hojo to completely destroy the rival Satake family (the power of the Satake family is located between Date and Hojo).
In history, Date Masamune was first ordered to be punished by Hideyoshi. Later, after a series of operations and changes such as submission and tug-of-war, Hideyoshi finally made a decision that greatly affected the Ashio Copper Mountain area, that is, in 1591, Hideyoshi It was decided to transfer the title of Masamune to Iwadeyama Castle with 580,000 koku (since Yonezawa and other places were confiscated, the transfer was actually a reduction of the transfer).
After Date Masamune transferred the title, the land where the vacated Copper Mountain belonged belonged to the Uesugi clan who transferred the title from Echigo, and later became Uesugi Kagekatsu, one of the five elders.
The transfer of the name to the feudal lord had a great impact on the stable mining of Copper Mountain. What was even worse was that the Uesugi family later became the reason for Tokugawa Ieyasu to initiate the Battle of Sekigahara (that is, it was said that Uesugi had an evil plot and sent troops to conquer this area). Always in turmoil.
Even though Gao Pragmatic couldn't remember whether that area had ever been a battlefield, at least if a large copper mine was developed there, it would definitely become a key area of contention, which would be too bad.
The two major copper mountains, Besshi and Ashio, were not easy to deal with, so the target had to fall on Hitachi Copper Mountain. However, there is another coincidence here: Hitachi Copper Mountain happens to be located in the territory of the Satake family mentioned just now.
The head of the Satake family at this time was also mentioned just now, Satake Yoshigeage, who was known as "Oni Yoshige". In Japan during the Warring States Period, any nickname with the word "鬼" in it was generally more complimentary, meaning that the person was very powerful and had "ghost powers" - you see, Japanese people even like to play games. To describe Lu Bu as a ghost or god shows how Japanese people are used to it.
For this reason, even those who have never played a game with a Japanese Warring States background, as long as they see words such as "Oni Shimazu", "Oni Sakon", "Oni Shibata", "Oni Yoshikawa", "Oni Mino", "Oni Wu" in the game If a person's name or skill name begins with the word "ghost" such as "hide", you can basically be sure that this is an extraordinary character or skill, and nine times out of ten, it will be very awesome.
In this case, Oni Yishige is certainly very awesome. His father, Satake Yoshiaki, was frail and sick, so he gave up the throne to the sixteen-year-old Yoshigege early at the age of thirty-two. He himself died of illness three years later. In the same year that he succeeded the family governor, Satake Yoshige ushered in his first battle, fighting Souma Moriin in Ongnohara.
Yoshitaka, who was only sixteen years old, won a complete victory in this battle and took the heads of seven enemy generals in the battle formation, which shocked Hitachi.
It can be seen from this that there are no less outstanding figures among military generals than there are talented young men among scholars. Satake Yoshige's performance is similar to that of Liu Wei who served as his father's vanguard when he first formed the formation at the age of thirteen, and defeated the Nine Silk Barbarians in extremely dangerous terrain in one fell swoop. The big results are quite similar.
At that time, the Hojo family was already the overlord of Kanto. Satake Yoshishige relied on the not-so-strong Satake family to compete with it by relying on its horizontal alliance and its own military capabilities to avoid being defeated by Hojo. He annexed the family, and even expanded his sphere of influence in the Nanao region through various means-for example, pushing his son to the position of head of the Ashina family as mentioned just now is one of them.
If this were the case, it stands to reason that a daimyo who was not too strong but whose head was quite capable would be a good partner. However, Gao Pragmatic knew that the situation of the Satake family would also change.
After the Ashina family was destroyed by Date Masamune, Yoshitaka also used this opportunity to accuse Date of violating the "Sono Affairs Order" with his biological son Ashina Morishige, who inherited the Ashina family name, in an attempt to restore the Ashina territory. Therefore, the Satake family participated in the Odawara War. The crusade and Ou's crusade, and with the support of Ishida Mitsunari, focused on Ueno and Musashi's Habagata Castle.
Unfortunately, although Hojo was successfully destroyed, Hideyoshi ignored his request to restore Ashina's old territory, and instead transferred the Kamao clan to Aizu, dashing Yoshishige's hopes.
After the Hojo crusade, Yoshitaka seized the opportunity to attack the pro-Hojo daimyo Edo clan and capture Mito Castle. At the same time, Hideyoshi used a petition of "Free access to the Hitachi Kingdom" as a war reward. In addition to the previously captured territory, Satake claimed The total of Hitachi, Shimono and part of Mutsu was 550,000 koku, and Satake reached the peak of his power.
After receiving Hideyoshi's petition, Yoshitaka and his son Yoshinobu (who had succeeded to the throne, but Yoshitaka still held the most power) began to govern Minami Hitachi, but they were hampered by the local Minami Hitachi Sansankan. The resolute resistance of powerful forces.
In view of this, Yoshige planned and commissioned Yoshinobu to invite the major names of the Thirty-three Halls to attend the famous "Ume no Banquet". At that time, the Sansankan thought that Satake had nothing to do with them, so they held a banquet and peace talks.
During the plum banquet, Satake showed his hospitality to everyone in the Thirty-three Hall. When everyone was drunk, Yoshigege and Yoshinobu immediately sent out the musketeers to kill everyone one by one. From then on, the Thirty-three The power of the Imperial House completely collapsed, and Satake successfully took over Minami Hitachi, thus unifying Hitachi.
However, Hideyoshi actually reduced the Satake family's 540,000 koku by 100,000 koku in the security order in the fourth year of Bunroku (1595) on the grounds that Satake had not received an order to attack the Sanjusankan. Yoshigege felt very angry about this and lost respect for the Toyotomi regime. For this reason, he handed over the real power to Yoshinobu, officially lived in seclusion, and then moved to Mito Castle.
Later, his son Yoshinobu Fushimijo became friends with Ishida Mitsunari. In the same year, the Utsunomiya family was changed because of falsely reporting the total amount of stone in the Taiko inspection. Since Satake and Utsunomiya were related by marriage, they needed to be joined together. However, due to Ishida Mitsunari's mediation and intercession to Hideyoshi, the Satake family was finally spared from involvement. From then on, Mitsunari and Satake's relationship became closer.
After Tokugawa Ieyasu launched the Uesugi Crusade, the Battle of Sekigahara (a series of wars) broke out. Satake Yoshinobu clearly declared to join the Western Army. However, due to extremely inconsistent opinions within the family, he was unable to actually send troops in the end.
But at that time, the Satake family made such a declaration, and Ieyasu could not ignore it. Therefore, the Satake family was criticized by Ieyasu after the war. Faced with the huge danger that his fiefdom might be confiscated, Yoshishige had no choice but to come forward again and went to Edo in person to plead guilty and intercede with Ieyasu.
Considering that Satake's military strength should not be underestimated, Ieyasu was finally persuaded to give up the penalty of confiscating the fiefdom and only reduced Satake's fiefdom to Dewa Akita for 205,000 koku. The Satake family was once again exempted from the punishment due to Yoshigeage's efforts. Suffering disaster.
But here comes the problem. After his family's seal was reduced to Dewa Akita, it said goodbye to Tongshan. If Gao Pragmatic cooperates with his family, what will happen then?
Who controls the area where Tongshan is located at this time? He was Tokugawa Yorifusa, the eleventh and youngest son of Tokugawa Ieyasu. His nickname was Tsuruchiyo, and he was the first generation of the Mito Tokugawa family, one of the three imperial families of the Tokugawa shogunate.
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