From Chief to Ball

The envoy said that the Spanish colonies are all monopoly trades conducted by the Spanish royal family, and the royal family gets a lot of money every year, which can support various wars in Europe.It is difficult for outsiders to intervene in trade.

After the people who came thanked them, they asked them if they knew the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as the contradiction between the Dutch and the Spanish, and so on.

The envoys are very familiar with this, having played in The Hague and Amsterdam for more than half a year, and basically know some generalities of the grievances and hatreds, so they will tell them one by one.

The people who came later brought the flintlock guns that these people carried when they landed, and asked these people to demonstrate and see the effect of armor penetration.

When the envoys wanted to ask how the person who came would treat them, the person who came saluted and left.The messengers once again fell into endless waiting.

This kind of torture of waiting was a bit boring, so I took the opportunity to learn some Japanese, and sometimes I was allowed to go out for a while.

About a month after this kind of life, two more people came to visit, apparently arranged by Tokugawa Ieyasu on purpose.

One is Juan Rodriguez, a Jesuit priest, and the other is said to be Dutch but actually British because Britain does not have Adams, who is well-known in the Netherlands in Japan at this time.

There were also some Japanese who accompanied these two people here, and the envoys were probably talking about something on the sidelines, so they picked up something that could be said.

From the Goddess Island to The Hague, I told all kinds of knowledge one by one, basically there are no loopholes.Instead, Adams asked these people about the UK. When he went to work for the Dutch Indian Company, there was still a war between Britain and the West.It can be seen that this person has nostalgia, but it is a pity that he cannot go back for the time being.Furthermore, in Europe, they were only sailor employees of Indian companies, but they were treated preferentially here.

After such strange insinuations several times, the envoys finally waited for Tokugawa Ieyasu's interview.

The envoys estimated that the exact news of the Battle of Ryukyu had already reached here, and many things had basically been clarified, and it was time to resolve them.

After meeting in accordance with normal etiquette, to the surprise of the envoys, Tokugawa Ieyasu did not ask about the Battle of Ryukyu first.

Instead, he took out the map marked with alphabetic characters and asked: "As you said, your country can be reached by sailing westward for [-] miles from here?"

"Exactly, just north of the Spanish colonies."

"So, it's more convenient to sail from Edo?"

"Yes."

"The last time you came, I said that I would send people to follow your fleet to your country. How did your governor reply?"

"The governor said that we welcome the establishment of trade relations with you and the friendly relations of non-aggression between the two sides. And when returning to the voyage, you can take your envoys with you."

"Do you have any goods that cannot be sold in foreign trade?"

"Basically nothing. As long as you have silver and gold, you can buy everything."

"Including this kind of iron cannon that doesn't use matchlocks and the big barrel that can smash the city wall?"

"can."

"In the past, the Wu hook was sharp, and the king of Wu killed Ou Yezi to make it for the sake of other countries. Why are you willing to transfer and sell this sharp weapon?"

"Gold and silver. Besides, our country has tens of millions of people and [-] soldiers with guns. Although it is impossible to go thousands of miles to conquer due to the turmoil of the sea, there are no foreign soldiers within [-] miles of the world who can land on our land. What is there to be afraid of?"

The envoy replied in this way, but he thought in his heart: There are actually many things that cannot be exported, such as the regulations on the prohibition of exporting machinery signed before coming here, but you may not understand what has been said, so there is no need to say more.Anyway, Mr. Chen also said before coming here that these people must be reassured not to let them think that we will make worries about attacking other countries.

Tokugawa Ieyasu heard such an answer and asked again: "Last time you said that those Spaniards could conquer a country of millions with hundreds of people, so what's going on?"

"The country of a million people is just slash-and-burn farming, and they don't know how to use copper and iron bows and arrows. After the conquest, they wiped out the country's priests, literature and history, and forced the people of the country to believe in God. Naturally, the Great Imperial Palace can think about it. If the whole country of Japan believes in God, the general and the pope , who is closer to the believers?"

Tokugawa Ieyasu was silent, knowing that these people were deliberately slandering Spain and Portugal for trade or profit, but these words had to be guarded against.

Personally, he was quite wary of Catholicism. The prefect Konishi, whose Christian name was John, was so easily killed a few years ago, and he was worried that there were quite a lot of Catholics in some of the eastern daimyos or samurai, so he had to be vigilant.

Even if these envoys are not here to tell the truth and add fuel to the flames, he still knows the danger.He was very worried that when Toyotomi's house was cleaned up in the future, a group of wanderers holding the crusader banner and taking the courage of martyrdom would fight him to the end.

But now he has not completely controlled the situation. Just a few years after the Battle of Sekigahara, the Toyotomi family is still lingering, and he doesn't know how much appeal these people still have.

At this time, it is impossible to make too much noise, and it is even more unwise to cut off trade and lock the country at this time.

When these envoys came to Junfu Castle two months ago with the situation of the Battle of Ryukyu, Tokugawa Ieyasu's excitement because of the renovation of Junfu Castle suddenly disappeared.

When I saw the unkind letter, I was extremely angry at first, but when I saw some battle formation diagrams hand-painted by the results, casualties, and Chen Jian, I immediately put back that anger.

The Shimadzu family was still on the opposite side a few years ago. If it weren't for some things, they should have cleaned him up after the Sekigahara War.

Regarding the invasion of Ryukyu, Tokugawa's original intention was to conduct legal trade by controlling Ryukyu and the Ming Dynasty.For this, he also sent people to North Korea to find a way to repair relations with North Korea, and hoped that North Korea would help convey it on his behalf.

However, he also knew in his heart that it might be difficult.The enmity between North Korea and Japan is not so easy to let go, and the Ming Dynasty's vigilance against Japan also made the possibility of such a thing illusory.

It is impossible to cut off the trade, he himself has earned a lot of wealth through trade, and cutting off the trade with the Ming Dynasty is impossible for him to bear anyway.

It's just that what these messengers said is true or not is still uncertain, and he can't decide for a while.First, he sent his diplomatic advisers and the Dutch to inquire about the origins of these people, and when the news from the Shimadzu family came, Tokugawa Ieyasu was finally convinced that what happened on the Ryukyu side was probably true.

In all likelihood, this is not just the incident itself, but also the horrific battle of casualties.Kawayama Kudaka must have been captured, and the remaining ones who were said to have died in battle on the diplomatic documents must have died, and the battle lasted no more than half an hour, which is really unbelievable.

After confirming the news, Tokugawa Ieyasu was not thinking about Ryukyu or the Ming trade, but the growing strength of the daimyos in the southeast.

Inevitably, there were Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch people in the Hirado area, and now this group of people known as the Great Xia has been added.These advanced firearms will continue to be passed on, and Tokugawa Ieyasu can even imagine that the Shimadzu family will definitely find a way to obtain these new iron cannon imitations after they know the situation of the Battle of Ryukyu.

Originally Satsuma's firearms level was already very high, Tokugawa Ieyasu didn't want to see Satsuma soldiers with tens of thousands of flintlock guns in a few years: the casualty ratio of nearly one to ten made Tokugawa Ieyasu unimaginable.

Originally, he thought of sending people to trade directly with the colonial governors of Spain, because those governors are located in the west of Japan and can be reached across the Pacific Ocean, so that the daimyos in the southeast can be prevented from becoming bigger through trade.

But after listening to these envoys talk about Spain's monopoly trade mechanism, and a drill of new-age firearms in the Battle of Ryukyu, Tokugawa Ieyasu changed his mind.

He no longer liked the fact that the Spaniards believed in Catholicism; and Spain's firearms were obviously not as good as those of the Great Xia Kingdom. These people were more enthusiastic about trade, and they didn't need to go around Hirado for transactions.

In this case, why can't we establish a direct trade relationship with these people?If these people can be allowed to establish a trading house near their home in Edo, it will kill two birds with one stone.

Chapter 89 Broken Dreams and Reality

He is a person who is good at using iron gunners, and he is also very good at learning the improvement of muskets.

It's just that before the Battle of Ryukyu, the mainstream in the world was still a mix of hot and cold weapons.Qi Jiguang's reforms, the Spanish phalanx, and the Dutch Morris system can be regarded as the peak and several typical tactics of the arquebus era at this time.

Tokugawa Ieyasu is also a battle-hardened person, and after seeing the military formation maps of the Battle of Ryukyu drawn by Chen Jian, he also saw a little taste in them.

Regardless of the speed of fire of the flintlock and the unification of hot and cold weapons and projected hand-to-hand combat caused by the bayonet, the use of field artillery in the Battle of Ryukyu is far ahead of the times.The small-caliber field artillery is the Swedish model of the 30-year war in the future, and these applications have been basically formed since the artillery was available a long time ago. The officers and artillery who participated in the war were more proficient with the help of geometry. .

These tactics Tokugawa Ieyasu can't be understood by just looking at them, they need professional instructors.What he is most worried about is that the governor behind these people knows more about the situation in Japan than outsiders, and he is most afraid that this group of people will smuggle a large number of guns to Toyotomi's Osaka at sea, which is the real Osaka. trouble.

As for the bigger threat, he can't see it yet.But these threats in front of him were enough to attract his attention.

After considering all kinds of gains and losses, it was decided to meet these envoys.

The envoys were a little surprised that Tokugawa Ieyasu did not directly ask Ryukyu but asked whether it was possible to trade across the Pacific Ocean, but considering that Japan has a lot of gold and silver, this is not a good thing.

In China, the concept that labor creates wealth and that national wealth lies in the products produced has just begun to spread.These envoys are still more inclined to accumulate precious metals. Their understanding of Japan these days makes them sure that the trade between Japan and their own country will not cause the country to lose anything, but on the contrary, they can get enough gold and silver.

And once there is a problem with trade, a tariff adjustment can solve many problems.There is no need to worry about the huge domestic handicraft class and the growing large workshops and factories that can block the proposals of maritime merchants and smugglers on trade issues.

As for the interests of these envoys themselves, that is, the profits of the trade line centered on Ming Dynasty promised by Chen Jian, they were not worried.