Chapter 2070
When Yu Yao came, he was not sure how much the Dutch knew about the relevant information, but he knew very well what the Dutch's weaknesses were and how to make the other party compromise. Although a small place like Damuan Port would not be taken seriously by Haihan, it was of great significance to the Dutch. The East India Company needed this colonial port to maintain its trade relations and international influence in Northeast Asia. There is absolutely no room for error.
Therefore, he hinted to Hans during the conversation that if he refused to cooperate, the East India Company would not only lose control of the port of Damian, but Heihan might also hand over the place that the Dutch had operated for more than ten years to their rival Portugal. in human hands.
The competition between the Netherlands and Portugal around the world has begun in the last century, and it has never stopped in the East. The two companies respectively control the Strait of Malacca and the Strait of Sunda, two key waterways connecting the Indian Ocean in the South China Sea. They have also been competing with each other in the process of expanding northward. One of them occupies Haojing Ao at the Pearl River Estuary, and the other is in Fujian. Strait settled.
However, for various reasons, the relationship between the Dutch East India Company and Heyhan has never been very harmonious, and it is far less close than Portugal and Heyhan. In recent years, Portugal has evolved from a mere trading partner to a military ally of Haihan, and has sent troops several times in exchange for more trust and support from Haihan.
Although the Portuguese are being expelled from the local market by the Japanese shogunate, their merchant ships have been allowed by Haihan to enter the area north of the Yangtze River estuary, and because they accompanied Haihan to send troops to Korea last year to aid in the war, they have obtained a chartered trade qualification from Korea. It is vaguely more advanced than the Dutch in Northeast Asia.
It was already an unrealistic goal for the East India Company to squeeze the Portuguese, who were supported by Haihan, from the area north of the Fujian Strait. The Dutch could only strive to expand their trade scope northward while maintaining their existing colonial ports and trade routes.
It can be said that this is the minimum requirement to ensure that Damuan Port will remain under the control of the East India Company for a foreseeable period in the future. If Hans cannot even do this, then it will probably be difficult for him to return to Bada. Via submitted a letter to the company's council.
Hans spread his hands and said: "To be honest, I still don't understand why you are interested in Shibazhi again after a few years. Hasn't this organization been completely disintegrated by you?"
For reasons of confidentiality, it was of course impossible for Yu Yao to tell Hans the whole series of previous events. He could only explain the reason for doing so in a very brief way: "Recently, we have discovered that some people are trying to get around to us. There is evidence that these people may be hiding in Japan. Apart from the Shiba Shiyu Party who fled to Japan, we really can’t think of anyone else there who would try to go against us.”
Yu Yao paused and signaled the translator to convey his words to Hans first. After the translator finished speaking, he continued: "I know that the East India Company has trade channels and connections in Japan, and it should be more influential to local forces than us. We know better, so I hope Mr. Hans can provide relevant information in as much detail as possible to help us find out the truth as soon as possible.”
Hans was about to shirk again, but Yu Yao didn't leave him a chance at all, and then said: "If we can't catch these people, then for safety reasons, we have no choice but to cut off all Japan's foreign trade channels. It will certainly affect the operations of the East India Company. ”
Well, first he threatened to change the ownership of Taipei Port, and now he claimed to cut off Japan's trade channels. Such "negotiations" simply left no room for Hans to turn around. The most terrible thing is that Hans knows that Yu Yao is not bragging. Haihan can really implement the methods he said, but his own side has no effective way to counter it.
Either cooperate or be eliminated, these are the two choices Haihan gave Hans. But for Hans, there seemed to be two options, but in fact he had no choice at all. Exiting was definitely an unacceptable option for him and the East India Company.
"About Shibazhi... I really don't know much, and the general must also know that I have almost never left Taiyuan Port in the past two or three years, so most of the information I know about the situation in Japan comes from Local merchants and sailors passing by." Hans began to consider responding to Yu Yao's request, but compared to his previous answers, he was obviously beginning to relax.
"In the Hirado Domain in Japan, as far as I know, there are indeed some Han people related to Shiba Shiba doing business there." Hans said slowly: "But there have always been a lot of local Han people, so for Chinese businessmen, Their status is just that of trade objects, and other than that, they are no different from other Han people.”
Hirado Domain is one of the two trading ports in Japan currently open to foreign merchants. It is the sphere of influence of the Matsuura Party, a samurai group famous for its navy. Its ruling area is based on the three islands of Tsushima, Iki Island and Hirado Island. Main, in the early days it was the main hideout of Japanese Japanese pirates, and North Korea called it Mishima Japanese pirates. Later, in the Muromachi shogunate era, the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu began to strictly ban and crack down on domestic piracy in order to develop trade with the Ming Dynasty. The Matsuura Party also began to turn to trade.
Later, the Matsuura Party simply opened Hirado Castle as a free port, allowing merchant ships from various countries to complete trade here. After a century of operation, Hirado has become one of Japan's most important trading ports.
But perhaps because this place was originally the nest of Japanese pirates, the Han people who prospered here in history were also the most famous pirate leaders. There were pirate merchants Wang Zhi during the Wanli period, and later Li Dan, who was called Kapitan by Western merchants, and Zheng Zhilong was just eliminated by Haihan a few years ago.
According to the information currently available to Haihan, Tagawa Matsu, whom Zheng Zhilong married in Hirado, should have some relationship with the Matsuura family, the lord of the Hirado domain. Among the historical information that can be found, there is a saying that the Tagawa family was a retainer of Matsuura, and it is also said that Tagawa Matsu was the adopted daughter of the mother of the feudal lord Matsuura Takanobu. But no matter which one it is, Zheng Zhilong's Japanese wife seems to have a certain official background. This is the main reason why Haihan focused his investigation on Hirado.
But for more detailed information, you must find someone who is familiar with the local situation. Although Hans claimed that he did not know much, he was much better than Haihan, who only knew Hirado from written materials. . After Yu Yao patiently and slowly interrogated him, he finally obtained some valuable information.
According to Hans, after Haihan launched a war in the southeastern sea and wiped out Shibazhi, a group of Han people did move to settle near Hirado Castle. The reason why we know that these people are related to Shiba Shiba is actually very simple. Most of the people sent to Hirado were a group of people who did not have much combat capability but were familiar with trade and navigation, and among them, they had fought with the East India Company. There are quite a few people I interact with. When Dutch merchant ships went to Hirado Port for trade, these people took the initiative to show up and took over various resale businesses relying on their familiarity with Dutch merchants. Although these people will receive a transfer fee from the transaction, it saves a lot of trouble for the Dutch businessmen. They no longer need to deal with difficult Japanese officials. They only need to let these local Han people be responsible for the buying and selling transactions. , even the delivery of money and goods does not need to be handled personally. Soon these Han Chinese, who were familiar with cross-border trade, monopolized the local trade agency business. Whether it was the Dutch or the Portuguese, they had to go through them to successfully complete transactions.
Later, it was through these people that the Dutch persuaded the Hirado clan to begin expelling the local Portuguese and gradually banned Portuguese merchant ships from entering Hirado Port for trade. Although this method was a bit shady, it actually worked, allowing the Dutch to temporarily win against their Portuguese counterparts.
Although Hans did not personally go to Hirado to participate in these matters, as the governor of Taiyuan Port, he was already the senior official closest to Japan. The relevant planning and implementation processes were naturally recorded with him.
However, speaking of it, because the East India Company wanted to achieve different goals, its local focus was obviously different from Haihan's. The Dutch are concerned about whether the partner can realize their interests and are not so concerned about their true identity. What Hans said before is partly true. These Han Chinese agents active in Hirado are just temporary business partners for the East India Company. As for whether they used to work for Shibazhi or something else It made no difference to the East India Company what kind of power it was.
Yu Yao asked: "Mr. Hans, do you think these people have other resources besides their local influence? For example, a large amount of funds, sales channels and connections in Ming Dynasty, leading to Trade routes in other seas, and private armed forces... you name it."
Hans thought for a while before responding: "I think... they should all have the resources that the General mentioned. Shibazhi accumulated so much wealth back then that it is unimaginable, even if it is just 1% given to them Taking it to Japan is enough for them to start a new business there. As for other things... is there anything that can't be done with enough money?"
Yu Yao took a deep breath, calmed down his emotions, and then continued to ask: "Can you confirm that they have formed a private armed force? What are the weapons used?"
"I don't know if it's the army, but some businessmen did mention that there is a Han armed force loyal to the Matsuura family in Hirado. As for the weapons... who knows? Maybe swords? Maybe muskets? I really don't know. Got it. We are just businessmen, not militants like the Spaniards. We don’t want to fight with others wherever we go.” Hans was slightly unhappy when he said this, although he used Spanish. He gave an example, but in fact the militants he was thinking of were actually the Haihan people.
"Does the local army have a large proportion of muskets?" Yu Yao did not let go of the question and asked from a different angle.
Hans shrugged and said: "Your Excellency General, the Portuguese sold muskets to Japan many years ago. Do you know about the war in which Toyotomi Hideyoshi led his army to invade Korea? At that time, muskets had been introduced to Japan for fifty years. Of course, Will be used by the army. But who knows how many musketeers there are? I don't know much about the military. If you ask me for this information, I'm afraid it will be difficult to give you a satisfactory answer, but the muskets they use are just matchlocks. It’s just a gun, and it probably won’t be able to fight the Haihan Army on the battlefield.”
Historically, the Portuguese brought muskets to Akaogi Port in Tanegashima, Japan in 1543. At that time, Tanegashima Tokiyao, the lord of Tanegashima, who was only 16 years old, bought two muskets from the Portuguese for a sky-high price of two thousand taels of silver. A matchlock gun. After learning how to use it, Tanegashima Tokiyao's retainers quickly imitated it and named it the Tanegashima Gun. Soon, this new weapon spread in Japan, and the Japanese called this incident "The iron cannon is coming."
According to historical records, Oda Nobunaga's entourage was equipped with hundreds of muskets in 1553, and during the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, the Oda army was said to be equipped with as many as 3,000 muskets.
However, due to the limitations of production efficiency in this era, the cost of this advanced weapon remains high. In addition, its performance still has many shortcomings, making it impossible to form a single unit to participate in the war. It must cooperate with other units to be effective. effect. Due to many restrictions, the proportion of matchlock guns installed in the Japanese army is actually not high, and it is difficult to even reach 20%. Compared with troops like the Haihan Army, which has a large area equipped with muskets, its combat effectiveness is indeed not at the same level.
But what Yu Yao wanted to find out was actually whether the Eighteenth Chiyu Party was equipped with more advanced muskets provided by the Spanish. But Hans obviously had no idea about this, and he didn't understand Yu Yao's intentions at all. Naturally, I couldn't give him a satisfactory answer.
Yu Yao also expressed his understanding of this, and then asked another question: "Mr. Hans, please recall carefully, have you ever heard of the name Tagawa Kenji? Or any Japanese with the surname Tagawa. .”
Hans thought for a while before responding: "No, I have no memory of it. I only remember the names of a few feudal lords, and I must admit that in fact I don't remember the names of Japanese people very well."
This answer made Yu Yao slightly disappointed. If the name Tagawa Kenji could remind Hans of some relevant information, or even connect it with the Hirado Domain, it would save Haihan a lot of trouble in his investigation. . However, Hans, who had not left Taiyuan Port for a long time, obviously had relatively little information and could not provide relevant information.
Yu Yao said: "Okay, last question, I would like to know if there are any Japanese businessmen or commercial institutions opened by Han people from Japan in Dazhuang Port."
(End of chapter)