Chapter 2084
This motorcade went straight to the front door of Tagawa's house, with several mounted warriors at the front and rear serving as escorts. This formation was no ordinary figure. Amakusa Shiro guessed that this was most likely a big shot from the Tagawa family returning from a trip, so he gave up the idea of leaving and stopped to take a closer look.
After the motorcade stopped, what appeared to be the largest and most luxurious carriage in the center was actually a young man who looked only twelve or thirteen years old and was dressed in black clothes. However, his movements were quite powerful and he walked with his hands down. With his back behind his back, his head slightly raised, and several attendants behind him bowing to follow him, the scene looked a little strange.
Amakusa Shiro has been to many countries in the years since he left Japan and met all kinds of people, but in his impression, he has never seen such a majestic child.
After watching the team enter Tagawa's house, Amakusa Shiro inquired about the child's identity from nearby spectators.
"Young Master Tagawa, you don't even know? Are you just from out of town?" The person he asked immediately revealed the details of Amakusa Shiro.
Shiro Amakusa smiled and said: "Yes, I have just arrived in Hirado two days ago...Does this young Master Tagawa have a great background?"
The man glanced at Amakusa Shiro with contempt, but still explained to him patiently: "Of course it is big! The most powerful retainer under Matsuura-sama is the Tagawa clan, and Master Tagawa will succeed the Tagawa clan when he comes of age. The next head of the family will be a big shot in Hirado from now on, do you understand? ”
"Oh...I see, what is the name of Master Tagawa?" Amakusa Shiro continued to ask.
"Tagawa Nanzaemon."
Amakusa Shiro felt that he had seen this name somewhere before, but he couldn't remember it for a while. In fact, he really wanted to know what was so special about this child, so that the Tagawa family had already listed him as the next head of the family, but it was probably difficult for the idle people on the roadside to provide a correct answer to this.
But there is one thing that Shiro Amakusa can be sure of now, and that is that the things that the Tagawa family deploys and participates in overseas should not be the work of this young Master Tagawa. Although the child behaved like an adult, the methods were extremely sophisticated and impossible to imagine at his age.
Judging from the way the local people are accustomed to this, it can be seen that the Tagawa family does have considerable influence in Hirado, but this kind of family that is on the rise must have quite a lot of backbone members, pushing a half-year-old child to After all, it is a bit strange for Daimae to be the head of the family. Could it be that Tagawa Nanaemon has a strong enough background to convince everyone?
Amakusa Shiro couldn't find the answer at the moment. In order to avoid attracting suspicion from others, he couldn't stay here to monitor the entry and exit of the Tagawa family. So he wandered back to the port, found a place to sit down and eat, and listened to whether the people around him from all over the world would talk about anything interesting. He has been away from Japan for too long, and he has become somewhat unfamiliar with the current situation in this country.
When Amakusa Shiro left his hometown, it was in the first year of Kanei, that is, 1624. That year, the Tokugawa Shogunate issued an order prohibiting Spanish ships from entering Japan. More than ten years have passed in a flash, and he is actually a little curious about the changes that have occurred in Japan during this period that he is unaware of.
However, nothing good has happened in Japan in the past two years. In 1636, the Tokugawa shogunate issued a seclusion order, prohibiting Japanese from sailing abroad and prohibiting overseas Japanese from returning to the country. This means that Japanese people like Amakusa Shiro are currently prohibited from entering Japan.
However, due to well-known reasons, the shogunate's national lockdown order was only implemented to a limited extent in Hirado, and strict inspections and restrictions were not implemented on Japanese entering and exiting the port. Unidentified people like Amakusa Shiro can easily enter Hirado Port, and no one comes to inquire about his origins and whereabouts.
Of course, this has something to do with the way Amakusa Shiro dressed as a merchant at this time. In addition to the ruler Matsuura clan and his samurai retainers, the people with the highest status in Hirado were numerous merchants. The local laws and regulations in Hirado have a lot of care for businessmen. He pretended to be a businessman and sneaked in here. In addition, he was originally of Japanese origin, so under normal circumstances no one would come to trouble him.
Amakusa Shiro remembered that he had heard that there was another shipyard nearby, so he asked for directions. After eating, he went straight to that place to see if he could find any new clues.
Amakusa Shiro quickly found the shipyard located in Boxiang Bay. This place is similar to the shipyard in Tasuke Bay. It also has two shipyards, extending at a gentle slope from the coast to the sea. There are also two ships under construction in the dock. One of them looks to be nearly completed. It is the kind of Chinese warship he had seen in Tasuke Bay before. It seemed that this kind of sailboat was indeed being built in batches, which made Amakusa Shiro seem to see an armed fleet slowly taking shape.
Of course, the purpose of spending a lot of resources to build these warships cannot be just to defend the port. The tonnage and configuration of these warships are fully capable of meeting the requirements of cross-sea operations. It is not an exaggeration to say that their design concept is for maritime warfare.
Although this kind of warship is not considered advanced at all in the eyes of Amakusa Shiro, if the number reaches a certain scale, it may still pose a certain threat to Haihan. Countries whose maritime armed forces are far inferior to Haihan, such as North Korea and Ryukyu, may find it difficult to fight back when encountering such an armed fleet.
Shiro Amakusa doesn't know the purpose of building these warships, but if it is true that the Tagawa family organized the construction of these warships as he has learned so far, then its ambition must arouse Haihan's sufficient vigilance. OK.
Near the shipyard, Amakusa Shiro was finally lucky enough to see the artillery being hoisted onto the nearly completed ship. Although there was a distance, it was not difficult for Amakusa Shiro to judge from its approximate size that the artillery being hoisted to the ship was a twelve-pound smoothbore cannon - a lot of these were captured during the attack on Manila last year, and later they were also used. Some of them were sold to countries such as North Korea and Annan. Although the caliber of this kind of naval gun is not large, it still has a certain degree of lethality in close-range maritime exchanges. Moreover, this kind of gun can also be loaded with ammunition such as grapeshot. When fired when it is close to an enemy ship, it can have the effect of cleaning the enemy's deck. At that time, the Haihan Navy also had examples of such losses.
This kind of warship has four gun positions on each side of the ship, and a separate gun position at the bow. Counting that up to nine artillery can be deployed on the deck, even the main force of the Ming Navy, which is second only to Haihan in strength, The ship may not have such strong firepower. Compared with the warships of Shibazhi back then, the firepower has been at least doubled. It seems that the builders have also strengthened the hull structure to allow more artillery to be deployed on the deck.
Amakusa Shiro suddenly thought that this method of deploying naval guns was of course not as powerful as the firepower output of the entire gun deck of Western warships, but it could effectively take advantage of the flexibility and seaworthiness of Chinese sailing ships. And having said that, having enough artillery and gunners to achieve the combat effectiveness that this kind of warship should have is probably a bigger problem for the Tagawa family than shipbuilding itself. If the number of ship-borne artillery increases, the difficulty will continue Improvement will most likely lead to a situation where weapons and operators cannot keep up with combat needs.
Such a warship must have nine cannons to be fully equipped. So can the Spanish provide so many cannons to the Japanese? Amakusa Shiro was very skeptical about this. If they had so many artillery, the battle of Manila last year would probably have been more difficult.
If these cannons were not entirely provided by the Spaniards... Shiro Amakusa couldn't help but shudder when he thought of this possibility. Doesn't that mean that the Tagawa family who built these warships may have mastered the technology of casting Western-style cannons?
Compared with the muskets scattered overseas, the combination of artillery and warships is obviously much more powerful. Once the Spanish weapon manufacturing technology is obtained by some ambitious people, it may not just be made locally in the future. It's just a small-scale armed conflict. Such an armed fleet can go wherever they want on the sea and attack the targets they want to deal with.
After realizing the seriousness of the problem, Amakusa Shiro found that he had another task, which was to find out the source of the artillery equipped on the warships. Whether it was provided by the Spanish or cast by the Japanese themselves, we still need to figure out where these artillery pieces came from.
Although Amakusa Shiro had never received professional training from the intelligence department, with his experience and knowledge, he quickly formulated an investigation idea. These artillery pieces were of extremely high value and must have been carefully stored somewhere before being hoisted onto the ship. As long as we find this weapons depot, we should be able to find further clues.
If it were the usual style of the special operations group, then of course they would try to sneak into the enemy camp and capture a tongue to extract a confession. But if you use such extraordinary means here, you have to take great risks. Amakusa Shiro doesn't even have a lookout companion. . Amakusa Shiro was not afraid of danger, but he was a little worried that poor operation would alert the enemy early.
But at this time, an accident happened that gave Amakusa Shiro new inspiration for his investigation ideas.
On the dock, a car that a laborer was pushing suddenly lost its balance and tipped over. The contents of the car were scattered all over the floor. The foreman rushed forward and cursed the laborer who missed, attracting Shiro Amakusa's attention.
Amakusa Shiro was attracted, not because the content of the foreman's fragrant words was renovated, but because the foreman mentioned that the cargo that fell to the ground was iron ore. Amakusa Shiro looked around carefully and found that dozens of laborers were unloading goods from a sailboat moored at the dock in the same way, and the goods on this truckload were all iron ore.
As far as the eye can see in Boxiang Bay, there is only a small port here. Shiploads of iron ore are transported to this place. Either the ship owner has lost his mind, or there is a workshop for smelting ore nearby. It was not difficult to know the reason. Amakusa Shiro spent a little money and soon got the answer from a dock worker.
There is a small village called Jingchuan in the ravine south of the port. That place used to mainly rely on burning coke and charcoal. Two years ago, the government built a smelting workshop there, so it switched to steel production. On the dock These iron ores are to be transported to the local area. Moreover, the laborer also told Shiro Amakusa overjoyed news, that is, Kagawa's workshop not only smelts ore, but also produces other things, such as anchors, chains, and artillery used on ships.
Amakusa Shiro was still worried that he had misheard the other party's statement, so he asked him for confirmation again. As a result, the laborer patted his chest and swore that everything he said was true, and that there was a specialist not far from Kagawa. At the shooting range for test guns, one or two days a month you can hear the rumble of cannons coming from there. It's just that the government doesn't allow civilians to get close to that place, so he only heard that the artillery was powerful, but he had never seen these cannons being fired.
It takes no effort to get there even if you wear iron shoes. After Amakusa Shiro confirmed the news, it was a mixture of joy and sorrow. He was happy that his guess was confirmed so easily and saved a lot of time and energy. What was worrying was that it seemed that the Hirado Domain had obtained the technology to cast artillery, and it was very likely that it could be realized. In order to achieve mass production, an armed fleet equipped with a large number of naval guns is gradually taking shape near Hirado Island.
Whether this maritime armed force is in the hands of the Tagawa family or obeys the orders of the Matsuura family is no longer important to Amakusa Shiro. No one can endure loneliness after mastering such a powerful armed force. He believes that at some point in the future, this maritime armed force will inevitably pose a threat to Haihan, or even lead to an armed conflict. But now, he is probably the only one in the entire Haihan Kingdom who is aware of such a crisis.
Seeing dusk fall, Amakusa Shiro had no idea of returning to Hirado Port to have a good night's rest. There are still two days left in his operation in Hirado, and the situation is already very urgent. Before leaving here, he must collect as much relevant intelligence as possible. Especially for key information like the production of artillery, he had to implement it himself no matter what.
So Amakusa Shiro ate something near the port, and after dark, he went in the direction of Kagawa. Although he has never been to that place, it is not difficult to find the road to Jingchuan. The large trucks that have been transporting ore there for a long time have made deep ruts on the ground. As long as you follow these ruts, you will not go in the wrong direction. .
In fact, Jingchuan was much closer than he thought. After passing through a large forest, he could faintly see the light coming from the valley ahead. Amakusa Shiro knew that it was not the light in a farmer's house, but the blazing fire of the smelting furnace that burned day and night.
(End of chapter)