Chapter 2108
Older people in Hirado may still remember that an overnight fire razed Hirado Castle to the ground more than thirty years ago, and since then there has never been a fire of the magnitude last night in Hirado. Back then, the former feudal lord Matsuura Jinnobu personally set fire to the newly built Hirado Castle in order to protect himself, and kept the ruins for many years to show his loyalty to the shogunate. However, all his descendants were killed in the sea of fire last night. The scene of the fire is right next to the ruins of Hirado Castle. It can be said that it is a kind of reincarnation in the dark.
Such a big thing happened. In fact, the Matsuura family's retainers rushed to the scene of the fire shortly after the fire broke out last night. However, the fire was so strong that there was no way to rescue them. They could only watch the Matsuura family's house helplessly. Turned into a sea of fire.
Fortunately, Tagawasuke led his men to block the assassins who were trying to evacuate from the sea after setting the fire in the port area. After a fierce battle, they annihilated the gang. The only regret is that no one was caught alive, and no tokens were found to confirm the identity of the assassin, so it is not yet possible to confirm who was behind the assassination.
The bodies of the assassins had been transported outside the scene of the fire, and together with their weapons and arson tools, they were displayed in public to the retainers. At this time, the cleanup of the fire scene had also begun. The charred corpses of the Matsuura clan members were carried out of the fire scene one by one and placed not far from the assassin's body.
With a stern look on his face, Tagawa Suke explained to everyone the situation of the battle with the foreign assassin last night, and asked his subordinate Kojiro Tagawa who was the first to come to the Matsuura family's house to rescue him to explain the situation to everyone.
Tagawa Kojiro's head and arms were injured, his face was blackened by fireworks, and his clothes must have been burned with many holes by the fire. He looked quite embarrassed, and even his throat was broken when he opened his mouth. Dumb: "When the villain received the warning and led people here yesterday, the villain had already succeeded and was setting fire to prepare to evacuate. Although the villain tried his best to snatch the feudal lord's token from the villain, he still arrived too late. Some failed to save the feudal lord!”
Tagawasuke asked him some details again in front of everyone, and Tagawa Kojiro also explained them one by one. Although there seemed to be room for elaboration on some details, it seemed difficult for others to see him struggling all night. Then question the authenticity of what he said.
"Although the assassins have been intercepted and killed by us, the mastermind behind the scenes is still at large. The vengeance of the annihilation of the feudal lord's family must be avenged!" Tagawa Suke announced to everyone with a livid face: "I, Tagawa Suke, swear that I will never Let the real culprit go, we will definitely investigate to the end and avenge the feudal lord!”
"Revenge must be avenged, but the top priority is to deal with the funeral affairs of the feudal lord and his family as soon as possible. At the same time, an announcement will be issued to the public to explain the truth of the matter and appease the people to avoid civil strife. It is also necessary to organize local defense as soon as possible to prevent the real culprits behind the scenes from taking the opportunity to cause trouble. , take further action against the Hirado Domain."
The speaker, Nishiyama Maiki, is also a retainer of the Matsuura clan. He usually has a good relationship with Tagawasuke. But at this time, he took the initiative to express his position. His purpose was to pave the way for Tagawasuke.
"Master Nishikawa is right. In the current crisis, someone has to stand up and organize everyone to handle the government affairs of the Hirado Domain. At this time, the more chaos must be avoided, otherwise it will give foreign enemies an opportunity to take advantage of it... I don't think it's better. Let Mr. Tagawa, who has the highest prestige, take charge!" Another retainer, Yuya Tazawa, who noticed the signs, was afraid of being left behind, so he simply named Tagawa and carried the sedan chair for him.
"Yes, yes, yes, Lord Tagawa is familiar with the local situation and has the trust of the feudal lord. It is perfect to take charge of this matter. For the sake of the common people of the Hirado clan and the blood feud of the clan lord's family, Lord Tagawa can temporarily take over the duties of the feudal lord!" Nishiyama Zhenzhen Hui was afraid that the power of becoming a dragon would be taken away by Yuya Tazawa, so he immediately spoke more bluntly.
Tagawasuke did not have any comparable competitors in the Hirado Domain. Now that the domain lord and his family are all gone, no one can compete with him for the vacant throne. As long as someone steps forward to lead the appeal, he must be the acting domain lord. .
"I, Tagawasuke, have no interest in power and position, but this matter affects the future lives of tens of thousands of people in the Hirado Domain, and I am bound to bear the responsibility. However, although there are two people who recommended me, I still want to ask everyone present, what do you think of me temporarily? Who is in favor of acting as lord of the feudal lord and who is against it? ”
After Tagawasuke finished speaking, he looked around, and sure enough, everyone unanimously expressed support for this arrangement, such as Nishiyama Maiki, Tagawa Yuya and others, and they even expressed their intention to assist Tagawasuke in managing local civil and government affairs. As for the voice of opposition, there is no voice at all. Some people may be dissatisfied with this, but now that Tagawasuke is in control of the situation, who dares to act against the most powerful group of people in the Hirado clan at this juncture?
Now that the Matsuura family has been exterminated, Tagawasuke's identity as acting lord has been confirmed. With his reputation and influence in Hirado, it would be difficult for either the Hizen Kingdom or the Tokugawa Shogunate to parachute a feudal lord to Hirado to take over this position. If nothing unexpected happens, when the shogunate learns the news, it will have no choice but to accept this unusual personnel change in the Hirado Domain.
After Tagawasuke took power, he immediately ordered his subordinates to take over most of the major affairs of the Hirado Domain. Even if it was Tagawa Yuya and Nishiyama Materu who jumped out to carry his sedan at the critical moment, Tagawasuke only assigned them insignificant errands, and controlled important projects such as public security, finance, and military power in his own hands.
Tagawa Kojiro, who performed extremely well in this operation, was immediately reused by Tagawa Suke, and all the more than a thousand Hirado domain troops who were originally loyal to the Matsuura clan were given to him to command.
Of course, these people cannot be used as soon as they are available. Tagawa Kojiro knew very well what his strengths were in the eyes of his superiors, so he immediately purged the existing personnel after taking over the feudal army.
All those who were closely related to the Matsuura clan, especially the samurai officers with clear backgrounds, were all disarmed by Tagawa Kojiro for various reasons and sent to work in warehouses, forest farms, quarries and other places. The remaining people were broken up and reorganized with the armed personnel serving the Tagawa clan, in order to eliminate as much as possible the traces left by the Matsuura clan.
At this time, Tagawasuke's residence had been turned into a temporary official residence, and many of his staff and samurai had also transformed into retainers of the new feudal lord. The power that Tagawasuke had secretly cultivated over the past few years finally emerged from the darkness.
Some of these were industries that had been made public during the reign of Matsuura Kohei. For example, the two shipyards near Hirado Port were built in the name of the Hirado Domain, with Han Chinese under Tagawa Suke providing relevant technology and sailors. In exchange, more than half of the funds for building these warships actually came from the vassal treasury. At that time, Tagawasuke persuaded Matsuura Kohei to build a new armed fleet to further strengthen the Hirado Domain's maritime armed strength and better control Japan's foreign trade rights. However, he did not expect that Matsuura Kohei had already ordered the fleet before it was officially put into service. It's a shame. Similar to this, there is an arsenal for casting artillery. It is also a model where Tagawasuke provides the artillery casting technology and Matsuura provides the funds. After Matsuura Kohei's death, everything now naturally fell into Tagawasuke's hands.
Because technology and personnel are in the hands of Tagawa Suke, he does not have to worry about losing control of these industries. So while making equipment, he had already secretly started relevant personnel training. Of course, those who arranged and implemented these things for him were basically Han subordinates who came from Shibazhi.
Sun Feizhou, Gao Hongfu, Lu Yuanlong, Wei Zhi, Wen Jianyi... these names are very unfamiliar to the outside world, but they represent the power left after the destruction of the most powerful pirate armed group in East Asia in this era. Among them, There are weapons experts, navigators, shipbuilders, businessmen, commanders, spy leaders, masters, dead soldiers... It can be said that all the talents Tagawasuke needs can be found in this team.
Although these people may not be considered the top figures in their respective fields, it is difficult to find more powerful characters in Japan. These people gathered in the Hirado Domain, and what they brought to the Tagawa clan was far more than just various advanced technologies. They also brought bright prospects for the rapid development and growth of the Hirado Domain.
And Tagawa Suke also knew very well that the main reason why these people came to Hirado Domain was because it could provide them with shelter and conditions for a comeback. And the person they were really loyal to was not themselves, but was adopted by Zheng Zhilong. Tagawa Nanzaemon was under his knees.
However, Tagawasuke didn't think there was any problem with this. Although Tagawa Shichizaemon was not his biological son, he was indeed half of the Tagawa family. It was completely reasonable to pass on the family business to him in the future. And based on the excellent qualifications that Tagawa Nanzaemon currently displays, Tagawa Suke believes that there is no more suitable candidate for his successor in the clan.
Therefore, Tagawa Suke was happy to take Tagawa Shichizaemon with him when dealing with various matters. This would allow him to learn the ruling side from a young age, and secondly, it would also show everyone his determination to choose Tagawa Nanzaemon as his successor. The most intuitive benefit is that these subordinates who were born in Shibazhi are willing to serve Tagawa Suke wholeheartedly. Perhaps in their view, working for the Tagawa clan is equivalent to working for the young master. After the Tagawa clan grows, the young master will inherit the throne from now on. With this family fortune, it will be easier to rebuild the reputation of the Zheng family and Shibazhi.
As the unfavorable news about returning to the Hirado Domain increases, Tagawasuke and his men can feel that the cloud of war is approaching little by little. Prior to this, incidents occurred in the strongholds deployed throughout the Ming Dynasty, which proved that Haihan was trying to eradicate the industries that the Hirado clan had worked hard to manage overseas. With Haihan's usual approach, he will definitely not let go of the Hirado clan who planned all this behind the scenes. In addition, he has recently received news that the Zhoushan garrison has begun large-scale procurement of war preparation materials. It seems that the war is close at hand.
But Tagawasuke and his men all understand that with the current strength of the Hirado Domain, it is still difficult to compete head-on with the Kaihan Army. If the Kaihan Army crosses eastward to Japan and attacks the Hirado Domain, the possibility of their defeat is still very high. big.
"There are currently six warships being built in the dock, and the launch time ranges from one to four months. And even if these ships are successfully completed and launched, we may not be able to gather enough qualified ships within two or three months. Sailors. So we must take over all the original naval forces of the Hirado Domain, so that we can at least get a few more ships to go to sea.”
"The casting progress of artillery should be faster than that of shipbuilding. As long as there is enough copper and iron, we may still have the energy to build more cannons for coastal defense. But the problem is that we do not have enough qualified artillery to use these powerful weapons. , more ammunition needs to be consumed for training. In short, whether it is casting cannons or training artillery, the cost is very high, and sufficient funds must be available as a guarantee.”
"But starting from the end of February to the beginning of March this year, fewer and fewer foreign merchant ships came to Hirado, and our income from trade was less than a quarter of the same period last year. I have checked the domain's account books , Matsuura Kohei really didn’t leave much money. It is said that the money in the vassal treasury was basically used to build warships and artillery. If we want to continue preparing for war, we may need to raise a large amount of funds first.”
There was almost no good news from the reports from his subordinates. Although Tagawasuke had seized the power to govern the Hirado clan, when he got it, he found that it was not as glamorous as expected. There were not enough funds in the vassal treasury for him to spend, and a considerable part of the weapons and equipment that he spent a lot of money to build could not form combat effectiveness in time.
No one can accurately predict when the Kaihan people will attack. It may be one or two months later, or it may only be three or five days. The time that the Hirado clan can use to prepare for the war is uncertain, which also makes many people uncertain about the prospect of the war. Too optimistic. Including Tagawa Suke himself, the current question he is pondering is not how to defeat the Kaihan Army, but how to protect himself as much as possible during the opponent's attack. Even evacuating Hirado has been included in the reference options. .
"Before the Haihan people start a fight, they will definitely send ships to conduct reconnaissance nearby. This is their usual tactic. So as long as we pay more attention to the foreign ships and find traces of the activities of the Haihan ships, we can judge their intentions and respond promptly. A warning came from Hirado Port. ”
After everyone discussed it, they made a relatively conservative judgment on the tactics that the Haihan Army could adopt. But they didn’t know that Haihan’s first round of reconnaissance on Hirado Island and the surrounding areas had ended a few days ago. Haihan’s spies even landed in Hirado Port with great arrogance and spent two days wandering around to get the news. Only then did they evacuate calmly. They have only now begun to deploy reconnaissance methods to prevent Haihan, which is actually a little late.
However, due to the asymmetry of intelligence and information, the current response of the Hirado clan can only be to strengthen prevention first. Tagawasuke ordered the surface troops stationed on the Goto Islands to strengthen patrols in the East China Sea, and at the same time sent People went to Zhejiang to inquire about the latest local situation.
(End of chapter)