Chapter 2134
Yu Chengli was able to become Hirado's officially designated supplier of high-end textiles, so his personal relationship with the previous feudal lord was naturally well managed, and he also had many contacts in private. Before the Matsuura family's accident, Yu Chengli only regarded Tagawa Suke as a retainer of the Matsuura family, so he had little contact with him and did not know much about him. However, he remembered that he once went to a place in the north of the island with the former lord of the lord, and Tagawasuke also accompanied him at that time. At that time, Tagawasuke once mentioned in a casual conversation that that place had been the old lord's secret hiding place in extraordinary times, but recently, The Hirado clan was very peaceful for 20 to 30 years, so it gradually lost this function.
Of course, Yu Chengli was not sure whether Tagawasuke would go to that place to hide, but he had too much time to take care of himself at this moment. As for whether such a report would betray Tagawasuke, he had no time to think about the pros and cons. Well, first make sure you can get away.
Although the news was full of uncertainty, it was immediately reported to the frontline headquarters. It is difficult to judge the validity of the intelligence collected during the war. There are also various rumors about the whereabouts of Tagawa Suke and others. The information provided by Yu Chengli is not prominent among them, but the relevant information is being reviewed with intelligence personnel. Takahashi Nan still noticed the message just sent back.
"Tanoura? Where is this place?" Takahashi Minami immediately asked his staff to verify.
Then there was feedback soon. The place identified by a local Han maritime merchant happened to be located on the coastline of the northern end of Hirado Island. It is said that there is a small temple with a long history there. Because it is in a remote location and there are few pilgrims and believers, the source of its incense has always been the feudal lord allocating special funds from the feudal treasury.
Although it is not a secret that the former feudal lord Matsuura believed in Buddhism, in fact, there are many temples such as Shoganji Temple, Guangmingji Temple, Shoshuji Temple, Saikyoji Temple, Yuxiangji Temple, etc. around Hirado City alone. There is no need to go to the northern part of the island anymore. Go to an inconspicuous little temple in an inconspicuous place. Thinking about it this way, it becomes more credible that the Han maritime merchants identified this location as a secret hiding place for big figures.
However, there is still about ten miles between Hirado City and Tanoura, and a large area of it is a mountainous and forested area that is currently being cleared. If it is cleared slowly, it will take at least a day or so. Takahashi Minami does not want to wait any longer. , Sun Zhen was immediately sent and asked to personally lead the team to confirm the situation at the location.
Sun Zhen took the order and ordered an infantry company. Before setting off, he confirmed the approximate location of Tanoura and the temple on the headquarters map, and then led his troops to the mountainous area north of Hirado. In order to ensure nothing went wrong, Shi Diwen also deployed several warships to outflank them from the sea.
In fact, Tanoura is not an unknown place, but these gangsters are not familiar with history, otherwise they should have heard of the temple called "Tangshan Kaiyuan Temple".
In Japanese history, there have always been many monks who crossed the sea to China to learn Buddhist knowledge. Among them, the monk Kukai who accompanied the seventeenth envoy to the Tang Dynasty was one of the famous figures. Kukai arrived in China in 804 AD, and studied various Buddhist classics and Sanskrit in Chang'an. In 806, he returned to Japan with Buddhist scriptures and religious objects, and founded the Japanese Shingon sect known as Tomi. He was later conferred the title of Kobo by the Emperor. master.
In addition to opening the door and establishing a sect to spread Buddhism, Kukai also introduced advanced production technology from the Tang Dynasty to Japan. It is said that the Hiragana letters used in Japan were also invented by Kukai on the basis of Sanskrit, which can be said to have contributed to the development of Japanese culture. made an indelible contribution.
The place where Kukai first boarded the ship for Datang was Tanoura, located at the northern end of Hirado Island. Entering Kaiyuan Temple in Tangshan, this temple was built to commemorate this great figure in Japanese Buddhism. It was named Kaiyuan Temple because Kukai’s first stop in the Tang Dynasty was Kaiyuan Temple in Fuzhou.
However, because of its age, many people are actually not sure why the small temple with little incense was built, and outsiders like Yu Chengli do not know the origin between the monk Kukai and Tanoura. As for the Haihan Army and others, they only want to catch Tagawa Suke as soon as possible, but they have no time to carefully examine these historical and humanistic knowledge.
Perhaps because the Hirado clan army lost its command, the offensive and defensive battles in Hirado City were not too brutal, and the extent of damage to the buildings in the city was also very limited. Before receiving clear instructions from the Executive Committee, neither Qian Tiandun nor Shi Diwen had any plans to burn this small seaside town to the ground.
However, for the local people, although the war has come to an end, the tense atmosphere has not faded. The swarms of Haihan soldiers on the streets indicate that the city is still under military control. No one dared to go out and walk around at will at this time, otherwise they might be treated as resisters by the wary Haihan soldiers.
The Haihan Army has already begun to conduct secondary screening of urban areas. According to the pre-war plan, certain specific groups will be arrested and detained next. For example, those who served in the Hirado clan's army or held public positions in the government, technicians and craftsmen involved in military manufacturing, and those closely related to the Eighteen Shiba Yu Party.
These lists mainly come from the raids of the Haihan Army at Tagawajie's mansion, and the rosters of various local yamen and vassal armies are all available. However, in this time of war and chaos, it is still very difficult to find the clues according to the map. Moreover, many people on the list have died in the war. The main function of the list is to verify the identity of the prisoners.
Yu Chengli's situation at this time was undoubtedly better than that of most people in Hirado. First, he used the two-color flag to express his pro-Haihan stance. Secondly, he took the initiative to offer benefits to the Haihan officers who came to search. Finally, he also offered benefits to the Haihan officers. Han provided key information about Tagawasuke's whereabouts, which was enough to gain him temporary trust and permission to go out.
Of course, since the city is still under martial law, the scope of Yu Chengli's activities is still limited to a very small area, that is, the streets between the intersections on the left and right sides of his shop door.
In an emergency period, no one was walking around on the streets, so it didn't mean much to be active. Yu Chengli didn't intend to go out in a hurry and cause trouble for himself. However, he did not take the initiative to go out, but someone came to visit him. Gonzalez, the Portuguese businessman next door, ran over on his own.
"Look, my method worked, right?" Gonzalez raised his eyebrows very proudly and said: "The Haihan people didn't cause you trouble, right?"
"I really want to thank Boss Gang this time!" Yu Chengli said with a cupped hand: "If it hadn't been for your guidance, I'm afraid it wouldn't have been so easy!"
The two-color flag life-saving method that Gonzalez gave him was indeed very effective. If the flag hadn't been hung outside the door, I'm afraid Haihan soldiers wouldn't have been so polite when they came to the door. Yu Chengli asked again: "Why do the Haihan people allow you to go out and walk around? Could it be that you have given them some benefit?"
Gonzalez smiled and said: "It's very simple. Because our country and the Haihan Kingdom are allies, of course I can enjoy some different treatment as a Portuguese."
"That's it!" Yu Chengli nodded, but felt a little uncomfortable. The Haihan people are also of the same lineage as the Han people. Logically speaking, they should be closer to the Ming Dynasty. However, as a Han people, their treatment seems to be not as good as that of the Portuguese, which makes people feel very uncomfortable.
However, what Gonzalez said is not necessarily the truth, and it contains some boasting elements. It is true that Haihan and Portugal had an alliance, but Portugal did not send troops to participate in the attack on Hirado, only the officer Simao who accompanied him as a military observer. If Simang hadn't explicitly asked the Haihan Army to make it as convenient as possible for the Portuguese who settled in Hirado, then Gonzalez might not have received any special treatment at all.
This actually has nothing to do with ethnicity, it is purely a diplomatic issue. Although Xu Jiajun, who symbolized the armed forces of the Ming Dynasty, also participated in this operation, Xu Yuzhuo had no idea of protecting the local Han people in Hirado. To put it bluntly, the life and death of these people has no direct relationship with Xu Jiajun, and Xu Yuzhuo does not want to owe Haihan a favor for unrelated people.
To put it more seriously, in Xu Yuzhuo's view, these businessmen who took root in Hirado are not essentially different from Zheng Zhilong in the early years, and they may become competitors of the Xu family in Fujian in the future. Therefore, Xu Yuzhuo would definitely not care as much as the Portuguese about the life and death of these expatriates.
The two of them summed up the current situation and both felt that the Hirado clan was doomed. However, even though they have been defeated, as long as Tagawa Suke is not dead, it is still possible that he will come back and continue to be the feudal lord after the Haihan people leave. Unless the Haihan people want to settle here and incorporate Hirado Island into the Haihan territory, the direction of the situation will probably have to be discussed separately.
But for Yu Chengli, if Tagawa Suke escapes and comes back, it may not be a good thing for him. Although the information he provided to the Haihan Army was not spread to the outside world, the act of hanging the two-color flag outside the shop was public, and there was no guarantee that he would not be liquidated by the Hirado government after the war. There is no other way to think of at the moment. They can only hope that the Kaihan people can catch Tagawasuke and eliminate all his accomplices. In this way, they may be able to stay safe and continue to do business in Hirado in the future.
At this time, Sun Zhen had led his troops to march through the mountains and forests to Tanoura, but the marching speed was not very fast, because from time to time, traces of the activities of the Hirado clan troops were found nearby. Most of the vassal troops who escaped from the city fled into this mountain forest to hide. Regardless of whether these people still had the will to continue fighting, Sun Zhen did not dare to be too careless, lest he be ambushed by the enemy on the way.
Therefore, it took Sun Zhen and his party almost three hours to complete the more than ten miles long journey. Although we encountered several small groups of enemy troops trying to launch attacks along the way, they basically retreated as soon as they opened fire. These stragglers retreated all the way here, and they obviously no longer had the courage to fight to the death with the Haihan army. Sun Zhen had a mission in mind and did not dare to pursue the enemy in battle. As soon as the enemy retreated, he would immediately continue marching northward in order to reach his destination before dark.
Relying on the guidance of the sun and the compass, Sun Zhen finally reached the coast successfully. After roughly comparing the nearby terrain, he judged that the small bay he was in should be the coast called Tanoura. . According to the information, the temple was near the coast, but when he looked around, he didn't see any conspicuous buildings, not even a private house.
Sun Zhen immediately sent two teams to march separately along the coastline to find the location of Kaiyuan Temple. Not long after, one of the teams discovered the temple about a mile away.
The reason why Sun Zhen didn't see it so close is that firstly, this temple is hidden in the forest, and its existence can only be discovered when you get close. Secondly, the scale of the temple's building is indeed pitifully small, with only one The Buddhist temple is not much larger than an ordinary farmhouse. It is not surprising that such a wild temple in the mountains cannot attract believers to worship.
Sun Zhen rushed over immediately after receiving the news. The vanguard troops had already sealed off the area around the temple to ensure that no one would escape from the temple.
Although the Kaiyuan Temple is extremely small, the Buddhist temple is not in a state of disrepair. The embers of incense candles can still be seen in the stone incense burner outside the temple door. It seems that there is no incense at all.
The space of this Buddhist hall is not large. You can see the front and back of the hall at a glance. There is no target person that Sun Zhen expected to hide here. The ground was all gravel. Sun Zhen searched around and found no hidden cellar or any other mechanism. He couldn't help but feel disappointed at the moment. However, there are a few daily necessities such as bedding, clothing, and cooking utensils in the Buddhist temple. It seems that someone does live here.
At this time, someone caught a man who looked like a monk in the nearby forest and took him back. But this guy turned out to be mute. Sun Zhen even spent a long time talking and gesticulating, but it was still difficult to communicate with this mute monk.
When Sun Zhen was so anxious, several ships slowly sailed up the sea, but it was the warships transferred by the East China Sea Fleet for reinforcements that arrived. Sun Zhen ordered his men to raise a flag and let the warship slowly dock.
When the mute monk saw the boat approaching on the sea, he suddenly felt the desire to express himself and made a lot of gestures. This time Sun Zhen understood a little more clearly. The mute monk said that someone had left by boat from here before.
The mute monk's expressive ability was limited and he could not explain the identity of the person who left Tanoura by boat, so Sun Zhen still could not confirm whether Tagawasuke had escaped from Hirado Island through this place.
Looking at the small Kaiyuan Temple, Sun Zhen couldn't help but spit. He thought that such a small temple couldn't accommodate just a few people. The lord of the Hirado clan could actually use this place as a refuge. This was too much. Xiaojiazi was a little angry. But after working for a long time, I still couldn’t find Tagawasuke’s whereabouts. How could I go back and report to my boss?
(End of chapter)