Chapter 2779
While this group of powerful children were talking freely about foreign arms sales strategies, in another manor outside Hangzhou, Masato Masuyama, the envoy of Japan's Tokugawa shogunate, was not so free and easy. He was having a headache over the new news he had received today - it is said that The Satsuma clan also intends to purchase arms from Haihan, and the envoys have already arrived in Hangzhou.
If this news is true, it will undoubtedly add many uncontrollable variables to Masuyama Masato's mission, which will in turn affect his personal career.
As the uncle of the current shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna, Masuyama Masatoshi has never held a position with real power in the shogunate in order to avoid the suspicion of "relatives interfering in politics." However, Tokugawa Ietsuna succeeded to the throne at a young age, and it became increasingly obvious that the shogunate leader was weak and his ministers were strong. If it was not curbed, sooner or later the process of the imperial family being ousted by the shogunate would happen again.
Nowadays, there are probably only a few people like Masuyama Masato who are related to him who can support Tokugawa Ietsuna. So after a game, Masuyama Masato won the opportunity to visit Haihan. If he can complete this mission well, he will have sufficient reasons to participate in the subsequent formation of the new army, and the general will be able to naturally Let him take control of the new armed forces that the shogunate spent a lot of money to build.
When setting off from Edo, Masuyama Masato thought that this mission would be easy and enjoyable. After all, the general intention of this arms transaction had already been discussed during the Kaihan mission's visit to Edo. His main task was to confirm the delivery date and verify whether the weapons and equipment Kaihan was going to sell to the shogunate were in good condition. The mission's declared operational performance.
Of course, if Masato Masuyama can lower the price during his visit, or shorten the delivery period of combat ships, or even buy some advanced equipment that was not originally on the sale list, that will be extra credit.
According to Masuyama Masato, dealing with the Haihan people is not difficult. The main officials of the Haihan Mission are all young people. It is said that all of them are children of prominent nobles. One young man is even a child of the Ming Dynasty's royal family. These people behave politely, speak elegantly, know how to enjoy themselves, and are very pleasant to get along with. , Masuyama Masari is very happy to complete the follow-up negotiations with them.
After arriving in Zhoushan, Zengshan Masari, accompanied by Ha Jianyi and others, first inspected the bases and some ships of the East China Sea Fleet, and also took a boat out to sea to observe the navy's live-fire drills, and then returned to Ningbo Prefecture. After a few days of inspecting the local customs and having a great time, everything went as smoothly as he expected.
But after arriving in Hangzhou, things seemed to be changing little by little. First of all, the target of the negotiation was no longer the group of enthusiastic young officials, but a senior official who was said to be in charge of all the weapons and equipment production of Haihan.
As soon as they came into contact with him, Zengshan Zhengli knew that Bai Kesi was not easy to deal with. Bai Kesi possesses the majesty and decisiveness of a superior, as well as the cunning and slickness of an officialdom veteran. At the same time, he is also well versed in military industry technology and the arms sales system. He is simply invulnerable to Masuyama Masatoshi.
Zengshan's plan to purchase Majesty-class battleships, which he came up with during his trip to Hangzhou, was ruthlessly rejected by Baikes at first. He tried to change the target again and inquired about the Haihan Army's active equipment, but he also met with failure.
Baikes insisted that the details could only be negotiated on the originally negotiated arms trade framework, and refused to join the new project proposed by Masato Masuyama. Details such as equipment price, quantity, settlement method, and delivery period can be discussed, but it is pure wishful thinking to buy high-end equipment that is not on the sales list.
Zengshan is really coveting the advanced equipment of the Haihan Army, but since he is determined not to sell it, he can only give up this unrealistic idea and focus the negotiations on some details that are still controversial. .
For example, the shogunate hopes that the batch of exploration-class warships purchased can be delivered in the shortest possible time, and if they are new ships, Haihan insists that it is difficult to meet these two conditions at the same time, and it will take a long time to get new ships. If the delivery time is short, if you want to deliver the ship quickly, you can only buy second-hand goods, and it is not even easy to increase the price. The appearance of the North Korean armed fleet in Edo Bay caused a huge impact on the shogunate, who realized that their maritime combat capabilities had fallen far behind their old opponents. Replacing the old house ships with new warships with stronger combat performance has become an urgent and necessary measure. The shogunate was eager to pay the money and deliver the goods immediately, but it was unwilling to accept a long delivery period.
As for the firearms and artillery weapons purchased by the shogunate, Haihan will also impose strict restrictions on the supply of ammunition and spare parts. This is obviously to control the shogunate's ability to launch foreign wars after installing these weapons, revealing the shogunate's preparedness. Nothing left.
These restrictive measures made Masuyama Masato very dissatisfied. In his view, the shogunate was willing to spend real money to purchase arms from Haihan, which had shown enough sincerity and should not be subject to so many difficulties and restrictions. .
If the force level of the shogunate cannot be improved because weapons and equipment cannot be provided in time, who will be the biggest beneficiary? Masuyama Masato had reason to suspect that the methods adopted by Haihan were actually helping North Korea suppress Japan.
After all, Haihan has an alliance with North Korea, and it seems to be a reasonable choice to favor North Korea in the competition between North Korea and Japan.
But before Masuyama Masato could think of a countermeasure, he received news about the Satsuma Domain envoy today. In his opinion, this may be the real trouble that the shogunate urgently needs to solve at the moment.
Satsuma Domain is located at the southwest end of the Japanese archipelago, far away from the Edo area where the shogunate is located, so it has the most alienated relationship with the shogunate. Although he nominally submitted to the shogunate, he actually followed the instructions but not the declaration, and established a separate regime on Kyushu Island.
Moreover, the Satsuma clan violated the orders issued by the shogunate, and it had reached a stage where the shogunate was almost unbearable. In particular, the Satsuma clan violated the seclusion order for a long time and carried out smuggling trade activities with the Ming Dynasty and Haihan through Ryukyu, thus taking away a lot of trade shares that should have been completed in Nagasaki Port, and indirectly caused the shogunate to lose a lot of income.
If the Satsuma Domain could raise funds to purchase arms from Kaihan, it is not difficult to imagine that Masuyama Masato would have a considerable part of the wealth that should belong to the shogunate.
With the funds obtained from poaching the shogunate, he purchased weapons and equipment from Haihan to improve his force, and then increased his efforts to continue poaching the shogunate. Such an approach is of course an unacceptable vicious cycle for the shogunate. Masato Masuyama, who represents the interests of the shogunate, cannot sit idly by and ignore it. He must think of a feasible plan to prevent the Satsuma clan from obtaining arms from Kaihan.
At least, the Satsuma Domain must not be allowed to increase its military force faster than the Shogunate.
(End of chapter)