Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 89 Li Guozhu’s Trouble
In Hirado Tangin Town, there are dilapidated buildings that seem to be about to collapse at any time.

This is the site of the British Hirado Commercial Building. However, in just a few years, all traces of the presence of the foreign Japanese seemed to have been erased by time, with only a few Chinese children chasing and playing in front of the door.

As the name suggests, Tangren Town is a gathering place for Chinese people. A few decades ago, there were as many as hundreds of Chinese businessmen living in this area.Today, there are still many Chinese in the town, but there is only one maritime merchant - the old ship owner Li Dan. Since Li Dan's death, the head of the household has been his only son, Li Guozhu.

The British Commercial Building at that time was actually an abandoned warehouse of the Li family. The British rented it and built several additional houses.The Li family's mansion is not far from the British Commercial Building. Like the latter, it is also a common wooden building in the Japanese country. Its shape is somewhat similar to the Jinya of the shogunate.

Different from the shabby British business houses, the materials used in Li's house are very particular, mainly Owari cypress and Deha zelkova, mixed with overseas huanghuali, chicken wing wood, pineapple grid, etc.Most of the roofs are of the hanging mountain style, which the Japanese call Kiritsuma style. Both ends of the main ridge are equipped with ferocious ghost tiles. The surfaces of the ghost tiles are all gold-plated and shine in the sun.

At this time, bursts of music were coming from the depths of Li's house, and knowledgeable people could tell that it was a three-piece song popular among Japanese aristocrats, played by three musical instruments: the shamisen, the shakuhachi, and the Japanese koto.

Li Guozhu was hosting a banquet for distinguished guests, and the guest was Matsuura Nobukiyo, the second brother of the lord of the Hirado domain, Matsuura Takanobu.Since Takanobu himself lived in Edo all year round and was the highest-status clan in the domain, Nobukiyo acted as the agent for the daily affairs of the Hirado domain. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he was the actual head of the Hirado domain.

However, Nobukiyo has been a little depressed recently because his eldest brother Takanobu suddenly came back from Edo, and he gave him a severe scolding as soon as he got home.In the Japanese country where primogeniture was prevalent, Nobukiyo did not dare to disobey his brother and lord in the slightest, so he could only silently bear Takanobu's wrath.

After hearing about this incident, Li Guosuke, who had always been good friends with Nobukiyo, specially held a banquet at home to entertain his friends. By the way, he also inquired about the purpose of Matsuura Takanobu's return to Hirado.

However, the food ingredients of the Japanese country in this era were really limited, and the little devils were quite taboo about eating meat. Even if they were hosting a banquet for a Japanese noble like Xinqing, the only meat dish would be a sea bream, and the rest would be rice balls, tofu, pickled radish, Miso soup.

To be honest, the quality of this food is not as good as that of Emperor Zhou who used lard mixed with rice as his eight delicacies more than 2000 years ago, and it is even worse than that of today's wealthy locals in the south of the Yangtze River.Matsuura Nobukiyo ate with great enjoyment. After all, he didn't even have many opportunities to eat tofu, let alone sea bream, Japan's top ingredient.

After dinner, Li Guoshu dismissed the musicians and maids, and said to Xinqing in fluent Japanese: "Your Highness, I heard that Lord Longxin's return this time has something to do with the Aranda people?"

Aranda is the little devil's name for Holland. Hearing this, Xinqing smacked his mouth and sighed: "Yeah, yeah, yeah... He obviously thinks about the family, but in the end, he got angry for no reason. My brother is really heartless."

"Is it because of what happened to Heizang?" Li Guozhu said that Heizang's name was Masanao Suetsugu, and Heizang was the common name of his family.This man was one of the most famous Zhuyin ship owners in Japan, and was also Li Dan's best friend during his lifetime. The last ship Li Guoshu gave to Lin Hai came from his family's shipyard.

"That's it. I'm just adding fuel to the fire. If it can deepen the conflict between Heizang and the Alanda people and reduce the number of Alanda ships docking in Nagasaki, wouldn't that be good for us in Hirado? What a great thing?"

Matsuura Nobukiyo and Li Guosuke have been friends for 20 years and can be regarded as close friends, so they have no scruples in talking.As for what he is talking about, it starts with the dual identity of Masanao Sueji.

This man was born into a wealthy merchant family in Hakata. He followed his father to Nagasaki and became Japan's leading maritime merchant. Later, he became a businessman and became an official. He received the honor of Miao with a sword and transformed from a merchant into a royal family member of the general.

After obtaining the status of a samurai, Masanao Suetsu engineered the shogunate to remove the former Nagasaki Daikan Murayama Tōyasu, and then successfully pocketed this lucrative position.However, as one of the biggest players in the Nagasaki trade game, the relationship between the Dutch and the Nagasaki acting official is very delicate.

The conflict between the two sides occurred among the senior officials of Dongfan. As a good friend of Li Dan, Zhengzhi had invested in Dongfan's trade seven or eight years ago.After the Dutch established a stronghold in Oikawa, due to financial constraints in the early colonial period, they taxed Japanese ships that docked in Oikawa, including the merchant ships of the Suetsu family.

Zheng Zhi couldn't bear this. His family's fleet had been traveling to Dongfan for nearly ten years, and he had never paid taxes to Li Dan.The Dutch have only been in the top positions for a year or two, and they are relatively latecomers compared to Masato, but they actually want to collect taxes from him. Fortunately, these big noses still have the nerve to do business in Nagasaki. This really means they don't use him as a village official as a cadre. .

Of course, the Dutch have been in Japan for so many years.There are two main reasons why they dare to do this.

First of all, Masanao, as acting official of Nagasaki, had a lot of interests in the Nagasaki trade. As one of the major players in the Nagasaki trade, the Netherlands had deep interests in each other.To put it bluntly, the Dutch do not want to "decouple" from their gambling politics.Secondly, and more importantly, the Dutch were conducting trade in Nagasaki, and the one who benefited most from the Japanese side was the shogunate in Edo.Even if the government wants to decouple from the Dutch, it may be difficult to do so. After all, the acting official is only a low-level official in the shogunate bureaucracy, and it is difficult to influence the general's decision-making.

Recalling the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu used cannons provided by the Dutch to bomb Hideaki Kobayakawa, which finally prompted the Sekigahara God of War to make up his mind to switch sides, which made the Western Army suffer from enemies from both sides.Without this cannonball that determined the fate of Japan, it might not be the Tokugawa shogunate now, but the Mori shogunate or the Ishida shogunate.

Therefore, for the shogunate, trade with the Netherlands has both economic and military significance, and it is impossible to fall out with the Dutch for the overseas interests of the Suetsugu family.What's more, not all the merchant ships sent by the government to the high officials were legal, and a considerable part of them did not even obtain the seal certificate issued by the shogunate.

Masanao was fully aware of the Dutch's calculations. Although he was filled with hatred, he was helpless. In the end, Li Dan gave him an idea - to use the Hirado Domain to put pressure on the Dutch.In this era, the Dutch trade volume in Hirado is greater than that in Nagasaki. For these big noses, Matsuura's words are far more effective than Masanao's.

Therefore, through Li Dan's pimping, Masanao found Matsuura Nobukiyo, who acted as the agent for the Hirado domain.After hearing about this incident, Nobukiyo was very active and put pressure on the Dutch Hirado Merchant House every now and then. In the end, the Dutch brought the matter to Matsuura Takanobu in Edo. As a result, Nobukiyo was severely criticized by his brother. Had a meal.

"His Royal Highness Takanobu came back specifically for this matter?" Li Guosuke knew the whole story very well, but he didn't think that a letter could solve the problem that would make Takanobu make a special trip. After all, the Hirado domain lord came after the death of the old turtle Ieyasu. He has been living in Edo and has not returned to his domain for six years.

"Of course not. My brother heard some rumors in Edo... It is said that the dispute between Heizang and the Aranda people has been known to the shogunate. Hasegawa Gonroku came to Nagasaki this time to shoulder a secret mission, which is to investigate the matter. The right and wrong.”

When Li Guozhu heard Xinqing's words, a look of surprise appeared on his face.It turned out that Takanobu was afraid that this matter would be detrimental to the Matsuura family, so he hurried back to Hirado so that he could respond at any time.

The name of Hasegawa Gonroku in Nobukiyo's mouth is Fujimasa, and Gonroku is the common name of his family.Like Sueji Masanao, this person was also a samurai directly under the shogun, but he was Hatamoto and was qualified to meet the shogun, and his status was much higher than that of the imperial family.

Hasegawa Fujimasa's duties are carried out by Nagasaki. He can be regarded as an imperial envoy dispatched by the central government to the Nagasaki area. He not only has the authority to manage the overseas trade of Nagasaki and Hirado, but also can monitor the surrounding vassal states. It can be said that the great names of Kyushu Island have their capital. It is as fearful as a tiger.

In later generations, the Nagasaki military service generally had two people, one in Edo and one in Nagasaki, and they changed shifts every September.However, the bureaucracy of the shogunate is still in its infancy, and there is currently only one person in Nagasaki. He only comes to Nagasaki during the peak sea trade season from July to September every year, and spends the rest of the time in Edo.

In the absence of the Nagasaki governor, the Nagasaki trade was jointly managed by the Daikan and Machinenhi.Therefore, although Masanao Sueji was just an official, his power was not small. Although he could not disobey the shogunate's will and shut out the Dutch, he could still sneak in the shoes of these foreign devils secretly, but he had to take some risks. .

This is why Nobukiyo acted so actively in this matter. He was actually trying to make trouble, wanting to further worsen the relationship between the Dutch and the Nagasaki Agency, and then seize Nagasaki's trade share.To put it bluntly, Hirado and Nagasaki are competing in overseas trade.

However, Nagasaki is a territory directly under the jurisdiction of the shogunate. Nobukiyo's operation is tantamount to taking food from the shogun's rice bowl. It is not impossible that the Hirado domain will be changed accidentally, so Takanobu rushed back in a hurry. .

Li Guozhu sighed slightly, Long Xin would definitely take the blame for this debt, after all, it was Li Dan's pimp.Now he is competing with Zheng Zhilong for the support of the Matsuura family. Li Dan is purely using his strength to deceive his son.

Sure enough, Xinqing's next words got into the drama: "My brother asked me to bring you something. To untie the bell, you must tie the bell. If the trouble is caused by your father, then it is up to you to solve it. If this happens, Due to the displeasure of the shogunate, there will be no place for you in Hirado from now on."

Hearing this, Li Guozhu secretly cursed: You boy was more active than anyone else at the beginning, but now you are trying to get rid of the enemy.

However, he had to lower his head under the eaves, so he could only accompany him and said carefully: "Your Highness, please come to Lord Longxin. I will do my best in this matter."

"Then, I'll leave everything to you." Matsuura Nobukiyo paused, "It's time for your father's friend, the elder of Nagasaki Goshen Temple, to come out..."

(End of this chapter)