Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 81 Who Are They?

Sendai Port in a broad sense is actually a large port area including Sendai, Shiogama, Ishinomaki and Matsushima, also known as Shiogama Port Area.It is a major maritime transportation route that various inland cities in the northeastern part of the island country rely on.

Among these four ports, the most important one is undoubtedly Ishinomaki Port.

Starting from the Matsumae Domain in Hokkaido, including the Hirosaki Domain, the Black Market Domain, the Morioka Domain (under the jurisdiction of the Hachinohe Domain and the Shichihu Domain), and even the Shirakawa Domain, a relative domain of the Tokugawa family, the import and export of foreign trade goods heavily relied on the Ishinomaki Port.Rice and various types of seafood sold to Edo from each clan were boarded from Ishinomaki Port and sent to Edo along the Tohoku route.

Most importantly, more than [-]% of the rice sold in Edo Castle over the years came from the Sendai domain; and the shogunate opened a coinage in Ishinomaki to make Kanei Tongbao.

Locking Ishinomaki Port is equivalent to locking up more than 80.00% of the island country's foreign trade in the Northeast.And Edo Castle, with a population of one million, must have no rice to use.

Some people say that there is still Osaka?Don't be ridiculous, the rice shipped from Osaka to Edo is less than [-] stone a year, which is only [-]/[-] of what Edo needs in a year.

So, do you know why Zhao Xin went to Ishinomaki Port?Not because of the premium abalone and shark fin.
In the fourth day of the fourth day of the fourth month of Tianming (1784), it was early morning.

After three long whistles came from the sea, the daring fishermen found that the giant Thor boat parked at sea was heading northeast. The "devil from hell" finally left, and the residents of Matsushima Town finally breathed a sigh of relief when they heard the news.

How far is the distance from Matsushima Town to Ishinomaki Port?Thirteen nautical miles, if the boat is fast, it will be there in less than an hour.

Therefore, many people who rushed from Ishinomaki Port to Matsushima-cho Harbour to watch the lively the day before yesterday afternoon were stunned to see that the mountain-like ship was actually blocked outside Ishinomaki Port.

Buddha and Bodhisattva!The devil is here!

The news that more than 200 samurai of the Date family were wiped out yesterday morning reached Ishinomaki Port in the afternoon.Dozens of cargo ships docked in the port all lowered their sails at this time, huddled on the pier and dared not set sail.If he was robbed by a barbarian boat on the way, he would have no place to cry.

(Zhao Xin waved his pistol and rushed onto the boat and shouted, hand over all the shark fin and abalone to me, and the ones below the two heads are garbage! Illusion, illusion.)

Thanks to the Tokugawa family's "Samurai Laws", the Date family's navy has only a few closed ships of no more than 20 shi and more than [-] small early boats in Ishinomaki Port.So when Ishinomaki Minato Shouto heard that the foreign devil ship that bombarded Matsushima Town yesterday was coming, the folding fan in his hand fell to the ground with a "slap", and he was trembling with fright.

He is not here in Songdo, and there are a lot of goods entering and leaving the port every day.If something goes wrong at Ishinomaki Port, the Date family will definitely let him have his abdomen cut off first, and then whip the body a hundred times, ah, a hundred times; then the Edo shogunate will continue to whip him.
"My lord, let the navy go out! I wish to lead the warships out to sea to drive away the barbarian ships." Two vassals who did not know whether to live or die asked the executive officer for instructions.

"Get out! Get out!" Ishinomaki Kotoho almost fainted from anger.The news that came yesterday shocked him so much that he was speechless. Not to mention the fact that more than 200 warriors died in World War I, and that demon ship turned half of Matsushima Town into ashes with one shot.How to fight this?
And the family hasn't given any instructions yet. In case the family is cowardly, and their own side is arrogant, the final end is a caesarean section.

"Don't look at it, it's you, Shibata!" Feng Xing picked up the fallen fan and pointed to the samurai who was sitting farthest below.

Shibata Juezang, who is in his 30s, sees Master Fengxing calling him, and secretly screams in his heart that something is wrong.

As a spy (spy) directly under the feudal fiefdom, Shibata Kakuzo was sent to the Ishinomaki Port to monitor whether there was any illegal act of collusion with the Tokugawa family or other foreign feudal lords at the Ishinomaki fiefdom, and to report directly to the local feudal lord Ishikawa-sama. Report.

Speaking of which, the Invisible Man has done a good job in the past few years, so why was he named?

"Haha. Sir, please instruct me." Shibata Juezang felt helpless, so he had to show an indomitable posture.

"Go out to sea with two people as your entourage to see what the foreigners want to do. It's best to meet the barbarians' boat owners and ask them, where did the local domain offend them?" Fool.He didn't feel relieved about who sent him at this moment; since Shibata Juezang was sent by the local governor, let him go first, and everyone would bear it together if something went wrong.

"Ah?!" Shibata Juezang felt the thunder rolling over his head, and the good things didn't come to me. This kind of unlucky thing was actually his turn.Could it be that the Bodhisattva blamed him for not going to the temple to burn incense sticks recently?
"What? Is Your Excellency Shibata unwilling to go?" A sneer appeared on Ishinomakiko's face.

"Ha ha!"

Shibata Juezang thought about it, since the word "Thor" was written on the Yi boat, maybe the people on the boat could speak Tang dialect.So he asked the adults to entrust him with two deputies to accompany him.

One is a tax official who has studied the Four Books and Five Classics in the official school of the feudal lord; the other is the owner of a business in Honmachi.

Port Ishinomaki agreed very readily.

Soon, Shibata Kakuzo and his party boarded a small morning boat on the pier.Nine sailors had been arranged on the boat. After Shibata and the three of them were firmly seated, one of the sailors sitting in the stern began to beat the drum under him and chanted horns; the other eight sailors rowed the oars.The small early boat quickly left the dock.

On the Thor, which was moored three nautical miles outside Ishinomaki Port, Liu Sheng held up a high-powered telescope and looked at the small early ship coming out of the port, and said to Zhao Xin with admiration: "You guessed it right, they sent someone here. "

Zhao Xin said with a smile: "Sendai Domain can't bear the consequences of the closure of Ishinomaki Port. Sooner or later."

Wang Yuanfang looked at the small early boat in the telescope, and asked Zhao Xin, "How will you deal with it in a while?"

"Take them to the conference room on the ship, and have them prepare refreshments. Let's go to the ceremony first and then the soldiers." Zhao Xin said.

As a result, everyone on the Thor waited for more than two hours.Speaking of which, I really can't blame the Ishinomaki Port. The limit speed of the small early ship in the Edo period was one nautical mile per hour.If it is really arranged to close the ship, it is too troublesome to move the large tube placed on the bow of the ship.

The tea in the conference room was re-brewed three times, and the small early ship approached the Thor.

"Listen to the people on the boat at Xiao Zao, you pull the boat here." Zhao Xin's voice came from the loudspeaker on the boat.

As soon as he finished speaking, the turntable platform on the deck of the ship began to rotate, and the thick chains and steel wires were slowly lowered from the side of the ship with the gangway, and finally stopped near the water surface.

Shibata and other sailors on the small early boat were all taken aback. Fortunately, there were pieces of guards on both sides of the boat, otherwise someone would have been frightened and fell into the water.

After walking back and forth to the deck along the gangway, Shibata Juezang felt his legs go weak and could not help but slumped on the ground.

He didn't expect this ship to be so big, turned his head to look at the owner of the business, and saw that the other side shook his head with a pale face. Shibata knew that he had never seen such a ship before.

Touching the ground under him, Shibata Juezang realized that the deck of the ship was actually made of large pieces of iron, and he couldn't help but stunned inwardly. When he looked up, the tall white ship building in front of him made him feel dizzy.This is higher than the towers of the feudal city!

He turned his head to look elsewhere, and two huge objects not far from his side caught his eye.

"Is that the big tube that blew up half of Matsushima Town? Isn't that too big?" Shibata Kakuzo resisted the shock in his heart and couldn't show it on his face.

I saw three thick brackets supporting the entire gun body, with some sacks pressed on it; Shibata Juicang visually estimated that the barrel of the large barrel was not more than ten feet long, and the muzzle that did not look thick was facing the stone. The direction of the port; an extremely tall and sturdy man, with a few men, stuffed a pointed cylindrical object into the gun body.

Shibata Kakuzo noticed that the person holding the black column looked very difficult, and it was obviously extremely heavy.

If all of this made Shibata and the three feel novel and shocked, what made him go crazy the most was that all the people on the deck had oriental faces, and no foreigners could be seen at all; With a fluent Mutsu accent!

Who are the people on this boat? ! !

Shibata Kakuzo's fear was justified.Because in the territory of Sendai Domain at the moment, the cruel annual tribute collection of the Date family has made the peasants' grievances run high, and Yi Kui (peasant riots) has reached the edge of the trigger.

The disaster situation the previous year started automatically, and even if there was a large area of ​​poor harvest in the territory, the Date family did not exempt the annual tribute in the territory at all.

In the view of all the retainers of the Date family, if a village is exempted from the annual tribute, then all the villages in the domain will come to ask for the exemption.If we cannot centrally collect and mobilize grain at this time and implement the rationing system, a large number of people will starve to death.

The county magistrate initially implemented a slightly reduced annual tribute for paddy fields, while for dry fields, the income corresponding to each tael of gold was to be paid 130 taomi (two taels and one stone, or [-] kilograms).In fact, this year's tribute has been equal to the current market price of the skyrocketing rice price, that is to say, the tax rate has reached [-]%.

What kind of land does this make for farmers?After the harvest, not a single grain of food will fall into his hands.But it's not enough if you don't plant it, it's the opposite of the sky, the county magistrate will send people down to arrest people every minute; want to eat in prison?You are so beautiful that you go to jail without food.

It was Katsukaishu and Riki who came to greet Shibata Kakuzo and the three.The two of them didn't say a word, and looked coldly at the three people in front of them, looking around like fools.

Li Ji thought it was a beauty.As a former farmer, he would never have imagined that one day he would be able to stand proudly in front of the samurai master, with a mocking look on his face, and treat him as a fool.

It was not until Shibata Juezang and the three turned their glances to Sheng Haizhou and the two that they bowed and saluted.

"The next one is Shibata Kakuzo, a subordinate of the head of the Sendai Domain, Ishikawa-sama. These two are."

Sheng Haizhou's face was stern, he did not introduce himself and Li Ji, but said with a serious look: "My lord has been waiting for you in the cabin for a long time, please come with me."

"My God! This person is fluent in Kanto dialect! Who are they?!" Shibata Juezang turned around and looked at the two behind him, all with a look of surprise.

(End of this chapter)