In late June, Okubo, who had moved to Edo, suddenly received a notice from two adults asking him to pay a visit. He was overjoyed.

These two adults are the great backers of Shirozhu's shrine. One is the appointed Ginmi warden and coastal defense Kakegawa Tanan, and the other is the new shogunate's chief minister, Oguri Tadjun.

On the first day Okubo arrived in Edo, his father Okubo Jiemon Riyo went to both houses to hand over greeting cards for his son who was busy with official duties. When the two adults had free time, Liji came to visit as soon as possible - theory

Okubo was supposed to come to visit in person, but Jiemon told him as soon as they met that it was inconvenient for both of them. Mr. Tanan was building an odai in Shinagawa, and Mr. Oguri was also there to help. No one was allowed to visit.

The Okubo family has been going smoothly ever since they followed Naohide. The son was promised to serve the town when he first defected, which exceeded his father's previous efforts in Kagoshima.

And Jiemon and his wife were not bad either. Roshi was appointed as the "tea ceremony leader" of the head of the family, responsible for the affairs of the family in Edo, and Mrs. Fukuko, who was quick and capable, also hit it off with the head of the house, "Okuhi" Eiko.

Last year, Eiko went to Shirozu, and before leaving, she asked Mrs. Fukuko to be the wet nurse of "Ruo Dan" Fukutaro - the 6-year-old Fukutaro had long been weaned, and the so-called "nanny" means guardian.

The shogunate ordered Naohide to resume his official career, so the young Fukutaro naturally returned his position as head of the family to his father, and began to live a good life of eating and drinking again. Fukutaro was almost at the age of "seven or eight years old, and even a dog would hate it", and he chased after him all day long.

Cats are very naughty when they fight dogs, but "if you put some salt in the tofu, everything will be reduced." As soon as Mrs. Fuzi, who behaves exactly like Eiko, appears, he will instantly become a good boy.

Okubo's eldest sister also became the wife of Naohide's cousin Yahiko through Eiko's introduction.

Yahiko is the eldest son of Naohide's uncle Takezen Taro, and is Toranosuke's brother. His first name is "Inosuke", and he is commonly known as "Takezen Taro" - no way, the Takezen family were farmers for generations before they became samurai. After becoming an imperial family, the head of the family

The general name cannot include a certain soldier or guard, so we can only use "Taro" as a general name for the head of the family.

Although the Takemae family lives in Shinjuku Town, they are now members of the royal family lineage. Like the Hori family, they did not want to let go of their old neighbors, so they did not move away. After marrying into the Takemae family, Jiemon and his wife were very satisfied. According to the shogunate

According to the law, marriage must be of a well-matched family, and marrying into the Hatamoto family will definitely not work. Then marrying into the royal family is the best result - Naohide and Eiko are special. They had a marriage certificate with the Nakamura family before Naohide was promoted to Hatamoto.

He was also registered in the shogunate before, so if Eiko's life is not good, he picked up a son-in-law for nothing. Until now, Nakamura Shoichi and his wife are very proud.

Naohide's uncle Takezen Taro was satisfied with becoming the heir apparent of the royal family and had retired last year. Yahiko took over his father's position, and Okubo's eldest sister also became a respected "Wakadan".

The son became successful, the daughter also found a good home, and even got married to the head of the family. Jiemon never mentioned returning to Kagoshima again, and enjoyed himself running around Edo all day long on matters related to the Hori family. But

The Hori family is a nouveau riche with a shallow foundation in Edo, and the only upper-class connections they can make are the Egawa family and the Oguri family, so Jiemon comes to hook up with them every now and then, and he knows all about the big and small affairs of the two families!

Naohide's intrusion has had more and more impacts, which are still not obvious on Mr. Egawa Tanan and Oguri Tadjun.

Egawa Tarozaemon was supposed to make a comeback and become a coastal defense officer after the Kurofune's visit next year. But in this world, Mr. Tanan, because of his contribution to agriculture, and his joint venture with the Oguri family to operate the windmill monopoly and the coal briquette business

In 1846, he served as the surveyor of the Ginmi Service, and then because of the great success of Niushan Ironmaking and his achievements over the years, he concurrently served as the coastal defense officer in 1850 three years ahead of schedule.

But Oguri Tadashi's changes were even greater.

Originally, General Oguri became an omifu only around 1860, but in this world, he became a Nagasaki tamatsu in 1850. He was promoted to another level this year and became an omifu at the age of twenty-six. This is still a shame.

Suppressed by his father - Tadaka, the head of the Oguri family, is a distant official of the shogunate. According to common sense, father and son cannot occupy high positions, but Tadaka refuses to live in seclusion. He is an old bureaucrat who has been wallowing in oil.

, has always made everyone in the shogunate happy, and the Oguri family is the descendant of the Tokugawa family, so after exchanging a large number of benefits, the senior middlemen also left him.

Due to the windmill business, the two major companies of Oguri and Jiangchuan began to form an alliance. Later, after going through ups and downs, the relationship between the two families became even closer.

This year, Oguri Tadatsuki was transferred from Nagasaki Metsuke to Ometsuke. Because he was familiar with foreign affairs and orchid studies, he was appointed by the shogunate as a supervisor to assist in the construction of Odaiba by Kaibo Kakegawa Tarozaemon.

The full name of the coastal defense station is "coastal defense station". It is responsible for negotiating with foreign countries and coastal defense stations.

Defense and other matters. The shogunate had this position for a long time, but after the seclusion of the country, this position was slowly abolished. Nagasaki was responsible for foreign negotiations. However, in view of the constant visits of foreign ships to the port in recent years, Chief Abe-sama added it to the post.

This position was unearthed from the scrap pile and brought to light - by chance, Mr. Tan'an took this position.

Mr. Tan'an completely lost power after being implicated in the Barbarian Prison in the Tenth Year of Tenpo (1839). At that time, he and Torii Yozo were ordered to rectify the coastal defenses of the Izu Peninsula and Edo Bay. In the third year of Kaei (1850)

After serving as a coastal defense officer, he never forgot his roots, and the first memorial he wrote was "Build a platform (fort) and build a big ship."

If it had been in the past, Egawa Tarozaemon would have been sprayed all over the face by the shogunate - with this iron barrel, towering fusang, why do you do something that wastes people and money? You old boy must have evil intentions, saying that you want to get stuck in gas

They are all trivial. It is only appropriate for someone with evil intentions to plot a private army!

But now is not the past after all.

Naohide went to sea in 1846, and since 1847 he has been sending books, newspapers and various information to Fuso.

After 1849, Naohide and others continued to provide various information and ordnance to Fuso under the guise of American businessmen. From 1850 onwards, Gakujiro established the "Kenhyō Yoko" business association in Kojiang under the operation of Oguri Tadjun, who was the head of Nagasaki at the time.

, has become the legal "Tang people" trading partner of the shogunate.

Different from Languo Merchant Company, Xianheyang Company, under the request of Gakujiro, did not aim at making profits. Sometimes it was just a betrayal. It said whatever it wanted and never concealed it. It responded to the shogunate's requests. As a result, the shogunate could not talk about overseas trends now.

He's very knowledgeable, but he's also very knowledgeable.

Therefore, even though there have been fewer incidents of foreign ships intruding into the Fuso coast in the past two years, the veterans also know that this is only a temporary phenomenon, and one day steam gunboats will sail to Edo Bay.

But "building an platform and building a big ship" is easier said than done. Where will the money come from? So the old and middle-aged people agreed to half of it, that is, the platform can be built, but the big ship will be discussed later. Anyway, we are not prepared.

To fight out, defense is the priority.

But even so, Mr. Tanan's Odaiba plan is still struggling.

In Naohide's original world, Odaiba, also known as Shinagawa Odaiba, according to Mr. Tanan's construction plan, 11 forts were planned to be built near Shinagawa Minato in Edo using the boulders of the Izu Peninsula and the soil and sand of Gotemban Mountain in Shinagawa.

It also includes the construction plan of artificial islands. The entire construction started in September of the sixth year of Kaiei (1853), and by November of the first year of Ansei (1854), only five islands were built and could no longer be implemented. The reason was that it was too expensive.

It's huge and useless.

It is said that Mr. Tanan spent 750,000 taels of gold just for the preliminary preparations and more than a year of construction. At that time, the total annual income of the shogunate was only more than 4 million taels of gold, so it could not afford this additional expense.

What's even more disturbing is that at that time, large ships of Western countries were often equipped with several bombardment guns, namely the Paixhans gun that appeared in 1823. Its maximum range was about 2,800 meters, which exceeded the range of the cannons at Shinagawa Daiba. Therefore,

The fort was built in vain - the outer ship could hit the fort, but the fort could not reach the outer ship, so what was the purpose of building the fort? Is it to serve as a scenic spot in the future?

But in this world, after detailed exchanges with Naohide, Mr. Tanan's Odaiba plan is much more reasonable.

Originally, the shogunate had always had the idea of ​​building a fort in the Uraga Channel at the entrance to Edo Bay, but Naohide scorned it: Uraga Channel is 20km long, with an average width of 11km and a narrowest point of 9km. Building a platform would not allow navigation along the central axis.

Fleet, why are you spending that wasted money?

Moreover, the purpose of building forts is to equip cannons, but Fuso's current big barrels are crappy and cannot be used to build bombardment cannons. Then building forts and artificial islands is of no use. Therefore, the Odaiba plan should focus on preventing the enemy from landing, rather than sinking or attacking

To drive away enemy ships, we should build a road along the coast, build several military stations and dozens of small forts, instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars to build a dozen large and useless fortresses.

This conversation took place in 1850 when Naohide was making iron in Niushan. At that time, Naohide also provided three methods of manufacturing large barrels, corresponding to the meter 3-inch rifled gun, the 12-pound French Napoleon gun and the rice Dahlgren gun.

The maximum firing range of the first two types is 3600 meters and 1900 meters respectively. The firing range of the latter is a little farther than the bombardment gun of the same caliber.

However, based on Fuso's current level of craftsmanship, Naohide believed that even the relatively simple forward-loading smoothbore bronze cannon Napoleon cannon was strong enough to be manufactured in a short time, let alone the other two large barrels, so it was better to buy it first.

The latter two types of guns have not yet appeared, but the 3-inch rifled gun is expected to appear within a year or two after Zhi Xiu and others worked hard - in fact, it was launched in 1851.

Under the supervision of Nakahama Manjiro, the cannon was successfully cast ten years in advance.

But even with cannons, the manufacturing of cannonballs is still a big problem. Solid bullets are easy to come by, but blooming bullets are troublesome, so you can only buy them first.

"Fake it a", blow it out first and then make it. Naohide had already started to blow the 3-inch rifled cannon when he returned in 1849. The shogunate was doubtful about this, and Mr. Tanan never thought that his students would lie to the teacher, so

The new Odaiba plans are all designed based on a 3-inch rifled gun. The barrel of this gun weighs 820 pounds, which is equivalent to less than 400 kilograms. The gun mount is not heavy and is easy to move, so Tanan is more determined.

Mr.’s belief in building a small fort.

Where can I buy such a necessary tool for living in the country? Naohide told him that Oguri Tadatsun had his own method. Mr. Tanan knew that his student never told lies, so he actually believed it.

After Naohide went to Hakushu in 1850, the Ginmi Service and Coast Guard Kakegawa Tarozaemon proposed to the senior middlemen and requested to start the Odaiba plan, which cost a total of 100,000 taels of gold (excluding large barrels), and the senior middlemen asked about that time

After the Nagasaki implementation and payment, the plan was approved.

The core of this plan is that the 3-inch rifled cannon can really hit 3,600 meters, so before seeing the cannon, we can only build coastal roads and military depots.

At the end of August 1851, Xianheng Yang Company sent six rifled guns to Nagasaki. After a demonstration at the Laoshigawa Odaiba in September, the Lao and Chinese officials officially approved the Odaiba plan.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t approve it. Why?

Because Xianheng Yangxing's rumor book mentioned that the commander of the East Tianzhu Fleet of the United States, General Oreck, might be dismissed, and the reason was to promote unfavorable diplomacy between the United States and Fuso.

General Oreck once received an order from the United States, asking him to force Fuso to open the port. However, the general required three first-class steam warships to join his command before he could visit Fuso. However, the requested ships have not yet arrived, so he has not taken any further steps.

action.

The American adults were very angry about this, and it was said that they would send General Perry to take over the position of commander of the East Tianzhu Fleet. General Perry proposed an expedition plan to Fuso as early as 1851: with more than three large steamships,

Large-caliber artillery and explosive bombs are necessary, and if necessary, they can be used to intimidate the Fuso people or simply destroy them; at the same time, sticks and carrots should be used together, and the attitude must be friendly; in view of Fuso's delaying strategy, Nagasaki must be avoided and the Fuso people must be directly penetrated.

The heart of Edo.

In view of the "respect and obedience" of the Xianheng foreign company, the arrival of Feng Shushu in Edo aroused the panic of the old Chinese. The Americans were aggressive in the Pacific. In the third year of Honghua (1846), Commodore Bertel led a ship to cross

Uraga, they looted Shimoda, why did they come back a few years later?

It's not the same now as it used to be. In the past, you could close your eyes and pretend you couldn't see, but now Xianheng Yangxing's storybooks and Lan Guofeng's storybooks clearly say that the trade volume between the United States and China is increasing year by year, and the fishing industry in the North Pacific is

The number of whale ships is also increasing day by day. People attach great importance to the Pacific route, and it seems that they will not give up until the goal is achieved.

The U.S. Navy has those steam tank gunboats that can fire long-range bombardment guns. What if the ship actually sails to Edo? So these 3-inch rifled guns must be bought, and the Odaiba must be repaired. Where is Edo?

, just work hard and just live on the construction site. Hurry up and repair the fort, hurry up, it won’t look like you are dragging your feet!

Poor Mr. Tan'an didn't dare to complain, so he had to work overtime. According to the orders of the senior middlemen, "Except for the Chinese New Year, you don't have to go home. If you want, your family will send it to the construction site!"

After all, dozens of small forts were built this time, and a lot of iron bars, cement, bricks, soil and sand were prepared in advance. And according to Jiang Chuan, according to Naoxiu, if he really wants to build boulders and other things, he can add artificial islands after the main body is completed.

If you are willing to build, you can build slowly. In short, put up the frame first.

Hurry up and hurry up, and Oguri Tadjun, who is the mitsuke, also helped a little - although Oguri only joined as a supervisor in April of the fifth year of Kaei, good supervision can reduce a lot of difficulties for the construction party, at least

Oguri knows his stuff and won't get in the way with nonsense.

Finally, in late June of the Western calendar, Odaiba passed the inspection organized by the shogunate. Although you can continue to install boulders and other things if you want, and artificial islands will be built if needed, the entire Odaiba is basically completed and can be used for drills.

Practiced.

The prince was overjoyed after receiving the news. When he met Egawa Tarozaemon, he was rewarded with a famous sword and called him "the emperor's satisfied minister" - that is, "the capable retainer who satisfies me."
Chapter completed!