Late at night on October 23rd, the residents of Hirado Port in Kyushu, Japan were already asleep. From time to time, a few barking dogs could be heard, making the late night seem even quieter.
Hirado Port was originally a famous port in Japan and was once the center of Japan's international trade. At its most prosperous time, tens of thousands of foreigners lived in Hirado Port and engaged in various trades. However, with the promulgation of the Tokugawa clan's seclusion order
, the Portuguese and Spanish were no longer allowed to do business in Hirado, and the Dutch business office was moved to Nagasaki. Hirado Port lost its status as an international trade port. People lost their trading livelihood, and the port declined day by day.
However, due to the fine cloth trade, Hirado Port has regained some vitality in recent years.
The Tokugawa shogunate did not force merchants from the Ming Dynasty to trade in Nagasaki, but Li Zhi's caravan had a business office in Hirado, and was accustomed to Hirado's channels, so it has been trading in Hirado. There were merchants and merchants in Hirado that Li Zhi was familiar with.
With smooth channels, the Li family's fine cloth unloaded from the ocean-going ships in Hirado can be immediately loaded onto Japan's inland sea ships and transported to various parts of Japan.
After Li Zhi expanded the Fanjiazhuang textile factory and sold fine cloth to Japan, the fine cloth trade soon completely defeated Japan's homespun cloth, and the trading volume in Hirado Port was huge.
The merchants of Hirado Port who were originally dispersed to various places returned to Hirado Port, cleaned up the slightly dilapidated merchant houses, and began to operate a large amount of fine cloth trade as dealers. Hirado Port has become the center of Japan's fine cloth trade.
Central city. Compared to Nagasaki's raw silk trade, Hirado's fine cloth trade was more prosperous and its transactions were larger.
On the night of the 23rd, the bad news that the Tokugawa shogunate banned the import of fine cloth had not yet reached Hirado.
At midnight, a fire dragon suddenly appeared in the fields outside Hirado Port. More than two thousand Tokugawa samurai and ashigaru warriors held torches and walked quickly to Hirado Port.
Nagasaki is the center where the Tokugawa Shogun family manages Japan's international trade affairs. Most merchants from the Ming Dynasty and Dutch merchants have moved to Nagasaki for trade in recent years. The Tokugawa family has a "Nagasaki Advocate" here to manage trade. Nagasaki
Feng Xing had many generals under his command. At this time, Tokugawa Iemitsu wanted to ban semen cloth, and these generals came in handy.
More than two thousand soldiers soon took control of Hirado Port. The bright torches caused the watchdogs in the merchant yards to bark wildly. The merchants in Hirado Port were gradually awakened and looked at the streets in surprise.
The armed soldiers and warriors didn't know what was going on.
However, rumors about the ban on cloth have been raging recently, and some merchants also suspected that these soldiers were here to ban cloth.
In front of a merchant who directly purchased fine cloth from Li Zhi's merchant house, a dozen Ashigaru didn't even bother to knock on the door. They carried wooden sticks and knocked open the merchant's merchant store door with a bang. Dozens of warriors and soldiers held torches.
He rushed into the yard and rushed directly to the fine cloth warehouse in the backyard.
The head of this merchant family had realized that the Nagasaki samurai were going to burn the fine cloth they depended on for survival, so he brought dozens of "Yojimō", or servants, with wooden sticks in hand in front of the fine cloth warehouse, trying to protect it with all his strength.
All the property of the entire family.
"Can't burn!"
"You can't burn our fine cloth!"
But in front of the heavily armed Nagasaki soldiers, this kind of resistance is undoubtedly a mantis. The "iron gunners" under Nagasaki's command, that is, the matchlock gunners, raised their matchlock guns that had already been loaded with lead bullets and aimed them at the warehouse in front of the warehouse.
Yojimbo pressed the trigger. Only the sound of gunshots was heard, and blood arrows splashed out from Yojimbo's body. The Yojimbo twitched a few times, and then fell into a pool of blood.
The head of the merchant family was also shot. The lead bullet tore his feather-woven clothes and ruthlessly shattered his body organs. He staggered back two steps and fell to the ground with a scream.
.
"Gentaro!"
A pregnant woman ran out of the house crying and threw herself on the owner of the house.
Without looking at the crying pregnant woman, the soldiers in Nagasaki opened the door of the warehouse with torches and found tens of thousands of pieces of Li family fine cloth inside. Several samurai threw the torches on top of the densely piled fine cloth.
This property worth tens of thousands taels was set on fire.
The fire soared into the sky like a giant beast, dazzling the eyes in the dark night.
The leading warrior looked at the fire and confirmed that the fire could not be extinguished, then waved his hand and shouted: "The next one!"
At Hirado Port, fires broke out in merchant yards one after another.
In Li Zhi's business building in Hirado, Toshige Baba, the Tokugawa family's general commander of international trade, "Nagasaki Gogyo", sat in front of the courtyard, sitting on a small chair, holding a cattail leaf fan, as if commanding the main formation.
A battle.
The soldiers of the Tokugawa family shuttled back and forth in the business building, searching all places where the Li family's fine cloth could be stored. Soon, the seven warehouses in the business building were found by the soldiers. There were hundreds of thousands of pieces in these warehouses.
All the Li family's fine cloth was ignited, and a dazzling fire burned in the Li family store.
After a while, people related to Li Zhi's trade in Hirado, including Zheng Kaida, the general manager of the merchant house, were also escorted out by the soldiers.
Zheng Kaida was Zheng Kaicheng's younger brother and Li Zhi's cousin. He was held captive by soldiers with spears and forced into the courtyard.
"Manager Zheng, long time no see!"
Zheng Kaida glared at Nagasaki Fengxing and shouted loudly: "Bachang, you destroyed the hundreds of thousands of taels of property owned by Duke Jin. No one has ever dared to provoke Duke Jin like this. Do you know the consequences? What are you doing?
Are we going to have an open war with the Ming Dynasty’s Jin state?”
Baba Toshitaka sneered and said: "Mr. Zheng, be careful what you say. From ancient times to the present, there have been so many emperors in China who were both literary and military, but none of them dared to boast about attacking Japan."
"Even Kublai Khan, the great Mongol emperor, was defeated by the divine wind that protected Japan. Li Zhi, a Duke of the Ming Dynasty, dared to boast about attacking Japan. It is really laughable."
Zheng Kaida shouted angrily: "The Zheng family that dominates the East China Sea and the South China Sea is far away in Fujian. The Duke of Jin sent dozens of large ships to take the blame for the Zheng family. How far is Fujian from Tianjin? How far is Japan from Tianjin? The warships of the Duke of Jin came from Tianjin
Let’s set off, and we’ll drive to Nagasaki in five days to bombard your prison!”
"In less than half a month, Duke Jin's army will reach Edo!"
Hearing Zheng Kaida's words, the surrounding Tokugawa soldiers looked at each other for a while and laughed.
Baba Toshige stood up and walked up to Zheng Kaida in a swagger. He stretched out his right hand in front of Zheng Kaida and slapped Zheng Kaida hard on the face twice.
With a ferocious smile on his face, he said: "Zheng Kaida-kun, I, Baba Toshishige, are waiting in Nagasaki, waiting for your army of Duke Jin to attack Japan."
"But Mr. Zheng, you can no longer witness the army of Duke Jin in Japan. I will give you half a month to leave Japan. If the army of Duke Jin does not come in half a month and you do not leave Japan, our racecourse will be very serious.
