The Japanese value rice very much. In fact, in this era, only samurai in Japan could eat rice for every meal, while farmers had to eat a lot of miscellaneous grains. Rice was even a status symbol in the hearts of ordinary Japanese farmers.
At this time, Japan's population was only more than 10 million, and Zheng Kaida estimated it to be around 16 million. According to the weights and measures of the Ming Dynasty, Japan's annual grain output was only more than 40 million shi. Li Zhi suddenly took away the Japanese
With two million stones of rice, I am afraid that many samurai in Japan will have to eat grains like farmers.
Those granaries were all square buildings, densely arranged in the northeast of Ninomaru in Osaka Castle. Li Zhi strolled into a granary and saw sacks of rice piled up in the warehouse.
Li Zhi was in a good mood. He pulled out his command knife and stabbed a rice sack. When he put the knife away, he saw rice pouring out of the sack like a waterfall. Li Zhi picked up a few grains of rice and put them in his mouth and shook them.
Shaking, trying to find the difference between Japanese rice and Daming rice. But after biting for a long time, Li Zhi didn't find any difference.
Zheng Kaida admired Li Zhi even more when he saw Li Zhi performing such a professional action of biting rice.
Li Zhi was worried about the corruption of officials in the Tokugawa shogunate, and worried about the warehouse guards guarding the stolen rice in the granary, and checking the authenticity of the rice sacks along the way. However, he opened more than a dozen sacks in a row, and all that came out was genuine rice.
Li Zhi felt relieved.
Zheng Kaida sent people to count the quantities in each warehouse, and finally concluded that there were 2.1 million shi of grain in this warehouse.
Zheng Kaida smiled and said: "My lord, if you sell all this grain, you can get five million taels of silver."
Five million taels of silver is a huge sum of money. It is enough to support 10,000 soldiers of the Huben Division for five or six years.
This time, Li Zhi spent a lot of money on disaster relief in Shandong. He spent more than 3 million taels to purchase sweet potatoes from farmers in Hsinchu, and spent more than 4 million taels to buy rice. Li Zhi incited the gentry to drive up the price of rice, buying low and selling grain high.
All the money earned was used for disaster relief. This was just an expense on the account. In fact, all the land rent in Hsinchu, Taiwan, this year was turned into sweet potatoes, and all was invested in disaster relief.
Nagasaki's practice of burning fine cloth in Hirado also cost Li Zhi hundreds of thousands of taels of silver. If he hadn't snatched a large sum of silver from Zheng Jiadinghaicheng, Li Zhi would have had a huge deficit in his account this year.
If these two million stones of rice are sold for money, Li Zhi's finances can be greatly improved.
However, after the drought in Shandong this year, Li Zhi paid more and more attention to food and put less emphasis on storing money.
Nodding, Li Zhi said: "These grains will not be sold. They will all be transported back to Fanjiazhuang for storage. If there is a disaster in Tianjin or Shandong in the future, these grains will be our life-saving grains at the bottom of the box."
Zheng Kaida smiled and said: "My lord, you are frightened by the severe drought in Shandong!"
Li Zhi looked at his cousin and said nothing.
####
On November 16, Li Zhi was still organizing soldiers to load rice from Osaka Castle to ships.
The quantity of this batch of rice was so huge that Li Zhi's steamship alone could not transport it all at once. Li Zhi planned to call over one hundred of Zheng Chenggong's Dafu ships to carry it together.
Moreover, all the local Japanese had fled, and Li Zhi was short of labor. After the artillery fire at Osaka Castle stopped, the Japanese citizens in these castle towns did not come back. It was all up to Li Zhi's soldiers to transport grain to the ship one by one, trying to fill six
Thirteen steamships took seven or eight days.
I don’t know when the Japanese citizens in Osaka Castle Town will come back.
However, Li Zhi was slowly transporting food in Osaka, and he was not worried about the Tokugawa family attacking. In this era, it was a thousand miles from Edo, Japan to Osaka, and it would take a month at normal marching speed. Even if the Tokugawa family only took half
A hundred thousand troops were recruited in a month, and it took a month and a half to reach Osaka.
In this month and a half, Li Zhi can send the fleet to Shandong at least three times to transport half of the grain back to the country. At the same time, Li Zhi is planning to have the fleet bring another 10,000 soldiers and horses on the way, and gather 20,000 Huben division soldiers and horses in Osaka.
.
Even if Tokugawa Ieyasu really mobilizes 100,000 troops to attack, Li Zhi will have 20,000 tiger soldiers, and there will be no problem in holding Osaka.
Li Zhi had nothing to do that day. He was looking at the Japanese fields in the distance from the castle tower when he saw Zheng Kaida walking in.
"My Lord, the Satsuma Domain Lord Shimazu Mitsuhisa and the Choshu Domain Lord Mori Hide are here to visit!"
Li Zhi secretly said that the response of the Shimazu family of the Satsuma Domain was very fast. Two days after he captured Osaka Castle, Shimazu Mitsuhisa came. This time he brought another feudal lord of the Choshu Domain. Could it be that the Choshu Domain was preparing to fight with him?
Did the Shimazu family rebel against the Tokugawa family together?
Li Zhi looked at Zheng Kaida, and Zheng Kaida said: "Master Guo, this Changshu Domain is a relatively powerful vassal town in the west of Honshu Island. It used to have a vast territory, but because it has always been hostile to the Tokugawa family, it has been conquered again and again.
3. Deprivation of territory. Although this family is respectful on the surface, in their hearts they are probably very hostile to the Tokugawa shogunate."
Li Zhi smiled and said, "Let the two of them come in."
Zheng Kaida retreated, and after a while, Shimazu Hisamitsu came in with a fat middle-aged man.
Li Zhi conquered Osaka Castle, the largest castle in western Japan, and its status and momentum in the hearts of the Japanese were completely different. Osaka Castle was once the capital of Japan during the Toyotomi Hideyoshi era. Li Zhi already faced challenges in conquering this city.
The momentum of the Tokugawa shogunate. If Tokugawa Hisamitsu came to see Li Zhi originally as a test, now that he came again, he was ready to follow Li Zhi.
Shimazu Hisamitsu and Mouri Hideka, both wearing silk haori with their family crest printed on them, knelt down as soon as they saw Li Zhi.
"The Lord of the Satsuma Domain, Shimazu Hisamitsu, and the Lord of the Choshu Domain, Mouri Hide, came here and saw the Daimyozu Kokugong Palace."
Before Li Zhi could speak, Mourixiu lay on the ground and took a step forward, shouting loudly: "Moorixiu is willing to lead the Choshu clan to follow the Tsuguo Palace and overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate!"
Li Zhi blinked and said nothing.
Mourixiu raised his head and said loudly: "The Mouri family presents the famous Japanese sword Izumomi Kanesada to the Tsuguo Palace to show their sincerity."
Mao Lixiu had already given the Japanese sword as a gift to Zheng Kaida, and Zheng Kaida presented it with the samurai sword. Li Zhi took the sword, looked at it, and nodded.
Li Zhi likes to play with firearms, but has little interest in these cold weapons and swords.
When Mao Lixiu saw that Li Zhi was interested in the katana, she looked very disappointed and fell to the ground again.
Shimazu Hisamitsu looked at Mouri Hidesunari, with a somewhat proud look on his face, and said loudly: "As a token of sincerity, the Satsuma Domain is willing to dedicate the most beautiful woman from Kyushu, Shimazu Chinatsu, to the Imperial Palace as a side chamber."
The most beautiful woman in Kyushu?
Li Zhi was stunned for a moment, and when he was about to speak, he saw a Japanese woman walking in.
A 16- to 7-year-old girl wearing a kimono and a high bun walked in with broken steps. This woman's figure was wrapped under the kimono and had a curvy shape. Her snow-white face was not rouged, and it was so beautiful that Li Zhi could not bear to endure it.
