New Shun 1730

After saying goodbye to Baiyunhang, he went south to board the Fuzhou ship for trade. When the wind picked up, he set sail for Japan to complete the key link of his plan.

On the ship, Mantou and Chen Qinghai and others were dressed as servants. Mantou was familiar with it and knew that it was just acting. He still had many years of experience as a servant. His familiarity with the business amazed Du Feng and others.

This year's trade cards were used up early. Four normal trade cards and three temporary cards earned about 200,000 taels of silver.

This time to Japan, the ship was loaded with contraband that ordinary people would be beheaded for.

Food.

And it was food in the context of the disaster in Jiaodong and Shandong.

In the cabin, Liu Yu was giving a lecture to these confidants.

"You guys, learn from Mi Ziming. If you want to pretend to be a servant, you have to act like one. Du Feng, look at yourself. Do you look like a servant?"

Du Feng had no choice but to imitate Mantou. He lowered his body slightly when he spoke and did things. When he stood up, he also had to subconsciously lower his head and shrink his body, so as not to be taller than the "master".

"Sir, what are we going to do in Japan this time?"

"Surveying. Surveying the sea conditions and defense deployment from Nagasaki to Kokura, from Kokura to Shimonoseki, and from Shimonoseki to Osaka."

"Didn't you say that Japan is closed to the public and ordinary people are not allowed to enter Japan?"

"I have my own methods."

Liu Yu laughed and told these people about his methods. It was also to instill some new ideas and new knowledge in them.

Chinese sea merchants were not qualified to travel to Japan, but the director of the Dutch trading house had to go to Edo once a year to pay homage, but this time Liu Yu got permission.

In the previous trade, Liu Yu compiled a pamphlet and asked Lin Yunwen to hand it over to the Nagasaki Bugyo.

Japan has been closed to the outside world until now. After Tokugawa Yoshimune came to power, it relaxed a little.

Originally, any Western books, especially Chinese translations, that flowed into Japan were strictly checked. Even Xu Guangqi's "On Friendship" was listed in the first batch of books banned and destroyed because Xu Guangqi was a Catholic. His pamphlet could be sent to Edo openly under the background that Tokugawa Yoshimune allowed books to flow in.

After Tokugawa Yoshimune came to power, Japan suffered a famine. In order to survive the financial crisis, even the daimyo's "visiting the court" system was changed.

In order to prevent the daimyo from being too powerful, they had to go to Edo for one year every two years, both for control and to consume the daimyo's financial, material and human resources. It costs a lot of money to go to Edo. Except for the Nabeshima family and the Kuroda family who guarded Nagasaki, they only needed to visit the court for 100 days, and the rest were one year.

In the past few years, the time for the imperial court was reduced, and the daimyo paid more rice and grain, and finally survived the financial crisis. This year, the imperial court system was just restored, and a great famine occurred again.

The booklet that Liu Yu asked Lin Yunwen to bring over before was to take this opportunity to seek an opportunity to go to Edo.

One is to investigate the terrain, survey the defenses and artillery positions in various places.

The second is to lick a little, get a few more trade letters, and save money to build a navy for the future war against Japan.

The content of the booklet is very simple, which is to talk about the financial crisis after Japan's "Shotoku Reform".

The more Japanese money was cast, the lower the gold and silver content. More than a decade ago, a currency reform was carried out to increase the gold and silver content.

However, on the one hand, Chinese and Dutch merchants shipped gold and silver out by ship; on the other hand, the gold and silver content increased, and the total amount of currency decreased, which inevitably led to deflation.

Japan is engaged in real rent and real salary.

Samurai and hatamoto were issued with grain. With deflation and a sharp drop in grain prices, they had a hard time and no money to spend.

There was enough food, but as a samurai, it was impossible to eat all day, and they had to spend money.

The price of rice plummeted to a quarter of its peak price during the deflationary tide in the past few years.

Under the feudal system, the closed-door system must ensure the stability of the system with "high grain and low gold". The plummeting rice prices caused samurai to riot and rob merchants, making the financial problems even more serious.

The samurai were in debt on a large scale. Although the shogunate had a "relative economic order" that did not accept money disputes. Under the strict "samurai, farmer, merchant and artisan" hierarchy, not accepting money disputes was equivalent to telling the samurai: Don't worry about your debts, don't worry. Can lowly merchants dare to ask for debts?

However, it was not good after all. In recent years, the samurai not only began to default on their debts, but also began to rob openly.

The shogunate had financial problems, which seriously damaged Liu Yu's interests: the shogunate thought it was just because of the outflow of gold and silver, so it tightened trade again, and the number of trade letters was further reduced.

It was originally a group of people fighting for food, and now the total amount of food is less, so it is more troublesome to fight.

The three gangs of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Fuzhou, and Zhangzhou were already very involuted, and now Liu Yu went in again, and the total amount of trade was locked again, and it was almost rolled out of the sky.

He now has no ability to force Japan to open up to trade, and he needs a lot of money to save up a fleet to force it to open up.

Therefore, Liu Yu introduced the concept of "deflation" in his pamphlet.

It is recommended that the shogunate mint new coins, reduce the amount of gold and silver, add copper and lead to it, and ensure the total amount of currency on the market, so that the price of grain will slowly rise.

If you mint such good coins and the total amount of currency is so low, everyone will definitely hoard money, and no one wants to spend money.

If you don't spend money, how can rice be expensive?

If rice is not expensive, the samurai will have a hard life, so of course they are dissatisfied.

The warriors were dissatisfied, and you blamed the massive outflow of gold and silver, so you tightened trade.

With deflation, business stagnates, goods decrease, and Nagasaki's trade volume decreases. How can I make money?

After Lin Yunwen sent this pamphlet to him, during the last trade, Nagasaki Fengxing also sent an invitation, hoping that Captain Liu could go to Edo, and the shogun hoped to meet him.

In addition to the factor of this booklet, it is also directly related to Liu Yu's acquisition of a series of contraband items such as bows and horses, war horses, doctors, horse doctors, and horns.

This did not happen overnight, but was planned for several years.

Of course, Liu Yu would not miss this opportunity.

The Dutch could go to Edo every year. They had a clear understanding of the geography, garrisoning and other conditions along the way, and they also stole many Japanese maps.

If the Zheng family hadn't beaten the Netherlands up in Taiwan, leaving the Netherlands with lingering fears about its combat effectiveness in East Asia, they might have been thinking about "founding the country with gunboats" in these years.

The route of Dutch ginseng Edo is from Nagasaki to Kokura, Zumaguan, into the Seto Inland Sea, and then to Osaka-Edo. This route is exactly what Liu Yu urgently wants to know.

So this time we brought eight people, all of whom were close friends in the navy and had the highest level of surveying and mapping.

I brought ginger and onion juice for writing secret letters, etc. Then I would survey the coast and draw maps secretly.

The inspections in Nagasaki are too strict. If they are found with a map, they may not be able to trade in the future.

This year, Tokugawa Yoshimune had just canceled the "rice system" and restored the pilgrimage system. As a result, a great famine came. The entire Seto Inland Sea area and Saikaidō suffered a major disaster, known as the Great Famine in history.

The few boats of rice brought by Liu Yu were not so much a help in times of need as rice soup after the children starved to death.

Several ships of food were useless, and those who deserved to starve to death were almost starving, but this attitude could be exchanged for the other party's trade credentials.

A boatload of rice is not much money, but a trade letter can cost tens of thousands of taels of silver a year. Besides, the price of rice in Nagasaki must have gone up to the sky now, and these few shipments of rice will not make a loss.

The only thing that makes my conscience a little uneasy is that if these boatloads of rice had been distributed in Jiaodong, they might have saved thousands more people, but now they were going to "relieve" the Japanese.

He trusted the eight people he brought with him, half of whom were truly "his own" and the other half who could not give up their status in Dashun and go to Japan to leak the secrets.

I also wanted to cultivate the knowledge of these people. I told them about the pamphlet and asked, "Do you understand the twists and turns in it?"

From the time of setting sail until we were about to arrive at the Five Islands, these people were not stupid, and they had the formal logical thinking style cultivated from elementary school geometry. They all nodded and said, "I understand."

Chen Qinghai asked: "But even if your Excellency says it's all over the place, the lack of money in the Japanese country still has a lot to do with the outflow of gold and silver. The Japanese are not stupid. Even if they mint new coins according to what Your Excellency said, they still have a lot to do with the outflow of gold and silver." I think it’s hard to say that Nagasaki’s trade has increased.”

"Since your Excellency has always been wary of the Dutch, can you use this opportunity to drive away the Dutch?"

The other people also had the same idea, and Liu Yu shook his head.

"Stop dreaming. When the Japanese Catholics revolted, the Dutch helped to suppress it. With such great kindness, it was impossible for them to refuse the Dutch trade. But I can bury the trap. I have written a book before. "The Bloody Colonial History of the Netherlands", I guess the Japanese have also seen it. I can only say that we can fight, but I am worried about banning trade with the Netherlands in a short time. "

"By the way, take a good look at the biographies of Marquis Huaiyin, especially the part about the humiliation of the crotch. Don't be so arrogant this time. When you save enough money, you can then be arrogant."

Chen Qinghai gritted his teeth and said: "Last time, we just said that it would be good to take it back to the official camp. If we take the Japanese trade back to the official camp, we will get hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and we will build a fleet. Why do we need to learn from the Marquis of Huaiyin? ? I think we should look at the "Salt and Iron Theory" discussed by Sang Hongyang and others. "

Seeing the lively appearance of this group of people, Liu Yu thought that their morale could be used, but it was not easy for them to keep them depressed, so he said: "The official camp is too troublesome. If the Japanese do not allow the official camp to trade, then the country and the DPRK will open up trade. Do you have to endure smuggling? So I asked you to read the biography of Huaiyin Hou."

"After arriving in Japan, remember to read more, memorize more, talk less, and ask less. Keep it in your mind if you can remember it when doing surveying and mapping. It will be of great use in the future. I have thought about it before, to get a Dutch East India Company Flag, I sent you to take a boat to draw a map. But then I thought, the Japanese are just taking precautions against the Dutch, and if we want to attack in the future, it will be a hindrance."

Everyone said yes, and they all kept it in mind, knowing that this time was also a test. The few people who have learned the best have all followed. The earliest candidates for trainee captains in the future must see their performance this time.