Farewell to Bai Yunhang, went south to the trade fortune ship, took advantage of the wind, set sail to Japan, and completed the key link of his plan.

On the boat, Mantou and Chen Qinghai and others all dressed up as servants, Mantou is very proficient, and they know that it is just acting, and they still have many years of experience as servants, and the familiarity of the business makes Du Feng and others breathtaking.

This year's trade cards have long been used up, four normal trade cards, three temporary cards, and about 200,000 taels of silver.

This time I went to Japan, and the ship was loaded with contraband that ordinary people wanted to kill.

Grain.

And it is the food in the context of the catastrophe in Jiaodong and Shandong.

In the cabin, Liu Yu was lecturing these confidants.

"A few of you, learn from Mi Ziming well, since you want to pretend to be a servant, you have to be like some. Du Feng, look at you, is this like a slave? ”

Du Feng was helpless, learning the appearance of steamed buns, slightly lowering his body when talking and doing things, and subconsciously bowing his head and shrinking when he stood up, not taller than the "master".

"My lord, what are we going to do this time in the Wa Kingdom?"

"Surveying and mapping. Measure the sea conditions and armament from Nagasaki to Kokura, from Okura to Shimonoseki, and from Shimonoseki to Osaka. ”

"Didn't your lord say that the country is closed and ordinary people are not allowed to enter the country?"

"I have my own means."

Liu Yu grinned, and told these people about his methods. It is also to instill in them some new thinking and new knowledge.

Chinese maritime merchants were not eligible to travel to Japan, but the director of the Dutch Merchant House was required to visit Edo once a year, but this time Liu Yu was granted permission.

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

Japan has been closed to the present, and after Tokugawa Yoshimune came to the throne, he relaxed a little.

Originally, it was a strict check on the flow of any Western books, especially Chinese translations, into Japan, and even Xu Guangqi's "On Making Friends" was among the first batch of books banned from the country because Xu Guangqi was a Catholic. His pamphlet, against the backdrop of Tokugawa Yoshimune's permission for books to flow in, could be delivered to Edo in a righteous and bright light.

After Tokugawa Yoshimune ascended to the throne, Japan suffered a famine, and in order to survive the financial crisis, even the daimyo system of "visiting the pilgrimage and giving an account" was changed.

In order to prevent the daimyo from losing their tails, they went to Edo for one year to visit the Hajj, both for control and to consume the financial and material resources of the daimyos. A trip to Edo costs a lot of money, except for the Nabeshima and Kuroda families, who guarded Nagasaki, who only had to visit the Hajj for 100 days, and the rest were for a year.

A few years ago, the time for the Hajj was reduced and the daimyo were asked to pay more rice and grain, and they finally survived the financial crisis.

Liu Yu asked Lin Yunwen to carry the pamphlet before, which was to take this opportunity to find an opportunity to go to Edo.

One is to inspect the terrain, survey the various defenses and batteries.

The second is to lick it, get a few more trade cards, and save money to build a navy for Japan in the future.

The content of the booklet is very simple, that is, it talks about the financial crisis after Japan's "Zhengde reform", and what is really going on.

In the past, the more money was minted in Japan, the lower the gold and silver content. More than ten years ago, a currency reform was carried out, which increased the gold and silver content.

On the one hand, however, Chinese and Dutch merchants shipped gold and silver out of the country by boat; On the other hand, the increase in gold and silver content and the decrease in monetary aggregate will inevitably lead to deflation.

Japan is engaged in land rent in kind, and it is also a land rent in kind.

The samurai and bannermen were all given grain, deflation, food prices plummeted, and their lives were very difficult and they had no money to spend.

There is enough food to eat, but the problem is that as a samurai, you can't only eat all day, you have to spend money.

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

Under the feudal system, the system of locking up the country inevitably required "grain and gold to be cheap" to ensure the stability of the system, and the price of rice plummeted, and the samurai often engaged in riots and robbed merchants, which made the financial problems more and more serious.

The samurai owed debts on a large scale, and although the shogunate made a "relative relief order", it did not accept money disputes. Under the strict hierarchical system of "Shinong Merchants", not accepting money disputes is equivalent to telling the samurai: It's okay to pay the bills hard, is it possible that lowly businessmen dare to ask for accounts?

However, after all, it was not good, and in recent years, the samurai have not only begun to repay their debts, but also begun to rob them openly.

The shogunate's financial problems also seriously damaged Liu Yu's interests: the shogunate thought that it was only because of the outflow of gold and silver, and tightened trade, and the number of trade cards was even reduced.

It was originally a group of people grabbing food, but now that the total amount of food is less, it is even more troublesome to grab it.

Originally, the Jiangsu-Zhejiang Gang, the Fuzhou Gang, and the Zhangzhou Gang were very involuted, but now Liu Yu has entered again, and the total amount of trade is locked again, and it is simply rolled out of the sky.

He now has no ability to force Japan to open up trade, and he still needs a lot of money to save up the fleet that will force him to open the country.

Therefore, Liu Yu's booklet introduced the concept of "deflation".

It was suggested that the shogunate mint new money, reduce the amount of gold and silver, and add copper and lead to it to ensure the total amount of money on the market, and the price of grain gradually increased.

If you mint so good money, and the total amount of money is so low, everyone must have money in stock, and no one wants to spend money.

If it doesn't cost money, how can rice be expensive?

Rice is not expensive, and the samurai have a hard life, so of course they are dissatisfied.

The samurai were dissatisfied, and you thought it was a pot of gold and silver outflow, and the trade was tightened.

Deflation, business stagnation, reduced goods, reduced trade volume in Nagasaki, how can I make money?

After this pamphlet was sent by Hayashi Yunwen, the Nagasaki commissioner also sent an invitation to the next trade, hoping that the lord of the ship Liu would go to Edo and the shogun would like to meet him.

In addition to the factors of this booklet, it is also directly related to a series of contraband items such as bow horse warriors, war horses, doctors, horse doctors, and horns.

It's not an overnight thing, it's a multi-year plan.

Of course, Liu Yu refused to miss such an opportunity.

The Dutch were able to go to Edo once a year, and they were able to get a clear picture of the geography and garrisons along the way, and they also stole a lot of maps of Japan.

If it weren't for the Zheng family's beating of the Netherlands in Taiwan, which made the Netherlands feel uneasy about the combat effectiveness in East Asia, they might have pondered the "opening of the country with gunboats" all these years.

The route of Dutch ginseng to Edo is from Nagasaki to Kokura, to Shimaseki, to the Seto Inland Sea, and to Edo, Osaka. This route is exactly what Liu Yu urgently needs to know.

So this time I brought eight people, all of whom were confidants in the navy, and they also had the highest level of surveying and mapping.

I brought ginger juice and onion juice to write secret letters, and when the time came, I mapped the coast and secretly drew a map.

Nagasaki is too tightly inspected, and if it is discovered with a map, it is estimated that there will be no trade in the future.

This year, Tokugawa Yoshimune had just abolished the "upper rice system" and resumed the pilgrimage confession, and as a result, a great famine came. The entire Seto Inland Sea region and the West Sea Province were hit by a catastrophe, and it is known as the Great Famine of the Zoto.

The boatloads of rice that Liu Yu brought were not so much charcoal in the snow, but rice soup after the child starved to death.

A few boatloads of food are useless, and those who should starve to death are almost starving, but this attitude can be exchanged for the other party's trade card.

A boatload of rice is not a few dollars, and a trade letter card is tens of thousands of taels of silver a year. Besides, the price of rice in Nagasaki must have risen to the sky, and these boats of rice can't afford to lose.

The only thing that is a little uneasy in conscience is that if these boatloads of rice were distributed in Jiaodong, they might be able to save thousands more people, but now they have to "rescue" the Japanese.

He trusts the eight people he carried, half of them are real "own people", and the other half is impossible to give up their position in Dashun and go to Japan to leak secrets.

He also intended to cultivate the knowledge of these people, and when he told him about the pamphlet, he asked, "Do you understand the twists and turns in this?" ”

From the beginning of the voyage to the end of the five islands, these people are not stupid, and they have the formal and logical way of thinking cultivated since primary school geometry, so they nodded and said: "I understand." ”

Chen Qinghai asked: "But even if the adults say that the smallpox is rotten, the lack of silver in this Japanese country still has a great relationship with the outflow of gold and silver." The Japanese people are not stupid, and even if they mint new coins as the adults say, I don't think the trade in Nagasaki has increased. ”

"Since you have always been wary of the Dutch, can you take advantage of this opportunity to squeeze out the Dutch?"

The rest of the people also had this idea, Liu Yu shook his head.

"Stop dreaming. When the Japanese Catholics rebelled, the Dutch helped suppress it, and with such a big affection, it was impossible for them to refuse the Dutch trade. But I can bury the pit, I have written a book "Bloody Colonial History of the Netherlands" before, and I guess the Japanese people have also seen it. It can only be said that you can fight, but if you want to ban the absolute Dutch trade in a short period of time, I see it hanging. ”

"By the way, it's good to recall the biography of the Marquis of Huaiyin, especially the part about the humiliation of the crotch. This time, don't be so arrogant, and when you have saved enough money, you will be arrogant. ”

Chen Qinghai gritted his teeth and said: "Last time, a few of us said that it would be good to return to the official camp. The trade with the Japanese was brought into the official camp, and the money was hundreds of thousands a year, and the fleet was built. Why bother learning what Huaiyin Marquis? In my opinion, we should take a look at the "Theory of Salt and Iron" discussed by Sang Hongyang and others. ”

Liu Yu saw the appearance of this group of people, and the morale of the heart was available, and it was not good for them to be depressed, so he said: "There are too many troubles in the official camp. If the Japanese people are not allowed to trade with the government, they will be able to control smuggling in the state of opening up trade between the country and the DPRK? Bear with me, so let you take a look at the legend of the Marquis of Huaiyin. ”

"When you arrive in the Wa Kingdom, remember to read more, remember more, talk less, and ask less. When you can write it down in your head, you can remember it in your head. It will be of great use in the future. I had thought about getting the flag of the Dutch East India Company and sending you to the map by boat. But then I thought about it, the Japanese are also guarding against the Dutch, and if we want to attack in the future, it will also be an obstacle. ”

Everyone said yes, and they all secretly remembered it in their hearts, and they also knew that this time was also an assessment. The best of the best people have all come out, and the earliest candidates for trainee captains in the future must be to see the performance this time.