Winters in the Northland are cold and long, but unlike the previous year's dullness, this winter is lively in the White Lord.

The reason for the excitement comes from the rise of various businesses, clothing, food, housing, transportation, and everything that can be outsourced, for example, the original large restaurant is divided into seven or eight houses for food, although grain, dried vegetables, etc. are provided by the government.

The effect is very good, doing it yourself and doing it for the commission are completely different things, take the restaurant as an example, not only the food is delicious, but also the variety is increased.

Originally, there were a lot of immigrants who had skills or methods, and the centralized management in the early stage could not be shown, this time they were allowed to work alone, these people showed their strengths, and a lot of small objects came out at once, such as the wooden hairpin in the hand of Zhixiu, the shape is quite chic, although the carving is very general, but the bird shape of the hairpin head is very vivid.

From south to north, the white lord is divided into a dock area, a factory area, a commercial area, a public area, a residential area, and a camp, and Naohide and Eiko are now hanging out in the business area - Okubo has planned it a long time ago, but it turns out that there are only two merchants, and it is very cold.

Zhixiu handed the hairpin to Yingzi, turned his head and took out thirty-eight copper coins and the shopkeeper, the shopkeeper didn't dare not want it, so he had to laugh there all the time.

This is a 19bun shop that only became popular in the late Edo period, similar to the 10 yen shop in later generations, although the name is Jubun shop, in fact, there are various prices in it, but they are stacked according to price - most of the goods here are from the original warehouse of the shojo, and a small part is produced locally.

"Is that business okay?" Dan is a term for the shopkeeper, especially the shopkeeper who owns the land and houses of the shop.

"Thanks to His Highness and his wife, business is prosperous."

Naoxiu was a lie when he heard it, because the price of the goods provided was very transparent, and the white owner did not have a monopoly right, and whoever wanted to do business or which business was very free, so the competition was fierce, resulting in low profits in the store.

The situation can only be improved when these guys find a new source of goods, but because of the many cheap conditions provided by the government, the house payment and goods can be owed on credit at low interest, and the first two years of shipping gold and health expenses are all exempted, and it is true that they can't lose money.

Moreover, those who dare to open grocery stores now are people who have ideas, either have the skills to further process the materials or can find some special products, such as this store, which has a good relationship with the Ainu people and can get some of their handicrafts.

Naoxiu and Yingzi took the guards around the business district, and felt that the atmosphere was okay, although there were not many types of items, but there were a lot of people shopping, especially a few taverns, which were full, and there were still people performing their talents in it.

Naoxiu accompanied Yingzi for a whole day - he was about to go out, and Yingzi has not been in a good mood recently, and he has missed his son since the New Year, and today he is specially accompanying Yingzi to relax.

The next day, April 6, 1852, Naohide, Naojiro Nakahama, and Naoyoshi Hori, the head of the naval army, set off with four groups, and Hakujutsumaru and two warships sailed majestically to the west.

There was still some drift ice in the Soya Strait in April, but as long as you pay attention, it is not a big problem, and the group will arrive at Moka smoothly, which is the western part of the northern Ezo land, the northernmost Yunjoya in the northern part of the northern area, and also the secret trading base of the money house.

Last time, the money house half-guard said that there was a secret ship yard here, and he could build a thousand stone ships, and Naohide had long wanted to come and have a look.

Before the ship arrived at the dock, there were people snooping on the shore, and after the ship docked, after Naohide showed the "small" family crest flag of the Hori family, sure enough, someone came to visit.

The man who fled to the white lord's money house said that there were more than a hundred people here. Naohide did not dare to be careless about these outlaws engaged in secret trade, and according to the plan, Nakahama Manjiro and Hori Naoyoshi each brought two groups of people, Hori Naoyoshi went ashore to line up, and Manjiro led people to guard on the ship.

With the straight show

There were also the people who came from the original money house, and the two masters came back shortly after getting off the boat, scolding and swearing.

"Tell you, sir, it's a little trouble now." It turns out that the people in the money house are now all servants of the Hori family who have signed a deed of sale, so they call Naohide the master.

"What's the trouble?" I have long known that there is no good goods when it is cheap, according to the inference of the staff officers of the strategic and tactical group, these outlaws of the money house can only fight with the wind, and now that the money house is about to fall, there will definitely be infighting, and it is possible that it will not be popular.

As expected, these people really had a fire, but the plot was quite tactful and complicated.

It turned out that the money house half-soldier was ruthless, and there were more than 150 people engaged in secret trade in the North Land Money House, among which he only selected his henchmen to return to Kaga Kanazawa, and for the rest of the people, he used deceptive means, saying that the money house was falsely accused in Kaga, and the business in the North Land was to be temporarily contracted, and you can go to the white lord to hide or wait for news in Moka.

Thirty-six honest children went to the White Lord, and the remaining hundred or so were concentrated in Moka by the half-guards.

He knew all about the previous ones, but he didn't know what was going on behind them.

After the personnel were concentrated, Hanbei first made a loyal speech, saying that the money house tree has deep roots and is a minister of the Maeda family, and now he has only met a villain, and he will definitely be able to tide over the difficulties.

But that night, he took the blood of Maoka and got rid of all the usually unruly and potentially unstable ones, under the pretext that these people were preparing to flee with money.

Because the previous half-soldier said that everyone's blood was boiling, he was comforted one by one at the next banquet, and the future was not going, and everyone was drunk while worrying, so it was easily won by the half-soldier.

After Shicheng went to Sancheng, the half-guards returned to Mooka with more than twenty henchmen, and most of the boatmen, sailors and guards who remained in the white lord, and at the same time, in order to prevent accidents, the half-guards did not even leave a single ship.

This was supposed to be the end of the matter, but in the end, the half-guards didn't even leave a boat, which caused panic among these people. In the long winter, there was a lack of reputable chieftains, and these people naturally divided into several factions, one faction of more than twenty boatmen and sailors, a dozen guards loyal to the money house and some sailors, and the other faction of more than twenty people, all of whom were ronin guards, felt that the money house was going to abandon them, and played drunk all day long, looking for people to fight everywhere with red eyes.

Most of the boatmen and sailors were relatively honest and were oppressed by the other two groups in normal times, but the guards loyal to the money house knew that they could not do without them, so they were relatively mild, while the other faction often troubled them. Fortunately, the supplies left by the half-guards were sufficient, and there was an Ainu tribe nearby, and people from the other two factions often went to the tribe to vent, so they barely managed to survive.

Because the ships were all taken away by the half-guards, and the boatmen and sailors could not escape, these people stayed where they were, and when they arrived, they were the only people they saw, and the other two groups had not returned since their last trip to the Ainu tribe.

"A rabble!" Manjiro Nakahama and Naoyoshi Hori trembled and were very careful, but when they encountered such a result, they were inevitably a little angry.

"A lesson from the past, a teacher for the future. You should think about how to maintain the cohesion of the organization. ”

After reprimanding the group, Naoxiu turned his face and smiled, there are a lot of people left in the money house, and he is still thinking about the division plan prepared by the staff officer on the boat that came, and now this situation is much simpler, and he really has to rely on his peers to set off his work.

"The head of the Qian family, Wubingwei, has been imprisoned, and those who don't want to die hurry up and take refuge in the White Lord's Office." Qian Wu has a lot of assets, and Naoxiu knows that Qian Wu is in danger of being doomed this time, so he unceremoniously takes in these boatmen and sailors.

There was a message from the former half-guards who dominated the northern land, and the persuasion of the original companions, and under the pressure of the soldiers, these people happily signed the deed of sale and entered the mastery of Naoxiu.

Here's how

How to deal with these guards, but the method is not in the plan, who would have thought that the opponent would be so infighting that he didn't even want a station.

Nakahama Manjiro, Hori Naoyoshi and the head of the army and the staff officer temporarily discussed a plan, and Naohide felt feasible after reading it, so let's do it.

In the evening, the group lit a big fire, and then everyone should do what they should do.

But waited left and right, and after another two days, the two groups of people rushed back on the morning of the third day of the straight road - but the fan group felt that it should have arrived at night, and the military dog barked all night last night, maybe these people were snooping.

The two groups of people each sent envoys to communicate with the brigade of the commissioner, and it turned out that it was the white lord of the office mentioned by the half-guards, and they entered the garrison, but they were armed with weapons and looked very guarded.

Zhixiu is tired of looking at it, maybe when the money house was crisscrossing the whale sea, these people were still forbidden to fight, but now after losing their backers, and then losing their faith, they have completely degenerated into a group of bandits, even if they have weapons in their hands, they are just pretending, and they have completely lost their original combat effectiveness - maybe only in the face of the weak, these people can still pretend to work hard.

Naohide was too lazy to come forward, and as a result, Naoyoshi Hori persuaded the two groups to surrender.

The whole group is ashamed of this group of people, and naturally they will not treat them well, and ask the other party to lay down their weapons and honestly wait for the fate.

Because the confrontation between the opposite side still uses an old-fashioned military formation, lined up for battle, it is very easy to check the number of people, Obantou Hori Naoyoshi found that the dog heads were all there, and immediately fired an iron cannon to warn, originally thinking that it would take a lot of effort, but these people honestly tied their hands and captured, which was a big surprise.

Zhixiu is even more tired of this, before the iron cannon is fired, these two groups of people chirp crookedly, compare with each other and put forward a lot of conditions, during which they touted themselves extremely tall, eager to say that they are unparalleled in the east and west, anyway, as long as the white lord is willing to recruit them, it is a piece of cake to deal with the Matsumae family, even if it is not a big problem to deal with the Lucia people. As a result, as soon as the iron cannon sounded, the two groups scrambled to surrender, and the contrast was too great.

Although it's disgusting, but you can't kill for no reason, Naoxiu pinched his nose and accepted the surrender of these people, but how to deal with them?

Let's bring it back to the white master, a grain of mouse dung spoiled a pot of soup, stay in Maoka, it's really not safe, send it to Matsumae or somewhere else, these people know the bottom of the money house, it's a trouble, in short, it's very troublesome.

Naoxiu asked the boatmen and sailors who stayed behind, and the really stubborn ones were all eliminated before the half-guards of the money house left, and the rest of these goods were all strong and weak and strong.

Still don't give up, Zhixiu asked people to interrogate separately, whether they did anything heinous in the Ainu tribe, and if there was a canonical punishment, kill a hundred examples, and then asked a circle, because the Ainu people here are relatively fierce, the money house has never dared to bully too much, and ordinary bullies of men and women are common, but the locals are making a lot of trouble, and they also know how to retreat, so there is really no such thing as losing their conscience.

But it's not okay to bully men and women, Naoxiu organized a temporary legal assessment office, carefully reviewed it, picked two unlucky people who are usually the most arrogant, and pulled them out for execution after approval.

In the years that followed, especially in the most difficult years of the White Lord, the commission office has not relaxed the control of these people, but surprisingly, after these people defected to the commission, most of them were conscientious, even if they went into battle, they also moved forward bravely, and after Chairman Bai rolled the north, many people also accumulated merit and were promoted to the head of the group, which was very inexplicable and strange for Naoxiu.

The whole government was also deeply puzzled by this, and specially investigated it, and concluded that "everyone is civilized in a civilized environment, and in a barbaric environment, people are transformed into wild beasts, so from the perspective of large numbers, the environment plays a decisive role in shaping people." ”

Of course, no one knows what happened now, and at this time the men were still working under their control to repair the ship in preparation for the great battle with the Lucians in June.