In September 1856, after the successful ignition of the ironworks, Hakodate Governor Hori Riki finally made up his mind and played at the same time as the White Lord, requesting that the "savages" of the North be granted the status of official lords.

The "savages" here refer to the Ainu.

The number of Ainu in Yidi is roughly estimated to be more than 23,000 – it is said that there were 30,000 or 40,000 at the earliest, but only so many remained after more than 200 years of oppression by the Matsumae family.

The reason why Hori did this is very simple, it is the word fame and fortune.

Now that the shogunate has cut off the additional investment in Hakodate, it is estimated that the cost of immigration in the future has not been settled, and then Hori Rishi has to think about it separately and open up his own financial resources - in fact, Hori Rishi is misjudged, and when the shogunate eases up next year, it will continue to invest vigorously, and in the original world of Naohide, the construction budget of Goryokaku, Bonten, Tsukishima and Odaiba alone has been approved as much as 410,000 taels of gold!

Hori Riki imagined that the savages were exploited by the merchants, and that when the Ainu were converted into official lords, they would have to pay the rent of gold and fields, and they would have to serve labor on time, and most of the increased income would go to the Hakodate office.

However, there are many reasons why he didn't do much before, in addition to the fear of the backlash of merchants and people - it is not good to overly squeeze Ainure when he becomes an official lord, there are two other reasons:

The first is that "those who are not of my race will have different hearts." Although the shogunate was much more tolerant than the Matsumae family, he always felt that something was wrong with the Ainu people as his own.

But this point has already been practiced, as long as the naturalized Ainu people are treated fairly, there is no big problem - life has become better, and the original tribal leader or something will naturally lose his appeal.

Another one, if you become a registered leader, you have to give people a way to live.

Originally, the Ezo land only had to be hired for fishing and farming, so most of the Ainu had to leave them to fend for themselves. But now it's different, digging iron sand and opening a carboniferous mine requires a lot of manpower, and instead of letting the merchants earn the money, it is better to pursue it yourself-Hori Ri is fighting the idea of the official camp, and the soup and water are not left for outsiders.

Merchants can wantonly squeeze the savages, and the office will not be done, and if they dare to do so, if they provoke chaos, then their own box house will be regarded as the end. Therefore, in order to make the Ainu people more obedient, it is necessary to give people some hope, and it is definitely a clever plan to officially accept the status of the people without spending money.

And this reputation is also good, "change the land and return to the stream", not only the Ainu people have been grateful for generations and bring virtue, but there will also be my Hori Rishi name in the history of the future!

Hori didn't float - he had thought about all the difficulties.

The so-called "granting the status of official subjects to the northern wilderness" is carried out gradually, according to his and Naohide's recitals, and it is necessary to be able to speak Fuso and have a proper occupation, so that the Ainu can be slowly absorbed in batches, and if it goes well, it will be faster, and if it doesn't, it will be slow, and there is no risk!

Now that Hakodate has succeeded in making iron, the digging of iron sand and the opening of carboniferous mines will be accelerated, and it is imperative to recruit more Ainu, so this matter cannot be delayed any longer.

Hakodate Governor Hori is afraid that he will be weak alone, so he has to go to Edo at the same time as Naohide Hakuro - you have to go to the table too!

After returning to the white master, Egawa Youngtoshi showed himself to Naohide:

It's a good thing that Horiri's request is on the table at the same time!

After several years of hard work, at the end of last year, more than 2,500 Ainu people in the southern part of the northern Ezo land were all naturalized.

Now that Hori Rishi is leading the charge, it is only natural that Naohide will add another fire.

In addition to the possibility that the naturalized Ainu may become regular this time, the success of the Hakodate Iron Works is not small - the output here is half of its own, and it can save a lot of money in the future.

Previously, the pig iron of the White Lord came from three

Places, Nirayama, Saga and Kagoshima, the price is not expensive, let's not talk about whether it is expensive or not, the distribution of pig iron in Nirayama is in the hands of the shogunate, and the share is very small, and the remaining two, because of the long distance, the price increases after being transported to the white lord, and the money is really a bit painful.

Nowadays, the nearest transportation, one is to save money, and the other is not afraid of stuck neck.

In fact, it's no wonder that Ying Min is worried, now the relationship between the white lord and these families is very delicate:

In 1851, Kagoshima first traded with Naohide because the head of the family, Saibin, wanted to acquire the skills of small blast furnaces and reverberatory furnaces. And Saga is completely out of the idea of having dates and not being able to hit a shot - the abacus daimyo Nabeshima Saimasa mistakenly thought that the shogunate was going to develop the northern land on a large scale, so he made an idle chess move in advance.

Of course, Oguri Tadashun is also an important reason, in 1850 he was promoted to Nagasaki Mesuke, and he had the responsibility of monitoring the daimyo of Kyushu Island, so the two families also had the idea of stammering Oguri through Naohide - in 1845, Oguri had traveled to Kyushu as a friend of Naohide, and also visited the retainers of the two families, so the relationship between the two could not be concealed from the discerning people.

After that, several parties took what they needed, and they hooked up like this.

It stands to reason that Saga can export charcoal and pig iron, Satsuma also has special products such as cane sugar, shochu, and dried sweet potatoes that can be sold, and there is no shortage of gold, silver, and seal skins.

But in fact, on the contrary, the main reason is that the population of the white lord is sparse, the demand is not so large, and because the sea route is far away, one in the southernmost and the other in the northernmost, so the business has been tepid, and that's the case - in the past, each family had three cargo ships entering the port every year, but now it has shrunk to one.

Of course, this is also related to the growth of the white lord's food self-sufficiency and self-built trade routes, which used to be sold for anything, but now it must be domestic (specialty), and as a domestic product, it is often not worried about sales, so why do you have to sell it to the north?

Fortunately, Oguri's career is far-reaching, and Naohide has also become a faraway country, so this business has been maintained, otherwise a ship every year would not come.

Naoxiu thought of a way, such as using Lanxue books to seduce the two families, but the effect was not good:

The breech guns and copper-shelled bullets that were first provided were too far ahead, and Saga and Kagoshima studied them for several years without success, so the two families lost their minds in this regard.

And it's not that other Lanxue skills can't be provided, but they are opposed by Okubo, "Please don't waste, it's difficult for everyone to start a business, if you continue to toss like this, let's break up in advance, so as to save yourself from being wiped out." ”

As a result, this road was completely blocked, and the relationship between the white lord and the two families gradually faded.

Fuso has a strong sense of crisis, especially when it comes to being controlled by others, and the demand for iron materials has been increasing in the past two years, which has caused Yingmin and others to be very sensitive to this, for fear of running out of goods, so the success of the ironmaking in the box hall made him feel that it was a great joy and needed to come back immediately to report the good news.

In fact, Zhixiu is also happy, now is the era of "steel and port", ironmaking has been completed, so is steelmaking still far away? When the time comes, build a few ironclad ships, and you don't have to be so aggrieved.

Naoxiu feels that the reason for the grievance is very simple, although he has been working hard, it doesn't seem to be of much use! - Knocking down the gourd and lifting the scoop, the Lucians were beaten down in the Far East, but England began to make trouble in the south.

Last month, the manager of Four Oceans Bank, Kevin . Wilson brought in a secret letter, "Plan A failed".

Four Ocean Lines is the new name of Xianheng Foreign Company.

The company had been privately transporting ordnance to Fuso for several years, but in consideration of security needs, it was disbanded last year, in 1855, and was replaced by the Four Seas Company, and its headquarters was officially moved to Xiangjiang.

The original manager, John Sr., not only changed to English nationality, but also no longer held a position in the Four Seas Bank, and the small shares were also transferred to the name of his son John Jr.

Kevin. Wilson was 184

7 years of Naoxiu, Yingzi's adopted son in the United States, was originally a Celtic orphan, but now he has grown up, because of his calm and perseverance, he was appointed by Toranosuke as the manager of the Four Seas.

He summoned that the "Plan A" had completely failed, although the result was unexpected, but Naohide still felt aggrieved, the current world is a complete jungle, and he really shouldn't have any illusions!

But what exactly is "Plan A"?

The "A" is the English initials for "Arrow", while "Arrow" is the name of a cargo ship.

In Naohide's original world, it was this wrecked ship that led to the "Arrow Incident", which in turn led to the "Yarrow War" from 1856 to 1860, which some people also called the "Anglo-Buddhist Battle".

The Yarrow is a three-masted sailing cargo ship, registered in Xiangjiang, and the owner is a Tang man.

On the 8th, the Yarrow anchored outside Yangcheng. At that time, the Don believed that a pirate was harboring on the ship, and the ship was inspected. It is said that there was a clash at that time, after which all the sailors on board were seized and Patrick was lowered.

Afterwards, the British governor in Yangcheng, Ba Xiali, was dissatisfied with the results of the mediation, and the Japanese and British sailors shelled Yangcheng.

In the spring of 1857, London made a resolution on the "Yarrow Incident", that is, to force the Tang people to submit by force.

England and France launched a large-scale attack on China in January, but the war did not end until 1860, and the final result was a great defeat for China, which was forced to cede land and pay reparations, and paid major benefits such as "increasing treaty ports" and "reducing tariffs".

Therefore, Naoxiu asked Xianheng to buy and destroy the Yarrow early on, and through the relationship of Little John of Sanjiang Foreign Company, in the name of bounty, he promoted the British Xiangjiang Detachment to clear the pirates in the South China Sea, so as to avoid future troubles as much as possible.

However, all this that Naoxiu did was useless.

At the beginning of July, little John, who returned to Songjiang from Xiangjiang, revealed a secret to Kevin:

Ba Xiali, a shareholder of Sanjiang & Co., who is now the acting governor of Yangcheng in England, warned John Jr., a major shareholder, to control business risks.

After learning and confirming through various channels, John Jr. was stunned to find that the English bureaucrats, naval officers, and merchants in the Far East all believed that a great war with the Tang people was inevitable.

It turned out that the volume of imported trade between England and China was declining year by year, which caused serious dissatisfaction among all parties in England, and everyone blamed the root cause on the "five-port trade" and tariffs, believing that the situation would be improved if there were more ports and lower tariffs.

Originally, in 1844, the "Wangxia Agreement" and "Whampoa Agreement" between the Tang people, the Mi people, and the Francis expired for 12 years, and according to the terms thereof, the two sides could revise the treaty, and England had the most favored nation treatment in China and could sit back and enjoy its success.

But the Tang people repeatedly rejected the requests of the Francis and the Mi people to revise the treaty, and the people of England and Far East, seeing that this was not the case, prepared to open the way by force—when the merchants made more money, and the bureaucrats and sailors had merit and fame, and "everyone rejoiced."

This is a major news that can affect the Far East, and Kevin did not dare to slack off after receiving it, and according to the schedule, he immediately arranged for someone to pass the news back to the new York and Fuso white lords in the United States.

After receiving this news, Naoxiu completely understood that "the law of the jungle", being able to bully but not bully, at least in this era, is impossible.

It's a pity that his strength is weak now, and he can't interfere in such a big thing.

Thinking of the "Yarrow Incident", Nao-su couldn't be happy after Young-min's good news, which made Young-min misunderstood, and he explained Nao-su and said:

"Although Lord Abe resigned from the first seat of the old middle school, he is still the winner, and besides, you and I have been promoted to Shi Gao and official positions this year, so it can be seen that the honor and favor are still there, so why worry about the problems on the table."