On August 16, 1858, Naohide set out from Edo and returned to Hokkaichi, preparing to take up the post of Hakodate commissioner.

Before his departure, the shogunate had not yet secured a mediation commitment from England and Francis for the war between Fuso and Rucia.

Therefore, in the eyes of outsiders, it is inevitable that Lucia will invade the Northland again, and Naohide Hori is an unlucky bastard, who was taken out by the "big old" Ii sweep head to top the tank.

Because of this, many courtiers are not optimistic about the future of Naoxiu - Lucia has already broken twice in the white master, so the third time someone will wake up. And the lack of a big ship is Fuso's Achilles' heel, and Naohide Hori will most likely make a fuss, and then be condemned by the shogunate, "This person can't escape the end of a ruined family." ”

However, there are those who are optimistic about the decline, but there are also those who support it.

Everyone knows that the north will start a war with the Lu people for the third time, so there are many active "Yiyi people" who have gone north one after another, ready to join the command of Naoxiu and fight to the death with the Lu people.

However, how to deal with these "supporters" has become a big headache for Hakodate.

The origins of these people are varied and strange, including the subordinates of wealthy merchants, low-ranking retainers who have run away from various families, ronins who have lost their errands, the sons of wealthy merchants and wealthy farmers who seek opportunities to become famous, and even the retainers of the Kyoto Minister's and the retainers of the daimyo.

Among them, the subordinates of the wealthy merchants are the best to deal with.

These people knew that Hakodate was about to open to trade, and in the future, it was one of the three ports to trade with the Nanban, and there were many opportunities to make a fortune in the future.

So these people say they are here to support the rebellion, but they are actually here to find the way.

It's all like a liar, not only do they not see the dry goods, but they also have bad intentions, either they are ready to sell the supplies to the commission at a high price, or they simply draw a large pie and prepare a white wolf with empty gloves, hoping to get some kind of promise from the commission, and they will not refuse to come anyway - "Whether it is the land in the town or the exclusive right to a certain kind of goods, I have come to destroy it, and you have to be a little bit interesting to the samurai." ”

As for the low-ranking retainers who had escaped, they could basically be classified as a situation - these people had been traveling to study, either in Edo, or in well-informed places such as Osaka and Nagasaki, and when they heard the news that "the northern land had defeated Lucia twice, and then the third great war was imminent", these young men came by boat as soon as their heads were hot.

As for the ronin and the son of a wealthy merchant and a wealthy farmer, in fact, most of them just want to be born in the Northland. As for the thoughts, there may be - anyway, under this banner, you will be looked down upon everywhere you go, so why not.

And the most annoying thing is the ministers and the retainers of the daimyo, these people cover up their original identities on the surface, and then they are ghostly, talking and talking, turning around and around, in short, they want to meet Naoxiu in every possible way, "there is something important to tell you".

Where was Naoxiu free at that time!

He served as the Hakodate commissioner, but he made three military orders in Edo:

First, we must strive to ensure that the box hall and the white master are not lost;

secondly, for the rest of the Ezo land, if it is lost, it must be recaptured within a year;

As for the Northern Ezo Territory, the requirements for the Southern Territory are the same as those for the Ezo Territory, and the Northern Territory is more relaxed, "If there is an invasion from other places, do not give up harassment!" ”

On that day, many old people, big eyes and wakanian were present, and these important ministers of the shogunate had a showdown with Naohide:

"Now that the situation is critical, you have been selected to serve as the Governor of the Northlands to defend against the invasion of the Lucians! Everything else can be put aside, but the military must not be neglected! ”

Naohide knew that the two battles of the White Lord had fought with great power, and the shogunate appointed himself as the Northland Governor, that is, the shogunate was difficult to think of as a good general, and he wanted to use his business influence over the years to let the White Lord Governor make these people come out of force.

However, compared with the military order that was difficult to complete, Edo also gave support:

The first is that only 100,000 taels of gold can be allocated every year, and the second is to give power to Naoxiu, "The head of the Fantou group, Xu Chengxing recommended himself to report to Edo." And Xu Beidi built its own 2,000 people. ”

What is a fixed fan?

In fact, it's a group that lives in a certain place.。

"Xu Beidi built his own Dingfan", that is, he released the military power of the office,

You know, in the past, Naohide didn't have this power when he was the white lord - the standing army of the white lord before, in fact, it was not in the formation, except for the head of the fan and the head of the group who were official servants of the shogunate, ordinary ashigaru really counted, they were all people's bravery, and when Edo gave an order, everyone had to go home honestly

Go to farming.

The Hakodate Commission has a fixed number of people, but it is a group of more than 400 people.

This time, the number of fixed times was expanded to two thousand at a time, and it was "self-built" by the government, and the shogunate was forced to be red-eyed by Lucia! - You must know that the shogunate has a standing army of five parties, and the strongest of them is the Daiban group, which is only 12 groups of 5,000 people.

Of course, the two thousand people in the four groups of Kitachi Dingban approved by the shogunate this time can't be compared with the "own sons" like the Daiban group:

One is that the establishment is low, and the head of the group is just a family tree of the royal family, as for the ashigaru, they are all "hugging" grids that cannot inherit their father's business;

The other is "self-financing of armaments".

To put it bluntly, the positioning of the 2,000 people in the north is just a big tube of ash on the verge of a big war.

However, don't be too greedy to ask for food.

Naohide lived idle for a year, and he finally understood that he had no future in Edo at all - although he was already a daimyo of the banner of the house, the shogunate had a deep sense of the upper and lower families, and no one cared about him, a "lucky man" from a humble background.

Just give two things to prove it:

First, Zhixiu has been idle for a year, and he hasn't even taken the initiative to take care of him!

The second is that Naoxiu has written many times, asking to go to Jiushan to help Mr. Tan'an make ordnance, but they are all in vain, and occasionally he can get a reply, with only three words on it: "Got it!" ”

Therefore, being able to return to the Northland, and to pursue it as a monopoly of power, is a good thing that Naohide can't ask for - in fact, the original plan of Naohide was, "It will be dormant until Oguri Tadashun takes the throne and then make a comeback."

Therefore, looking at the conditions, Naoxiu set up the Fusang military order "oath paper".

But he promised happily at the time, but afterwards he almost turned white.

On August 27, 1858, Naohide took a boat to Hakodate and reconciled with Hori Toshiki, the former Hakodate commissioner who had been demoted, and Naohide and his friends were stunned!

You must know that in the second year of Ansei (1855), when the shogunate took most of the Ezo land under its direct jurisdiction, it compensated the former lord Matsumae family with 30,000 koku of land and 18,000 taels of hand money every year - this is why the retainers of the Matsumae family were not satisfied, thinking that they had suffered a big loss.

According to the White Lord's estimation at the time, the amount of taxes collected from the merchants, such as the transportation gold, was the lion's share, and with the annual tribute of the people and the exploitation of the Ainu, the Matsumae family's annual income could be converted into nearly 50,000 tenpo small judgments—that is, the shogunate's compensation was equivalent to only 60%.

Considering that the Matsumae family retained the territory of Fukuyama Castle, the income of the Hakodate Commission would of course be less.

But Hori Toshiki, you are iron-making and digging charcoal, and this income should be at least the same as the original Matsumae family, that is, the income of 50,000 gold a year should be proper.

However, what stunned Naohide was that the account book clearly stated, "In the five years of Anzheng, the annual income of the Hakodate Office is more than 35,000 gold" - only seventy percent of the estimated amount!

After a closer look, Naohide found that:

The original commercial tax of more than 30,000 gold can now only receive half;

Iron smelting made money, with an income of nearly 20,000 gold a year;

As for the original land output, it is now basically zero;

The annual tribute of the Ainu people originally had three or four thousand taels, but it was exempted by Hori Toshiki in the name of loving the people.

Moreover, Hori is very arrogant:

Of course, the tax will be reduced, and this two years in a row with Lucia to join the army, of course, the merchants have run a lot, and this income will naturally be reduced;

The land output was originally only developed well near Fukuyama Castle of the Matsumae family, but now it is not under the management of Hakokan, so naturally it will not be able to receive the annual tribute;

And the Ainu, didn't you propose to be kind?

"Besides, three or four thousand taels a year, it's really too much, I think one or two thousand gold is about the same. Moreover, the Ainu have been very deferential in recent years, so I will waive this money. ”

Naoxiu had a thousand words in his heart, but in the end it only turned into a sigh, "High, really high!" ”

In fact, he is also ashamed in his heart - the income of the box pavilion is not high, and the white lord forces have dug a lot of holes.

Let's talk about the carboniferous mine, Hori Rixi was originally going to be run by the government. But most of the large carboniferous mines in Ezo were occupied by the white lord in advance.

The operator, Carrup, in exchange for the exclusive authorization to operate in exchange for the conditions of guaranteed supply:

The shogunate's tax on minerals is very strange, and there is a way to divide the system, and generally you can give me two achievements for the finished product.

The company promised to provide all the charcoal needs of the Hakokan Iron Smelting Plant free of charge.

At that time, the Hakodate was the director of Hori Toshiki, and he was overjoyed to hear the news, this can be had, and the family house promised to provide free coal to the main personnel of the office, so he waved his pen and handed over a few large coal mines!

The Ainu are another large kang dug by the family for the Hakodate.

There are about 23,000 Ainu people in Ezo Prefecture, and more than 5,000 of them make a living by working for merchants in Hakodate, Matsumae Town, and other places.

But what Hori didn't know was that most of the remaining Ainu people fell into the hands of the white lord.

A few years ago, the White Lord naturalized all the Ainu people in the southern part of the northern Ezo land. Later, these naturalized Ainu, under the command of the family house, went to Ezo to "help" the tribesmen.

Today, the Ainu tribe in the eastern part of Ezo Land, which was originally isolated from the outside world, accounts for more than half of the adult men who work for the family house, and even the rest of the people are actually under the influence of the family house - fishing and hunting are still fishing and hunting, but the livelihood of the tribe has been deeply penetrated, and gathering and planting have begun to rise.

Even, the Ainu, who appear as monks, doctors, or capable people, have already held the real power of many tribes.

In fact, the actual income of the Ainu people has already begun to grow, but the Hakodate Office has not noticed it!

In fact, Hori Rishi can be forgiven for not knowing the inside story - the Hakodate Office was officially established in 1854, and he basically didn't do anything at that time, just planning Hakodate, and in the three years from 1855 to 1857, the shogunate did not invest much, and Hori Riki led people to patronize and was busy with Hakodate, and when the conflict with Lucia in 1857 was together, he was more idle to pay attention to places other than Hakodate.

At the end of the day, the shogunate's support for Hakodate was insufficient.

The largest group of official immigrants took place in 1855, "sending more than 1,000 remnants of the Shimizu clan and Shishu to Ezo to reclaim the land through wild herding, tree planting, whaling, medicine mining, digging charcoal, and digging mines to educate the people." ”

In later generations, the 80,000-square-kilometer Ezo region had a population of about 5.7 million, and Hakodate alone (the future name of Hakodate) numbered more than 300,000.

You must know that after the Restoration, Fuso immigrated more than 300,000 people to Ezo in just a few years, and then the area slowly prospered.

Therefore, the people who are currently thrown by the shogunate into Ezo are like stones thrown into a pond, and there are ripples, but it is far from being able to say how much has changed.

Fuso has a good training in ancient times, "samurai are not capable of doing business", and this time Naohide has seen it.

The annual income of the Hakodate Office is more than 35,000 gold, so how much is the annual expenditure?

The number is far exceeded.

From the construction of fortifications such as Goryokaku to the cost of absorbing new immigrants, the annual expenditure exceeded more than 140,000 gold.

The shogunate set the one-year subsidy at 100,000 taels, which was originally calculated like this!

can't make ends meet, and you have to start armaments, and Naohide has a headache about it.

However, Hakodate and Hakuro merged, and Naohide was not fighting alone. After that, he called all the old guys of the white lord to the box house and replanned the development strategy.

It was not until the beginning of November of that year that the Hakodate Office was initially adjusted before the onset of winter.

But at this time, the so-called "" who rushed to the box house one after another have accumulated to twenty or thirty people, and these people can't see Naoxiu, so they linger in the market, and even the matter of Feng Chenke Meng Weijun has appeared - it is rumored that someone is playing a long knife and chanting in an izakaya, "Chang Gong is back!" No fish, no car, no home! Whoever has the ambition to break his heart! ”

This is not bad, these people don't work all day long and wander around the market, and some people draw swords against each other when they don't agree with each other.

Hakodate Town Governor Okubo Riji was annoyed by these people, and seeing that the major events of the commission were initially decided at this time, he took the opportunity to say to Naohide, "You better meet these people." ”

To be honest, these people are not talents in the eyes of the Zhixiu family, but it is not easy to travel thousands of miles to the north at this time, either they are bold or strong-willed, and they must have a specialty at the very least, that is, "rich"!