Due to a slight delay in the town square, it was already noon when we reached the Doge's Palace.

The attendant, who had reported the news of my arrival to the Governor, trotted back and told me, "Your Excellency the Governor would like to have a light meal with you. ”

I nodded, thanked him, and casually asked him, "You're from the Northeast, right?" ”

"Northeast..."He thought for a moment and nodded hurriedly, "Yes sir, I am from Liaodong in the Ming Kingdom." ”

I let out an "oh" and smiled a little embarrassedly: "I misremember the name of Liaodong." Your accent is quite interesting, a bit like that of Fushun. ”

The waiter's footsteps paused, and his tone changed slightly: "How do you know, I am a Fushun person!" ”

I said casually as I walked: "I've seen a lot of Liaodong people, the accent of Fushun is different from the accent of Liaonan, and the pronunciation of several words is very strange, so I will remember it." ”

The attendant led me some way in silence, took me to the entrance of the garden behind the Governor's Palace, and said to me, "Sir, there is the Governor's dining room in front, and I can't send it any more." ”

I thanked him and moved on. Occasionally, I tilted my head to admire the flowers blooming in spring, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the waiter from Fushun was still standing in place, leaning forward with his upper body and bowing 90° to me as I walked forward.

Governor Qin Xiangping is my father's old comrade-in-arms, and he also rose all the way up from the Lanfang Governor's District. Five years ago, he was promoted from vice governor of the South China Sea Governorate to governor-general, and was ordered to open up the Chinese Governor's District, always monitoring Houjin's every move.

According to the Republic's management of the governors, the Governor of Qin was to be transferred elsewhere in a few months, and now was the time when he would finally take charge of the Viceroyalty of China.

At this time, the ruler of hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land and millions of square kilometers of sea was sitting in a small pavilion in the garden drinking tea, and more than a dozen exquisite dishes were placed on the round table in front of him.

"As always, sit." He saw me approaching and reached out to say hello.

"Is Li Guohua better?"

I replied respectfully, "My father has recovered from his illness and is in good health, but he is much weaker than before. ”

The Governor agreed, stroked his beard, and sighed, "It's a pity that this guy escaped again." ”

As if remembering to say this in front of his son, other people's fathers had a bad influence, and the governor immediately sat upright, coughed and asked me to sit opposite: "I haven't eaten yet, let's eat some first." ”

Touching my nose, I sat a little awkwardly across from the Governor. Eating face-to-face with the iron-blooded governor who had ordered the shooting of thousands of captured Japanese prisoners was honestly stressful, even though I had been caught and drunk in front of my dad who had come to visit my home as a child.

Luckily, this feudal official with a black history remembered that I didn't drink, and ordered the waiter to put a pot of apple cider vinegar on my side.

In Taiwan, where there are abundant products, even though it is still spring, the Governor's Palace, which is at the top of the food chain, still prepares delicious food that will make my appetite work.

For example, the mullet roe I put on my plate, I have admired it for a long time.

In a travel magazine I read called "A Bite of China", this food from the south-central coast was heavily introduced. At this moment, the food in front of me has been delicately baked by the chef, and the golden roe is added to the fiery red by the flames, and the enticing aroma is exuded by the spring breeze.

"I feel a slight sticky feeling in my mouth, and I can feel the incomparably delicate texture", which is how I intuitively feel when I cut food with my teeth.

It was as if the roe exploded one by one in my mouth, and the rich aroma instantly filled my entire mouth, and every taste bud was touched by the gift of the ocean and the chef's intentions, and the feedback from the tip of the tongue to the full breath of satisfaction in the brain.

After eating a few pieces of mullet roe that had been sliced, I resisted the urge to gulp down everything on the plate and stretched my chopsticks towards a plate of mullet roe.

"Don't you want to keep eating?" The Governor looked at me with some surprise, "All the people who ate for the first time before will finish a plate, don't be polite to me, hurry up and finish eating and get down to business." ”

"If you eat too much, you won't want to eat it in the future."

A smile broke into the corner of the governor's mouth, and he nodded approvingly: "It seems that your father has taught you a lot of things, and he is also a glutton." ”

I thought to myself, how could my father, who had been shouting all day about eating black pepper roast chicken and fried potato chips, be in such a mood for a week without changing his taste, while savoring the sashimi in his mouth.

Well, well, I have to admit that it's a little difficult to come to terms with this thousand-year-old cuisine.

I'm almost throwing up, readers!

In the face of the Governor, I kept a polite but not embarrassed smile, and pretended to enjoy it and swallowed the fish raw.

At that moment I thought of the brown bears that caught salmon in Alaska, and I felt like I was indistinguishable from them.

"Why don't you dip the seasoning? Isn't it fishy to eat like this? ”

My face stiffened, and I forced a smile: "I can feel the purest sweetness of fish when I eat it like this, and I like it this way." ”

After speaking, he immediately picked up the cup and poured a sip of apple cider vinegar, replacing the strong fishy smell with a sour taste: "Your Excellency Governor, please get down to business, I've already eaten it." ”

The governor nodded, beckoned the waiter to take the food down, took a handkerchief and wiped his mouth carefully, and returned to his usual majesty.

"I'm sorry to let you come here in such a hurry, you should have used to it for a few more days before returning to work."

I straightened up, bowed my head with a serious face, and said, "If there is a call, you must return, this is the duty of a soldier." ”

The Governor nodded slightly, and continued, "We're going to do something this time, from Japan." ”

I looked up in some surprise. Before, I thought that something had happened in Houjin, so I had been in charge of Liaodong affairs to come, but I didn't expect that something happened in Japan.

"Tokugawa Iemitsu's." The governor took a sip of the rice wine in front of him, and talked impatiently about the chaos in Japan.

This scene reminds me of boiling wine and talking about the princes, but this time the two of us are talking about Japan.

"You know Nabeshima Katsushige, right?"

I nodded hurriedly: "Yes, it's the lord of the Saga Domain." ”

The governor continued: "He was defeated by the Tokugawa. ”

I sat still, my mind racing about what the Doge meant. "You mean you want me to lead the navy to support?"

The Governor rose from his chair, and the waiter who was waiting outside the pavilion immediately brought a detailed map of Kyushu and laid it out.

"You see," the governor leaned down, his right index finger pointing at Nagasaki, and his face showed the true character of a soldier, "Tokugawa Iemitsu sent his old Nakayama Honda chief to lead his troops, mobilize the Karatsu Domain, the Hirado Domain, and several feudal lords on the Kyushu Islands, and launched an attack on the Saga Domain at the end of January. ”

"Why did they do it all of a sudden?"

"Because of the greed of the Saga Domain."

The Governor sneered and turned around, looking at the purple garden. "Nabeshima Katsushige overestimated our deterrence, believing that the Tokugawa shogunate would honestly abide by its agreement with us."

"So he doubled the amount of tobacco he imported from us, but he evaded all the excess taxes."

The Governor shrugged, and the consequences of the Nabeshima family were self-evident.

"What do we need to do?" I've taken a quick look at the map and have a rough idea in my head, but the details are up to the Governor.

"The shogunate has been jumping too much lately."

I fell silent and began to revise the thoughts in my head. The waiter on the side handed me another document, the latest on the battle that had been sent a few days ago.

Unable to resist the combined onslaught of the shogunate and several nearby feudal clans, the Nabeshima family had captured the old nest of Saga and had now retreated to the coastal Free City of Nagasaki, the territory of the Japanese administration and a semi-militarized city built by the Republic.

Due to the involvement of the Ao-Song, the shogunate had to consider the risk that the Aus-Song would consider that their attack on Nagasaki to arrest the rebels would be a violation of the Song-Japanese Treaty, and therefore the risk of another visit by a black ship; At the same time, the indigenous feudal clan was worried that the shogunate would put its hand into their home and would not leave, so the attack on the Nabeshima family had basically stalled, and they turned into a state of siege.

It is certainly impossible to besiege a coastal port city without sea control. So, starting last month, the shogunate began to dispatch their weak navy to patrol the waters around Nagasaki, trying to board an Australian and Song merchant ship to inspect... It is conceivable that the Australian Song Dynasty Emperor/Nationalism, which only checked others and no one else could check, was immediately enraged, and the documents asking for reinforcements floated to Taipei like snowflakes.

In the last few months of his tenure, he also encountered friction with Japan, and Qin Xiangping, who had fought a war, immediately became excited, declared that the Chinese satrapy had entered a state of war, and issued an ultimatum to the shogunate, but the shogunate unreasonably refused. (Note 1)

So I received the relevant order.

"Prepare for a banquet at the Governor's Palace tonight and invite some high-ranking people to attend."

The Governor patted me on the shoulder and said earnestly, "You should also be there, and meet with them, it will be good for your future." ”

Note 1: On March 16, the Governor of Qin signed an ultimatum demanding that the Tokugawa shogunate give a reply within a week, that is, by March 23, failing which it would be regarded as a refusal and a declaration of war... Obviously, from Taipei to Edo, it will not take a week to reach ...