Surrounded by the sea on three sides, the port of Nagasaki is Japan's closest port to China, and it is only about 860 kilometers away from Shanghai in a straight line and about 53 kilometers from the port of Busan in North Korea. If the wind is favorable, it will only take 10 days for a merchant ship to travel from Shanghai to Nagasaki, and about a day to travel from Nagasaki to the port of Busan.

The so-called Nagasaki Port is mainly located in the section from the mouth of the Nakajima River to the front of Kofukuji Temple. Surrounded by the banks of the lower reaches of the Nakajima River, Nagasaki's most prosperous business district. Compared to Hirado Island, which is more than 100 miles northwest of Nagasaki, Nagasaki opened its port relatively late, but its development momentum is excellent.

If the foreign merchants on Hirado Island were mainly Chinese and Dutch, then Nagasaki was probably a trading base for the Portuguese and Chinese. However, after the capture of Nagasaki by Putmans, the Dutch merchants who had been driven out by the shogunate were placed here, and the Dutch power in Nagasaki swelled dramatically.

When Putmans and Zheng Zhilong led their fleets to capture Nagasaki and Hirado, they not only confiscated the treasury of Nagasaki Town, but also confiscated the assets of the shogunate's privileged merchants, mainly those who were engaged in the silk cutter Nakama.

Since the Ming Dynasty began to control the export trade of raw silk, the price of white silk has risen from 2,800 yuan per 100 catties of raw silk to more than 4,000 yuan, of which the highest grade of first-class lake silk has even reached 6,000 yuan per 100 catties.

The annual import of raw silk into Japan used to be about 30.4 million catties, and in the past two years, it once rose to one million catties a year. Since last year, it has dropped to about 600,000 catties per year.

Originally, the silk cutting charm system, which was mainly aimed at the Portuguese, was expanded by the shogunate to all merchant ships that sold raw silk to Japan after the Ming people controlled the export of raw silk.

This year, the price of raw silk fell to 3,500 yuan per 100 catties (421 taels of load), and so far about 500,000 catties of raw silk have been sold, that is, the raw silk market of 2.1 million taels of silver has been created.

However, these Nakama merchants sold these raw silk to Kyoto, and they could sell it for 5,000 yuan per 100 catties, which was almost more than 40 yuan in profits. Because the quality of Japan's raw silk is not as good as that of graded Chinese silk, the large import of Chinese silk has also hit Japan's local raw silk industry, and has increased the demand for Chinese silk from Japanese silk producers.

Putmans and Zheng Zhilong seized about 350,000 taels of gold from the treasury of Nagasaki Town, and confiscated about 150,000 taels from these privileged merchants, but when Ye Yuxuan arrived in Nagasaki, only 300,000 taels were left in the deposit handed over to him by the North Route Fleet, mainly silver and copper coins.

The 200,000 taels of deposit that disappeared, Ye Yuxuan quickly figured out the whereabouts, but he didn't plan to expose the matter. Because Putmans was afraid that he would pursue the disappeared gold and silver, he readily handed over the power of Nagasaki to him, and then led the fleet to continue north.

The Dutch, who were only concentrating on getting money from the vault, did not realize that the gold and silver in the vault came from not only Iwami Ginzan on the island of Honshu, but also some of the silver from the near Nagasaki.

The copper coins in the vault account for about one-third of the value, and there are two main types of copper coins, one is the Keicho Tongbao issued in the 11th year of Keichō, and the other is the Yuanhe Tongbao issued in the first year of Yuanhe, each copper coin weighs about 26 grams, and every 4,000 pieces is equivalent to one tael of gold and 50 coins of silver (Japanese gold troopy system).

However, the Dutch did not do anything good, although Putmans preemptively established the Nagasaki Autonomous Council before Ye Yuxuan's arrival, and made the Dutch businessman Spike the chairman of the Nagasaki Autonomous Council.

Before Ye Yuxuan's arrival, the new Dutch speaker issued a policy of raising money from Nagasaki and Hirado merchants to maintain law and order. Of the more than 50,000 inhabitants of Nagasaki, there are more than 13,000 merchants, of whom nearly half are Chinese merchants.

It was only the reluctance of these Chinese businessmen to come forward that allowed the Dutch to seize the dominant power in the parliament. However, this also saved Ye Yuxuan some trouble, if the Chinese businessmen dominated the parliament, they might not be able to pull down their faces to collect this security fee.

Under the threat and lure of Spike, the council collected about 1.2 million kan from the merchants of Nagasaki and Hirado, equivalent to 60,000 taels of gold. This money just offset the military aid of the coalition forces to Kumamoto and Satsuma, and also made Ye Yuxuan agree with the existence of this council.

With this autonomous council, Ye Yuxuan quickly broke away from the daily tedious affairs of Nagasaki. As the deputy envoy of the East China Sea Patrol Office and one of the nine executive members of the Allied Forces Command, he now has more important matters to think about.

The glorious victory of the coalition forces on the island of Kyushu does not seem to be a good thing now. Because the victory was too easy, many samurai of the Kumamoto and Satsuma domains felt that the allies of the Ming Kingdom and the Nanban countries did not actually play a role in the war, but they ate the fattest trophies of the Nagasaki and Hirado regions, which made them feel particularly unhappy.

The Satsuma, who were themselves relatively xenophobic, felt that their previous alliance with the Ming and Nanban countries was too hasty after losing the deterrence of the shogunate forces hanging over them. As a result, there was a voice from the military that no matter how grateful the allies were for their help, they could not give Japanese land to foreigners.

As for Tadahiro Kato of the Kumamoto Domain, he was very ambitious, believing that he had the most credit for the defeat on the battlefield, so he wanted to obtain the largest distribution of territory after the war. In Kato's view, the territories of the Saga and Kokura domains should be given to him, the Fukuoka domain should be cut in half, and the territory of the Satsuma domain should not cross the central part of Kyushu.

Although the Choshu Domain, located at the southwestern tip of Honshu, did not participate in the Battle of Kyushu, it demanded to recover the territory that originally belonged to the Ogura Domain, and asked the Kyushu coalition to move north as soon as possible to assist the Choshu army in Kamirakura.

In addition to the scheming intentions of the three southwestern feudatories, those princes of Kyushu who had just expressed their submission to the coalition were now also panicking, fearing that the three feudatories would divide up all their territories and make them become ronins with nowhere to go.

When the representatives of these southwestern princes gathered in Nagasaki, Ye Yuxuan quickly realized that behind the blazing fire and flowers, there was a great crisis of division within the coalition army.

The longer he studied the emperor's plan for the conquest of the sun, the more Ye Yuxuan could understand why Chongzhen wanted to borrow the power of the Japanese and Europeans as much as possible.

Without these internal contradictions in Japan, the combined forces of the Ming and Europeans alone would not have brought the shogunate to its knees by plundering a few ports at most.

Without cooperating with these Europeans, even if these Japanese daimyo were nurtured to successfully rebel, the Ming Dynasty might not be able to gain any benefits. Because for the Japanese, treachery is a philosophy of survival and not a crime.

For example, this time, although the samurai of Kumamoto and Satsuma Domain were ready to move, they did not dare to turn their faces to the coalition army, because the coalition army had a huge fleet and artillery, so that they knew that they had no chance of winning.

However, the deterrence of force alone cannot make up for the rift that has now appeared between the princes of the southwest, and it is obviously difficult for an intriguing army to complete the task of Shangluo.

Ye Yuxuan has been trying his best to find a way to restore balance among the princes of the southwest these days. After much deliberation, he decided to bring in the power of the remnants of Toyotomi and break up the alliance between Kumamoto Satsuma in order to restore the balance between the princes of the southwest.

On October 21, Tenshuni, now Toyotomi Chiyo, arrived in Nagasaki on an ordinary merchant ship, and Ye Yuxuan personally led a team of personal soldiers from the dock to the Nagasaki office west of the Nakajima River.

Carrying Toyotomi Chiyo's sedan chair directly into the inner courtyard of the commission, Ye Yuxuan said to Ouyang Yuntai, Li Guozhu, Onodera Goro, Ichiro Bingwei and others who wanted to discuss affairs with him: "If it's not any important matter, you can handle it yourself first, and I'll review it later in the evening." ”

After four years of experience, Ye Yuxuan has been cultivated from a somewhat intelligent country youth to a political elite with a lot of grace, although it is just an understatement, but it makes everyone present feel deep pressure.

Onodera Goro thought about it for a while and then said: "Back to my lord, the Ishiguro family, the Aoyagi family, the Iwahashi family, the Kawaharada family, these Nagasaki samurai leaders, have all expressed their allegiance to the Ming Kingdom, and now they are waiting outside, do you give them a reply?" ”

Ye Yuxuan thought about it and said to Tanegashima Tadashi behind him: "It's good that they are willing to abandon the darkness and turn to the light, after all, it is a local land, and it should not be taken lightly." You go to them on my behalf, and choose some young men from each house to be your men. ”

Tanejima Tadashiki, who had become one hundred households in the Tokai Patrol Prefecture, immediately clenched his fists and agreed, and went down with Onodera Goro to meet those local samurai. After Ye Yuxuan sent them away, he ordered the guards to guard the inner courtyard, and they were not allowed to come in and disturb themselves unless it was a particularly urgent situation.

When Ye Yuxuan walked into the inner courtyard, Toyotomi Chiyo had already come out of the sedan chair and began to enjoy the scenery of the inner courtyard. Nagasaki is a very oily position, and Takenaka is a very capable corrupt official, so the scenery of this inner courtyard is still quite good.

Just when Toyotomi Chiyo was enjoying the beautiful scenery of Mt. Inasa to the west of the commission, Ye Yuxuan hurriedly walked in, saluted her and said: "Your Highness came across the sea, presumably because she was extremely tired, and she should have let His Highness rest for a few days first, but now the situation is a little inappropriate, so Xia Guan can only delay His Highness's rest." ”

After Toyotomi Chiyo returned the salute, he looked at him generously before saying: "I heard on the road before that the Kumamoto Satsuma coalition army defeated the Kyushu coalition army that obeyed the shogunate, and Nagasaki and Hirado fell into the hands of adults, what is wrong with such a good situation?" ”