After a long silence, I looked at the smaller Yongle coin again. Although there is a slight difference, it is very similar to the genuine product, and with today's coinage technology, it should not reach this level.

As far as I know, it wasn't until decades later that the Kanyong coin, which was comparable in quality to the money that came from, was minted. The minter of Kannaga money is the father and son of Sato Shinsuke, a wealthy merchant of Hitachi Mito Domain. After two generations of twenty or thirty years of hard work, they developed a relatively mature coinage technology. In the past, due to the low level of domestic coinage, for a long time, the money imported from China was used as the currency in circulation, and the most popular of them was the Yongle money obtained from the Ming court through the exploration trade...... Thinking of this, I suddenly had a flash of inspiration, and I quickly understood this question.

"Yes, this money is indeed coming from the Western Kingdom," I nodded, "and when the sub-awards were not issued before, due to the shortage of Yongle money, I once mobilized a batch from the four countries. ”

"From Shikoku? …… So which daimyo was cast? Nobunaga asked. His eyes were fixed on me, clearly concerned about the matter.

It's no wonder that Yongle Qian is Nobunaga's signboard, and to a large extent, it also represents his credibility, so he naturally cares about it. Moreover, the iron money in the western country was originally exchanged for Yongle money at a ratio of four to one, according to this ratio, Nobunaga could completely melt all the money exchanged for it into copper, and according to the market price, it was about the same as the Yongle money exchanged out; However, if it were to be exchanged one-to-one, Nobunaga would suffer a great loss, and the person who minted the money would cash out four times the cost of minting it. This is all the more important considering that last year's large number of minted awards are about to be issued.

However, I didn't do anything about it, and although Nobunaga's gaze was very stern, my attitude was still very calm.

"The money was not minted in the book, and there is no great name in the book to do it to this extent...... The place of casting is in the Ming Kingdom. I replied to Nobunaga.

"Is that so?" Lin Xiuzhen was skeptical, "Since it was also minted in the Ming Kingdom, why is it different from genuine Yongle money?" ”

"Your Majesty knows a little about this," I owe to Nobunaga, "and there is a merchant in the Ming Kingdom in His Majesty's house...... According to him, the genuine Yongle money was minted by the money bureau of the Ming court, and then flowed into the book through the exploration trade; However, more than ten or twenty years ago, because of the decline of Hosokawa and Ouchi one after another, there was no daimyo who had the qualifications to carry out exploration and trade, and it was impossible to obtain Yongle money from the Ming court, so in the Jiangnan area of the Ming Kingdom, there were some merchants and rich gentry who privately minted this kind of Yongle money, and traded privately with merchants in Kyushu in exchange for a large amount of silver and other things. ”

"Can the merchants of the Ming Kingdom mint such exquisite money?" Nobunaga was thoughtful.

"Exactly." I nodded.

"I see...... It was His Royal Highness Xuanjing who was wrong just now," Lin Xiuzhen bowed her head and apologized to me, and her expression relaxed. Then, he turned around and asked Nobunaga for instructions: "My lord, since it is also from the Ming Dynasty, then there is no problem with these Yongle money!" ”

"Xuanjing, what do you think?" Nobunaga asked me.

"Your Majesty agrees with Her Highness Xiuzhen's opinion." I replied.

Judging from the current situation, the export of silver and the import of Yongle money are for Yue Ben and Da Ming to take what they need, and I naturally will not object.

Now the status of the Ming Dynasty in the East is equivalent to the United States in later generations, and the Yongle money minted by the Ming Dynasty also has the status of an international trade currency, and it is widely circulated throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia through Zheng He's trip to the West and later Kanhe trade; Even if it is not the money minted by the official money bureau of the Ming court, just because it also comes from the Ming Kingdom, it can basically pass unimpeded, just like the stalls from small workshops in later generations, once they are labeled with European famous brands such as "donkey" and "Da Vinci", they can still be sold at sky-high prices.

However, Nobunaga was very dissatisfied with my statement.

"Do you mean to say that the people of Kyushu and Xiguo will use the money bought cheaply from the Ming Kingdom to exchange the gold and silver of my money house?" Nobunaga closed the folding fan with force, "This is absolutely impossible!" ”

"Perhaps...... We can also conduct private trade, and even ask the Ming to reopen the exploration trade. I thought about it for a moment and suggested to Nobunaga.

This was a little earlier than I expected, and according to the original plan, I was going to wait for the next three merchant ships of the "Fengshen-class" to be completed before proposing to trade. At that time, I not only had a large ready-made ship, but I was also familiar with the shipping routes with the Otomo family, and I was able to roughly lead the exploration trade between the two countries. And now that I'm not ready, I'm not ready to let the merchants of Sakai Town take the lion's share, after all, they started out in the Kana trade.

However, the smuggling of Yongle money in Kyushu in this way did greatly interfere with the business of the money maker. Since I have discovered it, I cannot allow this matter to continue, whether as one of the leaders of the money writing house, or as the presiding officer of the Golden Throne, or as the main founder of the three-goods exchange system.

As long as trade can be reopened, the private trade in the country will naturally suffer a big blow, and even lose the soil for survival completely.

On the side of the Ming court, the private trade was even more hated, and the general way to deal with it was to take the private trade as a part of the invasion and plundering of the Japanese and vigorously ban and crack down. In order to obtain the cooperation of the Ming court, the Ming court also sent people to the book twice, seeking to stop the troubles and reopen the Kanhe trade. Once in the summer of the 34th year of Jiajing (1555), Zheng Shungong sent officials Shen Menggang and Hu Funing to the shogunate to negotiate with the shogunate to stop the problem of the Japanese plague in the summer of the 34th year of Jiajing (1555), when Zheng Shungong had lost the ability to control the whole country, and Zheng Shungong had to return to China; Soon, the monk Qing sent the monk Qing to follow Zheng Shungong to the Ming, saying that he would serve the Ming national code, stop the Japanese and ask for the trade qualifications, so the governor of Zhejiang, Hu Zongxian, sent Jiang Zhou to negotiate, but unfortunately when Jiang Zhou arrived in Kitakyushu in the 36th year of Jiajing (1557), it coincided with the outbreak of war between Otomo Zonglin and Ouchi Yoshinaga, he stayed in Kitakyushu for a period of time, and finally had no choice but to return to China, and reported to the imperial court that the war was chaotic, and the families were not subordinate to each other, and could not reopen the exploration and cooperation trade. After that, the Ming court gave up its efforts to contact the Japanese and turned to a complete ban on the ships, whether they were private trade ships or Japanese ships.

In other words, as long as Nobunaga submitted his credentials to the Ming court and paid tribute, the resumption of trade would be a sure thing.

It's just that I very much doubt that Nobunaga will be willing to pay tribute to the Ming court. With his surname, I'm afraid it's a bit difficult. At the beginning, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu's son, Ashikaga Yoshimori, just didn't want to be a vassal like his father, so he gave up the huge profits of the exploration trade. There is also Nobunaga's successor, the monkey, who is even more arrogant to a certain extent, and was named the king of the Ming Dynasty, and he was so angry that he jumped to his feet, and he also wanted to occupy Korea and the Ming Dynasty.

Sure enough, after listening to my proposal, Nobunaga pondered for a moment and waved me and Lin Xiuzhen to step down.

"I'll think about this after a while." He said.

……，…… In July, according to Nobunaga's request, the imperial court changed the yuan to "Tianzheng" because of the frequent wars and disasters during the Yuan Gui period, and the sentences "the pure one is the right person in the world" in "Lao Tzu", and "the people take food as the sky, and the one who is at the end of it is the original one" in the "Anthology", and changed the yuan to "Tianzheng", which is the first year of Tianzheng.

In order to celebrate the reform of the Yuan, Nobunaga presented 100 large judgments, 1,000 small judgments, and 10,000 sub-judgments to the imperial court, with a total value of 4,500 yuan. These awards were all minted by Lin Xiuzhen in the past year, and the total number was more than one million. However, due to the unresolved issue of the private Yongle money, Nobunaga gave up this rare opportunity and did not hand it over to the money house for public issuance and exchange for the time being.

On the 28th, Nobunaga gathered his troops and once again conquered the Asakura family and the Asai family.

This scene can't help but remind people of what happened three years ago. At that time, it was also just a change of yuan, and it was also a conquest of the Asakura family, but the result was the retreat of Kanesaki, which made Nobunaga almost in a desperate situation, and then it was disturbed by the Ichijo sect, and fell into the encirclement network organized by the Takeda family, the Ashikaga family, and the Asakura family.

Fortunately, none of these crises have been able to defeat Nobunaga, and the power of the Oda family continues to grow. Now that Nobunaga has ruled Kinai, and there are no more constraints around him, his power is even stronger than it was three years ago, and victory is a certainty.

In the battle of Kotani Castle, Hideyoshi Yura, who had been defending the Asai family for a long time, took the position of the general of the front line. This is a tradition of the Oda family, and whoever is responsible for the battle is in his jurisdiction. When attacking Zhongnong that year, the general general of the front line was Sen Kecheng; The year before last, the burning of Mt. Hiei was led by Shiga County Daichi Mitsuhide as the front-line commander.

In a way, Hideyoshi and I are somewhat similar in that we are accustomed to dismantling our enemies through diversion. In October last year, the Asai family's important retainer Miyabe Jijun threw himself into Hideyoshi Yura and adopted his nephew Jibei Kinoshita (later Toyotomi Hideji) as his adopted son; As soon as the war began, the Daihao clan of Kita-Omi Ika Prefecture and the Asa Sada, who had sent more than 1,000 troops during the Battle of Ogawa, also accepted Hideyoshi's strategy and gave way to the Oda army on the main road from Echizen Province to Otani Castle. At this time, the ships that Nobunaga had built on Lake Biwa at the beginning of the year came in handy, and a large number of Oda troops crossed Lake Biwa, directly cutting off the connection between Otani Castle and the Asakura family, and completely isolating Otani Castle.

Hearing the news, I knew that the Asai family was finished. Then, because Hideyoshi has been serving as the county representative of Sakata County for three years, he confronted Asai with a small number of troops, and omitted many wealthy families in Ika and Asai counties, and the old leaders of the three counties of the Asai family will be naturally handed over to him to govern. Once this step is completed, Hideyoshi will truly establish his position in the family.

Having accepted the task of sweeping away the Ichijo family and the Chosō family, I did not participate in this expedition, but instead mobilized troops, rations, and ships to prepare for the Tosa Province.

Before sending out the troops, Xiao Natsu and I went to the mountain castle of Sansaki Province Seitsuji Temple to hold a ceremony for Keitaro.

According to tradition, the official age of the son of the samurai is thirteen, fifteen or seventeen. I had wanted to serve Keitaro in another two years, when he was fifteen years old, but this time it was a rare opportunity to sweep Tosa, and since I intended for him to inherit Tosa's old domain, I couldn't let him miss this opportunity to establish his prestige.

Moreover, this matter may make Xiao Xia a little happier. In the past two years, I found that Natsu was always depressed, and although I took Kaizu to Awaji and let Kaizu and Senju Ji take Huan together, I also tried my best to find time to accompany them, but many times Konatsu would rather live in Yangyikan than meet up with Janet, Otomo.

In a way, both of them are spoiled women, one by their husbands and the other by their fathers. And they have a strong desire for exclusivity, and it is too normal for conflicts to occur. Otomo Janet mainly wants to monopolize the city, but Konatsu wants to monopolize her husband.

I understand Xiao Xia's feelings, she relies on me wholeheartedly, and I hope I can treat her wholeheartedly. It's an anachronistic idea, but it's a natural name that she's not embellished, and one that I don't reject. It's just that because of my busy housework, I really can't spare time, and many times I'm not even in the country, so I can only be administratively done by Xiujing; Second, for the sake of family affairs, whether it is as a dish in the main room, or to contact Janet of the Otomo family, I need to take special care of them.

This kind of responsibility and helplessness as a major minister of the main family and the head of the family, I think, Xiao Xia should be able to understand! In addition to being my favorite side room, she was also my first retainer. When she accepted Keijiro's identity and went out of the mountain to fight for the Kira family, it was largely due to her persistence...... "Time flies so fast!" In the blink of an eye, Keitaro was already able to take the yuan. "Looking at the coast of Sansaki Province, which is getting closer and closer, thinking about the journey along the way, I said with emotion.

"Yes. The concubine still remembers that the sons who gave birth to Keitaro at the beginning," Xiao Xia was also very emotional, "Although there is only a small Shangchuan Castle and the territory is less than 4,000 stones, the family can get along day and night." It's a pity ......"

At this point, she fell silent.

I knew what she wanted to say, so I changed the topic: "I must be very relieved to see my child in Yuanfu, as a mother!" ”

Xiao Xia looked at the inseparable Senju Ji beside her, and her daughter Haijin, who gradually relied on her, and showed a smile: "This is a matter of course...... Isn't Your Highness also very happy? ”

"That's right," I laughed.

After thinking about it, I made a suggestion: "If you are not used to it in Sumoto Castle, how about you live with him when you wait for Keitaro Motofu?" He is a very good child, and he will surely be very happy and serve you day and night...... It's better than staying alone at Yangyi. ”

Xiao Xia looked up at me for a moment, then slowly turned her head away and looked at the sea in the distance.

"Since His Highness said so, the concubine will obey her fate!" She said faintly.

(To be continued)