Joao? Cabrral's eyes lit up as he listened to me.

It is impossible for Nobunaga to be unaware of the Portuguese merchant houses and churches, and in my words, there is some faint revelation that Nobunaga is likely to overthrow the Ashikaga shogun and replace the shogunate in the near future.

It's almost a sure thing. Since the end of last year, the Ashikaga-Oda coalition government has broken down due to Takeda Shingen's crusade against Nobunaga, and the major mycographical and wealthy clans in Kinai, which were originally under the joint control of the two families, have re-sided and divided into two camps, Oda and Ashikaga. Although the Ashikaga clan succumbed not long ago, due to the exhaustion of the Oda family's army, neither the daimyo nor the wealthy clan of the pro-Ashikaga clan had been defeated, which was definitely not possible, and both sides knew this. Therefore, once the Oda family has finished resting, it will definitely be the time of the decisive battle.

Regarding this matter, all the important ministers within the Oda family were aware, and the people involved were also given clear orders. When I left Gifu, I was ordered to attack the three families of Ikeda, Nakagawa, and Takayama in Settsu; Shibata Katsuie and Niwa Nagahide of the shores of Lake Biwa were instructed to build warships in the middle of the lake to facilitate the transfer of troops and supplies from Sawa Yamajo Castle near Mino to Kyoto and the Kita-Omi area. Naomasa was instructed to use Dowen Mountain Castle as a base to unite the Yamato Kingdom and take charge of the direction of Hanoi Province; Akechi Mitsuhide used the newly built Sakamoto Castle as a base to transfer the wealthy clans of Tanba Province led by the Hatano family; Hideyoshi Yura of Yokoyama Castle also received a clear order to be ready at any time as a pioneer attack on the Asai family, who had already been called Bo Nishiyama.

Of all the tasks, the Settsu Province for which I am in charge seems to be the most onerous. But I know that once the time comes to shuffle, Araki Murashige, who is good at fishing in troubled waters, will soon jump out and take the opportunity to exile the lord Ikeda Tomomasa, who had just received the title of guardian of Settsu from General Yoshiaki, and then annex the Nakagawa and Takayama families in the name of quelling the rebellion. This is his usual trick, and the previous Ikeda Katsumasa, Itami Kinko, Wada Yumasa, Ibaraki Shigetosa, and Wada Yuenaga were all defeated by him in this way, and the Nakagawa family and the Takayama family inherited the main territory and power of the Ibaraki family and the Wada family respectively.

Therefore, I plan to protect the two families in the name of the Oda family before Araki Murashige annexes the Nakagawa and Takayama families, so as to limit the power of Araki Murashige, and support Nakagawa Kiyohide and Takayama Tomosho father and son to restrain Araki Murashige.

In contrast, I am more concerned about the current shipbuilding matters. This is related to the trade between China and China, and it is very important to my power and the power of the Ming Dynasty.

Saying that it is important to my forces is naturally obvious. In the early days of the Muromachi period, it was in order to obtain a formal status of exploration trade that Ashikaga Yoshimitsu would submit to the Ming Dynasty, and he also gained a lot of wealth and became the most powerful general of the Ashikaga family in the past; His son, Ashikaga Yoshimori, was unwilling to be a vassal and cut off trade, so the power of the Ashikaga clan gradually shrank until he was resurrected when Ashikaga Yoshikyo was shogun, and used this capital to wantonly humiliate the daimyo (and finally killed himself); After the Onin War, the Hosokawa clan took power and used Sakai as a base to trade with the Ming Dynasty, which led to a century of prosperity in Sakai Town, and the Hosokawa clan continued to prosper for decades (if not civil strife...... ）。

Also prosperous because of the trade with the Ming Dynasty, there is also the Ouchi family in Kyushu. Originally, the Ouchi family mainly traded with Korea (the Ouchi family claimed to be the descendants of the Baekje King of Korea), but seeing that Ashikaga Yoshimitsu had made huge profits from the Ming Dynasty, they relied on the geographical advantages and used Hakata as a base and Daming transportation to seize the trade share of the center. Although Ashikaga Yoshimitsu fought against the Ouchi family and killed Yoshihiro Ouchi in the "Onaga War" in 1399, the Ouchi family remained the same, and has always maintained its position as the number one daimyo in Kyushu and even in the western country. It wasn't until Tao Takabo killed Ouchi Yoshitaka and supported Ouchi Haruei (Otomo Yoshijin's younger brother) that the Ming court severed the exploration trade between the two families on the grounds that Haruei was not the orthodox Ouchi family, and the Ouchi family declined (of course, the civil strife itself was also one of the reasons), and was finally destroyed by the Maori family.

Until now, the trade between the Ming Dynasty was mainly controlled by Portuguese merchants, and due to the demise of the Ouchi Orthodoxy and Hosokawa clans in the country, no daimyo had the qualifications to explore the trade, and instead of smuggling trade with the people of Jiangnan. Among them, the biggest smuggler is the Otomo family in Kyushu. The port of Hakata, which they currently control, is the largest port for trade between Ben and Ming. Through this port, they exported a large amount of silver and some raw copper to the Ming Dynasty, and imported a large amount of raw silk and Yongle money, so as to obtain a lot of profits, and once controlled two-thirds of the territory of Kyushu.

And I suddenly had the idea of building an ocean-going trading ship after seeing Janet Otomo. Because of her, I think of the Otomo family, who currently dominates the trade between Kyushu and Ming, and also of the future trade affairs between Komoto and Damei after Nobunaga's destruction of the Ashikaga shogunate.

My plan is to follow the Otomo family on a few smuggling trips first (do you know why the first ship was called Princess Janet?). ), gradually establishing their own waterways; After Nobunaga destroyed the shogunate, he paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty in his name and obtained the qualification to explore the trade.

As for saying that this matter is related to the national situation of the Ming Dynasty, it is not an exaggeration. This starts with the unique currency standard system of the Ming Dynasty, because Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the circulation of copper coins, so the Ming Dynasty used the Ming treasure banknote as the standard currency. However, at that time, there was no complete theory of monetary reserves, so paper money gradually began to depreciate and finally changed to the silver standard. The Ming Dynasty's own silver production is very small, since the Ming Hongzhi thirteenth year (1500) to open the mine for more than 100 years, the annual output of silver has been hovering around 100,000 taels, according to the "History of the Ming Dynasty? Food & Goods? According to the record of "Pit Governance", Cheng Shaogong and Yang Yingwen said: "Jiajing ordered mining in July of the 25th year, from October to 36, with more than 40 members, 1,180 defense soldiers, about 30,000 gold, and 28,500 silver mines, which outweighed the losses. Therefore, the silver circulated by the Ming Dynasty basically relied on foreign trade.

In the early stage, due to the huge surplus of raw silk trade, the supply of silver in Ben and the Americas was sufficient, and the Ming Dynasty was able to obtain enough standard currency for circulation, and the domestic economy has maintained a prosperous situation. However, in 1634, due to the outbreak of the trade crisis in Europe, Spain, the world trade hegemon at that time, restricted the export of silver to the Americas, and a few years later there was an anti-Chinese incident in Manila, which was used as a transit, and a large number of Chinese merchants were robbed and killed, basically cutting off the Americas-Philippines-China trade route; In 1640, the Tokugawa shogunate officially closed the country and cut off trade with Macao. The following year, the Strait of Malacca came under the control of the Dutch, cutting off the Portuguese trade route between Goa and Macau. These three events led to a sharp decline in the foreign trade of the Ming Dynasty, which caused two major difficulties: first, the silk industry in the south of the Yangtze River was hit by a huge blow, and the traditional routine of "taking the southeast and using the northwest" of the state's wealth fell into collapse, and there was not enough money to meet the challenge of thieves in the west and slaves in the north; Second, because the inflow of silver plummeted, the silver in circulation was seriously insufficient (the rich gentry did not like the Ming treasure banknotes, and a large amount of silver was stored), deflation (the price of silver skyrocketed five times in the ten years of the Chongzhen era), and the Ming treasure banknotes had to be issued indiscriminately for emergencies, resulting in soaring prices and poor livelihoods. Faced with these two major internal dilemmas, as well as the military challenges of the west and north, Emperor Chongzhen was unable to deal with them, so the Ming Dynasty finally fell.

Perhaps, with my support, Daming can partially avoid this fate, right? If I can take charge of the central affairs, I will never close the country, at least the supply of silver can be guaranteed. If you are strong enough, you can also go south to Manila (Philippines) to participate in the Spanish-America-Manila-China trade route, and maintain a certain amount of influence and control.

As long as it survived the great economic recession of the world in the mid-17th century (for the Ming Dynasty, it was a double recession of internal governance and foreign trade), and when Spain in Europe was replaced by the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, perhaps the Ming Dynasty would be able to sort out the internal security and resist the invasion of the northern barbarians. If the replacement of Spain and Portugal by the Dutch and England was a triumph in the competition of commerce and colonization, a kind of progress, then what happened in the East was a complete regression of civilization and a complete tragedy.

So maintaining the Ming trade and helping the Ming Dynasty prevent this tragedy may be what I can do for my motherland as a descendant of China in later generations.

For this reason, I specially recruited Li Fangliang of Tsuya to participate in the shipbuilding business, and after the completion of the "Princess Janet", he participated in the smuggling trade between the Otomo family and the Ming dynasty in the dual capacity of the Ming family and the Kira family Tsuya agent. Mitsunari Futami was also recalled by me from Shodoshima, who had previously been in charge of the maintenance and replacement of naval vessels, and now happened to be in charge of the construction of the "Fengshen-class" Western-style galleon. Moreover, he and Li Fangliang also have a task, that is, to sort out the shipbuilding technology of the two sides to see if they can improve the surname of the "Fengshen class".

It didn't take long for Mitsunari Futami to suggest that a warship of similar specifications to the "Fengshen-class" merchant ship was also put on the journey, and was accepted by Joao? Cabral named the "Poseidon-class" frigate (according to the European classification standard at the time, warships of 240-400 tons were called frigates), so Iwamatsu Nobutari and Yasutaka Nobuyasu also joined in the design of the warship.

Since I didn't explain the role of the "Poseidon-class" warship, they took it for granted that the Maori navy was an imaginary enemy, and the result of the design was actually the iron-clad super-large Ataku ship that Niwa Nagahide and Kuki Yoshitaka had made up in history, and it was called the "Kira Ship".

To be honest, I don't really have a good opinion of this kind of boat. In my opinion, this kind of huge and bulky cargo, which sacrifices most of its speed and ability in exchange for super defense, is a dead branch with no future in the history of ship development and military development, and it can even be said to be a kind of regression. Moreover, the purpose of the "Fengshen class" is to fight in the blue water of the ocean, not the white water operation in the near sea, so it cannot be modeled on the paddle-driven Ataka ship, if it is just to deal with the Maori navy, there is no need to design a new warship at all, my existing strength is not inferior to them, and they are good at baking fire arrows, I also have it, with the existing strength alone, supplemented by the right strategy, it is enough to win in the naval battle.

However, it is not convenient for me to explain the purpose of the "Poseidon class", and the large-caliber artillery installed on the "Poseidon class" is now unable to be provided to me by the Portuguese Mercantile House, and I cannot afford to build it myself, unless I start to build a complete set of related industrial systems in the city - this is obviously impossible, and I am not very willing.

After thinking about it, I decided to accept the reality and build three ironclad ships according to their design, named Ise Maru, Kumano Maru, and Awaji Maru, to deal with the Maori naval forces that I was destined to face.

……，…… In early May, fighting broke out again in Kinai, breaking the peace between Oda and Ashikaga. But the first to raise troops was not either Oda or Ashikaga, but Kii's Hatakeyama Takamasa.

Two years ago, Hatakeyama Takamasa wanted to revive the authority of the Hatakeyama family, and was exiled by the family's important minister, the guardian of Kawachi on behalf of Yusa, and was succeeded by his younger brother and intended heir, Hatakeyama Akitaka, who succeeded to the head of the family. But three months ago, Yuzo Nobu killed Hatakeyama Shotaka again, and this new hatred and old hatred made Hatakeyama Takamasa unable to bear it anymore, and as soon as the farming was over, he gathered the people of Kii Province and went to Hanoi to crusade against the traitor Yusa Shoko.

The main reason why Yuzo wanted to kill Hatakeyama Akidai was because Hatakeyama Shotaka, like Hatakeyama Takamasa, also tried to change the tradition that the Hatakeyama family had a heavy minister as the guardian of the government since the Onin War (similar to the shogun and steward after the Onin War). Compared to his exiled brother, Hatakeyama Akitaka had the status of Nobunaga's sister-in-law, so his actions were much smoother, and Yusa Nobu had to swallow his anger all the time. This time Nobunaga confronted Nagashima and Takeda, and Yusa Nobuyo estimated that Nobunaga would not be able to provide support, and might even be defeated, so he finally killed Hatakeyama Akitaka, intending to completely usurp the Hatakeyama family's family business.

Because Yusa's religion and Miyoshi Yoshitsugu reached a rapprochement, they joined Yoshiaki's side. So although Hatakeyama Takamasa didn't like Nobunaga very much, this action was to help the Oda family. Therefore, the neighboring Shimowazumi guardian Daiashikaga Yoshishu responded first, and together with Hatakeyama Takamasa, he sent troops to Kawachi to avenge Hatakeyama Akidaka, and sent an envoy to ask me and Naomasa of Yamato Tamonyama Castle for reinforcements.

The identity of Ashikaga Yoshishu has always been very delicate. He is Yoshiaki's younger brother, who once served as the second general, but failed to succeed to the throne because Nobunaga supported Yoshiaki, and when Nobunaga and Yoshiaki were at odds, he completely threw himself into Nobunaga. This time he was the first to play, and I guess he was probably showing his loyalty to Nobunaga in the hope of taking Yoshiaki's place.

He and I have a very close relationship. At the beginning, I rescued him from Kyoto and welcomed him to Oda's house. After Nobunaga went to Luoluo, I won him a relatively good position and recommended him to succeed me as the guardian of Shimowazumi. For these reasons, last year, when I set up a salt seat in Sanuki Province and a blue seat in Awa Province, and then made deals with Sakai Town and Kinai, he cooperated very much, and of course I benefited a lot from it.

Even the 2,000 troops he sent out this time were composed of the Wazumi people who I had brought to Tosa and Awa as the backbone. So as soon as he sent out the troops, he thought of me and asked me for support through the Tsuya channel.

(To be continued)