At the beginning of April of the 12th year of Astronomy (1543), a meeting was held in the spacious council hall of Kishigaku Castle.

The main participants included Zhu Qinfeng, a Nanban businessman, Zuo Moyang, a Ming businessman, Wang Hai, a Ming businessman, You Jianxia, a salt lord of the Ming Kingdom, Yutian Xinyasu, a local businessman, and Shenya Shaoce and Taijiu Ling, who represented the Luo family. Tai Jiu Ling was the only woman among the people.

Among these people, such as Wang Hai, You Jianxia and others, they all rushed over from other places after receiving Zhengliang's message. Masato brought everyone together to show them a new direction for business expansion.

In the past foreign trade, the Luo family mainly sold gold, silver, copper ore and sulfur to Zhu Qinfeng, a merchant from the Southern Barbarians, and Zuo Moyang, a merchant from the Ming Kingdom. The Luo family obtained finished muskets, bullets, gunpowder, saltpeter and some Nanban specialties from them. At the same time, I also learned about some of the latest Nanban techniques.

For Wang Hai, a merchant of the Ming Kingdom, and You Jianxia, a salt lord of the Ming Kingdom, they mainly sold refined salt, coarse salt, a small part of gold and silver, copper ore and some local Japanese specialties to the two of them. The Luo family bought some of the specialties of the Ming Kingdom and some of the techniques of the Ming Kingdom from them. The most important thing is that they assisted the displaced people of the Ming Kingdom to migrate to the territory of the Luo family to settle down, and helped the Luo family obtain some advanced techniques and even craftsmen in the Ming Kingdom.

With the deepening of the cooperation between the two sides, whether it is the Nanban or the Ming businessmen, the cooperation with the Luo family has also developed in the direction of more in-depth joint development. A prime example of this is the recent joint development agreement between the three parties regarding the discovery of several ores in Higo and Chikugo. The Luo family will provide resources and manpower, and the other two parties will provide skills and sales, after the income. The Roche family accounts for 60%. The other two each account for 20%.

The most important thing is. In the process of sales, the Roche family will send guards and entourages to the ships of the two parties. This not only protects the interests of the Luo family, but also exercises the navigation skills of the entourage. It's equivalent to training the water army for free.

In Masayo's plan, in addition to continuing to deepen the cooperation between the two sides, Masara also hoped to obtain the casting skills of large barrels (i.e., cannons), the construction of ships, and more advanced musket techniques from the Nanban merchants.

For a long time in the future, it will be a great era of navigation, although the current Luo family's naval army is only satisfied with guarding the coastal territory for the time being, but the so-called general trend, if you don't advance, you will retreat. In order to better protect the territory and even open up the territory, more advanced shipbuilding and navigation skills must be learned. The Nanban from the West is a good object to study.

At present, because most of the resources are used for the development of land military and territorial agricultural and civil affairs, the Luo family is not able to spare more resources to invest in the development of navigation for the time being. However, as the territory gradually stabilized and developed, the pace of seamanship had to keep up.

Then there's the musket technique. As far as Masara knows, gear muskets and flintlock pistols that are more advanced than arquebuses will appear one by one in the next few years, and with the current level of craftsmen of the Luo family, even if Masahiro tells them the principles of these muskets, it will be difficult to develop these muskets in a short period of time, so it is better to hope that these latest musket techniques will be introduced at that time. As for now. It is to concentrate resources on expanding the production scale of arquebuses and continuously improving them.

The most important thing is the casting technique of the big cylinder. In fact, in addition to the Nanban, the Ming Kingdom also had its own cannon casting technique. For example, the little Franc cannon in the current Luo's iron artillery team was developed and cast by Ming Guo himself.

It's just that it is difficult to obtain the cannon technique of the Ming Kingdom, and the technique is already a little behind the West. As long as there are enough benefits, Masaliang believes that he can not only obtain casting skills, but even some Western craftsmen can come to him.

For the local merchant Yutian Xinyasu, it was the Luo family as an intermediary who resold some Nanban and Ming specialties to him. And he also acted as an intermediary, assisting the Luo family to purchase a large number of strategic materials such as grain, military horses, and weapons locally.

The last is the two people who represent the Luo family, Shenwu Shaoce and Taijiuling. These two talents are the most important people in the Luo family.

The Shenwu operated by Shenya Shaoce was mainly responsible for assisting in the trading between the Internal Affairs Pavilion and the merchants of the Nanban and Ming Kingdoms and local merchants, and at the same time purchasing a large number of strategic materials needed by the Luo family through the trade routes of the Shenya itself.

At the same time, the internal aspect. Shenya is equivalent to a state-owned enterprise, responsible for managing the purchase and sale of strategic materials such as grain, ore, war horses, and cattle. Private individuals are not allowed to buy or sell in this area.

Tai Jiu Ling is the most special businessman among them. Regardless of her status as a woman, all of her shops are owned by Masaara's wives, and her shop only sells everyday goods such as cloth, paper, and food.

Due to the fact that in the newly occupied territory of the Luo family, those shops that represented the power of the old wealthy family were trapped by the Luo family's blockade of the territory border and the influence of the Luo family's deliberate suppression, and they eventually either changed careers or defected to Taijiuling's shop. Over time, Taijiuling's shops are now almost all over the Luo family's territory, and they occupy most of the daily material trading in the Luo family's territory.

These two people, one is to assist the Luo family in controlling the trade of strategic materials internally, and the other is to control the trade of materials in the daily life of the people, which can be said to be a very important two people in the Luo family. When necessary, Masato can indirectly regulate the prices in the territory through these two people to ensure the stability of the territory.

In general, these people who came today were all connected with the Luo family for various reasons, and even gradually formed the prototype of a huge business empire centered on the Luo family.

Today, these people were summoned to Kishigaku Castle, and in addition to once again confirming the trade agreement between the two sides, Masara also expressed the hope of increasing the demand for imports of paraffin, glutinous rice, lead, and high-quality iron ore.

The last are the two most important issues. One was the plan to open up the Korean maritime trade route, and the other was the decision to sell the unification of fire.

"Everyone, please look here." Pointing to a brief map, Masarashi said, "Starting from Karatsu and Hirado, you can go around Iki Island, where civil strife is taking place, and you can reach Korea by bypassing Arima Island." It was a place with a lot of minerals, cotton, and other rich materials. ”

Everyone stared at the map that Masato put on a screen of the Ming Kingdom, waiting for the next step of Masaara.

"Not only can you sell some of your respective specialties there, but more importantly, it is closer than the distance you can get here from the Ming Kingdom or even the West."

"I think you already know what I mean. Yes, you can sell your things there, exchange them for the supplies you need, and return to your home to trade, so that you can greatly reduce your voyage at sea and gain more wealth. ”

"In addition to this sea lane, there is another island in this place, called Jeju Mu, which is also an island of North Korea, and if we establish trade relations with North Korea, we can also directly bypass Iki Island and Arima Island and trade with North Korea directly on this island."

In fact, Masarashi secretly felt that it was actually more feasible to take the route of Iki Island and Arima Island. Directly trading with Korea in Jeju will not only encounter the problem of how to establish trade relations with Korea, but also the problem of a large number of pirates in the Ming Kingdom, Korea, and the Japanese Sea.

Of course, the route to Iki Island and Arima Island was not always smooth, and the first problem encountered was how to establish trade relations with North Korea.

In 1510, the government of the Lee Dynasty of Korea, which was troubled by the Japanese Invasion Problem, issued the "Miura" entry restriction order to restrict trade between Japan and North Korea, and as a result, the Japanese expatriates and merchants who were dissatisfied with this restriction had a major riot, known as the "Miura Rebellion" in history, and the Korean historians called it the "Miura Rebellion", Zong Shenghong led 300 troops to land in Kumcheon, North Korea to protect merchants and support the rebellion, and was defeated and killed by the Korean official army. In 1512, the two sides signed the Treaty of Yeongjeong (known in Korea as the Imshin Agreement), in which the Joseon dynasty reduced the number of ships to trade with Tsushima to 25 in order to punish the Tsushima clan. After the Miura Rebellion, Tsushima's trade with Korea began to decline.

Therefore, the current North Korean government will not rashly accept the new foreign trade partners. The worst plan is to follow the example of the Ming Kingdom, and can only secretly trade with some private merchants along the Korean coast. But even then, it is necessary to find a way to find these private businessmen.

In addition to the issue of establishing trade relations with North Korea, the second problem was the obstruction and harassment of the numerous pirates along the route and the powerful forces of the Wave family and the clan.

Masara also thought about the possibility of cooperating with the clan on Arima Island. Now the head of the Arima family is the thirteenth generation of the family governor Zong Qingyasu. This man is an enlightened governor. However, the Tsushima clan, as one of the many daimyo in Japan, still owned a small amount of territory in some parts of the main island of Kyushu, and they had been trying to rely on the expansion of the Shaoji clan on the main island of Kyushu, so as to control more land, and avoid relying heavily on grain imports because Tsushima was too small and mountainous, so there was little arable land.

However, this wish was shattered when the Luo family captured the last city of the Shao Er family in Hizen, Mutian Castle. Although the Arima clan still maintains some of its territory in Chikuzen, it is difficult to say what the diplomatic attitude towards the Luo clan is.

But no matter what, the plan to open up trade routes in Korea and sell local materials such as swords and firetongs (firetongs not muskets) in the hands of the Luo family to North Korea in exchange for urgently needed materials in the territory will not change. For this reason, Masayo is ready to send people to North Korea and the Arima clan to investigate.

(Thanks to the book friend "The name you want to take is used", "Xingchen Zixiao", "Boring, ING~" monthly pass, and thank the book friend "Baby↗ Muzi" for the reward.) (To be continued......)