"Hooray, didn't you say that the fleet would go back and forth for at least a month? It's only been more than ten days now, I'm afraid I've just arrived in Fusang, right? ”

Lao Li tied an apron and replied without looking back.

He was seriously frying a horse chop.

Horse meat is actually not unpalatable, otherwise whether it is in China, Europe, or North America, there will be no news about the use of horse meat as beef sales.

But Lao Li firmly believes that his family's record in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "For those who eat horse meat poisoning, drinking reed juice and eating almonds can solve the problem." ”

If Zhu Fugui hadn't moved out of Xiongfeng Mountain's old divine doctor as a guarantee, Lao Li would never have allowed horse meat to enter the palace.

Even so, he carefully cooked these horse meats, carefully detoxifying them with onions, ginger, garlic, cooking wine, star anise, millet peppers, etc.

In this battle, more than 800 horses were killed, and two or three hundred wounded horses had no healing value.

Zhu Fugui was reluctant to waste it, so he could only take the lead in eating horse meat, trying to rise a wave of horse meat consumption.

However, Zhu Fugui is actually still more interested in seafood, but Daming now has no ships to go to sea, and the second ship of Dingzhen and Zhen has completely burped, and has been corroded by the sea water into a big hole, which can only be placed in the museum as an exhibit.

……

Seattle is more than 9,000 kilometers away from Shanghai, which sounds like a long way, but it's actually closer than the last time Donald went on a business trip to New York.

Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was more than 12,000 kilometers from the west coast to the east coast.

As a result, it only takes about 20 days to go back and forth between Seattle and Shanghai at the limit speed.

But crossing the Pacific Ocean is seldom as smooth as following the contours of the American continent.

Therefore, 30 days is a relatively safe time.

This time the Ming fleet is going to sea for the first time, and it is also necessary to open up various joints, contact Yazi, contact the medicine shop, and deceive and bribe the Minister of Citigroup...... There are so many things to do, so I'm afraid it will take more than a month

In fact, just as Lao Li speculated, when Zhu Fugui was enjoying the juice of horse meat, the fleet of the Ming Fleet, or the "Citigroup Sani Muen Business Group", was anchored in Kagoshima Port.

Located at the southern tip of the Japanese archipelago and just over 800 kilometers from the port of Shanghai, Kagoshima has been an important treaty port since ancient times.

Kagoshima was the stronghold of the Satsuma Domain, which was also known as the Southwest Domain, along with the Choshu Domain, which had shelled British, American, French, and Dutch merchant ships.

In fact, in addition to the Shimonoseki War last year, the Anglo-Saxon War broke out in August because the Satsuma clan hacked down the Englishmen Charles and Clark by the retinue of Shimazu Hisamitsu, the father of the lord, and refused to pay compensation.

The scale of this war was smaller than that of the Shimonoseki War, and the Satsuma Domain's will to fight was far inferior to that of the Choshu Domain.

After being beaten by the British, the Satsuma clan obediently paid the compensation and never dared to mention the matter again.

On the contrary, the Choshu Domain was much more violent, in the words of Zeng Guofan, that is, repeated defeats, repeated defeats.

They were beaten the hardest, said the hardest words, and unswervingly demanded to be destroyed, to wage war with the Westerners, and even to the extent of all kinds of honey operations.

In September of last year, the Satsuma clan learned that the general of the Choshu domain had planned to kidnap Emperor Takamei while he was on patrol, and blackmailed the emperor to order the princes, and at the same time forced the emperor to order the continuation of the war and fight the Westerners.

Faced with such a crazy plan of the Choshu Domain, the Satsuma Domain relented and immediately backstabbed the temporary allies who had come together because of the Tsubashi.

The Satsuma Domain, the Tsu Domain, and the Emperor, preemptively dismissed the military power of the Nakchoshu Domain Commander in Kyoto and expelled all the ministers who supported the rebellion.

And when the Ming fleet arrived in Kagoshima, it was when the aftermath of the coup had not yet dissipated.

……

The night was getting darker, and there were not many insects in the fields in early spring.

Two short young men were drinking in an izakaya not far from the port.

They drank wine in small cups, ate bland vegetables, and looked at them erratically.

"Inoue-kun, I've already hidden fish oil, clay pots and other things behind the warehouse on the dock, and it's still the old formula."

"Ito, we're going to study in the UK next month, is it too risky to do this at this time?"

Bang!

The man known as Ito slammed his glass on the table and whispered:

"Inoue-kun, the commander of the United States fabricated our national letter in the newspaper and proposed the humiliating 21 "Mi-Japan Treaty", such a national revenge is not revenge for Yamato! Are you scared? ”

The man known as Inoue blushed on his face, and hurriedly said: "Last year, you, Kusaka, and Takasugi infiltrated the Shinagawa Gotenyama Yingyi Legation, sawed off the gate, and threw incendiary bombs, what a young demeanor that was, I hate to go with it, how can I retreat today!" ”

"That's good, tonight we will burn this Mi merchant ship, so that the Westerners can see the backbone of our Yamato man!"

With that, the young man named Hirobumi Ito drank the last sip of sake, got up to pay for the drink, put on a trench coat with his friend, and hurried to the dock.

……

The two quietly drove the wooden boat and approached the Ming fleet.

Of course, in their eyes, the Star-Spangled Banner fluttering high in the sky was so dazzling even in the dark of night.

Hirobumi Ito examined the Molotov cocktails hidden in his wide robes, making final preparations for the extralegal manatics that would follow.

Throughout last year, whether it was the burning of the British Embassy by himself, his participation in the Shimonoseki War, or the coup d'état launched by the Satsuma clan to expel the Tsuiyi faction, scenes of the past replayed in his mind.

Whether it is the emperor, the shogunate, or the Satsuma domain, they are all a bunch of servile and flattering soft bones.

Hirobumi Ito couldn't help but have such a thought in his heart.

But what Ito didn't know was that in history, when he came to England a month later to study and saw with his own eyes the powerful scientific and technological and military power of Westerners, his belief was finally ruthlessly crushed by reality.

Hirobumi Ito realized: "It is not the best policy to destroy the country, and only by founding the country and learning from the West can we achieve the great cause of strengthening the country." ”

In the Second Shimonoseki War in the future, Ito Hirobumi wrote a letter urging the feudal lord Mori to respect his relatives not to "fight against the enemy" and not to start a war with the foreigners, otherwise there would be an intermittent danger of survival, and it was better to use this national power to restore the imperial government in order to complete the domestic unification.

However, Mori Keiko, who was extremely hostile to foreigners, did not take Ito's advice and was eventually defeated in the war.

Only a year later, Takasugi Shinsaku and other lower-ranking samurai raised troops and seized the feudal government, and Ito Hirobumi, an old friend of Takasugi, also advocated turning "Zaoyi" into "founding the country" and making good friends with foreigners.

If 23-year-old Hirobumi Ito saw his 30-year-old self, I'm afraid he would stab him to death, right?

Just like the beautiful boy who "lived up to his boy's head", in the end, Ito Hirobumi lived to be the one he hated the most when he was young.

In the end, of course, history proves that Ito made the right choice, at least for his generation.

……

"Ito-san, how is this ship made of iron?"

Inoue's astonishment interrupted Ito's thoughts, and the latter also reached out and touched the hull of the "Jiading".

Hirobumi Ito also lost his temper and said, "Can you make steel float on the sea? If the United States, Britain and other countries send such gunboats to Japan, how can we resist? ”

"How could such an iron ship burn down, Ito-san, let's go back quickly!" Inoue Xin hurriedly said.

"No, I don't believe it, I don't believe that this ship is all forged in steel, it must just be a wooden-hulled ship with iron sheets! Yes, that's it! ”

Hirobumi Ito felt that he had seen through the tricks of the Westerners, so he took out a set of ropes from the bottom of the ship and threw them at the side of the "Jiading", "Inoue-kun, come with me on board, let's burn this strange ship from the inside!" ”