Shimazu Tadamasa carried out reverse imitation and accelerated the pace of population collection.

According to his idea, as long as a thousand muskets and ten cannons are in hand as soon as possible, he will immediately have a huge advantage in combat power.

At that time, he will be able to send troops to get rid of the shame of the past, and even get rid of the important ministers of the local separatism, so that he can "dominate with one yen".

One yen domination is to achieve centralization, and at that time, what shogunate and what castle lord, he can not take it to heart.

However, the process of imitation was not smooth, and when the arquebus was disassembled, it was found that the most difficult thing to do was the barrel.

So the imitation soon turned into a barrel-building experiment, and these Japanese blacksmiths began to figure out how to make a perfect barrel.

At this time, news came from Dongfan that in the future, saltpeter and cannons can be exchanged for copper, especially saltpeter, which can only be exchanged for copper in the future.

This made Shimazu Tadamasa overjoyed, and this matter strengthened his mind, and after the firearms unit was formed, he was going to launch an attack on the Osumi Kuniguo clan of the Liver Fu clan.

In addition to revenge, the copper mines on the territory of the Liver Fu clan are no less than those on the territory of the Shimazu clan.

The same is true of the Sagara clan in the north, which has copper mines and territory, and the only difference is that they are friendly with the Shimazu clan.

After seeing the power of firearms, Shimazu Tadamasa already had the idea of unifying Kyushu Island.

For the sake of this rising ambition, he made people gather the population even more frantically, so that the two boats that ran could not accommodate such people.

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Bamboo Trench Harbor, when another shipload of Japanese laborers was transported here.

The soldiers waiting here hurriedly unloaded these people, and after a simple delivery, they asked the fleet to make as many trips as possible!

It's just that the mining roads are too manpower-intensive, and the death rate is rising.

At the beginning of the construction, these laborers were still very adaptable, and felt that it was a very cost-effective thing to work and drink white rice porridge every day.

But after working for half a month, when the road was built into the forest, they were horrified to find that the intensity of daily labor had increased sharply.

In order to make these people work hard, Ansan deliberately turned more than 400 prisoners of war into overseers with whips.

He personally led the army to ensure that there would be no large-scale riots and flights.

When the project was carried out for a month, malaria and various diseases caused by excessive labor intensity began to appear.

Every day, people began to die, and after they fell, the supervisor would take the whip and whip it a few times, and those who could not stand up after being whipped were directly carried and buried.

The laborers began to flee, but every time they did, they were spotted by the sentry in the trees, and they couldn't outrun the gang in the dense forest.

Even if they succeed in escaping, they will most likely not survive in the dense forest.

By the time the second batch of Japanese laborers arrived, the first batch had already been reduced by 30 percent!

Ten percent of the executions were ordered by Ansan because of a vicious attack on the overseer.

When Ansan learned about it, he did not choose to find the perpetrators, but let these laborers, line up in a row, and kill one person for every dozens of people.

This wave of killing chickens and monkeys made the remaining laborers tremble and turn into docile sheep.

Ansan took the opportunity to give the whip to a few laborers who liked to stutter, and let these people act as overseers to supervise the second batch of Japanese laborers.

If you look down from the air, you can see that a strip of about two kilometers long is full of emaciated laborers, forced to do heavy physical work.

The sound of whips and scolding was endless, and from time to time someone fell to death, and from time to time someone suddenly went crazy while walking, and frantically bit the person next to him.

Staying in this environment, Ansan also became extremely irritable, and he began to reduce the number of visits to the construction site, and only went to check the progress every day.

Only then did he understand what Yan Zheng said at the beginning, and he also understood why this matter could only be done, but he couldn't say it.

It's only been less than two months, and the whole construction process is already like hell, and under every mile, there are several unjust souls of Japanese laborers buried!

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"Father, I ...... I can't hold on anymore! At night, in the construction shed, thirteen-year-old Saburo Wada said weakly to his father.

His father and Tian Cichuan were teary-eyed, but they had no choice but to soothe: "San Lang, don't be afraid, it's over after a while!"

Saburo Wada's face turned pale and trembled, he was unfortunate enough to have contracted malaria just over a month after he had been here.

His father, on the other hand, has been doing well, but he has lost a lot of weight compared to a month ago.

"Father, what about my sister? I miss my sister and want to eat the plums my sister makes. Saburo Wada said with difficulty.

Wada Jichuan wiped away his tears and said, "We will find my sister, as long as you carry it, one day, our family will be reunited!"

Saburo Wada played harder, the expression on his face was distorted with pain, and he said with a little sadness: "Why? For...... What, our family...... If you live well, you will be captured by the samurai of the daimyo and brought to this kind of place? ”

"They sold us!" Wada Cichuan said angrily: "They broke up our family for gold and silver, and sold our father and son to these overseas people!"

"Then these overseas people will ...... Let us go? ”

"I don't know, it looks like they're building a road, maybe if this road is built, they'll give us a way to live!" Wada Jikawa himself did not believe this.

Saburo Wada curled up and couldn't hold back his wails anymore.

His wailing drew a lot of wild beast cries in the night, and the wails all around him came and went.

After a while of pain, he found several soldiers walking into his shed and stuffing something in his mouth.

He kept chewing and found that it tasted good, but the feeling of locking his throat followed.

This thing is dried betel nut, which has the effect of preventing miasma malaria, and it is also the only thing that can be distributed on a large scale.

After chewing for a while, Saburo Wada sweated and the symptoms of malaria were somewhat reduced.

He chewed on it and fell asleep.

Unfortunately, when the sun rises, they, the laborers, will be driven to build roads.

Being able to see the sun the next day is not always a pleasant thing.

Some laborers who were already acquainted with each other began to look for acquaintances in the morning, and when they found that a friend had not woken up at night, they hummed a Japanese song of the underworld.

The meaning of the lyrics is that instead of suffering in the world, it is better to take him to the underworld, and after crossing the bridge of the underworld, you can go to another world.

There may be hell there, but it's not necessarily harder than the human world.

This song is a Japanese folk song used to describe the miserable life of peasants.

Unfortunately, the Japanese they hummed did not make the soldiers and overseers understand.

They were responded to only by merciless whipping, and angry invective.

At this moment, these laborers really feel that death is a relief!

They mechanically engaged in road construction, constantly digging, hauling soil, and cutting wood.

Numbness is not necessarily ignorance, more than not, there is no hope!

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