Chapter 2082

Although landing reconnaissance action plans were formulated for Hirado Port and Nagasaki Port before departure this time, considering the specific conditions of the two places, Nagasaki is actually the key target, and there are even Portuguese merchants there.

The Embassy in Hirado can provide a certain degree of assistance. There may be members of the Eighteen Shiba Party in Hirado Port, and the risk of entering the local area will be relatively greater, so the action plan for Hirado is actually just an alternative plan. If it is not nearby

After discovering the existence of Chinese warships, Amakusa Shiro would not take the initiative to ask for orders to risk going ashore to implement this matter.

After being promoted to an officer many years ago, Amakusa Shiro has never carried out reconnaissance missions alone like this again, so this mission of sneaking into Hirado also made him quite excited. Although the sea temperature in March was still bitingly cold, he still had nothing to do with it.

I swam to the nearby coast in one breath under pressure.

Amakusa Shiro opened the waterproof bag and took out all the items, dried himself with a towel, put on dry clothes, put all the wet clothes into the bag, put a few stones in, and tied it with the deflated sheepskin tire with a rope.

They sank into the sea together. After handling these things, he took all his belongings with him one by one, raised his head to roughly identify the direction, and then headed south along the coast.

After spending half an hour climbing over a low hill, Amakusa Shiro saw the harbor he had seen during the day. There were dots of lights on the coast, pointing out the direction for him to move forward.

Usually there are some entertainment venues near the port wharf specifically for sailors to pass the time. This is an essential industry in all trading ports under the rule of Haihan. Amakusa Shiro believes that this place will be no exception. After all, the people who landed there are

Sailors are very idle, what else can they do besides drinking, gambling, money and finding women?

It is not difficult to find these places. After nightfall, just go wherever there are lights on near the port. When you get nearby, you will definitely smell the aroma of wine and hear the voices of sailors laughing and cursing. Although Amakusa Shiro is not interested in eating, drinking, whoring and gambling.

, but he also knows what he needs to know, and there will be no obstacles in blending into these places.

Sure enough, when he was still some distance away from the bright lights, Amakusa Shiro could smell the aroma of wine and food wafting in the air, which convinced him that the place he was looking for was in front of him.

Soon he saw a small tavern next to the pier. There was a lantern at the door. The words "Yoshida-ya" were written on the lantern with a brush. He could faintly hear shouting coming from the house. Amakusa Shiro left.

He paused at the door, made sure that he was in good condition, then opened the door curtain and walked in.

This small tavern is not large, with only three small square tables in the room, but there are already about ten people sitting there. Amakusa Shiro looks at their clothes through the dim light, and they must be poor people. And his rashness

The entry didn't seem to arouse the attention of these people. Everyone was still drinking and having fun on their own, and no one was curious about this newcomer.

It was the owner of the store who noticed Amakusa Shiro first, and asked him to sit down at the counter, and asked him what he wanted to drink. There were no waiters in the tavern, so the owner was busy doing all the cooking and drinking.

Amakusa Shiro ordered a pot of wine and a plate of sashimi, then sat at the counter and started drinking. Although he didn't talk to anyone, his ears had already begun to listen to the conversations of the people in the room.

Amakusa Shiro's appearance and speech were not obviously different from those of the locals, and he did not feel out of place in this small tavern. He soon discovered that he had come to the right place, and there were actually people in this small izakaya.

Conversation in Chinese.

Amakusa Shiro pricked up his ears and listened for a while. Although he couldn't hear everything intermittently, he got some useful information from it. Most of the people drinking here, the locals who speak Japanese, are shipbuilders and low-level sailors, and that

The few people who spoke Chinese seemed to be a step above others, and they shouted at others without being polite.

These Chinese-speaking people are also proficient in Japanese. It seems that they either live here permanently or travel here frequently. And Amakusa Shiro glanced at them from the corner of his eye and saw that these people were dressed similar to the locals.

I judged that these people probably lived in Hirado all year round, so they dressed like the locals. However, these people only used Chinese when talking to each other, and they were obviously not Japanese who could speak Chinese.

However, the Chinese spoken by these people had a relatively strong accent. Amakusa Shiro was proficient in Haihan Mandarin, but he could not quite understand the content of their conversation. He could only be patient and wait for these people in the tavern to go first.

Leave and try to find out more information from the store.

After waiting for a long time, Amakusa Shiro drank most of the second bottle of wine, and the empty plates with food and wine began to pile up in front of him. Most of the people in the tavern finally dispersed, leaving only two or three people lying on the table.

There was no movement at all, and someone was snoring. They must have been drunk a long time ago.

Amakusa Shiro was actually sober at this time, but he pretended to be slightly drunk and asked the boss to come over to settle the bill. While the bill was being paid, Amakusa Shiro said that he was a sailor who had just arrived here, and hoped that the boss could introduce someone who could spend the night.

place. The boss was not polite and said that he could also stay overnight in this small tavern. The price was negotiable. It seemed that as long as there was money to be made, he would not let it go.

So Amakusa Shiro waited for the boss to clear out the other drunkards and close the shop, and then asked him if he could buy some wine. He could pay for the boss to have a drink with him. The boss even accepted the hotel business, so naturally he would not refuse.

So this small tavern immediately became Amakusa Shiro's private dining room.

After getting drunk, Amakusa Shiro took advantage of the situation and inquired about the situation nearby. After going back and forth, he really got a lot of information from the boss who was overjoyed. The boss probably didn't expect that Amakusa Shiro seemed to be a pure Japanese, but he was actually a pure Japanese.

He was working for another country. When talking to him, he had no defensiveness at all. He answered everything he was asked truthfully and was very cooperative.

This conversation continued until late at night. Both of them were so drunk that they were dizzy. The boss was so happy that he stopped charging Amakusa Shiro for the night and brought out a set of bedding and pillows for him.

Just make a bed on the floor in the shop and sleep soundly, and then leave after dawn.

After Amakusa Shiro lay down, he endured his sleepiness and reorganized the information he got that night. According to the store owner, most of the people he met in the store earlier were people who worked for the Tagawa family. This Tagawa family

The family is quite influential in the Hirado Domain, and the shipyard and cargo terminal near the tavern are all properties under his name.

As for why there are some Han people under the Tagawa family, the boss can't explain. He only knows that many of these Han people are quite powerful, and their status is even similar to that of the top samurai of the Hirado clan.

The main industry of this small harbor called Tagawa Bay is actually not shipbuilding or cross-border trade, but the export of timber. The nearby large forests provide rich forest resources, and the shipyard was actually established by the Tagawa family in recent years.

In addition to the natural harbor here, another important factor in choosing the location of the built industries is that the forests near Tasuke Bay are suitable for making ship materials.

Before the Tagawa family developed this area, most of the wood here could only be transported to Hirado Port or further afield to be used as building materials, or local fishermen built some small sampans no more than two or three feet long. Nowadays, around

The newly built docks and shipyards have created a series of industries, such as this tavern, which is one of them. After all, there were not so many sailors with spending power operating in this area before, and now the local economy has been revitalized by the Tagawa family.

Already.

The surname Tagawa is not unfamiliar to Amakusa Shiro. Before setting off, he had also studied investigation reports from other places. Naturally, he knew the story behind a series of business institutions related to gun cases that were seized in the Fujian Strait area some time ago.

There seemed to be a Japanese named "Tagawa Kenji" operating, which was also a major clue that allowed the intelligence agency to trace the clues to Japan later, and listed him as one of the targets to be implemented in this reconnaissance operation.

There is currently no concrete evidence as to whether there is a direct connection between "Tagawa Kenji" who is active in Fujian and the Tagawa family in Hirado, Japan. However, judging from the information Amakusa Shiro learned here tonight, there is a possibility of a connection between the two.

Sex is quite big, and this connection point is the Han people.

There are many Han people under the Hirado Tagawa family, and these people are not engaged in the lowest level of work, but also have certain authority. Amakusa Shiro speculates that this may be related to shipbuilding technology. And Tagawa, a Japanese businessman who once operated in the Fujian Strait

There are also many Han people under Kenji who are responsible for operating and commanding the latent agencies deployed in various places.

The fact that the Han and the Japanese can achieve this level of cooperation is reminiscent of the Japanese pirates that were once rampant along the southeastern coast. Only driven by huge common interests can it be possible for two people belonging to different ethnic groups to cooperate

The group eliminated the barriers and cooperated. The Shibazhi also met this condition. Zheng Zhilong stayed in Japan for a long time and had a good relationship with the Hirado clan. He even married a wife and had children here. He later

Among the people brought to Fujian, there were also Japanese from the Kitakyushu region. If the Eighteen Shiba Party chooses to make a comeback in Hirado, it has to be said that there may be quite favorable environmental conditions for them.

However, the industry in Tasuke Bay is relatively simple, and more than half of the floating population are people who work for the Tagawa family. Therefore, the information that the owner of this tavern can provide is actually very limited. He can't even tell clearly about the relationship between the Tagawa family and the feudal lord Matsuura.

What is the relationship between the families? If Amakusa Shiro wants to find out more information, he probably has to go to Hirado Port.

But Amakusa Shiro did not plan to rush to Hirado Port. He planned to go to the shipyard to confirm whether the ships built here were the Chinese warships moored at the dock before leaving Tasuke Bay.

Shiro Amakusa was very worried. After thinking about the matter, he fell into a deep sleep. He was not woken up by the store until noon. He asked for a basin of water, washed himself briefly, paid and left the tavern.

After going out, you can see the whole port town that you didn't see last night. This town is actually just a street extending along the bay. There are docks and shipyards on the east and west ends, and in the middle there is a restaurant like "Yoshidaya" that provides food and drink.

There are entertainment places and shops such as Mihang Grocery Store. The local people's settlements are further inland, and only a few people who rely on the sea for food live near the coastline.

Of course, whether it is a dock or a shipyard, the scale of operations here is far smaller than most of the ports Shiro Amakusa has visited. If I hadn't taken a few more glances when passing by here before, I might have missed this small place.

The bay.

The location of the shipyard is right opposite the entrance and exit channel of the bay, so when he passed by here yesterday, Shiro Amakusa noticed the shipyard here at a glance. Based on his own experience at the time, he judged that the number of sailboats under construction in the shipyard should be more than 400 pieces.

A large ship, and this is a very large project for Japan's shipbuilding technology. There is no reason for it to be hidden in such an inconspicuous little bay. Later, it was discovered that there were several Chinese-style ships in the bay that covered the gun emplacements on the deck.

Warship, he associated these two things together.

Compared with the dock where Haihan builds military ships, the security measures here are very sparse. There are no shelters installed around the dock, and the construction inside the dock can be seen from a long distance away. Although Amakusa Shiro is not a navy,

There is no problem in identifying the general type of the ship. The hull of one of the shipyards has been built about 70%, and it can already be distinguished from the outline that it is indeed a Chinese sailing ship. The construction of the other ship is still installing the hull on the keel.

stage, but judging from its size, it should be of the same type as the ship next to it.

The two sailboats still under construction in the dock are the same size as the other three Chinese warships docked in the bay. Amakusa Shiro believes that these should be standard armed sailboats built in batches.

Amakusa Shiro had no way of inferring which sea areas these armed sailing ships would appear in the future, but just the situation he saw in front of him already made him smell the danger.

Just a few of these warships, which may be equipped with several deck guns, can form a small fleet to perform low-intensity combat missions at sea, such as blocking waterways, monitoring sea areas, tracking at sea, plundering civilian ships, etc.

.And once the number reaches a large scale, its power will increase rapidly. At the beginning, the Eighteen Zhi relied on the numerical advantage of warships, so that the Dutch and Spanish colonists had to bow to it in the Fujian waters.

For local daimyo like the Matsuura clan of the Hirado clan, having an armed fleet will undoubtedly greatly help protect their maritime interests, and can even help the Hirado clan expand its sphere of influence from the sea.
Chapter completed!