Chapter 2084

The convoy came straight to the front door of the Tagawa family, with several mounted samurai as escorts in front and behind. Seeing that this formation was no ordinary figure. Amakusa Shiro guessed that this was most likely a big shot of the Tagawa family returning from a trip, so he gave it up.

Thoughts of leaving, I stopped and planned to see what happened.

After the motorcade stopped, what appeared to be the largest and most luxurious carriage in the center was actually a young man who looked only twelve or thirteen years old and was dressed in black. However, his movements were quite powerful and he walked with his hands down.

With his back behind his back, his head slightly raised, and several attendants behind him bowing to follow him, the scene looked a little strange.

Amakusa Shiro has visited many countries in the years since he left Japan and met all kinds of people, but in his impression, he has never seen such a majestic child.

After watching the team enter Tagawa's house, Amakusa Shiro inquired about the child's identity from nearby spectators.

"Young Master Tagawa, you don't even know? He just came from out of town, right?" The person he asked immediately revealed the details of Amakusa Shiro.

Amakusa Shiro smiled and said: "Yes, I have just arrived in Hirado two days ago...Does this young Master Tagawa have a great background?"

The man glanced at Amakusa Shiro with contempt, but still explained to him patiently: "Of course it is big! The most powerful retainer under Matsuura-sama is the Tagawa clan, and Master Tagawa will succeed the Tagawa clan when he comes of age.

The next head of the family will be a big shot in Hirado from now on, do you understand?"

"Oh...I see, what is the name of Master Tagawa?" Amakusa Shiro continued to ask.

"Tagawa Nanzaemon."

Amakusa Shiro felt that he had seen this name somewhere before, but he couldn't remember it for a while. He actually wanted to know what was so special about this child, so he asked the Tagawa family to list him as the next head of the family early, but

It is probably difficult for the idle people on the roadside to provide a correct answer to this.

But there is one thing that Shiro Amakusa can be sure of now, and that is that the things that the Tagawa family deployed and participated in overseas should not be the work of this young Master Tagawa. Although this child behaves like an adult, those methods are extremely

Sophisticated, but there is absolutely no way he could have imagined it at his age.

Judging from the way the local people are accustomed to this, it can be seen that the Tagawa family does have considerable influence in Hirado, but this kind of family that is on the rise must have quite a lot of backbone members, pushing a half-year-old child to

After all, it is a bit strange for Daimae to be the head of the family. Could it be that Tagawa Nanaemon has a strong enough background to convince everyone?

Amakusa Shiro couldn't find the answer at the moment. In order to avoid attracting suspicion from others, he couldn't stay here to monitor the entry and exit of the Tagawa family. So he strolled back to the port, found a place to sit down, eat, and listened.

Listen to whether the people around you from all over the world will talk about any interesting topics. He has been away from Japan for too long, and he has become somewhat unfamiliar with the current situation in this country.

When Amakusa Shiro left his hometown, it was in the first year of Kanei, that is, 1624. That year, the Tokugawa Shogunate issued an order prohibiting Spanish ships from entering Japan. More than ten years had passed, and he was actually a little curious about what happened in Japan during this period.

Changes that I don't know about.

However, nothing good has happened in Japan in the past two years. In 1636, the Tokugawa shogunate issued a seclusion order, prohibiting Japanese from sailing abroad and prohibiting overseas Japanese from returning to the country. This means that Japanese people like Amakusa Shiro are not allowed to live in Japan.

Currently, they are actually prohibited from entering Japan.

However, due to well-known reasons, the shogunate's order to lock down the country was only enforced in Hirado to a limited extent, and there were no strict checks and restrictions on Japanese entering and leaving the port. Unidentified personnel like Amakusa Shiro can also easily enter Hirado.

In Hong Kong, no one came to investigate his origins and whereabouts.

Of course, this has something to do with the way Amakusa Shiro dressed as a merchant at this time. In addition to the ruler Matsuura clan and his samurai retainers, the people with the highest status in Hirado were numerous merchants. Hirado locals

The laws and regulations of the country have a lot of care for businessmen. He pretended to be a businessman and sneaked in here. In addition, he was originally of Japanese origin. Under normal circumstances, no one would come to trouble him.

Amakusa Shiro remembered that he had heard that there was another shipyard nearby, so he asked for the location. After eating, he went straight to that place to see if he could find any new clues.

Amakusa Shiro quickly found the shipyard located in Boxiang Bay. This place is similar to the shipyard in Tasuke Bay. It also has two shipyards, extending with a gentle slope from the coast to the sea. There are also two shipyards in the shipyard.

The ships were being built, and one of them looked almost completed. It was exactly the kind of Chinese warship he had seen in Tasuke Bay before. It seemed that this kind of sailing ship was indeed being built in batches, which made Amakusa Shiro seem to see

An armed fleet has arrived and is slowly taking shape.

Of course, the purpose of spending a lot of resources to build these warships cannot be just to defend the port. The tonnage and configuration of these warships are fully capable of meeting the requirements of cross-sea operations. It is not an exaggeration to say that their design concept is for maritime warfare.

Although this kind of warship is not considered advanced at all in the eyes of Amakusa Shiro, if the number reaches a certain scale, it may still pose a certain threat to Haihan. And those countries whose maritime armed forces are far inferior to Haihan, such as North Korea

, Ryukyu and his ilk may find it difficult to fight back when encountering such an armed fleet.

Shiro Amakusa doesn't know the purpose of building these warships, but if it is true that the Tagawa family organized the construction of these warships as he has learned so far, then its ambition must arouse Haihan's sufficient vigilance.

OK.

Near the shipyard, Amakusa Shiro was finally lucky enough to see the artillery being hoisted onto the almost-completed ship. Although there was a distance, it was not difficult for Amakusa Shiro to judge from its approximate size that the artillery was being hoisted onto the ship.

It's a twelve-pound smoothbore cannon - a lot of these were captured during the attack on Manila last year, and some of them were later sold to countries such as North Korea and Annan.

Although the caliber of this kind of naval gun is not large, it still has a certain degree of lethality in close-range maritime exchanges. Moreover, this kind of gun can also be loaded with ammunition such as grapeshot, and can be fired when it is close to an enemy ship.

The effect of cleaning the enemy's deck, the Haihan Navy also suffered such losses in battles at that time.

This kind of warship has four gun positions on each side of the ship, and a separate gun position at the bow. Counting that up to nine artillery pieces can be deployed on the deck, even the main force of the Ming Navy, which is second only to Haihan in strength,

The ship may not have such strong firepower. Compared with the warships of Shibazhi back then, the firepower has been at least doubled. It seems that the builder has also strengthened the hull structure to allow more weapons to be deployed on the deck.

artillery.

Amakusa Shiro suddenly thought that this method of deploying naval guns was of course not as powerful as the firepower output of the entire gun deck of Western warships, but it could effectively take advantage of the flexibility and seaworthiness of Chinese sailing ships. Moreover,

Having said that, having enough artillery and gunners to achieve the combat effectiveness that such a warship should have may be a bigger problem for the Tagawa family than shipbuilding itself. If the number of ship-borne artillery increases, the difficulty will continue to increase.

, it is very likely to become a situation where weapons and operators cannot keep up with combat needs.

Such a warship must have nine cannons to be fully equipped. So can the Spanish provide so many cannons to the Japanese? Amakusa Shiro is very doubtful about this. If they can have so many cannons, last year

The Battle of Manila will probably be more difficult.

If these cannons were not entirely provided by the Spanish... Shiro Amakusa couldn't help but feel chilled when he thought of this possibility. Doesn't that mean that the Tagawa family who built these warships may have mastered the technology of casting Western-style cannons?

Compared with those scattered muskets deployed overseas, the combination of artillery and warships is obviously much more powerful. Once the Spanish weapon manufacturing technology is obtained by some ambitious people, it may not just be made locally in the future.

It's just a small-scale armed conflict. Such an armed fleet can go wherever they want on the sea and attack the targets they want to deal with.

After realizing the seriousness of the problem, Amakusa Shiro found that he had another task, which was to find out the source of the artillery equipped on the warships. Whether it was provided by the Spanish or cast by the Japanese themselves, in short

Find out where these cannons come from.

Although Shiro Amakusa has never received professional training from the intelligence department, based on his experience and knowledge, he quickly formulated an investigation idea. These artillery pieces are extremely valuable and must have been carefully stored somewhere before being hoisted onto the ship.

, as long as we find this weapons arsenal, we should be able to find further clues.

If it were the usual style of the special operations group, then of course they would try to sneak into the enemy camp and capture a tongue to extract a confession. But if you use such extraordinary means here, you have to take great risks. Amakusa Shiro doesn't even have a lookout companion.

Amakusa Shiro was not afraid of danger, but he was a little worried that his poor operation would alert the enemy early.

But at this time, an accident happened that gave Amakusa Shiro new inspiration for his investigation ideas.

On the dock, a laborer was pushing a cart that suddenly lost its balance and overturned. The contents of the cart were scattered all over the floor. The foreman rushed forward and cursed the laborer who missed the move, attracting Shiro Amakusa's attention.

Amakusa Shiro was attracted, not because the content of the foreman's fragrant words was renovated, but because the foreman mentioned that the overturned cargo was iron ore. Amakusa Shiro looked around carefully and found that there were dozens of them.

Ming workers were unloading cargo from a sailboat moored at the dock in the same way, and the cargo on this truckload was all iron ore.

As far as the eye can see in Boxiang Bay, there is only a small port here. Shiploads of iron ore are transported to this place. Either the ship owner has lost his mind, or there is a workshop for smelting ore nearby. If you want to know

The reason was not difficult. Amakusa Shiro spent a little money and soon got the answer from a dock worker.

There is a small village called Jingchuan in the ravine south of the port. In the past, the place mainly relied on burning coke and charcoal. Two years ago, the government built a smelting workshop there, so it switched to the production of steel. On the dock

The iron ore was to be transported to the local area. Moreover, the laborer also told Shiro Amakusa a piece of news that made Amakusa Shiro overjoyed. That is, Kagawa's workshop not only smelted ore, but also produced other things, such as anchors for ships.

, chain, and artillery.

Amakusa Shiro was still worried that he had misheard the other party's statement, so he asked him for confirmation again. As a result, the laborer patted his chest and swore that everything he said was true, and that there was a specialist not far from Kagawa.

At the shooting range for testing artillery, you can hear the rumble of artillery from there one or two days a month. However, the government does not allow civilians to go near that place, so he only heard that the artillery is powerful, but he has never seen these guns fired.

scene.

It took no effort to get it after trying hard to find a place. After Amakusa Shiro confirmed the news, it was a mixture of joy and sorrow. He was happy that his guess was confirmed so easily and saved a lot of time and energy; he was worried because it seemed that Hirado

The domain has acquired the technology of casting artillery, and has probably achieved mass production. An armed fleet equipped with a large number of naval guns is gradually taking shape near Hirado Island.

Whether this maritime armed force is in the hands of the Tagawa family or whether it is under the orders of the Matsuura family is no longer important to Amakusa Shiro. No one can endure loneliness after mastering such a powerful armed force. He

It is believed that at some point in the future, this maritime armed force will inevitably pose a threat to Haihan, or even lead to an armed conflict. But now, he is probably the only one in the entire Haihan Kingdom who is aware of such a crisis.

Seeing dusk fall, Amakusa Shiro had no idea of ​​returning to Hirado Port for a good night's rest. There were still two days left for his operation in Hirado, and the situation was already very urgent. Before leaving here, he had to do as much as possible

He must collect relevant intelligence on a regular basis. Especially key information such as the production of artillery, he must personally implement it no matter what.

So Amakusa Shiro ate something near the port, and after dark, he headed in the direction of Kagawa. Although he had never been to that place, it was not difficult to find the road to Kagawa.

The large trucks transporting ore made deep ruts on the ground. As long as you follow these ruts, you will not go in the wrong direction.

In fact, Kagawa was much closer than he thought. After passing through a large forest, he could faintly see the light coming from the valley in front of him. Amakusa Shiro knew that it was not the lights in farmers' homes, but the smelting furnace that burned day and night.

A roaring fire.
Chapter completed!