Chapter 428: The Sand Boat Gang

Hirado prospered because of the Ming merchants. It was also the Ming pirate merchant Wang Zhi who led the way for the Portuguese to come to Hirado. And unlike the Portuguese, the Ming merchants only cared about business and did not force the Japanese to accept any religion. The Portuguese, on the other hand, always demanded that the local people and daimyo accept Catholicism.

Since the arrival of the Portuguese, southern barbarian ships had continuously come to Hirado. Although Hirado was just an ordinary small island, its prosperity was comparable to the “Western Capital.” This trade relationship with Portugal lasted for fifteen years, but the Portuguese’s repeated attempts to spread religion in the local area were met with fierce opposition from the Matsuura family.

At that time, the daimyo of Kyushu joined Catholicism as if it were a trend, but the stubborn resistance of the Matsuura family was unusual. They revered Buddhism more.

The Portuguese side was deeply displeased with Hirado’s response, and the relationship between the two sides became strained. At this time, another incident occurred. The residents of Hirado and the crew of a Portuguese ship had a big fight in front of the palace, and more than a dozen people on the Portuguese side were killed or injured. After that, the Portuguese ships abandoned Hirado.

During this period, there were even maritime conflicts between the Matsuura family and the Portuguese. In the 8th year of the Eiroku era (1565), when a Portuguese ship from Macau was passing through the Hirado Strait to go to the port of the Catholic daimyo Omura, the Matsuura family sent out fifty small boats to attack the Portuguese ship. The Portuguese ship had to use all its firearms to fight its way out of danger.

Replacing the Portuguese were the Dutch and the English. The Matsuura family knew that the two countries were not Catholic and were not interested in spreading religion, so they had great goodwill towards them. In this way, Western European ships still frequently came to Hirado. But the daimyo of the Matsuura family fully realized that it was the Fujian and Zhejiang ships that could bring permanent benefits to this island, so they gave the Ming merchants in Hirado extra-legal freedom and privileges in their residence and activities.

“Speaking of which, Ikkō started his career in Hirado.”

Hamada Shinzō said with a drunken air and began to talk about the past of the pirate merchants in Hirado.

Because trade and the Ming pirates had an inseparable relationship, the Matsuura family allowed the rising pirate leaders to live in Hirado and continue to trade with them.

The first generation to call himself “Japan’s Captain”—that is, the head of the Japanese pirates—was Yan Siqi. At that time, he lived under Hirado Castle. It is said that he opened a tailor shop at that time and appeared as a tailor. His business was very good. Shinzō said that Yan Siqi was outstanding, knowledgeable, and had good martial arts skills. He was a very outstanding figure among the Chinese in Hirado. But at that time, no Japanese knew his true identity. Until one day, two pirate merchants, Yan Zhenquan and Chen De, came from Fujian and had a secret talk with this tailor Yan for several days. Not long after, Yan Siqi’s figure disappeared.

At that time, the Ming pirates were divided into eighteen groups, and the leaders all supported Yan Siqi as the great leader. For a time, he was very powerful at sea, but not long after, Yan Siqi fell ill after drinking too much and died in Taiwan.

“The second one to call himself ‘Japan’s Captain’ was Ikkō,” Hamada Shinzō said. “It is said that Zheng Zhilong was Yan Siqi’s son-in-law, but some people say he was not. Whether he was or not, Ikkō did marry a wife here, the Tagawa clan. He often called himself Tagawa here.”

The new generation of leaders no longer openly revealed their residences like Wang Zhi’s generation, or even directly purchased land and houses from the samurai families. Zheng Zhilong deliberately chose Kawa’uchiura, which was not far from Hirado, as his residence. The mansion, which was more magnificent than the samurai’s camp, was built in a mountain col deep in the bay. But this mansion was now empty. The Tagawa clan and their eldest son, Fukumatsu, had gone to the Ming Dynasty a few years ago, leaving only their second son, Jirozaemon, in Japan.

Ping Qiusheng knew that this Jirozaemon had always lived in Japan and had been passed down as Zheng Zhilong’s Japanese branch. But he was not interested in this. What he was interested in was how much power Zheng Zhilong had in Hirado and what agents he had here.

“What agent does Ikkō need here?” Hamada Shinzō laughed, but his laughter was filled with strong dissatisfaction. “Lord Hizen-no-kami is his agent.”

Most of Zheng Zhilong’s ships went to Nagasaki, but a few ships also came to Hirado every year. The goods on the ships that came to Hirado were mostly directly purchased by the lord of the domain here. This kind of business was of great benefit to both sides. The lord of the domain obtained huge profits from the resale trade, and the Zheng family also obtained all the conveniences of Hirado, including hiring Japanese sailors and ronin from here, and replenishing firearms and gunpowder.

Ping Qiusheng thought to himself, So this Hirado is Zheng Zhilong’s base in Japan! But he was still a little puzzled. “I heard that Ikkō is a Christian. Isn’t the lord of the domain the most hateful of Christians?”

“I don’t know if Ikkō is a Christian, but he also worships Mazu, the goddess most revered by the Ming merchants, and he also worships gods and Buddhas. I’m afraid he’s not. Aren’t Christians not allowed to worship other gods?”

Ping Qiusheng nodded. It was clear that the Matsuura family of Hirado could be treated as an “enemy.”

From the very beginning, Hamada Shinzō showed the strong interest that young people of this time and space often showed in the transmigrators, whether it was the glass-bottled rum they brought or Ping Qiusheng’s pistol. While chatting with Hamada, Ping Qiusheng was observing this young man, thinking about how he could use him to deal a heavy blow to Zheng Zhilong.

The day after the banquet, Ping Qiusheng, led by Hamada Shinzō, took a tour of Hirado, the so-called “Western Capital.” Because it was just the beginning of summer, there were very few ships from Fujian. The wharf was very quiet.

Hirado itself was a very barren island. If it were not for the support of maritime trade, this place, like Goto, would be a typical poor and remote place. If it were not for the poverty and remoteness, the local people would not have sailed across the sea in small boats to become Japanese pirates.

Everything was ready, only the east wind was lacking. Ping Qiusheng looked out at the Hirado Strait from the Portuguese market wharf. He wondered how Zhao Yingong was preparing.

On the other side of the sea, Zhao Yingong was planning the first batch of ships to Japan after receiving the telegram.

The Planning Commission did not allocate him any ships—the Planning Commission had no ships to give him at all. After the long and frequent shipping of Operation Engine, now, except for a few ships maintaining regular routes and combat readiness tasks, all ships had entered port for maintenance. Wu De told him very clearly that there were no ships available for him to use.

“You have to rely on local resources,” the Planning Commission’s reply to him said. “Make full use of the resources of the Ming Dynasty.”

In this way, Zhao Yingong had to prepare his own ships and organize his own sources of goods. The latter was easier to say. After all, Jiangnan was a rich and prosperous place, and all kinds of goods could be bought. But it was a bit difficult to prepare ships that could go to Japan.

In the Song Dynasty, Jiangsu and Zhejiang were the main ports to Japan, but in the Ming Dynasty, due to the strict sea ban, not only did the tonnage of ships shrink, but the navigation technology also regressed. Originally, Chinese merchant ships in the Tang and Song Dynasties could directly cross the East China Sea and go directly to Matsuura County in Hizen. In the Ming Dynasty, they had to rely on the navigation of maritime landmarks such as island chains to sail. Zhao Yingong felt that it was easy to find ships that could go to Japan. In this era, ships with a deadweight of one or two hundred tons could sail around the world, let alone a short-distance sea voyage like crossing the East China Sea. But it was impossible to find sailors who could navigate ships across the East China Sea.

However, Zhao Yingong believed that as long as they were given suitable navigators, it would not be difficult to cross the East China Sea to trade with Japan. The Chinese sailors had the courage—they were just technically backward. As long as someone gave them a little guidance and set an example for them, plus enough benefits, they would not hesitate to do it.

For this reason, Zhao Yingong had already made a special trip to Shanghai. He was going to do a few big things in Shanghai.

The first was to contact the sand boat gang. Shanghai itself had a sand boat gang run by big merchants, specializing in the so-called Beiyang trade. That is, going north to Shandong, all the way to Tianjin, transporting various “southern goods,” and then setting sail from Tianjin to return to Shanghai, transporting “northern goods.” This business was very large in the Qing Dynasty, with an annual sales of several million taels. It did not reach this level in the Ming Dynasty, but the total amount was not small. This part of the transport capacity was the most suitable target for him to covet.

The second was to organize the source of goods for export to Japan in Shanghai and at the same time set up a special agency to implement it. The trade with Japan was a very important and complex matter, and he had to set up a special agency to be responsible for it.

At this moment, Zhao Yingong was sitting in a sedan chair. He was going to meet a person, a very outstanding figure in the sand boat gang.

This person was named Shen Tingyang. Shen Tingyang was from Chongming County, Suzhou Prefecture. His fame was all related to the ships and navigation of the late Ming Dynasty. The only experiment of “changing the grain tribute to sea transport” in the late Ming Dynasty was proposed and presided over by him. In the 12th year of the Chongzhen era of the Ming Dynasty, Shen Tingyang presented the “Book of Sea Transport” to the emperor, expressing his willingness to build sand boats to restore sea transport. After the emperor approved, Shen Tingyang raised funds and built sand boats. Soon, Shen used sand boats to transport grain from the Huai River, followed the sea route of Zhu Qing, and arrived at Dagu and Tianjin in ten days, restoring the Beiyang route.

After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, in the first year of the Hongguang era, Shen Tingyang wrote to the court, hoping to add sailors to the one hundred water transport ships he owned, change them into warships, and specially use them as the Yangtze River navy.

After the fall of Nanjing, he and the generals led several thousand land and water troops and hundreds of ships, and after many twists and turns, they arrived at the Zhoushan Islands. They were enfeoffed by the Prince of Lu as the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of War and the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and the governor of the Zhejiang and Zhili navies.

In the first year of the Yongli era, Shen Tingyang led a fleet from Zhoushan to prepare for a counterattack on Suzhou. He encountered a storm off Chongming Island and was defeated. Shen Tingyang’s warship capsized at Xuliujing, and most of his soldiers drowned. Shen Tingyang was captured and died without surrendering.

This person was outstanding in both his ability to handle affairs and his national integrity. Compared with the scholar-officials who died for the country in the late Ming Dynasty, his ability to do practical things was obviously very strong.