Japan's Warring States Period: The Rise of the Wakasa Tiger

Chapter 104 Find a new way
As for the first request raised by Yoshishige, Imai Hisahide readily agreed. After all, he had traveled far and wide and was familiar with the tax policies of various daimyo. As long as the powerful families under him cooperated, it would not be difficult to help Yoshishige formulate a set of tax laws.

But the second option, forming a caravan and opening up shipping routes, is not so easy.

First, let's talk about the foreign trade. After the maritime ban was implemented in the early Ming Dynasty, only foreign countries were allowed to conduct tribute trade with the Ming court at a specified time and place. Foreign merchant ships carried tribute and their own local products to China. After the Ming court collected the tribute and purchased local products, it rewarded the foreign merchants with the Chinese products they needed in the form of "state gifts". Because this process required the use of a license called "Kanhefu", it was also called "Kanhe trade".

Since there were huge profits in this process and the rights to the Kan'ei trade were mostly controlled by daimyo such as the Hosokawa clan who controlled Sakai, the Ouchi clan who controlled Hakata, and their big merchants, it stimulated the growth of private smuggling and piracy.

In the 1538th year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty and the th year of the Tianwen reign of the Japanese Empire (), Jin Zilao, a great sea merchant of the Ming Dynasty, set up camp in Shuangyu off the coast of Ningbo. He successively recruited Li Guangtou, Xu Dong, Wang Zhi and others to jointly build the city, and also attracted Japanese private merchants and Portuguese merchants. Shuangyu gradually developed into the largest maritime trade center in East Asia, as well as the largest stronghold of private merchants and pirates in East Asia.

Among them, the most powerful and the ones who hold the final say are the four brothers, namely, Li Guangtou, a businessman from Fujian, and Xu Dong, a businessman from Huizhou.

"Your Highness should know that, except for Hosokawa Kyojo and Ouchi Suke, maritime trade with the Ming Dynasty is very difficult. Especially after the 'Ningbo Rebellion', it can only be carried out privately through the Xu brothers in Shuangyu Port, and the difficulty is beyond imagination." Imai Hisahide bluntly stated his difficulties.

The "Ningbo Rebellion" mentioned by Hisahide Imai, also known as the "tribute dispute incident", was an important turning point in tomorrow's trade.

In 1523, Ouchi Yoshioki appointed Ken Domune as the chief envoy to send a ship to the Ming Dynasty. Upon learning of this, then-Kanrei Hosokawa Takakuni also appointed Luangoka Mizusa as the chief envoy and Song Suqing as the deputy envoy to send a ship to the Ming Dynasty. The Ouchi clan held a Kanjofu from the Shotoku period, while the Hosokawa clan held a Kanjofu that expired during the Kozhi period.

The fleet of the Hosokawa clan arrived at Ningbo Maritime Customs later than the fleet of the Ouchi clan. However, Song Suqing had already secretly bribed Lai En, the eunuch of the Maritime Customs, so he was inspected first, which caused strong dissatisfaction from Ken Dojo. When the Maritime Customs entertained the guests at Jiabin Hall, the envoy of the Hosokawa clan sat above the envoy of the Ouchi clan. Ken Dojo, who was furious, rebelled, burned the ships of the Hosokawa clan, attacked Jiabin Hall, Dongku and other places, killed Luangoka Mizusa, and Song Suqing fled to Shaoxing.

Qian Daozongshe, who was furious, burned, killed and looted along the way, and killed Liu Jin, the commander of Zhejiang, and Zhang Tong, the captain of the Qianhu, who were going to suppress the rebellion, and kidnapped the commander Yuan Jing, hijacking his ship and fleeing to the sea. After this incident, the Ming Dynasty abolished the Maritime Customs Offices in Fujian, Zhejiang and other places, leaving only the Guangdong Maritime Customs Office, which almost cut off the trade routes between the Ming Dynasty and Japan.

Although Ouchi Yoshitaka reopened the Kanko trade in the 1536th year of Jiajing and the th year of Tianwen (), the protagonist of the Ming Dynasty trade had shifted to smuggling trade in Shuangyu or Zhoushan Islands at this time. Li Guangtou and the Xu Dong brothers began to rise up and colluded with officials and businessmen, gradually evolving into a large-scale smuggling group, which led to the proliferation of Japanese pirates and laid the groundwork for the later "Southeast Japanese Disaster" in the Ming Dynasty.

As for trading with the southern barbarians, it was even more difficult for Imai Hisahide: "Your Highness may not know that the southern barbarians mainly want to do business with Ming merchants. They don't know much about us Japanese. Not to mention Obama, even Hakata and Sakai, there are few of them, let alone doing business with them."

In 1511, the Portuguese captured Malacca and entered the East Asian waters. At that time, they were mainly engaged in smuggling trade along the Chinese coast. Even when they traded with Japanese private merchants, they mostly used Ming Dynasty private merchants as intermediaries. It was not until years later that the Portuguese opened up direct trade with Japan with the help of the "Pirate King" Wang Zhi, which was two years earlier than this time point.

Yoshishige was inevitably disappointed by Imai Hisahide's answer. Although Obama had taken over part of the "communication symbol trade" with Korea, it was still a far cry from the Tomorrow Trade and the Nanman Trade. He was still thinking about forming a fleet to go to Shuangyu and open up the maritime trade line with Ming and Portugal. Perhaps seeing Yoshishige's disappointment, Imai Hisahide had an idea:
"If Your Highness really wants to do business with the Ming Kingdom and the Nanman people, I suggest that you send someone to Shuangyu to investigate first. It won't be too late to make a decision after seeing the situation clearly. As far as I know, a group of private merchants will depart from Sakai Port in a few days and go to Shuangyu for trade. Your Highness can select one or two retainers who are familiar with business in the next few days. I can use my connections to arrange them into the caravan so that they can go and get a feel for the situation first."

"Great!" Yizhong swept away the depression just now and immediately became energetic: "Thank you so much, sir!"

"Since I have become the merchant of the Takeda family, I should serve you with all my strength." Imai Hisahide bowed and said, "As for the fleet, I suggest that Your Highness should build one first. Not only because this process is very time-consuming and costly, but also because I have come up with a new route that can bring a lot of profits to the Takeda family before the Tomorrow Trade and the Nanman Trade mature."

"New route? I'm all ears!" Yi Zhong responded quickly.

"Today, Japan has a lot of scattered routes. After years of investigation, I think these routes can be divided into two main routes: the Eastbound and the Westbound. Obama is right at the midpoint of the Westbound route. Your Highness can do something about it."

"what do you mean?"

Seeing that Yishige was interested in his ideas, Imai Hisahide was also quite proud of himself. He hesitated for a while before he spoke:

“Since Obama is the midpoint of the westbound route, it can serve as an important node, providing two optional trade routes for ships carrying goods from Ou and Hokuriku: one is to continue westward to Yamaguchi, Hakata and other western regions after replenishing supplies at Obama; the other is to unload goods at Obama and transport them to Kyoto and Sakai via the Mackerel Road.

Similarly, Obama can also provide supplies and transportation for goods from Kinki and the western part of Japan to Ou and Hokuriku. The huge profits generated by this trip should be much higher than the income from selling aquatic products, right? By the way, I have thought of a good name for this trade route. "

"Oh, what's the name?" Yizhong responded curiously.

Imai Hisahide smiled and said, "Since it is a trade route opened around Oshu and other northern regions, I think we should call it the 'Northern Ship' trade. What do you think, Your Highness?"

"North Country Ship Trade?" Hearing this familiar term, Yizhong couldn't help but shudder, thinking: "Oh my god, isn't this the 'Kitamae Ship'? It must be God's will that this famous route would come to me in this way ahead of time."

(End of this chapter)