The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 456: Exterminating the Nine Clans to Make an Example

In the waters of Japan, more than 200 miles south of Musashi Province, there is a large island.

This island is not big, with a radius of only about ten miles, so it is named "Big Island".

As the sun rose, ten giant ships as big as city walls and two hundred centipede ships slowly sailed out from the harbor on the south side of the island.

The sails were raised, and as the southwest wind blew, the giant ship gradually accelerated, and the centipede ship also moved its oars together. The fleet rushed towards Edo Castle like a long dragon.

On the flagship, Wanli was holding a telescope and watching a naval soldier killing fish.

The navy officer was very skillful. He inserted a sharp knife into the excretion hole at the back of the fish's belly and quickly lifted it up, and the fish's belly was ripped open.

Then, the fish gills, internal organs, etc. are scraped into the sea, and several cuts are made evenly on both sides of the fish fins. Then, they are stirred in a bucket of sea water and thrown into a bucket of salt water. The fish is then processed.

This process was repeated over and over, and within a quarter of an hour, more than ten fish were killed.

The navy officer took two thick iron skewers and inserted them into the back of the fish gills, stringing them into two skewers. Then he opened the lid of the oil barrel that was smoking, took out the two skewers of fish that had been roasted until slightly yellow, and put them into a bamboo basket. He then put the newly killed fish in the basket and closed the lid.

This is to prevent the fish from becoming smelly and spoiling.

It's summer now. If the fish are not processed after being caught, they will go bad in a few hours.

They caught a batch of fish yesterday afternoon to test the waters but then stopped fishing.

Because there are limited smoking barrels, there are only ten on each centipede ship, and the navy soldiers have to take turns to process the fish in this way.

They went directly to the bay south of the big island to process the fish, rested for a night, and then sent out 160 centipede boats to catch a batch of fish in the early morning before setting off back.

This kind of fishing efficiency is obviously not good.

Wanli looked back at the island gradually receding into the distance, then asked, "Yunqing, have you ever explored the waters near Japan?"

How could we not have visited it? We have been here for almost a year.

Deng Zilong nodded repeatedly and said, "I have already sent a speedboat to investigate."

Wanli nodded slightly, then asked, "Are there many islands like the big island around the three Japanese islands?"

Deng Zilong said without hesitation: "There are not many here. There are only five or six islands like this four or five hundred miles south of the big island.

There are the most of them on Kyushu Island. There are many such islands on the south, north, and west sides of Kyushu Island. There are also many in Ezo. There is a long string of such islands to the northeast. We don’t know where they go. We have explored for thousands of miles and still haven’t found the end.

That string of islands is connected to America, and the speedboat certainly can't reach the end.

By the way, Li Guozhu has been in America for more than a year, why hasn’t he come back yet?

Did something happen?
Not likely.

The strength of their fleet is probably not enough to match that of a Spanish overseas colony.

It is unlikely that the Spanish would unite the fleets of several colonies to fight them to the death.

There was no way. There was no means of communication at all, so he could only wait.

Wanli thought about it, then nodded slightly and said: "Well, the number of islands is enough.

We can't fish like this anymore. Most of the time we spend traveling back and forth is spent on the road. We must build fish smoking workshops on these islands, and each island must be able to smoke more than one million kilograms of fish every day.

Then, several thousand Japanese slaves were brought to each island to process the catch and make smoked fish.

This way, the fishing fleet doesn't have to run back and forth; they only need to unload the caught fish on the island every day.

After the smoked fish is processed, we can directly send the navy fleet to pick it up, so we don't waste fishing boat resources."

This will indeed not waste fishing boat resources.

The problem is, they haven't even started building giant ocean-going ships specifically for fishing.

Deng Zilong thought about it, then asked carefully: "Your Majesty, how many of these smoked fish islands should we build?"

Wanli pondered, "There are about 15 million Japanese slaves in Japan, and we still need to relocate more than one to two million people here.

The Japanese will each smoke fish at one kilogram per day, and ours at two kilograms per day. We'll build twenty of these smoked fish islands first." So many?
Deng Zilong carefully reminded him, "Your Majesty, smoking fish consumes a lot of charcoal. This thing cannot be smoked with coal. It is inedible if smoked with coal. Even if we smoke it in large quantities, one kilogram of charcoal can only smoke ten kilograms of fish at most. Twenty million kilograms a day means we will need two million kilograms of charcoal.

Your Majesty, we could actually consider using ice. There are so many Japanese pirates anyway, we could have them carve a lot of ice in the winter to freeze the fish. Then we could just take the catch and send it to them without any processing."

How do you say this?

Wanli pondered, "Icing fish saves charcoal. However, if we use ice to preserve fish, the fishing boats will have to be insulated, and they will have to be transported ashore in specially insulated carriages. This is a bit troublesome, so I won't consider it for now.

As for the large amount of charcoal consumed, that doesn't matter. Japan is mountainous and there are many trees on the mountains. We can let the Japanese cut wood and make charcoal themselves. One pound of charcoal for five pounds of smoked fish, is not too much, right?

It just so happens that we've fed the Japanese slaves for free and made them lazy, so having them chop wood and make charcoal is also a job. This way we can pick out the good charcoal and ship it to Ming to sell for money."

Well, good charcoal in the Ming Dynasty could only be sold for one tael of silver and two hundred kilograms.

If you use a centipede boat, one boat can only carry 60,000 kilograms at most, and you can only make 300 taels of silver per boat. Any cargo is better than charcoal.

What does His Majesty think?

Deng Zilong thought about it and then warned carefully: "Your Majesty, I dare to say that this overseas business seems to have huge profits. If we use centipede boats to transport other goods, we can make at least several thousand or even tens of thousands of taels per boat. But if we use charcoal boats to transport charcoal, we can only make three hundred taels.

Furthermore, we still have to collect charcoal and transport it back to Ming. Even if we calculate it as 3,000 miles per trip, that's still 6,000 miles. Fifty naval officers and soldiers are lucky to make one trip a month. After deducting the transportation costs, we won't make much money."

Do you think everything can be produced and sold in quantity?
Wanli shook his head slightly and said, "It is true that overseas business has high profits, but only a certain amount of high-profit goods can be sold each year. It is not possible to sell as much as you bring in.

Moreover, Japan doesn't produce any valuable goods. The only things we can sell for money are charcoal, smoked fish, and other things produced in the mountains and the sea.

Although the profit of these things is not high, they are consumed in large quantities. Once they are used and eaten, they are gone. A lot of them are consumed every day. If we sell more, the profit will naturally be more.

As for the issue of transportation costs, we can consider using large Fuchuan ships for transportation. In winter, the north wind and the Kuroshio Current form a circle, and it only takes about ten days to half a month for a sailboat to make a circle, and it does not require so much manpower.

This kind of Fujian ship is actually not a real tower ship or gunboat. We built so many of them in order to improve the strength of the navy in a short period of time. In the future, we will definitely develop real tower ship or gunboat. These Fujian ship warships are just right to be used as cargo ships.

Also, if we take over Japan, we will not only have to consider how to feed so many Japanese slaves, but also how to use these slaves to create profits. If there is no profit, wouldn’t our huge investment be a huge loss?
We have expended so much manpower and material resources, spent so much time, and fought such a big war, so we must gain sufficient benefits.

To put it bluntly, war is all about money. The soldiers' wages, rations, weapons, equipment, and supplies all cost money. We can't just lose money in war. If we do that, we'll lose everything. We have to find a way to make money after the war."

The reason why he spoke in such detail was mainly because he was speaking to the eldest prince Zhu Changluo.

The fleet was sailing smoothly and at a very fast speed. After chatting for about two hours, they arrived at the port near Edo Castle.

At this time, Luo Sigong was actually standing at the dock waiting.

As soon as the ship docked and the ladder was lowered, he quickly stepped forward, clasped his hands, and said, "Your Majesty, it seems Konishi Yukinaga and Shimazu Yoshihiro are secretly communicating and preparing to join forces in rebellion."

Great, it's finally here.

Why do you think I didn't kill you in the capital?

I will release you and kill you, exterminate all nine generations of your clan, and make an example of you!
Wanli nodded calmly, then asked, "Isn't Konishi Yukinaga a close confidant of Toyotomi Hideyoshi? How did this guy end up in Kyushu? Also, how many troops do you think they can muster to rebel?"

Luo Sigong explained in detail: "Your Majesty, Konishi Yukinaga's fiefdom was originally in Higo Province on Kyushu Island.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi divided Higo Province into two halves, he and Kato Kiyomasa each took half. Now that Kato Kiyomasa is dead, the people of Higo Province all obey him.

Shimazu Yoshihiro is even more incredible. This guy almost took over the entire Kyushu Island. I estimate that they can mobilize at least 50,000 troops to rebel."

At least 50,000 troops, right?
Wanli nodded slowly and said, "Okay, send secret guards to secretly investigate all the people who are related to them.

I will send swift navy ships to quietly transport the 160,000 troops from the Shenwu Camp to Iki Island. Please keep the news secret.

Also, you secretly inform the princes, nobles and garrison commanders of those countries to be careful. If they find anything wrong, they should immediately transfer all the troops back to the nearest city for garrison. No matter what, all cities must hold out for at least three days.

We are just waiting for them to rebel. Once they rebel, you should immediately send a speedboat to bring the soldiers of the Shenwu Camp to land in the Karatsu Domain.

Jiuzhou Island is only four or five hundred miles in radius, and the cavalry of the Shenwu Camp is enough to reach anywhere within three days.

At that time, Konishi Yukinaga and Shimazu Yoshihiro will exterminate all nine clans and all the Japanese pirates who participated in the rebellion will be beheaded as a warning to others."

How much will this cut?
Upon hearing this, Luo Sigong bowed and said, "I understand."

(End of this chapter)