Ming East India Company

Knowing it was time to put on a show of loyalty, Mori Hidemoto gritted his teeth and ordered his men:

"Someone, bring up the gifts for the master."

The guards took out a wine jar from the box behind them, opened it, and a head that had been pickled for a long time rolled out.

"This is the head of Shimazu Yoshihiro, the last direct descendant of the Shimazu family. Please take a look, Master."

Bai Ye called Su Zhongman over and asked him to have someone carefully examine the object. A quarter of an hour later, Su Zhongman came in and nodded to Bai Ye.

Yoshihiro Shimazu led more than 1500 men to attack Sekigahara. However, his hometown had been raided by Hakuno, so he had no choice but to seek refuge with the Mori clan. Terumoto Mori had no other option but to cut off his head as a gift to Hakuno in order to survive.

Shirono looked at the head of Shimazu Yoshihiro before him. The Satsuma Domain, which had dominated Kyushu for centuries and was a major force in the overthrow of the shogunate until the end of the Edo period, had vanished from this moment on.

History is truly about to be rewritten in my own hands, Bai Ye couldn't help but mutter to himself.

Shirano ordered Su Zhongman to display Shimazu Yoshihiro's head to the public, in order to completely extinguish any remaining Shimazu forces' attempts to restore their territory.

They then directly offered the following conditions for cooperation with the Mori clan: in return, the Mori clan would hand over Suo and Nagato to Ryukyu, and Ryukyu would support the Mori clan's territorial claims and send troops to Edo to put pressure on the shogunate.

Having lost all his confidence, Hidemoto Mori had no choice but to agree to Hakuno's conditions in their entirety.

Thus, two months after the Battle of Sekigahara, the galley ships that had once struck fear into the hearts of countless Japanese soldiers during the Korean War reappeared on the sea east of Edo.

This time, these galleys not only plundered merchant ships and bombarded ports, but also took advantage of their narrow and slender shape to directly rush into inland rivers and plunder the Guandong region.

However, no major battles occurred during this raid.

Having witnessed the power of the Ryukyuans, Tokugawa Ieyasu revealed his true colors as a cunning old man. He wisely agreed to the Ryukyuans' "peace talks" and allowed the Mori clan, the commander-in-chief of the Western Army, to "settle down" with them.

A few years later, Hideaki Kobayakawa, who had betrayed the Western Army as an "undercover agent" in Sekigahara, died mysteriously without leaving any children.

His territory of 55 koku was eventually taken back by the shogunate.

However, with Hakuno's intervention, Ryukyu, Mori and the Tokugawa Shogunate finally reached an agreement to divide Kobayakawa's territory. Hakuno received 37 koku, and the Tokugawa Shogunate took the remaining 19 koku.

Unwilling to get too involved in the affairs of Honshu, Hakuno returned Nagato and Suo, which the Mori clan had taken from him, to the Mori clan. However, the Mori clan granted Hakuno the right to trade and sail freely within their territory without imposing commercial taxes.

Furthermore, the Mori clan promised that if Ryukyu were to encounter war, Hakuno could request the Mori to send more than 10,000 troops to assist in the battle.

At the same time, in order to balance the power of the Mori clan, the shogunate also granted Hakuno and Kazuo equal commercial rights within the Mori clan.

At the same time, the shogunate gave all the official seals for the silver thread trade to Ryukyu and severed ties with the Portuguese, making Ryukyu the only overseas power that could trade with the shogunate.

At this point, Shirano had essentially achieved his strategic objectives.

The million-koku territory on Kyushu Island provided him with a backup land, allowing him to continuously recruit elite soldiers from the Ming Dynasty.

The business agreements with the shogunate and the Mori clan also turned the Silver Silk Road into Hakuno's cash cow.

Most importantly, due to Hakuno's active intervention in this plane, the Tokugawa Shogunate did not achieve a dominant position.

The alliance between the Mori and Ryukyu tribes was enough to rival the Tokugawa empire, and Hakuno's "balance of power policy" was effective.

Therefore, Shirano no longer had the intention to expand in the direction of Japan. After all, it was the Age of Exploration, and the world was full of unclaimed lands. It was not worth fighting Japan to the death.

Standing on the beach in Kagoshima, Shirano picked up a map and gazed south. It was time to expand in another direction.

……

During the period of rapid expansion of Ryukyu's power, everyone in Ryukyu got what they wanted, but there were also a very few who were disappointed, and Luo Sigong was one of them.

As the supervising eunuch on the island, he clearly felt his influence diminishing after Japan withdrew its troops from Korea.

On the one hand, the Ming Dynasty didn't need so many military achievements against the Japanese, so Emperor Wanli gradually lost interest in his memorials requesting credit, from personally reading them to issuing imperial edicts and then only having the cabinet draft them. His priority level steadily declined.

On the other hand, the Ryukyu Kingdom no longer made a point of maintaining its relationship with him, and Shirano, who had obtained the exclusive right to trade in Yuegang, no longer needed his help.

Moreover, as Ryukyu gradually established its regime in the East, Shirakawa began to curb his previous practice of readily "killing innocent people to claim credit." Luo Sigong was able to collect fewer and fewer heads, and the officials along the Fujian coast no longer tolerated him.

His two "followers" kept advising him that since he had already gained enough merit, he should find an opportunity to return to the Ming Dynasty, but Luo Sigong was somewhat unwilling.

Looking around him, he saw sailors, garrison soldiers, and maritime merchants who had once struggled at the bottom of the Ming Dynasty now enjoying their own lands, titles, and privileges in Ryukyu.

How can I tolerate starting from such a high point as them but stagnating?

No, we must make a name for ourselves in Ryukyu. Luo Sigong now realizes that Baiye is aiming for independence and the establishment of a separate state.

The merit of following the dragon must be earned.

How to demonstrate his value to his employer has become a major headache for Luo Sigong.

Inside a tavern by Naha Port, Luo Sigong was drinking alone, plotting his future.

Suddenly, Luo Sigong's eyes lit up. In the distance, two people dressed in Ming Dynasty official robes were drinking.

The person sitting on the left is wearing a slightly worn blue cotton official robe, with some salt stains from the seawater on the hem; the person on the right is wearing a dark green military uniform, with a cowhide belt around his waist and a ring-pommel iron sword hanging from his waist.

One was a civil official and the other a military officer; they were clearly low-ranking officials from the Ming Dynasty.

Luo Sigong sensed something was amiss. During his years in Ryukyu, he had met countless people from the Ming Dynasty, and when he occasionally saw officials, they were usually in plain clothes.

The only explanation for their blatant attire is that they are not afraid of revealing their identities.

Luo Sigong vaguely sensed that these two must have a very important mission.

Luo Sigong knew that his status as a eunuch had always been unpopular among officials in the Ming Dynasty, and that asking rashly might have the opposite effect.

Luo Sigong remained calm and walked up to the tavern owner, who hurriedly welcomed him.

"Oh dear, isn't this Luo..."

Before he could finish speaking, Luo Sigong stopped him and instead pointed to the two people at a table in the distance, asking the shopkeeper:

"What do these two do? Do you know anything about them?"

Luo Sigong was, after all, a minor official on Ryukyu Island, so the boss dared not refuse and quickly lowered his voice, saying:

"These two people came from the Ming Dynasty half a month ago and have been waiting here for a ship to go out to sea. They were accompanied by four or five servants, who all live upstairs."