Chapter 452 11. Hamamatsu Has a Strong Southern Barbarian Atmosphere

"Greetings to the chief accountant, the chief accountant." The two newcomers knelt down and bowed their heads.

Kobayata waved his hand and asked them to stand up by themselves. Kobayashi Motoharu had not finished speaking. Kobayata and Yamauchi were listening attentively and were ready to continue listening.

Perhaps because the clergy who dared to open up Japan, this land of women (not a typo, forced) were full of adventurous spirit and really loved missionary work, these priests rarely maintained extremely high ethics.

They did not manage land, did not accumulate property, did not get close to beautiful women, were pious and chaste, and were content with poverty.

At least Father William was really like this. His property was nothing but a few clothes donated by believers, a few Bibles, and two pairs of shoes. He usually lived in a small house behind the church and got up at dawn for morning prayer.

Usually he was either preaching or reuniting with believers. He did not cook for himself. When he was hungry, he would go to the believers' homes to eat something casually. All the donations received by the church were used to buy food and medicine to help believers and poor people.

After Hamamatsu opened its port, Spanish and Portuguese merchant ships arrived one after another, and the Manila route, Macau route and Malacca route were opened one after another.

Because of his fruitful missionary activities, the churches in Macau and Manila not only sent him a lot of missionary funds, but also sent a harpsichord and a new priest to assist him in his missionary work.

The East India Company also purchased land and houses near the church to build Nanban trading houses and western-style villas and warehouses that would be used when merchant ships temporarily stayed.

These were all promised and allowed by Yamanouchi Yoshiharu, but Kobayashi Motoharu also raised a point. Due to the backwardness of the tax system, he collected taxes according to the size of the ship, and the price of Nanban goods was obviously higher, so he hoped to renegotiate the tax.

Xiaoping Tai asked him to be patient about this matter, as such a major matter was not something he, a castle town magistrate, could say.

Yamanouchi Shukei also asked Kobayashi Motoharu to continue, saying that the establishment of Nanban trading houses and housing did not violate regulations.

At present, there are still a few dozen Nanman people under Hamamatsu Castle, as well as their followers and employees hired from Kyushu, Macau and Manila. They temporarily stay in Hamamatsu during the merchant ship's departure and maintain normal business activities.

Nanman merchants do not care much about the special products such as scallops, shell ash and candles produced in the Yamanouchi territory. They mainly purchase raw silk produced in Koshin, tea produced in Totomi, and some swords, dry goods and minerals in the Kaido area. [Note 1]

As for imports, the largest volume is naturally foreign guns, and there are many people willing to take over the matchlock gun business. Arms have always been a highly profitable industry. The next is steel, saltpeter, and gunpowder produced from saltpeter.

This is all as it should be, and there is nothing strange about it. But there is one thing that Xiao Pingtai thought was very good.

In order to resist wind and waves, ships will purchase heavy goods as ballast, and sometimes even directly transport stones for ballast. The Nanman merchant ships returning from China mainly used bundles of porcelain as ballast, which was convenient and profitable.

Can ships from Manila and Malacca also use porcelain as ballast? Of course not. Let’s not talk about whether the local area produces this thing. Japan also makes porcelain, and it can’t sell it for much.

I don’t know which Spanish captain used his clever little brain, he actually used rice as ballast.

The Thai area in Southeast Asia, now called Siam, has more than enough rice for three harvests a year, and exports grain year after year. At the same time, the climate is warm, the water source is sufficient, and there is no famine.

The price of rice in Siam is extremely cheap, less than one-third of the mainland. One thousand taels of rice from Siam is worth three thousand taels when it is transported to China.

No matter whether the rice is to your taste, it is indeed rice! If it is rice, it is good food, and someone must want it.

With the attitude of giving it a try, the Spanish captain transported half of the Nanman goods and half of the Thai rice to Hamamatsu. As soon as the ship was unloaded, many people naturally bought the Nanman goods, but no one was interested in rice.

The main reason was that no rice merchant would have thought that Nanman merchant ships would also sell rice, and they did not expect that the price of Thai rice was so cheap.

The Spanish captain had no choice but to set the price as one tael of gold = six stones of white rice.

Of course, he only accepted gold and silver, two precious metal currencies, and did not accept copper coins. The rice merchants in Hamamatsu were crazy. One tael of gold was equal to one string of Yongle money, and one string of money could actually buy six stones of rice.

In order to compete for this business, a maid warmed the feet of the Spanish captain in his villa that night.

The rice merchants in Hamamatsu rushed to sign a contract with him, one tael of gold for six stones of rice, as much as he wanted. And they also paid a deposit in advance and paid the bill in advance.

So the Nanman merchant ships knew that Thai rice was used for ballast, and they could directly pull it over to exchange for gold, and they could also get an advance payment. Whoever did not do such a good thing would be a fool.

Both sides laughed at each other for being fools, but they unexpectedly did such a good thing.

…………

At this point, Yamauchi Shukei and Kobayata also roughly understood the development of Christianity in Hamamatsu and the basic situation of the Nanman port trade.

Both realized that this matter could not be allowed to develop in an unorderly manner. The Yamauchi family must intervene in this matter and adjust it in a direction that is beneficial to the Yamauchi family.

At the same time, Kobayata also asked the Christian believer when he converted to Christianity and when he was baptized. Although he pretended to be curious and asked casually, he was a little afraid in his heart.

That night, Kobayata raised the idea of ​​supervising Nanman affairs with Yamauchi Shukei, but Yamauchi Shukei had a doubt.

The Portuguese guns have been cast and they have learned how to cast them, but they have not learned how to use artillery. If we restrict the Nanman religion now, will it lead to the inability to learn artillery?

Xiao Pingtai was speechless when he heard the words, and he had to obey. They just took advantage of your inability to use artillery, so they proposed the slogan of preaching = trade.

You let me preach here, and then I will slowly teach you a series of subsequent things and slowly unfold them. If you restrict me, I will directly cut off his development, what can you do to me?

Directly learn from Toyotomi Hideyoshi, "Bentenren Exile Order"? It's cool, but it's not appropriate now. If you learn from the Tokugawa family, you will be restricted to a certain area and cannot leave.

But this is equivalent to banning the religion directly, which is definitely not possible. We must find a safe way. On the one hand, restrict its development, and on the other hand, weaken its influence.

What should we do?

[Note 1]: I don't know if everyone knows that tea trees are tea trees, and there is no difference between green tea trees and black tea trees. The tea leaves produced from a tea tree can be made into both green tea and black tea.

The difference between them is only in the production process, and there is no essential difference. At this time, matcha and green tea are popular in Japan, while black tea is actually popular in Europe.