Chapter 208: Financial Tsunami, Lin Qian's Triple Win

The forty cannons roared without cease.

Around the Japanese fleet, it was as if a torrential rain had begun, with columns of water constantly erupting.

The atakebune was the largest target and took three hits; the cannonballs entered through its stern, pierced clean through the hull, and exited at the bow, carrying out large quantities of splintered wood.

Thanks to the atakebune's special design, its entire upper hull resembled a towering castle rather than a ship's body, so taking hits had no effect on its sailing. There was also one kobaya whose waterline at the stern was struck; its fragile hull was torn open with a fist-sized hole, seawater gushed in, and within the time it takes half a stick of incense to burn, the stern sank while the bow tilted up out of the water. The crew aboard had no recourse but to leap into the sea and swim desperately for shore. After the first round of bombardment, warriors on the atakebune shouted out orders, and the various sekibune and kobaya scattered across the sea.

The second round of bombardment came.

On the atakebune, the warriors heard a whoosh, followed by a dull thud; from the bow came the sound of wood splintering and soldiers screaming. The castle tower shook violently.

Matsuura Sōko frowned slightly, and a warrior beside him walked to the entrance of the lower deck and bellowed: "Silence!"

The soldiers' screams weakened.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The third round of bombardment came.

A sekibune nearby took five consecutive hits; the cannonballs pierced clean through the ship and, still losing none of their momentum, flew more than two hundred paces over the sea before plunging into the water, throwing up white columns of spray.

The rear half of the sekibune's hull collapsed, its oars stopped moving, and it slowly sank.

Japanese warships were built using the clinker method, with no keel or ribs, and the quality of the timber was poor as well, making their structures fragile.

Although the sekibune's waterline had not been hit, the collapse of its hull still cracked the planking, letting in water until the ship sank.

Matsuura Sōko paid not the slightest heed to the damage to his own vessels—reaching the Dutch ships and boarding them at the cost of five or even ten ships had been his plan all along.

Though Japanese warships were fragile, once scattered across the sea, the forty cannons of the Ahatto ships could not possibly stop them from closing in.

Song Ke said: "Raise sail, half rudder to port! Avoid the oncoming enemy."

"Off the port side, a fleet has appeared beyond the ridge!"

Song Ke's heart sank; he cursed inwardly. His blood had rushed to his head, and he had actually forgotten to guard against the Ming warships.

Beneath the grey sky, the Tianyuan led four Ahatto ships as they slowly sailed past the ridge.

Matsuura Sōko did not know whether the newcomers were friend or foe, and the Dutch dared not act rashly either.

A strange silence fell over the battlefield.

Only the northeast wind howled through the strait.

The five ships formed a line and gradually closed on the Dutch warships; at three hundred paces, they opened their gunports and ran out their broadside cannons.

Then a series of earth-shaking cannon fire erupted.

The five Ming warships were instantly shrouded in thick gunsmoke.

Sixty-six solid iron shot slammed densely into the Dutch fleet.

The entire port side of the Dutch fleet was momentarily engulfed in wood splinters, water columns, and blood.

Because the distance was too great, their kinetic energy had dropped, and the 12-pounder cannons could not fully penetrate the Ahatto ships—they only pierced two layers of hull planking, leaving a large hole in the port side. The Dutch immediately began to return fire.

The entire strait instantly echoed with dense cannon thunder, and gunsmoke nearly shrouded the whole sea surface, as if a thin fog had fallen.

On the atakebune, Matsuura Sōko gazed at the distant battlefield and raised his arm.

The warrior beside him shouted to the sekibune on both flanks: "Stop advancing!"

The sekibune received the order and called out to the vessels on the other side in turn; the Matsuura clan's fleet gradually came to a halt.

Matsuura Sōko's face was as immovable as a mountain, but within his heart, towering waves were surging.

Beneath the gloomy sky, the Dutch and Ming warships exchanged fire—the spectacle was simply too astonishing, like thunder crashing.

Within several hundred paces of the Dutch fleet, cannonballs, wood splinters, and severed limbs kept raining down, and the sea surface was constantly churned into spray.

His own navy had no cannons at all—they only knew how to close in for volley fire and boarding. If they charged in under these circumstances, the Ming would simply use them as target practice and blast them to the bottom.

In the blink of an eye, the two sides had been exchanging fire for an hour.

The weather grew ever more gloomy; dark clouds pressed down on the sea, and within the cloud layers, faint silver-white flashes of lightning flickered.

To the Matsuura clan's navy, this battle seemed to make heaven and earth change color, to make ghosts and gods weep in terror!

Though the northeast wind grew ever fiercer, the smell of sulfur in the sea breeze was still thick enough to sting the nose.

Everyone's ears had been deafened by the cannon fire; besides the thunder of the guns, they could no longer hear the sound of the waves or the wind.

In the strait, the swells grew larger, and even the castle tower of the atakebune swayed slightly.

A retainer warrior bowed and said: "Lord Matsuura, a storm is coming. Please return to port and take shelter."

Matsuura Sōko said calmly: "The enemy is not yet dead, and our allies have not withdrawn. Even if we cannot join the fight, there is no reason for us to retreat on our own."

The warrior glanced at the sky and said urgently: "Lord Matsuura, our warships all have flat bottoms. On a calm sea they are fine, but once the waves begin to surge, they will surely capsize!"

Matsuura Sōko did not anger but laughed instead, and amid the cannon thunder, declared with soaring boldness: "A man's life is but fifty years—what pleasure is there in sitting idle upon one's bed?"

Rumble!

A dull peal of thunder rolled across, resounding through heaven and earth.

Matsuura Sōko pointed at the sky and said: "In today's battle, we are the thunder itself! Even if we cannot engage the enemy, we shall bolster our allies' might! Even if we die, we shall tear open the heavens and go out in a blaze of glory!"

"Banzai!" His retainers were all fired up by this impassioned speech.

On the deck of the Tianyuan, Lei Sanxiang lowered his telescope and muttered: "Captain, these Japanese pirates won't leave, and they won't come forward to help either. What are they trying to do?"

Bailangzai said: "Maybe they're trying to pull a Bian Zhuang slaying the tiger—Third Brother had better keep a close eye on them."

Having said this, Bailangzai ordered: "Flagship, turn the rudder to starboard, raise sail, close in and fire!"

Lei Sanxiang paid no heed and kept staring intently at the Japanese.

Bailangzai cleared his throat to remind him, and only then did Lei Sanxiang remember that he was now the helmsman, and hastily shouted out the order.

Rumble!

A peal of thunder sounded nearby, shaking heaven and earth and drowning out even the cannon fire.

Bailangzai looked up at the sky. The storm was about to arrive—this battle had to be finished quickly!

Both the Dutch and the Ming fielded Ahatto ships, identical in hull form and with comparable firepower.

At long range, the hit rate was too low, and Tianyuan's formidable firepower could not be brought to bear.

Dutch ships were mostly built of oak, while Nan'ao, lacking sufficient teak, had built Ahat-class ships largely with camphor wood hulls—meaning Nan'ao warships were at a disadvantage in resistance.

In every previous naval battle, the Nan'ao fleet had crushed opponents through tonnage, firepower, and tactics.

This was the first time they had squared off in a head-on exchange of broadsides against Western clinker-built ships, and they had no experience with it.

Bailangzai therefore immediately changed tactics and actively closed the distance with the Dutch fleet.

On the approach, with their own firing arcs restricted, they would eat several free volleys from the Dutch—Bailangzai intended to use the thick-skinned Tianyuan to absorb cannonballs for the four Ahat-class ships behind her.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The Dutch kept up their bombardment, and the Tianyuan's starboard bow took five or six hits in succession.

Yet after the splinters flew, the holes in the hull were small. Though teak resisted slightly worse than oak, the larger ship's planking was thicker, and the Ahat-class twelve-pounders' shots caused only light damage.

From the gun deck came the sporadic screams of wounded sailors.

Bailangzai said: "No firing—cool the guns as fast as you can!"

Lei Sanxiang relayed the order in his booming voice.

The Dutch fleet's bombardment began to scatter.

The Tianyuan's starboard bow took another dozen-plus hits; wood chips flew everywhere, and every gunner held his breath with pent-up fury.

From the mast, the lookout shouted with all his strength: "One hundred paces!"

Bailangzai said: "Straighten the hull—starboard rapid fire!"

Lei Sanxiang roared: "Hard to port, lower sail, starboard rapid fire!"

"Boom! Boom! Boom…"

The Tianyuan's starboard guns roared in fury.

Throughout the approach, the starboard guns had been cooled with water-soaked sponges; by now the barrel temperatures had dropped considerably and could barely sustain rapid fire. The Dutch warships—whether in gun temperature, gunner quality, or shot weight—could not compare with the Tianyuan. In the space of half a joss stick, the Tianyuan's starboard side had fired four broadsides, hurling over 2,700 catties of solid iron shot at the Dutch.

The Pioneer's port side was like a pastry struck by a heavy blow—crumbs flew everywhere, and even large chunks of hull planking fell away.

At this range, the eighteen-pounder's power was pushed to its extreme, punching through an entire gun deck of the Pioneer with devastating force. It also gouged three or four fist-sized holes near her waterline, and seawater surged in through them.

On the Pioneer's deck, the boatswain roared at the crew to man the pumps—but the next second, a cannonball came flying and struck the pump dead center on the deck. The entire winch assembly split apart on the spot, and the sailors nearby lost their footing and tumbled to the deck.

The drainage pipes ran dry, and the Pioneer began to sink at a visible rate.

Having disposed of the Pioneer, the Tianyuan turned her guns on the Banker.

Amid thunder and the roar of the gun muzzles, the Banker absorbed five or six thousand catties of cannon fire.

The eighteen-pounders easily pierced the Banker's four layers of hull planking, and her compartments and the surrounding sea were showered with a rain of wood splinters. The entire gun deck suffered heavy casualties; more and more gun crews fell silent, and only sporadic matchlock musket fire from the open deck answered back.

With a tremendous blast, a Dutch warship's powder magazine exploded—flames shot into the sky, black smoke billowed, and the sound shook the surrounding sea.

That warship split apart from amidships, both ends tilting upward as seawater rushed onto the deck. Cannons snapped their breeching ropes and slid into the sea. Many Dutch soldiers who had fallen overboard were crushed beneath the cannons into the water, never to surface again.

Boom!

A clap of thunder—rain began to fall, and the whole sea and sky turned ink-black.

The waves grew rougher; aboard the atake-bune, samurai staggered and fell sprawling in every direction.

Matsuura Sōko stood up, his heart filled with shock.

He could not understand it—during the Battle of Noryang, the Ming and Japanese navies had been evenly matched, truly a contest of equals.

How, in just twenty short years, had the Ming navy grown so strong?

If the Ming had possessed this kind of fighting power at Noryang, the Japanese fleet would surely have been annihilated, and Konishi Yukinaga would never have made it back to Japan. By now the Pioneer had sunk, the Banker was heavily damaged and unable to fight on, and of the remaining two warships, one had suffered a magazine detonation and the other had taken such heavy casualties that it had no choice but to raise the white flag.

Moments later, the Banker also raised the white flag.

Bailangzai ordered men to board and grapple the ships. An hour later, all the surviving Dutchmen were brought onto the Tianyuan's deck.

"Whole and sound, still about a hundred and twenty or so." Lei Sanxiang reported after counting.

Bailangzai swept his cold gaze over all the prisoners: "At the Hirado Dutch trading post—who is Director Sonck?"

The Dutch sailors kept their heads down and said nothing, but many eyes glanced toward one Dutch sailor who was hanging his head.

Bailangzai strode forward and used the spine of his large miao dao to lift that sailor's chin.

Forced to raise his head, Sonck squeezed out a smile uglier than crying: "Your esteemed captain, I…"

"I hear you weren't too polite to my sister?" Bailangzai's voice was icy.

Sonck was taken aback, suddenly realizing that this man's bearing was very similar to that Ming woman from the trading caravan.

Back in Hirado, he had even mocked the idea that Ming warships' firepower could match the Dutch—he never expected retribution to come so quickly.

Recalling his earlier words and deeds, he could have strangled himself.

"That was a misunderstanding—we are merely merchants, all business tactics. I actually have the greatest respect for your sister, please—"

Sonck spoke at breakneck speed, begging for mercy like a string of firecrackers.

But a flash of blade light—his pleas ceased abruptly. His head lolled to one side and he toppled over. Before his vision went dark, he saw his own body still kneeling on the deck, blood spurting from the empty neck like a fountain.

With Sonck dead, the remaining Dutchmen all fell silent as cicadas in winter.

Boom!

Another muffled thunderclap—a torrential downpour soon washed the blood from the deck clean.

"Back to port!"

The Dutch were not the only victims of the financial tsunami.

Chaya Jirō had by now abandoned all pretense of dignity. He had dispatched all his underlings to the taverns and eateries, desperately dumping his redemption vouchers. It was true that these things had become worthless paper—but in this era, information traveled slowly, and there were always fools who, unaware of the market upheaval, would buy the vouchers out of greed for a bargain.

This kind of peddling was essentially no different from fraud. And since merchants and townsfolk could not be fooled, he could only deceive farmers—especially the silkworm growers far from Hirado. By such means, within ten days he swindled over thirty thousand taels of silver.

Yet compared to what he had sunk into the vouchers, it was a drop in the bucket.

Finally, the shogunate's "swift couriers" arrived in Hirado, announcing that Chaya Jirō was to be recalled to Edo.

This voucher incident had thrown Hirado into chaos—countless weavers and silkworm farmers took their own lives, a great many merchants, monks, and samurai went bankrupt, several daimyo suffered losses, and the island of Kyushu was thrown into turmoil.

Most critically, the thirty thousand taels of silver the shogunate had prepared for the silk certificate system had also been diverted to speculate on delivery vouchers.

When raw silk prices collapsed, the monopoly warehouse had no capacity to buy.

Merchants and commoners traded raw silk freely in the streets and markets, and the market price fell ever more steeply—the silk certificate system existed in name only.

When word reached Edo, Tokugawa Iemitsu could hardly believe his ears.

The silk certificate system had begun in the ninth year of Keichō, founded by his grandfather Tokugawa Ieyasu, spanning three generations over twenty-two years. He never imagined it would be shattered completely by a single small delivery voucher.

Thus Tokugawa Iemitsu urgently summoned Chaya Jirō back to Edo for questioning—and whether, after the questioning, he would be granted a cup of poisoned wine or a foot of white silk was anyone's guess.

Chaya Jirō understood that the glorious era of the Chaya house was over.

The shōgun's summons was urgent, and a criminal like Chaya Jirō deserved no comfortable treatment—the entire journey was made at full gallop, eating, drinking, and relieving himself all in the saddle.

By the time he reached Edo ten days later, Chaya Jirō had been tormented to within half a breath of his life.

Chaya Jirō had planned to wash and change clothes briefly before the audience, but the attendants would not permit it—they dragged him straight into the Honmaru Palace.

Chaya Jirō entered, performed his bows, knelt on the floor with his gaze lowered, his heart pounding wildly.

Tokugawa Iemitsu sat before the alcove, screened behind a curtain of pillars.

An attendant beside him said: "His Lordship asks: concerning the Hirado raw silk matter, answer."

"Hai!" Chaya Jirō dared not conceal anything, and told the full story of the raw silk delivery vouchers from beginning to end, finishing with: "This fluctuation in raw silk was caused primarily by the Dutch merchants' malicious trading, and secondarily by the Ming merchants hoarding goods to corner the market. I beg His Lordship to see clearly."

At this point, as long as he could save himself, whether it was red barbarians or Ming men, anyone could be thrown forward to bear the blame.

Chaya Jirō was no longer choosing his words.

Tokugawa Iemitsu made no response, as if he had not heard—the palace fell into silence.

After a long while, the attendant said: "His Lordship asks: where did the silver from the Hirado delivery vouchers go? Answer."

Chaya Jirō was momentarily speechless, because he did not know either.

On the twenty-fifth day of the tenth month of the fifth year of Tianqi, the delivery vouchers fell from a peak of nearly one hundred taels per bale to worthlessness.

Who exactly had earned the silver? Chaya Jirō still could not figure it out.

Nearly one million taels' worth of delivery vouchers had suddenly evaporated—silver was not made of ice, so it could not simply vanish.

He could only answer cautiously: "When the Ming merchants issued the delivery vouchers, they demanded a great quantity of silver from me, totaling over three hundred fifty thousand taels!" The palace fell into silence again. After a moment, the attendant said: "Withdraw."

Chaya Jirō carefully backed out of the room, secretly relieved—since the shōgun had not announced his punishment, could he have escaped disaster? As he passed the waiting chamber outside the hall, a man crossed paths with him. Chaya Jirō looked up and his heart sank at once. The newcomer was none other than Matsuura Sōko, who was also going to see the shōgun.

On the road, a vague sense of foreboding rose in Chaya Jirō's heart.

Suddenly he froze—he suddenly understood José's intent, understood why José had urged him to sell off the delivery vouchers as quickly as possible.

Chaya Jirō had not heeded the advice at the time, but the Matsuura house surely had.

The whereabouts of the silver was found—it had all been seized by the Matsuura house and the daimyōs who had received word in advance!

Chaya Jirō shouted: "It was the Matsuura house, it was the Ming men—the Ming men manipulated everything behind the scenes! I understand now—please let me see His Lordship again—" But it was already too late. The attendants covered his mouth, dragged and hauled him, and pulled him out of the shōgun's residence.

When Matsuura Sōko had his audience, the attendant asked him the same question on behalf of Tokugawa Iemitsu.

Matsuura Sōko understood the delivery vouchers even less deeply than Chaya Jirō.

At the same time, because the Matsuura house had received José's advance warning and sold at the peak, profiting over a hundred thousand taels of silver from the delivery vouchers, he was even more tight-lipped about where the silver had gone.

Matsuura Sōko dumped all the dirty water on the Dutch, while greatly praising the Ming men's performance in the naval battle.

He added: "I report to His Lordship: at its lowest, Hirado lake silk even fell below one hundred taels per bale. It was the Ming merchants who stepped in to buy, stabilizing the raw silk market price. When I left Hirado, raw silk had stabilized at one hundred twenty taels per bale.

This raw silk disturbance was caused by the Dutch and quelled by the Ming merchants—the Ming men's contribution is not small. To honor the Ming merchants, my father wishes to assign the Dutch Hirado trading house to them."

The attendant said: "Granted."

Matsuura Sōko joyfully kowtowed in thanks and withdrew.

At this time, only Tokugawa Iemitsu, the attendant, and two councilors remained in the palace.

Tokugawa Iemitsu said: "What are your views on this matter?"

Sakai Tadayo said: "I report to His Lordship: I believe the Dutch, by monopolizing goods and disrupting the market, are the chief culprits. They should be ordered to surrender their confiscated gains to the public treasury, and the damaged merchants should be compensated."

Doi Toshikatsu said: "What I worry about lies in the long term. If the Dutch are completely expelled, and Hirado trade is thereafter monopolized solely by Ming merchants, I fear that is not a fully secure policy."

Tokugawa Iemitsu's expression grew grave: "This affair has cost both our nation and Holland dearly—only the Ming merchants profited. Is that not too convenient?

As the saying goes, 'Purity and defilement are not two'—on the highland plains, lotus flowers do not grow. The Dutch committed a great error, but the Ming merchants are not necessarily clean either.

What Toshikatsu worries over is precisely what I fear in my heart.

Send a fleet to make contact with the Dutch. If they are willing to submit a written apology, compensate for losses, and abide by the laws, they may be permitted to return to trade.

As for the trading house, they may be ordered to select another location in Nagasaki."

That evening, at the Chaya residence, Chaya Jirō received the foot of white silk that belonged to him.

While Edo was busy cleaning up the mess,

on the site of the old Dutch trading house, the Ming Hirado trading house had already been quietly established.

This location was southeast of Hirado Castle, at the southeastern entrance of Hirado Harbor where it met the sea.

Facing the harbor, close beside the Tōdai-no-hana lighthouse, with water deep enough to moor large vessels.

Backed by hills, the ground rising gently, the buildings could overlook the sea and Hirado Harbor.

The trading house lay outside Hirado town, surrounded by open land sufficient for building warehouses, while connected to Hirado by roads for convenient transport. The main office building of the trading house had been largely burned down, but the church, warehouses, and so on were all intact, along with a great number of wooden residences—one could almost say it was move-in ready.

Looking at the whole, it could truly be called a blessed paradise—the location was far better than the Portuguese trading house.

Bai Qing's people were all extremely satisfied with this place.

Just then, the financial tsunami triggered by the devaluation of the delivery vouchers left Hirado's entire economy in depression.

Bailangzai used the silver seized from the Dutch to provide work as relief, hiring unemployed Hirado craftsmen to repair the trading house.

At the same time, he used the money to buy raw silk at low prices, putting a floor under the silk prices.

This solved a great problem for the Hirado domain, winning goodwill from the Matsuura house down to the common people.

It could truly be called killing many birds with one stone.

Bailangzai first repaired the walls of the trading house, mounting the cannons seized from the Dutch warships on the walls to ensure the trading house's safety. Then he expanded the warehouses, emptied the holds of the whale ship, and loaded the silver stored in the Portuguese trading house aboard.

This trip to Hirado brought in revenue from the sugar, porcelain, and raw silk trade, as well as income from the issuance of delivery vouchers.

Total revenue reached a staggering nine hundred thousand taels of silver!

And this was not even the final tally.

Because raw silk prices had fallen sharply, over three thousand dan of raw silk remained unsold and stockpiled in the trading house's warehouses, along with more than seven hundred dan acquired at rock-bottom prices. Now that they had the trading house warehouses, there was no fear of the goods spoiling, and this raw silk could be slowly released into the market over the course of the coming year.

The Great Ming Hirado Trading House could thereby earn yet another profit from the price differential on the bargain-purchased goods.

He Sai spent several days calculating the returns, grinning so wide he couldn't close his mouth, his fingers gone numb from working the abacus.

All these silver profits combined counted as only the first victory.

Because inside information had been leaked in advance to the Matsuura and Shimazu houses, as well as other daimyo and great merchants, many daimyo had withdrawn in time and made a killing. As a result, the daimyo's attitudes shifted dramatically, and the political climate for doing business improved greatly.

For instance, regarding the two Dutch warships Bailangzai had captured and the fifty thousand taels of silver, the Matsuura house made no claim, tacitly conceding them to Lin Qian.

They even gave away the Dutch trading house's land outright, and spoke many kind words on behalf of the Great Ming merchants before the shogun.

As for the Dutch, years of careful management in Hirado were destroyed in one stroke, never to recover.

Though rumor had it that the shogunate intended to forgive the Dutch and allocate new land in Nagasaki for them to establish a trading house.

But after such a blow, it would take the Dutch five to ten years at minimum to restore their economic and political position in Hirado.

That was the second victory.

And there was a third victory — and this third one was what Lin Qian considered the most important and most profitable of all.

That was the blow struck against the economic structure of the entire island of Kyushu!

Yahei

Pink Round

Pen