Chapter 723: The Great Qing Pacific Ocean Fleet

"That godforsaken place Karafuto — what is Japan fussing about?" Dorgon stroked his great beard, his brow furrowing.

The Ming will attack sooner or later, Russia is stirring again, and now Japan joins in.

"For sable pelts, of course!" said Prince Zheng, Jirgalang. "Sable is worth a fortune — they say it outshines gold!"

"It's certainly for the sable!" Dorgon nodded, huffing. "The profit in sable is huge. We can't let Japan snatch away what little wealth we have!"

Sable is called the king of furs, worth an enormous sum in both East and West — simply beyond comparison with bear hides, deerskins, wolf pelts, and the like. If the furs the Qing had put up in the recent Vladivostok trade had all been sable, the foreign muskets and cannon they got in exchange would have been ten times as many!

With profits that great, how could Dorgon be willing to give them up?

"We must send troops and drive the Japanese out!" Dorgon went on. "Where is the southern part of Karafuto? Is it close to Japan? Could we open a mutual market there too?"

Even after the fighting, trade must go on!

The Great Qing is poor. If we don't find ways to open up new sources of revenue, we'll go bankrupt sooner or later.

Bolo said, "Imperial Ama, we don't know much about that either. We have no seagoing ships in the Karafuto region."

"Then how did you get onto the island without ships?" Dorgon asked.

"The northern part of Karafuto is very close to the land under the jurisdiction of the Nurgan Meiren-i Janggin yamen. In winter the sea freezes over, and one can simply walk across." Bolo explained, "At other times one rows over in small boats; it isn't very difficult. But the island is quite large — from north to south it must be more than two thousand li!"

That large? Dorgon thought to himself. How many sable must there be?

"If our troops go up from the northern end of the island, can they reach the southern end?" Dorgon was a veteran of many campaigns and knew that a two-thousand-li overland supply line was very hard to maintain.

A "sable-collecting party" of a few dozen or a hundred men could of course do without logistics, sustaining itself by hunting along the way. But several hundred or a thousand men would not do — they couldn't catch that many animals! A thousand men need to eat; how many animals would that take? And all wild animals, lean and fit, with hardly any fat on them!

"A large force certainly won't work," Bolo said. "Two or three hundred is no great problem, but any more than that won't do — we'd have to have seagoing ships."

"Then first send two or three hundred men to probe the situation," Dorgon said. "Have Oboi send men, and also transfer 1,500 of the Spanish muskets that were shipped to Vladivostok to Oboi."

Excellent — the Satsuma domain's matchlocks will now be used to kill the samurai of the Matsumae domain.

Dorgon frowned and continued: "A navy must be built! Otherwise, with a coastline that long, won't anyone be free to come and go, poaching as they please?"

But building a navy has to proceed step by step. Right now the Amur River fleet hasn't even taken shape! In any case, it wouldn't be Karafuto's turn yet — what sea is that over there, anyway?

Bolo, surprisingly, did not know the answer and had to turn to Fan Wencheng and Ning Wanwo for help.

"Imperial Ama, this slave knows," Fan Wencheng said with a smile. "The sea around Karafuto is enormous — it stretches all the way to the New World. The Westerners call it the Pacific Ocean."

"The Pacific Ocean." Dorgon nodded. "Then it shall be the Pacific Ocean Fleet! The Pacific Ocean Fleet must certainly be built. In the future we can raise the Vladivostok Meiren-i Janggin yamen to the Pacific Ocean Fleet Amban Janggin yamen!"

Now that was impressive — not the Great Qing Northern Fleet, but the Great Qing Pacific Ocean Fleet. Even the name sounded formidable!

Yet for all its grandeur, this formidable fleet did not currently possess so much as a little sampan. The Joseon shipbuilding niru that Fan Wencheng had organized for Dodo had only just opened for business at Acheng (Harbin), the seat of the Amur Amban Janggin, and had not yet produced a single turtle ship!

Of course, seagoing ships could be bought. The Ming dynasty's export controls on ships were very lax — even ships fitted with cannon were freely sold abroad, with restrictions only on the models of naval guns. The limit was a shot weight of six pounds, meaning only 3-pounder and 6-pounder guns could be mounted.

Incidentally, the so-called "pounds" all referred to English pounds. This was because the Hongyi cannon the Portuguese sold to the Ming were actually English-made guns, and later the guns the Bocarro foundry sold to the Ming were likewise made to English specifications. So Zhu Cilang's artillery had grown accustomed to the English system, and he couldn't be bothered to change it — converting "pounds" to "catties" sounds easy, but doing it is no simple matter.

The Ming's new-style education had only just begun, and it had not yet developed a true capacity for artillery design. Thus all Ming-produced cannon were copies, with no independent development. If one changed 3 pounds to 3 catties and 6 pounds to 6 catties, then everything from casting to gunner's rules and gunner's scales would have to be changed — and without proper gunner's rules and scales, no one would know how much powder a cast gun should take or how far it could shoot (not a single figure, but a whole series of figures: different ammunition, different ranges, different charges), and the gun would be half a piece of junk!

So changing pounds to catties was a huge headache!

Moreover, it involved questions of casting and bore pressure — one careless slip and the barrel would burst, producing scrap!

Therefore, whenever he could copy, Emperor Zhu would never undertake independent development. In this day and age there were no patent fees to pay, so why not copy? Not only were the cannon copied, but the muskets were copied too, and the galleons even more so.

If Zhu Cilang was not particular about such things, Dorgon cared even less — never mind copying, buying ready-made was fine.

"As for ships, the shipyard at Acheng won't do. We'll still have to buy from the Southern Ming!" Dorgon mused. "But the court has no silver now — what's to be done?"

As he spoke, his gaze swept lightly over the faces of the eight deliberative princes. The court had no money, but the ten banners below all had banner funds, and the masters of each banner were even wealthier!

Seeing that no one spoke, Dorgon smiled. "We are not asking you to donate money. We want the court to issue fur bonds! The Southern court issued provincial bonds and raised over ten million taels. We here will issue fur bonds, to be used to build the Pacific Ocean Fleet and the new Amur army."

"Emperor, this debt will be borrowed in your name. What do you think?"

This Dorgon — only when it came to borrowing money did he remember Shunzhi!

Shunzhi was already twelve this year and certainly knew what borrowing meant. As emperor he had neither power nor influence, had endless books to study, and now was to be saddled with debt as well. Truly bitter!

Shunzhi gritted his teeth. "Your son obeys Imperial Ama in all things."

"Good!" Dorgon laughed. "Your Majesty need not borrow much — 500,000 taels of silver will be enough! Interest of 50,000 taels a year. How about that? Is it enough?"

"Enough, enough."

"Too much, far too much!"

"It's enough."

Who would dare say it wasn't enough? Couldn't they see Shunzhi was on the verge of tears? Only twelve years old and already saddled with 500,000 in debt — how pitiful. At least the job was good: Emperor of the Great Qing. Otherwise he wouldn't even be able to take a wife in the future!

Dorgon clapped his hands. "Then it's settled. Issue 500,000 taels in bonds, spread evenly among the ten banners — each banner subscribes 50,000 taels!"

Japan, Uraga Town, the Ming Embassy in Japan.

A four-wheeled carriage slowly entered the newly built Chinese-style official compound from the direction of the harbor.

Inside the carriage sat a fat man with a deathly pale face. His crimson official robe proclaimed his status — he was a Ming official of the fourth rank or above!

This man was Luo Dagong, Prefect of Songjiang and concurrently Envoy for Foreign Relations and Trade, sent on a mission to Japan. He had sailed directly from Shanghai to Uraga aboard a great ten-thousand-dan seagoing ship of the Zheng family, bringing with him a personal letter from the Ming Emperor Zhu Cilang — to explain to Tokugawa Iemitsu the misunderstanding concerning the "Japan-Qing alliance."

The misunderstanding had been caused by Luo Dagong's own carelessness, and he had not fled, of course. He had simply had to sit on a great seagoing ship and drift at sea for more than twenty days, and had at last arrived alive.

Zheng Zhibao, the Ming ambassador to Japan, had personally received him at the dock and brought him back to the embassy, and had also told him of a piece of news that had just arrived.

Karafuto Island, the territory of the Matsumae domain at the northernmost part of Japan, had recently come under attack from the Great Qing to the north! Although the samurai the Matsumae domain had sent to Karafuto had repelled the Qing troops, the supplies they carried had been set ablaze by the Qing soldiers, and they had been forced to abandon Karafuto for the time being and withdraw.

The domain lord, Matsumae Ujihiro, had therefore gone up to the castle the other day to seek aid from the ailing Tokugawa Iemitsu, requesting that the shogunate send troops to help the Matsumae domain recover its lost territory!

(End of Chapter)