"To put it simply, when the Zhuyin ship merchants were trading abroad, in the process of trade, they learned about the local information through local merchants, officials and other channels, and then compiled it into a book and brought it back to China......

When answering Jing Luo's question, Shi Lei considered his words, and his tone was extremely cautious. After all, he didn't know much about them, but only a little bit about them.

"However, the most important thing is not the collection of information by the merchants of the seals, but the fact that they and the port department handed over the information compiled into a book to the "Wind Story", and the "Wind Story" will judge the contents of the book, and because the information is not collected by a single merchant, through the mutual verification of a large amount of information, they finally obtain the information they need from a large number of true and false information......"

As the intelligence director of Jiangbei, Shi Lei naturally knows what the core of intelligence work is, and although it is important to collect, how to obtain useful information from many messy intelligence is even more important. Compared to anything else, that's what interests him the most. What he wanted to know most was how the Japanese could get the information they needed from the chaos of information.

"In Japan, the "Wind Shogun" was collected, translated, organized, and handed over to the Nagasaki Shogunate for transmission to the Edo Shogunate, and the supreme commander of the Wind Shogunate was the Wind Shogunate, also known as the Nagasaki Gunate, which was held by the Shogunate's fourteen Kansai feudal clans in turn and accepted the leadership of the Nagasaki Shogunate, and the Nagasaki Shogunate was held by the four Kansai feudal clans in turn......

From the very beginning of obtaining the information of the "Wind Talk", Shi Lei deliberately sent someone to study and judge it, and it can be said that he is also full of interest in this institution.

Until now, I feel that these people must have some unique skills that they are good at, and these unique skills are directly related to their judgment of information.

It is precisely because of his attention to this matter that he deliberately sent someone to understand this. An intelligence agency trying to figure out this characteristic of Japan. How exactly does it work.

The most common officials in the "Feng Shuo Service" are general words, including large and small general words and ancient general words. The number of people varies from time to time. Tongzi exists as a hereditary profession, and there are more than 40 large Tongzi families, among which Yoshio,

Konishi, Ma Tian, and Motoki are all talented and are known as the four famous families. The shogunate's fufu was highly efficient in gathering overseas intelligence. In most cases, it usually takes only about 28 days for a wind story to be produced from the time it is made at the Port of the Merchant Navy and from the time it appears in the hands of the senior staff of the Edo shogunate. From the point of view of form, the title of "Wind Story" mostly takes the form of "port entry order + name of departure port + oral description of the ship", which is written in the order of the arrival time of the ship going to the port and the name of the ship's departure port. From the content point of view, it is generally divided into three categories: European style storytelling, East Indian style storytelling, and Chinese style storytelling. Focusing on Europe, the East Indies and China......"

Listening to Shi Lei's explanation, Zhu Mingzhong also became interested, and was even surprised by Shi Lei's words.

It's actually a hereditary system, and what are the four famous families?

If Zhu Mingzhong, who was only interested in this "wind service" at the beginning, is really interested now, and of course he wants to know more about them.

After all, in his subconscious, Japan in this era may not be China's enemy, but at least it is a potential opponent of China. Perhaps one day, there is a high probability that there will be a conflict between the two countries. Even war.

Then before all this breaks out, you must get to know each other as much as possible. And, of course, their intelligence agencies. At this time, the existence of such an intelligence agency in Japan was completely unexpected.

In the case of a closed country. Japan is still learning about the world and the changes in the world in its own way. It seems that the Japanese do have their own strengths.

"According to the information we have, at the request of the shogunate after the closure of the country, the new Dutch merchant chiefs and Dutch merchant ships were required to submit to the Nagasaki government letters about what they had seen and heard in the Netherlands and the latest information on the overseas situation when they were in Nagasaki Minato, covering the affairs of the Dutch mainland in Europe and the events of the Dutch merchant ships along the routes of Africa and the East Indies. Compared with the concentration of the Dutch, we are not concentrated in Japanese merchants, so at present, Nagasaki pursues the characteristics of Chinese merchants, whenever there is a Chinese merchant ship entering the port, they will send Tang Tongshi and Fengshu officials to inquire about the ship, and often pre-draw up the key points of inquiry, including the voyage, the composition of the crew and the seafarers; Recent domestic and surrounding situations in China and the terroir of seafarers' hometowns. In the end, the officials compiled the information and submitted it to the Nagasaki government for the purpose of learning about the outside world and gathering information......

Listening to Shi Lei's narration, Zhu Mingzhong's expression seemed very solemn, maybe he didn't know much about this "wind talk", but he couldn't help but think deeply, the depth of understanding of thinkers marks the depth of understanding of an era, and the understanding of politicians directly affects the direction of a country and nation.

Although Japan implemented the "closed country", even their closed country was a little more severe than that of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. However, the spread of the wind storytelling system and the establishment of the wind storytelling system played an important role in the modernization of Japan's understanding of the world and its development towards the world. However, the institutional, regular, and regular channel through which Japan takes the initiative to see the world and understand external information has prevented Japan from being arrogant and self-isolating due to national isolation, as China has done, and has been ignorant of the changes in the West, and has gradually moved towards the abyss of national peril.

Perhaps it was this system that prompted the shogunate to deepen its understanding of Western civilization and the world, and at the same time prompted it to engage in introspection. Before and after the Opium War, in the face of the eastward expansion of Asia by the European and American powers, Japan may have accumulated a considerable amount of Western intelligence and scientific and technological knowledge through wind storytelling. This has provided valuable information and experience for Japan to deal with the nuisances and provocations of the European and American powers on the premise of its own strength, and will undoubtedly play a positive role in Japan's modernization that began with the opening of the port.

In contrast, the 13 lines of Guangzhou of the "I Great Qing Dynasty" as a window for trade between China and foreign countries, a bridge of exchanges, originally had the dual nature of business and diplomacy, but in vain, they never took the initiative to understand the West, to understand the world's measures, for the Manchu Qing 13 lines but just a fat sheep in their eyes. The responsibility of Guangzhou 13 is only to do business. They also did not think to go over and learn about overseas, and of course, the Manchus did not ask for this.

Now it seems that after the middle of the 19th century, the very different historical fates of China and Japan may have been foreshadowed more than 200 years ago, and this is not the same as the completely different attitudes of the two sides towards overseas intelligence.

While pursuing a very strict policy of seclusion, it is through their own unique way that Japan maintains its attention to the quiet situation around it and maintains contact with the outside world. This is to enable Japan to understand the West, absorb Western studies to a certain extent, and have a clear understanding of the external situation, rather than just blindly closing the country to the outside world, and it is precisely this understanding that prevents them from blindly becoming arrogant.

"Four stones, this, we have to learn from the Japanese, well, we can also set up a similar organization, from Western merchants, missionaries to learn about the situation in the West at this time, as well as the intelligence along the route, these are all we need, after all, in the future, we will definitely open up a route to Europe and even the Americas, we not only need to understand the situation in the Netherlands, France, England and other parts of Europe, but also need to understand the intelligence along the route, such intelligence collection is not only to understand, but also to have actual needs……”

Learn from your opponents!

Although in this era, Zhu Mingzhong did not feel that Japan could be regarded as China's opponent, but through the "Wind Talk", he still saw the opponent who was known as "China's old enemy", something worth learning from, and saw some strengths worth learning from, although this country seems to be more conservative than the current Ming Dynasty. But they actually know the West better than the current Ming.

Even now, most of the understanding of Europe is based on some knowledge that Zhu Mingzhong has learned from history. Either or through the mouths of some pastors, I have a certain understanding. This understanding is completely passive. Thinking that the Japanese had built Western-style ships and sent their envoys across the Pacific Ocean to the Americas and visit there decades earlier, Zhu Mingzhong's expression became more and more serious.

Japan has never given up on understanding the outside world, even when they are in isolation. If Tokugawa Ieyasu had not closed himself to the rest of the country, what direction would Japan have gotten in?

"Yoshio, Konishi, Martin, Motoki ......"

muttered about the four famous families mentioned by Shi Lei just now. Zhu Mingzhong, who had countless questions in his heart, continued.

"Well, these four are the four famous families of Fengshuo, see if there is a way, learn from them, if possible, the four of them must also have the corresponding knowledge, you can consider it, directly bring in some people, since we can introduce knife-making craftsmen from Japan, such talents, we can also bring some over......"

Although the shogunate now forbade Japanese to go out to other countries, violators were beheaded, but because the country was closed for a long time, there are still a large number of Japanese living overseas, not to mention, there are some Japanese who choose to leave Japan for a living, there are craftsmen from Japan in Kohoku, they brought sword-making skills to Kohoku, of course, they left Japan for different reasons, most of them are for a livelihood.

Peace made life extremely difficult for many sword-making craftsmen, and in order to make a living, they accepted the hires and left Japan with their families in a merchant ship and came to Kohoku.

"Since there are swordsmiths who are willing to come, then there must be people in this "Wind Talk" who are willing to come, think of a way, I believe, there will definitely be people who are willing to come! ”

Later, Zhu Mingzhong talked to Shi Lei about some other issues, and after Shi Lei retired, he wrote the words "Wind Talking" on his notepad, and then deliberately drew a circle, and then wrote on the side.

"This matter must be handled as soon as possible."

It really needs to be handled as soon as possible, vaguely, Zhu Mingzhong even feels that maybe compared to Japan, his understanding of Europe at this time is not as good as theirs, which is a fatal deficiency for him who wants to open up European trade routes.

I don't even know much about it, so I blindly want to open up overseas markets. This in itself is a form of arrogance.

"I'm still a little arrogant!"

Thinking of the previous decision to issue privateer licenses and exclude the Netherlands from Japan, and thinking of his ignorance of the situation in the Netherlands and Europe at this time, Zhu Mingzhong suddenly realized that he was a little too arrogant, and there was no problem militarily in driving them out of Taiwan and out of Japan's trade circle, but it did not mean that the time was ripe, after all, the purpose of war was to win, and victory should be achieved with the greatest return at the lowest cost.

And now, they have too little information. If you want to fight them, you must first do a good job of intelligence and understand them as much as possible. Learn about the situation in Europe as a whole, and then. With the help of the change in the situation in Europe, give them the most fatal blow.

This is the way to conduct war. Instead of blindly punching the past. And then in the future, it will bring countless aftermaths. In other words, in the future, there will be constant conflicts, which in turn will affect the trade plans with Europe.

"This matter can be put on hold for the time being......"

After pondering for a moment, Zhu Mingzhong still decided to temporarily put the "privateer regulations" that he had originally intended to be formulated in a drawer, and now, the time was not ripe.

"It is necessary to increase investment in intelligence, and in addition to setting up a "wind talk service" to collect intelligence information on Europe and various fields, how can we improve the intelligence mechanism......

With his eyes closed, Zhu Mingzhong kept recalling the information he had read about the intelligence agencies, of course, there were some true and some false, some were true and some were made up, but one thing is for sure is that the construction of intelligence organizations in later generations was more scientific and efficient, and these can be learned and used for reference.

"First of all, it is necessary to have a clear division of labor, and perhaps the division of labor within the military department should be further carried out, and special organs should be set up for different opponents, potential imaginary enemies, and key areas, and special personnel should be in charge, instead of being a general grasp of the ...... in the past."

"Manchu Mengke, Nanke, Japan-DPRK Branch, Nanyang Branch, Western ...... Well, the European section should be used, and what institutions should be set up! ”

In the next few hours, Zhu Mingzhong kept writing on the paper about the organization of the intelligence agency, and when he wrote these contents, finally, when he looked at the few words written on the paper, he deliberately drew an important point.

"This problem needs to be solved as well!"