After Daisuke Muto left Sunpu Castle, he headed for the castle town in the southwest. On a hot summer afternoon, there are not many pedestrians on the streets. After walking for a while, he turned to Merchant's Town.

In addition to a few pedestrians, there are stray dogs hiding under the canopies of shops and sticking out their tongues to cool off on the streets of the merchants' towns, which can accommodate five people in parallel.

After walking through a few streets, Daisuke Muto suddenly stopped in front of the merchant at the corner of a street, and he bent down to pick up the hairpin on the merchant's burden, but said in a low voice.

"Reply to Yagyu-sama, I've managed to get close to him, and things are going very well. Don't contact me again anytime soon. This copper hairpin is very good, how much does it cost? ”

The merchant, who wrapped his head in a piece of white coarse cloth, said loudly with a smile: "This guest is really a good eye, this copper hairpin was made by a famous craftsman in Edo, and it only costs 25 copper coins..."

In the castle tower, Tokugawa Tadacho was still confusing with the monk Munemoto, and he continued to ask Somoto for advice: "... I intend to establish a direct communication relationship with the Emperor of the Ming Kingdom, so I need to send someone to negotiate this business about iron cannons in person. I don't know what the master thinks, can Inaba Masanori take on this important responsibility? ”

The monk Zong Yuan immediately widened his eyes that were slightly closed, and eagerly stopped him: "Your Highness, the connection between you and the Ming Kingdom is related to Your Royal Highness's final retreat, and it is also your most urgent help.

This kind of thing can only be done by the people you trust the most. His Royal Highness trusts Masatoshi Inaba, although it can show your magnanimity, but he is still the son of Afu after all, please think twice. ”

Tokugawa Tadacho frowned tightly, stretched out after a while, and said to Zongyuan: "What the master said is right, I really did not consider it, so the master thinks that who should be sent to the Ming Kingdom is more appropriate?" ”

Zong Yuan closed his eyes and thought for a while before he spoke: "I thought that Lord Matsuno Shigegen would never betray His Highness, and he also knew a lot about iron cannon tactics. If you let him go to Mingguo on your behalf, there will definitely be a good result. ”

Hearing this name in the mouth of Somoto, Tokugawa Tadanaga was quite hesitant, Matsuno Shigegen was not a Tokugawa retainer who had served him since he was a child, but a retainer of Kobayakawa Hideaki, who had served as the head of the iron cannon.

Because he was angry at Xiuqiu's betrayal in the Battle of Sekigahara, he left the battlefield regardless of it, so he became famous. After Matsuno Shigegen left the Kobayakawa family, he took refuge in Tanaka Yoshimasa, but because the Tanaka family broke off the heir, he became a ronin again.

Tokugawa Tadanaga wanted to use his name to win the hearts of the world's heroes, and took the initiative to hire him as his retainer. But Tokugawa Tadanaga just wanted to use his fame and didn't trust him much, so he didn't give him any important positions.

Somoto now recommended this person to him, and Tokugawa Tadanaga was a little uneasy. But after thinking about it for a long time, he realized that he couldn't find a more suitable candidate for Biyuan, and after hesitating, he finally nodded in agreement with this proposal.

While Tokugawa Tadanaga was plotting with his cronies on how to deal with his brother, the three generations of shoguns in Edo Castle were watching as Matsudaira Nobutsuna, known as the wise Izu, delivered him some novelties.

"Is this the new gadget of the Ming Kingdom?" Tokugawa Iemitsu curiously took the chalk and wrote on the blackboard in front of him. Completely ignore the beautiful glass mirrors and self-striking bells placed on the side.

When he was alone with Matsudaira Nobutsuna, Tokugawa Iemitsu seemed quite relaxed, and even the problem of stuttering that he had always spoken was much better.

And as the most favored surname around Tokugawa Iemitsu, Matsudaira Nobutsuna was not surprised by Tokugawa Iemitsu's performance.

He said to Jiaguang with a gentle face: "Yes general, these are the new things of the Ming Kingdom brought back by the merchants. Compared with the mirrors and perfume and soap that the ladies loved to put down, the blackboard and chalk were the goods that would be of great benefit to the common people.

The biggest problem encountered by the shogunate in the education of the temple was the huge cost of paper and ink. If blackboards and chalk were used for teaching, the economic problems encountered in the implementation of the temple house would probably not be a difficult problem to solve. ”

"Good, good. Educating the common people not only eliminated some barbaric customs in the region, but also made them turn their hearts to the shogunate, which was a great policy to maintain the peace of the world. You set aside a special sum of money from the treasury to buy these chalks and blackboards, and—" Tokugawa Iemitsu suddenly froze.

Matsudaira Nobutsuna immediately said understandingly: "What does the general mean, do you want us to arrange for our own manual research, how to make chalk and blackboards?" ”

"Yes, exactly." Tokugawa Iemitsu nodded and smiled at him, confirming Matsudaira Nobutsuna's guess.

Bill struggled to straighten his feet upright, just enough for his eyes to peer through the stone window openings to see outside.

After months of living in the dungeon, he finally understood where he was. It is a prison for prisoners outside Edo Castle, located in the east of Edo Castle, near the Kanda River.

There are at least a few hundred prisoners in this prison, but only a few dozen prisoners are held with him.

The prisoners in the same dungeon as him were foreign merchants and missionaries who had violated the shogunate's prohibition orders.

When he was first locked up in the dungeon, he also tried to communicate with the diminutive Japanese, wanting to tell them that he was not the Taiwanese governor who had clashed with Hamada Yabei, and hoped to get out of here.

But his complaints against these jailers did nothing other than a few beatings and a reduction in food quotas. When he realized that the guards didn't care who he was, he fell into despair.

When he was about to become a hero of the company and the first person to establish the company's trade relations with the Ming Kingdom, he was betrayed by Peter Natz and other colleagues and became a prisoner in a foreign land.

This mental journey from heaven to hell, even Peter, who has experienced countless storms at sea, almost had an emotional breakdown.

If it weren't for the fact that he always wanted to take revenge on Peter and the others, it is estimated that he would really not be able to survive.

After a period of hysterical anger all day long when he first entered prison, Peter finally calmed down completely, and he no longer tried to ask for mercy from the jailers, hoping that the conscience of the shogunate officials would find out.

Instead, he began to familiarize himself with the prison environment and his fellow inmates, and he knew very well that if he wanted to leave the prison, he would either escape from prison or wait for the company to negotiate with the shogunate.

But it is not easy to escape from prison, his appearance and height are too different from these Japanese monkeys. Even if you are lucky enough to escape this prison, you will not be able to hide your whereabouts, let alone the terrain of Japan being an island country.

And if you want to expect the latter, Bill is even less sure. At the very least, the company must know that he is now in a Japanese prison before it can negotiate with the Japanese shogunate. And will Peternats tell the company about his whereabouts?

Will he directly put himself on the list of deaths? After all, the average life expectancy of immigrants from the mainland to Asia is only two monsoon trade periods. As long as it is reported that he has died, no one will care about the whereabouts of the body of a junior employee of the company.

Bill didn't dare to think deeply every time, lest he would lose his last ray of hope. After spending more than a month in the dungeon, he began to inquire about the origins of the other prisoners in his dungeon.

From the mouths of these prisoners, Bill was surprised to realize that these Japanese had treated him quite gently.

In this barbaric country, cruel medieval punishments such as cutting off the hands or heads of thieves, burning arsonists alive, and being punished for believing in Christianity.

Even some Japanese armed with knives can slash and kill passers-by for the trivial reason of not saluting when they pass by.

After listening to the information of these fellow inmates, Bill did not dare to act rashly, this is a barbaric country that regards human life as a mustard. In the process of escaping from prison, he will most likely be killed on the spot.

But the experience of a fellow inmate finally gave him courage. Among the cellmates was a Portuguese captain who had been imprisoned for six years. And his sin was simply because several missionaries hid boxes of Bibles on his ship and wanted to smuggle them into Japan.

Although the captain insisted, he was not aware of it. However, the shogunate confiscated his goods, burned his ships, and imprisoned him. To this day, there is no intention of letting him go.

After listening to the captain's story, Bill finally made up his mind to escape from the prison, even at the risk of being beheaded by the Japanese monkeys.

By the time Bill was taken to the prison, his belongings had been ransacked. But what made him happy was that the transparent stone that Emperor Ming gave him was still there. This stone can now be regarded as the most valuable item on his body.

It's not that these Japanese jailers don't love money, it's that they don't use this jade artifact as a treasure, but just as an ordinary talisman.

Although the Japanese have absorbed Chinese culture and accepted many values of Chinese society, they still stop at the knowledge of various gemstones and jadeite when it comes to jade.

This piece of mutton fat white jade from Hotan was not treated as a gemstone, so Bill kept it.

And after Bill thought about many ways and couldn't guarantee that he would be able to leave Japan, he finally thought of the stone on his body.

He remembered that the Chinese emperor had told him that this jade pendant would give him a helping hand. Although he used to be a little skeptical, now this sentence has become his last straw.