On March 9, the 23rd year of Astronomy (1554), Konishi Risasa, who had been anxiously waiting for more than half a month, finally got the order from Akagi Takao to go to Tsurucheng to meet Date Masahiro, took a long breath, folded his hands and said: "Nan no Amitabha, Nan no Amitabha, finally waited for the opportunity to meet Ji Bi Tai Shou...... " Date Masahiro's official position is still Yi Zhengzhong, and Ji Bi Tai Shou is people's honorific title for him, just as the enemy is keen to call him Date Child.

The devout Catholic Konishi Lonzo is still a not very strong Buddhist, and has not yet met the priest Sabiyaru who baptized him.

Konishi Risa, who was born in Sakai Port, used to be engaged in the transshipment of medicinal materials. At that time, ordinary people even had a problem with eating, and when they were sick or injured, they would often only go to the village elders to ask for a pair of local medicinal materials to eat and wait for death, rather than going bankrupt and seeing their families starving to death, they went to the hands of the medicinal herb merchants to buy a pair of medicines, and the customers of the medicinal materials were wealthy and powerful samurai, and the only way for Sakai Port merchants to win wealth was to get through the local Warring States daimyo and gain the trust of the elders of the important ministers' families.

Generations of people in Little Westinghouse have done this, and it is also their survival instinct to invest in the local powerful wealthy people.

Konishi Risa, who came to Himeji from Sakai Port, first befriended the local lord and one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Akamatsu Harumasa, and obtained a pass to Harima Province from Akamatsu Harumasa. In order to obtain a pass to Bizen Country, Konishi Risaku has frequent contact with the Ukita Naoke family, and has just contacted Uragami Munekei. I have been traveling on the merchant sea for four or five years. Although it can't be compared with the bigwigs of Sakai Port. But in Himeji Port, it can be regarded as a small fortune.

However, a sudden battle interrupted Konishi Rizo's trade route. He also shattered the network of connections he relied on, and Akamatsu Harumasa had to quench his thirst in order to deal with the fierce enemy and suppress the rebellion in the territory, and began to exploit the rich peasants and merchants in the territory endlessly.

Konishi Rizo obviously has no possibility of missing, the wind is getting tighter, and leaving is his only way. Returning to Sakai Port is to show everyone that he is incompetent, that he has lost the qualification to compete for the next generation of big bosses of Konishiya, and that he has to act according to the faces of others.

Akamatsu Harumasa's drink quenches his thirst. The four heavenly kings under his command were separated from virtue, and the lord of Himeji Port, Koji Shoji, had long been self-reliant, and after Konishi Risaku sold several properties, Koji Castle finally kept most of the property, but it was also broken.

When he stayed in the Konishiya branch in Himeji Port and had to look around for news in order to make a comeback, the news of the shogun's re-establishment of Nagato was very loud, and the news that the Date family was interested in building a new castle in the Okayama area fell into his ears.

Once Okayama is established, as long as it can establish itself here. will be able to get a piece of the pie that is enough for the family to get rich. There are also thousands of copper coins in his hand, which are the money he sold some of his property and was originally going to be handed over to Akamatsu Harumasa and Urakami Sokei.

Konishi Rizo hired a sea boat directly. Walking straight from Himeji to Kurashiki Port, as soon as he got off the port, he was given a huge surprise and a great opportunity to return home. Konishi Rizzo took out a small cardboard box from his arms, opened the carton, and there were snow-white salt grains inside, and he tapped a little bit of it with his finger and held it to his lips, and a smile appeared on his face.

According to the calculation of the amount of salt of modern people, the per capita salt consumption per day is only 6 grams, but at that time, due to the general inability of poor people to eat, pickled food will become the main dish of people, and the intake of salt is strictly standardized. "Salt Tax in the Middle and Late Ming Dynasty" records that people over 15 years old have 12 catties of salt in large mouths. However, according to Song Yingxing's record in the "Salt Politics" in "Ye Yi": If a husband eats salt, a person will have 50 catties of salt at the end of his life. It can be seen that the amount of salt consumed by the people at that time was not comparable to that of modern people.

According to the history of Arino Shogun, the population was about 7 million at the time of the Onin Rebellion of the Wakuni Kingdom, and by the time of the Battle of Sekigahara in the early 17th century, it had reached 12 million, ranging from 7 million to 12 million. Since the Wa country was an island country and there were many salt farms, generally speaking, the business scope of transporting salt from China was in the western country, Shikoku, and Kinai, and since the population of the Wa country at that time was large enough to gather in the country, according to the conversion, there should be 3 million to 4 million people in the business area.

Taking 3.5 million people as an example, the per capita intake of 2o catties of salt, the total demand within the scope of business should be about 70 million catties. The price of salt in the Wa Kingdom is about 5o wen per catty of salt, and 70 million catties is 3.5 million guan, even if you can only wait for one-tenth of it, there are 350,000 guan, which is still an annual income, even if the profit is only one-fifth, there are nearly 70,000 guan.

If you buy snow salt in Daming Kingdom, the price of 5o Wen will increase more than ten times, and it will be profitable.

Konishi Rizza saw the snow-white salt, the same price, coarse salt on one side and snow salt on the other, even a fool would buy the latter, as long as he got the monopoly of salt, he would immediately become the largest wealthy merchant in Sakai Port, there was no one.

As soon as Konishi Risaku arrived in Tsurujo, he inquired about the monopoly of salt, and the news he heard made him breathe a long sigh of relief, obviously no one had seen the stakes involved, and even Tsuda Soda, the big boss of Tennoji Temple, who had always regarded himself as the No. 1 merchant of the Date family, did not realize how fatty this piece of fat was.

As soon as Konishi Risaku thought of Tennoji Ya Tsuda Soda, he couldn't help it anymore, and if he didn't realize it now, it didn't mean that he wouldn't realize it in the future, and when Tsuda Soda realized it, it would be too late. He immediately resold all the properties that could be sold monopolized, brought all the family property back to Hecheng, and went around the back door, and finally opened up the relationship with the porter of Akagi Takao's house, and the relationship between the gatehouse and Akagi Kaohsiung was connected, which led to today's meeting.

Zhengheng only felt a little familiar when he first heard about Konishi Rizo, but he didn't care too much, but now that he has a high status, his vision is naturally rising, and he is not as enthusiastic about businessmen as before, and he didn't pay much attention to it when he heard Akagi Takao talk about it. Later, after Akagi Takao mentioned the matter of salt again, Zhengheng suddenly realized that he did not see the amount of profit that could be obtained from salt, and all the salt produced by the Kurashiki salt factory belonged to the Date family, that is to say, it belonged to him, and now the salt has just been spread in Kibi Shiki, and the profit is not obvious.

This businessman, whose name is Xiao Xi Lizo, can see the huge profits from it, which is enough to see that he has a vicious vision. Zheng Heng thought about it, and then things were complicated, so he forgot about it, but the United States has always exploded, so he had the idea of banning all civilian armed forces, ordering knife hunting, and expanding the standing army.

The sword hunting order and the separation of soldiers and peasants forced the political balance to consider the financial pressures, and it was only then that he remembered the considerable profits brought by the salt industry. According to his calculations, after removing the cost, and then removing Konishi Lizuo's profits and freight, at least more than 100,000 yuan can be obtained.

Huge profits! This led to the later matter, the implementation of the sword hunting order discussed by Zhengheng and the retainers.

Originally, Konishi Rizo was supposed to be summoned after the meeting, but Zhengheng did not summon him immediately, but chose to dry his meaning, after all, this is a very big business. On March 9, Konishi Rizza received an order to meet with Masahiro.

Konishi Risaku walked into the living room, his brows furrowed slightly, the living room was not as luxurious as the legend, he was not a country Adou, he often went in and out of the residence of various daimyos, this Sengoku daimyo who sat on more than 500,000 stone in Shikoku, even the lord of Himeji Koji was not as good as the political position.

"The lord of the country has arrived!" The crisp voice sounded, Zhengheng walked in from the main entrance, glanced at Konishi Rizo, who was bowing to the ground, and sat down on the top seat with a smile, and the attendants served tea. Masahiro seemed to have no intention of talking about the salt industry, and asked, "Konishi Risa, you are from Sakai Port, and you are from Himeji, so I don't know what my reputation is in the two places?" ”

The wealthy merchants of the Warring States period looked for the right Warring States daimyo investment became the foundation of their start, almost every wealthy merchant in Sakai Port had one to several behind them, and the wealthy merchant association of Sakai Port once proudly said that the people of the world are just puppets in their hands, they can be said to be the most intelligent group of people, and they are also the first batch of people to broaden their horizons and go abroad in the real sense.

Konishi Rizo looked up at the man who asked him, he was not as domineering as the legend, his eyes revealed a sense of wisdom, and he was dressed plainly, more plain than all the superiors he had ever seen, and it was the same as the living room, which was probably the first impression that Zhengheng left on Konishi Rizo.

Of course, Konishi Rizza will not look down on the young man in front of him who has been sitting in the land of Shikoku for several years since the beginning of the micro-beginning, he didn't expect Date Mashiro to ask such a question, but he didn't pause, and replied: "The villain doesn't know what the wealthy merchants of Sakai Port say about Kibi Taishou, they obviously don't care too much about a newly rising daimyo, they only care about whether they make or lose today." Sakai Port and the world outside Sakai Port seem to be two worlds, and for nearly 100 years, Sakai Port has not succumbed to anyone's force in the war-torn world, and has been engaged in free trade with ships from the Ming Dynasty and the Nanban region from the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the Ashikaga period, which has created Sakai Port's contempt for samurai forces. ”

Obviously, Konishi Rizo doesn't have a good impression of Sakai Port, and even has a great bad feeling. Masahiro nodded noncommittally and motioned for Konishi Rizzo to continue, Konishi Rizzo continued: "The merchants of Sakai Port have accumulated a huge amount of wealth, but they don't know how to use this wealth that is enough to turn the world around, wealth is to save people, to save the world, not to create chaos. Some people believe that troubled times are the only land for merchants, and they invest in both sides of the war, creating artificial chaos and reaping the benefits of it. ”

After a pause, Konishi Rizzo said: "Harima's country is divided into two winds, the upper forces are full of panic, as if the end of the world is coming, but the lower class people are ignorant of the world, indifferent to the changes in the upper class, they have become insensitive under the high-pressure rule. There are also rumors among the merchants in Himeji Port, and most of the merchants and villains agree that Kibi Shikoku will have a new spring under your rule. Because the villain firmly believes that a lord who removes the level to implement the city of Leshi is really a blessing for merchants. (To be continued......)

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