Chapter 164 - 110: Paving the Route with Lives!

To set out on a sea expedition, a good ship is naturally indispensable; however, during Japan’s Warring States period, there simply weren’t any good ships—Japan at this time didn’t even have a proper shipyard, and shipbuilding was all handled by relatively large water thief (pirate) groups. Ordinary people had no way to purchase a ship from them. Fortunately, Da was a retired water thief—formerly a somewhat famous and experienced one at that—so he still had a few old connections. After getting Harano’s approval, he personally took action and purchased a second-hand customs ship for seven hundred and fifty kan plus a thirty-kan commission fee. As for the so-called customs ship, it refers to a type of medium or small vessel that was widely active in Japan’s coastal waters from the Muromachi Era to the Edo Era. Because water thieves often used it to set up checkpoints, crack down on smuggling, and patrol territorial seas, it was called the "customs ship." Its bow was usually sharply angled, often adorned with tassel-like streamers, and mounted with a device named the "water seal"—similar in function to the beak on a Western galleon. This design helped reduce water resistance and made it more suitable for cutting through waves at high speed. The hull structure was similar to that of an Anzai ship. Below was the main hull for stowing cargo and ballast, built using a lapstrake construction method, which made the structure relatively fragile. On top was a single-story, rather low "main tower" for the crew to live and work in. As for propulsion, it used a paddle-and-sail hybrid system. Depending on the vessel’s size, it could have between 6 and 80 oars, and its sail was a bamboo-and-wood rigid sail that could rotate 360 degrees—no matter how you turned it, it could always catch the wind, and was very easy to operate. That’s the general idea of a customs ship—they could be used for short coastal transport of people or goods. In times of war, they could be quickly converted into warships by surrounding the hull with bamboo "shield plates" and arming the crew with bows, arrows, and matchlock guns. In combat, they could dart around the sea with great agility—quite suitable for skirmishing. If the ship was a bit smaller, it would be called a "Kobaya." On the whole, this was a very backward type of ship. Even if you didn’t judge by modern standards, but just used East Asia’s mid-16th-century average as the yardstick, it would still count as very backward—it didn’t even have waterproof compartments. As long as the hull had a big enough hole, it would happily transform into a submarine. In any case, Harano definitely wouldn’t dare take this kind of vessel out to sea, at least not beyond Ise Bay, where the waves were relatively gentle. He wouldn’t risk testing it against the wild storms of the Pacific Ocean. But Da was quite fond of this medium-sized customs ship with a 400-koku cargo rating; his confidence even seemed to have increased. In order to avoid a total loss, Harano was genuinely diligent too: he carefully selected ten young men from the workshops and among senior members of the Lang Faction, immediately retrained them as navy crew, assigned them under Da’s command, and had Da spend day and night drilling the ship near Wanjin so they could get fully accustomed to it after several patrols before setting out for real. At the same time, he did his best to recall the maps he’d seen in modern times, trying to "guess" a safe route for Da, in order to maximize their chances of success. According to his plan, charging straight for those islands where no humans had ever set foot was obviously out of the question—that would be suicide. Every step had to be cautious: advance one island at a time, searching until they found those coral islands at the edge of the Japanese Archipelago where seabirds had been crapping for thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of years. This could also be considered a kind of "leapfrogging" tactic. He believed this was actually feasible, since there were about thirteen thousand islands around the Japanese Archipelago. As long as they advanced by traveling from one island to the next, breaking a long voyage into seven or eight—or even a dozen—shorter legs, the danger level should drop several notches. After that, it would all depend on Captain Da’s experience, courage, and luck. If he made it back alive, he could help his wife and children cheat fate and live securely for the rest of their lives—a happy and peaceful future for the whole family. Hmm, based on Harano’s observations during this period, there should be quite an excellent love story between this old man and his young wife. For Da to be out here, bending his head to hard work at his age, it must be because he didn’t want his lovely wife and little children to be trapped in poverty on the island. Not the kind of thing one should pry into—out of respect for talent, Harano didn’t ask more. And after these days of working together, especially through the many discussions of how to reach those deserted islands, Da also felt Harano’s sincerity and generosity. Day by day, he chatted more with him and trained those ten newly promoted navy crew with real dedication, rarely holding anything back—being over fifty in this era was already elderly; he wouldn’t be able to do this much longer. Harano treated him with courtesy, so he didn’t mind training up a few new captains for him either—there was no competition here. His cooperation increased, and Harano took the opportunity to ask about the water thieves in Japan. After all, as a modern person, Harano understood the importance of maritime transport—even if he barely counted for anything now and only had a single ship, he had no capital to develop shipping or distant markets, but that didn’t stop him from gathering information on future rivals or potential partners. This wasn’t really a secret; Da didn’t mean to hide anything and treated it as a chance to chat and deepen their rapport. He gave Harano a simple briefing on Japan’s water thieves—a pretty unique group. In Japan, water thieves were actually something akin to "sea lords." For example, water thieves across Japan had the right to collect taxes. Especially in the Seto Inland Sea, between Japan’s China region and the Shikoku Region, there were a large number of active water thief groups who blatantly set up checkpoints, collecting "sail separation coins"—charging a toll based on the size of a ship’s sail; or "commodity-specific coins"—taking a cut based on the value of transported goods, or outright confiscating part of the cargo to sell for themselves; or "customs officer coins"—docking fees; if you didn’t pay, you couldn’t dock or trade; or "security fees"—for protection; pay up and they’d guarantee you weren’t attacked by other water thief factions in their waters—like an early form of shipping insurance; In addition, there were all sorts of random "customs money," "standing money," "ferry money"—lower-ranking water thieves might randomly stop passenger ships, board them, and demand "gift money" from travelers, beating or even killing them if they refused. At the same time, water thieves also ran their own business—trafficking goods of all kinds, even operating passenger routes; there were regular ships to different ports. For instance, according to the Old Pine Hall Record of Japan, Song Xijing, envoy from Korea, took a ship from Kyushu Island to Kaido Town, traveling entirely by water thief ships—not just with one group, but switching at each water thief’s sphere of influence, and only after a long ordeal could he reach his destination. In short, Japan’s water thieves were essentially no different from the local powerful families on land—they just claimed some turf, managed it well, set up checkpoints to collect money, and would—due to various reasons—follow a Daimyo to war, sending their navy to join battle. Yes, in this era, Japan’s navy was controlled by the water thieves; every group had a unit or several called the "Patrol Group." When war broke out, it was mainly these guys who fought, roughly analogous to the Lang Faction of the Warrior Clan—they were the traditional navy, while other water thieves, like the commoners, spent most of their time fishing in one spot, only mobilized to help row in emergencies, little different from Ashigaru fodder troops. Once Harano figured out "what is a water thief," he knew in his heart that he’d eventually have to deal with them. But for now, it was irrelevant—he just asked if there were big water thief groups in his area. There weren’t. This sea area, caught between the Chita Peninsula and Ise Peninsula, didn’t have much maritime trade. The Shimazu-to-Atsuta trade route ran overland, out of reach for the water thieves. Besides, both Oda Nobuhide and his father had been on their guard for two generations—nobody dared touch that trade line, and they certainly wouldn’t allow water thieves to make trouble here. As a result, these waters had been peaceful for decades, with no large water thief groups emerging. There were barely even fugitives here. The islanders in Ise Bay were all destitute folks fleeing forced labor taxes, and robbing them would get a thief nothing—might even lose money. As for raiding on shore...samurai couldn’t do much about water thieves on the water, but water thieves couldn’t beat samurai on land, so eventually, nobody bothered coming at all. Harano felt a faint sense of disappointment—like he’d lost a potential source of recruits or sales. But there was nothing he could do; he wasn’t in charge of such things. He could only focus on his bird droppings excavation, continuing to make things easier for Da and carefully planning with him. More than a month later, Da judged that the timing was right and the crew were trained well enough—after all, requiring little of the crew, these rigid-sail ships were simple to handle. On a breezy, sunny morning, he took ample supplies and the various mineral atlases hand-drawn by Harano, weighed anchor, and left Wanjin, sailing south slowly along the west coast of the Chita Peninsula. The plan was: first reach the tip of the Chita Peninsula, then turn southwest and look for an inhabitable island. After resupplying there, they’d enter the open sea in search of another island, using each one as a base to find the next, until they found the mineral Harano’s atlas showed on some island and dug up several hundred koku to bring back. A few hundred koku would be plenty. Oda Nobunaga’s first batch had only asked for three thousand jin of gunpowder—converted to koku, that was little more than a dozen. If Da’s crew could bring back several hundred koku of refined guano soil, they’d have more than enough, with plenty left for themselves. Yes, Harano also needed a lot of saltpeter—his future troops would need a huge supply of matchlock guns, hopefully even more than Oda Nobunaga. Running short of saltpeter would choke his plans. That’s why they absolutely needed to find those deserted islands covered in bird droppings. If it were just about three thousand jin of gunpowder, he could just have everyone in his territory poop a bit more—no need for all this fuss. He stood at the makeshift pier, watching Da’s "No.1 Ship" grow smaller and smaller, finally vanishing into the sea fog, earnestly wishing them success. Otherwise, he’d have to send out "No.2 Ship," "No.3 Ship," sacrificing more lives until that saltpeter route was established. Two months, he thought; if all went well, they’d be back in about a month and a half. But let’s say two months—if there was still no sign of them by then, the second group would set out. Even if it took paving the way with corpses, the saltpeter route had to be opened!