Chapter 550
After the Black Ship incident, the Edo shogunate and the United States concluded the Kanagawa Treaty, and were forced to open the two treaty ports of Shimoda and Hakodate. In the fifth year of Emperor Komei Ansei, the two sides signed the "Japan-US Treaty" on the "Powhatan". The Treaty of Friendship and Commerce added Kanagawa, Nagasaki, Niigata, Hyogo and other ports, and at the same time, foreigners were allowed to stay and do business in Edo and Osaka.
Although Kyoto is not among them, it is very close to Osaka, only one day's journey away. Now, it has been nearly ten years since the "Japan-US Treaty of Friendship and Commerce". Now it only mentions honoring the king, sets the goal of destroying the curtain, no longer mentions the matter of fighting barbarians, and begins to actively cooperate with the West, so the scope of activities of Westerners is also wider.
As the most important river in the Kansai region, the Yodo River originates from Lake Biwa and connects the Kyoto Basin and the Osaka Plain. It was an important transportation channel in Kyoto during the Edo period. Most of the foreign merchants in Osaka also came to Kyoto along this river. Heng asked passers-by in the surrounding shops to inquire about the nearest pier, and arrived there before sunset.
The bustle here is no less than that of Fangshi. Townhouses are everywhere along the banks of the river. The tiles are neatly arranged on the roof. Signboards and warm curtains move with the wind. , this is a very traditional Japanese style building, with a wooden structure, the entrance is narrow but extremely long, usually the part facing the street is used as a shop, and the rooms behind it are used for living, the advantage is that the shops are more dense, One next to the other.
There are boatmen unloading goods on the pier, and there are also ladies and ladies preparing to take a boat trip on the river. There is also a shrine not far away, and many believers gather outside the door to pray for blessings or ask for guards.
It didn't take long for Zhang Heng to find a Western businessman who was interested in hiring an interpreter. The latter was Gabriel, a Frenchman. He came to Kyoto with the business group and talked with the local businessman about the sale of a batch of cotton yarn. However, he himself is obviously not satisfied with the cotton yarn business, and seems to have other plans, but it is not convenient for him to tell other members of the business group what he wants to do, so he cannot use the translation of the business group.
When he was wondering where to find a Japanese who could understand French, Zhang Heng came to his door. Gabriel was overjoyed, and with a big wave of his hand, he directly offered a small salary per day. The so-called small sentence was common in the Edo period A kind of gold coin, a small pen is about one tael of gold, and one tael of gold is about sixty silver coins or four pennies. At this time, the daily income of a craftsman in Kyoto is about seventy cash. Heng's daily income can almost catch up with that of a craftsman for two months.
It’s not that Zhang Heng is ignorant of the translation market. Before he came here, he had consulted with the people at the dock. Now there is a huge shortage of professional translators in Japan, but the number of people who can communicate with foreign businessmen is no longer the same as before the black ship incident. So few, in fact, even when the shogunate closed the country, Satsuma, Changzhou and other feudal clans had secretly done some business with outside countries.
The Japanese iron cannon (actually a matchlock gun) originated in the Satsuma domain. At that time, a Portuguese merchant ship was blown to Tanegashima south of Satsuma by a typhoon, so the Japanese iron cannon was also called the Tanegashima iron cannon.
Now that the shogunate has been open to trade for more than ten years, there are many Japanese who travel and study in Europe, and translation is not so valuable anymore.
The price Gabriel offered has already exceeded double the market price. This is still in a situation where the two parties are not very familiar with each other. Moreover, Zhang Heng also asked for an advance payment of a small sentence. However, even so, Gabriel did not hesitate. It didn't take long to agree, so Zhang Heng also knew that what the French businessman was going to do in Kyoto might not be easy.
However, with Zhang Heng's lv3 knife skills and the experience accumulated in the previous dungeons, he is not too worried about any danger, not to mention that now that the sun has set, he may not be able to find another employer, so in the end the two sides still An employment agreement was reached.
After paying Zhang Heng a small sentence, Gabriel asked the latter to meet him at the tea house next to the pier tomorrow morning, and it was completely dark when Zhang Heng left the pier.
Because Zhang Heng had an extra meal before the dungeon, he wasn't very hungry, but now he had to find a place to stay quickly.
In the Edo period, in order to control the daimyo lords in various places, the shogunate specially set up a system of attendance and handover, requiring the lords of each vassal to go to Edo every once in a while to perform government affairs for the shogun. Of course, this is a pretext, mainly for the convenience of the shogunate. The daimyos walked and played, reducing their time in the territory, and at the same time preventing them from messing around when they were in the territory, otherwise they might be directly taken down the next time they go on duty.
However, Tokugawa is quite kind, and a lot of lodgings along the way have been repaired. Later, they developed a hatagoya, which is a bit similar to the hotels of later generations. The daily life of tourists, but at the end of the Edo period, more people traveled, and the hatagoya began to become a mixed bag. Not only did thugs provide gambling equipment and help tricks, but also the hagagoya simply let the maids sell sex directly.
Afterwards, businessmen in Osaka first organized Naniwasho, which is roughly equivalent to a hotel chain, and unified service standards, so travelers can feel at ease staying in a hotel with a guild sign outside the door.
However, whether it is the cage house or the wave talk, it is just an excessive choice for Zhang Heng. Considering that the time for this dungeon is not short, Zhang Heng still prefers to rent his own house. Seeing that there is still some time, he also Instead of going to the hotel in a hurry, he found a dentist nearby and asked the latter to show him the house.
Yaren is a boy of 14 or 15 years old, he looks very smart, and he is also a townsman in this area. Give him a hundred coins after the work is done, and he immediately regained his energy, and he took Zhang Heng to walk around the streets immediately, regardless of whether he hadn't eaten dinner.
However, the prodigal customer next to him seemed not very satisfied with the several houses in prime locations that he strongly recommended. I'll watch it tomorrow, but the last place the two came to caught Zhang Heng's eyes.
Entering the door is a small courtyard. There is a cherry blossom tree in the center of the courtyard, which is in full bloom. The well under the tree is clear and sweet. The whole courtyard has a square layout, simple and beautiful, and the shoji door is also very spacious. There is also a tea room. At the same time, the furniture is also very complete. In the words of later generations, it belongs to the standard of carrying bags.