Xinshun 1730

Chapter 525 Don't dare to kill
The British often do such things, and they have a lot of criminal records, so it is reasonable to be suspected by the governor of Batavia.

Valkner had worked in Ceylon and India before being transferred from Amsterdam, and had frequent dealings with the London East India Company.

Especially Fazaklei, the chief representative of the London East India Company in Guangdong, who has been thinking about squeezing the Netherlands' trade with China.

As far as Britain is concerned, it may not be necessary to rule the entire Southeast Asia, but it is enough to disturb the Netherlands and break the Dutch monopoly.

Valknier knew very well the East India Company's trick to making money, that is monopoly and rare things are more expensive.

Cloves and nutmeg, for example, are abundant in Ambon and Banda.The Dutch couldn't eat all of it by themselves, so the British quietly went to buy it in order to compete with the Netherlands and lower prices.

The Dutch approach is also simple and rude.

Kill all the people on Banda Island, set fire to burn and chop all the cloves.Any tribes, chiefs, or villages that dared to trade privately with Britain were all slaughtered, leaving no one behind.

The whole boat full of cloves and cardamom was directly thrown into the sea.In this way, the output decreased, and the price naturally went up. The British wanted to continue to buy, but unfortunately, all the people on Banda Island died, so there was no need to buy, so the Dutch East India Company naturally made a profit.

It is also a shipment of goods, selling 100 silver coins per catty, and selling 10 silver coins per catty, the profit must be different.There are only so many ships and the market is so big, of course the less output the better.

To put it bluntly, spices are just a kind of tree. As long as the climate is suitable, how can there be no production?
Therefore, the British do not need to occupy Southeast Asia. On the one hand, Britain and the Netherlands are still an alliance, and on the other hand, the cost of occupation is not low.

It only needs to make the Dutch internally chaotic and unable to control Southeast Asia, and the British East India Company can bypass the Dutch for private transactions, which is enough.

Valkneer had already guessed something in his heart, but the most urgent task now is not to settle accounts with the British, who would not admit it without evidence.

It is useless to have evidence. The Netherlands has fought three wars with the United Kingdom in order to abolish the "Navigation Regulations" of the United Kingdom.

The key disgusting thing is that the British can disgust the Netherlands so much, but the Netherlands can't use similar methods to disgust the UK.

Because everything that can be used has been used long ago. Smugglers have been smuggling to the British colonies in North America. If they are caught by the British, they will be hanged for the crime of piracy. But this is the limit. Now there is no chance to incite the independence of the British North American colonies. , at least for now, there is no local opposition at all.

The most urgent task is to put out the flames of these uprisings first.

Don't burn it. Once it burns, those sultanates who temporarily surrendered to the Netherlands will definitely take the opportunity to rebel.

At this time, all the Dutch officials in Batavia were also present, and the Batavia City Council immediately suggested to Valknier that since it was the Chinese who made trouble, they must be careful about the cooperation of those Chinese with residence permits in the city. .

Now it is time to use thunderous means to tie all the Chinese detained in prisons without residence permits to stones and throw them into the sea to prevent riots.

At the same time, take care of all the Chinese in the city, or use the dissatisfaction caused by the Chinese taxpayers to incite the Javanese in the city and massacre all the Chinese in the city.

The Chinese Jiapitan and Lei Zhenlan, although they have the rank of captain and lieutenant, are not qualified to participate in such a meeting and can only wait outside.

The Dutch at the real core can say whatever they think.

However, Valknir immediately vetoed the terrible idea.Although when he first came, he thought more bloody than this, thinking that he would kill most of them and send the rest to Ceylon and Cape Town as debt slaves to sell for money.

But now, with Dashun defeating Japan and the battleship sailors being led by Liu Yu to beat Dutch envoy Phillips in Tianjin, what Valkenier thought was the simplest and most practical method before has now become a "terrible, unsightly Kindness” idea.

"Gentlemen, your idea is terrible. Looking at their proclamation papers, it is clear that this is not a Chinese rebellion, but an uprising of the Ushanks and the pantsless men."

"Kapitan Lian Fuguang has already reported the dangerous elements among the Chinese. The current uprising is likely to be controlled by the British."

"Obviously, the British hope to use China's hand to attack our influence in Southeast Asia. You know what the British did. They united the Netherlands to fight Spain, united France to fight the Netherlands, and even Austria to fight France... They are on the island, In many cases, you don’t need to do it yourself, you just need to instigate a war.”

"If we now massacre the Chinese indiscriminately, it will inevitably lead to China's revenge. Gentlemen, at least two 74-gun battleships and 15 fifth-tier cruisers, and an army that can easily defeat the Mongolian cavalry... I hope you When giving advice, think carefully about the consequences."

"Especially when their 'Secretary of the Navy' is a fanatical patriot. The British can go to war with Spain for 'Jenkins' ears', so why don't China go to war because of our indiscriminate massacre of Chinese?"

Valknell doesn't think Dashun has any interest in Southeast Asia, but now Dashun is likely to go to war because of the massacre, especially in the context of the British war because of Jenkins' ears, public opinion will ferment into a different flavor - barbarians We all know that offenders who commit strong men will be punished even if they are far away, and it is just a lost ear. The Dutch slaughtered tens of thousands, so I don’t care about it?

Valknir worried that this matter would lead to Dashun's armed intervention and gunboat diplomacy.

In the absence of absolute certainty of victory, the Dutch like to cite Grotius’s law of the sea treaty and oppose any form of gunboat diplomacy; while in Penghu, Zhoushan and Macau more than 100 years ago, the Dutch were very sure, Naturally supports any form of gunboat diplomacy.

Hearing the governor's opposition to the slaughter, someone said: "My lord, even if the Chinese have a few warships, their training may not be qualified. In fact, it may not be impossible for a fifth-tier ship to defeat a 74-gun battleship based on experience."

The person who spoke told a joke that wasn't funny.A few people with experience in naval service thought nonsense, what kind of captain can lead a fifth-tier ship and beat a third-class ship?Unless we gather all the ships in Southeast Asia now, use the housekeeping skills of the navy of the seven provinces, and raid Weihai Port.

The man full of confidence continued: "If there is no slaughter at this time, if they attack Batavia together, it will be a huge loss for the company!"

It is said that it is a company, but it is actually not just a company.

If Batavia is compromised, it will not only be a huge loss for the company, but a huge loss for every employee here.

The dispute over the canal and sea transportation on the Dashun side is the food and clothing of millions of waterworkers; the establishment of the China Trade Commission in the Netherlands still has to go around in Batavia, which is the same as the "food and clothing of a million waterworkers". Department" principle.

All the people who come to Batavia are to get rich, not to get rich, who wants to come to such a ghostly place?Without Batavia, the income of these people would drop sharply, and no one would come to Batavia with only the little income from the company.

The governor can allow a "legal extra income" of [-] silver coins per year. In addition to this legal extra income, the governor will also auction some garbage.

For example, if you find a broken bottle at random and say that it will be auctioned and you want to get the right to pay taxes, you will think it is a treasure. A broken bottle with five coppers can fetch a high price of several thousand silver coins, and this is reasonable. Those who take the money do not belong to corruption and bribery, nor are they included in the "legal extra income"; while the right to pay taxes is to go to the public account, and it has nothing to do with the governor's pocket.

200 silver coins including tax go to the public account, 1000 silver coins take a broken bottle of the governor, hello, hello, hello everyone, the accountant at the company headquarters can't find out the problem.

The governor is like this, and it is conceivable that each has a customary income.

Furthermore, there are quite a few wealthy Chinese in Batavia, and some people have long been envious of them.If there is a wave of massacres, like Lian Fuguang's Jiapidan, whose manor is even more luxurious than the Governor's Mansion, it would be nice to get hundreds of thousands of silver coins for any crime. ?

There are 8000 Chinese with residence permits in the city.Each person can afford to pay a poll tax of 2 silver coins per year, and the total assets of each person, excluding those wealthy businessmen such as Kapitan Lei Zhenlan, have an average of one or two hundred silver coins.

Seventy-eight thousand people, with an average of 8000 silver coins per person, and nearly 200 million after killing them all.If you share one point, you can leave this ghost place and go back to Holland.As for what will happen to Batavia in the future, what will happen to the East India Company in the future, and what does it have to do with me?

In Liu Zongyuan's "On Feudalism", he mentioned a similar problem.Some people say that hereditary feudalism can make feudal lords love the people, at least not squeeze the people too hard to the point where they can't survive, and know how to keep flowing; Nothing to do with oneself.

But Valknir, as governor, is fully responsible for this matter.Those members of the board of directors have judicial power, and if they dared to touch the interests of 17 gentlemen, he would not be far from death.

Moreover, it is the governor who is in charge, and the people under him can only offer opinions and suggestions, and he is the one who makes the final decision, and he is also the one who will be responsible for settling accounts in the future.

Considering the threat of Dashun’s gunboat diplomacy and the possibility of the UK instigating China and the Netherlands to go to war behind the scenes, Valkenier strongly opposed this idea.

"Gentlemen, as the governor appointed by the board of directors, I am responsible to 17 gentlemen and to all shareholders."

"You should know that the company's finances are already very difficult."

"Since our silly compatriots discovered a smaller world with a microscope, the theory of four liquids in the human body has been abandoned by many people. And the 'dry, hot' spices produced in the tropics are no longer medicinal. The value of repelling cold and dampness is rarely consumed by people. Moreover, we can't be like the Russians advocating rhubarb, because rhubarb can really laxative and cause diarrhea; once the 'dry and hot' spices are not used by the human body Liquid theory, it is difficult to see the effect."

"Spices are no longer used as medicine, prices and sales are falling, and companies are losing money in many parts of Southeast Asia. Japanese trade is banned by the Chinese again, and if we piss off the Chinese, they will immediately embargo us."

"Even if China does not send troops, as long as there is an embargo, the company's cash flow will be in serious trouble. How will the board of directors explain to the shareholders when the year-end dividends are distributed? Moreover, you also know that there are many idiots in China who can't eat grapes and say grapes are sour. They are also opposing monopoly trade, and think that all Dutch people should be allowed to trade, not just company employees. There are many such remarks, and they can also confuse those idiots."

"If you can't pay dividends at the end of the year, have you thought about the consequences?"

(End of this chapter)