Xinshun 1730

Chapter 537 Same Story, Different Interpretation

Since the imperial court only pretended to care about the living conditions of the Nanyang Chinese, after the Dutch informed Shi Shiyong of his plan to move to Ceylon, Shi Shiyong suppressed his inner excitement and continued to pretend to care about the Nanyang Chinese. Living conditions.

When we meet again, this time my heart is very stable, and my attitude is even more comfortable.

Valkner explained what these Chinese were going to do in Ceylon.

Considering that when the Arabs monopolized cinnamon back then, they often told a story that advocated cinnamon but was actually a little scary. Valkenier also specifically mentioned that this story was fabricated.

"Mr. Special Envoy, you have traded with the Arabs since the Tang Dynasty. I think you must have heard the legend of the Arabs about cinnamon."

"It is said that cinnamon is like the bird's nest that you eat. It is a material used by huge falcons to build nests. It is said that this material grows on high mountains that people cannot climb. Only this huge falcon can collect and build nest."

"The merchants put large pieces of meat, or lambs, or calves under their nests to lure the eagles. The eagles took these large pieces of meat, or lambs, and calves, and carried them to their nests. Because the meat is too large It is heavy, so it will collapse the nest, and the merchant picks up the cinnamon that falls on the ground."

"That's why the price of cinnamon is comparable to gold, because in the story of the Moors, every piece of cinnamon may require the sacrifice of a lamb or calf."

"Of course, some villains with ulterior motives say that the cinnamon of the East India Company used local children as bait. Every piece of cinnamon will let the eagle eat a child or dismember the thigh of an adult."

"But that's not the case, cinnamon is just harvested."

Although Europeans believe that this legend was fabricated by the Arabs, judging from elements such as eagles and meat cutting, most of the origin of this story is India.

The stories made up by the Arabs are generally not associated with eagles, meat cutting and so on.India really likes to cut meat and eagles.

The reason why I want to emphasize that this story is made up is because there are indeed rumors that children are used as bait for picking cinnamon, or human flesh is used directly, so as to save money.

Coupled with the half-truths and half-false stories of "throwing all the Chinese into the sea and drowning in the middle of the journey", if you don't make it clear, Valkneer is really worried that someone will take the opportunity to spread these negative news among the crowd.

Such similar rumors are especially easy to spread among the Chinese.Although it is true that people are thrown into the sea halfway, there is really no such thing as using children as bait to catch cinnamon.

However, Valkneer did not expect that Shi Shiyong felt a guilty conscience, and when he heard the story of Cinnamon, his heart skipped a beat.

Because... before he came, the emperor also told him the story of cinnamon, and the version of the story was also the one made up by the Arabs.

It's just that the emperor is not a businessman, so he doesn't need to hype the price; and China has always had the traditional habit of "story contains philosophy".

Therefore, the story that Liu Yu advocated to seize Ceylon, earn at least 50 pounds a year, and pay at least 70 medium-sized counties’ land mu tax, after being told by the emperor, the central idea was not “that’s why cinnamon is so expensive”; It's not about "taking Ceylon will make a lot of money".

Rather, "The poll tax paid back is like meat for bait; and Ceylon is the cinnamon that Dashun wants. Let the Dutch take this piece of meat and let the nest fall down."

He already had ghosts in his heart and a guilty conscience, Shi Shiyong's mentality when he heard Valkneer tell this story can be imagined.

Fortunately, the same story has different conclusions. Hearing that Valknir just made it clear that picking cinnamon is not a sacrifice, the guilty Shi Shiyong laughed twice.

These two guilty laughs actually made Valknir feel guilty.

I thought these two dry laughs were mocking the cruel oppression and high-intensity labor in the Dutch cinnamon factory.

Both sides were guilty and uneasy, and after hehe, there was a long silence.

Fortunately, after Shi Yonghehe, he did not continue to worry about the cinnamon issue, but said: "I think this matter is probably feasible. But the imperial court will definitely send someone to supervise. This time the Celestial Dynasty is the guarantor, and the Tang people in Nanyang believe that Only then did the Celestial Dynasty agree to the migration."

"People don't stand without faith. There was a sage in ancient times. In order to coax the child from crying, his wife said no to crying and went home to kill a pig to eat. The sage knew that he was coaxing the child, so he killed the pig."

"As the court, if you don't have credibility, you can't do it. Since you said that you can get the land after a few years, then the court must send someone to supervise the implementation of this matter. Of course, the specific details need to be discussed by both parties. I am just a special envoy , not the real imperial envoy, the imperial court will send an imperial envoy here in a few days, and these details need to be discussed by the governor and the imperial envoy.”

Valkner didn't have any objections to this.

Dashun invested hundreds of thousands of silver coins and asked for supervision, just like a shareholder wants to see the accounts of the East India Company, which is very reasonable.

It can't be said that holding hundreds of thousands of silver coins as a winner, the money is given, and the people are gone. At that time, not only the money will be lost, but the reputation of the court will also be lost.

These are all predictable situations, and this situation is actually easy to deal with.

As long as the specific implementation rules are clearly written on paper, it will be implemented in accordance with the regulations.

We can only continue to look for Jiapitan and Lei Zhenlan to govern these Chinese over there.

As long as you appease the supervisory officials sent by Dashun, if you really can't give some bribes, you just turn a blind eye.Valknir did not believe that the officials of Dashun were not greedy for money after coming all the way to such a hot place?

And this matter is well done, why can't the company headquarters give a bribe reimbursement quota of [-] silver coins?At that time, if you fiddle with it a little bit, you can have a thousand silver coins in your hand.

"Mr. Special Envoy, we can accept this condition. Since your country's imperial envoy will take full responsibility, the rank should be high enough."

Shi Shiyong didn't know at this time that the imperial envoy who would come to discuss the business and detailed rules had already been appointed Liu Yu by default, but because he was still demarcating the border with Russia and using Liu Yu to intimidate Russia, few people knew that Liu Yu was going to sail to the west .

But he reckoned that the imperial court would definitely send someone who was proficient in foreign affairs, flexible, and knew how to deal with Westerners.At that time, how to grasp the degree, the imperial court has its own candidates, and he doesn't have to worry about it.

So he said: "Don't worry, the level must be enough. I'm just talking about it."

After all, he thought again that the overall situation was settled now.What we have to do now is to ask the Dutch to check the number of people as soon as possible, so as to slow down the energy of the Dutch and give the group of people who started the incident in the south a chance to breathe.

From the perspective of Chinese history, the most difficult thing about rebellion is just the beginning.Once the period at the beginning is over, even if it doesn't work out, it has to follow the quality of the provinces that have been corrupted and turmoiled for several years.

"Your Excellency, now that the general plan has been decided, we must hurry up on this matter. The imperial envoy may arrive in a month or two. After the imperial envoy arrives, we must find out the specific number of people who need to pay the poll tax, and go to Xi The specific arrangements after Lan, as well as various detailed rules for supervising implementation."

"The imperial court is also worried about this matter. After all, it is procrastinated. As the governor said, these people have no livelihood, and sooner or later something will happen. Moreover, the imperial court punished Japan this time and took over the trade. Many ship owners who originally pretended to be merchants from the Celestial Dynasty took risks and became pirates. If there is chaos here, some people may join the pirates at sea... The imperial court’s silver is expected to be exported, and large-scale pirates are absolutely not allowed in Nanyang.”

It is the established policy of the imperial court to jointly fight against Nanyang pirates with the Netherlands and Portugal in recent years.

After Dashun monopolized the trade with Japan, many merchant ships that claimed to be the Celestial Dynasty but were actually Vietnamese merchants lost trade, and there would definitely be more pirates. Don't even think about it.

This reason is used here, both to show favor and paralyze the Dutch.It is also to give Dashun a "so anxious", to find a high-sounding and justifiable reason.

Shi Shiyong wanted the Dutch to disperse their energy and rush to count the population.

But in fact, Valknir is also in a hurry, even more anxious.

People are not flowers and trees, they can live by being watered and exposed to the sun, even if the leaves are gone in winter, they will not die.

One has to eat.

This year's sugar trade has been predictably over.

Although it is said that Britain and the West are at war, and the robbery of each other's ships in the Atlantic Ocean will definitely affect trade.However, Haiti is now the number one producer of sugar in the Atlantic Ocean, owned by the French.The French did not start a war with Britain or Spain, so they could make a fortune selling sugar this year.

Once it is time for the annual sugar harvest, it is foreseeable that the number of slave labor will be reduced in those sugarcane departments that can continue to work for the time being.

Moreover, with the intervention of the Dashun court, once the population statistics start, all the hidden slave workers without residence permits in various sugarcane departments need to be counted.

However, it is impossible for Dashun to teach these people the poll tax for a lifetime, and it is only paid for three years. As a sugar factory owner and a sugarcane contractor, it is natural to consider the labor cost of these people after their status is legalized.

All in all, unprofitable, bankrupt, and cut workers.

It's not that sugar is so miserable, but the sugar growers are the sugar growers, and the East India Company is the East India Company.

If the company wants to make a profit, it has to rely on monopoly and lower the price to buy.

Before the monopoly, you can sit on the ground and have bargaining power; after the monopoly, you can also sit on the ground and have the bargaining power; so isn't the company a white monopoly?
Besides, the rich Chinese businessmen who can see the situation clearly have slipped away.

Now the contractors of the sugarcane department are all receivers.

In fact, I don't have much money in hand, and I rely on loan sharks from the Chinese in the city, Jiapitan and Lei Zhenlan, so I hope to sell the sugar to pay back the loan sharks.

For example, Lian Fuguang, dozens of sugarcane departments and sugar factories were actually contracted out as early as the year before last, and none of them were kept by themselves.As high-level Chinese, they have their own information channels, so they will not counter the offer in their hands.

In fact, before dealing with the Batavian sugar industry and the Chinese issue, the upper management of the East India Company held a meeting to discuss the industrial route.

Some people have also suggested that the company pays for the high price of sugar, and the company guarantees the bottom line to stabilize the sugar industry in Batavia.

What if sucrose becomes more expensive in a few years?

But the company did not have a long-term perspective. They would not have imagined that the seven-year war after the Austrian Succession War would become a world war involving the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia, and the neutral Netherlands would once again seize the European sugar market.

They don't want to spend money on this baseless "what if."

Therefore, in the absence of a prophet, the decision made by the top management of the East India Company was actually correct: reduce the sugar industry in Batavia, transform the industry, no longer use policy support, and let it go bankrupt as much as possible.

The company's policy has always been consistent and has never changed.

It’s just that in the original history, the Dutch people faced tens of thousands of unemployed workers, and the solution they chose was to kill them all.Kill all the people, wouldn't there be no unemployed workers, wouldn't there be no threat of unemployed workers choosing armed resistance?
In this time and space, it was Liu Yu's gunboat diplomacy that used Japan to make an example of others, forcing the Netherlands not to dare to kill people, and forcing the Netherlands to find a way to re-employ unemployed workers.

Today, the sugar industry is already on the verge of bankruptcy under the triple pressure of corporate monopoly, taxpayers and usurious interest.

Dashun is now here to give the poll tax, this is the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

Valkner is also from the Netherlands, a country of commerce, so it is clear that the news has not been spread yet. Once an agreement is reached and spread, what will be the consequences.

A certain sunset industry is on the verge of bankruptcy. Of course, there is a policy that all employees pay an extra head tax of 2 silver coins every year, and the business owner directly pays it to the government, and no false reporting is allowed.And this industry is a pillar industry in the local area. Don't say "bourgeois" or even "Burger" to work, they are purely a group of "Rachaloni" who don't even have land to grow when they go back to farm. What is the next step?
it goes without saying.

Especially the ancestors of the emperor's family in the Celestial Dynasty brought a "good head": when An'an died of starvation, he died in vain; if he raised his arms, he might even find a prince.

One wants to make the other party anxious, and the other is already anxious. The two hit it off.

(End of this chapter)