Daming 1805

Chapter 240 Daming people do not understand foreign languages

The few high-level people in Delaware headed by Mitchell were not very willing to accept Daming's conditions, but they did not have the courage to directly contradict and oppose it.

Adams and Napoleon have already chosen to give up, and there is a high probability that they will not become enemies of Ming Dynasty for the 4 people in Wilmington.

Also without the courage to leave directly, the officials and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty would definitely do as they requested, confiscate most of their assets, and let themselves leave with a thousand Ming silver notes.

That would drop one's own into the ordinary middle class, or even the bottom middle class.

The Ming officials headed by Ruan Yuan didn't communicate with them very much, but they chatted patiently with Stockton and other young people.

At the same time, more Ming and Yin soldiers got off the ship and left the dock in batches according to Mu Yongfu's order to receive and control the city hall, barracks, warehouses, bridges, and key intersections.

This is where the de facto receiving town was.

The senior executives in Delaware, headed by Mitchell, saw groups of Ming soldiers running away carrying rifles, and immediately realized what they were going to do.

But the few people looked at each other, and stopped talking for a long time, and finally accepted the reality silently.

After all, this is only a small town with tens of thousands of people. No matter how powerful the local local snakes are, they don't have the courage to confront Daming.

Due to the simplicity, rudeness and directness of the Ming officials, what should have been a simple greeting process on the pier has directly become a process of handing over the actual control of the city.

The officials headed by Ruan Yuan waited on the pier for more than an hour, during which time they just talked and chatted.

Knowing that Mu Yongfu received the report from his subordinates, knowing that his soldiers have completely controlled this small city of 4 people.

Then a group of soldiers were left to continue guarding the port, and they took a sentry soldier and accompanied Ruan Yuan and other officials to Wilmington's City Hall.

Delaware officials, businessmen, congressmen, representatives of the new aristocracy, and the governor of Maryland who came to visit also went to the city hall.

Maryland Governor Bowie came forward and proposed that the two parties sign a handover statement.

The purpose of Bowie's rush from Baltimore was to cooperate with Ming officials in handling the transfer of territory.

Before Daming's representative arrives, Bowie harbors several ideas about keeping some of Cecil.

But this idea is not as strong as Delaware's Mitchell.

Because the core area of ​​Maryland is no longer on the peninsula, but Baltimore across the fjord.

Bowie's main assets are also in Baltimore.

Handing over Cecil and the peninsula land to the south to Daming will not affect his wealth and identity at all.

After seeing the negotiation process between Daming and Mitchell of Delaware, Bowie resolutely gave up the simple ideas in his heart that he hadn't put forward.

Still decided to get things done quickly, and then hurried back to Baltimore.

Bowie took the initiative to take the lead, and Mitchell also knew that he could not escape, and stood up and expressed his willingness to sign the statement.

Ruan Yuan looked at the two governors with smiles on their faces:

"It didn't matter to us originally, since both of you want to sign, let's sign one..."

Ruan Yuan asked the secretary to draft a simple statement document.

Delaware and Maryland relinquished all lands in the entire Dongyi Peninsula, including the counties of Cecil and Newcastle.

Bowie and Mitchell signed on as representatives.

Ruan Yuan nodded slightly, stood on the middle step, and made another official announcement:
"From now on, the counties of Newcastle and Cecil and the entire area of ​​the Dongyi Peninsula to the south belong to the territory of the Great Ming Dongyi Kingdom.

"Originally any country canonize the title, and the title of the fief is within the territory of Dongyi Kingdom, and will not be recognized in the future.

"The titles of the United States and the United Kingdom will all belong to foreign titles in the future, and they will not have any special rights in Dongyi Kingdom.

"The Dongyi King's Mansion has two Changshi Mansions on the left and right. The Zuo Changshi governs the counties of Changdao, and the Right Changshi governs the counties of the Dongyi Peninsula.

"The existing institutions and personnel in the counties on the peninsula are temporarily retained, and will be eliminated and promoted through assessment in the future.

"The original Delaware state-level government, parliament, and courts are all disbanded, and relevant personnel can participate in the official assessment of the Changshifu.

"Those who are proficient in the elegant dialect of the Ming Dynasty and who can listen, read, write and speak in the elegant dialect of the Ming Dynasty will be given priority in being recruited as translators."

Listening to Ruan Yuan's righteous and stern order, the audience in the hall below had different expressions.

The core personnel of Delaware state-level institutions such as Mitchell all have melancholy and sad expressions.

Delaware is completely gone from now on, and for them it is equivalent to going straight to the end.

And it will be different from before. If you want to be an official, you have to start from the grassroots, and you can't go directly to a high position.

Ordinary businessmen and elites, especially young people, who intend to become managers have begun to look forward to it.

The county-level agency representatives in Wilmington City were relieved, and their status was temporarily preserved.

So far, the handover ceremony of the territory of Dongyi Peninsula has been officially completed.

Then Ruan Yuan stopped chatting with Bowie, Mitchell and others, and started working directly on the spot.

Receive all the information from the Delaware state government, receive the basic information on the counties on the peninsula forwarded by the Maryland representative, and aggregate them into the information of Dongyi State Right Changshifu.

Accept the functions and existing institutions and facilities of the Delaware state government, and based on this, expand the scope of management to the entire peninsula, and establish the framework of Dongyi Kingdom Youchang Shifu.

The two long histories of the Dongyi Kingdom are actually two governors, and they are not the governors of certain affairs like the traditional governors of the Ming Dynasty, but similar to the colonial governors in modern Western times.

After Ruan Yuan set up the shelf of Changshi Mansion, he began to receive other counties on the peninsula.

To put it simply, this task is actually very simple.

Grassroots organizations in the American region are highly autonomous.

A group of immigrants from the old continent scattered and gathered into small settlements one by one, and a group of people discussed how to live.

Almost all needs are resolved by the locals themselves, and conflicts and problems are also discussed and resolved by themselves.

Public security issues have to be resolved by the residents themselves. Most immigrants have guns in their homes.

The settlements on these peninsulas are still very uniform, and one to two thousand people is enough to become a county government resident.

In a place with such a sparse and even population, of course there are no particularly rich places and people.

If Daming doesn't adopt the strategy of escaping land and ignoring people, and allows these people to continue to live in the territory of Daming, then just send someone to inform them that the sky has changed.

Tell them that they will no longer belong to the United Kingdom or the United States, and will belong to the Ming Dynasty and Dongyi Kingdom in the future.

The vast majority of farmers do not have any opinions, and even if they have opinions, there is no place to vent them.

But if this task is said to be difficult, it is actually very difficult.

It is necessary to implement the management system after the Great Ming Renwu Dynasty locally, and establish a Ming-style grassroots bureaucracy.

It is necessary to train enough grassroots officials to handle affairs, and to apply the laws and regulations of Ming Dynasty to the countryside.

It is necessary to establish a new Ming-style school, change the local education model and content, and at the same time promote the Ming Dynasty.

Even in the remote areas of the Ming Dynasty, this would be a very complicated civil affairs project.

What's more, there is a language and cultural gap between ordinary people in Dongyi Peninsula and Daming.

So both Ruan Yuan and Mu Yongfu knew that the second goal was impossible to achieve in the short term.

So Ruan Yuan temporarily retained the original county-level managers.

But the two are not going to let it go completely, but to prepare for the subsequent direct jurisdiction.

After discussing with Mu Yongfu, Ruan Yuan and Mu Yongfu planned to arrange three officers in each county and about a hundred soldiers for one post.

The officers are responsible for transmitting and interpreting the notices issued by the Ming court and the Changshifu, counting and recording the actual situation of villages and towns at the grassroots level, and supervising and evaluating the retained Thai and Western officials.

Soldiers protect and cooperate with officers, maintain local public security and social order, take over and control local militia organizations, and maintain actual local rule.

After eliminating possible resistance forces and integrating local militia organizations, the garrison in each county can be gradually reduced.

But to achieve this goal, each group of officers and soldiers must be equipped with a Thai-Western translator who understands the Ming dialect

The common language of the main residents of Dongyi Kingdom is English, while the ordinary officials and soldiers of Ming Dynasty basically do not understand foreign languages.

The high-ranking officials and nobles of Ming Dynasty seldom used foreign languages ​​in their actual work and life.

Most foreigners with relatively high status can speak the elegant dialect of the Ming Dynasty, and the middle class is even more proud of knowing the elegant dialect of the Ming Dynasty.

The description of "a fluent and standard Ming Dynasty dialect" is a compliment commonly used by Western and Western writers and media personnel.

There were no common foreign language classes in ordinary schools in Ming Dynasty, because foreign languages ​​were not taken in middle school and university examinations and imperial examinations.

Only schools that specialize in training translators have foreign language classes, and only those who work in Honglu Temple and Xichang have foreign language requirements.

And at this time, Britain is not the world's hegemon, and there is no United States to pick up the baton of Britain's hegemony.

Therefore, compared with French, Russian, Spanish, and Latin, English now has no obvious special status.

There are already few people who learn foreign languages, and even fewer people know English when subdivided.

Now that there is a special shortage of officials, it is even more difficult to find people who can speak English.

When screening personnel before this operation, they actually specifically asked if there was anyone who could speak English.

Among the group of officials who finally came to Dongyi Kingdom, less than ten people could barely understand a few simple sentences in English.

As for the ones that can be used for communication and office work, there is not even one.

Wilmington, the largest city in Delaware, most of the senior officials of the two state governments of Delaware and Maryland understand the dialect of Ming Dynasty.

Coupled with the support of the West Factory and the peripheral personnel of the West Factory, the high-level handover work can proceed normally.

Next, Daming will take over and manage the counties below, or those scattered villages everywhere.

Most of the ordinary workers and farmers in those villages were illiterate, and it was impossible for them to understand the complicated Ming dialect.

Even the small landlords and small factory owners below probably don't understand any of the Ming Dynasty's elegant words.

If Ming officials want to deal with them, they must be accompanied by a special interpreter.

And this translation position will be very important in the future.

If the translator cooperates with the officials and officers of the Ming Dynasty to make decisions, he may become a "master" who holds some power.

If the translator deceives the top and the bottom, or even deceives the officials of the Ming Dynasty together with the locals, it can cause big troubles.

So you must be careful when choosing a translator.

After Ruan Yuan and Mu Yongfu discussed again, they put up a public recruitment notice for translators, and at the same time asked people from the West Factory to recommend available personnel who had been investigated.

(End of this chapter)