New Shun 1730

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. survival situation.

When we met again, this time I was already very sure, and my attitude became even more comfortable.

Valkenir explained what kind of work these Chinese went to Ceylon.

Considering that when the Arabs had a monopoly on cinnamon, they often told a story that promoted cinnamon but was actually a bit scary. Valkenier also specifically mentioned that this story was fabricated.

"Mr. Special Envoy, you have had trade relations with the Arabs since the Tang Dynasty. I think you must have heard the Arab legend about cinnamon."

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

"The merchants put large pieces of meat, or lambs, or calves, under their nests to lure the eagles. The large eagles took these large pieces of meat, or lambs, or calves, and carried them into their nests. Because the meat was too big It was heavy, so it would collapse the nest, so the merchant picked up the cinnamon that fell on the ground."

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

"Of course, some bad guys with ulterior motives said that the East India Company used local children as bait for the cinnamon. Every piece of cinnamon would cause an eagle to eat a child or dismember the thigh of an adult."

“But that’s not the case, cinnamon is just collected.”

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

The stories fabricated by Arabs are generally not associated with eagles or meat cutting. India quite likes cutting 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 when picking cinnamon, or human flesh is used directly to save money.

Coupled with the half-true and half-false stories of "throwing all the Chinese into the sea and drowning when they were halfway there", Valkenir was really worried that someone would take the opportunity to spread these negative news among the crowd if he didn't make it clear.

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, Valkenir didn't expect that Shi Shiyong had a guilty conscience, and his heart suddenly skipped a beat when he heard Cinnamon's story.

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.

However, the emperor is not a businessman and does not need to speculate on prices; and China has always had the traditional habit of "stories containing philosophy".

Therefore, after Liu Yu advocated the story of seizing Ceylon, earning at least 500,000 pounds a year, and paying the land tax of at least 70 medium-sized counties, the central idea after it was retold by the emperor was not "that's why cinnamon is so expensive"; It's not "Conquering Ceylon will make a lot of money".

But "those back-paid poll taxes are like meat for bait; and Ceylon is the cinnamon that Dashun wants. Let the Dutch take this piece of meat and knock the nest down."

You can imagine Shi Shiyong's mentality when he heard Valknir tell this story.

Fortunately, it was the same story but different conclusions. After hearing that Valkenir just made it clear that picking cinnamon was not about sacrificing people, the guilty Shi Shiyong laughed dryly.

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 factories.

Both sides felt guilty and uneasy, and there was a long silence after that.

Fortunately, after Shi Shiyong hehe, he did not continue to worry about the problem of cinnamon, but said: "I think this matter is probably feasible. But the imperial court will definitely send someone to supervise it. This time, the Celestial Empire will be the guarantor, and the Tang people in Nanyang believe that Only then did the Celestial Empire agree to migrate.”

"People cannot stand without faith. There was a wise man in ancient China. In order to coax his children from crying, his wife said she would not cry and went home to kill pigs to eat. The wise man knew that he was trying to coax his children, so he killed the pigs."

"As a court, if you don't have credibility, it won't work. Since you said you can allocate land after a few years of work, 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 envoy will be sent by the imperial court in a few days, and these details need to be discussed between the governor and the imperial envoy. "

Valkenir had no objection to this.

Dashun came in with hundreds of thousands of silver coins and asked for supervision, just like shareholders asking to see the accounts of the East India Company. It was very reasonable.

It cannot be said that you are using hundreds of thousands of silver coins as a financier. If the money is given and the people are gone, not only will the money be lost, but the credibility of the court will also be lost.

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

As long as the specific implementation details are clearly written on paper and implemented in accordance with the regulations.

We can only continue to look for Kapitan and Lei Zhenlan to take charge of these Chinese people.

As long as the supervisory officials sent by Dashun can be appeased, if they can't give a bribe, they can just turn a blind eye. Valkenir didn't believe that he came all the way to such a hot place. Are the officials in Dashun not greedy for money?

And if this thing is done well, why can't the company headquarters provide a bribe reimbursement quota of 10,000 silver coins? By then, if you do a little bit of work, you will be able to get a thousand silver coins.

"Mr. Special Envoy, we can accept this condition. Since your country's imperial envoy will be fully responsible, the level should be high enough."

At this time, Shi Shiyong did not know that the imperial envoy who would come to discuss business and details had already been decided to be Liu Yu. However, because he was still demarcating the border with Russia at this time and using Liu Yu to intimidate Russia, not many people knew that Liu Yu was going to the West. .

But he estimated that the imperial court would definitely send someone who was familiar with foreign affairs, knew how to be flexible, and knew how to deal with Westerners. When the time comes, he won't have to worry about how to make a good decision. The court will have its own candidates.

So he said: "Don't worry, the level will be enough. I'm just giving a rough idea."

Having said that, he thought that the overall situation was now decided. 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 in the south a chance to breathe.

Judging from China's history, the most difficult thing about rebellion is the beginning. Once you survive the initial period, even if it doesn't work, it will still be the same as it was after several years of corruption and chaos.

"Your Majesty the Governor, 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 head tax and go to Xi'an. The specific arrangements after Lan, as well as various detailed rules for supervision and implementation.”

"The imperial court is also worried about this matter. After all, if it is delayed and decided, as the governor said, these people have no way of making a living, and something will happen sooner or later. Furthermore, if the imperial court punishes Japan this time and takes back trade, there will be some consequences. Many shipowners who originally pretended to be Chinese merchants took risks and became pirates. If there is chaos here, some people may defect to pirates on the 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 combat pirates in the South Seas with the Netherlands and Portugal in recent years.

After Dashun monopolized trade with Japan, many merchant ships that claimed to be Chinese but were actually Vietnamese lost their trade, and there would definitely be an increase in pirates. Don't even think about it.

This reason is used here to show goodwill and paralyze the Dutch. It was also to find a high-sounding and justifiable reason for Dashun to be "in such a hurry".

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

But in fact, Valkenir was also anxious, or even more anxious.

Human beings are not like flowers, plants and trees. They can live by watering them and exposing them to the sun. Even if the leaves are gone in winter, they are not dead.

People have to eat.

This year's cane sugar trade is already foreseen to be doomed.

Although Britain and Spain went to war and robbed each other's ships in the Atlantic, it would definitely affect trade. However, the number one sugar-producing land in the Atlantic Ocean now belongs to the French, Haiti. The French are not at war with Britain or Spain. They may make a fortune selling sugar this year.

Once the annual sugar harvest comes, it can be predicted that those sugarcane departments that can still continue to work for the time being will have to reduce the number of slave labor.

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

But it is impossible for Dashun to teach these people the poll tax for a lifetime. They only pay the poll tax for three years. So as a sugar factory owner and sugarcane contractor, it is natural to consider the labor costs of these people after their status is legalized.

All in all, it means being unprofitable, going bankrupt, and reducing workers.

This is not to say that sugar farmers are so miserable, but sugar farmers are sugar farmers, and the East India Company is the East India Company.

If a company wants to make a profit, it must rely on monopoly and low-price acquisitions.

Before the monopoly, you could raise the price from the bottom and have bargaining power; after the monopoly, you could still raise the price from the bottom and have the power to bargain. So isn't the company a white monopoly?

Besides, the wealthy Chinese businessmen who saw the situation clearly had already fled.

Nowadays, those who are contracting the sugarcane department are all takeovers.

In fact, I didn't have much money in my hand, so I relied on loan sharks from Chinese people in the city, Kapitan and Lei Zhenlan, and I just expected to sell the sugar to repay the loan sharks.

For example, in Lian Fuguang, dozens of sugarcane departments and sugar mills were basically contracted out as early as the year before last year, and I didn't keep any of them. As high-class Chinese people have their own information channels, they will not keep it in their hands.

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

Some people have also proposed that the company pays to collect sugar at a high price, and the company guarantees the bottom line to stabilize Batavia's cane sugar industry.

What if sucrose becomes more expensive again in a few years?

But the company did not have a long-term perspective. They would not have thought that the Seven Years' War after the Austrian Succession War would turn into a world war affecting the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia, allowing the neutral Netherlands to once again seize the European cane sugar market.

They don’t want to bet money on this unfounded “what if.”

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

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

It's just that in the original history, the Dutch chose to kill all the tens of thousands of unemployed workers. If they killed all the people, wouldn't there be no unemployed workers, and wouldn't there be no threat of unemployed workers choosing armed resistance?

In this time and space, it was Liu Yu's gunboat diplomacy to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys against Japan, which forced the Dutch not to kill people and forced the Dutch to find ways to re-employ the unemployed workers.

Today, the sugar industry is on the verge of bankruptcy under the triple oppression of corporate monopoly, tax farmers and usury.

Dashun is now sending head taxes, which is the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

Valkner is also from the commercial country of the Netherlands. He knows very well that this news has not spread yet. Once a consensus is reached and it spreads, what will be the consequences.

A sunset industry is on the verge of bankruptcy. Of course, a policy has been introduced that all employees will pay an additional head tax of 2 silver coins per year, which will be paid directly to the government by the business owners and no false reporting is allowed. This industry is the pillar industry of the local area. The workers are not "bourgeois" or even "Burgess". They are just a bunch of "Lachalonni". They don't even have land to farm. So what will happen next?

It goes without saying.

Especially the ancestors of the imperial family of the Celestial Empire, who set a "good example": when An An starved to death, it was a waste; if he raised his arm, he might even be able to seek a king.

One wanted to make the other anxious, and the other was anxious to begin with, so the two sides hit it off.