1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1124 Costs and Benefits

Ge Yongying said: "Hundreds of thousands of jins of grain and thousands of cotton cloths are not costly. Our Haihan country is rich in products, so it is not a problem to support these refugees. These grains are all produced by Haihan itself, only cotton cloth and medicinal materials It is purchased in Zhejiang, but it is not a big expense for our country."

Shen Zhixiang said: "Then you send such a huge fleet to Shandong, build ports and build garrisons in the local area, and also hunt down gold thieves and rescue the people of Liaodong. Don't these expenses be included?"

Ge Yong shook his head and said: "General Xiao Shen's statement may be a bit fallacious, but we will not calculate costs and returns in this way."

Through these two days of contact, Shen Zhixiang can naturally feel the shrewdness revealed by the Haihan people from time to time.It seems that this group of people will calculate the gains and losses before doing anything. With such a large-scale introduction of thousands of immigrants, Shen Zhixiang believes that Haihan must have calculated the costs and benefits beforehand, but he believes that the cost of immigration can be made up for through reclamation Not worth it.Just to maintain the stationing of these refugees, armed men and warships in Zhifu Bay would cost several thousand taels of silver a day, and it would take a lot of farmland to be reclaimed and cultivated for many years to make up for these expenses through tax collection.

Shen Zhixiang’s question is actually on point. If Haihan’s operation expenses in the north are all included in the immigration fee, then the cost of a single immigrant is indeed astonishingly high, and the calculation must be much higher than Haihan’s in the southeast coast and central south. The cost of recruiting immigrants in the peninsula, and even spending money to buy slaves from Dutch and Portuguese traffickers, is less than the amount calculated in this way.

However, Haihan’s actions in Shandong and Liaodong are not just for the purpose of recruiting immigrants. Only part of the expenses are spent on immigrants. Allocating military expenses and other construction and activity expenses to immigration projects is definitely not correct. reasonable.Moreover, Haihan already has a relatively mature operating routine on how to earn profits by controlling sea passages. It has clear expectations on when to generate profits and how to recover costs as soon as possible. Naturally, it will not be stingy in its early investment.

The operation in this process is too complicated for outsiders, and many measures are Haihan's secrets, which cannot be easily leaked to outsiders. Naturally, it is inconvenient for Ge Yong to explain in detail to Shen Zhixiang and Pan Yan, so he can only say haha Get over this topic ASAP.

"We plan to transport 5000 to [-] people from Zhifu Bay before the winter of this year." Ge Yong continued: "Soon there will be special passenger sailboats coming from Zhejiang, and the immigrants here will be transported to the south in batches for resettlement. .In some places along the southeast coast, we have started to organize the construction of immigrant villages, and these people can settle down as soon as possible after they arrive in the local area."

Pan Yan asked, "After they arrive in the south, will their living environment and conditions be the same as here?"

"It will be better than here." When Ge Yong talked about the south, his tone was a little more proud: "Our Haihan country is known as a paradise in the south. The country is peaceful and the people are safe. All countries in the South China Sea are proud to be able to immigrate to Haihan. If you two If you have a chance, you can go to the south and see for yourself in the future.”

Shen Zhixiang naturally couldn't find any faults with the immigrant camps on Zhifu Island. Compared with the harsh environment like a refugee camp on Phi Island, these people who are about to immigrate to the south are considered very lucky.However, he still didn't believe Ge Yong's boast about Haihan Kingdom so well. He shook his head slightly and questioned: "In a country with a vast land and few people, at most, the land is cheap, and the citizens are imported from many countries. Be strong?"

Hearing this, Ge Yong couldn't help being a little angry. Before he joined Haihan, he was actually a member of the Ming Dynasty, but now he has already regarded himself as a citizen of Haihan. The country's influence in the coastal areas south of the Yangtze River and up to the South China Sea is much greater than Dongjiang Town's influence in Liaodong! Does Dongjiang Town have the strength to send such a fleet to go around Lingnan, Guangdong and Guangxi?"

These words hit the lifeline of Dongjiang Town. A few years ago, it was an armed force that no one could ignore in Northeast Asia, but now it is a downcast who is weak in self-protection and needs to rely on Haihan to rescue him.Not to mention sending such a fleet to expedition to Lingnan from Phi Island, even the Changshan Islands and Lushunkou do not have enough maritime armed forces to bring them back, and their strength is far inferior to that of Haihan.

Being accused of shortcomings by the other party, Shen Zhixiang's face suddenly showed embarrassment. If others dared to be so disrespectful, he would have kicked him long ago, but now he is asking for help, but he dare not turn his face immediately.Before setting off, Shen Shikui specifically told him that the premise of getting Haihan's assistance must be the premise. As long as other matters are not issues of principle, you can turn a blind eye and close your eyes to compromise, and try not to argue with Haihan.After Shen Zhixiang came to Zhifu Island to see it, he also realized that Haihan's promise of assistance to Dongjiang Town should not be empty words.

"Ge Yong, don't be so angry. The friends in Dongjiang Town just don't know much about my national conditions in Haihan, so I don't think there is any malice." Xie Li, as a representative of the military, quickly smoothed things over.His task is to take Shen and Pan around the island, and let the other party initially understand Haihan's strength through personal visits. Handed over to command.

As soon as Ge Yong said that, he also realized that he was too hot-tempered, so he immediately apologized to Shen Zhixiang.The order he received was to make the envoys of Dongjiang Town feel admiration for Hai Han's achievements, and thus trust Hai Han's assistance conditions. If this makes the other party angry, it may ruin the command's plan.

This page was temporarily revealed, and Ge Yong continued to take them to visit the immigrant camp.Pan Yan suddenly asked: "Why are there no old and weak women and children in this camp? Could it be that your country only accepts young and strong?"

After being reminded by him, Shen Zhixiang also noticed that all the people he could see were young and strong men. Such a population ratio must be unreasonable.

Ge Yong explained: "For the sake of security in the camp, we separate the women and children into separate camps. After arriving in the south, we will arrange for the family to live together again."

Haihan's arrangement is also a lesson learned from Annan's immigration operations in the early years. If people are placed together regardless of age and gender, there will always be some people who bully the weak and use violence to occupy more public resources.Although separate camps for women and children do not seem humane enough, and it still cannot completely eliminate this situation, but the overall situation is important, at least it can improve the survival rate of vulnerable groups a lot, and the incidence of security incidents in the camps has also been greatly reduced.

Several people walked while watching, Shen Zhixiang suddenly stopped and said: "I seem to hear the sound of reciting poems and books!"

"General Xiao Shen heard it right. The front is the literacy school we set up for children." Ge Yong explained: "We arrange literacy and general knowledge classes for the children in the camp every day, and there are usually some adults who are off work to attend the classes. .”

"I even hired Mr. Private School! It's really thoughtful!" Shen Zhixiang himself is proficient in writing and knows the role of reading and literacy. Haihan did not forget these details when he was helping refugees, and it can be seen that the other party is indeed concerned about immigration. Things are quite attentive.

While talking, I have already arrived at this temporary school. The appearance is just a simple bamboo shed. There are several rows of long tables and benches underneath. Thirty or forty children are sitting. There is a blackboard in front of it. A gentleman is Teach these children to read the thousand-character prose written on the blackboard word by word.As expected, there were several adults sitting on the ground outside the school, chanting words to the teacher.

Shen Zhixiang saw that next to the school was a rather large kitchen with several earthen stoves and large pots, and some people were busy preparing meals, so he couldn't help but asked curiously: "There are so few children, why did they build a special kitchen?" A kitchen to cook for them?"

Xie Li smiled and took over the conversation: "This is not for them to eat. It was originally an officer's canteen, and the local Haihan Army officers would come here to eat. But it's useless during the day, so I lent it out to the children. Used by the school."

"So that's how it is." Shen Zhixiang finally understood.

"School will be over soon, how about having a light meal here at noon?" Xie Li offered the invitation.At present, several chiefs on the island are very busy, and no one has time to greet Shen Zhixiang, so he can only do it for him.But there was no order from the superior to hold a banquet, and Xie Li didn't dare to overstep his authority to make a decision on his own, so this meal can only be arranged simply.

Shen Zhixiang didn't care about it, Xie Li also said that this is the place where officers eat, and it's reasonable in terms of treatment.He also didn't expect the Haihan people to hold a banquet for him in the refugee camp. Thinking about such a scene, he thought it was absurd.And Pan Yan had no objection, his request was very simple, don't deduct rations like Hou Jin, as long as the food is full.

While Pan and Chen were dining in the officers' mess hall, the meeting between Wang Tom and others was still going on, but the topic had been shifted from Dongjiang Town to the local area. During the period when Wang Tom led the fleet northward, there were also some big and small things in Fushan County. things happen.

"A few days ago, a team of people came from Dengzhou. There were about two or three hundred people. They didn't enter the county seat and went directly to the Qishan Qianhu Office." Qian Tiandun explained to Wang Tom: "We asked Zhang Pucheng, the magistrate After a while, he said that in the past, when people came from Dengzhou City, they would usually go to the county town first to ask for some supplies, and it is reasonable to say that they would not go around the city."

Wang Tom is also a smart person, and he continued when he heard this: "Is that intentional to avoid our control area?"

Qian Tiandun nodded and said: "According to what Zhang Pucheng said, he had a good talk with the prefect Chen Zhongsheng when he went to Dengzhou last time, and he didn't reveal any intention to embarrass us. But the military seems to be a bit dissatisfied with our appearance. It's too cold, so I'm wondering whether the group of Ming soldiers who came to Qishan this time have something to do with us."

Tom Wang then asked, "Has Feng Qianhu from the Qishan Institute had any contact with us recently?"

"No." Qian Tiandun shook his head and said, "Feng Fei hasn't sent anyone to contact us since this team arrived at Qishan Station, but the pier on Yantai Mountain has resumed its garrison duty."

Haihan's first action after entering Zhifu Bay was to pull down the Ming army post on Yantai Mountain led by Gao Qiaonan.Regarding the disappearance of this group of Ming soldiers, Qishan Institute naturally believed that Haihan was extremely suspicious, but because there was no evidence, they couldn't challenge Haihan.Later, Qianhu Feng Fei accepted Hai Han's benefits, so he naturally turned the matter into a trivial one.Haihan also made it clear that he did not want too many Ming troops stationed on the Yantai Mountain Pier to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings. Therefore, the Yantai Mountain Pier has been empty for a while.But now the restoration of duty can also be seen as a change in the attitude of the Ming army.

Of course, as generals leading the army, Tom Wang and Qian Tiandun will look at this kind of issue more essentially. Tom Wang immediately said: "So you intend to monitor us?"

"I also think that's what it means." Qian Tiandun nodded and said, "I think there are people in Dengzhou City who are not at ease with our existence, so they consciously want to strengthen the monitoring of Zhifu Bay. Fortunately, so far , have not found any obvious hostile intentions against us for the time being.”

"Old Hao, what news do you have here?" Tom Wang threw the question to Hao Wanqing.

Hao Wanqing said: "I have asked Gong Shiqi to lead a team to Dengzhou City, hoping to find some useful clues from there. However, it is more difficult to deal with Qishan Qianhusuo. It is easy to be noticed if you are sent to Qishan Suocheng, so for the time being, we can only increase the surveillance on the outside."

Wang Tom said: "If I want to send someone to Qishan Suocheng, I have an excellent candidate."

"I know who you are going to talk about, this is not acceptable, it is against the rules!" Hao Wanqing immediately raised his hand to express his rejection: "In principle, we do not consider using non-Haihan personnel to participate in such tasks, this is written into the work regulations of the Ministry of Security! "

"You also said that it is in principle. The regulations are dead, and people are alive. We can adjust it according to the actual situation! Besides, if you want to find someone who can enter the city of Qishan without suspicion, there is no one better than him." Is there a more suitable candidate?" Tom Wang continued to persuade: "You just need to send someone to pretend to be a follower, and follow."

"So who is the candidate you are talking about?" Sun Changmi was confused and couldn't help interrupting the conversation.

Tom Wang glanced at him and said with a smile, "Who else? Of course it's Shen Zhixiang who came back with me this time."

"This...is a good candidate!" Sun Changmi was taken aback for a moment, and then recalled it.

Shen Zhixiang is a general of Dongjiang Town, a genuine Ming army officer. He returned to Dengzhou in the name of raising food and visited various thousand households. This is also a very reasonable excuse.Of course, whether Shen Zhixiang is willing to cooperate with Haihan to do this kind of thing is another matter.

(End of this chapter)