1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1716 Training Period

According to Cheng Dapeng's instructions, Qin Huacheng claimed to have lived in Manila in the past, and later moved his family out of Manila because of the approaching war. .The shopkeeper of Mihang was not a member of the security department, so he didn't have too much doubt about Qin Huacheng's identity as a "student". His attention was more on training than gossip about Qin Huacheng's family background.

Of course, if Qin Huacheng is willing to take the initiative to talk about these things, he would also like to know whether there are other objective factors in the selection of this young man by the big shopkeeper Cheng Dapeng - such as Qin Huacheng's prominent family background, or his unique trading resources , can help the business under the name of Cheng Dapeng.

Of course, Qin Huacheng did not have the background and skills that the shopkeeper of Mihang thought. He was sent by Cheng Dapeng to Mihang for an internship. The purpose was not to let him learn how to do grain business, but to understand how grain trade works. What levels of information can this industry have access to, and how to influence the development of a region through food supply.Qin Huacheng would learn very little if he simply talked about these theories, but it would be different when he was exposed to practice. He might learn more from the daily operation of Mihang than he imagined.

However, when Qin Huacheng was assigned to Mihang, what he learned was only the elementary courses in the training process of intelligence personnel, but the training conditions that Cheng Dapeng could provide were relatively limited, and he was not that good at imparting theoretical things, so Training novices in Batavia, he can only use these industries and institutions under his name as the main training places.As for how many skills a student can learn from it, it largely depends on his talent.

Of course, Cheng Dapeng didn't expect to be able to train all the candidates he was looking for to become masters on the espionage front. These people have different talents, and not everyone is suitable for this job.Even if Cheng Dapeng himself is an experienced veteran, his training methods may not be effective for some students who are not smart enough.

In fact, in Cheng Dapeng's view, Qin Huacheng's aptitude is at best a passing line, far from the standard of excellence. However, this person has some hard conditions that meet the reconnaissance direction that Cheng Dapeng is planning. For example, he Proficiency in oral Spanish and knowledge of all aspects of the Spanish people.This kind of person may be a lot of people in Manila, but it must be considered a scarce resource in Batavia.The other people who were selected together with him have obvious shortcomings in some aspects, either because their Spanish is not pure enough, or they don't have much experience working with Spaniards, or they lack keen intelligence in gathering intelligence. sense of smell.

Some of these defects can be improved slowly through training, while others are hard to change.Qin Huacheng chose the taller one among the short ones, and he was already the one with the best comprehensive conditions among the recalled people.Cheng Dapeng also hoped that this Han descendant who was born in the Spanish colony could grow up quickly after training, otherwise his intelligence and reconnaissance plan against Spain would not be possible at all.

Grain trade under the name of Cheng Dapeng is one of his main industries in Batavia. During the war in Batavia, there was only one store of Dacheng rice that provided the most basic food security for the Dutch. Now Dacheng rice The line is not only the largest rice line in Batavia, but also has more than [-] mu of nearby grain crops, which can be self-produced and sold locally to a certain extent.

The Dutch not only did not have any doubts about Cheng Dapeng's behavior of organizing farmland, but also gave him the green light, allowing Cheng Dapeng to acquire large tracts of arable land at extremely low land prices.Of course, this kind of preferential treatment is not unconditional. The grain produced on these lands must be given priority to the East India Company at the same price to be purchased by the East India Company as an official grain reserve to stabilize the local grain market.

This seems to reduce the degree of freedom of grain trade controlled by Cheng Dapeng, but it confirms his status as an officially designated grain merchant. If he can influence the local non-governmental grain market before that, he can directly challenge the official grain trader now. Food price controls have had an impact.And from Haihan's point of view, the part of the profit lost due to the official right of first purchase can be exchanged for such influence, which is a deal worth thousands of dollars.

Although Batavia is a colony under the control of the Dutch, a considerable part of the direction of its grain market is controlled by Haihan's intelligence agency. This has to be said to be a very strange situation.Cheng Dapeng worked hard in the local area for several years to achieve such an effect, and the interest disputes with the East India Company were even more complicated. He hoped that Qin Huacheng would be arranged after the rice line, so that through daily business contacts, he could Understand the interest relationship between Dacheng Rice Bank and the East India Company as soon as possible, and learn to use this relationship to collect political and economic intelligence information of the other party.

"The price, quantity, time, etc. of the East India Company's purchase of grain from the rice bank can be used to infer its policy policies and official economic trends, and these are first-hand data, which are very reliable and take time and effort. It is very cost-effective to collect this kind of intelligence. The specific inference method will be taught to you later, and what you have to do now is to remember which important data are valuable, and learn to record these data periodically.”

Cheng Dapeng made very clear what Qin Huacheng wanted to achieve during the Mihang training period, but Cheng Dapeng didn't really know how much Qin Huacheng could achieve, so he could only take one step at a time.

On the third day of Qin Huacheng's internship at the rice shop, he happened to meet the food agency under the East India Company who came to Dacheng Rice Shop to pre-order the rice produced this summer.The visitor was a Dutch official, but he was very polite in front of the shopkeeper of Mihang, and he did not show arrogance at all, which surprised Qin Huacheng who was next to him.You must know that in Manila, the Spaniards and the Han are completely two classes, and it is absolutely impossible for Spanish officials to maintain such a humble attitude in front of the Han businessmen.

As if he had guessed what Qin Huacheng was thinking, taking advantage of the gap between the conversations, the shopkeeper explained to him why the visiting Spanish officials showed such a low-key attitude.

"If the Dutch don't come forward to buy the grain produced this summer, then we will definitely increase the price when it is put into the market, and the price of grain in the whole of Batavia will rise by then. Even if they want to buy us in priority to other buyers according to the agreement We still have the right to decide whether to sell the grain and how much to sell. If the officials who come to contact the business have a bad attitude, then I will directly refuse to sell it. They will eventually have to spend more money to buy summer grain. "

The shopkeeper's words basically explained the reason for the attitude of the Dutch people. Simply put, Haihan's grain business has reached the point where the store is bullying customers. Dacheng rice shop kept a humble appearance in front of the shopkeeper.

Qin Huacheng really wanted to ask the Dutch how they would feel if they knew that all the food they purchased came from Haihan people.And he also had to admit that the economic infiltration used by Haihan was very effective. Even if the Dutch realized that this was Haihan's method, it would not be possible to get rid of this indirect control in a short time.The rice and other food crops produced by these thousands of acres of land alone are enough to cause severe fluctuations in local food prices, not to mention that Haihan will also deploy food from Annan, Champa and other countries to ensure that Dacheng Rice is sold in Pakistan. Absolute control in the Davia Grain Merchant.

Therefore, during the meeting with the official representing the East India Company, the shopkeeper of Mihang basically took the initiative throughout the whole process.Although the acquisition application put forward by Dutch officials was accepted, the shopkeeper of Mihang refused to give up the price, and must implement it according to the standards ordered by Cheng Dapeng in advance.

The talks between the two sides continued until the meal time, and the shopkeeper of Mihang deliberately refused to keep customers, so the Dutch official had no choice but to leave.However, both parties understand that the most important issue has actually been negotiated, and the remaining details such as price and delivery method are just formal disputes.After several years of cooperation, the back and forth competition on these details has become a symbol of the two sides fighting for their own initiative.The shopkeeper of Mihang and the Dutch officials in charge of this matter must take a confrontational posture to prove their dedication in handling this matter.

Cheng Dapeng and the senior officials of the East India Company, who were really in charge, knew this well, and would not have antagonism over it.After discussing the grain purchase transaction every year, Cheng Dapeng will have dinner with the senior officials of the East India Company to celebrate the successful completion of the cooperation between the two parties - by the way, give the other party the rebate for the grain purchase, and the beneficiary after the grain price is raised , it is not only Dacheng rice line, "win-win" is everyone's goal.

The shopkeeper of Mihang mentioned these transactions in a very cryptic manner. After hearing this, Qin Huacheng couldn't help feeling that Cheng Dapeng's business methods were flexible. With such operations, it's no wonder that Dacheng Rice was able to sell in the Batavia grain market. Call the wind and shake the rain.

However, Qin Huacheng still has a problem that he can't understand: "Since Mihang sells grain to the Dutch at the market price, and then rebates part of the profit to them as a kickback, wouldn't it mean that a large amount of profit will be lost and the future will be difficult to say?" Maybe you have to lose money? The shopkeeper is a shrewd person, why do you have to do this business that doesn't make much money?"

The shopkeeper of the rice shop snorted and said: "This is because you are short-sighted. Even the grain is handed over to my family for management, which shows how much the Dutch trust the big shopkeeper. It is true that selling grain to the Dutch can't make much money, but relying on The relationship maintained by the grain trade can also be earned back from other places."

In addition to the grain trade, Cheng Dapeng's business has been involved in almost all aspects of Batavia. He even has a construction team under his name to undertake local infrastructure projects. The project currently under construction is the artillery in the east of Batavia. camp.God knows how Cheng Dapeng got this kind of project. In short, after this project is completed, another wave of artillery information about the East India Company has been successfully updated.

As the shopkeeper of Mihang said, as long as he has the trust of the government, it is not difficult for Cheng Dapeng to earn huge profits from other fields.Today, the signboard of "Dacheng" is as influential in Batavia as it is in the Netherlands.

If Cheng Dapeng is measured by the standard of a businessman, then he can undoubtedly be classified as a "successful person".Judging from another identity, he has made continuous contributions, and even the executive committee has praised him.But Cheng Dapeng himself is still not satisfied with the status quo, and still hopes to have the same influence on the intelligence front as in the shopping malls, and the concrete manifestation of achieving this goal is to establish a Sumatra Island in the South China Sea with his own hands. A huge intelligence network west to the Banda Sea.

In order to establish such a large intelligence network, in addition to financial issues, there is another point is people.How many intelligence personnel are needed to operate effectively in such a large area? 300 or 500 people. Even Cheng Dapeng doesn't have an exact number in his mind, but he currently has only a few dozen people under direct command. The scope is only the area centered on Java Island, which is still far from the target.

Cheng Dapeng was also quite impatient about this, so he went to Xingdao to recruit the manpower he needed.And Qin Huacheng was a direct beneficiary of Cheng Dapeng's selfishness, and he turned from a guilty person to a trainee in the Haihan privileged agency.Although Qin Huacheng's specially recruited personnel are far inferior to Gen Hongmiaozheng's regular employees in terms of internal status, if he can really play his due role in Cheng Dapeng's plan, then Cheng Dapeng will definitely reward him Formal preparation.

One night after entering Mihang for an internship for a week, Cheng Dapeng suddenly asked Qin Huacheng to be taken to a manor outside the city, where he met several other people who came from Xingdao with him, but one of them was missing. .

"I think you must be very curious about why you were suddenly called here." Cheng Dapeng said while looking around at everyone's faces: "You may have also noticed that there is one person missing. It is because of him that you are called here today."

After Cheng Dapeng finished speaking, he clapped his hands, and someone opened the curtain in the middle of the room. It turned out that there was another room behind the curtain, and the person who hadn't seen before was in it, and was tied to an erected wooden frame. , with numbness stuffed in his mouth, with a terrified look on his face.

"I sent him to a pawn shop for an internship. In just seven days, he had already embezzled more than 40 silver coins and three pawns. It seemed like a dog who couldn't change his shit...so I decided to give up. He, and be punished, so that he can no longer reach out to take things that don't belong to him in the future!"

Cheng Dapeng snapped his fingers and said, "Chop off both of his hands!"

(End of this chapter)