1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2153
There are two main issues that Yin Changxing is worried about. One is whether the money deposited in the bank is safe and can be withdrawn at any time, and the other is whether he can use the basic business of the bank conveniently as a North Korean.

"This is your account passbook. With this, it means that you are a member of Haihan's state-owned industry! It records the balance in your account, and it can be used to deposit and withdraw money at any Haihan Bank in the future. Please take care of it!"

Yin Changxing took the passbook handed over by the staff with both hands, and looked through it carefully, but unfortunately, he didn't know Chinese characters, so he couldn't confirm the amount of his account balance, so he could only report it verbally. The figures prevail.He didn't want to expose his shortcoming, so he made an expression of serious examination to cover it up.

However, during the time when Yin Changxing was going through the formalities, he saw people coming in and out of the lobby, depositing money and withdrawing money, which eased his worries a little.At the same time, he also noticed that what some people took from here was not cash, but a small stack of banknotes.

Yin Changxing raised this question to the staff, and only then did he realize that this banknote is the "currency" circulating in Haihan.Although Yin Changxing had never seen this kind of banknotes before, he immediately realized the advanced nature of this stuff through the staff's explanation-not only is it easy to carry, but also does not need to worry about the fineness of the currency. Gold, silver or copper coins are more convenient.

However, after hearing this, Yin Changxing still felt that this kind of banknotes were not waterproof and easy to be damaged, and he didn’t have the sense of security like carrying silver, so he still declined the staff’s suggestion to exchange some banknotes and try to use them on the market. .Anyway, he will continue to eat with Yu Chengli recently, and there should be no need to spend money. First, he will slowly understand the circulation of this banknote in the market, and then decide whether to use it or not.

Yin Changxing carefully put the passbook into the waterproof oiled paper bag presented by the bank, and then stuffed it into his underwear.This thing is all his current belongings, and he will carry it with him from today on.

Walking out of the bank, Yin Changxing felt that his back was about to straighten up a bit. He is now a man with property in Haihan, which is 01:30 higher than those Japanese refugees who are still locked up in the immigration camp.Moreover, he just asked the people in the bank that foreigners who have accounts and assets in Haihan Bank can enjoy priority treatment when applying for naturalization in the future. A Hai Han illusion.

But this illusion quickly disappeared from his mind. He noticed that the Haihan people on the street were all the same as the Haihan soldiers he had come into contact with before. difference.Yin Changxing couldn't help thinking about whether he should also cut his hair in the style of Haihan people, so that he might get more convenience in his daily life.

But he is not sure whether there will be additional risks in doing so, such as being charged with "pretending to be a Haihan national" by the government. After thinking about it, it is better not to take risks, and it will not be too late to make changes after naturalization , at least seek the opinion of his employer first, at least he knows Hai Han far better than himself.

However, Yin Changxing actually overestimated his employer's understanding of Haihan. Yu Chengli only visited Zhoushan once, and the real dealings with Haihan officials began after the Hirado War. If you want to talk about the national conditions of Haihan Based on his understanding of social conditions, Yu Chengli may not even be as good as ordinary people in several counties near Zhoushan.

This time, Yu Chengli was able to evacuate from Hirado to Zhoushan smoothly and unscathed. In fact, to a large extent, he relied on the "internal information" obtained by the Portuguese businessman Gonzalez to stabilize his emotions. Judging from the situation, it is difficult to say whether he will choose some wrong ways to deal with it.

At this time, Yu Chengli was waiting for the notice of the meeting outside the office building of the Zhoushan Management Committee together with Gonzalez and other foreign businessmen who had withdrawn from Hirado.According to the official arrangement of Haihan, foreign businessmen who evacuated from Hirado to Zhoushan will be able to enjoy some preferential treatment to make up for their losses during the Hirado War if they want to operate industries locally.

Although the merchants don't have much hope that Haihan officials can fully make up for their losses, no one wants to miss the opportunity to learn about the official specific measures. After receiving the notice, the merchants all came to the management committee on time, wanting to see the official What arrangements will be made.

Most of the foreign businessmen who lived in Hirado for a long time were Han Chinese from Ming Dynasty, and there were also a small number of Western businessmen from the Netherlands and Portugal. Although they were all allowed to take as much of their belongings as possible when they evacuated, the real estate and real estate were not. It cannot be discounted and taken away immediately. The more real estate there is, the greater the loss will be.

Yu Chengli used the house in the Hirado city area as a business store at the beginning, and spent a lot of money back and forth. This time, he was forced to evacuate Hirado. The Haihan people declared that they would completely raze the city to the ground after evacuating the entire Hirado city. So his storehouse must be gone.Although Yu Chengli was heartbroken by the loss, it was not to the point where he was injured, so after he arrived in Seogwipo, he still had the energy to spend money to open up contacts to obtain information and try to improve his local living conditions.

Because of the vital interests involved, everyone who received the notice rushed to the management committee earlier than the notified time.Lest you miss important information.Yu Chengli did not wait at the gate with his neck stretched out like the others. Instead, he chatted with Gonzalez in a low voice, listening to the latest news that he went to the Portuguese business office on the island last night.

Haihan has imposed restrictions on the activities of the Portuguese in the north of Daming in the past few years. For a long time, Portuguese ships were prohibited from entering the waters north of the Yangtze River Estuary. It was not until the second half of last year that the Portuguese established an official business office on Zhoushan Island. Merchant ships have also obtained permission to enter the northern waters of Daming to engage in commercial and trade activities.

And this is mainly due to the positive performance of the Portuguese Armed Fleet in the two battles of the South and the North last year. They assisted the Haihan Army to defeat the two powerful enemies of Spain and the Manchu Qing. This attitude finally made the Haihan Executive Committee It truly recognized the military alliance with Portugal, thus increasing cooperation with Portugal in both trade and military fields.

It is against this background that the Portuguese Commercial House in Zhoushan began to operate. Although it is called a commercial house, it actually undertakes most of the functions of a diplomatic embassy, ​​providing various information and services to Portuguese businessmen in Northeast Asia.It was just because the ownership of Zhoushan was still in dispute, and the Portuguese didn't want to offend Daming because of some red tape, so they operated the institution in the name of a commercial hall.

Gonzalez didn't know much about the situation in Zhoushan, but he knew that there were official institutions of his country on the island. He was new here, so he should be able to get some effective help from the commercial hall.So after arriving in Zhoushan, Gonzalez visited the Portuguese business house as quickly as possible and obtained some valuable business information there.

"Everyone I met there persuaded me to stay, and I don't think it's a coincidence." Gonzalez said, "They told me that Zhoushan has a very good trading environment, not only can it be easily obtained from Daming’s high-end goods are traded with merchants from various countries, and the most important thing is that this place is very safe, even the Portuguese can be protected by Haihan, so they don’t have to worry about the threat of war.”

"But what we saw when we entered the port, this place is obviously a large-scale naval camp. I always feel that there will be many inconveniences in the future. In my opinion, it is better to go to Ningbo Mansion. It is only separated from Zhoushan Island by a river, but it is me anyway. The boundary of the Ming Dynasty must be much more peaceful than the island where the troops are stationed." After hearing this, Yu Chengli still had concerns about Zhoushan's environment.In his view, although Zhoushan is very close to the coast of Daming, it is considered a foreign country now, so it is not safe to stay on its own land anyway.

"Boss Yu, I also heard the news yesterday that the man in charge of Ningbo Mansion in your country actually has some kind of relative with the highest official in Zhoushan, that is, General Shi who led the Haihan fleet to attack Hirado. Therefore, if you choose Zhoushan or Ningbo to settle down, I don’t think there is much difference.”

Gonzalez did not refute Yu Chengli, but just threw out another message, allowing Yu Chengli to figure out the stakes.

After hearing this, Yu Chengli was really hesitant. If the Ningbo Mansion was really in cahoots with the Haihan people, then the positive significance of choosing Ningbo would be very limited.

Gonzalez continued: "In addition, it is said that the tax on Zhoushan Island is much lower than that of Ming Dynasty, so many merchants from your country choose this place for their transactions. A considerable part of the various shops on the island are run by merchants from Ming Dynasty. of."

No matter which country they come from, the commonality of businessmen is to seek profit. Wherever the profit of doing business is higher, businessmen will flock there.Zhoushan Island became a regional trade center in just a few years, mainly due to the favorable trade environment created by the various commercial policies adopted by the Haihan government.

The Portuguese businessmen who can come to Zhoushan have already circled more than half of the world, so they are naturally very sensitive to the pros and cons of the trade environment.The opinions that Gonzalez got from his counterparts in his country are almost all positive comments on Zhoushan. Some people even think that the trading conditions here are not inferior to Sanya Port in the south, and it is expected to become one of the main trading ports in the Eastern world in the future. .

In contrast, Gonzalez, who is from Lisbon, a famous port city in Portugal, has seen far more of the world than Yu Chengli. It is more concerned about the local social situation and infrastructure level, which can reflect from the side whether the local trade environment is suitable for long-term residence.

Due to the short time on the island, Gonzalez can only make an intuitive judgment based on his own experience. In his opinion, the port facilities of Dinghai Port can be ranked among the top few trading ports he has visited in the past. , and its construction cost is definitely not small.Rather than saying that this is a military base, Gonzalez prefers to think that the large-scale garrison is to protect the trade environment here. After all, after a large amount of wealth has been gathered here, it is difficult to guarantee that no one will have wrong ideas about this place.

This is not Gonzalez's unfounded worry. The bloody reality is right in front of him. He doesn't know how the Hirado clan provoked the Haihan people, so that the other party launched a cross-sea conquest at any cost. However, after the Haihan people succeeded, the entire Hirado The city was looted, and all the people were shipped away, which fully demonstrated the necessity of powerful armed guards for the trading port.Gonzalez even believes that the Haihan people may just find an excuse to realize their real purpose of robbing Hirado Port.Of course, this idea cannot be said out loud, otherwise once the partition has ears, maybe it will be bad luck for myself.

The armed forces of the Haihan people obviously surpassed that of the Hirado clan. Gonzalez thought that there was no other fleet that could match it in the entire East Asia just because of the armed fleet that escorted the civilian ships back to Zhoushan. —If there is such a fleet, it probably also belongs to Haihan Kingdom.

With such a powerful armed force stationed on Zhoushan Island, of course there is no need to worry about whether the local trade environment is safe enough, and Gonzalez, who has just escaped from the war, is currently most concerned about this condition.

Yu Chengli said: "Then let's see how much benefit the government can give! If the conditions are right, we might as well continue to be neighbors here with Boss Gang."

Gonzalez said with a smile: "The Haihan people took so much trouble to bring us back from Hirado, I don't think the conditions they offered will disappoint us."

When the scheduled time was approaching, a man came out of the building, holding a book in his hand, and said to the crowd at the door: "Bosses from Hirado who came to Zhoushan have been waiting for a long time, please call your name next." Stand up, everyone, each boss can bring a follower, and follow me into the meeting later."

After finishing speaking, he opened the book in his hand and began to roll his name according to the list registered by the military.Yu Chengli and Gonzalez were naturally among them, and after hearing their names, they took the initiative to stand beside the man.

There were less than 20 people on the list, so the roll call ended quickly.The man nodded in satisfaction and said, "It seems that no one is late, so please follow me!"

Immediately, everyone followed him into a meeting room in the office building of the management committee. After everyone took their seats, the man put down the notebook in his hand, cupped his hands and said to everyone present: "Let me introduce myself first. , responsible for managing commercial affairs in the Zhoushan Management Committee, everyone is polite!"

All the people present were all good people, and they immediately bowed their hands and said "I have long admired you", and they all addressed each other as "Master Yang", hoping to make a good impression in front of this Haihan official.

(End of this chapter)