1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2234
As a guest of Victory Fort, frequent contact with political and business dignitaries from various countries during his stay in Sanya is nothing new to Li Nai.It was also because of this that he had no trouble guessing who was trying to arrange a meeting through the Foreign Office.

It's just that no matter how smart Li Nai is, it's hard to guess why the son of Joseon made such a request.

Li Nai asked: "What is the urgent matter of this prince, and you want to trouble Mr. Tian to wait at the pier?"

Tian Zhengdao: "There is nothing urgent, but I am worried that the third son will be busy with business after arriving in Sanya, and he will not have time to meet with the prince of Korea, so come here early so that the third son can arrange time. See when the third son is free here , let’s have a light meal together, and I’ll go and tell Shizi to confirm the meeting place.”

Li Nai replied with a smile: "Master Tian really has a heart! Let me think about it... I have to meet with the Dutch today to let them inspect the goods shipped from Guangzhou, and I have to go to the customs office to go through the transshipment procedures. I don't know." When will it be finished, or tomorrow? Tomorrow at noon, Qingfeng Tower, I will be the host, and if Mr. Tian is free, please come and sit with me."

Tian Zhengdao: "Third Young Master, that's what I said at that time. As for being the host, you don't have to argue. The King of Korea said that he will treat this meal."

"Then it's better to be respectful than obedient." Li Nai didn't care about such trivial things as who pays for the meal, but if the other party took the initiative to treat guests, it might be that there is something to ask for himself.

After Li Nai came to Sanya last time, he already knew that Hai Han's high-level officials attached great importance to the study of Joseon's son. Not only did he arrange a round-the-island inspection for him, but he also gave Joseon's great autonomy in the direction of his studies. rare phenomenon.

According to the information Li Nai obtained from Haihan's senior officials, he believed that Haihan regarded North Korea as an important ally in the far northern border. Development provides various materials, and when necessary, it can even be temporarily used as Haihan's strategic depth.

In order to achieve such a goal, Haihan even took the risk of sending troops to North Korea to prevent the Qing army from going south to conquer the Korean peninsula.After the war, it was arranged for the son of North Korea, who will be in charge in the future, to study in Sanya, which shows that Haehan hopes to use this mature plan from top to bottom to influence the future development direction of North Korea and win him over to him.

Although Li Nai is a businessman, he has been hanging out with high-ranking people like Haihan all year round. Under the influence of his ears and eyes, his vision and insight are far beyond human comparison. He even has more understanding of the international situation than the real ruling class like Li Yi. .Li Nai is also very interested in observing and researching how Haihan affects North Korea little by little.

In addition, as Haihan's most loyal trading partner, Fu Ruifeng is of course one of the first batch of foreign companies to enter North Korea after the end of last year's war, and has already established a local business store.

Although Li Nai's affairs did not include business in the north, if he had the opportunity to have face-to-face exchanges with North Korean dignitaries, he would still be happy to participate.Taking this opportunity to learn more about the situation in North Korea, and even establish an ideal personal relationship with the son of North Korea, will help Fu Ruifeng to carry out trade activities in North Korea in the future.

What's more, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took the lead in arranging this matter. It is obvious that the official attitude is to facilitate the meeting between the two parties.Although Tian Zheng didn't explain the specific reasons, since this was the official intention, Li Nai knew that it would not do any harm to him, so he agreed.

After Tian Zheng finalized the matter, he bid farewell to Li Nai first, and went to Li Yi's side to answer.On the other hand, Li Nai continued to stay at the dock and waited for the inspection of the goods. His people had already gone to inform the Dutchman to come to the dock to inspect the special cargo carried on the ship.

Since this batch of goods are steel products that must be subject to Haihan’s control, inspection and registration must be completed by relevant Haihan official agencies before delivery of the goods.As the owner of the goods, Li Nai had to wait on the spot.

Not long after, the people from Haihan Customs arrived first, and Li Nai asked people to take out the relevant formalities and hand them over to the customs people for registration.These documents include the type, quantity, and transaction objects of the relevant goods. Haihan officials can roughly grasp the amount of steel products purchased by the Dutch from Daming territory every year through registration.

Of course, with Batavia's current industrial production capacity, it is not an easy task to make these hard-to-get steel into armor and weapons.The thresholds set by Haihan further increased the cost of the East India Company's own weapons manufacturing, thus indirectly controlling the scale of its armed forces.

The customs officers boarded the ship to inspect the goods in the cabin, registered them, and left quickly.If it's the goods from other companies, maybe you can get some oil and water from it, but the two ships are loaded with Fu Ruifeng's goods, so no one dares to make random decisions.

As soon as the customs officers left, the Dutch arrived.Due to the special nature of this batch of goods, the East India Company also attached great importance to it, and Su Keyi, the Minister in Haihan, came to inspect the goods in person.

Of course, the reason why Su Keyi came forward was that besides the importance he attached to this batch of goods, he heard that the goods were personally escorted by Li Nai, so he came here to show his face to show his respect for Li Nai.

It was not the first day for the two of them to deal with each other. After a few pleasantries, Li Nai handed him the wet-stained Haihan inspection receipt: "The formalities have been completed. Brother Su can go on board to inspect the goods. If there is no problem , and then we can arrange the transfer.”

Su Keyi thanked him, and stretched out his hands to take the receipt. Without this procedure, these steel products could not be legally handed over to him for transport.

Su Keyi, as the representative of the East India Company stationed in Sanya, has been here for several years, and naturally he is well aware of the various restrictions Haihan has set up against the East India Company.For example, the regulations restricting the purchase of steel products from Daming are clearly intended to deliberately raise prices, and the agent Fu Ruifeng is also one of the main beneficiaries.

Of course, even though he was very dissatisfied with the purchase restriction system created by Haihan, he did not dare to offend Fu Ruifeng easily, because in addition to steel products, Batavia also has a lot of products produced in Ming Dynasty to pass through. Fu Ruifeng completed the acquisition in Guangdong, so even though he knew that every steel product transaction was a tribute to Fu Ruifeng, Su Keyi still dealt with Fu Ruifeng politely.

Of course, Su Keyi himself would not do the rough work of drilling the ship's cabin and ordering cargo, and his subordinates would take care of it in a word.He himself stayed on the pier to discuss the current situation with Li Nai.Many people would be ashamed of Su Keyi because he served as a Han Chinese for the Dutch, but Li Nai was an exception and would not treat Su Keyi with discrimination. This is why Su Keyi had a good impression of this Young Master Li San one of the reasons.

Unlike most people, Li Nai has no negative opinion about Su Keyi playing for the Dutch. He believes that although Su Keyi is a Han Chinese, he was born in a place ruled by the Dutch, and it is only natural for him to play for the Dutch when he grows up. This is as understandable as the vast majority of people living in Hainan Island have joined the Haihan nationality.

Moreover, by communicating with Su Keyi, a Han Chinese with a special status, Li Nai can also understand the views of people from different positions on Hai Han, which is also very interesting to him.

"The goods shipped this time should be much less than what we ordered, right? Could it be that something happened to Foshan?" Of course Su Keyi also noticed the quantity on the customs declaration form, and after chatting a few gossips, he went Bring the topic back to business.

"It's not Foshan's problem, but the imperial court wants to expropriate it. It's not easy to buy these from the market." Li Nai explained the reason lightly.

Su Keyi said: "Could it be that the civil strife in Ming Dynasty has intensified?"

Li Nai nodded and said: "There are constant wars in the Sichuan-Shanxi area. The imperial court issued a decree to open the sea ban in Fujian, trade and salaries. In addition, recently redundant officials in Nanjing have been laid off to save money. Foshan requisitioned steel produced by the people. , used to make weapons and armor for the army is also one of the measures taken by the court recently."

These news are not classified as confidential, as long as they are willing to inquire, it is not difficult to learn from the market, so Li Nai did not intend to hide everything from Su Keyi, and told them all frankly.

In fact, Daming's situation at this time is much better than in history, because Haihan held back the pace of the Qing army's southward march in Liaodong, and Daming was able to temporarily concentrate on dealing with the peasant army in the hinterland of the Central Plains.Li Zicheng, Luo Rucai and other ministries were defeated by the Ming army one after another, while Zhang Xianzhong simply surrendered to Xiong Wencan in Gucheng.

However, it is worth mentioning that in the original history, Zhang Xianzhong's surrender was only an expedient measure, and he rebelled again in Gucheng the following year, and Xiong Wencan, then the governor of the five provinces and the right deputy capital censor, died because of this major mistake. He was imprisoned, and later sentenced to beheaded and abandoned the market, and was tortured to death alive.

Foshan is the smelting center of Guangdong, and it is reasonable for the local steel to be expropriated by the government.In fact, Su Keyi had already read the relevant news in Haihan's newspaper before this, and at this time, he was just using the pretext of inspecting the goods to confirm the authenticity of these news with Li Nai, and by the way, test whether Li Nai would respond to the news. Tell the truth yourself.

The government's expropriation naturally increased the difficulty of procurement, so that the amount of steel shipped to Sanya this time was about a quarter less than the amount scheduled by the East India Company.Su Keyi knew that this was not Fu Ruifeng's intentional embarrassment, so he could only accept this fact.

While speaking, the counting on the ship has also ended. All the iron ingots brought in are cast and formed. Not only are they of the same color, but also the size and weight of each piece are the same. As long as the number is counted, the weight can be calculated, and the entire counting process does not need too much time. long time.

Su Keyi was also a straightforward person, so he immediately asked people to go to Haihan Bank with Li Nai's subordinates to handle the transfer of the loan.Having been in Sanya for a long time, Su Keyi has long been accustomed to the trading method formulated by Haihan. Large transactions are directly settled in the bank, so that there is no need to use a large amount of cash for transactions, which is safe, reliable and efficient.

"There is a lot of time. If the third young master has no other arrangements, how about having a light meal together?" Seeing that the business was almost done, Su Keyi invited Li Nai.

Li Nai declined and said: "To be honest, I still have to go to Shengli Fort to do business, so I really can't agree to Brother Su's invitation. I will stay in Sanya for a while, why don't we make an appointment at another time!"

Su Keyi heard that he was going to the Fort of Victory, so he couldn't force it anymore, nodded and said: "Since the third son still has business to do, then I won't bother you, and I will send someone to send invitations to the third son's mansion later." .”

After dealing with the delivery of money and goods with the East India Company, Li Nai took his own carriage and went all the way to Fort Victory.

At the gate of Victory Fort, Li Nai got out of the car, greeted the officers on duty, and entered by himself.When he came to Victory Fort, it was like returning to his own home, and he didn't need to go through the cumbersome registration like outsiders. This face was used as a pass.

Li Nai went outside the office building of the executive committee and asked. It happened that the senior officials were having a meeting behind closed doors, so he had to wait outside first.

But it didn't take too long, and the meeting inside was over.Ning Qi was the first to come out of the conference room, and when he saw him, he took the initiative to greet him: "The third son is here!"

Li Nai hurried forward to greet him.Although he has a good personal relationship with high-level officials like Haihan, basically getting along as friends, but Ning Qi taught him the most knowledge, so Li Nai usually treats him as a disciple when seeing him.

Then Tao Donglai, Yan Chujie, Bai Kesi, Schneider and others stepped out of the conference room one after another, and Li Nai also greeted them one by one.In terms of the degree of acquaintance with the big figures of the Haihan Executive Committee, Li Nai can probably be regarded as the number one in Ming Dynasty.

"I just arrived in Sanya today. After handing over the goods at the port, I came directly to Shengli Fort. Long time no see, you adults are still so energetic!"

"You kid came here in such a hurry, did you come here to catch your meal?" Tao Donglai joked: "Every time you arrive in Sanya, you come to Shengli Fort first to have a meal. Do you really think that our place is a cafeteria?"

Li Nai replied solemnly: "Is there such a thing, Mr. Tao is joking! I just haven't seen each other for a long time, and I miss you very much, so I came here to visit first, so as not to be unfamiliar with each other. As for the meal, all the adults are willing to enjoy the meal." Eat, of course I wish for it!"

Li Nai has known these high-ranking officials for many years, and there has been no identity barrier for a long time. After meeting, they talk and laugh very casually, not at all restrained and cautious like ordinary foreigners in Fort Victory.

When he came to Victory Fort, he didn't have any important things to do, but he was used to reporting to Victory Fort first every time he came to Sanya, so he would rather reject Su Keyi's invitation, and come here first to meet everyone.Of course, it would be even better to have a meal by the way, after all, the food in Fort Victory cannot be eaten in any restaurant outside.

(End of this chapter)