1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2287
Zheng Zuo believes that the collapse of Ming Dynasty is just around the corner. If Haihan is willing to take action, then with the help of Haihan, Annan, North Korea, Portugal and other countries, and Fujian Xu Xinsu's assistance from within, at least carve up the southeast region of Ming Dynasty.If Haihan is willing to take a step back and agree to send troops with the Manchus in the north, then the subjugation of the Ming Dynasty will basically be a certainty.And Annan, as Haihan's main ally, is bound to get a share of this situation.

But Haihan doesn't seem to have such an intention at the moment, and even opposes Annan's plan to encroach on the territory of the Yunnan and Guangxi regions of the Ming Dynasty to the north.Zheng Zuo’s plan to carve up the Guangdong and Guangxi regions proposed by Haihan’s high-level officials in Sanya was once again met with opposition. In fact, he didn’t quite understand that Haihan was constantly occupying the coastal areas of Daming through colonial means, gaining population and wealth from Daming. , while maintaining the precarious rule of Ming Dynasty, what kind of considerations are such contradictory approaches based on?

Accompanied by You Yihan, Zheng Zuo visited the military base in the south of Hong Kong Island yesterday.Haihan's garrison on Hong Kong Island is not large, mainly the navy. According to You Yihan, there are only about a thousand troops.Although Zheng Zuo was not sure whether the strength reported by You Yihan was an ambush, but it should not be too different.

Although the size of this garrison is small, its defense area also includes the Pearl River Estuary. With such a small force, it can control such a large sea area. There are not even pirates within a few hundred miles. This shows that Hai Han The prestige is here.

From Zheng Zuo's point of view, the nature of this troop is not so much a combat troop, but more like a symbol of force, representing Haihan's control over this area, rather than a real plan to use this troop to destroy Who.What's more, judging from the current situation, there shouldn't be any forces in this area that would take the initiative to oppose Haihan, and doing so would be tantamount to seeking their own death.

Zheng Zuo focused on the military significance of the Pearl River Estuary and Hong Kong Island, while Li Nai and Zhang Jinbao obviously tended to pay more attention to the commercial value of this area.After the fleet entered the Pearl River Estuary, the number of sailing boats on the water increased significantly. Except for some fishing sampans, most of them were merchant ships and passenger ships that traveled to and from this water area.

Li Nai introduced to the two: "In the past, there were mostly wastelands along the banks of the river, but in recent years, more and more people escaped from the inland and came to Guangzhou. One of their livelihoods is to work as tenant farmers in the riverside plains in the south of Guangzhou. Land reclamation. The places you two can see are basically plantations that have only been built in recent years, most of which are properties under Haihan's name."

Zheng Zuo asked: "If Haihan Kingdom wants to buy land and property here, I'm afraid they have to find another cover?"

"Of course." Li Nai nodded and admitted Zheng Zuo's guess: "These lands were purchased in the name of private individuals, and then developed by Haihan's subordinate organizations. In fact, it's not that the local government is unaware of these things, but Benefits come first, no one is willing to take the initiative to expose this trick, just turn a blind eye and let Haihan continue to operate like this. When there are more such plantations and people who rely on them for a living, the government will not dare to control them Otherwise, tens of thousands of people will lose their livelihoods and become refugees, and the Guangzhou area will be in chaos, which will definitely affect the black hats of the officials and lords."

The shortage of labor force has always been accompanied by Haihan's family history, and the Lingnan area has become more peaceful in recent years, and it has become more and more difficult to recruit immigrants who voluntarily settle overseas.However, compared with Haihan, the labor cost in Daming is still much lower, so Haihan also began to invest in the opposite direction, setting up many plantations and farms in the Pearl River Delta area in private name, and hired local people to reclaim farmland.

The plantations in Haihan along the Pearl River are obviously different from the plantations invested by Ming merchants in Haihan in terms of planting items.Most of the plantations in Haihan's own territory are mainly cash crops that can be used for deep processing, and the output returns are relatively high, while these farmlands operated in Daming territory are basically planted with the most common food crops, and the economic value is relatively low. lower.

Moreover, after harvesting, most of these grains will not be transported back to Haihan, but will be supplied to nearby grain merchants and rice shops in Daming to meet the survival needs of tenant farmers.The economic benefits of this approach are actually relatively limited, and Haihan’s goal is not to make much money through these industries, but to try to control as many employed people as possible in this way, and then from It will be relatively easier to absorb immigrants among these populations.

The merchants of Ming Dynasty who invested in Haihan were accustomed to eating big fish and meat, so they naturally disdain to go back to this bowl of gruel with no oil or water. Therefore, the merchants had no intention of competing with Haihan for farming grain in the Pearl River Plain.However, the local landowners, large and small, have a business scale that is far less than that of Haihan’s development model, and the cost of grain production is much higher than that of Haihan’s subordinate farms. As long as Haihan does not take the lead in lowering the price of grain Thank goodness, who dare to compete with it.

Both Zheng Zuo and Zhang Jinbao heard about these things for the first time. Although Li Nai did not explain them in detail, they still listened with interest.

In the past, I only knew that businessmen from Daming had invested in many plantations in Haihan, but I never thought that Haihan would also quietly invest in agriculture in Daming. The agricultural businessmen of Ming Dynasty had conflicts of interest and achieved the purpose of increasing the source of immigrants. Such an operation could probably only be done by the omnipotent Haihan Executive Committee.

Of course, not everyone can imitate this method of operation. In addition to the need to invest a lot of money and have more advanced agricultural technology, there must also be enough hard power to balance the square. Otherwise, no matter how large the farmland area is, , it will only become a fat sheep in the eyes of the powerful.

So even if the Guangzhou government knew about Hai Han's small actions, they could only pretend to be deaf and dumb about it, and dared not openly interfere.As for the invisible population loss caused by this, the government doesn’t really care too much. After all, if Haihan didn’t create these job opportunities, then these people would probably gradually become hidden dangers to public security, and the government would have to spend more resources on the contrary. to resolve.If these people are willing to vote for Haihan in the future, then it's up to them to go, anyway, the left and right are just a bunch of mud legs.

Zheng Zuo suddenly said, "If one day in the future, Haihan controls the food supply more and more in the whole of Guangzhou, and even in a wider area, wouldn't it be easy to influence the hearts of the people in Guangzhou?"

Li Nai did not shy away from this bold assumption, and still responded calmly: "If the Haihan Executive Committee wants to influence the hearts of the people in Guangzhou, it may not need to wait until then, because they have many other ways to buy people's hearts." . But I don’t think they necessarily want to do that because the turmoil in Guangzhou is not in their interest.”

Zheng Zuo was a little moved when he heard this answer. He suddenly realized that when he communicated with Haihan's senior management, he didn't really consider how much the other party's interests in Guangdong were, and whether the method he suggested was really suitable for Haihan. Han interests.

It is not that Haihan has no interest in Guangdong, but he did not take the reckless method proposed by Zheng Zuo, and directly used force to occupy this area.Haihan's approach is obviously more peaceful, and it is less likely to provoke the local government to take resistance measures, which is the so-called boiling frogs in warm water.

Haihan is quietly and gradually controlling the key resources in this area, and food may be just one of them. As long as he takes advantage of his advantages in military, business, and finance, Zheng Zuo believes that Haihan should be able to deal with the Guangzhou government. .But it is also because Haihan has invested a lot of resources in the Guangdong area to operate. Once the current peaceful situation is broken, Haihan itself may face the result of killing one thousand enemies and self-defeating eight hundred. This is obviously not the result of the executive committee. willingness to accept the situation.

It can be said that Zheng Zuo's original proposal did not take Haihan's real interests into account at all. He believed that as long as the most affluent areas in Guangdong and Guangxi were handed over to Haihan, he would be able to exchange for Haihan's cooperation. To develop in this direction, but the method adopted is somewhat special.

If the information obtained now is really as Zheng Zuo speculated, then he can only say "convinced" to Hai Han's brilliant means.Although this approach seems time-consuming and troublesome, the effect is indeed much better than launching a war. Besides, if the goal can be achieved without launching a war, even Zheng Zuo is willing to choose this seemingly complicated method.

The further up the Pearl River, the narrower the surface of the river, and the increasing density of sailing boats on the river has reached the point where it is necessary to slow down the speed of the boat.Zhang Jinbao heard that this place is still more than [-] miles away from Guangzhou city, and he was also secretly surprised at the prosperity of Guangzhou.

After finally reaching the river bank outside the city of Guangzhou, I saw that the wharf here stretched for several miles, and it was impossible to see where the upstream end was. There were more than a thousand ships, large and small, moored on the shore, which made Zheng Zuohe Zhang Jinbao was secretly speechless.

In Zheng Zuo's perception, places like Danzhou Port and Sanya Port are already extremely prosperous, but the number of ships calling at these big ports seems to be less than that of the Pearl River Wharf outside Guangzhou.

However, as long as you observe carefully for a while, you can still see that the hardware facilities of the wharf here are obviously not comparable to the ports under Haihan's rule, and most of the ships are small in size, and most of them are not sea-going ships, but rivers. sailboat.

"It's such a lively place, this trip is really the right time!" Zhang Jinbao was very excited when he saw the scene in front of him. This Guangzhou city is more prosperous than he imagined, and the more prosperous it is, the more labor demand it should be The bigger it is, the more it opens a branch here, there should be no need to worry about the employment of students.

As the largest merchant in Guangzhou, Fu Ruifeng naturally has its own pier here. After berthing, Zheng Zuo and Zhang Jinbao saw several carriages parked on the shore.Zhang Jinbao had already taken Furuifeng's special car more than once, and he could tell from the appearance that these cars were also standard models ordered from Haihan.

"Before we set off from Hong Kong, I ordered people to send a telegram in the local area, informing them of the approximate time of arrival in Guangzhou, so that we can prepare accommodation for the two of you here." Li Nai took the initiative to explain why there was a carriage prepared in advance. This welcome.

The two quickly thanked Li Nai. Before they came, they already knew that Li Nai would arrange their accommodation during the inspection period, so they didn't need to carry their bags all over the street looking for hotels after they arrived in Guangzhou.

"I have prepared a courtyard for the two of you outside the city, as a temporary residence for the two of you during your stay in Guangzhou. It's just that the place is a bit shabby, so don't dislike it too much." Li Nai continued to introduce his arrangement.

Li Nai said that the place is simple, but both of them didn't believe it. How could the place that Fu Ruifeng used to entertain guests be simple?

When I got to the place and took a look, it turned out that Li Nai's words were watery.The arrangement for Zhang Jinbao and his entourage is an exquisite small courtyard. Although there are only two entrances, it is arranged in the style of Jiangnan gardens. Every step is a scene, very beautiful.There are even a few servants prepared here to serve them daily.

However, Zheng Zuo and his party have a lot of staff, entourage, guards, and cooks. There are more than a dozen people in total.They stayed in Hong Kong for a day before, when Zheng Zuo and his party booked the entire floor of an inn.

Therefore, the yard that Li Nai prepared for Zheng Zuo and his party was much larger to ensure that they could all live there.At the same time, they also prepared a lot of ingredients for them, and it seemed that they planned to pay for all food, lodging and transportation.

It is difficult for Zhang Jinbao and Zheng Zuo to be picky about such a comprehensive arrangement. They can only secretly admire Fu Ruifeng's meticulousness in doing these things. It is no wonder that it can become the number one firm in Guangdong.

What they didn't know was that after Li Nai had experienced the reception of the guest house in Sanya in the early years, he suggested that Li Jifeng set up a special service organization under the name of Fu Ruifeng to be responsible for daily reception of foreign guests.In order to achieve a better service level, Li Nai also specially sent people to Sanya for training to ensure that they can provide authentic Haihan-style services.

Is it possible to build a guest house like Sanya in Guangzhou? It would be too ostentatious to do so, but it is not difficult for Fu Ruifeng to set up several courtyards outside Guangzhou city to entertain distinguished guests.Zheng Zuo and Zhang Jinbao lived in these two courtyards, which were specially used to receive distinguished guests.

But Li Nai's reception work didn't stop there, and Li Jifeng would host a banquet in person in the evening to welcome the two of them.

Locally speaking, this is no longer the treatment that ordinary people can enjoy.Li Jifeng's reputation in Guangzhou is very high now. If local officials want to meet and discuss things with him, they have to make an appointment in advance.As for the people that Li Jifeng could hold a banquet to greet them, there were not many people, and it might not be possible to gather ten people in a year.

(End of this chapter)