1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 368

With regard to Portugal and Haihan turning enemies into friends, cooperation in bilateral trade and even deeper politics is not something that Enrique, a special envoy, can directly make a decision on, so the Executive Committee did not expect him to think about it overnight The cooperation agreement can be signed on behalf of Portugal.All Enrique can do now is to try his best to win as many favorable conditions as possible for his own interest group, and then report the situation back to Macau, so that the council there can make a final decision.Of course, Enrique's attitude on this matter will affect the final result to a large extent, which is the main reason why the Executive Committee has invested a lot of resources in the preliminary work.

"Dear gentlemen, after careful consideration last night, I must admit that the prospect of cooperation you described is very tempting, and I have not found a reason to reject you." Enrique said with a rare seriousness: "But It is not possible for us to sign any kind of written agreement at this time, and I hope you will recognize this status quo."

"We have already thought about this. For such a big matter, Mr. Enrique probably needs to draft a very detailed report and send it back to Haojingao, right?" Tao Donglai had already received the report, and last night in Enrique's room The lamp in the office has not been turned off all night, presumably he is rushing to write report materials.

"If you want, we can send a ship to send this letter to Haojingao as soon as possible and hand it over to your council." Yan Chujie immediately added: "It takes three days for our ship to reach Haojingao .”

"This..." Enrique really wanted to refuse Yan Chujie's offer to help, but the letter could be delivered to Haojingao in three days, and this kind of efficiency made it difficult for him to give up.If you find a boat to send the letter back now, it will take six or seven days, and it seems that there is no delay for a few days, but this kind of matter should not be delayed, and things will change if it is delayed. Who knows if the Haihan people will suddenly regret it in a few days?

"You can rest assured, it's okay to send you away if it's not possible." Yan Chujie continued to persuade Enrique when he saw Enrique's hesitation.

Now Enrique was really moved. He originally wanted to write a letter and send it back. He stayed in Shengli Port to continue negotiations with the Haihan people, but the description in the letter is definitely not as detailed as his own. Going to Haojingao to report face-to-face, then the chances of persuading the council must be much greater than sending a letter back.

"Without further delay, let's arrange a boat for Mr. Enrique." Seeing Enrique's hesitant face, Tao Donglai immediately helped him make a decision.

"It just so happens that the Lightning has just finished hull maintenance, so I can take a trip. I'll call Tom Wang right now." Yan Chujie didn't give Enrique any more time to think about it, and immediately notified Tom Wang to go.

"Okay." Enrique gritted his teeth and decided to take a gamble on this matter: "I'll let the servant go back to the guest house to get my luggage."

Half an hour later, Enrique had already boarded the "Lightning" docked at Victory Harbor Wharf, and Tom Wang himself would personally drive the boat to take him back to Macau.Of course, with Wang Tom's current status, he will also be a representative of Haihan who is visiting Macau, and will have talks with the Portuguese Council in Macau on military cooperation issues.

The reason why both parties want to facilitate this matter as soon as possible has different reasons.Enrique believes that if the cooperation method claimed by the Haihan people can be realized as soon as possible, the Portuguese side will gain more than just economic benefits. The two sides can move from confrontation to cooperation, which means that Portugal will lose a strong opponent in the Far East. , and with one more powerful partner, the political gains inside and outside here cannot be measured by money.The Haihan people have made it clear that they are willing to help Portugal against the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. This kind of opportunity does not come at any time.Although the strength of Haihan people is still relatively limited, Enrique believes that their future development prospects can only be described as "unlimited". Now that they have the opportunity to choose cooperation, Enrique will never allow this opportunity to come from Slip past easily, and then let the two parties enter into a hostile relationship.

And the executive committee is so eager, it's not that the executive committee members are too shallow to hide their affairs - if you talk about the degree of black belly, it may be difficult to find a second ruling group in the same period that can compete with Haihan. The committee was compared.The reason why the Executive Committee is in a hurry to deal with this matter is that, in addition to superficial claims, there is another point that the number of prospective immigrants from Guangdong has recently skyrocketed. The sum of immigration in the previous two months.In order to transfer so many immigrants to Sanya in a short period of time, almost all the transportation capacity of Shengli Port will be dispatched.And after the local area accepted a large number of immigrants in a short period of time, the pressure on material supply has suddenly increased a lot, and several telegrams have been sent back to ask for support.

However, the location of Macau happens to be stuck on the immigration transshipment route. If the relationship with the Portuguese is not properly handled, the risk of the transshipment process will inevitably increase greatly, because no one can guarantee whether the Portuguese, who suffered a major failure in South Vietnam, will Let's take a shot at the soft persimmon of the Haihan immigration ship.Although Wanshan Port is not far from Macau, there are only two or three warships for the Navy to live in Wanshan Port for combat readiness. It is not a big problem to patrol the waters of the Pearl River Estuary at ordinary times. A long-distance escort between them is not enough.

Compared with sending warships to escort, trying to resolve the hostile relationship between the two sides is undoubtedly a cheaper solution, not to mention that the Executive Committee had already had the intention of cooperating with Portugal before sending troops to attack Hoi An.If the Executive Committee reaches a cooperation with the Portuguese as soon as possible, it will be able to send a large number of ships to Panyu to transport immigrants as soon as possible. This is an important task for the Executive Committee, which is eager to expand the population base of the area under its rule.

The "Lightning" set off with Enrique on the front foot, and the executive committee issued an emergency notice on the back foot, suspending all cargo flights to North Vietnam and Indochina Peninsula, and gathered all the sea ships in the port area, preparing to go to Panyu for a wave The tide of immigration transshipment.The Ministry of Construction also tried its best to transfer the construction team from the existing construction site to the newly designated resettlement area, and began urgent construction and expansion.The arrival of thousands of people means that hundreds of thousands of temporary residences and corresponding basic living facilities have to be built. Without the coordination and cooperation of various departments, it will be difficult to complete such a large amount of work in a short period of time. .

As for food and clothing, the civil affairs department has quite enough inventory, enough to supply nearly ten thousand people, and there should be no shortage of materials in the short term.The only thing that the Executive Committee is more worried about the local reception work is health and epidemic prevention. In the past, each batch of hundreds of people arrived in Hong Kong, and at most it was only about 1000 people. It is relatively easy to arrange, but if thousands of people arrive in Hong Kong at one time, The requirements for sanitation and epidemic prevention work are different.The business department has already contacted merchants to collect a large number of commonly used medicinal materials from cities such as Guangzhou and the northern part of Qiongzhou Island to prepare for the imminent immigration wave.

September [-], Panyu, Lijiazhuang immigrant camp.

After more than three months of construction, the immigrant camp outside Lijiazhuang near the Shawan Waterway has expanded from the initial 30 mu of land to nearly 500 mu of land, and the number of immigrants received has also expanded from the initial [-] people to The current thousands of people—of course, the current scale of reception has actually greatly exceeded the actual operating capacity of the camp.

"Sister Ma, the medicinal materials shipped from Guangzhou have arrived. I have already counted them. Can you sign for them?" Sha Xi ran over panting, and handed a piece of paper to Ma Yu.

Ma Yu took a look at it and signed it with a pen, and then said: "Xiaosha, let people move all the medicinal materials to the infirmary, and send another [-] people to me to grind the medicine. There are not enough manpower."

"Okay, okay, I'll do it right away." Sha Xi grabbed the paperwork and hurried out.

Due to the influx of a large number of people in the Lijiazhuang immigration camp recently, the local immigration cadres are no longer enough, so the Guangzhou Office had to send reinforcements, so that Ma Yu, who is in charge of medical care, and Sha Xi, who is in charge of immigration affairs, came here to coordinate.In addition to them, Xiao Liang, who is more familiar with the local situation, was also transferred here. He also cooperated with militiamen from two platoons in Wanshan Port to maintain the law and order of the immigration camp.

This wave of immigration did not happen for no reason. Since May this year, most of the Pearl River Delta has once again fallen into drought.However, it was not until after the summer harvest that the harm of the drought began to gradually emerge. People in many places went bankrupt because they borrowed money to buy food, and the wave of refugees who had already subsided began to grow again.

The high-ranking officials in Guangzhou did not have a particularly good solution for this. The farmland in the province was not harvested every year due to natural disasters and man-made disasters. In fact, there was not much surplus food in the government’s granary for disaster relief. Food relief.However, the effect of doing so is extremely limited. Even if some wealthy businessmen are willing to do this good deed, there are many specific difficulties.

First of all, it is difficult to buy a large amount of food for the relief victims locally, and the rising food price makes this kind of relief seem uneconomical, but if you buy rice from other places, it will take a lot of money to transport it to the towns near Guangzhou. some time.Secondly, as soon as there is news of the opening of a warehouse to release grain somewhere, disaster victims from tens of miles nearby will flock to it quickly. It is okay for a small gentry to rescue a hundred or eighty people, but if thousands of people flock to the door Asking for food, how can they resist this posture?Once the scene gets out of control, it can easily turn into violent incidents such as looting.

In addition, many people chose the old road of being bandits in order to get a bite to eat. For a while, the bandits from all walks of life who were suppressed by the Lijiazhuang battle seemed to be ready to move again, and even started to organize looting in some remote areas. These news gathered in the governor's yamen, which made Governor Wang scratch his head a lot after he took office for only a few months.

At this time, of course, there will be aides to offer advice to Wang Zunde—there are so many disaster victims, and the government is unable to provide relief, so they can only rely on private forces to try their best to guide the victims.At present, the most powerful merchants in Guangdong and Guangxi who are willing to do good deeds are "Qiong Lianfa". As long as they are allowed to do this, the increasingly serious food shortage in the province will be temporarily alleviated to some extent.

As for whether there are any disadvantages in this process, where "Qiong Lianfa" will arrange these immigrants, the staff did not talk about it, and Mr. Wang did not have the time to think about it slowly.If there is chaos in Guangdong and Guangxi, it will be a major event to report to the imperial court. No matter what, we must try our best to stabilize the situation first.As for the negative effects of doing so, no one can take care of it at this juncture.

So the governor's office sent a document to "Qiong Lianfa", and the shareholders and bosses here naturally didn't dare to make a decision privately, so they sent the original document to the Guangzhou Office overnight.Maliko immediately felt that this was a good opportunity. On the one hand, a large number of immigrants could be introduced, and on the other hand, it could also be used to create a better reputation for Haihan among the people. People naturally know where the way out is.

Of course, this matter cannot be handled by the Guangdong Office, but must be handed over to "Qiong Lianfa" and its related dozen or so business firms.In order to leave this drudgery to "Qiong Lianfa", the government happily provided a lot of convenience - all rice grains and daily necessities transported to the Panyu immigration camp will be exempted from all tolls and taxes. People going to the Panyu immigration camps are exempted from checking for directions. All immigrant relief sites organized by "Qiong Lianfa" in various states and counties will be assisted by government servants to maintain order, and corresponding safety notices will be issued to prove their reliability.

As a result, a large number of immigrants began to concentrate from various states and counties in the province to Panyu County. The speed far exceeded Maiko and others' initial expectations, so that they had to ask for help from the base camp and asked to send ships to deliver supplies And pick up the immigrants who are about to burst.

At present, there are close to 5000 people from all walks of life temporarily living in the immigrant area. The food they eat every day is calculated in kilograms, and the consumption of medicinal materials and other daily necessities is also huge. Method.Moreover, with so many people living together, it is easy for a large-scale epidemic to break out. Once such a vicious accident occurs, it may not be so easy for Haihan to organize large-scale immigration in the future, and it may not be so easy to get the approval of the people.

On September [-]th, Tom Wang drove Enrique to Macau on the "Lightning" and began to participate in further talks between the two sides.After urgent consultations between the two parties, the Portuguese Council of Macau agreed to Haihan's application to ensure the safety of all Haihan immigration boats entering and exiting the waters of the Pearl River Estuary before the two parties reached a further cooperation agreement.After the news was sent back to the base camp by telegram, all the executive committee members breathed a sigh of relief.

Three days later, the first batch of immigrant ships following the "Lightning" arrived in Panyu, unloaded a large amount of supplies, and shipped more than [-] immigrants to leave here, heading south to return to Shengli Port.However, this has been far behind the speed of people from all over the country entering the immigration camps. Before the boats left the Pearl River Estuary, the number of people in the immigration camps has exceeded [-], and there seems to be an upward trend in the short term.

On September 22, the largest dispatched convoy sailed into the Pearl River Estuary after the crossing and arrived at the wharf of the Shawan Waterway.More than [-] large and small sea-going ships could not even enter the Shawan waterway at all, and more than half of the ships could only dock along the Pearl River.

These ships not only gathered most of the cargo ships and immigrant ships under the name of the Ministry of Shipping, but also used almost all the warships of the Navy. Several warships in better condition in the Yacheng Water Village were also arrested.If the Garrison Office and "Qiong Lianfa" hadn't reported to the Guangzhou government and the garrison in advance, the Ming army stationed at the Pearl River Estuary would probably mistakenly think that this was a large group of pirates who were about to go ashore and attack the inland.

The apprehensive people living in the immigration camp were finally relieved when they saw the arrival of such a large fleet.Although they knew that they would be transported to Qiongzhou Island to settle down after they came here, they were unavoidably a little uneasy because they had not seen the fleet appear after waiting for many days.After all, all the stories about the Haihan people in Qiongzhou Island are just legends. No matter how the cadres of the Guihuamin describe it as hype, it is just a fantasy for these people who have not been to Shengli Port.

Due to the large number of people who need to be transferred this time, and the docking scale at Shawan Wharf is very limited, it took two days to organize the immigration boarding.The boats that loaded the immigrants on the first day set off first, and went to Wanshan Port at the mouth of the Pearl River to stop overnight.On the second day, the immigrant ship did not stop after loading the population, and sailed directly out of the Pearl River Estuary, and returned to Sanya together with the fleet that set out the previous day.

According to statistics from the Lijiazhuang immigration camp, a total of more than 17 people boarded the ship in two days, which can be called the largest sea transportation after the crossing.Almost all the ships were fully loaded, and the cabins were filled with immigrants, reminiscent of the ships that transported slaves in Western countries.And the evil consequences of this hasty large-scale population transportation cannot be avoided, and a large number of people with weak constitutions have various discomforts soon after going to sea.On the second day after going to sea, as many as [-] people died on board due to physical reasons.Naturally, the bodies of these people could not be restrained, and could only be thrown into the sea immediately.

The unlucky ghosts who died on the way were not limited to these. When the fleet arrived at Victory Port seven days later, a total of 270 people died on the way. This record can also be called the largest number of deaths in sea transportation after crossing.Of course, the medical staff cannot be blamed for such a situation. Although the relevant departments have tried their best, they still cannot guarantee that each ship can be equipped with enough medical staff. In fact, the entire fleet is only equipped with more than 30 doctors and 70 people. There are many nurses, and on average, there is less than one doctor on a boat.

(End of this chapter)