1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3720

Of course, compared to when Wang Tom went to North America, Hai Han now has many more channels to recruit immigrants for its overseas colonies. One of the relatively high sources of population is the "quasi-naturalized citizens" introduced from countries surrounding Hai Han.

The so-called "quasi-naturalized citizens" are actually people who intend to become Hai Han citizens. These people either admire Hai Han's prosperity, or want to escape war or famine, and want to become Hai Han citizens by actively entering Hai Han.

Due to their identity issues, many problems would often arise if these people were resettled locally after entering Hai Han, so nowadays they are generally resettled elsewhere after being received.

Most of these relocations were to overseas colonies that were extremely far away from Hai Han’s mainland.

The basic treatment for "quasi-naturalized citizens" who immigrated to overseas colonies was to allocate land and property, grant national household registration, provide resettlement expenses, and after staying in the local area for a certain number of years, they could move back to Hai Han to settle down.

Of course, in most cases, "quasi-naturalized citizens" have no choice about the specific destination of their overseas migration and can only obey official arrangements.

Those who were lucky might be assigned to work near Manila on Luzon Island, or in the ports operated by Hai Han in Annan. These places had been under Hai Han's rule for a long time, and their living environment was not much different from that in Hai Han.

In slightly inferior places, such as the colonies in the New World in the south, although living facilities were not yet complete, immigrants who settled there in the early stages would be allocated a large amount of land, and the government would also provide support such as years of exemption from grain taxes, agricultural technical guidance and various seedlings, as well as interest-free loans.

As long as they have the patience to operate the business for a long time, most of these immigrants will be able to own their own farms or plantations in the future.

Those who are less fortunate may be assigned a destination thousands of miles away from Hai Han’s homeland, or even a new colony that has just entered its infancy - such as Fubo Port and Zhenhai Port in the Middle East.

There is not much arable land in these areas, and the main livelihood of the new immigrants is to serve as laborers in various infrastructure projects. Although their income is probably not worse than that of new immigrants engaged in agriculture, and may even be higher, they do not have fixed assets such as fields. At most, they can get some long-term dividend promises that are like pie in the sky.

Perhaps it will take another 10 or 20 years until energy extraction and trade channels across the Middle East are operational, and these new immigrants will be able to obtain more substantial benefits from dividends from local business projects.

Among the immigrants that the Executive Committee was going to send to the Special Operations Division, in addition to those with "abnormal origins", there were also quite a few "quasi-naturalized citizens" from other countries. Immigrants who were actually recruited from Hai Han's registered citizens actually accounted for only a small proportion.

This is the only solution. After all, the new colony opened by the Special Operations Division has an urgent need for immigrants. If we want to gather a large number of immigrants to send there in the short term, we can only relax the conditions and accept more immigrants obtained through informal channels.

Besides, the demand for immigrants in various places overseas is on the rise, and the New World in the South is eager to accept as many as possible. Although Qian Tiandun, who has always had high requirements for the quality of immigrants, may not be satisfied, the current situation is that the number of immigrants is more important than the quality, and he cannot take so many into account for the time being.

It is worth mentioning that among the new immigrants who are about to be sent to settle in the Middle East, there are quite a number of people from Japan, most of whom are women and children.

The reason is simple, because Japan's civil war has rapidly entered the stage of consuming population in exchange for war resources.

Since the outbreak of the Japanese civil war in March last year, in just one year, the actual control of the warring parties has not changed much, but the casualties and equipment damage are quite considerable. As for the Kyushu coalition, the number of casualties in combat has reached more than 20,000, which is a considerable number for the Kyushu region with a very limited population base and total military strength.

As for the ships, guns and cannons destroyed in the war, and the ammunition, swords, spears, armor, etc. consumed, they are too numerous to be counted.

The financial resources of the five major fiefdoms in Kyushu have basically been emptied. Now, the newly purchased weapons and even part of the military expenditure are barely maintained by relying on the low-interest loans provided by Hai Han.

Several feudal lords have gradually become numb to the current war situation. They all know that this war is unlikely to end as soon as expected. The more likely scenario is that Japan will return to the Warring States period and the war will continue for a long time.

The situation on the shogunate's side was not much better. At the beginning, it still had a slight advantage on the battlefield, but since the civil unrest broke out in Kyoto, the areas under the shogunate's rule also began to become turbulent.

Many local daimyo gradually realized that when the shogunate focused its energy mainly on the Kyushu battlefield, its control over domestic political situation was declining.

Many daimyo who were already ambitious began to disobey the shogunate's orders. They delayed paying taxes to the shogunate and shirked the shogunate's orders to mobilize local troops to participate in the war. These small actions not only hindered the shogunate's campaign to conquer Kyushu, but also gave the Kyushu coalition a chance to catch its breath.

Tokugawa Ietsugu also knew that many people were secretly watching him, waiting for him to make a mistake and fall, and then they would eat the flesh and blood of the shogunate. Because of this, he could not lose the war against Kyushu.

The victory or defeat of this war not only represented his personal reputation, but also symbolized the authority of the Tokugawa shogunate.

If they were defeated, the Tokugawa shogunate would lose its prestige, and ambitious people in the country would certainly follow the example of Kyushu and rise up in rebellion. By then, the shogunate would be outnumbered and might soon lose control of the domestic political situation.

Therefore, the shogunate could only grit its teeth and persevere, even though it knew that this war was a losing business, it still had to continue fighting. If they won, they might have a chance to make a comeback, but if they lost, everything would be over, and they might even lose the Tokugawa family's noble status.

However, the economic situation of the shogunate is not much better than that of Kyushu, and now it also needs loans from Hai Han to maintain its operations.

Of course, this loan was not taken for free, and there had to be corresponding collateral. Hai Han had no interest in Japanese land and real estate, and the shogunate was unwilling to use valuable minerals such as the Sado Gold Mine and the Iwami Silver Mine as collateral.

Therefore, Hai Han proposed a special solution, which was to exchange immigration for loans. The shogunate would organize its own people to immigrate to Hai Han’s territory and settle there, using the labor and output of the immigrants as collateral for the loan.

Moreover, not everyone is accepted for this kind of exchange. Hai Han only accepts people who are able to work and are under the age of 40, in order to prevent the shogunate from using the elderly to fill the numbers.

Young and strong men will naturally be kept to engage in production activities or as military reserves, so the population that can be transferred to Hai Han will naturally be mainly women and children.