1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 490 Different Positions
What was built in the Shengli Port Shipyard was not a new type of cargo ship, but a powerful Haihan warship.The mercantilism that Thomas expected was not reflected in Haihan. Obviously, the Haihan executive committee still decided to take the route of military expansion, and business was only their main way of earning military expenses.

Thomas scolded, but he knew very well in his heart that Haihan's current advantages in the military field could not be wiped away by lip service.Portugal's maritime armed forces in the area east of the Strait of Malacca are no longer at the same level as the Haihan people. Now probably only the Dutch and Spaniards are qualified to compete with this newly rising force in the Far East.

Portugal currently has many cooperation projects with Haihan in the fields of military and trade, so besides envy and hatred, Thomas also knows that Haihan's growth is still beneficial to himself.The reach of Haihan's influence is almost equal to the reach of Portuguese trade routes, and the speed of expansion of such trade routes is much faster than that of the Portuguese themselves.Moreover, the protection that a professional army like the Haihan Militia can provide to maritime merchants is far from comparable to the spontaneous organization of civilian armed merchant ships.

Since Haihan settled in Sanya, the pirates around Qiongzhou Island have been wiped out in the past two years, and even the Pearl River Estuary has been cleared. This is definitely a blessing for the Portuguese who have been in and out of these waters for a long time good thing.There are even Portuguese merchants who have started to regularly join the merchant fleets that depart from the Pearl River Estuary to Sanya twice a month, because these two fleets will be escorted by Haihan warships throughout the journey, and the safety is much higher than that of ordinary voyages. arrange.

Thomas very much hopes that the Haihan people can continue to expand this escort route northwards, extending to the coastal areas of Fujian - so that they can compete for the Dutch's trade area with Daming to the maximum extent, and at critical times, the Haihan people can still stand in front of them. The gun will not directly hurt the interests of the Portuguese.

If the Dutch and the Haihans fight...Thomas couldn't help but twitched his brows when he thought of this, the picture was so beautiful that he couldn't even imagine it.If these two parties fight, no matter who wins or loses, it will be good news for Portugal.

Therefore, Portugal is now in a very contradictory situation. On the one hand, it needs the support and assistance of Haihan, a powerful partner, to expand trade routes in the Far East. They spend so much time, energy and financial resources to enter the Far East market, but they do not come here with the mentality of soy sauce.Although Haihan people are partners, they are also competitors from another perspective. The greater Haihan's advantage in shipping, the more unbalanced the status of the cooperation between the two parties.

Although Portugal is already in a passive and weak position in the previous cooperation, Thomas does not want this situation to continue to deteriorate-this passiveness has greatly limited the profits that Portuguese businessmen can obtain from the Far East, said To get serious, it is sacrificing the interests of the Kingdom of Portugal to fatten up this group of Haihan people.

Thomas has lived in Sanya for a while, and he has a certain understanding of the social structure under Haihan's rule. The social stability of the region far exceeds that of Ming Dynasty, and the power level is also controlled by multiple people. It is almost impossible for this force to collapse due to internal problems, so there is no need to expect Haihan to decline on its own in the short term.The only thing that may hinder its development is probably war.

However, Haihan's military strength was unimaginably strong. Not only was the South Vietnamese army incapable of solving it, even a behemoth like the Ming Empire probably would not have a good solution to the existence of Haihan's armed forces.The force most likely to have an armed conflict with Haihan, in Thomas' opinion, is probably the Dutch.

Portugal is already at a clear disadvantage in the sea expansion competition with the Dutch, and it is obviously unrealistic to expect Ming to deal with the Dutch. In the past few years, Daming's southern navy has exhausted its forces, and it was only then that the group stationed in Penghu was forced to retreat. Dutch.As for the Dutch stronghold on Dayuan Island, it is clear that the Ming Empire has neither the motivation nor the ability to pull it out.Those who can complete this task can probably only count on the rising Haihan Navy.

This time Thomas returned to Macau, in addition to reporting on his duties, on the other hand, he also had to accept new instructions from the council.Back in Sanya this time, Thomas not only brought back a batch of resold goods from Wanshan Port, but also the latest arrangement of the Macau Council.

The ship Thomas was on did not sail into Sanya Port this time, but directly into Victory Port.After docking, Thomas disembarked first, and took out a document to the port staff who were already waiting on the shore: "This is the list of personnel on board, please hand it to Director Qiu for review."

Usually, it is very simple to report and register the personnel of foreign ships after they arrive at the port. Thomas is so cautious because the second batch of Portuguese military instructors included a total of 45 people who came with the ship. The identities of these people are relatively sensitive. Thomas knows the victory Hong Kong has relatively strict control over foreigners. In order to avoid misunderstandings, the corresponding documents were prepared in advance, and Qiu Yuan, the person in charge of the Shengli Port Management Committee, was asked to personally deal with it.

Thomas had lived in Sanya for a full year, and the port staff naturally recognized this deep-eyed and tall-nosed Westerner, so they immediately went to the port center with the documents.Not long after, Qiu Yuan brought a few staff members to the pier. After the two exchanged brief greetings, Qiu Yuan let the staff board the ship and went through the registration procedures for these new guests—of course, there was another purpose, which was to These people are subject to preliminary quarantine to prevent patients among them from entering the country carrying certain tropical infectious diseases with obvious symptoms.

After the two sides started cooperation last year, Haihan made a request to the Portuguese, hoping to hire a group of experienced military instructors to Sanya to help train militia soldiers—mainly artillery and sailors.This request was later approved by the Macau Council, and a group of military personnel were later sent to Sanya to serve as instructors for recruits.

Although for the traversers, the combat thinking 400 years ago can only be described as primitive, the professional military quality of these Portuguese instructors is quite good.They are all professional soldiers who have been in the army for many years. They have had certain actual combat experience in the battlefields of Europe and the Far East.They may not be able to adapt to the combat requirements of the militia, but they are fully capable of training the recruits who have just joined the army.

During the first half year of employing these Portuguese instructors, they have assisted the military training department in training more recruits than a battalion.Due to the relatively generous treatment in Sanya, these Portuguese are also willing to stay here as coaches for a long time. After all, this place is safe and there is no need for them to fight on the battlefield, and the income they can earn is far more than that in Macau. The level of being an armed attendant.

For Haihan, the arrival of these external instructors has greatly solved the problem of his own lack of professionals, and the cost of hiring them is worth the money in terms of the effect.Of course, the most important ideological education course, the military training department will not let the Portuguese intervene. There is a special political department in charge of this matter. There is a whole set of ideological training content that allows those ignorant recruits to grow into executive members in a short period of time loyal warrior.

After Haihan tasted the sweetness, he thought of the Portuguese again in the recent wave of military expansion, hoping that they could provide more military instructors to serve in Sanya.After repeated discussions, the Macau Council decided that the benefits of assisting Haihan in the military still outweighed the disadvantages, so they decided to send another group of people to serve in Sanya.

After carrying out the personnel registration and quarantine work, Qiu Yuan asked people to take this group of people to another pier to take a boat across the bay and report to the Shengli Port Garrison Guard Zone.Naturally, people from the military will take over there and arrange their lives in the future.And Thomas' work did not end there, he still had to apply to meet with the executive committee members to convey certain opinions of the Macau Council.

Two hours later, in a conference room in Fort Victory.

"Mr. Thomas, if the Portuguese businessman just wants to return to Annan to engage in trade activities, there is no problem, and we can also provide some assistance. But you want to build a permanent port and other military facilities in the local area. This Forgive us for what we can do." Tao Donglai said in a deep voice: "The ports we temporarily control on the coastline of An Nanguo are also used in the form of concessions, and I suggest that your country can also follow our example. .”

Thomas heard this and secretly slandered that Haihan's place in Annan was indeed in the name of the concession, but neither Haihan nor Annan probably had any plans to exchange the actual control of these areas again.Whether these places are called the Haihan Concession or the territory of Haihan, Haihan probably doesn’t care too much. The only one who really cares about this difference in names is Annan’s historian. At least the term “Concession” is not recorded. Let Annan look too ugly on the face.

But Haihan can use this method, but the Portuguese cannot copy it.The reason is very simple, because the Portuguese supported the South Vietnamese court at the beginning, and they are in a purely hostile relationship with the northern court that now rules Annan.If it weren't for Haihan's timely intervention, the northern court might have been overthrown by this time, so the group of people who now control Annan's power not only don't have any good feelings for the Portuguese, but are mostly jealous.

If the Portuguese want to apply to the current Annan court for a place of residence similar to Macau, let alone the time limit for using the land, there is a great chance that the Annan people will directly reject this proposal just by mentioning it.The Annan court, which still has fresh memories of the civil war that just ended less than a year ago, probably will not forgive its former opponents so quickly, let alone grant them land and let them settle on their own land.

But if the Portuguese want to maintain the route from Malacca to Macau, they must have some safe stops in the middle of this long voyage.The current Sanya can be regarded as one, but the voyage from Sanya to the Portuguese port in the Malacca Strait is thousands of nautical miles away. Such a long distance will undoubtedly be a very difficult voyage if you only rely on the supplies you carry when you set off.Therefore, the establishment of a safe and stable stop on the Indochina Peninsula, which is located in the middle of the voyage, is now the southern coastline of Annan Kingdom, which has become a goal that the Portuguese must complete.

After the Annan Civil War ended in the first half of 1629 and the Portuguese fully withdrew from Annan, it became extremely difficult for Portuguese merchant ships to travel to and from this area of ​​the sea. As for the crew, they had to risk cutting off supplies at sea to complete this voyage.

Originally, the Portuguese were counting on Haihan to quickly rebuild Hoi An Port after the war, so that they could also benefit from it, but they didn’t expect that Haihan would withdraw their troops directly after helping the northern court to fight the civil war. The southern port of China has also been in a state of talking on paper, and it will still be thunderous and rainy until the second half of the year.

The Haihan people can afford it, but Portugal can't afford it.Due to the inconvenience of resupply on the way, the number of Portuguese merchant ships that originally traveled between the Straits of Malacca and Macau has shrunk to less than one-third of that of the previous two years in the past six months, and the vast majority of these ships still depend on the relationship with them. The huge profits from Haihan's transaction continue to persist.Most of the other ships began to turn to the Southeast Asia to explore unknown seas such as the Banda Sea, the Maluku Sea, and the Halmahera Sea.

If it continues to drag on, it will inevitably affect the current state of maritime trade. After weighing it, the Macau Council believes that since the Haihan people do not want to move for the time being, it is better to take the initiative and find a suitable place in the Indochina Peninsula to establish a docking supply point.But there is definitely no way to bypass Haihan to handle this matter. It is necessary to say hello to the Haihan people first, after all, they are the current patrons of the Annan court.

Of course, before coming here, Thomas also had a certain amount of mental preparation, knowing that the request made by his side might not be accepted by the Haihan people.After all, this kind of military-civilian dual-use facilities are a bit sensitive, and the Haihan people have a temper that can't be rubbed in their eyes. Most of the council's plans will be rejected.As expected, Tao Donglai made a very clear rejection after listening to his request. Instead, he suggested that the Portuguese use the form of concessions to seek the land they need.

(End of this chapter)