1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 544: Comparison of Situations
No matter how bold and reckless the civilian landlords' armed forces are, they cannot save their weak armed strength.Relying on long spears and short sticks, this kind of private armed forces supported by big knives and hunting bows, their fighting will and combat level are completely incomparable with the regular army.Although there are also "rich and powerful" Zhuangzi who bought a few [-]-style arquebus guns that were eliminated by the Haihan militia two years ago through some special channels, and even one or two rusty small-caliber Francois machine guns, But in the face of the tactics of the militia artillery opening the way and advancing with guns, it is tantamount to being a car with the arms of a mantis.

After Haihan took control of Danzhou, the reasons for the militia to deal with these recalcitrants became even more grandiose. They were directly labeled as "collaborating with pirates" and would not even give them a chance to defend themselves.The military naturally took the attack on these villages as an opportunity to train troops, and some relatively simple combat tasks have even begun to be handed over to young trainee officers who are only [-] or [-] years old.The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Construction are also happy to see this. These rebels are just used to fill the extremely fast-consuming hard labor camp labor. After being arrested, they will be sent to the Shilu area in the south to work as miners.

In the city of Danzhou, the original Danzhou Yamen had been destroyed by gunfire when the pirate army entered the city. The gate and a large section of the wall on the left and right were destroyed. After Haihan took control of Danzhou, this place was used as the office of the temporary management committee.However, the facade destroyed by the war has never been repaired in time, and the management committee just organized people to clean up the ruins, and then pulled the barbed wire as a simple isolation measure.Although it seems a bit nondescript, this kind of defense measure is basically enough for the current Danzhou City.

At this time, Zhang Xin was meeting several local "progressive" gentry in his study. These few people were local merchants, and they had business contacts with Haihan before that. Haihan's takeover of Danzhou meant a lot to them. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages.And these people are also important tools for the Provisional Management Committee to implement the rule in Danzhou. Haihan wants to control public opinion, and these people are far more effective than the means of the Ministry of Security and the Ministry of Propaganda.

Holding a teacup, Zhang Xin said with a smile: "Everyone, the day after tomorrow is the opening day of Haihan Bank's Danzhou branch. I hope everyone can come to support us and publicize the benefits of our bank to more people!"

A white and fat old man sitting next to Zhang Xin immediately responded: "I don't need Director Zhang to call on this matter, everyone here will go too. The shopkeepers of the Danzhou Chamber of Commerce have long been looking forward to Haihan Bank's opening in Danzhou Come on, I, Yuan, will open an account when the time comes, and first deposit 8000 taels of silver in it, so that it will be more convenient to do business with Haihan's shopkeepers in the future."

This fat man surnamed Yuan was originally a salt merchant in Danzhou, but after Haihan salt hit the market at a low price, the salt farm in Danzhou Bay declared bankruptcy within a short period of time, and Yuan fat man discovered the business opportunity. , instead of lowering the price to compete with Haihan Salt, on the contrary, he went to find Haihan Salt's agent, Luo Shengdong, the military officer of Yacheng Shuizhai, and used his existing sales channels as an exchange condition to negotiate a The distribution qualification in the Danzhou area came back, and he became a distributor of Haihan Salt ever since.Although the profit of this second-level agent is limited, and it is not to say that he is making a lot of money, no one dares to embarrass him when he does this business-there is the backing of the Daming Navy, and Hai With the great backer of Han, even the local government would not dare to provoke these two forces easily.

Fatty Yuan can be regarded as a well-informed and interesting person. After making a fortune, he did not forget his backer. He has always been willing to cooperate with Haihan's various bright and dark expansion methods in Danzhou.After the pirate rebellion, Haihan took over Danzhou, Fatty Yuan jumped out first, contacted a group of gentry who were pro-Haihan, and promoted Haihan in the name of Danzhou Chamber of Commerce, which can be considered very hard.

Of course, Zhang Xin also knew that this guy was an extremely slippery philistine, but when Haihan first occupied Qiongbei, he definitely needed this kind of person who jumped out and waved the flag, so the necessary benefits had to be given to him.At that moment, Zhang Xin said: "It just so happens that Boss Yuan is here today, so let me also talk about the things you have been concerned about. The salt field in Danzhou will resume operation next month at the latest. The boat is going to the Yinggehai Salt Field in the south. Of course, the locally produced sea salt will continue to inherit the characteristics of high quality and low price of Haihan salt, so everyone should take care of the business in the future!"

A group of businessmen present congratulated Fatty Yuan one after another. He is the general agent of the salt industry in Danzhou. Haihan people set up a salt farm here, which will undoubtedly greatly reduce the cost of Fatty Yuan’s salt business. The sea freight cost is probably enough for him to go to Sanya to buy two sets of legendary Haihan Garden houses.

After Fatty Yuan expressed his loyalty, he immediately reaped the benefits, and naturally the others would not take it lightly and followed suit.And Zhang Xin was already prepared for this, throwing out all kinds of benefits one by one, so that these pro-Haihan elements can share the benefits and get some practical benefits.

Although Danzhou is a city with a history of hundreds of years, in the eyes of the Haihan people, it is still in a state of waste. If many things are done by the Haihan people themselves, it will inevitably lead to inefficiency due to manpower problems. Unlimited reduction, so now Zhang Xin has some projects that are handed over to these second-hand traffickers to operate.

Since the construction force of the engineering department has been in a very serious shortage, Zhang Xin intends to hand over the renovation work of several major official roads in Danzhou to private contractors after reporting to the Executive Committee for approval.Doing so will definitely cost more money than Haihan's self-organized construction, and the construction efficiency will definitely be much lower, but in view of the current actual situation, it is likely that the progress of handing over to the private construction will be faster than handing over to the Ministry of Construction .

Among them, the official road leading to Fucheng via Lingao, and the official road leading southward along the coastline to Changhua, will be organized and implemented by the temporary management committee on the Danzhou side, while Sanya will only be responsible for providing part of the funds and designing. Construction plan and review project costs.

And part of the shortfall funds will be raised by Zhang Xin on behalf of the management committee in local organizations.Although there is no way to recover the cost through tolls, the management committee will give certain compensations from other aspects—for example, the agency years and regions for certain Haihan products.

Among these people who are willing to cooperate with Haihan, there are many smart people who voluntarily want to join Haihan. However, Zhang Xin received instructions from the executive committee that there is no need to rush to let people from the middle and upper classes of society join Haihan. Retaining the identity of the subjects of the Ming Dynasty will have a greater effect on Haihan.After all, these people have far more power to speak and dominate in society than ordinary people, and to a certain extent, they can lead the tide of public opinion. With them acting as mouthpieces and propagandists for Haihan, many policies and ideas can get twice the result with half the effort Effect.In Ning Qi's words, this is essentially cultivating a group of big Vs and public intellectuals who are pro-Haihan.

At the same time, Qiu Yuan, who was in Qiongzhou Fucheng, was not as comfortable as Zhang Xin.There is a big difference between the people in Fucheng and Danzhou. The people's affection for Daming is obviously stronger than the fear of foreigners. Many people who have lived here for generations are not so willing to sell Haihan's account.Compared with the gentry in Danzhou who were not so firm, the integrity of the upper class people in Fucheng was obviously much more stable.Although Haihan's various temporary management measures in the local area are also being implemented, the degree of cooperation is far less than that of Danzhou.

Moreover, the area around Fucheng is also the area with the most landlords on the entire Qiongzhou Island, and the implementation of the land policy has been under great pressure accordingly.Although those who tried to resort to violent confrontation were quickly suppressed, the efficiency of land policy promotion was still astonishingly low.The vast majority of landlords have adopted a soft rejection method of not fighting and not cooperating, and are not willing to accept the various solutions proposed by Haihan.Although the Executive Committee does not reject the use of force to suppress the resistance of the landlord class, it does not want to violently wash the landlord class before the conflict has fully erupted. Doing so will only distract the people in Qiongbei and continue to fall to the side of Ming Dynasty .

Since the military has imposed military control on the ports near Qiongzhou Fucheng and the entire Qiongzhou Strait, this has also brought a lot of inconvenience to the local people in Fucheng, especially those who rely on the sea for a living or engage in maritime trade. The people complained about this It's also been heard all the time.However, the executive committee has already issued an order that the ban on the Qiongzhou Strait will be implemented until the end of January, and one of the main tasks of the Fucheng Management Committee is to win people's hearts as much as possible, cut off the opposition, and consolidate Haihan before this deadline. The ruling base in Qiongbei.

It is not so easy to complete this task. After staying here for two months, Qiu Yuan deeply felt the pressure. It was much more difficult than when he was a business representative in the Dan Office and a port director in Shengli Port. up.There are at least seven or eight incidents of rioting at the office of the management committee due to various disputes every day, and most of them are caused by the conflict of interests between the local people and Haihan, let Qiu Yuan handle it It also feels very tricky.

While the reconnaissance fleet heading south to Natuna Island was still drifting in the South China Sea, Qiu Yuan received a telegram from Guangdong, the content of which made him feel the cruelty of Murphy's Law again.

According to the definite information obtained by the Ministry of Security from Zhaoqing, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, Wang Zunde, has drawn up a list of some officials who will go to Qiong to fill in their posts.

When the pirate army attacked Qiongbei three months ago, almost all the resistance factions in the local government were taken away, and there were few family members left. The entire Qiongbei government system was completely paralyzed.Although this information was processed by Haihan and conveyed to Governor Wang Zunde, it is not an easy matter to re-select a group of officials to take up the post.

Qiongzhou Island has so many seats vacant all of a sudden, many of them have senior positions such as fourth-rank and fifth-rank, and the power game unfolding behind the scenes around these positions is no less intense than fighting on the battlefield.Although it doesn't make any difference to Haihan what officials the Ming Dynasty sends to Qiongzhou Island, the relevant departments have taken some measures to exclude those officials who are hostile to Haihan from the candidate list as much as possible .

But even so, it is difficult for the Ministry of Security to make a conclusion in advance whether this group of Ming officials will have an adverse impact on the local situation after they go to the island, and it is not convenient to use some means to prevent the Ming government from sending these personnel to Qiongzhou Island. What can be done is to inform Qiongzhou Island of this situation in advance.

"It's raining all night!" Qiu Yuan didn't have anything good to say about this situation except sighing.

He wasn't particularly worried about what these officials could do after they came here. In fact, the military and the Ministry of Intelligence had already prepared corresponding plans. The moment these people set foot on Qiongzhou Island, they had already entered house arrest. state.After that, there will be some testing sessions to test the opponent's political inclinations. If he is someone who can be used, then he will be lucky to spend a relaxed and happy term on this island.But if it is a resolute rebel, the most likely thing is to disappear completely from now on, and a new hard laborer with only a number will appear in the coal mine on the other side of Jonesy Mountain or Beibu Gulf.

"I just hope these people can do their duty and don't cause me any trouble!" Qiu Yuan sighed, and after reading the content of the telegram several times, he put it into the archive folder.

"Director Qiu, all the participants have arrived." Secretary Guihuamin reported to him standing at the door.

The meeting held by Qiu Yuan today is actually the same nature as the meeting held by Zhang Xin in Danzhou. It is also to win over the local gentry and promote some commercial and infrastructure projects led by Haihan.But compared to the scene of people carrying bridal sedan chairs in Danzhou, what Qiu Yuan encountered was much more troublesome.Most of the local businesses are unwilling to cooperate with Haihan's various arrangements. This kind of liaison meeting has been held several times, but there is not much progress.

This is also related to the composition of the local gentry. Almost all the disgruntled gentry in Danzhou were wiped out during the pirate siege, while Qiongzhou Fucheng was never captured by pirates from the beginning to the end, so the composition of the gentry here is also different. People who are close to the Ming are still the main body, and there is a lot of dissatisfaction with Haihan's escrow, especially the various "New Deals" implemented during this period.Even for the local gentry to participate in such a meeting, the Haihan militia was dispatched to give a certain amount of pressure. In this way, the effect of the meeting would naturally not be much better.

(End of this chapter)