1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 768
"Reporting to the chief, Li Shaodong from Guangdong Furuifeng Commercial Bank is asking to see you."

"Oh? He came to Sanya again? Please come in." Schneider put down the official document in his hand after hearing the guard's report.

Although Guangdong Furuifeng Commercial Firm has three young masters, the only person who would come to the Ministry of Commerce to visit him without an appointment like this is probably the third young master Li Nai who treats Fort Victory as his home.

Since Li Nai became the big shopkeeper of "Golden Shield Escort", he spent most of his time in Guangdong, and he couldn't just go to Shengli Port like before, and he stayed for two or three months.However, he still bought a house in the new urban area of ​​Sanya, and would live in Sanya for at least ten days and a half a month every year, chatting with these friends of Haihan.

"Mr. Shi, long time no see! How have you been?" Li Nai greeted Schneider warmly as soon as he entered.

Schneider and him also didn't see each other, stood up and grinningly cupped his hands and said, "The third young master is so free, and he came to Sanya for vacation again? Or you live a relaxed life, carefree, which is enviable!"

"I'm not here to play in Sanya this time." Li Nai waved his hands solemnly and said, "I have business to do, and I came directly to Victory Fort to find you as soon as I got off the boat."

"What's the matter?" Schneider smiled and said, "Could it be that you are going to marry a concubine again? Let me tell you first, you have a wedding in Guangzhou, and people can't go there. You can only ask the Guangzhou Office to pick me up and give it to you." Thank you."

Li Nai got married two years ago, and now his children are one year old.But last year, I married a housemate. At that time, I specially sent people to Sanya to send out invitations, inviting high-level Haihan people I knew well to go to Lijiazhuang, Panyu County, Guangzhou Prefecture, for a wedding wine.Of course, the traversers are not free enough to have time to cross the sea to participate in this kind of entertainment, so most of the people who received the invitation did not attend the wedding banquet, but they still sent congratulatory gifts to Li Nai through the Guangzhou Office and red envelopes in the past.Schneider was also one of the people who received the invitation at that time, and he happened to be on a tour in Guangzhou at that time, and by the way, he made an appearance on behalf of the Haihan Executive Committee to say a few words of congratulations, which was enough to give Li Nai some face.

Li Nai smiled wryly and said, "What are you marrying? Two women are enough to worry me at home. I'm not interested in marrying another one and letting them fight me as a landlord."

"You don't need to fight the landlord, if you marry another one and go home, the four of you will have a table of mahjong." Schneider joked.

With the increase in contact with Daming, some entertainment methods unique to Haihan, such as playing cards and the improved mahjong game of later generations, gradually entered the lives of some upper-class people who had a close relationship with Haihan. This Haihan culture lover naturally learned a lot.

"I'm not kidding, to be honest, I'm here in Sanya for something." Li Nai raised his chin at Schneider: "I'm here to find you."

"So it's about business?" After all, the two had known each other for several years, and Schneider could roughly guess what was going on when he heard Li Nai's tone.

"We are not outsiders, so let me just say it straight." Li Nai moistened his throat with the hot tea that the secretary had just brought, and then said, "I heard that Haihan is going to colonize Dayuan Island?"

Schneider asked calmly, "Where did you get the news?"

It's only been a few days since Qian Tiandun signed the agreement with the Dutch in Dayuan Port, and the news hasn't been fully spread yet. Counting the time, Li Nai didn't even know about it when he set off from Guangzhou.

Li Nai responded, "Looking at your reaction, it should be pretty much the same. I didn't inquire about this from others, but spent a lot of time analyzing it little by little!"

"Oh? You analyzed it yourself? Then tell me." Schneider didn't have any urgent matters at hand, and he became interested in hearing Li Nai's answer. He wanted to know how this young master Li San, who had a strange brain circuit, was thinking about it. from.

"This is a long story..." Seeing that Schneider was interested in listening, Li Nai became excited at the moment, and began to talk about his deduction process little by little.

Things have to start in May of this year. After the end of the Penghu Battle, the Haihan and Fujian officials consciously carried out a lot of publicity on the results of the battle. Under the secret promotion of the Guangzhou Office, the Guangdong side naturally also launched this battle. The folks caused a wave of discussion traffic.People in the market are probably concerned about how many pirates were killed by the government army and the Haihan militia in Penghu, how many ships were sunk, how many stolen money and stolen goods were seized, and some rumors will be born in the process of spreading or legend.However, due to different sources of information, people from the upper class of society like Li Nai get much more detailed information than folk rumors, and the focus of attention is more or less different from that of ordinary people.

The coalition forces formed by Daming and Haihan won a complete victory in the First Battle of Penghu and drove the remnants of Shibazhi out of the area. This result is unquestionable, and Li Nai has no doubt that the Haihan militia has such combat capabilities. ——As for the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, Li Nai believes that they should have only played a supporting role, and their role in the battle was limited.The question Li Nai was interested in was why did Haihan send troops to fight this battle?After this battle, what does Haihan want to do next?
Of course, Li Nai knew something about the conflict between Haihan and Shibazhi, as well as the behind-the-scenes support for Xu Xinsu, the Fujian general, so Haihan cooperated with the Fujian government to send troops to copy Shibazhi's old nest. It is within reason.However, he did not expect that the Fujian government would hand over Penghu directly to Haihan for management after the war. Although it was a co-management in name, it is clear that the degree of co-management may not be as influential as the Yazhou government in Sanya.Coupled with the fact that Haihan quickly announced the garrison of troops in Penghu and the construction of a port and immigration garrison, Li Nai knew that Haihan planned to repeat what he did in Hong Kong Island locally.

With the cooperation of the government, it will not be more difficult for Haihan to win the actual control of Penghu than it was when he took Hong Kong Island, so Li Nai's focus quickly shifted to Haihan's next plan.

Haihan established a temporary base at Zhongzuo Institute on the coast of Fujian at least one year in advance before attacking Penghu, and a large amount of military supplies were transported from Sanya and transferred to the local area via Hong Kong Island.At that time, Haihan hired a considerable number of civilian ships to carry out transportation tasks in order to cover combat purposes. As an "old friend" of Haihan, Fu Ruifeng's shipping department also undertook part of the transportation business in the process, so Li Nai It is clearer.

The role of Hong Kong Island as a springboard in Haihan’s expansion of its sphere of influence to the Fujian Strait is very obvious, and the location of Penghu indicates that the local area is likely to be the next springboard with similar functions to Hong Kong Island—only the sea In which direction Han was going to jump, Li Nai had limited information at the time, so he couldn't make an accurate judgment.

Although Li Nai is very familiar with the people in the Guangzhou Office, he didn't bother to go directly to them to ask this question, but from the fragments of information collected later, Li Nai still pieced together gradually according to his own understanding. There is a possibility.

Haihan has stationed a powerful armed force in Penghu. The army is the first special warfare battalion known as Haihan's ace army, and the navy is an almost reorganized fleet. Haihan's biggest enemy in the area, Shibazhi, has already Fleeing to the far sea, to the west is the ally Xu Xinsu, and to the east are the Dutch who have signed the armistice treaty and do not want to fight against Haihan. So what is the significance of the deployment of this armed force in the local area?

Li Nai had been dealing with the Haihan people for a long time, and his way of thinking naturally and unconsciously moved closer to the Haihan people. He didn't think that Haihan's actions were unintentional, and it was more likely that they had some secret purpose.For Li Nai, who is familiar with Haihan's situation, it is not too difficult to find out the truth at this point in the deduction.

With the usual practice of the Haihan people, Li Nai believes that they will not stop at the Fujian Strait, and will definitely look for opportunities to expand their sphere of influence, and the troops stationed there will probably become the pioneers in the next step.The Haihan military has a very close relationship with the Fujian military, and Xu Xinsu can be regarded as a hard-core Haihan party, so it is unlikely that Haihan will take the coastal areas of Fujian as the next target.In addition, the first special warfare battalion stationed in Penghu is best at mountain jungle warfare. This information happens to be in the hands of Li Nai. Combining these information fragments, Li Nai believes that Haihan's next step is likely to be from Penghu. The nearby Dayuan Island started.

As for why it is going east instead of going north, Li Nai's point of view is very consistent with that of Haihan's military. He believes that the size of Penghu is not enough to support Haihan's northward development needs, just like the security in the South China Sea. The Buna Islands cannot support Haihan's southward strategy.If Haihan really wants to continue to expand northward, then another base with a larger scale and richer resources is needed in the Fujian Strait.From this point of view, Penghu has no advantage over Dayuan Island.Although Qian Tiandun hadn't led his troops to visit Dayuan Island at that time, Li Nai deduced based on the information he had, and believed that Haihan's next development goal was Dayuan Island next to Penghu.

Haihan's next step is Dayuandao, what does he have to do with Li Nai and Guangzhou Furuifeng behind him?Of course there is something to do, and it's not a small thing.

Since Fu Ruifeng climbed the high branch of Shanghai Han five years ago, its development along the way can be described as a boom.Up to now, Fu Ruifeng and its many companies and various businesses related to its interests have made the Li family the leading wealthy businessman in Guangdong.But after reaching this stage, the Li family also felt that the business management seemed to have reached the ceiling, and there was no room for further development.

The reason is simple. The influence of Furuifeng is mainly concentrated in the coastal areas of Guangdong, Guangxi, and this signboard is not easy to use outside the province, especially in the north.In neighboring Fujian, there is such a big boss as Xu Xinsu who combines officials and businessmen, and it is difficult for Fu Ruifeng to expand his business to the local area.Although they are considered to be Haihan's in-depth partners, Haihan's commercial system in Daming is based on the local agency system. Do business by yourself.However, the current business scope of Furuifeng is almost 100% related to Haihan, and naturally there is a 100% conflict of interest with its counterparts in Fujian, which makes it difficult for Furuifeng to expand its trade scope to the north.The main reason why the military supplies transported by Furuifeng had to be transshipped in Hong Kong was because Fujian was unwilling to let Furuifeng's fleet pass by.

In addition, there is another reason, that is, Fu Ruifeng has tasted enough sweetness in the investment projects led by Haihan in recent years, so that the Li family has a new understanding of the model of developing overseas colonies.Freedom's investment projects on Hainan Island include salt farms, farms, plantations, transportation lines, ports and wharves, various workshops, and even real estate fields where few foreign investors can directly get involved. There are large and small investment projects in Buna Port, and the long-term and stable returns are very considerable.In the process, the Li family also noticed that investing in undeveloped virgin land has the most cost-effective rate of return and return cycle.

Li Nai has carefully studied Haihan's operation model for the new colonial area in the past few years, and almost all of them have carried out investment promotion activities of different scales, attracting businessmen outside Haihan to invest money or resources to participate in the operation, reducing the cost of independent development and construction of the colonial area risk.Based on this, he believes that if Haihan wants to attack Dayuan Island, one of the necessary steps to establish a colonial area is to attract investment.And Fu Ruifeng must seize this opportunity to obtain its own foothold in the local area.If the slow action is taken by the counterparts in Fujian, Fu Ruifeng is very likely to not even get a bite of the soup.

The reason for this urgency has a lot to do with Fu Ruifeng's suppression in Fujian.Although Magong Port in Penghu is actually controlled by Haihan, it is officially said that it still belongs to Daming. The influence exerted by the Xu family in the local area has made Fu Ruifeng have not yet obtained an exclusive wharf and commercial warehouse in Magong Port. Haihan can only remain neutral about this. After all, the merchant ship under the name of Xu Xinsu cannot pass the Pearl River voyage north of Lijiazhuang, Panyu, and can only choose Hong Kong Island or Wanshan Port as anchorage.

But Dayuan Island is different. The imperial court did not include this big island in the territory of Daming, and Xu Xinsu does not have any direct influence in the local area. Haihan people have the final say.If Fu Ruifeng can obtain the qualification to build a wharf store in the local area, then the Hokkien can only stare blankly.

Although Li Nai didn't know when the Haihan people would return to attack Dayuan Island, it was not too late. After he figured out the key point, he immediately rushed to Sanya by boat, hoping to be the first to finalize the cooperative development with Haihan's senior management agreement.

(End of this chapter)