Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 525 The truth of the Hongxi Massacre

Just when Deng Fei was about to stand up and angrily denounce the Dutch's statement full of hypocrisy and sophistry, Wang Zhusheng, who is Bacheng Kapitan, saw that it was not going well, and hurriedly got up and cupped his hands and said, "Master Deng, the villain has a few words, I don't know what to say." Improper speaking?"

Deng Fei glanced at Gerald Hearst Jacob, calmed down the anger in his chest, and said to Wang Zhusheng: "Please tell me, Mr. Wang."

Wang Zhusheng showed gratitude, and cupped his hands and said: "Master Deng, Mr. Jiang, and Mr. Hong, I will serve as Jiapidan in Bacheng. Although they are entrusted by the Dutch, they usually do things for us Tang people. This time Wang has been entrusted by the elders of thousands of Tang people in the city, and hopes to explain to you what happened 50 years ago. Although the Dutch have gone too far, the root cause is the chaos caused by those unruly people."

"Ah?!" The three of Deng Fei had expressions of disbelief in their eyes.

Just listen to Wang Zhusheng and said again: "According to the villain's inquiries in Xiamen and Bacheng, this Batavia was originally under the jurisdiction of the local crows, and then it was occupied by the Dutch. Back then, the Bawang used those who made troubles with the people to be in charge of it." Ceylon is only allowed to return after making meritorious service and atonement. Ceylon is the homeland of the Dutch. It is far away from Bacheng, and there are frequent invasions. The Chinese in Ceylon rose up to fight and won many battles. , and repelled the students."

"Accordingly, these Chinese have made meritorious deeds and redeemed their crimes, so they should return to Bacheng. However, the then Bawang and the princes of the Review Council were worried that they would all withdraw, and that they would be harassed again. So they wanted to get some help from the Chinese in Batavia. Select a strong man and go to replace them. But think about it, the Chinese in Bacheng are innocent, and those who abandon their homes and careers to go to Ceylon are definitely not willing to do so. So some people resist the Dutch by relying on their large number of people and money. and even conspired to kill all the Dutch."

"Think about it, everyone. If you were the Dutch government, you would never tolerate such a breach of justice. Therefore, King Ba ordered his troops to attack. Alas! Since ancient times, on the battlefield, swords and guns have no eyes, and it is inevitable to hurt innocent people. But after that, King Ba also felt that he had gone too far, and regretted it unceasingly. Therefore, the two sides have been at peace for decades. Tang Chuan came here and recruited them diligently. It makes sense. However, the matter of trade is still in the hands of us Tang people, and we dare not make things difficult for us."

"." Deng Fei and Hong Tao looked at Wang Zhusheng of Jiabi Dan's plausible and unmistakable tone, and were a little dazed for a while. This is so different from what they imagined before!Where is this guy?
Jiang Fan on the side held his beard with his hand, squinted his eyes and meditated silently.He was not confused, but remembered that there was a sentence in the telegram about Batavia's combat proposal sent by Zhao Xin yesterday, which was about people like Wang Zhusheng: "The Jiabidan man, named Huashang, is actually a Foreign slave compradors. From these people, there is no sense of national responsibility. They are a group of exquisite self-interested people who are obviously capable but never consider helping their own people. It is extremely hateful!"

At this moment, in Jiang Fan's view, these people are not only hateful, they can be killed!

In fact, the "Red Creek Massacre" happened, on the one hand, because the Dutch coveted the wealth accumulated by the Chinese and deprived them of it through massacres; Cruel exploitation and even inaction are also important reasons for the Dutch to do it.

All of these must start with the development of the sugar plantation industry in Java, and the root cause is the economy.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the sugar cane planting industry in Java developed rapidly and was almost completely controlled by the Chinese.With the encouragement of the East India Company, sugar plantations spread throughout the countryside around Bacheng.As many as 130 sugarcane plantations belong to 79 Chinese, 4 Dutch and 1 Javanese.

Due to the increasing number of Chinese in Batavia, the effective operation of many local political affairs depends not only on the unique relationship of mutual trust and cooperation between Capitan and the Dutch and Indian authorities, but also on being the leader of the Chinese and coordinating The authority of Kapitan.

On the one hand, the Chinese were directly under the jurisdiction of Kapitan and Lei Zhenlan (transliteration, assistants) appointed by the Dutch. These Chinese officials acted as compradors in all matters involving the East India Company.Through tax contracting, hospitals, orphanages, guardians and other institutions, a strong institutionalized link was established between the Chinese and the Dutch.On the other hand, the private business interests of East India Company officials and Chinese businessmen became more and more closely intertwined, and a large number of illegal private trades conducted by the Dutch were ostensibly handled by Chinese businessmen.

In the early days, the authority of Kapitan among the Chinese was unquestionable. They were all elected and appointed in a fairly democratic way by the Chinese elders who lived in Bacheng.The poll tax of the Chinese had to be paid at the government office in Capitan, and then transferred to the East India Company.

However, all the hired workers in the plantations and the Chinese businessmen who were far away from the city were not under the jurisdiction of Kapitan and Lei Zhenlan in the city, but were placed under the direct supervision of the Dutch judge and his subordinates.Nevertheless, according to the rules, the Chinese operators of these plantations have to pay the head tax of their employees through Kapitan every year.

Under this twisting policy of seeking far from the near, there must be very few Chinese who really pay taxes according to the rules, given the nasty nature of the Chinese.The plantation owners would rather bribe the magistrate to be more accommodating than go to the city to pay Kapitan a headcount tax.After all, the more illegal workers who do not pay taxes, the more profitable the Chinese businessmen will be.The Dutch magistrates turned a blind eye to this and just took bribes.Therefore, with the growing corruption, Kapitan's prestige is also declining.

In the end, those Kapitan and Lei Zhenlan who invested in sugarcane plantations also became part of the fraudulent operation, and the result was a vicious circle, where short-term corruption replaced long-term cooperation.The Chinese workers at the bottom are exploited and squeezed by these people, and at the same time they have to borrow usury to repay the smugglers.Once someone is dissatisfied, the Chinese businessmen threaten them with reporting to the Dutch.

The full spread of fraud caused the price of cane sugar in Bacheng to be lower than that of British Bengal, and the sales volume fell. Therefore, the Dutch East India Company suddenly and drastically reduced the purchase price and quantity of cane sugar, which directly hit the local sugarcane planting industry. , a large number of Chinese who operated plantations became victims.

Many of the sugarcane plantation operators who have fallen into bankruptcy are ordinary Chinese. When they started their businesses, they had no capital and had to rely on loans to operate.Not to mention the Chinese who rented land at high prices to operate plantations.They are the same as the tenants with clearing, they must first ensure that the landlord makes a profit.

Bankrupt Chinese laborers and small Chinese businessmen haunted the countryside in groups, and the decline of the sugar industry made the livelihood of Chinese in other industries in the city more and more difficult.Dutch taxation and blackmail made these people a squeezed sponge, and thousands of old and young lost their land, money, and jobs, leaving them with only three alternatives, or starvation, Either beg for odd handouts, or steal.

The news of the growing turmoil in the countryside hardly reached the ears of the rich in Bacheng, and the Dutch officials in the countryside thought it would be wiser to cover up the truth; while Kapitan and his Lei Zhenlans only needed to spend a few hundred taels at this time. Silver can help these miserable compatriots, but they, as the big landlord class, are indifferent to this.

The loss of Kapitan’s authority in rural areas has led to the split between urban Chinese and rural Chinese, and an explosive situation is inevitable.

In the spring of 1740, the powder keg was finally ignited, and the scandal of Dutch East India Company officials selling residence permits to Chinese sugar plantations was exposed.This incident forced the Bacheng authorities to propose a radical and unrealistic plan to force Chinese laborers to immigrate to Ceylon, so as to solve the problem of those Chinese laborers who left the countryside once and for all.

But how did the Dutch actually do it?After they sent the Chinese laborers out to sea, they killed them directly or threw them into the sea.The survivors fled back to the Batavian countryside, forcing others to think that rather than sit and wait for death, it would be better to die instead and survive.

When the Chinese laborers outside the city began to revolt, the Chinese inside the city still ignored it, and even the origin of the riot was the plantation of Ren Kapitan at that time.When the Chinese labor rebels defeated the Dutch's first attack and began to storm the gate of Batavia, the relationship between the Dutch and the Chinese was completely disintegrated.

The psychology of revenge and the fear of being robbed led to a bloody massacre that lasted for three days, and the evil in human nature was completely released.The East India Company authorities made a fortune from the massacre, as did everyone involved in the massacre.

Just like the "St. Bartholomew's Night" when Catholics massacred Protestants in French history, the Chinese in Batavia, regardless of men, women, or children, died tragically under the sword, even pregnant women and infants. Not immune.No less than a hundred shackled captives had their throats cut off one after another like sheep being slaughtered.Some of the Dutch, who had sheltered many wealthy Chinese citizens in the past, murdered these Chinese on this day, in order to divide their property.

A German carpenter named Georg Berhardt Schwartz said in his later memories: "I knew that my Chinese neighbor had a fat pig, so I planned to take it for myself. When my boss— ——When the head carpenter saw what I meant, he patted me on the shoulder and told me to kill the Chinese before robbing. So, I took a pounded rice oak and killed the man who often drank and ate with me neighbor."

However, things didn't stop there. Schwartz later found a pistol in a neighbor's home, took the gun outside, and shot and killed the Chinese he saw.He said: "I have gradually become accustomed to this. For me, killing a Chinese is like killing a dog."

Zhao Xin made it very clear at the end of the telegram. He warned Deng Fei and others, don't think that you can do anything if you take down the city of Batavia. The colonial system in which Chinese laborers were brutally exploited.

To deal with this system, it is useless to beat the Dutch.Because in the center of the pyramid, there are many domestic landlords like Kapitan, Lieutenant, Secretary, loan sharks, population groups, gambling groups, and even opium dealers; The compradors of the Dutch are as intricate and closely linked as vines.

Therefore, although the Dutch and Spanish colonists are enemies, the Chinese comprador groups that have taken root in Southeast Asia have irreconcilable conflicts with Beihai Town.

He asked Deng Fei and the others to think carefully. It was no problem to fight the Dutchman. How would it end after the fight?In other words, war is like love. It is easy to start and difficult to end, and if it is not done well, it will go to the "grave".

The purpose of waging war is nothing more than political and economic interests. As a regime, or as the leader of Beihai Town, it is impossible for Zhao Xin to let the Thunder God come all the way to collect debts from the Chinese 50 years ago, and then shoot Slap your ass and leave.

Hitting Annan is for Tongtang and Lang Son, and for the magnetite and coal mines in the north of Annan; hitting Batavia is for the ultimate control of the Sunda Strait, and then the economy of the entire Southeast Asia.It was easy to sign a big deal with Ruan Fuying, because Zhao Xin knew that the other party's strength was not enough to unify Annan in a short period of time, but Java was different.

Not to mention that the VOC has [-] soldiers and tens of thousands of employees throughout Southeast Asia, and its strongholds are all over the East Indies and the Spice Islands. If Beihai Town wants to completely eliminate the Dutch, it needs not only military force, but also economic means. For a few years, the situation could not be controlled at all.

Hearing Wang Zhusheng's words now, Deng Fei suddenly felt that even if he beat the Dutch away, as long as the Beihai Navy did not set up government management here and did not garrison troops, these guys might invite the Dutch back!

At this point, whether it is Deng Fei or others, they have no intention of explaining to Wang Zhusheng and others what happened back then.The buttocks of these compradors were originally sitting crookedly, willing to be foreign slaves, just like the "Li Picking Melon" in another time and space.

It was only then that Deng Fei finally understood what Zhao Xin meant. To completely change the fate of overseas Chinese, it was not only the struggle between Beihai Town and the Western colonists, but also the confrontation between classes; how cruel is class struggle? , but he is very clear, maybe blood will flow into rivers.

"Zhao Xin is a bastard, no wonder he asked me to come to Southeast Asia, so that's the idea!"

Just when Deng Fei was in trouble, Wang Yuanfang was leading 60 special operations battalion troops, and was struggling in the jungle more than [-] miles east of Bacheng.Their goal was to capture the fortress twenty miles east of Bacheng in a day's time.

They set off from the Thor before dawn in the early morning, just to avoid the surveillance of the Dutch.After the sun came out, these people had already entered the jungle.

For such a combat environment, Wang Yuanfang, who had been a scout in the south for many years, was also very troubled.In such an environment, the troops could not disperse and organize coordination according to time, nor could they organize coordination according to the order of battle. They could only rely on visibility to support each other and be anxious about what was urgently needed.

In fact, the biggest problem in jungle warfare is not snakes and insects, but communication, even if there is a GPS in another time and space, it is useless.You must know that in a high temperature environment, who can wear headphones all the time is definitely a hero.Even if someone can keep wearing it, the hot and humid environment will reduce hearing, which is very important for mountain and jungle warfare.

Because of their excellent performance in the short-term training on Da Zhan Island and their bravery in the Battle of Hoi An, Wen Dai and Rapini, who had been promoted to privates, walked 20 meters ahead of the team as pioneers.What was different from the past was that Wen Dai did not use a walkie-talkie to communicate with the rear. Instead, he imitated the cry of a frog from time to time to guide the team behind.

When the two saw a big tree lying down in the weeds, they didn't step over directly, but went around from one side, and then reminded the people behind with the sound of frogs.The reason for such a toss is because there are likely to be snakes under the trunk.

Suddenly, Wen Dai, who was advancing, moved his ears, as if he heard something, he immediately motioned to Rapini, and the two of them moved towards a big tree in a tacit understanding.

When Wen Dai saw the guy squatting in the grass, he slowly retracted the gun, and then drew the dagger from his thigh. When the opponent was attracted by the noise made by Rapini, Wen Dai threw himself like a tiger, with his left arm He wrapped it around the opponent's neck, and then pressed the dagger against the man's chest.

At this time, the man in Wen Dai's arms was knocked off because of the bamboo hat, revealing the braids on his head. Wen Dai knew that he might be a Chinese, so he shouted in a low voice: "Don't bark, or I'll stab you to death, understand?"

The person in his arms first said "hmm" twice in a hurry, and then was thrown into the grass by Wen Dai. He took a few deep breaths, and when he turned his head and saw the person who attacked him clearly, he immediately I was scared to pee.

"Ghost!"

(End of this chapter)