Emperor Ming Dynasty

Chapter 832 Slaughter Blood Debt

The unit of measurement for Chinese ships is material, and one material is the volume of one cubic foot, that is to say, one ton is approximately equal to three materials.

A big ship with [-] materials and a load of [-] tons can be said to be a warship that can suppress the entire East Asia and even Asia.

Among the three major naval divisions of the Ming Army, the Beihai Division is the most powerful. Due to the protection of Gyeonggi, sea transportation, and frequent trade exchanges between China and North Korea, its scale exceeds 8000 people.

The main ship is a big ship with three thousand materials, and there are five ships in total.

Stationed in Tianjin and Dengzhou.

The Donghai Navy is in the Zhoushan Islands and is responsible for protecting the mouth of the Yangtze River and ports such as Ningbo. There are two large ships of [-] materials.

The South China Sea Navy is in Fujian and is responsible for the sea conditions in the ports of Guangdong, Guangxi, Taiwan, and Fujian. Therefore, it has three large ships with a scale of more than 5000 people.

The three major naval divisions are barely enough to protect thousands of miles of waters.

It's not that Zhu Yixi doesn't want to increase investment, it's that sea-going ships are too expensive, especially artillery.

Take the capital ship with 500 materials as an example, the cost of making this ship is only 5000 silver dollars, and the artillery it is allowed to carry is [-] pieces, and an artillery piece costs [-] yuan on average, that is [-] taels.

If there is a war, then the gunpowder will not be used for money, and the cannon will be fired, and the gold will be ten thousand taels.

To maintain today's three major naval divisions, the annual daily maintenance exceeds one million yuan, and under the pressure of the emperor, the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies had to allocate an additional 200,000 yuan for shipbuilding.

As a result, not only the Dudu's Mansion is full of complaints, but even the top and bottom of the household department can't get used to it. It's really annoying that the navy can't get in.

After all, the Japanese pirates are gone, and the pirates are gone, so maintaining a huge navy is of little use.

Zhu Yixi didn't suppress the speech either, and complaining a few times was nothing.

When the interests of the South continue to flow, they will succumb to it.

"How long will it take to build a large ship with [-] materials?"

"Your Majesty, let's say it will take about a year and a half."

"too slow."

Zhu Yixi frowned, feeling upset.

This time, the majesty of the emperor was revealed, and the few people couldn't bear it, their knees softened unconsciously, and they knelt on the ground.

The missionary at the side was a little confused, and murmured a few words to the translator. After he understood, his face was full of helplessness.

My God, I'm afraid to see an angel, no one kneels like this in Europa!
"As soon as possible!" The emperor glanced at the few people, but did not embarrass them, just took a look.

This fell far short of his expectations.

"Your Majesty, in Taiwan, there is a large shipyard that can build such a ship."

Suddenly, the missionary spoke quickly, and the interpreter was stunned before he realized it.

"Oh?"

Hearing this, the emperor became interested.

Taiwan actually has such a large shipyard?
The translator on the side continued: "Your Majesty, after those Portuguese went to Taiwan, they rebuilt gun factories and shipyards. After all, from Manila to Fujian, and then north to Japan and North Korea, they all need to go through Taiwan."

"The demand for repairs and shipbuilding was very strong, so the Portuguese returned to their old business, and introduced craftsmen in Manila and Batavia. Coupled with the addition of many missionaries, the Taiwanese shipyard was very large."

"Although it is not a Dagukou shipyard, they have mature craftsmen who can build ships immediately."

"That's true." Zhu Yixi suddenly realized, with a smile on his face.

At this time, the atmosphere immediately became much more relaxed, and the craftsmen also breathed a sigh of relief.

"Then take a two-pronged approach, and the five thousand material ship must become the main force in a short time."

Having said that, Zhu Yixi was thinking in his heart that he couldn't wait that long.

However, the development of the Taiwan government was beyond his expectation.

After taking Taiwan, due to insufficient population and Macao being taken back, a large number of western barbarians had nowhere to go, so Zhu Yixi took Taiwan as an open port and allowed them to settle freely.

Even the people in the mainland can live on land even if they don't have a household registration.

This has created a special open environment for the Taiwan government, and even a large ship with [-] materials can be built.

"Let Jin Yiwei collect the situation of Taiwan government."

Bowing his head and giving an order, Zhu Yixi took a quick look at the flowers and began to patrol the shipyard.

Dagukou Shipyard is not only government-run, but also operated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It belongs to the cooperation between the two parties, so it can not only undertake the shipbuilding task of the military, but also build ships for the private sector.

For example, a large number of remodeled armed Fuchuan have become the favorite type of merchants, not only with a huge load capacity, but also with weapon guards.

It can be built on long-distance voyages and offshore, and can even repair and clean up ships. It can be said to be omnipotent.

According to the current prosperity of shipping, except for military orders, the Dagukou Shipyard can make a profit of at least [-] a year for private ships alone.

Tianjin Mansion is very young, and it has only been a few years since the integration of the three guards. There is nothing to visit, so I took my three sons for a walk.He turned his head and returned to Beijing City.

Counting back and forth, it only took three days.

At this time, Jin Yiwei submitted the information collected by the Taiwan government.

Zhu Yixi glanced at it, but it was beyond his expectation.

In just a few years, the population of Taiwan's government has exceeded 500,000 and is approaching 600,000.

Due to the lack of household registration restrictions, many pirates, fugitive slaves, and merchants came here enthusiastically.

Of course, there are also many Westerners, more than [-] have settled in Taiwan.

In this way, the style and appearance of Taiwan's government is very different from that of the mainland.

Its architecture is a combination of Chinese and Western, each with its own characteristics, and there are many Gothic churches; economically, the Dutch, English, Spaniards, and Portuguese built more than a hundred banks, an unprecedented scale.

In terms of system, the Taiwan government adopts the policy of using barbarians to control barbarians, and chooses China to manage its own people, as long as they pay taxes on time.

As a result, there are four Xiyi Streets in Dayuan County, which is governed by the Taiwan government.

The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain each occupy one street, and the Portuguese occupy the majority.

"This is like the port function of Hong Kong back then."

The emperor groaned, but was a little surprised.

From his personal point of view, the prosperity of the Taiwan government has even encouraged the development of the Jiade Plain, with the establishment of a large number of manors and squatter huts.

Sugarcane forests, tens of thousands of workers.

Sugar, this addictive thing, is continuously transported from Taiwan to the mainland.

It's a pity that Taiwan's annual production of brown sugar is only one million stones, not only to meet the needs of the mainland, but also to export. The production is really in short supply.

You must know that the mainland alone has a population of 50 million. People who are addicted to sugar are not. Everyone loves sweets. This market is so vast.

The annual sales to the mainland is less than [-]% of the output.

Thinking of this, Zhu Yixi couldn't help feeling a little melancholy.

When will Taiwan's sugar be able to satisfy the mainland people?

And how much income from domestic funds is lost due to production?

Going south, you have to go south.

When he is fully prepared, I don't know what year and month it will be.

The millions of indigenous people in the Philippines are the best labor force.

"Let Zhang Qi come to see me..."

Two hours later, the greatly shocked Zhang Qi left the palace, and then returned home impatiently, excited uncontrollably, and said: "Contact those chambers of commerce, we have a big deal."

The Tangliao in Taiwan is basically controlled by dozens of big families. The Ministry of Internal Affairs only has [-]% of the plantations, but nearly [-]% of the plantations are taken over by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Several 10 mu of sugarcane land is enough to determine the price of brown sugar.

In a sense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs is the overlord who decides the sugar merchants.

In order to better sell and maintain profits, led by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Taiwan Government established the Brown Sugar Guild.

All sugar houses and sugar merchants are involved in it to maximize their profits.

What's even more frenzied is that all the sugar will be sold in the form of auction, and the auction will be the brown sugar of the next year.

It's like pre-ordering.

For the sugar merchants, they can return blood faster without losing money, and the risks are all borne by those merchants.

The merchants who purchase brown sugar are like salt merchants under the ticket salt law. They purchase a certain amount of brown sugar to sell in different districts, and the source is the big families in each province.

"It's only the beginning of the year? Why is it going to be auctioned again?"

"Insane, don't you want to increase the price?"

The sugar merchants wailed, but their pace was not slow, and they stepped into Zhang's mansion one after another.

With the implementation of the Ticket and Salt Law, the price of salt continued to fall, and the profit declined significantly. Although the price stabilized, the profit also stabilized.

Therefore, for businessmen, the value of sugar has surpassed that of salt now, and they can hardly worry about selling it, and there is no private salt to grab.

However, Tangliao was limited by the production of dry cane, so it could only ask the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

It is conservatively estimated that Taiwan's sugar industry exports 5 million silver dollars per year, and the scale can expand to 30 million in the mainland.

"Everyone, the purpose of bringing everyone here is not to increase the price, but to seek more brown sugar."

Zhang Qi stood up, and all the discussions disappeared immediately, only his clear and loud voice lingered.

"Young Master Zhang, the Taiwan government is going to add Tangliao again?" Someone said excitedly at this time.

Shaofu, this is the honorific title for Zhang Qi's Minister of Internal Affairs.

"No." Zhang Qi shook her head: "Taiwan's population has never been booming, and it has only reached 60 in the past few years. I don't know how long it takes to add sugar."

"What Zhang is talking about here is another place where there are countless lands and labor."

"Oh?" At this time, a smart person immediately said, "Could it be Hainan?"

"No." Zhang Qi immediately vetoed: "Hainan Prefecture is too late to reach Taiwan, and besides, the food there can only be forced by oneself, so there is no extra land to grow sugar cane."

"Besides, Shengli is not easy to deal with. The government didn't break them when they messed up."

Now, everyone was helpless, and looked at Zhang Qi eagerly, wanting to know where the place in his mouth was.

"Manila, do you know?"

These sugar merchants operate sugar houses in Taiwan, and they travel to and from many Western countries, so they are naturally aware of Manila, which is run by Spain.

It lies below Taiwan, and in 1565, the Spanish turned the Philippines into a colony.

In the past, the Philippines, that is, Luzon, was the sphere of influence of Chinese businessmen, and the Spanish invasion aroused strong dissatisfaction among the Chinese.

In 1574, Lin Feng, leader of the "pirates" (merchant group) on the southeast coast, led 62 warships carrying 4000 people and launched an attack on the Spanish army in the Philippines.

Many of these people were once the "Japanese pirates" that the Ming Dynasty wanted to hunt down, such as Wu Ping.The base of this group of maritime merchants is on the island of Taiwan.It took Spain three years to defeat them and completely occupy the Philippines.

In order to seize trade rights from the Chinese as soon as possible, the Spaniards opened fire on the Chinese in Manila in 1603, massacring 2.5 Chinese at one time. "Except for a few who escaped, almost all died by the sword."

This kind of humanitarian destruction immediately changed the color of the Philippines, and the Spaniards completely controlled the Philippine economy.

After the massacre, there was a shortage of labor force in the Philippines, so there was a large influx of Chinese.Gradually, business in the Philippines fell into the hands of the Chinese.

In 1639, Spain massacred the Chinese again, killing 2.1 Chinese, making the Chinese in Luzon almost extinct.

Today, after less than ten years, the Chinese in the Philippines are thriving again, and they are extremely close to and from Taiwan.

"Luzon?" Many people stood up, excited.

"I heard that there are more than [-] Ming people there, and the Spaniards have no choice but to bully us and use the natives to check and balance."

"We Han people are so smart, little Xiyi can't play well without us—"

"I heard that the Spaniards captured Luzon, but there were only 600 people, and now the Governor's Mansion only has 3000 people, and the most are only the Navy..."

Many people discussed and expressed their opinions one after another.

However, they were not angry or sad about the massacre of Filipino Chinese.

There is no other, because many of these people are pirates, sea merchants, and their descendants, aliens from alien lands, far away.

In the era when nationalism had not yet flourished, they did not have much emotion.

For the imperial court, not only did these people not pay taxes or serve corvee, but they also ran around in other places every day despite their disobedience, and they deserved to be killed.

Zhang Qi originally thought so, but the emperor told him that this matter cannot be left alone.

For the first massacre, Emperor Wanli said forget it, but the second massacre was not forgiven, which means that excuses are in his hands.

As long as Manila, where Spain has operated for a hundred years, is no less than the next Taiwan, doubling sugar production is just a matter of time.

"The Spaniards slaughtered our country's maritime merchants recklessly in Chongzhen for 12 years. The people of the Ming Dynasty were in a state of decline and it was difficult to take care of it. Now, Emperor Shaowu is a wise man, respects the sky and loves the people. After learning about this, he is very angry."

Zhang Qilang said: "This matter needs Spain to give an explanation."

"Then I don't know how the court will act? How can we help?"

"Your family is a gentry and travels to and from the sea. You should only go to Luzon to collect news about him and his military situation. It will be very useful to report to the imperial court."

Seeing that everyone's eyes were about to pop out, Zhang Qi couldn't help but said: "Besides, if anyone can come out on top, there is no need to mention the reward from the imperial court. It will be of great benefit to future business contacts!"

(End of this chapter)