The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 158: Fuqing People's Traditional Profession

Human beings are the highest level of social animals. Throughout history, the sense of belonging is definitely one of the most important things that every human being cares about in social activities.

This thing can help a certain group of people who share the same sense of belonging as you to unite relatively firmly to face the challenges of nature or other ethnic groups.

This emotion is so strong that it can even be said to be the cornerstone of human ability to cope with various challenges.

Therefore, when one ethnic group wants to integrate and unite with another ethnic group, the best way is to find similarities between the two groups.

Then try to expand it as much as possible so that the person you are integrating with can feel a sense of belonging to you, and you will be basically half successful.

This is what General Suki and his subordinates are like.

After understanding their basic situation, Mo Zibu took the trouble to explain to a group of Karen officers what the Cheng Han regime was all about.

Although Mo Zibu didn't quite know what happened, he only remembered that the daughter or sister of Li Shi, the last ruler of Cheng Han, was very beautiful and was taken in by Huan Wen.

This caused Huan Wen's wife, Princess Nankang Sima Xingnan, to become jealous. She took a knife and her guards to kill Li, but she was moved by Li's beauty and pitiful appearance, and fell in love with her, leaving behind the idiom "I still feel pity for her when I see her".

However, this did not affect Mo Zibu's half-true and half-false boasting, which attracted the admiration of General Suki and the Karen officers, who were very proud of having ancestors with such a noble origin.

And soon because of the dual relationship, he brought Mo Zibu into his own side.

Well, the Cheng Han regime and the Di people were not that important in Chinese history, and not many people were willing to claim to be so.

But in Southeast Asia, before China declined, such an ancestor was a shining heroic ancestor to the Karen people who were dressed in Mon skins.

And through General Suki's complete surrender, Mozibu also thoroughly understood the basic situation of Mergui and Toungoo.

Myeik was ruled by General Suki's half-brother, Bolin. There were more than 10,000 people in the city, and the total population was less than 100,000.

There aren't many Chinese here, but there are some Min family members who were defeated by the Konbaung Dynasty in the Chicken War more than a decade ago.

There are about two thousand people. They can no longer speak Chinese and are no different from the Baikalun people. Their languages are basically the same.

Well, it is not easy to pull them back to become Han Chinese in a short period of time, or it is not necessary, but it can still be used to talk about family affection.

General Suki was enthusiastic about taking back Mergui. His suggestion was simple. The Towei lord Mankimaroye had just been defeated, and Mok Tsongkhapa had killed some Burmese in Phetchaburi and Prachuap Khiri Khan.

Then General Suki could let his Karen soldiers pretend to be the remnants of the Burmese.

The guards in Danlao City only have one or two hundred people. As long as they are assisted by dozens of elite soldiers from the River Immortal Corps, it will definitely not be difficult to capture them.

However, Tuwa City is quite different from what Mo Zibu expected. This city is now very prosperous because there are several high-quality tin mines not far from Tuwa City.

Tin can be used to make utensils, copper coins, and especially tinfoil for wrapping tea leaves, and is in great demand in mainland China.

It is also one of the few commodities on the mainland that needs to be imported in large quantities. Therefore, wherever there is tin mine in Southeast Asia, it will prosper.

This is also the capital that enables Tuva Lord Manjimaloye to organize an army of more than 10,000.

Unfortunately, this wealthy lord, who was considered to be very wealthy in Myanmar, met Taksin and Mo Zi Bu.

One of the father-in-law and son-in-law was the darling of the times, and the other was a bug of the times. After the battle, Mankima Luoye not only lost all his capital, but also died.

So the current Tuwa city is in a strange state.

The largest military force in Tuva City now is not the son left behind by Tuva Lord Manjimaloye.

Instead, they were several large Chinese mine owners near Towai, who controlled about two thousand elite miners and had a small number of muskets and a large number of swords and guns.

Most of these mine owners come from two places, or you can say one place, that is, Fuqing and Changle in Fuzhou.

Not all the miners were Chinese. A large number of them were abducted, or to put it bluntly, robbed, by the Annamese, Champa, and even Malays and Bangladeshis.

Mo Zibu scratched his head. It turned out that people from Fuqing and Changle had started to get involved in underworld organizations so early!
It's really a fucking tradition.

But this is a good thing for Mo Zibu. He doesn't plan to do anything to these gangsters, and he can even let them participate in the Tuva government.

As long as they can select some elite miners to serve as his soldiers, the tin mine will still be theirs.

Thinking of this, Mo Zibu found more than twenty Fuqing people in his team. They were the clansmen of Wei Yongxing, the leader of the Japanese in Hoi An.

Well.
Wei Yongxing also seems to be a gang leader.

. . . .

Outside Tuwa City, inside the Shangkou Tin Mine.

This tin mine is called Shangkou Tin Mine because it is located at a key estuary of the Tuva River. It is also the largest tin mine in Tuva.

It was already scorching hot in the South China Sea. Under the scorching sun, the miners gathered in groups of three or four under the ventilated shade of trees, sitting listlessly.

Most of the tin mines that can be developed at this time are shallowly buried surface mines.

Due to the lack of powerful excavation methods such as explosives, metals buried too deeply, except for gold and silver mines, basically have little mining value, because the miners will lose everything.

Of course, there are exceptions. That is when, under national defense pressure, the state's powerful agencies are dispatched to intervene and mining is carried out regardless of cost.

However, when it comes to the tin mines in a place like Towei, naturally there will be no powerful state agencies to interfere.

Therefore, the tin ore in Shangkou is naturally buried shallowly, and often operations have to be carried out on the ground.

The hot and humid weather in Southeast Asia means that miners have to work under the scorching sun, which could result in fatalities.

Therefore, when the sun is at its highest, the miners will gather together to rest, and only go back to work when the sun is about to set.

The management of Shangkou Tin Mine is quite strict. Gambling and fighting are strictly prohibited. Women selling prostitutes are not allowed to come to the mine without the permission of the mine owner.

There were only a few women doing laundry and cooking, and they were all quite old.

Although it still can't stop some people from eating anything they want, it has greatly restricted most people.

This is the unique skill of the mine owners, the Chen Jiansheng brothers, in managing the miners.

Only the miners who listened to them and were most willing to work hard were allowed to go to Tuwa every ten days and use their hard-earned money to enjoy the tenderness of Tuwa prostitutes. When Chen Xu arrived at the Shangkou Tin Mine with a dozen or so Fuqing Wei family members, the Chen Jiansheng brothers had been eagerly awaiting their arrival.

I have to say that there is a reason why Chinese people overseas trust their fellow countrymen.

Because in Fujian and Guangdong, where clans are extremely important, if Chen Jiansheng harmed fellow townsmen like the Wei family, as long as the news got back and the matter was confirmed, the Wei family could go to the Chen family to make trouble.

At that time, the clan leaders and elders of both sides will sit together and confront each other, and a judgment will be made quickly.

If there is compensation, the ancestral property will be compensated on the spot.

If he accepts the punishment, if the punishment cannot be imposed on him personally, his immediate family members will be punished. In the most serious cases, the clan leaders can drive Chen Jiansheng's parents out of the village.

In places like Fujian and Guangdong, without the protection of your clan, you are like fish on everyone's chopping board, and even beggars passing by will dare to slap you in the face.

What? You said your parents are gone and you don't have any property in your hometown.

That's easy. Throw the tablets of your ancestors out of the ancestral hall, dig out the bones of your father and grandfather from the family cemetery, and throw them onto the road.

In later generations, this might simply be considered an insult.

But at this time, in Fujian and Guangdong, where clans are very important, most people would rather come back and be beheaded than let such a thing happen.

Under this very effective deterrent, overseas Chinese often don't have to think too much when they meet relatives and fellow villagers. They can try their best to accept and help each other without fear of being stabbed in the back.

But precisely because it can only achieve deterrence within a limited scope, it becomes inevitable that everyone only trusts relatives and fellow villagers.

Overseas Chinese only focus on the formation of clan and hometown atmosphere, which is actually a constraint formed by the people after the government fails to guide, help, and adjudicate for overseas Chinese.

So when they saw fellow villagers like Chen Xu and the Wei family members arriving, even though they had never met them before, the Chen Jiansheng brothers still tried their best to give them a warm welcome.

Both parties informed each other of their hometowns and clans. Chen Jiansheng was the elder brother, and Chen Xu was the younger brother.

Afterwards, Chen Xu and others pulled off the fake braids on their heads. They were all bald now to make disguise easier.

After all, in Southeast Asia, it is too obvious where the Chinese who tie their hair come from.

Chen Xu is about to become a special forces general under Mo Zibu, so of course it is convenient for him to shave his head.

This time they came here, disguised as Chinese miners who came to Towei to make a living.

There are six large and small tin mines within a radius of 40 miles on both sides of the Tuva River, with more than 1,800 miners.

Among them, there are about a thousand Chinese miners, all of whom are energetic young people in their teens and twenties.

Although these people came from Fuqing and Changle counties of Fuzhou Prefecture, they were basically one family.

The owners of the six tin mines are all surnamed Chen, and more than 70% of the miners are also surnamed Chen.

Because Chen is an absolutely big surname in Fuqing and Changle, and in later generations it accounted for about 30% of the total population of the two counties. It was even more terrifying at this time, as at least 60% of the people in Fuqing and Changle had the surname Chen.

After three rounds of wine and five dishes, Chen Jiansheng wiped the wine from his beard and asked loudly:

"Where can we go now? If we don't want to be a brave traveler in the stormy seas, why come to this poor and remote village?"

Although Chen Xu was from Xianyou, Xinghua Prefecture where Xianyou was located and Fuzhou Prefecture where Fuqing was located were adjacent to each other, and the two were somewhat related.

The family claimed to be descendants of Chen Yuanguang, the King of Kaizhang. The great-grandfathers of both sides continued the family tree and acknowledged that they were of the same clan.

That is why Chen Jiansheng called Chen Xu his family member.

Chen Xu stood up and took out two well-made flintlock pistols from his waist, which made Chen Jiansheng envious.

In the jungles of Southeast Asia, this hand cannon combined with a short knife is the king of melee combat.

"Jiamen, who in Nanyang can build such a sophisticated self-fired musket? Who would care about us, the scoundrels, from all over the world?"

Mo Zibu's Pattani Arsenal has started operations, but due to problems with material sources, the production of long-barreled flintlock rifles is relatively small.

In addition to the short-barreled brown bass, the most popular instrument to be imitated on a large scale is the pistol.

One is the standard 1759 Light Dragoon flintlock pistol produced by the Haskins Arsenal in the UK, and the other is the French M1763 flintlock pistol.

Originally, Mo Zibu wanted to imitate it for future dragoons, and at the same time test the production capacity to prevent the craftsmen from getting paid without working and thus losing their skills.

As soon as it was made, it became a huge hit.

This thing is very suitable for the environment of Southeast Asia. It is very suitable for revenge or for gold mine owners to use it to threaten miners or indigenous people.

People like Chen Xu who often participate in special operations also like it.

Because there is a relatively stable source of funds in various parts of Southeast Asia, a new style of fighting has even been formed in the martial arts world.

That is, they would hide their pistols inside their clothes, and shoot their enemies when they saw them. If they missed, they would draw their knives and chop them.

It is said that in Borneo, where there are many gold mines and Chinese gangs are rampant, kicking your hands in your sleeves has become a sign that I want to kill you.

"Hahahaha!" Chen Jiansheng laughed twice and shook his fists in the air twice.

"I heard long ago that your brother was a general under the command of Master Mo Wu, the Duke of Xuande in Nanyang. It turned out to be true.

Lord Xuande sent my brother here, is there anything you want to do for me?"

Speaking of this, Mo Zibu now has a very dark face.

He originally wanted to be called Duke Ren De, so that it would not be so conspicuous, but the name Duke Xuan De made the intention too obvious.

But he can only design the characters and has no control over the people's enthusiasm for secondary creation.

Soon, he was called Duke Ren De only by those close to him, and outsiders people called him Duke Xuan De and Master Mo Wu.

Vulgar! It's so vulgar and so straightforward!
(End of this chapter)