The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 225 The Wind Blowing from Fuzhou
When the last northwest wind blew from the distant Siamese desert to southern China, a large fleet set sail from the northeastern port of Fuzhou and finally arrived in Samutprakarn Province of the Kingdom of Siam after a month's journey.

This is the mouth of the Chao Phraya River (Mekong River), only about 150 miles away from Thonburi, the capital of the King of Siam.

Lin Qiaoyin slowly walked down from the huge ship he was on, and looked curiously at the exotic customs that he had heard of before.

In front of Lin Qiaoyin, the chief envoy for the enthronement of the King of Siam, Qing Gui, who was a member of the Grand Council and the Minister of the Court of Internal Affairs, had vomited so much that he was completely limp.

Supported by several soldiers, he ran impatiently to the land.

This old Manchu surnamed Zhangjia, a member of the Bordered Yellow Banner, came from an extraordinary family. His father was Yin Jishen, a famous favorite of Emperor Yongzheng.

Just as Qinggui was being helped to stand by two Fujian Navy soldiers who had been sailing on the sea for many years, another splashing sound was heard over there.

Shi Enming, the envoy's secretary with a long braid around his neck, fell headfirst to the ground.

Lin Qiaoyin frowned slightly, but still ran over and helped Enming, who had fallen to the ground.

Lin Qiaoyin was from Houguan, Fujian. Born and raised by the sea, he was naturally not afraid of sailing.

After helping Enming up, Lin Qiaoyin whispered, "Are you okay, sir? You're used to the ups and downs of a ship, and suddenly being on the stable land might be a problem."

Enming quickly stood up with the help of Lin Qiaoyin, straightened his official uniform, brushed off the sand and dirt on it, and smiled self-deprecatingly.

"To ride on this huge boat across thousands of miles of waves, you guys from Fujian and Guangdong are the ones who have to rely on you. I, a northerner, can't seem to get used to it."

Lin Qiaoyin chatted and laughed a few words with him, but the conversation did not go deep, because he knew that this person looked like a clerk, not as prominent as him who was appointed as the deputy envoy, but actually had a great background.

Enming was a member of the Manchu Bordered Blue Banner, and his original surname was Gioro Chan. Zhong Yin, who had just taken office as the Governor-General of Fujian and Zhejiang, was his father.

Enming's real identity is the head of the Du Yu Si of the Imperial Household Department.

This is very unusual.

Because official positions in the Imperial Household Department have always been given only to the top three banners, namely the Plain Yellow, Bordered Yellow, and Plain White banners.

Enming, a man from the Bordered Blue Banner, was able to become an official in the Imperial Household Department because he was actually the emperor's spy.

After the self-adhesive poles were abolished, when the emperor needed spies, he would select them from the bannermen who were secretly trained outside the upper three banners.

However, Lin Qiaoyin smiled coldly. In the early years of Qianlong's reign, the emperor was energetic and working hard to govern the country. He selected capable officials and had sophisticated means of supervision.

But now, the emperor himself has started to live a life of debauchery, so how could those daring servants in the Imperial Household Department still work hard and wholeheartedly?

Moreover, the only ones who can gain the emperor's true trust are the Eight Banners stationed in the capital. There are only tens of thousands of people coming and going. How many talents can they produce?

Talent is the spirit of human beings. It depends on a large base and it can be selected from millions of people. Only then can they be called true talents.

With a market of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people, it would be quite remarkable if you could produce three or five in twenty years.

And among these three or five people, there are also future governors, governors-general and generals in various parts of the country. Who would come to be a spy for the emperor?

Therefore, Enming, a man of outstanding ability among the bannermen whom I carefully selected, passed the imperial examination at the age of 20 and served as the magistrate of Jiangjin County in Sichuan for several years, came to the view of Lin Qiaoyin.

If Enming was born in Houguan, he would probably not even pass the examination to become a student and would only be fit to work as an accountant in a restaurant.

Enming, who was only in his twenties, had barely recovered, but Zhangjia Qinggui, who was thirty-four years old, was still dizzy.

Although I stopped vomiting, I still felt like the world was spinning and my brain seemed to have not yet returned to its original place.

But he is the official envoy. If the Siamese see him unable to stand steadily, it will definitely damage his image.

So the entourage brought a large chair from the boat for Qinggui to sit on and calm down, and the soldiers stood outside to prevent the Siamese officials from coming in, to ensure Qinggui's dignity.

But it would not be good to stop him without giving an explanation, so the dizzy Qinggui waved to his personal advisor.

The legal advisor came over and bowed to Lin Qiaoyin, "Master Lin, the Minister may have caught a cold and is feeling a little weak. He needs to rest for a while. Please go forward and greet those Siamese people."

"That's not a good idea." Lin Qiaoyin hesitated. "Lord Qing is the mastermind, a Manchu noble of high rank. If a mere scholar like me were to step forward, I'd be disrespectful to the court!"

The master knew that Qinggui was indeed unable to get up, so he smiled and said, "Master Lin is a well-educated man from Fujian Province. It is enough for him to meet a barbarian from a foreign country."

After saying this, the legal advisor who came from a bannerman family glanced at Enming who was also coming back to his senses.

Well, I, Qianlong, thought that the secret spy was unnoticed by anyone, but in fact everyone knew who he was, but they just pretended not to know.

Enming opened his mouth and was about to move his legs, because the emperor sent him to the south as an envoy, which meant that he did not trust the Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi Li Shiyao and the General of Guangzhou Yang Ning.

Qianlong felt that these two people were just speaking well of Ha Tien, and that they were the ones who had made the early contacts between Ha Tien and Siam. He suspected that they had been bribed.

That was why he specially sent the enthronement mission from Fuzhou and specially selected Enming to be in the mission, just to see the real situation in Siam, especially Ha Tien.

But Enming's mouth was open, and he felt dizzy every time he took a step, so he wisely stopped.

What he was about to say, "I will go with Lord Lin," became, "Lord Lin is too modest. Please appease me first."

Seeing that the emperor's spies had agreed, Lin Qiaoyin bowed and walked over leisurely with a few followers.

After passing the dock, they saw that Siamese officials had been waiting for a long time. After a few words, the person who came to receive the Qing delegation was Zheng Xin's nephew Gongkun Morodo, whose Chinese name was Zheng Congli.

Zheng Congli actually came down from the mainland after Zheng Xin had proclaimed himself King, so he could basically be considered a Qing Dynasty person.

Although Lin Qiaoyin is from eastern Fujian, his grandmother is from southern Fujian, and Teochew dialect is very similar to southern Fujian dialect.

As the two chatted, they unconsciously began to mix in Minnan vocabulary, which made the small officials from the Bannermen who came with Lin Qiaoyin very confused.

They only saw Zheng Congli and Lin Qiaoyin talking non-stop, chattering like chanting scriptures. They tried to listen for a while, but they really couldn't understand, so they lost interest.

Just at this moment, the sound of drums and music rang out, and more than ten women wearing cool Siamese tube skirts in yellow and green came in. They sang and danced to the accompaniment of the drums and music.

At that time, cheongsams were actually very ugly. The cheongsams that showed off the figure that we saw in later generations were mostly improvements made in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China.

These bannermen officials grew up in the capital, and the tens of thousands of people coming and going were all their relatives. In addition to having mastered the skill of speaking auspicious words, they were also tired of seeing bannermen girls who spoke even more eloquently than they did.

As for the Eight Great Hutongs, they were just a shadow at this point and hadn't even begun to gain strength.

At the same time, the emperor generally did not allow these things to be in Beijing, thinking that they would affect the bravery of the Eight Banners stationed in Beijing and corrupt his will. Therefore, even if there were some, they were concealed and not something that ordinary bannermen could afford or dare to consume.

To be honest, there was nothing interesting about Beijing before the Guangxu period. Apart from the clear autumn weather and all sorts of tall buildings, it was lifeless.

It is far less fun than the cities closest to it, such as Tianjin, Baoding, Zhangjiakou and so on.

Therefore, when these colorful palace ladies arrived, they sounded very noble, but the banner officials who had never seen the world of pleasure were all staring in amazement.

They stared blankly at the Siamese women's slender waists, perky buttocks and big curvy shapes hidden under their tube skirts. Their faces flushed and they began to whisper to each other.

Seeing this, Zheng Congli clapped his hands lightly and said in his unskilled official language, "This is a palace maid appointed by our king. She is no ordinary vulgar woman. I ordered her to be seen because the superior of my motherland has arrived."

It would have been fine if Zheng Congli hadn't said this. Once he said this, everyone present became even more excited. What do the Bannermen love most? Face!
I'm going back to the capital, and I'm chatting with people, "Hey, last time I went to Siam, guess what? The King of Siam entertained us with his beautiful ladies from the palace."

This, this will make those who haven't been there envious to the point of vomiting blood, right?

Therefore, after Zheng Congli said this, everyone became less polite.

Although we can't do anything with real weapons and both sides don't speak the same language, it's still fun to have one or two people around us, eating meat, drinking, listening to music, flirting, and touching and kneading each other!

So, while the envoy Qinggui and the spy Enming regained their consciousness while enjoying the breeze at the beach, the several attendants who had been reminded by them to pay attention had completely forgotten their mission.

At this time, Zheng Congli and Lin Qiaoyin got a little closer, and the Siamese official next to Zheng Congli was Zheng Qing, the newly appointed left clerk of General Mo's shogunate.

Several young ladies surrounded them for cover, and the three of them quickly started talking in Minnan dialect.

"Mr. Ge Shan asked me to send my regards to King Zheng and King Mo. The previous incident was forced by the situation.

Now that the chieftains of Jinchuan have rebelled, war has broken out in the southwest. The Manchu, Wen Fu, has been transferred to Sichuan to lead the expeditionary force. This matter may be put to rest. If not, those who come after will surely let the two kings know."

The Mr. Ge Shan that Lin Qiaoyin mentioned is Cai Xin, the most famous official in Fujian Province today, the chief teacher of the Qing Dynasty's inner court, the minister of rites and punishments, and the supervisor of the Imperial College.

He received a request from Wen Fu, the former Governor-General of Fujian and Zhejiang, a Manchu, and asked his family to find a dozen spies to sail to Southeast Asia, a total of three groups.

Then, he was robbed by He Baifu, a big pirate from Taiping Island who was instructed by Mo Zibu.

There were three ships with a total of more than 400 people, all of whom were Cai Xin's fellow villagers from Zhangzhou. They were all detained. Then Mo Zibu asked Wu Rang, the lord of Song City from Zhangzhou, to send relatives back to his hometown to spread rumors.

It is said that the reason why the three ships were trapped was because Cai Xin colluded with the Manchu governor and offended the big pirates in the South China Sea.

If you say someone else, people may not believe it, but if you say it’s Cai Xin, everyone will believe it.

Because Cai Xin has a stain on him.

Thirty years ago, after the Batavia Hongxi Massacre in the fifth year of Qianlong's reign (1740), Cabinet Scholar Fang Bao wrote a letter to Cai Xin.

He asked whether it was possible to punish the Dutch East India Company by cutting off maritime trade and prohibiting maritime trade with the West.

Cai Xin was from southern Fujian, so he naturally didn't want to do that. So he wrote back to Fang Bao and said that now he could only wait and see.

If the Dutch dare to kill Chinese in Southeast Asia again, we can just ban maritime trade and blockade the coast. As for what is happening now, we should just follow the people's wishes.

What Cai Xin meant by this was that he knew that the Qing Dynasty had no control over what happened in Batavia, and the only weapon they could use was to close the sea borders and prohibit trade with the Dutch.

But in fact, the Dutch had long been unable to compete with the British and French in the maritime trade of the Thirteen Factories over the years.

If you ban trade, the Dutch will not be seriously hurt, but the people along the coast will be the ones who can't bear it.

More importantly, the maritime trade of the Thirteen Hongs was Emperor Qianlong's money bag, and it was impossible to ban it. Therefore, Cai Xin, based on the principle that less trouble is worse than more, advocated leaving it alone for the time being.

When the opinions reached Emperor Qianlong, he did not want to manage overseas Chinese at all. He was even more afraid that if he did, he would not be able to stand out and would be exposed as a coward. Seeing that Cai Xindu said so, he backed off.

He said that the Chinese in Batavia were overseas scoundrels who disrespected the laws of the imperial court and went to sea on their own, and were no longer citizens of the Celestial Empire, and he didn't care.

Then the news spread back to southern Fujian, and public opinion immediately turned into that Tsai Xin insisted on not caring about overseas Chinese.

This is outrageous! This is betraying fellow villagers!

If the Cai family had not been a prominent clan in Zhangpu, and Cai Xin had not been so busy working with the Cai family to repair bridges and roads, provide relief to the poor, and spend money lavishly, the Cai family's ancestral graves would have been dug up by others.

So when this incident happened, even Cai Xin, who was now a top Han official, immediately responded.

He quickly stuffed Lin Qiaoyin, who had connections with the Minnan people, into the delegation, with the purpose of going out to sea to meet Mo Zibu and ask Mo Zibu to release the people.

"Lord Lin is also from our Fujian Province. He knows the situation of Fujian Province with eight mountains, one river and one piece of land. If we don't go to Southeast Asia, our ancestors will starve to death.

Although King Mo is from Mingxiang, he is still one of our fellow villagers. Many people from Fujian have survived thanks to his protection.

If we let a few ignorant people from the Hexian tribe sneak in and spread rumors, causing trouble, who would dare to accept people like us from Fujian in the future?"

Zheng Congli said this with some complaints, while Zheng Qing's attitude became even more intense.

"What on earth is the Manchu court thinking?

We have come to the south, but we just want to keep our clothes and keep a memory, but they want to kill us all. Are they afraid that we can fight back?
Now that Prime Minister Cai has become a high-ranking official in the Qing Dynasty, has he forgotten Koxinga?
We are all Han Chinese, all from southern Fujian. Do we have to be so ruthless towards our fellow countrymen and ancestors?"

Lin Qiaoyin was silent for a long time. People are all made of flesh and blood, especially scholars like him. The more they read, the more they know. It is impossible for him to have a good impression of the ethnic policies of the Qing Dynasty.

Moreover, Lin Qiaoyin is a very principled person.

In history, when Emperor Qianlong went to the south of the Yangtze River, he wanted to promote some scholars from Fujian and Zhejiang provinces to be officials. However, Lin Qiaoyin, Zheng Guangce and others refused to curry favor with Heshen. They would rather give up their official hats and retreat proudly. As a result, they offended Heshen and were not promoted.

Hearing Zheng Qing's accusation, he felt a little ashamed. He could only sigh deeply, drink a large jar of wine, and calm his thoughts before saying:
"In the officialdom, one has no choice. It's lonely in a high position! Please report to King Mo and ask for his understanding."

Zheng Qing's eyes rolled, and he keenly grasped the conscience that had not been completely extinguished in this deputy envoy. After pondering for a moment, he tentatively said:

"Since Lord Lin has said so, I should return the favor.

But you should also know that my lord made a great contribution in annihilating the Burmese chieftain, the White Elephant King. However, he did not gain any benefit and was instead being investigated. How angry he must be.

If I were to pass on the message alone, I'm afraid it would be difficult to calm his anger. How about Lord Lin go to Hexian and meet him in person?"

(End of this chapter)