The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 756 Who is the White Man? (Tactical Head Up)
Gusts of cool breeze blew on the flat street, with a slight smell of the sea mixed with the freshness of trees, and a little bit of stink in the fragrance. The smell was not too pleasant, but very intoxicating.

After smelling it for a long time, I always feel a strange feeling that makes people feel very comfortable. I miss it a little if I don’t smell it for a day.

Lu Yasheng stood at the door of the bank with his back straight. Although he had been standing for a long time, he did not feel tired at all. Instead, his eyes were full of desire, a desire for money.

As a Chaozhou native, he was born not to be content to stay at home and farm. Although his family had lived a much better life in recent years, he still couldn't stay there, so he chose Wenshui Port, which was said to have mountains of gold and silver.

However, Lu Yasheng has had a weak constitution since childhood, and he really cannot do the hard work of gold panning. Not to mention that there are no mountains of gold and silver, even if there are, he cannot compete with others with his physical condition.

Fortunately, although he has average physical fitness, he is eloquent and has attended elementary school for six years. He can recognize hundreds of words and can do simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Although he is nothing in the Chinese land, he can still be considered a cultured person in this warm water port tens of thousands of miles away.

So, Lu Yasheng quickly found a job as a bank manager.

The word and position of manager were learned from the Fuxing Company. Because it sounds somewhat similar to Prime Minister and Assistant Minister, and is said to have been named by the emperor, it quickly became popular both at home and abroad.

To the extent that now, the word "manager" is almost more popular than the word "master". After all, the word "master" is full of self-deprecation, while there is no such concern when calling someone a manager.

As I waited anxiously, a man in shorts appeared. He had two big black arms sticking out of his short coat like steel drills, and his face was almost as black as his arms.

Lu Yasheng hurried over and took a look at the feet of the people passing by. He was indeed barefoot, and the skin from his calves to his feet showed a lot of white wrinkles caused by long-term immersion in water, and they were very serious.

This situation only occurs to gold miners in Jinshui River.

"Sir, come and take a look. Haimen Dafa Bank specializes in business with big gold traders like you. Whether you need smelting, selling, or remittance, we can handle it all, and the prices are absolutely favorable!"

Warmwater Harbour is Vancouver in later generations, and the Goldwater River is the Fraser River, the main river in Vancouver.

Historically, Vancouver developed because of the Fraser River gold mine. It was similar this time, except that the gold diggers changed from Europeans to Chinese.

"You Chaozhou people are not good people. You do a lot of cheating and deceiving people." The visitor became alert as soon as he heard Lu Yasheng's Chaozhou accent and the word Haimen.

Then, without making any noise, he gently lifted his waist, revealing a latest-model revolver pistol.

Like many inventions in history, many new weapons were not first invented and promoted by the army, or the Ministry of War, Privy Council, Imperial Guard and other departments of the imperial court, but many came from the public.

This is because the highest state organ must first seek stability, especially for an empire of the size of the Dayu Dynasty, which will surely become the world hegemon unless it makes major mistakes. Stability is the overriding priority.

When at least half of the empire's army was still equipped with flintlock muskets and still using lead bullets, far away in Beihezhou (North America), Chinese gold miners and colonists who were in urgent need of short, fast and powerful weapons had already appeared with revolver pistols using fulminate of mercury as percussion caps.

This classic pistol, which was supposed to be invented by American Colt more than 30 years later, became a Chinese invention.

The inventor was a close friend of the Crown Prince, Sen, and a student of the Crown Prince's Zhaoyi Wang Zhenyi at the Sanzhong Temple Imperial College. He participated in the development of the steam engine and went to Lanzhou with the Crown Prince. He is currently the prefect of Wenshui Port, Cen Xuannan.

Based on the flintlock revolver that the English had invented almost a hundred years ago, Cen Xuannan absorbed the modifications made by many Chinese gunmen, established the Wenshuigang Arsenal, and jointly developed this hand cannon that is extremely similar to the historical Colt revolver.

Cen Xuannan announced that the inspiration for this pistol was provided by the Crown Prince Sen, and the first successfully manufactured pistol was also given to the Crown Prince.

Therefore, this revolver is jokingly called the Prince or the Big Boss Gun by the people.

Seeing the other party flashing his eyes, Lu Yasheng was not polite either. He put his hands on his waist and lifted the hem of his half-sleeve jacket. The two big guns also emitted a dark black light.

"Sir, no matter if they are from Chaoshan, Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka, Wuyue or Qilu, they are all Chinese. We are one family and we don't have different opinions. There are scoundrels everywhere, but there are also honest people who run businesses with integrity.

We're all here to make money, not to associate with fellow townspeople or gang members. We just want to see how much we can pocket. What do you think?"

Seeing that the other side was wary of Chaoshan people, Lu Yasheng quickly changed to Mandarin, which was a bit awkward, but better than most Fujian and Guangdong people.

After hearing what Lu Yasheng said, the gold digger nodded in satisfaction, and the two of them entered the bank, which was just a single two-story wooden house.

The gold digger took out a large package from his arms, which was filled with gold particles the size of rice grains, thin gold sand that looked a bit like leaves, and several extremely bright, egg-sized nugget golds.

Lu Yasheng's eyes lit up immediately. Although their Haimen Dafa Bank was called a bank, lending and deposit-taking were not its main businesses.

Their main business is to collect the raw gold from gold diggers and increase its value by smelting and processing it into gold bars.

At the same time, it also provides remittance services for gold diggers, allowing them to remit their earnings to their hometowns through the Dayu banking system, mainly the Fuxing Bank.

Of course, you can also provide Fuxing Bank's cashier's draft to directly make fixed-amount, regular savings.

For all of this, the gold diggers need to pay a certain fee, and Lu Yasheng, the so-called manager, makes a profit through commission.

At this moment, Lu Yasheng's face was almost broken with laughter. This batch of gold was worth at least three thousand silver dollars, or even more. After being made into gold bars, it could be worth another 50%.

He can get at least a commission of 100 silver dollars, which is really a lot. Senior engineers in Jiangnan only earn around 60 silver dollars a month. Lu Yasheng's commission is just a commission from a transaction.

The gold digger felt relieved when he saw Lu Yasheng's skillful movements and ingratiating smile. He thought about how big a house and how much good land his wife and children would buy with the money. When he got old and returned to his hometown, he would be able to truly enjoy life.

"The saying 'mountains of gold and silver' may be a bit exaggerated, and some people would say it's fake, but at least in my opinion, gold panning really can make money, and a lot of money."

On the second floor of Haimen Dafa Bank, eighteen-year-old Mo Zhouzhen watched all this unfold with a heartfelt smile. He turned to a companion, a man in his thirties with a distinctly military bearing, and asked, "Will this gold digger be cheated? This is the money he's worked so hard to save for many years."

The officer shook his head with certainty, "The Grand Commander of the Xinhua Grand Commander's Camp is Wu Wenchu. Don't you, Fifth Master, know his methods?
The prefect of Wenshui Port, the headquarters' capital, is Cen Xuannan, an old acquaintance of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. He has been in charge of Wenshui Port for six years and has never made a mistake.

There are indeed criminals, quite a few, but at least no one who runs a bank in this gold and silver alley of Wenshui Port dares to mess around under the rule of these two."

The fifth prince Mo Zhouzhen nodded in agreement. Who was Wu Wenchu? He was a ruthless character who betrayed the leader Nguyen Van Hue from the Xishan Army of Guangnan.

This man is cruel, ruthless and thick-skinned. He is known as one of the two cruel officials of the Dayu Dynasty, along with Deng, Chen and Chang from Beihe. Anyone who dares to mess around under him is simply tired of living.

As for Cen Xuannan, the emperor agreed to the eldest prince's recommendation to have him serve as the prefect of Wenshui Port. In addition to the fact that this person is indeed capable and skillful, it is also because he comes from a poor family and is stubborn.

At this time, in order to control Guangnan (North Vietnam) and balance the power of the three Guangs, Dayu took over Leizhou, Lianzhou and half of Gaozhou in Guangdong.

That is to say, in later generations, Qinzhou, Beihai, Zhanjiang, Lianjiang and Leizhou were all assigned to Guangxi, and Hainan Island was also assigned at the same time.

This resulted in Hai Rui, whose native place was Hainan, becoming a Guangxi native. Therefore, Cen Xuannan's nickname in the officialdom of Dayu was Cen Gangfeng. Cen Xuannan himself also regarded Hai Rui as his idol and imitated him in everything.

He has a tough attitude as an official. He dares to confront anyone, no matter if they are royal relatives or meritorious officials. He also likes to protect the interests of ordinary people and crack down on the powerful.

Anyone who dares to oppress innocent people in Wenshui Port with such people around will have had enough of life.

Mo Zhouzhen grinned after hearing this. "Actually, with you, the Admiral of the Xinhua Fleet, Vice Admiral of the Navy, and Ye Mingyue, the Earl of Guiyuan, in charge, if there are any blind people, the Navy can just deal with them."

The three people mentioned by Mo Zhouzhen are the current main officials of Dayu in Beihezhou (North America) and the basic governance system of Beihezhou.

At this time, Dayu’s main base in North America was in Warm Water Port (Vancouver).

The warm water port is mainly composed of warm water islands on the sea and the warm water port city in the delta where the Goldwater River (Fraser River) flows into the sea.

This place has a unique geographical advantage. The latitude of Wenshui Port is not much lower than that of Heihe City in Heilongjiang Province, and is basically at the same latitude as Blagoveshchensk. However, the temperature is completely different from that of Heihe and Blagoveshchensk, where the temperature can reach minus 30 to 40 degrees Celsius in winter.

Because it is surrounded by mountains on three sides and faces the sea on one side, the towering mountains block the cold waves from the Arctic.

On the seaward side, the Alaska Current and the Pacific-California Current pass by.

With these two advantages, the temperature in Vancouver is basically above zero at the coldest time, and the highest temperature in summer is only 24 or 25 degrees Celsius. This temperature is simply too comfortable.

At the same time, these two warm currents bring abundant water vapor, making it possible to carry out quite good agricultural production activities here.

The Warm Water Island on the other side of the sea from Warm Water Harbor is an unsinkable battleship, providing perfect cover for Warm Water Harbor. As long as there is a small fleet guarding it, any force that does not dispatch more than 30,000 musketeers and a dozen battleships will have no chance of threatening Warm Water Harbor.

It can be said that apart from the abundant water vapor brought by the two warm currents, which causes frequent heavy rain, the warm water port is quite perfect.

Of course, there are now 310,000 Chinese (including 110,000 Japanese) in the jurisdiction of the Xinhua Grand Commandery in Beihezhou, Dayu, so it is naturally impossible for all of them to be in Wenshui Port.

There are also many people in other places, such as Wansui Port (Prince Rupert Port), an important logistics base north of Warm Water Port, and Jiaoyang Fort (Seattle) and Jingning City (Portland) in the south.

These important cities constitute the entire Beihezhou Xinhua Grand Marshal's Headquarters. The Grand Marshal of the camp is of the second rank, and is held by Wu Wenchu. His main task is to plan the continued colonization to the south, search for gold and silver mines, and conquer the nearby Hezhou Jurchens (Indians). The provincial capital of the camp is Wenshui Port, and the prefect is Cen Xuannan, who is mainly responsible for economic development and logistics and farming. Under Cen Xuannan's governance, the Xinhua Grand Marshal's Headquarters has basically solved the food problem.

Finally, hundreds of thousands of people no longer have to eat bison whose meat tastes like wood, white-tailed deer with a very fishy smell, or various seafood.

As for Guiyuanbo Ye Mingyue, he controls the Xinhua Squadron of the Beiyang Fleet, which was reorganized from the pioneering fleet of the Fuxing Company. It is mainly responsible for transportation and maritime security, expelling European expedition ships with bad intentions, and guarding against the Spanish-Mexican fleet in the south.

But when Ye Mingyue heard the fifth prince, Mo Zhouzhen, the Duke of Edo, praising herself as the mainstay of Beihezhou, she shook her head.

"Your Highness, there is no need for my fleet to intervene. The bankers here will not dare to cheat, at least not too much.

Because here, in the area under the jurisdiction of the Xinhua Grand Commandery in Beihezhou, the martial virtues of the Han people are even more abundant than in Southeast Asia.

There are not so many gold and silver mines in Nanyang, and the government's governance is stricter than here, but in Xinhua, every man who comes here is determined to lose his life at sea, and everyone is equipped with several long and short guns and a basket of bombs.

If Dafa Bank dares to cheat them out of their money, they will come to their door in the middle of the night and fight with the manager and the staff here.

"No one dares to do such a daring thing, sailing across the sea for thousands of miles to seek wealth!"

Mo Zhouzhen thought about who would choose to cross the sea for thousands of miles to come to Xinhua. At least in his Edo Grand Duchy, they were all restless guys.

They were unwilling to work hard on the farm all their lives, and they couldn't concentrate on studying. Most of them were brutal country bandits, street robbers, or the unsuccessful but courageous sons of samurai families, or even criminals who had committed crimes in their hometowns and had to flee.

These human-centered gold diggers have plenty of weapons in their hands. If someone really wants to steal their hard-earned gold, they may have to pay with their lives.

While nodding, the extremely clever Mo Zhouzhen heard the hidden meaning in Ye Mingyue's words. He thought for a while, then said to Ye Mingyue with a smile:

"Guiyuan Bo is saying that ruling such unruly subjects is extremely difficult. If one fails to meet their wishes, even the monarch will be in danger, right?"

Ye Mingyue nodded and looked at Mo Zhouzhen very seriously, "Xinhua does need a king to take charge, but Your Highness should also know that an ordinary king cannot control these people.

If you really choose to come to Kitagazu, you must be mentally prepared. Compared to the completely tamed Edo Principality, this place is full of dangers."

Mo Zhouzhen stood up, walked back and forth, and looked at Lu Yasheng and the gold diggers who were trading downstairs.

They had already signed a contract. The gold digger would sell all the gold to them, and they would remit a Fuxing Bank draft of 2,800 silver dollars and a check for 200 silver dollars that could be exchanged at any time to the gold digger's family in Weihaiwei.

This system, which required remittances and gold and silver smelting to be conducted through the Bank of Reconstruction, not only provided guarantees for both parties, but also nationalized all gold and silver in the Americas.

At this time, due to the rapid development of industry and commerce in Dayu and the beginning of the formation of the small and medium-sized landlord farm system, the commodities produced in society were more than ten times what they were ten years ago.

The amount of gold and silver on the market has only doubled compared to ten years ago. This deflation caused by insufficient currency has seriously threatened the further development of the economy.

As for paper money, at this stage, paper money needs to be directly linked to gold and silver. Even in the future, paper money will be completely decoupled from precious metals only after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system.

At this stage, don't even think about credit banknotes. Even the smallest problem is difficult to solve, that is, it is difficult for individuals to make counterfeit banknotes, but it is not difficult for the state to make counterfeit banknotes with its own will.

"The bigger the wind and waves, the more expensive the fish. The greater the danger, the higher the reward." The country is so short of gold and silver. Whoever can become a vassal of the main gold and silver producing areas will benefit unimaginably.

Mo Zhouzhen clenched his fist and said, "I am the emperor's most beloved son and one of his best sons. I don't want to live in Edo all my life, living a stable life as a county lord.

That would be a waste of my more than ten years of hard study and the great blood flowing in my body.

I heard that the prince and his elder brother are going to travel thousands of miles west to guard Anxi for the country. As a county lord, what hardship can I not endure?

After saying this, Mo Zhouzhen looked at Ye Mingyue and said firmly, "Choose me. You have no other choice. Otherwise, you can only wait for my nephew, Duke Wen of Dayu and Duke of Valois of France, to come and take over as your vassal."

Ye Mingyue's face changed slightly. He dared to take a huge risk to smuggle the fifth prince, the Duke of Edo, to Beihezhou because no one from top to bottom in the jurisdiction of the Xinhua Grand Marshal's Headquarters could accept a grandson of the emperor with French ancestry to be their king.

We Tang people fought hard to conquer this territory. How could we allow a child born to a Semu woman to climb over our heads?

In addition to this reason, there is also a group of French and Spanish people in the heart of Beihezhou. When Duke Wen comes to be a vassal, in addition to these Tang people, the French can also be chosen.

Then these people are not the only option for this new vassal state. No one can accept sharing power with the French.

"I can hide the fact that Your Highness has come to Beihezhou from anyone except Your Majesty. This time when Your Highness returns to Shenzhou, I, Ye, will accompany him to the capital to apologize."

Ye Mingyue's words meant that she agreed, and she also pointed out that even the Grand Commander Wu Wenchu and the Wenshui Port Prefect Cen Xuannan did not know that Mo Zhouzhen had come to Xinhua.

"Then please inform Lord Guiyuan that I, Mo Zhouzhen, will go to the Grand Marshal's Office in person." Mo Zhouzhen also understood that it was not easy for Ye Mingyue to achieve what she has now.

He had to take the initiative to persuade Wu Wenchu, Cen Xuannan and all the leading figures in Xinhua.

Downstairs, a gold digger from Weihaiwei walked out of the house in a leisurely manner with a dozen or so silver dollars in his pocket.

During the Ming Dynasty, Weihaiwei was an important coastal defense post. It was abolished during the Qing Dynasty, but it was restored in Dayu because of the plan to attack Japan.

But after the war ended and the two places were recovered, Weihaiwei fell into decline again.

The gold diggers once worked as sea laborers for the fleet. After receiving some rewards and broadening their horizons, they were no longer willing to fish or farm, so they chose to come to Wenshui Port to pan for gold.

Unexpectedly, he and several fellow villagers were lucky enough to find a big gold mine and made a fortune overnight.

After leaving Haimen Dafa Bank, the gold diggers immediately found a food store and ordered a large bowl of noodles with rotten meat, five large meat buns, and a bottle of sugarcane wine from Southeast Asia.

After eating, he staggered towards a small building with red lanterns hanging on it. At the door of the building, several young girls dressed in fancy clothes came over and held his arms with laughter.

The gold digger was also an old hand. He immediately took advantage of the girls without any hesitation, causing them to pretend to be angry.

"Manager, are we going to the upper courtyard, the middle courtyard, or the back courtyard today?" The pimp came over quickly and drove the girls away.

He remembered that this gold digger was very reluctant to spend money, so he couldn't let him take advantage of him, because these girls were all from Japan, and the price of a night with them was not low.

The gold diggers in Yemen are in the Qing Dynasty. The so-called upper house refers to these young girls from the East. The price is quite expensive, at least five silver dollars. If they can speak Mandarin, they will be one level higher.

As for real Han women, there are some, but they are not something a gold digger can afford. Money is a small matter. The key is that he is not qualified.

The middle court is where those Western bitches come from the south. They look okay, but most of them are very thin and have little flesh, and their skin is a bit rough.

As for the people in the backyard, they were all Jurchen women from Hezhou. The gold digger smacked his lips. These Jurchen women were so damn ugly. They were indeed barbarians.

"Damn it, you look down on me." The gold digger got rich, took out a handful of silver dollars, and smashed them at the turtle man.

"I'm going to the Upper House today, and I need two young women to serve me, and I want a banquet. Listen up, if you dare to fool me with Jurchen women, I'll blow up your chicken coop!"

The gold diggers were shouting loudly because their business was so booming that some Indian women were actually being used to impersonate Japanese women.

Haha, many people think that when Chinese people arrive in North America, they will definitely unite with the Indians and treat them as compatriots.

No wonder!
This kind of thinking is the thinking of the backward and beaten later generations, who see themselves as victims and weaklings just like the Indians.

But in this time and space, Dayu's national strength is enough to challenge the whole world alone, or even more. Europeans have to curry favor with the Chinese in order to claim that we are all white people and civilized people.

In other words, at this time, the Chinese are the real white people.

Therefore, when the Tang people arrived in North America, they would never classify themselves as the same as the Indians, and regard them as some ancient fellow tribe from Asia.

If you really do this, you will be lowering your own value.

Even treating them as Hezhou Jurchens was opposed. Many Manchus, Solons and others felt very aggrieved and did not recognize Indians as their fellow ethnic group.

In the end, the emperor recognized the name Hezhou Jurchen, and the name was finally decided.

However, the Chinese are not as immoral as the Westerners. The four words "Hezhou Jurchen" mean that the Indians still have some living space, at least they will not be too nervous.

(End of this chapter)