Chapter 698 Troops and Immigration
After Ning Qi proposed this plan, there was a lot of whispering in the conference hall. These people here all have a certain understanding of the current situation, and can naturally immediately think of the feasibility of this plan and the impact it will bring.
As far as the current cooperative relationship between Haihan and the Fujian government is concerned, there is no big problem if Haihan wants to station a certain size of army in Fujian and ask the local government to provide certain conveniences, or even let the Ming army in Fujian cooperate. After all, Haihan's continuous military assistance to Fujian in recent years is not in vain. The local forces in Fujian, led by Xu Xinsu, still have a high degree of trust in Haihan. At the same time, they have also given Haihan a lot in terms of trade, immigration, etc. preferential conditions. However, such special treatment is only limited to Fujian, especially the southern Fujian area where the Xu Xinsu family is mostly in power. Going further north, it cannot match the influence it has in Fujian.
"Teacher Ning, it's easy to talk on paper, but not so simple in practice. Even if Xu Xinsu and the Fujian government are willing to help, this errand will be difficult." Schneider, who had been silent for a long time, finally joined the discussion: "The Fujian government asked the court I don't think it's practical to send troops to Shandong to suppress bandits. According to the situation you mentioned before, is there really nothing that Shandong can do against Kong Youde? If there was a way, then why did he have to flee across the sea? He started the uprising in August of this year and fled to Liaodong in the second half of the next year. Isn’t it true that the Ming Dynasty did not take any action during such a long time? He may not be willing to bite this hard nut, and the local government may not welcome foreign troops to suppress bandits and quell the rebellion. God knows who will be the soldiers and who will be the bandits in the end. Don't forget that Kong Youde's troops are guest troops from Liaodong. ! ”
Although Schneider didn't know much about the history of the late Ming Dynasty, half of his insights came from his experience of contacting Ming officials at the Guangzhou Guangdong Office, and half came from his thoughts after listening to Ning Qi's previous explanation. One of the crux of the problem.
First of all, one of the reasons for the mutiny in Kong Youde's troops was indeed the supply problem caused by conflicts in the army caused by the foreign origin of his troops. If his troops were not guest troops, they would not have burned, killed, and looted unscrupulously in Shandong after the uprising. This also directly led to the further rejection of foreign troops by the local government and people. When foreign troops entered Shandong to fight, it was difficult to obtain local cooperation.
Secondly, the delay in the local situation being alleviated is indeed closely related to the slow response from all parties and the fear of moving forward. Several months after Kong Youde's mutiny, the imperial court did not come up with a clear solution. It was not until Kong Youde captured Dengzhou in early 1632 that the imperial court hurriedly appointed Xu Congzhi as governor of Shandong, stationed in Laizhou to block Kong Youde's westward advance. route.
When Kong Youde besieged Laizhou, General Liu Tongzhu, who was ordered to lead troops from Beijing to the south for rescue, arrived in Shandong but refused to join the war. Zhou Yanru, a great scholar in the court, and Zhang Guochen, the head of the Ministry of War, advocated recruitment. After such procrastination, Kong Youde recruited more than 3,000 of his original subordinates from Pidao, Liaodong to join the rebellion. Xu Congzhi and others stayed in Laizhou for several months, but the reinforcements they were waiting for stopped 40 miles away from Laizhou. Commander-in-chief Deng Xuan, Wang Hong and others were waiting for the imperial court's recruitment measures to succeed.
However, the imperial court's recruitment policy did not have any effect. On the contrary, Xie Lian, the deputy censor of the capital, and Zhu Wannian, the prefect of Laizhou, who had carried out the order to negotiate with Kong Youde's army, were also captured. By the time the Ming court realized that the negotiations had broken down, recruitment was useless, and that military means had to be used to solve the problem, both the governor of Shandong and the prefect of Laizhou had died on the battlefield. It wasn't until Wu Sangui's father Wu Xiang led troops to fight over that the siege of Laizhou was finally solved. At this time, nearly a year had passed since Kong Youde's uprising.
At that time, the imperial court mobilized troops from surrounding provinces to quell the rebellion. There were four or five senior officers like the general, and their strength was several times that of the rebels. However, the battle to quell the rebellion was a complete mess. Many civilians and military generals died in this chaos. The eastern coastal areas of Shandong were reduced to rubble. Countless people were displaced as a result, and the losses were very heavy. During this process, a large number of troops from other places entered Shandong to quell the chaos, but not many of them actually made a difference. The Haihan Militia is certainly powerful in combat, but if it goes to such a far away place to fight away from home, and it is likely that it will not get the coordination of friendly forces and local support, it is difficult to ensure that it can exert its due combat effectiveness on the battlefield.
Ning Qi naturally knew the details of this period of history, so he had nothing to argue with Schneider's question. He could only cough dryly and said: "Actually, I just proposed a solution. As for whether it is feasible or not, That still depends on the military’s judgment.”
Yan Chujie waved his hand and said: "I thought about it just now, and it is indeed impossible to do this. Not to mention the reasons mentioned by Schneider just now, most of the soldiers in our army are from the south, and they suddenly traveled thousands of miles north to perform combat missions. , I am afraid that it will be difficult to quickly adapt to the local food and climate. If there is a large area of acclimatization in the army, how to safely withdraw will be a big problem, let alone fighting.”
"Your army can't do it, so why did you just suggest that the navy go north? It's as if the people in our navy are all northerners." Wang Tom caught Yan Chujie's handle this time and immediately took a bite: "I just said Before I could refute you, I was taken over by them. The naval force has been training in the South China Sea. You just sent me to Shandong to carry out the mission. If the ship's manpower is lost there, I will still bear the blame. Back? ”
"Okay, okay, let's get down to business and don't go off topic." Tao Dong saw that the two of them were about to argue again, so he quickly came out to put out the fire: "Let's talk about the matter. Judging from our current situation, it is indeed a bit too hasty to send troops to the north in the coming year. The starting point of Ning Qi's plan is good, but the practical difficulties raised by the military are also objective. I think that in the coming year, we must first maintain steady development, seek stability first, and then expand our sphere of influence to the north. The direction of development is to assist Ming in maintaining its rule on the mainland for a period of time in the future, but there is no need to take too big risks to do things that we are currently unable to do. ”
Having said this, Tao Donglai turned to Ning Qi and said: "Do you think it is necessary to hold a vote?"
The executive committee members were all unanimously opposed. Ning Qi had no interest in insisting on his plan at this time. He shook his head and said: "Since everyone thinks that the time is not ripe, there is no need to vote again. But for the introduction of immigrants, I think we can still find a way. After all, it’s not like sending troops to fight. We don’t necessarily need to do it ourselves. As long as we are willing to pay, I believe someone will take the job.”
"I agree with that." Schneider agreed with Ning Qi's proposal this time: "We can start contacting businessmen in Fujian, Jiangsu and Zhejiang now to see if any of them are willing to do it." "From this far away The cost of transporting people back from other places will not be small," Gu Kai immediately reminded.
Schneider smiled and said: "As the person in charge of the money bag, of course the first thing I have to consider is the issue of cost. First of all, we have our own food sources and can solve the food consumption during transportation at a relatively low cost. Secondly, We can use industrial products in exchange for immigrants. If anyone brings immigrants to us, we will calculate the price based on population and use designated types of industrial products instead of gold and silver as payment."
"Everyone knows that many of our industrial products are selling very well in Daming. The orders signed at the Autumn Fair fully prove this. We can completely use this as a condition to win more maritime merchants for us. "Transporting refugees to the north." Schneider continued to explain: "Let me give an example of the benefits of this. Suppose we have to pay a thousand taels of silver to the cooperating merchants for a group of immigrants, but if we use industrial products as payment. method, then the actual value of this batch of industrial products to us is far less than one thousand taels, because we only need to consider its production cost, and for the merchants who get this batch of industrial products, its actual market value. But it is higher than one thousand taels, as long as they transport the goods to Daming and sell them.”
"We don't have to worry about consuming too much of the precious metals in stock. Ming Dynasty's maritime merchants will also actively participate in this plan because they can exchange refugees for high-value goods. This is a win-win situation for both parties, from my understanding That's right?" Tao Donglai immediately understood the beauty of Schneider's method.
"If necessary, we can also lower the price appropriately so that the transaction price for industrial products exchanged by refugees is slightly lower than our normal selling price. This can attract more businessmen to join in and allow them to be more active in collecting Those homeless refugees." Schneider continued to talk: "We don't need to worry that such price cuts will have a negative impact on our profits. In fact, as long as Hainan Island's labor force can be rapidly expanded, many industrial products will be available. The production cost will also decrease further as the production capacity increases.”
"If there is a large influx of immigrants in the short term, will we be able to produce enough food to feed them?" Gu Kai asked.
"There won't be any big problems in this regard." The person who answered was Yuan Qiuye, the head of the Ministry of Agriculture. Although the corresponding executive committee seat of the Ministry of Agriculture is his father Yuan Ruoxiu, as Mr. Yuan gets older, his physical condition gradually begins to decline. Recently, he rarely even attends meetings in person. Yuan Qiuye is more likely to be the representative. Some.
Yuan Qiuye continued to explain: "After we unified Hainan Island, we have a large amount of arable land in the eastern and northern coastal areas that can be used to build collective farms and promote food cultivation. Even if the population of Hainan Island doubles in the coming year, the food supply We can keep up. You have to know that in the era before we traveled, the annual grain output of Hainan Island was about 2 million tons. Although it is impossible for us to reach that level, as long as we maintain the current grain planting area With the speed of growth and the absence of major natural disasters, it will not be difficult to feed one or two million people on the island in the future.”
Schneider also added: "Taking a step back, if there is a shortage of food supply in the short term, we still have two places, Annan and Champa, where we can import a large amount of food. We don't even have to pay cash, we just need to tell them If we exchange food for weapons, these two countries will rush to bring us food.”
What Schneider said is indeed true. Two years ago, Annan used population, land, etc. as exchange conditions to exchange military support and arms exports from Haihan. Later, Champa also used a similar method to purchase a lot of Haihan weapons. With the national strength of these two countries, it is difficult to have enough funds to purchase large quantities of expensive Haihan weapons. If Haihan is willing to let them exchange food for weapons, then the people in power in these two countries would rather have their people starve. Let's first plunder the food in the country and exchange it for a batch of weapons.
Since the Ministry of Finance, which is in charge of the money bag, and the Ministry of Agriculture, which is responsible for food supply, both believe that this approach is not a big problem, and there is no need for the military to come forward, as long as the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Civil Affairs can do it, then it is quite feasible. High. Although there will still be considerable costs in executing this plan, compared to the cost of activating the military, hiring external personnel will save a lot. Moreover, the banditry in Guangdong has gradually decreased in the past two years, and the people have calmed down. The speed of Hainan's absorption of immigrants has been much slower than before. It is true that other ways are needed to quickly increase the working population on Hainan Island.
Regarding the vote on this proposal, the Executive Committee rarely showed a unified opinion. Everyone believed that this was indeed a feasible immigration plan. Schneider is very optimistic and estimates that if done properly, the number of immigrants introduced to Hainan Island from Ming Dynasty in this way alone in the next year will probably exceed 50,000 - this number is compared to the current number of more than 200,000 on Hainan Island. For the total population, the proportion is already considerable. And Ning Qi, who proposed this plan, finally gained a victory and was not too embarrassed because the previous plan to send troops was completely rejected.
Of course, realizing this proposal is not as simple as what Schneider said in a few words. Even if Daming Shipping went to the north to transport refugees, there would still be a series of problems to be solved such as screening, quarantine, resettlement, etc. If we look at the figures estimated by Schneider, just to resettle the immigrants would require the construction of about 100 more villages on Hainan Island. This is definitely not a simple project. The introduction of immigrants may only require the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Civil Affairs to take action, but the resettlement of immigrants requires the coordination and cooperation of more departments.
(End of chapter)