Chapter 1224 Population Problem
If we want to speed up the local infrastructure construction process, we must first solve the problem of serious labor shortage, and the source of labor must rely on the increase of the basic population. The current resident population of Sing Tao is far from being able to provide enough labor force to implement these infrastructure projects. The most terrible thing is that unlike other colonies, this place either has a certain population base or a stable source of immigrants nearby. It is basically impossible to achieve a rapid increase in the local population in a short period of time here.
Tan Juren secretly regretted it. Before setting off from Sanya, he also felt that the number of immigrants approved by the Executive Committee was too small. At that time, he should fight for it again and ask the Executive Committee to add more numbers, even if it was only doubled, which would have a negative impact on the labor force. Deployment will also be much more flexible than it is now, so that everything will not be stretched like it is now.
"When I was inspecting Amborna Island earlier, I saw that the plantations there used a large number of slaves. Can we refer to this method here?" Tan Juren thought about it and proposed the solution he thought of to Roger. plan.
It is obviously unrealistic to expect a large number of immigrants to be transported from Hainan Island to Xingdao in the short term. If the Executive Committee had such a plan, the population of Xingdao would not be at its current level, so Tan Juren gave up after just thinking about it. Plan to work hard in this direction. Another way to rapidly increase the local population in the short term is through the slave trade. Although this method will definitely cost a lot of money, for the wealthy Haihan, problems that can be solved with money are not big problems.
Roger smiled and said: "Who sold it to us?"
"Slave traders!" Tan Juren responded smoothly, but then he felt something was wrong. Roger had been the top leader on Amborna Island for a period of time before being transferred to Xingdao. Logically speaking, he had no experience in dealing with human traffickers. Anything less would definitely not be a layman. He probably had some hidden agenda when he gave such an answer.
Sure enough, Roger then explained: "The people who sell slaves to Ambon Island are mainly Dutch and Portuguese human traffickers, but since last year, they have consciously reduced their supply. In this situation, what are you doing on Ambon Island?" No one told you then?”
Tan Juren shook his head subconsciously. During his inspection of Amborna Island, he did not carefully inquire about the local slave trading situation, and Mu Xiabai did not seem to take the initiative to mention this situation. Of course, it is also possible that Mu Xiabai had mentioned it before, but it happened that he missed this information while Tan Juren and others were traveling to the south of the island.
Seeing this, Roger continued: "I believe you should have done your homework on the situation in the South China Sea. Our control area has advanced to the vicinity of Portugal and the Netherlands. Although they are on good terms with us on the surface, they should have felt the real impact. Although they don’t dare to confront us openly, they can still use some tricks to slow down our development.”
"You mean... they intentionally controlled the sale of slaves to our country in order to slow down our expansion in the South China Sea?" Tan Juren reacted immediately after hearing this and asked Roger to confirm his guess.
"There is no other reasonable explanation other than this reason." Roger nodded and agreed with his guess: "They continue to sell slaves to us. From a certain perspective, it is actually equivalent to digging their own graves. We are here The faster the development and construction of the South China Sea, the less area they can move and the places where they can start. They have now realized this, and as long as they are not stupid enough, they will think of taking measures to deal with our population needs in the slave trade. ”
The history of Haihan's expansion in the South China Sea was accompanied by the continuous retreat of Portugal and the Netherlands. The Port of Annam and Hoi An, originally controlled by Portugal, and the Ambrosia Islands controlled by the Dutch, were all lost to Haihan. After losing the port of Hoi An, Portugal lost its own transit port in the more than 1,500 nautical miles between the Malacca Strait and Daming Macau, and could only rely on the port of Haihan to complete the supply stops on the way. However, both sides got what they needed after that, and Portugal also gained a lot of practical benefits through Hai Han. The losses at Hoi An Port that year have long been recouped.
The situation in the Netherlands was even worse. After the defeat, the East India Company lost the Ambrosia Islands, which covered an area of more than 2,000 square kilometers and was located in the hinterland of the South China Sea. The Zheng family, which had been supporting Fujian in the Ming Dynasty for many years, was completely destroyed by the Haihan army. Not only did the Dutch influence in the Fujian Strait suffer a great loss, but even the stronghold of Damuan Port on Taiwan Island was hijacked by the Haihan army. In order to preserve Batavia's trade routes to Northeast Asia, the East India Company finally had to put down its dignity and admit defeat to Haihan.
Of course, these two countries are unwilling to be suppressed by Haihan all the time, but Haihan's military force is so powerful that both of them are far from their opponents on the frontal battlefield. Moreover, Haihan could not see any intention of stopping, and then continued to push southward along the east coastline of Indochina Peninsula. Originally, the two families thought that Haihan would stop when he reached Amborna Island. After all, if they go further south, they are about 30 kilometers away from Hainan Island. The voyage is too far, and it is difficult for Haihan to attract immigrants and develop nearby. It must be said that Haihan's shortcomings were still hidden from the eyes of colonial experts, but they still underestimated Haihan's determination to go south.
In 1633, Haihan organized a powerful three-nation joint fleet to cruise the South Seas to show force to surrounding countries. He also took the opportunity to organize the South China Sea Trade Alliance and decisively pushed the colonies southward to Star Island and Bangga-Belitung Island.
Bangka-Belitung Island is within 200 nautical miles of the Sunda Strait and Batavia Port. It only takes a day for a speedboat to reach it. This is already a quite dangerous distance for the Dutch. The situation on the Strait of Malacca is even more exaggerated. The Xingdao stronghold established by Haihan is only a little over a hundred nautical miles away from the city of Malacca occupied by the Portuguese. It can be said that it has been slapped in the face.
With Haihan making such a strong gesture, it would really be a slow suicide if Portugal and the Netherlands allowed slave traders to sell young slaves to them without restrictions. So starting in 1634, the two countries began to control the flow of slave trade, prohibiting slave traders from selling young slaves to Haihan, in order to slow down the construction process of Haihan's colonies in the South China Sea.
Ambona Island already had a certain population base. After Haihan occupied the area, he invested heavily in its development and introduced private funds to plan a large number of plantations. Before the two countries imposed a ban, they had already purchased a large amount of plantations through various channels. Slaves, the island's population has also reached a certain scale, so the ban on the sale of slaves, which was promulgated only last year, has relatively little impact on it. However, Xingdao started out with almost nothing, and the surrounding countries were hostile to Haihan's establishment of a stronghold here. It was difficult to attract immigrants from surrounding areas who voluntarily came to seek refuge. Once the way to buy slaves was cut off, the population The growth rate will of course slow down.
After listening to Roger's explanation, Tan Juren felt that his intelligence collection work was not meticulous enough, and he even missed such important information. It seems that I was too relaxed during my stay at Ambona Island. Otherwise, if I just pay a little attention and inquire about this kind of thing, I wouldn't have received any news. Asking Roger such a question now is simply exposing his own shortcomings.
Fortunately, Tan Juren was not a novice with a too thin skin. He coughed and said, "So, even if we are willing to pay, we can't buy anyone anymore?" "You can still buy it, but you can still buy it." The situation is not ideal either." Roger continued to explain: "In addition to the slave traders from these two countries, there are also practitioners from other countries, but they have no advantage over these two, so they follow this path. It’s not the same.”
In addition to the slave traders of Portugal and the Netherlands, the two maritime powers, there were actually many merchant ships traveling between the two oceans that also trafficked people part-time. It's just that these two countries have almost monopolized the market for young slaves. Traffickers from other countries have to find other ways to do this business. Such as selling craftsmen, beauties, strange-looking aliens, and even young children. Because these types of slaves are rare and valuable, they are often worth more and their profits are more generous than ordinary slaves. But for Xingdao, which is in urgent need of labor, the role of these people is extremely limited, and may even become a burden.
Although Haihan has always been generous when it comes to buying slaves, he also has requirements for the people he buys. If he buys a bunch of random people, Roger will have no way to deal with them. These slave traders, who specialize in side businesses, are naturally very limited in the number of suitable slaves they can provide to Star Island. Even if there are some sporadic young laborers, the prices they offer are often much higher than the wholesale prices of slave traders in Portugal and the Netherlands. , which is very uneconomical for Haihan.
"There should be smart people who buy slaves from the Portuguese and Dutch and then sell them to us, right?" Tan Juren asked still unwillingly.
Roger nodded and said: "It is true that someone did this under our suggestion, but the good times did not last long. Within two trips, the people and the boat disappeared together. In such a large South China Sea, there is no way to find someone missing. ”
Tan Juren was speechless for a moment after hearing this. Could it really be such a coincidence? He didn't quite believe that this situation was more likely to be consistent with some kind of conspiracy theory. For example, after Portugal and the Netherlands learned about the behavior of these middlemen, they directly dealt with slave traders at sea who were bent on making money. Even hundreds of years later, it would be difficult to find hundreds of missing persons in the South China Sea despite the efforts of all countries and months and months, let alone in this era. As long as the people and the boat sank into the sea, even if Haihan's hands and eyes were all over the sky, he would never be able to find the whereabouts of the missing person.
After all, this is just a profit from the price difference. The profit cannot be said to be huge, and it is far from crazy. In this way, even if Haihan could afford the price, no one would dare to risk their lives for this opportunity to make a fortune.
"It seems that buying slaves is not feasible!" Tan Juren couldn't help but sigh helplessly.
"I've basically tried all the ways I can try. To be honest, I'm quite helpless." Roger paused and said, "I wish you would bring not 800 immigrants, but 8,000 immigrants." ! Without enough population, the development speed of our place cannot be improved.”
Tan Juren thought for a moment and then said: "How much farmland will be actually allocated after the immigrants come?"
"Based on head count, each person has thirty acres." Roger responded: "The standards are set by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and we follow them here without discount."
Of course, Tan Juren knew the official standards for allocating farmland to immigrants. When he asked about this, he just wanted to verify it. He then proposed another method: "If we make a suggestion to Sanya to increase the quota for allocating farmland to immigrants, do you think we can attract more people?" immigrants actively apply to settle here?”
"It's not difficult to trick some people into coming here with favorable terms, but the reputation here will be affected over time." Seeing that Tan Juren didn't seem to understand, Luo Jie patiently explained: "Even according to the current distribution standards , and few people can cultivate all the allocated land. The local young and strong labor force spends a considerable part of their time working on collectively organized infrastructure projects and simply does not have enough energy to take care of their own farmland. Fortunately, this is the case in overseas colonies. The new immigrants don't have to pay public food for the first three years, otherwise they may have to pay back the land. Even if we allocate 50 acres or 100 acres to the new immigrants, it's just a name, and the land cannot be privately owned. They can use the land. It’s just over ten or twenty acres. When the farmers realize this, they will definitely think that we deliberately tricked them into coming here to work as coolies.”
"How about applying to send the prisoners from the hard labor camp here?" Tan Juren asked still unwilling to give up.
Roger shook his head and said: "I have also considered this approach, but the Executive Committee believes that the tin mines in Bangka-Belitung Island need more labor than we do here, so all the light-duty prisoners assigned to the South China Sea are sent there. Gone.”
Tan Juren suddenly felt a headache. The population problem was far more difficult than he thought. After much deliberation, there was no reasonable solution. He originally thought that the current situation on Star Island was caused by Roger's lack of attention to civil affairs. However, after conducting an on-site inspection to understand the situation, he discovered that the problem was indeed a bit difficult. It was not that Roger had not thought of a solution, but I am also troubled by this matter.
"It looks like we are going to continue to have a hard time here." Tan Juren knew very well that the existing population is not enough for Star Island to take off quickly. According to the colonial speed arranged by the Executive Committee, this place is still far away from getting enough labor. No deadline. With a small population, all aspects of infrastructure projects can only be advanced slowly, and the improvement of living conditions will also be a very long process. Wanting to develop as fast as other colonies seems to be an unattainable goal in the foreseeable future. .
(End of chapter)