Chapter 1270: Each looking for a way
This type of additional benefit, which requires a lot of money to support, was naturally not fully imitated by local governments and yamen of all sizes in the Ming Dynasty. Only a wealthy man like Haihan would adopt such a measure. Although Liu Shang is not a person who is greedy for small profits, he can also feel how attentive Haihan is in these details that win people's hearts. It is said that Haihan appointed thousands of civil and military officials at all levels, most of whom were immigrants from various countries after the rise of power. These people are willing to work hard for Haihan, and they probably are not just here for power. , this generous treatment should also be part of the reason.
Of course, even if the Ming government is willing to tighten their belts and follow this approach, it will at most have a certain effect on the lower-level officials. The middle- and upper-level officials will definitely not care about this nonsense, and they will be too busy with the entertainment they receive and send every day. , who would care about this lunch. Liu didn't know yet whether Haihan's middle- and upper-level officials would be in a similar situation, but Chang Degao rejected Jiang Han and his invitation twice, which shows that Haihan's grassroots officials still have certain professional ethics.
After lunch, Chang Degao took Liu Shang to go through the training procedures. This training center is not located on the Port Management Committee side, but on the Luhuitou Peninsula. Sheriff Han Zhengshan, who previously went south to Xingdao, was trained at this training center when he joined the job in Sanya. In theory, newly recruited civil servants in Haihan will first receive induction training of varying lengths here, and can only formally perform their duties after passing basic professional assessments.
With Chang Degao taking care of him, the procedures were naturally completed smoothly. However, because this was a closed training and it lasted for more than ten days, Liu Shang had to go back to his residence to pack up and bring his personal belongings over. The official check-in time was changed to the next day.
After completing the formalities, Chang Degao said to him: "I won't come to report tomorrow. You can study by yourself for the rest of the study arrangements."
Liu Shang bowed deeply and said: "Thank you very much for the promotion to Director Chang. After the training is over, Liu will find an opportunity to thank you in person."
Changde waved his hand high and said, "You don't have to be so polite. I'm just doing my job. Besides, if a talent like you doesn't stand up and serve the country, your talent will be lost. You perform well here, If you are favored by the higher-ups, it is possible that you will be sent to Fort Victory directly.”
Liu Shang had previously heard from Chang Degao that the Propaganda Section of the Sanya Administrative Committee was just a subordinate organization of the Propaganda Department here, and the Propaganda Department located in Victory Fort was the core of this department. However, generally new recruits will only be assigned to the peripheral grassroots to accumulate work experience. It is rare that they will be asked to leave by Fort Victory after the training. Of course, this possibility exists in theory. Chang Degao said this, which is actually a blessing to him.
If there really is an opportunity to work in the core area of Fort Victory, Liu Shang will naturally try his best to fight for it. His purpose of coming to Sanya is to understand in as much detail as possible how the Haihan ruling body operates and the political system of this emerging country. Superficially collecting some military and economic intelligence. Only in the core area of Fort Victory was it possible for Liu Shang to get up close and observe the real rulers of this country - the Haihan people who were said to have crossed the sea from thousands of miles away.
During the time Liu Shang arrived in Sanya, he had not really observed the Haihan people at close range. There were two times when the chief came to inspect the Sanya Port area, and there were always large groups of people cheering and crowding around. There were police officers on duty outside. Ordinary people couldn't get close at all, and they could only watch the excitement at most. If you can lurk around these Haihan people, who are called leaders by the people, it will be a great achievement.
After saying goodbye to Chang Degao, Liu Shang did not go back to his residence directly, but went to Xinlong Tea House first. The first was to retrieve some personal belongings that he had temporarily left in the teahouse for the performance, and the second was to say hello to Jiang Han and thank him for taking care of him during this period.
Liu Shang accepted the call from the government and was about to resign. Naturally, this news could not be hidden from the tea guests who came every day. The news soon spread in the teahouse, and many people took the initiative to come up to congratulate him when they saw him. He rises high. While Liu Shang was dealing with it, he thought to himself that the interview had gone smoothly, otherwise if he had come back in despair, he would have been made fun of.
Probably out of respect for Liu Shang's change in status, Jiang Han was much more polite than the day before and directly invited him to the back hall to talk. Liu Shang couldn't help but just take the things and leave, so he followed him to the back and sat down to chat for a while. Jiang Han just told him to come back and move around more often after entering the Yamen. If he needed help with anything, just ask him. In the final analysis, he was trying to maintain the friendship with Liu Shang and wanted to maintain the previous employment relationship. Gradually it became a personal relationship.
After Liu Shang dealt with all these polite remarks without missing a beat, he said goodbye and left. Jiang Han enthusiastically sent him out of the store and planned to call a rickshaw for him, but Liu Shang politely refused this time. He didn't want to owe Jiang Han too many favors, so it was better to keep a more appropriate distance.
When Liu Shang returned to his residence, he saw Liao Yuan sitting in the yard, giving instructions to several of his brothers. Liu Shang didn't go over to join in the fun. He said hello and went back to his room.
Not long after, Liao Yuan knocked on the door. Liu Shang opened the door and invited him into the room. He took the initiative and said: "I went to the Port District Management Committee to meet with the people from the Publicity Department today. The interview went very well. The naturalization procedures were completed in the morning." , it will be officially naturalized in a few days.”
Liao Yuan ran into trouble with him before. He had originally prepared some rhetoric to smooth things over with Liu Shang, but he didn't expect that the other party's attitude changed drastically today and he was actually so cooperative. Liao Yuan sighed and said: "Mr. Liu's naturalization speed is really enviable. He has been here for only one month and he can get special approval from the government. Except for those who have joined the army, this treatment can be said to be the best among immigrants! ”
Liu Shangdao: "A shrimp has its own path, and a crab has its own path. We just take different paths. How is the situation there? Do you know when I can get Haihan nationality?"
Liao Yuan responded: "I asked my employer, and it takes three months at the earliest to apply after arriving in the port. I came one month earlier than you, so I have to wait at least another month. But he has a good relationship with the Haihan Ministry of Civil Affairs. It will be up to him to apply for naturalization in one application.”
Haihan nationality is a threshold for all foreigners who want to lurk here for a long time. If they have no special skills and want to stay in Sanya and do not want to be assigned to other areas for resettlement, then they will be approved for naturalization. The time is often much longer than three months. There are also a large number of new immigrants who have not yet naturalized after staying here for a year, and almost all of them are low-level workers who sell their labor. Strictly speaking, the street performances and martial arts performances that Liao Yuan and others previously engaged in also had little technical content, and the social value they could create was extremely limited. According to Haihan officials, it must be considered a business that simply sells labor. If they hadn't found a new way out, it would have been impossible for people like Liao Yuan and others to get through once they applied. New immigrants like street performers who don't have a fixed workplace are considered unstable factors in the eyes of the government. It's almost impossible to get a job before changing careers. Sanya gets naturalization approval. But with Liu Zhenguo as their backer, the few of them working in the store can avoid many detours. Liu Zhenguo has transported more than 10,000 northern immigrants to Haihan. Officials from all levels of the Civil Affairs Bureau have dealt with them. Naturally, there will be no obstacles in applying for naturalization for his own employees working in Sanya.
Liu Shang nodded and said: "It's not a big deal if you wait for one more month. The security in Sanya is very peaceful, and one month will pass quickly."
Liao Yuan also deeply agreed with this: "It is true. There are police and militiamen on duty here in the port area during the day, and at night there are security teams jointly funded by various chambers of commerce to patrol. To be honest, it doesn't matter whether the business store invites a nursing home or not. Impact. But now that the owner has a strong family background and a huge maritime trade business, he probably won’t care about the extra wages.”
Liu Shang asked: "I heard that Boss Liu started his career as a boat dealer?"
"Nowadays, he is still a shipping company. From Shandong to the South China Sea, his ships are running on the sea. It is said that he has hundreds of ships working for him." Liao Yuan couldn't help but sigh when talking about this: "The family has such a big fortune. The maritime merchants are also working for the Haihan people , no wonder Haihan's route can advance all the way north. But having said that, without Haihan, he may not be able to reach the scale of business today. Most maritime merchants on the southeast coast cooperate with Haihan. This is true.”
Liu Shang responded: "Those who are unwilling to cooperate must have been exterminated by Haihan long ago!"
At this point, the two looked at each other and were speechless for a moment. Naturally, they had heard about Haihan's various actions on the southeastern coast of the Ming Dynasty in the past few years. Anyone who dared to confront him had almost all been "killed pirates" and "hunted bandits" in Haihan's foreign wars over the years. The name of the class is eliminated. The most famous among them is the Shibazhi, which was once unparalleled in the waters of Fuzhou and Guangzhou.
The Shibazhi were once one of the strongest maritime armed forces in the Fuguang Sea. With the support of the Dutch, they were even able to use force to suppress the Ming Navy in this area. But starting from the first year of Chongzhen, Zheng Zhilong and his brothers were faced with the challenger Haihan, and they were always at a disadvantage from the beginning of the fight between the two sides. Although Shibazhi tried its best in the following years, it could not stop the decline of Haihan every year. Zheng Zhilong struggled to hold on until the sixth year of Chongzhen. Finally, the Haihan Navy invaded Miyako Island in the ocean east of Taiwan. The Eighteen Zhi were also declared completely destroyed.
Also killed almost at the same time as Shiba Zhi were the numerous armed maritime merchant organizations located in the Zhoushan Islands in Zhejiang. Some of these organizations, large and small, took advantage of the situation and promptly switched camps to join Haihan, while others resisted to the end and inevitably ended up with the same fate as Shibazhi.
With such examples in front of us, no one among the maritime merchants in the southeastern coastal areas of the Ming Dynasty would dare to risk the disapproval of the world and go against the Haihan people. In the early days, almost all the maritime merchants who embraced Shanghai and Han became rich in just a few years. Li Jifeng in Guangdong, Liu Zhenguo in Fujian, and the three Lin brothers in Zhejiang. These are vivid examples of local tycoons, and there are imitators. Naturally there are countless.
Since there will be many benefits from cooperating with the Haihan people, who is willing to risk their lives against the Haihan people with their heads high, knowing that they cannot defeat them? As for the damage this kind of trade cooperation will cause to the Ming Dynasty, that is something that the government should worry about. The bounden duty of businessmen is to make money, and making more money in their own pockets is their ultimate goal. What's more, there are countless officials with personal interests involved as their backing. It is impossible to combine the Ming Dynasty and Haihan. The trade relations between the two countries could not be severed even if ordered by the imperial court.
Unless the man in the Forbidden City has enough courage to completely change the officials of Fuzhou and Guangzhou, he may still be able to manage it for a few years. But the feasibility of this assumption is basically zero. With the Ming Dynasty facing constant internal and external troubles, how could the imperial court have the courage to attack the originally relatively peaceful officialdom of the two provinces? Doing so would be tantamount to causing trouble for itself, and maybe Therefore, Haihan was offended and started a war in anger. Then how could any Ming army in the south be able to defeat them?
The dependence of various places in the south on Haihan is getting deeper and deeper, and it is extremely difficult to resolve this situation. After Liu Shang and Liao Yuan came to Sanya, they became more and more aware of the gap in national power between the two countries in all aspects. Simple military struggle or trade blockade could not resolve the conflict of interest between the two countries. And the role that these little pawns can play in this chessboard is simply negligible, and there is no hope of changing this situation. But the task is their own, and the direction of travel is not theirs to decide. The road ahead can only be taken step by step, and there is no plan at all.
Finally, Liao Yuan took the initiative to break the silence: "Since your naturalization procedures have been completed, have you been assigned an official position?"
"Official position?" Liu Shang shook his head and said: "They arranged induction training for me. I will live in that training base for the next ten days or so. I will just pack my things when I come back. What position will be assigned in the end? I have to wait for the training. I didn’t know until later.”
"More than ten days...then you can't go out during this period?" Liao Yuan asked thoughtfully.
"I heard that you can't go out. Besides, I have no relatives and friends here, so I can't find any reason to go out. It's better to do more than to do less, so as not to attract the attention of the Haihan people." Liu Shang understood the purpose of Liao Yuan's question, and he was responsible for it. In order to carry out the task of monitoring him, he had to cut off all contact with him for more than ten days. This was actually a certain risk for him. If Liu Shang reveals his identity during the training and spits out his accomplices, Liao Yuan will not even have the buffer time to escape outside.
(End of chapter)