Chapter 1670 A plan to make a fortune
When the Haihan Army captured the city of Manila, all the Spanish immigrants with some connections had actually fled the city to avoid the war, and those who were forced to stay in the city were almost all civilians with no background. However, this situation has its pros and cons. The good thing is that most of these civilians dare not cause trouble. They can only stay at home according to the new owner's requirements and accept house-to-house inspections. The pressure on public security faced by the Haihan Army will not be so great. . The disadvantage is that the oil and water that can be extracted from them will be very limited. Most of the wealth in the city has been taken away by the fleeing nobles and wealthy businessmen. Most of what is left in the city is just real estate such as houses. This will naturally make the army Fang felt very disappointed with the situation.
Of course, this is also directly related to the tactic of surrounding three towers and one tower adopted by the Haihan Army during the siege. In order to undermine the fighting spirit of the defenders and people in the city, an escape channel to the north was specially set aside. Although this successfully reduced the resistance encountered by the Haihan Army during the siege and avoided unnecessary battle casualties, it also caused a large amount of wealth in the city to be lost through this escape channel. It is not that easy to recover this money.
When formulating the battle plan, the military had an estimate of the direct benefits after the war, but if we do not count the windfall that Ran Tianlu received from Father Blanco and the income from the resale of the captured defenders' weapons, then This figure is still far from the pre-war estimate. The headquarters even held a special meeting for this purpose to discuss how to capture the rich people who fled to the north bank of the Pasig River as soon as possible - even if they could not be captured, their money must be brought back.
"According to the preliminary investigation and statistics of the intelligence personnel of the Ministry of Security, we estimate that we can obtain at least five million yuan in property from Manila City, but the actual income now is less than one million yuan. Even for this money, Pasig River All the Spanish colonial villages and towns on the north coast must also be cleared." Yan Chujie looked at the generals present and asked, "Do any of you volunteer to take on this task?"
Different from the active struggle before the siege, Qian Tiandun and others looked at me and I looked at you. After exchanging glances, no one responded. On the surface, this job may seem like a fat job, but in fact it is not that simple. There will be military police accompanying the operation to supervise the financial collection status. Their troops will face very high risks if they want to take advantage of it. Since this kind of pursuit and suppression operation with a clear purpose involves the actual profits of the Ministry of National Defense, it will naturally not be recorded as military merit and reported to the superiors, so as to prevent the recovered money from being remembered by the Executive Committee.
After working hard for a long time, with no money and no credit, naturally no one was willing to take the initiative to take on this thankless job. It would be better to let the troops stay here in Manila City, guard the city gate and catch the stragglers in the city. If you catch one, you will get a real credit, wouldn't it be a hundred times better than this job?
Yan Chujie didn't know what these people were thinking. Seeing that everyone was sitting in silence and not expressing their opinions, he simply opened the skylight and spoke openly: "Since you are not willing to take the initiative to send troops, you can only follow the old rules of the past and start every day." Considering that the plain area north of the Pasig River is large and the Spanish settlements are relatively scattered, I think only one company will be selected from each army."
Wang Tom was the first to object: "My army only has four companies in total, and I have to spare a quarter of my manpower. Qian Tiandun's army has almost caught up with the reinforced regiment, and they only have one company. So Isn’t it unfair to allocate tasks?”
Yan Chujie ignored his complaints and continued: "Whoever's troops are the first to recover property worth one million yuan, the Ministry of National Defense will issue a separate reward of two hundred thousand yuan!"
This condition finally aroused the interest of the generals. The money was of little significance to them personally, but if it could be used as a reward to distribute to the troops under their command, it would be a way to win over people and boost morale. Moreover, each army sent a company to participate, which was relatively fair, and you could also compete to see which army had the stronger mobility.
However, someone soon pointed out that Harugong's cavalry battalion would undoubtedly have the upper hand in this competition. How could two-legged infantry outrun the four-legged cavalry. So to be fair, the target amount for the cavalry battalion was raised by half. At that moment, the generals went back to mobilize their troops and prepare to cross the river the next day to pursue the Spaniards in the northern plains.
However, this kind of action is not so much a battle, but more like a dessert after a dinner, and it belongs to the sideshow of this expedition. The generals seemed to care about Yan Chujie's conditions, but in fact they were only half-joking. In fact, everyone's real attention was on those who were on the arrest list before the war but disappeared after the war. on the target.
The Governor of the Philippines, Aragones, was naturally one of them. He did not need to be reminded by others. He also knew that Haihan must have made many arrangements to capture him, so he had already secretly escaped from the city before the city of Manila fell completely. , planning to go around to the north of Manila Bay and then take a boat out to sea. But unfortunately, halfway through, I received news that the ship that had been prepared beforehand had no time to sail out of the Manila port and was intercepted by the Haihan army that invaded the port.
This means that the original plan has been stranded. If there is no way to find other ships that can go to sea, then Aragones may not be able to escape from Manila Bay by sea. But if he wanted to take a detour from the land to Batangas, he would have to travel hundreds of miles in the mountains. The supplies carried by his group probably could not support such a long journey that would take several days.
This situation is really unacceptable to Aragones, who is used to living in a comfortable life in Manila. The only solution for now is to collect supplies from nearby colonial villages and towns, formulate a new escape route, and try to leave before the Haihan people take action to sweep this area.
But during the war, it was not easy to raise supplies such as food and horses from the people. Aragones' position could no longer buy him the respect and obedience of the people. The envoys sent to nearby villages and towns were almost without exception. They all came back empty-handed. Aragones had no choice but to acquiesce and let his private army take forceful measures to directly rob the property of local immigrants. During this period, several bloody conflicts inevitably occurred, and both sides of the conflict were Spaniards. The Haihan Army had not yet crossed the Pasig River, but the internal strife on this side of the river had already begun to kill people.
Regarding the Spanish civil strife that occurred on the north bank of the Pasig River, Manila City has not yet received relevant news. However, if the people in the city knew that escaping out of the city might not survive the massacre of their own families, they might also be grateful to themselves. He was previously denied the opportunity to escape from the city.
Currently, there are only two places in Manila that can barely be said to be safe. One is the cathedral in the center of the city, which has been turned into a temporary hospital and shelter. The Haihan Army has designated an entire block for this place. It can accommodate more than three thousand people eating, drinking, sleeping, sleeping. Of course, there are many targets of Haihan's arrest hiding among them, but through constant and repeated interrogations, many people have been arrested one after another. Although Father Blanco was dissatisfied with the way the Haihan Army filtered this place like a sieve several times every day, in the end, the situation was stronger than the people. At least the Haihan Army did not kill innocent people here indiscriminately, so he could only hold his nose and admit it.
The other place is the Chaosheng Commercial Store located outside the city wall in the south of the city and run by Ming merchants. It is said that this place was completely preserved because it was used as a frontline headquarters by the Haihan Army during the war. Shopkeeper Ran of the store also has a relationship with the Haihan people and is currently the only one in the entire Manila Port who can arrange ships to go out to sea. Merchant. As a result, those businessmen from various countries who were stranded in Manila naturally regarded Chaosheng Trading Post as a shortcut to leave Manila. Some people heard that the goods stored in Chaosheng Commercial Warehouse were more secure, so they tried to transfer the goods originally stored in other places to Chaosheng Commercial Warehouse, hoping to use this sign to find a safe place for their goods. Safe storage location. Of course, if they learned that a batch of property entrusted to Chaosheng Trading House by the Spanish Church before the war had been taken away by the Haihan Army, they might give up this idea.
Ran Tianlu has indeed been very busy in recent days. On the one hand, he has to assist the Haihan Army in arresting many target persons inside and outside the city. On the other hand, he has to maintain the operation of the business store so that he can raise supplies for the army on the spot. After the Haihan army broke through the city, he had another task, which was to receive the businessmen from various countries who flocked to the city every day and respond to their various requests.
There is no doubt that this is probably the busiest period since the opening of Chaosheng Commercial Inn. Ran Tianlu has been running around for several days. Even if he drinks ginseng tea non-stop, he is still a little exhausted. But there were still several groups of merchants waiting for him to meet in the merchant house, so he couldn't issue an eviction order and drive them all away. After he got up and sent away the previous group of merchants from the Ming Dynasty, he forced himself to let his subordinates bring in another group of merchants to meet them.
When the man came in, he took the initiative to greet Ran Tianlu: "Shopkeeper Ran, I'm sorry to bother you! I'm here today because I really have something to ask for. I hope that shopkeeper Ran will help me out of the friendship of the same clan!"
Ran Tianlu did recognize this man, his surname was Ran and his first name was Hui, but this Ran was not the other Ran. The two had the same surname, but they were not related in any way. Moreover, this man was not from Ming Dynasty, but a mixed race of Spaniards and local Han immigrants. However, because of this special background, Ran Hui got along well in both Spanish and Han circles, and thus embarked on the path of doing business.
Ran Tianlu invited him to sit down and ordered his servants to bring hot tea, and then asked him what was going on. It turned out that Ran Hui had just purchased a large amount of porcelain from the Ming Dynasty merchants before the war. Before he could take action, the Haihan Army entered Manila Bay, so naturally there were no buyers for his porcelain. Now that the war is over, Ran Hui wants to get rid of these porcelains as soon as possible, exchange them for gold and silver, try to leave here, and go somewhere else to avoid the limelight. But at this time, the entire Manila trade market had stagnated, and there were no customers to buy his porcelain. Ran Huisi thought about it and finally approached Chaosheng Merchant Store, hoping that Ran Tianlu could help him find a way.
After hearing this, Ran Tianlu was dumbfounded and shook his head repeatedly: "You may not know something, but Haihan is also a place where porcelain is produced. Although the workmanship is not as exquisite as the official kilns of the Ming Dynasty, it has its own uniqueness. You want to sell these porcelains." If you sell it to the Haihan people, how can they get it? Even if you want to buy it, it would be easier to buy it directly from Daming. Unless you can lose money and sell it to the Haihan people at a very low price, I don't see the need for them. Take this deal.”
Ran Hui responded: "The shopkeeper misunderstood me. This batch of porcelain is not intended to be sold to the Haihan people at a low price. It is intended to be transported to Sanya for sale through their route. I heard that the Sanya market is open all year round, and merchants from dozens of countries They will purchase things there. I believe that these porcelains can be sold at least for a decent price when shipped to the local area. I am willing to pay 30% of the final selling price. The second part will be paid to the military men of Haihan. The first part is asked by the shopkeeper to accept it. It’s hard-earned money for matchmaking.”
When Ran Tianlu heard about this condition, he thought it was pretty good. He happened to have some information about the condition of the batch of porcelain in Ran Hui's hands, and the price was at least 300,000 yuan. If it is shipped to Sanya for sale, sales should not be a problem. It depends on whether Haihanjun is willing to do this.
Ran Tianlu then thought about it and realized that there was still one link that needed to be resolved in arranging the matter, so he asked Ran Hui: "Do you have a ship to carry this batch of porcelain?"
Ran Hui shook his head and said: "The shopkeeper should also know about my situation. They receive goods from Ming merchants locally and then sell them slowly. If there is a ship, there is no need to be so troublesome. If the shopkeeper can arrange a ship for you Shipping is the best, and the freight is easy to discuss.”
Ran Tianlu thought that the Haihan Army had dozens of logistics supply ships, which were docked at the Port of Manila and Cavite Port. If the Haihan Army was willing to let go, it would not be a big deal to rent a supply ship to return the goods to Sanya. Difficult matter. It's just that the war has just ended, and there are few local merchant ships left that can go to sea. The price of renting a ship from Haihan will definitely not be cheap.
Ran Tianlu told Ran Hui directly that even if the Haihan Army agreed to this matter, the cost would probably be quite high.
Ran Hui said: "Even if it is expensive, it is still better than losing this batch of goods. To be honest, what I want to do is to take advantage of this opportunity to leave Manila. The shipping fee is expensive, so just treat it as travel money!"
Ran Tianlu saw that he was serious, so he nodded and said: "Then I will write this down first, and then go find the adults in Haihan to hear the news. You can come back later tomorrow to hear the news."
Ran Hui stood up on his own initiative, bowed deeply to Ran Tianlu and said, "I would like to thank you in advance for your righteous deed by the shopkeeper!"
(End of chapter)