Chapter 1738 International Status
When it comes to the trade negotiation activities that Haihan carries out every year, there are really too many to mention. This type of business measure has become a traditional means for Haihan in the regional development process. Almost every city and trading port under Haihan's control will hold investment promotion and trade negotiation meetings at selected times to speed up local development and construction. speed. Of course, the largest and most influential events are the Spring Fair and Autumn Fair organized by the Haihan Executive Committee in Sanya every year.
The annual Spring Fair is held around Haihan's statutory National Day holidays. This is definitely an important event not to be missed for businessmen from various countries who are interested in conducting large-scale trade with Haihan. Haihan officials will issue purchase requirements for some materials to be purchased from outside during the year at the Spring Fair, and will also release a sales list of some in-demand commodities, such as Haihan daily necessities that businessmen rush to buy every year.
Of course, what worries the political leaders of various countries the most is the new round of arms purchase list that Haihan Ordnance will release to various countries during this period. Although Haihan's weapons are expensive, their performance is indeed outstanding, and the quantity sold each year is limited. Therefore, at times like this, politicians from various countries will still rush to buy them at all costs.
However, Matalan and the Dutch East India Company, which had completed a round of rush purchases in Sanya last year, were not eligible to purchase artillery from Haihan this year because of the existence of a limited purchase agreement to balance the armed strength of each country. and combat ships.
Because North Korea received special care from Haihan during the establishment of diplomatic relations last year, the weapons and equipment provided to North Korea were sold separately, so North Korean envoy Li Xi did not need to join the competition this time, and could just be a bystander.
Perhaps considering that the amount of information released at the banquet the night before would make some guests with too many worries rest poorly, the officials deliberately arranged all today's activities to take place from the afternoon to the evening. In this way, guests participating in the event can sleep peacefully until noon, and then go to the venue after having lunch and packing up.
However, when Fei Cexian woke up from his sleep, his mood was still not much relieved. The arrogant attitude shown by senior officials Haihan last night was still pierced into his heart like a thorn. He originally thought that after several months of contact, the Haihan people would not look at the monk's face but the Buddha's face and give themselves enough respect in public. But now it seems that he actually thought too much. Not only did these southern barbarians fail to give the Ming Dynasty their due There was no courtesy, and he even humiliated himself in public.
This time Fei Cexian truly realized the truth that if you fall behind, you will be beaten. There is indeed a clear gap between the Ming Dynasty and Haihan in terms of military and navigation, but not many people in the court really realized this. Even Fei Cexian himself, before coming to Sanya, was still dissatisfied with the rumors about Haihan. Qiang has deep doubts.
But facts speak louder than words. The invincibility of the Haihan Army in the South China Sea is not a fabricated lie. The humility shown by envoys from various countries in front of senior Haihan officials is visible to the naked eye. Although the Ming Dynasty had a transcendent status, Haihan did not seem to give Fei Cexian any higher treatment than other countries. Of course, maybe if Fei Cexian could calmly accept the benefits offered by Haihan when he first arrived in Sanya, then things would have gone differently.
After Ming Dynasty signed a diplomatic agreement with Haihan last year, it had already received a batch of weapons from Haihan. Of course, this was not a gift from Haihan, but a business that was worth every penny or tael. After the handover of these muskets and artillery was completed in Guangdong, they were transported to the north as quickly as possible and deployed to the battlefields of the Central Plains by the end of the year.
Although the Ming Dynasty military did not have time to become familiar with the performance of these weapons and only relied on several officers who received short-term training in Guangdong to master the use of these weapons, they still caused heavy losses to the peasant army on the battlefields of the Central Plains. The peasant army led by Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng was severely damaged by Lu Xiangsheng's troops in Chuzhou, which was finally good news for the Ming court in a difficult situation.
And there is another good thing that the Ming court was not aware of. Historically, Huang Taiji proclaimed himself emperor last year and changed the name of the country to Qing. After that, Azig led 100,000 Eight Banner soldiers to knock on the pass and fight all the way from Hebei to the capital. nearby. However, in this time and space, because Haihan exerted great military pressure on Hou Jin in the Liaodong Peninsula last year, Huang Taiji had to postpone his plan to proclaim himself emperor and change his title, and Azig's army was also dragged into the Liaodong Peninsula and did not dare to He acted rashly and saved Daming invisibly.
In any case, Ming Dynasty finally realized the role that Haihan weapons could play on the battlefield, and asked Fei Cexian to continue to purchase weapons and equipment from Haihan at the appropriate time.
What is the right time? In fact, the imperial court's intention is that as long as Haihan is willing to sell, it will acquire as much as possible and then send them back to the country for deployment. But this task is simple to say, but not easy to do. Haihan sells a limited number of weapons and equipment every year. With so many countries wanting to buy it, the price will naturally rise. And the Ming Dynasty's budget for purchasing weapons is relatively limited, so it is difficult to compete with generous countries like the South China Sea. The batch of weapons delivered last year was a special supply. If they participated in the bidding, the price sold to Daming would not even be touched.
Therefore, although Fei Cexian knew that there would be bidding for weapons and equipment today, he actually did not have high hopes for it, because he knew that with the small budget approved by the court, it would be difficult to seize it from the fierce bidding. Food. To put it bluntly, it is now clear that the Haihan people have other intentions for the Ming Dynasty. Why do they still come forward to send weapons to the Ming Dynasty? They are afraid that not enough people will die when they attack the Ming Dynasty in the future?
The more Fei Cexian thought about it, the more pessimistic he became, and even for a moment he didn't want to participate in related activities. But he also knows what his responsibility is and must collect information in this area. Although Ming cannot buy more weapons for the time being, it still needs to understand the status of weapons and equipment in neighboring countries. Especially in the south, Annan Kingdom, which had had several confrontations with Ming Dynasty, is known as a die-hard supporter of Haihan. Its army organization and equipment are said to be of the same line as Haihan. Considering the old grievances with Ming Dynasty in the past, Fei Cexian must also get Pay attention to it to avoid a war with Annan one day, and at least know the other party's equipment status.
However, before the arms purchase meeting in the afternoon, there was an investment promotion meeting organized by the Ministry of Commerce. Fei Cexian thought that participating in this meeting might help him relax a little. And he really wanted to know more about Haihan's business operations. Although the national conditions of the two countries were different, he believed that there must be something that Daming could imitate in order to achieve faster development in the business field.
The venue was located where the banquet was held last night, but it had already been cleaned up, and incense was specially used to purify the air to avoid leaving the aftertaste of last night's food.
When Fei Cexian arrived, dozens of people were already seated and waiting. Most of these people are wealthy businessmen from various countries, and people with official positions like Fei Cexian generally do not participate in it personally. They just sit outside and watch the excitement. Only for a few special investment projects, they will instruct their own businessmen to fight for them with all their strength. For diplomatic envoys who have been stationed in Sanya for more than a year, this kind of activity has become commonplace and there is no tension. But for Fei Cexian and Li Xi, who had just arrived in Sanya, all this was still very novel. Perhaps with this in mind, the official also provides them with one-to-one dedicated service, who can provide corresponding instructions at any time according to their needs during the process.
However, because of the situation at the banquet last night, Li Xi still felt a little embarrassed when he saw Fei Cexian, so he stepped forward to greet him and left in a hurry. Fortunately, the Haihan official was also very considerate of his situation. The seat today was still not next to Fei Cexian, which saved him a lot of trouble.
Fei Cexian couldn't help snorting when he saw that Li Xi's seat was arranged to sit next to Annan's young prince named Zheng. The two were talking and laughing after meeting. In his opinion, the Koreans should remain loyal to the Ming Dynasty. Even if the Ming Dynasty seems to be less powerful than Haihan, they must at least maintain enough restraint. How can they get too close to a country like Annan that has a grudge against the Ming Dynasty.
He really didn't expect that after the representatives of the two countries met privately last night, they had already reached a preliminary intention for future cooperation. In this cooperative relationship, neither party considered how the Ming court would feel. Li Xi also believed that As long as Haihan nods, this will be done. In other words, no one really cares what Ming Dynasty thinks.
In a blink of an eye, it was time for the opening, and the person presiding over the meeting was Commerce Secretary Schneider. When Fei Cexian first arrived in Sanya, he was quite puzzled that Haihan asked a mixed-race man to take charge of major economic and trade matters. However, after dealing with Schneider several times, he knew that this man was extremely shrewd. One of the smartest people I've ever met. Haihan's economic, trade, financial and diplomatic systems were all built by this person, and his ability may be enough to serve as the Minister of Rites or the Ministry of Households in the Ming Dynasty.
After Schneider took the stage, everyone in the audience automatically fell silent to listen to his speech. Schneider did not rush to announce today's investment project. Instead, he asked someone to hold up a huge two-foot-square map on the stage. The general topography of the Far East was drawn on it, and the more conspicuous place was the sea marked in red. The area currently controlled by the Han Dynasty.
Fei Cexian couldn't help but snorted again when he saw that all the places occupied by Haihan on the coast of the Ming Dynasty were also marked in red. Although he knew that it was impossible to get these places back from Haihan through negotiation, seeing the other party publicly labeling Ming's territory under his name on such an international diplomatic occasion, he must still be feeling angry. pharynx.
"Everyone, the red area marked on this map is our country's current territory. Of course, there are still a small part of it that has sovereignty disputes with other countries, but I believe that these small issues will be resolved satisfactorily in the near future. Solved.”
Schneider raised his finger and pointed at the map while explaining to everyone: "What I want to draw your attention here is that just this year, our country has added another area under its control in the South China Sea, and that is Manila Bay on Luzon Island. Please. Please remember that this place will no longer be under the rule of the Kingdom of Spain and will be officially included in the territory of our country from now on. ”
I don't know who took the lead, and applause began to ring out from the audience, and some people even cheered for the audience. Fei Cexian couldn't help but frown, feeling quite dissatisfied with these people's approach of trying to please Haihan, but he had already read the continuous reports about this war in the local newspaper before, and the map he saw at this time clearly marked the Knowing the location of Manila, he had to admire Haihan's ferocity. He actually raised troops across the sea to attack the city that the Spaniards had run for more than half a century, and successfully defeated it.
Fei Cexian believed that Haihan's official claim of revenge against Spain was not the real reason for the war, but he was not sure what kind of local products there were in Manila that were worthy of Haihan's efforts. However, the Haihan people never did business at a loss, so he must have Conquering that place would be very profitable for Haihan.
Although Haihan's purpose for launching this war was unclear, he could understand the map. After occupying Manila Bay, Haihan's control area successfully expanded to the east for more than two thousand miles. Looking at the map, Luzon Island is larger than Hainan Island and Taiwan Island. Hainan Island occupies that area, and the space for future development will correspondingly increase a lot. In comparison, the area of Hong Kong Island, Penghu Islands, Zhoushan Islands, Zhifu Island, and Jinzhou Peninsula that Haihan forcibly occupied along the coast of Ming Dynasty is almost negligible.
Thinking of this, Fei Cexian's mood improved a little. At least Haihan chose to expand overseas instead of targeting the Ming Dynasty. Otherwise, if he concentrated his military power to attack the coastal areas of Lingnan, it would probably be like Haihan. As senior officials said yesterday, Ming Dynasty will lose a large area of its territory without being able to fight back.
In fact, Fei Cexian could also see that Haihan had no plans to invade the Ming Dynasty at least for now, otherwise the places they occupied on the Ming Dynasty coastline would not just maintain the status quo. If the Haihan army used these occupied areas as bases to invade the Ming Dynasty, the situation would be unimaginable, and Fei Cexian would not be arrogant in thinking that the Ming Dynasty could calmly deal with such an invasion from the sea.
When Fei Cexian was distracted, the applause from the audience finally came to an end, and Schneider continued: "There may only be a very few of you here who have been to Manila, but after today everyone will have a deeper impression of this place, because A large number of the investment projects to be released next are located in the Manila Bay area. New colonies mean new opportunities to make money. I don’t need to explain this anymore, right? I think you all can’t wait to learn about this place. situation, then we will start to announce relevant investment projects.”
(End of chapter)