Chapter 2287
Zheng Zha believed that the collapse of the Ming Dynasty was actually just around the corner. If Haihan was willing to take action, it would be easy to carve up the southeastern region of the Ming Dynasty at least with the help of Haihan, Annan, North Korea, Portugal and other countries, and with the help of Xu Xinsu from Fujian. If Haihan was willing to give in and agree to send troops together with the Manchus in the north, then the demise of the Ming Dynasty would basically be a certainty. As Haihan's main ally, Annan is bound to get a share of this situation.
However, Haihan seems to have no such intention at present, and is even opposed to Annan's plan to encroach on the territory of Yunnan and Guangxi in the Ming Dynasty to the north. Zheng Zha's plan to carve up the Guangdong and Guangxi regions proposed to Haihan's senior officials in Sanya was once again opposed. He actually didn't quite understand that Haihan was constantly occupying the coastal areas of the Ming Dynasty through colonial means and gaining population and wealth from the Ming Dynasty. , while maintaining the shaky rule of the Ming Dynasty. What considerations were based on such a contradictory approach?
Zheng Zha, accompanied by You Yihan, visited the military base in the south of Hong Kong Island yesterday. The number of troops stationed by Haihan on Hong Kong Island is not large, mainly the navy. According to You Yihan, there are only about a thousand troops. Although Zheng Zha was not sure whether the troops reported by You Yihan were an ambush, he thought it wouldn't be too different.
Although the size of this garrison is small, its defense area also includes the Pearl River Estuary. With such a small force, it can control such a large area of sea. There are not even pirates within a few hundred miles. This shows that Haihan The prestige here is great.
From Zheng Zha's point of view, the nature of this force is more like a symbol of force than a combat force, representing Haihan's control of this area, rather than really intending to use this force to eliminate who. What's more, judging from the current situation, there should be no forces in this region that will take the initiative to oppose Haihan. Doing so is tantamount to seeking death.
Zheng Zha was only thinking about the military significance of the Pearl River Estuary and Hong Kong Island, while Li Nai and Zhang Jinbao were obviously more inclined to focus on the commercial value of this area. After the fleet entered the Pearl River Estuary, the number of sailing ships on the water increased significantly. Except for some fishing sampans, most of them were merchant ships and passenger ships plying this water area.
Li Nai introduced to the two of them: "In the past, both sides of the river were mostly wasteland, but in recent years, more and more people have fled the war in the interior and come to Guangzhou. One of their livelihoods is to work as sharecroppers in the river plains south of Guangzhou. Land reclamation. The places they saw were basically plantations that had been built in recent years, and most of them were properties under Haihan's name."
Zheng Zha asked: "If Haihan State wants to purchase land here, I'm afraid it will have to find another cover, right?"
"Of course." Li Nai nodded and admitted Zheng Zha's guess: "These lands were purchased in private names and then developed by Haihan's subordinate institutions. In fact, it is not that the local government is unaware of these things, it's just that Profit comes first, and no one is willing to take the initiative to expose this trick, so they just turn a blind eye and let Haihan continue to operate like this. When there are more such plantations and people who make a living from them, the government will not dare to control them. , otherwise these thousands of people will lose their livelihood and become refugees, and the Guangzhou area will inevitably be in chaos, which will definitely affect the officialdom.”
The labor shortage has always accompanied Haihan's fortune. As the Lingnan region has become increasingly peaceful in recent years, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit immigrants who voluntarily settle overseas. However, compared with Haihan, labor costs in Daming were still much lower, so Haihan also began to invest in the opposite direction, setting up many plantations and farms in the Pearl River Delta in a private name, and hiring local people to cultivate farmland.
There are obvious differences in the planting projects between Haihan's plantations along the Pearl River and the plantations invested by Ming merchants in Haihan. Most of the plantations in Haihan's own territory are mainly cash crops that can be further processed, and the output returns are relatively high. However, the farmland operated in Daming basically grows the most common food crops, and their economic value is relatively low. Lower.
Moreover, after harvesting, most of this grain will not be transported back to Haihan, but will be supplied to the nearby grain merchants and rice banks in the Ming Dynasty, as well as to meet the survival needs of the tenant farmers. The economic benefits that can be obtained from this approach are actually relatively limited. Haihan’s purpose is not to make much money through these industries, but to try to control as many employed people as possible in this way, and then start from It will be relatively easy to absorb immigrants from these populations.
The Ming Dynasty businessmen who invested in Haihan were used to eating big fish and meat, so they naturally disdained to go back to drink this bowl of gruel with little oil and water. Therefore, the businessmen had no intention of competing with Haihan when it came to farming grain in the Pearl River Plain. As for local landowners, large and small, their business scale is far less than a fraction of Haihan's development model, and the cost of grain production is much higher than that of Haihan's farms. As long as Haihan does not take the lead in lowering grain prices. Thank God. How can I dare to compete with them?
Zheng Zha and Zhang Jinbao both heard about these things for the first time. Although Li Nai did not explain in detail at the moment, they still listened with interest.
In the past, we only knew that merchants from the Ming Dynasty invested in and opened many plantations in Haihan, but we never thought that Haihan would quietly invest in agriculture in the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, this differentiated business model avoids the confusion with investing in Haihan. The Ming Dynasty merchants in agriculture had a conflict of interest and achieved the purpose of increasing the source of immigrants. Such an operation was probably only possible by the omnipotent Haihan Executive Committee.
Of course, not everyone can imitate this method of operation. In addition to investing a lot of money and having more advanced agricultural technology, you also need to have enough hard power to deal with all aspects. Otherwise, no matter how large the farmland you operate is , it will only become a fat sheep in the eyes of the powerful.
Therefore, even if the Guangzhou government knew about Haihan's little actions, they could only pretend to be deaf and mute and not dare to openly intervene. As for the invisible population loss caused by this, the government actually does not care too much. After all, if Haihan does not create these job opportunities, then these people will probably gradually become a security hazard, and the government will have to spend more resources. To resolve. If these people are willing to join the Haihan in the future, then that's up to them. Anyway, they are just a bunch of mud-legged people.
Zheng Zha suddenly said: "If one day in the future, the entire Guangzhou, or even the wider area, is controlled more and more by Haihan's food supply, wouldn't it be easy to influence the people of Guangzhou?"
Li Nai did not shy away from this bold hypothesis and still responded calmly: "If the Haihan Executive Committee wants to influence the people's hearts in Guangzhou, it may not need to wait until that time, because they have many other ways to win people's hearts. . But I don’t think they necessarily want to do that, because the turmoil in Guangzhou is not in their interests.”
Zheng Zha was slightly moved when he heard this reply. He suddenly realized that when he was communicating with Haihan's senior management, he had not really considered how much interests the other party had in Guangdong, and whether the method he suggested was really in line with Haihan's. Han interests.
Haihan was not uninterested in Guangdong, but he did not take the reckless method proposed by Zheng Zao and directly use force to occupy this area. Haihan's approach is obviously more peaceful and less likely to provoke the local government to take resistance measures, which is the so-called boiling the frog in warm water.
Haihan is quietly and gradually controlling the key resources in this area, and food may be just one of them. As long as it takes advantage of its advantages in military, commerce, finance, etc., Zheng Zha believes that it will be easy for Haihan to deal with the Guangzhou government. . But precisely because Haihan has invested a lot of resources in operations in Guangdong, once the current peaceful situation is broken, Haihan himself may also face the result of killing one thousand enemies and losing eight hundred to himself. This is obviously not the case for the Executive Committee. willing to accept the situation.
It can be said that Zheng Zha's original proposal did not take Haihan's real interests into consideration at all. He believed that as long as the richest areas in Guangdong and Guangxi were handed over to Haihan, Haihan's cooperation could be obtained. Little did he know that Haihan had already been involved in the project. To develop in this direction, it’s just that the methods used are somewhat special. If the information obtained now is really as Zheng Zha speculated, then he can only say "convinced" to Haihan's clever methods. Although this approach seems time-consuming and labor-intensive, the effect is indeed much better than launching a war. Besides, if the goal can be achieved without launching a war, then even Zheng Zha is willing to choose this seemingly complicated method.
As we go upstream of the Pearl River, the river gradually narrows, and the density of sailing boats on the river continues to increase, reaching the point where it is necessary to slow down the speed of the boats. Zhang Jinbao heard that this place was still more than twenty miles away from Guangzhou City, and he was secretly surprised by Guangzhou's prosperity.
After finally arriving at the river bank outside Guangzhou city, we saw that the pier here stretches for several miles, and it is impossible to see where the upstream end is. There are more than a thousand ships of various sizes docked on the shore, which makes Zheng Zaohe Zhang Jinbao was secretly speechless.
In Zheng Zha's opinion, places like Danzhou Port and Sanya Port are already extremely prosperous, but the number of ships docked in these large ports seems to be less than that of the Pearl River Wharf outside Guangzhou.
However, if you observe carefully for a while, you can still see that the hardware facilities of the wharf here are obviously not comparable to those under the rule of Haihan, and most of the ships are small in size. Most of them are not sea-going ships, but use rivers as their activity areas. sailboat.
"What a lively place, we really came to the right place!" Zhang Jinbao was very excited when he saw the scene in front of him. The city of Guangzhou is more prosperous than he imagined, and the more prosperous a place is, the more labor demand it will have. If a branch is opened here, there should be no need to worry about the employment of students.
As the largest merchant in Guangzhou, Fulifeng naturally has its own dock here. After docking, Zheng Zao and Zhang Jinbao saw several carriages parked on the shore. Zhang Jinbao has ridden in Furifeng's special car more than once. One look at the appearance can confirm that these cars are also standard models ordered from Haihan.
"Before we set off from Hong Kong, I ordered someone to send a telegram to the local area to inform us of the approximate time of arrival in Guangzhou, so that accommodation can be prepared for the two of us." Li Nai took the initiative to explain why there was a carriage prepared in advance. This welcome.
The two of them quickly thanked Li Nai. They already knew before they came that Li Nai would arrange their accommodation during the inspection period, so they didn't have to carry their bags all over the streets to find a hotel after arriving in Guangzhou.
"I have prepared a courtyard for each of you outside the city as a temporary residence for the two of you while you are in Guangzhou. It's just that the place is a bit rough, so don't dislike it too much." Li Nai continued to introduce his arrangements.
Li Nai said that the place was simple, but both of them didn't believe it. How could the place where Furifeng used to entertain guests be so simple? They couldn't even explain it at the moment.
When I got to the place and took a look, it turned out that Li Nai's words were true. The courtyard arranged for Zhang Jinbao and his party was an exquisite courtyard. Although there were only two entrances, it was decorated in the style of Jiangnan gardens, with each step creating a beautiful scene. There are even several servants prepared here to serve them in daily life.
Zheng Zha and his party had a large number of staff, including staff, attendants, guards, and cooks, totaling more than a dozen people. If the place they arranged was too small, they would definitely not be able to accommodate them. They had stayed in Hong Kong for one day before, and Zheng Zha and his party had rented out the entire floor of an inn.
Therefore, the yard Li Nai prepared for Zheng Zha and his party was much larger to ensure that all of them could live in it. At the same time, a large amount of ingredients were prepared for them. It seemed that they planned to provide all-inclusive food, accommodation and transportation.
For such a comprehensive arrangement, it is difficult for Zhang Jinbao and Zheng Zha to find fault. They can only secretly admire Furifeng's meticulousness in doing these things. It is no wonder that it has become the number one store in Guangdong.
What they didn't know was that after Li Nai experienced the reception at the Guest House in Sanya in his early years, he suggested that Li Jifeng set up a special service organization under the name of Furifeng to be responsible for daily reception of foreign guests. In order to achieve a better service level, Li Nai also specially sent people to Sanya for training to ensure that he can provide authentic Haihan-style services.
It is not possible to build a guest house like Sanya in Guangzhou. It would be too ostentatious, but it is not a problem for Furifeng to build several courtyards outside Guangzhou to entertain distinguished guests. Zheng Zha and Zhang Jinbao stayed in these two courtyards, which were specially used to receive distinguished guests.
And Li Nai's reception work does not end here. In the evening, Li Jifeng will personally host a banquet to welcome them both.
Locally speaking, this is no longer a treatment that ordinary people can enjoy. Li Jifeng is now very well-known in Guangzhou. If local officials want to meet with him to discuss matters, they have to make an appointment in advance. As for the people that Li Jifeng could hold a banquet to welcome, there were only a handful of them, and he might not be able to gather even ten people in a year.
(End of chapter)