New Shun 1730

The messenger mentioned Wallenstein, who was the man who determined the direction of the Thirty Years' War of Religion. He used this as an example. After all, the Dutch could not have known that there were almost countless similar stories in Chinese history books, and they could be condensed into eight words.

Raising the enemy to protect oneself, and hiding the bow after the birds are gone.

There is a rumor that Wallenstein was suspected because after killing Gustav II, he released Protestant captives and uprising leaders without asking for permission in the subsequent wars, kept his troops idle and watched the anti-Austrian alliance make a comeback, and negotiated with Sweden and France in private.

Of course, this is just one of the rumors, and the intention is obviously "high birds are gone and good bows are hidden". There are various versions, but there are also many versions of this version, but they are not accurately refined into the words "raising the enemy to protect oneself".

These stories are familiar to Valkner. At least the Thirty Years' War in China is also a story of the Warring States Period, which directly determines the subsequent history. The stories in this story are all known to the upper class in Europe.

Although I don't know the idiom "hiding the bow after the birds are gone", it does not prevent me from thinking like this. After a little thought, I understood what the envoy meant.

If Batavia increased its troops, Dashun would think there might be a threat from the south, and even worry that the Netherlands would arm Japan.

In this way, the former Minister of the Navy who was transferred to the retirement home as the deputy marshal might be re-employed. And that was exactly the situation that Valkner did not want to see the most.

The envoy said again: "Master Du, Mr. Phillips analyzed that Liu Yu's beating of our sailors in Tianjin should be deliberately provoking us. He knows the situation of the Chinese in Batavia very well, and this is deliberately provoking us to retaliate against the Chinese."

"Once this happens, the war fanatics he represents will gain power in the court, thereby consolidating their position and advocating a war of revenge."

"Their emperor should not want to see such a situation, so he publicly reprimanded him for his rude behavior towards the delegation and deducted his salary for three years. It is said that his title was changed from a more noble merit title to an ordinary place name title. I think this is a game between the emperor and a powerful minister. The emperor does not want to see this powerful minister use the war to gain more prestige and reputation."

Valkniel nodded, thinking that fortunately he did not organize the massacre of the Chinese in Batavia, and fortunately he had vaguely felt the huge risks in it before.

After careful consideration, it should be true. Judging from the emperor's attitude of using the treasury to pay, whether it is for Central Asia or Russia, or to prevent meaningless wars in the south, at least Dashun seems to have no interest in Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia is the foundation of the company. Dashun does not need to completely seize Southeast Asia. Even if it only needs to drag the Netherlands into a protracted war, the company's finances will collapse. And if the company collapses... it will not be able to reorganize at all.

Many people in the Netherlands have also suffered from "red eye disease", thinking that monopoly trade is wrong because they have no chance to participate.

The company is powerless. If it expects the seven provincial governments to take back Southeast Asia, then it is conceivable that Southeast Asia will no longer be the company's property. Those investors, taxpayers, and those who pay war shipbuilding taxes will definitely ask for nationalization. Otherwise, why should we use our money to save the monopoly East India Company?

Either nationalize it or don't take a penny.

Fortunately, the company's foundation is not in danger for the time being. Valkner asked again: "So what conditions do you think the Chinese side wants to put forward besides asking us not to contact or trade with Japan?"

"Well... it should be about their partnership with the Swedish East India Company, right? The Governor also knows that the Swedes are a group of smugglers. They just borrowed a large sum of money from the company. The company is afraid that they will not pay it back, so they just turn a blind eye. And the company does not want to go to war with Sweden. After all, the fighting power of the Swedes is still very terrible."

"But this matter is meaningless. The British have already allowed it in order to obtain port berthing rights and supplies in China; the French are supporting Sweden in the war against Russia, and they will not care; the Portuguese are afraid of losing Macau; the Russians... the emperor of China does not care about their opinions at all. Therefore, if the company still wants to continue to maintain trade with China, it can only recognize this matter."

Valkner roughly figured out the bottom line of this meeting, guessed the possible requirements of Dashun, and had a rough idea in his mind.

Basically, this is a good thing.

There are at least 70,000 to 80,000 Chinese without residence permits in Java. If each person pays two silver coins, it will be nearly 200,000 silver coins, which is not a small amount and can greatly alleviate Batavia's financial crisis.

And... it only takes a little trick by the statisticians and accountants to add 50% to 20% and put half of it into the public account, which is 100,000 silver coins. As usual, the governor takes the lion's share, and everyone shares the rest. They are happy and harmonious.

It seems that everything is getting better, and even the uprising of the Chinese outside the city is no longer so annoying to him.

…………

Two days later, Shi Shiyong, who had rested well, formally met with Valknir.

He was not very good at negotiation, but he remembered a few things that the spy lurking here said, and he just had to do his best to promote these things.

For the rest of the business, the court will send someone later. He came here to stabilize the mood of the Chinese in Batavia first. The imperial court was worried that it would lead to a massacre and affect its future rule of Nanyang - mainly because after the massacre, official immigrants would have to spend a lot of money, tens of thousands of taels of silver. If the head tax is used for post-death immigration, it will be a drop in the bucket and not even a splash.

Since the insurgents had retreated south and needed time, Shi Shiyong said directly: "To be honest, the Holy Emperor does not know what happened here recently. He also does not know that this poll tax does not have the royal order of the King of the Netherlands. . If he knew, he would never agree to pay this money.”

Valkenier took pains to explain, making it clear that Batavia had no relationship with the Netherlands. It was company property, not a Dutch territory.

"Mr. Special Envoy, just like in your manor, do you still need to consider the opinions of your emperor about what kind of decorations you want to place and what kind of flowers you want to plant?"

Shi Shiyong said in astonishment: "Of course! Don't use things that are arrogant, and don't use things that exceed the rules. This is the most basic requirement. Have you never been to the manor of Lei Zhenlan, the Tang Dynasty here? Even here, he I don’t dare to use the seven-room main hall! Is it because he can’t afford it?”

This astonishment is both a purely natural reaction and some knowing and deliberate surprise. Shi Shiyong had a lot of contact with Liu Yu and knew what the East India Company was. If someone else knew the principles well, he would have been surprised. When he returned, he wrote a letter requesting that Songjiang's trading company - which had guns and cannons - be closed down. It has soldiers, the power to tax, the power to form a government, and the power to have diplomacy. This is even more than a vassal or vassal state. North Korea has no diplomatic power.

Valkenir felt that this was a chicken-and-duck talk. The cultures and customs of the two sides were completely different, and it was impossible to explain the legal principles of taxation here.

Fortunately, Shi Shiyong didn't come here specifically to find trouble. He kept talking for a while, and then he pretended to agree and said: "In that case, what your Majesty means is that these people are poor people who have no choice but to go to sea to make a living. Now that I’m here, no matter how strange the laws here are, I have no choice but to abide by them.”

"Your Majesty will use the internal funds to advance the head tax for three years for the remnants of the Celestial Dynasty here. However, the previous tax arrears will not be counted in the past, so there is no need to discuss it."

Valkenir was pleasantly surprised when he heard this.

Needless to say, I am very happy. In three years, I have earned hundreds of thousands of silver coins.

Surprise... He knew that the situation of the Chinese in Batavia and throughout Java was not a question of the poll tax at all.

Rather, it was an economic crisis, an overexpansion of sucrose oversupply caused by a company's wrong decisions, the rise of Haitian sugar, Cuban sugar in West India, a decline in sales of spices as the four-fluid theory of the human body receded, and a shrinking market caused by the Incident in Japan and Persia. ...etc., etc., leading to a huge economic crisis.

Especially the economic crisis in a completely export-oriented economy.

As a result, even if they paid the poll tax, the Chinese had nothing to do in Batavia, and the danger of tens of thousands of unemployed and slave laborers was too great.

How to survive the unemployment wave of the economic crisis? At this time, no one had considered this issue, but some people had previously made suggestions to the Committee of Seventeen, suggesting that the head tax be abolished and certain relief be provided to the Chinese.

This suggestion is naturally impossible to pass.

Leaving shareholders with no money to pay dividends and instead have to spend money on relief? Let Batavia's local government lose head tax revenue? Let Batavia's officials, from the governor down, lose a regular income?

Does the company do charity?

There is also the question of how to get through it.

As long as these people don't die or are sent back to Fujian, they will still be alive. To live, you have to eat and wear clothes. This is the most basic thing.

As is customary for Chinese people, as long as they can eat and wear clothes, they generally won't rebel. It was really to the point where they couldn't eat. No matter who this group of people was, even the emperor would dare to kill them. This is a nation that is as forbearing and obedient as lambs on weekdays, but is like Ares on Mount Olympus when it gets angry.

Now that Dashun is willing to pay, will Dashun agree to transport these people to hard labor elsewhere?

And if you want to be transported to hard labor elsewhere, there must be a reason.

The reason I thought before was "I have owed the poll tax for so many years and haven't paid it yet, so I went to work to pay off the debt and became a debt slave."

Now Dashun is requesting that the previous head tax does not count in the past... Valkenir does not expect to get the previous money, but if the past does not count, then who do these Chinese people count? Still a debt slave?

no.

They were not debt slaves and had paid the poll tax. What reason did they have to seize them to do hard labor as debt slave labor in Ceylon, Ambon, Cape Town and other places?

Pay them to work? How could the East India Company make a profit if it paid people to do the work? Besides, if you pay for work and trade fairly, wouldn’t raising so many soldiers be in vain?

With things developing like this, the entire top management of Batavia, and even the Seventeen-member Committee, are all involved.

The problem is that no one took the initiative to take responsibility for this, and they were all passing the blame to each other. This led to the parachuting of Valkenir in an attempt to solve the Chinese problem once and for all and quickly.

The Seventeen-member Committee pretended not to know that Batavia's sugar purchase policy was extremely ridiculous. They tried to keep the price of sugar as low as possible to make a profit. To this end, they tacitly allowed Chinese without residence permits to work in the sugar factory. When the incident happened, they were shocked and exclaimed that there was such a thing? We didn't know! The officials in Batavia misled me!

The successive governors pretended not to know that the tax-farming policy, from food, clothing, housing, transportation, gambling, smoking, and even fishing and catching shrimps, was taxed, and the oppression of tax farmers made the lower-class Chinese miserable and unable to survive.

The successive members of the Council pretended not to know that the upper and lower levels colluded and accepted bribes. Ship after ship of Chinese slaves were transported to farms outside Batavia. Occasionally, they caught someone without a residence permit and immediately exclaimed that someone dared to go ashore without a residence permit.

Kapitan, Lei Zhenlan and others pretended to be able to completely rule the Chinese society. In theory, all registered Chinese had to go to Lei Zhenlan once a month to report, but they pretended not to know that there were tens of thousands of Chinese slaves outside the city who were not registered at all.

The judicial officer pretended not to know that the sugar industry was over, that the contractors were all takeovers who had changed hands countless times, and that the unemployed black shirt party and no pants people had appeared outside the city a few years ago.

Everyone pretended not to know, and they all wanted to work for a few years and then leave, so as not to get involved.

In the words of a Dutch judicial officer, "It is a wise choice to cover up the truth before things break out."

"Any Chinese without a residence permit, if you look into it, the joint responsibility will be from the port, to the patrol judicial officer, to the sugarcane contractor, to the Lei Zhenlan Kapitan, to the council member, to the governor... all are responsible. And this is tacitly approved by the Seventeen-member Committee and the governor, but there is no written instruction. Therefore, no one will open this rotten scar, and can only pray that things will not break out before they make enough money to return to the Netherlands."

"From top to bottom, everyone pretended to be unaware of this. It was as if the tens of thousands of Chinese outside the city suddenly appeared. It was like mushrooms in the oak forest after the autumn rain, which were not there the day before, but suddenly appeared."

Now, at this moment. The previous governor took the blame.

The reason was that someone found out that the previous governor sold residence permits privately and pocketed the money. Therefore, the blame for the tens of thousands of undocumented Chinese outside the city should also be taken. Imprisoning you will bring happiness to the whole city of Ba.

But now, the previous governor took the blame. The question is how to solve the current problem? This is the purpose of the Seventeen-member Committee sending Valknier.

If it is done, the position will be stable. If it is not done, you will have to take the blame again!

Valknier knew very well that the blame taken by the predecessor was just the fact that tens of thousands of Chinese outside the city existed. Even if only one residence permit was sold privately, this big pot must be taken. You said you sold one, but who knew that you did not take the money and acquiesced to the smuggling of slaves by the sugarcane department?

The previous governor was a man. He cursed in court. Don't you seventeen gentlemen know what's going on? If everyone paid the head tax of two silver coins per worker as required, how could sugar in Batavia be so cheap? You are also big businessmen, do you really not know this cost calculation? But the more you tell the truth, the faster you will die and the heavier your sentence will be.

What Valkniel needs to solve now is where these tens of thousands of Chinese go, what they do, and where can they accommodate the labor of 70,000 to 80,000 Chinese?

This and that fact are two different problems. The previous governor took the blame, which only made this fact that was difficult to conceal public, and turned it into a new problem that needed to be solved by this governor.

The requirements given by the seventeen gentlemen were very simple: neither trade with China should be affected, nor the problem of Chinese in Batavia should be solved.

If trade with China was affected, he would take the blame.

If the Chinese problem was not solved, he would take the blame.

The two, parallel.

It turned out that he was ambitious and thought it was simple, just kill them all, or throw them to Ceylon as slaves or cannon fodder.

However, Dashun engaged in gunboat diplomacy, first using courtesy and then using force to pay the head tax, and said that bygones were not counted, and these people were no longer debt slaves. What should be done?

This was the first time that Valknir experienced the abomination of gunboat diplomacy. They didn't even dare to massacre the Chinese, causing so much trouble.