Chapter 371: Nicholas Yiguan

In the first year of Chongzhen (1628), there was a great drought in southern Fujian, and many people were hungry, and many people could not make a living.

In order to alleviate the pressure of disaster relief, Xiong Wencan, then governor of Fujian, instructed Zheng Zhilong, who had assumed the post of "coastal defense guerrilla" after accepting Zhao'an, to try to mobilize a group of disaster victims in Zhangzhou and Quanzhou prefectures to go to Dayuan for reclamation, and set a preferential policy of "three taels of silver for each person, and one cow for three people."

As a result, Zheng Zhilong recruited tens of thousands of people and transported them to Bengang by sea ship to settle down in the wasteland, greatly expanding the number and power of Fujian immigrants in Taiwan.

However, it is a pity that Zheng Zhilong never sent armed forces to the Dayuan, nor did he clearly declare the ownership of the Dayuan, so that the greedy Dutch took advantage of the loophole and seized the governance of the Bengang area by force.

Perhaps, Zheng Zhilong believes that compared with maritime trade, the development of agriculture in Dayuan is not very oily; Or, in the midst of an all-out battle with the other pirate leaders, he didn't want to offend the Dutch too much.

In short, he did not openly interfere with the expansion of the Dutch, but only supported the leaders of the Fujian immigrants in Bengang, and through them he controlled the local immigrant villages.

Guo Huaiyi was one of the local reclamation owners, and was supported by Zheng Zhilong, either explicitly or implicitly.

After Zheng Zhilong was detained and lost his freedom, Zheng Chenggong, who parted ways with him and resolutely raised the banner of resisting the Qing Dynasty, continued to pay attention to the situation of the adults through Guo Huaiyi and others.

Guo Huaiyi, who was in the area ruled by the Dutch, wrote to him almost every month to report on the local situation.

As the local Chinese leaders, many administrative affairs of the Dutch in the local area depend on Guo Huaiyi and others, so Guo Huaiyi can say that the Dutch are well aware of their every move and trade situation in the local area.

……

Guo Huaiyi mentioned in his letter that this year, farmers have reduced the area of sugarcane planting, which has greatly reduced farmers' wages, and many farmers have lost their jobs as a result, and people's livelihoods are much worse than before.

However, the Batavian authorities have repeatedly urged the officials to find ways to increase their financial resources, and the taxes imposed by the authorities have become heavier.

In addition to the tithes that had been levied, even deer hunting and fishing required licenses, but this was still not enough to cover the expenses, so the authorities added a new poll tax and sent soldiers into the village to check that they were paid in full.

The Dutch soldiers not only deliberately confiscated the Han people's poll tax bills and took the opportunity to loot all kinds of household goods, but even broke into Han villages in groups at night with muskets in hand......

"The taxation was rampant, and the Han people became poorer and poorer, and they had to work and work on Sundays, but they could not earn a little money...... Sugarcane farmers borrow money from the wealthy at an interest rate of more than 10% per month, and then pay off their debts after the crop is harvested...... As a result, many people have abandoned their cultivated land, do not want to stay in Dayuan, and plan to secretly return to their hometowns......"

Reading these words in Guo Huaiyi's letter, Zheng Chenggong had a gloomy face and silently put down the letter......

Zheng Chenggong is no stranger to the Dutch, who has been stealing for more than 20 years.

As early as the 29th year of Wanli (1601), the Dutch repeatedly invaded China's Guangdong-Fujian waters and asked for trade with China, but were rejected by local officials in the Ming Dynasty.

In 1619, the Dutch East India Company established a permanent military base in Batavia (present-day Jakarta, Indonesia), and from then on, they invaded the South China Sea more frequently and harassed coastal areas.

In August of the third year of the Apocalypse (1623), the Dutch invaded the coastal areas of Fujian, were defeated by the Fujian naval division of the Ming Dynasty, and retreated to Penghu, still harassing the sea from time to time, seriously endangering the safety of the coastal areas of Zhang and Quan.

In July of the fourth year of the Apocalypse (1624), the Ming army sent more than 10,000 people to attack Penghu, and the Dutch were defeated, and under the guidance of a Chinese scum who was familiar with the waterway, they retreated to a place called Dayuan in the south of Taiwan Island (in the area of present-day Tainan City).

Since the Ming Dynasty did not have an army in Dayuan, they were able to build a castle on a Kunshen Island (sandbank) overseas of Dayuan, and named it Relanza City (now Anping Castle), and since then they have been plagued here.

As for the origin of the name of the member, it is said that it is transliterated from the Hokkien dialect "Taiyuan".

Since then, the entire island of Taiwan has been called "Dayuan" by these colonists, and it was not until the Qing Dynasty that it was officially renamed "Taiwan" and set up the Taiwan Prefecture, which is subordinate to Fujian Province.

This is just like Macao was mistakenly called "Ma Lean" by the Franc Machine, but it is just a group of Franc Robot people who do not understand Chinese, and the place where they first landed is called "Ma Ge".

It is worth mentioning that this leading party was a big pirate at the same time as Yan Siqi, Li Dan, a native of Quanzhou, who had a strong style at sea, and foreigners called him "Jiabidan Li Dan".

The word "Captain" means captain, and it was not until a long time later that it was extended to the captain of the army, or colonel, during the reign of the Francis in Manila.

During this period, the translator of Li Dan was Zheng Zhilong, who was nicknamed an official, and after this incident, Zheng Zhilong officially attached himself to Yan Siqi, the "Japanese snail" (leader of the Japanese Koukou), who also came to Taiwan in the same year, and was soon reused, and became his successor the following year.

Speaking of which, although Zheng Zhilong's pirate habits did not change, and he lost his life due to excessive calculations, he actually lost his life, but in fact, this person is a great talent.

He didn't like to read since he was a child, he had a loose temperament, had strength, was good at boxing, and was keen on swordsmanship, so he was not loved by his father.

At the age of eighteen, Zheng Zhilong and his brothers went to Haojing, where they learned to do business with their uncle Huang Cheng, selling sugar, Qi Nan, musk and other goods for their uncle.

In the course of his dealings with Franco, he learned Lusitanian (also known as Judeo-Portuguese, now largely lost) and Portuguese, and traveled to Manila, where he spoke Portuguese fluently.

Later, he traveled to Japan frequently, where he learned Japanese, and was summoned by the shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, so he was favored by the Matsuura family of the Hirado Domain, and married the daughter of his retainer Tagawa clan, the biological mother of Zheng Chenggong.

In this way, ahem, Zheng Zhilong has actually grown into a language expert who is proficient in Hokkien, Nanjing Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese!

In addition, under the influence of his uncle, he was baptized by Catholicism and took the Christian name Nicholas Iquan, which is known to foreigners as Nicholas Iquan.

……

In January of the following year, the Dutch East India Company appointed the first governor Song Ke to arrive at Dayuan, and with only 15 pieces of cotton cloth, he defrauded a large area of land on the land of Tainan, and built the city of Pumin Sha (now Chijilou) as the center of colonial rule, and gradually expanded in both the north and the south.

To the south, they conquered the aborigines and occupied the port of Dagou (present-day Kaohsiung), and to the north, they took control of the area of Bengang (located in present-day Yunlin County, Taichung Prefecture) and the immigrant villages along Beigang Creek by force.

In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen (1642), the Dutch army attacked the Spanish colonial army located on Jilongyu Island (now Keelung Port) in Taipei and expelled them from Dazhi, and from then on, the whole island became a colony exclusively occupied by the Dutch.

The Dutch colonists imposed coercive rule, not only heavily fortified militarily, but also adopted a very harsh political system to maintain the brutal colonial rule, and did everything they could to plunder.

They wantonly plundered the resources of the Dayuan, plundered all the arable land of the Dayuan at that time as "Wangtian Wangyuan", exploited the peasants in the form of serfs, forced the Han and indigenous people to pay all kinds of heavy taxes, plundered the rice and sugar they produced, and re-exported the Chinese raw silk, sugar and porcelain they purchased to various countries for high profits.

When the peasants were dissatisfied, they carried out brutal military repression, often sending troops to surround the villages, carry out bloody massacres, and often use torture such as car cracking, burning, and crucifixion, to brutally suppress the people who dared to resist.

……

(End of chapter)