The typhoon passed through and it was a mess.

Han Yin looked at the warehouse of the merchant station worriedly, and sighed heavily, although a lot of preventive measures were taken in advance this time, the power of the typhoon did exceed expectations, and some of the materials that had not been transported away temporarily in the warehouse were suddenly damaged, and it was conservatively estimated that it caused a loss of about thousands of yuan.

Han Yin thought to himself, there was such a mistake, even if General Manager Shao did not transfer himself away for the sake of being in the saddle for many years, but it was inevitable to be reprimanded. Moreover, I am afraid that I will have to be fined for several months, and the end of the year will naturally be in vain, and my future prospects will also be affected to a certain extent, which will be a big loss.

"The undamp cargo was quickly disposed of, repacked and transported to the dock holds. The Kamchatka is about to depart after the repairs, and I have already negotiated with the captain of the ship, Lao Lin, that he will adjust the route halfway and help me get this cargo to the port of Jiaozhou. It's really unlucky, how can this year's typhoon be so violent, and the losses of the Dutch are not small, right? Han Yin asked.

"It's not small. There is a lot of rice transported from Nanyang, and this time the dampness is not light. You see the Dutch are trying to figure it out, but whether it's to be disposed of at a low price on the spot or to dry it in a hurry, there will definitely be a loss. A subordinate replied: "Rice, spices, cane sugar, etc., all the losses add up to a small amount." ”

Han Yin felt a little comforted when he heard this, after all, he was not alone in his bad luck. Then, after thinking for a while, he said to the left and right: "Let's go, let's go to the market to see if we can dispose of some damp goods, and some of the losses can be recovered." There is a large batch of cloth shipped from Ningbo, which was originally intended to be sold on the island of Taiwan, and now the damp color is out of the pool, but the price is reduced, and there are still many Dutch or aborigines who buy it. ”

When the attendants heard this, they all started and carried them to the market near the docks in ox carts. There is a church near the bazaar, which is a must-see, and when everyone passes by, a wedding is taking place here. The wedding was a junior officer of South Dutch descent, and the woman was a descendant of Han immigrants who had come to Taiwan in the early days of reclamation, and a priest from the countryside of Gelderland Province celebrated the wedding.

Han Yin looked at it silently and didn't say anything. The importance of the island of Taiwan to the Dutch is increasing day by day, they have a large number of aboriginal tribes here, and in the early years it also attracted many Fujianese, Cantonese and Xiaoliuyuan people to come and farm, rice and sugar cane fields are very large, and at the same time received a large amount of taxes in kind including placer gold, deerskin, camphor, which accounted for about one-sixth of the profits of the East India Company in the early years. Later, after the trade with the people on the east coast continued to deepen, the colony of the island of Taiwan became even more important, and if grain and other trade were included, the island's income once accounted for one-third of the total profits of the Dutch East India Company, although it had declined in recent years, it was not a problem to maintain more than 20% overall.

Therefore, the Dutch have used various means to strengthen their rule over the island over the years.

The most common of these tactics was of course the marriage and cultivation of the agents of the landlords, not unlike the methods they used in the East Indies. There are now more than 1,500 German mercenaries and nearly 1,000 colonial officials, merchants, technicians, teachers, religious figures, navigators, and adventurers, all of whom are mostly white and male, so for many years only local Asians have been married. As can be seen from the local government records, in the last year (1680), a total of 195 people registered their marriages in Geranzay, of which 160 were white from Europe, 10 were Indians, 12 were Malays, and the remaining 13 were locals born in Taiwan.

From these simple data, it can be seen that the main marriage partners of Europeans on the island of Taiwan - or the only marriage partners - are the local natives, both aborigines and Han Chinese. They are in the local upper class, with a monthly income of between 18 and 300 guilders, which is far above the average level, and they also enjoy political priority, so it is natural that they have an absolute advantage in competitiveness.

Similar to the Portuguese in Goa, after they got married, it was obvious that their wives and children would be Protestant, especially the aboriginal women who would have a lower level of civilization, and they would not even have a written language, so they would naturally be easily assimilated by the Dutch, which would be of great help to expand the ruling base of the Dutch East India Company - in fact, in the beginning, they were not very willing to do these seemingly fruitless things, they were only interested in making money, but at the moment when the island of Taiwan is becoming more and more important, The Dutch found that if they did not take some measures, the island of Taiwan would also be a little unstable, so a large number of people were sent here, marrying the natives, co-opting the local snakes, cultivating compradors, and adopting orphans.

This effort of the Dutch began to be carried out vigorously from the time of the Viceroy of Ryōi, and by the time of Hugo Rolle's generation, it had begun to bear fruit, as can be seen in the gradual deepening of their control over the island. Otherwise, you should have so many rice fields and sugar cane fields for nothing?

In addition, to be honest, the Dutch were relatively good to the aborigines among the colonists, relatively tolerant of pagans, and would not kill people at every turn like the Spaniards, and were more civilized than the Portuguese in collecting taxes. At least, even in the East Indies, where the Dutch East India Company had an overwhelming advantage, they exchanged food, cloth and other daily necessities for spices from the natives, rather than forcing the Indians to farm, graze and mine for them without compensation, as the Spaniards did, which led to a large number of deaths.

In a word, they are businessmen, and the starting point of everything is from the perspective of maximizing profits, and they will not do some inexplicable things. You know, the natives of the colony are also wealth, and if you kill them, no one will create wealth for you! In addition, the United Province is a country that is much more civilized than Spain, has a more advanced system, and has a more developed atmosphere, so it will not do many fearless things, unless you clearly disobey their orders or even simply rebel.

The feelings of the people on the East Coast about the rule of the Dutch East India Company on the island of Taiwan are complex, and their motives are also impure. First of all, they naturally hoped that the Dutch East India Company would have a place on the island, because it could bring grain (which was very important), sugar, spices, and all kinds of South Sea specialties to the people of the East Coast, and at the same time buy all kinds of goods from the East Coasters, including high-grade furs, ironware, raw silk, silk, and tea, and they made great profits from them, whether they were the Bank of Taiwan, the Three Domains of the Far East, or the local merchants, they all reaped enough benefits from it. So, it stands to reason, they don't want the Dutch to go!

Secondly, they are also very wary of the Dutch monopoly of the so-called Formosa and Pescaldo Islands. This is likely to cause the Dutch East India Company to gain a large influence along the coast of China, and then engage in fierce trade competition with the East Coasters, and to thin up the profits of the East Coast money-making tools such as the Bank of Taiwan, which is unacceptable to them. You must know that the self-proclaimed authentic people on the east coast of China have always regarded Chinese mainland as their own forbidden territory, which can be seen from their many times in the Ming and Qing ports "chasing flies", and they very much want to monopolize the mainland's foreign trade, although they are still far from achieving this goal.

Based on this line of thinking, it is easy to understand that the people of the East Coast have been supporting the Fujian Zheng Group on a small scale for so many years, and have given them a lot of help to their official and private reclamation in the northern part of the island of Taiwan. Even, the last time the Dutch East India Company and the Zheng clan clashed on the island of Taiwan, it was once tense, and in the end, it was the East Coast people who came forward to mediate. Moreover, Shao Shuguang, the general manager of the Bank of Taiwan who presided over the mediation at that time, took the opportunity to set the dividing line between the two sides on the island (with the watershed in central Taiwan as the boundary), which is undoubtedly the concrete embodiment of the East Coast people's thinking - let the Dutch East India Company and the Zheng family contain each other on the island, and neither side can sit on the island, and the only way is king.

"Sell the cloth openly in the market, and find a familiar agent. If there is a chieftain from the countryside who comes to the city to buy it, you can take the initiative to come forward and sell it. Those people don't look at the dirt, but they have a lot of good goods in their hands. Although these dyed fabrics are somewhat faded, we still have a high cost performance after the price reduction, and they should have a certain willingness to purchase. Well, the Dutch pay the tax if they are present during the trade, and forget it if they are not there. Han Yinchao's entourage commanded.

After saying this, he ordered two relatively clever retinues, and then walked to a familiar Dutch grain wholesaler. Born in the countryside of Dortrecht, he was a fellow countryman with Speaker De Witt, and was originally penniless in the Netherlands, but after a few years of wanting to cross the ocean and come to the Far East, he gradually made a small fortune. Subsequently, this guy mobilized several agents of the East India Company to start a business of reselling Nanyang grain to Ningbo and Denglai, and the speed of accumulation of wealth suddenly came to a leap.

Now that he had settled in the castle of Geranza, he brought his family from Batavia, leaving only a few relatives from the Old Continent to collect food in the Maluku Islands, which he then transported to the port of Geranza on his merchant ships to be stored, waiting for the people from the east coast to pick up the goods. Or, if the people on the east coast are willing to pay a certain fee, they don't mind home delivery, Dinghai, Jiaozhou, Yantai are no problem!

Han Yin came to his mansion today - a three-story villa with a large garden specially designed by European designers - mainly to discuss some grain trade matters, and by the way, to inquire whether Zheng Jing's people were abiding by the rules, whether they were still attacking the merchant ships of the Dutch East India Company behind their backs, including the Dutch grain ships that the people on the east coast watched closely and repeatedly ordered not to harm Zheng.

The grain wholesaler, who had become rich, warmly received Han Yin, an old customer, and then answered the questions truthfully. Judging from what he had learned, he believed that after the last mediation between the people on the east coast ended, Zheng Jing had kept his promise and removed most of the ships, and that the Taiwan Strait had now resumed navigation, and that the few inhabitants of the Pescaldo Islands had resumed trade with the mainland. In the past two years, there was probably only one merchant ship that was more unlucky, unfortunately sank in the offshore sea at the junction of Guangdong and Fujian, and a shipload of grain was wiped out, but it was believed that it should have nothing to do with the Zheng family, because the sailors who escaped unanimously accused the navigator of being drunk that night, so that he took everyone to the ditch, ran into the reef and sank.

Han Yin nodded after listening, and then reiterated that the people on the east coast did not want to see the Dutch East India Company clash with the troops of the king of Yanping, and the island of Taiwan should always be at peace, and anyone who tried to destroy the peace of the island of Taiwan would be vigorously attacked by the Bank of Taiwan and even the colonial government on the east coast. The agreement signed by the two sides on the boundary of the central watershed is sacred, solemn, and has serious legal effect, and it is strictly forbidden for anyone to break it without permission.

Subsequently, he discussed with the grain wholesaler about renewing the three-year grain procurement contract, and the other party agreed and said that he could sign the contract at any time. Han Yin was very satisfied with this, because the original contracts were due to the intensive expiration, and in the past few days, he and several other wholesalers have also negotiated a series of contracts, reiterating the huge demand of the Bank of Taiwan for Nanyang grain, which made a number of agents of the East India Company, which specialized in the grain business, very satisfied. Undoubtedly, this will greatly increase the voice of the local Asian trading faction within the East India Company, and make it slowly fall into the Far East trade dominated by the East coasters.

After finishing the visit, Han Yin had lunch in the villa before returning to the market with two entourage. At this time, a large part of the dyed cloth has indeed been bought, but the price is not high, and it can only be said that it makes up for some losses slightly. At the same time, he also sighed that with the prevalence of trade in the East, the island of Taiwan is indeed getting richer and richer, and even the decent people of those villages and communities can now easily take out a few silver dollars to buy things, which is really impressive. And if it is those who are religious, even if it is an Indian or a Malay, because of their position or power, their spending power is considerable.

"The fruit of this island of Taiwan is getting more and more ripe, not only has some basic and simple industrial facilities, but this person is also a lot richer. It's no wonder that the Zheng family is a little coveted here, hum, and don't pee to see their virtues, Taiwan is such a big island, can you Zheng Jing eat it? Don't be afraid to choke on yourself! Looking at the bustling trading market in front of him, Han Yin thought silently: "If you want to pick this fruit, it won't be your Zheng family's turn!" You better sort out the chaos on this land first, but don't let people be careless, take the old nest, it will really become a lost dog, and there is no value to be used. ”