Sumatra, outside the city of Medan. A vast rubber garden.

Chen Mingshui was unusually excited. This rubber garden has been planted since five years ago, and this year it is finally ready for rubber tapping.

His father, Chen Jinsheng, originally opened a "Fengxing" foreign company in Singapore, but a few years ago, due to the impact of Nanyang Company and Dongyang Company, trade profits were greatly reduced, and in desperation, he could only follow his eldest brother, Xue Maoyuan, the boss of Malacca, to open a plantation together.

His eldest brother, Xue Maoyuan, has become the largest plantation owner in Malacca, Singapore and other places in Nanyang in the past two years, and the crops planted such as sugarcane, rubber, and medicinal herbs have reached more than 100,000 mu, and the number of Malay planters employed for a long time has reached more than 1,000. And he, because of the lack of funds, also followed the planting of rubber forests.

It just so happened that a few years ago, the Dutch were defeated by the Chinese Empire and withdrew from Sumatra, and a plantation in Medan happened to be reclaimed, and before it could be planted, it was abandoned. Through the relationship of his eldest brother, he set up a line with the Chinese Empire's Jiapitan stationed there, rented this plantation of more than 30,000 acres, and began to plant rubber.

The reason why he planted rubber trees was because the government of the Chinese Empire asked him to plant rubber trees, and he could provide seeds and be exempted from taxes for five years, because of the lack of funds, he readily agreed.

Chen Mingshui divided the 30,000 acres of plantation into three areas, and appointed three fellow Hakka and three Dutch people as the chief and deputy managers of the plantation to help take care of the plantation.

The plantation workers were mainly Malays from the Malay Peninsula, but there were also some Indians and Acehnese native to Medan, Sumatra. Of course, the leaders are the Chinese, followed by the Malays. However, even the higher-ranking Malays and Acehnese, as plantation workers, are still very miserable, starting from 5 days in the morning every day for 12 hours, and sleeping on dirty and simple planks after dark, because the weather is hot, but mosquito bites are inevitable. These plantation workers, though not like slaves, are not much better, the only difference is that they are paid, but if they are disobedient or lazy, they face the threat of losing half of their wages. They had no weekends, no statutory holidays, and the Chinese leaders and Dutch overseers used leather whips and sticks, plus an armed force of more than 10 Chinese patrols all year round, to maintain the rule and operation of the plantations.

However, because of the harsh environment, these planters often only work for half a year and then either quit or ask for a salary increase, which leads to frequent changes in a group of people. As the boss, Chen Mingshui was very helpless, and finally bought hundreds of slaves from the jungle tribes of Java and the Malay Peninsula.

With these slaves, they can be pressed without scruples, for Chen Mingshui, because of the different ethnic groups, he naturally sees these primitive natives as animals, and the purpose is naturally to grow rubber as quickly as possible.

At the beginning, many Malay slaves and Javanese natives couldn't endure the hard work, coupled with the harsh environment, there were many suicides and self-harm, and later, Chen Mingshui disposed of a batch, not to mention the self-harm, directly smeared sugar on the wound and put it in the woods to be eaten by ants, and the miserable appearance of the corpse after being turned into dry bones by the ants was seen by other planting slaves, and they no longer dared to commit suicide and self-harm.

Later, under the guidance of his eldest brother, Chen Mingshui found a good way, which was to use tobacco soil as wages to pay these plantation workers and even slaves to entrap and control them.

Because of the boredom and hard work, day after day, these plantation workers and slaves naturally did not have a good life, and at this time, relatively speaking, the opium, which was known as the relief of worries, naturally became the favorite of the bored plantation slaves, and their pain could only be relieved by this thing. Chen Mingshui's father-in-law, now his eldest brother Xue Maoyuan, was engaged in the opium trade, and at his intentional instigation, Chen Mingshui provided opium chips to these plantation workers and slaves at a relatively low price, so the hearts of these slaves settled down. Under the influence of this fetish, which can most disintegrate people's fighting spirit and paralyze people's pain, Chen Mingshui's plantation is very stable. Except for the first few troubles, the plantation workers and slaves had not made a fuss since the opium was provided as a salary, and they all toiled with great peace of mind, just to enjoy the small packets of tobacco they received each month.

After five years of hard work, the rubber plantations that were planted at the beginning finally began to take shape and were ready to be harvested.

Because of the need to concentrate on rubber tapping, there is not enough manpower, Chen Mingshui hired thousands of indigenous Aceh and Indian Bengali laborers from nearby at a high price, originally he also wanted to pay a high price to invite some obedient Chinese laborers, but now in recent years, the entire Nanyang area of Chinese laborers is becoming more and more scarce, and the value has gradually increased, and the Chinese laborers who do odd jobs have become a rare thing, even if there are occasional, they can be regarded as skilled workers or helper leaders or the like, the price is high, this is also a matter of no way, who made Nanyang become the territory of the Chinese Empire, The wages and benefits of the Chinese have naturally increased, not to mention anything else, just the Chinese language that can speak Hakka or other local dialects is superior. Chen Mingshui had no choice but to hire a large number of local indigenous and cheap Bengali laborers from Medan. Although these people are cheaper than the Chinese, they are much more stupid in their work, and they often cheat and cheat, and their efficiency is completely incomparable with that of Chinese laborers. Therefore, relatively speaking, if it is possible, Chen Mingshui would rather pay a high price for Chinese laborers.

In desperation, he could only ask his eldest brother to provide some technician guidance from Singapore on the Malay Peninsula, but the rubber forest on the eldest brother's side also had to start harvesting, and he had no choice but to hire dozens of Chinese laborers with experience in rubber cutting from Qiongzhou Mansion and other places in Guangdong Province at a high price, however, these Chinese rubber workers can be regarded as technician level, at least in terms of wages, which Chen Mingshui could not invite, or rely on the buyer of rubber - Nanyang Company to come forward to arrange, The company also has its own plantation – which is why dozens of Chinese laborers have been hired to come and give advice.

Thanks to them, otherwise, Chen Mingshui really didn't know that there was so much attention to cutting rubber. Several old Chinese workers with three or four years of rubber tapping experience told Chen Mingshui that after rubber tapping is cut, not only the yield of rubber juice is high, but the rubber tree's own recovery is also fast. If it is well cut, a rubber tree can be cut for decades or even a jiazi, and if it is not cut well, the rubber tree will have to be replanted in a few years or more than ten years. But this rubber tree will be planted for at least five or six years before it can produce some glue, and Chen Mingshui's rubber plantation is not bad, but even if the rubber is produced, it is the first time to produce glue, if it is not for Nanyang Company to need a large amount of rubber, the price is very high, he is not willing to tap rubber this year.

Under the guidance of the technician, the rubber tapping was very smooth. If it weren't for them, Chen Mingshui really didn't know that rubber can't be cut during the day when the temperature is high, and the high temperature will affect the overflow of glue, and all rubber tapping is carried out in the early morning when the temperature is the coolest.

In addition, although the rubber plantation has been reclaimed, because the scope is too large, it is impossible to completely remove the debris, or by a lot of shrubs and weeds, plus this is in the special Medan area, there are many poisonous snakes, and the lighting at night is not good, but also need to carry the holy oil horse lantern to light the lighting, resulting in the labor efficiency of rubber tapping is very low, carefully, collect the glue.

Chen Mingshui's luck is good. He invested more than 400,000 Shengyuan, borrowed 200,000 Shengyuan from the Imperial Industrial and Commercial Bank, and scraped together more than 400,000 Shengyuan of share capital from Malacca and Penang and other Nanyang areas, and invested in this rubber garden, which has now reached the scale of 30,000 acres, although it is estimated that only more than 10,000 acres can be tapped.

After more than two months of busyness, the first batch of rubber tapping goods came out.

A total of about 9,500 acres were cut, each mu was planted a little densely, reaching 40 plants, and each plant cut out of dry rubber is only about 1.2 catties, although the yield is compared with the rubber forest in Qiongzhou, Guangdong, but Chen Mingshui is already very satisfied.

Because of his total amount, these two months, the production of so much rubber, up to 460,000 catties, counted, every other month can be tapped, and then the rubber tree grows up more can be tapped, a year can produce millions of catties or even two million catties of rubber.

And today's raw rubber, Nanyang Company's purchase price is not low, reaching 0.5 saint dollars per catty, that is to say, his rubber forest, this time the rubber production can be sold for 230,000 saint dollars, excluding the cost, at least 150,000 saint dollars. And that's only one-third of the rubber plantation's two-month output. If the entire rubber plantation of 30,000 acres of rubber plantations can be tapped, and the rubber can be continuously tapped, it is expected that the entire investment can be recovered in one or two years.

It's a cash cow! Chen Mingshui's face smiled! This is also thanks to the Chinese Empire, thanks to His Majesty the Great Emperor, otherwise, how could this Medan be under the governance of the Western red-haired devils, how could it be the turn of a Chinese like himself to start a plantation.

Chen Mingshui secretly clenched his fists: he hoped that the empire would become stronger and stronger, and that he could accumulate more wealth and spread this rubber plantation to further places. Thinking of this, Chen Mingshui couldn't help but feel a little strange, because a few days ago, his eldest brother Xue Maoyuan revealed to him that after his rubber plantation was put into production, he would be willing to accept his rubber plantation, and he Xue Maoyuan was ready to give up a few rubber plantations and go to the distant American continent to invest in new industries.

Naturally, he was willing to accept it, but he was a little puzzled: Mo Fei, what could be more profitable than a rubber plantation?

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