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The Ming Empire, which is about to pass, has been Chongzhen for nine years, and continues to leave a number of profound historical memories.

In January, the peasant army led by Gao Yingxiang besieged Chuzhou, and Lu Xiangsheng, a fierce man of the Ming generation, began to come out, sweeping away the resentment of the Ming army being passively beaten by the peasant army in the early stage, and defeated Gao Yingxiang's tens of thousands of rabble with a clean and neat interception battle.

In March, Daming Shanxi and Henan continued to suffer from severe drought, plague, and locust plagues, and people were hungry. Poor Emperor Chongzhen could only allocate 3,500 taels of gold from the treasury to help, as for how much rice and grain could be put into practice in the end, I am afraid that the cabinet bosses themselves are not confident.

In June, the Later Jin regime in the north of the Ming Dynasty changed the name of the country to "Qing", and "I Daqing" officially entered the historical stage. Huang Taiji, who inherited his father's business, finally broke away from the turtle and became the first emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and then the Qing army concentrated its main force and launched the second battle of entering the customs.

Azig, the king of Dorowuying, continued to be proficient and broke through the wall from the Xifeng Pass, and the Ming army was defeated like a mountain. In the following months, the Qing army swept through the Gyeonggi region, and Tianjin and Hebei fell one after another, and hundreds of thousands of Dingkou livestock were taken captive.

At the end of the year, Huang Taiji, who had gained a lot from the Ming Dynasty, no longer had any worries, and commanded the army to conquer North Korea with high spirits. The Qing army that crossed the Yalu River did not care about the painless harassment of the Korean army, and the main force drove south, and it took only 12 days to reach the capital of the Korean king.

The objective geography of the Korean Peninsula determines that there is no shortage of "junjie" who know the current affairs. When the soldiers approached the city, the magnates of the Korean Kingdom, who had been mixed with the Ming Dynasty for hundreds of years, wept bitterly and surrendered, and from then on, the power that could contain the Qing army in the north was completely gone.

The only thing that made the Ming court a little excited that year was that Gao Yingxiang, the leader of the peasant army, was defeated and captured in July of that year, and Sun Chuanting, the governor of Shaanxi, made great contributions, and Gao Yingxiang was escorted to Beijing to be executed.

It is said that a batch of gorgeous flintlock pistols that flowed into the hands of Shaanxi made the firepower of the Ming official army under Sun Chuanting soar, regardless of range, power or accuracy, it was very enjoyable to bully a group of peasant troops. For this reason, Sun Chuanting also wrote to Emperor Chongzhen, asking for more "Miyi self-generated fire". However, for the poor Emperor Chongzhen, the price of a "Miyi self-generated firearm" that has been changed hands many times is enough to make more than 20 ordinary arquebuses of the Ming Dynasty, how can it meet the needs of local officials and soldiers.

Gao Yingxiang was defeated, and his nephew Li Zicheng was elected by the remnants as the new "King Chuang", for the Ming court, perhaps the real broom star of this dynasty has just risen.

……

On December 20, 1636, the 24th day of the winter month of the ninth year of Chongzhen in the Ming Empire.

Zhao Mingchuan set off for Qiongzhou on the day he received the notice from the group headquarters, but waited until today. None of them could find anyone to talk to. Not only is Zhao Youheng, who is "actively waiting for the notice of departure", looking for various reasons to shirk, but even a number of gentry who usually have the best relationship with them deliberately avoid it.

The South China Sea mining business was forced to stop, and the Qiongzhou magistrate, who had always met with "Mr. Zhao is long and Mr. Zhao is short", also seemed to be very unfamiliar. The local government sent soldiers to block the road leading to the mining area, and Zhao Mingchuan was not given the right to go and see the sealed mining equipment.

Except for Liu Yaoyu, who drank heavily all day and didn't say a word, it seems that all the official gentry are privately prepared to deal with Xiong Wencan and Zhao Youheng after they leave.

Zhao Youheng is anxious now, because Isaac, who has the real decision-making power of the Oriental Union Group, is halfway through, and will arrive at Pearl Island in half a month at the latest. If the Nanhai firm, which was invested and supported by the Oriental Union Group behind the scenes, was swallowed up by the local gentry of the two Guangxi provinces in a "game of changing officials", then with the temper of the group's board of directors, it is difficult to say that the incident of bombarding Humen and forcing the death of Wang Zunde, the governor of Liangguang, a few years ago, will not happen again.

China and the United States are integrated with business and government. Zhao Mingchuan has been deeply aware of the use of force to protect overseas business interests and pursue the style of "truth and profit are only within the range of cannons and rifles" over the years.

"Mr. Zhao, in my opinion. It must be the Ding'an royal family who made a ghost! They knew that Xiong Wencan usually supported Zhao Youheng, and Zhao Youheng defended Brother Yu Jiu. In the past, these people surrounded you and Brother Yu Jiu, because they were afraid of Xiong Wencan and Zhao Youheng's face, and the fat water did not flow to outsiders and had a drink. It is a gesture of last resort. Who will really make you and outsiders like Yu Jiu Ge make a fortune in Qiongzhou? Now Xiong Wencan and Zhao Youheng are about to leave the tea, so why don't they hurry up and pick up the group to share the fruit! Damn, they are no different from those gentry in foreign state capitals! ”

"Mr. Zhao. I've been with you for more than ten years, so if you say something against your will, why should we honestly follow Brother Yu Jiu to 'pay' taxes for these people? Co-authored think we have too much money to burn? Maybe they still think that the price includes taxes and profits, and they have to suffer losses and make less money! Even if the tax silver can be handed over to the Qiongzhou government and the palm of the emperor, God knows how many pennies can be left if it falls on the heads of the people of the Ming Dynasty? ”

Qian Laosan, who followed Zhao Mingchuan, slapped the table indignantly in the guest room of an inn in Qiongshan County, scolding and swearing in his mouth.

"Qian Laosan, even in Huamei, doing business and paying taxes is also a law-abiding duty......" Zhao Mingchuan glanced at Qian Laosan, and suddenly felt that he didn't have this follower to understand, but he was still stubborn in his mouth.

"I know that you Zhao always have the heart to do something for the people of Daming, and my third Qian is not without conscience. But Huamei is Huamei, and Daming is Daming...... I just can't figure it out, the treasury of the Ming Dynasty is empty, seeing that all the endowments are added to the heads of the poor people, people can't live, they flee and die, sell their children and daughters, and the people are everywhere, and the official government yamen feels justified? ”

Qian Laosan, who also took risks to sell illicit salt many years ago because of poverty, was already red-eyed at this time, and his hand holding the wine jug was trembling slightly.

The Ming court is short of money, the Ming emperor is short of money, what can he do to protect the people! Zhao Mingchuan sighed deeply and held his forehead helplessly.

"Mr. Zhao, I think, if we can't keep it this time, we have to show them some color! Otherwise, it is not a way to go on like this. Probably you don't want to see the board of directors of the group end up or not return the capital, and pick up the national government to raise troops to the east, right?! Last year, the government fought with those Europa countries in the west and grabbed back tens of millions of losses! After pouring a sip of wine, Qian Laosan seemed to be drunk and courageous, and stood up suddenly.

"Huh?" Zhao Mingchuan was stunned for a moment, and his heart jumped inexplicably.

……

In Qiongzhou at the end of the ninth year of Chongzhen, sugarcane, ramie, cotton and coconut harvested again. If it was in previous years, it must have been a whole vehicle to Danzhou, Yazhou or Qiongshan wharf. Then there was the inspection and delivery process of the Ya Shops, Nanhai Firms and Dongfang Industrial Company, and finally hundreds of thousands of pieces of silver flowed into the pockets of the gentry in Qiongzhou.

But I don't know what's wrong, but in a day or two, the errand offices of the dental shops and Nanhai firms in charge of the inspection suddenly found that Miyi, who was usually neat, had actually returned to the ship. No matter how much cargo had piled up on the wharf, the delivery process of a qiē commodity was stopped on the grounds of "corporate business adjustment", and even some of the Huamei seafood that had been used to offset the accounts in previous years was stopped.

Without further explanation, after one night, the gorgeous merchant ships anchored in various parts of Qiongzhou quietly disappeared, leaving only a group of dazed people at the wharf.

Most of the cotton, which was harvested a month or two earlier, has already been shipped. But almost ninety percent of the sugar cane, coconuts, and hemp were left on the docks, making people anxious in the sun and rain.

In the seven years of reclamation of Xintian, except for a small number of self-sufficient agricultural workshops, there is simply not enough manpower and technology to establish the deep processing of bulk raw materials. Huamei suddenly stopped the purchase of raw materials and the import of goods, which made the squires of Qiongzhou, who had invested a lot of manpower and financial resources in the past year to expand raw materials and crops and organize the sales of seafood, instantly dumbfounded.

One day, two days, three days...... A week later. Coconut, cotton, and hemp are good things to say, and the sugar cane piled up in the open air has already emitted a sour "wine aroma" after the natural fermentation of sugar. Seeing the sugarcane harvested after a hard year rotting in vain, the hearts of the farmers and laborers waiting by the dock were dripping blood.

Find a way to ship it out and sell it yourself? The combined capacity of all local maritime merchants in Qiongzhou will not be able to transport 30% in about ten and a half days. At the Qiongzhou wharf, who else can compare to the kind of gorgeous giant ship that can be used as ten ships of cargo in the Ming Dynasty? And even if there is enough capacity, it is a pipe dream to find the next home that can take over millions of taels of silver raw materials immediately.

Ordinary people naturally didn't know what was going on, but they knew that they must have committed Tai Sui this year. Approaching the end of the year, he suffered a curse for no reason. The accounts of the Ya Shops and the South China Sea Firms in various places were silent, and the stewards of the other squires were even more pale.

……

"It's so deceitful! It's on the head of my Wang family! ”

In the exquisite and elegant study, the old man in charge of the Ding'an Wang family slapped the bookcase. was so angry that his white beard was trembling, and the other Qiongzhou gentry who were standing around and came to say bitter were even more arrogant.

"Don't be angry, Lord Wang, I guess it's Zhao Mingchuan who came up with this trick that hurts others and is not beneficial to himself when he sees that no one cares about it." The patriarch of the Huang family in Ding'an hurriedly gave up his hand to consol him, and while secretly squeezing his eyes at those who had made an appointment, "Actually, Lord Wang also thought about the safety of his son-in-law, so he came forward to protect the Nanhai business." Speaking of which, the Nanhai business has been the in-law of our Qiongzhou father and elder at the beginning, and they usually take good care of it! ”

"My son-in-law has an eye for business, but he doesn't know the hard work of the local fathers, hey, I also favor him too much on weekdays." The old man of the Wang family sighed, and while sitting down, he looked around at the local gentry present, "I really can't bear to see the elders of Qiongzhou suffer such a big loss this time, I asked you to come today, just to think about how to deal with it?" ”

You can't bear it? Do you think your Wang family has lost the most this time? Several squires led by the Huang family in Ding'an were sneering in their hearts, but they still had a flattered expression on their faces.

Xiong Wencan and Zhao Youheng's destined departure made the Nanhai business "protective acceptance" by the squires of the two Guangzhou Prefectures headed by the Wang family in just one month. The assets of nearly one million taels of silver were redistributed by the Wang family's own standards, and even swallowed up the proportion of investment that belonged to Liu Yaoyu and the Oriental Union Group in disguise. I thought everyone was happy, but it lost the value of continued use overnight, which made many gentry of the two Guangxi who participated in the shares secretly angry.

The Wang family took it for granted that after Liu Yaoyu obediently presented the Nanhai merchant with both hands this time, he would become the real gentry leader in Qiongzhou and even Liangguang, but he didn't expect Huamei businessmen to give him such a trick. The Nanhai firm paid half of the deposit to the farmers on the front foot, and Huamei stopped trading on the back foot.

If the Wang family does not handle it well this time, it means that the benefits promised in private will not only not be fulfilled, but also make everyone suffer huge losses, and the status and influence of the Wang family in Liangguang will inevitably be severely frustrated, and it may even be squeezed out by the embarrassed and angry gentry of Liangguang.

Now the Wang family is most afraid. It was Huamei who simply completely put aside the Nanhai business and the Wang family, and privately reached a cooperation agreement with these Qiongzhou squires and even people from other state capitals in Liangguang, so that the Wang family had to get an empty shell with a lot of effort.

"Lord Wang, I think it's better to ask someone to come forward and talk to Zhao Mingchuan?" A man stood up timidly, bowed his head and whispered.

The person who stood up was a confidant sent by the Ding'an County Order, and the Ding'an County Order, as an official who actively promoted the purchase of land by the Nanhai Firm, had also invested a large amount of private money in the Nanhai Firm in the past two years.

"It's okay, this kind of Miyi Fan Shang is a barbarian nature. Seeing profit and forgetting righteousness is unpopular, and it is necessary for people to understand things. Seeing that everyone was peeking at each other, the old man of the Wang family knew that they already had the idea of private contact, but he didn't dare to act because of his own existence.

"Then, there should be a certain way for the son-in-law...... Ding'an Huang family saw that the Wang family had expressed their position, and they also hurriedly reminded.

Yu'er felt that Lord Zhao was leaving, and her thoughts were restless. Autism at home. Hey, even for the sake of my daughter, the old man will go to see it with a thick old face. The old man of the Wang family sighed deliberately. Still looking innocent.

……

On January 5, 1637, the tenth day of the ninth month of Chongzhen in the Ming Empire.

The biggest difference between the Ming squires and the Ming bureaucrats is that the former is more able to bend and stretch, while the latter has to be stubborn for the sake of the superficial "etiquette and legal system". From this point of view. The Ming squires who were well-connected with officials and businessmen were not fundamentally different from the European businessmen who calculated the gains and losses.

Although the time dragged on for almost half a month, almost half of the sugarcane that had been harvested in Qiongzhou was rotten, but once it was sold, it was still profitable for the squires of Qiongzhou. After difficult negotiations, the business delegation of Huamei Oriental Union Group led by Qian Laosan reached a final settlement agreement.

OUCC respects the change in equity of Qiongzhou Nanhai Company, but the new management of Nanhai Group must also respect the investment interests of OUCC Group, and Liu Yaoyu must continue to be the head of business dealings. Regarding this article, as the mastermind behind the negotiation in Qiongzhou, the Wang family can only agree, after all, Liu Yaoyu is still the son-in-law of the Wang family, and he still has to rely on the support of Qiongzhou to continue.

In exchange, the Oriental Union Group and the Nanhai firm will cancel the unilateral tax-inclusive calculation in the future purchase of raw materials and the wholesale of seafood, and will no longer overstep the responsibility to "pay" taxes for the Qiongzhou squire. Local officials in Qiongzhou do not feel that there is any problem with this. In fact, whether or not to pay taxes has no effect on their interests at all, but it is just that the money falls into their hands in what name and through what channels. In contrast, it is more prudent to take a card in the collection of taxes and silver, and it is better to join forces with the local squires to share dividends.

Finally, in order to show the friendly attitude of reconciliation, OUCC Group will have an appropriate floating discount on the general agent price of products given to local firms in Qiongzhou in the future. For this point, the Qiongzhou gentry who had to swallow part of the losses this year can be regarded as having compensation.

According to the plan set a few years ago, Qian Laosan also gave the Qiongzhou squire a carrot to hang his appetite: in the next five years, the production techniques of some Huamei seafood will be transferred by public auction in Qiongzhou.

In fact, as for the technology of refining granulated sugar, some people in Qiongzhou have been secretly trying, but either the purity of refining is not as good as that produced on Huamei Pearl Island, or the cost is too high, and it is better to make jaery sugar. For such a large-scale and cheap refining supply of Huamei refined sugar, the local squires in Qiongzhou were also puzzled.

And the gorgeous cotton and linen blended fabric is even more exaggerated, the quality of the feel is far beyond the local cotton cloth produced in the Ming Dynasty and Guangzhou, the width is almost five times that of the Ming cotton cloth, and one horse can be worth five horses of the Ming Dynasty. The purchase price of Daming cotton cloth is at least two dollars and two cents of silver, and the Huamei cotton and linen blended cloth is converted into the same number of Daming horses, the purchase price is only two coins of silver, and the price of large quantities will be preferential, and Daming cotton cloth has no competitiveness at all in front of this gorgeous opponent.

A number of advanced industrial equipment such as combine harvesters, cotton gins, spinning machines, and oil presses driven by accumulation, as well as projects such as refined sugar, cement bricks, and honeycomb coal...... The incense bait thrown by Qian Laosan suddenly caused an uproar at the negotiation table, which is equivalent to sending a group of God of Wealth!

When the time comes, what qiong yarn, qiong sugar, qiong oil, and qiong mud will not let the squires of Qiongzhou make money? A large number of promises that sounded like the sound of silver clashing made the eyes of those present light up. Even the Wang family began to regret whether the decision they made was too hasty, and the participation of the squires in other state capitals in Liangguang was a bit of a wolf in the room.

In any case, Zhao Mingchuan's tightrope-like strategy finally saved the hard work of the Oriental Union Group and Liu Yaoyu, and a turmoil in Qiongzhou brought about by the departure of Xiong Wencan and Zhao Youheng finally subsided, which also made Isaac, the general manager of Oriental Industrial Company, who rushed to Pearl Island a few days later, feel that he had come in vain.

And the only unlucky guy in this matter is probably Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, in previous years, Xiong Wencan was able to get a large amount of commercial taxes from Qiongzhou, maybe from the day he left office, there were few left.

When the news was transmitted back to the headquarters of the Oriental Union Group, Ren Changle and others were happy and happy, but they also felt that the Far East business was now uncontrollable and passive, and the excessively high expectations given to the Hainan gentry may not be able to ensure that the interests are foolproof, and all the eggs cannot be put in one basket.

At present, Wu Yuanyi is in charge of the cabinet and pursues an expansionist national policy, and the liberal faction has a much greater voice in the Diet than before, and as long as he agitates in the Cabinet or the Diet under the banner of overseas expansion, there is basically no resistance. Therefore, looking for a new Daming port that can be actively mastered has become the direction that the Oriental Union Group needs to boldly implement next, so a historical place name has quietly entered the sight of some people. (To be continued)