The sale of smuggled salt is nothing more than an idea to increase the production capacity of the salt works here in Shengli Port, and the monthly trading volume of 50 tons is not even a pressure for the cargo fleet that currently has eight 400 ships, which only needs to be loaded by one ship. (Baidu search update is the fastest and most stable) Now that the other party has offered a very generous price, this is simply fat meat delivered to the mouth, and Heitu Port naturally agreed to it first. However, there are too many aspects involved in the arms trade, and the Heitu Port Management Committee does not dare to make its own decisions, so it first reported the news back and waited for the Executive Committee to make a decision.

This is really great news for the Executive Committee. Arms sales to Vietnam were originally one of the foreign trade strategies formulated by various departments at the beginning of the crossing, and the civil war between the north and south of Vietnam, which lasted for several years, was definitely a very good opportunity for the cross-border group that needed to quickly accumulate the first pot of gold. Although the export of arms is similar to the export of salt in terms of commercial nature, its political and military significance is very different from that of the salt trade.

Several high-level members of the Executive Committee had already unified their understanding when formulating the development strategy before the crossing, believing that the future cross-crossing group would definitely not be limited to Hainan Island, and it would be a matter of time before it expanded to the world, but how to control other regimes in the process of outward expansion is a matter worth studying. Killing and killing every place they conquered, as the Mongols did, this kind of brainless genocide was clearly not a way for the Crossing Group to accept. The Executive Committee was of the view that, as was the case with several later powers, the military and economic control of the contracting States, allies, and client states was a preferable solution in the future development of the Transit Group.

This method is far less expensive than relying on war to conquer the other side, and it is not easy to arouse national hatred, which is very much in line with the comprehensive expansion plan of "cultural stage, economic singing, and military control" in the eyes of the Executive Committee. Coupled with the fact that the Crossing Group itself has a large amount of Zenith technology in its hands, it is relatively less difficult to implement this plan, and the technological gap of nearly four hundred years is something that other regimes in this time and space cannot catch up with in any case. Compared with the large and unshakable Ming Empire, the smaller Nanyang States are undoubtedly the best testing ground for this expansion plan.

When the military industry department is constantly experimenting with the production of new equipment, almost every type of weapon has developed a version for its own use and a version for export for foreign trade at the same time. The last time Li Nai visited Shengli Port, the crossing group had successfully sold the first batch of monkey version of the artillery specially for sale, this kind of artillery not only has a shorter range than the self-used version, but also the design service life is only about a little more than half of the self-used version, the most terrible thing is that if you do not use the special granular gunpowder and fire tube specially made by the military industry department of the crossing group, then the actual combat effectiveness of this monkey version of the artillery will be greatly affected. If the buyer wants to maintain the normal combat effectiveness of these guns, he must buy these expensive accessories from the crossing group for a long time, and the same is true for muskets.

In this way, although the forces using Haihan's weapons seem to have greatly increased their military strength, they will always be subject to the crossing group due to the subsequent ammunition supply problems. And from an economic point of view, this kind of follow-up costs should not be underestimated, according to the accounting of the military industry, the follow-up ammunition cost of the monkey version of the weapon in the normal service life will definitely not be lower than the initial purchase price, and the actual cost of ammunition will not be higher than the weapon itself, which is almost equivalent to selling a batch of weapons to make money twice.

Compared with the Fujian side at this time, which was dominated by naval battles and local battles between fighting and interval, the scale of the civil war on the Vietnamese side, which lasted for several years and caused millions of casualties, was undoubtedly much larger. Although the Vietnamese monkey soldiers were still heavily equipped with bamboo and wood weapons at this time, and firearms were rarely used on the battlefield, this was good news for the Crossing Group, because it meant that there was a huge potential blank market in front of the Crossing Group. What's more, the historical adviser Ning Qi also pointed out that the French missionaries should have begun to operate in southern Vietnam at this time, and muskets from Europe would soon appear on the battlefield of the civil war.

Unlike the predecessors who rushed north to participate in the competition for the Central Plains, the Executive Committee believed that the foothold of the Haihan Crossing Group should first focus on the South China Sea, and then consider the matter of seizing power on the mainland after it has developed to a certain scale. The so-called certain size can be simply understood as population and resources. According to the calculations of the Executive Committee, in order to participate in the struggle for hegemony on the mainland, at least more than 50,000 army soldiers and a navy capable of controlling the waters south of the Yangtze River estuary would be needed, and this scale would continue to expand with the increase in the occupied areas. The population base required to support so many soldiers is huge, and the existing population of Hainan Island is still far from the same. Without enough population, even if the Crossing Group had coal and iron under its name, it would not be productive enough to supply such a large army.

In view of these realities, in the development plan formulated by the Executive Committee, the first and foremost task is the population import, and the second is resources.

Since the crossing, the main channel of population import has been from Yazhou. According to the latest census released by the human resources department in September, the number of naturalized people in the district, which has exceeded 3,000, is about 75 percent from the Yazhou area, including exiled prisoners and mountain people of the Li and Miao ethnic groups imported from Yazhou City.

10% of the people are from Danzhou, Qiongzhou Fucheng and Wenchang to the north of Yazhou, and these immigrants are mainly from various merchants and dental organizations contacted by the Yazhou Office, and even the families of soldiers under Luo Shengdong. Luo Shengdong has not only made a fortune by making private salt now, but also the group of people who follow him have already made a lot of money. Of course, these people knew that if they were caught doing this business, they would have to lose their heads, and their families would inevitably be implicated, so some of them had the audacity to simply move their families to Shengli Port to settle down. They are all very aware of the policy of the Haihan people, as long as they are willing to be obedient and do things, they will definitely not be hungry when they arrive at Shengli Port, and the Haihan people will arrange food, clothing, housing and transportation and other affairs. Even Luo Shengdong inquired several times with a few familiar executive committee members, wondering when there would be real estate for sale in Shengli Harbor, and he was also ready to set up a foothold here just in case.

Another 10 percent were from Vietnam, and most of them arrived at the port of Black Soil and then on a coal ship. Compared to those who stayed in Black Earth Harbor, these people were undoubtedly more fortunate to be able to come to the base camp. Most of these people are war orphans selected by the Black Earth Port Management Committee in accordance with the requirements of the Executive Committee, and after arriving in the local area, they will be directly assigned to the Scout camp after the purification procedures of sanitary isolation and become a member of the Haihan military system.

The remaining 5% are immigrants from the mainland, and these people are basically down-and-out craftsmen recruited by "Fu Ruifeng", including Zhang Tiangui, the chief naturalized technician of the shipyard. The number of these people is small, but most of them have a skill, and they quickly get a better life after coming to Victory Port.

As for the 100-odd or so people who are still alive in the labor camps, according to the Regulations on the Administration of Naturalized Persons formulated by the Executive Committee, these people do not enjoy the rights of naturalized people, and they will not be counted in the number of naturalized people in the census.

In addition to these naturalized people, there are currently about 500 to 600 people in the Victory Port area who have not yet obtained naturalized citizenship qualifications. Some of these people are mountain people who are only willing to work for a short period of time, and some of them have not yet completed the quarantine procedures after arriving in Hong Kong. These people, together with the more than 400 people of the Crossing Group, brought the actual total population of the area controlled by the Crossing Group to more than 4,000 people.

Six months, 4,000 people, that's the demographic situation after half a year. For the Executive Committee, this is a little faster than previously expected, and it was expected that it would not be reached until at least the end of the year, but now it is two months ahead of schedule. But for the current rate of production development, the population is still far from sufficient. Not to mention anything else, the development plan for the new salt farm in Tielu Port alone requires at least 500 people, and the current establishment of the salt farm commune is only about 500 people, and the human resources department headed by Ning Qi is having a headache about this.

How to obtain a large number of people in a short period of time is a topic that the relevant departments have been studying before and after the crossing. The population of Hainan Island is unevenly distributed between the north and the south, most of the population is in the north, and the population in the south is relatively small. However, this idea is obviously unrealistic, and being an enemy of the Ming Dynasty is not the choice that the crossing group should make at present, and the existence of the local government in Yazhou can also be a good cover for the crossing group whose wings are not yet full, and it is not technically difficult to achieve the attack on Yazhou, but the actual significance is to do more harm than good.

In the same vein, it is almost impossible to acquire a large number of people from any city on Hainan Island in a short period of time, and although a number of people come to Victory Harbor by boat from the north every month, this is indeed too slow for the Crossing Group.

After leaving Hainan Island, there are only two closest places, one is the mainland, and the other is Vietnam. It is not impossible to move in a large number of immigrants from the mainland, but now that South China is still basically in a period of peace, it would be tempting to let people leave their homes and settle on an island without attracting the attention of the government, but this will undoubtedly greatly increase the cost of emigration. Therefore, the current immigration policy of the Executive Committee on the mainland is still mainly based on craftsmen and sailors, supplemented by a charity set up by the Guangzhou Office in Guangzhou, to collect immigrants from the mainland on a small scale in a targeted manner. Given the current capacity between the two places and the influence of the Guangzhou Office, the number of migrants who can be sent back to Shengli Port each month is probably only a hundred.

Looking in the other direction, the cost of emigration from Vietnam through the group was relatively low, and the civil war led to a large number of war refugees fleeing from the war zone. In the first month of development, more than 3,000 refugees were brought in from Vietnam's coastal areas, and its population growth rate was much faster than that of the base camp. According to a comprehensive analysis by relevant departments, because of the protracted civil war in Vietnam, the potential for obtaining immigrants from the local area is still very large. These refugees who fled their homes often had to choose to board the sea ship that crossed the group for the sake of a stable environment, and went to Heitu Port or Shengli Port, and all they needed to pay for crossing the group was the freight and food consumption on the road, and it was even lower than the immigration cost of Yazhou prisoners.

There is another benefit of Vietnamese immigrants that cannot be ignored, and that is the sense of cultural closeness and identity. Most of these immigrants speak the dialects of the Liangguang region, and there is no big language barrier, which is more conducive to arranging their production and life in the Shengli Port area, and it is easier for them to integrate into the local society. Although there was still a group of anti-Vietnamese elements led by Yan Chujie in the early days, when these people saw that the Vietnamese immigrants brought back were almost no different from the Ming people in the Liangguang region at this time in terms of clothing, appearance, and language, and even a considerable number of them could directly talk to each other in Chinese, this opposition gradually disappeared. After all, Vietnam at this time did not even have its own spoken and written language, and these immigrants would no longer have any national identity to adhere to after coming to Victory Port.

As trade with the North Vietnamese regime began, the Executive Committee felt that simply relying on a few coal carriers once or twice a month to pull people back was no longer enough to meet the needs of the country's growing development, and that it was necessary to find ways to improve the efficiency of the Vietnamese import. And the best way to do this may be to start with the means of trade, such as directly exchanging salt or arms for people.

Of course, in the final analysis, trade is only a means, and the solution to the migration problem must be examined from a higher perspective. The Executive Committee believes that the relationship with Vietnam should still take a long-term view and simply think about how to control the situation in Vietnam so that the local government can more "voluntarily" send the population to Haihan.

In this way, the question goes back to the beginning, how should the crossing group grasp the proportions of dealing with external regimes, whether it should fight or control, and how to attack and what means should it use if it wants to achieve the goal of controlling it.

If you want to control the situation in Vietnam, it is nothing more than the several ways mentioned before, political, economic, cultural, and military. This road can be regarded as a dead end for the current Vietnam, whether it is north or south, now it is the powerful ministers who are in charge, and people don't even sell the face of their own emperor, how can it be possible to let foreign forces intervene in the domestic political situation, so this road is almost impassable.

Economically, there are many ways to do it, such as the current smuggling of table salt, which is a good channel for intervention. But the problem is that economic influence through guò trade is not something that can be achieved overnight, not to mention that the salt production capacity of the Crossing Group is still very limited, and even if the production capacity is large enough to be infinitely supplied, it is still impossible to influence the economy of a country with a single product. Only by diversifying products in the future and gradually introducing the economic system of Haihan in trade with Vietnam will it be possible to slowly exert influence on his regime with the help of some financial means.

Culture, like the economy, is also a soft method that produces slow results, and it is difficult to achieve results without a few years of work. The French had been preaching in Vietnam since the beginning of the 17th century, and began to establish their influence in the country through cultural imports, but until the Franco-Vietnamese War two hundred years later, the effect of this cultural import was still not obvious, and the French invaders still encountered stubborn resistance from the local guerrillas organized by the local people. And this war also fully shows that it will be difficult for foreign colonists to subjugate this country that is soft on the outside and strong on the inside, relying on purely cultural or military means.

Of course, the Executive Committee, which has hundreds of years of experience, has another military means at its disposal, and that is to control the opponent's armament. This is a means that is customary for technologically advanced military powers in later generations, whether it is sales or assistance, and it can be regarded as a relatively peaceful means of military control by controlling a regime's armaments to exert influence on its domestic political situation, supplemented by the establishment of military bases, the formulation of common defense plans, and so on, so that some relatively weak regimes can be more effectively controlled.

At the beginning, the Executive Committee had such a plan for the arms export trade, and now the Black Earth Port has sent back the news that the other side intends to purchase arms, which has undoubtedly provided an opportunity for the implementation of this strategic means. Whether considered from an economic, political, or military point of view, the Crossing Group could not afford to let go of such a good opportunity to intervene in the political situation in Vietnam. The next question is to send people to negotiate with the Vietnamese, and what arms the other side needs, how we should set the price, how we should deal with it, and what conditions we should impose on this arms trade, all of which must be decided after the representatives sent to negotiate with the Vietnamese side.

When it comes to business, Schneider is the first in the group, but Schneider is now busy in Guangzhou, and he has no skills for a while. Besides, even if they wanted to pick him up, it would still take about a week to send a fast sailing boat back and forth, and the Executive Committee did not intend to wait so long in vain. After internal discussions, the Executive Committee decided to organize a special delegation to Vietnam to discuss the matter, and out of prudence, the delegation would be led by Tao Donglai himself, so that decisions could be made on the spot on certain important issues during the negotiation process. Of course, in order to implement the spirit of democracy, this decision-making power was also sold to Tao Donglai after the unanimous vote of the Executive Committee.