After the carriage drove into the city, Fan Dimen noticed that the market here was not as lively as in Sanya, and there were not many pedestrians on the streets, but it kept the streets clean and tidy under the rule of Haihan. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 From time to time, you can see a team of five black-clad security policemen on the side of the street, and this kind of posture of waiting for the battle may be related to the visit of the big man Ning Qi.

"It doesn't seem like there are many people in the city. Fan Dimen said casually.

Ning Qi responded: "Most of the people who live in Yacheng now are local officials, and there are representatives of the commercial houses that operate projects here, as well as the personnel we have stationed in Yacheng. As for the migrants who work on plantations outside the city, they live in resettlement villages outside the city, and generally only enter the city when they need to go to the official office. ”

The situation is similar to that of Batavia, where the rich and powerful live inside the city, while fishermen, farmers, and other artisans mostly live outside the city.

Ningqi and Fan Dimen's foothold in Yacheng is the courtyard of the Yacheng Office, but now the Yacheng Office has expanded a lot because of the perfect institutional functions, not only the small courtyard that was bought at the beginning, but also a large piece of land next to it, and a new office compound and residential area have been built. The small courtyard where the original staff of the Cliff Office lived is now only used as a storage warehouse and an archive center.

The Cliff Office has specially prepared two upper rooms, which are only for the chiefs who come here to inspect and live. Although these two rooms may not come in handy all year round, this special treatment is not a financial issue, but a political one, so it has been retained. As a "VIP" invited by the Executive Committee, Van Dimen also enjoyed this special preferential treatment.

The ceramic bathrooms, hot water supply, bedding, and furnishings used in the rooms are all custom-made products that are simply not available on the market, and there are even sockets connected to the batteries so that the heads of the residents can easily use their laptops.

Although Fan Dimen could not quite understand the pursuit of material enjoyment by high-ranking officials such as Haihan, he could still see the quality of these things, such as a full set of blue and white porcelain sanitary ware made by Haihan in the bathroom, if it was auctioned on the market in Batavia, it was estimated that it could be exchanged for 150 to 200 healthy slaves. His personal favorite is the uninterrupted hot water supply in this room, and he can enter the bathtub at any time to soak in a comfortable bath, which is quite a pleasure in the hot and humid Southeast Asia.

There were also several special desserts on the coffee table in the room, and Fan Dimen picked and chose a nougat for a while. However, this sweet didn't seem to suit him, and before he finished eating, he felt two molars begin to ache faintly. Fan Dimen quickly poured a cup of tea and rushed the nougat that had not yet completely melted in his mouth directly into his stomach, which made him feel better.

Fan Dimen rested in the room for a while, and Ning Qi came to invite him to the banquet. During this visit to Hainan Island, Fan Dimen was regarded as having seen the banquet culture of the Haihan people, and every day in addition to breakfast, banquets of different grades and scales were arranged at noon and evening, and the military, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Shipping, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the General Office of the Executive Committee and other units came forward to invite each other in turn. He originally thought that he could avoid these occasions by going out to do an expedition around the island, but he didn't expect that as soon as he arrived at the first stop, Yacheng, there would be a banquet waiting for him.

"Mr. Ning, is this banquet arranged a little too often?" Fan Dimen smiled bitterly: "I have only been here for a few days, and I have participated in the banquet more times than in the past year!"

Ning Qi Zhengse said: "This reception banquet was arranged by the staff of the Cliff Office, and I didn't know beforehand. If we refuse to attend, it's easy to distract the people below, so it's better to attend regularly. ”

Fan Dimen himself is also a powerful figure, so he can naturally understand this kind of relationship in the workplace, so he can only smile bitterly at the moment: "You can go, but you can't drink too much." ”

Eating and drinking is a characteristic of Haihan officialdom, and under the drive of the crossers, the entire bureaucratic system from top to bottom is accustomed to choosing banquets as a place for communication. Because there are many foreign-invested plantations in Yacheng, the Yacheng Office, as a local competent agency, has a lot of dealings with people from all walks of life, eating and drinking are very common activities, and there are special public relations and entertainment expenses in the office budget. When a big leader like Ning Qi goes to the local area to inspect the work, the necessary courtesy and treatment must also be a full set, and the practice of receiving the wind and practicing it can not be done with a working meal. If these red tapes are omitted, even if Ning Qi will not blame, these people in the cliff office will not be at ease.

Of course, Fan Dimen's statement in advance did not succeed in saving himself from the toast relay at the banquet, and although the local Ming officials, representatives of commercial houses and cadres of the Ya Office did not dare to pour Ning Qi's wine, they did not have any scruples about attacking this stupid Western barbarian. The seven or eight people who accompanied him took turns to fight, and after a while, Fan Dimen began to be overwhelmed. If it weren't for Ning Qi to stop it, Fan Dimen would probably have been poured down again.

As a direct consequence of this reception, the local expedition had to be postponed to the next day in order to allow Van Diemen to return to his senses. Ningqi did not rest, and seized the time during this period to listen to the recent work report of the Yayuan Office, and also met with two representatives of investors, with whom they finalized the plan for the reclamation of two new oil crop plantations in the upper reaches of the Ningyuan River north of Yacheng. The two plantations will take about half a year to complete the pre-cultivation and will create more than 400 jobs for the local people.

The next day, Ning Qi took Fan Dimen to visit several local firms, to be precise, these firms are just local offices of foreign investors, and the Qiong Lianfa business consortium behind them is currently the most rich and powerful non-governmental business organization in the South China Sea, and all the sources that the Dutch want to obtain from Northeast Asia, Qiong Lianfa can provide on behalf of them.

Van Dimen seized the opportunity to invite the families to send caravans to Batavia for trade, and said that after the signing of the South China Sea Trade Association agreement, the merchants of Haihan and Ming would also enjoy more favorable tariffs in Batavia. However, his publicity did not achieve too good results, most of the shopkeepers just said a few polite words, or said that they wanted to ask their superiors, and no one would agree to his invitation in front of Ning Qi.

These firms affiliated to Qiong Lianfa have many years of cooperation experience with Haihan, understand the operation of Haihan, and are very sensitive to policies. One of the terms of the agreement between Haihan and the Dutch East India Company was that the Netherlands would abandon its commercial activities north of Ambuna Island, and Haihan would provide it with a list of purchases and a supply of goods. Under the premise that Haihan was clearly trying to monopolize the Dutch's trade rights in Northeast Asia, who would dare to go out on his own to trade with the Dutch without humor?

The Haihan people want to monopolize this part of the trade, of course, in order to obtain higher profits, and Qiong Lianfa, as a non-governmental business organization dependent on the Haihan trade system, will naturally not act against the official. Anyway, when Haihan receives orders from the Dutch, there are many goods that still need to be transferred to them for purchase, and these trading houses don't have to worry about not being able to get revenue from them. And Ning Qi is confident, and of course he will not care about such a futile propaganda campaign by Van Diemen.

Fan Dimen obviously didn't know much about this, otherwise he wouldn't have done useless work against these Qiong Lianfa shareholder firms. But he can also feel from the expressions of these shopkeepers that these efforts have not had much effect, Fan Dimen thinks that this may be because Batavia is not attractive enough to these merchants, after all, Batavia is too far away from the Ming Dynasty, and Sanya, which is run by the Haihan people, is much closer, and if there is no big enough interest, it is indeed difficult to attract Ming merchants to travel to Batavia through the entire South China Sea to trade activities.

At noon that day, several shopkeepers jointly made an east banquet to invite Ning Qi and Fan Dimen, but this time Fan Dimen was determined to hold the position and did not drink. Ning Qi was secretly amused when he looked at it next to him, I am afraid that this Fan Dimen will be allergic to the banquet for a long time after he goes back. After the meal, the shopkeepers led the way, and everyone went out of the city to visit the plantation.

There is still a marked difference between the look and feel of walking in the horse-drawn carriage and the feeling of actually walking into the field, and it is not difficult to notice that there are no fierce foremen with leather whips in the plantations here, and the atmosphere of labor is harmonious. One of the shopkeepers introduced to them: "The price of labor here is slightly more expensive than that of the Ming Dynasty, but there is no unnecessary trouble, and the operation of the plantation must sign a special contract with the Yamen in charge of this part of Haihan, and there are clear regulations for all affairs, and there is no need to buy the land, so the cost of the plantation operation is lower than that of the Ming Dynasty." ”

The "superfluous troubles" mentioned by the shopkeeper mainly refer to the various management fees collected by the government outside the system, but there are not so many messy things under the rule of Haihan. All the local labor hired by the investors is provided by Haihan, and the daily management of these laborers is also taken care of by the civil affairs agency of Haihan, so there is no need for investors to spend extra energy and money.

After hearing this, Van Diemen also secretly compared the plantations operated by the East India Company in the South Seas, but soon found that there was not much comparison between the two, because most of the indigenous people in the areas under the East India Company were very lazy and unwilling to do manual labor for their livelihood, so most of the laborers in the local plantations were Chinese and slave laborers from other places. In this way, it is inevitable that there are some problems that cannot be ignored, one is that there are many barriers to communication caused by cultural differences, and the Dutch have always been unable to handle the relationship with these foreign workers; and the other is that the labor relationship between the two parties is not guaranteed by agreements or regulations, which leads to the lack of enthusiasm for the workers, and the bosses will not have a good reputation for these subordinates who cannot do their jobs without beating or scolding.

From the perspective of the relationship between management and labor alone, the plantations run by the Dutch are certainly not as efficient as the Haihan plantations, and this difference in efficiency is caused by the difference in operating costs. In addition, the Haihan people often carry out deep processing of primary agricultural and forestry products produced on the plantations to produce high-end commodities such as cane sugar, edible oil, and alcoholic beverages, and then sell them in the market for several times the price. In terms of the economic value created by the plantations, the gap between the two sides is indeed quite obvious.

Van Diemen then visited a local sugarcane mill where he used a steam press that he had never seen before, and not only did the crushing speed be much higher than that of human animals, but the specially designed rolls produced nearly 20% more sugar than the traditional process. After seeing the actual operation of the workers, Van Diemen was convinced that he had found the root cause of the unsalable sugar produced in Batavia in the last two years: with the advantages of Haihan's cultivation scale, labor costs and processing technology, the price of cane sugar could be completely controlled below the East India Company's production cost line. As long as Haihan's production can meet the needs of the market, then it is really a hell of a thing if the East India Company's cane sugar can be sold.

"That's really...... Amazing production equipment!" Watching the rumbling press continue to swallow the sugar cane into it, Van Diemen's tone couldn't help but be filled with jealousy.

Regardless of the question, it is known that this kind of strange iron guy will not be allowed to be sold, and the equipment called the "steam engine" made by the Haihan people has been seen a lot in the port of Sanya, and the big iron car running on the railroad tracks in Sanya seems to be driven by this equipment. The effect of this exclusive invention of the Haihan people on the promotion of productivity is obvious, but unfortunately, the principle of this thing has remained a secret to this day. Although the East India Company has been trying to find out the secrets of this machinery and equipment recently, so far there has been no real gain, and the factories that make this equipment are all in Tiandu, the interior of Sanya, which is a military control area that outsiders cannot go to at all, and the risk of sending people to find out the news is too great.

Fan Dimen didn't know that Sanya had just cracked a Spanish espionage case before, although some of his subordinates were lurking in Sanya, but their social status was far inferior to Du Wen, the main culprit in the Spanish espionage case, and he had no way to access the secrets of the level of steam engine manufacturing technology. But he also knows that if this is left unchecked, this thing will make the gap in strength between the two sides widen. (To be continued.) )