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After Ning Qi threw out this plan, there was a lot of discussion in the conference hall. ∮ ∮ ∮ Xiao∮ said that these people here have a certain understanding of the current situation, and they can naturally immediately associate the feasibility of such a plan and the impact it will bring.

As far as the current cooperative relationship between Haihan and the Fujian government is concerned, it is not too much of a problem for Haihan to station a certain scale of troops in Fujian, and let the local government give certain convenience, or even let the Ming army in Fujian cooperate with the action. After all, Haihan's continuous military assistance to Fujian in recent years was not in vain, and the local forces in Fujian headed by Xu Xinsu still had a very high degree of trust in Haihan, and at the same time, they also gave Haihan many preferential conditions in terms of trade and immigration. However, such special treatment is only limited to Fujian, especially in southern Fujian, where the Xu Xinsu family is in power, and further north, it is not comparable to the influence it has in Fujian.

"Mr. Ning, it's easy to talk on paper, but it's not so simple to operate in practice. Even if Xu Xinsu and the Fujian government are willing to help, this errand is not good. Schneider, who had not spoken, finally joined the discussion: "The Fujian government asked the imperial court to send troops to Shandong to suppress bandits, which seems to me to be unrealistic. According to the situation you mentioned earlier, is there really nothing that can be done with Kong Youde in Shandong? He only has a city and thousands of soldiers in his hands, and if the Ming really can't do anything about him, why did he have to flee across the sea later? He started the incident in August this year and did not flee to Liaodong until the second half of the second year. And the local government does not necessarily welcome the army from other places to suppress the bandits and quell the chaos, God knows who is the soldier and who is the bandit in the end, don't forget that Kong Youde's men and horses are the guest army from Liaodong!"

Although Schneider did not know much about the history of the late Ming Dynasty, half of his insights came from his feelings when he came into contact with Ming officials in the Guangzhou Office, and half from his thoughts after listening to Ning Qi's previous explanation, but he accidentally hit one of the key points of the problem.

First of all, one of the reasons for the mutiny of Kong Youde's troops was indeed the supply problem caused by the contradictions in the army caused by the foreign origin of his troops. If his troops were not guest troops, they would not have recklessly burned, killed and plundered in Shandong after the incident. This also directly led to the further rejection of foreign troops by the local government and the people, and it was difficult for foreign troops to enter Shandong to fight, and it was difficult for them to get local cooperation.

Second, the delay in alleviating the situation on the ground has a lot to do with the slow response of all quarters and the fear of war. A few months after Kong Youde's mutiny, the imperial court did not come up with a clear plan to deal with it, and it was not until Kong Youde took Dengzhou in early 1632 that the imperial court hurriedly appointed Xu Congzhi as the governor of Shandong, stationed in Laizhou to block Kong Youde's westward route.

When Kong Youde besieged Laizhou, Liu Tongzhu, the general soldier who was ordered to lead troops south from Beijing to rescue, arrived in Shandong but refused to participate in the war. After such a drag, Kong Youde recruited more than 3,000 of his original subordinates from Liaodong Phi Island to join the rebellion. Xu Congzhi and others worked hard in Laizhou for several months, but the reinforcements they were waiting for stopped at 40 miles away from Laizhou, and the general soldiers Deng Yu, Wang Hong and others waited for the imperial court's appeasement measures to succeed.

However, the imperial court's appeasement policy did not play a role, but the deputy capital Yu Shi Xie Lian and Zhu Wannian, the prefect of Laizhou, who carried out this order to negotiate with the German army, were also captured. By the time the Ming court realized that the negotiations had broken down, that it was useless to appease them, and that military means were necessary to solve the problem, the governor of Shandong and the prefect of Laizhou had already died on the battlefield. It wasn't until Wu Sangui's father, Wu Xiang, led his troops to fight over that he finally relieved the siege of Laizhou. At this time, nearly a year has passed since Kong Youde's uprising.

At that time, the imperial court sent troops from the surrounding provinces to quell the rebellion, and there were four or five high-ranking officers such as the general soldiers, and the number of troops was several times that of the rebels. However, the battle to quell the chaos was a mess, and a bunch of civilian, military and military generals died in the chaos, and the eastern coastal areas of Shandong were all in ruins, and hundreds of people were displaced as a result, and the losses were very heavy. In this process, quite a few troops from other places entered Shandong to quell the rebellion, but not many really played a role. Although the combat strength of the Haihan militia is strong, it is difficult to ensure that it can exert its due combat effectiveness on the battlefield if it goes to such a distant place to fight away from home, and it is very likely that it will not be able to get the coordination of friendly forces and local support.

Ning Qi naturally knew the details of this period of history, so he had nothing to argue with Schneider's question, so he could only cough dryly and said: "Actually, I just proposed a solution, as for whether it is feasible, it still depends on how the military judges." ”

Yan Chujie waved his hand and said, "I thought about it again just now, I really can't do this." The reasons Schneider said just now are not mentioned, the vast majority of the soldiers in our army are southerners, and it is difficult for them to quickly adapt to the local food and climate when they suddenly go thousands of miles north to carry out combat missions. If there is a large-scale water and soil inadequacy in the army at that time, let alone fighting, how to safely withdraw will be a big problem. ”

"Your army can't do it, so why did you build a navy to go north just now? It's as if the people in our navy are all northerners. Wang Tom grabbed Yan Chujie's handle this time and immediately took a bite: "I didn't have time to refute you just now, but I was brought over by them." The naval forces have been conducting training in the South China Sea, and you will go to Shandong to carry out the mission with a word, and if you go there and fold the ship's manpower, will I carry this pot or you?"

"Okay, okay, let's get down to business, don't digress. Tao Dong saw that the two were about to fight again, and hurriedly came out to extinguish the fire: "As far as the matter is concerned, with our current situation, it is indeed a bit too anxious to send troops to the north in the coming year." The starting point of Ningqi's plan is good, but the practical difficulties raised by the military are also objective, and I believe that in the coming year, we must first maintain steady development, first seek stability, and then seek development. Expanding our sphere of influence to the north is our future development direction, and it is also an established policy to assist the Ming Dynasty in maintaining its rule on the mainland for a period of time to come, but there is no need to take too many risks to do something that we are still unable to do. ”

Speaking of this, Tao Donglai turned to Ning Qi and said, "Do you think there is a need for a vote?"

The executive committee members were all one-sidedly opposed, and Ning Qi was not interested in continuing to stick to his plan at this time, shaking his head and saying: "Since everyone thinks that the time is not ripe, there is no need to vote again." However, I think we can still think of a way to introduce immigrants, after all, this is not as good as sending troops to fight, and we don't necessarily need to do it ourselves. As long as we are willing to pay, I believe that someone will take this job. ”

"I agree. Schneider agreed with Ningqi's suggestion this time: "We can start to contact businessmen in Fujian, Jiangsu and Zhejiang now, and see if any of them are willing to do it." ”

"Transporting people from such a long distance is not a small expense. Gu Kai immediately reminded.

Schneider smiled: "As the person in charge of the money bag, of course, the first thing I have to consider is the cost. First of all, we have our own food source, which can solve the food consumption during transportation at a relatively low cost. Second, we can exchange industrial goods for immigrants, and whoever sends us immigrants will be valued according to the population, and the specified varieties of industrial goods will be used instead of gold and silver as a means of payment. ”

"As you all know, we have a lot of industrial products in Daming that are selling very well, and the orders signed at the Autumn Fair also fully prove this. We can use this as a condition to win more maritime merchants to transfer refugees from the north for us. Schneider continued: "Let me give you an example of the advantages of this, if we were to pay a thousand taels of silver for a group of immigrants to the merchants we worked with, but if we were to use industrial goods as a means of payment, the actual value of the industrial goods to us would be much less than a thousand taels, because we would only have to consider the cost of their production. For the merchants who got this batch of industrial products, the actual market value was higher than 1,000 taels, as long as they transported them to Daming and sold the goods. ”

"We don't have to worry about the consumption of precious metals in stock, and the maritime merchants of Daming will also actively participate in this plan because they can exchange refugees for value-added goods. This is a win-win situation for both sides, I understand it correctly, right?" Tao Donglai immediately understood the beauty of Schneider's method.

"If necessary, we can also lower the price so that the price of refugees to Huàn industrial goods is slightly lower than our normal selling price, so that more businessmen can join us and get them to be more active in scavenging for homeless refugees." Schneider continued: "We don't need to worry about the adverse impact of such price reductions on our earnings, in fact, as long as the labor force on Hainan Island can be rapidly expanded, the production cost of many industrial products will further decrease with the increase in production capacity." ”

"If there is a large influx of immigrants in the short term, will we be able to produce enough food to feed them?" asked Gu Kai.

"There is no big problem in this regard. The person in charge of the Ministry of Agriculture, Yuan Qiuye, answered. Although the corresponding executive committee seat of the Ministry of Agriculture is his father Yuan Ruoxiu, but as the old man Yuan gets older, his physical condition has gradually begun to decline, and he will not even attend the meeting in person recently, and Yuan Qiuye is more likely to be the representative.

Yuan Qiuye continued: "After we unified Hainan Island, there was a large amount of arable land in the eastern and northern coastal areas that could be used to build collective farms and promote grain cultivation. Even if the population of Hainan Island doubles in the coming year, the food supply will be able to keep up. You must know that in the previous era, the annual grain output of Hainan Island was about 2 million tons, and although it is impossible for us to reach that level, as long as we maintain the current rate of increase in grain planting area and there are no major natural disasters, it will not be difficult to feed one or two million people on the island in the future. ”

Schneider also added: "Take 10,000 steps back and say, if there is a shortage of food supply in the short term, we still have two places in Annam and Champa that can import a lot of grain." We don't even have to pay cash, just tell them to exchange food for weapons, and the two countries will rush to bring us food. ”

What Schneider said is indeed the truth, two years earlier, Annan had exchanged population, land, etc., to the Haihan in exchange for military support and arms exports, and later Champa also used a similar form to buy a lot of Haihan weapons. With the national strength of these two countries, it is difficult to have enough funds to buy a large number of expensive Haihan weapons, and if Haihan is willing to let them exchange grain for weapons, then the people in power in these two countries will probably rather starve their citizens than first scavenge the domestic grain for a batch of weapons.

Since the Ministry of Finance, which is in charge of the money bags, and the Ministry of Agriculture, which is in charge of food supply, both believe that this is not a big problem, and that there is no need for the military to intervene, as long as the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Civil Affairs can operate this matter, then the feasibility is quite high. Although there will still be a lot of cost involved in implementing this plan, it will save a lot compared to the cost of using the army, and hiring outsiders will save a lot. In addition, in the past two years, the banditry in Guangdong has gradually decreased, and the people have calmed down, and the speed at which Haihan has absorbed immigrants has not been as fast as before, and it is indeed necessary to have other ways to rapidly increase the working population on Hainan Island.

There was a rare unanimity of opinion on the proposal from the Executive Committee, with all agreeing that it was indeed a viable immigration option. Schneider optimistically estimates that if done properly, the number of immigrants who have been brought to Hainan Island from the Ming Dynasty in this way will probably exceed 50,000 in the coming year – a considerable proportion compared to the current total population of more than 200,000 on Hainan Island. And Ning Qi, who proposed this plan, finally got back a city, and was not too embarrassed because the previous plan to send troops was completely vetoed.

Of course, to realize this proposal, it is not just as simple as Schneider said in a few words, even if there are Ming maritime merchants who go to the north to transport refugees, there are still a series of problems to be solved, such as screening, quarantine, and resettlement. If Schneider's estimate is taken to see that the resettlement of migrants alone will require the construction of about 100 more villages on Hainan Island, which is by no means a simple project. The Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Civil Affairs may only need to be involved in the introduction of migrants, but the resettlement of migrants requires the coordination of more departments.