After arriving at the Governor's Mansion, Zhao Xin and Deng Fei took a short rest and then called Wang Yuanfang for a meeting.
For Bacheng, he is currently most concerned about three things, public health, military and monetary system. As for rubber, because its production cycle is at least 5 to 6 years, it is still in the seedling stage, and technicians sent by the Civil Affairs Bureau are responsible for it.
The reason why Zhao Xin puts public health first is because there are too many local mosquitoes, and the resulting malaria epidemic kills a large number of lives every year. When the Dutch were here, Batavia was nicknamed the "European Cemetery"; while the Chinese living outside the city suffered from the dirty environment and numerous swamps around it, and thousands of them died of malaria and other diseases every year. infectious disease.
Affected by malaria, the average life expectancy of Chinese in Bacheng in the 18th century was only 35 years. But even so, there are still a large number of Chinese crossing the sea from Fujian and Guangdong every year in search of food and clothing.
Faced with this situation, Hong Tao, who was in charge of medical treatment at the time, took a series of measures to improve the situation after discussing with Deng Fei.
First, Dr. Hong based on the "Malaria Prevention and Treatment Manual" from another time and space, starting from the transmission media and clinical manifestations, excerpted the easy-to-understand content and compiled it into "Epidemic Prevention Instructions", and then set up broadcast loudspeakers in the most densely populated areas of Chinatown. I found soldiers from Danhu in the army and recorded the contents of the instructions in Zhangzhou dialect, and played them on a loop every hour.
This move shocked all the Chinese people at once. In their opinion, the gentlemen of Beihai Town can actually absorb human voices. They are really powerful. No wonder the Dutch are no match for them. However, because the frequency of playback was too dense, and the person who recorded the voice spoke in a dry and hypnotic voice, and the volume was loud, many merchants were annoyed after only a few days; they either fell asleep while listening, or bought When bargaining for something, you have to shout at the top of your lungs.
The merchants and households in Chinatown couldn't bear it anymore, so they went to the Military Control Commission together to beg the great master to show mercy and spare the lives of ordinary people. Hong Tao then changed it to broadcast every two hours, and added operas such as "Perak Puppet Opera" and "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" before each broadcast. The complaints of the majority of listeners immediately disappeared.
How fresh, this is a drama for nothing! In the past, in Bacheng, you could only hear it when wealthy families were celebrating weddings and Chinese New Year.
While doing a good job in publicity, Deng Fei mobilized a platoon of garrison troops and asked Jiang Asheng to help hire two hundred Chinese workers and bring two water pumps to clean up the nearest swamps outside the city to reduce the number of people. The source of mosquito breeding. Then the sewage ditches in Chinatown were comprehensively cleaned and dredged, and several public toilets were built and garbage dumping points were set up.
At first, the Chinese were quite curious about public toilets, talking about how the old men even managed the toilets. Unexpectedly, a new law was enacted next. Considering that the local Chinese were poor and had little money, the Military Control Commission ordered that anyone who urinates or litters in the street, as long as they are discovered by street patrol officers, will have the streets swept for three days. To say that this is nothing, the key is the last one, the reward for reporting is five copper plates!
This move scared everyone. Anyone who wanted to lift his belt while walking on the street would be stared at by dozens of pairs of eyes. For a while, there were so many people sweeping the streets inside and outside Bacheng, a total of about two hundred people, that the ground was as clean as a dog licking it, not even a blade of grass could be seen.
While doing a good job in publicity, the Military Control Commission began to provide benefits to the Chinese in Bacheng, distributing mosquito nets according to each family's head and sleeping status. The main reason why it is distributed for free is that Zhao Xin wholesaled it from a manufacturer in another time and space. It is made of polyester, is comfortable, breathable, cheap and easy to use. This move caused a sensation throughout Bacheng. Even the rich and wealthy households were dumbfounded. They didn't expect Beihai Town to be so extravagant!
Although gauze tents for shielding mosquitoes have existed in ancient China for a long time, the ones that are really useful and breathable are silk fabrics, also called silk tents. Poor people have never seen them, let alone use them. Besides, the bodies of poor people are not so precious. Isn’t it normal to be bitten twice by mosquitoes and bed bugs?
But now the big guys from the Military Control Commission have said, no! You must use a mosquito net to sleep. Anyone who dares to hide secretly without using it will be swept on the street. The reward for informing will be 5 copper plates...
The reason why mosquito nets are distributed for free is because of the income level of most local Chinese people. During the Dutch rule, all Chinese coming to Pakistan were charged an "entry admission fee" of 43.5 francium (one francium is 40 Dutch copper coins), and a monthly head tax ranging from 25 to 35 francium was also collected. You must know that most of the Chinese who came across the sea were poor and had no choice but to go to sea to make a living. As a result, when I got off the boat in Bacheng, I had to give 12.35 Spanish silver dollars, which is equivalent to eight taels and seven cents of silver.
Although the Dutch have been getting lower and lower, there are still many people who can't afford it and take out loans. This has led to several years of hard work and they can't even pay off the debt, let alone marry a wife. In addition, Chinese workers working in local plantations could not see cash all year round. They could only withdraw cash according to the account books when they left, so they had no money on hand.
Of course, for those wealthy households, the Military Control Commission also provides mosquito nets of different colors and styles. If you want them, you have to pay for them!
In addition to environmental sanitation and personal hygiene, the Military Control Commission also wants to establish a public medical system in Bacheng. The local Dutch priests were all forcibly expelled after the war. Hong Tao simply converted the Dutch cathedral into a hospital. On the one hand, he provided isolation and treatment for children and critically ill patients, and on the other hand, he also conducted preliminary training for Jiang Asheng and several local doctors. .
After such a series of measures, half a year later, the sanitary conditions in Bacheng have gradually improved, and the problem of water source pollution has also been greatly improved. Coupled with the use of a large number of special drugs, the incidence of malaria in Bacheng has been greatly reduced. fatality rate. By the second half of last year, Chinese, Javanese, British, Spanish and even Dutch from other parts of Java also made a special trip to Bacheng for medical treatment.
The incidence and mortality of infectious diseases have dropped, and the use of opium by Chinese workers suffering from diseases has also decreased. In addition, the Military Control Commission strictly ordered merchants from various countries not to sell opium to Bacheng, and plantations were not allowed to sell opium to Chinese workers. Violators would have the goods on board or the plantations confiscated. For those addicts, Hong Tao arranged a house as a drug rehabilitation center and conducted compulsory drug rehabilitation.
At the end of last year, when Deng Fei and Hong Tao took a boat back to Beihai Town, tens of thousands of people gathered at Bacheng Pier. Families came to see them off, old and young. Those who had been treated by Dr. Hong personally could not even kneel down. Everyone in Beihai Town was also filled with emotion and shed tears.
In the year after Wang Yuanfang took over, the Military Control Commission not only continued to provide low-cost medical care to poor Chinese workers and local Javanese people, but also put a large amount of cooling oil, wind oil essence and toilet water on the market. Because the cooling oil only costs 3 Dutch copper coins, the people in Bacheng now have a box of cooling oil in their hands and just apply it on when they have nothing to do. However, wealthy people, both men and women, like to use the more expensive essential oils and toilet water to treat themselves every day. All made fragrant.
Many Chinese medicine halls have tried to imitate the cooling oil after getting the actual product. However, except for Beihai Town, no one else in this era knows what petroleum jelly and paraffin are. Therefore, they have been unable to solve the problem of surface cracks and collapse caused by the volatilization of oily substances. shrinkage phenomenon. Of course, some pharmacies also add natural beeswax on their own, but this also leads to a significant increase in costs and cannot compete with the low-priced products in Beihai Town. This is why Gu Lihuan from Penang wanted to become an agent of cooling oil and Fengyoujing.
In short, in the past two years, Beihai Town has encouraged immigration and childbirth by canceling various exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes during the VOC era, coupled with various epidemic prevention measures. It has not only won the support of local Chinese, but also won a good reputation across Java. Except, of course, the Dutch.
After talking about public health, the three then turned to military issues.
Since August last year, the Military Control Commission has successively recruited more than 600 people from Fujian and Guangdong immigrants, and also recruited 200 Hoi'an soldiers from the Cam Ranh Bay base. Together with an original company in Bacheng, they barely managed to make up a single army. An armed force of thousands. The problem is that Bacheng is not only a seaport city, but also includes large plantations around it. With only such a small number of people at the moment, they have to defend and patrol nearly 300 square kilometers of land, and also allocate some people to maintain security in cities, ports, and plantations. They definitely have more than enough defense and not enough offense.
Compared with the situation of being surrounded by enemies on three sides on land, the security of the northern ports and the sea is not a big problem. First, two new forts were built on the east and west sides of the port, equipped with a total of twelve 75mm long-tube coastal defense guns; second, there is a fleet of three motor-driven sailboats led by Zheng Wenxian, which are currently mainly used to transport goods and immigrants for Chinese businessmen. The team provides escort missions from Cam Ranh Bay to Bacheng.
Several surrounding sultanates have also sent people to contact him privately in the past two years for medical treatment, but that was just to find out the truth and understand the strength. If Beihai Town is not strong enough, various sultans would not mind forming a coalition under the leadership of VOC to take a share of the pie after defeating Beihai Town.
When he was in Paris previously, Deng Fei met the Ambassador of the United Provinces to France at a dinner hosted by the British Ambassador to France. However, at that time, the other party did not understand the relationship between "Republic of China" and Beihai Town. When the Dutch came to their senses, the "Temple Castle Incident" broke out.
"... In the past two years, the Dutch have exercised strict control over the Sudanese states, especially Banten and Banten. According to the intelligence we have obtained, the Dutch used to only send judicial officers to intervene in internal affairs. But they have since In July last year, troops were sent to the three sultanates surrounding us."
Deng Fei raised his eyebrows and asked, "How many?"
"About 2,000 people. Other sultanates have about 300 people. Banten is the closest to us and has deployed two battalions."
Wang Yuanfang paused and continued: "The key is that these troops are not just combat troops. They have been recruiting local Javanese soldiers and training them during this period. The total number has exceeded 7,000. Half of them are issued with muskets. At the same time, cannons are still being cast, and military expenditures are borne by the sultanates. Taking into account the training time and material preparation, I estimate that when the rainy season stops in April next year, the Dutch are likely to take action."
"You mean that there will be tens of thousands of people attacking us from three sides?"
Wang Yuanfang frowned and said: "What I am most worried about now is not the Dutch and the natives, but the British."
Deng Fei asked: "What happened to the British?"
"Our plan in India has poked the lungs of the British. Once discovered, I'm afraid they will join forces with the Dutch. I plan to take the initiative and defeat each one, so that the sultans will realize how powerful we are and they will not suffer any more. At the mercy of the Dutch.”
Deng Fei walked to the curtain wall with the map and looked at it for a while: "The ground force must be at least three thousand, no, five thousand! The sea force must have three fleets, and the total number must not be less than twelve motor boats, sailing ships, and gunboats. Cooperate with a marine battalion of one thousand people."
Wang Yuanfang walked to the map and began to draw his plan, explaining: "I think three thousand is enough, even if it is less, two thousand will do. Look..."
The two of them had a heated discussion for a long time, and when they wanted to take a drink of water and take a breath, they noticed that Zhao Xin had been sitting there, lost in thought.
Wang Yuanfang said: "What are you thinking about? We have talked so much, how about some opinions?"
Zhao Xingxin said "hmm" and said in a slow tone: "You two have been talking about military affairs for a long time, but I don't think this is a problem. If you can't win, then strengthen the defense, continue to train troops, and fight again in a year and a half." It’s not too late. We have established a foothold in Jiaodong, are we still worried about running out of troops?”
Deng Fei said: "Then what do you mean?"
"Money law! Currency!" Zhao Xin tapped the armrest of the chair with his fingers and expressed his opinion.
"What do you mean? Money? Don't we have enough money?" Deng and Wang looked confused. They really didn't understand this aspect.
"Uh... I mean the monetary and financial system." After Zhao Xin said this, he found a piece of white paper on Wang Yuanfang's desk and explained his ideas to the two of them while drawing them.
To explain the monetary and financial system established by the Dutch in Southeast Asia, we have to start with the circulation of Chinese copper coins in Southeast Asia. Since the reform of money laws in the Northern Song Dynasty, especially during the reign of Wang Anshi, China's copper coin production has surged. At the same time, the reform of the Municipal Shipping Department in the Northern Song Dynasty also relaxed the ban on copper coin exports. As a result, a large number of Northern Song Dynasty copper coins began to enter Southeast Asia from the 11th century, becoming necessities of daily life in Javanese society.
At the turn of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, Java formed a large empire - Majapahit in the process of resisting the Mongol invasion. This empire followed the trend of "Chinese copper coins" in the Javanese economy and used Chinese copper coins as its official currency, replacing the traditional Indian gold and silver coins. By the time of Zheng He's voyages to the West, all transactions in Java were done using Chinese copper coins of all dynasties. So when the Portuguese came to buy spices, the Javanese didn't want silver coins at all, but money that was round, had words around it, had a hole in the middle, and could be strung together with a string. The depressed Portuguese had to exchange their silver for Chinese copper coins to buy pepper.
Later, in the mid-Ming Dynasty, as China's official coinage shrank sharply, Java began to imitate Chinese coins. However, due to the lack of copper mines, the coins minted in Java were mostly mixed with lead and tin, and the proportion of impurities was getting higher and higher, eventually becoming A lead coin that is very easy to break.
In the early years of Wanli, Zhang Juzheng implemented the money law reform, which also led to the withdrawal of silver and the withdrawal of money. A large number of depreciated, inferior and discarded copper coins from the previous dynasty flowed into Java through the private money casting system in southern Fujian. When Chinese businessmen discovered that local lead coins were the mainstream, so a large amount of lead money was privately minted and invested in Southeast Asia.
After the Dutch fleet arrived at Ambon Island in 1600 and established the first colonial stronghold, Van Werburg, they realized that the lead coin system, which was deeply involved by Chinese businessmen, posed a huge challenge to VOC. The starting point of the Dutch East Indies trade was to bypass the Portuguese network and import spices directly from Asia. However, what they did not expect was that the Chinese also purchased large quantities of similar products in Southeast Asia, and they could also use their unique coins to purchase pepper at "low prices."
Therefore, how to wrest the dominance of pepper trade from Chinese merchants became the primary issue of VOC in the early 17th century.
In the first ten years or so, the VOC and the British East India Company that arrived at the same time were always at a disadvantage, and Chinese lead coins played a key role in this. This is because the Dutch and British East India Companies brought silver coins to Banten, but what circulated in the Java market was Chinese lead coins. Local pepper growers calculate their prices based on lead coins, and only local Chinese businessmen have the ability to go deep into the interior with lead coins to purchase pepper.
Lacking the lead coins needed by the locals and the lack of local Chinese networks, the VOC and the British East India Company suffered repeatedly. They were forced to take a large amount of silver to Chinese merchants to exchange for lead coins, and then use the lead coins to buy pepper. In this process, Chinese merchants not only exchanged lead coins for pepper from locals, but also used lead coins to exchange large amounts of silver from two European East India companies.
As a result, lead coins became a Trojan horse for Chinese businessmen, giving them an advantage in the trade war surrounding pepper, lead coins, and silver. This also made the southern Fujian-Wantan route, where coins traveled to the Southeast Asia, become a new channel for silver to flow into China.
In order to build its own monetary and financial hegemony, completely expel lead coins from the circulation system, and thus establish a huge colonial empire, VOC placed more than 1.1 billion Dutch copper coins throughout Southeast Asia in the 18th century, mainly in Java. In addition, the military blockade of Banten and other seaport cities forced Chinese businessmen to go to Batavia for trade, which led to the abandonment of lead coins.
The success of the money law meant that the VOC controlled the spice (pepper) trade network in Java to a large extent, making Batavia the center of the spice trade between the East and the West.
From then on, the Dutch exported pepper to Chinese merchants, imported silk from China to Japan in exchange for silver, and then invested Japanese silver in intra-Asian trade. Through this series of intra-Asian trade supported by force, VOC made huge profits in Southeast Asia and used these profits to purchase Asian goods and ship them back to Europe. Thus realizing the grand plan of obtaining as much Asian goods as possible with as little European silver as possible.
Although the historical VOC experienced an economic crisis with the end of the Anglo-Dutch War in 1784, it plummeted from then on, and finally closed down in 1799. However, its colonies in Southeast Asia were taken over by the Dutch government, which lasted until 1945, which shows the power of this monetary and financial system.
Zhao Xin talked for a long time, and finally threw the pen aside and said to Deng Fei and Wang Yuanfang: "Do you understand now? Establishing our monetary and financial system throughout Java is the key to controlling Southeast Asia and eliminating the Dutch. Soldiers and wealth have always been one and the same. If the currency problem is not solved, even if the Dutch are sent back to Ceylon, they can still control the spice trade and carry out financial colonization through the currency system. We don’t have any temper at all!”
