Chapter 698 Troops and Immigration

After Ning Qi proposed this plan, there was a murmur of discussion in the conference hall. These people here all have a certain understanding of the current situation, and naturally they can immediately think of the feasibility of this plan and the impact it will bring.

As far as the current cooperative relationship between Haihan and the Fujian government is concerned, there is no big problem if Haihan wants to station a certain size of army in Fujian and ask the local government to provide certain conveniences, or even let the Ming army in Fujian cooperate.

After all, Haihan's continuous military assistance to Fujian in recent years is not in vain. The local forces in Fujian, led by Xu Xinsu, still have a high degree of trust in Haihan. At the same time, they have also given Haihan a lot in terms of trade, immigration, etc.

The preferential conditions. However, such special treatment is only limited to Fujian, especially the southern Fujian area where the Xu Xinsu family is mostly in power. Going further north, it cannot match the influence it has in Fujian.

"Teacher Ning, it's easy to talk on paper, but it's not so simple in practice. Even if Xu Xinsu and the Fujian government are willing to help, this errand will not be easy." Schneider, who had been silent for a long time, finally joined the discussion: "The Fujian government asked the court

Asking for orders to send troops to Shandong to suppress bandits is not practical in my opinion. According to the situation you mentioned before, is there really nothing that Shandong can do against Kong Youde? He only has one city and several thousand soldiers in his hands. Can the Ming Dynasty really defeat him?

If there is a way, why did he have to flee across the sea later? He started the uprising in August this year and did not escape to Liaodong until the second half of the next year. It was not that the Ming Dynasty did not take any action for such a long time, right? I think he was ordered to encircle and suppress

He may not be willing to bite this hard nut. Moreover, the local government may not welcome troops from other places to suppress the bandits and quell the chaos. God knows who will be the soldiers and who will be the bandits in the end. Don’t forget that Kong Youde’s troops are guest troops from Liaodong.

!”

Although Schneider didn't know much about the history of the late Ming Dynasty, half of his insights came from his experience of contacting Ming officials in the Guangdong Office, and half came from his thoughts after listening to Ning Qi's previous explanation, but he hit the nail on the head by mistake.

One of the crux of the problem.

First of all, one of the reasons for the mutiny in Kong Youde's troops was indeed the supply problem caused by conflicts in the army caused by the foreign origin of his troops. If his troops were not guest troops, they would not be unscrupulous after the uprising.

The locals in Shandong burned, killed, and looted without restraint. This directly led to the local government and people to further reject foreign troops. When foreign troops entered Shandong to fight, it was difficult to get local cooperation.

Secondly, the local situation has not been alleviated for a long time, which is indeed closely related to the slow response and the fear of fighting. A few months after Kong Youde's rebellion, the court did not come up with a clear solution plan until Kong Youde

After capturing Dengzhou in early 1632, the imperial court hastily appointed Xu Congzhi as governor of Shandong, stationed in Laizhou to block Kong Youde's westward advance.

When Kong Youde besieged Laizhou, Liu Tongzhu, the commander-in-chief who was ordered to lead troops from Beijing to the south for rescue, arrived in Shandong but refused to join the war. In the court, there were also great scholar Zhou Yanru, the head of the Ministry of War Zhang Guochen and others who advocated recruitment. This delay continued.

Later, Kong Youde recruited more than 3,000 of his original subordinates from Pidao, Liaodong, to join the rebellion. Xu Congzhi and others held on for several months in Laizhou, but the reinforcements they were waiting for stopped 40 miles away from Laizhou. The commander-in-chief Deng Gui

, Wang Hong and others were waiting for the imperial court's recruitment measures to succeed.

However, the imperial court's appeasement policy did not have any effect. Instead, Xie Lian, the deputy censor of the capital, who carried out the order to negotiate with Kong Youde's army, and Zhu Wannian, the prefect of Laizhou, were also captured. When the Ming court realized that the negotiations had broken down, they appeased

It was useless. When military means had to be used to solve the problem, the governor of Shandong and the prefect of Laizhou had already died on the battlefield. It was not until Wu Sangui's father Wu Xiang led his troops to fight that the siege of Laizhou was finally solved. At this time, it was not until Kong Youde started.

Nearly a year has passed.

At that time, the imperial court mobilized troops from surrounding provinces to quell the rebellion. There were four or five senior officers such as the General Soldier, and the number of troops was several times that of the rebels. However, the battle to quell the rebellion was a complete mess.

A lot of people died in this chaos, and the eastern coastal areas of Shandong were reduced to rubble. Countless people were displaced as a result, and the losses were very heavy. During this process, a large number of troops from other places entered Shandong to quell the chaos, but what really happened was that

Not many of them have had any effect. The Haihan Militia is certainly powerful in combat, but if they go to such a far away place to fight away from home, and they may not get the coordination of friendly forces and local support, it is difficult to guarantee that they can be effective on the battlefield.

Show your due fighting power.

Ning Qi naturally knew the details of this period of history, so he had nothing to argue with Schneider's question. He could only cough dryly and said: "Actually, I just proposed a solution. As for whether it is feasible or not,

That still depends on the military’s judgment.”

Yan Chujie waved his hand and said: "I thought about it just now, and it is indeed impossible to do this. Not to mention the reasons mentioned by Schneider just now, most of the soldiers in our army are from the south, and they suddenly traveled thousands of miles north to perform combat missions.

, I am afraid that it will be difficult to quickly adapt to the local food and climate. If there is a large area of ​​​​the army that is not acclimatized to the soil and climate by then, let alone fighting, how to safely withdraw will be a big problem."

"Your army can't do it, so why did you just suggest that the navy go north? It's as if all the people in our navy are from the north." Wang Tom caught Yan Chujie's handle this time and took a bite immediately: "I just said

Before I could refute you, I was taken over by them. The naval force has been training in the South China Sea. You just said a word and sent me to Shandong to perform the mission. If the ship and manpower are lost there, I will still bear the blame.

back?"

"Okay, okay, let's get down to business and don't go off topic." Tao Dong saw that the two men were about to argue again, so he quickly came out to put out the fire: "Let's talk about the matter. Judging from our current situation, it is indeed a bit too hasty 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 also exist objectively. I think that in the coming year, we must first maintain steady development, seek stability first, and then seek development. Expanding our sphere of influence northward is our future goal.

The direction of development is to assist the Ming Dynasty in maintaining its rule on the mainland for a period of time in the future. However, there is no need to take too big risks to do things that we are currently unable to do."

Having said this, Tao Donglai turned to Ning Qi and said, "Do you think it is necessary to hold a vote?"

The executive committee members all opposed it one-sidedly. Ning Qi had no interest in insisting on his plan at this time. He shook his head and said: "Since everyone thinks the time is not ripe, there is no need to vote again. But for the introduction of immigrants,

I think we can still think of a way. After all, this is not like sending troops to fight. We don’t necessarily need to do it ourselves. As long as we are willing to pay, I believe someone will take over this job."

"I agree with that." Schneider agreed with Ning Qi's proposal this time: "We can start contacting businessmen in Fujian, Jiangsu and Zhejiang now to see if any of them are willing to do it."

"The cost of transporting people back from such a far away place will not be small." Gu Kai immediately reminded.

Schneider smiled and said: "As the person in charge of the money bag, of course the first thing I have to consider is the issue of cost. First of all, we have our own food sources and can solve the food consumption during transportation at a relatively low cost. Secondly,

We can use industrial products in exchange for immigrants. Whoever brings us immigrants, we will calculate the price based on population and use designated types of industrial products instead of gold and silver as payment."

"Everyone knows that many of our industrial products are selling very well in Daming. The orders signed at the Autumn Fair fully prove this. We can use this as a condition to win more maritime merchants for us.

Transporting refugees to the north." Schneider continued to explain: "Let me give an example of the benefits of doing this. Suppose we have to pay a thousand taels of silver to the cooperating merchants for a group of immigrants, but if we use industrial products as payment

method, then the actual value of this batch of industrial products to us is far less than one thousand taels, because we only need to consider its production cost. And for the businessmen who get this batch of industrial products, its actual market value

But it is higher than one thousand taels, as long as they transport the goods to Daming and sell them."

"We don't have to worry about consuming too much of the precious metals in stock. Ming Dynasty's maritime merchants will also actively participate in this plan because they can exchange refugees for high-value goods. This is a win-win situation for both parties, from my understanding

That's right?" Tao Donglai immediately understood the beauty of Schneider's method.

"If necessary, we can also lower the price appropriately so that the transaction price for industrial products exchanged by refugees is slightly lower than our normal selling price. This will attract more businessmen to join in and allow them to be more active in collecting

Those homeless refugees." Schneider continued to talk: "We don't need to worry that such price cuts will have a negative impact on our income. In fact, as long as Hainan Island's labor force can be rapidly expanded, many industrial products

Production costs will also decrease further as production capacity increases."

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

"There won't be any big problems in this regard." The person who answered was Yuan Qiuye, the head of the Ministry of Agriculture. Although the corresponding executive committee seat of the Ministry of Agriculture is his father Yuan Ruoxiu, as Mr. Yuan gets older, his physical condition gradually deteriorates.

It has begun to decline. Recently, I rarely even attend meetings in person. Yuan Qiuye is more often the representative.

Yuan Qiuye continued to explain: "After we unified Hainan Island, we have a large amount of arable land in the eastern and northern coastal areas that can be used to build collective farms and promote food cultivation. Even if the population of Hainan Island doubles in the coming year, the food supply

We can keep up. You have to know that in the era before we traveled, the annual grain output of Hainan Island was about 2 million tons. Although it is impossible for us to reach that level, as long as we maintain the current grain planting area

With the speed of growth and the absence of major natural disasters, it will not be difficult to feed one to two million people on the island in the future."

Schneider also added: "Taking a step back, if there is a shortage of food supply in the short term, we still have two places, Annan and Champa, where we can import a large amount of food. We don't even have to pay cash, we just need to tell them

If we exchange food for weapons, these two countries will rush to bring us food."

What Schneider said is indeed true. Two years ago, Annan used population, land, etc. as exchange conditions to obtain military support and arms exports from Haihan. Later, Champa also used a similar method to purchase a lot of weapons from Haihan.

With the national strength of these two countries, it is difficult for them to have enough funds to purchase large quantities of expensive Haihan weapons. If Haihan is willing to let them exchange food for weapons, then the people in power in these two countries would rather have their people starve.

Let's plunder the domestic food and exchange it for a batch of weapons.

Since the Ministry of Finance, which is in charge of the money bag, and the Ministry of Agriculture, which is responsible for food supply, both believe that this approach is not a big problem, and there is no need for the military to come forward, as long as the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Civil Affairs can do it, then it is quite feasible.

High. Although there will still be a lot of cost in implementing this plan, compared with the cost of using the army, hiring external personnel will save a lot. Moreover, the banditry in Guangdong has gradually decreased in the past two years, and the people have calmed down. Haihan

The speed of absorbing immigrants is no longer as fast as before, and other ways are indeed needed to quickly increase the working population on Hainan Island.

Regarding the vote on this proposal, the Executive Committee rarely showed a unified opinion. Everyone believed that this was indeed a feasible immigration plan. Schneider was optimistic that if it was done properly, this would be the only way to migrate from Ming Dynasty to Ming Dynasty in the coming year.

The number of immigrants introduced to Hainan Island will probably exceed 50,000 - this number is already quite considerable compared to the current total population of Hainan Island, which is only more than 200,000. And Ning Qi, who proposed this plan,

We finally managed to win back a victory, and we were not too embarrassed because the previous plan to send troops was completely rejected.

Of course, realizing this proposal is not as simple as what Schneider said in a few words. Even if Daming Shipping went to the north to transport refugees, there would still be a series of problems to be solved such as screening, quarantine, resettlement, etc.

If we look at the figures estimated by Schneider, just to resettle the immigrants will require the construction of about 100 more villages on Hainan Island. This is definitely not a simple project. The introduction of immigrants may only require the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Civil Affairs to take action, but resettlement

Immigration requires more departments to work together.
Chapter completed!