Xinshun 1730

Chapter 373 Bandit Logic
Duke Qi frowned and thought about Liu Yu's statement, and couldn't help but smile wryly in his heart, secretly thinking that this is really the case.

Just like the Ryukyu matter, where do you not know?Just kept pretending not to know.

How could there be no word about the Nanyang matter?How many times have Manila been killed, haven't you still pretended not to know?
As long as you don't know it, you don't need to worry about it. This is also trapped in the word "Heavenly Dynasty".

Because once you can't pretend you don't know, then you must take care of it. Is it the king's land in the world, and the king's ministers on the shore of the land? This trouble will make him lose face, and the emperor's embarrassment will be recorded in the history books.

It can be fought without profit, and it wastes money in vain.

However, a gentleman does not talk about benefits when he talks about righteousness, and the emperor is even more reluctant to talk about benefits, so it cannot be said that it is uneconomical out of interests.

But it is indeed unrighteous to leave one's own people killed and leave it alone, so naturally the best way is to pretend not to know.

This can be said to be of one mind.

Since the Wanli period of the previous dynasty, almost all the canonized angels who went to Ryukyu are exactly the same. They all know it clearly, but they all think that they are seeking for the country, so it is better not to mention it.

Now that he is going to sing a double reed with the Seventh Prince and Liu Yu, Qi Guogong said with a smile: "Shou Chang, Shou Chang, you have tricked me into it again. In this way, I must support the future expedition to Nanyang."

"If I support it, I'm using tricks today. If I don't support it, after a hundred years, the name of soft bone will fall on my head."

Having said that, he already supported the expedition to Nanyang in his heart, and he himself was the Duke who had the most blame in Dashun, not much more than this, and a lot less than this one, and he had already memorized a lot when he was negotiating with Luosha that day. I know how many.

The two chatted and laughed, but Li Yan was not in a good mood. He always felt that Liu Yu's words were a bit harsh, and he thought that I am a glorious dynasty. In the eyes of Westerners, I am just a stupid bird who buries his head in the sand and pretends that nothing happened outside. ?

Secretly clenched his fists, nails piercing into his palms.Thinking about the matter of Macau, Ryukyu, and the fact that Penghu tricked him to retreat to Taiwan, it seems to be true.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, he gritted his teeth and made a rattling sound.

Liu Yu and Qi Guogong just pretended not to see, and after a few words of anger, they discussed the matter.

…………

So far, the Dutch East India Company still believed that the visit of the French envoys to China was an encirclement network between China and France surrounding Russia.

Everyone in the East India Company firmly believed in this point. After all, Dashun fought two wars in the past ten years.

One was fought against the Russians in the Northeast, and the other was fought against the Junggars in the Northwest. It is impossible for the Russians to be missing behind the scenes.

Last year, Dashun's Free Trade ship stopped in Batavia, and its destination was to go to Sweden, which made the Dutch more convinced that Dashun might go to war against Russia again.

Nellis Phillips, who was in Tianjin at this time, was also convinced of this. Although he heard some rumors about Japan at this time, he didn't take it seriously.

The company only cares about whether the trade with Japan is affected.

And Prips also believed that the whole incident was an accident: Japan invaded and occupied Ryukyu, a vassal state of Dashun, and the emperor had to send troops in order to maintain the etiquette and law of the Celestial Dynasty, but the scale would not be too large.

So he judged.

Prips is not under the jurisdiction of the Governor of Batavia. He is a member of the China Trade Committee and is directly responsible to the 17-member Committee.

This is easy to understand.

Batavia is part of the East India Company, but there are conflicts between local and central governments.

Batavia wants to engage in indirect trade, using Batavia as a transit point, so that Batavia can prosper and the local area can benefit.

However, the transit trade takes a big circle and focuses on local interests. As long as you can play it, it doesn’t matter. But Dashun switch, Britain, France and Auridan are all engaged in trade, but the Netherlands is a big circle, which is naturally half-slow. The overall revenue of the company is damaged.

More than [-] years ago, the Ostend Company of Habsburg, relying on direct trade and advantages, almost abolished the tea trade of the Dutch East India Company.If it weren't for the strong equity capital, fighting for price cuts, blood tanks, and price cuts to see who can't sustain it first, the European pricing power would be taken away by the Habsburgs in that tea trade.

After that incident, there was such a China Trade Committee directly affiliated to the 17-member committee. Although the competition between the local government and the central government ended up in a muddle, half direct and half transfer, and there was no priority for efficiency, it was finally relieved.

In addition, Habsburg abolished the Ostend company as a price for their daughter's inheritance, and lost an enemy.

However, the relationship between the Bacheng area and the company headquarters is no longer the time to open up. Now it is like an old man, depressed, and has his own thoughts.

The members of the China Trade Committee are supposed to restrict the local forces in Bacheng, and they also have the power to negotiate with China granted by the company.

This time Dashun asked the Dutch to go to Tianjin, and only Prips, a member of the committee, could come. After the establishment of the China Trade Committee, the Governor of Bacheng theoretically has no right to negotiate with China.

Prips is also aware of Batavia's situation and the radical policy of the new governor of Batavia towards the Chinese.The reason why Dashun summoned the Dutch this time also came from this.

He suspected that the last time the Dashun ship docked in Batavia got some news and passed it back to the Dashun court.

The 17-member group of gentlemen of the East India Company unanimously considered the matter of forcing the ship to dock as an idiot, but there was no way to reprimand them, they could only express their anger.

Batavia is also very wronged.

It is customary for the ship of the Swedish East India Company to be forced to stop in Batavia for inspection in order to delay the return time of the Swedish ship.

The Swedes went back a month late, and the Dutch East India Company could sell more money for the goods, and it was impossible to sink them. We could only use this tried and tested excuse of "suspecting that the Swedish ship was a pirate in disguise" to "check" for a period of time .

But who would have thought that a Dashun ship would be forced to send prisoners to Sweden?
Now the 17-member committee can't know what happened now, Prips thought, if the 17-member gentleman group knew, the punishment for the captain who forced the stop would definitely be heavier.

If there is no such ship, Batavia may have killed the local Chinese, Dashun may not even know about it, how could he get the news in advance like now?

Fortunately, he already had a countermeasure. He came to Tianjin and waited for a while. After seeing the Duke of Dashun who was in charge of diplomacy, he directly declared the situation.

First, those Chinese were smuggled there.

Two, they didn't pay poll tax, they didn't have a residence permit, and most of them were misbehaving, frivolous, thieves or robbers.

Third, if Dashun wants to protect them, Batavia can send all these people back to Fujian.

After the situation was explained, there was no movement from Dashun's side.

Prips thought he hit Dashun's Achilles' heel, and he believed that Dashun would definitely not take these people back.

Since you don't want it, you don't care what we do with it.If something happens in the future, we can’t be blamed on us. We have notified you in advance, and you have not objected to the designation of them as "thieves".

He knew that the Duke of Dashun who summoned him was Dashun's "Minister of Foreign Affairs", and he also knew that this minister had visited Russia and France, but he still didn't think that Dashun had changed much from before.

During the period of his stay in Tianjin, envoys from various European countries came together, which in his opinion was meaningless.

He even thought he could guess why these envoys came to Dashun, but it was the aftermath of Dashun's war with Russia and diplomacy with France.

The British came here because they were worried that the French would say bad things about them; the French came here to consolidate their siege against Russia; the Portuguese came here to keep their Macao; The captives returned were precisely because of Russia.

So far, he still doesn't believe that Dashun knows what diplomacy is.

In his view, Portugal occupies Macau, as long as it pretends to pay tribute and maintain the vanity and face of the Chinese emperor, all Europeans can get a colony in mainland China with envy, and the price is only a few kowtows to the emperor. It is too profitable.

It's a pity that Dashun doesn't want to come to Macau again, otherwise he will kowtow and cut Zhoushan away, and he will definitely be promoted and raise his salary when he returns to the company.

How can a country that is clearly capable of recovering Macau but doesn't care about a tributary title know what diplomacy is?

Today, when he was summoned again by the foreign minister of Dashun's newly established Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Duke surnamed Tian, ​​Prips was not worried, and, as always, saluted according to Dashun's cumbersome etiquette.

Duke Qi asked about the Chinese in Batavia again, and Prips also told the original three reasons.

Duke Qi said in an official tone: "However, someone complained to me, saying that the Dutch treated the Chinese people differently. Others, like the Javanese, don't have to pay poll tax. Why do my overseas Chinese have to pay? As the saying goes, The people don’t worry about being few but about being uneven, what you’re doing is really wrong.”

Listening to the tune, Prips secretly smiled, thinking that this was just an excuse to ask for some bribes.

After all, trade with China has been carried out for more than a hundred years, and the Dutch feel that they are now well aware of China's officialdom. Li Dan back then asked the Dutch to "loan" a sum of money to officials of the Ming Dynasty, which was actually bribery. If the Dutch personnel affairs failed, they turned their faces and took the IOUs to ask for money. With this awareness and pattern, you still want to trade?
Today is not what it used to be, Prips thought about how much money he should give the duke, and hurriedly said: "Dear duke, please don't listen to the one-sided words of those thieves. They are lazy and don't work, and they are in groups Running around in the city, calling themselves the Wushan Party. Or stealing, or robbing. For such people, shouldn’t your country also punish them?”

"I think that the person who came to sue must have been punished for stealing or robbing, so he came to instigate the relationship between the two countries. Please don't believe it."

Qi Guogong took a sip of tea in a slow and methodical manner, turned his eyes slightly upwards, and asked slowly: "Is there absolutely nothing like this? Don't lie to me."

"Well... there are things. However, the Chinese are not required to perform military service in Batavia. In fact, they pay the poll tax and do not perform military service, and the rest do military service and do not pay the poll tax. Isn't this against the Chinese Care? I think people would rather pay the poll tax than do military service."

Qi Guogong thought that the care of bullshit was just because he was worried that the local people of the Celestial Dynasty had guns in their hands. Fortunately, Shou Chang had told me earlier, otherwise it would have been what you said.

At this time, he was going to be a foolish official, so he frowned and said: "If what you said is true, could it be that those Wushan gangs did commit many illegal acts, so that they were punished and did not complain about false accusations? What happened to this matter? , I need to ask more questions."

"Since my official is trusted by the emperor and is in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this matter must be investigated. If what you said is true, it seems that those people are indeed to blame; but if what you said is false... Although it is a scholar, farmer, businessman, Businessmen are the cheapest, most of them are profit-seeking and unrighteous when they go to sea to abandon their country. However..."

However, after that, there was nothing to say, and his fingers tapped on the table, as if he was thinking.

Prips knew that this was asking for a bribe.

A duke who is in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the right and wrong of this matter still depends on his words.

Say yes, yes.

Say no, then no.

This, Prips knew, was not some faint old fool, but a shrewd egoist.He obviously didn't care about the life and death of his Batavian compatriots, but cared about how much bribes these people's life and death could bring him.

Moreover, at most there were rumors in Batavia at this time that the governor only asked each sugarcane plantation to count the population in order to pay the poll tax.

There may be some smart people who have noticed that something is wrong. The sugarcane plantations and sugar factories have been squeezed hard enough. If they pay the poll tax, they will really not be able to survive.

Prips believes that it should be the boat from Dashun to Sweden that went to Batavia last time, making the leaders of the local Ushan Party think that they have found a backer named "Motherland".

But obviously, this backer is not reliable.

"Your Excellency, I can assure you that what I say is true. We will not punish anyone who obeys the law, but those thieves and robbers, but those thieves and robbers happen to be Chinese. In fact, if they We can guarantee their rights and interests by paying the poll tax on time.”

"If your country really insists that they are also citizens of your country, I think we can send these thieves and robbers back to Fujian. But I believe that the Duke can tell right from wrong."

(End of this chapter)