Chapter 1224 Population Issues

If we want to speed up the local infrastructure construction process, we must first solve the problem of serious shortage of labor force, and the source of labor force must rely on the increase of basic population. However, the existing permanent population of Singdao is still far from enough.

To provide enough labor force to implement these infrastructure projects. The most terrible thing is that unlike other colonies, here either has a certain population base, or there is a stable source of immigrants nearby. If you want to make the local population explode in the short term,

Increase is basically an impossible wish here.

Tan Juren secretly regretted it. Before setting off from Sanya, he also felt that the number of immigrants approved by the Executive Committee was too small. At that time, he should fight for it again and ask the Executive Committee to add more numbers, even if it was only doubled, which would have a negative impact on the labor force.

The allocation will be much more flexible than it is now, and we won't be stretched everywhere like now.

"When I inspected Amborna Island before, I saw that the plantations there used a large number of slaves. Can we refer to this method here?" Tan Juren thought about it and proposed the solution he thought of to Roger.

plan.

It is obviously unrealistic to expect a large number of immigrants to be transported from Hainan Island to Xingdao in the short term. If the Executive Committee had such a plan, the population of Xingdao would not be at its current level, so Tan Juren gave up after just thinking about it.

Plans to work in this direction. Another way to rapidly increase the local population in the short term is through the slave trade. Although this method will definitely cost a lot of money, for the wealthy Haihan, it can be spent

The problems that money can solve are not big problems.

Roger smiled and said, "Who sold it to us?"

"Slave traders!" Tan Juren responded smoothly, but immediately felt that something was wrong. Roger had been the top leader on Amborna Island for a period of time before being transferred to Xingdao. This experience in dealing with human traffickers is not logically available.

If anything less, he definitely couldn’t be an outsider. He probably had some hidden agenda when he gave such an answer.

Sure enough, Roger then explained: "The people who sell slaves to Ambon Island are mainly Dutch and Portuguese human traffickers, but since last year, they have consciously reduced their supply. In this situation, what do you think about Ambon Island?"

No one told you then?"

Tan Juren shook his head subconsciously. During his inspection of Amborna Island, he did not carefully inquire about the local slave trading situation, and Mu Xiabai did not seem to take the initiative to mention this situation. Of course, it is also possible that Mu Xiabai once mentioned it.

He had been there, but it happened to be when Tan Juren and others were visiting the south of the island, so he missed this information.

Seeing this, Roger continued: "I believe you should have done your homework on the situation in the South China Sea. Our control area has advanced to the vicinity of Portugal and the Netherlands. Although they are on good terms with us on the surface, they should have felt the real impact.

Although we dare not confront us openly, we can still do something about it by secretly using some small means to slow down our development speed."

"You mean... they intentionally controlled the sale of slaves to our country in order to slow down our expansion in the South China Sea?" Tan Juren reacted immediately after hearing this and asked Roger to confirm his guess.

"There is no other reasonable explanation other than this reason." Roger nodded and agreed with his guess: "They continue to sell slaves to us. From a certain perspective, it is actually equivalent to digging their own graves. We are here

The faster the development and construction of the South China Sea, the smaller their area of ​​activity and the places where they can start. They have now realized this, and as long as they are not stupid enough, they will think of taking measures to deal with our population needs in the slave trade.

"

The history of Haihan's expansion in the South China Sea was accompanied by the continuous retreat of Portugal and the Netherlands. The port of Annan and Hoi An, originally controlled by Portugal, and the Ambrosia Islands controlled by the Dutch were all lost to Haihan.

After Hoi An Port, Portugal no longer had a transit port of its own during the more than 1,500 nautical mile voyage between the Malacca Strait and Daming Macau, and could only rely on the port of Haihan to complete the supply stops on the way. However, both parties later

Everyone gets what they need, and Portugal has gained a lot of practical benefits through Hai Han. The losses at Hoi An Port have long been recouped.

The situation in the Netherlands was even worse. After the defeat, the East India Company lost the Ambrosia Islands, which covered an area of ​​more than 2,000 square kilometers and was located in the hinterland of the South China Sea. The Zheng family, which had supported Fujian in the Ming Dynasty for many years, was also attacked by the Haihan Army.

Not only did the Dutch influence in the Fujian Strait suffer a great loss, but even the stronghold of Damuan Port on Taiwan Island was hijacked by Haihan. In order to preserve Batavia's trade routes to Northeast Asia, the East India Company

In the end, I had to put down my dignity and admit defeat to Haihan.

Of course, these two countries were unwilling to be suppressed by Haihan all the time, but Haihan was so powerful that both of them were far from their opponents on the frontal battlefield. Moreover, Haihan had no intention of stopping, and then moved along the east coast of Indochina Peninsula.

The coastline has been advancing southward. Originally, the two families thought that Haihan would stop when they reached Amborna Island. After all, going further south, the voyage from Hainan Island is too far, and it would be difficult for Haihan to attract immigrants and develop nearby. They must not

Not to mention Haihan's shortcomings, they were still hidden from the eyes of colonial experts, but they still underestimated Haihan's determination to go south.

In 1633, Haihan organized a powerful three-nation joint fleet to cruise the South China Sea to demonstrate force to surrounding countries. He also took the opportunity to organize the South China Sea Trade Alliance and decisively pushed the colony southward to Star Island and the Bangka-Belitung Island line.

Bangka-Belitung Island is within 200 nautical miles of the Sunda Strait and Batavia Port. It only takes a day for a speedboat to reach it. This is already a quite dangerous distance for the Dutch. And Malacca

The situation on this side of the strait is even more exaggerated. The Xingdao stronghold established by Haihan is only a little over a hundred nautical miles away from the city of Malacca occupied by the Portuguese. It can be said that it has been shocked in the face.

With Haihan making such a strong gesture, it would be a slow suicide for Portugal and the Netherlands to allow slave traders to sell young slaves to them without restrictions. So starting from 1634, these two countries

Invariably, they began to control the flow of slave trade, prohibiting slave traders from selling young slaves to Haihan, in order to slow down the construction process of Haihan's colonies in the South China Sea.

Ambona Island already had a certain population base. After Haihan occupied the area, he invested heavily in its development, and also introduced private funds to plan a large number of plantations. Before the two countries imposed a ban, they had already purchased a large number of plantations through various channels.

Slaves, the population of the island has also reached a certain scale, so the ban on slave trading promulgated last year has relatively little impact on it. Star Island was almost poor when it started, and the surrounding countries were opposed to Haihan establishing a stronghold here.

If there is hostility, it will be difficult to attract willing immigrants from surrounding areas. Once the way to purchase slaves is interrupted, the population growth rate will of course slow down.

After listening to Roger's explanation, Tan Juren felt that his intelligence collection work was not meticulous enough, and he even missed such important information. It seems that he was too relaxed during his stay at Ambona Island, otherwise this kind of

As long as you pay a little attention to the matter and inquire about it, you won't get the slightest hint of it. Asking such a question to Roger now is simply exposing your own shortcomings.

Fortunately, Tan Juren was not a novice with a too thin skin. He coughed and said, "So, even if we are willing to pay, we can't buy anyone at all?"

"You can still buy it, but the situation is not ideal." Roger continued to explain: "In addition to slave traders from these two countries, there are also practitioners from other countries, but they are not as powerful as these two.

There are no advantages at all, so the path we take is different.”

In addition to the slave traders of Portugal and the Netherlands, the two maritime powers, there are actually many merchant ships traveling between the two oceans that also traffic in people part-time. However, these two countries almost monopolize the market of young slaves, and traders from other countries

If you want to do this business, you have to find another way. For example, selling craftsmen, beauties, strange-looking strangers, and even children. Because these types of slaves are rare and expensive, they are often worth a higher price and their profits are higher than ordinary slaves.

The income is even more lucrative. But for Xingdao, which is in urgent need of labor, the role of these people is extremely limited, and they may even become a burden.

Although Haihan has always been generous when it comes to buying slaves, he also has requirements for the objects he buys. If he buys a bunch of random people, Roger will have no way to deal with them. These are slave traders who specialize in off-the-beaten paths.

, the number of suitable slaves that can be provided to Xingdao is naturally very limited. Even if there are some scattered young and strong laborers, the prices offered are often much higher than the wholesale prices of slave traders in Portugal and the Netherlands, which is very important to Haihan.

Not cost effective.

"There should be smart people who buy slaves from the Portuguese and Dutch and then sell them to us, right?" Tan Juren asked still unwillingly.

Roger nodded and said: "It is true that someone did this under our suggestion, but the good times did not last long. Within two trips, the people and the boat disappeared together. In such a large South China Sea, there is no way to find someone missing.

Already."

After hearing this, Tan Juren was speechless for a moment. Could it really be such a coincidence? He didn't quite believe it. This situation was more likely to be consistent with some conspiracy theory. For example, after the Portuguese and Dutch countries knew about the behavior of these middlemen, they directly went to sea at sea.

Deal with the slave traders who are obsessed with money. Even hundreds of years later, with all the efforts of the country and months and months, it will be difficult to find hundreds of missing persons in the South China Sea, let alone in this era. As long as they are connected

If the ship sank into the sea together with him, even if Haihan's hands and eyes were all over the sky, he would never be able to find the whereabouts of the missing person.

After all, this is just a profit from the price difference. The profit is really not that huge, and it is far from crazy. In this way, even if Haihan can afford the price, no one dares to risk his life for this.

Opportunity to make a fortune.

"It seems that the road to buying slaves is not feasible!" Tan Juren couldn't help but sigh helplessly.

"I've basically tried all the ways I can try. To be honest, I'm quite helpless." Roger paused and said, "I wish you would bring not 800 immigrants, but 8,000 immigrants."

!Without enough population, the development speed of our place cannot be increased."

Tan Juren thought for a moment and then said: "How much farmland will be actually allocated after the immigrants arrive?"

"Based on head count, thirty acres per person." Roger responded: "The standards are set by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and we follow them here without any discount."

Of course, Tan Juren knew the official standards for allocating farmland to immigrants. When he asked about this, he just wanted to verify it. He then proposed another method: "If we make a suggestion to Sanya to increase the quota of farmland allocated to immigrants, do you think we can attract more people?"

immigrants take the initiative to apply to settle here?”

"It's not difficult to trick some people into coming here with favorable terms, but the reputation here will be affected over time." Seeing that Tan Juren didn't seem to understand, Luo Jie patiently explained: "Even according to the current distribution standards

, and few people can cultivate all the allocated land. The local young and strong labor force spends a considerable part of their time engaged in infrastructure projects organized by collectives, and simply does not have enough energy to take care of their own cultivated land. Fortunately, in overseas colonies,

New immigrants don’t have to pay public food for the first three years, otherwise they may have to pay back. Even if we allocate 50 acres or 100 acres to new immigrants, it’s just a name, and the land cannot be privately owned. The land they can use

It’s only over ten or twenty acres. Once the farmers realize this, they will definitely think that we deliberately tricked them into coming here to work as coolies.”

"How about applying to send the prisoners from the hard labor camps here?" Tan Juren asked still unwillingly.

Roger shook his head and said: "I have also considered this approach, but the Executive Committee believes that the tin mines in Bangka-Belitung Island need more labor than we do here, so all the light-duty prisoners assigned to the South China Sea are sent there.

went."

Tan Juren suddenly felt a headache. The population problem was far more difficult than he thought. After much deliberation, there was no reasonable solution. He originally thought it was because Roger was not too concerned about civil affairs.

The current situation on Xingdao was caused, but after conducting an on-the-spot investigation to understand the situation, he discovered that the problem was indeed a bit difficult. It was not that Roger had not thought of a solution, but he was also troubled by this matter.

"It looks like we are going to continue to have a hard time here." Tan Juren knew very well that the existing population is not enough for Xingdao to take off quickly. According to the colonial speed arranged by the Executive Committee, this place is still far away from getting enough labor.

No time limit. With a small population, all aspects of infrastructure projects can only be advanced slowly, and the improvement of living conditions will also be a very long process. It seems that it will be difficult to achieve the rapid development like other colonies in the foreseeable future.

The goal.
Chapter completed!