Chapter 829: News from Hongji Station
Hainan Island produced no silk—those goods the Dutch prized above all else. Perhaps, Skaed mused, they could follow the Dutch model and enter the intermediary trade. Import silk fabrics and porcelain from the mainland on a grand scale, then sell them to the Dutch. The Dutch had long suffered under Zheng Zhilong's rigorous blockade of coastal trade. Thanks to this monopoly, the silk Zheng Zhilong sold to the Dutch commanded exorbitant prices, failing to satisfy Dutch appetite for extraordinary profits.
What if we sold to the Dutch instead? Skaed turned the idea over in his mind. As long as prices remained slightly lower, the Dutch would come to Lingao to purchase silk. Alternatively, they could simply conduct direct trade at Sanya Port.
Naturally, given that the Ming Empire itself maintained substantial demand for spices, having the Dutch bring spices offered another avenue to fill gaps in Lingao's export inventory. Since the Dutch had employed violence to monopolize spice exports from the Moluccas, the prices they charged had remained steep. Yet if merchants like Zheng Zhilong still accepted Dutch spices as trade goods, the profits from reselling to the mainland must remain considerable. We can claim that profit as well!
Skaed clutched a pencil and scrawled notes on paper, contemplating how to compel the Dutch into signing an unequal treaty and how to make its terms as advantageous to their side as possible. After all, the quarantine period would conclude tomorrow.
Just as he racked his brain over these calculations, the telephone rang again: someone reported that a telegram had arrived from Hongji Station.
"The trading post in Hongji has been attacked by bandits!" The voice on the line was urgent.
"What?!" Skaed cried out involuntarily. The female secretary perpetually stationed outside his door immediately pushed it open and entered. Skaed waved her away. "What happened? Are there casualties?"
"The specific situation remains unclear. The telegram says the trading post is currently secure and the bandits have been repelled," the native clerk responsible for information exchange reported nervously over the phone.
"Send the telegram up immediately. Hurry!" What Skaed feared most was any threat to Hongji Station's safety—after all, developing Hongji had been his vigorous advocacy. If anything went awry there, such as Beikai being killed or captured, he wouldn't be able to win reelection as Minister of Colonization and Trade. At best, he could only continue serving as Chief Secretary of the Department.
A clerk came running with the telegram. Skaed snatched the slip and found it contained precious few words—scarcely more than what the clerk had already described.
"What kind of telegram is this! It explains nothing!" Skaed fumed. "Quickly, telegraph Hongji Station to demand a detailed situation report. Do they require immediate reinforcements?"
Skaed issued rapid-fire instructions while grabbing the telephone: "Connect me to the Naval Command!"
Beikai had spent nearly two months in Yalong Bay.
During those two months, he had truly run things for the first time, unencumbered by direct leadership—at first, the autonomy felt genuinely uncomfortable. But as time passed, he grew increasingly into the role.
The first week proved the hardest to endure. He had occupied an earthen fort with thirty marines, one life secretary, and five prisoners. This particular life secretary hadn't drawn a Class C or higher ticket during the original lottery and had originally assumed purchasing a Class C would pose no difficulty. But when she leisurely went to "inspect the goods," she discovered to her dismay that Class C had sold out entirely, and even Class D tickets had grown scarce. Beikai ultimately purchased one that was merely passable, adopting an attitude of "better than nothing." At least the life secretaries had all received specialized training and were more agreeable than the female naturalized citizens from the quarantine camps.
On this deserted beach, besides the thirty-six souls present, the only visible features were wild mountains smothered in overgrown grass. Though Yalong Bay was picturesque, in Beikai's assessment it appeared equally ferocious. More than once, he had sized up the captured pirate fishing boat Yan Maoda had left them upon departing, estimating whether it could safely carry them to Haiyang in an emergency. Crossing the Gulf of Tonkin in such a vessel, he concluded, seemed rather risky.
The Zhennan had originally been expected to return within three or four days but actually required a full week. Zhang Dabala's return with the Zhennan put Beikai's mind at ease—this veteran pirate was intimately familiar with conditions in Vietnam. Now, commanding such a ship with considerable combat capability, ordinary bandits and pirates posed little threat.
The Zhennan brought abundant rice and daily necessities from Haiyang, along with more than a hundred gaunt Beiqi farmers—all refugees who had fled the Northern Court's extortionate levies, taxes, and conscription. Yan Maoda had recruited every one of them at minimal cost.
This batch of Beiqi farmers and the five pirate prisoners became the first cohort of miners for the Hongji coal mine. With sufficient grain, tools, and building materials now stockpiled in the warehouse, Beikai immediately launched large-scale construction.
He organized the miners into a separate labor camp outside the bastion. The housing consisted of simple semi-underground huts. A ditch encircling the camp served as a rudimentary defensive measure.
The miners threw themselves into excavating Cat Shit Mine No. 1. Each worker dug with the tools Beikai issued, loading coal into baskets and transporting it to the seaside via Purple Lightning wheelbarrows, where it was piled in the open space beside the wharf awaiting shipment. Though Yan Maoda had not instructed him to begin mining coal immediately, Beikai reasoned that ensuring the first ship from Lingao didn't return empty would greatly enhance his standing within the Senate.
Beikai discovered that a miner equipped with simple iron tools could excavate fifty kilograms per hour and carry it to the storage yard using a back basket or wheelbarrow. Even working ten-hour days, each person's daily coal output could reach half a ton.
After another week, two transport ships from the Dabo Shipping Company arrived in Hongji. Besides additional building materials and tools, they brought a hundred naturalized citizen laborers. These would serve as the core workforce for Hongji Station. Beyond basic manual laborers, the group included a small contingent of trained clerks, medics, and technical workers—blacksmiths and carpenters among them.
With the workforce doubled, progress accelerated. Workers constructed a wooden pier using prefabricated components. The original earthen fort was also expanded—a second earthen embankment and ditch were constructed around it. The newly enclosed area was significantly larger, forming a so-called "outer fort." Housing for naturalized citizen workers, administrative facilities, and warehouses were established within the outer fort. Six twenty-four-pounder cannons were also unloaded from the ship, and all naturalized citizen workers received the standard militia kit: helmets, spears, and machetes. Beikai's sense of security increased substantially.
When the Dabo Shipping vessels departed, they carried over a hundred tons of anthracite. Though the quantity was modest, its symbolic significance was immense. Skaed made much of it at the Executive Committee and Senate sessions. The news even appeared in the Lingao Times. Upon receiving this report, Beikai experienced mixed feelings—now he was obliged to "produce coal to serve the nation" in this remote outpost.
With naturalized citizen workers and indigenous managers forming the backbone, Beikai reorganized the workflow. The naturalized citizen workers immediately commenced construction of a light railway extending from the coal storage yard to Cat Shit Mine No. 1. Running upon it were ore tipping wagons shipped from Lingao. Miners now worked in teams, dramatically improving efficiency: a three-person team using iron shovels could rapidly fill the two-hundred-kilogram-capacity tipping wagons. A single person could then swiftly move this cart of coal to the storage yard. With three cart workers and three shovel workers, based on a ten-hour workday, they could produce seven to eight tons of coal. Approximately two hundred people, naturalized citizen workers included, now labored at the mine. Daily coal output reached over two hundred fifty tons. This production level was already sufficient for Dabo Shipping to establish a dedicated coal shipping line. The Qionghai Coal, that great vessel, finally performed its namesake duty, becoming a dedicated coal transport ship.
The surge in coal shipments transformed loading and unloading at Hongji into another bottleneck. The Qionghai Coal soon delivered steam engines, boilers, and bucket elevators. Then, to supply workers with clean drinking water, a large fixed water filter was sent as well.
Then more naturalized citizen workers arrived—Hongji's development snowballed unstoppably. As scale expanded, demand for manpower emerged in every quarter. People were needed to build houses, construct tracks, maintain machinery, load and unload cargo, even cook. By the end of February 1631, the labor force in Hongji had swelled to six hundred. More than two hundred were naturalized citizens; the remainder had been recruited locally from Beiqi. Many who could no longer bear the weight of taxes and conscription were dispatched here from the recruitment station in Haiyang. Others arrived on their own initiative, trekking over mountains after hearing the news.
The constantly growing population of Beiqi miners and their families soon coalesced into a crude settlement outside the outer fort. Ditches and bamboo fences sharpened at the top encircled the settlement for protection. Between the miners' settlement and the outer fort ran a path paved with coal cinders and gangue. Beside this path, the Cooperative had established a large cafeteria—to maximize worker efficiency and fully utilize the labor force, allowing them to cook for themselves would clearly waste time. There were also small restaurants offering higher-end fare and alcohol, plus Cooperative stores selling various goods. The surge in miners had attracted the Commerce Department's attention. Li Mei personally traveled to Hongji to open a Cooperative branch following the Nanbao model. Besides retailing diverse merchandise, the branch handled remittance services. The primary objective was promoting the circulation vouchers.
The vouchers issued to workers were quickly spent in Hongji's nascent township. Vouchers issued at the beginning of each month were largely collected back by month's end. Heavy physical labor demanded substantial nourishment; working outdoors and in the mine caused tremendous wear on clothing. However, the Cooperative purchased worn-out garments at a discount—by the catty. The frayed clothes were cleaned, disinfected, and shipped back to Lingao for papermaking.
Single men without families proved especially avid consumers. Every few days, they would patronize the small restaurants for better food and a drink. Some learned to smoke—because naturalized citizen laborers among the upper echelons of workers smoked, the local Beiqi laborers came to regard this habit as "fashionable" and adopted it themselves.
At the beginning of the second month, several dozen local Beiqi workers departed. Though Beikai felt some disappointment, he still instructed the Cooperative to exchange the circulation vouchers held by departing workers for rice or copper coins. What he hadn't anticipated was that after returning home, these workers quickly brought their families and fellow villagers back to work at the mine. During one inspection of the pit, Beikai discovered that many local women wearing conical hats were also hauling coal underground. This genuinely shocked him. Though he had witnessed women among the naturalized citizens in Lingao working in quarries breaking stones, in fields, and even on construction sites—women from Guangdong, Guangxi, and Fujian were famously capable of heavy labor—it was his first time seeing women descend into a mine pit to carry coal.
"This is too wasteful," Beikai murmured, his gaze settling on the coal-hauling women. Because the work destroyed clothing so rapidly, the miners were almost universally in rags—the women no exception. Though they appeared dark-faced and short, the skin glimpsed through tattered garments stirred certain fantasies in Beikai. Especially a few with petite yet curvy figures.
Given his authority here—his power equivalent to Tang Menglong's at Jiazi Coal Mine—he possessed the power of life and death over everyone at Hongji Station. Had he truly harbored lustful intentions and trifled with a few local women, it would scarcely have mattered. But Beikai restrained his impulse to act recklessly. Still, letting women dig and haul coal was far too wasteful of resources!
Beikai dispatched a telegram to the Department of Colonization and Trade requesting agricultural technicians and rice seeds. Though the local soil quality was poor, the Baitang River lay close at hand, making water diversion for rice cultivation highly convenient.
"We'll put to use everything the miners produce. Our slogan is: No Waste!" Beikai declared to Dugu Qiuhun, the Tiandihui Inspector from the Agricultural Department who had come to visit.
Dugu Qiuhun tugged at his East German People's Army spring-autumn uniform and offered a few noncommittal grunts. Though he had spent considerable time in the agricultural department, he remained less than enthusiastic about agricultural matters. After several months there, he had been officially appointed "Inspector" by the Organization Department. Both Wu Nanhai and Ye Yuming recognized that Qiuhun wasn't cut out for agriculture—better to have him travel around inspecting basic farmland construction. Most agricultural technicians now came from naturalized citizen origins. Having a Senator frequently visit to supervise and encourage them would spur greater effort.
This time, accompanying the shipment of rice seeds and agricultural technicians, Dugu Qiuhun had sailed to Hongji. Quite a few legends circulated among the Senators regarding Vietnamese girls, and Dugu Qiuhun was intensely curious.
But the Vietnamese girls before him—selected and prepared to perform agricultural work and plant rice—proved a profound disappointment. Their quality was decidedly ordinary. To speak frankly, they weren't even as attractive as the better-looking naturalized citizens. Moreover, their skin was dark, their bodies thin and small. They aroused no interest whatsoever.
"The difference is simply too great," Dugu Qiuhun privately lamented his decision to make this business trip to Hongji. The Vietnamese girls of legend bore no resemblance to this reality.
"It's fine. Local Beiqi farmers are constantly arriving. There are bound to be a few beauties among them. I'll reserve them for you..." Beikai offered.
Dugu Qiuhun sighed. "Forget it. If the Senate found out, they'd all pounce on us... Besides, there's the hygiene issue—I hear the antibiotic stockpile is nearly exhausted."
Beyond "escorting" rice seeds, farm tools, and agricultural technicians, Dugu Qiuhun bore another responsibility: drafting a fishery report. Though the Agricultural Department had been unable to reclaim fishing rights in full, the Navy refused to relinquish them, citing fisheries as a complement to maritime power. After negotiations, both sides reached an accord: the Navy would continue controlling the fishing fleets originally under its purview, implementing fishery supervision and collecting the "fishing five-one tax" on their behalf. The Agricultural Department would organize indigenous fishermen into fishery cooperatives.
Having delineated spheres of authority, Wu Nanhai and Li Di of the Navy convened a joint fishery work meeting for in-depth discussion on implementing the Navy-Agricultural Department Fishery Management Agreement. Both parties concurred that the potential for collecting seafood tax was substantial—unfortunately, the production scale of indigenous fishermen in this region remained minuscule.
According to Navy figures, the fishery tax collected by Maritime Forces throughout 1630 totaled four thousand five hundred dan, some five hundred tons. The total catch of fishermen paying taxes and fishing in waters near Lingao for the entire year had not exceeded two thousand five hundred tons—most of which was sold to the Lingao regime. In the old time-space, during the peak period of Lingao's traditional fisheries from 1934 to 1936, the annual catch had reached as much as twenty thousand tons. Clearly, even without modern fishing boats and equipment, using only traditional methods, the production potential in the Lingao area remained immense.
Extending this assessment to the entire Qiongzhou Strait, the waters surrounding Hainan Island, and the Gulf of Tonkin, the untapped fishery potential proved astonishingly vast. Compared to aquaculture—which required a robust agricultural foundation—ocean fishing represented the only source capable of quickly, cheaply, and abundantly providing protein and fat. The population under Lingao control was steadily increasing, and demand for protein and fat supplies grew correspondingly larger.
To expand production, three approaches presented themselves: first, enlarge the production scale—in short, increase fishing boats and gear; second, fish in deeper waters—the Gulf of Tonkin, not far from Lingao, constituted a natural rich fishing ground. In 1956, Lingao fishing boats had ventured in groups to fish the Gulf of Tonkin, achieving a seasonal catch totaling thirty-two thousand tons; third, adopt new fishing gear and techniques, improve nets, and extend catching depth by even a few meters—the resulting production increase would prove considerable.
In these figures, Wu De, the Director of the Planning Institute who hailed from a fisherman family, perceived an opportunity. He proposed implementing "fishery cooperative" activities for indigenous fishermen.
Integrating indigenous fishermen from Lingao-controlled territory under a single banner, promoting new fishing boats and gear, implementing multi-boat cooperative fishing, then transitioning to deep-sea operations—all this served the people's livelihood. The indirect benefit was that the Navy could consolidate and control the previously scattered fishing boats at sea, essentially acquiring a maritime reserve force. Fishing boats could function not only as reconnaissance, transport, and patrol vessels but could also serve as warships when necessity demanded.
Wu De believed that fishermen had traditionally pooled funds to purchase boats and fish. Compared to farmers, their commercial instincts were keener. He himself came from a fishing village and understood the fishermen's mentality quite well. Having the Transmigrator Group lead fishery cooperatives and conduct joint-stock operations was feasible—potentially even smoother than the Tiandihui's agricultural promotion.
The fishery cooperative initiative became another Tiandihui project. But progress did not proceed as smoothly as imagined. Fishermen of this era constituted an independent and insular community, governed by an entirely different way of life and code of conduct. Compelling them to pay fishing taxes was straightforward—the rules were self-evident. Persuading them to join an organization and embrace joint-stock cooperation proved far more difficult. Consequently, the entire fishery cooperative advanced with difficulty. Initially, only fishermen near Bopu and Maniao were integrated. In 1630, the second counter-encirclement battle erupted, and fishery cooperative work was temporarily suspended. It resumed only after the joint fishery work meeting.
Riding the momentum of the great victory in the second counter-encirclement, combined with the demonstrative effect of the Navy's direct fishing fleet's modern gear, the fishery cooperative promotion proceeded far more smoothly. By the end of 1630, the Tiandihui-managed fishery cooperative had already brought more than eighty percent of Lingao's fishermen under its umbrella. They pooled funds to purchase several new, larger fishing vessels.
(End of Chapter)