Chapter 21: The Foreign Policy Debate

“That’s easy to say,” Yang Shixiang said, his mind much more at ease. “With my brother here to preside over the situation, I can rest assured. As for what I just said, brother, please find an opportunity to present the pros and cons to President Wen and Duke Ma.”

“I will certainly relay it,” Liu San said, though he was very much against the idea.

Yang Shixiang’s theory of seeking amnesty had a considerable market among the vested interest groups in Lin’gao, especially those who had benefited the most. The Australians had brought them wealth they had never imagined, but they were well aware of the risks behind this wealth. The potential for confrontation with the Great Ming made them lose sleep at night.

Compared to the simple gratitude of the destitute refugees who had been recruited as workers and soldiers, this group that had benefited the most from the new regime was somewhat wavering. A secret investigation report by the General Political Security Bureau pointed out that the new rich of Lin’gao had limited determination to defend the fruits of their victory. Many were afraid of their own status, believing they were suspected of “following the rebels.”

The report went on to point out that some were even transferring part of their property and family members to areas under Ming rule outside of Lin’gao, making plans for a “wily rabbit with three burrows.”

Although the presence of the Great Ming was limited locally, it still had the accumulated prestige of nearly three hundred years. Before the transmigrator group could fully demonstrate its ability to protect the interests of its people, this sense of unease was widespread among the newly emerged vested interest groups in Lin’gao. The idea of seeking amnesty was very popular among these people, especially the new rich of Lin’gao. They had made their fortunes through the opportunities brought by the arrival of the transmigrator group. They both hoped that the rule of the transmigrator group would last, and feared that the government’s punitive expedition would destroy everything. Therefore, they were eager for the transmigrator group to seek amnesty to obtain a “legitimate” status and protect their newly accumulated property.

To make this group follow the transmigrators wholeheartedly, the transmigrator group still needed an out-and-out victory to break their fear and superstition of the government.

Recently, the number of people who, openly or secretly, expressed the hope that the transmigrator group would actively seek amnesty had increased. Yang Shixiang was one of them. Without the transmigrator group, there would be no Runshitang today. Yang Shixiang was also more concerned about “how long the red flag can be kept flying.” Not only because the interests of Runshitang and the transmigrator group were more closely intertwined, but also because Runshitang’s market and raw materials all came from the mainland. Once the Great Ming and the transmigrator group went to war, regardless of who won or lost, doing business would become very difficult.

The issue of seeking amnesty had been mentioned by some within the transmigrator group in the past. They believed that the greatest benefit of seeking amnesty was that it would provide a relatively stable period of development, and the cost of seeking amnesty was still worth it. But this opinion did not become the mainstream view.

Most elders believed that seeking amnesty was purely asking for trouble, and the cost in terms of human relations was too great. Moreover, under the Ming system, it was still uncertain whether the transmigrators could achieve an amnesty on the condition of ruling Lin’gao as a separate territory. Even if they could, the benefits would be very limited, but the constraints would be considerable.

With Li Luoyou’s sudden visit, the Foreign Intelligence Bureau analyzed that his motive, besides wanting to do business, was very likely to be to probe the situation in Lin’gao on behalf of the government or the Zheng family, to decide whether to fight or make peace.

This touched upon a key issue: what kind of foreign policy did the Lin’gao regime intend to adopt at this stage? Was it to support the Ming against the Qing, or to support the Qing against the Ming? Of course, the ultimate goal of the elders was the same: to overthrow both the Ming and the Qing. But on the question of whom to overthrow first, the Senate was divided into two distinct factions. At a working meeting of the Senate Standing Committee shortly after the second plenary session, a fierce debate broke out between the two sides on this issue.

The pro-Ming faction was represented by Liu Zheng of the long-range reconnaissance team. Liu Zheng was an out-and-out imperial Han nationalist. At every meeting of the Senate Standing Committee, he would imitate Cato the Elder and shout, “Shengjing still exists.” With this move, he became the leader of the imperial Han nationalists among the elders.

This faction advocated providing a certain degree of assistance to the Great Ming while also gaining benefits. Specific policies included selling arms to the Ming, undertaking the transport of grain tribute, and providing credit loans to the Ming on the condition that they provide collateral—given the Ming’s financial situation, it was almost impossible to recover the loans and interest. If necessary, they would use the navy to conduct military operations in Liaodong, harassing the Manchu regime and constantly weakening the enemy to reduce the pressure on the Great Ming.

The purpose of assisting the Great Ming, according to Liu Zheng, was: first, to alleviate the suffering of the people in the Central Plains and minimize the sacrifice and losses there; second, to reduce the hostility of the Great Ming and make it a temporary ally—even if they couldn’t become allies, they could at least be trading partners. After all, the Great Ming was the transmigrator group’s most important source of raw materials and population, and its main market. Third, once the transmigrator group landed on the mainland and established its own regime, there would at least be a basic social structure to utilize, and intellectuals to use, instead of a blank slate.

Of course, this faction was actually composed of people with different goals. Many of them were Ming fans, clearly expressing their goodwill towards the Great Ming and hoping to extend its life; some just hoped that the people of the Central Plains would suffer less from the change of dynasties and be spared the suffering of devastation and family ruin; and others were just considering the benefits, believing that supporting the Great Ming was beneficial to the overall interests of the transmigrator group.

The other faction was led by Li Haiping of the navy, a group of pragmatic realists. This faction was completely profit-oriented and advocated using any means to achieve their goals. There were supporters of the “virus stream,” who advocated indiscriminate virus attacks; there were proponents of the “victory through drug trafficking theory,” who hoped to sell opium and coca on a large scale to Liaodong; and there were proponents of the “smash and rebuild theory,” who believed that they should provide assistance to the Manchus to speed up their entry into the pass. Let the Manchus, the Southern Ming, and the peasant armies fight for control of the Central Plains, turning it into a wasteland, and completely smashing the old social system and economic structure from top to bottom.

“The great leader said, you have to sweep the house clean before you can welcome guests,” Li Haiping unabashedly advocated the smash and rebuild theory at the Senate meeting. “If we don’t smash the old system, we can’t build a new society. I think the task of smashing the old system and carrying out a great slaughter should be entirely left to the Manchus.”

“No matter what, we can’t let the Tartars enter the pass and harm the people—one of our main purposes in coming here is to save China. The rotten peach of the Ming can be picked later,” Ding Ding fiercely refuted Li Haiping’s view at the Standing Committee meeting. “You don’t even have a basic sense of national identity! Do you have any conscience left?”

“We are from another time and space. What national identity do we have with the natives? Do you think the people of the Great Ming will identify us as Chinese?”

“Your thinking is incredible,” Ding Ding was so angry he was about to jump up. “This is not just traitorous talk, you’re a national nihilist!”

“Quiet, quiet,” Wu Nanhai, who was temporarily chairing the meeting, quickly banged his gavel. “No personal attacks.”

“How will you seize the local control held by the Ming’s clans and gentry! And what about the right to speak controlled by the Confucian scholars? If this is not resolved, no one can save China! Establishing a national regime is not difficult, what’s difficult is transforming society! Without a bloodletting-style purge of society, our new system will not be able to stand firm, and it won’t be long before we go back to the old ways of traditional society.”

Li Haiping was completely unfazed by the accusation of national nihilism. He continued to point out that when the time was right, the transmigrator group would have a just cause to march north. “Expel the Tartars and restore China.” As long as the transmigrator group raised this banner, they would have the moral high ground. Anyone who dared to resist the transmigrator group would be a traitor.

“Is the slogan ‘restore China’ better than ‘overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming’? You have to know that the Great Ming is still very influential in this time and space! Just look at how many people are fighting under the banner of ‘overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming’—even the remnants of Li and Zhang have raised the banner of the Ming!”

“That’s not a problem. Whether the Ming falls to the Manchus or Li Chuang, the official propaganda of Lin’gao should be ‘the Ming has lost its virtue, and the one with virtue can replace it.’ Then, with the Mandate of Heaven theory and the Five Elements cycle theory, it can be roughly settled. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, various forces also raised the banner of the Great Song.”

“…By then, we will have used the Manchus’ hands to clear out all potential opposition forces. Our arrival will mean salvation for the suffering masses. We can eliminate the resistance to social reform without getting our own hands dirty, and also win the hearts of the people. Isn’t that killing multiple birds with one stone?”

But the smash-and-rebuild theorists themselves were divided. The main point of contention was who should be the great hammer. Some supported the Manchus, while others believed that it was better to let Li Zicheng do the job than the barbarians. In terms of the degree of destruction, the two were about the same. This issue often ended up in a debate about “national righteousness.” As a result, the leader of the smash-and-rebuild faction, Li Haiping, earned himself the hat of a “traitor.”

Some of Li Haiping’s remarks, such as “let the Tartars help us kill all the scholars, so we don’t have to kill them ourselves” and “to destroy the old system and old society, we must rely on indiscriminate killing,” made him the common enemy of both the imperial Han nationalists and the universalists. If it weren’t for the timely rescue by his navy colleagues and his robust physique, honed by his experience as a commander at Changhua Fort, he would have been beaten up at the entrance of the Senate. From then on, Li Haiping always carried a baton with him whenever he returned to Lin’gao.

The two factions debated for hours at the meeting. Since both factions had sufficient representation in the Senate’s standing committees, neither could gain a decisive majority in the end.

Since no one could persuade the other at the standing committee, the Senate eventually passed a foreign policy guideline that was roughly acceptable to all sides: “glorious isolation under a continental balance of power.”

The core of this policy was “equal opportunity,” “non-interference,” and “isolation.” Its specific measures were: the transmigrator group would use all means to protect its own interests from being violated; use all means to expand the transmigrator group’s control area when necessary; not give up the opportunity to benefit from both sides: develop trade relations with both sides simultaneously, develop coastal trade routes, and stimulate the circulation of bulk goods; export Lin’gao goods on a large scale, and import raw materials and population. For the time being, they would not interfere in the war process of the two sides and would not take actions that would seriously affect the balance of power between them.

The only force to be eliminated in this guiding policy was the maritime powers represented by Zheng Zhilong. How can one allow others to snore beside one’s couch—without establishing naval supremacy over the coast of China, the large-scale coastal trade planned by the Planning院, the Ministry of Commerce, and the Navy would be impossible.

The seemingly compromising plan proposed by the Planning院 actually reflected the thinking of the bureaucrats in the Executive Committee—”balance.”

At this stage, the transmigrators’ strategy was to climb the technology tree as quickly as possible and accumulate strength. Under this overall goal, the transmigrator group had to effectively govern the entire territory of Hainan, expand to key coastal points such as Vietnam and Taiwan, and establish naval supremacy over the coast of China. The strength of the transmigrator group was not sufficient to expand in multiple strategic directions, so the mainland policy could only be based on balance. The most ideal state was to let the Ming and the Manchus be unable to defeat each other, and to contain each other through mutual attacks.

If they helped the Ming too much, once the situation in Liaodong stabilized, the Ming would inevitably come to deal with the transmigrators who were occupying Qiongzhou. Conversely, if the Manchus’ strength became too strong, causing them to enter the pass prematurely, and the forces of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong had not yet developed, the Manchus would directly become the dominant power, establish a regime on the mainland ahead of schedule, which would be a great hindrance to the transmigrator group’s future conquest of the mainland.

Wen Desi clearly stated at a working meeting of the Executive Committee that neither supporting the Qing nor assisting the Ming was advisable, and assisting the Ming was especially inadvisable.

“The Great Ming must be in chaos. If it’s not in chaos, we won’t have a just cause to enter the mainland. To have a sense of national identity with the Great Ming of another time and space, tsk tsk. I’m in favor of having a sense of identity, but it should be others identifying with us, not the other way around! Some comrades’ minds are confused. Don’t let it get to the point where the transmigrator army becomes the fence of the Great Ming—because of ‘national hatred,’ we beat all the various forces around the Great Ming, and then leave a self-righteous Great Ming that is completely impenetrable. Are you all planning to fight your way into the Great Ming to modernize it yourselves? Will those Ming Confucian scholars, landlords, and old bureaucrats, who are protected by our powerful military, be grateful to us and obediently listen to us? The Manchus only shaved half of the Ming people’s hair, but you want to uproot them completely. Who will be more hated?”

Ma Qianzhu rarely supported Chairman Wen’s view on this issue: “An incomplete liquidation of the old system will leave us with endless troubles. Especially the liquidation of the old ideology must be thorough.”

“But the chaos must be orderly. To openly support the Manchus against the Ming like Li Haiping is like taking off your pants and going at it directly. Comrades, sometimes we still need to pay attention to our image. This is too ugly. How will we educate the next generation in the future?”

“It is dangerous to get involved in mainland affairs now,” Wu De said. “Before the first five-year plan is completed, I oppose getting involved in mainland affairs in any form—except for trade. Our future is in the south!”

Wu De advocated the “Southern Advance Theory.” He proposed that the transmigrator group should not be in a hurry to join the fray for the mainland, but should control the periphery, do business with all forces, and obtain the greatest benefits. The focus of the transmigrator group’s development should be shifted to the Southeast Asian region, establishing colonies to develop the rich natural resources there.

“Our manpower resources are limited. If we invest them on the mainland, even just to manage and control a Guangdong, it will tie up a large amount of our energy. It is beyond our capacity to control a vast territory and population. Instead of throwing ourselves into the great whirlpool of contending for the Central Plains now, it would be better to go to Southeast Asia, which is sparsely populated and rich in resources.” Wu De then said very cryptically, “And we have sufficient discretionary power in our actions in Southeast Asia.”

The Southern Advance Theory and the “Continental Balance Policy” were complementary. By maintaining a balanced model of mutual warfare on the mainland, Lin’gao could use this window of opportunity to devote its main forces to the trade routes in Southeast Asia, as far as India. This route could provide most of the industrialized resources other than population. The silver and grain obtained through trade could be used to exchange for population from the mainland. On the one hand, this would improve their human resource level. On the other hand, a large influx of silver would cause inflation, adding another straw to the Ming dynasty’s back.

“At the same time, our practice of absorbing a large number of refugees will greatly reduce the degree of internal turmoil in the Ming dynasty. The peasant armies that were originally starting fires everywhere will probably not expand to a hundred or two hundred thousand at once,” Wu De said. “In comparison, we have also removed a few straws. The gains and losses are roughly balanced.”

The population obtained from the mainland could not only meet Lin’gao’s demand for labor and soldiers but also be used to organize colonization of Southeast Asia and establish colonies. The colonies would not only be the fortresses of the Lin’gao regime in Southeast Asia but also the blood vessels for absorbing Southeast Asian resources. With colonies, the Lin’gao regime could have strong control over the main resource areas without having to rely on the whims of the local chieftains.

Based on this guiding strategy and their judgment of his intentions, the Executive Committee’s guiding opinion for Operation Liu was to display Lin’gao’s powerful military and industrial capabilities as much as possible, to present themselves as a hard, prickly fruit, to dispel any ambitions of the government or Zheng Zhilong, and at the same time, to win over Li Luoyou as much as possible and try to make him a business partner of the transmigrator group.

As for Quaker, this Englishman, the Ministry of Commerce believed that they could establish trade relations with the English in India through him. They had already opened up trade with the Portuguese-occupied Goa through Li Huamei. With Quaker, they could open up a trade route to Surat.

Surat could not yet provide any products urgently needed by the transmigrators. The establishment of this trade route was first to prevent Li Huamei’s monopoly on trade with India, and second, both Surat and Goa were transit points for trade from Asia to Europe, and had a certain window value.

“The English have other uses,” Wu De said. “In a way, their desire for wealth far exceeds that of the gold-loving Spaniards, and they are even more unscrupulous and shameless than all other Europeans. This is something we can fully utilize. Many dirty jobs can be left to them.”