Chapter 46: Allies
The envoy was a middle-aged man. Although he wore the traditional respectable clothes of a Chinese man, with his hair neatly tied in the characteristic bun on a Chinese man’s head, and a graceful gauze cover—a decoration only for wealthy Chinese—the Governor-General could still smell the stench of seawater and rotten fish and shrimp on him.
Apparently, this respectable Chinese attire made the envoy feel very uncomfortable. De Carpentier noticed that he was constantly tugging at his clothes, as if they were not comfortable to wear.
Liu Xiang’s envoy made a deep bow before him. De Carpentier merely nodded slightly. As the Governor-General of the East India Company, he considered himself to represent the authority of all seventeen directors of the United Provinces and did not need to be overly courteous to the pirates of the South China Sea.
“Well, what new proposal have you brought?” the Governor-General asked.
The envoy brought Liu Xiang’s proposal requesting Dutch support. To be precise, Liu Xiang hoped that the Dutch could dispatch warships from Tayouan to support his battle against Zheng Zhilong—he was recently preparing to launch a naval operation against Zheng Zhilong, and if possible, completely destroy Zhongzuo.
Besides hoping for direct Dutch participation in the battle, the accompanying request also included a demand for the Dutch to provide cannons, matchlocks, gunpowder, and craftsmen and soldiers who could use and repair European firearms. He could pay for all of these. If the Dutch were willing, he would buy or rent a few European-style “clinker-built great ships,” of course with the accompanying sailors.
“This is no small request,” the Governor-General thought. Tayouan only had two permanently stationed ships, one of which was a cutter. But he had always been cautious about directly joining the conflict between Liu Xiang and Zheng Zhilong—after all, most of the merchants currently going to Tayouan were from Fujian. If he angered Zheng Zhilong, he would most likely blockade this trade route. That would not be worth the loss.
The relationship between the Dutch and Zheng Zhilong was delicate. First, Zheng Zhilong had defeated the Dutch attempt to meddle in the Fujian maritime trade in 1627, forcing Nuyts, stationed in Tayouan, to sign a three-year trade agreement with Zheng Zhilong the following year. Although this trade agreement was never implemented, the Dutch were always wary of Zheng Zhilong’s power. In 1630, the representative of the East India Company, Putmans, went to the mainland to negotiate a trade agreement with Zheng Zhilong. Since then, the two sides had a period of “friendly exchanges.” The Dutch provided some help to Zheng Zhilong in wiping out the sea lords, including allowing his ships to enter the port of Tayouan at will.
But the expansion of Zheng Zhilong’s power eventually made him the middleman for the Dutch trade in Zhangzhou Bay: the Dutch could only sell the goods they transported to the Fujian seas to the Zheng Zhilong group, and similarly, they could only buy Chinese goods from the Zheng Zhilong group.
The East India Company was very dissatisfied with this trade monopoly. At the same time, the two sides also had friction on the trade route to Japan. The Dutch hoped to monopolize the trade with Japan, while the Zheng Zhilong group also regarded the trade with Japan as their private domain.
Under these various factors, the Dutch had always hoped to support another force to attack and weaken Zheng Zhilong, so that the Chinese sea merchant groups on the Fujian and Guangdong seas could not monopolize the coastal trade, thus opening the door to free trade for the Dutch.
Supporting the Liu Xiang group was a reasonable choice for the East India Company. Of course, considering the fragile position of the Tayouan trade, the Dutch support for Liu Xiang had always been relatively covert. They had been secretly providing aid such as cannons and ammunition, but providing ships was too big a matter—not to mention that the Dutch did not have many ships in the East Indies.
In general, the East India Company did not want to see a decisive battle between Liu Xiang and Zheng Yiguan. The final result of a decisive battle would inevitably be that the winner takes all. At that time, a group that monopolized the coastal trade of both Guangdong and Fujian provinces would be a nightmare for the East India Company.
The message brought by the envoy complained that the pressure from Zheng Zhilong was increasing. After Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the court, his official status gave him great convenience in his activities along the coasts of Fujian and Guangdong. He could easily obtain supplies from the shore, and even get intelligence and weapon support from the government troops. Even in the competition on land, Zheng Zhilong had the upper hand. Both Zheng Zhilong and Liu Xiang had allies known as “mountain lords” on shore who served as their lairs. The “mountain lords” were half-farmers, half-bandits. They were not simple bandits, but were originally communities of exiled peasants who had gathered in the mountains to cut wood, burn charcoal, and cultivate cash crops. The mountain lords not only provided material supplies and safe havens for the sea pirates and sea merchants after they landed, but were also the main source of the cash crops exported by the sea merchants, the largest of which was indigo. Indigo was another major export cash crop of China at that time and was a major source of profit for the sea merchants. After Zheng Zhilong gained official status, the Fujian government clearly supported his activities. Under this double pressure, the attitude of the mountain lords changed significantly—Liu Xiang had fewer and fewer “friends” on shore, which posed a threat to his business and even his survival.
These problems, combined, eventually forced Liu Xiang’s group to make the decision to have a showdown with Zheng Zhilong. In comparison, Zheng Zhilong’s power was not yet too strong at this time. Launching a decisive battle at this time would give them at least a fifty percent chance of winning.
A fifty percent chance was really not a good opportunity to launch a decisive battle, but as time went on, Zheng Zhilong was constantly getting stronger. In the past, he was just a force on the Fujian and Guangdong seas, but now, with the support of Xiong Wencan, he was already the strongest force on the seas. And this strongest force had no intention of “sharing the wealth,” and was clearly determined to take everything for itself.
“Does Old Xiang really want to fight a decisive battle with Yiguan?” the Governor-General raised his eyelids and looked at the envoy standing before him.
“Your Excellency, you see clearly! Yiguan is getting more and more powerful now! That old ghost Xiong Wencan gave him many large ships and many Red Barbarian cannons. He can recruit as many people as he wants in Fujian, and when he fights, he is not afraid of casualties or losing ships. If this continues, our great gang will be dragged to death sooner or later.”
The envoy said that recently, Zheng Zhilong’s fleet had approached the core area of Liu Xiang’s base in the Chaoshan area several times. In order to protect his core territory, Liu Xiang’s group had to urgently withdraw from the vicinity of the Pearl River Delta and return to the Chaoshan area with all their forces to prepare to meet Zheng Zhilong’s challenge.
Losing the territory near the Pearl River Delta was a very serious problem for Liu Xiang—it was his main source of income. Although he could not monopolize the shipping routes for foreign goods due to the Portuguese naval patrols, the income from the “passage fees” paid by various other coastal trading vessels entering and leaving Guangzhou was also substantial. Although Zheng Zhilong’s actions did not provoke a direct naval battle between the two sides, it made Liu Xiang very passive. He could not risk losing his base in the Chaoshan area and having Zheng Zhilong raid his old lair while he continued to make money in the Pearl River Delta. But now, being forced to return to the Chaoshan area with all his forces, the territory in the Pearl River Delta that he had gradually built up since the end of the Tianqi era would slowly be taken over by others who took advantage of the vacuum. No territory meant no money, and no money meant nothing.
For Liu Xiang’s group, fighting now might not guarantee survival, but not fighting was certain death. They could not sustain their great gang with the resources of Chaoshan alone.
De Carpentier certainly understood Liu Xiang’s current predicament. But he had no intention of sending any ships to support Liu Xiang. Since Liu Xiang was not certain of victory, it was not a wise choice to bet everything on him now. Even if Liu Xiang was lucky enough to defeat his opponent, with Zheng Zhilong’s current strength, he would not necessarily decline. He would inevitably use the blockade of the Tayouan shipping route as retaliation. Providing support in terms of weapons and personnel could be considered. The company had two ships in very poor condition in the port of Batavia: the “Alert” and the “Zealous.” These two three-hundred-ton two-masted ships leaked so badly that they had to be pumped continuously during voyages. They could not sail far without an oversized crew. But their sails, rigging, and armament were complete. One had 12 cannons, and the other had 18. Selling them both to Liu Xiang would be a good choice. The Chinese would repair them; they had enough shipwrights and shipbuilding materials.
But this was not the main problem. The Governor-General had to consider another possibility after the war between Liu and Zheng began: what if Liu Xiang was defeated in the decisive battle? Zheng Zhilong would undoubtedly come straight down to the Guangdong seas, and at that time, the company’s negotiating terms with him would be even smaller. It would eventually be reduced to the trade relationship they had with Xu Xinsu in the port of Tayouan—at that time, the company’s commercial agent stationed in Tayouan had to purchase the goods transported by Xu Xinsu at a price 50% higher than the market price.
The Governor-General suddenly thought of the Australians in Lingao. He asked, “What kind of people are the Australians in Lingao?”
Translator’s Note: The following section was marked as “to be discarded” in the original text, with a note to see the end of section 46 and the beginning of section 47 for the continuation. I have included the discarded text here for completeness, as it was part of the original file.
“Oh?” The Governor-General’s interest was piqued.
“The court has already sent a large army to Lingao to exterminate the Australians. They only have a few thousand people in total, and not many ships. How can they be a match for the court?” The envoy did not mince words, and recounted the story of how Liu Xiang had ordered his subordinates to attack Lingao and was defeated. He also talked about the recent gathering of Ming troops near Guangzhou, preparing for a large-scale amphibious invasion. Liu Xiang’s withdrawal from the vicinity of the Pearl River Delta was also to avoid a direct conflict with the government troops. And another important reason why he thought of a decisive battle with Zheng Zhilong was that the government army was about to attack Lingao, and the Australians would definitely not be able to deal with him, thus relieving his worries from the rear.
“…At that time, the great manager did not know that their firearms were powerful, and made a miscalculation,” the envoy said nonchalantly. “In the end, we lost about a thousand men.”