Chapter 52: The Usefulness of the Dutch

Although it was only February, the temperature had already begun to rise. Si Kaide thought to himself that he would have to get the geothermal air conditioning installed this summer. Of course, to provide welfare for the administrative department, the copper problem had to be solved first. No matter how simple the structure of the geothermal air conditioning was, the heat exchanger and other components still required copper. Although the amount was not large, it was a non-productive, non-essential consumption. The last motion to install geothermal air conditioning in the transmigrators’ apartments was also vetoed by the Planning Institute. In the end, only the installation positions were reserved.

Where to find copper? Currently, the only large quantity they could obtain was Japanese copper bought from Guangdong. Si Kaide had a bellyful of complaints about the Japanese copper imported from Guangdong—silver could be extracted from the Japanese copper bars, which kept the price of Japanese copper high for a long time, and the large purchases by the trade department further fueled the upward trend in prices. Every time Si Kaide saw the trade list for Japanese copper, he felt very pained.

Although the trading price of Japanese copper had fallen this year—thanks to the suspension of the anti-rebel trade in the previous year—the decline was not large. After all, copper was always a scarce mineral in China, and like silver, it was consumed as soon as it was available.

“It seems we can’t do without directly controlling a few large copper mines,” Si Kaide muttered to himself, looking at the large sand table below.

In the hall, some naturalized citizen interns were working on the layout of the sand table. The process of laying out was to use a parallelogram-shaped drawing frame to enlarge each contour line from the contour map onto several large sheets of paper. Then, the naturalized citizen trainees who were studying surveying and mapping would wet the standardized dry clay tiles produced in Lingao and lay them on the drawing paper, and then pile them up layer by layer to form the shapes of mountains, rivers, and the continental shelf. The seabed was painted blue, and the forests were marked out with thumbtacks with green paper strips attached to them, representing different tree species and average breast-height diameters. Then, simple models were used to mark out details such as towns, mines, and ships.

In the old timeline, this kind of simple model was made of corrugated cardboard. Since the paper mill in Lingao did not produce corrugated cardboard, the Ministry of Colonies used clay instead, and later, following Director Wen’s suggestion, it was changed to mass-produced standard clay mosaics, which could greatly reduce the drying time, because if the lower layer was not dry, building several more layers on top would cause deformation.

Next, the transmigrators from the Ministry of Colonies and various relevant departments, holding thumbtacks, pens, and paper card models representing various equipment, facilities, and buildings, took turns climbing onto the sand table, moving them around. The buildings they placed represented construction plans, and the thumbtacks they pulled out represented available timber resources. The military personnel indicated the key points of defense. The transportation department used black, gray, and white ropes to mark the future locations of roads and railways… Through constant placement, the layout of the entire colony was optimized. The clerks of the Ministry of Colonies and other departments, holding piles of materials, were ready to answer the transmigrators’ questions at any time, while other clerks took notes.

In the small conference room next door, kvass and food were laid out. The transmigrators who came down from the sand table would sit down, drink beverages, and discuss. In these small conference rooms, which used to be transmigrator dormitories, they would often argue about all the details all night long, and the success or failure of the entire operation depended on the coordination of countless details. In all these conference rooms, clerks took notes on the details of the discussions.

All these records would eventually be compiled and organized after the model project was completed to form a colonial development plan, which would be sent by the Ministry of Colonies to the relevant departments for countersigning. Each department would also provide its own attachments to justify its countersigning opinions. Then, it would be submitted to the Executive Committee through the General Office. If the Executive Committee planned to use military force or a large amount of human, financial, and material resources to complete these plans, a relatively concise and comprehensive proposal would have to be prepared and submitted to the Senate for approval, or at least for a hearing.

The military was also making a larger and more precise sand table of Hon Gai. The General Staff had a larger sand table room specifically for wargaming. However, Si Kaide knew that the military’s attitude towards the Hon Gai development plan was extremely contradictory.

On the one hand, they hoped that the final solution to the coal problem would take the army’s equipment and scale to a new level. Needless to say, the navy’s coal reserves also directly affected the fleet that was about to be steam-powered. On the other hand, the army was afraid that the armed conflicts arising from the development of Hon Gai would place a heavy burden on them. This forward-looking and backward-looking attitude made Si Kaide very dissatisfied. In his view, the army was a typical example of wanting to eat meat but being afraid of the smell.

Si Kaide knew that a few days ago, Xi Yazhou had been recalled to Lingao by the General Staff. He Ming, who had been elected as the head of the General Staff in the by-election at the third plenary session of the Senate, had asked him to preside over a wargame in the General Staff’s sand table room to roughly deduce the strategic situation around Hon Gai. The official report of this wargame had not yet been released. Si Kaide suspected that they were “polishing” it.

At this moment, the phone on his desk rang. Si Kaide returned to his office and picked up the phone:

“Yes, it’s me. What? Henan, no, the Dutch are here? Good, good, yes, let’s keep them on the ship to cool off for a while.”

He put down the phone. The caller was Meng De. The sudden arrival of the Dutch in Lingao was far beyond his expectations. The Executive Committee and the Senate had always regarded the Dutch as a major threat—this was somewhat due to national sentiment. However, the Dutch’s ambition made them indeed the most threatening opponent on the East Asian seas. Moreover, they also occupied the port of Tayouan in Taiwan—which was a territory that the transmigrator group planned to control in the future. There was a fundamental conflict of interest.

But so far, no one had expected the Dutch to take the initiative to request trade, rather than coming with a menacing fleet to fight Lingao. Before this, the army had conducted countless wargames on whether Liu Xiang would join forces with the Dutch to attack Lingao, Sanya, or even Hon Gai, but they had never thought that their purpose was peaceful trade.

In the various memorandums and plans piled up in Si Kaide’s filing cabinets and safes, the Dutch were almost ignored. Because the Ministry of Colonies and Trade had no intention of doing much business with the Dutch, as most of the things the Dutch could provide were not irreplaceable. The goods the Dutch could provide, the British could also provide. The goods that could be transported to Lingao, the Portuguese could also transport. The silver the Dutch could provide mostly came from Japan and Persia.

Of course, if the trade conditions were favorable enough, doing business with the Dutch was not out of the question. After all, Lingao was still an entity dominated by an export-oriented economy. With a large influx of raw materials and a large export of products, it was not a bad idea to have a few more middlemen who could deliver goods to their door when their own transportation capacity was insufficient.

However, the relationship with the Dutch was a matter of “diplomacy,” and as a rule, it had to be decided by the Senate, or rather, by the Standing Committee of the Senate.

During the quarantine period of the Dutch merchant group on board the ship, a heated debate broke out in the Standing Committee of the Lingao Senate on how to arrange for the Dutch. The newly elected Speaker of the Senate was Qian Shuiting. After the Feiyun was turned into a club at Lingao Cape Park, it was once deserted. Later, the main members held a meeting and deeply reflected on the shortcomings of running an “overseas club.” Through unremitting efforts to advertise in the newspapers and widely carry out a series of popular activities such as clay pigeon shooting, bonfire parties, and pistol shooting training, they gradually attracted popularity. Qian Shuiting also became a person “everyone knew.” So in this by-election, he was elected with his good “mass relations.” This surprised him quite a bit, because he had not planned to take on the role of Speaker of the Senate so soon—he had originally nominated Hai Lin from the Ministry of Timber Industry.

At the Standing Committee meeting, most of the transmigrators believed that one mountain cannot accommodate two tigers, and that a battle with the Dutch was inevitable sooner or later. The idea that “the Dutch are the main European opponents in East Asia” had not changed. However, the Dutch suddenly came across the sea to express their willingness to trade, sign a trade agreement, and even establish a certain degree of alliance. Given Lingao’s current situation, there was no need to refuse a potential opponent who expressed friendship—not to mention that the Dutch had no conflict of interest with Lingao for the time being.

Even if the Dutch wanted to fight, they probably had no troops to send, and Lingao temporarily had no ability to organize an expeditionary force to attack Batavia or Taiwan. However, Lingao would probably launch an action against Taiwan within 2 years, so the Senate did not want to be bound by any alliances or restrictions. Therefore, the final resolution of the Senate was to agree to sign a trade agreement with the Dutch.

Si Kaide got the trade permit. He studied the Dutch cargo list—these goods were still piled up in the warehouse at the wharf. Besides spices, every kind of thing the Dutch brought was useful. And the linen made his eyes light up. Linen clothes were much more breathable and comfortable than cotton clothes. The agricultural department had not promoted the large-scale cultivation of flax and hemp in Lingao, so they only had a small amount of linen, most of which was obtained through trade with the Li people.

He suddenly thought that the Dutch were currently the main country trading with Japan. The Dutch trade with Japan was only interrupted after Zheng Zhilong completely monopolized the coastal trade of China. Right now was the time when the Dutch were making a fortune on the Japan route. If they could buy Japanese copper bars through the Dutch, it would be much cheaper than buying them through second- or even third-hand dealers in Guangzhou.

As long as the import of copper could be expanded by 3-4 times, installing geothermal air conditioning in offices and apartments would not be an outrageous luxury. Compared to the consumption of the industrial sector, this was just a drop in the bucket.

As for the goods to be exported to the Dutch, Si Kaide thought it over and over. Among Lingao’s bulk industrial products, the export volume of glass products was constantly increasing because the price was already so low that it was profitable even if it was re-exported to Europe. Besides that, there were sugar products; paper was not needed by the Dutch—they were purely middlemen, and there was no great demand for paper in Southeast Asia, Japan, or Persia.