Chapter 60: The Commercial Agent's Report (Part 3)

Si Kaide dodged the fire from the Senate, and of course, he also left the Dutch, whose quarantine had expired, to dry for another ten days. When he returned from Hon Gai, he was already holding a thick stack of plans to accelerate the development of Hon Gai and strengthen the local defense. Relying on this plan to be submitted to the Executive Committee and the Senate for review, he declared that he would “go all out to negotiate with the Dutch” and disappeared again.

Reinforcing Hon Gai and expanding the scale of Hon Gai Station was only within the advisory power of the Ministry of Colonies and Trade. It could only propose a plan, and the allocation of materials, personnel, and military deployment still needed to be specifically discussed by the Executive Committee before it could be implemented. Si Kaide was not particularly concerned about the bombardment from the Senate: he had enough evidence to prove that the inadequate equipment of Hon Gai was entirely due to “limited national strength.” If we were to talk about the inadequate defense of important targets, the defense of Sanya was particularly inadequate given its importance and investment. He did not want to deal with the Standing Committee purely because he felt it was a waste of time. Many people in the Standing Committee of the Senate, in his words, were “too professional if they were professional, and too amateur if they were amateur,” and none of them were easy to deal with.

“Alright, we need to find some people who know German,” Si Kaide said to himself in his office. “Dutch is a small language.” Dutch is commonly known as Low German and is not very different from German. Therefore, the Dutch East India Company employed a large number of Germans. Si Kaide thought that there were quite a few people among the elders who knew German, and most of them were attached to the Ministry of Colonies and Trade.

Second report from Van der Lants, Junior Commercial Agent of the Dutch East India Company on the “Magdeburg,” to the Governor-General of Batavia, de Carpentier.

Your Excellency,

After a quarantine period of more than twenty days, we were finally allowed to go ashore. Thank God, no one died while we were on the ship. Everyone is very healthy.

Originally, we should have finished our quarantine at the end of February, but when the time was up, the port officials informed us that a high-ranking official who was to receive us, whom they called an “Executive Committee member,” was not in Lingao at the moment, so we stayed on the ship for another week.

We found that the Australians, like us, use the concept of “week.” When their personnel boarded the ship and talked to us, they often mentioned “what day of the week” and “next week.” They also mentioned “Sunday.”

However, the officials sent us a document permitting us to leave the ship. With this document, the crew could go ashore and stay in the guesthouses on the shore. The sailors and soldiers were very happy to be able to go ashore. I ordered the captain to leave one-third of the sailors and soldiers on the ship, and promised to rotate them every three days.

The Executive Committee had ordered the port officials to supply us with all our needs, without any shortage. They also ordered our personnel not to leave the port area without written permission.

The port officials gave each person who went ashore a hard paper card. The card had their name, the ship they belonged to, and the port of departure written on it. And everyone was required to press their fingerprint on the card. Your Excellency must know that this practice of pressing fingerprints is very popular among the Chinese and seems to be a sign of their credit.

When we landed, the people and workers in the port area crowded on the roadside to watch us. Some people even climbed onto the cranes. We were very distressed by the large number of onlookers. The officials discovered this and sent guards to escort us. We left the pier and were immediately arranged to stay in a house not far from the pier.

This house was very large, and it was said that it was specially for receiving sailors. The house was a special kind of longhouse, and there were many rows of such longhouses in the courtyard. Each longhouse was arranged with double-decker beds in rows, and a house could accommodate 40 people or even more—some longhouses were two-story.

As senior crew members, we were placed in a separate courtyard. There were similar two-story small buildings here, which were also of brick and tile structure like the longhouses, but the interior was more exquisitely arranged. Each room was equipped with various furniture. As for whether one person or three people slept in each room, it was up to us. They had rooms with different numbers of beds, and at most 4 people could sleep in one room.

Whether it was the longhouses for ordinary sailors or the small buildings we lived in, the houses were very clean and tidy. There was no bedding on the beds, but there were straw mats and straw-woven pillows—which was enough in the climate of Lingao. Each house was equipped with a toilet. The administrator of the house strictly warned us that any act of urinating or defecating anywhere would be punished with a high fine and other punishments. For this reason, I had to communicate with the ship’s purser and ask him to strictly manage the behavior of the sailors and soldiers—you know that most of them are Germans.

There was a restaurant in the seaman’s hostel that served cooked food. There was also a large shop that supplied various goods, specially for the sailors and fishermen who rested here to buy.

The Australians did not seem to be as hospitable as the Chinese. The Spankers and some other people said that every time they went to the coast of China under the banner of “tribute,” they would be officially received. But here with the Australians, all the supplied items, from accommodation to food, had to be paid for, but the price was acceptable.

We learned that this place was called “Bopu”—we were informed that we could move freely in Bopu Town, and those who went out had to return to the hostel before 9 pm. But we could not enter those places that were listed as “restricted areas.” In general, the Australians had few restrictions on us. In addition to allowing us to move freely in Bopu, they did not impose other restrictions on the money and other objects we carried—they only reminded us that we needed to exchange our money for local currency before shopping, and that carrying weapons was prohibited. In addition, he also required the sailors and soldiers to swear to respect the local laws before going out.

A sharp whistle would sound in the city every hour—the sound was very loud and could be heard throughout the city. The whistles in the morning, noon, and evening lasted for a long time. The Australians used this timekeeping system very skillfully, so that everyone could know the current time. The Australians’ work ran strictly according to the clock. After living with them for one day, you could probably know what they would do the next day.

After all the personnel had settled down in the seaman’s hostel, the person in charge of receiving us, whom they called the Minister of Trade, wanted to meet with us and discuss with us. The three of us decided to go to the meeting together.

On the morning of March 1st, we washed up early in the morning and put on our best formal clothes. In addition to Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Leib Trini, we each brought a retinue and carried relevant gifts.

We were led by a young official from the “Ministry of Trade” to the street. A very beautiful four-wheeled carriage was already prepared here! Yes, a carriage, this was the most surprising thing to me. In the whole of East Asia, I don’t know where else I can see such a light and beautiful carriage. Even in Macau or Batavia, you can’t find this type of vehicle. I think that even in Europe, you can’t find a similar vehicle. This is really a exquisite handicraft! No, the so-called exquisite handicraft does not mean how ornate it is, how finely carved it is. On the contrary, there is almost no decoration or painting on the carriage, and the body is also black. Except for the glass inlaid on the door and a pair of beautiful headlights, there is no decoration worth mentioning. But the size, structure, and the proportion of every part on it, and the perfection of the structure, all gave people an incomparably strong shock. Sir, please forgive me for not being able to describe such a feeling in words.

The carriage passed through Bopu Town and went to a town they called “Bairen,” which was the center of the Australians’ rule. Bopu Town was a very prosperous small town with many houses, which could be called a prosperous city. We could see a large number of chimneys here, with astonishing height, and each chimney was emitting black and white smoke. There was a strong and pungent smell in the air. On the way, we saw a majestic castle—although it was not on the street we passed, it was completely built of red bricks, with tall towers and batteries. There was also white and black smoke coming from there, and from time to time, there were huge metal impact sounds. I asked the accompanying official what that place was, and the other party refused to answer my question. I think this should be the Australians’ smelter, arsenal, or mint. If this is true, the Australians have invested a lot of capital here.

The road from Bopu to Bairen was built along a large river. But this river is currently in a semi-dry state. The Australians seem to be carrying out some kind of dredging and construction work on this river. The amount of water in the river is not large, and there is a bad smell. The road is well-built and paved with a kind of black gravel. The carriage did not feel bumpy at all when driving on it. Along the road, there was carefully cultivated land everywhere. The land was carefully taken care of, and not an inch of land was not reclaimed and planted with crops. The fields, like many places in Tuscany, were built with perfect canals, dams, and waterwheels to fully irrigate the soil. This irrigation project was so ingenious that Mr. Trini praised it endlessly.

Like Batavia, this place can be cultivated all year round. The fields have been planted with green rice seedlings, and some are vegetables. The slopes that cannot be planted with rice are planted with various crops and fruit trees that we do not recognize. Even along the roads, many coconut saplings have been planted.

What surprised us most was that there were some things of unknown purpose on the roadside: some completely lifeless wooden stakes, painted black. The wooden stakes stood in rows like roadside trees, connected to each other with black iron wires. Some glass bottles were also fixed on each wooden stake.

The three of us discussed the purpose of these wooden stakes and came to no conclusion—no one had ever seen such a thing. We asked the accompanying official for advice, and once again received a silent answer.