New Shun 1730

The face of the Ceylon Governor became quite ugly.

Because after the officer Dashun who sent the message finished speaking, he took out a very clear map of Colombo Fort in a murderous manner. It was obvious that Dashun had been staring at it for a long time, but it was definitely not a temporary idea.

After receiving the map of the castle, the Governor of Ceylon suddenly asked: "Is the real reason why your country went to war because of what happened in the Zhoushan Islands and Penghu Taiwan?"

The officer didn't answer, thinking nonsense, of course not, you are also a garrison governor, don't be so naive, okay? Speaking of which, the Celestial Empire still bans Catholicism, isn’t it because of the fierce fight with France, the eldest daughter of the Catholic Church?

Seeing that the officer did not answer, the Ceylon Governor added: "The company has done its best to consider the Chinese. Those people have no jobs in Batavia, and the company did not repatriate them to Fujian, but arranged for them to live here. . And give them enough land to make a living. Is this how your country gives back to us?”

The officer couldn't help but smile and said: "Master Governor, you don't think that you can stop the war with just a few words of yours, do you? The war has already started and it can't be stopped. What you have to consider now is how to reply to me, "

"Shoot? Or shoot?"

…………

At the same time, four hundred Marines, in small boats, landed near Cote, south of Colombo Fort.

They want to capture Kot.

Kot is a city and Colombo is a city. The two are not the same. It was not until the British snatched Ceylon from the Dutch that the Colombo Fort was demolished and the city was built based on the British's unparalleled navy.

Kotte gradually became a suburb of Colombo, but it remained the capital of the Kingdom of Kote until the Portuguese destroyed the Kingdom in the 19th year of Wanli.

Most of the Chinese immigrants were also resettled here. In the early stage, they served as indentured slaves, replacing the work of Tamil slaves. When the time came, the land to be distributed was of course wasteland. The evils caused by the Portuguese, including forced conversions and massacres, caused a large number of high-caste and middle-caste people to flee to the north, leaving a lot of land vacant.

For decades, this area has still not been filled with people. The land in the coastal zone can still accommodate at least hundreds of thousands of households with a standard 60 acres of land.

At this time, some Chinese on land had noticed the Dashun troops landing at the seaside, at least the words on the flags they were holding. Although most of the Chinese slave workers were illiterate, they could still tell that these were their own words. . It's square and square, and it's not the kind of alphabet that's common in Batavia.

As a city, Kote did not have many soldiers. After Dashun's warship appeared, the Bulgers in the city ran away in the direction of Colombo Fort.

In Ceylon, the city's handicrafts and commerce are monopolized by the mixed-race Bourges, a word that has the same origin as bourgeois, specifically referring to craftsmen and small traders.

The Chinese who immigrated to Ceylon were all too poor to pay the poll tax. This led to a completely different situation between the Chinese organizations in Ceylon and the Chinese organizations in Batavia.

In Batavia, you are like the Chinese Lei Zhenlan and Kapitan. Without a net worth of hundreds of thousands taels of silver, you are not qualified at all.

And in Ceylon, if you really have a net worth of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, can you come here to be an indentured servant if you can't even afford the poll tax?

Moreover, even if he wanted to come, the Dutch would not allow him.

The lessons of Batavia deeply impressed the Dutch, and the Chinese penetrated into every aspect of the city.

From eating fish, shrimp, crab, rice oil, to higher-end spice purchasing middlemen, to higher-level sugar factory contractors and tax collectors, eight out of ten are Chinese.

In Ceylon, the Dutch must avoid such a situation as much as possible. On the one hand, there are mixed-race Burgers in the city. As petty bourgeoisie and small businessmen, there is no need for the Chinese; on the other hand, the Chinese cannot be both organized and wealthy, otherwise they are prone to trouble.

As a result, this led to the Dutch still adopting the Kapitan system in Ceylon, but Lei Zhenlan and the Kapitans were all selected from slave labor.

And those who can stand out among the slave workers are all a group of people who are quite prestigious among the slave workers. If you want to have prestige among slave laborers, it doesn't depend on whether you have money, but whether you can fight, be loyal, and have enough friends.

The butt determines the head. After these people become Lei Zhenlan, they are likely to become bad.

However, the Dutch's "benevolent government" has not been implemented after all. They have not yet used the influence of the Dutch to force the lower class to buy more coffee so that they can get dividends, so for the time being, they do not favor the Netherlands in their hearts.

If they really become Lei Zhenlan, after many years, they will basically become people who help the Dutch oppress their old brothers: forcing the Dutch to buy a variety of coffee at low prices, and helping the Dutch to make more coffee. In addition to the land tax in kind, the Dutch pay dividends based on the number of pounds. In this case, how many people can stick to their original aspirations?

Fortunately, there is no chance to "stand the test" yet.

These elected Lei Zhenlan usually interacted with the supervisors here in Dashun. The supervisors here in Dashun were responsible for monitoring the Dutch not to go too far, and also acted as a bridge between the Chinese and the Dutch colonial government. connection.

In Batavia, the system was the governor, Kapitan, Lei Zhenlan, and registered Chinese. It's a line.

In Ceylon, the system is a double line of governors, Dashun supervisors and Lei Zhenlan, and the Chinese are on the throne.

Ceylon's Lei Zhenlan naturally had a closer relationship with the supervisors of Dashun, because there were always some conflicts with the Dutch, and at this time the supervisors of Dashun would side with them.

When the Burgs of Kote ran to Colombo Fort, the supervisory officials in Kote naturally took over the Chinese organizations in the city and gathered the Lei Zhenlans from all over the city together.

In a sense, we should also "thank" the Dutch policy. Relying on the militarized military settlement organization of Lei Zhenlan and Kapitan, a lieutenant and captain, and the reality that the collective labor of contract slaves had not been separated, it was easy to organize the surrounding Chinese together.

As soon as the 400 marines from Dashun landed, the members of the observation and supervision group, who felt like they were serving a sentence here, strode towards the army of Dashun.

The commander of the landing operation and the commander of the siege if Colombo Fort did not surrender was Du Feng, the deputy commander of the squadron.

Some people in the observation and supervision group came from Weihai. Even if they were not from the same class, they must have recognized Du Feng.

After meeting, regardless of age order, the person who came first said which year he went to Weihai, and the relationship was instantly strengthened.

"Lord Du, has the war started?"

Looking at the fleet approaching this side on the sea in the distance, and the Marines with bayonets already inserted, even if there was no news before, it was known that the fight must have started.

Du Feng asked: "How many people can you organize? Gather the people, and let each Lei Zhenlan come forward to organize the people according to the model organized by the Dutch. First help to carry the supplies up, and then you will take people to the other Chinese settlements to read out the court's policies."

The war is easy to fight, but the difficult part is how to quickly win people's hearts.

Basically, the Dutch policies remain unchanged for the time being, but for the Chinese community, some policies must be changed.

The policies of the Dutch look like "benevolent politics".

The policies of Dashun are more "benevolent" than this, which is a distant hope.

And more recently, it is the time to directly cancel all indentured servants, giving both hope for a more benevolent and desirable future and a closer reality.

The land distribution plan designated by the Dutch remains unchanged. According to Dutch policy, each able-bodied laborer has a total of 60 mu of irrigated and dry land per person.

The tax rate is reduced to 10 and the tax is 1. No longer forced to grow coffee, indigo, etc., and pay them as in-kind taxes. Instead, farmers are allowed to grow them freely and merchants purchase them at market prices.

If you choose to join the army, you will be given a wife. You will receive two silver coins per month, and you will still have land. During your service, you can hire others to work and choose to be a small landlord. The court will purchase wives in batches from the disaster area and ship them by sea, with an average price of 30 taels. Or if you are willing to marry a Tamil or Sinhalese, the court will give you 15 taels of silver as a resettlement fee.

Or you can join the garrison army, replace the regular tax with blood tax, divide the land into equal fields and permanent fields, and your descendants will serve in the army for generations.

The starting point of the Dutch East India Company is profit. Therefore, they had to use their monopoly power to make money, forcing the planting of two-fifths of cash crops as land tax, and the surplus would be purchased at a very low price.

This was for the purpose of making money.

Everything was based on profit.

The starting point of Dashun's going to Southeast Asia was also to make money.

However, Dashun was not the East India Company, but a country. It was impossible to simply consider profits, but also political and military value.

As the front line of India, Ceylon should be the "Anxi Four Towns", providing soldiers, a stable population, and logistics.

If you want to grow coffee, there are plenty of places in Southeast Asia. And as long as you control Ceylon's cinnamon, betel nut, and gemstones, you can still get two to three million taels of silver a year.

The Dutch East India Company and Dashun had different positioning of Ceylon, and the policies also deviated.

On the basis of the eleventh tax, an average of one coin of silver was taxed per acre. As a rice-producing area, this place has limited exports. Next to it is India, which produces rice. If a monetary tax is imposed instead of a tax in kind, the people will definitely be more willing to grow cash crops.

In the long run, the economic value is actually higher.

Ceylon actually has dual attributes for Dashun.

As a military town, it is necessary to establish equal-field permanent farmland to ensure sufficient self-cultivating farmers. Self-cultivating farmers are the best soldiers of this era, without a doubt. Dashun has no shortage of soldiers, as long as there is money. But if Dashun's elite Beijing camp and northern soldiers come to India to fight, if ten of them die in battle, eighty to one hundred will die of illness. These slaves who have been cruelly selected are undoubtedly the best soldiers. Those who are prone to death from illness have died long ago.

The other attribute, as an economic zone, is to develop large plantations.

Whether it is coffee, indigo or sugarcane, the efficiency of plantations is definitely higher than that of small farmers, this is beyond doubt.

The attributes of its military town are maintained by early immigrants.

The attributes of its plantation economic zone are maintained by private capital.

However, for these immigrants now, there is no need to tell them about the policy of another attribute, and they will not care. Of course, it has nothing to do with them. Without capital, how can they run plantations?

Just let them know that the Celestial Empire has come, and benevolent rule has come. Let Ceylon become the most important military town for Dashun to fight against India, and provide soldiers and population. Dashun does not need local soldiers.