New Shun 1730

This situation of Dashun having its own national conditions here is not only a huge difference from the previous one in Nanyang, but also a unique one in Ceylon and India.

Ceylon does not belong to the scope of Nanyang, nor is it a place where Nanyang Trading Company can directly intervene in trade.

Ceylon's gems, cinnamon, and betel nuts are actually the emperor's small treasury.

The Dashun emperor has two small treasuries besides the shares of the trading company.

One is high-end official kiln porcelain.

These high-end porcelains are provided by foreign high-ranking nobles with patterns and produced by the official kilns that are actually monopolized by the royal family.

The high-ranking nobles here do not refer to the famous families that existed in the Middle Ages. Nowadays, whoever is rich is high-end.

These high-end official kiln porcelains that are specially exported have brought considerable income to the emperor.

It is impossible for Western trading companies to ask the emperor for shipping fees. In fact, the emperor just earned the difference in price for nothing.

Another one is Ceylon.

The spices in Nanyang are more diverse and the goods are more chaotic. Ceylon was not only the base for Dashun to go to India, but also because its products were relatively simple and there was an "orthodox" tributary state.

Dashun's traditional vassal state concept made the relationship between Dashun and the Sinhalese Kingdom of Kandy far better than the relationship between the Dutch and them.

As an outsider from South India, the king of Kandy can imagine how powerful the local nobles were.

The king chose to revive Buddhism, win over Buddhist monks, and suppress the nobles with religious power.

The emergence of Dashun, a non-Christian civilization with a good relationship with Buddhism, and the "ritual and law" problems within the Dashun tributary system, made the Sinhalese king find a good foreign aid.

The ritual and law problems within the Dashun tributary system are an extension of the concept of "world". To put it bluntly, the moral values ​​of Dashun are universal within the scope of "world". It may not work outside the world, but it must work within the world.

Aristocratic power sharing king? This is definitely wrong in the Dashun world view.

So, one needs to maintain the concept of Tianxia, ​​and the other needs a strong foreign aid.

One is the new "colonizer" who replaced the Dutch, and the other is a royal family with unstable foundation from South India.

One is the guardian of Eastern religions holding high the banner of anti-Christianity, and the other is a primitive Buddhist country that needs to revive Buddhism and strengthen centralization.

It can be regarded as a match made in heaven.

As for the so-called nationalist resistance? It is even more unreal.

Historically, the national consciousness of the Sinhalese nation was precisely born out of religion.

It was the confrontation between Buddhism and Christianity that gave birth to the nationalism of the Sinhalese.

It was the British who wanted to grow tea and auction the monks' land, which made the monks unite to defend their own interests and oppose the Western Christian forces.

Before that, it is hard to say that the Sinhalese had their own awakened national consciousness.

After all, there were kings who were overthrown by nobles on the grounds of "not being able to treat foreigners well" and "conflicting with foreigners on the coast".

It is indeed difficult to expect a group of people who have integrated primitive Buddhism and a unique caste system to awaken nationalism.

As for the attitude of the local nobles towards outsiders, in fact, the important reason why they "invited" the Dutch to fight against the Portuguese was that the Dutch offered a higher price for spices.

It was not until the Dutch really gained a foothold that these nobles realized that the Portuguese and Dutch were the same.

They sighed: "Ginger was sent away, and peppers were welcomed."

Moreover, the Dutch also ate alone, took away the cinnamon caste, and insisted on rubbing cinnamon by themselves to save costs.

The nobles thought to themselves that I was relying on this little bit of meat to make money. It was agreed that you set a high price by yourselves, and when the time comes, we will welcome you to drive away the Portuguese.

Now you don't even ask us to buy, but want to eat alone, take away our cinnamon caste to produce it yourself?

As for the lower classes of the Sinhalese... in the words of the Dutch, this is called "we should use more people from the middle and lower castes, and their dissatisfaction with the upper castes is greater than that with us outsiders."

As for the monk class, which is likely to lead the awakening of nationalism, there is even less conflict between Dashun and them.

First, Dashun is a pan-believer and does not force conversions. Besides, it cannot be changed, and it is not so disgusted with Buddhism.

Second, Dashun is not going to swallow up the Sinhalese Kingdom to grow tea, so naturally it will not touch the land of the monk class. As long as their land is not touched, the monks are very happy to contact Dashun.

The main reason is that Dashun is not stupid enough to go to Ceylon to grow tea. There is plenty of tea in the two lakes, Anhui, and Fujian in the country. Why come here to grow tea?

Historically, the British stole tea seeds, and the high mountain terrain of Ceylon is particularly suitable for growing tea, so they chose to introduce a large number of Tamils ​​to grow tea.

To grow tea, they had to eat up the temples’ land, and the monks in the temples would naturally be at odds with the British for their own land.

Since there was no need to grow tea in Ceylon, the monks’ land in the mountainous areas was not attractive to Dashun at all.

And taking over the Dutch coastal plains… this also had to be “thanked” to the Portuguese and the Dutch’s religious policies, especially Portugal’s religious fanaticism and forced conversion policy, which caused a bunch of high-caste noble landowners to run to the mountains.

A large amount of vacant land was enough for Dashun’s immigrants to use.

It was precisely because of these large amounts of vacant land that the Dutch idea of ​​"Chinese from Batavia migrated to Ceylon as debt slaves" came about, because they found that the labor efficiency of the Tamils ​​was not as good as that of the Chinese, and a large amount of land in Ceylon was vacant.

Another big problem is that the agricultural environment in Ceylon is very special, and the Chinese are the most suitable.

The name of the Lion Country has long been heard in China. During the Han Dynasty, there was a civilized country here, and it was also a standard "rice planting industry dominated by water control and water conservancy projects" country.

The "rice planting industry dominated by water control and water conservancy projects" country is the economic foundation, and the economic foundation determines the superstructure, which makes some Sinhalese people accustomed to being ruled by outsiders in China, which also has a tradition of water control and wants to develop a small peasant economy in the coastal areas of Ceylon. It is strangely very... in tune.

The Sinhalese in the coastal areas are very adaptable to the ruling model of Dashun officials.

They are very adaptable to serving labor and repairing water conservancy during the slack season.

They like the small peasant economy dominated by equal land distribution.

They are very adaptable to the characteristics of paying per mu tax on time.

This logic is difficult for Westerners who are very used to the fact that water conservancy is one of the sources of legitimacy of the regime to understand.

And although Dashun is not a Buddhist country, the local Chinese at least worship Buddha when they see him, anyway, there is no harm in worshipping more. At least they are not like the Portuguese who smashed Buddhist temples.

The Portuguese and the Dutch not only believe in monotheism such as Christianity, but also destroyed the original irrigation system and water conservancy projects in Ceylon.

The degree of destruction is basically equivalent to the southward migration of the Yellow River in the Song Dynasty, which caused the two Huai regions to go from the best fields in "Yu Gong" to the current level of the cancer of the empire.

Ceylon in the eyes of the Dutch is cinnamon and gems.

Ceylon in the eyes of Dashun is Shenyang if Malacca is Shanhaiguan.

It can attack or defend. Without Shenyang, Shanhaiguan will be sooner or later. This is very clear to Dashun, who has learned from the previous dynasty.

Therefore, Dashun cannot only focus on Ceylon's cinnamon and gems. After all, although cinnamon and gems are valuable, the Emperor of Dashun is the Emperor of the Celestial Empire: ask him if he prefers commercial profits? Or do they prefer to collect land tax in India?

The emperor certainly prefers land tax, which is a kind of inertia.

A nation that has fought with the Yellow River, Yangtze River and Huai River for thousands of years, when it comes to Ceylon, a country that needs to fight against floods caused by monsoons, is really like a fish in water.

At this time, no country knows more about water control than Dashun, and knows more about irrigation agriculture, water conservancy projects and rice agriculture of small peasant economy.

If Ceylon is Shenyang in the late Ming Dynasty, what is the most familiar operation for this kind of frontier base for the Celestial Empire?

Naturally, it is reclamation.

Repairing water conservancy, re-irrigation, dividing small farmers and accumulating grain are almost done in one go without any stagnation.

Let the imperial examination officials of Dashun manage places such as Ambon and Banda, where "the economy is completely colonized and has been integrated into the world market", and they may not really understand it.

They really don't understand it, because those places are not small peasant economies at all, and the economy is completely centered on pure commodity transactions of "selling spices and buying grain".

But Ceylon is very different.

Even if you are a Dashun official who passed the imperial examination, you can still do well in Ceylon.

Because what you have to do is the daily routine of Dashun local officials: water control, labor service to repair rivers, organize labor, collect taxes, and repair water conservancy.

And the local people are also different from those in Banda, Ambon, Java and other places.

The people here are accustomed to things like water control, labor service to repair water conservancy, and take it for granted. This is a habit for thousands of years.

To put it bluntly, the average level of Dashun officials can neither manage the more advanced commercial capitalist system nor the more backward village community economy.

They are troubled by the future of weavers walking together like Suzhou Prefecture, and the past of the chieftains and nobles who have slaves and absolute power in the local area.

But they have special experience in managing the small peasant economy system supported by irrigation agriculture and water conservancy.

Officials also have an inexplicable sense of familiarity with the people and the old system in Ceylon.

The highest caste in Ceylon is called "Gauvijama". In theory, this is the highest caste, including the capital of the royal family. The greatest privilege of this caste is farming, and it accounts for more than 60% to 70% of the population.

The rest, the fishing Kalava caste, can only fish, not farm, and it has not changed for generations; the cinnamon-rubbing Saragama caste can only rub cinnamon, not farm or fish, and it has not changed for generations.

The "Gauvijama", known as the highest caste, regards agriculture as the highest in the world, which is higher than industry and commerce. However, accounting for 60% to 70% of the population, the poor rent the land of the landlord, the rich have fields and paths, the highest ruling class is theoretically considered to be in this caste, and the poorest tenants are also in this caste.

Buddhism in Ceylon does not have too many strange stories like those in India. Although there are also some things like the Buddha's nirvana and rebirth, the primitive Buddhist monks here prefer to debate, but when debating, they basically maintain the style of "not talking about random powers and gods", and they also like to talk nonsense.

Although it is definitely different.

But after all, before the arrival of the colonists, it was a group whose economic foundation was irrigation agriculture, small peasant economy, and water conservancy centralized government.

These economic foundations determined that Dashun was very adaptable to ruling here.

It is like that Dashun has always felt that after the military reform and the navy have proved to be effective in dealing with such long and narrow coastal countries, the countyization of northern Vietnam and North Korea will be a natural outcome in the future, at least it will be easier to rule than in the Western Regions.

Whether it is West Java or Ceylon, Dashun prioritizes rule, and monopoly is just a byproduct of rule.

Dashun's choice is also very simple.

Choosing the central area of ​​the four military towns under direct jurisdiction will not make any adjustments to local conditions.

For example, Ceylon was originally dominated by small-scale rice farming, so it is easy to say.

For West Java, I don't understand the primitive state of this village community, so I will directly turn it into a social form that I am more familiar with and understand very well.

... If the reality makes me unfamiliar, then I will quickly modify the reality instead of adapting to it.

It's just that Dashun originally had a laissez-faire policy of private land ownership, free trade, and basically no government interference - of course it was passive, not that I didn't want to manage, but that I couldn't manage. If there was a little bit of the ability of a strong government, the treasury income would not be similar to that of the United Kingdom, which did not have India and North America and did not collect taxes.

In China, it did cause situations such as land annexation, sluggish industry and commerce, and rapid concentration of wealth.

But in Southeast Asia, from the perspective of commercial profits, the effect was surprisingly good because of Dashun's own developed handicraft industry.

Although Liu Yu always talks nonsense about the free trade system derived from laissez-faire, it sounds like nonsense.

But in fact, to a certain extent, Dashun's current trade status with Europe is exactly the most perfect Chinese trade model envisioned by Smith Adam, the founder of free trade theory, and a group of British economists.

It is difficult to understand this era by understanding the foreign trade situation in the 18th century with the ideological stamp of "Europe was fully ahead in the 18th century" and "Britain opened China's door for free trade".

It is even impossible to understand what Chinese goods forced Europe into in the 18th century.

It is even more impossible to know that the French East India Company did not have Liu Yu to give them the idea of ​​ginseng and sable fur trade in history. They had to go to South America to smuggle to obtain silver for trade with China.

There was even a special smuggling route for silver trade with China, which went from France to Peru to China to Cape of Good Hope to France.

David Hume, a philosopher and economist, commented on China's handicraft industry in this era:

[The long journey to China is a natural obstacle...]

[If China were only close to us, such as France or Spain, then everything we used would be Chinese. ]

Why did David Hume bring up China? Because before Adam Smith, in the past few years, a big discussion about "free trade" or "mercantilism" broke out in Britain.

The center of this discussion was around Sino-British trade.

The first successful trade between Dashun and Western Trade Company in Europe directly intensified this big discussion in Britain, making the free trade and mercantilism instantly decide the winner.