Chapter 769 – Cooperation in the Direction of Liaodong

Li Luoyou listened to these conditions with an expressionless face. They were harsh, but somewhat looser than he had expected. The style matched his previous negotiations with the Australians: strict, meticulous, detail-oriented, with a tendency to nitpick wording. The terms exuded a powerful confidence grounded in their strength.

Xu Tianqi then pointed out that the Ming officers and soldiers would be counted and repatriated one by one according to the Great Ming army rosters.

Li Luoyou had to object. Leaving aside the regular soldiers—whether combat personnel or auxiliaries—and even the officers' private retainers who appeared on the rosters, there were many unregistered personnel in the army: temporary porters conscripted along the way, personal servants of civil and military officials, and others who kept no official records.

"Those can be screened," Xu Tianqi replied. "If they were indeed brought from the mainland and wish to return to Guangdong, we will release them all. If they are Qiongzhou natives or do not wish to return to the mainland, they may stay."

Xu Tianqi played the card of voluntary repatriation, and Li Luoyou agreed. Whether off-roster personnel returned was of no concern to the bigwigs in Guangdong.

Finally came the matter of prisoner disposal. The House of Elders naturally had no desire to release captives for free—they represented excellent labor. But they also had no interest in hosting captive civil and military officials indefinitely. Thus, Guangdong was permitted to ransom them, whether paid by the government or by the captives' families. Ransom prices would be tiered according to rank. Beyond the ransom, each captive had to pay a daily food and lodging fee of one mace of silver for their time in the Lingao POW camp.

Li Luoyou nodded his assent. The government would not pay this money, but these officials' families possessed some wealth; the ransom would not present a problem.

Thus the disposal of He Rubin's remnants in Qiongshan and Haikou was settled, pending only Li Fengjie's approval for implementation. Li Luoyou dispatched a trusted aide to carry the secret details of the peace talks to Guangzhou. There would be no suspense in the result—Li Fengjie had no choice. Only by agreeing to these terms could he salvage the remaining troops from disaster.

With the talks concluded, both sides breathed a secret sigh of relief. For the Transmigrator Group, maintaining the siege at Qiongshan had also been a drain on resources and energy. Now the matter had reached a definitive end, and they had gained what they wanted most: peace.

Because Li Luoyou was a merchant, there remained a layer of separation between him and officialdom, making it inconvenient for him to run certain errands personally. Before setting out, Li Luoyou had agreed with Li Fengjie that Lu Yizhong would serve as the official liaison. Lu Yizhong was intimately familiar with Guangdong's bureaucracy and knew many of its key figures. Moreover, after his capture, he had been coerced—out of fear for his life—into writing letters urging peace. After Wang Zunde's death, his staff had scattered, but Li Xijue had been recruited by Li Fengjie into the governor's secretariat. Thus Li Fengjie knew about Lu Yizhong's peace letters. A man who had lost his patron and carried a stain on his record had no choice but to be at their mercy—unless he was willing to retire into obscurity.

"Mr. Lu as liaison?" Xu Tianqi laughed. "The Governor is truly wise."

Li Luoyou gave a few dry laughs in response, privately despising these aides and officials. The two men then turned to preliminary discussions of deeper cooperation for the next phase.

Li Luoyou's enthusiasm for manufacturing guns and cannons to revitalize the Great Ming's armaments had cooled considerably. Many of the Red Barbarian Cannons his Foshan workshops had produced for Guangdong never reached Liaodong: some were lost in the battle for Qiongzhou, others in the Pearl River estuary campaign, and the rest had been shipped by Xiong Wencan to Fujian to equip Zheng Zhilong. This disappointed him greatly. Coupled with the Australians' second campaign in Guangdong, where the power of Australian cannons had far exceeded that of Red Barbarian Cannons, Li Luoyou felt very disheartened—almost ready to wash his hands of the whole enterprise.

Then, unexpectedly, new orders arrived from Shandong—this time from Deng-Lai Governor Sun Yuanhua. This Catholic governor was training a new army in Deng-Lai, employing many Portuguese as instructors. Sun Yuanhua was organizing people in Shandong to cast Red Barbarian Cannons under Portuguese guidance, but because northern iron smelting relied on coal, the resulting iron contained sulfur and was brittle—far inferior to cannons cast in the south. So he requested more cannons from Guangdong. Li Luoyou naturally would not turn down profitable business. Moreover, Shandong was his key window for trade with the Manchus, and Sun Yuanhua was a fellow convert. Both profit and sentiment dictated that he agree.

Li Luoyou once again proposed buying Australian cannons or production equipment. Xu Tianqi offered only vague responses, unwilling to commit—opinion within the House of Elders regarding arms sales remained divided. Seeing the other side unwilling to engage, Li Luoyou knew there was little hope and sighed.

Xu Tianqi brought up Liaodong trade, indicating the Transmigrator Group's strong interest in participating and expressing hope for Li Luoyou's assistance.

He expected Li Luoyou to agree readily. To his surprise, Li Luoyou looked troubled and remained silent for a long while. Only after repeated questioning did he speak slowly:

"Doing business with the Jianzhou Manchus is something I do only out of necessity. You make money here; it is not as if you cannot earn profits. Why trade with the Manchus?"

"In business, the more partners the better, of course."

Li Luoyou tried to dissuade them. First was the distance and the inconvenient transport. The risks en route were high. The Ming court had embargoed trade with the Manchus; trading with them constituted illegal smuggling. Even normal trade was subject to layers of official exploitation, let alone such illicit business. Whether it was Li Luoyou trading from Shandong to Liaodong, or Shanxi merchants trading with the Manchus through Mongols near Zhangjiakou, many Ming officials were lining their pockets from it.

"You have no idea of the hardships involved." Li Luoyou could not help exaggerating the difficulties—stormy seas, bandits and soldiers on land routes causing loss of goods and lives. As for the trade itself, one had to endure the pickiness, extortion, and skimming of Manchu officials.

Xu Tianqi did not rebut. He knew Li Luoyou did not want them interfering in the Liaodong trade—not only to monopolize profits but also because he feared the Australians would "aid the enemy." The Australians lacked his loyalty to the glorious Ming and would inevitably sell whatever was profitable. Grain, ironware, even gunpowder and cannons might end up in Manchu hands.

"I hear the Tartars are extremely short of grain," Xu Tianqi said suddenly.

"Indeed." Li Luoyou thought: Are they planning to ship grain to the Tartars? The Tartars were willing to pay ten or even twenty taels per shi for grain—a profit of ten thousand percent. Shanxi merchants were paying high prices to buy up grain in the already grain-short Central Plains to sell to the Manchus. Did the Australians want to play this game? They could buy grain in Guangdong and resell it in Liaodong for a windfall. He quickly added, "However, inspections by soldiers around Deng-Lai are strict. Not a grain of rice is allowed across the sea."

"Heh heh." Xu Tianqi laughed. "Head Manager Li, we understand your thoughts well. But surely you know the plight of the commoners captured by the Tartars."

How could he not? Li Luoyou had traveled within Liaodong to ransom captives and knew all too well the survival conditions of Han Chinese enslaved there. Setting aside the abuse, many were half-starved.

"Miserable to the extreme," Li Luoyou sighed.

"I hear the Manchus even exchange women and children to the Mongols for cattle and sheep—one half-grown child for one sheep. Surely you know this, Head Manager Li?"

"I have indeed heard of it."

"We trade with the Manchus not for their gold and silver—but for people. For the Great Ming subjects abused and trafficked by the Tartars!" Xu Tianqi adopted a righteous tone. "Do you say this trade should be done or not?"

"What? You want to go to Liaodong to ransom commoners?" Li Luoyou was so shocked he rose to his feet. A sudden dizziness seized him, and he fell back into his chair. His personal servant boy, Sao Ye, quickly took out medicinal wine and poured some down his throat, finally settling his spirit.

He steadied himself, thinking the Australians truly operated on a grand scale—even with his wealth, he had never contemplated such a thing. He wasn't running a charity, after all. Dealing with matters like these... even scattering his entire family fortune would not be enough. How had the Australians, usually so calculating over every penny, suddenly become so generous? The more he thought, the more something seemed off.

Seeing his doubt, Xu Tianqi explained: they wanted the population the Manchus had captured. The traded people would all be transported to Qiongzhou for resettlement.

So that's it! Li Luoyou thought. Qiongzhou was vast and sparsely populated. They needed people to farm, run factories, and fill their army—people were needed everywhere. No wonder they had set their sights on the Manchus.

In any case, those pitiful commoners would be far better off in Australian hands than with the Tartars. Thinking this, Li Luoyou's attitude softened. He agreed to help the Australians establish contact with Manchu officials regarding Liaodong trade.

Xu Tianqi thought: This trick really works. Of course, whether they would only accept population as payment was a matter for later. Based on Financial Department projections, Liaodong should be experiencing inflation due to the gold, silver, and treasure the Manchus had looted from inside the Wall. Silver would be depreciating badly. Buying up gold and silver there now would prove enormously profitable.

Besides population, Xu Tianqi also proposed purchasing horses, cattle, and sheep from the Manchu-controlled area—especially horses. These were urgently needed in Lingao.

"As for horses, you can actually buy them from the Mongols via Guanning Army connections," Li Luoyou said. "But transport is inconvenient. Small numbers are manageable, but a large herd moving south would likely be intercepted halfway. And supplying fodder along the route is difficult."

(End of Chapter)