Chapter 840: The Role of Hong Kong
Gonzalez gazed at Van der Lanthroon sprawled on the bed, dead drunk and snoring thunderously. He could not help but frown. The room reeked of alcohol fumes, making sleep impossible.
"Has no tolerance for drink, yet insists on overindulging." Gonzalez stroked his little mustache. He too had drunk a fair amount. In that godforsaken place called Batavia, alcohol was scarce, of poor quality, and expensive. The most popular beverage was the beer the Dutch drank incessantly—a brew that held absolutely no appeal for Southern Europeans accustomed to wine, who dismissed it as "piss."
At the reception, rum had been served, along with fruit wines brewed at the demonstration farm by Xue Ziliang and several other enthusiasts. Although Lingao could not grow grapes suited for winemaking, the farms and communes promoted "ten-edge" planting and courtyard economy, so considerable quantities of fruit were cultivated. Besides supplying the army, students, and workers, the surplus was mostly used for wine-making. When Xue Ziliang lived in America, home brewing had been a hobby, and he had even owned specialized small fermentation equipment, so he was intimately familiar with the process.
The fruit wines produced by these small-scale brewing workshops were varied in type but modest in quantity, primarily reserved for Senators and formal banquets. A few reached the shops as special provisions for the upper echelons among the naturalized citizens.
Gonzalez had naturally not squandered this rare opportunity to drink heartily—Spanish soldiers were second to none when it came to drinking. He had successively polished off several bottles of apple wine, jackfruit wine, and wild fruit wine, then consumed copious amounts of rum in one go, all while appearing entirely unchanged. He then went to chat up Miss Mendoza, who served as interpreter—he had not seen a "woman from the homeland" in far too long. Although this charming woman spoke Spanish peppered with many words he could not understand and bore an unfamiliar accent, Gonzalez surmised she must be a Creole from the American colonies. He immediately became exceedingly warm and courted her enthusiastically. Though he could tell she was also somewhat fond of him, whenever he drew too close, she would slip away. This puzzled Gonzalez greatly.
Although Miss Mendoza felt warmth at encountering a European who also spoke Spanish, the smell emanating from this Spanish soldier was nauseating. In truth, Gonzalez's hygiene habits were better than most of his contemporaries—serving in a place like Batavia, one could not survive without frequent bathing. After arriving in Lingao and checking into the sailors' lodge, he had also been compelled to bathe.
After the reception concluded, he and Leibtrini returned to their lodging room. Although the trading house could provide single rooms, Van der Lanthroon, fearing he would spend too much of the Company's funds, had insisted on a triple room. By 17th-century inn standards, this triple room could be considered luxurious and comfortable. But with this drunkard in the room, the place had become somewhat unbearable. The Italian was likewise struggling to tolerate the smell wafting from the Dutchman.
"How about we step outside for another drink?" Gonzalez asked in Italian. As a soldier of the King of Spain, he had served in Italy, and many of his comrades-in-arms had also been Italians.
"By all means. I would be quite delighted." Leibtrini's primary task was to draw, and wandering about observing things fell well within his mission. He thought for a moment. "But we have no interpreter."
"We need no interpreter." Gonzalez produced a Real coin. "This is the interpreter."
"What if we become lost?"
"They will find us and bring us back." Gonzalez said carelessly. "Don't you want to find a woman?"
"The Dutch seem even happier about the results of this negotiation than we are." After the reception concluded, a group from the Department of Colonization and Trade gathered in the office building's conference room. Hong Shuiyin, the Commercial Representative stationed in Hong Kong who had been temporarily recalled for the negotiations, spoke first. He had been recalled because Xu Tianqi, who possessed the best German among the Senators, had already departed for the mainland, leaving Hong Shuiyin as the only one who could communicate fluently in German.
"Of course they are. The Dutch have been played miserably by Zheng Zhilong. Now that they have finally encountered honest people like us, how could they not be delighted?" Skaed was well pleased. The trade agreement signed with the Dutch East India Company several days prior had been approved by the Senate after three readings. Although everyone held no particular affection for the Dutch, this agreement was genuinely too advantageous for the Lingao regime.
"I still propose listing Hong Kong as an entrepĂ´t port." Hong Shuiyin made his proposal once more.
The large quantities of Ming commodities the Dutch required were currently traded primarily through Zhangzhou Bay—meaning goods were shipped mainly from Fujian. This trade channel was currently controlled by Zheng Zhilong. It was not that the Dutch did not wish to trade in Guangdong; Guangdong trade was largely monopolized by the Portuguese. In terms of supply convenience, however, Guangdong actually surpassed Fujian as a source of export products.
The mainland commodities sold to the Dutch—including raw silk, silk goods, sundries, and medicinal materials—could in fact be traded directly with the Dutch at the Hong Kong station, eliminating an intermediate transshipment and storage step. This would free up transport capacity between the mainland and Lingao that was currently devoted to loading mainland commodities for Dutch trade. The spices the Dutch were so desperately trying to sell could also be traded in Hong Kong—the Hong Kong station could purchase them and sell locally or pass them to the Guangzhou station for sale, pocketing the price difference.
Through trade with the Dutch, Hong Kong could become an entrepĂ´t port just as it had in the old timeline, expanding Hong Kong's influence as a trading port on the mainland and building momentum for the Empire to control the Chinese merchant trade route to Batavia.
"Additionally, we can utilize the Dutch's empty cargo space. We currently specify half the freight capacity. Suppose Dutch ships arrive carrying half rice and half spices. After their ships unload rice at Lingao, they still must proceed to Hong Kong to unload spices. We can make full use of the half of their hold that is already empty, entrusting Dutch ships to transport goods we need transshipped to Hong Kong and Guangzhou."
This proposal greatly appealed to Skaed—after all, the biggest headache for the Department of Colonization and Trade at present was insufficient transport capacity. Now they could not only conserve transport capacity but actually leverage the Dutch's capacity. Hong Shuiyin's suggestion was attractive indeed.
Skaed nodded repeatedly. "Mm, this idea is quite excellent."
"Actually, there is no urgency to open Sanya." Hong Shuiyin continued. "Except for slaves, most of the goods the Dutch bring there cannot be absorbed locally and have to be shipped back to Lingao or Hong Kong by ourselves. And the goods sold to the Dutch from the Sanya side are also mainly transported from Lingao. It amounts to adding an extra step for nothing."
Skaed was moved by his words. Building Sanya into an international trading port was indeed in the Senate's plan. Now that international merchants had arrived, rejecting them seemed inappropriate. After some thought, he concluded that since Sanya's planning was intended to be "long-term" anyway, focusing energy on Hong Kong for now posed no great problem.
"But Hong Kong is still under construction. If we truly open it, can you handle things there?"
"The Dutch will not dispatch ships immediately. I expect at least the second half of the year before they send the first batch of ships. By then, our basic construction will be mostly complete, and the Guangzhou station's work will have resumed. At most, the Dutch will send two or three ships. We can manage."
Skaed nodded. If so, he would need to discuss with Ji An, the Customs Director, about establishing a new customs office in Hong Kong and conducting clearance directly there to simplify procedures.
"This way you can truly spread your wings," he said.
"Yes, otherwise what exactly is a Commercial Representative doing in Hong Kong?" Hong Shuiyin said without disguising his ambition. "Hong Kong's development potential is still somewhat limited. But it serves well enough as Guangzhou's outer port."
Therefore, in the final trade agreement draft, Hong Kong was added to the list of open trading ports.
However, among the open ports, stationing a consul was limited to Lingao only. And the question of whom to send to Batavia as consul became a new problem.
Hong Shuiyin firmly refused this opportunity—despite being the Senator with the best German. He simply did not wish to go, claiming that someone fluent in Spanish or other languages could equally well serve in Batavia. Had they not observed that the Dutch entourage included Spaniards and Italians?
The Senate was hesitant about dispatching a Senator to serve as consul in Dutch territory. There were few Senators, and each one's knowledge and skills were precious. Placing a Senator thousands of kilometers away in potentially hostile territory, with uncertain returns, was a dubious proposition. The Senator sent could not be of low caliber either—he had to know a foreign language capable of communicating with the Dutch, possess considerable negotiating ability, and enjoy good physical health. If anything went wrong, the Senate would be entirely unable to help.
The Foreign Intelligence Bureau was most interested in sending a consul—this represented an opportunity to openly dispatch intelligence personnel. But the risks were even greater than dispatching to the Ming, and Batavia was not presently a primary strategic target, so the Intelligence Bureau also did not display excessive enthusiasm.
Yet sending no consul at all seemed like a lost opportunity. After all, the other party could station a consul in Lingao, and dispatching a consul could also spread Australian influence among the Chinese population in Batavia. After some discussion, Wang Yan from the Foreign Intelligence Bureau proposed a compromise: send a consul to Tayouan in Taiwan.
Compared to Batavia, the Taiwan strategy was a matter for the next few years. An intelligence officer in Tayouan would prove far more useful than one in Batavia, and if anything happened, the distance from Hainan to Taiwan was considerably shorter.
"But this makes no sense," Skaed objected at the meeting. "Our trade agreement was signed with the Batavia authorities. Unless they transfer jurisdiction over trade with us to the Tayouan Council, it would be difficult for us to propose stationing a consul permanently at an unrelated port."
Author's note: From today until around the 5th of the new year, family will be going to visit relatives in another city for the new year, so updates will be paused. If I have time, I'll update one or two chapters, but I can't guarantee regularity. After the 5th of the new year, normal updates will resume. Thank you all for your continued support of this book and the author. Wishing everyone a happy Year of the Dragon and all the best. Here's an early New Year's greeting to all readers!
(End of Chapter)