Chapter 16 Xingang Company

The reserves of gold, copper and coal mines in Borneo are very large, but most of the areas are primitive tropical forests and marshes, which are difficult to mine. In the market of Yamaguchi, you can see all kinds of gold ornaments everywhere.

The goldsmiths here are mainly from Fuzhou and Quanzhou. They have the largest number of Hakka people. They are mainly engaged in agriculture and produce rice locally.

At least in this era, growing rice in this area is also a craft with a lot of technology. In the same field, the yield of indigenous people is half lower than that of Chinese.

Don't underestimate this gap. Many Hakka people grow rice in the area of Yamaguchi. After a few years, they can buy more fields and recruit relatives and friends from their hometowns to farm.

Slowly, most of the rice fields near Yamaguchi were controlled by the Hakka people, who also reclaimed a large number of new fields.

Starting from such a small rice field, the Hakka and Minnan people have mastered the rice market and timber market in Yamaguchi, and then became the main rich merchants in the area.

It is precisely because of this that as long as the Dutch instigate, in order to seize the wealth and land held by the Chinese, the local indigenous people, especially the indigenous people led by the Malays and Javanese, will follow the Dutch to slaughter the Chinese.

They don't even have to instigate, they are very excited and resentful.

They can't farm or do business. They will kill people.

That's enough.

Enough.

For Hu Chuyuan, this is enough.

He only stayed in Yamaguchi for a few hours. In the afternoon, he set off again for Letun, bypassing the corner at the northwest end of Sarawak. The Taichang and the following Guangyi entered a brand-new bay together.

A few days ago, a big typhoon swept by, and the coast was in a mess. It didn't look very good.

In the evening, the setting sun shone in the west, reflecting half of the sky and the whole sea, and the Taichang sailed into an open and curved river port.

Almost all the big rivers on Borneo are like this. At the exit, there will always be a few twists and turns to form a near-perfect natural harbor for the local area. After that, the rivers and wind and waves will become extremely quiet, and the two sides are tropical rainforests.

Due to the lack of perfect national governance, there are such harbors everywhere in Borneo. Many places are inaccessible, which has become a natural protection place for pirates.

Just like later Somalia, many indigenous tribes relied entirely on the pirate industry for a living and specialized in some robbery.

The alayas here are the most terrible. They are not only looting, but also cannibals. Until 130 years later, many alayas in remote areas still maintained the habit of cannibals.

Hidden in the dense tropical rainforest, driving through two turns in a row, a small town finally appeared in front of it.

After many massacres, many Chinese moved from Kuching and Sanfa to the uninhabited area at the northern end of Sarawak and reclaimed paddy fields there.

Unlike pirates, the new gathering place they found not only has good port berthing conditions, which is convenient for them to quietly return to China to recruit fellow villagers, but also has a large area of land for development, and even gold mines.

This is the reason why Kuching, Yamaguchi Yang and Kundian continue to appear, and also the reason for the emergence of Letun.

Because the strength of the Brooke Dynasty was limited and gradually declining, for the newly emerging Letun, they could only choose to acquiesce, did not come to emphasize the leadership, and did not collect taxes on the local area.

Such a good time did not last long. In 1888, Britain obtained the right to protect the whole Sarawak, became the first suzerain of the Brooke dynasty, and officially began to govern the whole Sarawak, which is why Sarawak was eventually merged into Malaysia.

It is rare for local Chinese to see a merchant ship as big as the Taichang, and it was flying the British flag, and the town immediately scratched.

Soon, the Taichang found a suitable dock, because there was not a large enough ship port, Hu Chuyuan could only board the land in a small boat. In case of emergency, Ye Xiangyun, Ye Wenlan and others went ashore first to find some friends they knew in the local area.

Hu Chuyuan didn't know how they were bragging. It was probably said that the officials of the Qing court had come. As soon as he went ashore with Zhang Lingpu, Deng Shichang and others, the Chinese people poured over enthusiastically.

It's really a crowd.

Hundreds of Chinese slowly gathered and walked towards Hu Chuyuan. Some people forgot to throw away their spears and knives in their hands, which made Deng Shichang nervous. The Yue Yong of his private funds also wanted to lift their guns one after another.

At this time, Ye Wenlan and Ye Xiangyun had run out of a lobby room with a strong burly man. The man was wearing an ordinary farmer's clothes and straw shoes. His skin was tanned into bronze, with a tiger's back and bear's waist, thick and thick and thick mustard, about 40 years old.

This burly man must not be simple. There were more than a dozen people behind him, and more people rushed over and hugged behind him.

Walking all the way, Ye Xiangyun said something all the way. The more the burly man listened, the more surprised he became, and looked panicked.

When he arrived in front of Hu Chuyuan, the burly man knelt down without saying a word and said, "Little Liu Baogui is a native of Tingzhou, the head of the local Xingang Company. He has seen the transfer of Fuzhou Ship Administration Office!"

The Chinese behind Liu Baogui saw him kneel down and knelt down. They didn't know who Hu Chuyuan was. He had kneeled more and more, as if the emperor had been recognized through the trip.

In a flash of momentum, hundreds of people knelt down inside and outside.

Hu Chuyuan encountered such a situation for the first time in his life, and he was also stunned. Then he reached out his hand to hold Liu Baogui, wanted to pull him up, and said, "I just came to your place for personal matters. You don't have to be so reserved. Let everyone get up!"

"Thank you for your transfer!"

Liu Baogui took advantage of the situation and got up. The people here hardly understood what had happened. They just saw the eldest brother kneeling down, and they also knelt down with him. The eldest brother came together and got up one after another.

Seeing too many people, Hu Chuyuan said, "Boss Liu, let's find a place to talk slowly!"

Liu Baogui immediately said, "Okay, please come and sit high in our hall."

The "hall" they said is not an ordinary hall, but a "hall" similar to Liangshanbo Juyi Hall. However, there are all the general forums of the community. The leaders of these Chinese associations in Nanyang often call themselves the "hall manager", "hall manager" and "general manager", which is the leader of this "hall".

Entering the Xingang Hall of Xingang Company, Hu Chuyuan sat down at the upper table, and Ye Wenlan sat next to him.

The official status of the Qing court is very important in the Chinese world. On the one hand, it has real power, and on the other hand, it is also a kind of ideological influence. For this reason, Ye Wenlan wants to keep his second-grade position in any case.

Of course, Hu Chuyuan understands this, but he still feels that Liu Baogui's fear of him is a little abnormal!

After a polite look, he didn't say anything eagerly, but asked Liu Baogui and others to accompany him around Letun to have a look.

The situation here is more like a township in China. There are no officials to govern, and there are no villagers. They are the leaders of the community and the administrators at all levels have the final say.

The total population is about 6,000. Jiucheng Renkou is Chinese, and the Hakka people from Fujian account for 60%. The rest are also from Fujian. Liu Baogui is a Hakka from Tingzhou.

More than 30 miles away from Leton Port is Mount Gading, where there is a large gold mining area, where many Chinese people work. Only less than 2,000 people reclaimed land near Leton Port to grow rice.

Accompanied by Liu Baoshi and others, Hu Chuyuan found a 100-meter-high hill and climbed it. He looked at it from a distance and was quite satisfied with the topography of this area.

From the perspective of war, this is not suitable as a military concentration.

As a city, it has great development prospects. Except for the Gardin Mountains in the southwest and some small hills in the northwest, the whole area is impacting plains, and the wide Jiayang River winding through, covered with large areas of tropical forests.

If all of them are managed by the Han people, millions of mu of rice fields can be born here in less than ten years, which can accommodate at least 100,000 people.

When I came down from the hill, it was getting late.

Just in case, Hu Chuyuan returned to the Taichang and invited Liu Baogui to have dinner together on the boat.

After dinner, Hu Chuyuan asked Deng Shichang and others to leave, leaving only him, Liu Baogui, Ye Wenlan and Zhang Lingpu, and closed the door to make a pot of tea secretly.

Seeing that the time was almost over, he talked about business with Liu Baogui. At first, he just asked about the situation of Letun and Xingang Company.

Hearing Hu Chuyuan's question, Liu Baogui was a little afraid.

From Hu Chuyuan to Letun, he has been doubting Hu Chuyuan's motives. He always feels that Hu Chuyuan may want to occupy his territory, or that the court knows that he has done pirates before...?

After thinking about it, he sighed: "It took more than ten years of hard work for our Xingang company to reclaim this desolate old forest, but I didn't expect that when the indigenous people saw us tossing out a piece of paddy field, they said that the land was theirs and wanted to take it back. We have mined a lot of large gold mines nearby, and the British also came to cause trouble, saying that this is the territory managed by Sudan, so we are only allowed to sell gold to them and pay taxes. It's getting more and more troublesome!"

Hu Chuyuan nodded slightly and asked, "Is there any way for you to keep it?"

Liu Baogui sighed again and said, "We can still support the natives. In case the foreigners come in a ship, we will be in trouble."

"Oh?" Hu Chuyuan quietly raised his eyes and asked, "How strong is Brooke?"

Liu Baogui thought for a moment and said, "The number of four or five thousand people has foreign guns. There are about seven or eight hundred foreigners, and the others are Malays. The key is that there are several ships with cannons. With a few cannons, we will almost die, and we can't keep them."

Hu Chuyuan couldn't help but be surprised again and asked, "Then why don't they attack?"

Liu Baogui said, "The key is that other indigenous people also have a lot of conflicts with them. Besides, they really want to drive the ship over. Let's retreat to the gold mine and guard the mountain. They will also suffer losses."

Hu Chuyuan nodded again and said to Liu Baogui, "I have a way to solve this matter, but before I talk about business, I also want to say that you seem to be veryware of me. In fact, it is not necessary. When I come to you this time, it has nothing to do with the court. As for me, like Lord Ye, I am also an official and businessman, and I usually do business. What are the benefits? I have the authority to buy and sell arms, so I can sell some arms to you.

As soon as he heard this, Liu Baogui was secretly happy and hurriedly explained, "You don't have to be surprised. The little one has not been in contact with the official family. It's really scary... Second, you and the general official family, Mr. Ye said that you were in charge of Fujian sailors, which really scared me."

Hu Chuyuan smiled and said politely, "It's not in charge. It's just a co-organizer. Lord Deng just now... In fact, he is the master of the sailor. Because it seemed very bold for me to come to you this time, and I was afraid that I would meet pirates halfway, Deng Guandai took people in person, so as to avoid the unlikely event that the warship stopped in Singapore and only rented a martial arts merchant ship.

Liu Baogui took a deep breath and finally knew that what Ye Xiangyun said was true.

To be honest, he really doesn't know the depth of Hu Chuyuan, but it is the first time he has met people like Ye Wenlan and Ye Xiangyun to such a level, which is really eye-catching.

Thinking of this, he said to Hu Chuyuan, "Your Excellency, it's a pleasure to see you in this life. If you have a way to solve the matter of Letun, the little one will remember your great kindness. In the future, as long as you have something to do, the little one will die.

Hu Chuyuan smiled and said, "Actually, I want to buy this land with you!"

"What...?"

Liu Baogui was shocked and thought that Hu Chuyuan was going to swallow his territory. His face changed dramatically. He immediately stood up with a crash and subconsciously clenched his fists.

Seeing that he wanted to take action, Ye Xiangyun was also surprised and immediately got up for fear that Liu Baogui would take action.

Almost at the same time, Zhang Lingpu is one step faster than both of them. He has moved forward to Hu Chuyuan's side and can take action at any time.

"Oh, don't worry, everyone!"

Hu Chuyuan was very calm. He raised his hand slightly and motioned several people not to worry. He also said to Liu Baogui, "To be precise, I want to recruit you and let you work for me. Of course, the conditions are very favorable. When I get the whole Sarawak, Letun is still your territory."

"What?"

Liu Baogui was shocked again.

The whole of Sarawak?

Dagang Company and Saniaogou Company did not take Kuching at its peak. Unexpectedly, some Chinese wanted to take the whole Sarawak?

He can't figure it out and can't believe it, but... he has to say that Hu Chuyuan is really not an ordinary person.

Unlike the generals of these clubs, they can be in charge of Fujian sailors!

(to be continued)