Chapter 143: Malaria and Slaves

From the barbaric age through the Dutch occupation, then the Zheng Clan's reclamation, the Qing-era mass migration, the Republic of China, and all the way to the early 20th century under Japanese rule, Taiwan's population was in a phase of continuous growth.

Throughout this period, the massive influx of outside immigrants masked malaria's high death rate — in fact, it was not until the early-20th-century Japanese occupation that Taiwan had any malaria statistics in a real sense: the Japanese couldn't take it anymore either, and prepared to exterminate mosquitoes across the whole island, fill in stagnant water, and build covered drains...

In 1910, the Japanese tallied that over the previous five years, Taiwan's natives had died at an average of 【missing number】 per year, while 221 Japanese died — a proportion of 3.62 and 3.28 per thousand of their respective populations at the time.

At first glance the numbers don't seem high, but these are only the post-infection death rates; another statistic from that time recorded the five-year illness rate among Japanese officials — 907 per thousand. That is to say, within those five years, nearly every Japanese official had contracted malaria. As for the Han people, whose living conditions were far worse...

Quinine already existed by then. Without quinine, the proportion of these officials who survived would have been very low; the Japanese, who lived in cold regions, would have died of malaria in droves, just as early Europeans did in Africa.

In 1941, 70,000 American-Philippine Allied Forces surrendered to the Japanese army on the Bataan Peninsula... for no other reason than a malaria outbreak. Soldiers whose shivering fits were not too severe and could still hold a rifle numbered less than one quarter.

In 1942, every single American unit on Guadalcanal contracted malaria without exception, and their stockpiled quinine was rapidly depleted...

This is the most terrifying thing about mosquitoes + malaria: extreme contagiousness, and it is a recurring infection with no immunity. Unless the environment is fundamentally altered, drugs are essentially useless.

When it came to facing malaria, Taiwan's natives were not much stronger than those short fellows in the South Seas. In truth, everyone was the same — all using medieval muscle-flexing displays to mask the high death rate: they could seemingly all field a bunch of bare-bodied, powerfully muscled warriors, yet behind this lay an average lifespan of thirty years, and tribespeople dying in batches like mown grass — no one ever kept count.

In the 17th century where the Transmigrators found themselves, the situation was exactly this dire. Taiwan was a wilderness, without the tamed land that later generations of immigrants would trade for with high death rates over centuries — only a brutal reality where every single step forward meant a life-and-death struggle against mosquitoes.

To some extent, it was precisely malaria + the high death rate of labor-for-relief that tore away the hypocrisy of certain Transmigrators who had crossed over from a peaceful later era, thereby giving birth to the Dayuan regime's slave trade.

The Transmigrators' base constituency was Ming immigrants — this was the regime's foundation, unshakeable. In fact, they had no other choice: starting from the most basic bloodline perception, they had already excluded other ethnic groups, let alone obvious things like faith, skin color, and hair color.

Therefore, the Transmigrators now had no choice but to establish two population import channels with vastly different costs.

The Ming channel was very cheap: Moyun Temple's beggars and refugees could be gathered at almost no cost. Even though every Ming person fattened up and delivered to Dayuan carried the costs of eating meat, wearing clothes, medical treatment, lodging, and ship fare at Moyun Temple, 50 taels of silver per person was the absolute ceiling.

Ming people were cheap, but their status was high: the Transmigrators would send Ming people to the Kiln District to learn skills, or to the army to enlist, but they would absolutely never send Ming people to their deaths — the double physical + biological devastation of woodcutting and land reclamation.

Then who would do the high-mortality reclamation work? Only by buying slaves to do it.

Since the Han and Tang dynasties, maritime trade had been the commercial activity with the highest profit margins. The 17th century was precisely the age of geographical discovery; the Age of Discovery was in full swing, and navigators across the globe were walking a tightrope between high death rates and high profits.

In this era, any ship setting out from Great Ming with a load of daily sundries, lacquerware, porcelain, pots and pans, homespun cloth, rouge, sewing needles... whether that ship sailed north to Japan or south to the Philippines, as long as it encountered no pirates or storms, upon reaching its destination, the cargo aboard would fetch at minimum a 200% profit.

This is the nature of maritime trade — high risk paired with high profit. Otherwise, why not just set up a stall in front of your house? Why would great merchants risk storms, pirates, disease, and drowning to go out to sea?

Back to the slave trade.

The current situation was this: the Dayuan regime had neither the capability to send its own army to the South Seas to capture slaves, nor did it want slaves for land reclamation any less. So the Transmigrators had no choice but to buy from the Europeans.

The Europeans, long accustomed to the slave trade, were naturally not so brainless as to equate slaves with general goods.

First, slaves would not walk themselves into the ship's hold. Whether colonizers waged war or purchased them from tribes, a cost had to be paid.

Second, slaves were not like pots and pans. A slave ship carried one more enormous, unavoidable risk than a general cargo ship: from the moment they boarded, slaves would continuously die in the cramped, sweltering, excrement-and-urine-soaked hold. So the slave trader was essentially racing against time, trying to reach the destination before every slave on board — and every crew member, including the slave trader himself — died off.

This exorbitant cost would be spread evenly across every slave who survived. Therefore, without a profit margin of over 400%, no one would ever operate such a monumentally risky business. The logic is simple: no one would take the profit margin of selling cigarettes to sell opium — the risks are different, so naturally the rewards are different.

When the Transmigrators bought South Seas Slaves from the Europeans, the Europeans had a reference price.

Historically, after Britain's 17th-century currency reform, the exchange ratio between the pound sterling and silver was 1 to 4.3.

A slave trader's cost to acquire one black slave from the west coast of Africa was roughly 25 pounds (107 taels of silver). After crossing to the Americas, they could obtain goods worth roughly 150 pounds (645 taels of silver), a profit rate of 600%.

By the 18th century, the black slave trade's profits rose further: after buying a black slave in Africa for 50 dollars, they could sell them in the Americas for 400 dollars — a profit rate as high as 800%.

The above are historical facts; a casual search on Baidu will confirm them.

Therefore, certain later-generation wish-fulfillment fantasies where one can casually spend a bit of money and ship people in bulk from East Asia to the Americas are laughable. To cross from the even more distant East Asia to the Americas, just how brainless would Europeans have to be to spend a year transporting refugees at a profit margin lower than 600 taels per head in freight costs?

Moreover, even crew members who had hammocks to sleep in would still die in large numbers during the voyage. So, of the refugees crammed in the hold, how many could survive to reach the Americas? If having rest stops along the way to get fresh air could prevent mass death, slaves would probably have long been sold with a "buy three, get one free" deal, and why would humanity have bothered inventing Penicillin?

Therefore, under the above pricing system, the Dutch would certainly not lower the profit on slaves to the same level as general goods. For a 200% profit, they could just peacefully trade a bit of spice and nitre — why would they trade slaves?

So, left with no choice, the Transmigrators had to use a profit margin of over 300% to tempt the Dutch into slave trading.

Or should they send their own ships to South Asia to capture people?

... Without a large supply base like the Philippines, a lone ship setting out, trailing sparks and lightning all the way, to go capture people on tropical islands... this was even more brainless. The cost would far exceed 300 taels of silver per person, and then they'd throw in the lives of a few Transmigrator lords on top of that... that wouldn't be surprising at all.

So, there is no free lunch under heaven. Political correctness is a very expensive form of correctness. If the Transmigrators wanted to keep up appearances and avoid bearing the infamy of "harming their ancestors," they would have to pay a steep price right now — unless they could ram a shipload of cannons right up to the Philippines' doorstep, with Warriors roaring as they began storming the beach; only then would the price of slaves plummet.