Chapter 1182: The Great Ming Has No Ambition, Only Benevolence and Righteousness

"Your Excellency the Governor-General, the Ming consul Mr. Wei Qingmu is waiting for you in the reception room. He hopes the Governor-General's office can lift the martial law order. Governor-General, will you see him?"

Governor-General Matsolker had just climbed out of his carriage when one of his secretaries came running over at top speed to tell him that an envoy from the Great Ming had arrived.

"I knew he would come. What a nuisance!" Matsolker muttered.

To be honest, he greatly envied how freely his predecessors had handled the Chinese question. In those days Batavia had neither so many powerful Ming trading houses nor a permanent Ming mission. So when Chinese merchants were bullied, they could only endure it, and at most file petitions that accomplished nothing.

To a Governor-General of Batavia, even the richest Chinese merchant was nothing but a fat pig awaiting slaughter. Those willing to cooperate were given the title of "Kapitan" and set to controlling Chinese through Chinese. As for those who refused to cooperate—heh.

But times had changed!

First, those powerful trading houses from the Ming homeland could no longer be pushed around at will—because the Dutch East India Company had to cooperate with them in many of its operations, or the company's profits would plummet.

Second, the Confucian Classics schools jointly established by these powerful trading houses were also extremely troublesome! Although these schools were named after the Confucian Classics, their curricula were highly diverse, emphasizing both civil and martial cultivation, both Confucian and mercantile. The students not only studied the Confucian Classics, but also mathematics, commerce, law, and martial arts! And the martial arts were not about practicing fists and feet—they were about drilling with firearms! At first they drilled with matchlocks, and later switched to flintlocks!

Driven by these Confucian Classics schools, nearly every second-generation Chinese merchant now settled in Batavia had a gun!

And just as troublesome as these gun-toting second-generation Chinese merchants was the ever-smiling Ming consul stationed in Batavia, Wei Qingmu.

This fellow was a fourth-generation Chinese merchant. His family had settled on Java before the Dutch East India Company even existed!

In the beginning, his great-grandfather and grandfather had done business in Banten and become enormously wealthy merchants. Later, when the Dutch established their colony at Batavia and worked hard to attract merchants, they brought in Wei Qingmu's grandfather, Wei Bao. This Wei Bao, together with another Chinese merchant leader named Su Minggang, became the first two Chinese Kapitans of Batavia.

And after Su Minggang's death, Wei Bao's son—Wei Qingmu's father, Wei Ding—became the leader of Batavia's Chinese merchants.

But Wei Qingmu, though born into a Chinese merchant family that had been pro-Dutch for two generations, had studied first at the Batavia Confucian Classics School and then at the Nanjing Grand Academy, and through that had entered the diplomatic system of the Ming court (such a path had of course been deliberately arranged), ultimately becoming the Ming court's agent in Batavia.

Through this Consul Wei, the Ming court and the local Chinese merchants of Batavia had established a line of contact—merely a line of contact, because Zhu Cilang had never held too many unrealistic expectations for the overseas Chinese of the Southern Seas, nor would he ever provide the Chinese of Batavia with excessive military, diplomatic, or political support all at once.

Because Zhu Cilang understood very well that these overseas Chinese who had left their homeland to make a living on Java not only lacked real strength, but also lacked the ability and the mental preparation to wield great power. Even if they were given enough flintlocks and cannons, they could not become colonizers, nor could they drive out the Dutch.

So the Zhu Emperor's policy toward the Chinese of Batavia was to provide limited assistance while exporting the New Confucianism and cultivating a new kind of overseas Chinese with a certain fighting spirit.

And throughout this process, whether it was the mission stationed in Batavia, the powerful Ming trading houses, or the teachers at the Confucian Classics schools, all without exception conveyed the same message—the Great Ming had no designs whatsoever on Batavia or Java, and moreover, the Netherlands was the Great Ming's good friend!

But do not imagine that this gentle line made Governor-General Matsolker comfortable. On the contrary, this Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies would have preferred the Chinese to take a path of fierce confrontation, because only then could he retaliate openly and on a grand scale.

Yet the crafty Chinese Emperor was steadily and resolutely strengthening his power throughout the Southern Seas while at the same time working hard to maintain friendship with the Netherlands and allowing the Dutch East India Company to reap rich profits from trade with China.

Even as the East India Company kept making all sorts of petty moves, even openly promoting the establishment of the anti-Heavenly-Empire Malacca League, the Zhu Emperor showed not the slightest sign of being provoked. Of course, the unprovoked Zhu Emperor was merely extraordinarily friendly toward the Dutch—he had not slowed his southward advance one bit because of it!

And this seemingly self-contradictory policy left Governor-General Matsolker in a dilemma: he wanted to resist the southward-advancing Ming with all his strength, yet he could not bring himself to give up the rich profits, and in the end he could only keep wavering between the two lines of confrontation and cooperation.

Faced with a colossus like the Heavenly Empire, even the whole of the Netherlands throwing everything it had into the struggle might not prevail—let alone an East India Company that kept swinging back and forth.

So Governor-General Matsolker actually rather hoped that Wei Qingmu would bring him news of a complete break. Of course, he also knew that was impossible!

Wei Qingmu, only twenty-five years old this year, waited quietly in the Governor-General's small reception room for Matsolker. Inwardly, this young consul actually longed for a complete break just as much as Matsolker did.

Although a complete break would inflict heavy losses on the Wei family's business in Batavia, his family had long been prepared!

Large sums of capital had already been remitted to Guangzhou through the East India Company's bank, and the elderly and weak members of the clan had moved to Banten. The great mansion in the Chinese quarter had long since been converted into a fortress. If confrontation truly broke out, with the mansion, the legation, and other sturdy trading houses, the Chinese of Batavia could certainly hold out for a very long time.

And the sultans of Banten and Mataram had long wanted to throw in their lot with the Heavenly Empire and would surely come to their aid in time.

But the dispatch that had just arrived from the Great Ming Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated clearly: toward the island of Java, the Great Ming had only benevolence and righteousness—no ambition!

Only benevolence and righteousness, no ambition?

I don't believe it for a second!

After Matsolker heard Wei Qingmu's representations, delivered in Dutch, along with the Ming court's assurances, he truly did not know whether to laugh or cry.

"Your Excellency the Governor-General," Wei Qingmu had already put on a face full of sincere smiles, "the Great Ming's position regarding the island of Java is consistent and firm. We have not had, do not have, and will not in the future have any territorial claims on the island of Java. Furthermore, we recognize the suzerainty of the Dutch Republic over the island of Java!"

"But your aggression in the Malacca Strait region has already threatened Dutch interests in Java and the Spice Islands!" Matsolker pointed out sternly. "If you cannot stop these aggressive acts, the Dutch Republic and the East India Company will take further action!"

"No, no, no—that is not aggression," Wei Qingmu said. "The Great Ming merely wishes to restore the established order of the Malacca Strait. The Malacca Sultanate is a vassal of the Great Ming, and the Sultan of Malacca is also an Imperial Son-in-law of the Great Ming. The Heavenly Empire has an obligation to protect its own vassals!"

The Sultan of Malacca had never actually married a Ming princess, but in the Malacca Strait there had long been a legend of a sultan marrying a Ming princess—presumably the sultans wished to elevate their own status by it. After all, in the early days of the Great Ming's ascendancy, even the distant Malacca Strait lay under the shadow of the Great Ming's heavenly might!

And this legend, together with the Malacca Sultanate's status as a Ming vassal, gave the Great Ming Heavenly Empire its pretext for moving south.

Wei Qingmu continued: "Moreover, our Heavenly Empire has never sought to monopolize the Malacca Strait. The privileges of the Netherlands and England in the Malacca Strait will always be consistently respected. If your two countries wish to obtain footholds in the strait, that too can be discussed. The Great Ming is very willing to share the benefits of this golden waterway with the Netherlands and England!"

"Furthermore, the Great Ming is also willing to guarantee all your privileges in Java and the Spice Islands! Because the Great Ming is a true friend of the Dutch Republic!"

(End of Chapter)