Chapter 1205: Want to Colonize but Don't Know How to Do Business? (Please

"Governor-General Ma," Li Jicheng said, listening as Bruce van Diemen translated Matsolco's words into Chinese, suddenly interrupting, "what use is an overseas colony? It's so far away and hard to control. You fight bitterly to take it, and in the end some traitor rises up and founds his own kingdom — wouldn't that be losing the hen and breaking the eggs?"

Bruce listened to him and thought: You broke faith yourself, so you suspect others will break faith too? Truly a nation of bandits!

That was what he thought, but his mouth still honestly translated the Imperial Grandson's words into Dutch.

Matsolco, for his part, very earnestly thought it over on behalf of the Shun, then said: "The Great Ming Empire seems to have considered this problem long ago, which is why it has broadly established tributary states overseas and enfeoffed them to the Emperor's brothers, sons, and nephews."

"That method..." Li Jicheng was not very willing. The Li imperial clan of the Shun now had quite a large population. Li Zicheng himself had no son, but he had a nephew, Li Guo (who later became Li Zicheng's son), and a younger brother, Li Zijing. Li Guo had ascended the throne as Emperor, while Li Zijing had been enfeoffed as Prince of Chu and kept in Kunming, eating, drinking, amusing himself, and producing sons.

And both Li Guo and Li Zijing had sons — Li Guo had eleven sons, Li Zijing had eight. Some of these sons were already grown, and the grown sons had in turn produced many more sons!

Among them, all of Li Guo's sons except Li Laiheng, who had been made Crown Prince, were Princes. As for Li Zijing's sons, the eldest, Li Zhong, was made heir, and the rest were enfeoffed as Marquises.

And as for Crown Prince Li Laiheng's sons, the eldest, Li Jicheng, had been made Imperial Grandson-heir, and the rest were made Commandery Princes — in the future, when Li Laiheng became Emperor, these Commandery Princes could be promoted to Princes.

And the treatment of these princely lords of the Li family was far better than what Zhu Cilang gave that brood of dragon sons and dragon grandsons of the Zhu family — on Zhu Cilang's side there were many paths, and one could strive on one's own. On Li Guo's side there were no outlets, so they had to support this lot of princes. That was why the Li family's Princes all received official fields of "ten thousand shi," Commandery Princes "five thousand shi," and Marquises "three thousand shi."

Thinking of all this land "given away for nothing," Li Jicheng felt somewhat reluctant. If he was further expected to spend money and effort arranging fiefs for these brothers who were always eyeing his position as Crown Prince, he was unwilling. What good would it do him? Not only no good — quite possibly harm! What if these brothers proved ungrateful and raised troops in rebellion?

"What benefit does Zhu Cilang get from doing it this way?" Li Jicheng asked.

Matsolco thought for a moment. "It can export some population and relieve land pressure in the homeland."

Land pressure — the moment Li Jicheng heard those four words, his head ached!

The Shun dynasty had now also run into the problem of land pressure! There was only so much land, but more and more people wanted a share of it. How could this go on? And exporting population did not seem very easy either.

"But those people may not be willing to go so far away!" Li Jicheng complained. "Burma here is still quite spacious, yet how many people are willing to come?"

Matsolco said: "That is because there is no rich profit to lure them. On the Ming side, commerce flourishes. Whether going east to the New Continent or south to Siam and Ca Mau, there is profit to be made. In recent years, quite a few people have made great fortunes in the Southern Seas and the New Continent. With them as examples, of course there are people who do not fear hardship or distance and cross the seas."

To put it plainly, the Ming dynasty's current overseas colonization was primarily capitalist in nature — that is, colonization oriented toward economic profit. Apart from exiled convicts caught for crimes, most of the others went to sea carrying a dream of getting rich. Once they arrived, whether running farms, hunting fur-bearing animals, opening workshops and shops of all kinds, or searching for gold, the goal was to make foreign fortunes — and profits and losses were their own!

And among the Ming people who went abroad to make foreign fortunes, quite a few were people with capital in hand — some were merchants blinded by greed for money, some were the academically hopeless sons of powerful families who had no inheritance rights (no titles). With their capital and management, the Ming court's investment in the colonies was much smaller — not only was the capital invested smaller, the burden of administration was lighter too. The colonies were often ten thousand li from the homeland; a round trip took a year or two, so administration was a major problem.

Where was the Zhu Emperor to find so many officials who were capable, incorruptible, unafraid of hardship, and unafraid of death to go to the colonies and manage state-run enterprises? A moment's thought shows it cannot be done — people could embezzle and he would never even know! Of course, if he wanted to follow the Spanish model of colonization, that would be another matter, but the territories that fell into Ming hands were not like the territories the Spanish had seized in earlier years — there was not that much easy profit. They had to be invested in and developed before there could be returns.

Moreover, the Ming homeland's population was too large — it would reach two hundred million in the blink of an eye, not a mere few million like Spain. So it had to export people outward, and this required investing large amounts of manpower and resources in developing the colonies.

Therefore, the Ming's colonial development had no choice but to rely on accursed capital and feudal lords — and the feudal lords' capital also had to be raised by themselves. Under this model, the Ming court's own investment in the colonies was extremely limited. For the Ming court, the cost of colonization was very low.

Only with low costs could it be done on a large scale!

If the cost of colonization were too high, the colonial enterprise would lose money, and loss-making expansion was unsustainable.

Of course, this low-cost colonization was not without drawbacks. Its drawback was that it was very hard to control territories with no profit to be made, and the Ming and these tributary states were bound together by economic interests. When economic interests aligned, all was well and they were united. But once economic interests came into conflict, sooner or later they would fall out.

"No, no," Li Jicheng was already shaking his head. "I'm not cut out to be a profiteering merchant. I'm a straightforward man; I don't know those tricks of swindling and cheating."

The Shun suppressed commerce, so naturally it emphasized the cunning of merchants. From childhood, Li Jicheng had been indoctrinated with the notions that merchants were cunning, craftsmen were slick, peasants were honest, and scholars (the fubing) were loyal and brave. So such words came out of his mouth at once, completely forgetting that today's honored guests, Matsolco and Bruce Diemen, were precisely the profiteering merchants he was talking about.

Being pointed at and cursed as profiteering merchants by the Imperial Grandson naturally made Matsolco and Bruce Diemen very displeased. However cunning the two of them were, they were not as cunning as Li Jicheng!

The two foreign devils exchanged a glance and both decided to swindle Li Jicheng.

"If Your Highness the Imperial Grandson does not know how to do business, yet still wishes to profit from the sea," Bruce van Diemen now took up the conversation, saying to Li Jicheng, "then why not go and rob?"

"Rob?" Li Jicheng stroked his big beard. This was indeed a family trade, but his family's craft was meant for use on land, not at sea — different trades are worlds apart! Going to sea to rob was Zheng Zhilong's specialty.

"But we don't know how to fight on water!" Li Jicheng was, to his credit, realistic. "We get seasick the moment we set out — how are we supposed to rob?"

Hearing this, Bruce van Diemen thought: You bunch of landlubbers want to be pirates? Don't capsize the moment you leave port — that would save the Zhu Emperor the trouble of sending troops to wipe out your whole clan.

"Not knowing naval warfare is no problem," Bruce van Diemen said. "In fact, the best targets for plunder are right beside you. The navy of the Arakan kingdom is sufficient. If you still feel uneasy, we Dutch can also provide some assistance and build for you a navy capable of operating in the coastal waters of the Bay of Bengal."

"Right beside us?" Li Jicheng thought for a moment. "You mean the kingdom of Dagu La?"

The kingdom of Dagu La was in the area later known as Tenasserim. At present it was not a unified state but a heap of small Mon principalities. Neither the Shun nor the Ming had much interest in them, so they were left as a buffer.

"Of course not," Bruce van Diemen said. "Look to your west!"

"West?" Li Jicheng understood. "You mean India! But the Mughal dynasty of India has strong soldiers and sturdy horses, and there is also that very capable fighter Aurangzeb — very hard to deal with! We are still at war with the Ming and do not have much strength to spare for a western expedition!"

During his days in Mrauk U, Li Jicheng had not been without covetous glances toward India. But the information he had gathered all told him that the neighboring Mughal dynasty was not to be trifled with! Strong soldiers and sturdy horses, with a wise sovereign on the throne!

Bruce van Diemen laughed. "Do you Chinese not often say that hearing is false, seeing is true? Whether the Mughal dynasty is easy to provoke and whether Aurangzeb can fight — that still requires you to send reliable men to see with their own eyes. And in our Dutch view, although Emperor Aurangzeb's power is great, he is not invincible, because his strength is all on land, and his ambitions are too vast — he strikes out in all directions and has little spare capacity to defend India's long and wealthy coastline. If you want to occupy Indian territory for the long term, your strength may be insufficient — but what about robbing and leaving?"

(End of Chapter)