Chapter 476: A Question Since Ancient Times

The Forbidden City in Nanjing, the Hall of Literary Splendor.

The talks between Zhu Cilang, the Ming Crown Prince Who Pacifies the Army, and the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, Anthony van Diemen, were still under way.

By now the talks had produced their first result — namely, that the Great Ming would open trade to the Dutch East India Company. The first step was to permit the Company's merchant ships to enter and leave the Shanghai trading port freely, and to permit citizens of the Republic of the United Netherlands to reside in the Shanghai trading port and engage in commerce and industry!

However, the commercial contracts the Dutch East India Company had concluded with Zheng Zhilong would have to be revised under the broad principle of voluntary negotiation. Zheng Zhilong's losses would have to be compensated — Zhu Cilang's insistence on this was of course not to champion Zheng Zhilong's cause, but for another purpose entirely!

His purposes were two. The first was to trade free navigation rights for the East India Company's merchant ships along the Chinese coast in exchange for free navigation rights for the Zheng family's merchant ships in the waters of the Southern Seas.

If one wanted to colonize the Southern Seas, one first had to be able to get there. Although the East India Company's armed merchantmen could not defeat the Zheng family's fleet in Chinese coastal waters, once the battlefield was shifted to the Strait of Malacca, the waters around Java, or the Spice Islands, the Zheng family's fleet would have little chance of victory.

Moreover, the Dutch East India Company was not the Great Ming's principal rival in the expansion into the Southern Seas. Holland was merely the "wagoner of the seas" — how much territory could a "cart driver" swallow up? Holland was, after all, a tiny country, and its home base lay on a European continent crowded with great powers, so it could not possibly devote its full strength to overseas expansion.

So compared with the later empire on which the sun never set, Holland's present power was hardly worth mentioning.

And Holland's sphere of influence in the Southern Seas was no more than the East Indies and the Spice Islands, and even there it did not control everything, having established only a few outpost-style colonies. Only on Java had it occupied a relatively large territory and built the city of Batavia.

According to the history Zhu Cilang knew, even at its height the Dutch colonial presence in Southeast Asia amounted to no more than the whole of the Dutch East Indies — and the East Indies were not, at present, the Crown Prince's objective.

Zhu Cilang's second objective was, of course, the peaceful recovery of the island of Taiwan, which from ancient times had been a sacred and inseparable part of China!

"Governor-General Diemen," Zhu Cilang's tone grew heavier, "recently We received a report from the Earl of Taiwan's office stating that your East India Company sent soldiers from Fort Zeelandia and Fort Provintia on Taiwan to illegally collect tax-farming dues from villages belonging to the Earl of Taiwan's office. Is this true?"

"Earl of Taiwan? Fort Zeelandia, Fort Provintia — Your Highness the Crown Prince, do you mean the island of Formosa?" van Diemen said in surprise. "That island is the property of the East India Company. It does not belong to any Earl of Taiwan!"

Zhu Cilang said, pausing between each word: "The Earl of Taiwan is Zheng Zhilong's son, Zheng Sen!

Over the past ten or twenty years, Zheng Zhilong has every year organized emigrants from Fujian to go to Taiwan and open up land. Today there are already more than ten thousand Han households on the island of Taiwan, and they are all subjects of the Zheng clan. It is for this reason that last year We formally enfeoffed Zheng Sen as the Ming Earl of Taiwan Who Overcomes Hardship!"

Zheng Sen's original title had been Earl of Dayuan, but later Zhu Cilang felt that "Dayuan" sounded unpleasant, and moreover was a homophone of "Great Yuan," so he changed it to Earl of Taiwan.

"Your Highness the Crown Prince," van Diemen had already realized the gravity of the problem, "I believe you have been deceived by General Zheng Zhilong. Formosa belongs to the East India Company. It is a possession of the Republic of the United Netherlands, not a domain of Zheng Zhilong."

Zhu Cilang looked at van Diemen. "If the island of Taiwan is not Zheng Zhilong's domain, then how was he able to send ten thousand households of his subjects onto the island?"

"Those are not General Zheng Zhilong's subjects," van Diemen argued. "The Han people on the island of Formosa are all subjects of the East India Company."

Smack!

Zhu Cilang had slammed the table. Van Diemen was speaking French, which Zhu Cilang could understand, so without waiting for Johann Adam Schall von Bell to translate, he said sternly: "You dare to seize ten thousand households of Great Ming subjects as your own! Do you wish to go to war with the Celestial Court of the Great Ming?"

Johann Adam Schall von Bell hastily translated Zhu Cilang's words into French, then added words of his own: "Governor-General, on what grounds do you regard the Han people on the island of Formosa as subjects of the Republic of the United Netherlands? Even if the island of Formosa belonged to the East India Company, those Han people would still be nationals of the Great Ming Empire!"

"That—" van Diemen was momentarily at a loss for words.

Zhu Cilang could also understand what Johann Adam Schall von Bell said, and without waiting for van Diemen to answer, he pressed on: "If the island of Taiwan belongs to the East India Company, then when Zheng Zhilong transported his subjects onto the island to open up land, did the East India Company ever exercise jurisdiction over them?"

Of course not. How could they have managed it?

The Dutch East India Company had never effectively controlled the entire island of Taiwan. Their territory was only a part of southern Taiwan centered on Fort Zeelandia and Fort Provintia.

In addition, in 1642 they had seized two Spanish strongholds in northern Taiwan, Fort San Salvador and Fort San Domingo. But they held only those two strongholds and lacked the strength to develop the surrounding territory.

In other words, most of the territory on the island of Taiwan was "ownerless." The East India Company's claim to own Formosa was entirely without foundation. Nevertheless, they did in fact occupy a small piece of territory in southern Taiwan and two strongholds in northern Taiwan. Whether they had sovereignty was another matter, but that was the reality on the ground.

"Governor-General Diemen," seeing that van Diemen had nothing to say, Zhu Cilang grew even more confident, "the island of Taiwan is at present in fact under the joint jurisdiction of the Ming Earl of Taiwan's office and the East India Company. It is for this reason that so many conflicts have arisen. Moreover, the jurisdiction exercised by your two parties is extremely ineffective, so much so that many places on the island have become pirate lairs, raiding our Great Ming coast and causing great harm! Our meaning is this: your East India Company may negotiate with the Zheng family over the Taiwan question, and place Taiwan under the rule of one party, with full responsibility.

If the Zheng family is willing to withdraw, then all the Han people on the island must be removed at once. Henceforth it will not be permitted to receive Han people, nor permitted for merchant ships to sail from the Great Ming coast to the island of Taiwan, and you must guarantee to Us that the island will not be used by pirates. If this is violated, you must pay fines and compensate for the losses caused by pirate raids on the Great Ming coast.

If you are willing to withdraw, We can persuade the Zheng family to pay for the purchase of Fort Zeelandia, Fort Provintia, Fort San Salvador, and Fort San Domingo."

In truth, Zhu Cilang had given van Diemen only one choice: to sell Fort Zeelandia, Fort Provintia, Fort San Salvador, and Fort San Domingo to Zheng Zhilong.

Having the Zheng family remove the Han people, then seal off the island, and also bear the responsibility of exterminating pirates — for the East India Company this was utterly unprofitable: only large expenditures, with no income at all. And with an army of just over a thousand men, it was impossible to ensure that the island of Taiwan would not be used by pirates.

This deal would lose money all the way back to the old country in the Netherlands. The East India Company's shareholders would have to be out of their minds to agree! Right now that piece of territory called "New York" was still "New Netherland" — where couldn't the Dutch pick up more than twenty thousand square kilometers? Why would they need to set their sights on the island of Taiwan?

"Your Highness the Crown Prince," van Diemen said, his brow deeply furrowed, "for the East India Company, the island of Formosa is a trading post for commerce with Japan and China. In fact, this island is not a very ideal post. If you could provide a better place — for instance, a coastal port like Macao — we would of course be willing to give up Formosa."

Zhu Cilang said: "The Shanghai trading port will be a city open to merchants from all under heaven! Its geographical position is far superior to Taiwan's. If your East India Company comes to China to trade, and what you seek is merely money, then Shanghai is the most suitable place to establish a trading house and commercial docks.

Moreover, I will also permit the East India Company to establish in Shanghai an embassy that may represent the Republic of the United Netherlands. Of course, correspondingly, the Great Ming Empire should also establish an embassy in Batavia."

Establishing an embassy in Batavia was, of course, for the convenience of gathering intelligence on the Southern Seas region, and for providing political and diplomatic support for the Zheng family's expansion into the Southern Seas.

Johann Adam Schall von Bell translated this speech of Zhu Cilang's into French word for word. As van Diemen listened, he began calculating in his mind.

How great the benefits of establishing a trading house and commercial docks in Shanghai would be — even a fool could figure that out. And the benefits of establishing an embassy in Shanghai — that was not merely a question of money!

The Republic of the United Netherlands would become the first nation to possess an embassy in the Celestial Empire of the East!

At that moment, Zhu Cilang suddenly made his tone heavier still: "If the East India Company wishes to establish in Taiwan a stronghold from which to spy on our southeastern coast, then We shall order a ban on all ships of the East India Company and the Republic of the United Netherlands from passing through the strait between Taiwan and Fujian!"

(End of Chapter)