Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 325 Songkhla
Songkhla Port is located at the mouth of Lake Luang on the northeast coast of the Malay Peninsula in southern Thailand, bordering the southwest side of the Gulf of Thailand. It is the most important trading port in the central region of the Malay Peninsula.

Songkhla Port was established earlier due to the tin mining boom. The port has a tropical monsoon climate, with prevailing west-southwest winds in summer and northeasterly winds in winter. The average annual rainfall is about 2200 mm. The abundant rainfall and fertile land have attracted a large number of Chinese immigrants.

The port has three main berths and a coastline length of 3 meters, which can accommodate more than ten medium-sized transport ships at the same time. The anchorage for large ships is on the east side of Miao Island, with a water depth of about 510 meters. Taxes are mainly collected by transshipping goods from South America, the mainland and Southeast Asia.

With the increasing support from the Han Kingdom and the planning and construction of the port terminal by the Lord of Songkhla, a number of merchant organizations engaged in re-export trade emerged in the Songkhla area, such as business groups specifically responsible for direct trade with the Han Kingdom in South America, including Heqin Merchants, Xie'an Merchants, Jintai Merchants and other merchant companies with relatively large capital. These merchant companies imported cloth, cotton yarn, frozen beef and mutton, sea cucumbers, tuna, flour, matches and other commodities from South America, and then sold the commodities to the mainland, Annan, Thailand and other places through the Songkhla transit and distribution channels.

The goods imported from the mainland of Han to Songkhla were mainly industrial manufactured products. Rubber-soled cloth shoes, bicycles, matches and other goods made of rubber were very popular among local Chinese in Songkhla and other areas of Southeast Asia because of their advantages of being cheap and practical.

The second group was the merchant groups that transshipped goods between Hong Kong and the Jiangnan region. They purchased silk, brocade, cloth and other commodities produced in Songkhla from the Han Dynasty, and then imported them into the mainland from trading ports such as Hong Kong, Shanghai and Xiamen. The larger merchant groups of this type included Ruilong, Santai, Wenying, Jinfang and Caifang.

In addition to merchant organizations specializing in import and export trade and transportation, a group of merchant companies engaged in specific commodities have also set up commercial warehouses in Songkhla.

For example, tea merchants from southern Fujian, Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions in mainland China are responsible for purchasing tea produced in the Jiangnan region, and then transporting the newly picked tea to Songkhla. At the port of Songkhla, they resell the tea to ocean-going shipping merchant groups to supply the tea demand of Chinese in South America.

The second group is engaged in trade with North Korea, mainly including Changcheng, Kuncheng, Yuanfa.Faxiang, Fumei, Hengcheng Yuancheng, Fuganglong and other business groups, exporting iron pots, iron tea boxes, linen and other commodities to North Korea, and then purchasing agricultural products such as ginseng, animal skins, and Toshiba from North Korea. The last group is engaged in the import of medicinal materials. There are about a dozen companies belonging to the medicinal materials companies, including Taichang, Yimei, Yuanrong.Chongyi, Changmei Yuanyi, Yuanfa.Longcheng, Jiaocheng, Jiecheng, etc.

The medicinal materials purchased and sold include cinnamon, bezoar, angelica, wolfberry, rhubarb, astragalus, asarum, schisandra, codonopsis, rehmannia, Achyranthes bidentata, yam, chrysanthemum, etc.

By the end of 1878, there were more than 70 trading companies registered in Songkhla Port, and the number of trading companies in the entire Songkhla area exceeded 200. The income from entrepot trade reached 17 silver dollars, 1877 percent more than the fiscal revenue of Songkhla Port in .

In early 1879, affected by the British blockade, Songkhla's import and export transit trade volume dropped by half. A large number of medicinal materials, cloth merchants, and ocean shipping merchant groups traveling to and from South America had to stay in Songkhla waiting for the news of the end of the Argentine War because they had not sold their goods or had not completed the immigration transportation tasks they had undertaken.

In early October 1879, British warships that were carrying out blockade missions evacuated coastal areas such as Natuna and Songkhla. The Songkhla Port, which resumed normal trade and transportation, ushered in a boom in trade transactions.

At the port of Songkhla, the shopkeepers and clerks of fifty or sixty large and small merchant caravans were blocked outside the dock. The anxious shopkeepers sent their clerks to the dock to check the situation every few minutes, fearing that once the anchorage was vacated, it would be snatched away by other merchant caravans, thus delaying the transportation of their own goods.

From inside to outside, more than 30 large transport ships are lined up in the three dock anchorages in a certain order, and batches of Chinese families stranded in Songkhla are queuing up to board the ships.

The lines of Chinese immigrants stretched from the dock to the streets and open spaces outside the port, forming three long lines that stretched for nearly three or four miles.

During the six months when South America was blockaded, nearly 100,000 Chinese immigrants were stranded in Songkhla. These 100,000 penniless Chinese with their families brought great pressure to Songkhla. The cost of feeding 100,000 mouths every day was a huge expense. Add to that the cost of providing them with accommodation, clothing, and medical treatment for sick Chinese, young and old, and the lord of Songkhla had already spent three and a half years of fiscal surplus. However, the fiscal surplus of more than 100,000 silver dollars was not wasted. The Argentine War ended with a complete victory for the Han Kingdom. At the beginning, he was desperate and married his daughter to Han King Li Mingyuan, intending to use the power of the Nanyang Legion to stabilize the crisis in the Songkhla area. Now it seems that an adventurous political speculation a year ago has brought huge returns. The Han Kingdom annexed Argentina and Uruguay, and gained an outlet to the sea with an area of ​​more than 100,000 square kilometers on the Pacific coast. Almost the entire Pampas Plain fell into the control of the Han Kingdom. What is the Pampas Plain? I learned from the telegram sent by my daughter that the Pampas Plain is equivalent to the Jiangnan region of the mainland, with fertile land and beautiful environment. Moreover, compared with the mountainous and hilly Jiangnan, the Pampas is an endless plain. The land that has just been reclaimed by the Spaniards is far more fertile than that of Jiangnan.

In her letters, her daughter often mentioned the details of Li Mingyuan taking her and another Nanyang girl to play outside the city of Chang'an. For example, one day after Li Mingyuan finished his official business, he rode a tall horse to teach her and Zhang Baoyi how to ride a horse, or under the protection of a group of guards, a group of people went to the Parana River to enjoy the coastal scenery. In Wu Lingxuan's reply, although the main content was how approachable and polite the King of Han was, and how he was not as rude and barbaric as the warriors in her impression, with a hideous appearance, but handsome, tall and handsome, kind to others, and careful and gentle to her, she was very happy and happy in the South American Han Kingdom, without the mentality of a little girl like worrying about her father, but the daughter's understated introduction to the environment during the play still made Songkhla Lord Wu Jin compare it in his heart.

The Han Kingdom today is different from the past. It has a vast territory from north to south, a strong army, and wise leaders. The only shortcoming that restricts the country's development is its population, which will be supplemented and alleviated within 340 years due to the explosive influx of Chinese immigrants. If Wu Jin still had some worries about his daughter's future fate before the Second Argentine War, when the land area of ​​the Han Kingdom had not yet expanded to more than million square kilometers, then now, he is not only no longer worried about the overthrow of the Han Kingdom in South America and the worrying fate of his daughter, but is glad that he insisted on not marrying his daughter to the barbaric Malay indigenous chief, but to the Han King Li Mingyuan who had just shown his edge.

Ten years of savings have soared to the sky. The news that Li Mingyuan will ascend the throne and become emperor on December 12 has just been received from the Nanyang Legion. On the day after the coronation ceremony, his daughter will officially marry Li Mingyuan and become the queen of the Han Kingdom.

A father is honored by his daughter. When his daughter became the Queen of Han, he also became Li Mingyuan's father-in-law. In the previous dynasty, he, as the father-in-law of the king, would at least be granted the title of hereditary marquis. Although Han determined that no title would be granted without great merit, since his precious daughter was marrying the new emperor, it was not excessive to grant him a title out of concern for and rewarding the Queen's relatives. From a public perspective, Songkhla was a transit station for immigrants from South America and the mainland. He had devoted himself to assisting Han in handling immigration affairs and even paid out of his own pocket for Songkhla's three-year fiscal surplus. It was reasonable to grant titles based on merit.

At noon on the second day after establishing communication contact with the South American mainland, Li Wencai came to the city lord's mansion to pay a visit, both to congratulate himself on his promotion to father-in-law of the king and to express that His Royal Highness the King of Han valued the cooperation with Songkhla. Although the Han garrison would withdraw from Songkhla, its support for Songkhla would never waver. After the 1500 troops stationed in Songkhla withdrew, the Han side would secretly send a group of outstanding officers to assist in training the new Songkhla army. At the same time, before the garrison withdrew, part of the Nanyang Corps troops would be mobilized to enter the central Malay Peninsula to conduct a thorough cleanup of the separatist armed forces in Songkhla, in order to resolve the chaotic situation of armed forces within Songkhla and unify the military and political affairs within Songkhla.

At the end of the conversation, Li Wencai asked for his opinion on the title issue. At that time, he was excited and wanted to cling to the Han Kingdom and show his determination to his son-in-law. He agreed immediately and was willing to accept the title awarded by the Han Kingdom. But thinking back, Songkhla was nominally under the jurisdiction of Thailand after all, and privately accepting a title from other countries would give Thailand a handle.

This kind of worry troubled Wu Jin the whole night, but this morning, on the way to Songkhla Port to welcome the senior officials of the Nanyang Corps, Wu Jin finally figured it out. In troubled times, strength is the most important thing. Once the Han army wipes out the separatist armed forces in Songkhla and demonstrates Songkhla's military strength to Thailand, will the King of Thailand still make things difficult for him by accepting the title of another country?
The ceremonial carriage symbolizing the city lord arrived at Songkhla Port, and the immigrants lined up outside the port consciously gave way to Wu Jin and others.

A group of more than 2,000 immigrants stepped down from the four-wheeled carriage and slowly walked towards the port. Among the crowd, there were many single women with three or four children.

In the Central Plains region under the rule of the Qing Dynasty, the immigration wave caused by the Dingwu famine had not yet ended. For many fleeing families, the father or mother died along the way, and the surviving relatives could only take the surviving children to continue moving towards the immigration recruitment points set up in the coastal areas.

The last group of 2,000 immigrants was obviously not the one that was stranded in Songkhla earlier. Many of them were still wearing tattered cloth clothes from the northern autumn of the mainland. Although the weather in Southeast Asia was hot, they were penniless, and the tattered cloth clothes they had been wearing might be their only property. Before the hunger crisis was resolved, few Chinese were willing to abandon their last property.

A thin woman with five children passed by the carriage. There were six people in the family, but only two children aged seven or eight wore open-toed straw sandals. The middle-aged woman and the remaining three older children all walked barefoot. There were many Chinese people like them. Wu Jin couldn't stand it and ordered the people around him, "Go, take my warrant and borrow some grain from the rice shop at the port to cook porridge. Let them have a meal first and then wait in line."

"Yes, little one, let's do it right now."

(End of this chapter)