Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 328 Lan Fang Arrives
"Master Liang, please stay."

After the conversation, Liang Xing was about to leave when he was stopped by Wu Jin.

"When will City Lord Wu have?"

"This morning at the port, I met a few businessmen from the Lan Fang Company. They asked someone to tell them that they wanted to invest in Songkhla. I felt that there might be another reason, so I asked Sir Liang if he would be willing to accompany me to meet them tomorrow."

"There are quite a few Lan Fang merchants doing business in the Malay Peninsula. Maybe there are some people who can be used among the people who came this time. It wouldn't be a bad thing to learn more about the various kingdoms in the Central Malay Peninsula from them."

"Yes, Wu also believes that having more contact with them will be beneficial to the next military operation."…………

The next morning, seven Lan Fang merchants gathered in the reception room early and discussed in low voices with each other.

"Manager Gu, is there going to be a war in Songkhla? Yesterday, more than ten ships of soldiers arrived at the dock, all equipped with breech-loading rifles. The bayonets on the rifles were really scary."

"There is a high probability that there will be a war. There were not only more than ten ships of soldiers at the dock yesterday, but also eight gunboats and gunboats docked at the port outside the dock. In Southeast Asia, apart from the foreigners who have 10 to 20 ships, the Thais have at most five or six small steamers. Both the tonnage and the cannons on board are far inferior to the gunboats in Songkhla Port."

"If you ask me, it's a pity that Jiatai didn't choose to cooperate with the Nanyang Army six years ago. If the target of cooperation with the Nanyang Army was Lan Fang, the eight warships outside the port might be docked at Dongwanlu Port now."…………

The Liu family's control over Lan Fang gradually strengthened. Since the first generation head of the family, Liu Taier, became the Jiatai of Lan Fang, the Liu family has had four people serve as the Jiatai of Lan Fang, and has controlled Lan Fang for nearly forty years.

In the process of the Liu family expanding its power, the four original old Lan Fang families, the Luo family, the Chen family, the Gu family, and the Jiang family were excluded from the center of power one after another. The power and financial resources in their hands were little by little deprived and weakened, and the accumulated contradictions between the two sides became more and more serious day by day.

"The Lan Fang Company was founded by the four great families of Luo, Jiang, Chen and Gu. The Liu family only rose to the top with the support of the Dutch. Now, in order to please the Dutch, the Liu family father and son have disregarded the lives of 300,000 Chinese in Lan Fang and allowed the Dutch to send political officials to supervise Lan Fang's internal affairs. If the Liu family father and son continue to develop recklessly, the destruction of Lan Fang is imminent.

Gentlemen and wise men, our roots and our family business are all in Lan Fang. If Lan Fang is destroyed, even if we can escape, we will lose the land and wealth accumulated over the past hundred years. Without wealth and power, will you really be willing?"

"What can we do if we are unwilling? The power of Lan Fang is in the hands of Liu and his son. The customs, docks, and ports of Dongwanlu and Shaokouyang are all supervised by government officials appointed by the Dutch. Even if we want to make a difference, we have nowhere to start."

"It's not that there is no way. The armed forces of the merchant corps directly controlled by the four major families add up to more than a thousand people. If we can get in touch with the Nanyang Army through City Lord Wu and smuggle some weapons and ammunition from the Nanyang Army, we may be able to drive Liu Asheng and his son out of power."

"What Patriarch Luo said is true. Yesterday, my men saw the Songkhla army unloading boxes of goods from the ship. The wooden boxes were more than two meters long and half a meter wide. They were very heavy and required three or four people to lift them. Considering that the Nanyang Army dispatched the Natuna Islands garrison to Songkhla, the boxes must have contained muskets and ammunition for Lord Song."

"Yes, even if we buy two or three hundred breech-loading rifles from the Nanyang Army, we will not be afraid of the threats from the Liu family father and son."

Everyone started talking, and one by one they expressed their dissatisfaction with Liu Asheng. "Master Luo, your ancestor was Luo Tongzhi, the founder of Lan Fang. It was your idea to come to Songkhla to visit Lord Wu. Please come up with a set of rules and tell us what to do. We will follow your arrangements."

"Thank you, Brother Liang and all of you for your kindness. I am not a person who loves power or money. It is just that I cannot bear to see the foundation that my ancestors built with great difficulty being betrayed by villains like Liu Asheng and his son. So, in the name of the Luo family, I ask all the family heads to form an alliance to oppose Liu Asheng and his son and take back the leadership of Lan Fang into our hands."

Luo Yibo directly and clearly expressed his firm opposition to the Liu family's ruling over Lan Fang, and continued, "Originally, Lan Fang was ranked first among the many forces of the Chinese in Southeast Asia, but in the past two years, Songkhla has received support from the Han Kingdom, and its economic and armed forces have surpassed Lan Fang. If we want to successfully overthrow the Liu family, we have no choice but to rely on the power of the Han Kingdom."

"Master Luo, the relationship between Han and Lan Fang has never been very good. Will they agree to help us?"

"I am not sure whether they will help us or not."

Luo Yibo shook his head and said in a rising tone, "But opportunities are gained through hard work. If we don't work hard to create opportunities, the Lan Fang Company will have no choice but to die."

"I heard that the King of Han likes beautiful women, Master Luo, why don't you marry your sister to His Royal Highness the King of Han, and the two families will become in-laws. In that case, the Nanyang Army will definitely help Master Luo deal with the Liu father and son, and maybe after settling the Liu father and son and the Dutch, Master Liu can get the position of the king."

"Go away, Boss Zhou, you are just spouting some nonsense. If His Royal Highness the King of Han is as greedy and lustful as you think, and he can build a vast territory in South America from scratch, let alone the fact that the sister of the Luo family has been married before, even if she is a virgin, he may not be interested in her."

"That's not necessarily true. City Lord Wu doesn't want to marry his daughter to His Royal Highness the King of Han. Since he has received such strong support from the Han Kingdom, I think it would be best to find a way to form an alliance with His Royal Highness the King of Han."

"Marriage between the two parties is a good idea, but there is no suitable candidate in the Luo family or other families at the moment, so the marriage can be postponed for the time being. However, we can do a few things for the Nanyang Army and City Lord Wu."

"Master Luo, please speak clearly."

"First, the four major families will take out 70 taels of silver, and the other three families will each take out 10 taels of silver, making a total of 100 million taels of silver. In the name of helping the war, the silver will be unconditionally handed over to the Nanyang Army to show the Han country our sincerity in cooperating with the Han country.
Secondly, the Zhou family, the last family to come to Nanyang, has been doing business there for thirty or forty years. Each family has more or less business dealings in the Malay Peninsula. In times of peace, our business dealings in the Malay Peninsula are not very useful. However, the Nanyang Army and Wucheng are now mainly attacking the central region of the Malay Peninsula. With the help of our local spies, it is hard to say what else can be done, but we can play a significant role in reducing conflicts with local British businessmen."

"Master Luo is sure that the Nanyang Army will get involved in Songkhla's internal affairs?"

"It's for sure. More than 40 years ago, when the local king of Kedah rebelled, Songkhla disobeyed the order of the Kingdom of Thailand and refused to send troops to help, which caused dissatisfaction in Thailand. Now, Thailand and Britain are competing for the ruling power of the central region of the Malay Peninsula, and neither of them hastily intervened in Songkhla's internal affairs by force. If we don't take advantage of the opportunity of Thailand and Britain to check and balance each other to unify Songkhla's internal military and political affairs, we will miss the opportunity and won't be so lucky in the future."

The Lan Fang Chinese traveled around the various states and kingdoms on the Malay Peninsula to do business and open mines. Collecting local history, religion and culture was an extremely important task. Combining his understanding of the states on the Malay Peninsula and the intelligence support provided by other families, Luo Yi Bo roughly analyzed the focus of the Nanyang Corps' integration of the central part of the Malay Peninsula, which was to give equal importance to politics and military affairs, carefully handle the complex local political situation, and limit the area of ​​military operations to four prefectures and one state. For Kedah, Terengganu and Perlis, where the British economic and political influence had penetrated deeply, a policy of maintaining the status quo was adopted. The Nanyang Corps used the condition of acquiescing to the British control of the three places and the display of its own military power to dispel the British Straits Colony government's intention to fish in troubled waters and take the opportunity to cause trouble, thereby concentrating the military and political power within Songkhla and achieving a smooth transition.

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(End of this chapter)