Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 333 Prelude
In early 1870, Li Mingyuan's regime signed an agreement on the repatriation of Chinese workers with the United States, Canada, Australia, Peru, Cuba and other countries. According to the agreement, Chinese people who had completed their work term would be received and transported back to China by the Chinese regimes in South America and were not allowed to stay there without reason. The signing of the repatriation agreement eliminated the worries of the governments of the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries about how to deal with the stay or departure of Chinese workers. Therefore, from 1870 to 1879, which coincided with the ten years when disasters occurred frequently in the Central Plains, nearly poor people along the coast and the lucky ones who escaped from the provinces where the Dingshu famine broke out, had limited transportation capacity to South America. They could only accept the labor agreement reached between the Han government and the United States, Australia and other countries, and the governments of various countries came forward to transport these workers to their destinations in batches.

Influenced by the Han Dynasty's acceptance of mainland Chinese workers and the agreement on the repatriation of Chinese workers, millions of disaster-stricken people on the mainland were fortunately able to avoid the fate of death and boarded crowded transport ships to different destinations. Moreover, compared with the same period in history, excluding Chinese immigrants entering South America, the total number of Chinese in Australia, the United States, Canada, Peru, and Cuba did not decrease due to the Han Dynasty's policy of absorbing foreign Chinese workers. Instead, it was two to three times more than in history.

Western capitalists made the pursuit of profit their primary goal. Australia, Canada, and Cuba were under the direct colonial rule of Britain and Spain at the time. Why wouldn't the British and Spanish governments use young and strong Chinese as front-line workers to mine minerals and grow cash crops? This not only solved the high cost problem of using white workers, but also increased considerable fiscal revenue for the colonial governments.

Australia's mineral resources were gradually discovered and exploited, and Australia was called New Gold Mountain by Chinese workers after San Francisco in the United States.

Because of the closer distance and lower transportation costs than the United States, the number of Chinese workers going to Australia doubled in the past decade. By October 1879, the number of local Chinese workers reached 10, second only to the United States' 20, ranking second in the number of Chinese living in Western countries.

In 1876, Ford Hayes, a veteran of the Civil War, was sworn in as President of the United States. On the day he officially took office as president, he clearly declared his anti-Chinese stance in his speech: "Our experience in dealing with blacks and Indians can also be used on the Chinese. I will give priority to using any appropriate means to prevent the Chinese from reaching our coasts."

As the head of the largest country in the Americas, Hayes catered to the mentality of some white supremacists and delivered anti-Chinese speeches, casting a shadow on the vigorous campaign to introduce Chinese workers. Since Hayes came to power, the US government has consciously reduced the number of Chinese workers coming to the United States. In the United States, it condoned the persecution of Chinese workers by white rioters. The American police responsible for maintaining social order also turned a blind eye to the smashing and killing of Chinese shops and Chinese workers. The outbreak of the Argentine War and the advance of more than 200,000 Chinese troops into Argentina and Uruguay further exacerbated the anti-Chinese atmosphere in the United States.

The anti-Chinese storm in the United States intensified. With the end of the Argentine War and the full establishment of Han's rule over the La Plata region, the Han government and many Chinese who had lived in the United States had already felt that a new round of anti-Chinese storm was about to begin, and the Chinese workers stranded in the United States would face an unprecedented dangerous situation.

Huang Xiping was one of the beneficiaries of the labor repatriation agreement. In 1875, he came to the United States to work as a railroad worker from a small mountain village in his hometown in southern Fujian, along with 1300 young and strong people from surrounding counties. At the end of 1877, the two-year labor agreement expired. Huang Xiping did not leave on a transport ship to China like other Chinese workers, but stayed in a town in Nevada where Chinese workers gathered. He used his previous experience as an apprentice in a pharmacy to open a Chinese medicine store. Huang Xiping's medical skills were mediocre, and the half-baked medical skills he learned from the local doctors in his hometown were often ineffective, but no matter how poor his medical skills were, they would not work. Huang Xiping was also a doctor. Thousands of Chinese workers gathered around him, which brought him considerable profits. At the end of 1878, when Huang Xiping was preparing to use the money he earned to buy a larger herbal medicine shop and hire more Chinese apprentices to expand his business, a riot against the Chinese broke out. In the Chinese community where Huang Xiping lived, hundreds of white men carrying old-fashioned muskets and knives broke into Chinatown. They shot at Chinese people walking on the street, or chased the terrified Chinese with knives after killing them. After killing them, they would cut off the Chinese people's braids and hold them in their hands to show off.

The incident in Nevada is not an isolated case. In Alabama, California and other areas where there are large Chinese populations, white cowboys and wandering gunmen have joined in the violence against the Chinese. Nearly a thousand Chinese have been beaten and injured by white people. The mainstream media in the United States applauded the violence. Only some white farmers and miners who employed a large number of Chinese workers grumbled a few words to express their dissatisfaction with the loss of their interests, but it did not help.

The US government intended to tear up the agreement on the repatriation of Chinese workers and no longer introduce large numbers of Chinese workers to engage in low-level labor. Therefore, after fruitless negotiations with the US government, Chinese officials in the United States could only remind Chinese workers to be more careful and to be prepared to find any weapons they could for self-defense if the situation worsened.

After witnessing the atrocities of white Americans, Huang Xiping learned a lesson and decided to leave the United States, a place of trouble. He hastily sold the local herbal medicine shop at a low price to several apprentices who planned to stay as compensation for their hard work over the past year. He himself boarded a ship to South America when the immigrant transport ship arrived in the United States in early 1879.

After arriving in the mainland of the Han Kingdom and purchasing a store in the new capital Chang'an, Huang Xiping quickly discovered that the South American Han Kingdom was very different from the Chinese communities in the United States. In the small town in Nevada, although his medical skills were average, there was only one Chinese medicine store nearby, so his daily profits were quite good. However, the mainland of the Han Kingdom had been developing for more than eleven years, and both Chinese and Western medicine treatment systems had been gradually established. His poor medical skills could not allow him to gain a foothold in Chang'an City.

After openly and secretly observing other Chinese medicine shops on the street for several years, Huang Xiping found that the prices of herbs in those shops were 20% to 30% higher than when he was in the United States. Excluding the factor that their medical skills were superior to his own, Huang Xiping thought carefully and realized that his herbs were all packed and brought from his hometown by his fellow villagers. Each time they brought a full truck of herbs, the transportation cost was much lower than that of second-hand herbal medicine merchants. Sensing the business opportunity therein, Huang Xiping made the second important decision in his life, which was to close the Chinese medicine shop and switch to becoming a professional herbal medicine wholesaler.

Today, Han State dominates the La Plata region, and it is only three to five years away from becoming the strongest country in South America in terms of comprehensive strength. Moreover, with the delivery of the first 1350-ton light cruiser independently built by Xinjing Shipyard to the navy, military shipbuilding technology is feeding back to the civilian shipbuilding industry. Han State’s new batch of 1500-ton large civilian ocean-going transport ships have completed experimental acceptance and will soon be authorized to Xinjing Shipyard and Xinghe Shipyard for mass production.

The three core shipyards of the Han State, the Xinjing Shipyard, the Xinghe Shipyard, and the Royal Military Shipyard established with the technical workers of the Jiangnan Shipyard, all have the main purpose of building warships. During the next ten-year development plan, the Han government will authorize the opening of some steamship construction technologies, integrate and support the establishment of three to five large and medium-sized civilian shipyards, which will be responsible for ocean-going ship transportation tasks. By then, maritime trade between South America and the South Pacific, the mainland and other regions will experience an explosive period, and the cost of immigration and commodity transportation will be further reduced.

Looking at the impact of national development on the industry from the perspective of a Chinese medicine practitioner, Huang Xiping initially explored the key points of changing careers to do business. First, he looked for a Chinese medicine practitioner with superb medical skills and good reputation as a partner, so that he could find buyers for the medicinal materials and quickly open up the situation in the early stages of his business. Secondly, he personally took a boat back to his hometown, contacted friends and relatives there, purchased herbs from local medicinal material merchants or directly from farmers, and then rented an ocean-going transport ship to transport the purchased herbs back to South America.

After planning his business, Huang Xiping found Doctor Feng and told him his real purpose straight away. "Mr. Feng, I have been to the United States and also stayed briefly in Southeast Asia. According to my observation, the prices of local herbs such as ginseng, asarum, schisandra, codonopsis, rehmannia, cyathula, yam, chrysanthemum, etc. are two to three times higher than those in the mainland. If we work together, I will purchase these herbs from the mainland at cost price, and then Brother Deng's pharmacy will resell them. After deducting the cost of sea transportation and operation, we can make at least 20 to 30% profit.

The development of the pharmaceutical industry is an irresistible trend. Brother Feng, are you interested?"

"The distance between our homeland and mainland China is thousands of miles, and the risks at sea are unpredictable. If our medicinal materials encounter a storm at sea, wouldn't we lose all our money?"

Doctor Feng did not directly respond to the other party's invitation, but asked a question that he was most concerned about.

"There are risks at sea, but they are not as big as Mr. Feng thinks." It was the first time for the two sides to discuss cooperation, and they were always a little cautious about each other. Huang Xiping patiently explained, "Storms are the biggest risk in ocean shipping. In the past few years, small transport ships have encountered storms from time to time, and tragedies of shipwreck and death have occurred. However, according to the navigation decree issued by the government, small transport ships with a displacement of less than 700 tons will gradually withdraw from the ocean shipping industry. Three years later, the minimum displacement standard for ships performing ocean shipping business is 800 tons. Transport ships below 800 tons can only engage in medium- and short-distance offshore transportation business from mainland China to northern South America, and are not allowed to go to sea to Southeast Asia privately.

Two local military shipyards have also begun to transfer steam ship construction technology to civilian shipyards. In the next ten years, ocean-going sailing transport ships will be eliminated, and steam ships will become the main force in the ocean-going transport industry. The tonnage and power plants of steam ships have much higher storm resistance than sailing wooden ships. Therefore, even if they unfortunately encounter a storm, the ships will have great survivability.

"Thank you for your sincere invitation, Brother Huang. However, I have just settled in Chang'an. I have saved most of my money to buy a shop on the street. I am afraid that the remaining money is not enough to start a business with Brother Huang."

"How much spare money can Mr. Feng come up with now?"

"At most 2400 yuan. My wife is pregnant, so I have to save some money for emergencies."

"Don't worry, Mr. Feng. As for the money, I can just give you an extra share. But as for the shares, I'm afraid I'll have to let you down."

"Most of the medicinal materials business is handled by Brother Huang, so it is only right that Brother Huang should have a larger share. Mr. Feng has no objection."

"Okay, then let's discuss it with Brother Feng. Brother Feng will contribute 2400 Han Yuan, accounting for 5000% of the shares, and I will contribute Han Yuan, accounting for % of the shares. We will draft a formal agreement tomorrow."

"Thank you very much, Brother Huang, for your support and care."

"Haha, Mr. Feng, you are too polite. It is only natural for us to cooperate with each other and support each other."…………

The woman's goal was achieved, and Huang Xiping replied with a smile.

(End of this chapter)