Nanyang 1931: From piglets to giants

Chapter 269 Sending Japanese troops to the North African battlefield and the Middle East desert to atone for their sins

In French East Indies, after Zheng Yi nodded, the French army had already begun to withdraw from the country one after another.

We can't really mobilize the whole country just for the sake of colonization.

Strictly speaking, France cannot be considered to have suffered a major defeat. After all, they did leave through negotiations, and Zheng Yi also agreed to some terms that many people may think were somewhat compromising.

For example, Zheng Yi welcomes French multinational companies to join SAARC.

The French multinational corporations retained some of their interests in the French East Indies, especially the plantations, but did not confiscate these plantations except for requiring them to join the SAARC and act in accordance with SAARC's rules.

Even the French are welcome to invest.

These days, Asia, and even almost all non-European and American countries generally regard multinational corporations as tools of imperialist exploitation, and generally hold an exclusionary attitude towards them. Zheng Yi is the only one who has been shouting welcome, welcome, and warm welcome to all multinational capital.

The original intention was of course to further develop the economy of the SAARC and Southeast Asia region. After all, some French multinational companies are still very desirable. For example, Zheng Yi warmly welcomed Alstom to join the SAARC and build a factory in Penang. He also signed a large order of 10 billion SAARC renminbi with him in one go, asking him to help build the Penang Metro.

It was just a coincidence that Zheng Yi's behavior, in the eyes of the French, at least saved the French enough face.

In the entire French society, there are not many people who hate Zheng Yi. Instead, there are many people who admire and are grateful to him.

Remember, this is France in 1947.

Although the Congress was in chaos during this period, it was true that the top three parties were all extreme left-wing, and about 60% of the people in the country supported the left.

Of course, there are many left-wing parties.

The most important prerequisite for the United States to provide Marshall donations to France was to allow the French people to dissolve or reorganize their left-wing political parties and take various measures to ensure that a party with similar political tendencies would never appear in the French cabinet again.

This is also the reason why the French are not grateful for the Marshall Plan, and even hate it, because they believe that the Americans borrowed more than 10 billion US dollars from them to buy their national sovereignty. This money was earned by them dissolving their own democratically elected government and in humiliation.

Left-wing politicians have never liked France's behavior of establishing colonies everywhere. Some of these people are purely naive, while others are wary of multinational corporations. After all, at least in this era, the money earned by multinational corporations really has little to do with ordinary people and will only widen the gap between the rich and the poor.

Zheng Yi has always had a good reputation in the Western world. He has the image of a gentleman, a scientist, a politician, and even an artist. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, even against Japan, he was able to distinguish between militarism and ordinary people.

In this war against France, the Southern Alliance basically treated prisoners well. In North Africa, it indeed provided loans and sold weapons to the Arabs while rescuing French civilians as much as possible.

In addition, after all, they were all comrades in World War II, which led to the fact that most French leftists had a favorable impression of him.

The most important thing is that Zheng Yi really provided basic protection for employees in enterprises within the Southern Alliance. In this world, he was the first to implement the labor law, and it was extremely complete.

The minimum wage, social insurance, and the gap in wage income within the same enterprise shall not exceed 6-8 times. Although it cannot be compared with Europe in later generations, at least from the perspective of this time and space, the treatment in SAARC is better than that in Europe!
SAARC is a non-state actor and collects very little corporate tax. This is only because it has joined the United States' tariff agreement organization. The United States has requirements for the corporate tax rates of its member countries, so it collects taxes at the lowest level, but in fact it does not enforce the law strictly.

The main administrative and financial resources of the SAARC are income tax, middle-class tax and land tax. To put it bluntly, they are all taxes collected from the lowest level of the people, and they are extremely friendly to multinational capital.

SAARC's management of enterprises is more about supervising enterprises to provide insurance for their employees and comply with labor laws.

In fact, there is not much difference between the inside and the outside, because Zheng Yi knows very well how difficult it is for multinational companies to collect corporate taxes. The taxes that should have been paid to the government are paid to their own employees, and the government then collects taxes from the employees' wages and consumption. In fact, it may not necessarily be much less.

After all, employees can only consume if they have money. The trickle-down effect of the middle class is far more obvious than that of the super-rich class. There is vitality when there is consumption, and the money multiplier itself is large enough, so it is a virtuous circle. Although there is no ability to concentrate resources to do big things, it is still enough to barely maintain administrative costs.

The most important thing is that there are enough self-organized people on the SAARC side. There are only police but no army, and everyone is armed. When something really needs to be done, Zheng Yi did not separate his private and public accounts, and was too lazy to separate them.

Although his personal share in SAARC is now only in the single digits, and will even drop further if he agrees to the US to take out the 10 billion loan, doesn't it also depend on the size of SAARC?

It is almost similar to the entire Nasdaq in later generations. If nothing unexpected happens, Penang will definitely be the world's largest stock trading center in the future, and it is very likely that its market value will really exceed that of Nasdaq in later generations.

Zheng Yi also invited French multinational companies to list in Penang and join the SAARC. The only requirement was that French companies must abide by SAARC's labor laws when building factories in cities controlled by SAARC.

So for the French left-wing workers: You call this an enemy?

Isn’t this the angel who came to save us working people?

You have to know that in 1947, labor relations in France had completely collapsed, inflation was extremely serious, and there was famine in the country. Because it was a left-wing government and for the sake of winning votes, it had been indulging workers without any bottom line, that is, it had been raising wages all the time.

However, endless wage increases without sufficient production will naturally lead to severe inflation. To put it bluntly, wages should only be raised when there is overcapacity. Why should wages be raised blindly when there is insufficient production capacity?

After Zheng Yi did this, French workers no longer asked for wage increases when they took to the streets. Instead, they demanded that the French government must learn from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.

Some even cursed the government: "People in the country can't even get enough to eat, yet they don't try to curb inflation. They have money but don't buy bread, but instead buy bullets to bully poor Arabs. They let our soldiers fight for the interests of big capitalists. Who are our enemies?"

Even Zheng Yi himself didn't know that he had become a left-wing hero in France.

The right and the centrists certainly still think of him as an enemy, but the people who have just come out of World War II are not so naive. They all understand the principle of winners and losers, and Zheng Yi has indeed tried his best to preserve their assets in the colonies.

In Tunis, as in Vietnam, an agreement was reached that French capital in the city would not be confiscated. Bourguiba also promised that the safety of the French in North Africa would be guaranteed as long as they fled to Tunis.

Of course, outside the city of Tunis, that doesn’t matter.

Even in the eyes of the French right, as an enemy, he is at least an enemy that abides by the rules. Moreover, Zheng Yi sincerely invites French multinational companies to join SAARC, which means that although the right wing does not like him, they also know that they will have to cooperate in the future.

So much so that in the French public opinion and political arena, there are actually fewer people criticizing Zheng Yi than praising him.

Those who don’t know the specific situation might think that all French people are cheapskates.

In Hanoi, Zheng Yi's private plane slowly landed, and Zheng Yi himself finally set foot on this land that had been taken into the hands of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation for the first time after the French army completely withdrew from Asia.

In fact, as SAARC can control more and more cities, there is a clear gap in the control between different cities. For example, Haifa, Tunis, and Kolkata. Zheng Yi is actually very clear that although these cities belong to SAARC, they may not necessarily listen to Zheng Yi.

Even his control over Yangon was not very strong, although it was actually the second city controlled by SAARC after Penang.

In the future, if Zheng Yi accepts the 10 billion loan and allows American multinational corporations to join the SAARC on a large scale and list in Penang, he believes that there will be more and more cities that are less under his control or even completely out of his control.

But no matter what time it was, although Hanoi was just taken, everyone knew that this would be one of the core and fundamental places of the Southern Alliance, at least Zheng Yi's Southern Alliance.

"Long live Mr. Zheng~"

As soon as he got off the plane, the soldiers who came to greet him burst into thunderous cheers. Zheng Yi had gradually become accustomed to this. He raised his hand to wave, nodded and smiled.

"Mr. Zheng, welcome to Hanoi and give us guidance."

Yan Zijun was the first to step forward, holding his hand and shaking it while speaking.

On the side, General Wei, General Long, and General Ma were waiting behind. This actually implies an unspoken rule in Nanyang: civil affairs come before military affairs.

In terms of closeness or seniority, Yan Junning would not be the first one to take over Zheng Yi. The main reason why he got the position of mayor of Hanoi was that the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation had lacked a strategic advantage north of Siam for many years.

However, the Southern Alliance is indeed a little special. The status of the president of the chamber of commerce is much higher than in other places. Yan Junning is at least the vice president of the Fujian Chamber of Commerce, which means that he is of a high seniority. The most important thing is that there is no permanent army. Even during the Anti-Japanese War, everyone in the Chinese side carried a gun, and there was no distinction between military and civilians.

The soldiers put down their guns, but except in special circumstances, most of them still had to work. Even the most special troops stationed in Japan had to farm and run special industries.

When they carry guns to fight, they are in charge of the generals; when they put down their guns and go to work, they are naturally in charge of the civilians.

And in fact, subconsciously, we are all Chinese, and we all have a deep understanding of the pain of warlord separatism in the country that lasted for more than 30 years. In fact, everyone is subconsciously avoiding this.

It is no exaggeration to say that Anand is the one who lives the most comfortably among the warriors on the SAARC side. After all, the military systems of Malays and Chinese are different.

Although General Wei, General Long and others have high status and are respected by everyone, now that the war is over, almost everyone is instinctively wary of them.

After all, respect is respect, but they all came here because they couldn't make it in their own country. It's a bit like taking advantage of the situation. After all, the most difficult times before the Anti-Japanese War had nothing to do with them. It would be too funny if they were allowed to rely on military power to establish their own territory and become warlords in Southeast Asia.

Zheng Yi glanced at Chief Wei in surprise before smiling, "Hey, Chief Wei, you're here to pick me up too? How's things going in the south now? Is the fight still going on?"

Chief Wei smiled and said, "I'm here to wait for your instructions. The French have left, and although they left behind many French landowners, they have all expressed their willingness to obey the laws of the Southern Alliance and are asking if we, the Southern Alliance, can buy their land."

"But the war continued even after the French left. The Viet Minh, the Khmer Rouge, the Royal Thai Army, the Siamese, and even the Malays were everywhere. You occupied a hilltop, I occupied a forest, and no one was willing to give in."

"Apart from Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, there are almost no decent cities in the whole of Cambodia. Khmer natives are everywhere. There are many forests and heavy rain, many insects and wet soil. Even in Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, the brothers can no longer stay."

"I was just about to ask Mr. Zheng, should we keep the land over there, or...divide it among the local indigenous people?"

It can be seen that President Wei himself does not really want that piece of land.

Although expanding territory is the vision of every soldier, it also depends on what kind of territory it is. In General Wei's opinion, they have driven away the French, captured Hanoi, and the entire Red River Plain, which has achieved the strategic goal. He really doesn't like these broken places in Cambodia.

The Southern Alliance itself has no shortage of territory. In fact, many cities now want to join the Southern Alliance. Zheng Yi is still considering whether to join. In the future, more and more cities will want to actively join the Southern Alliance.

Zheng Yi was aware of this. After all, General Wei's soldiers were actually all from the Southern Alliance. Even his former expeditionary forces had lived in Penang or Alor Setar for at least a year.

For them, being in Cambodia is like being exiled. Unless they are given a plantation to become plantation owners, they can't be forced to give up their factory jobs in Penang and stay there...

Even Phnom Penh has no appeal to them.

Zheng Yi smiled but didn't answer him immediately. He just asked them all to get in the car and said, "Let's find a place to eat first. Is there any decent restaurant around here where we can eat together? We've been in the Middle East lately, and to be honest, the food isn't very good."

There isn't much food circulating these days, and there really isn't anything delicious to eat in the Middle East.

The lamb skewers were really delicious, and there was no shortage of seafood, but he was still a little tired of eating these things every meal.

Even after staying in Southeast Asia for a long time, he now feels that even the humid and stuffy weather in Southeast Asia is actually quite comfortable, much better than that in the Middle East.

It was during his time in the Middle East that he realized that his time traveler habits had faded a lot, and he was indeed becoming more and more like a South Asian.

Just now on the plane, he was even thinking that if you let him return to China now, he might not be able to adapt to life in the northern region.

Hanoi at this time was still quite shabby. After all, the French colonial focus was Saigon. In the entire city, there was only one French restaurant with luxurious and high-end decoration. Zheng Yi and his group simply hired a chef from the French restaurant to cook Chinese food in the kitchen, and also got a few bottles of wine, and ate while they could.

"General Wei, General Long, General Ma, please tell me about your plans first. Now that the war is over, is there anything you three would like to do? You can return to Penang and continue to serve as military advisors to the Southern Alliance."

"Although there won't be another war in the short term, we still need to have the necessary military training. Furthermore, I plan to expand Penang's military industry, especially the rocket production factory. Currently, Penang's military industry is its largest pillar industry besides petrochemicals and finance."

"We have a lot of orders...at least for now. If you're willing to return to Penang, you'll be responsible for the production of these military factories."

"Of course, if you don't want to take care of things and just want to be a rich man, the Southern Alliance will certainly welcome you."

"But if you want to be a rich man, I think it would be better to go to Japan. He Shili has been there for a while. If any of you want to go and exchange him, I will let him come back."

"Although we have some businesses in Japan that need to be managed, management is relatively easy. Hmm... Japanese women are pretty good."

"By the way, I'll be going to Japan to meet Marshal Mai in a few days. Yoshida mentioned to me before that he wanted Osaka to join the Southern Alliance. I've decided to agree to it. We may be short of a mayor for Osaka now. If you're interested, you can take the position."

As a defeated country, there is no need to consider their opinions. Just let all Japanese going to Osaka learn Chinese. There is not much racial and cultural gap between China and Japan. As long as the Japanese learn Chinese, there will be not much difference between them and the Chinese.

Learning Chinese is not too difficult for Japanese people, at least it is much easier than for Malays.

"Mr. Zheng, are you going to accept Osaka? Damn, that's a bit of a bargain for those little Japanese."

"Yes, Mr. Zheng, once we take Osaka, the Japanese will definitely flock to Penang and Singapore in greater numbers. You also mentioned that many factories in Penang are moving out. After all, the per capita quality of the Japanese is there, and the industrial base is there. I believe many people will move their factories to Osaka."

"Let's not talk about whether these Japanese will steal our Chinese jobs, but at least they will definitely steal the jobs of Malays and Indians. After all, they are a defeated nation. If we let them use this as a way to recover..."

There are no outsiders at the table today, especially these three generals who are all from China. Although they all seem easy to talk to, especially General Wei, it's not that he can't make a living in China, but he came to join him purely because he doesn't want to fight a civil war. However, when fighting the Japanese devils, it seems that no one will show mercy.

After all, the sins committed by the Japanese in Southeast Asia were less severe than those committed in China. Moreover, because of Zheng Yi, Penang and even Alor Setar were not lost from beginning to end. But it was different in China.

Everyone really hates the Japanese.

Zheng Yi had no choice but to explain, "This time, I signed a $3 billion contract in the Middle East, including a very long oil pipeline project. In the next few years, we may be able to get other work in the Middle East. We do need a certain number of workers to go there to dig for oil, refine oil, drill wells, and build factories. All of these tasks will require the help of our SAARC team."

"In the future of the Middle East, the Israelis will provide the money, the Chinese will provide the labor and technology, and the Arabs will provide the land, and we will jointly develop the Middle East's oil. This is almost foreseeable."

"But we don't have that much manpower in Southeast Asia. Of course, we will send some to the Middle East. After all, it's a huge order worth tens of billions, but how many people can we send? We don't even have enough manpower to build Singapore now."

"You all know about the American Marshall Loan, right? This loan plan is likely to include our SAARC. I'm generally inclined to agree to it. Of course, we'll have to hold a meeting before making a decision, and I'll respect everyone's opinions."

"If the Americans give us a loan of over $10 billion, how are we going to use the money? No matter how we use it, it will definitely require a large workforce, and I'm afraid not many of us Chinese can afford it."

"If we start construction of Haifa, Tel Aviv, and the pipeline construction in Saudi Arabia in the Middle East at the same time, we will definitely need at least 300,000 to 400,000 construction workers to work together. If we don't use Japanese workers, who will we use?
Malays and Indians? This is the first time our Nanyang construction workers are going overseas. Are you confident in using Malays and Indians? I wouldn't dare. I'd feel more confident using Japanese."

Japan has many experienced construction workers with high basic quality, so this is actually quite suitable.

In fact, Japan's post-war reconstruction in history was also thanks to the large-scale construction in the Middle East and even the reconstruction in Europe.

Compared with the lazy Arabs and Jews in the Middle East, Japanese construction companies completely crushed them, scaring the Arabs and even Europeans.

The so-called lifelong management system in Japanese companies is a product of this period. The hard-working spirit of the Japanese during this period is simply incomparable to that of the Japanese in later generations. Construction workers could go without food or sleep, relying on ice to support themselves, working all day long and then eating, drinking and sleeping after leaving the construction site.

A young man in his thirties will become exhausted within two years of work, which is why there is a saying that the company will support you for life.

It is indeed reliable to use the Japanese to do this.

"What about war criminals? If we, the Southern Alliance, really took over Osaka, how would we distinguish between ordinary Japanese and militarists? If someone has fought in the battlefield and has the blood of our compatriots on his hands, are we still going to pay them a salary?"

Zheng Yi also sighed and said, "I understand your new feelings. I also don't want to make things easy for those Japanese right-wing soldiers who have been to the front lines, but we must face reality. We can't hold on to this matter forever."

"The Tokyo Trial has concluded. I have already punished Japanese corps such as the Chrysanthemum Corps, which were clearly guilty of evil. Japan's total military strength exceeded seven million at one point during the final stages of the war. I cannot possibly arrest all seven million and convict them one by one."

"I dare not say the word forgiveness. As a Chinese from Southeast Asia, I am not qualified to forgive the Japanese army on behalf of my compatriots who suffered in my motherland. But there must be a reason for how to deal with them. The later you deal with them, the more difficult it will be. If you don't deal with them, they will just be like that."

"That's the third thing I want to tell you. Morocco and Western Sahara have a huge phosphate deposit. The phosphate in that area accounts for more than 70% of the world's phosphate. About another 10% is in China, ranking second in the world. The rest of the world's people have small mines."

"Phosphate is a key raw material for fertilizer production. To put it bluntly, whoever can completely control North Africa's phosphate reserves, combined with domestic phosphate exports from Latin America, Australia, and some small countries that also have phosphate deposits, could easily monopolize over 10% of global phosphate production."

"This stuff is essential for making fertilizer. Human society can live without steel and oil, but it can never live without food. To grow food, you need fertilizer. Now that the world is peaceful, it won't be long before the world is experiencing a baby boom, and the use of fertilizer will surely increase."

"Whether this thing makes money or how much money it can make is secondary to me. But this is a real strategic material. When the SAARC grows bigger, we Chinese won't necessarily have the final say on everything. What industries can we Chinese rely on in the future to ensure our dominant position in the SAARC?"

"The first one is definitely oil. That goes without saying. I worked so hard to lay out all this so that we can work together with the Arabs to control oil prices in the future."

"Secondly, I've thought about it and decided that phosphate is the most suitable. There's no country in the world that can live without fertilizers. The United States and Europe are both major fertilizer users."

"We can build fertilizer plants in Tunis and Haifa. We Chinese should try our best to gain full control of this business. That way, when we really have to argue with the Americans, we'll have more confidence."

"Besides, as long as we have fertilizer, it will be easy for us to further expand into the global grain business. Monopoly is impossible. There is no way to monopolize this thing either. But even if we only take one-tenth of the global market share, we overseas Chinese can be sure that people will listen to us when we speak on this earth in the future."

"So I'm determined to take over Morocco and Western Sahara, the area with phosphate mines. Of course, as you might imagine, that area is still controlled by the Americans."

"With Tunisia as the core, next door is Morocco, and on the other side are Libya and Algeria. They are all now rebelling against France. To be honest, I'm not sure if they can succeed. Apart from asking them to lend me money to buy weapons, I don't know how else I can help. Now that France has withdrawn from Asia, it's not easy for SAARC to continue to oppose them."

Chief Wei frowned and said, "You mean... are we going to use Japanese soldiers?"

Zheng Yi nodded. "I don't know whether Algeria and Libya will eventually become independent, or when, and it's not really important. But Morocco must succeed in its anti-French campaign. I want those phosphates."

"What I mean is, if any of you three are interested, you could go to Japan and recruit veterans of the invasion of China. That would be a way to punish those war criminals. The environment there is quite harsh, with deserts everywhere."

"The SAARC side won't provide anything other than the necessary weapons and simple rations. To put it bluntly, they'll just throw them into the battlefield and leave them alone. If anything happens, I won't even acknowledge them. When the French ask me, I'll say I don't know and it has nothing to do with me. I'll just say these Japanese are mercenaries and deserve to die without compensation."

"If we lose, these Japanese soldiers will die in vain. The Southern Alliance will not care about them, let alone save them. Even if they surrender, their families will be implicated. But if we win, we will be treated the same as other Japanese expatriates from now on."

"If you're interested, you can make this trip. We'll conquer Morocco and give you about half of the shares of the phosphate mines there. We'll auction the rest among the Chinese community and use the proceeds as public funds to add to the Nanyang Chinese Chamber of Commerce's account, specifically to serve the Chinese in Nanyang."

Phosphate is in the hands of Morocco, a small North African country. Apart from making some money, they cannot exchange it for any international benefits. After all, they can't say to big countries like China, the United States and Russia: I'm going to sanction you and leave you with no fertilizer.

For a small country, even if it really monopolizes some materials, it has no other use except making money.

But it’s different for the Southern Alliance. This thing is in his hands and can be useful.

"Of course, I also know that we don't need that many people. The rest of you can go to Saudi Arabia to build the oil pipeline. That pipeline passes through about one-third of the Arabian Peninsula, which is all desert. The conditions are very difficult. It's no exaggeration to say that this job is really deadly."

"We Chinese in Southeast Asia can't do this kind of work. We can only work in oases and water-filled areas. I plan to outsource the construction work in the desert to the Japanese, especially those Japanese soldiers who have been to the battlefield and are too useless to go to Morocco."

"For this business, I won't pay them anything except food and clothing, but I will recognize their Japanese identity from now on."

"Whether it's the battlefields of Morocco or the deserts of Saudi Arabia, I will allow those who survive to enter Osaka and live there."

"I also know that you may not be satisfied with this and think that these Japanese paid a greater price. However, the real power of execution is in the hands of the Americans after all. Moreover, if the South Asian Association wants to develop, directly absorbing and devouring Japan is the fastest way. This is laying the foundation."

"I hope you can understand."

President Wei: "I'll go to Morocco. Brother Long and Brother Ma both have experience in governing a region, so they're suitable to be mayors of Osaka. But Mr. Zheng, what about the French East Indies? Saigon, Phnom Penh, should we go?"

Zheng Yi: "The SAARC is not aiming for territorial expansion. To be honest, I don't want the SAARC to directly govern the entire French East Indies, except for Hanoi and the Red River Plain. You three are wasting your talents here. Let's divide it among the local indigenous people. As for how to divide it, that's what I plan to discuss with General MacArthur when I go to Japan this time. General Wei, you should also come to Japan with us."

(End of this chapter)