New Shun 1730

Whether a reason can convince others sometimes depends not on whether it makes sense or not, but on how much money is given as bribe.

In this regard, Phillips can see from the attitude of the Duke of Qi that he had dealt with local officials a lot when he was trading in Guangdong.

Now he has finished what he should report, so he said: "My Lord, I will go back and write a written report on the specific matters and send it to your yamen."

The meaning is also very clear. Today's matter is a bit sudden. I have to go back and prepare gifts for the gift, and I will send them to you at that time.

The Duke of Qi hummed lazily and said: "In this case, then you go back and prepare it well. Send it to me within two days."

After that, there was no more expression, but picked up the tea and did not move.

Phillips got up and said goodbye. After returning to his temporary residence in Tianjin, he was immediately in trouble.

Now it is clear that he has to bribe.

However, he was in trouble about how to bribe and what to bribe.

When he was in Guangdong before, he usually dealt with people from the customs, and those people did not hold high positions in the Shun Empire.

Now he is the duke in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Shun Empire. How big a gift should he give?

If it is just about how big a gift should be, it is easier to say, but you can't just give gold and silver.

The company has regulations and financial systems.

After all, this is a joint-stock company. Gifts are included in the entertainment expenses, and a seventeen-member committee needs to find an accountant to review.

It cannot be said that the gift giver gave as much as he said. If he said he gave a gift of one thousand taels, but only gave three hundred taels and reported a thousand taels, wouldn't the seven hundred taels be embezzled?

So the Dutch East India Company had its own rules for gift giving, and there were rules for customs bribes according to conventions.

But the new one is to "borrow" money from the recipient and ask the recipient to write a promissory note.

This is a disguised bribe, and you don't have to pay it back after borrowing it.

But... this is an imperial duke in front of him, and Phillips still has some understanding of Chinese officials.

Not to mention the duke, even officials at the level of Jiedushi have to write a promissory note when bribing, which is an insult to officials!

Writing a promissory note receipt for gifts? Well, I don't want this gift anymore, you take it back. It's hard to get things done, but it's easy to tell you not to get things done.

Thinking of this, Prips couldn't help cursing the Rotterdam people in his heart. If the Rotterdam people hadn't insisted on tangling with the accounts, there wouldn't be such a weird rule. Now it's really difficult to deal with it.

The trade company of the Seven Provinces Republic is naturally run by merchants from several provinces.

In the 17-member committee, eight people are from the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce, and the remaining provinces will share the remaining eight, but the seventeenth seat must be chosen from people other than the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce.

In other words, it is impossible to allow Amsterdam to have nine votes, so that it can gain unilateral control.

Rotterdam now has the seventeenth person. The first thing after getting it is to pull Zeeland, Delft, Hoorn, and Enkhojzen, with a nine-to-eight advantage, questioning the "accounts of direct trade with China" and demanding that the accounts of trade with China must be made public.

Including bribery and gifts, standardized procedures must be formulated to prevent people from the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce from embezzling and over-reimbursing.

Plips is from the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce, and he doesn't want to cause trouble at this cusp.

Other chambers of commerce, including Zeeland, have recently been very dissatisfied with the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce. Although Plips thinks he has no selfish motives, everything is because of this emergency to try to keep trade with China.

But external problems are easy to solve, and internal problems are difficult to solve. If they are not handled properly, they may trigger many contradictions that have been accumulated in the company for a long time.

When the Ostend Company and the Netherlands were competing for tea trade, it was the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce that "turned the tide" and sent direct ships directly to Guangdong and Fujian to stabilize the tea trade.

Therefore, the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce "felt great merit" and believed that it should be: the company pays the money, the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce sends people, and does its own thing, and only ships back the amount of tea required by the company. As for how much goods are brought, that is the business of the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce and has nothing to do with the company's headquarters.

Obviously, this will bring a "small treasury" to Amsterdam.

Originally, this matter was easy to solve. Among the 17 people, in addition to the eight people in Amsterdam, the second largest number is the four people in Zeeland.

As long as Zeeland is brought over, the two families can make money together, and keeping the twelve people will make no sense to restrict Amsterdam's seventeenth person.

However, Zeeland also has its own little tricks. If it follows Amsterdam, it will definitely be the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce that gets the most and they get the least.

If Zeeland takes advantage of the opposition of the Rotterdam Chamber of Commerce and stands on the side of Rotterdam, it can force Amsterdam to reach an agreement: one ship for Alps, one ship for Zeeland, one ship for the rest of the provinces, and one ship for Batavia. This is much better than cooperating with the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce to make Alps bigger and Zeeland smaller.

This is no longer the young man who worked together a hundred years ago, efficiency first, worked together, and pioneered the times.

Instead, he is an octogenarian who is almost 200 years old. A political entity that has lived for 200 years, whether in the East or the West, will inevitably fall into an era of internal strife first.

This is indeed true in history. If the Netherlands had not been neutral during the Seven Years' War, Prussia's [Emden Royal Guangzhou China Asia Company] was forced to close during the Seven Years' War, and Britain, France and Spain had hijacked ships at sea during the Seven Years' War, the trade would have been blocked, which led to the Netherlands reaping a wave of neutrality dividends. As far as its debt problem is concerned, in fact, if the Seven Years' War had been delayed by two or three years, the Dutch East India Company would have collapsed.

Nowadays, the trade volume of various countries has increased due to the opening of the Dashun Gate. The competition faced by the Dutch East India Company is much greater than in history, and the internal contradictions have long been uncontrollable.

The requirement of the Rotterdam Chamber of Commerce is: since the capital is paid by the company, the cargo, account books, capital flow, etc. on the ship must be made public within the company. It cannot be like before, your Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce took the company's money to fatten your small group.

Among them, the rule that bribery must be "written as an IOU" is also one of the company's financial systems. Pripps is a member of the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce. On this vent, he thinks very clearly.

He violated the financial system to bribe and saved the company. Dashun will not care about Batavia.

But after the rescue, would Rotterdam and Zeeland hold on to him? Anyway, the matter has passed, and the trade with China has been saved, so he is a scapegoat that can be thrown out.

But if he does not violate the company's financial system and does not bribe, and really causes problems in the trade with China, his future will be gone, and he may be questioned "Why didn't you make a decision to bribe at that time"?

Sending people back to the headquarters for instructions, back and forth, two years at the fastest, three years at the slowest, is simply unrealistic.

In the pioneering era, you can "not obey the orders of the king when you are away from home" and do whatever is efficient. At that time, company employees would not think about these intrigues.

But now, the times have changed, and it is no longer the era that does not need to consider internal intrigues.

He told the first commercial agent on board the ship about his worries, and the first commercial agent on board smiled and said, "Mr. Commissioner, this is an easy problem to solve."

"Six years ago, the merchant ship Fording went to Guangdong for trade. You know that all the sailors and captains would buy contraband and sell it back. At that time, the price of tea in Amsterdam was very high, and the captain did not have enough cash, so he exchanged the mirror in the captain's room of the Fording for 32 boxes of Gongfu tea with merchants in Guangdong in a barter method."

"After returning to Amsterdam, he only used one box of tea to exchange for the mirror of the Fording, and the rest was his own income."

"The Chinese can't make glass, let alone mirrors. You can dismantle the glass and mirrors on the ship, add the decorations in the captain's room, and give them as a gift to the Duke of China."

"This is a tacit business practice and the captain's welfare. And it does not violate the company's new property regulations. I think the Duke of China will jump for joy when he sees such a big mirror."

Plips, who was at a loss, suddenly had a bright look in his eyes, thinking that this was really a genius idea. It can not only bypass the company's financial system and avoid future internal conflicts, but also make contributions to the company and get a promotion and salary increase after returning.

Moreover, the cost calculated by the company is calculated based on the price of Amsterdam. He cleverly used a mirror to prevent possible diplomatic incidents, just like exchanging gold and furs with Native Americans with glass beads. His wisdom will definitely be passed down and become a legend.

…………

At the same time, the British are holding an internal cocktail party.

The general manager of the British East India Company, Fazakley, who is stationed in Guangzhou, has lived in Guangzhou for almost ten years. This time he followed the royal envoy to Tianjin.

Today's cocktail party is for nothing else, but to toast to the Dutch being questioned by Dashun about Batavia.

Although, the Anglo-Dutch alliance.

However, Fazakley received an order from the company headquarters six years ago: closely monitor the direct trade of the Dutch in Guangzhou, use local relationships as much as possible, and use bribery and spreading rumors to disrupt the Dutch trade with China.

The reason is also "legitimate".

The Ostend Company was forced to close by the Habsburgs by Britain, the Netherlands, Prussia and other countries. Before the two countries exerted pressure together, they had an agreement.

That is, "maintaining the status quo of trade between all parties and China."

What is the status quo?

The status quo is that the Netherlands continues to maintain the transit trade in Batavia, and the direct trade in Amsterdam is only a stopgap measure. Once the Ostend Company is closed, the original trade model will be maintained.

What is the result? Once the Ostend Company went bankrupt, you Dutch not only did not return to the original state, but intensified it, with more and more ships. This is [shameless and disgusting commercial fraud].

And the Zeeland Chamber of Commerce is a major customer for tea smuggling to Britain. The Dutch had already broken the secret agreement without credibility, and the Zeeland Chamber of Commerce added fuel to the fire. The British were already very unhappy.

In the words of the British tabloids that talk about state affairs privately, this incident was called "Our great King George used British influence to selflessly help the Dutch clear the biggest competitor in the trade with China; he enthusiastically recognized the changes in the succession law of the Holy Roman Empire's Pragmatic Sanction as the Elector of Hanover, and vowed to defend Princess Theresa with the blood of the British. So what did we in Britain get? Answer: His son, another British king who can't speak English."

This time the Netherlands was questioned by Dashun on the "living conditions of the Chinese in Batavia". Fazakle did not simply rejoice in the misfortune, but boldly made a suggestion.

"Mr. Special Envoy, I think this is an excellent opportunity for the Dutch to withdraw from trade with China. Back then, the Dutch used rumors, slander, and even massacre to drive us out of Southeast Asia and Japan. Even when we tried to return to China When we started trade with Japan, it was the Dutch who slandered Japan, causing the Japanese to reject our trade request on the grounds that our king married the Catholic Princess Catherine.”

"This is a rare opportunity to create suspicion and distrust between China and the Netherlands. If China can unilaterally ban trade with the Netherlands, the benefits to the entire company will be huge. We only need to deal with the smugglers in Gothenburg. That's it, without having to worry about the more annoying Zeeland smugglers."

"Now that a Duke of the Chinese Empire is in charge of diplomacy, we may be able to use the same methods that the Dutch used to obstruct us in Japan to deal with the Dutch."

"Oculum pro oculo, et dentem pro dente!"

The special envoy recognized the saying "a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye."

"Mr. Fazaclay, Count Povor specially told me that you have lived in Guangzhou for many years, and your understanding of China is far from what those in London can compare with. A gentleman should be good at listening to other people's opinions. This time In addition to the 10,000 pounds of funds for purchasing gifts, there is also a special fund of 8,000 pounds for some unexpected expenses. If you need to bribe this tool, you can draw it at any time from the 8,000 pounds of special funds.”

After saying that, he raised his glass and said with a smile: "Here's to 'Oculum pro oculo, et dentem pro dente'! To the venerable East India Company."

Fazaklei raised his glass, touched it lightly, and said with a smile: "This time, the emperor of the empire allowed us to enter their capital. You may not know that there is a saying in China, which probably means that Satan is easy to see, but Satan's subordinates The little devils are very difficult to deal with.”

"And this is why it was difficult for us to carry out trade with China a hundred years ago. If we could see the emperor, everything would be easy to solve. But in fact, it was difficult for us to even see their county magistrate at that time ”

"Now that we can see the Duke directly, and even the Emperor soon, these 'special funds' should be used on the right people."

"The emperor does not need bribes, he only needs state gifts. He has the entire empire. The Duke, who is also in charge of diplomacy, deserves this special funding. If we can win his favor, then all our actions in China will be very important." Smoothness - In their officialdom, subordinates must obey orders from superiors, and subordinates will cleverly find out the key to the orders given by superiors and make them what their superiors want. "

"I think half of the special funds can be spent on this Duke. And the return he brings to us must be ten times that."