Chapter 699 Layout
Just when the French north of the Pyrenees were tortured to death by floods, Spain encountered a severe drought rare in a century.
Continuous abnormal droughts dried up rivers and lakes, and the Spaniards, who had finally ended the war, took up arms again.
Water resources are scarce, crops are withering, and people and livestock are dying from heat. In this country that is still dominated by agriculture, such a natural disaster is like the end of the world.
At this time, the Spanish Regency Council was composed of a group of businessmen and a group of business-oriented priests. In the face of natural disasters, they only cared about whether they could collect the autumn taxes.
As for what to do, the Kingdom of Spain has been doing this for hundreds of years. Wouldn’t it be nice to drink a cup of hot coffee in the ice cellar?
The Queen Regent only cared about hanging out with her lovers, while Isabel II, who was still underage, had been completely brainwashed by the magicians and became a fanatical religious person.
She firmly believed in the concept of "sacred" kingship. Whenever someone raised an opinion with her, Isabel II's first reaction was that the other person should be executed.
The sacred right of kings is more reactionary from a certain perspective than the divine right of kings. However, such a monarch naturally has the full support of the church, but they choose to turn a blind eye to the suffering of secular people.
In desperation, people began to go to churches to pray to God to help them. Officials also held various religious ceremonies to take the opportunity to close the relationship with the church. After all, the most sensitive creatures in the world are officials.
Maybe God was really moved. Suddenly a large cloud appeared in the sky, but it didn't rain. The sky became increasingly cloudy. Later people discovered that this was volcanic ash produced by a volcanic eruption.
If you look at the proportion of disasters alone, the Netherlands is the country most severely affected by potato late blight in the world. Because it inherited the Flemish region of Belgium, the entire country is plagued by the disease.
More than 95% of the potatoes in the Netherlands have become stinking soap.
(Potato late blight causes fruit to rot and liquefy.)
As the "merchant king", King William II of the Netherlands did not want to pay for it himself, so the unfortunate task of disaster relief fell on the Governor of Batavia who was far away in Southeast Asia.
The newly appointed Enzo Matekfar was the person recommended by Caroline and naturally had to work for His Majesty the King. His appointment greatly strengthened the Netherlands' control over the Indonesian colonies.
The reason why Enzo Matekfar was not thrown directly to feed the crocodiles by the landowners was largely due to the protection of Umbrella.
Of course, this is also indispensable with the support of two foreign aids, Chenla and Nanming. The Dutch Indonesian colony is not bad, but their achievements over the past few hundred years are really lackluster.
Even though they were both backward agricultural countries at this time, the agriculture of Chenla and Nanming was far stronger than that of the Dutch East Indies.
The local Dutch were used to being spoiled, not to mention the natives who were ruled by them. Many local crops will become very important strategic resources in the future, especially quinine. If the planting area is not expanded, the Austrian Empire's progress into the interior of Africa will be hindered.
However, Franz does not want to give others an advantage, so he plans to rent Kalimantan Island. Perhaps it is more appropriate to jointly develop it.
Anyway, the gold mines on Kalimantan Island were also lost at this time, and the Dutch did not have much to commemorate. Those indigenous people had as much as they wanted in the Dutch East Indies.
However, adhering to the principle of no waste, the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies negotiated with Franz on the condition that the Austrian Royal Development Company pay labor fees to the Dutch East Indies government, and they would send local indigenous people to cooperate with the work.
But Franz didn't want those indigenous people at all. He was ready to replace them all with Chenla and Japanese immigrants.
In short, he didn't want any of the local people, and fortunately the Dutch East India government didn't want to give it to him. You must know that the price of labor at this time is not cheap. A Chinese laborer costs at least 100 pesos, and sometimes even sells for 500 pesos.
At that time, Chinese workers were required to pay Mexican pesos, which meant that a Chinese worker had to pay at least 227 florins. In bad times, it might even cost 1,135 florins.
Therefore, the hundreds of thousands of indigenous people on Kalimantan are all treasures in the eyes of the Dutch East India government, but in Franz's eyes, it is a good thing that the indigenous people are gone. After all, it can save a lot of unnecessary trouble.
Compared with the Dalits who were given away almost for free, the price of Japanese immigrants was not much higher.
During the shogunate period, refugees were everywhere. Selecting some young people among them and exchanging them for Austrian goods was very valuable in the eyes of daimyo everywhere.
If it weren't for the fact that Austria's merchant fleet didn't have that strength, the shogunate would have wanted to send millions of immigrants over now.
Because the shogunate and local daimyo could use cheap foreign goods to impact Japan's local market, so that they could regain economic dominance.
Facing the attacks from the two colonies of California and Hawaii, Japanese businessmen could not win even if they tried their best.
There were merchants who tried to eat all the goods on the market and forced the shogunate to make concessions, but the power of the international market caused them to sink directly into Osaka Bay.
During this period, Austria actually made more money than the shogunate, but in the eyes of the feudal dynasty, domestic stability was real.
Then, with the entry of foreign goods, a large number of manual workshops were forced out, and manual workers became unemployed. They also expanded the ranks of refugees and marginalized people.
But life for the daimyo and the samurai class got better. Not only could everyone eat white rice, but they also had cheap clothes to wear, and cheap sugar to make various cakes.
All kinds of weird and weird foreign gadgets also entered the Japanese market, and the church didn't even have to continue to do things secretly.
The shogunate directly abolished the long-standing ban on Christianity, which is naturally attributed to the flexible moral bottom line of the missionaries.
Matsudaira Chunyue was shocked as soon as he opened the special edition of the "Bible" provided by the Kaifu. The opening chapter clearly stated "loyalty to the emperor and love for the domain, the power of the king is divinely authorized".
"Loyalty harms the country!"
Tadayoshi refers to Tadayoshi Sakai, the main promoter of the ban on Christianity during the Tokugawa Hidetada era.
Matsudaira Harugaku will immediately hang these eight characters in his room. The special edition of the Bible for the shogunate is specially designed for Japan. The effect of this precise targeted missionary work is naturally not comparable to that of primitive religions.
Matsudaira Harugaku was actually quite reserved, and many feudal lords joined together with their important ministers.
Franz also specially tailored plans for those feudal lords to enrich the country and strengthen the army. Although Japan is an island country, it is surrounded by sea and rich in fishery resources.
As a result, Americans who love fishing in the Sea of Japan have become the public enemies of the shogunate. Those American fishing ships cannot even deal with pirates, let alone warships.
In addition to fishery resources, Japan's mineral resources are also good, at least more profitable than farming, but the most valuable of them is human resources.
In fact, the lords from various places are not stupid. They think that after Japan becomes strong, it can stop trade with the Austrian Empire and continue its policy of isolation from the country.
But it's okay to sell some excess population occasionally.