In the delegation of expatriates welcoming the prime minister of Huang Ming, Yuan Haibin, whose ancestral home is Nan'an, Fujian, stood in the front row, although he had a smile on his face, his heart was full of worries and uneasiness. Yuan Haibin's grandfather went to sea in the Wanli year, leaving his minor son in the country, and when Yuan Haibin's father came of age, married, and gave birth to children, he also came to Luzon, and then it was his turn to grow up and run to the sea. After three generations of business, Yuan Haibin has become a wealthy businessman, so when the great changes in the late Ming Dynasty were able to take all the family members of Nan'an out and flee to Manila.

Twenty years have passed in a flash, no matter what he thought of the Qing court, Yuan Haibin always remembered to go back to his hometown to see. Three years ago, Yuan Haibin returned to his hometown and brought back a sum of money, wanting to build a road for his hometown, or build a bridge, or sponsor a private school -- overseas Chinese businessmen who have accumulated a little savings for hundreds of years have always served their hometown in this way, and may be like this in the next few hundred years.

Because Yuan Haibin went back with money, the Nan'an official appointed by Geng Fan also came out to greet him with a smile on his face, thanked Yuan Haibin for his donation on behalf of all the villagers, and also said that he would put a plaque on his former residence. Yuan Haibin was shocked when he heard this, and hurriedly stopped: "By all means, if the villagers know that Xiao Lao'er has donated silver to his hometown, then it may be spread overseas in the future, if Hongyi knows that Xiao Lao'er is so rich, then the whole family will suffer." ”

Based on the experience of hundreds of years, overseas Chinese businessmen in Fujian understand that donating to their hometowns must be low-key and low-key, because the Tuns, Dutch and Spaniards are full of envy and hatred for the Chinese, and they are jealous of the wealth of the Chinese and hate them because they cannot do without the Chinese. The Chinese made Manila and Batavia more prosperous, and it was also the consistent policy of Manila and Batavia to periodically plunder the Chinese, because it would keep the Chinese struggling on the poverty line, forcing the Chinese to work harder to run and prosper the local economy, and accumulate wealth for the next harvest.

If Manila or Batavia knew that Yuan Haibin actually had money to donate to his hometown, then he would definitely be unlucky, and Yuan Haibin also knew very well that the government in his hometown would not be able to help him. Since ancient times, the government has never helped the expatriates, and if the expatriates cannot manage to escape back on their own, then the government has also made a statement, and the expatriates were once suspected of being Fang Guozhenyu's party, and were once considered to be the rebel sons who deviated from the benevolent monarch's father; It is estimated that now the government will also say that the expatriates are sympathizers of the Ming Dynasty, or outcasts who have not fulfilled their obligations to the Qing monarch, and they deserve to be killed by the Hongyi and the Turen.

"I know you won't take care of me, and I don't expect you to take care of me, I'll take care of myself." When Yuan Haibin rejected the plaque of the Fuqing government, he secretly thought in his heart: "Emperor Wanli only spoke verbally in the end, and the people who believed in the emperor were slaughtered more cruelly - it seems that there is only one person with the surname of the country, only he really does what he says, because Hongyi killed the Fujianese in Taiwan and sent troops to war with Hongyi, and drove the Hongyi in Taiwan away, but the surname of the country has passed away, and the surname of the country is no longer there." ”

Standing in front of the team today, waiting for the Prime Minister of Huang Ming's lecture, Yuan Haibin was once again secretly glad that he wisely did not accept Geng Fan's plaque, otherwise this might be another crime and would be taken down by the Ming army as an enemy. When he thought of this, Yuan Haibin was still a little weak-hearted, and when he saw Deng Ming walking towards them surrounded by guards, Yuan Haibin felt a chill down his spine, for fear that as soon as the other party opened his mouth, he would break the past that he thought he was unaware and unaware of building bridges and paving roads for his hometown, and then ordered him to take him down and ask for guilt.

"The emperor's government has always been an extremely irresponsible government." Deng Ming began his speech: "Whether it is for overseas expatriates or for people at home; The government tried its best to loot the people's fat and ointment internally, and blamed the expatriates for not being loyal enough to the imperial court, and when the people needed government relief or the expatriates needed government protection, the government would become very stingy - if the emperor's government had not been so cold-blooded and cruel, China would not have had this great chaos. There is no pity that Huang Ming is dead, but it is a pity that hundreds of people have suffered great disasters because of the government. ”

The expatriate audience present was silent, and Yuan Haibin recalled, yes, standing in front of him was the prime minister of Huangming, and he was also the most famous commander of the Ming army in the past ten years.

"In the past, the government of the emperor was both despicable and cowardly, when the people had no way to survive because of the excesses and miscellaneous taxes, the interior had to flee the famine, and the coastal areas could only leave their homes, and the government did not reflect on its own behavior, but tried its best to prevent the people from fleeing the famine or going to sea. When the displaced people began to resist, the government would even blame them, saying that even if the officials did something inappropriate, the displaced people should stay at home and starve to death, instead of fleeing the famine -- in order to survive themselves, they had to eat or even rob other people's food, which was really hateful, so the government could not give relief or tax exemption, but if the displaced people dared to flee the famine instead of staying at home, they would be killed, and they would be killed justifiably. If the coastal people can't survive and run to the sea, then the government will applaud after being killed by the natives, who told you not to honestly pay the emperor's grain in the country and serve the conscription? Death is also retribution. ”

The audience was silent, and Deng Ming took a deep breath: "Huangming's previous approach is wrong, and the empire is determined to correct it, and the imperial Sichuan Academy's Chen Xijiu declares that it is the greatest immorality to be moral to those who can't eat." Because we are human beings, and the human heart is flesh rather than stone, hunger will make us miserable, and seeing our children starve to death will make us even more painful, in order for our children to live, we will kill people and set fires, and we would rather deprive others of their lives than try to let our children live. This will be the philosophy of the future governance of the Empire, and we will not allow the people to bear the taxes that will lead them to starvation and the death of their children, and the Imperial government will do its best to ensure basic welfare. ”

In his previous life, Deng Ming had read a book called "Aesthetics", and the author of the book had similar ideas to Chen Zuocai, and also believed that when people are oppressed to the point of dying, the behaviors they adopt in order to survive are all moral. Interestingly, however, this right-wing philosophy, which emphasizes individual power, deduces the leftist conclusion that in order to avoid this kind of turmoil in which the people earn their own lives, the government must pay attention to welfare, otherwise it is not the people but the government who are immoral; In the leftist philosophy of collectivism, when the extreme thinking that the interests of the individual are always under the interests of the collective, the state has every reason to ignore the welfare and accuse everyone who refuses to starve to death at home as backward in thinking and does not know how to safeguard the interests of the collective and the state -- from the philosophy of the left, the policy of the extreme right is deduced.

"The empire intended to include Luzon in its territory, but not to appoint liuguan, but to trade with the local Chinese in a manner similar to a merchant's contract." Deng Ming patiently explained to the delegates present.

Like the original expatriates, most of the armed peasants of the reclamation regiment were also poor people in Guangzhou, Fujian and Zhejiang, who were in need of food and clothing, and under the call of the leaders of the reclamation regiment cultivated in Sichuan, they boarded a sea ship to explore this foreign land. Although Sichuan has strongly encouraged immigration over the years, it is only tens of thousands of armed peasants, far from being able to compare with the expatriates, and if these dozens or millions of scattered expatriates are stopped like the armed peasants, then the rule of the imperial government in Luzon can be stabilized and lay the foundation for its permanent inclusion in the territory in the future.

All the junior officials were elected by the diaspora like the president of the chamber of commerce, and the local and national taxes were determined by the Luzon parliament, and the amount of national taxes paid to the empire determined the Luzon region's seat in the imperial parliament. For the time being, the appointment of the governor of Luzon will remain in the hands of Deng Ming or his successor prime minister, and this period will last for twenty years, after which the taxpayers of Luzon will vote whether to continue to appoint the governor to the imperial prime minister for five years or to be elected by them.

"The Luzon government pays taxes, and the imperial government provides protection - any business wishful thinking will not last long, and if Luzon does not pay taxes, it will be unprofitable for the imperial government, and it will gradually be reluctant to spend money and shed blood to protect the Luzon government; And if the Luzon government can't decide the national policy of the imperial government just by paying taxes, then I guess sooner or later it will also think about it. ”

Although Deng Ming tried his best to explain, he guessed that the people present might not be able to turn their brains for a while, why did the government not collect protection money but buy and sell fairly?

"If the government of Luzon is willing to become a province of the empire, then the government of Luzon needs to be on the side of the empire in time of war, and must not go to war or make peace with foreign countries without permission...... There is also the issue of royal law, that is, the constitutional principles of the empire must not be violated, and laws must not be made to oppress the individual indefinitely, because the empire believes that what those on the verge of starvation do are unpredictable and morally inhibitable, so oppressing anyone into such a situation is a threat to the empire - to harm one of us is to harm all of us. "Deng Ming has prepared a lot of paperwork, and when the meeting is over, these expatriate representatives will be given a detailed text of the contract, explaining in detail every item and clause of the contract proposed by the empire.

"Because they are afraid of the wolves that go on the way, let them go in companions; Because lonely people are struggling, we need friends. In the same way, we need a state and a government, but in order to eradicate forever the tragedy and chaos of twenty years ago, the empire is determined to try a completely different path from the emperor, hoping that every citizen will be rewarded for the taxes he has paid, the taxes paid by his ancestors, and will not die of starvation in his parents' country; As long as every expatriate overseas reports 'I am Chinese,' he will be respected by foreigners, his safety will be guaranteed the most reliable way, and he will know that if he dares to treat him unjustly, his homeland will be reviled and punished -- this is the direction of the empire's efforts, are you willing to join? ”

Deng Ming did not ask the expatriate representatives to answer immediately, and after the meeting, Deng Ming asked Zhou Kaihuang again: "If all the Chinese in Nanyang agree to join the empire, what do you think will be the consequences?" ”

"Does that mean more girls will survive?" Zhou Kaihuang said with a grin: "The Admiral likes to ask me this kind of question, because he knows that I will definitely not be able to answer it, right?" ”

"It means that we won't have any more chaos in the world." Li Xinghan said with a wistful face: "If I were them, I would choose to join." ”

"No, I don't dare say that this will definitely not cause chaos in the world." Deng Ming said with a smile: "I'm just worried that in the future, there will not be a large number of people from Guangzhou, Fujian and Zhejiang who will rush back to China to pave the way for the bridge in their hometown, because in the future, the Chinese in Luzon will regard this place as their motherland and hometown." ”