Chapter 699: Layout

Just when the French north of the Pyrenees were tortured by floods, Spain suffered a severe drought that was rare in a century.

The continuous abnormal drought dried up the rivers and lakes, and the Spanish, who had finally ended the war, took up arms again.

Water resources were scarce, crops withered, and people and livestock were killed by heat. In this country that was still dominated by agriculture, such a natural disaster was 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-like priests. In the face of natural disasters, they only cared about whether the taxes in the fall could be collected.

As for what to do, the Kingdom of Spain has been like this for hundreds of years. Isn't it good to drink a cup of hot coffee in the ice cellar?

The regent queen was only concerned with hanging out with her lovers, and the underage Isabel II had been completely brainwashed by the charlatans and became a fanatical religious person.

She firmly believed in the concept of the "sacredness" of the monarchy. Whenever someone gave her an opinion, Isabel II's first reaction was to execute the other party.

Compared with the divine right of kings, the sacredness of the monarchy is more reactionary in some ways. However, such a monarch naturally received the full support of the church, but they chose to turn a blind eye to the suffering of secular people.

In desperation, people began to run to the church to pray that God could help them, and officials also held various religious ceremonies to take the opportunity to get closer to 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 did not rain. The sky became more and more cloudy. Later, people found that this was volcanic ash produced by a volcanic eruption.

If we only look at the proportion of disasters, the Netherlands is the country most severely persecuted by potato late blight in the world. Because it inherited the Flemish region of Belgium, the entire country was plagued by the disease.

Among them, more than 95% of potatoes in the Netherlands became smelly soap.

(Potato late blight can cause fruit rot and liquefaction.)

As the "merchant king", King William II of the Netherlands did not want to pay for it himself, so the unlucky job of disaster relief fell on the Governor of Batavia far away in Southeast Asia.

The newly appointed Enzo Matkefar was recommended by Caroline and naturally had to work for His Majesty the King. His appointment greatly strengthened the Netherlands' control over the Indonesian colony.

The reason why Enzo Matkefar was not thrown directly to the crocodiles by those local residents was largely due to the protection of Umbrella Corporation.

Of course, this was also inseparable from the support of the two foreign aids, Zhenla and Southern Ming. The Dutch colonies in Indonesia were not bad, but their achievements over the past few hundred years were really unremarkable.

Even though they were both backward agricultural countries at this time, the agriculture of Zhenla and Southern Ming was far stronger than that of the Dutch East Indies.

The local Dutch were used to being rotten, not to mention the natives they ruled. Many local crops will become very important strategic resources in the future, especially quinine. If the planting area is not expanded, the progress of the Austrian Empire in the interior of Africa will be hindered.

However, Franz did not want to give others a bargain, so he planned to lease Kalimantan Island, or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that it was jointly developed.

Anyway, the gold mines on Kalimantan were lost, and the Dutch didn't have much to remember. They could have as many natives as they wanted in the Dutch East Indies.

However, the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies agreed with Franz on the condition that the Austrian Royal Development Company should pay the Dutch East Indies government labor fees, and they would send local natives to cooperate with the work.

But Franz didn't want those natives at all, he was going to replace them all with Zhenla and Japanese immigrants.

In short, he didn't want the locals, and fortunately the Dutch East Indies government didn't want to give them. You have to know that the labor price at that time was not cheap. A Chinese worker cost at least 100 pesos, and sometimes even sold for 500 pesos.

At that time, Chinese workers had to pay Eagle Dollars, which is Mexican pesos, which means that a Chinese worker cost at least 227 florins, and if it was a bad year, it might even cost 1,135 florins.

Therefore, hundreds of thousands of natives on Kalimantan are treasures in the eyes of the Dutch East Indies government, but in Franz's eyes, it is a good thing that the natives are gone, after all, this can save a lot of unnecessary trouble.

Compared with the Dalits who were almost given away for free, the price of Japanese immigrants is not much higher.

During the shogunate period, there were refugees everywhere, and it was worthwhile to pick some young and strong people from them to exchange for Austrian goods in the eyes of local daimyo.

If it were not for the fact that the Austrian merchant fleet did not have that strength, the shogunate would have wanted to send millions of immigrants now.

Because the shogunate and local daimyo can use foreign cheap goods to impact the local market in Japan, so that they can regain economic dominance.

Facing the attack of the two colonies of California and Hawaii, Japanese merchants can't win even if they try their best.

There were merchants who tried to eat up all the goods on the market and force the shogunate to make concessions, but the power of the international market made them sink directly into Osaka Bay.

During this period, Austria actually earned more than the shogunate, but in the eyes of the feudal dynasty, domestic stability is the real thing.

Then, as foreign goods entered, a large number of manual workshops were forced to close, and manual workers lost their jobs, which in turn expanded the ranks of refugees and marginalized people.

However, the lives of the daimyo and samurai class became better. Not only could everyone eat white rice, but they also had cheap clothes to wear and cheap white sugar to make various cakes.

All kinds of strange foreign things also entered the Japanese market, and the church didn't even have to do things secretly.

The shogunate directly abolished the ban on religion, which was naturally due to the flexible moral bottom line of the missionaries.

As soon as Matsudaira Harutake opened the shogunate's special edition of the Bible, he was shocked. The opening clearly stated the eight characters [Loyalty to the emperor and love for the feudal domain, the king's power is granted by God].

"Tadatoshi is a mistake for the country!"

Tadatoshi refers to Sakai Tadatoshi, the main promoter of the ban on religion during the Tokugawa Hidetada era.

Matsudaira Harutake immediately hung these eight characters in his room. The shogunate's special edition of the Bible was specially designed for the Japanese region. It was a precise targeted missionary effect that was naturally not comparable to those primitive religions.

Matsudaira Harutake was actually quite reserved, and many feudal lords brought their important officials to join collectively.

Franz also tailored a plan for those feudal lords to enrich the country and strengthen the army. Although Japan is an island country, it is surrounded by the sea with rich fishery resources.

As a result, the Americans who loved fishing in the Sea of ​​Japan became the public enemy of the shogunate. Those American fishing boats couldn't 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 are human resources.

In fact, these feudal lords in various places are not stupid. They think that after Japan becomes strong, it can stop trading with the Austrian Empire and continue its policy of isolation.

However, it is still okay to sell some surplus population occasionally.