Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms, Volume 78

Page 4

Their trade and sales are calculated down to the smallest fraction original: "haoli"; a tiny unit of measurement indicating extreme precision or greed. If there are other tribes or various ports who desire to trade with China, they are usually blocked and turned away. This is done to secure a monopoly on profits.

Furthermore, when the ships reach customs, precious goods are piled high like mountains. For goods coming from their home countries, heavy taxes are traditionally levied by regulation. Their sovereign relies on this tax revenue to provide for military payrolls and official stipends.

Those residing in Macao are known as the Great Managers original: "Daban"; the term for the head of a foreign trading house, commonly known as a Taipan, who oversee the entirety of the trade. Those with significant capital are the shipowners, and they are collectively referred to as the Company original: "Gongsi"; here referring specifically to the British East India Company. Other partners, from the chief navigators down to the common sailors, carry additional goods on the ships; none of them fail to hope for a surplus of profit to supplement their own livelihoods. From the highest levels of their nation to the lowest, everyone regards China as a "marsh of profit" original: "lisou"; a classical idiom for a place where wealth and resources are concentrated.

This is the second reason they are absolutely dependent on our resources. The home territory of the English barbarians the British is separated from us by vast and distant oceans; only their rented residence in Macao serves as a place for them to stay and rest.

Although the Macao barbarians referring to the Portuguese who leased the territory are very poor and thin in resources, it is not easy to fully sway them with bribes. Furthermore, nations such as the Americans original: "Meilijian" and the French original: "Folansi" have long-standing enmities with [the English] and cannot be unified. If [the English] should act out defiantly, we should cause these nations to attack one another. To attack barbarians by means of barbarians original: "yi yi fa yi"; a foundational principle of Qing dynasty foreign policy is precisely how we can pacify them and turn them to our use. It was for this reason that when the Franks original: "Folangji"; here referring to earlier Portuguese or European raiders raided Xinhui a coastal district in Guangdong, they were ultimately captured.