A Merchant's Journal - (The Apothecary Diaries, Self-Insert)
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Would you all be surprised if I said that my starting plans for my new life were based on my understanding of this world being a historical copy of the 17th Century China?
My name is Teng Mu, and I am the second son of the rich Cantonese merchant Teng Hu. By this very description, a few things have to be defined.
First, I am in a good (but far from perfect) spot as my family is rich, but I am not going to inherit my father's business once he dies (the best I could expect was scrapes, but that wasn't a worrisome matter to me). Second, I am in the southern region of China as Canton (or Guangzhou) is known as the most important port in the south and also regarded as a relatively peaceful area of the Empire at the time.
With those two details, I knew a few things had to be dabbled upon - I had to find a way to create my own business and avoid being too dependent on my father's coffers, and I had to do it quickly enough to turn this investment into something reliable.
After browsing into several potential venues, gauging all risks, conceding to the notion that I could be dealing with some woes if I allow myself to leave the safety of the 'sea' since the mainland China is a bit rowdy at the time - I kind of realized that I couldn't expect to make it work if I kept within China... proper.
Oh no, I had to look elsewhere for solutions: and my eyes fell on the island of Taiwan. The place was mostly depopulated, I had been nagged many times by the local Imperial 'heckler' that advertised some 'random news' as I visited the loud popular market square where my family exposed their wares for sale.
One day, after getting one too many disappointments, I stopped to listen and... I realized that the source of my success was being sprouted by some semi-literate idiot in the middle of the city: the 'Southern Protectorate' was offering the governorship over it for sale.
The Southern Protectorate was a name I heard my father use a few times, but it was never in a positive light. It was hardly a Protectorate when compared to the far bigger and more lucrative Western and Northern Protectorates. And considering the lack of interest from the Imperial court to expand and colonize the island, no one wanted to truly risk it. In the eyes of many (rightfully so), it looked like a blackhole for money.
But in my eyes? That was the little heaven that just needed someone to weed out the worst and optimize the best out of it.
That being said, I didn't jump on that boat just yet. I had to look into the expenses and realized that while rich, I was far from personally make that investment as optimally as needed. I had a list of various necessary steps together with the relative prices for the 'pricier' version.
I set myself a goal and, two years after this plan was conceived, I was now wielding enough wealth between working with my father and doing odd jobs to make the trip and expand the Protectorate.
I spoke with architects, craftsmen, experts of minerary operations and other individuals about fees in being paid by yours truly if I required their specialization and I had a relatively optimistic view of the matter.
Thus, at the age of 19, I decided to actually pay for the Governorship (which had gone cheaper even when keeping the relative taxation fees implied within the overall price) and I got to the first boat to Anping. Father was curious, but ultimately offered a chill reaction to my initiative, while mother was reasonably annoyed that I sought to leave home 'so soon'.
Beyond that, it was just me, some well-paid sailors, my ship, and now my new fief. And when I arrived there, I was filled with an unusual amount of regret: the colony had been left to decay, with some of the 'newer' settlements outright abandoned and the garrison an utter mess. I felt scammed to some extent, especially when I was given the 'real' map of the current land I owned and realized that a fair slice was now missing - all I had was a small slice of coastal land in the South-West area of the island.
It was a sad affair, but I couldn't weep on the spilled milk - I could just get my sleeves rolled up and start cleaning up this mess so I can get the cash roll in.
With my own ranks of mercs, I saw fit to get the military whipped back in shape and, before expanding, consolidate what was available to me at the time. I couldn't force a migration without pissing off the governors beyond the sea, but I could make the place somewhat decent enough to prompt some of the poorer folks to make the trip.
Having a decent military force sounded like a necessary step for new citizens to feel safe, and then it was time to also renovate the ruined houses. The weather had been most unkind with the rudimentary houses within Anping, and thus I had seen fit to sink more money in seeing the houses reinforced and to do so with claiming anything back from the locals. Not only this worked well for PR's sake, but it also helped me get those people to not leave this island.
Wooden structures were employed first, but then I got my architects to create stone buildings and other sturdier creations. Services were expanded as wells were created all over Anping and in other minor settlements, with roads fixed and religious sites restored. Within six months, I could start getting paid through the taxes and, even then, I had to lower the fiscal pressure to allow the local capital power to expand at a steady and unrestrained pace.
I needed to develop a middle class as early as possible and thus acquire a 'fleet of investors'. Nothing that could have been fully achieved within a single year or two, but it was best to start the earliest and I did as such.
For a full year between military drillings, naval maintenance, and basic city-planning, I found myself weary of the ensuing years. We barely made enough for the end of the year to pay the Imperial taxes, and I could safely say that I lost about a fourth of the money I brought with myself for the endeavor, and I had... gotten a lot in my pocket before leaving, perhaps a third more than what I had originally planned to have as a budget.
Year 2 was where the ball truly got rolling: the first important effort was to start campaigning the renewed safety and chance of opportunity the island provided to those in the mainland that felt like they couldn't make a living with the way things were. I had expected for a rather strong push but still one that I could manage...
And I was very wrong. I admit the first two months of the 'invasion' were quite intense. I underestimated the Chinese desire to actually survive in this post-Medieval time, and I found myself struggling to get the housing situation under control. For a very brief moment (which equated to several difficult days of thinking, planning, bashing my skull against the wall, and praying multiple Gods at once), I was actually thinking myself unprepared for this big of a step.
But as the fog of panic got under control, I started to get creative in handling the housing issue: I started to employ some New Deal-esque plans in creating effective 'building corps' which were formed by illiterate low-paid workers who were to supplement the local construction companies who were, under some heavy diplomacy and shouting, merged in a single government-led organization that could be regulated and handled with a more stable and streamlined approach.
The second year was a painful 'birth' for Taiwan, but one that saw a return ot the its previous borders and the actualization of an 'expansion' plan. I create various contingencies between diplomatic and military ideas to counter potential natives as I moved to colonize the land and...
At Year 3, issues start to rise up. And by issues, I mean 'confusion'. At this stage, I expected to make contact with the local tribes - while my knowledge on Pre-Qing Taiwanese history is quite murky, I was quite sure that tribal kingdoms existed in the area but... the more we expanded, the more I felt my frown deepening as we found untouched land and no signs of any local tribes around.
Could it be that my troops were killing them without telling me anything? I could understand the local garrison, but my mercenary troops (who had been growing quite cozy and loyal to me since I fed them, I paid them, and I didn't send them to die dumb deaths) were quite honest about it.
"We have no clue about any other folks beyond yours, boss."
So yes, something didn't feel right. And this confusion grew throught the third and fourth year as the migration, which came from other inland regions, saw more the doubling of our land in mere months.
As Year 4 comes along, so does an insistent push to relocate the capital, with a new makeshift one established in the upper coastal region that had been recently populated. The reason why Anping could no longer be used was a matter of trade issues: the relative closeness to major Chinese ports created a form of competition, especially with 'my' Guangzhou, that wouldn't do.
Hence why I was moving my capital closer to modern-day Taiping. Still, this isn't the only problem I find. As roughly half of the island has been taken over by my administration and the rest had been scouted thoroughly, I could say for certain that there was no active tribal kingdom within Taiwan.
...
This didn't make any sense. Sitting on my office, I thought back of the chances of me confusing the Taiwanese native history for another island, but I was confident that couldn't be the case - I was not confusing it and... and it didn't make any sense. I try to distract myself from the topic through the fourth year of me being in charge of the island, working on standardizing large urban houses as to allow an elevation of floors and thus guarantee multiple flats within a smaller perimeter.
My little fief is no longer so little. Streets are well-maintained, business is booming at a rapid pace as hunts for new mines entertain most of the youth as the chores of farming and animal-husbandry are left to those older migrants that do not seek to entertain unusual and risky jobs.
Laws are passed, some of the garrison is turned in a police force, and various services are expanded - new schools, some clinics, and even a few public baths open left and right. The ball had gotten rolling in a while, and I was months away from truly getting to the nice perch of Taipei.
Yet, this all changes as my trade fleet that I had commissioned to be created through the shipyards in Guangzhou and Fujian makes it to Japan to try and get through the Isolation doctrine of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Their return brings far greater gains than I had anticipated since Japan isn't closed to foreign nations.
Not only that, but the Tokugawa are not in charge of the country - a confederacy was. Oda Nobunaga had, by the retelling of some of the locals to the sailors, succeeded in unifying Japan but also creating a stable decentralized government with the Oda Clan in charge of the most pressing matters.
...
Year 5, I also realize that the population growth is weird as fuck. And that, as I look into the paperwork I have with the Imperial court due to my role as governor, I couldn't recognize the name of the dynasty.
Li. There was no Li dynasty in China that ruled over this large swat of land. Ming perhaps, maybe even Yuan - but I was confused as I asked some scholars about the effects of the Mongolian invasion, but they couldn't tell me much about it.
Suddenly, I realized that this was not an historical reincarnation, but I was dealing with something entirely different. A pseudo-Wuxia? No, there was no magic or divinity at play, rather this felt more like an alternative history scenario. A different Chinese Empire, Japan was unified under an Emperor and a council of Clan Heads-
Which also meant that it wasn't exactly the 14th or the 15th century. It was either the 16th or the 17th century since Nobunaga's passing was still 'recent' in Japanese memory. And considering the presence of chocolate and coffee through merchants from distant lands... then perhaps that was the case.
I was still unsure on taking it as a mere case of 'Alternate Timeline'. Something else was afoot. And as Taiwan was fully 'taken over' by Year 5, with the economic bureaus I established automatically handled the housing situation and other circumstances that required experts and rapidly-deployed workers through the 'government agencies' I created through the years, I also received a letter from my father.
I thought it would have been a 'congrats, you won' sort of paper, but it was actually a request (if not a tall order). He mentioned how an old friend of his, someone that saved him several years ago, had asked for someone of his family to take care of a business for them.
Without much of a warning, I was compelled by some bullshit familial law to go to the Imperial Capital, find this guy and then see what he wanted from me.
Growling and worrying, I was soon on a swift ship to Nanjing, with many questions and even more worries - none of which came close to the absurd reality I was soon going to face.
AN
The MC came prepared for a EU4/CK3 game, but he got flung into te world of The Apothecary Diaries. Next time, on a more 'slow'-paced chapter, Workaholic Merchant meets Poison-loving Apothecary.