The Mystery and Mastery of Tan Yeok Nee (Part 4)
The Rise of Tan Yeok Nee
The last two posts described the world that Tan Yeok Nee encountered on his arrival in Singapore: everchanging, perhaps even intimidating, but offering boundless opportunities for anyone quick witted enough and with energy and ambition. Some things about Singapore have not changed despite today's modernity, but back then the market forces at work revolved around opium and secret scoeities. Regardless, Singapore and its rapidly growing, Malay governed hinterland of Johor, was open and welcoming to anyone with a hunger to succeed. Tens of thousands came. Malays, Chinese and British alike were brimming expectantly with optimism. The scene was set for Tan’s spectacular rise.
Tan Yeok Nee did not, of course, step off the boat in Singapore as a penniless immigrant from China, via the Pahang tin mines, and walk into a life of privilege and power. His initial youthful encounter with Abu Bakar may have been fortuitous, but the ensuing friendship and bond of trust that developed was full of purpose and the catalyst that set him on the path to status, and wealth. He had quickly grasped the essential elements of how the kangchu system worked, passing this information on to a receptive Abu Bakar. But Tan did not remain a teacher for long, and with an eager and willing Abu Bakar, they together quickly graduated from the figurative classroom of theory to real life application and practice.
Their initial efforts to establish plantations in Johor in the 1850s yielded little. By the time Abu Bakar succeeded his father as Temenggong in 1860, he and Tan were in a position to ratchet up the effort to establish a more meaningful agricultural base in Johor, one that started to yield some significant value. When the new Temenggong managed to extricate himself from the financially ruinous Pahang Civil War, Tan was poised to significantly expand the kangchu system in Johor. It is highly probable, according to Trocki, that it was Tan’s efforts in establishing productive plantations that were primarily responsible for the subsequent refinancing of the State of Johor after the war. By 1863, Tan had secured for himself, with the Temenggong’s enthusiastic support, a significant number of gambier and pepper plantation concessions, giving him control over a large portion Johor’s coastline, including the entire left bank of the estuarine Johor River.
With these holdings, Tan became the most important figure in the Johor plantation boom of the 1860s. Since the plantations at this time constituted most of Johor’s economic output Tan was, in effect and with Abu Bakar’s oversight, directly responsible for managing nearly all of the Johor economy. This all happened within about only 15 years of them first meeting. Although governing structures of the kind we would recognise today had yet to be put in place, Tan’s role would have been akin to a government minister in charge of economic development combined with that of a CEO with responsibilty for managing an agricultural monopoly, including the sales and distribution of its products. In addition to this he was also ultimately responsible for ensuring that the people who worked within, or were in some way connected to the plantations (in other words most of the Johor population at the time who were mostly Chinese immigrants) were fed and housed. It was a heavy burden for Tan, but one which came with rich rewards if managed effectively, sometimes ruthlessly, with the sole aim of generating economic growth.
The Ngee Heng Kongsi
While Tan was busy with his plans to create and expand an agricultural base for the Johor economy, along with its derivative revenue farms, the ever watchful Temenggong was acutely aware of another force present in Johor: the Ngee Heng Kongsi. This organization could trace its origin to the infamous Tian Di Hui, known in English as the Heaven and Earth Society, (also known by other names such as the Triad Society, the Three Dots Society, and the Hing Men Hui or Hung League). Tian Di Hui was considered to be the quintessential Chinese secret society and is still remembered as such. In China, organizations such as Tian Di Hui were bent on subverting and overthrowing the ruling Manchu Qing dynasty and, in the many rebellions of the 19th century, secret societies ended up being involved in one way or another, often escaping overseas when the Qing authorities came after them. Tian Di Hui did exactly this when, around the turn of the 19th century, members began to flee to Southeast Asia after having been pursued by the Qing authorities for several years. Some factions of the Ngee Heng Kongsi initially made Singapore their new home. The British were concerned about what they considered to be their criminal activities and in 1843 made proposals to suppress the secret societies. Although the actual prohibition did not take place until many years later, the Ngee Heng leaders decided Singapore was no longer hospitable and relocated to Johor in 1846, though it is highly likely that commercial considerations also played a role in their move across the Straits of Johor. Their chosen location, Kangar Tebrau, was far inland at the time and inaccessible. It is pretty certain that some of their members were already living thereabouts. Johor was out of reach of the British, as well as the Qing government agents too. At this time, Abu Bakar’s father, Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim, had not yet fully consolidated his control over the state and its remoteness therefore made it a safe haven.
The Ngee Heng Kongsi were a powerful organization and the Temenggong would have realized that such a force residing in his territory could be disruptive, posing a threat to his plans. On the other hand, if their energy could be harnessed, they might potentially assist him. Ngee Heng’s established presence therefore presented the Temenggong with a dilemma. As an organization whose activities were oriented toward armed agitation and martial arts, which many of its members practiced, they were potentially useful to the Temenggong. This was because, in the early years of his reign at least, he lacked a comprehensive security apparatus in his state. Furthermore, there were plenty of precedents in 19th century Malay history of Chinese involvement in disputes between contending Malay elites, and it is thought that Ngee Heng Kongsi may have been hired to assist in Johor’s on-going tensions with, and disturbances in, Muar in the northwest of Johor. However, Temenggong Abu Bakar’s autocratic instincts would not allow him to tolerate an alternative power base within his realm. He needed Ngee Heng’s muscle, and at one time handed them some responsibility for maintaining law and order. In doing so, he not only tolerated their presence but also legitimized it – but the patronage of the Temenggong came at a price. He forced Ngee Heng to open their membership to all Chinese and, in doing so, not only monopolized the businesses controlled by the Chinese, but even the Chinese communities themselves. It therefore became the only such society permitted to function in Johor.
When Ngee Heng’s headman Tan Keen Soon died in 1864, the Temenggong was quick to install Tan Yeok Nee as his replacement. Although Tan is credited by many as transforming Ngee Heng Kongsi from a secret society to a respectable business, this would not have happened overnight. Tan must have reviewed his new responsibilities, even under the protective wing of the Temenggong, with some trepidation. He found himself in charge of a well-established and now monopolistic organization with control over Johor’s Chinese communities; one with a deeply ingrained clandestine and militaristic culture and which were involved at one time or another in Johor’s internal security. For the previous twenty years or so, Tan had learned to navigate within and around the workings of the Singapore and Johor economy and its businesses, including its key stakeholders the Chinese secret societies with their kongsi façade. Now he was head of one of the most powerful of all and which, uniquely, also presided exclusively over a territory. Moreover, the situation had been enabled thanks to the patronage of his friend. Despite any apprehension he may have held, he had little choice but to seize the moment. Thus Tan added head of Johor’s dominant secret society, including its own security operations that were sometime co-opted by the governing authorities, to his existing responsibilities managing Johor's economy and business. In those days the governing administration was much less formal and structured than we would expect of a government today, but in terms of Tan's influence and authority he wielded enornous power.
The “Johor Problem”
Tan’s career had taken off. In less than three decades, he had risen from a street vendor, to an agricultural pioneer who eventually controlled the region’s largest cash crop, to a secret society headman who also, at times, controlled the security apparatus of a sovereign state. But there was much more to come. A retrospective observation was made in an 1883 debate in the Singapore Legislative Council: contributing to the discussion was Mr. W.G. Gulland, a well-known merchant, who commented that over a decade before (i.e. 1873) a “great opium syndicate” had taken shape after a “desperate fight” among various prominent figures from the Chinese community. However, this desperate fight was far from being spontaneous and had roots that stretched further back to at least 1860, the year that Abu Bakar succeeded his father as Temenggong of Johor. This era was when the term the “Johor problem” was coined and bandied about among the commercial and civil communities (British, Chinese, and others) in The Straits Settlements, Johor, and Riau.
The episode referred to by Mr. Gulland concerned the struggle to form and structure a kongsi that would invest in and control a monopoly over the supply of spirits and opium to the plantation workers in the territories of The Straits Settlements, Johor, and Riau. In other words, revenue farms, or in the case of a single monopoly for both products across all territories, the revenue farm. It was eventually to become known as the Great Opium Syndicate and its story provides an astonishing window into the political economy of the region in the early part of the second half of the 19th-century. Tan Yeok Nee was at the centre of it all.
Since the British East India Company (EIC) controlled the importation of opium they were in a position to sell the rights to its distribution on an exclusive or semi-exclusive basis. At this time, the EIC was also in control of the Singapore government administration, (but not of course in Johor where the distribution rights belonged to its sovereign ruler). In the early 1850s, the revenues generated through the sale of rights to the opium farm alone accounted for nearly 50% of the Singapore government’s total revenues. The stakes could not be higher. Between 1855 and 1860, the total revenues from opium sky rocketed by more than 150%. The government depended on them, and those who bought their way into holding the concessions, or otherwise collaborated in some way with the revenue farmer, stood to make huge profits. It was expected that after paying the government the “rent,” a profit margin of up to 300% was possible. With such money on the table it is unsurprising the lengths that would-be participants in the business would go to secure a slice of the business.
Both the Singapore government and Singapore’s contending kongsi, who bid for and sought to control the opium farm, wanted to keep Singapore and Johor under a single farm to avoid potentially undermining the monopoly. Johor was, of course, an independent state and so the Temenggong, as its sovereign ruler, was at liberty to determine who it sold its concession to at his sole discretion. Until up to the late 1850s Johor had been happy to bundle the sale of its concession with that of Singapore making the two territories effectively a single market for a single opium and spirit farm. This setup worked reasonably well until Johor began to develop and until Abu Bakar began to assert his authority and independence, ably assisted by his senior advisor and enabler Tan.
It is believed that Abu Bakar was managing these negotiations with the EIC on behalf of his father for some years before he actually succeeded him. The latter, Temenggong Daeing Ibrahim, had been paid $350 dollars a month for the revenue farm concessions from the EIC but by 1855 this had increased to $3,500 per month. By 1860, the amount had increased to $8,000 per month. It was, of course, around this time that Ngee Heng Kongsi opted to transfer their focus from Singapore to Johor, and while they may have been pushed by the Singapore’s announced – but not implemented anti secret society legislation – they could have equally been pulled by the steep increases in the amount of money that was becoming associated with the Johor revenue farm concessions. It may well have even been the case that the Abu Bakar and Tan preferred the Johor revenue farm to be in the hands of an organization that they controlled rather than in those of a Singapore based organization.
As the Chinese working population of Johor expanded rapidly, Abu Bakar drove an increasingly hard bargain. Trocki provides a sobering insight in to Johor’s and Singapore’s population insomuch as it was relevant to the opium farm. In 1860 the Temenggong was claiming a population of 30,000 (mostly Chinese) while Singapore’s 1859 population was then estimated at 74,000, of which about 40,000 were Chinese. In other words, the size of the potential market for opium in Johor was approaching the same size as that of Singapore. The Johor population, although relatively small compared to Singapore in the early years of the settlement, now represented a major disrupting force to the early opium syndicates that had formed in Singapore. As the pace of development picked up, Johor began to represent an increasingly attractive new territory for the existing syndicate. Acutely aware of this, Abu Bakar and Tan would have had their own ideas about developing the potential for new revenue streams, if necessary independently from Singapore interests. In addition, the significance of 1860 was amplified by the death of the leader of the Singapore syndicate in the same year, Lao Joon Tek. In April 1860, The Singapore Free Press announced that Heng Bun Soon had become the Singapore syndicate’s new opium farmer.
This was only half of the “Johor problem”: the other half was that as long as territories nearby to Singapore remained outside the full control of the monopoly, the risk of smuggling from these places into Singapore threatened to undermine it. Smuggling brought with it a whole host of additional problems concerning creeping lawlessness and public security which the Singapore authorities, not to mention the population generally, were anxious to avoid. The strength of Abu Bakar’s hand was ultimately based on his threat to leave the monopoly and award the revenue farm concession elsewhere, including to an entity he fully controlled: Tan’s Ngee Heng Kongsi. This he eventually did in 1861. Thus the much talked of “Johor problem” became a reality.
Tensions were running high as two rival opium syndicates, plus the confusion created by a single but separate joint Singapore-Johor spirit syndicate operating alongside, now struggled to manage their interests and spheres of influence. At the same time unabated smuggling from Johor to Singapore took off. The Singapore government resolved to stiffen the penalties, but to do so handed extensive powers of search and seizure directly to the Singapore revenue farm. This led to unregulated “self-policing” among the stakeholders. In other words, gangs of enforcers, independent of government oversight, engaged in a full scale drug and alcohol turf war. Arbitrary arrests, imprisonment, violence, and murder ensued. As the region moved towards chaos, Tan found himself sitting uncomfortably in the middle of it all.
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