To expand the highly profitable plantations, the Germans needed more workers. The government sent military expeditions to take direct control of more areas from 1899 to 1914. Instead of voluntary recruitment it became a matter of forced mobilisation. The government enforced new laws that required the tribes to furnish four weeks of labour per person annually and payment of a poll tax in cash, thereby forcing reluctant local inhabitants into the work force. The government did explore the choice of voluntary recruitment of labourers from China, Japan, and Micronesia, but only a few hundred came. After 1910 the government tried to ameliorate the impact by ending the recruitment of women in some areas and entirely closing other areas to recruiting. The planters protested vehemently, deciding to go to war with the whites, and the government responded by sending 4 warships with 745 troops to defeat the Sokehs workers and impose the forced labour policy. They arrived in January 1911 and by February 1911 the Sokehs leader had surrendered.