"Conrad, your country has not agreed to the right of priority refusal for the New Netherlands after all..." In a box on the second floor of the newly renovated People's Grand Theater, Mo San, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the East Coast Republic of China, sighed in a low voice to Conrad Van Boyningen, ambassador beside him.≥,

At this time, a drama was being performed on the stage ahead, called "The Forgotten Southern Continent", which tells the story of the East Coast Trail Blazers overcoming obstacles and building their homes in Patagonia. The actors' enthusiasm, professionalism and powerful language dialogues often won warm applause from the audience, making this drama with realistic educational significance a great success.

This is the second time Mo San has watched this drama. The first time I watched it with his family, and this time I accompanied Dutch Ambassador Van Boyningen. However, both of them are politicians after all. Halfway through the show, they naturally talked about the international situation. The third-level parliament of the United Provincial Congress failed to grant the East Coast Republic the right of first refusal to the New Netherlands (in fact, it was not possible to discuss it at all). In Mo San's view, it is nothing more than an important part of the international situation. If this matter is done, it will be of great help to the East Coast to carry out troublemaking activities in North America in the future.

"Speaker Devit and all gentlemen think this is not appropriate and solemn enough, so they do not intend to pay attention. So, sorry..." Van Boyningen said when he heard this, his eyes were still staring at the stage, with no "sorry" on his face, and he said again: "But rest assured, Minister Mo, our government had no intention of selling New Netherlands to other countries. As for the land you are worried about being captured by Britain, haha, you don't have to be so nervous. Because we have built enough fortresses there. At the same time, there are enough well-trained troops. They have just defeated the Swedish army and proved that the English were lucky enough to attack the French in Arcadia. If they dare to come to New Netherlands, the directors of the West India Company will definitely impress them."

Bragging is still too much! Mo San sighed in his heart. How could he not understand what the West India Company is now? This colonial trading company with a huge stall is in financial difficulties. Even if there are blood transfusions from people from the East Coast (submitting some of the goods to the company to monopolize sales within the Dutch American colonies), the company's financial situation has almost reached the end of its reach after many years of repeated entanglements with Portugal, Sweden, Britain and even pirates.

The finances are so difficult, but I am still confident that I can defend the New Netherlands. How can I believe this? It’s just that things have come to this point. It’s useless to say more. Anyway, the whole Netherlands now thinks that the last loss to Britain was just an “accident”, because the Netherlands was not ready for war. But now they are investing huge sums of money to build the navy. For this reason, the third-level parliament has passed a large budget. Since everyone pays attention to it, once the war starts with Britain next time, they will naturally be able to easily defeat the British navy. Of course, the historical fact of the later period is that the British and Dutch naval battle is basically no winner. Britain is even superior in terms of war losses, but how could the Dutch believe this at this moment?

"If the West Indian company wants to be confident when facing the enemy and improve its financial situation, it is the most urgent matter. But the reality is that your company's profitability has dropped significantly and the losses have increased significantly. As a loyal friend of the United Provinces, we are also deeply saddened by this." Mo San said leisurely, "The sugar production in the Recife colony of your country was intermittent due to the war with the Portuguese for many years. I remember that seven or eight years ago, the annual sugar production in Brazil was close to 30,000 tons, but now it is only more than 10,000 tons! Can this fill your company's slightly huge expenses elsewhere?"

The price of 10,000 tons of sugar in Western Europe is approximately 1.7 million silver dollars on the east coast. The Dutch West India Company has been sluggish for a year and transported 2 million silver dollars worth of sugar to Amsterdam. The West India Company can only make a part of this money, which is not the same level as the company's huge expenses. Of course, the West India Company's profit in sugar has never been in Recife, but in the Caribbean Sea (the sucrose production in Suriname is still limited at this time). The Recife colony is just an experiment where the company tried to control a sugar-producing area itself.

In the Caribbean before the First British-Dutch War, it can be said that most of the transportation and sales of cane sugar were controlled by the Dutch West India Company. Whether it was Dutch islands or colonies in Britain, France, and Spain, local planters were always willing to hand over the cane sugar to the Dutch to transport it to Lisbon, Amsterdam, London, Hamburg and other places for sale. Because the prices given by the Dutch were fair, the industrial products sold to them were relatively cheap and good, so this lucrative business continued until the outbreak of the British-Dutch Naval Battle in 1654.

After the end of the British-Dutch War, Britain captured one or two thousand Dutch transport ships during the war, which doubled its transport tonnage, and correspondingly more ships could be used in the colonies. According to the estimates of the General Administration of Intelligence of the East Coast, the tonnage of transport ships active in North America and the Caribbean colonies at this time was around 100,000 tons, which was almost half of the total transport tonnage of England before the war.

As the total tonnage of the UK transport is coming, Dutch merchant ships will inevitably face strong challenges in the Caribbean. In addition, the promulgation of the Law of Navigation and the rebound of governments' grievances over the previous Dutch monopoly commercial hegemony. Before the UK beat the Netherlands to the Netherlands, all countries dared not speak out soon. France also issued relevant regulations similar to the Law of Navigation, which completely excluded the Dutch monopoly commercial hegemony in the Caribbean. Spain is currently believed to be eager to try.

In this way, although planters in the Caribbean colonies of various countries were more willing to trade with the Dutch, but their arms were unable to resist their thighs, the Dutch's commercial hegemony was inevitably defeated in a complete defeat. Especially after the huge sugar production of Jamaica was captured by Britain, the British in Barbados, Jamaica and some parts of the Lie Islands were full of confidence. They had controlled at least 20,000 to 30,000 tons of sugar per year, and they also planned to invest huge sums of money to expand sugarcane plantations to further expand production (strangely, a large part of the expansion funds were financed in the Amsterdam market), which posed the most direct challenge to the Dutch commercial interests.

The business interests have been eroded so much, the Netherlands West India Company's stalls are so big, and wars are so frequent, this company is not strange to suffer huge losses for years. Therefore, when Van Boyningen expressed confidence that they could defend the rich land of New Netherlands, Mosan was speechless. You should know that Conelis Bicker, the director of West India Company, is not so optimistic. He is extremely worried about the company's increasingly destructive finances, and is extremely worried about the company's tens of thousands of kilometers from North America to South America and then to West Africa, so he is considering whether to withdraw funds from the company.

But everyone said that, and Mo San had no choice but to change the topic: "Okay, I also hope that the flag of the United Province will always be flying on the land of New Netherlands. So say something else, how do you think of the British today's aggressive attitude in the Caribbean? Are there any precautions? You must know that Cromwell's group of people have always been arrogant. If you don't have a good time, you may restart the war again. Should we consider it in advance? The Kingdom of Spain invited a few days ago.

Our Navy entered the Port of San Juan, but we are still considering it and have not given a positive reply. Now I want to hear the opinions of our Dutch friends, Conrad, from your private perspective, is it necessary for our Navy to intervene? In addition, is it possible for the United Province to intervene? I mean, our two countries join hands to jointly maintain the security of the Caribbean and at the same time reshape the local business order, and completely drive away the unruly British people. What do you think?"

"This question is really hard to answer." Van Boyningen's eyes finally completely retracted from the stage. He frowned and thought for a while, and said, "In my personal opinion, since your country has the invitation of the Spanish legal government, you can properly intervene in the Caribbean Sea, but be prepared for a war, although this is unlikely. As for the United Province, I am sorry, I don't think the third-level parliament will agree to send warships to enter the Caribbean Sea in large quantities, because the United Province does not need war now, and everyone has been deeply rooted in the last war.

It was hurt, and I didn't want to repeat the previous nightmare in a short time. Although the commercial interests of the West India Company were seriously infringed by the British, they were in trouble and would not have the financial resources or the willingness to fight the British in the Caribbean Sea in a short time. So, I'm sorry, if your country wants to enter the Caribbean Sea, then you must be prepared to fight alone. Of course, I insist that even if your country faces such a difficult situation, you don't have to worry too much about falling into the quagmire of war, because the debt-ridden British republic government is also afraid of war..."

This is why Majiao is afraid of fighting both ends. The East Coast and Britain are two slutty hooligans who are timid and timid on the other side. They are clamoring to kill each other, but they are slow to move. They are carefully analyzing the situation and testing the other party's bottom line, while trying their best to avoid doing things when they are not ready.

"Thank you, my friend, you have always been so frank with your friends." Mo San said with a smile, "Your accurate analysis of the situation coincides with some professionals in our government. This will help us make decisions in the future, thank you." (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!