There is no doubt that the Dutch East India Company is now entering its heyday steadily.

After gradually abandoning the trade in the West Indian Ocean under the joint attack of the British, East Coast people and Omanis, the Dutch East India Company focused on deepening the East Indies and the Coromandel coast of the Malabar coast of India, and achieved great success. They kept the British outside the East Indies, allowing them to steal chickens every year to obtain a limited number of spices, and controlled most of the spice sources themselves, especially nutmeg and cloves, which were completely controlled by themselves. They also drove the Portuguese out of Ceylon Island and the nearby Indian coast, established military strongholds such as Jaffna, Colombo, and Galle, and monopolized the trade in Ceylon ivory, pepper, cinnamon, ash and gems, and made great profits. They even relied on an island originally occupied by Zheng Chenggong in history to actively carry out trade in Fujian and Guangdong, China, and broke the monopoly attempt of the East Coast people's Haizhu Island merchant station.

Such a great cause naturally made many senior officials, including Batavian Governor Riklauf van Goens and the seventeen gentlemen of Amsterdam, excited, and their hearts gradually expanded with the spread of V's flags throughout the country, until they were awakened by a military operation launched by the East Coast people in South Africa two years ago.

Some people will wake up and act rationally at the peak of the sudden blow; some people will be angry, then act chaotic, and make some unreasonable tricks. Although the Dutch East India Company is not a foolish trick, if they are sensible, it is impossible to say how rational they are, this can be seen from what they do.

They have deeply realized that it is probably impossible to regain South Africa. Therefore, while the government and the East Coast people were entangled with the status of the Cape Town colony, they also stepped up the construction of Mauritius in the Muscle Islands (that is, Morris), and planned to operate the island as a supply relay in the Indian Ocean. Because from South Africa to East India, others are along the coastline, and only the Dutch and the East Coast people are skilled and well-known to the currents and wind directions, so they can fly directly. Therefore, Mauritius is very important to the Dutch now. They built forts, fortresses and docks, and sent heavy troops to complement the Bourbon Island (now Reunion Island), which the French focused on. Of course, there has not yet been a war between the two islands as they are in the local area, and it is very peaceful.

In addition to operating Mauritius and trying to minimize its dependence on East Coast people, the Dutch East India Company also "willful" vented its emotions and made several small moves to make trouble for East Coast people. One of them was to close the two ports of Malacca and Galle, which forced eight immigrant ships on the East Coast to stop operating for a whole year, and it may not be too late to get the news this year, and it is estimated that it will continue to stop operating.

In addition, of course, Hugo Roll, the Governor of Shermosa, took a series of measures. Although he and the business representative Jan Kohler were not very willing, Batavia suppressed them and they had no choice but to implement them, that is, to reduce the purchase of Ningbo tea and raw silk, and instead obtain a large amount of these goods from Fujian and Qing dynasties to reduce the inflow of precious metals to the east coast. Batavia hopes to make the finances of the East coast people more difficult in this way, because they heard that the colonial government of the East coast people is currently in debt and pays more than one million rupiahs every year with interest.

Last point, Batavia asked the Taiwanese bank of the East Coast to "invite" the city of Rhelanzha, and Governor Rohl also did it. It is reported that the bank has moved its headquarters back to Dinghai County, Ningbo Prefecture, and its business has been affected to varying degrees and its capital chain is tight. Fortunately, their customers are more "reasonable". Under the persuasion of the East Coast Colonial Government (i.e., the Southern Development Team), these merchants temporarily gave up the idea of ​​making deposits from the Taiwanese bank accounts, and some even deposited a sum of money into it, which was highly praised by the Governor of Ningbo.

The Dutch East India Company is so full of eye pills on the East Coast people, so the Taiwan Bank and the Southern Development Team will naturally not feel it. However, everything they have done is still within the scope permitted by the rules of the game, and they cannot openly seek revenge. However, the inability to openly revenge does not mean that they cannot privately revenge. As for the time being, the East Coast people sent representatives to Fuzhou a while ago and negotiated with Zheng Chenggong on Taiwan Island reclamation and some trade agreements.

During this week-long talks, the East Coast Special Envoy Lu Fang and Hu Chi and Zheng Chenggong achieved a lot of negotiation results, mainly because Zheng Chenggong agreed to expand the scope of reclaiming Taiwan Island and planned to establish towns and governments here to coordinate and develop appropriately, as long as the East Coast people need to provide some metal agricultural tools, weapons, ammunition and crucial medicines at a fair price. Lu and Hu agreed without hesitation. Because they believed that after Zheng Chenggong officially established the Taipei Prefecture (meaning northern Taiwan), the attention of the Dutch people on Taiwan Island would definitely be attracted. It is basically a high probability that the two sides would be crippled with each other. At that time, the East Coast people would be happy to sit in the mountains and watch the tiger fight. It would not be easy to control these two sides, especially the Dutch East India Company!

In addition, the East Coast and Zheng Group have reached a certain agreement on trade. First of all, the acquisition of sugar. Lu Fang, on behalf of the Taiwan Bank and the Southern Development Team, said that he could purchase sugar produced in Fujian in full. Although its quality is not as good as that of Guangdong and Taiwan, he could not control that much in order to disgust the Dutch. Anyway, Ningbo, Denglai and Heishui are now more populated, and their consumption capacity is gradually increasing. It is not too difficult to sell sugar. At worst, people in the East Coast can also sell to Japan and North Korea through the East Coast Japanese company and the East Coast Korean company. These are also two large markets, especially the North Korea Kingdom, which has become increasingly active under the nourishment of huge trade in grain, pig iron and medicinal materials.

Secondly, the people of the East Coast of Tea also said that they would openly buy it with all their might, but there was not that much money for the time being. They asked Zheng to agree to take the goods on credit and pay after the sale was completed. Zheng Chenggong naturally refused this. At present, the two sides are still arguing, but they don’t feel very optimistic, and it cannot stop the Dutch from buying Fujian tea and raw silk.

But no matter what, it is OK to do this at this point. After all, it is not about breaking up with the Dutch East India Company, but just to introduce some countermeasures so that there are bargaining chips to be released in future negotiations. Now the relationship between the three parties (referring to the East Coast, Zheng and the Dutch East India Company) is basically both cooperation and guarding. The more chaotic and sperm-like relationship is very complicated.

Speaking of this, we have to mention that in March this year (1676), the East Coast and Zheng Chenggong reached a preliminary agreement, which was about to be implemented soon, but Zheng Chenggong, who had suffered from three highs for a long time, suddenly died of illness in May (at the age of 52). The eldest son of Zheng Jing, who succeeded to the throne, temporarily frozen all the agreements reached with the East Coast, and said that he would discuss it later in a few days. This made Lu Fang and Hu Chi, who had been following the matter, helpless, and also made the Dutch East India Company get a bargain and live a happy life.

The Dutch East India Company knew almost nothing about the private collusion between the East Coast and the Zheng Group, but this was actually not important to them, because they did not put all the eggs in the same basket. In fact, it seemed that the Qing Dynasty was a better choice than Fujian for the source of tea, raw silk and porcelain, especially when the Manchu emperor's naval general Shi Lang (this person is said to have been a general of Zheng Chenggong, who sneaked into the Qing Dynasty because of a conflict) thought so even more after a careful conversation with the Dutch East India Company's business representative Jan Kohler at Xiangshui Port.

Last year (1675), the trade volume between the Dutch East India Company and the Qing Dynasty reached an astonishing 1.5 million ruts (which has reached the trade volume between the Dutch in the middle of the Qing Dynasty). Among them, they relied on the sale of pepper, cloves, nutmeg, sandalwood, ambergris, pearls, textiles, weapons and ammunition to obtain sales of more than 600,000 ruts. At the same time, they imported nearly 900,000 ruts of porcelain, zinc blocks, silk fabrics, tea, raw silk and other specialties. The most tonnage of "Harlem", completed the procurement task of 50,000 pounds of tea, 600 pieces of silk products and massive porcelain. It is expected to obtain a net profit of more than 200,000 ruts in Amsterdam, which caused a sensation in the entire Batavia, and more and more people supported the expansion of trade volume with the Qing Dynasty.

Moreover, given the strong demand for European artillery by the Qing people (the self-cast artillery of the Qing countries is much heavier than that of Europe and has a shorter lifespan), the Dutch East India Company has expanded the production scale of the Batavia artillery factory, and at the same time purchased a large number of artillery and other weapons from the Goa foundry, and transported them to Xiangshui Port for delivery with the Qing people.

This form of trade even became increasingly fierce after the East Coast people sent troops to capture the Cape Town colony, which strongly supported the wars launched by the Qing Dynasty in various places, causing a lot of additional losses to the East Coast, Dashun and even the Southern Ming Dynasty. At the same time, the Portuguese and British were also fishing in the troubled waters, and the new French were also ready to get a share of the pie. They were secretly giving eye drops to the East Coast people. Who was flirting with the Qing Dynasty and asked the East Coast people to try to monopolize the trade of the entire coastal China, blocking everyone's way of wealth. It was already very embarrassing if they didn't directly fight you directly!

From the above, we can see that as the Qing Dynasty vigorously opened up overseas trade due to war demand in recent years, merchants from Western European countries rushed over like sharks smelling blood, intending to get a share of the pie in this big gold mine. In the south, Li Chengdong and Zheng Group generally cooperated with the East Coast, and were also very exciting in private. They hooked up with the Dutch, Portuguese, and British, and their business was flying. The East Coast people tried to control the coastal trade on mainland China and even cut off the outside world.

The attempt to introduce modern technology and equipment was almost doomed to failure from the beginning. The reason is that China is too large and the coastal area is too vast. The ships relying on the east coast are busy transporting immigrants or doing business most of the time, so they are really unable to do it. Unless the local government allocates a large number of new warships (at least one hundred ships) to here, there is a little possibility of blocking China's coastal trade (in fact, the possibility is also very small, because people can sail at night or from small terminals).

However, the people of the East Coast had no intention of doing nothing and directly accepting their fate! Not that, Liao Xiaoyao, the captain of the Denlei Development Team, who had been confirmed to leave his post and return to his hometown, officially issued a document to communicate with the navy, and obtained the understanding of the commander of the Okhotsk Sea Squadron of the Third Fleet. Both sides had officially decided to mobilize the armed transport ships, light cruisers, guard gunboats and some other ships at hand to carry out a tentative attack on the largest trading port of the Qing Dynasty, Xiangshui Port located at Guanhekou.

Because the East Coast people have long locked in Haizhou and Xiangshui, the two top two foreign trade ports, Haizhou and Xiangshui. Among them, Haizhou is relatively small in scale, so don’t worry about it for the time being. This Xiangshui Port, which accounts for nearly 60% of the Qing Dynasty’s foreign trade share, is really hateful. It must be hit by it, otherwise there will be quite a lot of trouble in the future.

The Dunlei Security Command and the Okhotsk Sea Squadron had already concentrated the warships to Dinghai for maintenance and maintenance. They planned to pull up their sails to the north after the southeast winds in summer to surround Xiangshui Port. At this time, it happened that foreign merchants were sailing from the South China Sea for trade. Liao Xiaoyao wanted to see if under the deterrence of the East Coast people, these merchants from the Netherlands, England, Portugal and even France (very few) had the courage to trade with the Manchurian emperor at the risk of bankruptcy and loss of their lives.

Liao Xiaoyao has made up his mind that the trade to clean up Xiangshui Port will be seized. As for how to deal with it, the debt quota of the San Francisco of the Far East is probably not the same as the forced redemption of the Dutch East India Company's merchant ship, and the goods may be directly confiscated. The owner may also be fined. Anyway, as long as you keep a look at the foreign merchant ships coming to trade, what if you don't attack the heavily guarded Xiangshui Port? If no one comes to trade, your port itself has no meaning of existence.

Of course, some people also propose to directly execute captured foreign merchants or sailors, which will be more deterrent, because if the means are too weak, they will only treat the symptoms but not the root cause. After the limelight, these foreign merchants will come back. After all, the East Coast people cannot watch here every moment. The profits of this trade are very large, which is enough to make many people take risks. However, Liao Xiaoyao was afraid that it would cause trouble to the East Coast merchant ships going to Europe for trade, so he did not agree, and only said that he would clean up the trade at Xiangshui Port first and see the effect.
Chapter completed!