October 30, 1687, The Hague.

Lin Dingzhi, Ambassador of the East Coast Republic of China to Paris, arrived in the Hague, the capital of the United Provinces, where the situation had stabilized. He intends to meet with his old friend of the East Coast people, Dutch provincial parliamentarians, third-level parliamentarians, and one of the Republican leaders.

Before that, he took a detour to Bruges and attended the listing ceremony of an East Coast commodity there. The merchant station owner did business in the South Netherlands. Of course, compared with business, spying on intelligence seemed to be their more important task, especially as the ambitions of the Kingdom of France became increasingly unconcealed.

Lin Dingzhi stayed here for about two days and listened to reports from the merchant station staff (he will be in charge here later), mainly about the trade situation in the ten southern Netherlands provinces. After all, diplomacy, intelligence and other activities require money, and in addition to state funding, a large part of the money source needs to be supplemented by local trade. Although the ten southern Netherlands provinces cannot compare with the seven northern provinces, they are also known as wealthy and are the important financial resources of the Spanish Kingdom, so there is still a lot of potential for trade.

In the past, people from the East Coast had been relying on agents to sell goods, and they made profits of nearly 200,000 pesos per year. However, after many years of cooperation, they found that these agents were somewhat inadequate in their enterprising spirit. They had been slow to develop the market for many years and were obsessed with the profits they already have. Therefore, when the persuasion was ineffective, people from the East Coast finally decided to open a business station in Bruges, a city that once served as the European economic center in the 16th century, and started a business openly.

Lin Dingzhi and the staff of the business station carefully established the commercial measures to be implemented in the next stage, and then chatted with several business representatives who were exposed by some state-owned factories in China, secretly, and finally, under the protection of dozens of mercenary cavalry, they crossed the Scheld River and arrived in The Hague.

As the political capital of the United Provinces, The Hague has been a huge place of right and wrong for many years. The members and chief representatives selected by the provinces gather here, and each has his own opinions and wants to impose his own opinions on the other side. Countless debates were held in this person, one after another, either became famous here, became the targets of various forces, or were discredited, and political life was limited to the end.

Now the Republicans in the Hague's third-level parliament still have a certain advantage. It can even be said that they have the upper hand in the parliament in most cities across the country. Even in provinces like Friesland and Groningen that traditionally supported the Orange family, many commercially developed towns also supported them. The Orange supporters are mostly concentrated in rural areas, because only there are enough land nobles there.

However, the biggest flaw of the Republicans is the lack of guns. The current army in the United Provinces was actually created by Prince William III of Orange in the last French-Dutch war. Overall, it was actually loyal to him, even if some of them were not so loyal, it would not be an exaggeration to cut off his private army in recent years. Unless Prince Orange did something that obviously violated the interests of the country, it would be difficult for others to shake the loyalty of the army to him.

Therefore, under such circumstances, William III's ruling status can be said to be relatively stable. Even if the Republican MPs caused him quite a lot of trouble in the parliament, he often refused to accept it, and even simply threatened by force. For example, the previous year, Van Boyningen gathered a group of MPs, which influenced many people in the Netherlands and Zelan Provincial Parliament and encouraged everyone to reduce military expenditures (in fact, it was a disguised weakening of William III's influence). As a result, an Amsterdam MP was shot dead by an unknown person in his apartment. This massive operation was immediately overturned.

Many times, Lin Dingzhi actually admires the courage of Van Boyningen, a person who inherited the political legacy of the DeWitt brothers. He has brought together a group of colleagues of parliament who are obviously not good enough to make trouble and keep giving the Orange family eye drops. It is a miracle that he can live to this day.

Of course, to some extent, it is understandable. Nowadays, the United Province has been a few years since the nightmare invasion by France. The people are always good at forgetting, and heroes are always betrayed. Therefore, the overall environment of the United Province has begun to slowly turn to the republican. Even if the army is still loyal to Prince Orange and ensure that no one dares to covet the supreme position of the United Province rule, to be honest, it is quite annoying to see the parliament always sing the opposite tune with it. Occasionally "handling" a few members of the most happy dance requires political reputation and influence, so naturally we must be very cautious.

Therefore, the main thing that defends Van Boyningen now is the overall environment. Especially two years ago, after he personally negotiated with the French to reduce tariffs to the level of 1664, the merchants in the United Provinces were jubilant. The republicans gained a lot of hopes in that time, which made anyone who wanted to conduct a political assassination of Van Boyningen very hesitate and feared that the entire society would be completely broken. After all, it was no longer during the French-Holland War against the Devet brothers that year, and the Orange family could not have been doing whatever they wanted.

In fact, the French also liked the republicans. This more represents the political faction of the large merchant class pursuing commercial interests, advocating reconciliation with France, and was extremely vigilant against the British, which almost perfectly fits France's foreign policy. But the Orange faction is different! This political faction, which is actually the private power of the Orange family, has traditionally regarded France as its mortal enemy and has been determined to weaken France's strength and influence, because in terms of origin, they are all from land aristocrats, and naturally hate the French who are determined to embezzle the land, rather than the British who focus on commercial interests.

From 1683 to 1684, due to the serious consequences of political assassination, the relationship between many cities and the Orange family was at a freezing point. At this time, the French, with a keen sense of smell, also quickly attacked and issued many Dutch-language brochures smuggled into the United Provinces for a large number of distributions. In this brochure, the French listed the various bad deeds of the Orange family over the past hundred years, criticized them for trampling on the traditional power and prestige of the city without any scruples, and were a complete tyrant.

It can be said that this propaganda by the French still played a certain role and influenced the choice of many cities. In August 1684, although Prince Orange strongly opposed it, in the final vote of the third-level parliament, he still passed a resolution to conclude a friendly trade treaty with the Kingdom of France with four votes and three votes. This undoubtedly shocked Prince Orange and almost used despicable means to cause trouble until the French sent him a big gift: the persecution of Protestants became more and more intense, and many people fled to the Netherlands. Therefore, the news fermented deeply in the Netherlands and aroused the disgust of many people. Prince Orange seized the opportunity to work again between provinces, and finally voted again before the end of that year to abolish the agreement signed with the French.

It can be said that Prince Orange almost completely failed in this confrontation, and the result was that the French's crazy attempt to kill him gave him an assist, allowing him to start from a religious perspective, unite more centrist factions to his side, and eventually repel the Republican offensive again and win.

Lin Dingzhi has lived in Paris for many years and is very clear about the various situations in France. He also spends huge amounts of money to buy intelligence all year round, so he still has a relatively accurate grasp of the current situation. He is very clear that the Republicans and the Orange faction are the two major forces in the United Provinces, and almost no one can completely defeat the other. In peace, the Republicans are undoubtedly the dominant ones, but once the situation is tense and the country faces enemy invasion or religious beliefs are threatened, the influence of the Orange faction will quickly gain. The large number of political centrists in the United Provinces will turn to Prince Orange, causing its power and prestige to skyrocket overnight.

When he just set off from Paris, through his friends, Lin Dingzhi knew that France would recently issue a decree to raise the import tariff rate of Dutch goods to a higher level in 1667, in order to curb the trend of Dutch goods fleeing into the French market in recent years. It was also to punish the Dutch people to help a large number of Huguenots escape in France.

Lin Dingzhi believed that when these news finally reached The Hague and Amsterdam, the relationship between the two countries would definitely be further improved. Even the Dutch merchant class could not tolerate such a thing as raising tariff levels, let alone those who had long been dissatisfied with them. In this case, some people who had gathered slightly were probably dissatisfied with the republicans. Many of them were now tired of the French. No one would have been kind to France at this time. Therefore, Prince Orange, who has been known for his tough anti-French appearance for many years, is naturally the best object of allegiance, because only he can say no to France and ensure that the United Provinces will not be invaded by this evil neighbor.

Lin Dingzhi is even more sympathetic to Van Boyningen. After struggling for so long, he was about to improve. As a result, the French gave this an own assist, which directly triggered the anger of the Dutch. Therefore, they dare not say anything publicly now. They can only criticize the French as they follow the crowd, and then look at Prince William III of Orange in a harsh manner to curb people's hearts, adjust their foreign policy, and tighten the big network against the French step by step.

Lin Dingzhi finally had dinner with several Republican backbone members, including Van Boyningen, on the night of the 30th. During the meal, he vaguely revealed some news about the new French tariffs to everyone present, which caused shock and anger to Van Boyningen and others. Some people even worried that the war was about to break out!

Van Boyningen couldn't help asking Lin Dingzhi if the war broke out between France and the United Provinces in the next one or two years, which side should the Republic of China on the East Coast? Lin Dingzhi hesitated for a while and explained to them that once the war broke out between United Provinces and France, it would be difficult for the East Coast to stand on the side of the Netherlands morally, and would sell all kinds of goods to them at preferential prices, and could even undertake more dangerous war theatre transportation work (i.e., delivery to the local ports of the Netherlands). However, he also admitted to Van Boyningen that if the scale of the war expands and the French army appears in Italy or the Iberian Peninsula, even if the Republic of China on the East Coast is reluctant, it will decisively intervene in the war, use the navy to attack France's coastal trade, force them to stop, and ensure that Spain and the Italian region are in peace.

Van Boyningen was also a little surprised. Because the French Navy has developed in the past twenty years, it has been quite good. In terms of the number of warships and tonnage, it is actually no worse than that of the Netherlands and England, and the number of professional warships is even close to that of the Netherlands. The sum of England is shocking. Once the naval war broke out between the two sides, no one dares to guarantee who will win and who will lose. Although traditionally, people probably think that the Netherlands and England will win, who can say that such a war is accurate? The French's huge fleet rules

The model is there! Therefore, he really admires the East Coast Navy for the courage to come to this muddy water. How much interest does the East Coast people have in Spain and Italy? To be so safe? Even if the Italian bankers just joined forces to borrow 5 million yuan of cash to the East Coast people, it would not be like this? After thinking about it, Van Boyningen can only envy the good luck of the Italians and the Spanish. With such powerful allies on their side, it should be able to effectively deter the French from their actions, right?

Of course, from the perspective of its own interests, Van Boyningen even darkly hoped that the French would go their separate ways, send troops across the Pyrenees, or simply take up the Hot Nazia, and drag the East Coast into the quagmire of war, so that everyone's pressure would be shared. However, the East Coast people lacked the ability to interfere in the continental region, and heard that they were still in conflict with the Russians in the Black Sea. Therefore, the so-called "intervention in the war" is probably to dispatch navies to harass French coastal trading ports and ensure their interests in the Western Mediterranean. This degree of intervention, even if there are losses, is limited and controllable, and is not enough to drag a country into a complete war. Recognizing this, Van Boyningen felt particularly regretful. It was a pity that it could not pull the East Coast into the war!

However, one thing that is more joyful is that the people on the east coast seem to be very unfamiliar with France. The intention to target and contain them is very obvious. Perhaps they don’t want to see the French annex Northern Italy or even Spain to create a compound power of maritime power, land power, right? Once such a freak country appears (such as France occupying Spain), it will inevitably cause panic among everyone. Even the east coast, which is thousands of miles away, should be very uneasy, so it is appropriate to curb in advance, which is completely understandable!
Chapter completed!