On September 20, 1688, after avoiding a storm, the Portuguese task force of the East Coast Republic of China finally arrived in Port Lisbon.

However, only a part of the arrival this time, about thirty ships looked like. Due to the storm, the fleet could not maintain its formation at sea. Many ships were separated at night and did not follow the main fleet led by Mo Liehen to Lisbon. Fortunately, they all knew where the destination was. If nothing happened and the ship was in good condition, they should arrive one after another in the next period of time and meet with the main fleet.

The emergence of the East Coast fleet caused a great sensation among the Portuguese. In particular, the three third-deck battleships of the "Executive Committee", the "Liberator", and the "Scavenger" (the "Miletto" is temporarily out of touch), have become dazzling stars in Port Lisbon. The Portuguese were envious and jealous when they saw it, and at the same time they also had a new understanding of the strength of the East Coast Navy: one such warship is often shocking, and can generally be used as a symbol of a country's naval force, but the East Coast people actually have three equipment, and this is indeed a big deal!

At the same time, some small ideas that existed in the hearts of many Portuguese merchants and nobles also disappeared under this naked display of strength. It is best to be cautious and honest in dealing with countries with such powerful warships, so as not to cause unnecessary misunderstandings and cause disaster to the country.

As an international large commercial port, Lisbon naturally has ships from other countries in the port, and there are no shortage of spies who spy on intelligence. Therefore, the news of the arrival of the East Coast Navy Fleet in Europe will be spread to all parts of Europe in the future and presented to the desks of monarchs of various countries. In this era, when formal maritime trade was booming, even some traditional mainland countries were actively developing maritime trade, so they were very concerned about who had a strong naval fleet. Therefore, the news of the arrival of the East Coast Navy Fleet will continue to ferment in the future and have a very far-reaching impact.

The East Coast people are naturally happy to see this. Enhancing the influence of the country by promoting force is originally one of the tasks of the Navy's Portuguese task force this time, and they hope to be known by people from more countries. The information will be distorted during the spread. Perhaps the East Coast people will be anchored in the port and have three battleships, but as the spread is transmitted, it may become five or six, which will further enhance the image of the East Coast people and enhance the influence of the country.

In addition, after learning about the situation of the East Coast Fleet, the French, Dutch, and British people will inevitably have some concerns, and they will be even more suspicious, worried about the purpose of the East Coast Fleet to set up Europe. Especially in the United Provinces that have had a not-so-pleasant quarrel with the East Coast (Prince Orange accused the East Coast of sponsoring the opposition), if they had a richer imagination, they would probably suspect that the East Coast Fleet was coming to war with them now.

In short, the Port of Lisbon, which was originally relatively calm, caused huge waves due to the arrival of the East Coast Fleet, and then began to spread slowly to the distance, affecting more countries and regions. When making decisions in the future, the monarchs of these countries will inevitably consider the factors on the East Coast more when looking for partners. This is one of the main reasons why the East Coast people added a special naval budget and spent a lot of money to send this fleet to Europe.

"From the moment we entered the Port of Lisbon, we have become thorns in the eyes of many people. But this doesn't matter. It's a mediocre person not to be jealous of others. Our powerful fleet will naturally panic many people. Secretary Wang, have you found any interesting information recently? In the captain's office of the Executive Committee, Colonel Mo Liehen, the commander of the task force, looked at the secretary of the ambassador to Lisbon sitting opposite him, and asked with a smile.

"Portugal and the United Kingdom have a close relationship, so we naturally found out some things, and they are not quite the same as what the London Iron Mansion learned. We can confirm each other." Secretary Wang took a sip of tea and replied with a smile: "Portugal is a country with a very strong Catholic atmosphere, so a lot of news here is about religion. The most interesting one is that King James II of England recently announced the abolition of the Criminal Law of the Criminal Law, which means that Protestants can no longer punish Catholics with religious belief issues, which aroused the dissatisfaction of the British Church and many Protestant merchants and nobles. But James was untouched and continued to insist, as if Catholics had already occupied an advantage in the UK."

In fact, James II is indeed a little confused. Less than three years after he ascended the throne, a bunch of people in China who opposed him, and Congress deducted the funds that should be allocated every few days, but he was still unmoved and issued a very high-profile policy after another to favor British Catholics to suppress the rebound sentiment of Protestants. It was really as if England is now the Catholics who have the dominant position.

Moreover, at the beginning of this year, his confidants sent to Ireland to cause a series of persecutions of Protestants, which triggered religious sentiment in England and made more and more people opposed him. The ones who controlled Ireland for James II were his confidants, Tagneil and Ferton, who were unscrupulously persecuted the Protestants, who already accounted for the minority of Ireland, took away their land and property and gave them to Catholics.

Fatton, who served as the Supreme Court, even pointed out in public: "Forty thousand people (referring to Protestants) are all villains, and none of them are not traitors, traitors and scums, they are not worthy of forgiveness." This shows the tragic operation of Ireland to persecute Protestants at this time. A large number of traders, artists, scholars and handicraftsmen fled to England. Ireland's foreign trade income dropped a lot, so that even James II was considering whether to remind his two confidants, restrain their behavior a little bit too much, and not to do it too much.

Of course, if it were just this, the men of the London Parliament might not be very excited, because the Irish people are also untrustworthy in their eyes. They are second-class citizens, and persecution is persecuted. Although it is very worrying, it is not enough to explode the house. However, recently, James II did something even more idiotic, that is, to send an envoy headed by Earl Castelmann to Rome, to express friendship and surrender to the pope, and to put forward the opinions of Britain to officially return to the Catholic country. This undoubtedly caused an uproar in London, and suddenly intensified the conflict between the royal family and the parliament.

According to the bill enacted by Congress, anyone who contacts the Pope is a very serious crime and will be punished for the crime of great rebellion. However, since the person who committed the crime is the king, it is difficult to punish. But there is no doubt that the relationship between Congress and the royal family is irreversible, and James' move is also extremely reckless and inappropriate. Under the current system of Britain, the king's power cannot be considered small, but it is definitely not as large as imagined. Especially when the fiscal power is restricted by Congress, the king cannot win over enough military forces, and the situation always seems unstable.

In short, the situation in Britain has completely lost control. Members of Congress have begun to hold meetings to create public opinion at home and let the social elites understand how terrible what King James II is doing. Their souls will not be redeemed and their property will be deprived. Some people even pointed out sensationally that because of some ulterior motives between King James II and Paris, the British people may suffer even more terrible losses.

Whether true or false, these news has been circulated rapidly in England and has had a wide impact. Many Protestants who originally supported the royal family were muttering and began to leave James II's side. For example, the king's brothers Rochester and Clarlington were originally important supporters of the king, but have now resigned. For example, the king's former thug, Jeffries, known as a cruel official, also complained about the king's religious policies in public, which in turn aroused the king's suspicion. The holy family was greatly declining and had to leave the center of power. Even the king's favorite Sunderland secretly communicated with Prince Orange, becoming an undercover agent around James II, constantly sending out various confidential information.

There are countless such acts of resignation or turn against each other. Almost every day, people who originally supported the king changed their camps and devoted themselves to Congress. Merchants even began to connect and used various means to reduce the import and export tariff revenue, which was originally an important source of wealth in the king, further hitting James II.

At the same time, a public opinion beautification campaign carefully created for Prince William III of Orange and his wife is also continuing. Various groups, including churches, colleges, and business circles, sang praises for him, calling him "intelligent and decisive", "cautious and humble", and at the same time "deeply hated France". During the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, decisively agreed to Britain to withdraw the soldiers of six regiments, avoiding a civil war with all beings.

These public opinion beautification actions made the vast majority of British people believe that it seemed to be in the interests of most people to let Prince Orange and his wife inherit the British throne. William III himself seized this opportunity and sent the special envoy Deckwirt to London to contact many prominent local areas, and at the same time promoted the prince's own majesty. William III instructed Deckwirt to publicly protest some of James II's policies, and on the other hand, he should "put his name" to various figures in Congress in an appropriate way.

The calm and sophisticated Deckwirt completed the character very cleverly. He successfully convinced the English that once William III was in power, there would never be any action against the Protestants. At the same time, he also pointed out that the time is not yet ripe and we should wait patiently. Because he still needs time to clean up the situation in the United Provinces, the Republicans have caused him a lot of chaos and the political situation is a bit unstable. If the labor army is expeditioning to England at this time, he is afraid that Amsterdam and The Hague will change.

However, the birth of James II's son changed all this, forcing William III and the British ministers to speed up the steps and advance the action of landing in England to become king. The birth of James II's male heir would shift the sequence of succession of his daughter Mary's throne and challenge the right to inherit the legal inheritance. William III could not do so, so he could only step up the action without hesitation and take action to take over London.

According to the latest news obtained by the East Coast people, including the Bishop of London, Earl of Danby, Earl of Nottingham, Earl of Devon, Earl of Dorset, Duke of Norfolk, Lord Dramael, Lord Ellander, Mr. Hampton, Mr. Bowler, Mr. Leicester and other great nobles, great merchants, as well as many "outstanding citizens" in the capital London (mostly merchants, priests, officers, scholars and artists), they signed and requested Prince William III of Orange to send troops to England to help the kingdom restore freedom.

It can be said that under the step-by-step coercion of James II, British nobles and parliamentarians rarely abandoned prejudices and united together to deal with the "king who went astray" and welcome the more "tolerant prince". The most radical one of them, perhaps the most speculative one, Lord Shrewsbury, was originally a Catholic, and now publicly announced that the Protestantism had mortgaged 40,000 pounds with his property, and was determined to "defend Prince Orange with his sword."

Prince William III of Orange did not care too much at this time. He said that he "pleasantly accepted the requests from all walks of life in England" and would have the courage to shoulder the "helpful responsibility of protecting the people of England". To this end, he had begun to rectify the army to see how many officers and soldiers willing to follow him to London. If not enough, he would open the vault without hesitation, pull several mercenary corps that had been secretly contacted, and then board the ship with him and set off to London ascend the throne.

The prince had reason to believe that there were almost no trustworthy people around James II, and there were not many people supporting him in the Navy, and there were almost no army. Therefore, as long as his army successfully landed in England, it would be easy to ascend to the throne of England. What's more, James II was so stupid that he was still implementing his religious policy at this time, as if he thought he was not dying fast enough, and insisted on giving the throne to William III.

Colonel Molierei was also surprised when he heard the news. On the one hand, he was surprised that James II was so stupid, and on the other hand, he was surprised that Prince Orange was on the string. In his opinion, it would be best if William III could be prevented from entering London in time. If he really couldn't, then he would prevent him from serving in the position of the United Provinces, split the ties between England and United Provinces, and support the republicans to come to power.

However, no matter which aspect, the most urgent thing for East Coast people now is to find a place that is very close to both the United Kingdom and the United Provinces. Given that they are unwilling to find the French, they can only go to the South Netherlands, which is still under the Spanish. After thinking about it, because Antwerp had to pass through the waters of Zeeland under the control of the Netherlands and was abandoned, so the only choice left in the South Netherlands is the famous commercial port Bruges.

Since the decision has been made, it is not too late. Colonel Moliege asked Secretary Wang to contact Cadiz as soon as possible through the relationship of the Embassy in Lisbon, and let them go to Madrid to meet the King of Spain, and request that the Port of Bruges berth berth for the East Coast Fleet to be stationed.
Chapter completed!