Dunkirk, this is the gathering place for Spanish pirate ships. Every time a war breaks out, the Spanish king will issue privateing permits to a large number of armed merchant ships, allowing them to plunder the merchant ships of hostile countries. This is what we learned from Spain from Queen Elizabeth of England.

Although the continental countries once regarded England as pirates, they found that the guerrilla tactics of privateers could defeat the strong with weak, and could also make the other party surrender by threatening the other party's maritime commercial activities. Spain, the Netherlands, and France also learned privateers tactics one after another.

Hundreds of privateers of all sizes gathered in Dunkirk, with large ships only a few hundred tons and small ships only a few dozen tons.

A big man was holding a roll of tobacco from North America, with sparks emitting cigarette butts, and he took hundreds of Spanish sailors onto a sailing warship.

De Hawks, a general of the Invincible Armada, took Spanish armed merchant ships and embarked on an attack on the English Channel. "Young men, His Majesty the King has declared war on the Queen of England. Behind us, we have the support of the entire continent, so we can plunder the merchant ships of the English and Chinese!

"Yes!" The Spanish sailors were enthusiastic.

This time they finally don’t have to fight alone, but have European countries as supporters who can declare war on England and China without any scruples!

The Spanish armed sailboat set out to hunt, and it was followed by a privateer of other Spanish nationality, capturing Chinese merchants and English merchant ships in the English Channel.

The sea is undoubtedly very vast, and the narrowest part of the English Channel is 34 kilometers. With the perspective of sailing boats in this era, it is only a difficult thing to catch a fixed ship in the English Channel. The privateer and merchant ship can only play cat and mouse games in the English Channel, all depends on luck.

"A English merchant ship was found ahead!"

De Hawks had just set out not long after he was lucky enough to capture the traces of English merchant ships in the English Channel.

"Go ahead at full speed, grab the English merchant ships, and take the hostages in exchange for ransom!" De Hawks excitedly threw the tobacco between his fingers into the sea.

Spanish privateers slapped their sails, and skilled sailors operated the rudders and chased towards the English merchant ships that appeared.

English merchant ships also found themselves targeted by privateers and desperately wanted to escape to their territorial waters.

The fierce competition unfolded in the English Channel, and Spanish privateers gradually caught up with the bulky merchant ships, and solid bullets poured on the hull of the English merchant ships, making holes.

English merchant ships used the few artillery on board to fight back, but their firepower was far worse than privateers disguised by warships, and many English sailors were killed by solid bullets.

The frightened English captain saw that the merchant ship was moving more and more slowly under the attack of the other party's artillery, and probably could not escape the disaster, so he had to ask someone to raise a white flag to avoid causing greater losses to his side.

The privateer approached, and Spanish sailors jumped onto the merchant ship with muskets or swords, capturing a ship of merchants and sailors.

"Give you all the goods, don't kill me, I'm willing to redeem myself with a ransom." The captain of England was obviously very clear about the trick, and knew that the Spanish pirates would not commit suicide in person, and would release people if there was a ransom.

This is a tacit understanding between privateers in various countries. If a person who kills a ship at will will be resisted by all the merchants of the kingdom, and even merchants in their own country will oppose this behavior because they are afraid that the other party's privateers will copy this kind of exaggerated practice.

"Take this merchant ship back to Dunkirk and we continue to hunt!" De Hawks allowed some Spanish sailors to control the English merchant ship, while others remained on the privateer.

English merchant ships were constantly attacked by privateers from Dunkirk in the English Channel, and these attacks were successively transmitted back to the city of London.

Not only the English Channel, but also the English merchant ships, Portuguese merchant ships, and Danish ships active in the North Sea were attacked by privateers from the continental alliance. For a moment, the sea was filled with smoke and the naval battle began.

Chu Yun came to visit Europe, and accompanied him fifty ships except for the merchant ships of Western companies.

A merchant ship driven by a Chinese merchant was attacked by a Spanish privateer while operating on the southwest coast of England. The seriously injured merchant ship fled to Portsmouth, and another merchant ship was also hijacked in the waters near Dunkirk.

The news of the attack on two Chinese merchant ships going out to London City, and other Chinese merchant ships that did not go out to sea could not help but feel scared.

These Chinese merchants who came to the West for the first time were originally curious about this place, so they sometimes left London City to explore the English Channel. However, these Chinese merchants lacked the experience of sailing here and did not know which privateer boats were rampant in the sea, so they were easily encountered privateer boats.

A large number of Chinese businessmen gathered at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce Hall, and they began to worry about their safety in the West.

"Our companion's merchant ship was captured by the Spanish, and they were also captured. We must ask the Spanish to give us an explanation!"

"The Western countries are so chaotic. Are they fighting all the time? Isn't there a unified big country that can manage the order here?"

"If the West is still so war-torn, it will be difficult for us to trade here. It was already very expensive to travel thousands of miles to transport goods to the West. If we still face the risk of being attacked by privateers, who else is willing to go to the West to do business in the future? Our local business is much more stable than here."

Chinese businessmen were all worried about their safety in the West.

Merchants are seeking profits, but the existence of privateers will threaten their profits and even their personal safety. They begin to doubt whether it is more profitable to come to the West to trade than to trade locally.

This is contrary to Chu Yun's original expectations. Chu Yun worked hard to become enemies of most of Europe in order to open up markets around the world and allow merchants to trade in various places. If merchants retreated back to their hometowns, they would lose the Atlantic Ocean, a market of hundreds of millions of people.

In this critical situation, Zheng Zhibao came out on behalf of the Admiralty to calm the fear of the merchants: "Now Spain and England have plans to go to war, so don't leave London City for the time being. After the war is over and ensure safety, you can sail to a safe waters. As for the captured merchants, we will negotiate with the other party as soon as possible to ensure the safety of all prisoners. If the lost goods are won, we will compensate the other party with compensation."
Chapter completed!