Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 347 Should we send troops?
January 4

batavia
Located at the southwestern tip of the Indonesian archipelago, this place is the core of the Dutch colonies in Asia.

It was a pity. Originally, the Dutch wanted to set up their headquarters around the Strait of Malacca. However, the Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms were at their peak at that time. After several military expeditions, the Dutch returned in defeat. So they had no choice but to settle for the second best and set up their headquarters on the edge of the Sunda Strait.

However, the division of Spain and Portugal eventually gave the Dutch an opportunity.

After some collusion with Britain and France, they divided up all the Portuguese colonies in South Asia, and the Dutch gained influence over the Strait of Malacca as they wished.

But at that time Batavia had already begun to take shape, and this place was not too far from Malacca.

So after weighing the pros and cons, the Dutch Batavia Council decided to stay here permanently and never thought of moving again.

"Quiet! Quiet! The third round of debate on the TW incident begins now!"

After checking the time on his pocket watch, Van der Rhyne, who was sitting on the podium, slammed the gavel in his hand heavily on the table several times.

He was the governor of Batavia and also the chairman of the council.

However, according to Dutch tradition, the chairman did not have much power, and the people who could really make the decisions were the businessmen, administrative officials and Indian Council representatives in the audience.

As the knocking sound spread, the reviewers who were originally whispering fell silent.

Seeing this, Vanderlein lowered his head to look at the booklet on the table, and then pointed to a middle-aged man sitting in the third row.

"Mr. Whiteaker, it's your turn to speak now."

"Thank you, Mr. Chairman."

Upon hearing his name, Whiteaker stood up and bowed to the podium. After he stood up straight, he began to introduce himself to the nearly 100 colleagues.

"As everyone knows, we have been in the Governorate of TW for more than ten years. During this long history, our trade with Ming Dynasty has not been affected by the previous frictions."

"Correct!"

"Yes!"

"That's right!"

"Bang bang bang!"

"Quiet!"

Perhaps Whiteaker's words resonated with people who shared the same position as him, for before he had finished half of his words, there were waves of responses from the meeting hall.

In this situation, Van der Leyen had to come forward to maintain order. After the meeting place was quiet again, he signaled Whiteaker to continue speaking.

“But this idiot, Caron, actually took the initiative to provoke the Ming Dynasty and even attacked their important cities!
Now not only has TW been lost, we have also lost dozens of warships!

What's more fatal is that our trade with Ming Dynasty is likely to be seriously affected.
You have to know that this is nearly 10 million dong every year! ! Nearly 10 million dong! ! ! "

As soon as he finished speaking, the place became noisy again, but Vanderlein was not surprised by this. He hammered the table a few more times and handed the right to speak back to Whiteaker.

"So I think we should restore the relationship with Ming Dynasty as soon as possible. If Ming Dynasty also has such intention, then we can also give some compensation by leasing TW."

After saying this, Whiteaker bowed slightly to the podium and then sat back in his seat. It was obvious that the annual income of nearly 10 million dong was not enough to make him break off relations with the Ming Dynasty.

Just because everyone is in a different position, there will always be various ideas arising.

Merchants like him are naturally very concerned about the impact of the stagnation of trade routes, but for the military
"Thank you, Mr. Chairman."

Seeing Whiteaker sitting down, Vanderlein pointed to a middle-aged man in military uniform. Then the man stood up and spoke in a deep voice after completing the procedure.

"I think Mr Whiteaker's comments were made with his own interests in mind, and the interests of the Republic at large at the back of his mind.

We, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, are a powerful country that just defeated Spain in the Battle of the Downs!

If you don’t even react when your territory is occupied, how can you protect your business interests?! How can you survive in this world where the strong prey on the weak?! "

"well said!"

"support!"

"Bang bang bang!"

"Quiet!"

The middle-aged man in military uniform spoke very briefly, but after he sat down, many people expressed their support for him.

Faced with such a scene, van der Rhein had to bang the gavel hard again, but his position was actually inclined towards war.

After all, Ming Dynasty was an extremely rich country.

Not only do they have to purchase huge quantities of goods from the Ming Dynasty every year, but the Spanish and the English also have to spend a lot of gold coins there.

Now that the war has begun, we might as well take advantage of the opportunity to seize all of Ming's coastal areas.

By then, the products of the Ming Dynasty will be the products of Batavia, and his status as the governor will naturally rise.

just
How to convince these short-sighted businessmen?

With this in mind, Van der Leyen couldn't help but ponder in his mind, and became a little absent-minded about the subsequent debate.

".Given the huge population and vast land of Ming, I don't think the Republic has the ability to improve its control to the level of Batavia, so Mr. Chairman, I think we should take this opportunity to sign a more favorable treaty with Ming, rather than become a warmongering maniac like those pure-blooded bastards!"

"Traitor of Amsterdam! How dare you compare the Republic soldiers with those pure-blood bastards! I want..."

Since it is a debate, it is bound to be somewhat tense.

Van der Rhyne was used to this and did not intend to stop it as he had done before.

But when the words from both sides became more and more harsh, a figure walked in from the small door next to the rostrum. Then both sides swallowed their words and looked towards the rostrum at the same time.

Everyone knows that unless it is something extremely urgent, no one would come in to disturb Vanderline at this time.

But the world now is a peaceful and prosperous place for the Dutch, and there will not be any major events except in the Ming Dynasty.

As a result, the conference room that was noisy a second ago suddenly became silent, making everyone seem nervous.

"Governor, an emergency message from Manila."

"okay, got it."

The man did not deliberately control the volume, and the key words in his words were smoothly heard by everyone present.

But then again, Manila is now a tortoise with no attack capability. What urgent matter could come from there?

Under the gaze of all the reviewers, Van der Rhein finally read the letter from beginning to end. After that, he only thought for half a breath before speaking directly to the audience.

"Gentlemen, there is bad news. A few days ago, a Ming fleet consisting of 19 double-decker galleons visited Manila." Wow~~.

As soon as these words were spoken, there was an uproar in the audience.

The merchants who originally did not support going to war with the Ming Dynasty naturally found reasons to maintain peace, but the military and political personnel who advocated attacking the Ming Dynasty also felt that the war was approaching step by step.

It is undeniable that Spain is a very powerful country.

He confronted France and other countries on land and England and other countries on sea.

Even though its invincible fleet suffered heavy losses several times, it was rebuilt several times with the continuous transfusion of funds from the American colonies.

If the Spanish royal family had not spent most of the wealth obtained from colonial trade on flashy things, I think they would have been able to drain those countries half to death.

But they were defeated in the end.

They were defeated by the Dutch at sea and by the Allied forces on land.

It is easy to imagine that if the situation continues to develop in this way, Spain, which has already been weakened, will inevitably sink step by step under the joint encirclement of the Netherlands, Britain, France and Austria.

Until it completely becomes a second-rate country with no possibility of recovery.

just
"Mr. Chairman! The Ming Dynasty is a powerful empire with vast land and a huge population. If we force the Ming Dynasty and Spain together, the whole world will be plunged into war!"

"Mr. Governor! We must not let Spain have a chance to breathe! We must let them know what true power is before Ming makes the wrong decision!"

"Mr. Chairman."

"Governor"

"Bang bang bang!"

"Quiet! Listen to me!"

With the sound of the gavel, the meeting room returned to silence again, but looking at this scene that should have been commonplace, Van der Rhyne couldn't help feeling annoyed.

He could understand that the so-called "dispute" was just a strategy of the Ming Dynasty, but what could he do?
Is it true that the Ming Dynasty was forced to form an alliance with Spain?

After all, the Netherlands' strength is only superficial.

In terms of navy, England seems to be a little stronger; in terms of army, it is obviously no match for France;
If we ignore these two points, from an economic perspective alone, the Netherlands, which relies solely on transshipping goods to make profits, lacks a stable economic foundation.

After several rounds of pressure, the Ming Dynasty was forced to form an alliance with the Spaniards.
"Because of the massacre of the Chinese, the Ming envoy and Forcado had some disputes at the dock. It seems that there is no possibility of an alliance between Ming and Spain yet, so everyone should be cautious when voting."

"Governor! You!"

The middle-aged soldier was really confused about the Governor's betrayal.

He knew how profitable the East India Company was and how much of a fiscal surplus the Republic had each year.

With this money, the Dutch Republic could have become a powerful country like Spain, but it was because of these selfish businessmen and the corrupt and lengthy processes.

However, all of this money went into private pockets through various channels, and not a single cent was used for the country.

As a soldier who has fought for national independence for half his life, he knows very well that without the protection of swords, there would be no living space for plows and merchant ships in this world.

Therefore, he did not hesitate to go to war with the legendary powerful empire in order to use war to wake up this already slack country again.

But now.
Looking at the extremely astonished eyes of his ally, Van der Rhyne remained calm. When he was about to say something else, he spoke first.

"Dear General, I admit that I underestimated the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, but the situation has subtly changed anyway. We cannot allow the Spanish to gain an ally like the Ming Dynasty."

"But Governor-General! After all, the Ming Dynasty..."

"Believe me, General, I will make Ming pay for what happened in TW, but this time I have to rely on Mr. Whiteaker."
-
Zhu Cilang was of course not very clear about what happened in Batavia, but since he was able to come up with such a plan, he had some expectations about the final outcome.

Going back to the roots, during these turbulent years, each country has made different attempts at the system.

Although a political system like the Netherlands, which is purely formed by merchants, has shown advantages in business, its performance in other aspects is somewhat disappointing.

Take the position of overlord of the ocean for example.

At this time, the population of the Netherlands was much higher than that of Spain and Britain.

However, because their political system was purely controlled by merchants, they were extremely inclined to invest their strength in markets and trade routes that could generate immediate profits when competing for colonies. They paid little attention to uncivilized places like America. It was not until the Spaniards completed the cultivation of the market there that they began to covet it.

Clearly, this is a short-sighted country.

When facing such a country, Zhu Cilang was 70% sure that they would not take the huge risk of going to war with the Ming Dynasty.

But at the same time, he did not dare to be too confident. After all, there are so many people in a country, and it is not uncommon to produce one or two people with strategic vision.

If this plan really fails, he will still need to take the helm of things on the ocean.

So even though the letters from Yingtian in recent days have changed from indirect requests to clear requests for His Majesty to return to "Beijing", he still stays in Guangzhou and shows no sign of leaving.

Of course, Zhu Cilang, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, did not stay in Guangzhou just to waste time.

On the one hand, he was keeping a close eye on Gu Yuanjing's preparations for the Ming Maritime Trade Group, and on the other hand, he was constantly considering countermeasures based on the news coming from the front.

There is no need to say much about Gu Yuanjing. That group of merchants who started out as maritime traders have already invested so much money, so it shouldn't be difficult to get them to contribute some more manpower.

However, the news from the front made Zhu Cilang increasingly inclined to lead his troops into Yunnan personally.

At this point, some people may say that they are just a group of rebellious chieftains, and that they can be annihilated by sending a general with the cooperation of the Ming army in Yunnan.

But what really made Zhu Cilang come up with such ideas was not the situation in Yunnan, but Sichuan, thousands of miles away.

According to the report from Fan Yiheng who was hiding in Zunyi.

Some time ago, Zhang Xianzhong had transferred all the elite troops from various parts of Sichuan except for the necessary garrison.

Although its specific movements are still unclear, judging from the allocation of food and fodder by the Dashi Army, a large-scale war has occurred in the north.

north.

Very sensitive direction.

Zhu Cilang was not sure where Zhang Xianzhong died exactly, but he vaguely remembered that it was when he was fighting against the enemy in the north.

In this situation, he naturally had to think about it.

just
"Your Majesty, Lord Qian has arrived."

"Well, let him in."

(End of this chapter)