On November 20, 1678, Gao Wengang, the plenipotentiary envoy of the Eastern Republic of China to Europe, who had been in Amsterdam for some time, was finally received by William III, son-in-law of the Prince of Orange and Duke of York.

The Prince of Orange's face was not very good, and it was said that he had just recovered from an illness, but he spoke with a rather aggressive feeling, for example, he directly accused the East Coasters of two major crimes, one was to cause a horrific "massacre" in The Hague, and it is said that the murderer returned to the East Coast safely, and it will be used again in the future; The second was the unprovoked occupation of Dutch South Africa, which caused great losses to the East India Company and the United Provinces.

Gao Wengang was born in a diplomatic family, and he has been trained for many years, so it is very simple and light to reply to these so-called "cross-examinations", which are all procedural words, not very difficult, not to mention that others did not really embarrass him, but just vented the dissatisfaction in his heart.

Subsequently, Gawain carefully filed a warrant to cancel the warrants for the DeWitt brothers and return their family estate in Dortrecht so that John DeWitt could return to the United Province. Sure enough, the Prince of Orange was a little angry at this, and refused as soon as he opened his mouth, leaving no room for maneuver for Gao Wengang.

Gawain suddenly understood that the Prince of Orange was probably extremely disgusted with the Republicans and DeWitt, probably because of his experience as a child. In that year, after his father staged a mutiny and failed to seize power, John DeWitt, as the political spokesman of the bourgeois republicans, imposed a strict surveillance policy on him and his mother, including 1. removing the young Prince of Orange's original bodyguard and replacing it with a guard sent by the government; 2. The education of the Prince of Orange was taken over by a teacher appointed by the government, of course, this was not implemented thoroughly, and when the Prince of Orange was young, many Orange parliamentarians worked collectively and succeeded in winning the right to educate the Prince of Orange by his mother (Mary, Princess of England and daughter of Charles I), and the high cost was also borne by the Dutch provincial government; 3. Restricted the investment and annexation of land by the traditional nobles of the provinces of Friesland, Groningen, Oberethel, Drenthele, etc., and also restricted these people from having too much contact with the Prince of Orange in order to weaken his influence, since these traditional nobles held a high proportion of positions in the army.

The above are just some of the more well-known big measures, not to mention that there are many small methods to disgust the Orange family - these small measures may not have been ordered by DeWitt, but there is never a shortage of guys in this world who dare to engage in political speculation, and they can do anything in order to flatter DeWitt - so, for more than 20 years, the Orange family has really had enough of all kinds of birds, and the family's financial resources and influence have been greatly reduced, so when they seized a good opportunity and turned over to power, It was only natural to take revenge on the DeWitt brothers, though the means of retaliation were a bit chilling.

So this time, Gawain just proposed to return John DeWitt to the United Provinces, which was not surprisingly rejected by William III. He's really tired of it now, a bunch of people in the three-tier councils are making trouble, and there has been a resurgence of republican forces in the provincial and municipal councils, and the influence of the Orange party in the local area has been greatly reduced. Coupled with the fact that the war had been fought for many years, the country's finances were heavy, the people were miserable, and the army of 80,000 commanded by the Prince of Orange was also deadlocked with the French in the South Netherlands, and it was difficult to advance an inch, and he was never able to drive the enemy out of this buffer zone between the two countries, so his prestige naturally suffered to a certain extent.

How could William III be willing to allow John DeWitt to return to the United Provinces under these circumstances? Although this person's reputation among the people is not as good as before, and there are many people who scold him, it is undeniable that his ability to connect businessmen and republicans from all walks of life is still very good, and his influence is very high. Once he is allowed to return, he may not be able to subvert his position, but it is not difficult to cause trouble for himself in the parliament and in the provinces, and increase the voice of the dissenting voice. Therefore, as long as William III is not stupid, it is absolutely impossible to put this man back, unless you offer a price that he will have a hard time refusing.

"John DeWitt is involved in a number of charges such as treason against the state and murder of nobles, and this is a wanted warrant jointly issued by the joint provincial government and the Estates-General, and if it wants to be removed, unless the seven provinces appoint judges to reconsider it at the same time, and I don't think the result will be any different if it is retried." Young William III really had a sense of annoyance now about these East Coast heretics who had ruined their good deeds in front of Gwangenpoter's prison, especially since they wanted to bring back their number one political enemy, the nightmare of their youth, back to the United Provinces.

Gawain was also a little silent when he heard William III say this. Of course, he knew that since the DeWitt brothers and their core "fled" the South Netherlands for fear of persecution, the Parliament and the government, which were completely dominated by the Orange family at that time, declared them "traitors", issued arrest warrants one by one, and left the post of Speaker of the Third Chamber vacant, so that the control of the Orange family reached its peak.

Now that a few years have passed, it is inevitable that the Orange family will slowly decline from the peak, as has happened many times in history, and then pardon DeWitt and others at this time - this is the prerogative of the Orange family, as the largest nobleman in this country, the Prince of Orange has the right to pardon DeWitt, this is another way in addition to the retrial of the case by the judges of the seven provinces - is it because his family has not declined fast enough? What do you do Spring and Autumn Dream!

And since the attitude of the Prince of Orange has been so resolute and clear, it is not good for Gao Wengang to continue to dwell on this matter, because that will obviously only arouse the anger of the other party even more and make things develop in a more unfavorable direction. So he cleverly shifted the subject, shifting his focus to the resumption of trade between the two countries.

You must know that before the great changes in the United Provinces, this commercially developed country was the largest agent of goods on the East Coast, selling all kinds of goods worth millions of yuan to the Mediterranean, Baltic and North Sea countries through various channels every year, making great contributions to the sales of industrial products on the East Coast, and of course the Dutch also made a lot of profits from it - for example, the De Hare family, which has always been close to the East Coast, started by acting as an agent for iron products on the East Coast. In the end, he simply closed most of his iron-smelting workshops in Sweden (which also had an element of persecution by the Swedish royal family), and wholeheartedly acted as an agent for East Coast ironwork, which made great profits.

However, after the people on the east coast brazenly sent troops to collect the Dutch South African colonies, the relationship between the two countries existed in name only, and the orders of the United Provincial Government, which originally accounted for a large proportion of the trade, were directly canceled (most of them were later given to the British), and many Dutch wholesalers were also hindered by various relationships, and it was inconvenient to act as agents for goods from the east coast, so the trade between the two countries suddenly plummeted, except for a little smuggling, it was infinitely close to zero, and there was no one.

As a last resort, the people on the east coast had to go all out to find other agents, such as the Courlands, such as the Italians. It's a pity that the Courlands explored the Baltic trade unfavorably, far from meeting the expectations of the people on the east coast, I don't know if they really can't, or because of the Dutch's prestige, they don't dare to show their strength. The Courlands, Genoese and Venetians have only increased their market share in Italy, while Greater Spain has seen a rapid decline in sales due to the outflow of precious metals from Spain – similar to the Ottoman Empire, which has been in a trade deficit for many years due to years of "blood loss" (already a lot of money shortages and a trade deficit for many years), except for the import of some East Coast ordnance.

Under these circumstances, the people of the East Coast had to take on their own heavy responsibilities, and developed the French market, which had been closed to the East Coast for many years, through various channels, and obtained export quotas (low tariff rates) for some commodities to France, so that the domestic industrial goods market on the East Coast breathed a sigh of relief, although the lack of operation was still relatively uncomfortable, but it could barely be maintained.

Of course, this situation is certainly not a long-term solution. In the case that the East Coast has solved some of the overcapacity problems through large infrastructure, the East Coast has been trying every means to solve the problem of commodity exports to Europe for many years, and even studied the financial situation of several major countries very "intimately", trying to help them increase the amount of imported goods without a large outflow of precious metals, and this first step is naturally the United Province of Europe's commercial leader.

Next, together with the two commercial officials he had brought with him, Gao Wengang carefully continued to introduce to the Prince of Orange the "advantages" of resuming trade with the East Coast, and focused on consolidating the "sea coachman's" extensive sales network and countless agents relying on cheap and high-quality East Coast goods. You know, now the rapid rise of industry and commerce in England, although the German region is politically divided, but the industry is prosperous, the business is developed, these two regions have taken advantage of the east wind of the war, large quantities of exports including weapons, military materials, iron, daily necessities, textiles, food, building materials, glass, leather and other goods, very made a large windfall, but also gradually threatened the commercial channels of the United Provinces.

If we put aside the old era when the republicans had the upper hand (and also the era when the United Provinces abolished their governing positions), the commercial center of Amsterdam would have reacted and implemented countermeasures, how can the United Provinces still be good and indifferent, and even help the country's industrial and commercial progress by constantly giving large orders to the Kingdom of England, it is really strange that the United Provinces have not been involved in wars in the past, such as during the war with Spain, They reduced their dependence on England's industrial products by importing large quantities of weapons and military supplies from the East Coast, Germany, Portugal, and northern Italy, which shows that the republicans did carve their vigilance against Britain in their bones, and even did not hesitate to get close to the French for this purpose, which greatly angered the Orange faction who advocated a coalition against France.

However, Gao Wengang and his two subordinates said that their saliva was dry, but they did not say anything about William III. The young nobleman seemed to have some agreement with the English merchants, or he attached great importance to the power of England as a country, or even because he was a Protestant power with England, so he very neatly rejected the proposal of the East Coasters, saying that the United Provincial Government had no plans to reopen trade negotiations with the East Coast in a short period of time, and at the same time said that the Dutch South African colony was forced to be "sold" to the East Coast Republic of China (which has been approved by Parliament and signed by the Prince of Orange for a price of 200,000 guilders) , which greatly hurt the feelings of the people of the United Provinces, who are now reluctant to negotiate such matters with the East Bank.

was rejected twice in a morning in a row, even the clay man was a little angry, not to mention Wen Gang, a second-generation high-ranking official with an extraordinary background. Therefore, his face also turned cold, and although there was still a polite smile on the corner of his mouth, it was already reluctant to look closely, showing the dissatisfaction and irritability in his heart. Subsequently, he tried to fight for it a few more times, but the Prince of Orange's attitude was really resolute, and he did not give in at all, which made Gao Wengang feel very dissatisfied. Feeling that there was no point in flowing any longer, he resolutely got up and took his leave, returning to the former East Coast Merchant House in Amsterdam, which had only been issued by the Dutch for a few months.

The merchant hall seems to have been requisitioned as a temporary warehouse for a while ago, and the huge pavilion area is scattered with a lot of salted fish, rotten vegetable leaves, and occasionally some dung left by cattle and horses, and the whole thing looks like a black miasma. Moreover, more importantly, a batch of goods worth tens of thousands of yuan that was originally stored in the merchant hall has disappeared, and the East Coast staff who came in advance have run many times, and only asked for a few thousand guilders in compensation from the Dutch, which is also unlucky. However, considering that the hands and feet of the East Coast Army in Zeeland Province were not so clean before, and they had the demeanor of a locust army, Gao Wengang did not intend to continue the investigation, and directly informed the Shangguan side to re-account and write off the deficit.

After settling down in a newly renovated room, Gao Wengang did not waste time, and immediately gathered all his entourage and the staff of the merchant hall for a meeting together. At the meeting, Gao formally appointed the director of the Amsterdam trading station and other personnel, and arranged the next stage of work tasks for them: mainly to try to restore some old relations in the past, especially those wholesalers with a deep republican background, and to make great efforts to restore a little business.

In addition, he named a few more people, from all departments, about seven or eight people, and planned to take them with him, and leave Amsterdam by boat, and go to England, France, and Spain to deal with some of the backlog of affairs, and at the same time focus on the matter of the Pampa plain with Madrid - after such a long delay, it is time for the Spaniards to make a statement!