"The Dutchman's ship is gone." Peng Yuanzhi, the young secretary, walked into the official office on Zhifu Island and said softly to Shao Shude.

This is the heart of the people on the east coast of the Far East -- the headquarters of the pioneer team, the Heishui Security Command, the Northern Theater Command, and other institutions -- a large area of brick and stone Oriental buildings stand on the desolate and barren Zhifu Island, carved eaves and paintings, pavilions and pavilions, and the cost is very high at a glance.

Shao Shude was too old to stay in the dark and damp underground command room of the Yantai Fortress, so he spent a huge amount of money to build a new office area on Zhifu Island -- that is, in the Far East, where the Tiangao Emperor was far away, it would be impossible to "waste public funds" to build such a magnificent office space if he were on the mainland.

"In these European countries, the homeland is a policy, and the overseas colonies are another policy, which makes us all a little confused." Shao Shude, who was wearing a tweed coat, sat on a chair covered with a bearskin, dropped the pamphlet that he had been reading in his hand just now, and said with a look of injustice: "In Europe, the Dutch relations with us are constantly improving, but in this Far East, the Dutch East India Company is picking its nose at us, which is really unreasonable; And we are in Europe, the relationship with Portugal has always been very cold, and the two sides have no contact, and even out of strong Catholic feelings, the Portuguese are still more hostile to us, but in Asia, they have come from Macao to Dinghai and Yantai to improve relations and trade with us, which is really ...... I can't say that! ”

Shao Shude's words are not groundless. Because this year the Dutch are looking at the small amount of raw silk and tea sold to them in Dinghai Port. Finally, he verbally agreed to sever trade with the Qing court. However, Shao Shude and others still have doubts about this. I am not sure whether the Dutch will seriously implement it, but fortunately, the coastal waters of Fujian and southern Zhejiang have basically been controlled by the Zheng family, and the coastal waters of northern Zhejiang are the scope of activities of the navy on the east coast, and they dare not come over to make a ghost with the courage of the Dutch.

The sea area of the Changshan Islands is now the focus of the East Coast people's inspection, and it is estimated that the Dutch will not touch this brow again. The only thing left was the Jiangbei coast, but there were also ships passing by from the east coast from time to time, and if the Dutch did not want to make a diplomatic incident, it would be better to be more restrained - now the east coast also began to sell some raw silk and tea to them every year. If you don't know what to do, I'm afraid that the mighty "Cadiz Rock" will open the door to theorize.

However, although the Dutch softened their mouths, Shao Shude and others were still full of distrust of them in their hearts, just as the Dutch never trusted the East Coasters. Even though the Dutch East India Company specially sent ships to the territory of the East Coast this time, and brought rice, spices, precious wood, coral pearls, precious stones, lead, tin, iron, sulfur and other commodities needed by the East Coast people, this could not change Shao Shude's deep-rooted view, he still felt that these two-faced Dutch were extremely dangerous, and if necessary, it was better to encourage the Zheng family to send troops to take Taiwan -- but now that people are having a good time in Fujian, I am afraid they are not very happy to go to a miasma like Taiwan.

And with the Dutch, presumably, the Portuguese are much more "cute". This may be because their form is rather bad. From 1641 onwards, the Dutch East India Company grew in power on the waters of Asia. From the coast of East Africa to Japan in the Far East, they competed with the Portuguese in all directions. In the process, due to the loss of key Japanese trade, the financial strength of the Portuguese was far inferior to that of the Dutch, The Dutch shipped about 15 million florins worth of gold from Japan each year (the florin originally contained 3.5 grams of gold, and by the 50th of the 17th century, it contained about 2.8-2.9 grams of gold per florin, so even according to the most conservative calculations, this amount was still more than 20 million East Coast silver dollars), and in recent years, although the amount of gold and silver exported from Japan has slowed down, the Dutch have not had a problem shipping 13 million florins a year.

How can you say that this huge amount of money went away from the Portuguese and then into the pockets of the Dutch East India Company, how can you say not affect the balance of the balance of power between the two sides on the water surface of Asia? In recent years, the Dutch drove the Portuguese out of the East Indies, then conquered Malacca and Portuguese India, Malabar, the Coromandel coast, and then half of Ceylon. This is why they rushed to the door when they heard that the East Coasters were not at odds with the Dutch East India Company, saying that the armistice between them and the Dutch had just ended in 1652, and that war was about to resume on Ceylon and part of the Indian coast.

Shao Shude's appeal to the Portuguese was actually very clear, that is, the two sides joined forces to drive out the Dutch East India Company, and then sat down and slowly divided the interests. It's a pity that this goal is too big and unrealistic enough, and the main interest of the East coasters in the Far East is immigration, and everything else, including economic interests, can be discarded if necessary, so Shao Shude really does not want to agree to this request of the Portuguese.

It is one thing for the people on the east coast to engage in friction with the Dutch and even fight a low-intensity naval battle along the coast of Daming, and the Dutch may not even take it seriously, but if they really join forces with the Portuguese to fight with the Dutch East India Company, then the problem will be serious, the Dutch have seven or eight large professional warships and dozens of armed merchant ships in the East Indies, this force must not be underestimated, and if it retaliates, the seven professional warships on hand by Liu Haiyang may not be able to withstand it -- at that time, it will be difficult to stop the immigration business. And then all the migrant transports were loaded with artillery and armed? Isn't that!

Therefore, for the "guests" who came from Macao, Shao Shude could only say sorry, there is no problem in doing business, but the alliance with the Netherlands is still exempt, which is not in the interests of the East Coast Republic of China.

"It's all about profit." Hearing Shao Shude's complaint, Peng Yuanzhi quickly took back the pamphlet he threw away at random and put it away, then poured Shao Shude another cup of tea, and said: "It is not difficult to understand that the Portuguese want to make friends with us in the Far East, after all, they are having a hard time now. The Dutch are greedy fools, they may not be very hostile to us, but they are just habitually arrogant, and I feel that if we had not taken control of Ningbo Prefecture and resumed normal production, and were able to export some raw silk and tea to them, they might not have been willing to deal with us, in fact, this is normal. ”

"Forget it, as long as they don't touch our bottom line, then leave him alone, of course the business is done, and many of the goods they ship are also urgently needed by us, and the price is cheap, so fools don't buy it." Shao Shude drank a cup of Fenghua's camellia and said, "Tell me what happened to Wei Boqiu, right?" I remember that the representative he sent also approached you privately, what is the situation? ”

"That's ......" Peng Yuanzhi cleared his throat and said eloquently: "Deputy Commander Wei wants to go to the coast of Japan to make a fortune!" He said that at the end of the previous year and the beginning of last year, a Japanese ronin leader, Yubi Masayuki, rebelled in Edo (the rebellion was moved to the end of the year due to the butterfly factor of the people of the east coast), and they almost succeeded, and the shogun wasted all his efforts to put down this thrilling coup. And because these rebels played the banner of Tokugawa Yoshinobu and others, the lord of the Kii domain, during the uprising, this person was suspicious of the shogunate, and is currently under house arrest in Edo Castle, and many retainers and samurai leaders in the territory were ordered to cut their stomachs, and many stalwarts were also disbanded, and now the Kii domain is probably in the weakest stage, so ......"

"To the point, what's the benefit of hitting this place?" Shao Shude waved his hand and asked a little irritably. He is old, and he doesn't want to make extraneous branches, so he just wants to maintain the status quo, but none of the people under him are fuel-efficient lamps, and they can give you something to do if they have nothing to do, which is the case with Wei Boqiu. Last year's kidnapping of Tokugawa Yoshinobu had just been cleaned up, and now he actually wanted to do this Kii domain again, how much hatred did he have for this domain?

Deputy Commander Wei said that this domain was a famous musket production area of the shogunate, with a large number of industrial workers and relatively sophisticated technology, and it was rare that most of them were produced together, which was convenient for arrest and control. Moreover, he said that this domain is now leaderless, and there are not many people to gather at all, and it is remarkable that there are hundreds of samurai leading thousands of low-fighting peasant soldiers, and it is also a question whether they can be assembled under a surprise attack. Therefore, Deputy Commander Wei thought that we could gather troops and ships, land at the right time off the coast of the Kii Domain, and then take those craftsmen captive, which was an immeasurable fortune. ”

"Hmph, Lao Wei is also lustful!" Shao Shude took a sip of tea and commented: "I always think about Japan and North Korea. All day long, he made friends with the upper and lower cadres of the Matsuzen Domain, and changed his method to pass on his youngest son to the head of the family, Sima Zhao's heart is known to everyone. Alas, Lao Wei usually looks shrewd, but you see that his pursuit is really unrealistic! If you want to develop industry in the Far East, and you want to be the king of Korea and Japan, hmph, I want to see if he can do it in his lifetime. ”

"Commander, is this a yes or no yes?" Peng Yuanzhi asked softly.

"Let's see how it goes." Shao Shude waved his hand and said: "The migrant transportation season is coming to an end soon, and the ships will almost be empty after maintenance, but we have to see where the ships and soldiers will be used in the next step." I don't know if the Qing court is about to launch a major offensive in the near future, and the southern theater may need to use ships. (To be continued......)