On December 13, 1688, near the Strait of Dover, an east fleet was sailing at high speed.

It was a huge fleet consisting of two "Executive Committee"-class battleships, eight "Tsurotto"-class frigates, 12 "Star"-class light cruisers, and a number of auxiliary ships. They were supposed to be cruising the seas, intercepting what they thought were suspicious ships, whether the other side wanted to or not. There is no doubt that this is a very unfortunate act, because no one has given such power to the East Coast Navy, and no one has attacked the ships or merchants on the East Coast, and the East Coast itself is even more than 108,000 miles away, but they are so arrogant that they directly prevent the Grand Fleet from coming to Europe, and then use the South Netherlands as a base to brazenly interfere in the internal affairs of England and the United Provinces.

However, the world of the 17th century was a world of the jungle, and there were not many axioms - the East Coasters seem to be the most axiomatic in comparison, which has to be said to be a great irony - there are only powers. Therefore, when the Grand Fleet on the East Coast openly "enforces the law" on the North Sea, while the neighboring provinces of France, England, and the United Provinces are silent, it is conceivable that nothing will be able to stop them.

Today, this detachment is under the personal command of Lieutenant Commander Ding Zhen. Today, the Strait of Dover ushered in a rare good weather, with sunny days and calm waves. After yesterday's bad weather, the sailors finally had time to wash the deck, dry their utensils, and check the boat for any hidden dangers, in short, what should have been a very leisurely day.

However, when the lookout spotted a small fleet of ships ahead, the laid-back state came to an immediate end. Lieutenant Colonel Ding Zhen, who led the team, immediately made a decision and ordered to intercept and inspect the suspicious convoy, because it was actually sailing from the direction of United Provinces to Britain.

Surprisingly, the small fleet of five ships immediately chose to flee instead of slowing down and being inspected, even though they seemed to be significantly inferior to the East Coast side, but they still chose to flee, which is suspicious! Therefore, Lieutenant Colonel Ding Zhen ordered a full-speed pursuit, and he had to take it down.

In this way, the two fleets, one large and one small, began to chase each other. Because of the wind speed and ocean currents, the people on the east coast chased for several hours before catching up, and then divided the fleet into two groups, seized the firing formation, and threatened this fleet to stop the ship for inspection. Of course, they did not agree, and fired shells at the east coast.

In this way, the situation is clear, there is something wrong with this fleet! As a result, the East Coast Fleet was not polite and attacked it directly. Their firepower is undoubtedly ferocious, and although these ships of unknown nationality have surprising firepower and a large number of cannons, they are still a cut below the people on the east coast. Not to mention, they were also much inferior to the ships on the east coast in terms of speed and maneuverability, so they were quickly defeated, sinking two ships, one seriously damaged, and the remaining two hoisted the white flag and chose to surrender.

One of the two ships that surrendered was loaded with all kinds of supplies, such as munitions, medicine, food, etc., and the other, to the surprise of all people, carried more than 500 Walloon mercenaries from the South Netherlands. After a brief interrogation, the officers of the Main Directorate of National Intelligence who followed the ship learned that these men had been hired by William III, Prince of Orange, to go to Britain to seize power, which was somewhat shocking.

Lieutenant Colonel Ding Zhen soon got the news and knew that the Prince of Orange's men had quietly left the port the night before. Taking advantage of the silence of the second half of the night, they left several anchorages in the province of Holland and sailed into three groups for France, one of which landed at Devon (the other two destinations are unknown), but they were separated by bad weather last night and were intercepted and captured by the East Coasters at sea.

Lieutenant Colonel Ding Zhen did not dare to slack off on this news, and immediately dispatched two brisk "Star" class light cruisers with messengers to Bruges and Vlissingen respectively to report the news to Mo Lie'e and Mao Jun of the Navy and Army. It's been six or seven days since they've been out at sea, and they don't know what's going on in the rear, but it's always better to send this kind of news back as soon as possible.

As for the two ships captured in front of him (the one that was badly damaged was about to sink, and the people on the east coast rescued some of the supplies and personnel), they sailed to the port of Bruges for processing. The materials on the ship can be used for their own use, and those that cannot be used are sold on the spot to recover a part of the funds. There were also more than 700 mercenaries from the South Netherlands, and since they were all Spanish nationals, the East Coasters decided to be lenient and take them back to the port of Bruges for detention first, and then find a way to deal with them after this incident was over.

After dealing with this, Lieutenant Colonel Ding Zhen began to sail westward with the fleet, and began to search for other Dutch ships on the vast sea to see if he could catch some more. Although England is now largely under Parliament, and King James II of England is in a state of sorrow – and he has rejected two successive French offers to send troops to aid him, which is simply unreasonable – it would be good to be able to prevent some of William III's troops from going to England.

Late at night on December 15, a light cruiser of the Star class arrived in the port of Vlissingen and reported the news to the representative office of the Army on the Eastern Coast, which remained there. At this time, the army had also received the news of William III's departure from the port sent by the republicans. Under the confirmation of the two phases, this news is basically no problem, and it is already a sure thing!

The East Bank troops stationed at the Breda fortress were informed earlier. Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun, who was reviewing the troops here, rode back to The Hague overnight, and then met with Van Boiningen, the speaker of the three-level parliament of the United Provinces, and demanded that he immediately hold a vote to remove William III from his post as governor of the United Provinces, and at the same time create public opinion and jointly launch a joint campaign from several cities to wipe out the Orange faction and seize power as quickly as possible.

Van Boiningen was a little hesitant about this. He told Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun that it was not impossible to convene a three-tier parliament to vote to remove William III from the ruling position, but that required the full approval of the provincial deputies and parliamentarians. The provinces of Groningen and Oberijssel have always been Wilhelm III's strongholds, and they will most likely rebel in parliament and ultimately prevent the vote from passing, so he needs to think long-term and think of a foolproof solution.

Van Boiningen's words almost made Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun vomit blood in anger. When is this Nima, still such a mother-in-law! What about the representatives of the provinces of Groningen, Friesland, Oberijssell and others listening to the Orange family? Don't you have an army and money? I'm afraid of them! Mao Jun directly said to Fan Boiningen, ignore the others, directly hold a meeting to vote, and those who agree will receive 100,000 guilders, and those who disagree will be directly pulled out of the venue by the East Coast army. You must know that not every parliamentarian is rich, and not every parliamentarian is not afraid of death, Mao Jun doesn't believe that this can't be done!

To be honest, Van Boiningen was somewhat intimidated by this plan. He had never conceived of such a resolute and ruthless approach, and he was worried about the consequences of such coercion on parliamentarians, and whether it would be considered ineffective and illegal. However, Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun put a lot of pressure on him, and after thinking about it, he finally nodded and agreed.

Over the next few days, Van Boiningen began to send people to visit provincial parliamentarians and organize tandem events. For those parliamentarians from the three northern provinces, he adopted the means of money to win over the key points. Merchants and aristocrats were not always willing to become parliamentarians, as it would significantly crowd out their time and limit their activities to The Hague, which would be very inconvenient for them to run their businesses and travel for pleasure, so that professional politicians representing their interests would need to come to power as marionettes. For these politicians, there is still a possibility that they will be co-opted by money, and this is their chance.

As for Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun, he took some of the officers and soldiers of the Portuguese garrison and nearly 3,000 Russian mercenaries (screened prisoners of war) to quietly stationed at various key points in The Hague to control the whole city. The former Dutch garrison in The Hague, with poor combat effectiveness, had been transferred to a barracks outside the city, controlling the road to Amsterdam. By the way, I forgot to mention that the regular army and militia in The Hague are basically controlled by the republicans now, after all, if these people are not controlled, then they should not fight with William III and go home as soon as possible.

Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun set up his headquarters in the famous Gwangenporter prison, which was the place where William III imprisoned and tortured Admiral Cornelius DeWitt, and the East Coast army also used bayonets to disperse a large number of Dutch mob at the prison gate, creating the so-called "Gwangenporter Prison Massacre", which made the Prince of Orange grit his teeth. This time, the East Coasters still chose Gwangenport's prison as their general headquarters, which is also a bit of a diaphragm.

On December 18, Lieutenant Yang Chengdong escorted a batch of East Coast Army standard artillery to The Hague. Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun called him over, gave him some advice, and then hurried to Breda to join the main force stationed there. In addition to the 5,000 of them, there were about 12,000 Dutch troops. A considerable part of these people were dissatisfied with William III's curry favor with the navy and neglect of the army, and even more so with the fact that he might harm the interests of the Netherlands, so they quickly surrendered to the republicans, and the total number was about four or five thousand.

And once four or five thousand people come over, it's almost enough. With the words of some high-ranking officers, then these officers and soldiers alone can coerce the rest of the people to rise together, as long as anyone who is older in the military understands this.

The commander-in-chief of this army was Victor van Marlberg from Dordrecht, a fellow countryman of the De Witt brothers. He had served in the Dutch army before, but he was not very successful, he participated in the last Franco-Dutch war, behaved decently, and faced off against the French army in the South Netherlands for several months, so he should be considered an experienced veteran. The five thousand soldiers of the East Coast were in principle under his command, but in reality they had a very high degree of autonomy, which was quite different from ordinary mercenaries.

Next, their army will move in the direction of Nijmegen to cooperate with the political action of the Hague side (to vote on whether William III will remain in charge of the United Provinces) and to carry out military coercion. And this was actually won by Van Marlberg and the people on the East Coast. The two men agreed that since Wilhelm III had invited German mercenaries, he would not give up and would inevitably resort to force, and that it would not work without fighting this battle.

In addition to them, the republicans also need to do some other political offensive to win the support of the largest number of people in the whole of the Netherlands, especially the troops stationed in the provinces of Holland, Groningen and Friesland. If Van Boiningen was smart enough, he should take advantage of William III's trip to England to "betray" the United Provinces and make a big fuss about public opinion (which happens to be what they are good at), shake the morale of this part of the army, unite the majority, isolate a small handful, and then find a way to solve the remaining diehards, that is, act both politically and militarily, and completely eliminate the supporters of William III.

On 20 December, the Estates-General of The Hague held a formal vote on whether William III was still "qualified for the office of governing the United Provinces". The representatives of the seven provinces gathered in the parliamentary hall and quarreled and debated so violently that Van Boiningen, the speaker of the Estates-General, had to interrupt the quarrel several times to get the issue back on track.

At noon, delegates from the provinces of Friesland and Groningen clamored to leave parliament (the deputies from Oberijssell, persuaded to continue voting) and return home. Van Boiningen had no choice but to send someone to quietly inform the East Coast liaison officers who were on standby. After receiving the news, Lieutenant Yang Chengdong did not delay, and immediately transferred a company of East Bank infantry and about 1,000 Cossacks to the parliament, blocking the councillors of the two provinces who were about to leave.

The councillors, who also had some guards and retinues waiting outside, stepped forward to reprimand the East Bank troops who rushed over, only to eat a few rifle butts and be driven aside to be guarded. Lieutenant Yang Chengdong drew his pistol, fired it into the sky, and then ordered the lawmakers to return to parliament and continue voting.

Seeing the situation of the East Coasters, some of the councillors immediately relented and returned to the parliament without saying a word. However, more than 20 diehards still refused to return, shouting at the East Coasters and demanding that they get out of the United Provinces. There are even some radical ones who threaten to mobilize troops to suppress the East Coasters, which is very arrogant.

At this time, Lieutenant Yang Chengdong didn't talk nonsense, and directly ordered to take people. Some councillors drew their bayonet swords and tried to resist, but they were directly stabbed to the ground with bayonets by the East Coast soldiers, and the rest were captured one by one, tied up and sent to Gwangenport's prison, where they would be well entertained, not afraid that they would not sign the voting papers.

Van Boiningen, the speaker of the Estates-General's Assembly, also turned a little pale when he saw this scene. But the matter has come to this point, no matter how much he regrets it, he can only retreat in five ways, and can only go to the dark one way. William III would never let them go, it was something he already understood.

Then, there is only one way to go!