January 20, 1653, Qingdao Port, sunny.

Several Dutch galleons from Recife docked quietly in the harbor, from where they brought with them a large amount of Brazilian sumac for the construction of ships on the east coast, as well as tropical specialties such as cotton, cocoa, and dried fruits, which were all on the tariff-free import list of the east coast republic, and had always been a good business for merchants from Brazil.

As for the goods on the return trip, there are naturally a lot of them, including alcohol, cloth, butter, flour, ham, cheese and other daily necessities, as well as agricultural tools, knives, machinery parts and other means of production. Now that Britain and the Netherlands were in the midst of a full-scale war, and the Netherlands itself was still suffering from a shortage of supplies, of course, there was no extra strength to transport supplies to the New World, so the safety of the Dutch overseas colonies was entirely up to them - of course, the mainland was not without any strength, and they came forward to ask the east coast to transport supplies to the overseas colonies of Recife, Cape Town, the Dutch West Indies and other overseas colonies (if possible, New Netherland's supply missions could also be contracted) to maintain the normal operation there, The East Coast government had already approved the matter, much to the relief of Zeeland businessmen who had invested heavily in the West India Company.

The investors from Zeeland were now in such a desperate predicament that the protracted war with the Portuguese had almost drained the company's finances, so much so that a few years ago they had to accept an injection of Rp 1.5 million from the East India Company, or they would probably not be able to sustain the operation of their vast colonies, including West Africa, Brazil, the West Indies and New Netherland.

Today, however, the situation is still not very rosy, with rampant British warships and armed merchant ships occasionally plying the Caribbean, although they are not many in number. But the Dutch merchant ships that were assembled to fight the lone were still a dozen and one accurate. It's disgusting. In the end. Spanish, French, and Portuguese privateers fished in troubled waters, waiting for an opportunity to attack Dutch merchant ships laden with high-value goods such as tobacco and sugar, causing the West India Company considerable losses.

In order to cope with this dire situation, the Dutch West India Company had to shrink its front, organize its few warships, escort unprotected convoys to Europe, and then merge into a large convoy organized by the home navy and return to Amsterdam. But that's it. The ships carrying supplies between the colonial strongholds were left unescorted, which was obviously a big problem, because the Portuguese fleet in Brazil would not let go of this opportunity.

Fortunately, there are still East Coasters!

At the risk of offending both Portugal and England, they resisted the pressure and promised to send supplies to these Dutch colonies, and at the same time sent naval warships to escort them -- the Dutch merchant ships that apparently had come to the east coast to buy supplies could follow them on their return voyage without being intercepted and killed on the way.

This is now the case with the Dutch ships in the port of Qingdao, who are procuring supplies in the port while waiting for the arrival of escort ships on the east coast. And next to them, there are several ships of the South China Sea Transport Company, two refrigerated ships (loaded with meat and fish. It is nearly 400 tons), four flute-type transport ships (loaded with building materials, bean cakes, flour, sorghum and other commodities), and a large flying shear cargo ship (full of various military materials). The total value of the cargo on these ships exceeded $125,000, and the destinations were Recife and the Dutch West Indies. These supplies were procured by the Dutch themselves. It is believed that it will be enough to fill Dutch Brazil, West India and New Netherland in a short period of time.

"The Anglo-Dutch war broke out, but the large and small enterprises on the east coast of China have increased their exports and their profits have skyrocketed!" Standing in a luxuriously decorated office on the third floor of the imposing exposition pavilion, Xu Xin, a member of the executive committee and minister of trade, held a cup of tea in his hand and looked through the window at the many ships moored in the bay.

Zhou Shenwo, director of the State Administration of Precious Metals, who was sitting on a rattan chair smoking a pipe, agreed as soon as he heard this: "Our competition with the British and Dutch ghost animals is, to put it bluntly, a competition in the economic system. In the final analysis, what we compete with them is actually the dominance of resources, and if our people want to live a good life, they will consume more resources, and the more we consume, the less others will naturally consume, and this is where the fundamental contradiction lies. Fortunately, Europeans are now a bit stupid, brainwashed by early mercantilist ideas, thinking that precious metals are the real wealth, but how do they know that the control of resources is the real wealth. You have saved a bunch of precious metals in your hands, but the resources are controlled in our hands, and you can't spend them, then this money can only implode in your country, raising the cost of your social operation, which is beneficial to us and harmless. ”

Hehe, this argument is also the unanimous opinion of the members of the Executive Committee. Everyone said that this time to support the Dutch, in fact, has greatly offended the British and Portuguese, so simply offend to the end! Isn't the West India Company working very hard in the area of Recife now, so let's play a big one, give them guns, give them cannons, and strengthen their determination to let them fight the Portuguese to the end! Xu Xin sniffed the fragrance of the tea leaves, but his mouth said the words of killing with gold and iron.

It is said that the decline of the Dutch in Brazil in recent years is a bit obvious, and the Portuguese after independence from Spain are very violent, and they have fought a protracted war with the Dutch in the northeast of Brazil, almost squeezing out the financial resources of the Dutch West India Company. However, the dilapidated company was too large, and there were territories in Africa, North America, the Caribbean, and South America, which cost a lot, so they gradually became a little overwhelmed in the long-term tug-of-war with the Portuguese, and after several defeats they retreated to the cities, and the vast inland hinterland was lost to the Portuguese.

Historically, a year later, the Dutch would sign a treaty ceding Dutch Brazil to Portugal. However, when the war with the British ended a few months later, the Dutch reversed themselves, sending troops from their homeland to Brazil, and then threatening Lisbon with their fleets, with the result that the Portuguese, already in the middle of the war with the Spanish, were forced to give in and vomit Dutch Brazil to the Dutch, in a dramatic process. However, the Dutch were not able to fully occupy the territory, because a few years later their brain-dead leader, Speaker De Witt, decided to sell Dutch Brazil to Portugal and formally signed the Treaty of The Hague.

Portugal's unification of Brazil is naturally not in the interests of the people on the east coast who are eating in the bowl and looking at the pot, so the members of the Central Committee feel that it is necessary to add some blockage to Portugal and cheer up the Dutch. What is even more strange is that these military funds, worth tens of thousands of yuan, were "credited" to the Dutch West India Company in advance by the East Coasters, and the Dutch will pay off the debts with a certain amount of sugar, cocoa, ship materials, cotton, and other special products in the next few years.

This credit operation was carried out through a newly established "New World Friendship and Mutual Bank" in Guò, headed by Zhou Shenwo himself, who was responsible for lending money to the Dutch West India Company - the first loan was apparently a 37,000 yuan worth of arms aid - to support them in fighting the war with the Portuguese.

"The Dutch were also reluctant to give up Dutch Brazil, and it would be difficult for them to give up their interests there unless they were forced to do so. If nothing else, the city of Recife, I have heard that there are now more than 120 sugar mills, and the Dutch have invested so much that they will willingly give it to Portugal? Apparently impossible! Zhou Shenwo took a puff of cigarette, shook his head and said: "And there is not much competition between Dutch enterprises and Chinese enterprises, on the contrary, there is still a lot of cooperation." In the past, everyone didn't understand and didn't communicate, so naturally they didn't cooperate enough, but now, isn't the opportunity coming? I think there's a lot of room for you to cooperate! ”

What Zhou Shenwo said is actually what Xu Xin wanted to say, that is, the enterprises of the East Coast Republic have a lot of competition with Britain and France, but they are really not much competition with countries like the Netherlands, which mainly rely on entrepot trade. Not to mention the enterprises in their colonies, the West India Company, the East India Company, and which of them are serious manufacturing enterprises? Therefore, between the enterprises of the East Coast and the Netherlands, in fact, complementarity is greater than competition, and it is completely possible to seek common ground while reserving differences, develop and progress together.

"By the way, the Dutch in Amsterdam sent a clipper ship to Vostochny the other day. The ship was accompanied by an assistant of Mo San, who carried a secret letter from Mo San, the content of which was roughly that the Dutch had agreed to sell us the Turare trading post and its attached land and property for 500,000 guilders, and that there was also a package purchase agreement with the Dutch. The members of the Executive Committee expressed their great appreciation for Mo San's efforts, so they readily approved this secret agreement. At the same time, everyone was also discussing how to allocate ship capacity to transport all kinds of goods to Amsterdam, and the Admiralty was also inquired by Chairman Liu, who was eager to know whether the Navy would send capital ships to escort the Netherlands, and whether the English would dare to declare war on our country? Minister of the Navy Lu Ming assured Chairman Liu that the British would never dare to declare war......" Xu Xin took a sip of tea and said to Zhou Shenwo with a relaxed expression.

"Why did the British declare war on us? We're outsiders now, could it be that they're so brain-dead that they're going to drag us into the water as outsiders? Then their East India Company wouldn't burp right away? If the main forces of the First and Second Fleets poured out, it could be said that the ships of the East India Company between India would come and go! Besides, if our fleet goes north to New Holland and uses the West India Company's New Amsterdam as a base to attack the nearby colonies of New England and Virginia, the British should not jump their feet when they are not skilled, hehe, they don't dare. Zhou Shenwo spat out a smoke ring and said with a smile: "It's not good that the British have to import materials from us now, our things are of good quality and cheap, and the British have no reason not to buy them during the war, unless they are determined to develop their own industry, just like Tsarist Russia in later generations, they would rather lose an extra 60 million gold rubles a year and insist on using their own industrial products ......" (to be continued......