When William Kick met with Putmans' messenger, he realized that his withdrawal from the ASEAN Joint Conference was too reckless, because Putmans had not made up his mind to officially turn against the Ming.

William Kirk, who had calmed down, was thinking about how to return to the ASEAN Joint Conference, and while the dispute was being resolved within ASEAN, an ultimatum issued in the name of ASEAN was sent to William Kirk.

After reading the contents of this ultimatum, William Kick knew that it was impossible to resolve the dispute peacefully. The conflict between the Dutch East India Company and the Ming Dynasty has now been expanded into a dispute between the Dutch East India Company and the ASEAN Association, which means that Batavia may be besieged next.

While delaying time with ASEAN, William Kick sent people to the city of Geranza, Taiwan, to inform Putmans that things had changed. Now that events had apparently exceeded Batavia's previous estimates, William Kick asked Putmans for new instructions.

While William Kirk was nervously coping with this change, Li Hanwen and the representatives of Britain, Spain, and Portugal reached an intention to send troops, and the interests of the Spice Islands and Sado Island were distributed after the war.

Although these four countries are not the only members of ASEAN, with the exception of China, Britain, Spain, and Portugal, as well as the Dutch East India Company, which has just withdrawn from the ASEAN Joint Conference, the remaining East and Southeast Asian countries basically do not have their own maritime forces, and they can only make their voices heard at the meeting.

Therefore, after the representatives of China, Britain, Spain, and Portugal decided on the distribution of interests after the war, the war against Batavia was inevitably started. The gold and silver of Sado Island are only small profits in the eyes of the four countries, and it is the Spice Islands under Batavia's control that can really attract them and deserve to attack Batavia, which is the real golden island in the eyes of everyone.

Of course, in this upcoming war against Batavia, the internal opinion on the British side is not entirely unanimous. There was a disagreement between Methwold, the general manager of the British East India Company in Asia, and Captain John Weddell, who represented the king, over whether or not to join the war against Batavia.

For Methwold, who had been in Asia for a long time, the biggest threat to the interests of the British East India Company was the Dutch East India Company, and the historical Ambon massacre made him actively involved in the war against the Dutch East India Company.

But for Captain John Weddell, in Europe their ally was the Netherlands, and the antagonist was the Spaniards. Even if he was a royal party who supported the king, it did not change his position of being close to the Netherlands.

However, the ASEAN representative was an employee of the British East India Company, and Captain John Weddell could not prevent the British representative of the ASEAN from issuing a resolution in support of the war against Batavia, but he refused to lead his own fleet into the war.

However, Captain John Weddell's attitude soon aroused the displeasure of his men, and he led a fleet of six ships, three of which belonged to the British East India Company, and the remaining three belonged to the king.

The British Navy of this era, after being far away from the borders of the kingdom, occasionally made a cameo appearance in the profession of pirates, otherwise the officers of the British Navy would not be able to make the scoundrels and scoundrels on the ship obey their orders and cruise on the vast sea at the risk of starving water and food.

John Weddle's subordinates braved all kinds of dangers to cross the ocean to China, naturally to make a fortune. Now the Chinese have put in front of them an opportunity to rob Batavia, whether it is the gold and silver of Sado Island or the spices of the Spice Islands, it is a great wealth for these British seamen, how can they give up the opportunity to obtain wealth because of John Weddell alone.

After someone revealed the debate between John Weddell and Methwold about whether to go to war to the crew of Weddell's fleet, the middle and lower crew members of the fleet suddenly broke out into a great protest, they didn't care who was their ally, they only cared who was in their way to wealth.

When the British fleet anchored at the mouth of Dagu in Tianjin was about to riot, Robert Black joined the captains of the ships to arrest the crew organizers, and publicly told the crew that they would not sit idly by and watch Captain John Weddell harm the interests of all the fleet members, so as to pacify the angry crew.

The British sailors' actions stunned the officers of the Chinese Navy, who had seen such a large-scale crew riot for the first time. The riot gave them an excellent education on how sensitive and anxious the crews were during the ocean voyage.

When Robert Black and other captains rushed to the capital with the opinions of all the fleet members, and submitted the opinions of all the fleet members to Captain John Weddell, Captain Weddell finally gave in. He eventually decided to hand over command of the fleet to Robert Black, and the naval officers who held the same position as him would remain in the capital as a sign of their opposition to the war.

Leaving aside the effect of the self-deception of Captain Weddell and others, under the impetus of the long-prepared Ming Dynasty, after issuing three ultimatums in early November, the ASEAN announced that the ASEAN would take necessary action against Batavia to maintain the order of maritime trade in East and Southeast Asia, in the name of Batavia's refusal to accept the goodwill mediation of the ASEAN.

William Kick opposed to no avail, and was expelled from the Ming Dynasty on the 5th of November, along with members of the Dutch Merchant House. On the same day, the Association authorized China, Spain, Britain, Portugal and other countries to form a joint fleet to punish the illegal acts of the Dutch East India Company in East and Southeast Asia, and to confiscate the illegal interests of the Dutch East India Company in this region in order to compensate the victims of various countries.

China dispatched two Jianghu-class, 11 Ming-class warships and 18 auxiliary vessels of various types; The British sent eleven ships; The Spaniards sent six ships; The Portuguese sent four ships; North Korea dispatched six auxiliary vessels, for a total of 48 vessels.

Among these 48 ships, only 13 of them from China and three from Britain can really be called warships, and the rest of the ships are either armed merchant ships or old naval warships, and they do not have much combat power at sea.

Of course, Batavia, which is fighting against them, does not have many warships in the Asian region, and most of the ships are still armed merchant ships. Even if Batavia gathers all the ships in the Asian region and may be able to overwhelm the Combined Fleet in terms of numbers, it will still be weaker than the Combined Fleet in terms of combat effectiveness, which is also the confidence that Britain, Spain, and Portugal are willing to join the Combined Fleet.

On the operational plan for the Netherlands formulated by the Daming Naval Staff Headquarters, the ASEAN Association quickly adopted the organizational structure of the Combined Fleet, and appointed Zhang Xie, chief of staff of the General Staff of the Daming Naval Staff Headquarters, as the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet, and Robert Black, an Englishman, and Waldes, a Spaniard, as his deputies.

Zhang Xie soon divided the combined fleet into three subfleets, with He Changqi as the commander of the first fleet, Robert Black as the commander of the second fleet, and Waldes as the commander of the third fleet.

After some discussion by the newly formed Combined Fleet Staff, Zhang Xie drew up the entire battle plan.

In the first step of the plan, Ho Changqi led two Jianghu-class, two Ming-class and two auxiliary ships southward to join up with the Spanish fleet led by Walders and the Portuguese fleet in Macao, and together with Taiwan's Ming army, besieged Dayuan Harbor, captured the Dutch city of Geranza, and cut off the relay link between Sado Island and Batavia.

After taking the city of Geranza, Walders led the Third Fleet to garrison Daewongang, while He Changqi led the other ships north to Jeju Island to join the main fleet.

Robert Black led the Second Fleet to cruise through the Korean Strait, and Jang Xie led the rest of the First Fleet to Jeju Island, preparing to intercept the Dutch fleet heading north to rescue Sado Island, and then send a small number of ships to patrol and besiege Sado Island.

According to the judgment of the General Staff Headquarters, the Dutch could only mobilize a small fleet in the Taiwan region to the north at most, and the first goal of the combined fleet was to destroy the small fleet that had gone north from Taiwan to Japan, so as to weaken the strength of Batavia.

The second goal is to go north to attack Oto Port or relieve the main Batavian fleet on Sado Island by next spring and summer, and only by destroying or defeating this fleet will Batavia lose its mobile forces in East Asia, thus creating conditions for the combined fleet to attack Batavia.

While the Combined Fleet Staff was in full swing preparing for a naval battle against the Netherlands, the bankers in Beijing were nervously plotting over a piece of news.

After several minor market crises and Huang Taiji's growing appetite, Fan Yongdou finally decided to adopt the advice of his fellow countrymen, set up a stock market, and use the Ming Yuan as the basis for the issuance of gold and silver banknotes.

Although Huang Taiji monopolized power in politics, he squeezed out the political pattern of the four major Baylor co-governance. However, his merits were not enough to support his current power, so he had to spend a lot of resources to buy off the middle and lower classes of the Eight Banners in exchange for their changes to the post-Jin military and political system.

In the past, Huang Taiji could satisfy these Eight Banners soldiers by plundering the property of the Ming Kingdom, in exchange for the support of the Eight Banners soldiers. But now, it's clear that this road is not going to work.

Although Huang Taiji strongly encouraged the domestic people to develop production, these gains were also pocketed by most of the Eight Banners nobles, and in the absence of war, these Eight Banners nobles were difficult to shake even Huang Taiji.

Houjin's incessant launching of foreign wars was not only to plunder property to supplement the lack of national use, but also to integrate the internal forces of the Eight Banners and spit out the old and accept the new. When this process was interrupted, it was necessary for Huang Taiji to show more political skills and spend more resources to force these clan slave owners to give up their interests and move towards the feudal dynasty.

Compared with the slow agricultural production and trade, the speed of printing paper money to accumulate wealth made Huang Taiji know that there was a problem, and he had to drink to quench his thirst. He pinned his hopes on being able to put the domestic structural reform and rectification in place before problems erupted, and there was always a way to think of it when the time came.

But for Fan Yongdou, Huang Taiji's request was for him to walk a tightrope on the cliff, and it was a matter of time before he fell off the cliff. Once he realized that there was a dead-end road in front of him, Fan Yongdou no longer had any scruples, as long as he could maintain it for a longer period of time, he would no longer suspect what the purpose was behind the advice given to him by his fellow villagers.

However, for the bankers of Daming, Houjin's approach is undoubtedly to put a feast on them, and now they need to consider how to enjoy this feast safely and efficiently.