On December 11, 1679, the North Sea was overcast with winds and waves.

A merchant ship from Amsterdam loomed in the rough seas, the canvas on its mast had been removed from many sides, and the sailors on deck were running cautiously around, occasionally rushing somewhere with a pumping hose to pump out the seawater that had poured into the cabin.

Gao Wengang sat in the captain's room with a pale face, his hands clenched tightly on the armrests, and secretly prayed in his heart that the old merchant ship would survive and send him to London. At the same time, he also deeply felt how dangerous the North Sea was in winter, and it was no wonder that in the previous three Anglo-Dutch naval battles, the generals of both sides tried to avoid confrontation at this time, it was really impossible to fight - just imagine, on the turbulent sea, the ships swayed at a large inclination, at this time, I am afraid that even the artillery can not be fixed, let alone accurate shooting, it is purely extravagant.

Passing near the mouth of the Thames, he encountered four merchant ships belonging to the Dutch East India Company, either to escape the bad weather or to meet the French privateers at sea, so they fled to London for refuge, which Gawain thought was more likely, as the current sea conditions were not suitable for battle.

Of course, these four ships were not all of the East India Company's returning ships, and according to the experience of the previous three Anglo-Dutch naval battles, the Dutch East India Company, in order to avoid the attack of hostile ships, usually rounded the northern tip of Scotland, and then anchored in the Norwegian port of Bergen, to inquire about the direction of the wind and repair the ships in order to reach Amsterdam after the last few hundred nautical miles. In this Franco-Dutch war, although the United Province fleet won one after another at the beginning, suppressing the French did not dare to leave the port, but the French fleet after several years of emergency replenishment, the strength was greatly enhanced, so it also began to break into pieces, scattered attacks, and launched a broken engagement against the United Province, and also won some small naval battles, such as the battle off the coast of Catalonia (the battle caused the Dutch naval spiritual leader Druittle to be wounded and retired), the Battle of Martinique and so on.

Under these circumstances, the Dutch East India Company was prudent and began to carry out the strategy of the Anglo-Dutch war in the heat of the war, that is, to make plans to ensure that the North Sea was full of turbidity in the winter and spring, so as to avoid the possible attack of the enemy's privateer fleet and allow the valuable Asian goods to reach Amsterdam safely.

The few ships with the sails of the "VOC" logo that Gawain just encountered today looked unlucky, encountered bad sea conditions, and probably had some damage to the ship before, and urgently needed repairs, so they went to London in a group to berth, and then found a way to return to United.

Gawain's ships—the old ships of the former Amsterdam Merchant Station, had been forcibly requisitioned by the Dutch, had just been reclaimed for less than half a year, and were in poor condition—kept a suitable distance from the Dutch merchant ships, and then slowly sailed into the Thames one after the other, and finally anchored at a dock under the command of the pilot.

Soon, Cai Zhenguo, the East Coast ambassador to the UK, who got the news, personally brought people to the dock to greet Gao Wengang, and asked him about his intentions quite carefully - although everyone is the second generation, Gao Wengang, who is eight years older than him, is now his top boss, and his identity is different from the past, so he must be treated with caution.

"By the way, England hasn't been to England for a long time. I have been serving in the Eastern Mediterranean before, and I have not been to the Western Mediterranean, let alone the North Sea. Moreover, England is a special country and very strong, and it has been in office for so long, but it is really unreasonable to come and take a look. After getting into the carriage to the Iron Mansion, Gao Wengang explained softly.

Cai Zhenguo nodded when he heard this, and said in a conciliatory tone: "This country has a peculiar charm for us people on the east coast, I didn't know what to do at first, but then I tasted it carefully, it turned out to be the charm of their persistent investment in industrial production. This is very much the appetite of our East Coast people, and this is the beauty of industry. ”

"Just last month, South Sea Transport ships delivered a batch of coal mining machinery and equipment to the Bristol Bay area and handed them over to local coal mine owners. In recent years, the coal mining industry in England has developed rapidly, so fast that I am a little surprised. Cai Zhenguo also said: "England's wool textile industry has developed greatly, a large amount of arable land in the country has been enclosed as grassland, forests have gradually been developed, and trees have been greatly reduced. Coupled with the great development of ironmaking and shipbuilding, forest trees are more consumed, so wood in England is still relatively scarce, not only the wood needed for people's lives is not very sufficient, but also in industry, which has given birth to the great development of coal, a substitute for wood. Coal is widely used in the Black Country Iron Industrial Region and in the mining areas of Wales, not only in industry, but also in the fuel needed for daily cooking. So, the English imported a lot of coal mining equipment from our country to increase their country's coal production. Ah, by the way, the reserves of coal and iron in the Kingdom of England are too abundant, and the quality is surprisingly good, and the price is not expensive at all, and it is very convenient to promote. ”

"It reminds me of the East Coast Prairie." When Gao Wengang heard this, he immediately said: "The same is the lack of trees, and we have to use a lot of coal as fuel, of course, our coal is mostly inferior coal, far inferior to England's. Well, the British bought our coal mining equipment, can it be used? Or rather, can they use it well? If my prediction is correct, all kinds of equipment used in our country's mines, including pickaxes, winches, pumps, and elevators, are powered by steam engines, right? ”

Cai Zhenguo understood what Gao Wengang meant as soon as he heard it, so he explained: "The British have their own steam engines, and they have long used steam engines, although the quality is relatively poor and the performance is not good, but it can be used." The machines they bought back can be reprocessed by themselves, connected to steam power, and used for coal mining. Of course, the effect is certainly not as good as ours, because we can already miniaturize the steam engine to a certain extent and the British cannot, but even this kind of work efficiency that seems somewhat unsatisfactory to us is a lot of progress for the British, which is the main reason why they purchase our industrial equipment, one is easy to use, and the other can also learn from our design, so that they can turn it up in the future. ”

Gao Wengang nodded after hearing this. He now remembered that when Li Qingli had not yet returned to China, the British proposed an alliance with the East Coast - of course, the alliance meant closer relations between the two countries, and some industrial products with restricted exports would also be open to the British - at that time, Mesozoic officials such as Gao Wengang and Cai Zhenguo were still faintly supportive, because they needed an important fulcrum to influence the European continent, and it was more appropriate to look at England at that time.

It's just that Li Qing and some local bigwigs vetoed the proposal to form an alliance with Britain and comprehensively upgrade relations, which disappointed the expectations of the British. But now it seems that Gao Wengang always feels that the worries of Special Envoy Li in the past are not unreasonable, this British is really too capable of tossing!

The output of more than 10,000 tons of steel is more than the sum of France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Ottoman, Russia and other regions or countries. Coal production in Newcastle, Bristol Bay and other places is increasing day by day, constantly injecting new impetus into the national industry (historically, British coal production has exceeded 3 million tons in 1700, and by 1760 it had grown rapidly to 6 million tons, which is very amazing); The cotton, linen, silk and wool textile industries in Manchester, West Leiding and other regions were in the ascendant, and countless profits were made for England, not to mention the pillar industries such as shipbuilding, glass, paper, leather, and building materials, all of which achieved great development in the Franco-Dutch war, making Britain's industrial scale to a higher level.

With such a pace of development, do you dare to say that the British will not toss? Therefore, Gao Wengang finally began to seriously think about whether to give the British some eye medicine and slow down its development speed - not to prevent the British from developing, which is not in the interests of the East Coast people, but to make the development speed of the British more "appropriate" - especially the British wool textile industry, which must focus on "taking care"! You must know that among the various trades of Britain, the Levantine trade, the Indian trade, the East India trade, the East Coast trade, and the Chinese trade are all in large quantities, and can only be balanced by gold and silver. If it were not for the subsidy of Russian trade, North American trade and European trade, King Charles II of England would have ordered a moratorium on the outflow of precious metals - this is no joke, it has happened many times in history, such as the need for the king's special approval to allow the outflow of silver in order to import a batch of grain from Poland, which can be seen.

Therefore, based on this consideration, if we focus on cracking down on the British wool textile industry and causing its export earnings to decline, it will inevitably effectively reduce the degree of economic activity and delay the pace of its industrial and commercial development. And this seems to be done by cultivating opponents for the British, and Leiden, the famous textile city of United, is a very good object, although its decline is more obvious at present, but maybe it can be saved. As for why not export a large number of East Coast woolen woolen to Europe to fight British woolen textiles, this is more complicated, the export of East Coast woolen woolen must be exported, but if you want to sweep the Quartet in Europe with a strong trend of mercantilism, I am afraid that it is also a little difficult, so this is to pull some helpers, after all, it is impossible for any country's market to let you East Coast people out too much, can not balance the trade volume between the two sides, this business will not be able to do sooner or later.

Thinking so in his heart, Gao Wengang also felt that after he went back, he would convene a meeting of his team to discuss the feasibility of this matter. And this matter still has to rely on the help of the republicans in the United Province, after all, the owners of woolen textile enterprises and woolen wholesalers are basically republicans, who are they not looking for?

Gawain remained in England until mid-January 1679. During this period, in addition to the office (discussing trade policies with Britain and Russia), he also visited the British business community, the government and the upper echelons of the royal family, and talked about some topics of great concern to both sides, but there were no substantive results. In particular, he focused on the position of the British government in the Franco-Dutch war, and learned that the British royal family now wants to participate in the war, but the parliament is still a little hesitant, and it seems that it will not be able to participate in the war in the short term. However, the indecision of the British must have also been seen by the French, and this will put some pressure on them so that they will not drag on the peace talks too long.

On January 18, the North Sea ushered in a rare burst of good weather, and Gao Wengang and his entourage seized the opportunity to leave the Thames by boat, and spent a few days sailing to the French port of Le Havre, located on the other side of the channel. Here, they presented a set of identification documents to the French customs officials, and after back and forth, they were successfully cleared, and then sailed all the way by small boat, finally arriving in Paris, the capital of the Kingdom of France.

At the Louvre in Paris, Gawain had just presented his credentials to King Louis XIV of France, clarifying his status as a new plenipotentiary envoy, and at the same time, he had also negotiated with the French on some of the remaining commercial issues. The French have fought until now, the country's precious metals have been seriously outflowed, agriculture has been poor for several years, and there are signs of instability in the country, and it is indeed a bit troublesome to want to do business with them.

You know, the French have made some concessions to the Dutch up to now, promising them a preferential tariff rate to induce the Dutch to withdraw from the war as soon as possible, so that the French can swallow up Franche-Comté, Lorraine and the occupied part of the South Netherlands. In addition to this, they made no concessions to the merchants of any country, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was plagued by the impression of mercantilism and the outflow of precious metals, had asked to purchase as many commodities as possible within his own borders, in order to keep as much silver as possible in France.

At this time, how can people from the east coast come to talk about business, and get a satisfactory result? Unless you're also importing about the same amount of goods in France, but that's basically impossible at the moment. Therefore, if we want to continue to expand the share of the French market on the existing basis, we still have to slow down the French, and the outflow of precious metals is not so ruthless or even start to return.

It's not that Gao Wengang doesn't understand this truth, it's just that he wants to make one last effort. Seeing that his efforts had failed, he did not say much, and soon left Paris and returned to the port of Le Havre. His next – and most important – stop – is the Kingdom of Spain, where he will focus on speaking with King Carlos about the Pampa Plain.

The news of the New World should have been coming back for a long time, and the Spaniards never gave an explanation, what is this like? Therefore, this time, Gao Wengang planned to come to the door in person to see what the Spaniards wanted to delay in time!