After the deal with the countries of Jinzhou was completed, the Ming fleet continued south to reach the island of Java.

Malacca and Golden Island were Portuguese colonies, while Java was a Dutch colony, with its famous Dutch East India Company on the island.

The Dutch East India Company, whose full name is the United East India Company, was the first company in history to be able to organize its own mercenaries and currency, and was also the first company limited by shares, and was allowed to enter into formal treaties with other countries and exercise the power to colonize and rule over the land.

As a result, the Dutch East India Company had more power than the British East India Company, monopolizing the spice business through Java and earning a large amount of money every year.

Like the British East India Company and the French East India Company, the Dutch East India Company was a product of the Age of Discovery in 17th-century Europe, when European countries embarked on maritime adventures to explore the world's geography to explore the opportunities of the open sea.

The Dutch East India Company was formed by a consortium of fourteen Dutch trading companies to avoid competition with each other and to obtain greater profits, and when it was formed, the Dutch parliament authorized it to monopolize trade from the Cape of Good Hope in the south of Africa in the east to the Strait of Magellan in the south of South America in the west.

In other words, the Dutch East India Company had a monopoly on commerce and trade in the region, and the rest of the Dutch companies were not allowed to intervene.

The Dutch East India Company consisted of six offices in Amsterdam, Middleburg, Enkwason, Delft, Hhorn and Rotterdam in Amsterdam, Zeeland and had a board of directors of more than 70 people.

However, there are 17 directors who actually hold real power, known as the Seventeen Gentlemen, eight in Amsterdam, four in Zeeland, and one in each of the other regions.

During the Age of Discovery, the Portuguese were the first to lead a fleet around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa to the Malabar coast of India, thus opening the curtain on the bloody history of European colonizers plundering India.

Because the Mughal Empire, which ruled India at that time, had both a high level of civilization and a strong military strength, the Europeans who came one after another could not occupy the vast area of the Inner 6 for a while, and could only seize points on the east and west coasts of India to carry out sea robbery and predatory trade.

Before the arrival of European colonizers, the Mughal Empire had already established trade links with other countries and regions, but when the shrewd and armed European merchants arrived, the merchants of the Mughal Empire were gradually excluded from maritime trade, and the business of cotton, silk, indigo, spices and jewelry was controlled by those European merchants.

At the same time, there was a fierce struggle among European merchants for the Indian market, and the British East India Company was the first to be established, and at the beginning of its establishment, it was attacked and excluded by the Dutch in Java, the Portuguese in Jinzhou and Malacca, and naturally did not want the British to get a piece of the pie.

Among them, the fiercest battle with the British East India Company was naturally the Dutch East India Company, which was established a year later, and in order to compete for resources, the armed merchants of the two countries with three-masted galleons fought with each other, and many armed conflicts broke out, so that the navies of the two countries were also involved.

It was not until the Apocalypse that the British and the Dutch reached a tacit agreement in the midst of constant conflict, with the Dutch monopolizing the business of the East Indies and the British monopolizing the business of India's second largest 6.

Although the East India Company between the Dutch and the British was inextricably linked, there was a close relationship between the two sides, working together against Portugal and Spain, who had colonized the East in advance, and especially for trade between the Ming and the Japanese.

Li Hongyu had always wondered why the rulers of the Mughal Empire would allow the existence of the "East India Company" in Europe, after all, the Mughal Empire was also an empire with great national power, and the Europeans simply could not compete with it.

Later, Li Hongyu finally figured out that the Mughal Empire could obtain huge commercial benefits from those Europeans, so the rulers of the Mughal Empire were open to those Europeans.

After the Age of Discovery, European merchants had a large amount of silver and gold plundered from the Americas, which allowed them to buy large quantities of fine cotton and silk fabrics from the Mughal Empire, which in turn boosted the Mughal Empire's economy and agricultural production.

According to historical records, in the middle of the 17th century, hundreds of thousands of peasant households in some parts of Bangladesh and Punjab were already engaged in the production of cotton fabrics for export.

The control of export trade by European merchants greatly increased the employment of the people of the Mughal Empire, making the people of the Mughal Empire even richer than before.

This would help the Mughal Empire to increase tax revenues and also contribute to domestic stability, so the Mughal Emperors welcomed it and even allowed Britain to trade freely in the Mughal Empire at the beginning of the century.

In Li Hongyu's view, the Mughal Empire's permission to do business with greedy Europeans was undoubtedly a very dangerous thing to do.

When those Europeans controlled the economic lifeline of the Mughal Empire, the fate of the Mughal Empire was actually already in control, and sooner or later it would become a colony of the European powers, and the cunning European merchants launched an invisible trade war against the Mughal Empire, and finally conquered this powerful South Asian empire.

If Li Hongyu is replaced, although he will also welcome the arrival of those European businessmen, he will establish a series of rules to restrain those European businessmen and control the initiative of foreign trade, so as not to be led by those businessmen.

But then again, judging from the situation at that time, the Mughal Empire in a feudal society would be the opponent of the commercial Europeans in a trade war, and even if they wanted to seize the initiative in trade, it was estimated that it would end in failure.

When the Ming fleet arrived in Java, Cohen, the governor of the Dutch East India Company, personally went to the port to welcome Wang Hong and Bai Cheng, as if he was not aware that the Ming and the Netherlands were at war because of Penghu.

However, the Ming did not declare war on the Dutch after all, and the Dutch in Penghu only sought to trade with the Ming, which made the relationship between the two countries very delicate.

Since Cohen's attitude is very enthusiastic, then Wang Hong, Bai Cheng and others naturally treat him politely, their purpose this time is to do business with the Nanyang countries, not to settle accounts with the Dutch in Jawwa, so naturally they want to make a deal with Cohen.

"Dr. Edward, why are you here?" On the docks, when Cohen accidentally noticed Edward disembarking from Zheng He's chartered boat on which Wang Hong was riding, he couldn't help but look surprised, and he thought that Edward had died in the battle of Macao between the Dutch and the Portuguese at the beginning of the year.

"Mr. Governor, our captured people have been rescued by this general master of the Ming Kingdom." A gloomy look appeared on Edward's face, and then he pointed at Li Hongyu and said to Cohen.

"In any case, I would like to thank you for freeing my countrymen from the clutches of the Portuguese."

When Cohen knew that Li Hongyu had bought Dutch prisoners of war such as Edward and Mark from Portugal and was very kind to them, he put his palm on his heart and bowed to Li Hongyu to thank him.

"It's nothing, it's just a gesture." Li Hongyu smiled when he heard this, and returned the salute, although Cohen behaved personably and politely, Li Hongyu did not dare to underestimate him in the slightest.

Cohen was originally a high-ranking merchant of the East India Company, and in the 40th year of Wanli, he led two ships to Banten, the westernmost trading town on the island of Java, and then continued to Jakarta, becoming the head of the Dutch merchant pavilion in Banten and Jakarta.

It is worth mentioning that Cohen was a man of great ambition and strategic ambition, and he once proposed to the board of directors of the Dutch East India Company a new blueprint for bringing the entire East Indies under Dutch rule.

In the 47th year of Wanli, Cohen was promoted to the governor of the Dutch East India Company, and Jakarta was named "Batavia", which became the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company in Asia.

Cohen played a crucial role in the Dutch's attack on Macau and the occupation of Penghu.

In order to open up the Batavia region, Cole brought a large number of slave laborers from the east coast of Africa, the Indian peninsula, and Ceylon, but he preferred the labor of the Ming Dynasty, believing that "no one can serve us better than the Ming people."

At this time, because the Dutch East India Company needed a large number of laborers, and the populous Ming naturally became Cohen's target.

At the same time, the board of directors of the Dutch East India Company repeatedly asked Cohen to open trade with the Ming Dynasty and obtain valuable goods such as silk, ceramics and tea from the Ming Dynasty.

In Cohen's view, the ideal base for trading with the Ming was Macau, which was occupied by the Portuguese, because Macau was the only place where European merchants were allowed to live in the Ming Dynasty, so that they could encounter the least resistance.

However, the long way from Java to Daming is not to mention, and it also has to pass through the Spanish-controlled island of Luzon, and Borneo, where both Portuguese and Spanish have business.

Therefore, Cohen wisely chose to cooperate with the British, who also had a very large overseas trade demand, and each sent five ships to patrol the Yingzhou Strait and Luzon Island from the base of the Japanese kingdom of Hirado, hoping to control the maritime trade in this vast water

The Spaniards, who had fought with both the Dutch and the British, naturally did not want to see the sea routes blocked, so the Spaniards in Luzon wanted to set up a base on the island of Little Ryukyu, both as a transit point and as a way to break through the naval blockade of the Netherlands and Britain.

After receiving the intention of the Spaniards, in order to avoid giving the Spaniards a head start in trade with the Ming Dynasty, Cohen ordered Raelsen to form a fleet to capture Macao or the Penghu Islands, and first go to Taiwan to find a good port.

As a result, the next thing became much simpler, and Raelson's fleet successfully landed on Penghu Island, and found a fisherman who was familiar with the situation in the southern Dayuan area of Xiaoliuqiu as a guide to investigate, hoping to find a good harbor to station the future fleet.

However, after the on-site investigation, Rael's port was not suitable for large ships, so he had to temporarily give up the idea of seeking a good port on Xiaoliuqiu Island and go all out to manage Penghu, leaving a foreshadowing for the Dutch to invade Xiaoliuqiu in the future.

It must be said that Cohen was a very far-sighted man, he saw the great prospect of the Dutch East India Company to dominate the East, and for this reason he did not hesitate to brutally use force against the local inhabitants of the land during colonial rule.

In order to establish a monopoly on the clove trade, Cohen ordered the killing or expulsion of the indigenous people of the Banda Islands, which were rich in spices, and thus expanded the scale of the spice business, making a lot of profits.

In addition, Cohen successfully established the Dutch East India Company's trading system in Asian countries, extending the Dutch trade footprint from the South Seas to the Ming Dynasty and the Wa Kingdom, which was a great contribution to the East India Company, but also brought great disasters to the local people.

For Cohen, the Ming Dynasty's overseas trade was an excellent opportunity to open up the market of this vast Eastern Empire, so he must have wanted to make greater profits from it, and the first thing he had to settle was Wang Hong and Bai Cheng, the two top civil and military officials of the Ming fleet.

Therefore, Cohen was very attentive to Wang Hong and Bai Cheng, and he had silver plundered from the Americas, spices, pepper and other items from the Java region, and if he could exchange them for the silk and ceramics of the Ming Dynasty, he would be extremely rich in return to Europe.

Li Hongyu was not in a hurry to agree to Cohen, and methodically selected the location of the branch office of the Customs Department on Jawa Island, and at the same time contacted the descendants of the people of the Old Port Propaganda Department.

After the old port Xuanwei Division was annexed by the Majapahit Kingdom, Xuanwei made Shi Erjie lead the people of Xuanwei Division to move to the port new village in Java, where she built a commercial center and trading port, so Shi Erjie was named the head of the Fan Ship by Majapahit to manage the maritime trade here.

Although Li Hongyu planned to set up a sub-yamen of the Customs Department in Jakarta, he did not forget the descendants of the old port propaganda and comfort department of the "Xincun Port", whose ancestors were all Ming people who migrated from the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, Li Hongyu deliberately set up a stronghold in Xincun Port, and successfully obtained the ownership of Xincun Port through negotiations with Cohen, Li Hongyu was ready to set up the "Xingang Propaganda Division" in Xincun Port, and after returning to China, he asked for the approval of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, making the Xingang Propaganda Division an overseas territory of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, unlike more than 200 years ago, this time the Xingang Propaganda Division is just a "Propaganda Division", in fact, it will be under the jurisdiction of the Customs Department, and it is an important stronghold of the Ming Dynasty in the South China Sea.

In return, Li Hongyu promised to give the Dutch a considerable share of trade through Wang Hong, so that both sides could be said to have taken what they wanted, and both sides were happy.

If Li Hongyu did not come with the Ming fleet this time, then Wang Hong and Bai Cheng would not have dealt with the Dutch, and even if they had contact, it would only be a routine matter, and they would not discuss commercial cooperation.

Of course, Li Hongyu knew that the Dutch were now in Penghu and refused to leave, and they wanted to trade with the Ming Dynasty, but then again, the Dutch would become a maritime power in the 17th century, so Li Hongyu would definitely not have a stiff relationship with the Dutch.

In Li Hongyu's view, what he has to do now is to balance the relationship between European countries and the Ming Dynasty, which is the wisest choice, there are no permanent enemies and friends, only eternal interests.

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