At the Consul's Residence, Orderly opened a briefing from Lynch, which contained a summary of the recent situation in Malacca.

"Your Excellency, the Dutch Commercial Minister of Malacca, Snovik, has invited you to meet in the afternoon."

"I've heard that Snowwick has met with the rest of the Cabinet, do you have any suggestions for the Dutch's visit?"

"There are some differences in the cabinet, and they are waiting for your decision."

"Okay, then I'll talk about it when I understand the situation." Orderly was in a good mood, lit a pipe to make the sitting posture more comfortable, and looked at it line by line.

The Dutch were a little overwhelmed.

When they attacked the Portuguese in Malacca in 1641, they had two allies who were directly supporting them. One is the Sultan of Johor and the other is the Miganam Pau people in the Lim Mau Negeri Sembilan area. The Sultan of Johor was a weak monarch supported by Malay traders, mercenaries and local natives. The Miganambao people in Negeri Sembilan are one of the most powerful tribes, and the Sultan of Johor has a strong symbolic taste of their rule.

After the Dutch conquered Malacca, they issued a series of strict laws such as taxes, trade, circumcision, and slavery. Miganampao, as a region that was once directly ruled by Portugal, was naturally also under the influence of Dutch decrees. Having been ruled for 130 years under the weary Portuguese, the Miganampaut could not understand the Dutch's efforts and seriousness in introducing these decrees.

The Miganampau's act of selling Christians into slavery to Makassar completely angered the Dutch, and war began. In 1642, Van Vliet, the second administrator of Malacca, sent 60 white soldiers and 200 Asian soldiers to the Miganampau area, but because of a series of mishaps, the Dutch not only did not conquer the Miganambao area, but several officials, including a captain and a Malacca port officer, were killed.

In 1645 the Dutch sent another 300 troops, burned several villages, and found nothing, and the Miganambao continued to raid Malacca in the forests and coasts. By the beginning of 1646, Malacca had its third administrator, Arnold. Morality. Flamin. Fan. Ottshan.

Seeing this, Shou Xuan frowned, the name of the new Dutch neighbor is really long. The Auttechamp Administrator assembled an army of 570 men, including 290 Dutch soldiers, and swept through the entire Miganampau region, depleting Malacca's ammunition and temporarily conquering the Miganampauts.

As a result of this small war, the plantations near Malacca that had been subjugated to the Dutch were swept away, the port was cut off from merchant ships, and the Malacca region suffered heavy losses. The Dutch received only a few worn-out Spanish clothes, dozens of riyals in military compensation, and even two breeches with holes everywhere.

Johor with Pahang Sultan Abdul. Jalil. Shah III played a hypocritical role in this war that was disgusting to the Dutch in Malacca, but the Sultan of Johor had good relations with Batavia.

The Dutch siege of Malacca was a decisive battle against the Portuguese to the death, and the Portuguese held out to the end under the glorious Seven Wounds. The women of the city would even dig up the corpses of their children and eat them, and the Portuguese and their loyal subjects lost nearly 10,000 dead in the battle, and the Dutch lost 2,000 troops, including three commanders.

Without the help of the Sultan of Johor, the Dutch would not have been able to take Malacca. This has made Batavia always grateful to Johor. The Sultan of Johor was early on aware that Batavia's overall interests were not aligned with those of the Malacca Governor, and they would send emissaries to Batavia whenever relations with Malacca were strained, and the East India Council was usually inclined to support Johor at this time. This made Malacca very helpless.

The guerrilla war with the Miganam people lasted for 4 years, leaving Malacca exhausted. But the troubles of the chief executive of Otchan are far more than just a Miganam man.

To the north of Malacca, there are 3 Malay sultanates. Selangor, Perak and Kedah, these three countries share a common characteristic of producing tin. The Miganambao people in Negeri Sembilan also controlled some of the tin mines, and if it weren't for the tin, Malacca wouldn't have worked so hard.

Tin is a strategic commodity, needed by all, and it is the most important production of the Malay Peninsula at this time. Selangor and Negeri Sembilan, which were close at hand, could be controlled by the army, and the Dutch monopolized the tin mines in both places.

Perak is a vassal state of Aceh on the island of Sumatra, and the Dutch do not want to fight another ground war, so they sign a treaty with Aceh to try to monopolize Perak's tin again. In the past, tin in Perak was mainly monopolized by Aceh, and the actual control of the tin mines was by the Portuguese, Indians, and various Celestial Moors. The demands of the Dutch were in irreconcilable contradiction with these snakes. Malacca's guerrilla warfare at Miganambao stiffened the Sultan of Perak, who ignored the treaty between the Dutch and his overlord, and even threatened to take back the mines on the land that were occupied by the East India Company.

The Dutch sent out the navy. Dutch warships used Tianding Island as a base to blockade the mouth of the Perak River, and patrol ships swept back and forth in the strait, clearing the Moorish merchant ships bound for Perak. Although the naval blockade allowed most of Perak's tin to flow to Malacca, the arrogant and unruly Perak did not give in. The tin mines were still controlled by other Europeans and Indians, and from time to time attacked the Dutch-controlled tin mines. The Dutch had to maintain a blockade of the strait.

Thus, this gave the northernmost Sultanate of Kedah an advantage. The Sultanate of Kedah is a very small country, with its capital in Alor Setar, and the Sultan has direct control over only 5,000 Celestial Cult subjects. Including the floating population such as merchants from all over the country, the total number is only more than 10,000. It is difficult to accurately count the population of the entire country plus the indigenous people, and the upper limit of Jincheng's estimate does not exceed 30,000.

Kedah was a small and weak country, and under the coercion of Batavia, the Sultan promised to refuse Moorish entry to his country unless the Moors had a pass issued by Malacca. Kedah sells half of its tin ore to the East India Company each year and is audited by Dutch accountants on the mine's output.

In practice, this paper treaty has become a dead letter. The Dutch employees were so corrupt and bribed that accountants and clerks were quickly dragged into the water by the Kedah. The humble and sincere Sultan transported large quantities of tin and elephants to the coast of Coromantle, India, in exchange for cotton cloth there.

Without exception, the Dutch again sent warships to blockade, and Shou Xian sighed, the Dutch had too many warships in Asia.

But Kedah is not the Perak and Johor of the Straits of the Strait. Kedah is too far to the north, they face the vast Andaman Sea, close to India and favourable for the monsoons. The slender Moorish and Portuguese merchant ships spread their spinnakers and rushed into Kedah City with the monsoon, making it difficult for Dutch warships to enforce an effective blockade.

Kedah's nominal vassal state is Siam, and the Siamese are fighting a law and order war with the Celestial Sects in Songkhla, next to the Golden City, which has lasted for decades or even centuries.

Siam had no control over Kedah, and after the capture of the original Pata by the Golden City, the Celestial Cultists in Songkhla, the southernmost part of Siam, could only receive ground support from Kedah.

Shou Orderly closed the briefing and asked his secretary, "So, the Dutch are here to solve the Kedah problem with us?" ”

Lynch replied, "Yes." Malacca has put forward several options, we can choose to block the land border with Kedah, or we can send ground troops to subdue Kedah. ”

"Where are the differences in the cabinet?"

"There is one side of the cabinet that is inclined to agree to the demands of the Dutch, and the other side is to push back and maintain the status quo."

After listening to the order, he immediately understood what the problem was. Kedah's own spending power was not strong, and in his smuggling trade, a considerable portion of the cotton cloth flowed into the city through the cattle lane across the peninsula during the dry season. This smuggling was actually a replenishment of the goods of the Golden City outside of the Dutch. There are also many domestic businessmen who make profits from it, and they have interests with each other.

"What does Marmont think about this?"

"The prime minister is inclined to send troops."

The pirate thinks a little more directly. Shou Xuan thought for a while, but did not make up his mind, he had to wait until he had negotiated with the Dutch to make a decision.

In the afternoon, in the conference room of the official residence, Shou Xu met with Snowwick, a senior merchant of Malacca.

The order made the conditions for its own troops, and the tin mines developed in Kedah could be sold to the Dutch except for their own use, and the Alor Setar Merchant House was to be retained, and the Moors were not allowed to enter the port unless they got a pass from Malacca. Unlike the Sultan of Kedah, Shou Zhi intends to implement the treaty in earnest.

What Malacca needs to do is to recognize the annexation of Kedah by Golden City, which is nearly 10,000 square kilometers of land. Most importantly, the access to the sea facing the Andaman Sea.

Snowwick seemed to be mentally prepared for this, "How can Your Excellency guarantee that this treaty will be implemented after the annexation of Kedah?" ”

"Our cooperation with your company is much more than just tin mines, you can easily see if tin from Kedah is smuggled into India."

"Yes, the mighty East India Company knows everything. But that's not enough, Your Excellency Archon, we need to sign a guarantee. ”

"How?"

"The United East India Company has the power to purchase 1,000,000 pounds of tin per year."

"If there's anything else, please bring it up together."

"There are too many Portuguese Catholics in Malacca and their Mass is disgusting. We are going to expel all the Catholics, but we are all civilized people, we can't go too far, you help Malacca to settle them. ”

"There's no problem with that." Shou Xuan smiled.

Catholics and Protestants, Jincheng also faced a conflict of faith. Because the country is expanding rapidly, everyone is obsessed with making more money and collecting more women, and no one has yet thought of the religious rift. There is no understanding of faith, and the observance of order can only be put on hold for the time being, and left for later.

Malacca was once Portugal's second most important city in the East after Goa, and Catholicism has been deeply rooted here for 130 years. There are now more than 1,600 Portuguese and Mestizo people in Malacca, as well as a large indigenous and slave population of Catholicism.

By contrast, there were just over 100 Protestant Dutch civilians. Just last year, the Lusitanians had used religion to start a massive rebellion in Brazil, which was a matter for the West India Company but made the East India Company as far away as Asia nervous.

Until then, public Mass was allowed for Catholics in the Dutch occupation zone, and after the Brazilian rebellion, Malacca decreed that the Portuguese could only have freedom of worship in private apartments and that public religious ceremonies could only be carried out on ships.

This year, Mr. Snowwick said Malacca intended to demolish all Catholic churches and ordered all Roman Catholics to leave if they did not convert to Protestantism.

Shou Zhi was willing to help the Dutch solve this small trouble, and there were not many Protestants in Taiwan, so he could disperse some Catholics over there. Homogeneity does not provide much assurance for order, and mutual supervision between Portuguese Catholics and immigrants may be the solution.

Snovik brought a mandate from the Dutch Council of Malacca, and the two sides agreed further on the details before signing the treaty.

Malays, Javanese, Chinese, and other Europeans were not allowed to trade in tin if the conditions were prescribed in an orderly manner. Outside of tin mines, the elephant trade and gold trade were permitted, and Moorish merchant ships were able to trade freely by paying a 5% sea tax to the Dutch, unless they sold their goods to the East India Company.

Maintaining a naval blockade for a long time was also a heavy burden for the Dutch, both the state of the battleships and the morale of the sailors were moving to the bottom, especially when this blockade did not work well.

The treaty with Jincheng was only a small part of the Dutchman's maritime trade in Asia. Their greatest demand was to completely exclude the Moorish merchant ships from the Indian cotton trade. This is very difficult to do except for the use of force.

The local advantage of the Moors was too strong, and the Dutch couldn't go too far, which really provoked the powerful Mughal Empire, and the Dutch also had to suffer.

All Europeans, including the Netherlands, could only share with the Moors, and could not monopolize the cotton trade. Even because of the Moorish competition, the British and Danes did not come to the Channel to trade cotton cloth very much.

There were those in the cabinet who questioned the fact that the order had given all the trade rights to the Dutch, but the order did not explain too much, and there was no need for this. The Dutch could blockade the Malay coast, but they could not stop the English ships flying the St. George and Harp flags. And this effort would have led to the First Anglo-Dutch War.

The contract was to be carefully observed, and he had no intention of playing any tricks on the tin mines, he had something else to communicate with the British.

Representatives from Surat are in the city, and Orderly has already met with him several times to finalize all the details.