On the first day of the fourth year of Chongzhen, the Imperial Palace of the Forbidden City, as in previous years, came as scheduled.

In addition to the envoys of the Governor's Palace of Salem of Portugal and the envoys of the Taungoo Dynasty of Burma, the Governor's Palace of Batavia of the Dutch East India Company also sent envoys to Beijing again.

For the envoys of these Xiyi countries, it was extremely difficult to meet the emperor of the Ming Dynasty in the past.

Where is the Son of Heaven of the Ming Dynasty who these people can see when they say they can see it?

Not to mention the Xiyi countries that came all the way from the west, even these small countries around the Ming Dynasty, in other ordinary days, there is basically no opportunity to enter the palace to meet them.

That is, after Emperor Chongzhen ascended the throne, he really opened his mouth on the issue of accepting foreign envoys to meet him.

Now three years have passed, and the Ming Dynasty's Jingshi court can be regarded as a convention that has formed such a convention.

When it is time to hold the Zhengdan Imperial Conference, foreign envoys can enter Beijing to meet with the Ming Dynasty's Imperial Court, the Ministry of Rites, and even the Ming Emperor's Emperor to discuss various matters related to diplomatic relations.

The cabinet, the six ministries, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the Hanlin Academy, the Zhan Shifu and other institutions of the imperial court also recognized this.

After all, when the whole country was celebrating Chinese New Year's Eve, a large number of envoys from vassal states, foreign clans, and Taixiyi gathered in Beijing at this time to ask for a court meeting, and there was an atmosphere of all nations coming to the court, and for the officials of the imperial court, it was also the climax of their political achievements in the past year.

At the same time, before and after the New Year's Day court, although it was the coldest season in the north of the Ming Dynasty in the year, especially the coldest time of the year in Beijing, these foreign and Fanbang envoys had to brave the cold to go to Beijing to meet them.

Because for them, unless there is an exception, such an opportunity is also only once a year.

And this time, the envoy who came on behalf of the Dutch was the same Mr. Waite who went to Zheng Zhilong's army on behalf of the Dutch at that time to meet Zheng Zhilong and urge Zheng Zhilong to lead the army to attack the Spaniards.

After the Dutch East India Company's army teamed up with Zheng Zhilong to expel the Spaniards, they used an agreement to define their sphere of influence on the island of Tofan, and obtained the two castles that the Spanish had worked the island for several years, namely the cities of San Salvatore and San Lorenzo.

After losing the castles of San Salvador and San Lorenzo, the Spaniards lost the route to the Ryukyus and Japan via the sea off Tofan Island.

The Spanish governor in the Manila Governor's Palace, Samudio Sánchez, although very annoyed by this result, also knew that the Spanish colonial army in the Far East at this time was not at all an opponent of the Dutch and the Ming Dynasty.

So Samudio Sánchez wrote a letter to China, asking King Philip IV of Spain to pay attention to the Far East and continue to mobilize colonial troops to Manila, and at the same time, he also began to shrink the originally scattered colonial forces under the Manila Governor's Office to the area around Luzon, and began to concentrate on expanding the surrounding islands and regions of Luzon.

Zamudio Sánchez did this because he knew in his heart that the Spanish colonial empire was facing many emerging rivals, and that Spain had too many colonies around the world and too many military forces.

In fact, the Spaniards were facing two wars in Europe at this time, the war between the west and the Portuguese lasted intermittently for many years, pinning down a large number of Spanish troops, and the north also faced war with the Dutch.

And the war between the Spaniards and the Dutch was no less protracted.

This war, which took place in Europe, was the famous Thirty Years' War between the Spaniards and the Dutch.

At the same time, there were territorial disputes between the Spaniards and the rising French, and skirmishes were constantly taking place in the border areas of the northern foothills of the Pyrenees.

All of this consumed and constrained a lot of money and troops in Spain.

In history, in December of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, that is, in December 1640, King Philip IV of Spain recognized the independence of Portugal and gave up the title of King of Portugal.

By 1648, exhausted by the Dutch War of Independence, Spain finally ended the Thirty Years' War with the Netherlands and recognized the independence of the Netherlands.

The Spaniards were forced to recognize the independence of Portugal and the Netherlands not for any other reason, but because they wanted to concentrate all their efforts on the war against the rising French.

Just after recognizing the independence of the Netherlands, the Spaniards mobilized their armies and immediately went to war with the French, which lasted eleven years.

From 1648 to 1659, until the Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed with France, which demarcated the border between the two countries in later generations.

That is to say, at least from now on, until the sixteenth year of the original history of the Manchu Shunzhi, the current Chongzhen Emperor can not worry about the Spaniards launching a large-scale retaliatory war against the Ming Dynasty.

And this was exactly the case in the original history.

When the Dutch suddenly expelled the Spaniards from Dofan Island, the Spaniards shrank their forces and their colonization of East Asia stopped in the Philippines.

Of course, the current Emperor Chongzhen knew about this situation, but it was impossible for the senior management of the Dutch East India Company to know in advance.

So, after they had expelled the Spaniards from the northern part of the island, the Dutch East India Company's satrapy in Batavia began to worry about and guard against the Spaniards' retaliation.

As a result, the Dutch warships and mercenaries who had been mobilized from Batavia to fight north were transferred back to Batavia shortly after the victory of the joint operation at Dongfan.

Shortly after the victory on Dongfan, the senior trade representative of the Dutch East India Company, who was "good" at dealing with the Ming Dynasty, officially replaced Hans-Putmans of the Fort of Geranza as the Dutch governor of the Dutch East India Company in the area of Dongfan.

At the same time, the location of the Doge's Palace moved north from Fort Geranza to the city of San Lorenzo, which was built by the Spaniards.

The Dayuan City, which the Zheng family vigorously built in the southern part of Dongfan Island, made Bideno deeply feel the threat of the Zheng family's army.

There is only a not too wide bay between Fort Geranza and Dayuancheng, and once the Zheng family turns against them in the future, then Geranza will be under siege by the Zheng family's naval army.

Especially after obtaining the right to legally trade with the Ming Dynasty in Guangzhou and Dengzhou Port, the next target of the Dutch East India Company immediately turned to Japan, and there was no need to station troops in the place of Fort Geranza to confront the Zheng family's forces.

In contrast, the location of San Lorenzo is much better for the Dutch.

This place is not only separated from the plain area of the west coast of Dongfan Island, where the Zheng family's power is relatively concentrated, separated by a central mountain range that runs through the north and south of Dongfan Island, but also close to the sea trade routes off Dongfan Island.

For the top management of the Dutch East India Company, the city of San Lorenzo was clearly more important.

On this occasion, Biedno sent Waite as an envoy, on the one hand, to further finalize the agreement between them and Zheng Zhilong with the Ming Dynasty's Imperial Court, and preferably with the Ming Emperor, and on the other hand, to inform the Ming Dynasty's Imperial Court of the relocation of the Dutch East India Company's trade representative office on Dongfan Island, its own so-called Governor's Palace, from the Fort of Geranza to the city of San Lorenzo, and that Biedno was appointed Governor of San Lorenzo.

For the idea of the Dutch, Emperor Chongzhen agreed.

For him, the Dutch were still useful for the time being.

At least for the next few years, he needs general stability along the southeast coast, as well as general stability on Dongfan Island.

This situation will continue at least until the problem in the northeast and the northwest is resolved, and then he will be able to concentrate his efforts and forces to solve the problem of Dongfan Island.

Therefore, three days before the Zhengdan Dynasty was held, shortly after the Imperial Court presented the Dutchman's report and request to Emperor Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen soon led three cabinet ministers, Li Guoyi, Sun Chengzong, and Xu Guangqi, to publicly receive the Dutch envoy Werther and his deputies in the Wenhua Hall of the Forbidden City.

Emperor Chongzhen once again clarified to the Dutch envoys that in addition to the exclusive trade rights between the Nanyang Company, the Baohe Company and the Dutch East India Company, he also proposed to the Dutch East India Company through Waite and his entourage the reciprocal trade rights and the protection of the Ming diaspora in Batavia.

Since the merchant ships of the Dutch East India Company could go to the port of Guangzhou to trade with the Nanyang Company, and they could go to the port of Dengzhou to trade with the Baohe Company, then the merchant ships of the Ming Royal Nanyang Company and the Baohe Company could also go straight to the port of the Dutch to trade.

At this time, the Dutch were located in the ports of Western Europe or North America, which was too far away for the fleets of the Ming Dynasty to visit.

And Emperor Chongzhen has not yet thought of sending a fleet to trade, because there is no need for this for the time being.

But sending a merchant fleet to the colonial ports controlled by the Dutch in the Far East and the East Indies was not difficult or problematic.

For example, Batavia, the colonial center of the Dutch East India Company in Southeast Asia, Da Nang, which was basically controlled by the Dutch, and Ceylon, a colonial port in the Indian Ocean, were all within the reach of Chinese ships.

As a plenipotentiary envoy sent by Biedno, and as one of the commercial representatives of the Dutch East India Company's headquarters in Batavia, Waite and his entourage, Anthony van Diemen from the Batavia headquarters, verbally agreed to Emperor Chongzhen's request on the spot.

For those of them who came from the Dutch East India Company, they were not worried about trade, but about the disruption of trade.

Tea, raw silk, porcelain and other products from the Ming Dynasty were even more profitable for the Dutch East India Company to ship back to Europe than the spices they plundered in the East Indies.

They wish that the merchant fleet from the Ming Dynasty would go to Batavia to trade on their own!