June 9, 1642

After nearly half a month of negotiations, the joint fleet plan, with the joint efforts of the representatives of the four parties, can be regarded as coming up with a simple implementation plan, although this plan still leaves much to be desired, it can be said to be quite good compared to the beginning.

The joint plan stipulates that in Southeast Asia and the Daming South China Sea, the four parties are responsible for jointly organizing the safety and rescue of military ships to and from merchant ships of various countries, and that the four sides will send warships to encircle and suppress pirates in this region.

The representatives and the final interpreters of this plan belong to the Portuguese in Macau, the Spanish in Manila and the Dutch in Batavia, and the Australians on the other side.

Of course, the protection and escort of past merchant ships is not free, and the voyage of the Combined Fleet always costs money, and the corresponding merchant ships must also pay a protection fee to the Combined Fleet Command for the daily management and maintenance of the Combined Fleet in the safe and secure environment.

The content of the agreement stipulates that all countries and regions participating in the joint formation of a joint fleet must send at least one warship to join, and the Netherlands, as a hegemonic status in the region, in order to show its status and huge number of ships, actually directly dispatched five warships to join the joint fleet in the agreement.

In addition to showing their unshakable status, such an approach also has the intention of demonstrating like the Spaniards and Australians, after all, there are no other countries that can compete with them here.

The more you show your strong strength, the more you can make the other side have scruples, otherwise blindly being overwhelmed by the other side will damage the image of a great power.

It is no secret that the Australians shelled Batavia, and the Netherlands' status as a great power has been affected to a certain extent, and the Spaniards in Manila seem to see this, as long as they can make friends with the Australians, the Dutch are simply opponents.

Although Spain, which has been declining, is not as good as before, but after all, the emaciated camel is bigger than the horse, and the strength that Manila has has been diverted from the war on its own soil, but after all, the Dutch still need to take care of them in this area.

As for the fact that there are no Portuguese in the whole of East Asia, there are no formal colonies, and they are playing soy sauce, although they used to be maritime powers, and now they are at most second-rate countries, far worse than the Netherlands and Spain, and even the leased Macao is not completely up to them.

So the Dutch are not worried about them at all, as for other forces, such as Zheng Zhilong, who has a pirate background, the Dutch are not worried, after all, the other party's main focus is on Japan, not in Southeast Asia and the two sides have been in contact, it can be said that they do not distinguish each other, the most important thing is that the Netherlands has now taken Dayuan Island, if Zheng Zhilong wants to have any bad ideas, the Dutch can fight the autumn wind on their routes.

In the formation of the joint fleet this time, Australia did not invite the Zheng family to participate at all, firstly, because it did not want the Zheng family's power to extend too much to Southeast Asia, and secondly, there were other considerations, in addition, I am afraid that the Dutch would also be wary of the Zheng family joining, after all, the two sides had maritime frictions.

In order to give the Australians certain benefits, the Dutch made a bloody investment this time, and the command and commander of the combined fleet was nominally served by Dutch officers, while the Australians were elected as executive deputy commanders.

As for the Netherlands, the Netherlands is just a nominal commander-in-chief, after all, the other side has more ships, and a copy of this agreement is only reached privately between the Netherlands and Australia, so Australia will also agree to increase the number of arms sold to the Netherlands.

It can be said that both families take what they need, the Dutch hope to get more arms to earn high profits and arm their own armies, while Australia hopes to strengthen its strength in Southeast Asia with the formation of a combined fleet, and at the same time prepare for the formation of its own merchant ships.

The other two companies that participated in this program, Spain wanted to curry favor with the Australians against the Netherlands, and Portugal wanted to get the right to distribute Australian goods, while Portugal was completely in a state of soy sauce, in fact, they did not want to participate in it, because it was the one who gained the least benefits.

The final vote on the plan of the combined fleet was unanimously approved, because with the votes of the Netherlands and Australia, since the Spaniards wanted to curry favor with Australia, there was naturally no need to oppose it, except for allowing themselves to send ships to form a fleet, in fact, Spain had nothing to lose, and it could be said that it had gained a part of the rights.

According to the agreement, the four parties will provide the most favored trading partner treatment for the import and export goods of the partners in the areas under their respective control, and a unified unit of calculation of goods has been established.

The unit of calculation has always been a big problem, the Australians used the international unit of calculation in later generations, although it is somewhat close to the West, but after all, it is a few hundred years apart, and the development of the Western unit of calculation of goods will take a long time.

In addition, the currency used by each of them was unanimously decided to use the Spanish silver dollar as the settlement unit, after all, the Spanish silver dollar in this period belonged to the international currency, and each family was used to it.

At the end of the negotiations, the commander-in-chief of the Batavian fleet, Risson, met with Wang Tiehammer in a separate meeting, and the two sat opposite each other in a small, well-decorated room.

"General Wang, I want to know that it is appropriate for our combined fleet to work together to exterminate pirates in the region, and levy a certain percentage of protection fees on passing merchant ships."

Rather than exterminating pirates, Risen is actually more interested in collecting protection money, but it's just because of the difficulty of saving face.

"General Risson, we have time, and the most important thing now is that when the ships of the Spaniards and the Portuguese come over, the ships of the four of us will gather together, and after a period of training and running-in at sea, we can finally carry out actual combat."

"As for charging fees for passing merchant ships, I think it's too early at this time, after all, we haven't protected them, and the pirates in the area haven't been exterminated by us, otherwise they will not be very good for our reputation if they are attacked."

Wang Tiehammer smiled and explained to the other party, after all, the main task of the combined fleet is to exterminate pirates and make this area have a good business environment. (To be continued.) )