The Netherlands is just a country of about 2 million people, and 40 percent of the country is below sea level. He originally belonged to the Netherlands, which at that time included the later Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and the eastern part of France, with a population of more than 3 million and 17 departments.

At the time of the Frankish Kingdom, the Netherlands was still the center of Frankish rule at that time. After the death of Charlemagne, the empire was dissolved, and after the 11th century, the Netherlands was divided into many small territories, and in the 13th century, the Netherlands had four dukes, six counties and several bishoprics, and in the 15th century it belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy.

Later, Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, married Maximilian of Habsburg. In 1477, Charles the Bold died and the Duchy of Burgundy was ruled by his son-in-law, Emperor Maximilian I of Germany, leaving the Netherlands a Habsburg fiefdom.

In 1516, at the age of 16, Charles I succeeded to the Spanish throne. Charles I inherited the Habsburg legacy from his father, and the Netherlands became a Spanish dependency in turn

The Netherlands is located on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, bordering the North Sea, with low terrain and easy access to sea and dense rivers like spider webs. The textile industry in the Netherlands is extremely developed, with many commercial cities appearing, and wool and woolen are their dominant industries, which are famous throughout Europe. At the same time, their fishing industry is also very developed, and the transshipment business is gradually developed.

Since the 16th century, the Netherlands has been one of the most economically advanced and developed regions in Europe, with more than 300 commercial cities, known as the city-state.

The development of the forces of capital has made the bourgeoisie rapidly become stronger, and in order to develop capitalism freely. They began to demand the overthrow of the Spaniards. Coupled with the cruel religious system of the Spaniards at that time, as well as heavy taxes, the contradictions between the Netherlands and Spain finally became more and more acute, and finally the Duli War broke out.

More than 60 years ago, the Utrecht League of the Northern Provinces declared the Seven Northern Provinces as a whole. In 1581, the United Provincial Republic was formally established, because the Dutch province was the largest and most economically developed, so it was also called the Dutch Republic.

Although the Spaniards were not reconciled, the Spanish army was defeated in several subsequent battles, and since then, the Spaniards have effectively been unable to intervene in the Netherlands. In 1609, Spain signed a twelve-year armistice with the Netherlands. Now, more than 30 years later, there has been a semblance of calm between the two sides, but the Spaniards have yet to recognize the independence of the Netherlands.

However, this bourgeois power country took advantage of the Spanish involvement in the European war caused by the German Civil War, and actively engaged in maritime trade, and the Dutch, who lacked resources, did not develop industry, but focused on developing maritime trade and doing entrepot trade. While the Spaniards were weakening day by day, they were growing stronger day by day.

Maritime trade of the Dutch. And the shipbuilding industry is extremely developed, a few years ago, they already owned more than 10,000 merchant ships, owning three-quarters of the total tonnage of merchant ships in the whole of Europe, and they built ships at a lower cost and faster. As a result, most of the merchant ships of European countries were ordered in the Netherlands.

Three years ago, the Dutch were building hundreds of ships at the same time across the country, which is equivalent to one ship every day. The Netherlands also has the world's best shipbuilding designers and craftsmen, and has the most complete and excellent shipbuilding industry chain.

But now the status of the Dutch as the world's number one shipbuilding power has been lost.

and they took away their crown. But it was an empire in the Far East. Three years ago, it was still a backward and isolated country, although rich and civilized, but it was experiencing all kinds of troubles such as natural disasters, famines, uprisings of displaced people, invasions of barbarians in the north, and rebellions of the Yi people in the south.

At that time, their coast was only a hard sailing ship suitable for offshore sailing, and the displacement was relatively small. At that time, the Dutch even occupied a huge island across the Eastern Strait of the empire, where they established a city port trading station, which operated for many years.

Although they have suffered several setbacks, their plans to secure port trading posts along the coast of the empire have failed, and they have even suffered losses at the hands of the empire's officials and pirates, but that is only because they rely on their men to carry out sieges, and even use trickery to attack ships with fire.

In fact, the Dutch have always believed that the ships of the Ming people were very backward, with small ships and few guns. Their Galen warship in the East Indies was enough to challenge hundreds of Ming ships at any time. Even their merchant ships were able to completely suppress the warships of the Ming Kingdom.

They never thought that in just three years, the Han Empire, which replaced the Ming Empire, would have caught up and developed the shipbuilding industry so rapidly that it had even squeezed them down.

The shipbuilding industry of the Han people developed so fast that the Dutch understood what was going on. Those damned Orientals, they're just stealing their technology.

This Eastern Empire, with a population of 100 times the population of the Netherlands, used extremely despicable means and high salaries to recruit countless shipbuilders and even shipbuilding designers from the Netherlands to the East. At first, they didn't notice the problem, and the Han Chinese at first sent some Europeans who knew how to build ships and repair ships to their shipyards from some Europeans captured in Taiwan, Portugal and other places, and then recruited many shipwrights from the colonies of the East Indies.

They imitated the European shipyards and built new shipyards, no longer making those very small Junkers, but came up from the beginning to build European ships such as Galen and Frut merchant ships.

After recruiting countless craftsmen from all over the East Indies, they also extended their black hands to Europe. On the one hand, he asked those Europeans in the Han Empire to write back to Europe to recruit craftsmen, and on the other hand, he entrusted many European merchant ships in the East Indies to help them recruit craftsmen when they returned to Europe.

Later, they even sent people to Europe in a boat to recruit people.

These Han Empire people offered extremely attractive salaries to those craftsmen, and even helped them emigrate their entire families to the East once they were recruited.

In the entire shipbuilding industry, from designers to those craftsmen, there is almost nothing they miss, and there is no limit to the number of recruits, they can recruit as many as they want.

With the beautiful scene depicted in the letters sent back to Europe by the craftsmen who first arrived in the Han Empire, the recruitment became smoother and smoother, and countless craftsmen began to take the initiative to apply, and some even found a way to go to the East by ship.

The huge Dutch shipbuilding industry was hit by a huge shock, and some shipyards, overnight, walked dozens of craftsmen. There were even shipyards that even the shipyard owners simply left the factories and took all the craftsmen with them to accept recruitment and go to the East.

Those bastards of the Han Empire, they not only recruited people, but even simply bought shipyards and transported the entire shipyard to the East with workers.

The combination of a large number of designers and craftsmen from the Netherlands and Europe, as well as the foundation of the shipbuilding industry that was already very popular in the Han Empire in the East, has produced a huge effect that the Dutch people regret today.

If they had anticipated this state of affairs earlier, they would never have allowed these Orientals to come to Holland to dig into the wall.

On the basis of huge financial support, as well as a huge shipbuilding industry, as well as the sufficient supply of materials, and a larger number of ship orders, Dahan's shipbuilding industry is changing with each passing day and developing rapidly.

In just three years, they are now the size of the Dutch shipyards. Even with the support of that large amount of money, and the research of designers who have been heavily poached from European countries, they have completely mastered the highest and new shipbuilding technology of this era.

From a hundred tons of merchant ships, to hundreds of warships, and even thousands of tons of battleships, they have fully mastered, whether it is keel splicing technology, or sail and mast technology, they have not fallen behind the Dutch in the slightest.

Moreover, with the support of these wealthy Orientals, they have even begun to build 2,000 or even 3,000-ton sail warships and large sail merchant ships.

These devils.

Not so long ago, the Portuguese even ordered five three-masted battleships with a displacement of 1,000 tons, two gun decks, 56 guns, and a capacity of 350 men from the Han Empire in one go.

Such ships, built by the Dutch in the past, cost at least £26,000 each. But the damned Han Chinese offered the Portuguese only 25,000 pounds each, a thousand pounds cheaper, and most importantly, they could deliver such a warship in only ten months.

Not one, but five at once.

This speed is at least three months faster than that of shipyards in the Netherlands.

The Portuguese also ordered a new type of merchant ship that the Han Chinese had researched and built. A three-masted armed merchant ship with a displacement of 1,250 tons and a length of more than 40 meters.

This kind of merchant ship, which can carry a crew of 150 people and is equipped with 30 six-pounder and three-pounder guns, has excellent anti-piracy self-defense ability at sea, can carry out long-term ocean voyages, and is better than the Dutchman's Fruth merchant ship in terms of speed, load and self-defense ability, and can be called an upgraded version of the Fruth merchant ship.

Such a huge merchant ship with a displacement of more than 1,000 tons far surpassed the Dutch merchant ship Frut in all aspects.

The damn Portuguese ordered ten of these armed merchant ships called the Dragon King of the South China Sea at one time, and this damn Dragon King merchant ship of the East China Sea also came with a full set of steel shipborne cannons, which are made of steel, which shoot farther, lighter, and cheaper than copper and iron.

As soon as the Dragon King of the East China Sea came out, how could the Fruth merchant ships with a lot of orders from the Dutch be sold in the future? (To be continued.) )