The establishment of the European Union led European countries to unite against the influence of the Chinese Empire.

Since France and Russia do not renounce their status as allies, it is impossible for the EU to engage in a direct military confrontation with the Chinese Empire.

Economically, however, as the Chinese Empire began to dump goods on a large scale in Europe, the European Union began to consciously form an economic alliance to counter it.

The economies of Europe were violently impacted by large quantities of goods from the Chinese Empire, including industry, agriculture, and handicrafts. They had become quite cheap and even sold at a loss within the Chinese Empire, but they were still expensive when they arrived in Europe, and Chinese merchants made huge profits from the difference.

The Chinese Empire's large-scale dumping campaign against Europe was divided into three stages, and at first, cheap goods from the Chinese Empire were still scarce in Europe, so the merchants could not bear to dump them, and they still sold them at high prices. As a result, European goods still have a certain degree of competitiveness, and the boycott of European countries is very weak.

But as more and more goods from the Chinese Empire arrived in Europe and flooded the markets of European countries, prices began to fall. At this time, the merchants of the Chinese Empire had to start selling at lower prices, while the profits of domestic goods in European countries became less and less, and a large number of factories and workshops began to lay off workers, reduce production, and even close down. European governments were under severe economic pressure and had to begin to exert greater pressure on the dumping actions of the Chinese Empire.

The European countries protested to the Chinese Empire under tremendous political pressure, and the Chinese Empire itself did not want to directly confront the whole of Europe, because it was not in the vital interests of the Chinese Empire, so the Chinese Empire expressed to other countries that there was no problem of dumping goods, and would not support the dumping of goods by the Chinese merchant group in Europe.

The promises of the Chinese Imperial Government are certainly powerful, but for the government, they are merely superficial.

On the surface, the Chinese Empire's dumping actions against Europe were outlawed in order to quell the protests of European countries, but secretly the merchants of the Chinese Empire began to implement the second plan, that is, to withdraw from the frontal disputes in the European market and use European merchants to carry out secondary dumping actions.

The merchants did not know the hatred of the country, and what they said was a little too absolute, but for the European merchants, in order to chase profits, they did not hesitate to carry out underground transactions with the merchants of the Chinese Empire behind their backs.

The merchants of the Chinese Empire continued to export dumped goods to Europe, but instead of directly impacting the European market, they chose local European merchants as agents to continue dumping.

In this way, European governments have no excuse to take action against the commercial dumping of the Chinese Empire, because their local merchants will side with the Chinese Empire's merchants for profit, and thus the governments will not be able to take effective sanctions.

The dumping campaign continued, and a large number of cheap goods from the Chinese Empire flooded the European market, and the local industry and commerce in Europe suffered a huge blow. Of course, this blow also distinguishes countries. Like the Holy Roman Empire and the extremely vassal states, the pillar economy of their country is agriculture, industry and commerce are not developed, and the social pressure brought by the collapse of enterprises and factories is not very strict and controllable, so the resistance to the dumping actions of the Chinese Empire is not very strong.

But this was not the case in countries such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, and Sweden, whose pillar economies had already moved towards capitalist industrial and commercial economies, and after being hit by the dumping actions of the Chinese Empire, a large number of laid-off and unemployed workers and craftsmen caused serious problems in society.

The strongest of these is the Netherlands. The Netherlands had just suffered a major loss in the Anglo-Dutch War, and the country's economy was in dire need of reorganization, and the Dutch economy was hit hard after the massive dumping of goods by the Chinese Empire. The legacy of the war erupted, protests erupted, and near the Netherlands, the Dutch began an organized boycott of Imperial Chinese goods.

Acts of smashing and looting were carried out in the Dutch provinces, and angry Dutch citizens stormed shops to destroy goods from the Chinese Empire and beat Dutch merchants who had helped the Chinese Empire dump goods.

The situation escalated dramatically, and the Dutch people demanded that the Dutch government stop groveling to the Chinese Empire and demand a complete ban on the inflow of goods from the Chinese Empire.

Ordinary people never know how dangerous the national game on politics is, the Dutch government has just been defeated, and although it is not convinced and ready to fight again, it will take a few years to catch its breath. During this time, the Dutch military needs to make active preparations, first of all strategic material reserves. Only with sufficient reserves of strategic materials will the Netherlands not be afraid of being blockaded by Britain or even China.

However, at this moment, the dumping of the Netherlands by the Chinese Empire happened to help the Dutch military to carry out strategic material reserves. Important strategic materials such as grain, alcohol, cloth, and steel from the Chinese Empire were very cheap, which was suitable for the Dutch military to reserve strategic materials.

The Dutch Speaker believes that although these cheap commodities from the Chinese Empire flowed into the Netherlands, causing a severe impact on the Dutch economy and weakening the wealth of the Dutch people, for the Dutch government, the strategic materials from the Chinese Empire were of high quality and low price, and were extremely cost-effective, and were most suitable for national reserves.

It took more than a year for the Dutch people's request to be sent to the parliament, but the Dutch parliament was slow to move, which dragged the Dutch people out of patience and set off a larger-scale anti-China action.

In the past, the Dutch did not dare to touch the shops directly opened by the Chinese, firstly, because these Chinese were privately armed, and secondly, the Dutch government intervened to prevent them. But with the Dutch government delaying its move, the angry Dutch decided to take action against the Chinese shops.

However, the Chinese outside the Chinese Empire basically had private armies. When Dutch civilians began to attack Chinese shops, the Chinese fighters immediately returned fire.

On July 9, 1647, June 3, the 17th year of Shenwu, when gunshots rang out at the intersection of the north and west lanes of Amsterdam, it marked the official escalation of the conflict between the Chinese and the Europeans.

At the entrance of Xijiao Alley, Chinese private armed forces set up sandbags to block the street entrance, and formed a defensive position through the doors and windows of the buildings on both sides of Guò.

As a result of receiving a tip-off from the local Dutch merchants, the Chinese merchants prepared ample weapons and ammunition, and took advantage of the fortifications to shoot at the Dutch citizens who rushed at them.

The Dutch were not prepared enough, and they did not expect the Chinese business association to shoot directly, and they were immediately beaten to the head, and the unarmed citizens soon became bloody.

After the Chinese merchants opened fire, the situation became more and more serious, and many Dutch citizens went home to find muskets and returned to fight, and the conflict suddenly escalated.

The two sides exchanged fire for more than two hours, killing and wounding hundreds of people. Although the number of Chinese merchants was small, the mercenary armed forces were strong and well-prepared, so they were able to withstand the Dutch despite their large numbers. There were many Dutch but not tightly organized, and the gunmen fought on their own, and even the guns could not be used at all.

After the stalemate between the two sides, a large number of military police officers from the Amsterdam Police Department dared to come up to mediate.

On one side are angry citizens, on the other side is the armed forces of the Chinese and Dutch businessmen, and the police station is in a political position that does not dare to offend either side and cannot mediate.

However, the Imperial Chinese Consulate in Amsterdam had a clear attitude, and in addition to strongly protesting to the Dutch government, it also directly sent the consulate escort into Xijiao Lane to protect the safety of overseas Chinese.

The convoy of the Imperial Chinese Consulate in Amsterdam was registered as security in the Netherlands, but it was actually a regular army system from the Royal Chinese Army, and its combat capabilities were so strong that it was easy to deal with unorganized Dutch civilians.

The addition of the convoy immediately upset the original balance, and the consulate guard, which only had 200 people, shot thousands of people in less than an hour, and immediately frightened the Dutch citizens who came to make trouble. When some Dutch policemen saw the Chinese Imperial Consulate escort killing people so recklessly, they immediately opened fire to stop them, and the two sides immediately fell into a fierce battle, and the entire Xijiao Alley intersection was in chaos.

Subsequently, the Mediterranean Fleet of the Royal Navy of the Chinese Empire quickly passed through the Strait of Gibraltar in the name of protecting overseas Chinese, and sailed to the territorial waters of the Netherlands together with the North Sea Fleet of the British Navy. After receiving the order, the Dutch navy quickly dispatched to intercept the Sino-British combined fleet, but neither side received an order for war, so the tunnel had to confront each other first, and for a time the sabre rattling.

When the news reached The Hague, the Dutch parliament was shocked, and the behavior of the Chinese Imperial Consulate undoubtedly sounded the alarm bell for them, and this kind of serious trampling on the sovereignty of the Netherlands caused the Dutch government to lose face.

The Dutch parliament made an emergency ballot for this purpose, but in the end due to the hesitation of the military, the vote on the incident was not approved. The Dutch government was faced with a dilemma: to face political and military pressure from the Chinese Empire, and to balance public anger at home.

In the end, the Speaker of the Dutch Parliament decided that the government would pay for the purchase of Dutch goods and first stabilize the people to prevent the situation from escalating. On the other hand, the Dutch government forced Dutch merchants to stop colluding with the merchants of the Chinese Empire and to stop dumping activities.

But the Xijiao Lane incident touched the Chinese imperial government, and the whole of Europe was watching to see how the Dutch responded. It would be an exaggeration to say that all of them were watching the Dutch jokes, but at least they wanted to see how the Chinese Empire and the Netherlands resolved the matter, so that they could serve as a reference for dealing with similar incidents in the future.

The Dutch military's strategic material reserves had not yet been completed, and it was impossible to rush into war with the Chinese Empire, so the Dutch government adopted delaying tactics and spent huge sums of money to purchase a large amount of materials from the Chinese Empire in exchange for temporary peace between the two countries.

The Dutch Navy's shipbuilding program was nearing completion, and the construction of a first-class battleship was supposed to be completed in the seventeenth year of Shenwu, but due to the outbreak of the Anglo-Dutch War, the project was postponed for a year and a half, and finally delayed until the spring of the nineteenth year of Shenwu.

The Dutch Navy prides itself on the construction of 20 Republic-class first-class battleships, the main warship of the Dutch Navy's Invincible Fleet, and the Dutch Navy's naval arms race with the Chinese Empire in order to compete for the world's first naval power.

Due to the Anglo-Dutch War, the service time of the Republic-class battleships of the Dutch Navy was postponed to the spring of the 19th year of Shenwu, but the construction plan of the main battleships of the Royal Navy of the Chinese Empire was not affected in any way, and it was completed in the summer of the 17th year of Shenwu as scheduled.

After the completion of the second batch of ten first-class battleships of the Douzi Douzi, the main battleship of the Chinese Empire, the strength of the Imperial Chinese Navy skyrocketed, and it became a maritime power to deter the world. The Dutch navy had no choice but to avoid direct military conflict with the Chinese Empire as much as possible, and wait for its navy to complete its renovation plan. V