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Kolkata (ko1kata or ca1cutta) has two theories of its name, one is from a village called ka1ikata on the periphery of the city; The second is derived from the roots ka1i (Bengali, meaning canal) and kata (Bengali, meaning lime), which together mean the place where shell lime is produced along the canal.

In the 44th year of the Yongli Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, the 30th year of the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, and in 169o AD, Job Chanok, an agent of the British East India Company, established a trading post here. Prior to this, Chanok had established a trading post at the mouth of the Hooghly River, but had to leave due to conflicts with Mughal officials, and then unsuccessfully attempted to gain a foothold elsewhere on the lower Hooghly River. Fortunately, the Mughal officials, not wanting to lose the benefits they had gained from trading with the British East India Company, had to allow Chanok to return to his place and rebuild the trading station, and Chanok chose Calcutta as the center of his activities.

Chanok's choice of Kolkata was carefully chosen, with the Hooghly River to the west, a bay to the north, and a salt lake to the east, so that it was protected on three sides. The bases of the rival French, Dutch, and other colonial powers were located on the west bank of the Hooghly River, so the passage of the British East India Company's merchant fleet into Calcutta by sea was not threatened. Moreover, the Hooghly River is wide and deep at Calcutta, and the only drawback is that the area has depressions and swamps, where malaria and jaundice are rampant, and the health of the colonists is greatly affected. However, since Indian merchants who had moved from the silted up port of Sadegan in the upper Hooghly River had already settled in three villages before the arrival of the British, Chanok, who was ready to take advantage of the rapid opening of the Indian market, chose Calcutta as the base of the British East India Company in East India.

In the fourth year of Wuding in the former Ming Dynasty, the thirty-sixth year of the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, and in 1696, due to the rebellion in the Budwan area near Calcutta, the Mughal Bengal Najib (provincial governor) agreed to the British East India Company to build a fort in Calcutta to defend it, although the rebels were quickly suppressed by the Mughals, but the brick and earth fortifications of the British were preserved, and later the so-called Fort William (old Fort William). Two years later, the British purchased the rights of three villages near Kolkata (note: the tax collector could have the judicial, administrative, military and other powers of the territory), and since then the British East India Company has become more and more prosperous in the trade of Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and other eastern parts of India, and gradually gained the upper hand in the trade of European countries with India.

Recently, however, Sir Denver, the commercial representative of the British East India Company in Calcutta, had not been pleased with the growing Anglo-Indian trade, but had instead appeared to be unsettled.

There were three reasons for Sir Denver's frown: first, he had just learned from the British commercial representative in Vizaga Putnam that two military Galen carrying the Chinese mission to Europe had sailed into Yanan, an important central trading port of the French Crown East India Company on the west coast of India, under the guidance of a French merchant ship; Second, he learned from Indian merchants that about fifteen days earlier, a group of Chinese pirates had captured Chittagong and forced the local lords to agree to sell Chittagong and the four surrounding villages to the Chinese government for five thousand silver coins. Thirdly, and most anxious to him, not a single British merchant ship bound for the Xiamen and Ngan trade had returned to Calcutta since June.

Sir Denver hated the French's practice of opening the door to thieves, because he knew that once China had figured out the direct route to Europe, it was conceivable how terrible the huge profits of the Oriental trade would be diluted in the future. However, Britain and France have always been hostile, and Sir Denver could not stop the foolishness of the French at all, so he could only send clippers to inform the African side that they could find a way to destroy the French and this so-called Chinese mission on the way. Sir Denver could only hope that the Portuguese and Dutch would clearly recognize the threat and cooperate with the British to strangle the visit.

The opening of a trading station in Chittagong was clearly a greater threat to the British East India Company than a future threat to the opening of shipping routes. Sir Denver felt as if the sky had fallen at the thought of a flood of fine Chinese goods pouring into the East Indies and banishing all the shoddy British goods from the market. However, India was too close to China for Sir Denver to destroy this potential threat in pirate mode, after all, what happened to the Dutch at Shilan was a lesson for him.

As for the third question that made him anxious, it was quickly answered, and a Danish ship sailing from Xiamen brought in a thing he wanted to know: because of its planned participation in hostile operations against China, the Chinese government had ordered the detention of all British merchant ships sailing east of the Strait of Malacca, until the British East India Company apologized for the actions of its commercial representatives in Xiamen and promised not to do anything like that again, otherwise British merchants would be forever banned from engaging in trade with China.

It is clear that the crux of the matter lies in this rising and aggressive Chinese empire.

It's just that Britain's water power, like the Netherlands and France, is concentrated on both sides of the Atlantic, and in this far east, the British East India Company can only make up a hundred armed merchant ships with all its might, and it cannot compete with the Chinese sailors in terms of quantity and quality, and the privateer tricks used by the British cannot be used in South China, yes, even the Strait of Malacca cannot be passed, how can it go deep into the South China Sea to plunder?

And the robbery of Chinese merchant ships in the eastern Indian Ocean is even more of a joke, you know, the trade between China and various parts of India is not too frequent now, less than 200 ships a year, scattered throughout the year, so how can British merchants and pirates give up normal trade to wait for the rabbit. What's more, the Chinese merchants who are now appearing in the eastern Indian Ocean are themselves part-time pirates, all of them are well-armed, and it is not certain who will rob whom at that time.

Can the Mughal Empire put pressure on China? This is also a way, but on the one hand, there is no diplomatic and trade relationship between China and the Mughal Empire, and the Mughal Empire cannot find a target if it wants to exert pressure; On the other hand, Chittagong is not within the scope of Bangladesh, and if Najib of Bangladesh recklessly puts pressure on the small eastern states, he may push them into the arms of the Chinese Empire.

Left or right, it's no wonder that Sir Denver's head is getting thinner and his temper is getting hotter.

After much consideration, Sir Denver wrote to the British East India Company's Mumbai jurisdiction and the two commercial representatives of Vizagapatnam and Madras on the west coast of India, asking them to support his proposal to form a large fleet with the Portuguese and Dutch, and then to reach an agreement with the two countries to force the Chinese Empire to abandon its expansion in India and to terminate direct trade between China and Europe by force.

After the letter came out, the anxious Sir Denver did not wait for the business representatives of Bombay and the two places to reply, and took it upon himself to contact the Dutch in Pulikat and the Portuguese in Myraapur.

Sir Denver had already considered it very thoroughly, and he believed that since France was willing to guide the Chinese mission to visit Europe, the two countries must have reached an ulterior agreement, and as for the Danes and the Swedes, their strength was limited, and they made it clear that they would not cooperate at the Xiamen Conference, so they could not be trusted, and the Spaniards, China never seemed to have violated their interests, and they would never merge with the Anglo-Dutch and Portuguese in the future, and only the Anglo-Dutch and Portuguese who also suffered losses in their dealings with China were the best allies.

The Dutch, who feared the further loss of Java and the Spice Islands, were certainly in agreement with the British East India Company, but what Sir Denver did not expect was that Huaxia was already negotiating privately with the Portuguese. Although the Portuguese did not reveal their possible plans to China due to the Treaty of Anglo-Portuguese League of 1373, the Portuguese were reluctant to take part in a risky expedition at the prospect of a return by force.

Sir Denver's messenger did not give up after a blow to Myrapool, and then went straight to Goa.

While the Courier was still on the road, the two business representatives of Vizagapatnam and Madras made a decision in favor of Sir Denver. The Bombay side also agreed, just to get back the merchant ships detained by Huaxia, and the Bombay side demanded that it be not too late to turn around after taking back the cargo from Huaxia.

According to the Bombay Jurisdiction, on the seventh day of the twelfth month of the fifteenth year of the Chinese Wucheng, the envoys of Sir Denver were allowed to sail into the Strait of Malacca after identifying themselves to the Chinese patrol vessels.

The British were consciously secretive, but because they contacted the Netherlands and Portugal successively, the so-called secrecy was actually an empty word, and soon various rumors appeared in the trading posts along the coast of India. The rumors inevitably spread to the ears of the Chinese merchants, and then to the coastal towns, and further to the ears of the new Lingyamen Metropolitan Protector Du Geng, who had just been transferred from Chaozhou, did not dare to slack off, and immediately reported the news to the center, demanding that the British ships be continued to be seized until the main directors of the East India Company, who were in the British mainland, came to confess.

In order to prevent the imperial court from dismissing the British merchant ships before his news arrived, Du Geng also asked the East Tianzhu sailors to continue to arrest the British ships passing through Malacca and south of Centipede Island. In view of the fact that Du Geng had obtained the title of Jieyue and had the right to make arbitrary decisions, Chang Tianyuan, the admiral of the East Tianzhu Navy, immediately expressed his obedience, and in this way, the attempt of the British East India Company and the Dutch United East India Company to join forces to start a war with China was declared bankrupt before it could be realized. However, the news that Britain and the Netherlands were preparing to join forces also dashed the last hope for peace between Charvail.

On the seventh day of February in the sixteenth year of Wucheng in China, Zheng Kezhang issued an order to transfer a brigade of Longxiang's army from the two naval divisions of Zhenxi and Zhennan and one reinforcement army from Annam, Vietnam, and Zhancheng to Lingyamen to prepare for war. After that, Zheng Kezhang transferred the second, third, fourth, and fifth cruiser fleets to enrich the two major naval divisions of Sulu and Dongtianzhu.

At this point, the Xia-Dutch war was already on the way.