Since its entry into the Far East in 1619, the East India Company has always regarded itself as the most powerful power in the region, and even the Portuguese and Spaniards, who were also maritime powers, would never take the East India Company lightly. ≥ ≥ ≥ Xiao ≥ said that this kind of unilateral demarcation of time limits and forbidden areas was undoubtedly a great humiliation to the East India Company, not to mention that the promoters were only a new force that had just emerged. Although he already knew that the strength of the Haihan people was not to be underestimated, the arrogant wording of this diplomatic letter provoked Cohen's anger for a long time.

“...... In view of the fact that your company has long been a military ally with the local pirate gang Shibazhi off the coast of Fujian and supports its armed confrontation with the government, we have reason to suspect that your company has similar acts of collusion with pirates in other regions......"

In the letter, the Haihan Executive Committee put such trumped-up charges on the head of the East India Company, and it was in a straightforward tone, if it had not been for the defeat at the hands of the other party, and the fear of its strength, Cohen really wanted to immediately order a crusade against these infidels who did not know the height of the sky.

Of course, although Cohen was angry, he did not forget his identity, and still maintained enough restraint and reason in front of his subordinates, and calmly analyzed the current situation of the East India Company: "Gentlemen, if the Haihan people are allowed to occupy the Natuna Islands, the consequences may be even more severe than falling into the hands of a group of pirates!

Immediately someone responded: "Send our troops! We are not afraid of any opponent!" "It is unforgivable to compare us to a group of pirates!"

Even in such a state of indignation, there was still no lack of sober opinions: "Why are the Haihan people so sure that they can defeat the Natuna Islands?

However, this statement, which is already very close to the truth, was immediately refuted by others: "When the pirates attacked Qiongzhou Island last year, it is said that they had occupied half of the island at the strictest time, but after the Haihan people sent troops from Qiongnan, it only took a month to recover all the lost territory and drive all the pirates into the sea." If the Natuna Islands are really their old rivals, then the Haihan people will indeed be sure of victory. ”

With the size of Qiongzhou Island and the number of cities, it has not been able to withstand it for a month, and there is only one port and one town on Natuna Island, and the rest of the places are almost all barren mountains and mountains, and there is no strategic depth at all, so how can it be defended. When you think about it, it seems that the pirates really don't have much of a chance. The Dutch suffered a loss because they did not have their own intelligence channels on Qiongzhou Island, otherwise from the pirates attacking the island last year, to the later Haihan troops, and then to the pirates withdrawing, the Haihan people semi-openly took over the control of the northern Qiongzhou region, in fact, there are many things worth playing. After all, it is impossible for such a big operation to have no loopholes at all, as long as you have the heart to collect information, it is not difficult to find that the Haihan people are tired of playing in the middle. For these onlookers who don't know the truth in the outside world, the news that Haihan consciously released has become an objective cognition of this matter in their hearts.

Then someone else expressed a different opinion: "The distance from Qiongzhou Island to the Natuna Islands is more than twice the distance from the local area to Fujian, and the vicinity of the Natuna Islands is not as good as in Qiongzhou itself or along the coast of Fujian, and the Haihan people on the expedition to the Natuna Islands may not have the same advantage on the battlefield as they did when they fought locally." The difficulties we face now in our crusade against the Natuna Islands are no less than them. When they get to the Natuna Islands, they may suffer a lot of losses, as our fleet did last time, because of their lack of preparation. ”

As soon as these words came out, the faces of Spikes and Van Longen, who were sitting on the periphery, suddenly became a little embarrassed. No one will remember their previous achievements for the company, but this defeat will definitely be remembered by everyone. But no one paid attention to their expressions at this time, and the discussion continued enthusiastically.

"Then Your Excellency means to take advantage of the unfavorable time for the Haihan people to attack the island?"

"It's not out of the question, when these two groups are almost at loggerheads, our fleet will rush up again, occupy the harbor, and slowly slaughter the remnants of the island......

"This is just an idealistic situation, if the Haihan people discovered our fleet before they landed on the island, then they would definitely give up landing on the island and turn their heads against us first!

"Alright, stop and listen to me!" Cohen tapped on the table, and the room fell silent again.

"Whether the Haihan can beat the pirates or not, we can't let them occupy the Natuna Islands!" Cohen set the tone succinctly: "There is only one way to ensure this, and that is to take back control of the Natuna Islands before they do!"

However, the idea is beautiful, but the reality is cruel. Van Dimen, who was in charge of the battle plan for the recovery of the Natuna Islands, took over the conversation very helplessly: "Your Excellency Governor, I'm afraid we will have to wait until about a month and a half at the earliest to complete the troop transfer and other preparations, and it is expected that we will not be able to send troops until October, let alone if there are other changes in the middle." ”

"There's no way to bring this forward a little earlier?" Cohen asked, frowning.

"The time it takes to mobilize troops cannot be reduced. Van Dimen explained: "Because of the lack of troops, we need to mobilize fighters from the colonies east of Java, which would be a month's flight away. Although the military order had been issued, they rushed to Batavia from all over the country to concentrate, at least a month later. ”

"Damn it......" Cohen muttered, but didn't follow up on it.

It is true that Van Dimen is not shirking his responsibilities, and the process of transferring troops from various places is cumbersome and time-consuming, and it is difficult to effectively shorten the time required in between. First of all, Batavia had to send clippers to deliver military orders to various places, and after the military orders arrived there, the local governors had to decide how many people to send back to Batavia to participate in the expedition, depending on the local situation. During this period, the preparation for the expedition often took several days. Van Dimen said that a month and a half is actually a very conservative estimate. If there are any unexpected situations in the middle, such as indigenous rebellions, climatic conditions that are not suitable for going to sea, etc., it is difficult to say how long it will be delayed.

Since it was impossible to send troops to Natuna before the Haihans, they had to think of other ways. Cohen opened his mouth and asked, "If we want to delay the plan of the Haihan people to send troops, what can you do?"

It is obviously not a wise idea to take military action, and now that the preparations for sending troops to the Natuna Islands to fight pirates are not yet complete, how can we talk about tearing up the face with Haihan, a formidable enemy? Cohen's intention in asking everyone is obviously to ask everyone to come up with an idea other than going to war.

"Your Excellency the Governor, perhaps we can send an envoy to Sanya to make contact with the Haihan people head-on. ”

Cohen looked over to see that the person who spoke turned out to be Van Longen, so he nodded slightly: "Please tell me what you think." ”

Van Longen was encouraged, so he boldly said: "One of the important reasons why we can't make up our minds now is because we lack an intuitive understanding of the Haihan people. None of the gentlemen here, including myself, have had face-to-face contact with the Haihan people, let alone go to their land to observe their development in the local area. I think you should all admit that there is a huge gap in our intelligence work. ”

Everyone in the room immediately turned their attention to another person, Brandt Henk, who was in charge of the intelligence work of the East India Company, and Van Longen pointed out the problem in his field.

Henk shrugged his shoulders and said, "Gentlemen, please don't look at this matter with a simple dereliction of duty, we have to collect information about the Haihan people, and there are obvious shortcomings in the congenital situation. May I ask all of you here, what do you think is the chance that a Dutch will go to Qiongzhou Island, which is full of yellow people, and go unnoticed? Moreover, they have not declared independence from the territory of the Ming Dynasty, and there has been no reconciliation between us and the Ming Dynasty, so we have no way to establish diplomatic relations with Haihan, and there is no reasonable reason to send intelligence personnel to the local area. ”

"Don't forget that there are tens of thousands of Chinese in Batavia, Mr. Henk. Immediately, some of those present expressed their displeasure with the blame-shifting rhetoric.

"But how many of them are worthy of our complete trust and can rest assured that this kind of secret work can be delivered?" Henk immediately sneered: "Look at the people here, is there anyone here who has the slightest Chinese blood? Isn't it worried that the Chinese will bite us back because of the same ethnic group when they are sent to be spies?"

The notion that people who are not of my race must have different hearts is also deeply ingrained in the Dutch people. Even if they have traveled all over the world and have seen far more than the feudal kingdoms of their time, it is difficult to avoid these instinctive thoughts. In the intelligence department of the East India Company, there was no Chinese member at all. Most of the intelligence information they were able to collect about the Haihan was from the oral tradition of the Ming Dynasty maritime merchants and immigrants, and it was not known how much had changed on the basis of the original facts, and its credibility was also very limited.

But the more they found these rumors to be credible, the more the intelligence officers felt that the Chinese were unreliable, and the more reluctant they were to take them for their own use. This kind of employment situation did not cause much trouble in the past, because the possibility of the current Ming Empire posing a substantial threat to the East India Company was simply minimal, and there was no need to arrange special intelligence gathering for it. The last time the huge fleet of the Ming Empire went to sea was two hundred years ago, after which the Ming Dynasty's maritime power gradually declined, and it has gradually fallen to the level of the East India Company. Now the company believes that Daming has given up the battle for hegemony at sea for a long time, and it is not necessary to spend resources to establish an intelligence network against Daming.

Seeing that no one refuted his claim, Henk continued: "With all due respect, it is much less difficult for the Haihan to send spies to Batavia, although I have no solid evidence, but I think that among the local Chinese, there should have been spies planted by Haihan a long time ago!"

Everyone present was in an uproar, and most of them found it difficult to accept his conjecture. Henk shook his head and said, "Gentlemen, it is so difficult that you have not noticed that in the past year, the Western goods purchased by the Daming maritime merchants from Batavia, especially spices, have become less and less. That's because they've found better sellers, the Haihan people on Qiongzhou Island! As far as I know, the maritime merchants who came to Batavia had different trade dealings with the Haihan, and many of them invested in various plantations on Qiongzhou Island. In other words, many of these Ming merchants who do business with us are partners of the Haihan people, or people who run errands for them. If the Haihan wanted to, it would be easy for spies to infiltrate Batavia in various capacities, and we don't have any effective countermeasures to this right now. ”

"And what do you think of Mr. Van Longen's suggestion?" Cohen asked Henk, not wanting to let the conversation go any further.

"I very much agree with Mr. Van Longen's suggestion. Surprisingly, Henk did not reject Van Longen's criticism by name, but instead expressed his support: "As the head of the intelligence department, I think we need such a reasonable excuse to go to the Haihan people's den and gather some really useful information." ”

Cohen nodded and said to Van Longen, "You continue to say what you think. ”

Van Longen bowed slightly, and continued: "We can use diplomatic means to persuade the Haihan people to cancel or postpone the operation against the Natuna Islands as much as possible. Even if this goal is not achieved in the end, it can still play the role that Mr. Henk just said. The real problem we need to solve is not the timing of the attack, but the lack of real understanding of the Haihan group. Haihan is a competitor that we have to face, and if we can learn more about them, I think it will help us defeat them on the battlefield in the future. ”

Under the premise that it is not appropriate to use military means, there are indeed no other tricks for the means of delaying time, and the proposal proposed by Van Longen has been approved by almost everyone. The next step was to select the envoys, prepare the ships and the associated texts, and with Van Longen as the head of the mission, to complete this task that was not destined to be easy. And Van Longen, who was eager to save his image, also gladly accepted the appointment, and for him, this was the battle to determine whether he could turn around.