Calcutta, Viceroyalty of the East India United Trading Company, an English merchant.

Built in white granite stone, this stately and lavish building, like a European palace, was the newly completed Viceroyalty of India, or more accurately, the Viceroy of the East India United Trading Company, an English merchant.

It is really a bit unbelievable to say that India, the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, was not brought down by the British Imperial Court sending heavenly soldiers on an expedition, but by the British East India Company, which specializes in peddling, smuggling, robbery, murder, human trafficking, separating and fighting for hegemony, and concurrently engaged in legal trade The so-called "chartered trading company" has been acquired step by step through more than 100 years of operation and expansion in India.

I have to admit that this kind of semi-feudal and semi-capitalist franchised trading company was of great help to the colonization cause of Westerners.

On the one hand, these chartered trading companies were capitalist joint-stock companies that could raise enough start-up capital through the issuance of shares, but at the same time they were vassals of Western monarchs, with the power to organize armies and occupy territory and rule. And their armies, occupations, and domination are for profit...... In order to make a profit, you can do whatever it takes, you can do all kinds of evil, you can be more bottomless than other feudal lords, and your means are more flexible.

As a result, they can control costs and make a profit quickly in the process of expanding their colonies...... This is the only way to make colonial expansion a sustainable and good deal.

And the English merchant East India United Trading Company is the pinnacle of this semi-feudal and semi-capitalist joint-stock company!

This company actually conquered such a large and rich colony as India for the British Empire, and I have to say that this is a semi-feudal, semi-capitalist miracle!

And the British court, although it also helped a little in the whole process, did not play a decisive role - before the invention of the telegraph, it took several months to send a letter from Calcutta to Calcutta, and it took at least half a year to go back and forth!

How can London help in this situation?

Of course, London did not do nothing, and while the East India Company was doing India, the British government and parliament in London were doing the East India Company - they had to make the East India Company of the shareholders the East India Company of Great Britain, and then the British East India Company of the British Governor-General of India.

The first goal, the British court in London, has basically been achieved. And the second goal is close to being achieved.

Under the Act of Licensing 1813, the East India Company was deprived of its monopoly on Indian trade, with the exception of the trade in slices and tea and India's trade with China, and the company had to separate its trade from the regional accounts.

In addition, the Governor of the East India Company was not appointed by the Board of Directors of the Company, but by a committee that included the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary of State for India, and four Privy Councillors appointed by the King.

The current Governor of the East India Company, William. Peter. Amsterd was appointed by this council, so he served and owed allegiance not to the shareholders of the company, but to the King of England.

And his main mission in India, in addition to safeguarding the interests of the British Empire in India, was to do everything possible to provide all kinds of logistical support for the British Royal Navy's Indian Grand Fleet.

Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the focus of the British Royal Navy has shifted from Europe to the Indian Ocean, and the Indian fleet of the Royal Navy has become a maritime power that surpasses the home fleet.

The reason why the British Empire wanted to elevate the Indian fleet to a more important position than the home fleet was, of course, to curb the expansion of the Ming Dynasty in the direction of the Indian Ocean...... This was a national policy of the British Empire since the middle of the 18th century.

At that time, the battleships were transitioning from the era of sails to the age of sails, and the absolute superiority of the British Empire in the era of sails (King Zhuge Wuzhong knew sail battleships at all) became the relative advantage of the era of sails, so it became possible for the Ming Dynasty to break through the Strait of Malacca and enter the Indian Ocean. It was during that period that the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet of India began to be formed!

Because the fleet was formed in the name of "defending India," its daily expenses and part of the cost of building ships, as well as the cost of building military ports, batteries, forts, barracks, shipyards, and other naval arsenals throughout India, were collected from the Indian people with the help of the East India Company.

As the size of India's Grand Fleet grew, so did the cost of maintenance and the cost of building auxiliary facilities. Peter. Baron Amsterdam is also feeling a lot of pressure for the Indian people under his rule!

"Count, I'm not mistaken, am I? Will the East India Fleet double in the next five years? This, that's too much, right? ”

In the office of the Governor of the East India Company, Baron Amsterd, with curly silver hair, very handsome and gentlemanly manners, was holding a plan for the budget growth of the Indian Grand Fleet, and looked at a one-armed old man with silver hair talking with a look of embarrassment.

This one-armed old man was wearing a blue British Royal Navy uniform, he looked very thin, and his eyes were very sharp, and he knew at a glance that he had seen strong winds and waves. He was the commander of the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet of India, Admiral Horatio. Earl Nelson.

The legendary Admiral of the Napoleonic Wars era was now sixty-eight years old, and not in very good health, so the British Admiralty appointed him commander of the Grand Fleet of India, but at the same time explicitly ordered him to lead the Grand Fleet in the comfort of the fleet command in Calcutta—an old man who was too precious to the Royal Navy, whose prestige was his fighting power, and which could not be allowed to fall ill or even die because of the hardships of life at sea.

However, the naval commander, who did not go to sea much, was the most troublesome presence for Baron Amsterd, the governor of the East India Company, because the old gentleman always felt that the Indian Grand Fleet was not well armed, underfunded, inadequate, inadequate, fortified and inadequate...... And a large part of these deficiencies had to be made up by the East India Company with some means.

"Is it much? Baron, these are necessary, and even a little insufficient! Earl Nelson frowned and said, "I just got the news that the Ming Empire is launching a 'Thousand Ships Project', of which the Hongwu Emperor class alone is preparing to build more than three hundred ships...... Once all of these Hongwu Emperor classes are completed, the Indian Ocean will become a battlefield for the Ming and British to compete for world hegemony. If the people of India cannot come up with enough money to prove their determination to resist the tyrants, then why should we, the British Royal Navy, die to protect them? I think the Indian princes, who only knew how to extort and live the most shameless and extravagant lives, should understand what the conquest of the Ming Dynasty meant? The Ming is not as merciful as our Great Britain...... They will abolish the caste system, they will divide the land belonging to the princes and magnates equally among the peasants, and they will tax every rich merchant, prince and official, and then they will have to pay taxes like commoners! ”

Baron Amsterdam frowned: "This is really terrible......"

"Yes!" "So if you make it clear to the princes, bureaucrats, and wealthy merchants of India," said the Earl of Nelson, "they will be willing to cooperate with you in collecting taxes, and collecting more taxes...... Moreover, these policies implemented by the Ming Dynasty are not secrets, and I believe that most of the local Indian elites are very aware of them. ”

Baron Amsterd had been an ambassador to the Ming Empire earlier, and of course he knew that what Count Nelson said was well-founded! But Nelson wanted so much! And because Nelson proposed it, there is a high probability that London will fully support it, so the pressure on the East India Company is really great!

Just when Baron Amsterd wanted Old Man Nelson to discuss it better, one of his secretaries suddenly knocked on the door and came in, and handed over a note. Someone wants our British Empire to pay for silver? ”