Batavia, Dutch Viceroyalty of the East Indies. Anthony, the governor of the Dutch East India Company, has been in a bad mood for the past few months, and his wife Maria nee Aelst is in a relationship with a Ming man named Xu Meng, of course, it is more decent to say that it is eyebrows.

After all, Anthony, who is middle-aged, is a little powerless, but Xu Meng, who is from the Ming Kingdom, is a Shandong man, half a head taller than Anthony, and the muscles on his arms are thicker than his waist, this Ming man makes Maria very satisfied, and it is said that he spent more than 100,000 guilders to buy New Amsterdam (New York) Manhattan Island for Xu Meng, and let Xu Meng be the owner of this Manhattan Island.

He also purchased fourteen large Galen ships of 1,600 tons for Xu Meng, and Anthony was sure that Xu Meng, a man from the Ming Kingdom, had almost emptied nearly half of Maria's family property in less than half a year.

But the problem is that Anthony doesn't dare to care about Maria's affairs, not only because Maria has a high influence in the gentlemen's association, but also because this Ming man Xu Meng has a background in the Ming military.

Once it gets big, no one gets any benefit.

As the saying goes, if you want to live a decent life, who doesn't have a little green on their head?

The Maria with the same name as Maria, Princess Henrietta Maria from France, that is, the queen of King Charles I of Great Britain, England and Scotland, she also had several lovers, and it is said that the Prince of Wales was not the son of Charles I, and it was precisely because he was not the son of Charles I that he died young.

was beaten to death by the angry Charles I, which was the fuse for the breakdown of the relationship between husband and wife, as the king of England, Scotland, and Great Britain, he had to wear a green hat, not to mention that Anthony was just a small governor?

What is Anthony compared to Charles I?

It's just that what makes Anthony very unhappy is that with the strength of the Ming Dynasty, Maria, the Jingzi, is becoming more and more unscrupulous, and she just wrote on the door of her head, I have a lover who is a Ming man, a macho man from the Ming Dynasty.

Maria often invited the wives and daughters of the senior executives of the Dutch East India Company to attend her banquets, and on the Black Pearl, she had in-depth exchanges with the Ming men in all aspects.

Although the Dutch do not value chastity as much as the Ming people, this is not a glorious thing after all, and even Pelosi, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Anthony's good friend Spex, doubted two months ago that the crux of the problem is that Pelosi herself does not know who the father of the child is.

However, I heard that Daming has a way of recognizing relatives by dropping blood, and only after the child is born can he find his biological father for the child. , which makes Spexes also have an opinion about Anthony, not only is his face incapacitated, but his old friend's head is also green, how can he be happy?

In addition to the bad things at home, the political pressure is also increasing, Daming is too strong, the Netherlands can give the East India Company very limited support, in the past, Daming internal and external troubles, self-care, the Dutch East India Company can expand unscrupulously.

At that time, the only thing to worry about was Zheng Zhilong, a pirate, but Zheng Zhilong was very easy to deal with, he only asked for silver, and had no other demands for territory and other interests.

Now it's different, the Ming are expanding so fast, they have lost their big numbers, they have lost half of the East Indies, they have lost Sumatra, and they are about to lose Mindanao.

Affected by the tulip financial crisis, the Dutch East India Company hopes that the Dutch East India Company can inject a lot of blood into the country, but the problem is that with the expansion of the Ming Dynasty in various places, especially the imminent loss of Annam, Burma, Laos and Thailand, the interests of the Dutch East India Company have shrunk greatly.

He can't make enough profits, which makes the gentlemen in Amsterdam very dissatisfied, questioning his ability, Anthony is also extremely aggrieved, in the face of Daming, an arrogant and unreasonable opponent, no matter how great his ability is, what can he do?

The Ming Emperor canonized the three princes as King Zheng, and asked to change Mindanao to Zheng Island, which is still in the theoretical stage, if the Dutch East Indies do not agree to deliver Mindanao, the Ming fleet located in Coconut City and Sumatra will definitely have a move, and Li Weiluan, the former governor of Coconut City, was named a camp marquis, and Li Weiluan also wanted to get the title of a duke.

Although it is said that all the titles and fiefs of the Ming Dynasty are in the new Ming, the problem is that like the previous titles, they can be passed on to their descendants, unless they are viscounts, except for the dead lords, they cannot be passed on to their descendants, but the barons can be passed on to three generations, if the grandchildren of the three generations have no achievements in the grandson's generation, they will be demoted to barons, and there will be no nobles after the barons.

The count can be passed down to the viscount of the third generation, and the marquis can be passed down to the earl of the third generation. After three generations, he was demoted to a viscount, and it can be said that the title of Daming is still very valuable, and no one wants to have a title.

After all, these titles are different from the Chongzhen Dynasty, the period of the Chongzhen Dynasty was only an extra penny, but the titles of the Dingxin Dynasty were really sealed.

Guogong is a principality, and the marquis is also a marquis, basically, the Guogong is almost equivalent to a small prefecture, while the marquis is equivalent to a county, and Bozinan is quite a township.

Now the warships of the Ming Dynasty are almost every day around Batavia, and the ships going to the Indochina Peninsula are extremely difficult, and they are even more headaches for Antony, because Spain and Venice have obtained a large number of trade goods, and it is impossible to imagine that it is impossible to eat alone before, and there is trade reciprocity with Spain in the Ming Dynasty, but the Netherlands does not have this treatment.

To be precise, now the Dutch are treated in Daming. Far inferior to Venice, so that Antony wanted to suggest that the king of the Netherlands simply learn from Venice and directly report to the minister, a big deal, let the Ming garrison in the Netherlands, as long as the Ming and the Netherlands become a vassal relationship, the trade between the two sides will be the same as Venice, sign a reciprocal treaty.

Now with the support of the Ming Dynasty, Venice, which had been cautious all the time, has now become more arrogant, and they also dare to rob the Dutch of goods and engage in malicious competition, which is simply worse for the Dutch East India Company.

There was a crisis of confidence at the headquarters, coupled with the fact that Anthony relied on the nepotism of Maria's wife, and there was a rift between the husband and wife, and Anthony's position as governor of the Dutch East India Company became unstable.

If it weren't for the fact that his strength didn't allow it, Anthony really wanted to make Maria's jingzi into a Dutch red sausage, and in the face of the complicated situation in front of him, Anthony decided to come out of sight.

He decided to go to Beijing in the Ming Dynasty, in fact, he did not return to Batavia from Beijing not long after, when Cheng Shijie ascended the throne, he was invited to participate in Cheng Shijie's enthronement ceremony, when the grand scene of the Ming Dynasty, Anthony was very shocked, if someone knows that the Ming people have no faith, Anthony believed before.

But the question is, after participating in the enthronement ceremony of Shijie, if anyone says this in front of Anthony, he will spit on his face, do the Ming people have no faith?

Just look at Cheng Shijie's enthronement ceremony, thousands of people blow and blow, and the eight-tone ancient music used in the sacrificial ceremony includes gold, stone, earth, wood, leather, silk, bamboo, and Kuang, a total of 18 categories and 105 musical instruments. They are chimes, chimes, bells, special chimes, drums, boqi, qin, se, flute, pan flute, zhen, sheng, xun, wat, ji, yi, lu, knot, etc.

Tens of thousands of people all dressed up to travel, extremely pious worship to the sky, that scene is much more grand than the Pope's enthronement, the Ming people do not believe in God, but their Haotian, tens of thousands of people dance neatly, the scene is much more grand than the Pope's coronation.

Now Anthony's idea is that since he can't beat Da Ming, if he continues to compete, his end will be very miserable, so it is better to join Da Ming.

Thinking of this, Anthony's mood was much more relaxed, and he decided to take the Dutch East India Company to join the Ming Dynasty in the name of the East India State and become a Ming vassal like Venice, as for the interests of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, go to hell.

In the name of establishing diplomatic relations with the Ming Dynasty, Anthony organized the diplomatic personnel of the Dutch East Indies, carrying all the charts of the Dutch East India Company, the distribution of islands, the map of the sphere of influence, as well as the information of various places, the distribution of personnel, the distribution of mining resources, etc., and prepared more than a dozen large ships.

Anthony led the Dutch East India mission, first arrived in Coconut City, and obtained the consent of Li Weiluan, the governor of Coconut City, but Li Weiwan found that Anthony's mission was too large, with more than 400 civilians, as well as a large amount of supplies, plus more than 1,500 Dutch musketeers.

Li Weiwan did not dare to be careless in such a force, and personally sent twenty-four warships, all the way called escort, in fact, surveillance, they first arrived in Zhenghe Port from Batavia, then through Tainan Port, through Shanghai, Dengzhou, all the way to Tianjin.

When he came to Tianjin, Anthony was very excited: "We are about to become Ming people!" ”

Puzzled, Spex asked, "Your Excellency, what do you mean by this?" ”

"Isn't that clear enough?"

Anthony looked at his good friend and assistant and said, "Dear Spex, you are an expert on the Far East, you should know the true strength of the Ming Dynasty!" ”

"Yes, I know!"

Spex said without hesitation: "The Ming Dynasty has a larger territory than the whole of Europe, I am afraid that Europe plus Africa has a large territory of the Ming Dynasty, and there is a population, except for the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that all the people in the civilized world in the world are not as large as the population of the Ming Dynasty!" ”

In Spex's view, there are only two kinds of people in the world, civilized and barbarian, of course, in the past, the Ming were not qualified to become civilized people, and like all the natives they encountered, they all belonged to the barbarians, to the objects of their conquest, to the objects of enslavement.

However, with the re-emergence of the Ming Dynasty led by Cheng Shijie, especially the powerful navy and the Netherlands fought several times, after the Ming beat the Spaniards, the Dutch, and the Portuguese together, they recognized that the Ming people were part of the civilized world, and they were all civilized people like them Europeans.

In other words, the current Ming and Europeans are civilized people in the world, and barbarians are other races.

"If we in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands want to develop, we must break away from the rule of the Spanish Empire, we can't do it at the moment, we have the opportunity to do it!"

Anthony smiled bitterly: "But with the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Ming Dynasty and the Spanish Empire, do you think we can still do it?" ”

After the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Ming Dynasty and Spain, although the Ming Dynasty did not sell artillery and warships to the Spanish Empire, weapons and equipment, especially cold weapons, you must know that every army regiment in Spain retains at least 1,500 pikemen.

In this contrast, Spain is naturally willing to purchase the Ming standard spears, shields, armor and steel, only last year, the Spanish Empire purchased five million catties of steel from the Ming, and now the Spanish Empire has enough steel, although their musketeers do not have enough qualitative progress, but the quantity has broken through.

Whether at sea or on land, the Spanish Empire made the anti-Spanish alliance extremely passive, of course, this is also Cheng Shijie's plan, to establish diplomatic relations with Spain, dumping Ming industrial products to Spain, this was originally a matter of planning.

"This hope is not big anymore, we Dutch are too few, even one can fight to ten Spain, even if the vitality of the alcohol class is greatly damaged, we in the Netherlands will be wiped out!!"

Spex had to admit that the Netherlands were not equal to Spain in terms of numbers, and that they had not yet achieved a generational difference in equipment, and that they could not deal with the Spanish Empire as easily as they did with the natives.

"You are very right, with the support and help of the Ming Dynasty, the Spanish Empire, which was already very powerful, has now become even stronger, and our Majesty the King wants to be independent, but I am afraid that there is no hope!"

Anthony said: "We are the enemy of the Spanish Empire, and the Far East is also the main battlefield, but the question is, the Spanish merchant ships are right under our noses, do we dare to do it?" ”

Anthony stretched out his hand and pointed to the Spanish armed merchant ships that were entering the port, there were six large Spanish armed merchant ships in Tianjin Port alone, and there were as many as 20 armed merchant ships entering the port.

Spex sighed and said, "Daming is too powerful, but they are too bullying, we actually openly ask for our ......"

Without waiting for Spex to finish speaking, Anthony said: "The Venetians can become the vassal state of the Ming Dynasty and be protected by the Ming Dynasty, and now the Venetian merchant ships don't even need armed escorts, they actually dare to dismantle the naval guns, just to load more goods, do you know why?" ”

"Because, if they are attacked by pirates, they can seek refuge in the Ming fleet, and now the Ming fleet is patrolling everywhere in the world, naturally no pirate will not open their eyes and attack the Venetian merchant ships flying the Ming Sun and Moon flag!"

"That's the heart of the matter!"

PS: There are still two and a half hours, 2023 will be over, I wish you all a happy New Year's Day in advance, and I wish all book friends a happy family, a smooth career, rolling financial resources, and all the best in the new year. (End of chapter)