Chapter 627 The Dutch’s plan
June 12, 1631, Batavia Port, Java Island, South Asia.
Since Cohen began serving as the third governor of the Dutch East India Company 12 years ago, the city of Batavia has become the main target of the Dutch in Asia. After Cohen drove away the Banten army that originally occupied this place, the East India Company also moved its headquarters here and invested huge resources in running the city of Batavia, gradually building it into the political and political center of the Dutch in Southeast Asia. economic center.
The Dutch transported huge rocks from the Coromandel coast of India, teak wood from Zabala in East Java, recruited a large number of hard-working Chinese workers from the Ming Dynasty, and built this big city on the northwest coast of Java Island. Most of the excavation of canals and drainage channels, the construction of houses and harbors, and the construction of city walls and fortifications here were completed by Chinese craftsmen from the Ming Dynasty. The Dutch also attach great importance to Chinese people who are good at engineering construction and commercial trade, and invest huge resources in introducing Chinese immigrants every year.
Governor Cohen also formulated an operating model, which was to hand over the contracting rights of all retail businesses, including coastal trade, to the Chinese leader Kapitan. The Dutch, on the other hand, appointed the Chinese Kapitan to control the local overseas Chinese society. exercise indirect rule. In 1619, Cohen appointed his close friend Su Minggang as the first Kapitan. Although this position was elected by the Chinese elders through a relatively democratic method, it must be recognized by the Dutch before he can take office, because the nature of this position is The Chinese interest representative and intermediary in the Dutch Government House.
Every overseas Chinese is required to pay a head tax in Kapitan House on a monthly basis. This tax accounts for more than half of the East India Company's various taxes in Batavia, which shows the importance of the Chinese in local society. In addition to the East India Company's own fleet, more than 90% of the maritime trade objects in Batavia Port came from the Ming Dynasty. It is no exaggeration to say that the Chinese are definitely one of the necessary conditions for the rise of Batavia.
However, something has gone wrong in recent months this year. After entering April, the number of ships returning to Batavia from the north has decreased a lot for no reason. The three merchant ships that were originally scheduled to return from Taiyuan Port during this period have not yet appeared one month after the scheduled time. This situation has not occurred in the past few years and has caused confusion. attracted the attention of the Governor-General's Palace and the senior officials of the East India Company. Of course, they still don't know that among the merchant ships heading north from Batavia to Taiyuan Port, there are also unlucky ones who have quietly disappeared during the voyage.
According to the usual climate conditions, there will indeed be typhoons in the South China Sea during this season every year, and shipwrecks and fatalities are not unheard of. However, the Dutch have been traveling on this waterway for many years. The Dutch captains on every ship have mastered relevant skills on how to choose a relatively safe route during the typhoon season and avoid dangerous sea conditions. If three sailboats that set off every half month actually encountered extreme sea conditions at sea and disappeared, then this possibility is really very small.
After the East India Company's senior officials held a meeting, they believed that there were only several possibilities. The first is a shipwreck, in which case the missing merchant ships will of course be impossible to find; the second possibility is that these sailing ships were intercepted at sea. If it is the latter possibility, the situation will be more complicated.
The Netherlands has two strong rivals in the Far East that have been fighting for many years, one is Portugal and the other is Spain. Portugal's power has weakened greatly in recent years. Not only has it become a vassal state of Spain, but it has also suffered repeated defeats in its battles with the Netherlands in the Far East. The Netherlands has already robbed many colonial sites in the Indian Peninsula and Southeast Asia. It can be said that it is an enemy. Deep as the sea.
In order to intercept the Ming Dynasty's export trade share from Spain, the Netherlands has also sent many armed merchant ships to cruise on the route between the southeastern coast of the Ming Dynasty and Manila in recent years, intercepting and killing Spanish sailing ships, intercepting Ming Dynasty merchant ships and coercing them to use their destinations. The land was changed to Batavia in the south. This approach naturally aroused dissatisfaction from Spain, but so far the two sides have not differentiated themselves, and interceptions and counter-interceptions at sea are still taking place day after day.
With the strength of the two opponents, Portugal and Spain, it is not impossible to intercept and kill Dutch merchant ships in the South China Sea, and their motives are also very sufficient. It can be said that they are very suspicious objects, and they are also the most suspicious target of the Dutch now.
In addition to these two forces, some people have also proposed other possibilities, such as South China Sea pirates and the Haihan people who have become famous on Qiongzhou Island in the Ming Dynasty in recent years. There are many pirate forces in the South China Sea, but none of them are too strong. It will be more difficult to intercept Dutch merchant ships, because their old sailing ships are difficult to intercept Dutch sailing ships that are much faster at sea.
However, the Haihan people on Qiongzhou Island have certain suspicions, because their deeds have become well-known in recent years. Even the East India Company, which has not established direct trade relations with them, has received a lot of relevant intelligence.
These Chinese descendants who are said to come from overseas have a completely different approach from the Ming Dynasty. They are good at engineering construction and maritime trade, have a large number of skilled craftsmen, and also have extremely high standards in the military. In the eyes of the Dutch, apart from their appearance, the behavior of the Haihan group is completely different from the traditional Chinese in their minds. This group of people is high-profile and aggressive, and they expand externally very quickly.
It had only been a year or two since the Haihan people settled in the south of Qiongzhou Island, but they had already trained an army to cross the sea and go on an expedition to Annan, assisting the northern court in the Annan Civil War against its southern opponents. Although it is rumored that the size of this army is not large, only a few thousand, its combat effectiveness and achievements have impressed the Dutch onlookers. Originally, some people in the East India Company believed that they should launch a military attack on Haihan, a potential competitor, and eliminate this potential opponent in its early stages to avoid future troubles. However, after learning about Haihan's combat methods and achievements, the original idea was The war factions all gave up the idea of taking the initiative to attack and chose to wait and see what happened before making any plans.
This is not because the senior officials of the East India Company thought that their military power could not defeat the Haihan people, but they were indeed afraid of the Haihan people and did not dare to attack easily. Because there are two other powerful opponents in the South China Sea, if we concentrate our firepower to deal with the Haihan people on Qiongzhou Island, on the one hand, it will easily cause the Ming Dynasty to rebound, and on the other hand, it may also be robbed by the two old rivals, Portugal and Spain. Once Haihan cannot be eliminated quickly, it is likely that extraneous problems will arise and the war situation will develop in a direction beyond his control.
But giving up the use of war to deal with Haihan does not mean that the East India Company gave up its attention to Haihan. In fact, after Haihan helped the Annan court end its civil war two years ago, the East India Company set up a department to collect and organize various information about Haihan. Although the Dutch were unable to enter Qiongzhou Island themselves to obtain first-hand information, they were still able to obtain a large amount of information about Haihan from the Ming Dynasty maritime merchants who had trade relations. According to information collected from various parties, the East India Company believes that Haihan's maritime armed forces have even surpassed the Portuguese in the near future. The reason is that after Hai Han captured Hoi An City in southern Annam, he expelled the local Portuguese and confiscated part of their property. Instead of falling out and fighting with the Haihan people, the Portuguese secretly sent people to Qiongzhou Island to negotiate peace and signed a cooperation agreement on commerce and trade.
In the past year, the Dutch were shocked to discover that the Portuguese were actually purchasing weapons from the Haihan people and equipping them in their strongholds in Southeast Asia and the Indian Peninsula. This discovery really shocked the Dutch, because they also knew the nature of the Portuguese. In the past, they acted as second-hand weapons dealers, refurbishing weapons that had been eliminated on the European battlefield and selling them to the Ming Dynasty at high prices. In order to earn high profits from the arms trade, those damn Portuguese second-rate dealers are even salvaging sunken ships so that they can sell the weapons on the sunken ships to the stupid and wealthy Ministry of War of the Ming Dynasty.
Originally, this business was also very coveted by the Dutch, but after the battle in Penghu a few years ago, the path for in-depth cooperation between the Netherlands and the Ming Dynasty has basically been blocked - at least during the term of the current Governor Cohen. It was impossible, because Gao Wenlu, the Dutch general who was killed by the Ming Dynasty in Penghu, was personally appointed by Cohen. It was impossible for him to just silently swallow the knocked out tooth.
But judging from the current situation, it is obvious that the Portuguese have given up the business of selling second-hand weapons to Ming Dynasty, because the price they can sell to Ming Dynasty cannot be lower than that of Haihan, and they are no longer competitive in this business. Word. There is no doubt that Haihan has replaced Portugal as an arms dealer. From their almost unrestricted expansion of their territory on Qiongzhou Island, we can also see how much the Guangdong government of the Ming Dynasty paid attention to its existence. Indulge.
Behind this seemingly smooth business change, there is a fact that makes the Dutch very uneasy - since the Haihan people dare to sell weapons to the powerful Ming Empire, at least it means that they are not worried that the Ming Dynasty will force them to hand over these weapons. How to make weapons. In other words, their assessment of their own strength should be higher than that of the Ming army.
Although the Haihan people never took the initiative to contact the Dutch after their appearance, and showed neither goodwill nor hostility, for the East India Company, Haihan was definitely a potential competitor worthy of attention. Their territory is expanding outward from Hainan Island at an alarming rate, reaching the national border south of Annan to the south, and reaching Fujian across the sea from Damuan Port to the north. As time goes by, no one dares to say whether this force will continue to move south and compete with the East India Company for ownership of Southeast Asia. Therefore, regardless of whether the disappearance of Dutch merchant ships in the South China Sea was related to Haihan, the East India Company had already regarded him as one of the suspects with the ability to attack.
Although the real reason is not yet clear, three ships have now disappeared, and the East India Company's senior officials cannot sit back and watch the situation continue to deteriorate, and must take some action. Governor Cohen gave an order, and the Dutch armed forces stationed in Batavia Port began to move. It took twenty days to prepare a maritime search and rescue fleet, ready to set off northward, along the usual route of Dutch merchant ships. Go find the truth.
Although it is a search and rescue fleet, in fact, few people in the fleet regard "rescue" as the mission of this trip. , finding three ships that have deviated from their course in the vast South China Sea is almost like looking for a needle in a haystack. If you can find any clues about the missing ships during this trip, you will be very lucky.
The commander appointed by Governor-General Cohen for this fleet was Van Longen, a pure-blood citizen of the United Provinces of the Netherlands and an experienced captain at sea.
The reason why Captain Van Loungen is described as having pure blood is because in the 1960s, when anti-Spanish struggles were launched in the northern provinces of the Netherlands, Van Loungen's ancestors were the first to break away from the rule of the Spanish Habsburg family. One of the founders of the Alliance. When the "United Provinces of the Netherlands" was established in 1581, his ancestor was also fortunate enough to become one of the leaders of the republic.
However, after two generations, Zuyin no longer has so many benefits to enjoy in Van Loungen. In addition, his position in the family is not the first choice heir, so he and other young Dutch people who can't find a way out. Like people, they chose to join the fleet and go to the distant east to seek a future of success.
The few blessings left to him by his ancestors came into play at this time, so that he did not have to start as a sailor at the lowest level, but was directly recommended by political leaders to join the East India, which has become prosperous in the Far East in recent years. company, and also used the family's financial resources to order a three-masted armed merchant ship for him. Of course, the ownership of this merchant ship did not belong to Van Longen personally, but his family accounted for most of it, and the East India Company accounted for 30%. Van Longen himself actually only owned 10%, which was equivalent to taking the ship into a gang.
Thanks to his family's help, Van Longen came to the Far East as Cohen's right-hand man, and soon became the new governor's right-hand man. It has been twelve years since he stayed in the Far East, and Fan Longgen has gone from a handsome young man to a middle-aged uncle with unshaven beard. The ships under his name have also expanded from the original one to a fleet of seven sailing ships, covering the vast waters from Japan and North Korea to the Java Islands in the South China Sea. Although he still had to pay most of his income to the family and the East India Company as dividends every year, the increase in overall income allowed him to live a very decent upper-class life in Batavia.
(End of chapter)