1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 627 The Dutchman's Plan
On June 1631, 6, Batavia Harbor, Java Island, South Seas.

Since Cohen became 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 the place, the East India Company also moved its headquarters here, and invested huge resources to run Batavia City, and gradually built it into a political and political center for the Dutch in Southeast Asia. economic center.

The Dutch transported boulders from the coast of Coromandel, India, teak wood from Zabala in East Java, recruited a large number of hard-working Chinese laborers from Daming, and built this big city on the northwest coastline 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 were done by Chinese craftsmen from Ming Dynasty.The Dutch also attach great importance to the Chinese who are good at engineering construction and business trade, and invest huge resources in the introduction of Chinese immigrants every year.

Governor Cohen also formulated an operating model, that is, the contracting rights of all retail businesses, including coastal trade, are handed over to the Chinese leader Jiapitan, and the Dutch are responsible for the local overseas Chinese community by appointing the Chinese Jiapitan. indirect rule. In 1619, Cohen appointed his close friend Su Minggang as the first Kapitan. Although this position was elected by the Chinese elders in a relatively democratic way, it must be approved by the Dutch before taking office, because the nature of this position is The representative and intermediary of the interests of the Chinese in the Dutch Governor's Palace.

Every overseas Chinese was required to pay monthly poll tax in Kapitan, which accounted for more than half of the East India Company’s various taxes in Batavia, which shows the importance of the Chinese in the local society.In addition to the East India Company's own fleet, more than [-]% of the maritime trade partners of Batavia Port are from Ming Dynasty.It is no exaggeration to say that the Chinese are definitely one of the necessary conditions for the rise of Batavia.

However, the situation in the last few months of this year is a bit wrong. 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 Dayuan Port during this period of time have not yet appeared one month after the scheduled time, and this situation has not occurred in the past few years. It attracted the attention of the Governor's Palace and the top officials of the East India Company.Of course, they don't know yet that among the merchant ships departing from Batavia and going north to Dayuan Port, there are also unlucky ghosts who have quietly disappeared during the voyage.

According to the usual climate conditions, there will indeed be typhoons in the South China Sea at this time of year, and it is not uncommon for ships to be destroyed and people killed.However, the Dutch have been running on this channel for many years. How to choose a relatively safe route during the typhoon season and avoid dangerous sea conditions, the Dutch captains on each ship have mastered relevant skills.If it is said that three sailing boats that set off every half a month actually encountered extreme sea conditions at sea and disappeared, then the possibility of this is really too small.

After a meeting, the top leaders of the East India Company believed that there were several possibilities.The first is a shipwreck, and of course there is no way to find the missing merchant ships; the second possibility is that these sailboats were intercepted at sea. If it is the latter possibility, the situation will be more complicated.

The Netherlands has two strong rivals who have been fighting for many years in the Far East, one is Portugal and the other is Spain.In recent years, Portugal's national power has been weakened very much. Not only has it become a vassal state of Spain, but it has also been repeatedly defeated in the battle with the Netherlands in the Far East. Deep as the sea.

In order to intercept the share of Ming's export trade from Spain, the Netherlands has also sent many armed merchant ships to cruise on the route between the southeast coast of Ming Dynasty and Manila in recent years, intercepting Spanish sailing ships, intercepting Ming merchant ships and coercing them to take their target. to Batavia in the south.This approach naturally caused dissatisfaction in Spain, but the two sides have not yet been able to distinguish the superiority so far, and the interception and counter-interception at sea are still being staged day after day.

With the strength of Portugal and Spain, the two opponents, 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 targets of the Dutch.

In addition to these two forces, some people have also raised other possibilities, such as the pirates in the South China Sea and the Haihan people who have become popular in Daming Qiongzhou Island in recent years.There are many factions of pirates 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-fashioned sailing ships can hardly intercept Dutch sailing ships that are faster than they are at sea.

On the contrary, the Haihan people on Qiongzhou Island are somewhat suspicious, because their deeds have been widely known in the past few years, and even the East India Company, which has no direct trade relationship with them, has received a lot of relevant information.

These descendants of Chinese who are said to be from overseas have a completely different approach from Ming Dynasty. They are proficient in engineering construction and maritime trade, have a large number of skilled craftsmen, and have a very high level in military affairs.From the perspective of the Dutch, apart from their appearance, Hai Han and his group behaved completely differently from the traditional Chinese in their minds.This group of people is high-profile and aggressive, and the speed of external expansion is quite fast.

The Haihan people settled in the south of Qiongzhou Island for only one or two years, and they have already trained an army to go across the sea to Annan and assist the northern court in the Annan Civil War to crusade against the opponents in the south.Although the size of this army is rumored to be not large, only a few thousand, its combat effectiveness and achievements made the Netherlands, a bystander, look at it with admiration.Originally, some people in the East India Company believed that a military strike should be launched against Haihan, a potential competitor, and eliminated this potential opponent in the early stages of its germination to avoid future troubles. However, after learning about Haihan's combat methods and achievements, the original main The war faction gave up the idea of ​​taking the initiative to attack one after another, and chose to wait and see what happened before making plans.

It's not that the top executives of the East India Company thought that their military strength could not defeat the Haihan people, but they were indeed afraid of Haihan and did not dare to attack easily.Because there are two other powerful opponents in the South China Sea, if they concentrate their firepower against the Haihan people in Qiongzhou Island, on the one hand, it will easily cause Ming to rebound, and on the other hand, they may be taken advantage of by the two old opponents, Portugal and Spain.Once Hai Han cannot be resolved quickly, it is likely that extra problems will arise and the war situation will develop in a direction beyond his control.

However, abandoning the use of war methods to deal with Haihan does not mean that the East India Company has given up its attention to Haihan.In fact, after Haihan assisted the Annan court to end its civil war two years ago, the East India Company set up a special department to collect and sort out various information about Haihan.Although the Dutch were unable to enter Qiongzhou Island to obtain first-hand information, they were still able to obtain a lot of news about Haihan from the Daming maritime merchants who had trade relations.

According to the information collected from various sources, 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 Haihan conquered the city of Hoi An in the south of Annan, he expelled the local Portuguese and confiscated part of their property.However, instead of fighting with the Haihan people because of this, the Portuguese secretly sent people to Qiongzhou Island to discuss peace, and signed a business cooperation agreement.

In the past year, the Dutch suddenly discovered that the Portuguese were buying 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 used to act as second-hand weapon dealers, refurbishing the weapons that had been eliminated in the European battlefield, and selling them to Daming at a high price.In order to earn high profits from the arms trade, those damn Portuguese second-hand dealers are even salvaging sunken ships so that they can sell the weapons on the sunken ships to the Daming Ministry of War with a lot of money.

Originally, this business was very enticing to the Dutch, but after the battle in Penghu a few years ago, the way for the Netherlands to carry out in-depth cooperation with Ming Dynasty has basically been blocked—at least during the tenure of the current Governor Cohen It was impossible, because the Dutch general Gao Wenlu who was killed by Ming in Penghu was appointed by Cohen himself, and it was impossible for him to swallow this knocked out tooth silently.

But judging from the current situation, it is obvious that the Portuguese have given up the business of selling second-hand weapons to Daming, because the price they sell to Daming cannot be lower than that of Haihan, and they are no longer competitive in this business. Word.Then there is no doubt that Haihan has replaced the status of Portugal as an arms dealer. From their almost unlimited expansion of their territory on Qiongzhou Island, it can also be seen how much the Ming and Guangdong government attached to it. indulge.

Behind this seemingly peaceful business conversion, there is a fact that makes the Dutch very disturbed. Since the Haihan people dared to sell weapons to the powerful Ming Empire, at least it shows that they are not worried that Ming will force them to hand over these weapons. The way weapons are made.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, neither showed goodwill nor hostility, but for the East India Company, Haihan is definitely a potential competitor worthy of attention.Their territory is expanding outwards from Hainan Island at an astonishing speed. It has reached the southern border of Annan in the south, and Fujian, which is across the sea from Dayuan Port, in the north.In time, no one dares to guarantee whether this force will continue to move southward and compete with the East India Company for the ownership of Southeast Asia.Therefore, regardless of whether the disappearance of the Dutch merchant ship in the South China Sea is related to Haihan, the East India Company has already regarded it as one of the suspects with the ability to attack.

Although the real reason is still unclear, three ships have disappeared now, and it is impossible for the East India Company executives to sit back and watch the situation continue to deteriorate, and some actions must be taken.At the order of Governor Cohen, the Dutch armed forces stationed in Batavia Port began to move. It took 20 days to prepare a sea search and rescue fleet, ready to set off northward, along the usual route of Dutch merchant ships. Find the truth.

Although it is a search and rescue fleet, in fact, no one in the fleet regards "rescue" as the mission of this trip. , in the vast South China Sea, finding three ships that deviated from the course is almost like looking for a needle in a haystack. If you can find any clues of the missing ships on this trip, you will be very lucky.

The commander appointed by Governor Cohen for this fleet is Van Longen, a pure-blood citizen of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and he is also a captain with rich sailing experience.

The reason why Captain Van Longen is pure in blood is because in the 60s, when the northern provinces of the Netherlands started an anti-Spanish struggle, Van Longen’s ancestors were the first to break away from the Spanish Habsburgs. "One of the founders.When the "Netherlands United Provinces Republic" was established in 1581, his ancestor was also fortunate to be one of the leaders of the republic.

However, after two generations, Zu Yin no longer has so many benefits to enjoy when he comes to Van Longen, and his position in the family is not the preferred heir, so he and other Dutch young people who have no way out Like people, they chose to join the fleet and went to the far east to seek a future of success.

The few blessings left to him by his ancestors played a role at this time, so that he did not have to start as a sailor at the lowest level, but was directly recommended by the political leaders to enter the East India, which has flourished in the Far East in recent years. The company 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 does not belong to Van Longen himself, but his family owns more than half, the East India Company accounts for [-]%, and Van Longen himself actually only owns [-]% of the ownership, which is equivalent to bringing the ship into the group.

With the help of his family, Van Longen came to the Far East as Cohen's right-hand man, and soon became a capable general under the new governor.After staying in the Far East for 12 years, Van Longen has also changed from a fledgling handsome guy to a middle-aged uncle with a beard.And the ships under his name have also expanded from the initial one to a fleet of seven sailing ships, which have traveled all over the vast waters from Japan, North Korea to the Java Islands in the South China Sea.Although most of the income must be turned over to the family and the East India Company as dividends every year, the increase in overall income has allowed him to live a very decent life in Batavia.

(End of this chapter)