Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1794 Europa Universalis ([-])

On December 1679, 12, there was a raging wind on the surface of the North Sea, and the waves were monstrous.

A merchant ship from Amsterdam was looming in the strong wind and waves, the sails on its mast had been removed from many sides, and the sailors on the deck were running around cautiously, rushing to somewhere with the pump hose from time to time, pumping the irrigation water into the water. The seawater entering the cabin is pumped out.

Gao Wengang sat in the captain's cabin with a pale face, holding the armrest tightly with both hands, secretly praying in his heart that this old merchant ship would survive and send him to London smoothly.At the same time, he also deeply felt how dangerous the North Sea is in winter. It is no wonder that in the previous three British and Dutch naval battles, the generals of both sides tried to avoid confrontation during this season. On the surface of the sea, the ship was swaying at a steep angle. At this time, I am afraid that even the artillery can't be fixed, let alone shooting accurately. That is purely wishful thinking.

While passing through the sea near the mouth of the Thames, I encountered four merchant ships belonging to the Dutch East India Company. They may have escaped from the bad weather, or they may have encountered French privateers at sea, so they fled to London in a hurry. Gao Wengang believes that the possibility of the former is higher, because the current sea conditions are really not suitable for fighting.

Of course, these four ships are not all the returning ships of the East India Company. According to the experience of the previous three Anglo-Dutch naval battles, in order to avoid the attacks of hostile ships, the Dutch East India Company usually ships carrying valuable goods around the northern tip of Scotland, and then Anchor in the Norwegian port of Bergen, check the wind direction, and repair the ship so that it can make the last few hundred nautical miles to Amsterdam.In this Franco-Dutch war, although the United Provincial Fleet won consecutive victories at the beginning, suppressing the French from leaving the port, but the French fleet has been greatly strengthened after emergency replenishment in the past few years, so it also began to break up into parts and attack scattered. The United Provinces engaged in broken wars, and also won some small naval battles, such as the battle off the coast of Catalonia (the battle caused the spiritual leader of the Dutch Navy Druyter to retire), Martinique Island naval battles and more.

Under such circumstances, the Dutch East India Company, being on the safe side, began to implement the strategy when the Anglo-Dutch war was in full swing, that is, to make a plan to ensure that it would leave or return to the port in the winter and spring when the North Sea was turbulent and turbulent. Avoid possible raids by enemy privateer fleets and allow valuable Asian cargo to reach Amsterdam safely.

The few ships with the "VOC" logo that Gao Wen just encountered today seemed to be unlucky. They encountered bad sea conditions. The ships may have been damaged to a certain extent before and were in urgent need of repairs, so they went to London to berth in groups, and then Then find a way to return to the United Provinces.

The ship that Gao Wen had just boarded—the old ship of the former Amsterdam Merchant Station, which was forcibly confiscated by the Dutch before, and had only been retrieved for less than half a year, and the ship was in poor condition—kept an appropriate distance from these Dutch merchant ships, and then One after the other, they slowly sailed into the Thames River, and finally anchored at a pier under the command of the pilot.

Soon after getting the news, Cai Zhenguo, the ambassador of the East Coast to the UK, personally brought people to the pier to meet Gao Wengang, and carefully asked him why he came. He is already his immediate boss, and his status is different from before, so he must be treated with caution.

"By the way, I haven't been to England for a long time. I have been working in the Eastern Mediterranean before, and I rarely go to the Western Mediterranean, let alone the North Sea. Moreover, England is a special country with strong strength. I have been in office for so long. But it’s really not justified to come and have a look.” Gao Wengang explained softly after getting on the carriage to the Iron Mansion.

Cai Zhenguo nodded when he heard the words, and said in an echoing tone: "This country has a unique charm for us people on the east coast. The charm of investing in industrial production. This is very appealing to us people on the east coast, and this is the beauty of industry.”

"Just last month, the ships of the South Sea Transportation Company just delivered a batch of coal mining machinery and equipment to the Bristol Bay area and handed them over to the local coal mine owners. In recent years, the coal mining industry in England has developed rapidly. Hurry up, it surprised me so fast." Cai Zhenguo added: "The woolen textile industry in England has developed rapidly, and a large amount of cultivated land in the country has been enclosed for pastures, forests have gradually been developed, and trees have been greatly reduced. With the great development of the iron industry and the shipbuilding industry, forests and trees were consumed even more. Therefore, there is still a shortage of timber in England. Not only is there not enough timber for people's daily life, but the same is true for industry, which gave birth to the coal industry. The great development of wood substitutes. In the black country iron industry area and the mining area of ​​Wales, coal is widely used, not only for industry, but also for people's daily cooking fuel needs. Therefore, the English people imported a large amount from our country The coal mining equipment is used to increase the coal production of their country. Ah, by the way, the coal and iron reserves of the Kingdom of England are too rich, the quality is amazingly good, and the price is not expensive at all, and it is very convenient to promote."

"This reminds me of the prairie on the east coast." Gao Wengang said immediately after hearing this, "The same thing is the lack of trees, so we have to use a lot of coal as fuel. Of course, our coal is mostly low-quality coal, far inferior to England's. Well, England People bought our coal mining equipment, can it be used? Or, can they be used well? If my prediction is correct, all kinds of equipment used in mines in our country, including pickaxes, hoists, pumps, and elevators Such equipment is powered by steam engines, right?"

Cai Zhenguo understood Gao Wengang's meaning as soon as he heard it, so he explained: "The British have their own steam engines, and they have used them for a long time. Although the quality is relatively poor and the performance is not good, they can still be used. The machines they bought back , you can reprocess it by yourself, connect it to steam power, and carry out coal mining operations. Of course, the effect is definitely not as good as ours, because we can already miniaturize the steam engine to a certain extent, but the British can't, but even this kind of steam engine is not as good as ours. It seems that the somewhat unsatisfactory work efficiency is not a small improvement for the British. This is the main reason why they purchase our industrial equipment. In the future, I will fall on my own."

Gao Wen just nodded after listening.He recalled now that when Special Envoy Li Qingli had not yet returned to China, the British proposed an alliance with the East Coast—of course, an alliance would mean a closer relationship between the two countries, and some industrial products whose exports were restricted would also affect the The British were open - at that time, Mesozoic officials such as Gao Wengang and Cai Zhenguo were vaguely supportive, because they needed an important fulcrum to influence the European continent. At that time, it was more appropriate to look at England.

It's just that Li Qing and some local bigwigs vetoed the proposal to form an alliance with the United Kingdom and comprehensively improve relations, which made the expectations of the British disappoint. Then Gao Wengang would still have some accusations that the domestic bigwigs were old-fashioned and too cautious.But looking at it now, Gao Wengang always felt that Special Envoy Li's worries were not unreasonable at all. This British man is really capable of making troubles!

More than 1 tons of iron and steel output exceeded the sum of France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Ottoman, Russia and other regions or countries. The fires in the Black Country and Wales blocked the sky, and the tinkling of processed iron rang from the early morning. By the end of the day; coal production in Newcastle, Bristol Bay and other places has been increasing day by day, constantly injecting new impetus into the national industry (historically, British coal production has exceeded 1700 million tons in 300, and rapidly increased to 1760 million tons in 600 , very amazing); the cotton, linen, silk, and woolen textile industries in Manchester, West Riding and other areas are in the ascendant, and have gained countless profits for England, not to mention the pillar industries such as shipbuilding, glass, paper, leather, and building materials. All of them achieved tremendous development during the Franco-Dutch war, which brought the scale of British industry to a higher level.

With such a speed of development, do you dare to say that the British will not toss?Therefore, Gao Wengang finally began to seriously think about whether to give the British some eye drops and slow down its development speed—it is not to prevent the British from developing, which is not in the interests of the people on the east coast, but It is to make the development speed of the British more "appropriate"-especially the British wool textile industry, which is a golden weapon, must be "taken care of"!You must know that among the various trades of the United Kingdom, the Levant trade, India trade, East India trade, east coast trade, and China trade all have a large amount of surplus, which can only be balanced by gold and silver.If it weren't for the super subsidies of Russian trade, North American trade and European trade, I am afraid that King Charles II of England has ordered to suspend the outflow of precious metals-this is no joke, it has happened many times in history, Importing a batch of grain requires the king's special approval to allow silver to flow out, which can be seen from this.

Therefore, based on this consideration, if the woolen textile industry of the British is hit hard to reduce its export revenue, it will inevitably effectively reduce its economic activity and slow down the pace of its industrial and commercial development.And this seems to be achieved by training opponents for the British. The famous textile city of Leiden in the United Provinces is a very good target. Although its current decline is relatively obvious, it may be salvageable.As for why they don’t export a large amount of East Coast wool to Europe to attack British woolen textiles, this is more complicated. Exporting East Coast wool must be exported, but they want to sweep the Quartet and make a lot of money in Europe, which is full of mercantilism. , I’m afraid it’s a bit difficult, so I need some helpers. After all, it’s impossible for any country’s market to make you spend too much from the east coast. If the trade volume between the two parties cannot be balanced, this business will not continue sooner or later. .

Thinking of this in his heart, Gao Wengang also felt that he would call a meeting of his team after returning to discuss the feasibility of this matter.Moreover, this matter still depends on the help of the republicans of the United Provinces. After all, wool textile business owners and woolen wholesalers are basically republicans.

Gawain stayed in England until mid-January 1679.During the period, in addition to office work (discussing trade policies with the UK and Russia), I also visited the upper echelons of the British business community, government, and royal family, and talked about some topics that both parties care about, but there were no substantive results.In particular, he focused on the British government's position on the Franco-Dutch war, and learned that the British royal family wants to participate in the war, but the Congress is still hesitant, and it seems that it will not be able to participate in the war in the short term.However, the hesitant attitude of the British must also be seen by the French, which will more or less put a little pressure on them, so that they will not delay the peace talks process for too long.

On January 1, the North Sea saw a rare burst of good weather. Gao Wengang and his entourage seized the opportunity to leave the Thames River by boat, and spent a few days sailing to the French port of Le Havre across the strait.Here, they showed a set of identity documents to the French customs officials. After communicating back and forth, they were released smoothly, and then took a small boat all the way up, and finally arrived in Paris, the capital of the Kingdom of France.

At the Louvre in Paris, Gawain had just submitted a new letter of credence to King Louis XIV of France, clarifying his identity as a new plenipotentiary special envoy. At the same time, he also negotiated with the French on some business issues left over from the last time.The French have been fighting until now, the country’s precious metals have been seriously outflowed, and the agricultural sector has suffered from poor harvests for several years. There are signs of instability in the country. It is indeed a bit troublesome to do business with them. Last time, Louis XIV gave some goods on the east coast normal Tariffs are already in the nature of caring. Gao Wen just wanted to continue talking about the trade of other commodities this time, so it was easier said than done!

You must know that the French have made some concessions to the Dutch so far, promising them a preferential tariff rate to induce the Dutch to withdraw from the war as soon as possible, so that France can send Franche-Comté, Lorraine, and the occupied Parts of the Southern Netherlands were swallowed and digested.In addition, they have not made any concessions to businessmen from any country. The Minister of Finance Colbert, who is deeply troubled by the impression of mercantilism and the outflow of precious metals, has asked to purchase various commodities within the country as much as possible, so as to save as much money as possible. of the silver remained in France.

How can people from the east bank come to discuss business at this time, how can they get a satisfactory result?Unless you also import almost the same amount of goods in France, but it is basically impossible at present.Therefore, in order to continue to expand the French market share on the existing basis, the French still have to slow down, and let’s talk about it when the outflow of precious metals is not so severe or even starts to return.

It's not that Gao Wengang doesn't understand this truth, it's just that he wants to make the last effort.Seeing the failure of his efforts now, he didn't say much, and soon left Paris and returned to the port of Le Havre again.His next stop—and the most important one—is the Kingdom of Spain, where he will focus on talking to King Carlos about the Pampa Plains.

The news of the New World should have been spread for a long time, but the Spaniards have never given an explanation. What kind of talk is this?Therefore, this time Gao Wengang planned to come to the door in person to see if the Spaniards wanted to delay it in time!

(End of this chapter)