John Churchill is indeed much smarter than Krampus of the Dutch East India Company!
This probably also reflects the gap in the level of the ruling elites between England and the Netherlands, right? Of course, the Dutch had a very capable consul, William III. Because my level was too high, I really couldn't get along with a group of philistine councilors who fell in love with money and almost destroyed the country. Later, I simply jumped ship and went to England to become the king...
Churchill looked at Campos and said word for word: "Our so-called free trade...is essentially the use of force to coerce trade in exchange for cheap goods! Sometimes we even directly seize the production of those goods. Land! For example, the spices from the East Indies and Ceylon, as well as the control of the Straits of Malacca, weren’t they all taken by force?”
The East Indies are also called the Spice Islands, and the main spice producing areas are concentrated on several small islands east of Java. And these spice islands were world-famous spice producing areas before the arrival of the Dutch! Now, the Dutch East India Company owned those islands and controlled almost all the plantations. The island of Ceylon is rich in spices and gems, and now it has also become a cash cow for the Dutch East India Company.
In addition, the Dutch East India Company has recently seized many ports and cities in the southernmost part of India and is preparing to turn them into new Java Island and Malacca.
John Churchill slowly said word by word: "If we cannot stop the Ming Dynasty's southward advance...then the spices from the West Indies and Ceylon, control of the Strait of Malacca, and the Dutch East Indies Everything the company gained by force in southern India will eventually be lost!
So we must win, even if it means spending the last penny in our pocket! "
Campos said to himself: "You, England, must win, even if you spend the last penny of our Dutch population, right?"
Thinking of this, Campos frowned and said to John Churchill: "If we use the method of interrupting trade to deal with the Ming Dynasty, is it possible for the Ming Dynasty to directly attack Batavia and Malacca? After they capture Batavia and Malacca After that, is it possible to march directly into Ceylon? Can our troops in Batavia, Malacca and India stop the Ming army that previously attacked the Philippines? If not, not only will our colonies in Southeast Asia be lost, but also your English The colonies in India that people finally robbed will also be lost!"
John Churchill shrugged, "We in England are prepared to sacrifice everything to defeat the devil who wants to conquer the world... A few colonies in India are nothing!"
Those colonies were not the property of John Churchill, but belonged to the British East India Trading Company. And John Churchill was not a shareholder of the British East India Company, so he was very willing to risk the property of the British East India Trading Company for the benefit of the Kingdom of England.
Of course, in his opinion, if the Ming Dynasty breaks through the Strait of Malacca and enters the Indian Ocean before the British Army completes the "high sugar" reform, then the British East India Trading Company's colonies in India will not be preserved.
So now we must do everything we can to hold off Daming, and at the same time weaken Daming's financial resources as much as possible... But these two things must be done in sequence. Someone has to stop Ming Dynasty first, and then the trade war and financial war can start. Otherwise, if Ming Dynasty loses in the trade war and financial war, it will definitely overturn the table!
Otherwise, if the Ming Dynasty really made an effort to seize Batavia, Malacca and the spice islands east of Java, and then threaten Ceylon, the Netherlands might choose to compromise.
And the one who can serve as a human shield for the Kingdom of England and use his own sacrifice to hold back the progress of the Ming Dynasty... seems to be the only country of Annan!
Thinking of this, he glanced at an Annan man in the living room who was in his thirties, short and thin, with dark skin, high cheekbones, and slightly bulging eyes. He looked a bit ugly.
"Your Majesty!"
Charlie Gough was sitting next to this Annan man. When he saw the look in Baron Churchill's eyes, he immediately called this Annan man "Sir" in Chinese. It seemed that this man was really an extraordinary person.
The man named "Shiziye" is named Zheng, Zheng Jing's Zheng!
However, Zheng Jing was not his father. His father's name had only one root character and had nothing to do with the Yanping Palace. He was the Dingnan King of Annan Kingdom.
At this time, the Houli Dynasty of Annan Kingdom had been completely eliminated, and the people who actually controlled the power of the Shenglong Court were the Zheng family of Dingnan King, known as "Zheng Lord".
In addition, there is the Ruan family of the King of Guangnan who controls the southern part of the Annan Kingdom, and they are fighting against Lord Zheng, and they are known as "Lord Ruan".
In addition to the two "lords" of "Nan Ruan and Bei Zheng", there are two minor lords in Annan, one named Wu and the other named Mo. However, these two little masters were not very good at fighting, and they all became defeated by "Beizheng". Among them, Mo Dengyong, the entrepreneurial leader of the Mo family, once forced Emperor Li Gong to abdicate and proclaimed himself emperor. Later, the Mo family was attacked by the Ming Dynasty and had no choice but to surrender and seek a title. Emperor Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty followed the trend and surrendered to the Annan Kingdom as the Commander-in-Chief of the Annan Capital, and named Mo Dengyong the Commander-in-Chief of the Annan Capital. Therefore, Annan legally became a vassal town belonging to the Ming Dynasty.
However, Mo Dengyong still calls himself emperor internally and acts as his ninth-five emperor behind closed doors!
But after Mo Dengyong passed away, Mo Chao began to go downhill. The Zheng family captured Shenglong and Gaoping, their home base. Later, they relied on the protection of the Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty, and Wu Zhou Dynasty to survive. After Wu Zhou left Yunnan and Guizhou to work hard in Myanmar, the head of the Mo family, Mo Jingyu, defected to the Ming Dynasty.
In addition, there is a "Martial Lord" in Annan Kingdom, who is also a minor lord. His ancestor was a general in the Later Li Dynasty, and he was given the title of Duke Kuan and guarded Xuanguang for generations. More than ten years ago, Wu Gongjun, the head of the Wu clan in Xuan Quang, took advantage of Zheng Zheng Gen to kidnap the Emperor of Li Dynasty to conquer the Nguyen clan in the south and rebelled. But it didn't take long for him to be free, and he was also defeated by Lord Zheng. Then, like Mo, he fled to China to find someone to hug him. In history, he found the native officials of the Nong family in Guangxi, but this time he relied on the "free and loyal minister" Zu Zeqing.
So the Ming Dynasty had two Annan leading parties, and Lord Ruan, who was huddled in the south of Annam, was separated from the Ming Dynasty by Lord Zheng's territory, so he still had room to join the Ming Dynasty as a hawk.
Only the Zheng family is the most unlucky. Not only do they have to face the Great Ming Dynasty and the two leading parties, but there are also people named Ruan behind them who can stab them at any time... What's even worse is that the Zheng family also has the Li Emperor Li Weiji in their hands. The Zheng family has been holding the emperor and the princes hostage for several generations. Now they can't just hand over or kill the emperor of the Li family because of the pressure exerted by the Ming court, right?
If the Zheng family really does this, their subordinates will know that they are completely cowarded! Who else is willing to follow then?
When the time comes when the subordinates become disloyal, Nanruan, Mo, and Wu all send troops to attack Zheng, and Ming casually gets involved, the Zheng regime will be doomed!
Therefore, Zheng Li, who was sent to Guangzhou by Zheng Gen, the king of Dingnan in Annan, to contact the Ming court. After several contacts with the people of the Ming court, he had already guessed from the indifferent attitude of the Ming Dynasty that the Zheng family and Emperor Li were both members of the Ming Dynasty. This is unacceptable - this is actually a matter of course. The Zheng family occupies the largest and best land in the Annan Kingdom. If the Zheng family is destroyed, the Mo family and the Wu family will receive sufficient rewards, and the Ming Dynasty can also arrange a vassal If the king takes over Tsang Long and accepts Nan Ruan as a dog, then everyone will be happy.
But if the Zheng family is accepted, how will the two lackeys, the Mo family and the Wu family, be arranged? What are the benefits of the Ming Dynasty?
Knowing that the Ming Dynasty was about to attack him, Zheng Li simply went to find the foreign devils who were about to break with the Ming Dynasty. Although he also knew that most of these foreign devils could not defeat the Ming Dynasty, and they might not necessarily help Annan to fight against the Ming Dynasty. . But we can still provide some external support to some extent!
Annan defeated the Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, and Ming Dynasty in history! If they want to find a country that can resist the Ming Dynasty and take advantage of it, the only one is Annan!
In addition, these foreign devils can also arrange for the Zheng family and Emperor Li to escape when Annan Kingdom is really unable to withstand it...
Thinking of this, Zheng Lu nodded towards John Churchill, and then said in a very blunt Chinese: "General Qiu, as long as England, the Netherlands, and France can give me enough artillery and muskets for Vietnam, We, the army and people of Dai Viet, will definitely fight to the death... Although the Northern Dynasty is powerful, the Southern Emperor lives in the mountains of Henan. Our army and people of Dai Viet have repelled the powerful Northern Dynasties three times. If Zhu Hejie dares to come, he will definitely be defeated! "
Charlie Gough immediately translated Zheng Li's words into a language that John Churchill could understand: "Baron, Crown Prince Annan said that as long as we Westerners are willing to support him with artillery and muskets, he is willing to lead the Annan people to resist to the end... .even if every last drop of blood is shed!"
"Good! The Annamites are indeed a glorious member of the civilized world!"
John Churchill smiled and nodded, and then said to Ji Dabao: "Nicholas, you and the Ming Emperor are old friends, right?"
Ji Dabao nodded and said with a smile: "We can't even be old friends. We just exchange letters frequently."
Zhu Heji and Ji Dabao both disliked each other in their early years, so Zhu Heji never thought of recruiting this fake foreign devil. And Ji Dabao looked down on Zhu Heji, thinking that he was just a bandit or a pirate who could not become a great person. He also liked to pretend to be a ghost, and he could not become a great person at first glance. Who knew that Emperor Zhu's "magic" was actually not a fake? Yes, there really is!
Later, he followed Charles Gough to Europe, got involved with an Orientalist expert at the University of Cambridge, and collaborated with Newton on the issue of natural magic in the East, so he began to try to write to Zhu Heji for advice.
In fact, Zhu Heji didn't like him as a fake foreign devil, but he also needed someone to get him some Western news and books on philosophy and natural philosophy, both the original version and the "chronic translation"!
So after receiving Ji Dabao's letter, Zhu Heji began to send him money to "purchase" books on his behalf. At the same time, he also sent him a lot of the essence of Eastern philosophy and political science knowledge, such as "Anti-Jing" and "Anti-Jing". "Ming Yidai Imitation", "Tao Fa Zi Zi" (Zhu Heji's masterpiece), etc. were translated into various foreign languages. This was the beginning of Ji Dabao's piracy business. Later, he also made a fortune by translating and publishing the Chinese classics "Jin Ping Mei", "R Futon", and "Journey to the West" (all illustrated versions)... .
And Ji Dabao, who had prospered in Europe relying on his relationship with Zhu Heji, also knew that once the Europeans and the Ming Dynasty launched a "comprehensive competition", both sides would need a middleman who could talk to both sides. , so he had to highlight his relationship with Zhu Heji.
"Nicholas, please send a message to Emperor Ming in the name of the king's special envoy."
Sir John Churchill smiled and said: "Please tell the Ming Emperor that England and the Netherlands will compete with the Ming Dynasty in all aspects of trade... However, no one hopes that this competition will eventually turn into a war without a winner. .”
"Okay, I understand." Ji Dabao smiled and nodded, "The purpose of King James and William's rule is to have a trade war with Ming Dynasty, right?"
Sir John Churchill nodded, "Yes, it is a trade war!"
…
"Trade war? Hahahaha... James II and his good son-in-law William actually want to start a trade war with me! Lao Ji, didn't you tell him that I know the best about trade wars?"
In the Yuexiu Palace, Zhengtian shamelessly said that he knew best about trade wars, and of course it was the Ming Emperor Zhu Heji.
However, his "knowing best" is indeed not bragging.
Because he personally experienced a trade war in later generations! Moreover, his previous high imitation business did not suffer any losses in this trade war, but achieved good growth.
Moreover, in that trade war, Zhu Heji had already seen a variety of methods, and the impact of those methods on Ming Dynasty was actually very limited.
"Your Majesty is wise, your Majesty knows so much... Your Majesty will definitely win the trade war this time and pocket the money of the Dutch and English people." Ji Dabao first complimented Emperor Zhu Da, and then said kindly Kindly reminded, "Holy Lord, England is now implementing a gold standard currency, just to make gold more valuable and silver less valuable.
At the same time, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, and the Papal States gained a lot of territory in India. In addition, the land in northwest India captured by Qingyao Kangxi Khan was enough to supply cotton, sugar, porcelain, and silk. Can barely produce. If you are really cruel, you may not need Ming Dynasty silk, cotton, sugar, and porcelain. By then, Ming's silk, cotton, sugar, and porcelain will not be able to leave the country, and Ming's domestic silver will probably be in short supply. "
"Hahaha..." Zhu Heji suddenly laughed, as if he had heard some joke. After laughing for a while, he stopped and said to Ji Dabao, "Professor Ji, go back and tell the English and Ni... The Delan people... they want to fight a trade war, and I will accompany them! They want to fight with real swords and guns, and I will accompany them to the end!"
