Xinshun 1730

Chapter 836
Shortly after Antony's meeting with Louis XV's secret envoy of the king, a full record of the Hague massacre in Dutch, embellished and specially designed to export emotions and provoke anger, was sent to him.

Anthony didn't care at all how many people died, it was just a number.

These dead people are more useful than living people, the key is whether anyone wants to use these dead people.

After reading this standard, yellow, tabloid-style tragedy record that was popular in the Netherlands at the time, Anthony had to consider whether the Regency could suppress the situation when it came to power?How to make good use of this situation?
His teacher, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, Fan Siling Grant, had said this to Anthony before he died.

"I'm surprised. The rich and loose republic can exist for so long, but it hasn't been divided? This is the biggest miracle in the entire world in the past hundred years."

The words of his teacher before his death are still valid now.

The chaotic and loose Confederation of Seven Provinces was even more chaotic than before against a backdrop of economic woes and military defeat.

Not long ago.

The militia in Leiden expelled the officers sent by the provincial council, and instead directly elected locals as militia officers.

In the city of Haarlem, the citizens rioted openly, demanding reform of the tax system and the abolition of the tax package system. The middle class of the guilds demanded the expulsion of businessmen from other cities, to make "Haarlem a city of Haarlem people, and to ensure the interests of Haarlem." Don't be invaded by the people from the provinces, the people of Haarlem shouldn't use the cloth from Leiden, the flax from Tratter, the salt from Zizelock, they usurped our interests!" .

Shipbuilders, handicraft practitioners, and factory owners formed groups and asked the Federal Provincial Assembly to protect the industrial development of the Netherlands, limit the outflow of gold and silver and foreign loans, increase tariffs, tighten financial policies, suppress foreign economies, and boost domestic industries. foreign investment.

Financiers and bankers, on the other hand, have been saying that the loose financial policy is the foundation of the Netherlands.The prosperity of the Netherlands is based on the absolute freedom of financial policy. Once it is tightened, the Netherlands will face a disaster.

The situation in the Netherlands is now even uglier than before.

In the past, the chaos in the Netherlands was just people from the first level and the second level tossing each other.

Regents come to power, Oranges go; Oranges go, Regents come.

As for the third and fourth ranks, they don't have their own political ideas and don't know what to do.It is a group of working animals.

So some people support the Regency faction, and some people support the Orange faction, because there are only two options in total, so they have to pin their hopes on the side of these two groups of people, moving themselves and being sentimental.

But now, what happened in Leiden and Haarlem proved that the third and fourth estates in the Netherlands were completely disappointed with the Orange faction and the Regency faction, and they were ready to go it alone.

The idea is understandable, but in Anthony's view, this is nonsense.

As his mentor said, the Republic is rich and fragile, and it is a miracle that it has not been divided for so long.

The only thing that benefits Haarlem is the local landlords and guilds if it goes it alone.

To put it bluntly, they want to go back to the late Middle Ages and live their own lives behind closed doors. Guilds control production, landlords control land, and there is no impact from foreign commodities.

But this is pure fantasy.

In this day and age, even the Great Wall can't stop the impact of cheap goods. What can a Haarlem do?
Leaving the political entity of the Republic of Seven Provinces, a mere Leiden or Haarlem is a piece of meat.

When the "reactionary" party disappointed the Prince of Orange, they were ready to do it themselves.

However, being disappointed with the Prince of Orange does not mean that they approve of the Regency.

Anthony must consider whether the Netherlands is in danger of being completely divided after the regents seize power in a coup?
Although it is the same now, a meeting has been held for two years, except for two years of meals and two years of drinking tea, nothing has been discussed.

But at least all the provinces and cities are still obeying the orders of the Federal Provincial Assembly—it’s not that they don’t listen to the Federal Provincial Assembly, but that the Federal Provincial Assembly met and voted to fail to pass the tax reform and centralization plan. The procedure is just and legal.

This is different from directly refusing to obey the orders of the Federal Provincial Assembly.

It seems that now that the Regents have come to power, they are only changing their pro-British foreign policy.

But in reality, foreign policy is just a facade.The real core thing is economic policy.

Once the cooperation with Dashun is confirmed, it means that the Regency faction will firmly stand on the side of the financial and commercial industries.

In other words, it pushed the people of the third and fourth ranks, as well as the handicraft workshop owners in the second rank, to the opposite side.

The regents can launch a coup, at least in Zeeland and the Netherlands, and the regents of the provincial assembly can control it, and they can deprive William IV of the seat of the provincial consul.

The governing of the federal republic is from the bottom up.You must first become the consul of each of the seven provinces, and then you can become the consul of the inter-provincial republic.

The provinces of Holland and Zeeland deprived Wilhelm IV of the consulship of his province, but could not deprive him of the consulships of the rest of his provinces, although without Holland and Zeeland he would not be a consul of the United Provinces.

But William IV either fled to England or returned to his previous four provinces, all of which brought crisis to the Netherlands.

Fleeing to England meant that the Netherlands might face a British-backed restoration in the future.

Returning to its fief means that the Netherlands is now facing division, and even civil war.

When William IV was on stage, he would cooperate with the Regents and regard the second, third, and fourth estates as inferiors.

Once he is not on the stage, he can turn around and become the spokesperson of the third and fourth levels: people in opposition can shoot empty guns at will.He is clearly close to the Regency faction on stage, but once he steps down, he can hold high the banner of public opinion, promising to restore guilds, suppress finance, and so on.

Moreover, given the aristocratic status of the Orange family, there is one more thing that the Regency cannot do.

It is impossible for the Regents to lure the French into the customs to expel the Orangemen by force, so the Netherlands would not be neutral.

But the Orange family could rely on their aristocratic status and kinship to attract the British into the customs, because the Netherlands itself had an Anglo-Dutch alliance.

What the Regency hopes is to withdraw from the war, not to be anti-French but not pro-French, instead of turning around and jumping back to form an alliance with France.This is a result acceptable to the republicans to which the Regency belongs.

To overthrow the Orange faction, the Regency had to agree with the rest of the Republican factions in the general direction.

Generally speaking, the political factions in the Netherlands at this time are divided into the Princely Party and the Republican Party.

The Regency, included within the Republicans.But the republicans are not limited to the parliamentary regents.

The republicans as a whole are opposed to the existence of the consul.

However, internal factions have very different views on internal affairs and foreign affairs.

Since the decline of the Netherlands, the elites have been looking for a way to "save the country and strengthen it".

Similar to the time in China, there were all kinds of wild ways in the early stage, and all kinds of weird ideas, all for the sake of saving the country and striving for strength.

The so-called: discovering problems, analyzing problems, and solving problems.

The stage of discovering the problem has passed. The Dutch elites have discovered it, and the Netherlands has declined.

The problem lies in the analysis problem.

Why did it decline?

If you don't figure out the problem, you won't be able to solve the problem.

The rest of the republican factions other than the regents found a very strange point, believing that the decline of the Netherlands stemmed from "the decline of the world and the decline of people's hearts."

And why is it that "the world is declining and people's hearts are not old", is it no longer the Dutch spirit of the golden age?

Because of the French cultural invasion, the French hierarchical culture, and the complicated etiquette based on the hierarchical system, the spirit of the Dutch was corroded and influenced, so the Netherlands declined.

In short, just like China at that time, trying to use "moral restoration" to save the country and strengthen itself.

But matter determines consciousness, not consciousness determines matter.

In the golden age of the Netherlands, there were strong external enemies, internal development had just started, the handicraft industry was the most developed, and exports were prosperous, so labor was respected, and people were more united and equal.

But now, with the prosperity of commerce, the development of the financial industry, and the decline of the handicraft industry, a group of French groups who were driven away in the Louis XIV era came to the Netherlands, and naturally brought the extravagant life and cumbersome etiquette of France.

After people have money, they will naturally rely on noble etiquette and extravagant life.

After the development of commerce, businessmen are naturally intriguing and selfish.

After the financial industry is developed, it is natural to despise labor. You can make money by sitting at home playing stock speculation and lending futures. Why do you respect labor?

So in the end is the change in the social atmosphere caused by the development of the Netherlands itself?

Or did a shift in social ethos lead to the decline of the Netherlands?

Before finding the right way, some people in the republican party attribute this problem to the cultural invasion of France, which led to the depression of the Dutch people and led to the decline of the Netherlands.

After analyzing the "root" of the problem, the solution to the problem is taken for granted - moralization, restoring morality, isolating the influence of the French and barbarians, and returning to the ancient principles. As long as the morality is restored, the Netherlands will naturally not decline.

This of course is pure nonsense.

However, this statement is irrational, mourns the past, does not use the brain to think, and mainly relies on chanting slogans and provoking emotions, so the spread is very wide, and many people firmly believe that this is the case.

As we all know, rational ideas that require brains to think are often not easy to spread.

And this also leads to the problem that the regents have to face: the republicans, or the grassroots who support the republicans, believe that the bad atmosphere brought by the French has destroyed the morality of the Netherlands, so the Netherlands will decline.

Therefore, the Netherlands cannot form an alliance with France, let alone stand with France.

Neutral, acceptable.

Against the Orangemen, everyone agrees.

Union law, no.

In this case, what if the Orange faction is supported by Britain and is unwilling to give up their power easily?
The Orangemen can bring the British to fight, but the Regents cannot bring the French to fight.

this is a problem.

Another question is, after the regents seized power, what should the Netherlands do in the future?
Originally, Anthony thought that the Netherlands was going to end, and he would lie down and die.

But now, with Dashun's cooperation, he saw another way out.

Within the republican faction, or within the more detailed regency faction, the real political elites have been pursuing one thing from beginning to end: centralization of power.

Perhaps, by cooperating with Dashun, the Netherlands really has a way out.

However, if we want to continue on this road, we must centralize power and change the situation in which the seven provinces and even the cities operate independently.At the very least, the tax system was changed, and the warship was built to take part of the powers of the provinces as independent kingdoms.

This point, since the death of William III, all the major speakers think so, and they all try to change it.

However, for more than 40 years, many strongmen have served as the speaker of the Great Speaker, but they have not been changed.

Anthony's mentor, the former Great Speaker, held an inter-provincial parliament in 27 years.

The purpose of the meeting was to strengthen the centralization of power in the Netherlands; but in the middle of the meeting, the remaining six provinces blasted the Dutch province, thinking that the Dutch province had too much power, and wanted to decentralize and suppress the Dutch province...

And this is also a huge dispute between Anthony's faction and the rest of the republican faction.

Including the so-called "retro morality", which is essentially for the decentralization of power.

Because the history of the Netherlands and Dashun is different, the ancient and morality of the Netherlands refers to the independence of the provinces and the equality of relationships between people, which is the most free compared to the European monarchy at that time.

In other words, it was the idea of ​​monarchy, hierarchy, and centralization implied in French etiquette that corrupted the idea of ​​absolute freedom of the Dutch Golden Age, which led to the decline of the Netherlands.

Therefore, conversely, strengthening the centralization of the federal provinces can only make the Netherlands decline even more.

Absolute freedom, each city doing its own thing, group self-government, and the inter-provincial parliament doing nothing can bring the Netherlands back to its golden age.

(End of this chapter)