Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1618 The East India Company and the Situation

On December 1671, 12, the last day of the year, a grand sailing ceremony had just ended. A total of 31 Dutch merchant ships left the port of Batavia, sailed into the vast sea, and set off to return home.

These ships are loaded with spices from the East Indies, Japanese copper flakes, Taiwanese cane sugar, and tea, raw silk, whale products and other commodities imported from the Bank of Taiwan. They will arrive in Amsterdam in about six months, and then rest until Christmas. Going to the East Indies - in this era, there are about 9 merchant ships that set off to the East Indies every year, but most of them are concentrated in three time periods, the so-called "trade fair fleet" (held in Amsterdam every September trade fairs), the "Christmas Fleet" and the "Easter Fleet".According to the Dutch sea chart, these ships will cross the Atlantic Ocean from the Cape Verde Islands shared by the East and Portugal to arrive in South America, stay in the port of the East Coast for a period of time, and then set off again to take advantage of the ocean currents and the coastal waters of South America. Take a sharp turn downwind to Cape Town, where the necessary food supplies are carried on.

Because of prevailing winds and storms, the shortest route to the East Indies is often not the fastest and safest, and in fact the Dutch East India Company made it mandatory for all ships to follow Hendrick Brouwer's 1610 conclusion The route sailing, that is, the ship sails eastward along the constant westerly wind at 40 degrees south latitude, and then uses the southwest monsoon to reach the Sunda Strait—of course, there are also ships that do not find the monsoon due to various accidents, so they can only sail to the west coast of Australia Going north again, before that, they may be able to get some supplies and repair the ship at the Gushan Port of the East Coasters.

Hawkes Clifford's ship encountered this rather large Dutch fleet in the Sunda Strait.Perhaps because of its proximity to Banten, these Dutch people still had to be a bit more scrupled, so they didn't launch any hostile actions against them, and of course they didn't show any gestures of goodwill.

Clifford's "Squid" turned a corner deftly, slightly opened the distance from the Dutch merchant fleet, and then headed northwest all the way.There are two British merchant ships following him, but the tonnage is not large, about 200 tons, full of various oriental goods, and they plan to go to India together for replenishment.

In this way, from the end of 1671, several British merchant ships passed through the Malabar coast of India, Mozambique Island, Benguela, Recife, Barbados, New York and other places for supplies, and finally arrived at the Thames Estuary in mid-May 1672. According to the time it took to start from China, the whole journey took more than half a year, which can be described as a long and difficult journey.

During this trip, the fates of the three ships that originally sailed together were different: the "Green Rose" sank due to bad weather during the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean; It was separated from Clifford and others, and is currently missing, and it is not known whether it has reached its final destination, Bristol, safely; the "Squid" was not without any loss during the six-month voyage. , The deck has been damaged and leaked many times, and it cost nearly a thousand pounds to repair the ship along the way, not to mention the damaged goods due to seawater soaking and tide. In short, the loss is also very large, of course compared with the profit It doesn't seem like a big deal.

After spending half a day paying the import duties on the goods, Clifford asked Martin, the first mate, to take someone to clear and settle the accounts with the officials of the East India Company, while he changed his clothes, and then visited Josiah Char in a carriage Mr. De, a senior official of the East India Company, is also an official in charge of secondary agents such as Clifford.

"Mr Hawkes Clifford, I'm glad to see you're still alive." Child put down the lens on his right eye, then ordered the servant to bring a cup of coffee, and said, "Taste the coffee from Jamaica, The taste is very good, and the price is no worse than the tea you brought back from Xiangshui."

"It's a very good coffee. Clifford took a sip patiently, and then asked impatiently: "Mr. Child, regarding this trip, I..."

"Don't talk about that yet." Josiah Child waved his hand, then picked up another cup of coffee, took a sip, and then said slowly: "Do you know, Mr. Clifford, the United Provinces and France It's probably going to be a war and it's definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for England."

"France and the United Provinces went to war, how could it be so fast?" Little Clifford was a little shocked when he heard it. Before he sailed away from London, the two countries had just signed a peace agreement. He didn't expect that it would take only two years. It always feels absurd to be on the verge of reopening the war again.

"Of course, war has not been formally declared yet. Many of my people generally believe that perhaps by the end of this year, or at the latest in the first half of next year, these two countries will declare war on each other, and then start a large-scale war. By that time, the business of the United Provinces will inevitably It will be greatly affected, and industry and agriculture will become extremely withered. This is very beneficial to our country, because it is a good opportunity for a large amount of exports to make money. Everyone will make a lot of money in this war feast, provided that we I can't be involved in this war." Josiah Child said in a somewhat excited tone: "This war is huge, and there is no doubt that it will promote the business of our country. But you are right, The premise is that our country maintains neutrality. Well, as long as the Congress does not allocate funds to the king, what money does His Majesty have to support the war now?"

"It is best to suspend the subsidy paid by the East India Company to His Majesty the King, so as not to be used on the navy. You must know that those sea dogs can support them at sea for a long time as long as they have a little money. I Know them very well," reminded Hawkes Clifford.

"That's natural. Unless His Majesty the King can borrow funds this time, he won't be able to dispatch the fleet to join the war." Childe nodded and said: "Think about our two wars with the United Provinces, the French, the Portuguese How much money do the Germans, Germans, Italians, and East Coast heathens make? God, we can't just jump right in and miss out again this time. If possible, drive them all out!"

In fact, the East India Company's internal senior management had held a meeting long ago, and the main discussion was how the company should deal with this inevitable war.In that meeting, after two days of quarreling among the company executives in London, they finally reached an agreement: first, they decided to increase the purchase of specialty commodities such as Indian saltpeter, sulfur, axime, and cotton cloth, and then took advantage of the outbreak of the war to raise prices. The second is to strongly prevent the influx of similar foreign competing goods into the Netherlands and France, especially the East Coast cotton cloth that has a strong competitive relationship with Indian cotton cloth, one of the important trade products of the East India Company. If possible, the East India Company intends to take Some extraordinary measures to enhance the competitiveness of Indian cotton cloth.

"Then, Mr. Child, you still haven't told me why there is a war between France and the United Provinces? How likely is it to start a war in the short term?" After talking for a long time, Clifford realized the question he had when he first arrived. I haven't gotten any answers yet, so I asked.

"Oh, that thing!" Speaking of this, Josiah Child couldn't help but raise the corners of his mouth, because it was too dramatic.

The thing is like this: Konrad van Boiningen, who has just returned from his post as the ambassador of the United Provinces to the East Coast, was ordered by the three-level parliament to cast a large-scale monument that records the glorious achievements that the United Provinces are proud of. Gold medal.The obverse of the medal is a pattern consisting of a human head (the mayor of Amsterdam) and a radiant sun, the former above the latter.The inscription is engraved on the periphery of the pattern: "Guardian of the Law, Defender of the Faith, Rescuer of Kings, Avenger of Victory, Arbiter of Europe."

At first glance, there seems to be no problem with this medal, as if the Dutch had cast something to brag about their achievements-in fact, it is not a bragging, because most of the mediation and post-war peace talks in Europe in the 17th century were It was carried out in the Netherlands - but the bad thing is that the Dutch added a small inscription around the sun pattern, which read: "When the sun sees me, I will stop."

This pattern and this inscription immediately "climaxed" the French Privy Council.They angrily pointed out that the "people" of France took the coat of arms with the inscription "Above all" as a symbol of King Louis XIV. You Dutch are obviously insulting our great king by doing this. If there is an explanation that satisfies both the French people and the king, then they can only fight each other.

The three-level council of the United Provinces was a little surprised when they heard the reaction of the French, and then panicked.During this period of time, they have tolerated and compromised with the French in many aspects, but they did not expect to still provoke this behemoth, because they were very frustrated.

In order to calm the anger of the French, Mr. John de Witt, the speaker of the three-level parliament of the United Provinces, personally recalled the French ambassador to The Hague, apologized to him, and ordered the destruction of the medal, its manufacturing mold and all design and manufacturing documents.However, the performance of the Dutch who swallowed their anger did not seem to have exchanged the goodwill of the French. On the contrary, the situation seemed to be developing in a worse direction, which made the hearts of the Dutch frightened. According to their investigation, the French have already assembled The number of elite troops of the army of more than 11 was completed, and the troops were also led by famous generals such as Grand Condé, Turenne, and Butteville; in contrast, the Dutch had only one weak and sick, whether it was a siege or a The Prince of Orange, who was inexperienced in field combat and defense, and nearly [-] low-quality and low-morale soldiers, as well as the arsenal stolen and sold by the greedy Amsterdam officials and merchants.

Nowadays, although France has not officially declared war on the United Provinces, anyone with a discerning eye can see that unless one of the parties makes major concessions, then the war is inevitable.As for this war that is likely to affect the situation in Europe, various forces are also nervously calculating to see if they can get some benefits from it. The British East India Company is obviously one of them.

"Will the pagans on the east coast of the New World join the war?" Hawkes Clifford seemed to suddenly remember something, so he asked immediately: "They are actually not weak, are they planning to join this war? ?”

"I can't see any signs for the time being, but this possibility is not ruled out." Josiah Child seemed to have considered this question a long time ago, so he answered very quickly. He only heard him say: "Their navy may be five years old." It was quite a deterrent before, but now it is no longer a powerful fleet, so it is really hard to say whether they will come to Europe to participate in the war, especially when their country and coastline still need to be guarded. The other is the army, according to According to the news we got from The Hague, the Dutch seem to have been hoping to hire more than [-] East Coast standing army officers and soldiers to station in the United Provinces. What about now, maybe they are waiting for the Dutch to pay a higher price to hire them."

In fact, the English still understand the behavior of the Dutch looking for army mercenaries all over the world, because the combat effectiveness of their own people is really scumbag.However, in the New World in the south, the East Coast Army, which has never fought only against the rotten Indians, has a combat effectiveness that exceeds the average level of the European continent?The British were a little skeptical about this, but they also desperately hoped that the East Coast Army could accept the employment of the Dutch as a whole, because then they could observe the combat effectiveness of the East Coast Army at close range.It's just that it seems that all this is still unknown, which makes people feel quite regrettable. Maybe we can only look for opportunities in the future.

"In short, Mr. Clifford, in view of the delicate political situation in Europe, starting next year, the company will gradually increase its investment in India, and strive to obtain more commodities—especially items urgently needed for the war—to be brought back to China or Sales in the international market. Of course, you can continue to focus on the trade of the Qing Dynasty in the Far East, but you may not be able to get more support from the company." Josiah Child said slowly: "You sent me this morning I have read the letter. You can try to increase the price of artillery, but you don’t need to be deliberate, because the upcoming war will make the prices of various war-related materials above a periodic high point. The price of the artillery sold to the Qing Dynasty has also increased!"

"Now go back and have a good rest. I will send someone to deliver the documents to your home after the materials are counted and delivered. I still want to study the latest information on the army and navy on the east coast. This country composed of heretics is One of the forces that the company needs to pay attention to the most." Josiah Child said again.

(End of this chapter)