The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 273
"Too arrogant!" Zhu Linmi slapped the table hard and said angrily, "The Helan people stole Dongfan for many years. I didn't go to them to settle accounts, but they went to the coast of Daming to make trouble?!"

The Netherlands at this time is the most powerful time in history.

Its shipbuilding industry ranks first in the world, and there are hundreds of large and small shipyards in Amsterdam, and its technology is also at the forefront of the world.

At this time, the Netherlands had more than 5000 merchant ships, the tonnage of which was close to three-quarters of that of the whole of Europe, and almost all maritime trade was monopolized by it, so it was awarded the title of "Sea Coachman".

At the same time, the Dutch fleet is also extremely powerful.Although they did not build heavy warships due to the shallow waters off the coast of the Netherlands, the number of warships was twice as large as that of the British and French warships that ranked second and third in the European navy combined!
With its powerful navy and large-scale merchant ships, the Dutch West India Company firmly controlled the trade between Northwest Africa and the Americas, and also had a large colony in North America.

The Dutch East India Company was responsible for controlling trade in Asia.With the Far East Fleet, they defeated the Spanish Fleet in Java and Malacca successively. They have achieved a monopoly on East Asian trade, and they have always occupied the Taiwan Island of Ming Dynasty.

The Spaniards were defeated by the Dutch in Europe, and the sea power in the Far East was even worse. Therefore, they could only rely on the colonies in Luzon and other places to make a living from the Dutch.

Previously, the Dutch were timid about Zheng Zhilong's huge fleet, and they were fairly honest along the coast of Daming.Although they monopolize Daming's maritime trade, they have to pay Zheng Zhilong a tax every year.As for casually bombarding merchant ships along the coast of Daming, they absolutely did not dare.

But now Zheng Zhilong brought all the warships to join Jianlu. The Ming court had relied on Zheng Zhilong's fleet for coastal defense for decades, and he hardly had any decent warships in his hands.

It was precisely this that the Dutch dared to show off near Nan'ao Mountain.The sinking of the Spaniard's grain ship was, on the one hand, a warning to Spain not to get involved in East Asian trade, and on the other hand, it was also a demonstration against Ming - the coast of Ming was their world.

"Are our people seriously injured?" Zhu Linmi first asked Zhu Jizuo.

"Returning to Your Highness, fortunately, Lu Wang was only overturned by the force of the cannon and suffered only skin trauma, so he will be safe for a while."

Zhu Linmei nodded, "It's fine as long as it's okay."

"Your Highness, this is very domineering compared to the Lan people." Zhu Jizuo said carefully, "However, the navy is short of boats right now. Do you think that the Sipania people should stop transporting food?"

"No." Zhu Linmi shook her head. Although the grain price in southern Fujian is under control, the drought and poor harvests are real. It is beneficial and harmless to transport more grain, and the Helan people cannot be allowed to do whatever they want on the coast of Daming precedent.

He told Zhu Jizuo: "I'm going back to my residence now, and you bring that Helan envoy Bertman to see me."

Zhu Jizuo hurriedly bowed and said, "I'll go now, my servant."

Zhu Linmi then ordered Shi Lin to prepare a car and rush back to the palace.In the car, he couldn't help frowning slightly. The Dutchman hit a Spanish merchant ship. It seemed that it didn't matter to Daming, but in fact it was extremely serious.

It's about vital maritime trade.

Now, based on the situation in Jiangxi and Fujing, the annual tax revenue can reach 50 million taels.Even if Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan are brought under the rule of the imperial court in the future, the total tax revenue will be about 100 million taels.

This has to be done in good weather all the time.For example, in a catastrophe like southern Fujian, not only will the tax be unable to be collected within a year or two, but some subsidies will have to be paid in.

This amount of tax money still needs to be paid for officials' salaries, hydraulic construction, royal expenses, etc., and the rest is only to pay for the food consumption of the Ming army in the Northern Expedition, which may be stretched.Wanting to spend some spare money on industrial development, transportation construction, etc. is simply a daydream.

Therefore, Zhu Linmi planned from the very beginning to subsidize the state finances with lucrative maritime trade.

Just like Zheng Zhilong's family's fleet, the annual net profit of trade with Japan, Southeast Asia and other places is about 300 million taels, and the Dutch pay him the same amount of taxes.

In addition to Zheng Zhilong, Fujing also has a large number of maritime merchants who make a living by smuggling, and their combined profits may not be lower than Zheng Zhilong's.

This is the result of Zheng Zhilong letting the Dutch monopolize all overseas trade except Japan and Southeast Asia, and even in Japan and Southeast Asia, the Dutch have divided at least half of the trade volume.

In the [-]th century, Daming produced the most profitable commodities in the world—porcelain, silk, tea, etc., and now refined steel and cement are also added.It can be said that as long as there are sea ships continuously entering and leaving Daming's ports, silver from all over the world will flow into Daming continuously.In fact, one of the biggest motivations for the Europeans to expand their overseas colonies was to plunder silver everywhere in order to buy goods from Ming Dynasty.

If the Ming court can control these overseas trades, he estimates that there will be at least nearly 2000 million taels of income every year!At that time, financial problems will be nothing to Daming.

At the same time, in the military, with a strong economic backing, he can invest heavily in the manufacture of advanced weapons, expand the size of the army, and form an absolute advantage in quantity and quality over Jianlu.

But in the current situation, the Dutch want to monopolize all the trade in East Asia by themselves while the Daming Navy is in vain.

In fact, since they came to Taiwan, they have been working hard in this direction all the time.It was only because Zheng Zhilong had been suppressed by the overwhelming number of warships before that he had to pay a large amount of taxes to Zheng Zhilong.

Zhu Linmei sighed helplessly.In fact, because Europe is too far away from Ming Dynasty, the huge Dutch fleet can't come here at all, and their naval power in the Far East is not strong.

He remembered that the Dutch currently stationed in Taiwan had no more than five main warships, of which only two were Tier [-] frigates with less than forty artillery pieces and a displacement of close to [-] tons.

The other three are just larger double-decker armed merchant ships with a displacement of at most [-] tons.

Other than that, they are all merchant ships of two to three hundred tons or even smaller.

But it is such a fleet that can show off its power along the coast of Daming. The reason is that the European-style Galen ship structure is more suitable for carrying more artillery.

Daming's sea-going ships also weighed five or six hundred tons, but they usually only had guns on the bow and stern, with no more than ten cannons, and only three or four heavy cannons.

However, a Galen ship of the same size can carry forty cannons, more than [-]% of which are heavy cannons weighing more than [-] pounds.

Therefore, during the battle, the Dutch warships could almost outnumber ten of them, and a single salvo could destroy Ming's main warship.However, Ming's warships are limited by firepower, and more than six or seven ships must be besieged at the same time to damage the European-style warships.

(End of this chapter)