New Shun 1730

The purpose of a joint-stock company is to make a profit.

Countless shareholders are eyeing the year-end dividends of the East India Company. The East India Company has also tasted the sweetness of finance too early, and a large amount of funds have been invested in lending. Now the company's cash flow is basically supported by collecting interest.

Moreover, there have long been triangular debts and borrowing money while lending.

Dashun cut off the Netherlands' trade with Japan, resulting in a cash gap of at least 20 tons of silver every year.

In the Netherlands or continental Europe, bonds can be used for payment.

But in Guangdong, Fujian, and Jiangsu in Dashun, local merchants do not recognize Dutch bonds.

They only recognize two things, gold and silver, and may sometimes recognize spices, but other than that, forget about anything else.

Normally, they take Dashun's raw silk and Batavia's sugar cane to Nagasaki to sell for cash. Then use the cash to buy porcelain, tea, and silk from Dashun, and then ship them back to Amsterdam, completing a two-and-a-half-year cycle.

Cash - Raw silk - Nagasaki for more cash - Fujian uses cash to buy tea and porcelain - returns to Europe to sell cash - returns to China to buy raw silk - Nagasaki... Such a cycle takes two and a half years.

Once the cash flow is broken and the capital chain has a gap, the European competitors squatting in Guangdong and Fujian will surround it like vultures.

The Dutch still remember the lessons of the Ostend Company. Except for the French who were able to make the East India Company's trade with China go bankrupt and reorganize, none of the British, Danish, Swedish and Portuguese are easy to deal with.

Now that the important cash flow of Nagasaki trade has been cut off, if Dashun chooses to impose an embargo on the Dutch East India Company, the company is likely to face a disaster of shareholder runs and stock price plummets.

Times have changed.

Dashun is not the former Ming Dynasty, and trading on the shore is not allowed.

In the former Ming Dynasty, the Dutch could support pirates, hijack ships to Manila, and force Chinese merchants to go to Batavia for trade.

Now that Dashun has opened its ports, if Dashun chooses to impose an embargo on the Netherlands, it will not lose anything to Dashun: without the Dutch East India Company, there are still the London East India Company, the Danish Asia Company, the Swedish China Company, the Royal Prussian Asia Company, the French East India Company, Portugal's Macau, etc. The emperor's daughter will never have trouble finding a husband, and Jiangxi's porcelain will never have trouble selling, that's all.

If the Netherlands chooses to support pirates and force ships to trade in Batavia, then this will not be the era of the late Ming Dynasty when Britain and the Netherlands joined forces to fight against the Portuguese-Spanish merger. If this is the case at this time, Britain, Denmark, Sweden, France, Portugal, Spain and other countries will definitely "defend free trade and shipping safety in Southeast Asia" and choose to join forces with Dashun to eliminate pirates.

In history, even the closed Qing Dynasty, which opened five ports for trade, knew little about the outside world and had no international vision, could force the Dutch East India Company to arrest the governor as a scapegoat, just to worry that trade with China would be affected. Even if the Qing Dynasty had a little diplomatic awareness at that time and truly understood what "using barbarians to control barbarians" meant, the tragedy would not have happened, even if the Qing Dynasty's navy was useless. But this matter can be solved by "using barbarians to control barbarians", and the navy is not needed at all.

Dashun used the navy because Dashun was not satisfied with the Chinese not being massacred, but was preparing to conquer Southeast Asia. If it was just to ensure that there would be no massacre, there would be no need to go through so much trouble. A trade embargo warning from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a banquet to entertain the envoys of the British East India Company would be enough.

Now Dashun's overseas government and external vision put Valknier under great pressure and he dared not act rashly.

Killing is not a crime. Killing 70,000 or 80,000 people in Banda was not only not a crime, but a reward.

Affecting the dividends of shareholders and the profits of the East India Company is a capital crime.

Now the spice trade of the East India Company can no longer hold up. If the trade with China is cut off, he, the governor, will surely die. He knows too well what the consequences of affecting the dividends of shareholders will be.

As a senior executive of the company and a person whose grandfather and father had served as mayors of Amsterdam, he knew that the company's debt problem was a big bomb that could explode at any time.

Now, in Dashun, Liu Yu was using the problem of American ginseng to break the old medical system; the West was also almost doing it at the same time. The theory of the four liquids in the human body was not much different from the Yin-Yang and Five Elements. Spices were produced in the tropics, so the "dryness and heat" could drive away dampness and cold, which was also the reason why the price of spices was high and the sales volume was huge before.

Now, as the silly compatriot named Leeuwenhoek in Valknier's mouth saw a more microscopic world with a microscope, the theory of the four liquids in the human body began to collapse, and the sales volume of spices was greatly affected. At the same time, new hobbies such as coffee and tobacco filled the position of spices. The East India Company relied on the spice trade in Southeast Asia alone, and it was almost out of money.

It's not that spices don't make any money, but if you want to make money, you have to monopolize; if you want to monopolize, you have to force it militarily.

Every year, building forts, buying guns, interfering in Sudan's internal affairs, suppressing the endless Sulabadi uprising, patrolling smugglers, etc., all cost money.

Take the inspection of smugglers for example. It costs hundreds of thousands of silver coins every year. Several forts have to be stationed every year and each one has to be inspected.

If this money is not spent, British ships or Dashun sea merchants can trade directly with local natives, take away spices, and compete with the Dutch.

The Dutch know the virtues of the British.

The Dutch also know the virtues of Chinese maritime merchants. Zheng Zhilong, who took a bite after being raised, is an example. Maritime merchants are just businessmen on land, but they are a bunch of wild beasts when they go out to sea. They can rob without spending money, smuggle without paying taxes, and kill without mercy.

Dutch profits came from the forced tribute system and absolute monopoly power under military conquest. Without one of them, you won’t be able to make money in Southeast Asia.

Now this most stupid colonial policy has begun to backfire.

When Valkenir came, he was ambitious and wanted to cut through the mess quickly. As he truly witnessed Dashun's policy changes in the past few years, he has changed from an unscrupulous crab to a timid bastard.

Listening to these people's suggestions, Valkenir felt as if he had a clear mind: Your suggestions are really going to get me killed and take the blame. When the time comes when I, the governor, will be affected by my trade with China and be arrested by the seventeen-man gentleman group and deprived of everything, you will massacre the Chinese and take the money back to the Netherlands to become a rich man.

After being moved by emotion, Valkenir also used the most common tactic in the East India Company's bureaucracy, kicking the ball.

"This matter will inevitably affect trade with China. Now the company has established a trade committee with China, which is not affiliated with Batavia."

"Even if time does not allow us to ask for an order from the Seventeen-member Committee on this matter, we should wait until the people from the China Trade Commission return from the capital in Dashun before we can decide."

"As the governor, I have no authority to make such a decision under the company's regulations."

"At this time, we should trust our Chinese Kapitan and Lei Zhenlan. We should believe that they can stabilize the situation in the city, and should not continue to intensify the problem at this time."

Taking advantage of the increasingly bloated organization and internal regulations of the East India Company, Valkenier thought that for today's incident, Lian Fuguang would still be used as a scapegoat in the future.

Although the Chinese uprising in Batavia originated from the company's consistent oppressive policies, from the erroneous "sugar industry expansion plan" made by the Committee of Seventeen, from a madman in Persia, and from the fact that Dashun was cut off It stemmed from the Japanese-Dutch trade, from the acquiescence of successive Batavia governors to Chinese slave labor, from the greed of the Dutch bureaucrats in Batavia...

However, the Committee of Seventeen would not admit that it was their fault, nor would they admit that the Company's oppressive policies were at fault.

In the end, the problem must be placed on Valkenir's head. In their view, it was clearly Valkenir who sent people to arrest people and caused the uprising. Just like the Romans believed that if Spartacus died in the arena, there would be no slave uprising; just like the Dutch thought that if Sulabadi was executed earlier, there would be no Javanese uprising.

Therefore, Valkenir had already thought about arresting Lian Fuguang to take the blame if he was convicted. It was Lian Fuguang who gave wrong information, which led to the outbreak of the uprising.

But now, it is not the time to arrest him. At this time, the Chinese in the city, Kapitan and Lei Zhenlan, are still needed to stabilize the Chinese in the city.

So at this time he wants to say that we must trust our Chinese Kapitan and Lei Zhenlan.

Since the Governor has kicked the ball to the China Trade Commission, the people below are helpless. Batavia is a local government, and there is a conflict with the seventeen-member committee of the "imperial court". If this matter is not handled well, it will be troublesome in the future, and it will appear that Batavia ignores the authority of the "imperial court".

In this case, we had no choice but to invite the Chinese in the city, Kapitan and Lei Zhenlan.

They had already been guarding the door of the Governor's Palace, waiting for news inside, and they were all uneasy.

Some are worried that the uprising outside the city will affect them, after all, they and themselves are Chinese; some are worried that the uprising outside the city will affect their land, sugar factories and other industries outside the city; and some are worried that the uprising will successfully invade the city and they " "Equal fields and equal wealth".

Just like the tax collectors don't like the Emperor Ming Yanjing's rise in Linhao and the destruction of the Meng Yuan Dynasty, they have to miss "the great Yuan Dynasty's rule of the world" from time to time; the wealthy Chinese businessmen in Batavia also don't like Dashun's rule in Nanyang at all.

First of all, Dashun is a traditional Chinese dynasty and will not allow such a tax-sharing system that is prone to big troubles. They do not know about the development of Ezo at this time, and even if they know about it, there are many differences between the two. At the very least, they need to return to the land The flow still needs to be done, and local snakes must not be allowed to rule; secondly, if Dashun rules Nanyang, Batavia's status as a transit port will be lost, and Batavia will most likely lose its current prosperity.

Now that Lian Fuguang and others heard that there were good guns in the uprising outside the city and that they had ambushed the Dutch, what they were most worried about was that Dashun would come to Nanyang and support them from behind. If this was the case, they would be in big trouble.

On the one hand, they are naturally disgusted, and on the other hand, if Dashun wins... what is going on with these people? Not to mention traitors, at least the title of "serving as a fake official" cannot be escaped. Wouldn't the family property be confiscated and the whole family be exiled to the Beihai sheep herding land to guard the border?

Thinking of this, Lian Fuguang secretly thought that fortunately his brother was connected with the group of people outside the city. If the imperial army is really coming, I will say that I am dealing with the red-haired ghosts in the city, but I am actually in the Cao camp and my heart is in the Han Dynasty.

Previously, I was depressed because I couldn't find my brother after returning home, and I was worried that the Dutch would settle the score later and implicate me. Now I am glad that I did not find my brother before and did not let the servants imprison him in the manor.

The Dutch are so terrifying and invincible, but the group of people outside the city actually won a game? And killed and injured dozens of people?

The idea of ​​the invincibility of the Netherlands, which was subtly instilled in me when I watched the execution when I was a teenager, did not collapse, but it began to shake after the ambush very close to Batavia.

If it wasn't the end of the court, then there must be something fishy! Lian Fuguang knew too well that the group of people outside the city could not accomplish anything, because they had no money, no guns, and only a life that was not afraid of death. How could they accomplish anything?

Lian Fuguang was not Valkenir, and could not understand the struggles and conflicts between the East India Company and Britain, France and other countries. In his eyes, one world was called the Netherlands and the other was called the Celestial Empire, so he could only think in this direction.

However, although he guessed correctly, thinking about future events, he thought it would be better not to mention it to the Dutch. If the Celestial Empire won, he could surrender quickly and leave a way out.