Portugal's decline is visible to the naked eye, and it is still arrogant only in East Africa.
Its Brazilian colony in South America was robbed by the Netherlands a few years ago, and Spain and Portugal jointly failed to take it back.
However, the Netherlands was also embarrassed. After establishing a foothold in Brazil, although the colonial area expanded year by year, there were not enough Dutch immigrants to fill it. So it was funny. The main population of the Dutch colony in Brazil was actually the mixed descendants of Portugal and indigenous people.
Every year Portuguese farmers revolted.
Portugal's colonies in Asia have been continuously seized by the Dutch by force. Currently, only a few ports along the coast of India remain. Moreover, the Portuguese royal family exploited them too much. As a result, some of the descendants of Portugal who settled in India continued to convert to Hinduism or Green Christianity, betraying their mother country and calling themselves
Indian.
The Portuguese royal family was quite good at bullying Africans. After occupying East Africa, the Portuguese royal family enfeoffed lords on a large scale.
The Portuguese lords in East Africa were called Prazos. The lords' army was all locally recruited black people... Their main income was from mining gold mines and selling black slaves. As the gold mines were becoming increasingly depleted, new businesses were opened.
The lord's title was auctioned, and the lord who made money returned to Portugal and sold the lord's power to the local wealthy people.
If we want to say that Portugal brought any benefits to the East, it would only be the spread of knowledge and weapons.
The Ming Dynasty's Fran cannons came from Portugal, and natural science knowledge came from the Jesuits funded by Portugal. In India, Indians have learned how to make cannons. An Indian prince's cannon was captured. It was 6 meters long and weighed 20 tons.
, known as the "Diu Cannon", even the Portuguese had never seen such a big cannon.
Now that Macau has been completely taken back by China, the commander of the Portuguese-Macau (trade) fleet gave up the Portuguese title without any regret and led the entire fleet into the embrace of China.
The Portuguese-Macau fleet was renamed, and a group of Portuguese divided up the royal property and registered the "France Macau Trading Company" in China. The commander of the Portuguese-Macau fleet became the largest shareholder, holding 5% of the shares alone, and the Macau Municipal Speaker became the chairman of the board of directors.
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These Portuguese businessmen, led by missionaries, traveled around the southern provinces, seeking marriage with Chinese suppliers.
In just half a year, more than 20 interracial marriages were successful. They were either Portuguese women marrying the concubines or clansmen of Chinese businessmen, or Portuguese men marrying the concubines or clansmen of Chinese businessmen.
The legitimate children of Chinese merchants are not willing to marry a ghost at all. The red-haired and green-eyed one is scary to look at.
…
Batavia.
The tough-handed Dutch Governor Van Diemen died of illness early last year. The new Governor is named Cornelis van der Linn, which is translated as "Vanderlin" in Chinese.
Not long after Van Diemen died of illness, Van der Linde had already set off from Europe.
It was not that the headquarters of the East India Company was uncertain, but that Van Diemen lay in bed for more than half a year before he died. While still ill, he asked the headquarters to send a new governor immediately. Because the situation in the Far East was not optimistic, and the development momentum of China's maritime trade was too strong!
"Your Majesty the Governor, these are the financial reports for the past fifteen years." The adjutant handed over a stack of reports.
Fandelin was too lazy to read it himself, so he only said: "Please briefly describe it."
The adjutant said: "From 1631 to 1640, the company's expenditure in Asia was 16.4 million guilders, the revenue was about 28.4 million guilders, the profit was 12 million guilders, and the average annual profit was 1.2 million guilders. From 1641 to the present
, the average annual expenditure has increased by 1.1 million dong compared with the previous decade, while the average annual income has only increased by 900,000 dong. Our net profit is declining year by year."
Vanderlin asked: "What projects does the increased expenditure mainly come from?"
"War!" the adjutant replied simply and to the point.
Although Spain was defeated in the South Philippine Islands, and China, the Netherlands, and Spain signed an armistice agreement, small frictions continued between the two countries. Dutch warships always disguised themselves as pirates and ran to harass and plunder Spanish merchant ships.
At the same time, the Netherlands established a trading post in North Vietnam and got involved in the North-South Civil War in Vietnam and lost the battle.
The adjutant said: "Before your Excellency took office, the Batavia Council held several meetings. The members unanimously decided to stop the silk trade with Japan at the Vietnamese trading station."
"Why stop?" Vanderlin asked.
The adjutant explained: "In the past few years, China was not unified. A large amount of Chinese silk was shipped from Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi to northern Vietnam for trade, and we then shipped the silk to Japan for sale. But as the Chinese emperor occupied Sichuan, the silk
The supply of goods has been reduced by more than half. After the Chinese emperor completely occupied Guizhou and Guangxi, commodities such as silk and brocade became more difficult to buy in Vietnam. But this year, the Chinese emperor occupied Yunnan, and our supply of textiles was cut off."
It is now very difficult for the Netherlands to obtain goods directly from China.
Of course, a small amount of goods is fine, but the supply of a large amount of goods is extremely unstable and is controlled by Chinese merchants. Moreover, China is also doing business with Japan. How can the Netherlands be allowed to come to seize market share?
Just last year, more than 20 maritime merchants from Fujian and Zhejiang provinces joined forces to dump related textiles in Japan at a low price based on the cost of silk trafficking in the Netherlands. Not only did the Dutch lose their money, but they also forced many
China's small maritime merchants went bankrupt, and China's large merchants took the opportunity to carry out market mergers.
After the adjutant explained in detail, Fandelin frowned and said: "We cannot allow China's maritime trade to develop. We should concentrate all our efforts to fight a war with the Chinese and force them to sell us silk at a low price."
"This... Council will probably not support you," the adjutant said. "Once a war breaks out with China, no matter what the outcome is, at least one-third of the company's trade in the Far East will be finished."
At present, 30% of the Dutch East India Company's trade volume (not profit) in Asia comes from pepper and 28% from other spices.
However, due to Portugal's nonsense, the price of spices continues to decrease, and the profits of the spice trade continue to decline. Although 58% of the trade volume comes from spices, the overall profit is far less than that of silk, tea and porcelain. Once there is a war with China, Emperor Zhao will come
Trade ban, the Dutch East India Company would suffer a devastating blow.
Of course, the trade ban is also a lose-lose approach for China.
The adjutant added: "This is the information submitted by the Council. The Chinese emperor took back Macau, and all the Portuguese in Macau abandoned the king and became Chinese."
"Is there such a thing?" Fandelin was quite surprised.
The adjutant continued: "In the past two years of trade, profits from cotton, opium, and slaves have grown the fastest. The opinion of the council is to order more cotton from China, sell more opium to Southeast Asia, and provide more Asian slaves to China."
Vanderlin wondered: "Why does cotton's profit grow so fast?"
The adjutant said: "As China's Shandong regains its vitality, China's cotton production has increased significantly. The Chinese continue to invent new textile machinery, the price of cotton cloth continues to fall, and our purchase price in Batavia is also falling. Regarding cotton cloth, the Emperor of China also
A decree has been promulgated that part of the customs duties on cotton exported to exports can be refunded."
The export tax rebate for cotton cloth is, firstly, to encourage the export of cotton cloth, and secondly, to minimize the impact on domestic small handicraft industries, although the effect is not very great.
The adjutant added: "China's cotton production has been reduced this year. Although the price of cotton cloth has increased a lot, this is only temporary. The overall trend is that the price of cotton cloth is getting lower and lower, and Chinese merchants are shipping more and more cotton cloth to Batavia."
Vanderlin had just arrived in the Far East and didn't understand all the situations. He said: "Convene a meeting with the council members and I want to discuss it with them in detail."
The meeting lasted for more than ten days, and the results were similar to the decisions made by the council.
That is to increase the volume of cotton cloth trade. It is very cold in Europe anyway, so there is no need to worry about not being able to sell cotton cloth. Moreover, cotton cloth has been selling well in Ottoman and Persia, and we can take the opportunity to expand the market share of these two countries.
Then came opium. The Dutch East India Company decided to spread opium throughout Southeast Asia so that the natives of Southeast Asia would regard opium as a necessity.
Finally, there is the slave trade. It is too troublesome to directly fight and capture prisoners. You can continue to instigate the indigenous forces and let them attack each other. The captured prisoners are sold to the Netherlands, and the Netherlands sells them to Chinese maritime merchants.
The Dutch East India Company's Far East strategy has also been significantly adjusted:
First, complete a truce with Spain and stop pretending to be pirates to rob Spanish ships.
Second, the number one enemy is identified as the Banten Sultanate.
Third, try to make peace with the Matalan Kingdom. It would be best if you can conquer the Wandan Kingdom with the Matalan Kingdom!
Banten Kingdom, a green religion country, once destroyed the Sunda Kingdom that believed in Hinduism. After conquering the capital, the city was massacred, and all the people who did not convert to green religion were killed. The country was in the west of Java Island, the south of Sumatra and the west of Borneo.
Mataram is a green religion country located in the center of Java Island.
Banten and Matalan have been attacking each other, and at the same time they are at war with the Netherlands.
Especially the Banten Kingdom, the Dutch colony of Batavia, was snatched from the Banten Kingdom. Banten City is another trading center in Southeast Asia. Chinese maritime merchants ship goods to Banten for sale, and European countries sell them in Banten.
Wantan imports and exports goods.
The Dutch East India Company wanted to repair relations with all its enemies, and wanted to concentrate all its efforts on destroying Banten, and then further monopolize the trade between the East and the West.
It can only be said that the two governors, Van Diemen and Van der Linde, have completely different styles of doing things.
Van Diemen chose to expand in all directions, dabbling here and there, hoping to become the overlord of the Far East.
Vanderlin defeated them one by one, first to completely kill the Banten Kingdom, and then to completely kill the Matalan Kingdom. He consolidated the base camp of Java Island and monopolized the East-West trade to the maximum extent, thereby grabbing more practical commercial profits.
This company even took the initiative to shrink Japan's trade, allowing Chinese maritime merchants to invade the Japanese market. As for Dutch merchants, they can just wait for Chinese merchants to ship goods on Java Island, so that trade volume and profits can steadily increase.
As for ten or twenty years from now, China's maritime trade will develop and grow, and it may even threaten the Dutch colonies. In that case, what the hell does Van der Linde care about? He has long since resigned and returned to China, and he has performed well and is a good governor.
(One update today, three updates tomorrow.) To provide you with the fastest update, 595 [The New Governor of the Netherlands] is free to read.