On January 25, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Keelung Port, Taiwan.
On the blue sea, two sailing ships came towards the port one after another. The first one was a Chinese fortune ship, and the latter one was a ship without a tall ship building. The deck was slightly narrow, and the ship's side was facing towards the sea. A bulging Western-style sailboat. If you are a European, you should be able to tell that this is a typical Dutch sailboat.
A few people got out of the cabin of the Dutch sailing ship and looked at the undulating coastline in the distance, with greedy looks in their eyes. A tall officer said: "If the entire Taiwan is occupied by us, it will take at most ten years. Become the richest trading house of our Dutch United East India Company."
Another taller officer also said with great regret: "Yeah, it's a pity that we don't have enough troops. If we had 2,000 troops and 20 warships in Daguang, we would have driven away the Spanish and occupied Taiwan long ago. , and will not wait for the Chinese to take advantage of this."
The tall man said again: "Then let's take a look, what strength do the Chinese have and what can they talk to us about?"
At this moment, the soldier on the observation deck pointed into the distance and shouted: "Colonel, look, that is a Spanish ship."
The two officers immediately took out their binoculars and looked in the direction of the soldiers' fingers. Sure enough, they saw a row of Spanish-style sailing ships moored on the distant coast. There were about thirty or forty ships in total, and some of them even had Spanish flags hanging on them. flag.
The two officers looked at each other, and the tall man said: "Damn it, Harus, there are so many Spanish ships here. Is it possible that this is a trap? The Spaniards were not driven away by the Chinese, we were all fooled. ."
The short Harus turned back to the cabin and shouted: "Father, Father, please come out."
After a while, Akonia, dressed in black, slowly came out of the cabin and said to the tall man: "Mr. Linga, what can I do for you?"
Linga said: "Father Aconia, why are there so many Spanish sailing ships anchored in the port of Keelung? What is going on?"
Arconia was relieved and said: "Didn't I tell you? The Spanish expedition fleet has been defeated by the Chinese, and these ships are all warships captured by the Chinese."
Harus said: "But there are still Spanish flags on several ships. Could it be that after the Chinese captured the Spanish warships, they forgot to replace these flags?"
Because the ship was getting closer at this time, Aconia did not use binoculars, looked at the side of the ship, and then said very calmly: "Oh! That's the Spanish negotiating team coming from the Philippines. They They were defeated, so the Governor of the Philippines sent people to sue for peace from the Chinese. Didn’t you see? There were only a few ships flying the Spanish flag, and most of the ships were flying the dragon flag, which is the flag of the Chinese."
Harus and Linga both looked at each other again, and couldn't help but feel excited in their hearts.
The Dutch landed on Da Yuan Island in the southwest of Taiwan (i.e., Anping District, Tainan) in September 1624 and began their colonial rule in Taiwan. They also built two military fortresses in Jelandja and Provencha, and With these two cities as the core, they penetrated into the inland of Taiwan. By this time, the actual control area of the Dutch in Taiwan was within the southwest coast with Da Yuan as the core, which was later Tainan City and the Penghu Islands. .
At first, the Dutch stationed not many troops in Taiwan, only 260 people. Therefore, they did not dare to act recklessly, and they were relatively restrained towards the indigenous people, dealing fairly and getting along with each other in a friendly manner. However, after the city of Relanja was repaired in 1634,
Badavia sent 475 more troops to Taiwan. The Dutch, whose strength had greatly increased, also showed their ferocity as colonists.
With a ferocious face, he began a bloody conquest of Taiwan's indigenous people. He successively conquered the surrounding Madou Society, Huweilong Society, Xiaolong Society, Jialiuwan Society and other places by force. Within five years, he killed a total of four indigenous people.
There were more than a thousand people, and more than 7,000 people were bought as slaves. More than 8,000 indigenous houses and more than 3,000 granaries were burned down.
Moreover, the Dutch not only used force to conquer, but also took advantage of the lack of contact between the indigenous peoples in Taiwan and used methods such as differentiation and provocation to provoke internal fighting among the indigenous people, attacking one side and attacking the other, using barbarians to fight barbarians.
Missionaries went to various indigenous villages to preach and prohibited the indigenous people from practicing local religions in order to exercise mental control. These were common methods used by European colonists. They also caused great losses to the local indigenous people.
By this time, more than 200 indigenous tribes had surrendered to the Dutch, with a population of about 45,000. Every year, they participated in the gathering held by the Dutch in the city of Geranje and paid tribute to the invaders.
In the past year or two, the Dutch have realized that Taiwan has a good natural environment and hope to turn Taiwan into the East India Company's granary in East Asia. Therefore, they have introduced rice and sugar cane for large-scale planting. Since the Chinese planting technology is far superior to the local indigenous people,
At the beginning, the Dutch relied heavily on the Chinese and recruited immigrants from the southeast coast.
However, as the Chinese gathered and immigrated more, the Dutch became more and more wary of the Chinese. On the one hand, they strengthened their control over the Chinese, prohibited the Chinese from owning weapons, and levied heavy taxes on the Chinese. On the other hand, they forcibly separated the Chinese.
They vilified the Chinese within the indigenous people, strictly prohibited the Chinese from entering the indigenous villages, authorized the indigenous people to arrest the Chinese who entered the indigenous areas, and gave rewards, etc. Under this connivance policy of the Dutch, a few indigenous people also openly robbed
Chinese property, arrest Chinese.
Generally speaking, under the control of the Dutch, the living conditions of the Chinese were the worst, followed by the indigenous people. And the closer to the big officials, the greater the control of the Dutch. The farther away from the big officials, the stronger the control.
Be smaller.
At present, the highest official of the Netherlands in Taiwan is called the Chief Minister of Taiwan. The current Chief Minister of Taiwan is named De Lao Dian. Originally, the Dutch had prepared an army and planned to take advantage of the empty defense of the Spanish in Taiwan to drive northward.
The Spanish dominated Taiwan, but just at this time, the Spanish expeditionary fleet arrived
Taiwan also frightened De Laodian and hurriedly asked for help and support from Batavia. However, at this time, the Netherlands only had a total of more than 3,000 troops in East Asia, and Batavia only had more than 1,000 garrison troops.
They were also afraid that the Spanish Expeditionary Force would attack Batavia, where reinforcements could be sent, so Theodore had no choice but to accuse God every day to protect him.
In fact, if the Spanish Expeditionary Force really wanted to enter Taiwan at that time, it would have occupied the entire Taiwan by now. But maybe Delodian's prayer really came true. The Spanish Expeditionary Fleet did not attack Taiwan, but only stationed in Keelung for a few days.
Sailed far away and attacked the Chinese mainland. Delao Dian also breathed a sigh of relief, but he was also worried that the Spanish would come back with a counterattack, and that the Spanish expeditionary force would really conquer China, or use force to force it and monopolize the control of China.
Trade, therefore, involves worries about gains and losses.
As a result, one day suddenly, a Chinese Croton ship came to Damuan. A Portuguese missionary on board brought a letter from a Chinese general, claiming that the Chinese army had defeated the Spanish expeditionary force and expelled northern Taiwan.
The Spaniards are now asking the highest Dutch official in Taiwan to go to Keelung to meet the Chinese generals to discuss the issue of Taiwan's ownership.
At that time, De Laodian's first reaction was disbelief, because although the Netherlands was at a disadvantage in the battle with Zheng Zhilong, Zheng Zhilong had to dispatch warships several times larger than the Dutch fleet every time to defeat the Dutch fleet. Therefore, in his opinion,
The Spanish expeditionary force with more than 60 galleons could not be defeated by the Chinese army. But after Aconia repeatedly explained the reasons for the victory of the Chinese army, it was finally revealed that Aconia was a Catholic priest, and Germany
Lao Dian was a little skeptical.
So De Lao Dian immediately summoned his officers to discuss how to deal with this incident. The officers did not believe the disappointment of the Spanish expeditionary fleet, but they could not think of any benefit in Aconia deceiving them. Finally De Lao Dian decided,
Two captain officers, Linga and Harus, and a missionary, Yunus, were sent to follow Aconia to Keelung to meet the Chinese general and see what kind of medicine was bought in the gourd.
And after all, De Laodian is not a paranoid person. He also thought that if what Aconia said is true and the Spanish expeditionary force really failed, then we can see whether the Netherlands has a chance to attack northern Taiwan.
, monopolize Taiwan, and then occupy China's Zhejiang coastal areas. You can also reconnoiter the terrain and troop distribution in Taipei, and prepare for sending troops to attack northern Taiwan in the future.
Taking a step back, if the Chinese army is really that powerful, then it must be the strongest army in China. We might as well negotiate with them and strive to obtain trade rights from them. We can even enlist them to attack Zheng Zhilong.
.Thus, trade with China can also be expanded. In this regard, Shang Yi was not wrong at all. The core interest of the Dutch is trade.
Therefore, Linga, Harus, and Yunus brought more than 20 Dutch soldiers, sailed a Dutch warship, and set out with Aconia to advance to Keelung.
On the way to Keelung, the Dutch missionary Yunus also invited Akonia to take the same boat with him so that he could exchange experiences in missionary work in Asia. In fact, he wanted to get some words out of Akonia's mouth.
.Although Arconia is an old religion and Yunus is a new religion, they are both essentially
Catholicism, and Meaconia was relatively indifferent to the dispute between the old and new doctrines. After all, they were colleagues, so they felt close to each other, so they readily agreed. They also tried their best to answer Yunus's questions, and only asked about Alexandra's surrender.
The matter was concealed from Yunus. Of course, this was specially ordered by Shang Yi.
Although Yunus got a lot of words from Arconia, Linga and Harus could not believe that a Chinese general could use European tactics and have such an understanding of the history and current situation of Europe.
They had a very deep understanding. But Yunus thought that Arconia was not lying. The more they thought about it, the more difficult it became to understand. In the end, they had to decide not to make any judgments. When they arrived in Keelung, everything would be clear.