Chapter 397 The Other Side of the World: Netherlands
The Dutch captain of the Tulip was named William Cornelis Schauzing.
When meeting with the bearded red-haired captain, Yin Feng called over his personal consultant Lu Ruohan, map production expert You Wenhui, military intelligence director Zeng Rui, and Northern Fleet commander Fan Tao. In addition, the princess, Mrs. Li Lihua, continued to be in charge Overseas Intelligence Department. He also understands Spanish and Dutch, so he was also invited here.
Lu Ruohan, a natural diplomat and translator, was proficient in Dutch and Spanish. It was natural that he became a translator.
Captain Shoujin is about forty or fifty years old. His eyes are bright and lively. He is as tall as the Viking predecessors. His big red beard makes it difficult for Yin Feng to judge his age. He also thinks of it. The famous pirate Redbeard in later generations.
Captain Si Haojin faced a large group of people from both East and West. He showed no discomfort at all. He sat calmly across from Yin Feng's big desk. He even talked to himself, lit up his pipe and started smoking.
He already knew that he was going to meet the maritime overlord of East Asia, a big shot who could decide the fate of his ships and people. However, he had no intention of trying to please at all. It was just like meeting his friends. As soon as he entered the door, he got along with everyone. Say hello in Portuguese. It seems that the thrilling artillery battle in Nagasaki port never happened. There has never been any unpleasant experience between him and the East Asian maritime overlord.
Everyone present admired Captain Shoujin's ability to remain calm.
"How did you come to Japan?" Yin Feng asked in Portuguese.
Captain Schautzin took a puff of his pipe and spoke a string of Dutch words. Portuguese Jesuit Lu Ruohan was very disgusted with this man's pretentious gesture. Especially this was a Dutchman who was an enemy of Portugal. He said angrily Yin Feng said: "Your Highness, this person said that his Portuguese is poor. He hopes to talk to you in French or Dutch. He claims that he is not an employee of the Dutch East India Company. Therefore, he has no hostility towards the people in your jurisdiction."
Yin Feng was very interested in this Dutch adventurer. He waved his hand and said: "Let him speak Dutch. You will translate. Let him tell us in detail his sea voyage experience."
…
Since 1597, when Captain Hautemann of the Netherlands opened a sea trade route to Southeast Asia, the Netherlands broke the commercial trade monopoly between Portugal and the East Indies; Dutch merchants established direct business ties with the rulers of Malaya.
The Dutch Association of Distant Countries soon united several other commercial and trading companies to form a powerful business group. The next year, in 1598, they sent a new expedition consisting of eight ships. This expedition The achievements made the Dutch merchants dizzy: in just 15 months, four ships returned to the Netherlands laden with a large amount of spices purchased from Java; after another year (1600), the remaining ships all returned victorious. The ships that returned late not only sailed to the Maluku Islands, but also brought back a large amount of spices from there. The spices purchased in the Maluku Islands were much cheaper and of better quality than those purchased by their companions in Java.
During this period, Corneris Hautemann actually became the leader of this new expedition with eight ships. In 1600, he sailed to the island of Mauritius, landed there, and garrisoned The Portuguese guards there were driven away. After that, the Netherlands regarded Mauritius as an important stopover on the direct route from the Cape of Good Hope to Java. During this voyage, he went to the Maluku Islands and purchased a large amount of spices. Unfortunately, he was killed on the way back. Four ships also sank one after another. The remaining four ships returned to the Netherlands full of precious cargo. The huge profits from the sale of these cargoes not only compensated for the expedition's losses and expenses. balance.
Subsequently, Dutch commercial and trading companies sprung up and increased. In 1601 alone, the Dutch commercial and trading companies sent as many as 84 ships to the East Indies. In order to curb the vicious competition among companies, the Dutch Parliament-Nigeria The government of the Republic of the United Provinces of Teresa intervened in this matter. In 1602, it merged various companies into a powerful corporate organization called the Dutch East India Company. It gave the company access to all countries bordering the Indian Ocean and East Asia. .The monopoly of commercial trade in the entire East India region. The period is 21 years. In the same year (1602), the Dutch East India Company established a transit station at the Cape of Good Hope. This place later developed into the city of Kapustad (Cape Town in English) .
The Dutch East India Company initially hoped to control the monopoly of the world's spice trade. It soon established a foothold in the Maluku Islands. In the first year of the company's founding, the Dutch started from the origin of nutmeg - the ruler of the Banda Islands. They won the privilege of purchasing nutmeg. In the following years, the Dutch drove out the Portuguese not only from the Maluku Islands, but also from Sri Lanka and a series of areas in the Indian Ocean. In 1610, the Dutch arrived in China With the help of the company and Nanyang Chinese businessmen, they captured the city of Batavia on Java Island.
The Dutch established a strict commercial monopoly system. They strictly controlled the planting area and output of spices in order to increase market prices. At the same time, they also took measures to ease the supervision of the acquisition and hoarding of spices, so that they could purchase large quantities and hoard them. The dense nutmeg and clove trees on many islands have been cut down. These types of spices are only purchased on one or two islands in the Maluku Islands. The purpose is to be able to better monopolize the commercial trade between various European countries and these tropical areas. The Dutch acted as middlemen: all spices had to pass through their hands before they could be sold. Amsterdam became a distribution center for goods from South and Southeast Asia.
Due to the emergence of the Chinese Company, the Dutch East India Company had to compete with the Chinese for the trading rights of the Spice Islands and the colonial development rights of Java Island. After two Java Island wars, Yin Feng launched the Nanyang Strategy and drove the Dutch East India Company away in one fell swoop. After leaving Southeast Asia, the Chinese Company replaced the Dutch East India Company's original position and began to monopolize the trading rights of the Spice Islands and monopolize the trade of the entire East Asia.
Before the Dutch were driven away, independent merchants and capital groups in the Netherlands that had no connection with the Dutch East India Company, later known as port merchants, had made many attempts to break the monopoly of the spice trade. All these attempts were met with failure. It was a total failure in terms of financial revenue. However, their attempts led to many major geographical discoveries in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
They searched for many new routes to the Maluku Islands. Some of these adventurers came from the city of Horn in the Netherlands. The leader of a group of wealthy businessmen in this city was a man named Isaac Le from Antwerp, Belgium. A man of Mir. This man was persecuted by the Spaniards because he was a Jew. He was left bankrupt and fled to the Netherlands. Isaac Le Mir started to accumulate wealth again in Horn City. He persuaded the citizens of Horn City. Funds were raised to equip two ships, and Captain William Cornelis Schautzin was invited to serve as the leader of the expedition.
Schaudin had visited the Indian region three times before on ships of the Dutch East India Company. Le Mire sent his son Yakov Le Mill as a commercial representative to sail with Schaudin.
In mid-June 1615, the two Dutch ships sailed out of the Zuiderzee Bay and then headed southwest. The smaller ship "Horn" caught fire and burned itself on the Atlantic Ocean. The people on board were rescued and transferred to the larger ship "Entraxter". Since both the Strait of Magellan and the sea route around the Cape of Good Hope are controlled by the Dutch East India Company, Captain Schauzin's ship cannot travel along these two routes.
At dawn on January 24, the mid-summer season in the southern hemisphere, Schautzin saw a mountainous area covered with snow (55° south latitude) on the opposite side. This was a promontory in the southeast of Tierra del Fuego. Schautzin then discovered Le .Mill Channel and Estados Island.
After crossing the Strait of Lemire, the Dutch sailed southwest. A few days later, they saw a piece of land in the northwest. High mountains stood on the land, and the peaks of the mountains were dotted with snow. The tail of this land formed a sharp sea. Cape Horn. The Dutch discovered Cape Horn... That's it. After the Spanish Osseus and the Englishman Drake, Schauzing discovered this most important waterway connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific for the third time. Not only In this way, he also confirmed that Tierra del Fuego is an island and not the northern tip of the southern continent.
In order to seize the spices from the Maluku Islands, Lemire and Shoujin traveled to the sea area of about 15° south latitude in the Pacific Ocean. Then they crossed the ocean toward the west. During the voyage, they discovered the Tuamotu Islands. Several coral islands and three volcanic islands in the southwest of the Samoa Islands. Starting from these three volcanic islands, they sailed towards the north coast of New Guinea. They sailed along the coast of New Guinea. Not far from the coastline Several small volcanic islands were discovered in the sea area (located at 2° south latitude, 145° east longitude). The Samoa Islands were also discovered near the equator near the 136° east longitude line (the northeastern cape of New Guinea). The Dutch placed part of them It's called the Schautzin Islands.
As they sailed towards the Maluku Islands, the Dutch East India Company was waging war with the Chinese throughout Southeast Asia. They were initially captured by the East India Company and arrested on charges of destroying the company's commercial monopoly.
But then the Chinese fleet came over. The Dutch and their allies on Java were severely defeated. The Chinese came to take over all the Spice Islands.
The Dutch East India Company had no time to take care of these criminals. The company released the "Entraxte" before evacuating, and only asked Captain Schautzin to pay a fine. At the same time, the company also hired him. He transported some personnel for the company to evacuate back to China.
Captain Schoutin decided to return the same way. Lemire died on the way back. Schoutin and his crew seized several islands in the Samoa Islands on the return trip, leaving more than a hundred people to establish a colonial stronghold. William. Schauzing became famous after returning to China. His book "Diary of Strange Travels" was published in French in Amsterdam in 1619. It is said that it has been reprinted many times.
After the East India Company lost its colonial stronghold in Southeast Asia, all directors were scolded half to death by domestic investors. More merchants, adventurers and trading companies who were running single-handed gangs began to ignore the power of the East India Company and rushed to send ships to explore a way out. A new route to Japan and China. The spies of the Dutch East India Company, which monopolized commercial trade rights with Japan, lived like prisoners on the artificial island of Decim in Nagasaki Port. However, they still collected information about A lot of useful information about Japan and the Far Eastern seas. Some sailors who sailed on the Far Eastern seas also collected some information in this regard. Both the former and the latter came from some Portuguese sailors and pagans who visited China and Japan. I heard this news: There is a "Treasure Island" in the eastern sea of Japan. This island is rich in gold and silver. But the Dutch combined this medieval myth with the main island of Japan... north of Honshu Island. Confused with various news about the real land in the West.
This time, Captain Si Haojin built two large sailing ships with the support of wealthy merchants from Horn City. They set sail in January of the 48th year of Wanli. They crossed the Atlantic and entered the Pacific from Cape Horn again. In June, Yin Feng came to Liaodong. When preparing to fight against the Eight Banners of Houjin, Captain Shoujin brought two ships to the Dutch colony in the Samoa Islands. After contacting the people left behind, he found that the population of the colony had increased a lot: many Dutch people came from Malacca and Manila. , Nagasaki, Japan and other places were driven out by Chinese companies and ended up living here.
Captain Schoutin believed deeply in the legend of "Treasure Island" and inspired some people in the colony to organize a fleet of three ships, including the Tulip, to sail north to Japan.
They planned to bypass the areas controlled by the Chinese Company such as Guam from the east of the Mariana Islands, and then sail to the east coast of Honshu Island, Japan. No one had ever traveled this route before. Captain Shoujin decided to take the risk.
After they rounded Guam and moved northeastward from the Philippine Islands, they encountered a storm in the southern part of Honshu Island. Captain Schoutin's ship, the Tulip, lost contact with the other two ships.
Captain Shoujin has an excellent memory. He remembers every detail of his voyage route very clearly. He drew the map of East Asia printed by the Chinese company spread out by Yin Feng and drew the Tulip when it was separated from its teammates. In fact, his subsequent route is somewhat similar to the expedition route of the explorer Martin Galitzson-Fries' fleet sent by the Dutch East India Company in 1643 for "Treasure Island" in another time and space. .
The Tulip sailed north along the eastern coastline of Honshu Island. In September, he came to Cape Etō, a protruding point in the southern part of Hokkaido Island near the 42° north latitude. He met some bearded people in this area. :This was the first encounter between Europeans and the Ainu.
Captain Schoutin sailed through the strait into the Sea of Okhotsk and discovered the Kuril Islands. The Tulip sailed to the 48° north latitude in the Sea of Okhotsk. Due to headwinds, he had to turn around and return south. Returning again Arriving at the coast of Hokkaido near the 45° north latitude, Shoujin set off from here and headed north again. On one day in October, he discovered a wide bay on the southern coast of Sakhalin Island. It was called Aniva Bay. There is an Ainu village on the shore of Aniva Bay. The Tulip ship anchored here. This is the first time for Europeans to visit here. On the way to the south coast of Sakhalin Island, Fris was in the thick fog. The weather passed through a strait that completely separates Sakhalin Island from Hokkaido. It is the Soya Strait.
Shojin did not realize that he had discovered Sakhalin. He thought he had discovered the northern corner of the Asian continent.
You Wenhui drew the exact arrival location for him and helped him draw the complete map graphics of Hokkaido Island and Sakhalin Island.
Yin Feng told him that in fact, the Chinese and Japanese had known that they were two islands for a long time. Captain Si Haojin shook his head repeatedly, still not believing it.
Yin Feng smiled: "No matter what, you are wrong. I will prove it to you. How about you? Are you willing to work for me?"
Si Haojin listened to what Lu Ruohan translated and looked at Yin Feng with wide eyes. A child-like curiosity appeared on his face: "Your Highness, do you want to form an expedition fleet?"
Yin Feng thought to himself: This big man with a red beard is really smart. He immediately guessed his intention of hiring him.
"Yes. As long as you work for me, I will let you lead my fleet to conquer Northeast Asia by sea. I can allow your crew to return home safely and give them a sum of money. You are in Samoa The colony must be handed over. But all the Dutch can leave peacefully. I will also give them a sum of money, enough for them to open a small shop or something after returning home."
Captain Shoujin's personality was essentially an adventurer obsessed with the sea. He thought that since the entire expedition team had been destroyed, for the safety of his companions, he had no choice but to do some work for the Eastern monarch.
Captain Si Haojin stood up and stretched out his hand to Yin Feng: "Your Highness, I think I have no choice now, right?"
Yin Feng laughed and shook hands with him.
Everyone didn't understand Yin Feng's intention. It wasn't until Yin Feng sent away the red-haired and bearded captain with a smile. Zeng Rui and others couldn't help but ask: "Captain, what do you want to do by leaving this red-haired captain behind?" .”
Yin Feng drew a circle on the map starting from Lushunkou around the Korean Peninsula. His finger landed on Sakhalin Island. Then he pointed at the Tumen River Estuary and the Heilongjiang River Estuary: "Did you see it? This is the retreat of the Houjin Eight Banners. At this time Sakhalin Island should have been conquered by Nurhaci. We took the Eight Banners soldiers' retreat along these waterways and cut off all possibilities for them to escape to the northeast and north."
He pointed to Hokkaido Island again and said: "This island is still ownerless. There are only tens of thousands of Ainu natives on the island. We want to occupy it and use it as another horse farm."