Daming Military Empire

Chapter 188 The Shameless Pirate

As mentioned earlier, in order to make up for the goods in July, the Dutch sent more than ten armed merchant ships from Dongfan and Batavia in September. Some people may ask here. More than ten ships have just disappeared in the two directions. You Another side sent more than a dozen ships to deliver food to the pirates, isn't this an idiot?
If we analyze the situation at the time, it is not an idiot act of the Dutch East India Company to do this. First of all, they did not know the existence of the three pirates, Shi Daxuan, Hong Xu and Gan Hui, that is to say, they did not realize that their merchant ships were captured. The pirates were robbed. There were too many merchant ships lost in storms at sea in that era. They subconsciously thought that these missing merchant ships had encountered storms at sea.

Secondly, the business of the Dutch East India Company in various strongholds in Southeast Asia must be maintained. It may not be a big problem to delay delivery for one or two months. If you rely on other people’s goods for your own reasons, then you don’t need to do this business. Well, this is a business that can earn tens of millions of taels of silver a year, and it is impossible for them to give up, so the goods must be reissued.

In the end, they didn't think that pirates dared to rob them of more than a dozen armed merchant ships. What was the concept of more than a dozen armed merchant ships plus more than 1000 musketeers in that era, not to mention that the illiterate explorer Pizarro used less than 200 People conquered the Inca Empire with a population of more than 800 million, just talk about the first large-scale invasion of Ming Dynasty by the Netherlands.

In the second year of Apocalypse (1622 A.D.), Governor Kuhn of Batavia dispatched 1000 warships and more than 1000 soldiers to prepare to attack Macau and open the door of Ming Dynasty to trade by force.What does it mean?The meaning is obvious, in the eyes of the Dutch, sixteen warships and more than 1000 soldiers are enough to defeat Ming, a feudal dynasty with a population of hundreds of millions!This is not nonsense, if they think they can't beat Da Ming and send these people to attack Da Ming, then they are really idiots, in fact they can't be idiots, that is to say, in their opinion, the sixteen warships and More than [-] soldiers can defeat Ming Dynasty!
In addition, the past decade or so has been the period of the fastest development in the Netherlands. Now the warships of the Netherlands have become super battleships with hundreds of cannons. The warships of more than ten years ago are equivalent to the current armed merchant ships. Said that in the view of the Dutch East India Company, more than a dozen armed merchant ships can run wild in the waters of Southeast Asia, and there is no need to be afraid of pirates at all!
"Know the enemy and know yourself, and you will never be imperiled in a hundred battles." 'Needless to say, almost everyone knows this sentence, but this sentence is incomplete, and few people pay attention to the latter paragraph. The original text of "Sun Tzu: Mou Gong Pian" is as follows: Knowing the enemy and knowing yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know the enemy but know yourself, you will win and lose once; if you do not know the enemy and yourself, you will be imperiled in every battle.

The Netherlands now belongs to the last category. They don’t know their enemies or themselves. They don’t know that Daming’s military technology has caught up in just a few years, and has surpassed them in quality. What is missing now is quantity.At the same time, due to the rapid development, they have been lost in the glory of the sea supremacy, and completely overestimated their own strength. In the Chongzhen Dynasty, they were planted in the hands of the sea upstart Britain. In the Chongzheng Dynasty, they are afraid that they will rise first Daming suffered a big loss.

As for the disappearance of the merchant ship this time, if you are more cautious, you will definitely send a warship to escort it. At the worst, you must first inquire about the situation and see what changes have occurred in the sea power. A great dish.

In front of more than 300 armed pirate ships with almost the same firepower, there is not much difference between six armed merchant ships and twelve armed merchant ships. The boat disappeared.

By mid-September, the Dutch finally came to their senses. The July merchant ship did not arrive, nor did the August merchant ship.

At this time, Formosa and Batavia were on the verge of chaos. Letters urging goods from various countries’ strongholds came like snowflakes. Batavia even had a food crisis. You must know that Batavia is owned by the Dutch East India Company. In the headquarters, there are tens of thousands of employees, tens of thousands of armed personnel, and more than 2 navies of the Dutch Eastern Fleet. The food consumption of 8 to [-] people is not a small amount, and the narrow and long island of Java alone is not enough Yes, I have to replenish food from Formosa every month, and it has been three months now. One can imagine the huge food shortage.

Although the current governor of the Dutch East India Company, Hedrick Bruwen, is not a pioneering colonial pioneer, he is still very diligent in his work. He has been handling the company's affairs in an orderly manner for more than two years. After such a big somersault, he sat alone in the office of the Governor's Mansion, with deep despair written all over his face.

At this moment, the guard outside gently knocked on the door and said, "My lord, Van Diemen is coming."

The current commander of the Dutch Eastern Fleet, Admiral Tony van Diemen, is a very aggressive person. In recent years, he has been advocating to drive out the Spaniards and Portuguese to dominate the East, but he has been suppressed by Bruwen and cannot be put into practice. Just act.

Bruwen knew that this guy had been coveting the governor's position for a long time, and he was always looking for opportunities to get him off the horse. This time, he was afraid that this guy would get what he wanted, and he took a deep breath. He took a deep breath and said, "Let him in."

Van Diemen is not the kind of stunned young man who only knows how to act recklessly. He knows that Bruwen is going to be doomed this time. He just ran over to express his concern about this matter. Asking is always bad, he pretended to be angry and ran in, and asked hastily: "Master Governor, who is so bold as to dare to rob our ship, I will immediately lead the fleet to destroy them."

Knowing that this kid was just pretending, Bruwen replied helplessly: "I'm investigating, and I believe there will be results soon. Your Excellency, General, please stay calm."

Why is Van Diemen so anxious? The affairs of the East India Company are not under his control now. He came here just to show his enthusiasm. He gave a military salute, pretending to be in a hurry and said, "Okay, if the governor finds out, please notify me immediately. I still have something to do, so I won't disturb the governor."

After all, turn around and go!
Bruwen looked at Van Diemen's back, shook his head and sighed, then slowly leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes, and waited for the judgment of fate.

After Shi Daxuan and the others plundered the Dutch goods, they did not find a place to hide them, but transported them to Manila in various ways, and sold them blatantly. The prices of grain, sugar, cloth, porcelain, etc. in Manila dropped sharply. Naturally, it was quickly found out.

Now that the Netherlands is fighting for independence, the relationship with Spain, its suzerain, is naturally extremely bad. Bruwen has no doubt that the Spaniards will instigate pirates to rob their merchant ships, so he sent a letter with strong words to the Spanish Governor in Manila. letter, demanding the immediate release of the East India Company employees and the return of merchant ships and cargo.

The Spaniards' guns lie down, and they can be as inexplicable as they want. Just kidding, since Spain's "Invincible Fleet" was defeated by the British by accident, their strength at sea has been much worse than before. Now they are stationed in There are only ten super battleships in Manila, and if they go to sea to trouble the Dutch, don't they want to die!
The Governor of Spain in Manila is not an easy character either. He just ignored Bruwen's unreasonable troubles. It is true that they can't do it at sea, but they are still very powerful on land. Wan Junjun, defending the city of Manila is not a problem at all, you have the guts to bite me!

In a remote corner of Manila, there is a low-rise bungalow. Prade and the six captains have been locked up here for more than a month. When they were in a panic, there was a chaotic conversation outside. It's in Spanish, they can vaguely understand it, it probably means that Batavia has discovered it, and they can start to act!

They turned pale with fright, the meaning of this action is not to drag them all out and cut them down!

Not long after, the pirate outside shouted, "Prad, come out and come with us."

Prade was so scared that his feet went limp, and he moved out with difficulty. Unexpectedly, he was really asked to go, and he was asked to deliver a letter to Lord Governor Bruwen!

Bruwen did not get a reply from the Spanish governor for a long time. When he was considering whether to inform Van Diemen to lead the Eastern Fleet to threaten the Spaniards near Manila, an unexpected person returned.

The person who came was Prade, the merchant captain who set off from Formosa in July. Bruwen asked in surprise, "Why are you back? Where are the others?"

Prade stammered: "The others are still locked up in Manila, they asked me to come back to deliver the letter."

Bruwen asked curiously, "Where's the letter?"

Prade hesitated and took out a letter from his arms. Bruwen took it and opened it. It turned out to be written in Spanish. The Netherlands is still a Spanish territory in name. He naturally understands Spanish. See above wrote:

Your Excellency, I heard that you are eager to retrieve the missing merchant ships and crew members. We are happy to help you. As long as you pay us to hire us, we promise to help you find all the merchant ships and crew members. Our asking price is not high. Each merchant ship only needs 50 taels of silver, and each crew member only needs 1 taels. As for the goods on board, if you are willing to buy them at the original price, we are happy to help you purchase them.Finally, please allow us to express our sincerest thanks to you, Your Excellency the generous Governor of Bruven.

After reading it, Bruwen almost spurted blood with anger, shameless pirates, shameless Spaniards, shameless!

(End of this chapter)