I'm really not the carpenter emperor

Before going out, you must make sufficient preparations.

Daming's navy has not made an expedition to Nanyang for more than 200 years. Even Zhang Pan, a general with rich experience in water warfare, still has no idea.

After all, you are fighting in territorial waters and shallow waters, which is completely different from oceangoing, where you have to live on board for several days and nights, or even half a month.

Supplies, diseases that are prone to occur at sea, changes in the mentality of soldiers, and any problems that can be imagined must be fully prepared.

Fortunately, the Old Port area is not far from the mainland of Ming Dynasty, so it doesn’t take that long to go back and forth, and a supply can also be carried out in Penghu and Ryukyu.

Even so, this expedition is still a test for Zhang Pan, and it is also a rare experience for the entire Denglai Navy.

From top to bottom, the officers and soldiers of the Denglai Navy have been extremely excited and apprehensive recently.

At the same time, the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company far away in Amsterdam was also in chaos. After the 12-member board of directors heard the news, they were all extremely shocked and angry.

After that, there is fear.

The 12-member board of directors knew that the current strength of the Far East Fleet was not at the same level as that of Daming, so they were extremely afraid that Daming would send troops for revenge.

The news that came next almost drove them into the bottomless abyss.

Chapter 689 Negotiating Peace at All Costs

The Dutch East India Company consisted of six offices in Amsterdam, Middelburg, Enkva, Deft, Hoorn, and Rotterdam.

Its board of directors has more than 70 members, but only 17 people actually hold real power, also known as the [-]-member board of directors.

At this time, there were eight people in Amsterdam, four in Middelburg, and one in each of the remaining five in other regions.

The news first passed from Claude, a diplomat dispatched to Daming, to Khufu, a member of the 17-member board of directors in the Far East.

When Khufu found out, he was very shocked, and immediately handed over the letter to the world-renowned Venice Post Office, known for its speed and safety.

The Venice Post Office was established as early as 200 years ago. Venice is a traditional European commercial center. The arrival of the Age of Discovery made the status there more prominent.

Many large multinational trading companies in Europe often bring news and letters to Venice in order to facilitate the management of business in various places.

The Venice Post Office will hand over these letters to a special person in charge for sorting, analysis and distribution, and Venice's powerful navy, which ranks among the top in the world, guarantees the safety of letter delivery.

In the [-]th century, the gradual prosperity of maritime trade made Venice's postal business more prosperous, and it quickly became one of the nerve centers of European postal services.

Now, the business of the Venice Post Office has covered the whole of Europe, and more branches have been opened in major cities in various countries, which also means that more and more Venice postmen are delivering letters on the road.

The ships of the Venice Post Office were on the ocean, hardly vulnerable to any kind of attack.

Receiving the letter from the far east from the postman shocked the board of directors of the Dutch East India Company.

They quickly held a high-level meeting of the board of directors, and the eight members of the board of directors who held real power in Amsterdam sat in the northernmost seats.

"Don't the Governor of Manila understand? If we continue to be at war with Ming Dynasty, our merchant ships will not even be able to enter the southeast waters!"

One person spoke, and someone quickly said: "The goods from the Spice Islands, Japan, India, Manila, Cape of Good Hope and other places have been hoarded a lot."

"If the commercial transportation is not resumed as soon as possible, the Dutch guilders lost by the company this year will far exceed the 30 Dutch guilders lost in sum!"

Hearing these words, one of the top eight members of the board of directors suddenly asked, "Conservatively estimate, how much will there be?"

"Most of the company's trade is on the line of Japan-Spice Islands-Ryukyu, and a small part is the black slave trade in the Americas. The loss in the southeast sea area must be at least 200 million Dutch guilders!"

The next member of the board of directors was very angry and cursed:

"This Max, relying on being Prince William's cousin, often acts without authorization. This time, the entire company will be damaged by this incident!"

"Annoyed Da Ming, whose fleet will be used to resist?"

Hearing this, another eight member of the board of directors said quietly to Hotman, the most powerful decision maker on the board of directors:

"The trade volume between Japan and Ryukyu accounted for nearly half of the company's total trade volume in the Far East last year. We cannot afford to delay this time."

Another member of the board of directors above also had a serious face, and then said:

"We can bring this matter to the Inter-Provincial Assembly. The behavior of Governor Max in Manila has greatly reduced the company's profits in the Far East. Presumably the royal family is not willing to see this situation."

The remaining members of the eight-member board of directors in Amsterdam also spoke one after another.

"If the royal family still wants to shield Max, we can apply to the arbitration court to have a trial against the Governor of Manila."

"The interests of the company are above all else."

"Yes, that's right!"

Hotman listened to the words of the other seven people, his eyes were sunken, and he was thinking about the way to minimize the loss of the company's profits.

Regarding the origin of the Dutch East India Company, we must start with a group of Dutch businessmen who went to Portugal to spy on business conditions at the suggestion of a businessman named Hotman.

After returning to China, this group of businessmen established a joint venture company.

They are undoubtedly very farsighted. The joint venture company gave up the highly competitive European trade situation and began to use the intelligence obtained in Portugal to develop to the Far East.

Since then, the Federal Provincial Council of the Netherlands has also discovered that the Far East trade is very profitable, so it has successively established [-] companies focusing on the development of Far East trade.

However, these fourteen companies were all defeated in the commercial competition with the joint venture company of the group of businessmen.

In order to avoid excessive commercial competition, the federal provincial councils began to intervene.

In the first ten years, the federal and provincial councils used various means to intimidate and lure the joint venture company, causing the original participants to withdraw their shares one after another, and only seventeen people remained in the end.

The remaining seventeen people were soon merged with the previous fourteen companies to form a joint company and reorganized to become the Dutch East India Company.

After the merger of the Dutch East India Company, the Federal Provincial Council became the largest shareholder as they wished, but they retained the seventeen businessmen left by the original joint venture company as the supreme board of directors.

Hotman, who first proposed to seize the Far East trade, logically became the decision maker of the 17-member board of directors.

As the Far East trade became more and more profitable, the Inter-Provincial Parliament gradually increased its authorization to the East India Company, and even passed an agenda that other European countries could not understand at the same time.

Since then, the parliament has officially authorized the Dutch East India Company, and they are allowed to form their own fleet and army, hire mercenaries, and issue currency.

In addition, the Parliament even gave the East India Company the power to enter into formal treaties with other countries to colonize and rule the occupied areas.

It was also since then that the Dutch East India Company gradually became a huge multinational trading group from the Cape of Good Hope in the east to South America in the west.

Before the failure of the second Penghu naval battle, they almost monopolized the entire Far East trade.

The two consecutive defeats in the Penghu naval battle dealt an extremely serious blow to the Dutch East India Company's trade monopoly in the Far East.

Especially in the southeast waters from the Ryukyu Strait to Luzon, company ships can no longer even enter for trade.

After thinking for a while, Hotman said in a hoarse voice:

"It seems that this is the only way to do it. Send a letter to the emperor of Daming, saying that the board of directors has unanimously approved that the company is willing to bear all the losses of Daming in Manila this time."

"Governor Max of Manila will definitely get a result that satisfies His Majesty the Emperor at the Inter-Provincial Arbitration Institute. We can renegotiate the peace treaty!"

"At all costs, the contract must be signed..."

Hearing these words, although the rest of the board members were still aggrieved, fortunately they have gradually calmed down.

After all, this matter belongs to Max, but the entire company is responsible for it.

Who called Max the deacon of their Dutch East India Company?

6 Chapter Ninety

After more than half a month of repairs, the Denglai Navy is now ready to go out again.

After Shen Yourong, the commander-in-chief of Dengzhou, resigned, his fourth son Shen Shouyue took over the post of commander-in-chief of Dengzhou, so he was equal to Zhang Pan, the commander-in-chief of Laizhou.

For a period of time, this aroused the indignation of the officers and soldiers of the Laizhou Camp Navy...

And Shen Shouyue, who knew that he was not as capable as his uncle, also asked Colonel Zhu You many times to ask for a demotion to avoid embarrassment.

Soon the imperial decree was issued. Zhu Youxiao did not demote Shen Shouyue, the general soldier of Dengzhou, but a piece of imperial decree, which directly removed the two official positions of general soldier of Dengzhou and general soldier of Laizhou that had been inherited for many years.

Zhu Youxiao merged these two positions into one, and temporarily continued to set up a "miscellaneous number" Denglai General Soldier in the two prefectures of Denglai, with Shen Shouyue in charge.

At the same time, Zhang Pan, the former general of Laizhou, was promoted.

Zhang Pan was promoted to Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Shandong this time because of his years of military exploits and the capture of the flagship of the Dutch Rover Fleet in the First World War in Penghu.

Shandong Deputy Commander-in-Chief is an elected official position, not the original Dengzhou Commander-in-Chief, Laizhou Commander-in-Chief, and the current Denglai Commander-in-Chief.

So far, people are at peace.

Standing in the port of Penglai Water City, Zhang Pan looked at the soldiers carrying supplies back and forth, and asked Liu Xingzuo, Chief Qian:

"Have you got the limes?"

Since Liu Aita returned to the Ming Dynasty in Liaodong anyway, he asked to start from the beginning. Yuan Keli had no choice but to give him the general position of the Laizhou Camp Navy.

This time, Liu Xingzuo was promoted to the head of the navy of the Laizhou camp because of his exploits in the Penghu naval battle.

"Don't mention it, the businessman from the Luzon Kingdom in the South Sea heard that we were going to expedition to Manila, so he opened his mouth like a lion. A box of limes actually asked for 30 taels of silver!"

When Liu Xingzuo said this, he sneered:

"However, the humble official didn't let him kill us like this. He just said that the navy of Ming Dynasty must pass by Luzon. If the price is not the same when it comes to shore, be careful of your head."

"Guess what happened to that guy? He was so scared and stupid! He was chattering and didn't know what to say. Anyway, in the end, a box of limes sold us for three taels of silver."

Zhang Pan hummed, put his hands on his hips, and said:

"Well done, these merchants, whether from Yifan or Ming Dynasty, don't have many good things. The money saved by this batch of limes is enough for the Armament Department to make a few more sets of armor for the brothers."

The lime was prepared because of the fear of scurvy.

This disease is no different from the plague in the expedition fleet, and there is no specific medicine, and it will not be properly treated at sea, and can only be resisted by the body.

Once it happens, it is basically waiting to die.

Lime is also what Zhang Pan heard from people in Spain. Now European countries, regardless of fleets or merchant ships, will store a large amount of lime in the bilges to fight scurvy.

For this expedition, Zhang Pan can be said to have worked hard.

He was eager to try, but suddenly a cavalryman came, Zhang Pan recognized that this cavalryman was his personal soldier.

I saw the soldier got off his horse from a distance, his face was not very good-looking, he ran over and said out of breath:

"Commander, the reply letter from the Hongyi people has been sent to the capital. I heard from a fellow villager who works in the Yongwei Camp that the Hongyi people are going to use any means to negotiate peace this time!"

"Your Majesty is hesitating, the tone of the cabinet and the six ministries have all changed!"

"This group of Zhongshan wolves who can only see money, the other party gave the money, and tens of thousands of people in Manila died for nothing?" Liu Xingzuo spat and sneered:

"Marshal, I'm afraid this expedition will fail!"

Zhang Pan's complexion was also not very good-looking, and at this moment, a sharp laugh came from a distance, but it was Wang Cheng'en, the steward of the Huangji Palace, who came out of the palace at some time.

"Fight, why not?" Wang Chengen narrowed his eyes and said with a smile:

"Our family's visit this time is not to announce the purpose. You generals don't need to be too polite. Our family just came to see the sea and chat with you."

Zhang Pan was taken aback, "Small chat?"

Shit, Ouchi's father-in-law came all this way, just chatting with himself?This is so obvious that there is something in the words!

He rolled his eyes, and although he didn't want to understand, he still smiled and said, "I don't have any military affairs here, what do you want to talk about?"

Wang Chengen sat down, looked at the Laizhou camp navy that was preparing to go out in the distance, and the busy military port wharf, and said with a smile:

"Before our family left the palace, I didn't hear that His Majesty said that he would not fight this battle."

"Elder-in-law means...?" Zhang Pan had just sat down, but suddenly stood up again, staring closely at Wang Chengen.

The latter smiled slightly, motioned him to sit down, and asked: "Your Majesty's last imperial decree said that Laizhou Yingkeqi should go on an expedition, but did it indicate when to leave Hong Kong?"

As he spoke, he raised his head to look at Zhang Pan, and said with a smile:

"Marshal Zhang, our family said just now that this time we are here to see the sea, not to declare a decree."

Zhang Pan suddenly realized, turned around and said, "What are you waiting for? Liu Xingzuo, pass on the military order of the commander. The whole battalion is ready to go out and go straight to Manila!"

"The commander-in-chief is going to report to His Majesty tonight, saying that the Laizhou camp has been prepared and will go out tomorrow! If you don't win, you will not return!"

Liu Xingzuo was still in a daze, looking at the suddenly excited Zhang Pan, a little at a loss.

These two people, what kind of medicine are sold in the gourd?

This is the expedition?

……

A few days later, the Forbidden City, Qianqing Palace.

In the Xinuang Pavilion, Zhu Youxiao tightly held the letter signed by Holtman, director of the Dutch East India Company, and looked at it carefully.