In fact, Mo San has only been in Amsterdam for a few days.

The reason for his presence here can be traced back to a confrontation between the British and Dutch navies that took place in the Strait of Dover last month. The veteran Dutch Admiral Tromp led 42 Dutch ships, including merchant ships, back to Amsterdam from the Atlantic, but they were targeted by the British as early as Spain, and when the entire Dutch fleet sailed into the Strait of Dover, the British sent two fleets with a total of 34 professional naval warships to follow the Dutch closely and asked them to raise the flag of St. George of England in salute, only to be rejected by the hot-tempered veteran Tromp, and a battle broke out between the two sides.

More than 70 ships from both the British and Dutch fought fiercely at sea for more than two hours, the Dutch lost two warships and a merchant ship, and another merchant ship sank on the way back (heavier than the historical losses), while the British were unscathed. After the end www.uuxs.cc of the war, the Netherlands and Britain were basically completely torn apart and were in a de facto state of war, although there was no formal declaration of war between the two countries.

At the end of the battle, known as the Battle of Dover, the already noisy Estates-General of the Netherlands exploded, with the Orange and Republicans blaming each other for their stupid policies that had put the great United Provinces Republic in a difficult position. The Orange faction strongly demanded the restoration of the old system and the appointment of William, the governor of the province of Friesland. Frederick ruled for the Republic and acted Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy until his ~ cousin, the young William III, came of age; But the republicans still remember the dangerous 1650 attempt of Wilhelm II to march on the province of Holland with 12,000 soldiers in an attempt to commit a mutiny - a coup that ended with Wilhelm II's death from smallpox, leaving behind his dying wife and a deeply divided country - so they were very reluctant to reinstate the United Province as a republic, lest the country be controlled by dictators. This has happened many times in history.

That's it. In the case of the British Navy seriously endangering the interests of the Netherlands. The provincial representatives of the three councils of the Netherlands continued to blame each other, and the Orange faction took the opportunity to accuse the republicans of inaction and mistakes, which put the Netherlands in a dangerous situation, and they advocated the restoration of the Dutch government and the return of the Orange family to power and the integration of the Dutch armed forces.

But how could the republicans agree to such conditions? Because it's the same as sending the knife to the enemy! Just like when the Dutch faced the Habsburgs many years ago, the first thing to be vigilant about was always the internal enemy, and whenever the shape of the situation improved slightly, they began to fight and dismantle the platform; And when the shape is unfavorable, it begins to centralize. The ruling and commander-in-chief of the army and navy took power, and then they were knocked out of power by the provincial deputies who had survived the crisis, and so on.

The Dutch people of the Lowlands were so keen on infighting that the English and French were astonished, and they generally commented: "A single Dutch or a small group is undoubtedly shrewd and capable, but if a large group of Dutchmen are together, then there will be endless infighting and strife, and in the end nothing can be accomplished." ”

The people of the Dutch province looked down on the people of the other provinces, the wheat-eating provinces in the west looked down on the rye-eating provinces in the east, the people of the Seven-Province Union looked down on the people of the Duchy of Brabant and the Drenthe region, and the Protestants looked down on Catholics (about 45% of the Catholics in the United Provinces Republic). The Protestant internal protesters looked down on those who rebelled against the protesters (which eventually led to the vendetta of the Protestant party, with Morris killing Alden Barnefeldt. This caused a strict conflict between the joining provinces), and so on. The Dutch people are so keen on infighting, and so on to die, which seems to be the nature of the most selfish lowlanders, and no one can change it lightly.

This time, about three times in Amsterdam was John Brown. De Witt, Speaker of the Estates-General, spokesman of the Dutch commercial capitalists, and now the nominal supreme leader of the United Provincial Republic, was the sworn enemy of the military aristocracy of the Orange family. He resolutely rejected Cromwell's proposal for the merger of Britain and the Netherlands, insisted on independence, and faced the challenge of Britain and the United Kingdom. But on the other hand, they are also extremely wary of the Orange family, and at the critical moment, they would rather betray the national interests and make peace with the British than crush the Orange family, which is about to move.

Speaker De Witt came to do something very simple, that is, to involve the East Bank Republic in the operation of transporting supplies to the Netherlands, that is, the East Bank Republic of China used its own transport ships and flying the East Coast flag to sail into the ports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Vlissingen and other Dutch ports to ensure that the Netherlands had sufficient supplies during the war.

Of course, the Dutch people not only sought out the East Coast Republic, but also sent people to Hamburg, Lübeck, Lisbon, Seville, Genoa, Venice and other places (Van Boiningen will go to Sweden next month in the hope of convincing the Swedes to side with the United Provincial Republic) to persuade them to join the Dutch side; Even if for various reasons it is not clear that they are on the side of the United Provincial Republic, they can privately use their own transport ships to export supplies to the Netherlands.

Mo San came to Amsterdam in this context, I don't know whether the speaker was too busy or did not pay much attention to the reason, DeWitt only rushed from The Hague to talk with him for two hours on the second day of Mo San's arrival, during which Mo San judged the situation and judged that the export of materials to the Netherlands was beneficial to the national interests of the east coast, so he agreed to the request of the Dutch in principle, but also put forward some requirements, which were basically similar to the mainland, namely: the Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands severed relations with the Qing government, and the Cape Town, Tulare and Formosa were packaged and sold to the East Coast; The Straits of Malacca will be opened to allow ships on the east coast to berth freely in Malacca; Surrender of Muscovy, Sweden and part of the Livonian market to the eastern coast.

Speaker DeWitt was surprised that the East Coasters had put forward the conditions, or rather were a little unprepared. In his opinion, the opening of the Amsterdam market was already a great gift to the pagans of the East Coast, and they should not be ecstatic? Why would you ask for this or that?

However, in the face of the current difficult situation (the Dutch merchant ships were captured by the British navy in large numbers, and the Dutch navy was unable to escort all the ships), the speaker had to lower his body and negotiate the conditions patiently with the people on the east coast. After two days of talks, the Dutch were only willing to sell the colony of Tulare to the east coast, which was a concession; The people on the east coast gave up the unimportant condition of opening the Strait of Malacca, and both sides made a small concession, but there were still big differences in other aspects, and as a result, the negotiations broke up unhappily, and the very unhappy speaker went to other affairs and left Mo San in the city.

It was the fifteenth day that Mo San had been here for the fifteenth day he had met Ensign McKinley on the dock today, and he had even planned that if the Dutch did not start a second round of negotiations with him, he would simply return to the Ottoman Empire and go there to watch the fire on the other side, and watch the two old bandit countries of Britain and the Netherlands play dog brains freely.

"The fleet left by the Dutch in the harbor went to Scotland to protect the fishery, and other warships were escorting merchant ships outside, and the appearance of British warships off the coast of Amsterdam just two days ago shocked the Dutch." Mo San beckoned everyone to rest in the hotel where he was staying, and everyone walked along the street, talking as they went.

"The cost of living in the city is already very high, and even people like handicraftsmen, who generally earn between 250 and 300 dong (1 yuan is about 3 guilders) a year, feel that the prices of bread, butter, eggs, meat and fish and alcohol have risen to the sky." Mo San smiled and said—after all, it doesn't matter whether the Dutch live in misery or not—but he continued: "The Dutch have lost more than 100 merchant ships since December last year, and as for fishing boats and river boats, there are quite a few of them. Due to the huge scale of their transport ships (16,000 ships, including more than 6,000 ocean-going merchant ships, with a total tonnage of 50-600,000 tons, more than the four British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese combined), their navy can not take care of it at all, so they can only pick the highest value merchant ships to escort the ship, so now almost every day ships are captured by the British, and they lose a lot of money! ”

McKinley was secretly surprised when he heard this, he only knew how powerful the Netherlands was, but he didn't expect that in this war that had not yet been officially declared, the Netherlands seemed to be the one who suffered a big loss. However, it is actually quite simple to think about it, because this is not a symmetrical war, the British have a small number of merchant ships, the Dutch have a very large number of merchant ships and fishing boats, and the naval strength of the two sides is not much different (the British still have a slight advantage in the number of ships and firepower). Therefore, the most common scene in the Strait of Dover is that British warships attack Dutch merchant ships everywhere, and the Dutch are exhausted in order to escort them, but they are too careless to prevent their own merchant ships from being sunk or captured.

"The Dutch may be the first to lose in the constant bloodletting of the British." This thought involuntarily popped up in the mind of Second Lieutenant McKinley: "The will to fight at the top of their ranks is also very problematic, and no one can figure out whether the government is determined to fight it or not. Alas, these loose businessmen, how many national affairs have been ruined by them, and our country must not let mercenary businessmen take power in the future! ”

"Okay, this is the hotel where I live temporarily, let's have a light lunch together at noon. You can stay here for the next two days, and when you're done selling and procuring supplies, leave this land of right and wrong and go to Riga and Arkhangel. Mo San explained to everyone: "I am going to stay for another week or two." (To be continued......) R1292