On 31 July 1652, after waiting for a long time off the island of Tesser, the gunboat "Horse Mackerel" finally obtained permission from the Dutch to cross the Zuiderze Sea along the prescribed course with four East Coast flute transports, and finally docked at the docks in Amsterdam.

The atmosphere in the port of Amsterdam is now very solemn, with more than 2,000 ships calling here every day in previous years, but now that number is a quarter less, and perhaps this number will continue to decline as the war progresses. With fewer ships coming in and out of the port, it was a deadly threat to Amsterdam, which made a living from trade.

Now the signs of this can already be seen, as the British Navy continues to intercept and confiscate Dutch ships in the Strait of Dover (these British have now become "mad" to the point of punishing even Dutch ships that do not violate the Navigation Regulations, for which the Dutch Navy has to send a large number of warships or armed merchant ships to participate in escort missions, but this further distracts their already disadvantaged maritime forces), prices in Amsterdam have begun to rise sharply, wheat, butter, cheese, The price of cattle has risen by 30% compared to a few months ago, and many poor people are complaining, as well as the Dutch province and the city of Amsterdam.

It is important to know that of the nine provincial administrative regions of the seven provinces, one commonality (Duchy of Brabant) and one region (Drenthe) of the United Provinces, the Dutch province is the most populous and commercially developed, ↙ but in terms of agricultural output, it "cannot feed one percent of its own population", so the wealthy Dutch province is in dire need of foreign imports of daily necessities – especially foodstuffs.

But now, under the interception of "bitch-raised British pirates" (in fact, the British Navy), a large number of Dutch transport ships are unable to enter even one of the ports of the Dutch province - even more tragically. Many of the transports were taken captive by the British – and the market in Amsterdam immediately became nervous. The price of many supplies has risen in the face of shortages.

Although the city of Amsterdam and the Dutch provincial government have made a lot of efforts. The Estates-General of The Hague also asked the remaining provinces to import all kinds of daily necessities to the Netherlands – a request that was not excessive, since the Dutch provinces accounted for half of the total population of the Republic of the Netherlands of 1.7 million to 1.8 million, accounted for 66 per cent of the fiscal revenue, and also covered 60 per cent of military expenditures. If the province of Holland is abolished, then there will be no need for the union of seven provinces, which has been quarrelling and fighting for more than a hundred years, to survive.

However, it is not easy to ask other provinces to squeeze out agricultural products to support the Dutch province! Let's start with the western province of Zeeland, which was originally the best agricultural province in the seven-province alliance (it was originally a famous wheat producing area with extremely high yields) and has not grown grain for many years due to highly developed commerce. They grow madder – a cash crop that extracts dye – so it is unlikely that they would export grain to the province of Holland.

The provinces of Holland, Utrecht, Brabant, Hautsjössel, and Friesland have a large amount of peatland, which have always been large importers of grain, and the economy is dominated by fishing, fishery processing, and entrepot trade, and it is naturally impossible to count on them.

As for the eastern provinces of Gelderland, Groningen and Drenthe, these provinces are dominated by sandy land, and the agricultural conditions are not as good as those of Zeeland, but they are much better than those of the Netherlands. But the problem is that these provinces, which are mainly rye and pasture, are not surplus in their own resources, and their production capacity is limited, so they cannot afford to support the Netherlands on a large scale.

As a result, the prices of flour, meat, oil, wine, vinegar, salt and other daily necessities in Amsterdam began to skyrocket. This was clearly a heavy blow to the morale of the people of the Netherlands, who felt an indescribably oppressive atmosphere as soon as they arrived at the docks.

"Get out of the way, you goddamn vampires!" Second Lieutenant McKinley pushed away several dock brokers who were chasing him. In Chinese, he complained to his first mate: "How on earth did these Dutchmen know that we had a ship with refined flour?" Damn, it must have been leaked by those dock officials when they came on board to inspect it, and we have to get out of here, or more Dutch merchants will come in, and they don't see the white flour at all! ”

The first mate looked at the Dutch brokers or small merchants who came like sharks smelling blood, nodded thoughtfully, and said: "I will urge Lao Zhang to hurry up and settle the medicines, hemostatic bandages, knitted lace, and dyed leather goods ordered by the guests. Damn, we shouldn't have let all the ships come in for supplies, and now the boys are all disappearing into the dock tavern, and they won't be able to find them all in a while! ”

McKinley was also aware of the problem, which made his face look unsightly again, and he was now more and more worried that the shipload of refined flour ordered by the Riga Merchant would be intercepted by the Dutch halfway.

His bad premonition soon took effect, and in a few moments a well-dressed Dutch man, surrounded by several retinues, came up to Ensign McKinley, looked at his face, and said in Dutch: "I am Conrad. Van Boiningen, the mayor of Amsterdam (the highest official in charge of policing and law) and the provincial councillor of the Dutch province, had just heard from my servant that something was going on here, so I stopped by to take a look. Now, I think it's clear what happened here, is it true that one of your Frut ships is laden with the finest refined flour? ”

McKinley looked blankly at Van Boiningen, he didn't understand Dutch, he didn't know what the other man was saying, but he could guess somewhat. However, he thought it would be better to play dumb at this point, hoping to get away with it - but his plan quickly fell through, and a bespectacled scholar behind Van Boiningen stepped forward and repeated his words in French, English, Portuguese, and Spanish, so that he felt that he could not pretend to be able to do so, that he had indeed learned Spanish.

"Yes, we did bring a boatload of refined flour here, which your officials have checked, and it is 520 metric tons in total, but someone has already booked it. We didn't mean to sell it openly at the Amsterdam market, we just wanted to stay here for two days to resupply. Second Lieutenant McKinley said in stiff Spanish.

"Sell it to us." Van Boiningen said in a tone that seemed to be a request and a command, "Amsterdam needs these flours, and I will find some decent buyers for them, not the small merchants on the docks, but Hendrick of the Tripp family, from one of the most prestigious merchant families in the province of Holland." ”

"This ......" McKinley hesitated, he could see that these Dutchmen were determined to buy his ship of flour - especially since these flours were mainly of special and first class flour, and Europe would never find such a snow-white high-end goods at this time, and it was no wonder that such a scarce commodity was not targeted in Amsterdam, which was gradually short of supplies. However, the cargo had to be transported to the port of Riga to complete the mission, and if it was intercepted by the Dutch halfway, it would be a dereliction of duty on the part of Second Lieutenant McKinley, which would definitely have an impact on his future, so he was still hesitating.

"Are you still hesitating, Mr. Captain?" Van Boiningen was getting a little impatient. He came from a well-known family, his grandfather was mayor of Amsterdam, he himself became the clerk of the Amsterdam City Council at the age of 21 – a key position that many people envied – and now he is a senior official in charge of the city's policing and justice, and a few years ago he represented the Amsterdam City Council in the Dutch Provincial Council, and he is a rising star in local politics. He thinks he is already very polite, so he urgently needs the other party to give him a satisfactory answer.

But surprisingly, the captain of the East Coast stood firm and shook his head at him firmly.

"By the way, your plenipotentiary envoy, Mr. Mo San, is currently in Amsterdam, do you need him to give you orders?" Boiningen's face was already ugly, but he still said patiently.

"Mr. Mo San is also here?" Second Lieutenant McKinley was a little surprised, and then quickly said solemnly: "Of course! Mr. Mo San is our country's appointed special envoy to Europe, and he has full military, commercial, and diplomatic powers in Europe. ”

Mo San came soon. He was discussing some business with some Dutch merchants, but he was told what was happening on the docks, so he quickly arrived in a horse-drawn carriage.

"Sell it to them, they give them a fair price." Mo Sanyong first ordered in Spanish, then changed to Chinese, and praised Second Lieutenant McKinley: "Second Lieutenant, I appreciate your principled attitude, please keep it up, the country needs people like you." But now, we are discussing some business matters with the Dutch, and compared to these business that may be very large, the affairs of Muscovy can be put on hold for a while, and there is no hurry. The sale of this whole shipload of refined flour to the noble gentlemen of Amsterdam is a strong support for my efforts to expand my business here, thank you, Ensign. ”

"This ...... It's my duty. Second Lieutenant McKinley was a little at a loss after hearing the praise, and finally gave Mo San a standard military salute and said. (To be continued......)