The Far East, driven out the Western colonizers in the Indian Ocean, the Ottoman merchants, began to cross the Strait of Malacca on a large scale, into the Southeast Asian archipelago, and later to Manila.

The backwardness of the Ottoman Empire is evident compared to Europe in the XVII century. The economy and technology were stagnant, and there was no incentive for the Western European countries to change their societies and increase their productive forces. In the field of economy and technology, neither agriculture nor industry nor commerce did not fundamentally change in the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century.

After the sixteenth century, the West made great progress due to the expansion of trade, the improvement of technology, the increase in production, and the inflow of silver from South America, but the Ottoman closed economy, which was subject to the conservative practices of the guilds, avoided and resisted this great change.

The Ottoman Empire was one of the first countries to be hit by the economic earthquake due to the sharp devaluation of the currency and the consequent accelerated deterioration of the economic situation. The increasing demand for raw materials in European countries led to a corresponding increase in prices, which led to the export of Ottoman wool, copper, and precious metals to Europe in large quantities. The guilds were limited to rigid price regulations and were unable to compete with European merchants in obtaining raw materials, and as a result, their production declined.

As a result, the Ottoman Empire had been running a large deficit in trade with the West, which not only devoured the raw materials and primitive industries of the empire, but also took away the coins on which the economy depended. European traders bought raw materials from the Ottomans, produced them in Europe, and sold the finished goods to the empire, effectively reducing the Ottomans to economic vassals of Europe.

An Englishman visiting Istanbul at the end of the seventeenth century described the depression and decline of Istanbul vividly: "In Ishtampur, if a foreigner from afar needs clothes that fit, paper, pens, ink, cutlery, shoes, hats, in short, things that can be found in every city of the world." Then he will find that there is almost nothing but a few items of such inferior quality that no one can figure out what they can do. The few goods that are put up for sale are either British exports that are not suitable for any other market, or worse. It was the imitation of England in Germany and the Netherlands, and Estamipur could only be regarded as the lowest and poorest capital in the world. ”

The Ottoman Empire never achieved economic integration, although the empire had a well-established centralized administrative system, and the regions were loosely organized along the lines of economic self-development. Moreover, its various nations are distinguished by their religious affiliation rather than by ethnicity.

The predominance of religious affiliation meant that there was a lack of a unified concept of allegiance within the empire. The Ottoman Empire was a crumbling aggregate of many scattered groups that were self-sufficient on a considerable extent. This looseness in economic organization weakened the empire's ability to resist foreign intellectual and economic invasions.

Ottoman merchants of all regions and nationalities bought large quantities of silk, cloth, porcelain, and low- and middle-grade goods from the Far East in Manila, and large quantities of spices in Batavia, and then returned with a full load. Back to the Ottoman Empire. Faced with such an abundance of oriental goods, as soon as the ships loaded with large quantities of goods docked in port, the goods on board were swept away by merchants from all over the Ottoman Empire. Some merchants also offered luxury goods from the Far East to Sultan Murad IV of the Ottoman Empire.

This also attracted the attention of Sultan Murad IV of the Ottoman Empire, and when he learned that the Far East Navy had defeated the powerful fleet of the eight-nation coalition forces at sea, he immediately sent an envoy to Manila, hoping to establish friendly relations with the Far East, mainly to strengthen military cooperation with the Far East.

Although the Ottoman Empire is no longer at its peak in the 16th century, the empire is still very large. It covers Asia Minor in western Asia, southern Ukraine on the northern shore of the Black Sea, all of the Balkan Peninsula, Hungary, the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, the countries of the two river basins, and the Maghreb and Egypt along the coast of North Africa, spanning three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa.

Facing this huge market with a population of tens of millions. The Far East, of course, could not afford to spare, and the board of directors of the company, after studying it, decided to establish good relations of cooperation with the Ottoman Empire, with which it would seek extensive cooperation in the commercial and military spheres.

The Far East Company sent a negotiating delegation to secretly receive the envoy of the Ottoman Sultan Murad IV in Manila, and after friendly consultations, the two sides signed a package of commercial and military cooperation agreements.

Murad IV succeeded his mentally ill uncle Mustafa I in 1623. Became Ottoman Sultan when he was only eleven years old. When he first ascended the throne, Murad IV was under the control of his family, and his mother, the Sultan of Kseem, was in charge. The empire was in anarchy at this time. The Persians took the opportunity to invade Iraq, and riots broke out in northern Anatolia.

Year 1632. Murad IV, with the full support of the Guards and the judges, quelled the rebellion of the once-dominant Janisseris, and restored order to the capital Istanbul and the provinces. He ruled the country with an iron fist, freeing himself from the harem rule of his predecessors and improving the situation.

Murad IV was a brilliant military strategist and the last Ottoman sultan to call the shots on the battlefield. He was also an ambitious monarch who tried to revive the Ottoman Empire again, and was known for his power and cruelty.

In order to reorganize the new army, he imported a large amount of military equipment from the Far East. Including the front-loading arquebus, the 12-pounder front-loading mountain howitzer, the 9-pounder front-loading cannon, the small and medium-sized Francophone machine cannon and a large number of them, as well as the Type 36 portable front-loading assault gun improved from the Daming Tiger Zun cannon used by the Imperial Infantry Guards Corps.

In addition to firearms, there was also a large collection of cold weapons, including bows, scimitars, battle axes, war hammers, swords, and shields used by the Ottoman cavalry forces of the Sipashi, Kapikuru, and Ghulam.

There were also huge quantities of various clothing, boots, water bottles, blankets, tents, canned food, compressed biscuits and other war materials. The purpose of strengthening the military power of the Ottoman Empire in the Far East was to hope that the Ottoman Empire would always maintain military pressure on Europe. Create conditions for the future Far Northeast plan.

Although the goods of the Far East were very expensive, the quality of the goods of the Far East was favored by the Ottoman Empire, especially firearms, which were considered the most advanced in this era. The Ottoman merchant groups ordered a large number of goods in the Far East at once.

In addition, the Far East has also signed commercial cooperation plans with merchant groups of various regions and nationalities of the Ottoman Empire, and in the next few years, goods from the Far East-controlled districts will also be dumped on a large scale in the Ottoman regions.

And the most satisfying thing for the Ottoman merchant groups from all over the Ottoman Empire was that the payment they made with the Far East could be partially or even fully compensated for by grain and other materials, although the price of grain and other materials was extremely low by the Far East, but it still made the Ottoman merchant groups feel very cost-effective. (To be continued......)

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