Xinshun 1730

Chapter 262 Paper Tiger
This has been said very clearly.

It’s almost like saying directly: You are doing the Netherlands in Europe, and I am doing the Netherlands in Southeast Asia.Dashun restrained the Dutch navy, and France engaged the Dutch army.

Earl Morpa seemed to understand why Liu Yu had to use the new rifle bullet technology for the French battleship technology when Liu Yu was in Weihai.

After all, the Netherlands has no straits.

France and Dashun are too far apart, and this kind of alliance and cooperation can only be done in such a clever way.

Dashun tried his best to improve the French army, and France tried to help Dashun build a navy that challenged the British and the Dutch.

Fortunately for the UK, Southeast Asia is the main artery of the Netherlands. Once it is cut open, the strength of the Netherlands will be greatly damaged, especially because a large amount of funds and stock transactions in the Netherlands revolve around the large vault of the East India Company.

Europe is now showing the cloud of war, but no one can fully predict that the war of Austrian succession will be fought to that extent, and it even became a preview of the Seven Years War.

France has signed and recognized the national edict of the change of the Austrian succession law to allow women to inherit, and the peace faction in France does not want to make too many enemies in the future.

However, the war faction had the upper hand at this time. This time, the War of Polish Succession was because the King of France hoped to use the war faction to weaken the power of the cardinal. destruction.

Earl Morpa is regarded as the main combat faction, and he also hopes to be ready for war.

The Dutch are dying now, with a population of over one million, it is no longer the Netherlands of 100 years ago.

It's just that the prestige is still there, and people's consciousness always lags behind reality.

Coupled with the existence of the Anglo-Dutch alliance, if Dashun can really contain the Netherlands in Southeast Asia, it will undoubtedly be extremely beneficial to France.

In any case, as long as Dashun goes to war against the Netherlands, the stock market in Amsterdam will plummet, and it will seriously affect the trade business of the East India Company.It is not too much to say that the aorta was cut.

However, it is impossible for Dashun to be the winner of an alliance.

On this point, Liu Yu must also remind the French.

"Mr. Morpa, I have to make it clear that under Dashun's free trade system, any sanctions against Britain and the Netherlands are actually sanctions against Dashun. Although it may damage the East India Company, Dashun It will not get any benefits, but it may cause tens of thousands of people to lose their jobs, resulting in a backlog of porcelain and silk tea."

"Therefore, the situation in Europe has nothing to do with Dashun. Once war starts, there is only one option, and that is to restore the natural frontier in Nanyang during the peak of the Ming Empire. This is the only benefit that war may bring."

"Dashun will not sanction the trade of a country tens of thousands of miles away for the sake of any ally, but if this ally has a common enemy with us, that is another matter."

"What I want to say is: Dashun will choose a wartime ally, not a business ally that joins some kind of tariff sanctions agreement. Dashun does not need import tariffs, nor does it need mercantilism."

In fact, there are really not many cards that Dashun can play now, except for fighting and occupying land.

To engage in trade sanctions, in fact, it is oneself who is sanctioned.

After all, Nanyang Trade is the first central bank of the Dashun Empire, and Dongyang Trade is the second central bank. Maybe the second central bank will be replaced by Yunnan's copper mines in a few years, but as long as Dashun still pays taxes with silver, the first central bank cannot closure.

Therefore, Liu Yu hoped that the French would not have unrealistic fantasies. For example, Dashun and France had reached a very close alliance, to be France's winner, and to sanction the Anglo-Dutch East India Company.

France took all the benefits, but Dashun didn't benefit at all.

At the same time, it can be regarded as telling France that Dashun is eager for war, and the basis of Sino-French cooperation is war, not trade.

France is not qualified to discuss trade issues with Dashun.

Count Morpa thought about what he had seen and heard along the way, and what Duplex said about the unsolvable trade deficit with China, and finally understood what Liu Yu meant.

Obviously, Dashun is likely to end up fighting in Southeast Asia at some point in the future, such as when the Netherlands gets involved in a certain war in Europe.

The most likely war opponent that the Netherlands may be involved in is France.

But, does Dashun really have the ability to defeat the Dutch East India Company in a short time?Or, can Dashun maintain its war against the Netherlands until the end of the Franco-Dutch war?

This is related to how much France is willing to pay for Dashun's naval construction and how close the cooperation is.

"The Dutch East India Company is still very powerful."

Count Morpa reminded Liu Yu.

For the Dutch East India Company, Liu Yu knows a lot about it, and now he can't even use the word emaciated camel.

From some old data of the Dutch trade in China collected by him through Tian Ping, as well as the intelligence collected by the trading company in Nanyang, the vulnerability of the Dutch East India Company has been fully seen.

About 20 years ago, when the Austrian Ostend company was still closed, a very special trade war broke out in Guangdong.

The Ostend Company, which had just arrived in Guangdong, taught the Dutch a lesson with the posture of a raptor crossing the river.

A large amount of funds was raised, and all the tea in Guangdong was bought out at once, and they were shipped to Europe for dumping.

At that time in Batavia, there were also Chinese businessmen who smuggled the tea in the past. It would be cheaper than the Dutch directly buying it in Guangdong, and they could also get some return goods such as spices.

The sudden intervention of the Ostend company caused the price of European tea to plummet that year: for the Ostend company, it may not have sold such high-profit items before, and it is enough to make a little; For the Dutch East India Company, which has experienced years of corruption, addiction, and large-scale loss of public wealth and private inflated quotations, if there is no huge profit, it will be compensated.

In response, the Chinese merchant ships heading to Batavia were tortured by the Dutch with various overt and covert means. They did not go to the point of directly robbing them, but they forced the merchants to lower their prices without settlement.

Merchants neither left nor sold. In the end, they could only stop losses and sell the tea at a very low price.

Batavia's credibility with Chinese smugglers was ruined, and since then, no tea has been shipped to Batavia.

No matter what the Dutch say, the businessmen in Fujian and Guangdong are not fools. After suffering a loss, they will not go anyway.

Coupled with Dashun's opening and closing trade policy, the Netherlands had to send ships directly from Amsterdam to Guangdong trade, bypassing the transit point of Batavia.

The status of Batavia is not as good as before, and the garrison and prosperity are very different from before.

The Chinese who immigrated there generally cut sugar cane, or were split out to be some dog legs. The exploitation was lighter before, but now the status of the transit station has plummeted, and they will try to get money to maintain the system, especially from the local Chinese.

The local Chinese are now quite dissatisfied with the Dutch, which is a popular sentiment that can be exploited.

Another one, the Dutch East India Company, is composed of seven provincial chambers of commerce.

The company's board of directors is obviously biased towards Amsterdam, and the tea trade with China is handed over to Amsterdam.Later, in order to attract people to join the gang, Zelan was added.

Batavia was created by the chambers of commerce of the seven provinces. Now you, Amsterdam and Zeeland, sneakily bypassed the other five provinces and went directly to Guangdong to transport tea. Then you two provinces made money, and we What about Batavia, which was jointly funded by the seven provinces?
Indeed, Batavia's tea is all old tea because it has to be transshipped and then returned to the Netherlands. The Ostend company used the new tea of ​​the year to lower the price in Europe. Old tea is indeed not good.

It is true that Batavia transported tea, which was more expensive and less expensive, and the crew brought more private goods, and the governor kept some in a small warehouse. In theory, it was more cost-effective to transport tea directly, but isn’t this “competing for profit with the people”?How many people's interests are there?

Indeed, sometimes in order to ensure the monopoly of the European market, it is necessary to lose money to transport tea, so as to ensure that there will be no market vacuum and be squeezed by companies like Ostend. This is beneficial to the company in the long run, but it is not good for Batavia. unfavorable.The company has been holding back and not subsidizing Batavia, and now it has cut off its source of income. What kind of trouble is it going to do?

Besides, this is equivalent to the two provinces of Amsterdam and Zeeland robbing the tea trade of the original seven provinces.

Amsterdam and Zeeland transport tea without passing through Batavia, and without Batavia's pepper and spices, so they can only use the company's cash.

Because China does not need wool, but pepper and silver, but pepper is in Batavia, which is jointly managed by seven provinces, and Batavia is not allowed to transit. If you sail directly from Amsterdam to Guangdong, you can only use silver.

The company's silver flowed out, and the crew on the tea ship in Amsterdam frantically brought their own goods and borrowed the company's ship to sell their own goods.

In the end, after tossing and tossing for a long time, they could only use a compromise strategy: it is obvious that it is very profitable to transport tea directly to Guangdong, but they have to hand over the import of tea from Guangdong to Batavia.

Batavia sent a boat to Guangdong, half of which returned directly to Holland, and the other half returned to Batavia first, first guaranteed the private goods and small treasuries on board, and then loaded some private tea from Batavia’s small warehouse, Then back to the Netherlands, the price will be sold according to the company's fixed price.

It was this compromise that allowed Liu Yu to see clearly the fragility of the Dutch East India Company.

Once a company does not take profit as the first pursuit, but chooses internal conflicts and balanced compromises, and ultimately does not have the courage to completely rectify Batavia, it will prove one thing: this once efficient company is now finished. It's no different from the late Ming Dynasty.

It is not an exaggeration to say a paper tiger.

How rotten it is can't be seen from the outside, but it can be seen from the degree of policy compromise.

This would never have happened if this had been the same East India Company that gave birth to a calf 100 years ago.

This kind of compromise also proves one thing, that is, there is definitely a big problem with the company's flow.

If there is no problem with the running water, the profit of buying tea directly with silver is extremely high. It is impossible for the lack of money to buy tea every year to make up for it with tropical goods and tin blocks from Batavia.

Maybe the company still has a lot of assets in theory, but the cash flow is absolutely insufficient, and there is a problem with capital turnover.Otherwise, it would be impossible to compromise to this degree with Batavia.

If it weren't for the huge space left by the British high tea tariff policy for Dutch smuggling; the Netherlands avoided the war during the seven-year war and continued to trade for a few more years, it might have gone bankrupt long ago.

Now this paper tiger still scares the French.This paper tiger is also the basis of the Sino-French cooperation facilitated by Liu Yu this time.

As long as the French make more moves in Europe, Liu Yu will take the opportunity to attack Japan, travel to Southeast Asia, and destroy the cash flow of the Dutch East India Company with a two-pronged approach. It will be hell if it doesn't go bankrupt.

If a company goes bankrupt, the Netherlands is still in the vacancy period. There is not even a dictatorial prince, and the provinces are doing their own things. No one can save the company.

For this reason, Liu Yu took this opportunity to make a secret promise to the French mission.

"Count Morpas, Dashun can guarantee that as long as there is a war in Europe, as long as France declares war on the Netherlands during the war, Dashun will immediately find an excuse for war and declare war on the Netherlands alone, instead of participating in the European war as an ally of France."

"But this does not affect the substantive issues. As long as Dashun declares war on the Netherlands, it will never negotiate peace and withdraw from the war without destroying the entire rule of the Dutch East India Company in Southeast Asia. Because for Dashun, it is necessary to regain The political legacy of the Ming Empire in Southeast Asia, or spending millions of taels of silver in military expenditures for nothing, there is no middle option."

(End of this chapter)