I really don't want to be emperor at the end of Ming Dynasty

Batavia, the Viceroyal House of the Dutch East Indies. Antony, the governor of the Dutch East India Company, has been in a bad mood these past few months. His wife Maria (Maria nee Aelst) is flirting with a Ming Dynasty man named Xu Meng. Of course, flirting is just a more respectable way of saying it.

After all, the middle-aged Anthony was a little weak, but Xu Meng, who came from the Ming Dynasty, was a big man from Shandong. He was half a head taller than Anthony, and the muscles on his arms were thicker than his waist. This man from the Ming Dynasty let Maria was very satisfied. It is said that she spent more than 100,000 guilders to buy the Manhattan Island of New Amsterdam (New York) for Xu Meng, making Xu Meng the owner of the Manhattan Island.

Fourteen large galenic ships of 1,600 tons were also purchased for Xu Meng. Anthony was certain that Xu Meng, a man from the Ming Dynasty, almost emptied nearly half of Maria's family property in less than half a year. .

But the problem is that Anthony does not dare to interfere with Maria's affairs, not only because Maria has a high influence in the Gentlemen's Association, but also because Xu Meng, a man from the Ming Dynasty, has a background in the Ming Dynasty's military.

Once it gets too big, no one will benefit.

As the saying goes, if you want to live a decent life, who doesn't have a little green on his head?

The Maria with the same name as Maria, Princess Henrietta Maria from France, was the queen of Charles I, King of Great Britain, England, and Scotland. She also had several lovers. It is said that the Prince of Wales was not the son of Charles I, but Because he was not the son of Charles I, he died young.

Being beaten to death by the angry Charles I was the trigger for the breakdown of the relationship between the couple. As the king of England, Scotland, and Great Britain, he had to wear a cuckold, not to mention that Anthony was just a small governor?

Compared to Charles I, what was Antony?

What makes Anthony very unhappy is that as the Ming Dynasty's national power grows, Maria, a beautiful woman, becomes more and more unscrupulous. She only has to write on her forehead, My lover is from the Ming Dynasty, a strong man from the Ming Dynasty.

Maria often invited the wives and daughters of senior managers of the Dutch East India Company to the banquets she held. On the Black Pearl, she had all-round in-depth exchanges with Ming men.

Although the Dutch do not value chastity as much as the Ming Dynasty, it is not a glorious thing after all. Even Pelosi, the 16-year-old daughter of Anthony's good friend Specs, also suspected two months ago that the key to the problem is , Pelosi herself doesn’t know who the child’s father is.

However, I heard that the Ming Dynasty had a way of recognizing relatives by shedding blood. After the child was born, he found his biological father. , which made Specks also have a problem with Anthony. Not only was he embarrassed, but his old friend also had a green head. How could he be happy?

In addition to the troubles at home, political pressure is also increasing. The Ming Dynasty is too strong, and the Dutch can provide very limited support to the East India Company. In the past, the Ming Dynasty had internal and external troubles and had too much time to take care of itself. The Dutch East India Company could do whatever it wanted. expansion.

At that time, the only pirate who had to worry was Zheng Zhilong, but Zheng Zhilong was easy to deal with. He only wanted money and had no other demands for territory or other interests.

Things are different now. The Ming Dynasty expanded too fast. They lost their leaders, half of East India, Sumatra, and soon to lose Mindanao.

The country was affected by the Tulip Financial Crisis and hoped that the Dutch East India Company could inject a large amount of blood into the country. However, the problem was that with the Ming Dynasty's expansion in various places, especially the Netherlands was about to lose Annan, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, which made the Dutch East India Company The interests of Indian companies have been significantly reduced.

He was unable to make enough profits, which made the gentlemen in Amsterdam very dissatisfied. When they questioned his ability, Anthony felt extremely aggrieved. Facing the arrogant and unreasonable opponent of Ming Dynasty, no matter how powerful he was, what could he do? How about that?

The Ming Emperor conferred the title of Prince Zheng on the third prince, and requested that Mindanao Island be changed to Zheng Guo Island. This is still in the theoretical stage. If the Dutch East Indies do not agree to deliver Mindanao Island, the Ming Dynasty fleets located in Coconut City and Sumatra will definitely take action. The original Li Weiluan, the governor stationed in Yecheng, was named Yinghou, and Li Weiluan also wanted to gain the title of Duke.

Although it is said that all the titles and fiefdoms of the Ming Dynasty are in Xinming, the problem is that, like the previous titles, they can be passed on to descendants. Unless they are viscounts, the title cannot be passed on to descendants after death. But the baron can be passed down to three generations. If it is three generations If the grandson of the grandson has not made any achievements in his generation, he will be reduced to a baron. After the baron, there will be no noble title.

An earl can be reduced to a viscount for three generations, while a marquis can be reduced to an earl for three generations. After three generations, he was demoted to Viscount. It can be said that the title of Ming Dynasty is still very valuable, and not everyone wants to have it.

After all, these titles are different from those of the Chongzhen Dynasty. During the Chongzhen Dynasty, they only received an extra salary, while the titles of the Dingxin Dynasty had actual titles.

A duke is a principality, and a marquis is also a marquis. Basically, a duke is almost equivalent to a small mansion, while a marquis is equivalent to a county, and a bozinan is equivalent to a township.

Now the warships of the Ming Dynasty are hovering near Batavia almost every day. The ship to Indochina is extremely difficult, which is even more troublesome for Anthony, because Spain and Venice have obtained a large amount of trade goods. It is impossible to imagine that it was impossible to eat alone in the past. The Ming Dynasty had trade reciprocity with Spain, but the Netherlands did not.

To be precise, the treatment of the Dutch in the Ming Dynasty is now. Far inferior to Venice, Anthony even wanted to suggest to the King of the Netherlands that he should simply imitate Venice and declare his vassalship directly to the ministers. The worst case scenario was that the Ming Dynasty could station troops in the Netherlands. As long as the Ming Dynasty and the Netherlands became vassal states, the trade between the two sides would be the same as with Venice, and they would sign a reciprocal treaty. .

Now with the support of the Ming Dynasty, Venice, which had always been cautious, became more arrogant. They also dared to steal the Dutch's supply of goods and engage in malicious competition. For the Dutch East India Company, this was simply adding insult to injury.

There was a crisis of trust at the headquarters, and Anthony relied on the nepotism of Maria, his wife, to rise to power. There was also a rift between the couple. Anthony's position as the governor of the Dutch East India Company also became unstable, and there were internal conflicts. Challenges, the outside world is looking at him with eager eyes, which makes Anthony mentally and physically exhausted.

If it weren't for the fact that his strength didn't allow it, Anthony really wanted to make Maria's beauty into Dutch sausage. Faced with the complicated situation in front of him, Anthony decided to ignore it.

He decided to go to Beijing in the Ming Dynasty. In fact, it was not long after he returned to Batavia from Beijing. At that time, Cheng Shijie ascended the throne. He was invited to attend Cheng Shijie's coronation ceremony. The grand scene of the Ming Dynasty shocked Anthony very much. If anyone I know that people in the Ming Dynasty have no faith, but Anthony believed in it before.

But the problem is, after attending Cheng Shijie's enthronement ceremony, if anyone says this in front of Anthony, he will spit shit on his face. Do Ming people have no faith?

Just look at Cheng Shijie's enthronement ceremony. Thousands of people played and played. The eight-note ancient music used in the ceremony included gold, stone, earth, wood, leather, silk, bamboo and gourd, a total of 105 pieces in 18 categories. musical instruments. They are chimes, chimes, chimes, special chimes, drums, boqin, qin, zither, flute, panpipe, chime, sheng, xun, wat, harp, eunuch, hui, festival, etc.

Tens of thousands of people all dressed up and went out to worship heaven with great piety. The scene was much more grand than the coronation of the Pope. The people of the Ming Dynasty did not believe in God, but their Haotian. Tens of thousands of people danced neatly. The scene was much more grand than the coronation of the Pope. .

Now Anthony's idea is that since he can't beat Ming Dynasty and the competition continues, he will end up very miserable, so he might as well join Ming Dynasty. Thinking of this, Anthony felt much better. He decided to take the Dutch East India Company and join the Ming Dynasty in the name of the East India State, becoming a Ming Dynasty like Venice. As for the interests of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, to hell with it.

In the name of establishing diplomatic relations with the Ming Dynasty, Anthony organized diplomats from the Dutch East India, carrying all the Dutch East India Company's nautical charts, island distribution maps, spheres of influence maps, as well as information about various places, personnel distribution, mine resource distribution, etc. With the information, more than a dozen large ships were prepared.

Anthony led the Dutch East India Mission and first arrived in Yecheng. After obtaining the consent of Li Weiluan, the Governor of Yecheng, Li Weiwan discovered that the scale of Anthony's mission was too large, with more than 400 civilian personnel and a large number of supplies, plus more than 1,500 Dutch musketeers.

With such power, Li Weiwan did not dare to be careless. He personally dispatched twenty-four warships, which were called escorts but actually monitored. They first arrived at Zhenghe Port from Batavia, then passed through Tainan Port, passed through Shanghai, Dengzhou, and Come to Tianjin.

When he came to Tianjin, Anthony was very excited: "We are going to become Ming people!"

Specks asked in confusion: "Your Excellency, Governor, what do you mean?"

"Didn't I make it clear enough?"

Anthony looked at his good friend and assistant and said: "Dear Specs, you are an expert on Far East issues. You should know the true strength of Ming Dynasty!"

"Yes, I know!"

Specks said without hesitation: "The Ming Dynasty has a larger territory than the whole of Europe. I am afraid that only Europe plus Africa has the Ming Dynasty's largest territory and population. Apart from the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that all the civilized worlds in the world The population is not as large as the population of Ming Dynasty!"

According to Specs, there are only two kinds of people in the world, civilized people and barbarians. Of course, in the past, Ming was not qualified to be civilized people. Like all the natives they encountered, they were all barbarians. , belonging to the objects they conquered and enslaved.

However, as Cheng Shijie led the Ming Dynasty to rise again, especially the powerful navy and the Netherlands, they fought several times. After the Ming Dynasty beat the Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese together, they recognized the Ming people as part of the civilized world at this time. , like them Europeans, are civilized people.

In other words, the Ming Dynasty and Europeans are the civilized people in the world, and the barbarians are other races.

"If we, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, want to develop, we must break away from the rule of the Spanish Empire. We are currently unable to do so, but we had the opportunity to do so!"

Anthony smiled bitterly: "But with the Ming Dynasty establishing diplomatic relations with the Spanish Empire, do you think we can still do it?"

After the Ming Dynasty established diplomatic relations with Spain, although the Ming Dynasty did not sell artillery and warships to the Spanish Empire, weapons and equipment, especially cold weapons, you must know that each Spanish army regiment retains at least 1,500 spearmen. The spear, compared with the Ming Dynasty's spear, is the difference between a small book and a donkey.

In this comparison, Spain is naturally willing to purchase the Ming Dynasty's standard spears, shields, armor and steel. Last year alone, the Spanish Empire purchased five million kilograms of steel from the Ming Dynasty. Now that the Spanish Empire has sufficient steel, they Although the Musketeers did not make enough qualitative progress, they made a quantitative breakthrough.

Whether at sea or on land, the Spanish Empire made the Anti-Spanish Alliance extremely passive. Of course, this was also Cheng Shijie's plan. It was originally planned to establish diplomatic relations with Spain and dump Ming Dynasty's industrial products to Spain.

"This hope is not great anymore. We in the Netherlands have too few people. Even if one of us can fight to kill ten Spanish people, even if the vitality of Spain is greatly weakened, we in the Netherlands will be exterminated!!"

Specks had to admit that the Netherlands and Spain were not equal in terms of quantity level. They had not yet achieved the generational difference in equipment. They could not deal with the Spanish Empire as easily as they dealt with the indigenous people.

"You are very right. With the support and help of Ming Dynasty, the Spanish Empire, which was already very powerful, has become even more powerful. Our King, if he wants to be independent, there is no hope!"

Anthony said: "We are enemies of the Spanish Empire, and the Far East is also the main battlefield. But the problem is, the Spanish merchant ships are right under our noses, do we dare to take action?"

Anthony pointed at the Spanish armed merchant ships entering the port. There were six large Spanish armed merchant ships in Tianjin Port alone, and as many as twenty armed merchant ships entering the port.

Specks sighed and said: "The Ming Dynasty is too powerful, but they are too bullying. We actually openly ask for our Bo Ni..."

Before Specs finished speaking, Anthony said: "The Venetians can become a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty and be protected by the Ming Dynasty. Now the Venetian merchant ships don't even need armed guards. They actually dare to dismantle the cannons just to have more ships." Loading goods, do you know why?”

"Because, if they are attacked by pirates, they can seek shelter from the Ming Dynasty's fleet. Now the Ming Dynasty's fleet is patrolling all over the world. Naturally, no pirate will open his eyes and attack a Venetian merchant ship flying the Ming Dynasty's sun and moon flag!"

"That's the crux of the matter!"

PS: In two and a half hours, 2023 will be over. I wish you all a Happy New Year in advance. I wish all book friends a happy family, a smooth career, lots of money, and all the best in the new year. (End of chapter)