Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 623 Li Mingrui Meets with Western Countries

Today's Kingdom of the Netherlands has just completed its armament expansion plan. It has more than a hundred large warships and a total force of more than 2. It is arrogant and arrogant. It is one of the most powerful maritime empires in the Western countries today.

It is precisely because of this that the Kingdom of the Netherlands dared to provoke Ming in the east and compete with Britain for global interests. Now that they all know that Ming has destroyed their East India Company and taken away all their colonial trading rights and ruling rights, And when they declared war on them and even sent an ocean-going fleet to conquer them, the Netherlands did not feel fear, but anger. The most famous general in the kingdom, Denett, even directly clamored for a decisive battle between the West and the East.

However, because the Netherlands was at odds with the British Empire and Spain, Ming did not gain the support of other Western countries for his expedition, so it is a bit far-fetched for the Netherlands to say that this is a decisive battle between the West and the East.

However, at this time, apart from Spain, which chose to cooperate with Ming Dynasty because it wanted to obtain the military trade privileges of Ming Dynasty, other Western countries also paid close attention to this naval battle. Both the British Empire and France sent observation groups to Ming Dynasty for the reason of negotiating trade with Ming Dynasty Observe the naval battle on the ocean-going fleet.

Li Mingrui, governor of the Ming Ocean Fleet, did not refuse these western countries to send observation groups to observe the upcoming naval battle between Ming and the Netherlands on board the flagship of the Ming Ocean Fleet "Kaiping Wang".

After all, the current Ming Empire is not ready to fight against all Western countries. The expedition to the Netherlands is a battle of greater political significance. Li Mingrui received instructions from Zhu Youjian to achieve greater ties with the Western countries through this expedition. At the same time, it instigates internal conflicts among Western countries and avoids the integration of Western countries.

The British Empire sent the Duke of York, brother of King Charles II of England.

The duke was defeated in the just-concluded Second Anglo-Dutch War by the famous Dutch generals Vossenaar and Obudin. Now he is very interested in the naval battle between the Ming Empire and the Netherlands, which came from afar. .

The Kingdom of France sent Philip I, the younger brother of Louis XIV, who was also a duke.

The Holy Roman Empire and Switzerland also sent observation missions.

Spain is still in charge of contacting Daming with Moxie.

It was the first time for Li Mingrui to see so many Western nobles, but what he had to admit was that these so-called Western nobles were not as elegant as he imagined. Not to mention their lack of dignity, they also smelled very strong and had a lot of hair. As an outstanding representative of the scholar-bureaucrats of the Ming Dynasty, Li Mingrui despised these Western nobles from the bottom of his heart.

But the Western aristocrats were very curious about the Ming Empire, and when they saw the "Kaiping King" of the Ming Dynasty, they began to be amazed.

"My God, it is worthy of being the Holy Empire of the East. No wonder it can completely annihilate the Dutch East India Company. The number of artillery pieces and the size of the hull of this ironclad ship are enough to match the two top warships of our British Empire. If our British Empire With such a battleship, how could it be defeated by the Netherlands!"

The Duke of York of the British Empire expressed his emotions as soon as he arrived.

The Duke of France, Philip I, was very interested in the cuisine of the Ming Empire. When he saw the delicious dishes of the empire, he shouted: "This is what the nobles should eat!"

At the same time, this Philip I was also very interested in Li Mingrui, the governor of the empire. He always felt that Li Mingrui had a noble temperament different from theirs, and even expressed his wish to serve Li Mingrui once.

Li Mingrui is not interested in this kind of goodness of Longyang. He pinched his nose and said to Philip I and the Duke of York: "This time the Ming Empire came here. In addition to destroying the Netherlands, it also has the intention of expanding trade opportunities with you, and I warn you. , you can trade with the Ming Empire, but you must maintain respect for the Ming Empire, and respect the citizens of the Ming Empire. If you dare to offend the majesty of our Ming Empire like the Netherlands, the Dutch Kingdom that you are about to see will end in anger Daming's next game!"

In the Ming Empire, due to lack of information, the rulers of the empire still equated the Kingdom of the Netherlands with the Kingdom of the Netherlands. At this time, when Li Mingrui arrived in the West and learned about it from Moxie in Spain, he learned that the entire Netherlands region had been destroyed. Divided into two regions, one is the Netherlands controlled by Spain, that is, the Spanish Netherlands, and the other is the independent Kingdom of the Netherlands, and it was the Kingdom of the Netherlands that opposed Ming Dynasty.

Li Mingrui has to admit that there are still many benefits to the expedition, one of which is to have a more accurate understanding of the local political situation.

So now Li Mingrui has also changed his mouth and called the Netherlands the Netherlands.

At this time, the Duke of York of the British Empire stood up and saluted Li Mingrui: "Your Excellency, I deeply regret that the Netherlands has angered your country. I, the British Empire, are willing to remain neutral regarding your country's conquest of the Netherlands, but we I don’t want your country to destroy the Dutch economy, and hope that the empire can inherit the Dutch equity transaction.”

Philip I and Moxie also stood up one after another to express their approval. They hoped that the Ming Empire could take over the global economic dominance of the Netherlands in order to save the stocks that had fallen due to the Dutch East India Company.

Before Li Mingrui came, he had already learned about the current situation in the Netherlands from Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian.

To be precise, the Kingdom of the Netherlands at this time is more appropriately called the Republic of the Netherlands.

At this time, the Dutch Republic adopted a federal system. The central authority was the national parliament, and the supreme military representative was the guard. The states, or provinces, had a high degree of independence, and each province had a commissioner in the central, that is, the national parliament.

But because the defenders hold the military power of the country, the defenders have the greatest power and are the real rulers.

The national parliament controls the Dutch East India Company and the West India Company, and these two companies are the first companies in the world to conduct stock market transactions. There is also the world's first stock exchange in the Netherlands. Many nobles and consortia in Western countries Both also bought shares in the Netherlands.

Even the rise of the British Empire was associated with a surge in Dutch stocks.

Therefore, although the Western countries and the Netherlands are opposed politically and militarily, they are also interdependent economically.

The destruction of the Dutch East India Company by the Ming Dynasty caused the Dutch stocks to fall severely. Not only the Netherlands suffered heavy losses, but other Western countries also suffered losses, but they did not want to be enemies with the Ming Empire, so they hoped that the Ming Empire would inherit the Dutch equity transaction The Ming East India Company was re-established, so that the stock price rebounded.

Therefore, Li Mingrui agreed to the requests of these western countries, and the Ming Empire was naturally willing to accept the equity transaction of the Netherlands. He also expressed that as long as these western countries were willing to cooperate with Daming, Daming would establish a more powerful Daming Xiyi Company, and he would be in charge of it. The governor of this company allowed these western countries to invest in the Great Ming Xiyi Company.

(End of this chapter)