New Shun 1730

Duke Qi frowned and thought about Liu Yu's statement, and couldn't help but smile bitterly in his heart, thinking that it was true.

Just like the Ryukyu incident, how could he not know? He just kept pretending not to know.

How could there be no news about the Nanyang incident? Manila has killed so many times, but hasn't he been pretending not to know?

As long as you don't know, you don't have to care about it. This is also trapped by the word "Heavenly Kingdom".

Because once you can't pretend not to know, you must care about it. The whole world belongs to the king, and the people of the world are the king's subjects. If you make a fuss, you will lose face, and the emperor will be embarrassed and recorded in history books.

You can fight without profit, and waste money.

However, a gentleman talks about righteousness instead of profit, and the emperor is even worse at talking about profit, so it can't be said that it is not cost-effective for profit considerations.

But if your own people are killed and you don't care, it is indeed unrighteous, so naturally the best way is to pretend not to know.

This can also be regarded as a united mind.

Since the Wanli period of the previous dynasty, the angels who went to Ryukyu to confer titles were almost the same. They knew it clearly, but they all thought that they were planning for the country, so it was better not to say it.

Now he had to cooperate with the Seventh Prince and Liu Yu to sing a double act. Duke Qi smiled and said, "Shou Chang, Shou Chang, you have tricked me again. In this way, I must support the future expedition to Nanyang."

"If I support it, today is a trick. If I don't support it, a hundred years later, the name of a spineless person will fall on my head."

Said so, but in his heart he supported the expedition to Nanyang. He was also the duke who took the most blame in Dashun. One more or one less would not be much. He had already taken the blame for many things when negotiating with Luosha that day.

The two talked and laughed, but Li Xi felt uncomfortable. He always felt that Liu Yu's words were a bit harsh. He thought to himself, my glorious Celestial Empire, in the eyes of Westerners, is just a fool who buries his head in the sand and pretends that nothing has happened outside?

He secretly clenched his fists, and his nails pierced into his palms. Thinking about the Macau, Ryukyu, and Penghu's tricking them into retreating to Taiwan, it seemed to be true.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, gnashing his teeth and making a clattering sound.

Liu Yu and Duke Qi pretended not to see it, and after a few more words of anger, they agreed on the matter.

…………

So far, the Dutch East India Company still believed that the French envoys' visit to China was a siege of Russia between China and France.

This was firmly believed by everyone in the East India Company. After all, Dashun had fought two wars in the past ten years.

One was fought in the northeast with the Russians, and the other was fought in the northwest with the Junggars. The Russians could not have been missing behind the scenes.

Last year, Dashun's Free Trade stopped in Batavia, and its destination was Sweden, which made the Dutch more convinced that Dashun might go to war with Russia again.

At this time, Nellis Phillips, who was in Tianjin, had also firmly believed this. Although he heard some rumors about Japan at this time, he did not care.

The company only cared about whether trade with Japan would be affected.

And Prips also believed that the whole incident was an accident: Japan invaded Ryukyu, a vassal state of Dashun. The incident happened, and the emperor had to send troops to maintain the etiquette of the Celestial Empire, but the scale would not be too large.

This is his judgment.

Prips was not under the jurisdiction of the Governor of Batavia. He was a member of the China Trade Committee and was directly responsible to the Seventeen-member Committee.

This is easy to understand.

Batavia was affiliated with the East India Company, but there were conflicts between the local and central governments everywhere.

Batavia wanted to engage in indirect trade, using Batavia as a transit station, so that Batavia could prosper and the local areas could benefit.

However, transit trade, taking a big detour and focusing on local interests, would not matter if it could be played by itself, but when Dashun opened, Britain, France, Austria and Denmark were all engaged in trade, but the Netherlands took a big detour, which was naturally half a beat slower, and the company's overall revenue was damaged.

More than 20 years ago, the Habsburg Ostend Company, relying on direct trade and advantages, almost abolished the tea trade of the Dutch East India Company. If it weren't for the strong capital, the price would have been reduced to see who could hold on first, and the Habsburgs would have taken away the pricing power in Europe.

After that incident, there was such a China Trade Committee directly under the Seventeen-member Committee. Although the competition between the local and central governments ended up in a muddy situation, half direct and half transit, without efficiency priority, it was finally a relief.

In addition, Habsburg abolished the Ostend Company as a price for his daughter's inheritance, and lost an enemy.

However, the relationship between the local city of Ba and the company headquarters is no longer the same as when they were pioneering. Now it is like an old man, with a gloomy mood and different thoughts.

The members of the China Trade Committee were originally to restrict the local power of Ba, and they also had the power to negotiate with China granted by the company.

This time, when Dashun asked the Dutch to go to Tianjin, only Pripps, a member of the committee, could come. After the establishment of the China Trade Committee, the governor of Ba theoretically had no right to negotiate with China.

Prips also knew the situation in Batavia and the radical policy of the new governor of Batavia towards the Chinese. This time, the reason why Dashun summoned the Dutch was because of this.

He suspected that the Dashun ship that docked in Batavia last time got some news and passed it back to the Dashun court.

The 17 gentlemen of the East India Company unanimously believed that forcing the ship to dock was stupid behavior, but there was no way to reprimand it, so they could only express their anger.

Batavia was also very aggrieved.

It was customary to force the Swedish East India Company's ship to stop in Batavia for inspection to delay the return time of the Swedish ship.

If the Swedes returned a month later, the Dutch East India Company would be able to sell the goods for more money, and it was impossible to sink them. They could only use the tried and tested excuse of "suspecting the Swedish ship to be a pirate in disguise" and "inspect" it for a period of time. .

But who would have thought that they would force a ship carrying prisoners to Sweden?

The Committee of Seventeen cannot yet know what is happening now, and Prips thought to himself that if the Group of Seventeen Gentlemen knew, the punishment for the captain who forced the ship to stop would definitely be more severe.

If there were no ships, Batavia might have wiped out the local Chinese, and Dashun might not even know about it. How could they have gotten the news in advance like they did now?

Fortunately, he already had a countermeasure. He came to Tianjin and waited for a while. After meeting the Duke in charge of diplomacy in Dashun, he directly stated the situation.

First, those Chinese people crossed over illegally.

Secondly, they did not pay the poll tax or have a residence permit, and most of them behaved badly and were frivolous, either thieves or thieves.

Third, if Dashun wants to defend them, Batavia can send all these people back to Fujian.

After the situation was explained, there was no movement from Dashun.

Pripps believed that he had hit Dashun's Achilles' heel. He believed that Dashun would definitely not take these people back.

Since you don't want it, you don't have to worry about what we do with it. If something happens in the future, we won't be blamed. We informed you in advance and labeled them "thieves", and you didn't object.

He knew that the Duke of Dashun who summoned him was Dashun's "foreign minister" and that this minister had visited Russia and France, but he still didn't think that Dashun Zhao had changed much from before.

During his stay in Tianjin, envoys from various European countries arrived, which in his opinion was meaningless.

He even thought he could guess the reason why these envoys came to Dashun. It was just the aftermath of Dashun's war with Russia and diplomacy with France.

The British came here because they were worried that the French would say bad things about them; the French came here to consolidate their encirclement network against Russia; the Portuguese came here to protect their Macau; and the Swedes also came here because of Russia. The prisoners who were returned were precisely because of Russia.

So far, he still doesn't believe that Dashun knows what diplomacy is.

In his opinion, if Portugal occupied Macau and pretended to pay tribute to maintain the vanity and face of the Chinese emperor, it would be the envy of all Europeans to get a colony in China, and the price would be just a few kowtows to the emperor. It was simply It's too profitable.

It's a pity that Dashun doesn't want to come to Macau again. Otherwise, if he kowtows a few times and takes away Zhoushan, he will definitely get a promotion and a salary increase when he returns to the company.

How can a country that clearly has the strength to regain Macau but ignores it as a tributary know what diplomacy is?

Today, he was summoned again by the foreign minister of the newly established Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Dashun, the Duke named Tian. Prips was not worried and, as always, saluted according to the complicated etiquette of Dashun.

Duke Qi asked again about the Chinese in Batavia, and Pripps gave the original three reasons as usual.

Duke Guo of Qi said in an official tone: "However, someone complained to me, saying that the Dutch treated the people of China differently. Others, such as the Javanese, did not have to pay the head tax. Why do our overseas subjects of China have to pay? As the saying goes, The people are not worried about poverty but about inequality. What you are doing is really wrong.”

Pripps chuckled to himself as he listened to this tone, thinking that this was just an excuse to ask for some bribes.

After all, trade with China has been carried out for more than a hundred years, and the Dutch feel that they are now well aware of China's officialdom - back then, Li Dan acted as a guarantee and asked the Dutch to "lend" a sum of money to Ming Dynasty officials, which was actually a bribe, but When the Dutch personnel failed to get things done, they immediately turned against each other and asked for money with an IOU. With this awareness and structure, do you still want to trade?

Things are different now. Pripps was thinking about how much money should be given to the Duke, and hurriedly said: "Dear Duke, please don't listen to those thieves. They are lazy and do not work, and they come in groups. Wandering around in the city, claiming to be a gangster, or committing robbery, doesn’t your country also punish such people?”

"I think the person who came to complain must have been punished for stealing or robbing, so he came to instigate relations between the two countries. Please don't believe it."

Duke Guo of Qi took a sip of tea slowly and methodically, turned his eyes upward slightly, and asked slowly: "Is this absolutely not the case? Don't lie to me."

"Well...that is true. However, the Chinese do not need to perform military service in Batavia. In fact, they pay the poll tax but do not perform military service, and the rest of the people perform military service but do not pay the poll tax. Isn't this a disservice to the Chinese? Care? I think people would rather pay a poll tax than serve in the military."

The Duke of Qi's care was nothing more than he was worried that the local Chinese people had guns in their hands. Fortunately, Shouchang had told me about it a long time ago, otherwise it would have been ridiculous.

At this time, he wanted to be a dim-witted official, so he frowned and said: "If what you said is true, could it be that those Wu Shi Party members did many illegal acts and were punished without being accused falsely? What's going on with this matter? , I need to ask more questions.”

"Since I have the trust of the emperor and am in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this matter must be investigated clearly. If what you said is true, it seems that those people are responsible for themselves; but if what you say is false... although scholars, farmers, industry and merchants, Businessmen are the most despicable, and most of them are profit-seeking people who abandon their country. However..."

However, there was no further talk afterwards, and he tapped his fingers on the table, as if thinking.

Prips knew that this was asking for a bribe.

A duke in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the right and wrong of this matter still depended on his words.

If he said yes, it was.

If he said no, it was no.

Prips knew that this was not a foolish old fool, but a shrewd egoist. He obviously did not care about the life and death of his fellow Batavians, but how much bribes these people could bring him.

Moreover, at this time, Batavia had only heard some rumors, and the governor only asked each sugarcane plantation to count the population in order to pay the head tax.

Maybe some smart people noticed something was wrong. The sugarcane plantations and sugar mills were already squeezed hard enough. If they paid the head tax again, they really couldn't survive.

Prips believed that it should be the last time that the Dashun ship to Sweden that went to Batavia made the local Wushan Party leaders think that they had found a backer called "motherland".

But obviously, this backer is not reliable.

"My Lord, I can guarantee that what I said is true. We will not punish anyone who abides by the law, but only those thieves and robbers, but those thieves and robbers happen to be Chinese. In fact, if they pay the head tax on time, we can guarantee their rights."

"If your country really insists, they are also your citizens, I think we can send these thieves and robbers back to Fujian. But I believe that My Lord can distinguish right from wrong."