June 18, 1667, Western calendar.

The Hague.

Compared with other European cities, The Hague is completely different. The city is always so lively and clean. The Hague has a thick and shaded park, big trees covered with Gothic houses, and a wide river channel, reflecting a dome clock tower with a little oriental color.

Perhaps it is precisely because of this that it is called "Little Suzhou of Europe". Indeed, this city is not big, but in this era, this city was indeed extremely neat and clean, more like the city of the Ming Dynasty than the pigpen in Europe.

This day.

In the Hague, the capital of the United Republic of the Netherlands, citizens rushed, panting and anxious, forming a stream of people, and people blocked all the streets. Some of them had knives around their waists, some carried guns on their shoulders, and some waved sticks in their hands, heading towards the Speaker's residence.

There an emergency meeting of the United Republic of the Netherlands is being held!

This was already the first emergency meeting after the outbreak of the war with England. The situation facing the Republic has not been relieved of any ease of those emergency meetings, but has become increasingly critical, and now it has reached a precarious level.

The atmosphere at the emergency meeting of the Grand Parliament became increasingly low, and it had reached a point where everyone felt breathless.

In the conference room, everyone looked at the Speaker John De Witt who said nothing.

This resourceful politician who had been wandering between the Olympic Ranch faction and the royal family in the past would be like a defeated rooster, lying limp in the chair with a dull look on his face. He could not think of any trick to save the Republic.

Oh, by the way, Admiral Reit, who was victorious in all kinds of battles, failed!

His failure was almost destined. In the past time, the English Navy has always been a good student of the Ming Navy. As a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, perhaps he still did not obtain "high-tech equipment" such as exporting steam engines, but he obtained bombardment guns.

Although the bombardment guns are as expensive as copper cannons due to the complex technology, the English Navy is still equipped with more than 400 bombardment guns of various caliber from 68 pounds to 120 pounds. The blasting bombs fired by the bombardment guns can easily penetrate the gangways of warships and bomb the warships into slags.

In fact, the fleet led by Admiral Reit was indeed bombarded as a scumbag in the naval battle on June 17. In history, he should have gone to "sneak attack on the port of Medway", but many years ago, the Ming fleet performed there in advance. In addition, the English fleet was reorganized, and the powerful English fleet, led by Monk, unscrupulously launched an attack in the United Provinces, trying to cut off the Dutch foreign trade. Admiral Reit had to fight. A volley in the naval battle actually almost destroyed the side structure of the Dutch warships, and the Dutch on the shore almost witnessed the disastrous defeat of the Dutch Navy.

In fact, the fleet's losses are not a big deal. As long as there is enough gold and silver in the Amsterdam bank vault, the Netherlands can rebuild a fleet.

As for bombardment guns, in fact, when they realized the powerful power of Chinese naval guns, European countries were considering whether to follow up. Perhaps they did not have the internal mold water-cooled casting gun method to improve the success rate of casting guns, nor did they draw the shape of the gun based on the actual chamber pressure measurement results, and then made the gun-shaped "wine bottle cannon" based on the drawings. However, they still cast the 68-pound universal cannon that fires solid projectiles or blasting bombs.

As long as there is enough money, the Netherlands can not only rebuild a powerful fleet, but also a new fleet equipped with blasting cannons. John De Witt can also be able to fight for the Netherlands.

But the problem now is that England has blocked the Netherlands' trade!

In fact, there is no question of blocking the British fleet, blocking the ports of Union Province at sea, and at the same time, the Chinese also stopped trade with the Netherlands.

For the Dutch, who is a sea coachman, all this is undoubtedly an extremely fatal blow.

Without trade, there is no money, and without money, it is impossible for them to rebuild a powerful fleet.

Moreover, Witt can also imagine that in the coming political crisis, those followers who follow the Orange family will definitely do everything possible to push Prince William III to the throne. The 17-year-old prince's parliament will never be able to hand over the fate of the Netherlands to a 17-year-old boy!

Moreover, even if they did this, 17-year-old William III could not change all this.

What should I do now?

They have no time to rebuild the navy at all. Even if they urgently rebuild the navy, whether they can break through the British blockade is still between the two!

time!

Now time is not on the Dutch side at all.

The British have even bombarded Dutch cities along the coast like the Chinese. Thousands of buildings have been bombarded into ruins, thousands of people have lost their homes, many people have lost their lives, and even the most precious merchant ships in the Netherlands have suffered a lot of losses in the shelling.

As long as the English want, they can constantly shell out the Dutch coastal cities and ports, and eventually destroy everything.

It’s so desperate to think about it!

What should I do now?

Is it a peace talk? Or...

In the silence, a secretary of the parliament ran into the conference room panting, holding a wax envelope in his hand. Judging from his expression, what was contained in this envelope should be good news!

"Mr. Speaker of the Grand Priest, the envoy of the King of France has arrived in The Hague and has also brought a handwritten letter from King Louis XIV."

This is indeed good news!

Now that the summit envoy of the Dutch Grand Parliament has not been selected, the winning French sent the envoy first, which shows that Louis XIV has not considered the issue of destroying the Netherlands.

"Come here quickly, take the envelope!"

John De Witt quickly called the secretary to the front, took the envelope, tore off the wax seal, and took out the letter raft inside. All the members of the Great Parliament looked at him intently. The members found that their Great Parliament's hands were trembling constantly!

There was a silence in the hall, and everyone was holding their hearts to their throats.

Suddenly, John De Witt suddenly let out a deep breath and said:

"Thanks to Christ, King Louis XIV aims to form an alliance with us"

What? Alliance?

Alliance!

At this time?

What do the French want to do when the Netherlands suffered unprecedented failures?

John De Wittsyn, with the letter in his hand, said loudly:

"His Majesty Louis XIV said in his letter that he believed that the Chinese threat to the Christian world far exceeds the Ottomans. Their current invasion of the Ottomans is actually to prepare for attacking Europe. Even the English and their war against the Netherlands was to destroy the Dutch maritime power and was also part of the Chinese war plan. Faced with their threats, France must shoulder the responsibility of defending Christian civilization, and the Netherlands also has the glorious mission of defending Christian civilization!"

When his words fell, all the members of the parliament all agreed loudly that the threats of the Chinese were necessary, who made those Chinese treacherously stop their trade with them.

"Compared with the Ottoman Empire, the Ming Empire had the most powerful fleet in the world because of its extremely vast territory and hundreds of millions of people, and their desire to expand was far more than any other country. They were quickly trying to include all the land known to mankind as the rule of their empire. This country, which calls itself the Celestial Empire, vowed to annex all the land under the sun and the moon into their land.

If France and the Netherlands cannot unite, or even join hands with the enemies of the Christ world, and work with the Ottoman Empire to deal with this Celestial Empire, then one day, the entire Christian civilization will crawl at the feet of the great powers of the Eastern world forever!"

The Speaker of the Dutch National Congress wiped his tears and looked at the MPs in the hall:
Chapter completed!