In the traditional impression, the Chinese seem to have always been like a floppy street boy who was beaten to the ground. But recently reading historical materials and thinking about them carefully, I found that they all fell out.

In the traditional impression, the Chinese seem to have always looked like a floppy street boy who was beaten to the ground. But recently reading historical materials and thinking about them carefully, I found that they all fell out.

The Western powers actually arrived in East Asia very early, and the Age of Discovery has arrived. The colonization of the great powers also started very early. In the 16th century, the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and British all played a very important role in East Asia.

Perhaps it was during the late Ming Dynasty that the Ming government was quite powerful and had never made any trouble of cede land and stolen the country to sign unequal treaties. Therefore, few people were impressed by this history. Even after reading it, they didn't feel any pain. Compared with the humiliating past in modern history, it is completely different.

But in fact, the colonial activities of the great powers in East Asia began in the Wanli period, and it did not appear suddenly out of thin air in the late Qing Dynasty.

The Portuguese stayed in Macau and refused to leave.

Dutch invaded Penghu Islands , stationed in Taiwan Relandzha City

Spanish built cities in Taiwan

These are all colonial actions

Similarly, the rogues of the Portuguese, the Dutch invasion, the Spanish arrogance, and even almost carried out the national invasion of the Ming Dynasty. Compared with the late Qing Dynasty, the nature is not bad at all.

However, I recently learned about these history and found out... all the scenes have to return to a starting point - Japan.

After the Warring States Period, the Japanese developed their economy and living standards improved, and the textile industry also developed rapidly. However, although Japan is a major country in producing raw silk, the raw silk produced in China is of high quality, and it is far inferior to imported raw silk. Not only is the quality requirement, but the output gap is also huge.

Japanese people need to import half of raw silk every year to meet the needs of their own textile industry. Such a huge gap as

brings huge profits.

But at this time, the Japanese had a feud with China and trade between the two countries was cut off. Therefore, we have to try our best to seek various solutions. To this end, Japan eased relations with North Korea and tried to ask the North Koreans to help restore Sino-Japanese trade. It even used war threats to let Ryukyu country help smuggle and import raw silk.

Of course, in order to obtain raw silk and make profits from overseas trade, the Japanese also welcome European colonists to trade in Japan. At first they were Portuguese, later they were Spanish, Dutch, British and Chinese smuggling merchants.

Chinese people are fine, they are directly from the origin, and they can be sold to Japan if they buy raw silk in China. The Portuguese have Macau as their base, so the import source is also quite smooth.

In comparison, the Spanish have had relatively weak management capabilities, and diplomacy has had several troubles with the Japanese, so the progress is slow.

The Dutch were more proactive and spent half a century trying to open the door to trade with China.

1603, the commander of the Dutch Fleet Stephen Hagen went to China with gifts and diplomatic envoys to try to meet with the Chinese emperor and request trade, but was coldly rejected by the arrogant officials...

The unwilling Dutch in June 1604, led the fleet by the commander of the Dutch Fleet Wei Malang to use force and was ordered to go to China from Peking University. This time, the Dutch prepared a lot. Not only did they contact several maritime merchants, but they also bribed a tax supervisor, trying to open up channels for trade in the way of eunuchs. At the same time, I plan to beat Macau directly.

Result~

Previously, the Portuguese kept describing the Dutch as a barbaric and unreasonable country. In addition, the Dutch did not go to Macau because of the storm, which actually violated China's sovereignty in the Penghu Islands.

At that time, Guangdong Governor Xu Xueju quickly mobilized his troops... A group of people went around and drove the Dutch away...

In addition, the Dutch invasion in Taiwan later, in fact, tracing the origin was just to buy Chinese goods, such as raw silk, and then become a second-hand dealer... and sell it to the Japanese.

However, the arrogant Chinese directly rejected the barbarian trade request...

The current situation of the world looking for the market to sell Chinese goods, and suddenly felt so funny and laughed at the long-standing propaganda of resisting the invasion of the great powers in the late Ming Dynasty...

From the current perspective, it is hard to say that the Dutch's actions were intended to turn China into a Dutch colony. They just tried their best to buy raw silk from China...

For this reason, they used softly and hard (war means). Unfortunately, the Ming Dynasty was not the Qing Dynasty, so they easily repelled the Dutch, and finally failed helplessly.

To put it simply, there is a feeling that the Dutch guy is holding money, kneeling and unable to deliver it, carrying cannons, or unable to deliver it... The arrogant Chinese man just doesn't sell it...