156877
Why is the Netherlands called a sea coachman?
The Netherlands has a world-renowned title of “sea coachman”, which was well-known in the 17th century. “Sea coachman” refers to the Netherlands in the 17th century, because the Netherlands played a major role in maritime trade in the 17th century, so it was called “sea coachman”.
In the 17th century, the capitalist economy in Europe developed greatly, and trade between countries increased day by day. At that time, the world’s trade routes were mainly at sea. At that time, ships were like carriages transported by land. The ships were the carriages on the sea. Which country mastered the carriages on the sea, it was the carriage driver on the sea.
The Netherlands is close to the Atlantic Ocean and has developed handicrafts, but its natural resources are scarce and its local market is small. Many Dutch people go out in business, travel around the world, and make a lot of money. The Netherlands thus became one of the richest regions in Europe.
In 1581, the Netherlands got rid of Spanish rule and won national independence, laying the foundation for the rapid development of capitalist industry and commerce.
In the 17th century, sailors on British merchant ships were armed, so their ships needed harder wood, while Dutch ships were almost not equipped with weapons, so Dutch ships were cheap to build, and it was also very easy to use Dutch ships to transport goods. Cheap, so the Netherlands became Europe’s sea coachman.
Previously, typical European merchant ships were built with platforms that could mount artillery pieces, effectively preventing pirate attacks. The Dutch were the first to venture out to build a merchant ship that could only carry cargo and not mount artillery.
The price of this is that every voyage becomes a risky gamble of fortune, but it has the benefit of being cheaper to build, half the price of British ships, and, consequently, lower freight costs. Even so, the Dutch were not satisfied, and in order to get as much profit as possible, they added a special design to the boat. It has a unique design, it has a big belly, so the hull is big and round. And the deck is small. This is done because, in Scandinavia, the tax paid by the boat depends on the width of the deck, the narrower the deck, the less you pay, so the Dutch man-made boat has a small deck and a big belly, The more profit. To a large extent, it was with this kind of ship that the Dutch earned their world-renowned title of “coachmen of the sea.”
At its peak, the Dutch navy almost doubled that of the British and French navies. They cruise the world’s oceans, protect their own merchant ships, and engage in overseas colonial plunder. In Asia, in 1595 the Dutch first bypassed the Cape of Good Hope and reached India and Java. Soon, the Dutch fleet defeated the Portuguese fleet twice in the Java and Malacca Straits, and continued to hunt down and rob Chinese merchant ships, monopolizing the eastern trade.
In 1602, the Netherlands established the East India Company to control trade in this area, and once invaded my country’s Penghu and Taiwan. In the Americas, the Netherlands established the West India Company in 1621 to control the trade between Northwest Africa and the Americas, occupied a colony in North America, and established New Holland centered on New Amsterdam (now New York). In Africa, the Netherlands built fortresses and colonies at the throat of East-West traffic, the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, and established plantations there to ensure the supply of fresh water and food for passing ships.
Thus, the nickname “Coachman of the Sea” illustrates the hegemony of 17th-century Holland in all aspects of commercial, maritime and colonial plunder.
However, the “sea coachman” did not last long. From the middle of the 17th century, Britain and the Netherlands launched a naval battle for hegemony in the major oceans, and later, France also participated. The Franco-Dutch War engulfed the Dutch mainland and ended in a disastrous defeat for the Netherlands. The Netherlands has never recovered.
