Chapter 20 Empire Rising from the Swamp

"Netherlands" ("nether" means "subterranean, below"--translator's note) is the official English name of the Netherlands, which just describes the geographical characteristics of the Netherlands: low-lying areas located 2 to 6 feet below sea level area.If the prehistoric flood happened again, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and other important cities would all be buried under the sea. However, the source of the driving force for the prosperity of the Netherlands is this harsh natural environment.The marshes on the North Sea coast are too narrow, and the Dutch can only create more space by themselves in order to establish a prosperous country.Thus, man and nature launched an arduous struggle.In this battle of wits and courage, the Dutch finally won.Due to the ruthlessness of nature, the Dutch are more diligent and prepared for danger in times of peace.Such virtues are not without value in such human circumstances.

In 50 BC, the ancient Romans first stepped into this desolate and remote place.It is a swampy place, and a belt of sand dunes stretches from Belgium to Denmark, keeping the rough waters of the North Sea at bay.Numerous rivers, large and small, including the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt, pass through this dune belt and rush towards the sea.Unrestrained by the high dams of the valleys, these rivers criss-cross the lowlands at will.Every spring, the course of the river changes, the soil is washed into the sea, and the land becomes islands.In the 13th century, a flood wiped out 70 villages overnight, and all 100,000 Dutch people were buried in Dragon Palace in the blink of an eye.This incident is by no means sensational.

Compared with their Flemish neighbors, the early Dutch were indeed in dire straits.But a miracle happened.This presents a rare opportunity for the Dutch as the water temperature or salinity of the Baltic Sea varies bizarrely.One morning, when the Dutch woke up, they saw a kind of Baltic fish called herring suddenly ran to the North Sea en masse, and settled in the North Sea ever since.At that time, fish was the most important food for human beings. At that time, almost all Europeans must eat fish every Friday.A large number of Dutch ports prospered due to the collective removal of herring, but at the same time a large number of Baltic cities declined because of it.Since then, these port cities in the Netherlands have continuously exported dried fish to southern European countries just like today's canned fish exports.In this way, because the trade of herring drove the trade of grain, and because the trade of grain promoted the trade of Indian spices, the Netherlands naturally rose rapidly as a trading country.

However, all this reality was thrown out of the blue by fate. The Habsburg Empire incorporated all these lowland countries into its own territory, and ordered these energetic fishermen and farmers to deal with the bad-tempered Habu The orders of the Fort officer must be obeyed.These officers, who had been strictly trained in a dictatorial court, were unrealistic, surly and aloof, living in a mirage.Although these farmers and fishermen have not been favored by the Creator and their fortunes are bad, they have a pragmatic mind and a pair of strong fists. Of course, these two types of people are full of contradictions, irreconcilable, and incompatible.Thus, an 80-year Dutch War of Independence broke out, and the people of the Low Countries finally ushered in the dawn of freedom.

Some pragmatists became the rulers of this emerging country, and they knew how to "get more help than others", especially when their own interests were closely related.Therefore, for those who have been persecuted in other countries because of their beliefs, the Dutch extended their warm hands and gave them asylum.Most of the Dutch patrons (with the exception of a handful of humble English dissidents who did not live long in the Netherlands) had their happy new life in Holland, so they were all very fond of the Low Country. Thank you so much.In the homeland of the persecuted, their liquid property was deprived of all their liquid property by those rulers without exception, and their fixed assets were all confiscated. However, these people came to their new homeland not with bare hands and nothing, but with Here comes extraordinary talent and ability.They spared no effort to contribute their talents to this new motherland, and brought vigorous vitality into the development of Dutch trade and culture.As soon as the War of Independence ended, the Netherlands, with a population of only 1 million, quickly rose from a lowland town at the bottom of a deserted lake, and sat on the throne of ruling Eurasia with a high-sounding appearance. The hegemony lasted for three generations.

They lived a pampered life and invested a lot of money in the purchase of manors and famous foreign paintings (the works of their own countries are of course far less valuable than foreign works).They try to make those around them forget where their wealth came from, and it soon ceases to come.Good flowers don't always bloom, and good times don't always exist. Everything goes against its limits, and flourishes and declines, especially popularity.Everything in their hands, whether ideas or wealth, will soon disappear when they no longer strive to hold on to the wealth they have. The end of the Netherlands finally came in the early 19th century.Napoleon (whose knowledge of geography was only enough to win the war) declared that the Low Countries were nothing more than a delta in France, formed by the alluvial flow of the three great rivers of France—the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt, so From a geographical point of view, the French Empire is their owner as a matter of course.The fate of the three low countries was decided by a big "N" (N is the first letter of Napoleon's surname (Napleon)——Translator's Note) that Napoleon scribbled on the document. a province, and Holland has since disappeared from the map.

In 1815, the Netherlands regained its independence and its former vitality was restored.It was a colonial power with colonies 62 times larger than the homeland, and Amsterdam and Rotterdam thus managed to maintain their status as distribution centers for Indian products.The Netherlands has never been an industrial country.Except for a small number of average-quality coal mines in the far south, there are almost no decent resources in the Netherlands.Holland supplied her colonies with less than 6 percent of their total imports of raw materials.But a large amount of capital is something that the tea plantations, coffee plantations, rubber plantations and quinine plantations in Java, Sumatra, Moluccas, Borneo and Celebes are all in urgent need of. Amsterdam's stock trading has thus been promoted. It became the stock trading center of Europe at that time.In order to raise funds, merchants and even governments from all over the world went to Amsterdam. The whole of Europe traded with the rest of the world through merchant ships coming and going in Amsterdam.

The gross tonnage of domestic merchant ships in the Netherlands ranks first in the world.The waterways of the Netherlands extend in all directions, and the river network in the territory is densely covered.The concept of time in the Netherlands is not very strong. No matter men, women, old or young, or cattle, horses, chickens and dogs, life has always been slow and leisurely. Therefore, the low-cost canal boats have become the most dangerous competitors of railway transportation. Generally speaking, 25% of the territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is not really land, but a small piece of the seabed, which has been wrested from fish and seals through unremitting efforts, so most of the canals in the Netherlands are nothing more than Some drains.The Dutch drained the sea by manpower, and then kept watch over these hard-won lands.Since 1450, Holland has grown by more than a thousand square miles by draining swamps and filling lakes with fields.In fact, as long as you know the method, it is not difficult to reclaim fields around lakes.First build a dam around the selected water area, and then dig a deep and wide canal outside.In order for the canal to discharge water into the river through a series of complex sluice systems in the future, it is necessary to connect the canal with the adjacent river.After preparing these, put some windmills on the dam, and then equip the windmills with a water pump, and then hand over the rest to the wind and a small gasoline generator.After the lake was drained and drained into the canal, several parallel trenches were dug in the new embankment swamp, and the windmills and pumps continued to work, draining the groundwater, and dry land was thus formed.

Some embankment lakes have a large area and can accommodate more than 20,000 people.If the water in the IJsselmeer can be drained (this project costs too much, almost all countries will be on the verge of bankruptcy) , At least 100,000 people can live in the lake.Among the expenditures of the various departments of the Dutch government, why is the annual expenditure of the "Ministry of Rivers, Canals and Embankments" much larger than that of other government departments?As long as you know that the embankment lakes account for 25% of the territory of the Netherlands, it is not difficult to understand.

A wonderful contrast emerges between the two halves of Holland.The higher elevations in the east were long ago where the great European plains met the sea, while the lowlands to the west were a marshy delta, later formed slowly by the three great rivers of the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt.Today, the eastern "highlands" are deserted, while the western lowlands are prosperous and affluent.In the past tens of millions of years, large and small Nordic glacial boulders have been deposited on this eastern "highland". , Rhode Island, and Connecticut, the settlements of early immigrants in the United States, and one of the most economically developed areas——Translator’s Note) are somewhat similar, but the soil in the Netherlands has a greater sand content.The Kingdom of the Netherlands is already overcrowded (the Netherlands has a population density of 625 people per square kilometer, France has 191 people, and Russia has 17 people), and at least 25% of the land in the Netherlands cannot be used for agricultural production at all (the area that cannot be used for agricultural production land, less than 15% in France and only 9% in Germany), which means that the burden on the Netherlands is even heavier.

Why are almost all the important cities in the Netherlands concentrated in that small triangle in the center of the embankment lakeland?This is due to such a marked disparity between east and west, between prosperous and lagging regions.The Hague, Amsterdam, Leiden, Alem, Delft, and Rotterdam nestle close to the famous belt of dunes, all squeezed together, almost as one. 300 years ago, the Netherlands started from the foot of this "dike" and became prosperous. It was at that time that Dutch businessmen began to buy tulip seeds from the Persians and Armenians. On the "National Flower" of the Netherlands. The city of Athens is only as big as the eight districts of New York City, and the Netherlands is pitifully small. It only takes a few hours to travel from one end of the Netherlands to the other in a panting classic car.Like the Attica region, this is a tiny place between the Rhine, the North Sea and the Ijsselmeer, but her contribution to world science and art cannot be underestimated. Measured by the proportion of China, her contribution is even greater than that of any other country.A stubborn rock and a barren hill gave birth to an Athens, and a swamp and a swamp gave birth to a Netherlands.But the sudden rise of the two countries has the same conditions --- the superior geographical location has promoted the international trade between the two places.In the long years, they did not sit still, but tenaciously forged ahead, forging the vigorous spiritual vitality and inexhaustible spirit of exploration of the two nations. In this way, the civilization of Greece was born, and the glory of the Netherlands appeared.