Once the Netherlands has completed the move to replace the original farmland, wild grassland and forests with alfalfa grassland, the nobles can make money by raising sheep in the future. However, after the forest is cut down, the shipbuilding industry in the Netherlands will be even more hopeless...

After all, Marin was still guarding against the Netherlands as it had risen to become a sailing power as in history. Therefore, it is Marin's unremitting goal to destroy the shipbuilding and shipping industries in the Netherlands as much as possible.

Before, Marin had used various means to transform Amsterdam, which owns more than a dozen shipyards, into a famous furniture manufacturing center in Europe. But Marin still felt that it was not enough, because as long as there were so many trees in the Netherlands, there might be merchants going to build a shipyard.

Now, by encouraging the Dutch nobles to enclose land and allow them to convert all the land including forests into alfalfa grasslands, the Dutch could cut off all the oak trees themselves. How could they build ships to compete with the North Sea after they lost oak?

This is much better than transforming Amsterdam into a furniture city. Marin can use furniture to destroy Amsterdam's shipbuilding industry, but it cannot stop the idea of ​​shipbuilding in the entire Netherlands. Without Amsterdam and ports such as Antwerp, the shipbuilding industry can still be developed.

But the premise of the Netherlands' shipbuilding is that they need to have enough shipbuilding wood...

Of course, the Netherlands could also import timber from overseas to build ships. Just as in history, the Dutch could import timber from Norway and southern Sweden and transport it back to China for shipbuilding.

However, that is a later event. In the early stage, if you want to develop your own shipbuilding industry, you must rely on local timber. Only when the scale is increased will you consider importing timber from abroad to build ships. Otherwise, if you do not have a shipbuilding foundation, it is better to buy a ship directly from abroad.

Marin used the method of bewitching the Dutch nobles to capture land and quietly let the Dutch people cut down all the oak trees in the country by themselves. This is the real ruthless trick. Without the supply of oak, will it still develop a ghost shipbuilding industry?

Prince Philip and several Dutland nobles were not aware of Marin's sinister intentions. At this time, they were completely immersed in the beautiful "money prospect" that Marin described to them as "income hundreds of thousands or even millions of gold coins a year." For them, nothing is more important than making money...

In recent years, because Britain restricted the export of wool, it has severely hit the Netherlands' economy. At present, Prince Philip and the nobles of the Netherlands have not had a good life. At most, their income is better than those nobles who simply farm. After all, Flanders' wool industry has not completely collapsed. However, it is not far from collapse.

But the suggestion of enclosing and raising sheep gave them great hope. In particular, they were willing to give them 100,000 British sheep.

If it is another country, even if you enclose land and raise sheep, you may not be able to make huge profits. After all, if you produce more wool, you may encounter price reductions from the buyer.

The Flanders here are different. The Flanders here are the top wool spinning centers in Europe. I’m afraid you don’t have enough wool, so you won’t have to worry about the sales of wool. The premise is that the quality of wool must be good.

Therefore, Marin is willing to provide 100,000 British sheep, which is of great significance to them. Once the Netherlands can produce high-quality British wool on a large scale, it will soon form a wool spinning country with integrated production and sales, and its competitiveness will be no worse than England.

Moreover, small countries like the Netherlands have simple transformation. For example, the British enclosure movement caused huge social turmoil. During the period of Henry VIII, in order to enclose land, the country was in chaos. In order to control refugees, Henry VIII repeatedly sacrificed butchers and killed landless farmers who refused to obey the arrangements. Fortunately, England was isolated overseas and other countries could not interfere. Otherwise, if it were a mainland country, hundreds of thousands of landless farmers would appear in the country, which would be enough to trigger riots that swept across the country. Because, even if you want to control, your neighbors would intervene secretly.

Only island countries like England, which are isolated overseas, have difficulty in interfering in their domestic affairs, can Henry VIII concentrate on suppressing domestic chaos.

The Netherlands is different. The Netherlands is just a small place of tens of thousands of square kilometers, which is easier to manage. Although there are many farmers, if they lose land, it is indeed easy to cause riots. However, with the help of Marin, they can absorb all the landless farmers who may cause riots, and then they can safely complete the land enclosure. At that time, every family of the Netherlands nobles can reap land enclosure and raise sheep and gain huge benefits. Those nobles who own wool workshops can obtain more benefits through the processing of wool...

...

However, they didn't know that Marin had already secretly prepared better Beihai sheep, which was soft and finer, and was suitable for wool spinning.

In addition, Marin also started to build Jenny spinning machines and shuttles, preparing to carry out the industrial revolution. The spinning speed of Jenny spinning machines is 8 times that of ordinary hand-rotating spinning machines, and the efficiency of weaving shuttles is more than twice that of ordinary weaving machines...

Combining the two, plus the better quality Beihai sheep wool, what can the Netherlands do if it can produce British wool by itself? It will still be suppressed by the future Beihai Guo Wool Textile Industry...

At present, the Beihai Guo Zhenni spinning machine has been developed. After all, this principle is the simplest: just pour the hand-crank spinning machine down and 8 spindles are arranged side by side.

Weaving shuttles is more troublesome. Marin saw the patterns of shuttles in his previous life and quickly made craftsmen create shuttles. However, how to install the shuttle on the loom and let the shuttle move back and forth automatically under the pull of a rope has become a problem. For this reason, Marin arranged a group of watchmakers and loom craftsmen to study this problem together. As long as this problem is solved, the speed of the loom can be increased by more than twice...

At that time, with better wool and higher production efficiency, what can the Netherlands compare to? In the end, they have to lower prices and reduce profits. Otherwise, they will have no competitiveness...

...

In fact, Marin has a bigger killer weapon in his hand - the best merino wool produced by authentic merino sheep!

In Ayuen, a small African desert oasis, the Governor General of Ayuen in Marin used the controlled Berber slaves to raise 10,000 authentic merino sheep!

These are the descendants of a hundred pairs of merino sheep that Marin exchanged with the Spanish Kings by Indian routes. At present, it has grown to tens of thousands.

In fact, if the merino sheep are allowed to reproduce freely, the number will be more than that. The reason why there are only 10,000 is that in the report of Governor Cotton of Ayuen, Ayuen is a small oasis on the edge of the Sahara Desert, and raising 10,000 merino sheep here is the limit. If there are more, it will destroy the local grassland and trigger the environmental crisis that Marin mentioned.

As a last resort, Ayuen has slaughtered thousands of merino sheep in a concentrated manner, because it is worried that the local grassland will shrink and the environment will be severely damaged.

However, the authentic merino sheep were transported to the American colonies but could not adapt to the environment. As for transporting it back to the local area... Marin swore that he would never bring the merino sheep back to Europe for breeding, and the wet and cold climate in the North Sea was not suitable for the growth of merino sheep.

Speaking of which, the ones that can adapt to the growth of merino sheep are probably North Africa, West Asia, South Africa's inland plateaus, or Australia's drought and warm places.

There is no need to think about North Africa and West Asia. Marin's hand cannot reach there for the time being. South Africa is not good either. It is still the territory of the Portuguese, so Marin is not good at breaking the rules.

After thinking about it, it is probably only Australia, the most suitable place for Merino sheep to grow in later generations, that Marin can grazle. After all, Australia is not within the colonial scope of any country.

In fact, in the "Torde Silas Treaty" signed by Spain and Portugal, Australia should be considered the sphere of influence of the Portuguese according to the "Police Meridian".

But later, under the promotion of Marin, the two countries of Spain and Portugal, including Marin, re-divided the colonial scope. Portugal's sphere of influence was clearly defined as most of Africa and India, as well as West Asia, Southeast Asia and China, and did not include the unknown Australia.

Therefore, now Marin sends people to Australia to raise sheep, and it will not infringe on the interests of Portugal.

Thinking of this, Marin finally made up his mind to secretly send a fleet to explore the Australian route on the Cape of Good Hope. Then, drifting along the west wind, finding Perth in Western Australia, and stocking a batch of merino sheep in the local Swan River basin. Then, he regarded Perth as an important production base for merino sheep.
Chapter completed!