Dutch East India Company
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The United East India Company (Dutch: Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie; abbreviated as VOC) was a Dutch chartered company which operated and traded goods across the Dutch colonies in the world. It was a rival company to the British East India Company, which served as a major naval force during the Golden Age of Piracy.
History
Operations in Macau
In the late 17th century, the Dutch East India Company began collaborating with the Portuguese Empire,[1] and by 1725, they had a headquarter established in the Portuguese colony of Macau. There, the Burnt Brian's Pub became a favourite haunt of Dutch sailors from the company.[2]
At some point prior to February 1725, the company organized an expedition to Indochina, where one of their navigators, Hendrik, stumbled upon the ruins of Angkor, the lost city of the Khmer Empire. While being stationed in Macau, Hendrik looked for a way to return to the ruins, but was targeted by the Templars, who also sought to find Angkor and to silence anyone who knew about its existence.[3] Hendrik's friend and fellow navigator, John Young, was also targeted due to having stolen Hendrik's story and boasting about his alleged discovery.[2]
While Hendrik was ultimately killed by the Templars in his room at the company's dormitories in Macau, Young was protected by the British Assassin Edward Kenway, who was also on Angkor's trail.[4] Young subsequently teamed up with Kenway to find the lost city, defecting from the company and stealing one of their ships in the process.[5]
Around this time, the company's Chief Navigator, Jan van Aert, collaborated with Alan Jacob of the Far East Company and Sun of the Hualien Trading Company to sabotage a rival trading company led by Lee Huiyin.[6] Their efforts included bribing the Dutch Navy to ignore pirate attacks on Lee's ships,[7] and having her ships detained in the harbor, to be investigated for smuggling opium, which was actually brought into Macau by the Far East Company.[8] However, after the Far East Company's opium trafficking was exposed by Edward Kenway, Jan had no choice but to detain its ships as well.[9]
Later, the company, under the Templars' influence, began looking for a codebreaker to decipher Hendrik's encrypted sea log, which had ended up in the Templars' possession. They also recruited people for an expedtion in Southeast Asia, which had the goal of locating Angkor, believed by the Templars to be a Precursor site.[10]
The company suffered a major loss of trade when the Paracel Islands were taken over by pirates who turned them into their base of operations, from where they plundered numerous European ships in the region, including several of the Dutch East India Company's vessels. To solve the issue, Jan van Aert enlisted the help of Edward Kenway to rid the islands of pirates, and in exchange promised to secure a five-year contract between his company and the Assassin's recently-established organization, the Zhang Wei Union.[11]
Following Kenway's success in his mission, a lucrative partnership between the Dutch East India Company and the Zhang Wei Union was born, where the company provided the Union with various shipping contracts.[12] The alliance also allowed both organizations to increase their influence in Macau, and together they became one of the three major powers in the city, opposing both Sun and Lee's companies.[13] However, following Sun's death during an attack on his gambling ship, Lee seized the opportunity to become Macau's dominant merchant.[14]
Activities in the Philippines
Not long after Sun's death, the members of the Zhang Wei Union left Macau to search for a possible lead to Angkor's location in the Philippines, without informing Jan. Despite this, the navigator still learned about their expedition and decided to accompany them. Assembling a crew and assuming command of a company ship, Jan sailed to the Philippines, where he rescued the Union members after their ship, the Fenghuang, came under attack by Lee's fleet.[15]
Gallery
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Company men pursuing Edward Kenway after mistaking him for Hendrik's killer -
The company's Macau headquarters -
Jan leading company soldiers in Macau
Appearances
References
- ↑
Portuguese Macau#The rise of intra-Asian trade (17th–18th centuries) on Wikipedia
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 2
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 12
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 3
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 5
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 13
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 15
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 16
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 18
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 24
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 27
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 30
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 31
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 40
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple – Episode 49
de:Niederländische Ostindien-Kompanie fr:Compagnie néerlandaise des Indes orientales