Small European country Holland. In the13rd century, due to the lowlands of the Netherlands, the Netherlands had to start reclamation, develop its territory and reinforce its dams to prevent marine invasion. It is such a small country, but with its own continuous development, it became the first capitalist country in the world before Britain and France and other powerful countries, and became the richest country in Europe at that time, but it fell behind Britain in the most powerful decades and soon declined. This paper will briefly talk about the reasons for the prosperity and decline of the Netherlands. From 65438 to August 0566, the bourgeois revolution broke out in Holland. After fifteen years of struggle, it got rid of the cruel rule of Spain and established the Netherlands Republic, which paved the way for the development of capital. With the advantages of the financial industry, the world's first stock exchange was established in the Netherlands; The advanced shipbuilding industry has spread Dutch ships all over the world, ensuring its leading position in the global navigation field. Faced with the huge profits of overseas trade, shrewd Dutch businessmen are unwilling to lag behind, so the Netherlands established the world's first joint-stock company-the Dutch East India Company. Joint-stock companies can raise funds from the society, and everyone can hold shares, which ensures the source of funds, and at the same time spreads the risk of shipwreck and death at any time in maritime trade to every shareholder who buys shares. The Dutch Parliament even gave the Dutch East India Company the right to form its own mercenaries, issue currency, conclude treaties with other countries and obtain its own monopoly on maritime trade for 265,438+0 years. With the advantages of joint-stock system and the strong support of the Netherlands, the fleet of Dutch East India sailed overseas, established a large number of colonies overseas, and shipped the goods, raw materials, minerals and gold from the colonies back to the Netherlands continuously. The Netherlands sold the returned goods and raw materials at several times or even dozens of times, earning huge profits. At that time, there was hardly a foreign fleet at sea that could rival the Dutch fleet. The Dutch East India Company has been operating at sea for 40 years, controlling 40% of the global maritime trade. Oriental tea, Chinese porcelain, Japanese copper, Indonesian spices, Brazilian coffee, Italian silk and French red wine ... continuously flowed into the Netherlands, and Amsterdam, the capital, became the distribution center of various commodities in the world. Dutch enterprises are all over the world, and Amsterdam has become the world business center and international credit center at that time. Bills purchased in Amsterdam can be cashed in almost all countries in the world. As the most powerful overlord at sea, the Netherlands is called "sea coachman". At that time, there were three reasons for the decline of the Dutch fleet's maritime hegemony in the world. The Netherlands reached its peak in the middle of17th century, but it lost its first maritime hegemony war with Britain in the following years. Since then, European countries have participated in the competition of maritime trade and gained a lot of wealth. On the other hand, the Netherlands, as the overlord, has gradually declined. Why? First of all, the Netherlands has insufficient resources and a small population to develop advanced industries. /kloc-in the 0/7th century, the Dutch economy gradually prospered, requiring a large number of labor, but with a small population, so it implemented a more liberal immigration policy. With the increasing profits of overseas trade, faced with great temptation, coupled with loose immigration policy and advanced navigation technology, a large number of domestic businessmen gradually go abroad to invest overseas instead of investing in the development of domestic industries. With the prosperity of the economy, the cost of investing in the Netherlands began to increase. Because of the profit-seeking nature of capital, when it is determined that you can get 6% or 7% profit abroad, you will not invest in China with 4% or 5% expected profit, which leads to a fragile industrial base and stagnant military industry, which laid the foundation for the failure of hegemony later. Secondly, the Netherlands only acts as a middleman to earn the price difference, which makes its own economy very fragile. The Netherlands transports a lot of goods from the world to its own country, and then sells them all over the world at several times the price, thus making a lot of money. It is the middleman who earns the huge difference. The Dutch economy is very fragile because of its single economic source. As European countries take the road outside Shanghai, they have vigorously developed their own navigation industry. When they have the ability to act as middlemen, Holland's superior overseas trade faces great competitive pressure. Due to the stagnation of its own industry, the Netherlands lost its dominant technology monopoly position and was repeatedly squeezed out and suppressed by enterprises from other countries. 1497, and the number of Dutch ships passing through is 1 567. 40 years later, 1697 exceeded 4000. With the development of navigation technology in other European countries, there are only 1 1 ships in1year, which shows that the most profitable overseas trade in the Netherlands has plummeted after competition from other countries, and the source of economic income in the Netherlands has been greatly hit. In addition, during the economic boom, the Netherlands borrowed a lot of money from other countries. Most of these countries are war-torn monarchies. In the case of frequent wars and countries often making ends meet, these countries will not be able to repay the money and the loans will not be recovered, which is a heavy blow to the Netherlands, and its maritime business has been severely hit. Third, the Netherlands is frequently involved in wars. In the era of great navigation, overseas trade was the most profitable business, and all European countries headed by great navigation wanted to share this big cake. The profit-seeking of capital needs monopoly, and everyone who participates in the profit-seeking wants to eat the biggest cake, which will undoubtedly bring huge conflicts of interest. At this time, whoever can eat this cake depends on whose fist is big. In the early stage of competition, in order to protect the huge merchant fleet, control the shipping of the world's oceans and conduct monopolistic world trade, the Netherlands adopted a strategy of commercial hegemony to exclude the declining Portuguese and Spanish forces. By the middle of the17th century, the Netherlands had replaced Spain as the maritime hegemon, a world commercial power and dominated the ocean. In the commercial and trade competition with Britain, the number of merchant ships in the Netherlands is five times that of Britain. Britain and the Netherlands competed for hegemony for the first time, but in this process, the Dutch economy relied too much on overseas trade and neglected its own infrastructure and industrial development. As the Dutch extremely crowded out British businessmen, the contradiction between the two sides became more and more serious, and finally a war broke out in the Dover Sea. Although Britain is not as powerful as the first industrial revolution experienced a hundred years later, it still has strong industrial strength, while the Netherlands has rich experience in maritime operations. In the three wars between Britain and the Netherlands, both sides won and lost, but as a whole, the Netherlands was better. However, the Netherlands, carried away by victory, brazenly intervened in the war between France and Spain. Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruyter is a veteran of the Dutch navy. He led a small fleet to help the Spanish, but he was defeated in the battle of Augusta and died of injuries in the battle near Sicily, which caused great losses to the Netherlands. Frequent wars not only make the Netherlands lose its excellent generals and a large number of soldiers, but also make the military forces that have been consumed a lot unable to be supplemented because of the backwardness of its own industrial system. Since then, the era of Dutch maritime hegemony is gone forever. Looking at the rise and fall of Dutch trade hegemony in modern times, it is not difficult to find that the success of the Netherlands on the one hand is to give full play to its own advantages, on the other hand, it is a special background of the times, so it can become the world hegemon in a short time. The reason for its decline seems obvious: the main reason is that it lacks its own resources and relies too much on trade to ignore the accumulation of its own economic infrastructure and material strength, which leads to its being overtaken by Britain, gradually losing its position as a maritime hegemon and heading for decline.