Beyond the Strait of Gibraltar in the Mediterranean.
A large, three-masted, square-rigged broad-beamed ship—the sort favored by Dutch seafaring merchants and built specifically to dodge taxes—was loitering beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. It had almost no armaments, was slow, and had a narrow deck despite its broad hull.
Far off from that ship, in the strait's narrowest stretch, only a few nautical miles between Seville and Ceuta, well over a hundred Spanish warships were visibly gathered, patrolling and forming a barricade across the sea. They were aggressively inspecting every vessel that wanted to pass through the Strait of Gibraltar.
At that moment, plenty of merchant ships and warships from various nations had gathered both inside and outside the strait. But most people, though furious at the Spaniards' high-handed behavior, didn't dare speak up. They either meekly waited in line, insisting on passing through one by one, or left dejectedly for distant waters.
The large, three-masted, square-rigged broad-beamed ship—the sort of cargo vessel the Dutch had designed to exploit port regulations that taxed ships according to the width of their decks—didn't join the queue or leave. It simply stayed anchored far away, watching the situation in the Strait of Gibraltar.
"Oh, no!"
"This is bad!"
"Looks like the rumors were true. The Li Hua Mei Merchant Guild's squadron admiral really is a fool. She even dared to provoke the Spaniards! Just look at this—there must be at least a hundred warships here, right?"
"My God!"
"What on earth did they do to cause such a huge mess?"
"Camille, look! The Spaniards are so furious that they probably won't rest until they've sunk their ships and hanged every sailor at Seville's docks!"
On the narrow deck of the large, three-masted, square-rigged broad-beamed ship, Lilu Agott, the head of a Dutch private merchant