Beijing, Dongjiaomin Lane, Dutch Legation in Qingguo.

The Dutch envoy to the Qing Dynasty, Krobber, sat in his office, his legs unfigured on his desk, holding a translation of a telegram in his hand, his eyebrows furrowed, and his face full of sorrow.

At this time, Krober's secretary pushed the door in and said, "Mr. Minister, Director Deng of the Shandong Office has asked to see Mr. Minister." ”

When Krober heard this, he had to smile bitterly, what should come is always coming, so he lowered his legs from the desk and said, "Please come to my office." ”

When Deng Yongjian, director of the Beijing Office of the East China Government, came to Krober's office, the minister had already changed his clothes and sat upright at his desk.

After the politeness, Deng Yongjian said: "Mr. Minister, last time I submitted our letter of representation to Mr. Minister, asking your country to take measures to stabilize the situation in Java and protect the interests of the Chinese in Java. ”

Krober picked up an envelope from the desk, handed it to Deng Yongjian, and said, "Director Deng, this is the attitude of our government's reply, I only received it yesterday, and I planned to visit you this afternoon, but I didn't expect you to come in person." ”

Deng Yongjian glanced at him, took the envelope, opened it, and found that the Dutch government's reply said: After the Dutch government's investigation, the negotiations raised by the East China government did not conform to the facts, and now the situation in Batavia is very stable, there has not been any anti-Chinese incident, only a small number of local Chinese have violated the colonial laws and regulations, and clashed with the local natives, and asked the East China government not to use individual incidents as an excuse to make false accusations against the Dutch Batavia colonial authorities, and worsen the relationship between the Netherlands and the Qing court.

In the process of reading the letter, Krober's heart couldn't help but feel empty, and at the same time, he kept greeting all the women in the family of the decision-making officials of the Dutch government. This is because when Krober sent the letter of representation from the East China government back to the Netherlands, he also specially attached his own opinions, explaining that the overseas Chinese were not the Qing court, so he must not be careless in dealing with their representations, and suggested that the country should immediately intervene in the situation in Batavia to stabilize the situation, or at least make an appearance, so as not to give the overseas Chinese an excuse to interfere. As a result, for three days after the telegram was sent, there was no news in the country, and Krober urged him twice, and it was not until last evening that such a reply came from the country.

After reading the reply from China, Krober knew that things were going to get worse, and the domestic bureaucrats obviously didn't take their opinions seriously, and thought that overseas Chinese were as easy to fool as the Qing court, but Krober knew that overseas Chinese could not be fooled. Originally, Krober wanted to send another telegram to China to emphasize the seriousness of the matter, but he did not expect that Deng Yongjian had already taken the initiative to come to the door, and Krober had to come up with a reply from China, because six days had passed since the time for the East China government to submit the negotiation letter, and it was inevitable that there would be no reply. I just don't know how overseas Chinese will react after reading this reply letter.

At this time, Deng Yongjian had already finished reading it, stuffed the telegram back into the envelope, put it in his briefcase, and then said with a straight face: "Mr. Minister, I am quite disappointed with the attitude and stand of your government, which either did not investigate at all, or deliberately reversed the facts and told nonsense with its eyes open. We have grasped the real situation on Java Island through reliable channels, and there is ample evidence to prove that there are serious anti-Chinese incidents on Java Island, and the interests of the Chinese living on Java Island have been seriously damaged. More than 1,000 Chinese have been killed, and the anti-Chinese campaign on the island continues, and if measures are not taken, more Chinese will be killed. ”

Krober smiled bitterly, in fact, there is no need for Deng Yongjian to say, he also knows very well that the anti-Chinese incident in Batavia must be true, because before he became the minister to the Qing Dynasty, Krober served as the counselor of the Governor's Office in Batavia, and he had personally experienced an anti-Chinese movement and understood the history of anti-Chinese in Southeast Asia, so of course Krober knew that the anti-Chinese incident occurred on Java Island, which was too normal, and the domestic bureaucrats were staring at how much taxes, profits, and dividends Batavia could bring every year, so they would not care whether they were excluded or not。

But even if the country has such an attitude, Krober can't go against the country, so he said: " Director Deng, what you just said is just your family's words, I do not deny that you have also done a serious investigation, but this reply letter, I believe that the Chinese government has made a conclusion after a serious investigation, of course, due to the tight time, and the geographical area is too far away, it is not excluded that our information has some deviations, so I will report the results of your investigation to the country again, and ask the country to conduct a detailed investigation, but you must also give the Chinese government enough time. ”

Deng Yongjian sneered and said, "Mr. Minister, no need. ”

Krobber couldn't help but be a little embarrassed, and said, "No need?"

Deng Yongjian nodded and said, " Yes, in view of the attitude of your government, we have serious doubts about whether your country will be able to conduct a serious investigation and deal with this anti-Chinese incident in a fair manner, and according to the information we have, the situation in Java is still deteriorating further, so in order to ensure the safety of the lives and property of the Javanese nationals and that their legitimate rights and obligations will not be further violated, we have decided to send warships and troops to Java Island to protect the Chinese nationals until the situation on Java Island is stabilized and the Batavian authorities give substantial guarantees that similar incidents will not occur in the future。 ”

When Krober heard this, his whole body was shocked, he didn't expect that the reaction of the overseas Chinese would be much more intense than he expected, and he would use this most extreme measure, which was actually an act of war, Krober knew very well that with the current strength of the Netherlands, it was impossible for the overseas Chinese to be the opponent, so he subconsciously said: "No, you can't do this." ”

Deng Yongjian said: "Why can't it, even if the Batavian authorities can't ensure the interests of overseas Chinese in China, then we can only protect overseas Chinese ourselves." ”

"Java is protected by the Netherlands, and by doing so, you are violating the sovereignty of the Netherlands and violating international law. ”

Deng Yongjian snorted and said: "For our East China government, the safety of Chinese nationals is the most important thing, and safeguarding the interests of Chinese nationals is the purpose of our government, and nothing can restrain us. ”

Krobber said: "In this way, I will contact our government again immediately, and I will definitely ask Badavi Adam to take measures to stabilize the situation in Java immediately, and I will definitely ensure the security and interests of the Chinese nationals." ”

Deng Yongjian shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, we have a high degree of distrust in your country's ability to control the situation and crisis, as well as the position of your government, so the decision of the army to protect overseas Chinese will not change." ”

Krober said: "In this case, since you can't trust our government, why don't you ask a third country to mediate and arbitrate, and the third country will send an observation team to Java to investigate, of course, you can also send someone to participate in the observation team and investigate together, how about it?"

Deng Yongjian still shook his head and said: "In principle, we are not opposed to the formation of an observation mission with the participation of a third country, but this will take too long, and the situation on Java Island is still deteriorating, so we must immediately send troops to protect the Chinese diaspora." If the Dutch government wishes to ask a third country to mediate, it can be arranged immediately, but our protection of overseas Chinese will not stop, and our protection of overseas Chinese is not directed against the Batavian authorities, nor will it have any claim to the Dutch authority in Java, but we also hope that when our warships arrive in Java, the Batavian authorities will not stop them, otherwise we will regard this as an act of war against us, and the government of your country will be responsible for all the consequences. ”

Hearing Deng Yongjian mention the war, Krober couldn't help but be a little anxious, and said: "You are not a formal government, so you are not qualified to protect the Qing people on behalf of the Qing government. ”

Deng Yongjian sneered and said: "Mr. Minister, don't confuse us with the Qing State, we represent the East China Government and not the Qing Government, whether Mr. Minister agrees with it or not, this is the attitude of our government, if Mr. Minister wants to complain or protest, you can go to the Qing Court's Prime Minister's Office Yamen to negotiate." Saying that, Deng Yongjian took out a document from his briefcase, handed it to Krober, and said, "This is an official document of our East China government. ”

In fact, when that sentence came out just now, Krober already regretted it, knowing that he had said the wrong thing, and the ministers of various countries knew that although overseas Chinese were ostensibly vassals to the Qing court, they were actually a completely independent political group, and all countries actually treated the East China government as an independent country, so Krober's passage was quite wrong at least at the diplomatic level. And at this time, Krober also knew very well that the decision of overseas Chinese to send troops to protect overseas Chinese would not change, and he had already reminded the country, but the domestic bureaucrats did not take it seriously at all, and he was just a minister, and it was impossible to change anything, so he nodded and said: "Okay, I will immediately inform my government of your government's attitude, and if my government responds, I will also notify Director Deng as soon as possible." ”

Deng Yongjian nodded and said, "Okay, if our government has any other decisions, we will immediately notify Mr. Minister and leave." ”

After Deng Yongjian left, Krober immediately called the information clerk and said, "Immediately draft a telegram and send it back to China by emergency communication." ”