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The smoke of gunpowder on the battlefield gradually dissipated, and countless ship wrecks and debris floated on the lonely sea, and the fleet led by Li Han and Mei Dongxing had immediately engaged in the sea area at this moment, returning to the Natuna Islands with captured personnel and supplies.

The battle in the Andaman Sea ended without incident, and as the victorious side, the Wehrmacht Navy captured not only 36 serviceable pirate ships, but more importantly, more than 5,000 pirates and more than 10 Chinese Kapitan.

The more than 5,000 captives belonged to 13 Chinese pirates and 17 Chinese Kapitan, of which four of the leaders of the 13 pirate forces died in battle, and the remaining nine were captured, while none of the 17 Chinese Kapitan and the British Kirby, who went back and forth, died, and all of them honestly became prisoners of the Wehrmacht Navy.

According to the distribution plan negotiated by Li Han and Cai Jiu in advance, 700 Chinese pirates who were not guilty of great evil were assigned to the Kismayo stronghold, and among the remaining 4,500 captives, except for more than 400 who committed crimes and were directly executed, the others were distributed to northern Annam, Songkhla, and Natuna Islands as the main labor force for building fortifications.

The plan for the disposition of the more than 5,000 captives was easily agreed upon, but when the final disposition of the nine pirate leaders and the seventeen Chinese Kapitan was discussed, there was a clear disagreement between the several people.

The naval fleet led by Li Han was the main force to ambush the pirate fleet, and from the perspective of the soldiers, Li Han believed that the evil was all eliminated, and since these pirate leaders and the Chinese Kapitan were all arrested, it was natural to kill them all and solve the maritime security problem of the troubled migrant transport fleet in one fell swoop.

However, Mei Dongxing considered the long-term security of the Han State in the Nanyang stronghold, but he did not agree with Li Han's view.

"General Li, the Chinese Kapitan is dependent on the Dutch and the British, and if we don't solve the colonial power of the Dutch and the British in Nanyang, even if we kill these Kapitan, the foreigners will soon support a new group of Chinese leaders to take their place, so it is not difficult to kill seventeen Chinese Kapitan, but after all, these Chinese Kapitan are subordinate forces of the Dutch and the British, once we kill them all, what will the Dutch and the British think? Will they think that we want to incite the Chinese in the South Seas to confront them, or that the Han Kingdom is ambitious and wants to infect the colonies of the South Seas? ”

Mei Dongxing carefully explained: "The core interests of the Han State are in the local area, and His Majesty's establishment of a transit base in Nanyang is mainly to transport Chinese immigrants for the country, not to replace the position of foreigners and take Nanyang as his own."

General Li, Your Excellency must understand that the naval fleet has a limited stay in the South Seas, and now it has offended the foreigners, and it is completely at a standoff with them, limited by the deterrence of the naval fleet, the Dutch may not act rashly, but after ten days and half a month, the naval fleet escorted Miss Wu back to the mainland, and the Dutch have no scruples, and it is very likely that the British will retaliate against us, so for the sake of His Majesty's plan and the safety of the Nanyang stronghold, we still have to be patient for a while and let these Chinese Kapitan go for the time being. ”

"Lord May, I don't understand that the pirates who attacked the convoy were backed by the Dutch, and now that they have all been exterminated by our army, haven't we already torn our skin with the Dutch? Even if we release the captive Chinese Kapitans, will the Dutch really be willing to swallow the dumb loss and live in peace with us? ”

Li Han asked rhetorically.

"It is true that the Dutch want to expel our forces from the East Indies, but the Dutch are short of troops in the South Seas, and if the two sides tear their faces and confront each other in an all-out way, it will only lead to a defeat for both sides."

Mei Dongxing said while looking at the captured several old gunboats, and explained: "The Dutch are no longer the sea coachmen of two hundred years ago, their original colonies in Africa and the Americas were either robbed by the French or sold to the British at a low price, and now their remaining colonies are mainly the East Indies, and the Dutch government attaches great importance to the possession of the East Indies, as long as we do not tear our faces with the Netherlands in the open, they dare not do anything against the Natuna Islands and the Taiping forces attached to us." ”

Territorial area and population are the main factors to measure a country's overall strength, and territorial area tends to occupy a more important position among the two factors.

In the early stage of the Great Voyage, the population of the Netherlands and the population of Britain were not much different, and then the first industrial revolution came, benefiting from a wider territory, the British population grew rapidly, and soon opened the gap with the Netherlands, which made the Netherlands at a disadvantage in the war with the British for maritime supremacy, and finally ended in failure, and most of the colonies and overseas trade markets were taken away by the British, leaving only a few colonies such as the East Indies to live in despair.

At the same time, because of the loss of a huge amount of overseas interests, the industrial development rate of the Netherlands was much lower than that of Britain and France, and there was a huge gap between the ironclad ships equipped by the Dutch navy and the warships used to maintain colonial rule compared with Britain and France.

Li Han, Mei Dongxing and others can see the dilemma of the lack of strength of the Dutch rule over the East Indies, but because the Netherlands stands behind the British, Mei Dongxing has never dared to underestimate the Dutch colonists, and when dealing with the seventeen Chinese Kapitan, more consideration is to maintain the apparent peace between the two sides and not to make things out of control.

War is only a means, and the competition of interests between countries is more of an exchange and compromise of interests on the back.

After hearing Mei Dongxing's explanation, although Li Han understood that it was inappropriate to directly execute the seventeen Chinese Jiapitan, he felt very unwilling to let them go.

Li Han was not the only one who was unwilling, Cai Jiu and many of the middle and high-level officers who participated in the battle were also unwilling to let go of the captured Chinese Kapitan in vain, so after more than an hour of discussion, Mei Dongxing, Li Han, Cai Jiu and others reached a final plan for disposing of the prisoners: 1. Li Han selected four pirate ships with good performance as Zizhong transport ships and placed them under the jurisdiction of the Wehrmacht Navy, and the remaining captured ships were all handed over to the transport fleet to be used to transport Chinese immigrants and protect the safety of the shipping routes.

All 29 pirate leaders were executed, and the Wehrmacht Navy took over the belongings and family members they had left behind in their lair, and the territory was taken over by Liu Wu, the pirate leader who surrendered to Chengcheng.

The 37 Chinese Kapitan were paid by their relatives and subordinates according to ransom amounts ranging from 200,000 taels to 400,000 taels each, and a total of about 5 million taels of silver was required.

Fourth, he warned the Dutch colonial government and demanded that the Governor of the East Indies cancel the discriminatory policies against Chinese merchants in exchange for the safety of the 17 Chinese Kapitan and the Han State's understanding of the incident.

Of course, it is unlikely that the Dutch government will cancel the high taxes set by the Chinese, but using this incident to put pressure on the Dutch colonists and reduce their exploitation of the Chinese in the East Indies is of great benefit to the Han government to win the support of the Chinese in Nanyang, especially the wealthy Chinese businessmen.

In the second half of the 19th century, the Netherlands, Britain and other countries had not yet completed their full control over the Nanyang region, and the status of Chinese armed forces and Chinese businessmen in the local area was much higher than that at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Chinese businessmen also had much stronger control over their own private wealth than they did at the beginning of the 20th century, and the Qing government at this time did not attach much importance to the Nanyang Chinese community, resulting in the fact that although the wealthy Nanyang Chinese businessmen were wealthy, they did not dare to withdraw funds to invest in the mainland, so that a large amount of funds were not effectively used. However, the rapid development of the Han country, heavy industry, light industry, commerce and other industries need to invest a lot of money, therefore, to provide security for overseas Chinese, and then attract overseas Chinese investment funds is a work that Mei Dongxing attaches great importance to, and it is also one of the requirements of the Han government for the person in charge of the Nanyang region.