Bali, east of Banten Island, was the easternmost area of Banten Province of the Tang Dynasty.

The Tang Empire built a small castle here, with more than 100 soldiers stationed all year round, and nearly 1,000 immigrants, and a certain number of militias can also be organized among the immigrants.

Such a colonial stronghold cannot be compared with Banten Castle and other places, and this kind of colonial stronghold is a very typical small colonial stronghold.

However, this kind of small colonial stronghold is also much better than the rest of Banten Province, and in other places, there is not even a colonial stronghold fortress, at most it is just a trading post.

A few years ago, the Tang Dynasty had not yet set up Banten Province, and the affairs of the Wanten region were basically managed by the Tang Western Company.

In addition to establishing a fortress in Banten Port, which was used as a base and used to control the Sunda Strait, the actions of Datang Western Company in other areas were actually not too big.

Elsewhere, the early strategy of the Tang Dynasty was to build trading posts and then trade with the local natives.

Not to mention, in fact, in the 16th century, the trade activities in the Nanyang region were quite active!

Because Malacca in the South Seas region is the throat connecting Europe, West Asia and India.

At the same time, many specialties of the Nanyang region, especially spices and precious timber, are widely welcomed by merchants in East Asia, Europe and other regions.

This dynamic commercial climate also influenced the rise and demise of indigenous states in the South Seas, and this rise and demise had a lot to do with outsiders.

The Kingdom of Manchuria, which used to be entrenched on both sides of Malacca, was killed by the Portuguese, otherwise the Portuguese would not be able to control Malacca, an important strait connecting the east and west.

Another example is the Kingdom of Banten, a small kingdom with no name, which was also destroyed by outsiders.

Who is this outsider? Naturally, it is the great Tang Empire, no, to be precise, it should be a trading company that died in the Tang Empire: the Tang Western Company!

With the same fate as the Kingdom of Banten, there is also the Kingdom of Bali!

The kingdom also died in the Tang Empire!

It doesn't matter who the aborigines of the island are, no one cares anyway, what is really worth recording is that with the development of commerce and trade in the South Seas, Indian merchants were brought with them, Hinduism was brought with them, and a large number of merchants from Western Asia such as Arabia were brought in, and then Arab religion was also brought in.

The detailed process does not need to be detailed, but in general, it will not take decades, and almost the entire Indonesian archipelago will be green......

And then the few remaining Hindu natives, some of them, fled to Bali, and after decades of tossing around on their own, they began to build their own country a few years ago!

But what, although religion is terrible, guns and artillery are even more terrible!

In the early years, when the Datang Western Company came here, the Datang Western Company did not bother to fight with them, but chose to reach an agreement with the local princes and nobles, and then established a trading post here, and used the indigenous port as a supply port.

This is the result of the unique policy of the Datang Western Company, the colonial stronghold established by the Datang Western Company in the Banten Islands, there is only one such one, which is Banten City, and in other places, they did not choose to establish a colonial stronghold, more often, the Datang Western Company is more inclined to cooperate with the local indigenous forces, set up trading posts in the local area, supply ports, and then do business with each other.

However, when the imperial government took over the ruling power of the Banten Islands from the Datang Western Company and established the Banten Mansion, the high-level civil and military officials of the Banten Mansion headed by Zhu Jiaxiang implemented a completely different policy from the era of the Datang Western Company.

Datang Western Company is for money, so they only need to control the Sunda Strait and Banten Port, which are strategic places, and in other places, just establish a trading post for trade, unless the local natives are closed to the country and do not trade with them, otherwise, Datang Western Company will not start a war if there is nothing to do, and this war is also very expensive!

But the Imperial Officials are not here to do business!

Almost all of the high-level civil and military officials in Banten Province are unsatisfactory officials in China, and except for a very few who want to come to such a difficult place to make a fortune, in fact, a considerable number of them have been demoted.

When these people came to Banten, they all wanted to expand their territory so that they could return to their homeland by virtue of their merits, but few of them were willing to stay overseas and mingle with the natives for a lifetime.

In this case, will they get along well with the local natives?

Impossible!

Since the establishment of Banten Province, the local policy has been expansionism, they are not satisfied with just one Banten city, they want to control the whole of Banten Islands.

When the fleet of the Tang Western Company first came to Banten, it wiped out the Banten Kingdom with a wave of his hand, and when the imperial official took over Banten, the first thing he did that year was to attack Bali!

At that time, with the existing military strength of Banten Province, it was impossible to completely control Banten Island, Sumen Island, Makassar Island and other islands, and the large island could not be defeated.

At the same time, in order to get more trade resources, but also to control the Little Banten Islands (Little Sunda Islands), and the more important reason is to control the passage in and out of Australia, the implementation of the Australian immigration plan that is still in a top secret state, so the entire Little Banten Islands need to be occupied, and it is impossible for Europeans to get involved.

The combination of many circumstances led to the first target chosen by the top management of Banten Province that year was Bali!

The process of the attack was naturally smooth, and with the support of several warships sent by the Luzon squadron, the Banten squadron sent a large number of main forces to Bali, and in a few days the remnants of the indigenous forces on the entire island were wiped out.

It is surprising that the local indigenous princes and nobles are still more courageous, in the face of the Tang Dynasty, even if they could not resist, but they also used a very extreme way to express their dignity, unable to resist in the front, they used all kinds of small means to kill the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty, landed for a few days, and did not kill or wound a few people in the head-on battle, but there were more than a dozen people killed by the indigenous attacks at night.

In the end, when the landing of the Tang Army completely wiped out the island, dozens of the remaining royal families and nobles of the Bali Kingdom committed suicide in front of the Tang Army!

This move stunned the Tang officers who led the command of the army at that time!

The commander of the Banten garrison regiment, who led the landing force in charge of the Bali operation at that time, was deeply impressed by the bravery of the local natives!

Then he contacted several waves of familiar pirates, or maritime merchants, anyway, all the same, this year in the waters of East Asia, pirates and maritime merchants are not separated!

Yang Hong and they generously said: The natives of Bali give away for free, and they don't charge a penny, as long as you want, you can go directly to the island to arrest people!

The Datang military can also provide logistical supplies, of course, this has to be charged!

In this way, the natives who once heroically resisted Bali were cleaned up by the pirates in just one year, leaving a piece of pure and unlawless Bali for Datang!

Therefore, in Bali in the eleventh year of Xuanping, in fact, there is not a single indigenous person on the island, well, at least not on the surface, as for whether there are any remnants in the deep mountains and old forests, it is unknown.

On the entire island, there are only about 1,000 immigrants from the country, and there are nearly 200 army soldiers stationed there, who belong to the Banten garrison.

Normally, Bali is very calm, but the last month has not been very quiet, and the small port on the island has welcomed a large ship, which has become busy.

The Banten detachment arrived here half a month ago, and then used Bali as a base to target the eastern part of Banten Island, that is, the Clearance Campaign.

Although the base in Bali is small, it is barely enough to serve as a logistics supply base, after all, the Banten detachment came to the eastern part of Banten Island to clear up, not to occupy any place, the main goal is to carry out a deterrent military strike against the local natives, that is, the Bajang Kingdom.

The Kingdom of Bajang, which is currently the only indigenous state on Banten Island, which rules most of the area, has been a misnomer since the royal infighting decades ago.

The Bazhang Kingdom has now become a nominal kingdom, and most of the lords and vassals are independent, such as the former Bandan, which is actually a lord belonging to the Bazhang Kingdom, although it is said to be a kingdom, but it is still not officially independent from the Bazhang Kingdom.

In the ninth year of Xuanping, the high-level civil and military officials of the Wandan Mansion of the Tang Empire deliberately provoked the internal fighting of the lords of the Bazhang Kingdom, and the fight was quite lively.

So in recent years, the Banten Island area has been quite chaotic, with a few supported by the Tang Empire, some supported by the Portuguese, and some local forces, in short, rather chaotic.

But it's a pity that several of the ones supported by the Tang Dynasty are not very strong, they have been defeated again and again, and they are about to be killed, and the high-level officials of Banten Mansion are worried that after the civil strife in the Bajang Kingdom is over, they will be reunited, and then counterattack Banten City and other western areas of Banten Island.

Under such a big backdrop, the fleet went to the eastern part of Banten Island to carry out military strikes, and by the way, deterrence by force!

And these natives really have this idea, they have concentrated a large number of troops in the central and eastern regions, and with the help of the Portuguese, they will have already slaughtered Banten City, ready for a great war to expel the invaders of the Tang Dynasty!