Under the blue sea and blue sky, two black-gray pillars of smoke first appeared on the sea level, and slowly the main sail side masts of the Taishan and Huashan also appeared on the sea surface with full sails.

The gulls flying in the sky seem to remind people that this place is close to the coastline, Lin Haijiang put down the monocular in his hand a little depressed, the surname of the telescope in this era can really not meet Lin Haijiang's needs, Lin Haijiang knows very well that before the precision instrument industry has not reached a certain accuracy, high-magnification telescopes and gun sights can only be a luxury.

The proportion of Chinese in Lin Haijiang's team has still expanded a lot, and a young man named Tang Ju has entered his sight, a descendant of the Nanyang family, and has traveled to Britain, France and Prussia and other European countries, his strategic views can be described as very sharp, especially a pair of keen eyes seem to be able to see everything! Such a talent is what Lin Haijiang lacks most at this stage! So Tang Ju naturally became Lin Haijiang's staff.

Since it is cooperating with various forces in the South Seas, Lin Haijiang must also show a sincerity of cooperation, otherwise how much can he do with the four warships close together?

In the Batavia city of Lin Haijiang, I found a very good partner, a governor who values money more than life, and the two sides can be said to hit it off, and the cooperation is mutually beneficial, and all the previous misunderstandings seem to have disappeared.

Mark Lin. Count Botto even allowed the Chinese to build their own cities in Indonesia, recruited patrols to assist the Dutch army in maintaining law and order, and agreed to a series of conditions such as the Chinese could open their own schools, but all of this was subject to the jurisdiction of the colonial government.

The Chinese have a lot of power in Nanyang, and most of these forces are constantly connected by family marriages, and even if the foreign forces are very strong, it is difficult to integrate into this unique system in a short time, such as the Sun surnamed Laosuo, who gave a knife to Lin Haijiang, is the patriarch of the Sun family, and it is said that his clan history can be traced back to the descendants of Sun Quan of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period.

A pair of twin sisters with very different surnames who were very angry with Lin Haijiang before were the pearls of the Sun family, and on the issue of how to effectively use the connections and wealth of the Nanyang Chinese, Lin Haijiang behaved like a humble gentleman, and he very politely rejected the favorable conditions offered by the Nanyang side.

Because Lin Haijiang understands the truth that if you want to hurry, you can't reach it, and the necessary superficial work must be done before the water is completed, and it is far more secure and practical to attract sponsorship than to gradually win people's hearts.

Most of these Nanyang Chinese have been adrift overseas for several generations, and they have become a group of professional businessmen, Lin Haijiang doesn't think that with a passionate speech, he can let people send their children to the battlefield and make people almost bankrupt to support you?

Lin Haijiang knows very well that the logical wisdom of modern people comes from the ancients, even in the era of backward and closed information, people as intelligent beings will have their own unique thinking logic, to put it simply, the predecessors are not idiots and fools, and they must have their own consciousness of being fooled before fooling others.

All in all, Lin Haijiang left a very good impression on the Nanyang Chinese, a young man with an ancient way!

However, Lin Haijiang also made a mistake, that is, he reported the name of the 'Delong Pavilion' in his home, which made the maritime merchants of Nanyang thunderous, representing an underground force in Guangzhou that no one could despise.

Under the guidance of Lieutenant Commander Wentuk's two shallow-water gunboats, the four large ships commanded by Lin Haijiang anchored in the coastal waters, and after Lieutenant Colonel Wentuk boarded the Zhenyuan, he pointed to the coastline not far away and said: "That is the main island of Sumatra, the terrain on the island is very complicated, and the local aborigines are very unfriendly. ”

"Hmm!" Lin Haijiang nodded slightly, in his memory, Sumatra Island was in a northwest-southeast trend, intersecting with the equator in the middle, and the whole island was composed of two main areas, the Barisan Mountains in the northwest and the swampy area in the east.

Most of Sumatra is covered by tropical forests, and for Lin Haijiang, he is more interested in the strategic location of Sumatra.

Because Sumatra Island is separated from Java Island by the Sunda Strait in the southwest, the Malay Peninsula across the Strait of Malacca in the north, Borneo by the Karimada Strait in the east, and the Indian Ocean in the west, the entire island of Sumatra has a large number of natural deep-water ports.

In peacetime, it can do some business without capital, and at critical moments, it can contain the British Far East Fleet, and it can also intercept the main fleet of the British homeland that has come from far away to supply the poor.

And according to Lin Haijiang's memory, the Barisan Mountains traverse the island of Sumatra, and high-content deposits of high-carbon white bituminous coal, iron, gold, copper, aluminum, and calcium have been found in this area.

The minerals emitted by the volcano make the soil fertile for cultivation, and the mountains are beautiful and charming, and these mountains form a natural defensive barrier on which fortified forts would be impregnable until the advent of heavy bombers.

In the eastern part of Sumatra, rivers carry silt downstream, creating a vast alluvial plain dotted with swamps and lakes. Although the area has little arable land and is not good for agriculture, it has played an extremely important role in Indonesia's economic development in later generations, because "oil is produced above the ground and oil is produced underground"! Palm oil and petroleum.

However, according to Lieutenant Colonel Ventuk, the only densely populated areas of Sumatra are North Sumatra and the central highlands of West Sumatra, and the largest markets for the locals are in the Old Port and Medan.

Sumatra Island can be said to have everything that Lin Haijiang needs, and it is not big or small, which is the most suitable for the development and accumulation of strength.

However, for the Acehnese people on the island, who gave the Dutch a headache, Lin Haijiang also had a headache!

After all, since the 19th century, British and Dutch colonial powers have competed in Aceh for control of the Strait of Malacca.

However, the Dutch had not yet signed the Treaty of East India with the British, and the Acehnese were not ordinary natives who surrendered after a few shots.

Historically, until 1871, when Britain and the Netherlands signed a treaty, the Netherlands recognized the British right to trade on an equal footing in the Dutch East Indies, and the British declared that the Netherlands had the right to move freely in Sumatra.

It was not until March 1873 that the Netherlands gathered the strength to send warships to invade Aceh and provoke the Aceh War. After a bitter battle, in January of the following year, the Dutch army occupied the capital of Greater Aceh and the royal palace, and the Sultan of Aceh, Mahmad Shah, was forced to retreat to the mountains, where he died soon after.

At the beginning of 1874, the Dutch announced the annexation of Aceh, and the local feudal lords of Aceh supported a new sultan to lead the people of Aceh to continue the struggle against the Netherlands. After 1880, the famous Islamic leaders of Aceh, such as Dugu Uma and Dugu Tyro, successively launched a large-scale anti-Dutch "holy war" to defend Islam and drive out the invading infidels, and adopted guerrilla tactics to deal a heavy blow to the Dutch colonial army.

Overall, the Dutch invasion of Sumatra can be said to have swallowed a barbed fish bone, a fish bone that the British had always wanted to eat but were afraid of getting stuck, and this long-lasting invasion finally led to the final rout and exit of the Dutch in South Asia.

From the perspective of the overall strategic layout, the generosity of the British exhausted the Dutch, while the British became the biggest winners without spending a single soldier!

"Let's visit Mahmad Shah, Sultan of Aceh!" Lin Haijiang's words startled Lieutenant Colonel Wen Tuke, and his head suddenly shook like a rattle.

"Then you can find me some guides and translators!" Lin Haijiang smiled slightly at Lieutenant Colonel Wentuke, this request did not seem to be difficult for Lieutenant Colonel Wentuke.

Lin Haijiang gave Lawrence some advice before leaving the ship, and then loaded the selected gifts on the clipper, because Lin Haijiang had been doing dishonorable deeds in the Mediterranean for a long time, so there were a large number of various goods on the Taishan and Huashan ships.

For example, large glass mirrors, exquisite enamelled porcelain tea sets, delicate spices, beautiful silk from China, magnificent velvet satin from Europe, large table clocks in platinum and so on.

Lin Haijiang already had a preliminary plan for how to deal with the Acehnese people on the island, that is, to get them used to how to get something for nothing, and let their sultan sink into luxurious material comforts.

Because Lin Haijiang knows that it may be difficult for a person to aspire to make a career, but it is easy to indulge in luxury.

Before the arrival of the Dutch and the British, the Acehnese had been living a subsistence life of fish farming, and the simple life also made them lack curiosity about the outside world.

The Dutch and the British brought more unreasonableness, extortion, and blackmail, and for Aceh, a nation-state polity, it could only lead to endless revolt.

However, it is extremely rare to come to visit with many gifts! The news was soon reported to Mahmad Shah, the Great Sultan of Aceh, and to Queen Doguvi.

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