December 24, 1899, Christmas Eve, Port of Lampung, Sumatra, South Seas.

Since the Seris army completely captured Borneo and Java on the other side of the strait, the Dutch colonists on the island of Sumatra have been alarmed three times a day, and the atmosphere on the whole island has become increasingly tense, and in the densely populated cities of Palembang, Lampung, and other cities, rumors and discussions about the situation in the Dutch and Indian Islands are everywhere, and many former Dutch colonial officials have already packed up their finances and luggage, and will flee on neutral ships as soon as the Chinese troops on the other side of the strait come.

At the same time, the Dutch government in Sumatra was the governor of the Dutch government. Chelson was also racking his brains to find out how to resolve the war with the Seris as soon as possible, and while asking the government to mediate, he recruited a number of local indigenous coerced troops on the island, and stepped up the construction of fortifications on the eastern sea.

However, although the governor of Martin has done a lot of work, the development of the situation in Nanyang still poured cold water on him......

First of all, the Dutch colonial strongholds in Borneo and other places were pulled out by the Seris army, and since the 19th of this month, the eastern Indonesian colonial islands of Sumatra have all fallen under the iron heel of the Serisians. To make matters worse, even now, the native government of the Netherlands has not taken concrete measures to deal with it, and the lords of the native parliament have been so obviously hesitant to deal with the mighty Seris that they have not sent any troops to their East Indies colony until now. At this time, the Orientals across the sea did not stop their conquest. At some point, Seris's army will come to kill you.

"Mr. Governor, a call from the mainland tells you to hold Sumatra, the last colony of this kingdom."

"Hell, didn't they say when reinforcements would be sent? Without reinforcements, what should I take?! Now let alone dealing with the Orientals on the other side of the strait, even the eastern Aceh tribes on the island have been in turmoil, you call me back to the mainland, and ask them to send reinforcements as soon as possible! Otherwise, I can't guarantee that Sumatra will continue to exist......"

Thankfully. It's dragging its feet in its own country. Before the specific constitution could be negotiated, the British government agreed to its request for mediation, intending to help its side resolve the "dispute" with the Serisians. A week earlier, Dutch and British diplomats had set foot on Seris territory. A series of intense negotiations began with government officials on the other side.

Originally, the Dutch government wanted to rely on the British to deceive the tiger. Subduing and scaring off Seris's "delusional" attempts. But to the chagrin of the Dutch, these Orientals then came out of nowhere a lot of evidence that was extremely unfavorable to their own negotiations, for centuries. The massacre and persecution of the Chinese by the Dutch colonists in Nanyang instantly became a sharp giant axe wielded by the other side, which slashed at the hearts of Dutch diplomats in Beijing.

Although the Dutch government's negotiators in Beijing are still bluffing, there is no doubt that the whole negotiation process has since fully entered the orbit of the Serisians.

……

December 27, 1899 A.D., the Republic of Seris, the capital of Beijing.

"Mr. Balkred, this is already the last bottom line of our government! We are about to lose patience for negotiations because you are procrastinating, and we forgot to tell you that there are still more than 10,000 of you Dutch boys in our prisoner of war camps, and they are not in a good situation right now......"

Seris's Foreign Minister Li Enfu said with a smile to the Dutch negotiating envoy opposite.

Balkred frowned, "Minister Li Enfu, are you threatening me?" ”

"No, no," Li Enfu shook his head without changing his face, "You must know that our country's food is also precious, so we can't let them eat and drink for nothing, in order to offset their 'expenses' in the prisoner of war camp, it is natural to let them do some rough work for our country." ”

The Dutch envoy Balkred struggled, "No, your country can't treat them like this, it's unkind, aren't you afraid of international condemnation?" ”

"International condemnation? Are you joking, Mr. Balkred, that we have been extremely merciful in our treatment of Dutch prisoners of war compared to what you have done to our fellow citizens in the South Seas Colonies over the past hundreds of years! ”

Li Enfu sneered, "You know what? Many of our Nanyang parliamentarians have introduced a bill in the Diet calling for the execution of all your Dutch prisoners of war in Nanyang as punishment for your past atrocities against the Chinese. ”

The Dutch envoy panicked, "Oh! God, you can't do that! ”

"If you still care about them so much, why are you still ignoring my government's demands for negotiations? In the spirit of being responsible for these prisoners of war, I hope you will be pragmatic......" Li Enfu shrugged.

Balkred looked at the Chinese diplomat opposite with a gloomy face, and couldn't help cursing the other party's cunning in his heart.

While the defeat of the Dutch colonies in the East Indies was unacceptable at home, many citizens were angry at the losses in the war. In particular, the more than 10,000 Dutch prisoners of war held by the other side made the local Dutch parliamentary government feel very difficult, and many cities in the Netherlands have set off huge public demonstrations one after another, and he has even received orders from the country, hinting that his side should complete the negotiations as soon as possible, but on the other hand, he clearly requires himself to protect the interests of the Kingdom of the Netherlands as much as possible, what a hell!

The ambitions of the Orientals are so great that the other side not only demands to occupy Borneo, Java and other places that they have conquered, but even falsely threatens to withdraw their country from Sumatra, vainly wanting to occupy it for themselves, leaving almost no room for the Netherlands, which is really ...... Too "greedy"!

Even so, the other side is still not satisfied, and according to the Ceris government, it must also pay a large amount of war reparations. These damn Orientals, their desires are simply insatiable, do they even tear off the last dignity of the Kingdom of the Netherlands?! In Western Europe, the Netherlands is on the verge of ridicule.

First, the Transvaal Republic established in South Africa by the descendants of immigrants was bullied by the British, and later, even the Orientals "stirred up" in the South Seas, forcing themselves to seek support from their original enemies!

It is worth mentioning that at the same time that Ceris was attacking the Dutch colonies in the East Indies, the situation of the British war with the Boers in South Africa also changed.

From July 1899 onwards, Britain's newly inaugurated Gladstone government launched a series of diplomatic offensives with neighboring countries. The British first sent their German diplomats in Berlin to make a secret deal with the German government of Wilhelm II. While demanding that the German government stop sending arms and supplies to the Boers via the Namibe Railway, and that it would not interfere in Britain's "South African internal affairs" again, Britain would support Germany's Berlin-Baghdad railway plan and German expansion in the Middle East and Asia Minor as a bargain.

Soon after, Britain concluded a secret treaty with Portugal, requiring Portugal to promise not to allow the Transvaal to transport arms to the Transvaal through the Portuguese Gulf of Maputo, and to allow the British navy to use Portuguese Mozambican ports. In exchange, the British promised to assume "the security obligations of Portugal and its colonies" in the future, and the timid Portuguese government immediately agreed to the British's request, and on August 3, the two sides formally reached an agreement. At this point, the last foreign passage of the Boers was also blocked by the British hand, and the British government eased relations with other European countries through this series of diplomatic activities. In the midst of a treacherous diplomatic battle, the Boers were no match for the cunning British politicians. By the beginning of September, the British had created an international environment favorable to themselves......

After being betrayed by the "allies" in turn, the situation of the South African Boers took a sharp turn, and on September 27, the Boers were counterattacked by the British in the Kimberley area, and by October the Western Cape Railway was completely controlled by the British. Later, as British reinforcements arrived in South Africa, the British military build-up around Cape Town also increased dramatically, and by early December, the British government had committed an unprecedented 170,000 troops in South Africa. In the face of the "provocations" of the small Boer country in South Africa, the British really began to "desperately"! Since then, the war between Britain and Brazzaville in South Africa has officially entered the orbit of the empire on which the sun never sets.

As fate would have played a joke on the Dutch, just when they wanted to send their own volunteers to support the descendants of their South African compatriots, they were awakened by the sound of artillery from the East! For the first time, these sea coachmen began to discover that, at least in international affairs, the Kingdom of the Netherlands was still inseparable from the protection of the British.

At the same time, the British mentality of the war against the Dutch colonial authorities provoked by the Republic of Celis on the islands of the South Seas was indeed somewhat complicated. On the one hand, Seris's expansion in Southeast Asia made them very vigilant, and with the fall of Borneo, Java and other places by Seris's army, the maritime pattern in the Southern Ocean changed fundamentally for the first time, and since then the maritime supremacy in the South China Sea has been controlled by the Serisians. But on the other hand, it has to be said that the "reckless actions" of the Orientals in the Far East also echoed to some extent the Boer War in South Africa by the Empire on which the sun never sets. Even in the United Kingdom, many parliamentarians welcomed the "righteous action" of the Seris army in the South Seas.

In general, however, the British were hostile to Seris's expansion in Southeast Asia, especially in the occupied territory of Borneo, the world's third-largest island, which not only had its own rich and coveted resources, but also faced the Strait of Malacca, the British maritime trade hub in the Far East. Realistically, the expansion of the Republic of Seris largely threatened British dominance in the Far East...... (To be continued......)