Saturday, July 21, 1899, longitude 106 degrees 45 minutes E, latitude 5 degrees 08 minutes S.

In the early morning, on the ocean about 20 nautical miles north of Java in the West Indonesian Islands in the South Ocean, more than 20 large Seris steam passenger liners flying blood-colored flags were speeding towards the port of Coconut City in the southwest at a speed of 14 knots under the escort of seven warships.

On the deck of a warship at the forefront, two passengers in bright and straight military uniforms were looking at the sea in the distance with great interest, looking at the target port that was already faintly visible in their sight.

Under the instructions of the domestic government, the fourth Ryukyu-class battleship of the South China Sea Fleet of the Republic of China, the battleship "Nanjing", under the leadership of its captain and Navy Colonel Xue Yuanzhou, was ordered to set off from its home port of Seris (formerly the port of Manila, renamed the port of Seris after the War of Independence of the Republic) on the evening of the 18th.

After nearly three days and nights of sailing, Seris's mixed naval fleet finally arrived at its destination as scheduled......

Not far from the flagship "Nanjing" are two Lelang-class light escort ships "Yuxi" and "Tongchuan" that the Navy commissioned just last year.

This kind of light surface combat ship tailored for the patrol escort of the Seris colony has a maximum full load displacement of 4,175 tons, and although it has only just entered the naval combat sequence, it has become the largest number of ships in service in the domestic navy and the most frequently used type of ship.

For this Lelang-class light warship, which was characterized by Chen Zeyu as a "destroyer", the domestic naval officers and men were full of curiosity and inevitably surprised by its "strange design". Compared to its "shabby" armament, which only has three pairs of twin 155mm/20 caliber rapid-fire naval guns, the size of the Lelang-class fuel depot has reached a staggering 530,000 liters, which is enough to support it to sail more than 7,600 kilometers at a speed of 10 knots, which is a standard "economy" surface ship. In addition, because of the use of the latest multi-stage impulse steam turbine system in China, the maximum speed of this class of warships exceeds that of the Navy's previous Cochin-class cruisers, reaching an amazing 27.5 knots.

According to Ceris naval technicians, the Lelang-class destroyer has the capability to fly four voyages between mainland China and Hawaii in at least one year.

In addition to the superior endurance, the passenger environment of the Lelang-class ship is also excellent, especially the cabins of several ships dedicated to naval officers, and the degree of humanization of its interior decoration design is even better than that of domestic commercial passenger ships. Of course, everything has a price, and in order to use this special method to improve the morale of the officers and men on the ship, the final contract cost of the entire battleship will inevitably increase a little.

On the deck of the battleship "Yuxi", Captain Xu Jingqiu's pet, a brown British shorthair cat, was sitting on the ground, and the cat who had just enjoyed breakfast was licking the fur on his front legs, while curiously looking at the two "strange friends" on the opposite ship not far away......

"The cat is watching you again, sir......"

On the foredeck of the battleship Nanjing, the first mate on the ship, Deng Hua said teasingly to the captain Xue Yuanzhou.

The young fleet commander glanced at his deputy beside him and replied lightly, "Well, you mean to say that I look like 'her' lover...... Or am I more popular with the cat than 'her' owner? ”

"Oh, no, no," said the first mate Deng Hua with a smile, "I don't mean to tease you at all, it's just that I don't understand why this shorthair cat chooses to run out of the cabin of the 'Yuxi' every time you come out to breathe......

"Hmph, how do I know, could it be that this cat thinks the weather has been good for the past two days?"

Xue Yuanzhou's eyelids jumped, and he said, "I can't believe that my superiors would agree to Xu Jingqiu and them bringing their respective pets on the ship...... Hmph, can bring good luck to the battleship? This kind of hellish reason can be passed! ”

"Haha, that's natural," Deng Hua said with a smile, "Most of those high-level officials studied in Greenwich, England, and it's not surprising that they inherited some of the 'temper' of the British." ”

"Well, don't talk about this cat...... Send me a telegram informing all the combat ships in the fleet that, with the exception of the two Lelang-class destroyers, are in front of the fan and are moving at full speed at 22 knots......."

Xue Yuanzhou shook his head, raised the telescope in his hand to look at the port in front of him, and ordered with a serious expression.

"Pass my order, all ships are loaded with live ammunition, ready for battle, and let's go and 'say hello' to the Dutch together!"

"Yes, sir!"

The first mate nodded in response, gave a military salute, and then walked to the bridge......

……

In late July 1899, when the British were mired in the colonial war in South Africa, the Republic of Seris in the Far East launched a deliberate colonial war in the Dutch Islands under the pretext of the "unfair treatment" of the Dutch in the Indonesian archipelago to their own nationals!

Of course, the above paragraph is completely the opinion of Western public opinion, and in fact, the reason why the Republic wants to launch a war against the Dutch authorities in Indonesia this time is not for no reason...... As early as more than a month ago, when a detachment of the South China Sea Fleet of Seris cruised to the dark sands of the South Seas, it coincided with the wave of anti-Chinese movement set off by the Dutch in Siwu. The reason for the incident is also very simple, a local overseas Chinese mining company has explored a new alum mine with huge reserves in the mountains of western Kalimantan, and the Dutch colonists, blinded by wealth, have launched an ugly trick in an instant. In the same month, the Dutch authorities in Indonesia tried to confiscate the Chinese mining company, and after being resisted by the Chinese forces, they then dispatched their own troops in the local colony, and in the subsequent series of conflicts, the Chinese immigrants were killed and wounded, in addition to a large number of local expatriates were imprisoned by the Dutch. In the eyes of the Dutch, what they are doing may be just a matter of course, and their tolerance is countless times more "generous" than the genocide and abuse they have committed against Chinese immigrants in Indonesia over the past few decades.

As early as 1640 AD, the Dutch colonists in the Far East took thousands of Chinese from the mainland to help them engage in handicrafts and agriculture in Indonesia in order to solve their own labor shortage in Southeast Asia at that time. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the number of Chinese immigrants in Batavia alone had exceeded 10,000, and by about 1720, the total population of Chinese immigrants in the entire Dutch Islands had reached more than one million. From the mid-18th century, the Dutch in Southeast Asia changed their policy of trying to attract Chinese, and instead began to support the local indigenous forces to exclude, crack down and even more brutally kill and persecute the Chinese immigrants. In 1735, the Dutch East India Company officially issued an order restricting the entry of overseas Chinese, and in 1739, the Dutch ordered all the so-called overseas Chinese without residence permits to be escorted to Banda Island, Sri Lanka and the Cape of Good Hope as slaves, and in October 1740, the Dutch colonists used the pretext of searching for overseas Chinese to hide weapons, instigating the local indigenous mob in Indonesia to kill a large number of Chinese immigrants, and the whole robbery and massacre lasted for 7 days in the Dutch and Indian Islands, and the Dutch recalled afterwardsThe blood of the Chinese immigrants stained all the streams of Batavia red......

Faced with this situation, the Qing Dynasty in the north for hundreds of years never expressed any opinion, seeing that its own rulers were so indifferent, and the Dutch colonial authorities in Nanyang began to become more and more "indifferent" to the Chinese people under their rule...... It's a pity that the history of the East has inadvertently changed a page, and this time the Dutch have to face a strong figure like Chen Zeyu who likes to speak with naval guns! It would not be long before these Dutch colonists would find out how wrong they were.

As a matter of fact, on the very day that the Dutch stretched out their "claws," the government of Ceris in the north, thousands of miles away, had already received information -- the intelligence services of the Republic had stationed various local intelligence gathering personnel in various parts of the Dutch Islands several years earlier, and in the early days of this incident, the intelligence officers here had already reported the whole situation to the central authorities through the local underground radio station.

At that time, it was indeed a very coincidental coincidence that a patrol fleet of the country was cruising in the waters of the South Pacific not far from Simu in Kalimantan, and the commander of this detachment was Colonel Chen Jinhua, who was then the captain of the Ryukyu-class lead ship of the Republic of China's Ryukyu-class "Dreadnought", and he was leading the South China Sea detachment fleet, including one Ryukyu-class battleship and three Cochin-class cruisers, on the way to inspect the islands in the South China Sea. After the fleet received the relevant order telegram from Chen Zeyu in Beijing, it immediately rushed to Siwu in a vigorous manner.

The order Chen Zeyu gave him was actually a power of attorney instructing him to use the force of the fleet at will to "defend himself appropriately" if necessary. And such an authorization is in the eyes of Chen Jinhua, who is full of giant ship cannons, it is an order to open artillery and attack at any time!

At about 15 o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, the Seris detachment, which sailed outside the port of Surbu, held a fleet exercise in front of the Dutch. Chen Jinhua let the warships in his fleet unscrupulously fire several naval gun salvos within the limit range of his naval guns, and "very unfortunately" sank many Dutch ships in the harbor. Such an arrogant foreign action was naturally met with fierce protests from the Dutch authorities, not only the local Dutch in Indonesia, but also the Dutch consulate in Beijing sent people to send an official diplomatic letter to the government of the Republic of China. He threw it into the wastebasket without even looking......

……

On July 21, just as their own foreign traffic was rejected by the Dutch authorities, the South China Sea Fleet of the Seris Navy once again bombarded Batavia (Coconut City), the capital of the Dutch in the West Indonesian archipelago! On the same day, the Government of the Republic of Seris submitted a declaration of war to the Dutch Consulate in Beijing.

In just three days after the declaration of war between the two sides, Seris's naval fleet had completely wiped out the Dutch sea power on Java by the 23rd.

At the beginning of the war, the Dutch had already had old defenses in the local colonial capital of Batavia, and they were powerless against the Seris fleet that was cruising and firing in the harbor. Although the five batteries in the harbor of the Dutch also fought back, these old breech guns had extremely limited range and hit rate, and were no match for the Seris Navy, in addition, several torpedo boats of the Dutch Navy in the harbor also did not play any role, and in the face of the Seris surface ships equipped with a large number of rapid-fire naval guns, these torpedo boats equipped with early compressed air short-range fish were finally easily destroyed by the Ceris naval fleet.

By the evening of the 23rd, the Dutchman's naval flagship in the Indonesian colony, the "Rena Christie", also capsized into the turbulent ocean under the concentrated bombardment of the Seris navy.

After destroying the enemy's negligible coastal defenses and the few remaining old steam ships, Seris's entire division of more than 20,000 army troops landed at the port. In the face of the surging Seris army, the pitiful garrison of the Dutch colonial authorities in Batavia did not play a role at all. In the midst of the panic, Martin Chelson, the governor of the local colony, fled to Sumatra on a merchant ship from neutral Portugal to Sumatra, and by noon the whole port was completely under the control of Seris.

After the news came out, the whole world was shocked! While the countries of the world were shocked by the "moves" of the Orientals, the Seris army did not stop its steps, and on July 26, the Seris Navy again shelled the Dutch port of Pontianak on the island of Kalimantan.

As one of the main strongholds of the Dutch colony in Nanyang, Pontianak Port was stationed at that time with more than 6,000 troops, nearly a division of Dutch troops, it should be said that this Dutch colonial army equipped with modern firearms still has some combat strength, at least when they suppressed the rebellion of the indigenous tribes on Kalimantan. But now they had to deal with two brigades of the Serris Republic, 14,000 well-armed army soldiers, while the Dutch soldiers on the island had to endure heavy bombardment from the large-caliber naval guns of the Seris Navy outside the harbor.

Under the baptism of their own fierce artillery fire, the Dutch port was turned into a ruin in an instant, and in the face of the thick high-caliber gun barrels of the Ryukyu-class battleships of the Seris Navy, the Dutch colonial army that had been waiting for them was also scattered in an instant. In the face of this kind of super heavy artillery bombardment, the hostile Dutch had no room for luck at all, the 11-inch giant cannonball at the moment of landing, its release of metal heat flow was enough to tear all the surrounding things within a radius of 40 meters into pieces, and the shock wave of its explosion was enough to cause devastating damage to soft targets more than 100 meters around.

In less than two hours, under the heavy artillery fire of the Seris Navy without sparing ammunition, the original Pontianak port had been reduced to a sea of fire. There was no doubt that the wooden buildings on the island could not withstand the test of incendiary bombs from the naval explosions, and in the face of such fires, the landing force that Seris had planned to enter the harbor stopped for a while.

By the time the fire had subsided and Serris's army had entered the city, there were very few Dutch soldiers left in the harbor...... Eventually, a trembling Dutch ensign picked on his white pants and expressed his willingness to surrender to Seris.

After conquering Pontianak, the landed troops continued to move in the eastern direction, heading deep into Kalimantan......