In the 21st century, backward countries can still shout about peaceful rise, but in the 19th century, peaceful rise is a joke.

Throughout the history of the rise of backward countries, it has basically been one bloody war after another.

If the empire wanted to truly rise in the late nineteenth century, surrounded by powerful enemies, it naturally had to face various challenges, in addition to many domestic development difficulties, and the external environment could not be ignored.

In fact, the empire has fought a lot of wars over the years, and the military conflicts with the Russians have never stopped, although the scale is smaller, but there will be a few battles in the border areas every year, fortunately China and Russia lack the logistical supply capacity to deploy large-scale troops in the border areas.

Now Lin Zhe wants to meddle in the affairs of Borneo, not that he wants to fight for any practical interests for the empire in Borneo, such as occupying territory and the like, he just wants to give the Dutch, no, it should be to make some trouble for the British.

The British would make trouble for the empire on issues such as Tibet, Central Asia, and the Ning Kingdom.

Lin Zhe was determined to meddle in the affairs of Borneo, but this interference was very secretive, because it was impossible for the empire to openly protest diplomatically or directly use military means to intervene, and this kind of public tearing of the skin could not be done.

So if you want to meddle, you have to come secretly!

After Ge Dongbing, the director of the Intelligence Department in charge of these conspiracies, went back, he found the relevant intelligence officers in charge of Southeast Asian affairs, and then a number of secret instructions were transmitted to the agents of several secret intelligence stations in Southeast Asia by secret telegrams!

After Zhao Yiyuan received the secret telegram from Nanjing, he looked at the telegram and pondered, and after a while, he took a deep breath. Then the message was lit directly by candlelight.

Then he turned to look at the other people in the room, and said, "We have a new mission!" ”

The other people in the room were all men. There are old and young, and it is very special. There was even a blonde foreigner inside, and at this time he was saying in awkward Chinese: "Stationmaster, what is the task this time, to gather us all?" ”

Zhao Yiyuan looked at this blonde foreigner, nodded slightly, and said, "This time the matter is not small, it is not easy to handle with fewer people!" ”

Judging from the simple appearance of the blonde and blue-eyed foreigner in front of him, no one knew that he was an agent of the Imperial Intelligence Department, and his appearance on today's occasion was a statement of his identity. He was also really an agent of the Intelligence Division.

Before the rise of the Chinese Empire, there were a small number of foreigners mixed with it, the most famous of which was Hunter? William, Hunter today? William is a lieutenant general in the army, and he is also the imperial nobleman 'Marquis of Changxing', this kind of famous title can be reduced to the hereditary baron, and it has been inherited with the country.

With Hunter? After William's living signboard, it was easier for the empire to recruit some foreigners, and there was no concept of a nation-state in these days anyway. There is no essential difference between serving the Queen of England and serving the Emperor of China.

In the early years of the unification of the empire, under the influence of Khanty? William's influence, and even a considerable number of retired officers from other countries came to join the Imperial Army.

Coupled with the Empire's extensive foreign trade strategy, over the past decade. The empire had opened almost all of its coastal ports of trade value, and some inland cities, especially those along the inland rivers, were also open to foreign merchants.

Today's empire is in its attitude towards foreigners. It is more open than the later republics, mainly because of a certain number of years of residence. and provide years of stable tax payment records, or some talents with special skills that the empire needs. Generally, you can apply for Imperial citizenship.

At the same time, when some foreign lands were conquered, such as the vast Central Asian region and Siberia, the remaining inhabitants would also become the new subjects of the empire, including many ethnic Russians and a considerable number of Central Asian peoples.

The empire has a wide territory, coupled with the welcoming attitude of high-quality personnel such as technicians and businessmen of foreign races, so the relatively typical white population in the empire is still partial, and out of the need to spy on various intelligence of foreign countries, especially in Europe and the United States and other white countries, the intelligence department prefers to recruit intelligence personnel in these white groups in China.

At present, the Imperial Intelligence Department has more than 400 direct employees and at least 1,000 indirect employees worldwide, and those direct employees are registered official intelligence officers, while indirect employees are intelligence personnel who have developed abroad, and these people have no formal establishment, but they are still required to pay their honorarium.

Not to mention the indirect employees who are informants, and among the direct employees, a small number of the many expatriate agents belong to them, most of whom are recruited from the former Russian immigrants or those who have fled from Europe to Asia to make a living, and the total number is about fifty or sixty.

And Zhao Yiyuan's subordinate is such a person.

His name is Roman? Rivera? Catalan, a bankrupt and free farmer of the Spaniards, had to immigrate to the Philippines with his family to earn a living after the bankruptcy of his hometown, and when the ship sailed to the South China Sea, the ship he was carrying was sunk in a storm, his wife and a daughter were drowned, and he and his young daughter were rescued by a passing imperial merchant ship, and then taken to live in Guangzhou.

After living for a few years, he has no special technical talents, he has been still mixed in the bottom of the society, in order to get a better life, in order to let his son get a good education, he took the initiative to sign up for the escort team of the Nanyang Mining Company, originally thinking that even if he went to be a bodyguard, he also wanted to create a good living environment for his son, but in the process he was discovered by the recruitment officers of the Intelligence Department.

In the end, he was recruited into the Intelligence Division, and after training, he was sent to Southeast Asia to operate, taking advantage of his white foreign trade, coupled with the support of various soft conditions of the Intelligence Department behind him, he soon lurked in Singapore as a trade merchant, and actively communicated with the military and political dignitaries of the British colonial authorities in Singapore, and almost took out most of the intelligence of the East India Fleet.

He is one of the more successful intelligence officers of the Imperial Intelligence Division in Southeast Asia.

Of course. For this, he also paid a great price, because he was away all the year round. So I can only see my son once or twice a year.

This time, he received a notice from his immediate boss, the stationmaster, to attend this small meeting, and it didn't take long for him to leave quietly. Out of that dark alley, he got into a two-wheeled carriage and became a successful trader again.

Of course, if someone who knows the inside story will find out that although the 'Rivera Trading Company' under his name is real, it is engaged in some illegal activities, such as smuggling arms, which is actually known to many local foreigners in Singapore who are more capable of intelligence gathering, but no one knows. He is not only an arms smuggling businessman, but also an agent of the Imperial Intelligence Department, the so-called Rivera Trading Company, which is actually a secret company under the control of the Intelligence Department, mainly used to smuggle ordnance weapons and more important personnel, of course, usually do some normal smuggling business to maintain daily expenses.

After all, although the office expenses of the Intelligence Division are not small, they are definitely not too much. In many cases, some intelligence stations stationed abroad can only find their own ways to obtain sufficient funds, and if they are engaged in smuggling business, they are relatively low-key.

And today. The officials of the Imperial Intelligence Department hoped to use the Rivera Trading Company to send a batch of ordnance to the Chinese resistance forces in Borneo to increase the military resistance of the local Chinese.

and undertake specific tasks. That's this Roman.

Before coming back, the stationmaster Zhao Yiyuan had already told him. He would get enough ordnance in a week, and then he would secretly load it at a small port near the port of Singapore. And it was transported to Borneo, and when the ship arrived, it was natural that an agent from the local intelligence department of Borneo would come to pick up the ship.

Roman didn't know where his stationmaster was going to get so many ordnance, it definitely couldn't be shipped directly from China, it would be too easy to trace back to the Empire, and it was better not to use the Empire's standard ordnance.

In particular, the latest 1864 rifle of the empire is definitely not usable, this rear-loading metal bullet rifle is a relatively unique rifle in the world, and it is also the world's first rear-loading rifle that fires metal bullets and has a rotating bolt mechanism.

It was several years before the historical Mauser 1871, but the Mauser brothers only got the Mauser rifle out in 1865, and by that time, the Imperial 1864 rifle had been in mass service for more than a year.

Although since 1864, the three major weapons companies of the empire have produced at least one million 1864 rifles, but outside the empire, it is rare to see this rifle, at most a very small number of smuggled products or simply some foreign private companies infringe on patents to imitate, and in the foreign arms market, it is difficult to see this rifle.

However, the 1858 rifle can be used some, because the 1858 rifle is very widely used in Southeast Asia.

In the past 13 years, the Imperial Defense Industry has produced at least 1.3 million rifles (including original and improved models), and more than half of these rifles have been directly exported, of which the most are exported to the United States, followed by the Kingdom of Ning, the three countries of Japan, the Kingdom of Vietnam, the rest of Korea and several small countries in Southeast Asia, and some countries in South America have also purchased some of them.

At the same time, with the large-scale service of the rifle in 1864, the military began to retire this rifle in large numbers, some of which were mothballed, some of which were accepted by law enforcement forces such as patrol police, and some of which were still exported.

As early as 1864, the empire had decided to fully replace the rear-loading rifle that fired metal bullets, and this reloading was not only limited to the army and navy, but also the local garrison forces, and even the patrol police and some other law enforcement forces, etc., will all be equipped with this rifle.

The 1858 rifle will be phased out of service, and then fully withdrawn.

Some of these decommissioned 1858 rifles in good condition will be mothballed, and some will be exported.

In total, the empire sold at least seven hundred thousand 1858 rifles over the years.

In addition to exporting, the empire also sold the technical license of this rifle, for example, the United States bought the patent license of this rifle, and then in the civil war, the North and the South produced a total of at least one million 1858 rifles.

Therefore, from a global perspective, the 1858 rifle is a relatively common and widely used rifle, and there are more in Asia and the Americas.

Therefore, even if the Empire provided 1858 rifles to the Chinese in Borneo, the British would not immediately aim their suspicions at the Empire, because 1858 rifles are more common in Southeast Asia.

Collecting these ordnance in this way was not Roman's concern, what he had to do now was to prepare the ships and the associated manpower, and then transport them to Borneo in the name of smuggling arms.

As for the rest, it has nothing to do with him, if the Dutch find out, they will at most think that he is just an arms smuggler.

In recent years, there have been more arms smugglers, and it will not be easy for countries to manage them.

If the Dutch could really scare the arms dealers, they would not have suffered so much in Aceh, Sumatra, which was the last indigenous country in the East Indies to resist colonization, and their resistance was very tenacious.

During the Aceh War of 1873, it took the Dutch thirty years to conquer the region.

And in this process, those mercenary arms dealers naturally greatly dragged the Dutch back, and if there were no arms provided by those arms dealers to Aceh, the indigenous army of Aceh would be unarmed, how could they resist the government of the Dutch colonial army.

The deeds of the Dutch in Aceh are only a microcosm of their government in the East Indies, unlike the British who cleanly occupied many colonies and completely governed the indigenous countries, the Dutch were affected by national power, and their colonization, especially by armed conquest, was not very smooth.

Historically, it was not until the early 20th century that the Dutch were truly informed of the Indonesian archipelago, and before that, colonial bases were only established in a few places, not all of them.

And now, the empire is also investigating in Borneo, and in order to make trouble for the Dutch, the officials in the imperial intelligence department feel that they will not do anything, since they all support the Chinese in Borneo, then simply count Aceh as well.

Although this Aceh is also a small indigenous country, it is not an easy task to maintain its independent status for more than 200 years in the great colonial wave of Britain and the Netherlands, and if the empire can give them some support at this time, it will not be stable compared to the Dutch on Sumatra.

Lin Zhe is quite looking forward to Indonesia and other British, French and Dutch colonies in Asia to set off a wave of resistance against colonialism or simply independence! (To be continued.) )

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