December 3, 1641

On a beach not far from Batavia, a few whistles beep to signal the arrival of Australian ships.

Nowadays, this characteristic whistle has become a representative of Australians, and even some residents of Batavia have privately given the whistle on these ships a nickname, called the big horn.

The Batavian shore guards, who had not heard the familiar whistle of the Australians for nearly a month, suddenly cheered up and watched two white objects emitting black smoke in the distance constantly getting closer and closer from the sea, and they were sure that it would not be the big iron ship.

After some testing, the battleships Shunfeng and Sortie were officially delivered to the Navy Department a week ago, and You Nanzhe successfully obtained an order from the Navy to build two Xia-class battleships with a displacement of 600 tons.

It is said that in order to obtain the order for these two warships, You Nanzhe took a lot of effort, and went to the presidential palace, the Congress, and the Ministry of National Defense, and finally persuaded these big men to agree, and Wang Tiezhu, the supreme commander of the navy as the user, did not even come forward.

This time, in order to open the advertisement made locally in his shipyard, You Nanzhe also worked hard and used all the relationships that could be used, and the purpose was to fire the first shot.

As overseas trade becomes more frequent, imports and exports increase, and the number of ships used will increase, according to the information he received, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is controlled by conservatives, intends to form its own fleet to compete with the Ministry of Foreign Trade.

If they can eat this order, at least they can keep their shipyard open for three years, and now if they want to impress them, they can only convince everyone with this live advertisement for the Navy to build ships.

The mission of the two battleships on this voyage was to garrison Hong Kong, and although not long ago there was an uproar in the Ming Dynasty over the lease of Hong Kong by the Australians, this did not affect the navy from changing its garrison mission.

Looking at the sudden arrival of the two armed ships, the Dutch soldiers of Batavia's shore defense were a little nervous for a while, although they could judge that this was an Australian ship, but it was inevitable that they would be a little strange to see today, and the Australians suddenly sent two armed ships, which fully explained the problem.

The shore guard hurried to the governor's palace to report the situation, and from time to time he was still thinking about the purpose of the Australians suddenly sending two warships.

In the Governor's Palace, the Governor of Batavia, Van Dimen, who had finally lived a peaceful life for a few days, listened to the report of the shore guard at this time, and roared angrily at the first moment.

"What are the Australians going to do, damn it, two battleships, I heard you right, are they going to attack Batavia."

"Your Excellency the Governor, we should go to the Australian Embassy to find out the situation at the moment, I don't think the Australians will be stupid enough to attack Batavia, after all, it will not do them any good, you must know that half of their shipping cargo now depends on our ships."

Brown, the senior thinker of the Governor's Palace, stood by to comfort the angry Governor Van Dimen. He always felt that the Australians would not be so stupid, and the shrewd Australians would definitely not do any good if they did this, although they had enough powerful firearms and ships, but these days Brown also saw that the Australians would not go to war easily.

At this time, the staff of the Australian embassy had received the news of the arrival of the warship, and the Admiralty had sent a telegram to the embassy a week ago, but because there had been more banquets recently, Zhang Wei had forgotten about it, and now he thought that the Dutch must be in a rage.

Before Zhang Wei left the embassy, he heard the guards at the door report that Mr. Brown from the Governor's Palace had visited. Having ordered the guards to bring people in, he simply waited in the reception room for Brown to arrive.

"Mr. Brown, I haven't seen you in a while, so you must have come for the sake of the Australian warship." Zhang Wei also knew what the other party was doing at this time, so he didn't beat around the bush.

"Yes, Mr. Ambassador, you already know, I hope you can give me a reasonable explanation for those two warships, you must know that you are despising the Dutch Empire by doing this, although you have sharp firearms, you still have to pay a certain price to defeat the Dutch Empire."

Brown, who has always been mild-mannered, was also a little angry today, which fully shows that the Dutch's dissatisfaction has reached its limit.

"I'm really sorry, Mr. Brown, this is a mistake on my part, originally the mainland informed me a few days ago that the battleship docked in Batavia, because there are too many banquets these days, so I forgot about it, and I ask your pardon with Your Excellency the Governor, for the sake of our friends, and please forgive me for this mistake in my work."

Zhang Wei asked for forgiveness in a low voice, so that Brown couldn't lose his temper, after all, it would be difficult for everyone to talk if they met later.

"Well, Mr. Ambassador, but I'm curious about your ships, and I wonder if I can take a tour of them." Brown made his request, having heard that the two warships had been converted from merchant ships sold by the Dutch to Australia.

"Of course, this is fine, but I need to communicate with the captain of the battleship beforehand. Please forgive me for this, after all, our embassy does not have the right to command the military. ”

Zhang Wei's explanation: Brown probably knows a little bit about it, after all, after communicating with Australians for so long, he still knows something about their politics.

"Then I'll wait for your notification." Brown replied with a smile.

While the two were talking, they had already sent someone to the dock to inform the shore guard officer that the warship could enter the port, and until the moment before the notice was issued, the soldiers of the entire shore defense battery were in a state of nervousness, but many of them had experienced the shelling of Batavia, and the power of the Australian artillery was still vivid. At this point, if one is not right, the two sides will fight.

"Thank God, thank you, my God, you are a great god, the Australians have no intention of attacking," said one of the soldiers, praying reverently, after being relieved of his guard.

The two battleships, the Shunfeng and the Sortie, were allowed at this time, and finally entered the dock one after another, and as soon as they got off the ship, they were received by the carriage sent by the embassy.

Yu Yang, the head of the East China Sea Fleet, said to the streets of Batavia at the moment before he stepped into the carriage: "We are here, everything will be different." ”

The unknown receptionist didn't know why he said this, but if he carefully observed the maritime situation in Southeast Asia a few months later, he would find that everything had changed, because of the emergence of the East China Sea Fleet, the entire balance of power in the Southeast China Sea would be broken and reshuffled.