In the first month of the first year of Guangxu in history, that is, in the first month of the Guangxu Emperor's re-establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, Margaret, a clerk of the British Embassy in China, together with British Colonel Brown, led a team of nearly 200 people to cross the Chinese border without permission and invade Manyun in the Tengyue area of Yunnan. Ma Jiali led the pathfinder team not only shot and killed many local people, but also threatened to attack Tengyue City (now Tengchong), but was intercepted by Li Zhenguo, the general of Tengyue in Yunnan at that time, and finally the local Jingpo people and other people killed Ma Jiali and his four Chinese attachés.

As a result, Emperor Guangxu's imperial career opened a very bad head in this humiliating retreat of the Qing government.

At that time, the Qing government was preparing to use troops in Xinjiang, and Gansu and Shaanxi had just been pacified, and the treasury was empty, so it can be said that it was still in a very weak stage. When the Qing court faced the coercion of the British, it retreated weakly, apologized for reparations, opened the treaty ports, signed unequal treaties, and punished the local officials in Yunnan, which is not difficult to understand.

But this qiē is no longer available in this plane. The early pacification of the chaos in the northwest saved the Manchus too much money and vitality, even if there was no Shi Dakai in Yunnan and no Taiping army, the British would have to think twice before giving the Qing government eye medicine in the southwest.

In the past two years, both Russia and the Ottoman Empire have been on the move, and anyone with a discerning eye can see that in these two or three years, the tenth Russo-Turkish war is about to break out. In the northwest of our Great Qing Dynasty, part of the Russian army was dropped to the Caucasus mountains, the pressure on Xinjiang's defense was greatly reduced, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty had almost no threat in northern and western Xinjiang. Dong Fuxiang was promoted to the governor of Urumqi, and the soldiers under his command have been reorganized several times, and now there are 20 infantry battalion heads. Three artillery battalions and two cavalry battalions, with a strength of nearly 15,000 soldiers. Plus the garrison of the rest of the Qing army. As well as the strength of the local nobles in Xinjiang, there were more than 40,000 foot cavalry in Xinjiang alone. There is no longer a need to think about the safety of Xinjiang.

The British government's policy towards the Qing government, like that of the Dutch, was constantly changing as the Qing government's strength grew.

Liu Xian waited until the end of the first month, and did not hear any rumors about the words 'Margaret case'. At the same time, in the southeastern coastal area of Britain's traditional sphere of power, no other incidents were heard.

On the second day of the second month of February, on time, the two ironclad ships Yangwei and Zhenwei, together with the two ships Yangwu and Haijing of the Fujian Shipbuilding and Naval Division. The latter were transport ships, as well as Zhentao of the Guangdong Naval Division, and two small-tonnage steam gunboats, a total of six ships, set sail and sailed straight towards the southern sea.

The name of this mixed fleet is to patrol the South China Sea, which is a very reasonable and normal excuse. In order not to provoke the British from the roots, Liu Xian specially purchased hundreds of stone tablets before the fleet set off, which were engraved with words, years, months and days highlighting China's sovereignty. But that's just a trick. This fleet went to the south, that is, to support Liang Luyi, Wei Changjun and others who had already raised troops on West Borneo and took East Wanjin.

The fleet was followed by two British ironclad ships, and Liu Xian's thoughts were not hidden from Kennedy, the British governor stationed in Hong Kong. Just half a month ago, a coup d'état suddenly broke out in Pontianak, the base camp of the West Borneo Lanfang Company. Liang Luyi, a person who has just emerged for more than a year. Hundreds of soldiers with loaded guns, yes, that's soldiers. In one fell swoop, he took the entire Pontianak and took control of the council chamber.

Lanfang Company is currently Mrs. Liu Asheng, and her sons Liu Liangguan and Liu Enguan. The son-in-law Ye Xiangyun and others were captured, and all the adult men of the two clans were beheaded. More than ten families in the backbone of the Liu family were also uprooted. Some of the captured remnants of the party raised troops to confront Liang Luyi and Wei Changjun, and the soldiers who were led by Wei Changjun to train for more than half a year were lightly pacified.

The military intelligence department has infiltrated Dongwanjin for two years, and many of its spies and tentacles are not clear at all, even if Liang Luyi is the stationmaster of Pontianak station. After all, there is more than one Pontianak in the entire West Borneo state. After two years of visits, coupled with the information provided by Liang Luyi and other locals, when the rebels broke out, Liang Luyi and Wei Changjun held in their hands an absolutely detailed and detailed list of Lanfang's 'traitors'. There is mental calculation or not, and the sixteenth day of the first month of the first month when Liang Luyi is in trouble is the day of the meeting hall, so as soon as the battle began, the leaders and backbones of Liu Asheng's family were almost wiped out.

In the first few days, Dong Wanjin killed a lot of people, reimbursing at least 1,000 lives under Liang Luyi and Wei Changjun, and detaining two or three thousand people. Liu Asheng and his henchmen, the backbone of the traitorous forces of the Lanfang Company, were completely eradicated.

At this time, the Indo-Dutch soldiers in Batavia, about two battalions of troops, were hastily assembled and sent to Sarawak.

James. Brooke, the founder of the Sarawak Brooke dynasty, had been dead for many years at this time. His heir is Charles. Brooke welcomed the arrival of the Dutch and Indian troops, and the main force of the Lanfang Company rebels in the north was the remnants of a group of Dagang companies, and Charles was extremely worried from the moment he heard the news of the Lanfang rebellion.

Although the Brooke Dynasty, as the protectorate of the British Empire, is absolutely safe, whoever sits in Charles's current position will be uneasy in their hearts. It is better to put down the rebellion immediately, even if the whole of that vast area is swallowed up by the Dutch, than in the hands of a group of enemies who control it.

His uncle, James. Brooke cooperated closely with the Chinese workers of Shilongmen, and the reason why he finally turned his face and did not recognize people, in addition to standing firm and pursuing greater power and interests, the biggest reason was that in a series of battles with the local natives, the Chinese Workers Legion showed strong combat effectiveness!

James felt the threat deeply. He wanted to get rid of this threat, so things developed to the point where thousands of Chinese workers in Shilongmen revolted.

However, the sea coachman, who was powerful in the past, is now weak. The small size of the country, after the prevalence of nationalism in Europe, doomed him to a lonely end. However, because the main colony of the Netherlands is now only Indonesia, the Netherlands has also concentrated a considerable number of military forces to protect it.

After the failure of the anti-Dutch uprising led by Thibonigoro more than 40 years ago, from 1830 to 1870, the Dutch introduced a "forced cropping system" in Indonesia, which required farmers to use one-eighth of their land to grow the products needed for the European market: sugar cane, indigo, coffee, tobacco, etc. The entire harvest must be sold to the government at the prescribed price. Land on which the above-mentioned agricultural products are planted is exempt from paying land tax. Where it was not suitable for the cultivation of cash crops, peasants paid a poll tax or served in the colonial government for one-fifth of their annual working hours.

Under this system, the exploitation of local peasants was greatly increased. In order to get more oil and water from it, the local feudal lords forced the peasants to cultivate not one-eighth but one-third, one-half, or even all of the land; The purchase price set by the colonial government was low and often insufficient to cover the cost of labor; Peasants who were conscripted for forced labor were far from their hometowns and worked for up to 100 or 200 days. Due to the reduction of land for peasants to grow grain, a large number of people died in the event of a failure of harvest due to natural disasters. For example, in East Java, there were 336,000 inhabitants, but after the famine of 1848, the number of inhabitants was reduced to 120,000, and that of Kroboan, of 89,500, after the famine of 1849, only 9,000 remained.

However, under such a high-intensity oppression, it has also brought fabulous profits to the Dutch government. Indonesia's exports increased from 12.7 million guilders in 1830 to 74 million guilders in 1840, an increase of nearly five times. During the 40 years of this system, the Dutch colonists looted a total of 800 million guilders, equivalent to 400 million taels of silver. The inflow of these funds into the Netherlands laid the foundation for the development of the Netherlands' own industry.

Today, the Netherlands is definitely one of the most industrially developed regions in Europe, but its territory is too small. Moreover, today's Dutch people no longer have the ambitions of the past, and the strength of the entire Dutch navy is only the ironclad ships that have just been launched in recent years, but these valuable ironclad ships are all deployed in the Netherlands mainland. Indonesia was a very important colony for the Netherlands, because the agreement between the Dutch and the British was 'solid'.

At present, there are still a considerable number of sail warships in the Dutch fleet in the South Seas, and the main ship is only the iron-ribbed wood-hulled cruiser with a displacement of more than 2,000 tons, the Jakarta.

……

Tainan.

A rush of footsteps woke Liu Xian's nap. "Your Excellency, a letter from the Prime Minister's Yamen. Q: What is the purpose of our fleet to the south? ”

Ding Zhenduo handed Liu Xian an official letter. Liu Xian didn't even have the intention of opening it at all, "These people are really idle." Just changed an emperor, the Empress Dowager Xi is busy grabbing power, Prince Gong doesn't bother to think about how to deal with it, and has the heart to take a look at my Liu's actions? ”

The great disrespect in Liu Xian's words, Ding Zhenduo didn't seem to hear it. "Is there any news from MIA?" Is it that Prince Gong has been staring at him? Or did he just take over the class of Ali Guo, and the new British Minister to China, Wittoma, that is, the person who made Wittoma pinyin, found the Prime Minister's Yamen?

The difference is huge.

If Prince Gong really has his eyes on himself, then Liu Xian will have to take a leisurely approach in the future. It must not be too explicit, too excessive. But if Wittoma comes to the door, the danger is greatly reduced. It is likely that Prime Minister Yamen was forced to send a letter out of desperation.

"There's no news yet. Wen Han was sent by telegram from Hong Kong to Guangzhou, but the Guangzhou General's Mansion passed and then sent to Tainan by speedboat. ”

"Let's just say: Inspect the islands of the South China Sea to demonstrate the sovereignty of our Qing Dynasty." Let's mix it up first. If not, when the second wave of official documents from the Prime Minister Yamen asks, there will always be news from Beijing Station. "I'll send this palindrome tomorrow." (To be continued......)