Chapter 109: Christmas Island

Djibouti, which means 'boiling steamer' in Arabic, is located on the west coast of the Gulf of Aden in northeastern Africa, at the key point of the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean, bordering Somalia to the southeast and Ethiopia to the southwest, west and north. The terrain in the territory is complex, there are towering volcanoes, and deep lakes, most of them are volcanic plateaus with low altitude, deserts and volcanoes occupy 90% of the country's land area, and there are low-lying plains and lakes. The Great Rift Valley passes through the central part of the region, and Lake Assar at the northern end of the rift zone is 150 meters below sea level, the lowest point on the continent.

Because of the limited land area and the scarcity of land available for farming, Djibouti has a population of only a few hundred thousand, with the largest population of the Issa and Afar, accounting for more than 90% of the country's population, and a small number of Arabs and Europeans live in small cities by the sea, mainly Islam, and the main languages in the country are French and Somali!

Because Britain controlled the Suez Canal in the north, France feared that its sea lanes to Asia would be threatened by the British, so in 1850, it began an armed invasion of Djibouti and gradually took control of the southern gate between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait!

Today, the port of Djibouti, which originally seemed a little deserted, was as lively as boiling water, and the originally wide harbor was extremely crowded after being stuffed with nearly 150 Dutch and Portuguese warships and transports!

Looking at the soldiers who were busy in the harbor, anxious to refuel the fleet and load fresh water, Blake's face was full of worry, he had already received the latest news from the French about the Dutch East Indies, just ten days ago, the only two remaining islands of the Dutch East Indies Colony, Sumatra and Java, had been attacked by those Chinese troops! From the gunfire that had now subsided, it could be guessed that the Dutch army there was probably finished!

That is to say, now the Dutch no longer have a single colony in the East Indies, and they no longer have a seaport in the Far East for their fleet, except for a limited number of Portuguese colonies in the subcontinent, such as Goa!

"General, are those Frenchmen telling the truth?" asked Rear Admiral Munch, commander of the Royal Dutch Navy fleet, with some disbelief. He really couldn't imagine how the kingdom's nearly 40,000 troops on the two islands could be defeated by a group of yellow-skinned monkeys, even if it was April Fool's Day, God wouldn't make such a joke!

"I don't know, but I can't find any, not the slightest reason for the French to deceive us!" Blake is also a white supremacist, but his ability to become the commander of the expeditionary force shows his own talent!

Even now he did not believe the French, but since the fleet had entered the Mediterranean, it was true that the Viceroyalty of the East Indies had not received any telegrams along the way!

"Have you sent a telegram back home?" Blake asked suddenly.

"It's already been sent, but we're going to have to wait at least a day to get a call back from home! But a day later, we're already adrift in the Indian Ocean, and we're going to have to go to Goa to get the telegram," Munch said without thinking.

"Tell all the soldiers and navy of the expeditionary force to replenish the fleet, and then we will drop anchor and go to Goa, the Portuguese colony in the Indian subcontinent!" Blake commanded back.

"Will the general be in such a hurry, our soldiers have just disembarked, do you want them to rest and set sail again! Besides, we are in such a hurry, I'm afraid those Portuguese will also have opinions!"

"Major General, we've been on the road long enough, and now that the kingdom's East Indies colonies may be under attack, are we going to watch them be wiped out by the enemy?" Blake asked in a low voice and angry voice.

"I understand the general, I'll go and inform them!"

Looking at the back of Munch's hurried departure, the uneasiness in Blake's heart became more and more intense, "I hope God can bless the Netherlands, defeat those Chinese armies, and take back the colonies that belong to the kingdom!"

――――――

"Commander, the Dutch and the Portuguese are leaving!" said the young lieutenant in a solemn compliment as he knocked on the door!

Hearing his words, Tirpitz couldn't help frowning, it was really surprising that the expeditionary forces of the two countries that had been grinding along the way had actually sent out from the French colony of Djibouti so quickly!

Because Germany lacked colonies in the Arab region and the Far East, it was inferior to Britain and France, whose colonies were spread over all continents, in terms of intelligence acquisition, and in addition, radio had not yet appeared in this era, and the means of communication were backward and slow, and the German expeditionary fleet had been adrift at sea, so even the German ** team, which was famous for its high efficiency, did not receive any news about the battle for the East Indies!

"Do you know why they set sail in such a hurry?"

"I don't know, we just heard that this order was personally given by Vice Admiral Blake, commander of the expeditionary fleets of the two countries! As for the reason, because the time is too short, we have not received any effective information!" replied the second lieutenant Shen Sè solemnly and seriously.

After listening to his words, Tirpitz sighed a little melancholy, the time for the rise of the German Empire was too late, and the world at this time had already been completely divided between Britain and France, so that on the 10,000-kilometer sea route from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Far East, the empire did not even have a single colony that could dock! Even this German expedition was not discovered by the British and French patrol fleets all over the waterway after it bypassed the whole of Africa, until it arrived in German East Africa!

"Find a way to contact the country and ask what happened in the expeditionary forces of the two countries?

"Understood, Commander!"

――――――

Christmas Island is a small island in the Indian Ocean, 350 kilometers from Java Island and 1400 kilometers from the northwest territory of Australia!

This island in the Indian Ocean, which was later known as the 'homeland of the Chinese in the South Seas', is still in a state of wilderness! Since the island was discovered by Roy, the captain of the 'Thomas', in 1615, it was not until 1888 that the British annexed this small island.

Of course, that was later! Now it has become the territory of the Huo family army because of Huo Shan's order! A company of the 4th Marine Division is stationed in China Bay (that is, Feiyu Bay in later generations), where they have established a simple naval base, two patrol ships of less than 1,000 tons captured in the war with the Netherlands are deployed here, and in order to consolidate the rule of the Huo Jiajun here, it is responsible for the jurisdiction of the Java Island Military Management Committee here, and hundreds of immigrants from China have moved here to live here, open up wasteland and farm, and go to sea to fish!

Because of the development of the Huo Jiajun, this is no longer an uninhabited desert island, but an overseas territory in the South Seas under the jurisdiction of the Huo Jiajun!

Of course, in the planning of the Huo Jiajun Navy, this is the most important naval base for them to go out of the Indian Ocean!