Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Combined Fleet

Blake stood on the tall Cambridge and looked at the huge joint expeditionary fleet of the two countries in the distance, and his heart could not help but overflow with infinite pride! As a lieutenant general of the Royal Netherlands Army, he will be in charge of this huge army this time! This is an unimaginable glory for Blake, who is already 47 years old, and in his opinion, those yellow-skinned monkeys in the East Indies are completely vulnerable in front of the heroic Royal Dutch army and navy. The fundamental reason why the kingdom lost most of the East Indies colonies was because there were too many islands in the South Seas, and the kingdom's limited army there was scattered across the islands, which was broken by each of them!

By the time the expeditionary fleet arrives, the two countries together will have an unprecedented 80,000 troops in the East Indies, which will be enough to defeat the low-powered armies of the yellow-skinned monkeys!

"In two months' time, I will be one of the few generals in the Royal Netherlands Army, and my military exploits and exploits will forever be remembered in the glorious history of the Netherlands!" Blake thought confidently, touching the rank of lieutenant general on his shoulder.

In order to prepare for this expedition at sea, which is nearly 10,000 nautical miles, the Netherlands and Portugal can be said to have done their best, not only to supplement the logistics and weapons and equipment to the greatest extent, but also to escort the expeditionary force, both countries have sent out all the warships that they can take on their own territory!

If such a combination still fails, then they will no longer be able to organize a counterattack! After all, they are not a powerful country like Britain, France, and Germany, and the cost of the labor expedition is really an astronomical amount, which is not something that ordinary small countries can afford!

"General, our fleet is ready, and now we can set sail!" Rear Admiral Munch, who will also participate in this expedition and is in charge of commanding nearly thirty warships of the Royal Netherlands Navy, said excitedly. Being able to command such a huge fleet this time is the greatest compliment to his more than 20 years of experience in the army!

"Well, let's go!"

With Blake's order, more than 100 warships and transport ships gathered in the port of Porto began to ignite, the boilers were pressurized, and the heavy steam engines began to roar continuously.

The loud whistle resounded throughout the port, the billowing black smoke from the thick chimney obscured the sky, and the huge scene of hundreds of boats competing for the current made the crowd on the shore involuntarily shout excitedly! At this moment, all the Portuguese seemed to have returned to the prosperous era of the Portuguese Empire dominating the seven seas in the Age of Discovery!

"Prime Minister, the fleet has departed!"

"Yes, we have already set off! I hope they will bring us good news!" said Morrison, looking at the huge expeditionary fleet that had disappeared from the sea.

"Don't worry, my lord! General Black is an old officer, and I believe he won't let us down!" Compared to Morrisun, who was a little apprehensive in his heart, his office secretary, Lake, was quite confident!

As the fleets of the two countries left Porto, telegrams began to spread to all parts of the world! All those who were concerned about this matter came to their offices to discuss their own countries' countermeasures!

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"Colonel Tirpitz is to go! bypass Africa and go to the East African colonies of the Reich to stand by, and if the British take action to seize the East Indies colonies, then our German Empire will have a piece of the pie anyway!" said Bismarck, putting down the telegraph in his hand, and explained solemnly.

"Yes, Prime Minister! I'll inform them!" the middle-aged man in the uniform of a major general of the German Army took the warrant and strode out.

"The Empire needs colonies in the Far East!" Bismarck looked out the window into the bright sunlight and remembered the unquestionable words of old Moltke last time in the palace!

"I hope this trip to the Far East will go well!"

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10 Downing Street, London, the highest authority of the British Empire, every order issued from here affects the foreign policy and economic development of all countries in the world anytime and anywhere!

This is the most powerful institution in the world, as it controls every aspect of politics, economy, military and culture on more than 30 million square kilometers of land around the world!

Sitting in this position now, holding the power of the British Empire, is William Yurt Gladstone, the leader of the British Zìyóu Party, and a prominent figure who has been called one of the greatest British Prime Ministers by later scholars!

"Prime Minister, this is a telegram from Porto that the joint expeditionary force sent by the Dutch and the Portuguese to the East Indies has departed!" said Karl, his office secretary, as he hurried in with a telegram he had just received.

Although Gladstone was the leader of the Zìyóu Party, he chose the same policy as the leader of the Conservative Party, Benjamin Disraeli, in terms of foreign expansion! "The British Empire needs more colonies!" Gladstone said in front of the British bourgeoisie who supported him! And he did, and in the Anglo-Afghan war that ended in 1880, he succeeded in turning Afghanistan into a British protectorate!

Now in the Far East East East in the East Indies, the British Empire has a new chance!

After taking the telegram handed over by the secretary, Gladstone quickly skimmed through it, and ordered with some surprise: "Send a telegram to Sir Walton, the Governor of the Straits Settlements, immediately, and let him consider for himself when the Empire should intervene, no matter what, the Empire's colonies there must be expanded!"

"Yes, Prime Minister!" the secretary recorded his order and hurried out!

After two days of uninterrupted transmission from various telegraph stations, the telegram was finally placed on the desk of the Governor of Walton, the Governor's Mansion of Singapore!

"Admiral Peyton, according to the average speed of the fleets of the two countries, how long will it take for them to reach the Far East!" Putting the finished telegram on the table, Walton raised his head and asked lightly.

"Lord Doge, the fleets of the Dutch and Portuguese have just set off, and although the speed of the warships is very fast, most of the transports cannot reach the speed of even ten knots! Therefore, it will take them at least a month to get here, or even longer, because the Dutch and Portuguese navies have not carried out such a huge maritime expedition for nearly a century! It is difficult to say what they will encounter at sea!" Peyton shrugged his shoulders and said with a slight mockery in his tone!

Hearing his words, the corners of Walton's mouth couldn't help but quietly hook up, these two former maritime powers, their decline and fall are directly related to the British Empire! Their warships sleeping in the depths of the ocean are the proof of the immortal martial arts of the Royal Navy of the British Empire!

"And what about their enemies, the generals, the mysterious Orientals, what are they doing now?" asked Walton.

Peyton's expression froze, and a hint of embarrassment flashed on his face, "Lord Governor, although I have sent out all the warships of the Imperial Far East Fleet and almost all the warships that can be used, there are too many islands here, and it is really difficult for us to get any useful information from our twenty or so warships scattered in this vast water!

After hearing his words, Walton couldn't help frowning, he was really not satisfied with the work of the navy at all! It had been almost a year since the investigation, but up to now, the information about this group of Chinese was still superficial, and important information about their army number, equipment level, political organization form, and other important information was still scarce!

Seeing that the governor's face became cold, Peyton's mouth was also a little bitter, but this was indeed a dereliction of duty on the part of the navy!

"Tell me, what are the gains?"

Peyton was shocked, didn't dare to slack off, and hurriedly said: "That's right, we have summarized the information we got from the fishermen's mouths and found a very important clue, the Chinese on those islands are constantly mobilizing troops from the eastern Pacific Ocean to the islands of the South Ocean!" Up to now, just a rough count, we have found more than 30 transport ships of more than 5,000 tons, according to the number of each ship transporting 2,000 people, and supplying 2,000 people for a month, and the number of troops they have mobilized to the East Indies has exceeded 80,000, plus we still don't know how many troops are stationed on the islands, their troops concentrated in the East Indies are likely to have exceeded 150,000, or even more! Therefore, according to our estimates, even the 40,000 troops now left in the colonies by the Dutch are likely to fall short of the expectations of the war between the two countries, which is to recover the East Indies colony!"

"Eighty thousand people, where did they mobilize so many people, can they know the spells of the Chinese's mouths? God, this is really funny!" Walton walked around the room a few times, looking at the somewhat ugly look on his face, it was obvious that Peyton's news had just shocked him a little too much!

"General, give more support to the Dutch and Portuguese, and let them fight harder, otherwise these Orientals who don't know the details will definitely become a stumbling block to the Empire's South Sea policy!" Walton turned his head abruptly and said to him word by word.

"Understood, Governor!"

"What kind of people are they, and why are they so mysterious?" Looking at the beautiful scenery outside the port of Singapore, the uneasiness that was originally suppressed in the bottom of my heart was infinitely magnified by Peyton's news!