By 1919, the population of the Philippines had exceeded 10 million, or more than 10.53 million to be exact.

Without data from later generations, Arthur would not have believed that the country had increased its population 11-fold in just 100 years, reaching 114 million in 2023, the 13th most populous country in the world and one of the most populous countries in Southeast Asia, after the future Indonesia, which is now the Dutch East Indies.

A region that can accommodate hundreds of millions of people is still a nail inserted by the United States into Australasia, which must be removed.

If the Philippines is run well, it will become a dumping ground for Australasian goods and a source of cheap labor.

At the same time, the Philippines can also serve as the first front against the island nation, relieving the dual pressure that Australasia may face from the island nation and the United States.

After controlling the Philippines, it can also completely uproot the US bases on the west coast of the Pacific, and the pan-Pacific policy that the United States has in mind is doomed to failure.

In the long run, regions such as the current Dutch East Indies and the Philippines can serve as future client states of Australasia, undertaking some low-end industries and heavy polluting industries for Australasia.

The existing Dutch East Indies and the Philippines, with a population of more than 300 million in later generations, would be much better off raising more than 30 million cannon fodder armies or providing tens of millions of cheap labor at all costs than with the lives of Australasian people.

Manuel was a smart man, and when he learned that he had no choice, he simply agreed to all the terms Sam had offered.

After all, Sam's demands are based on the Philippine government that will be established in the future, and Sam will not bear any losses, and even hopes to become the first president or the first prime minister of the new Philippine government with the support of Australasia.

The good news is that the Philippines has been colonized for hundreds of years, so the local forces are not very strong, and the most powerful is the uprising that broke out against the Spanish tyranny.

As one of the fathers of the uprising at that time, Manuel had a high prestige among the people, and he also had the right to speak in a considerable part of the uprising team.

This also means that if Manuel can mobilize a part of the rebel ranks, coupled with his prestige in the Senate and among the people, it will be easy to pass any law.

However, it is impossible to expect the Philippines to directly start the war of independence and successfully defeat the Americans and gain independence.

Even with the help of Australasia, the Philippines, with a population of only 10 million, will definitely not be an opponent for the Americans.

However, the experience of later generations gave Arthur a better approach. Rather than directly triggering a war of independence, cultivating a large number of anti-American troops in the Philippines allows them to penetrate deep into the Philippine people, destroy various US facilities in the Philippines, and increase the cost of US control in the Philippines.

As a result, Americans have only two options. In addition to increasing investment and sending troops to the Philippines, it can only choose to be forced to abandon the Philippines.

After all, when the cost of ruling an area is much higher than the revenue it brings, it may not be a wise choice to continue to occupy the area.

And the reason why the intelligence officers found Manuel was precisely because they took a fancy to Manuel's reputation and support among the Filipino people.

It is no exaggeration to say that if Manuel raises his arms among the Filipino people, he can easily form an armed force and even set off a wave of Philippine resistance against the United States.

You know, U.S. rule in the Philippines is by no means peaceful. The Philippines had various rebellions as early as the Spanish colonial period, and naturally it was impossible to obediently obey the rule of the Americans.

Since 1902, when the United States passed the Philippine Act to end military control of the Philippines, the Philippines has been under the control of a predominantly American-based civilian government.

It's no joke that the Americans are dominant, although it seems to be the Philippine government, but the Philippine government is almost up to the Americans, and the Filipinos must get the consent of the Americans if they want to pass any bill.

This has also led to the deepening of contradictions between Filipinos and Americans, especially since the Americans have pursued policies that hardly take into account the opinions of Filipinos, which has greatly aggravated the anti-American sentiment of Filipinos.

Manuel's passage of the Jones Act expanded the opportunities for Filipinos to participate in politics, although it did not gain an advantage, but it did have a lot of local voices in Philippine politics, which is why Manuel also has great prestige in Philippine politics.

It can be said that without Manuel, Philippine politics would still be dominated by Americans, and Philippine officials would have no say in the face of Americans.

Although the Jones Act eased the contradictions between Filipinos and Americans, as long as Americans dominate the Philippine government, the contradictions will never be eliminated.

Therefore, Sam gave Manuel the first task, which was to secretly assemble an armed team, break them into very small teams, and sabotage American rule in the Philippines.

A complete armed Philippine army will never be able to confront the Americans. If it were divided into small teams of different numbers and divided into pieces, it would play a more important role.

It is not cost-effective to send large troops to a small rebel army, which can cause great trouble for American rule in the Philippines.

Whether it's disrupting American life in the Philippines or sabotaging various U.S. facilities in the Philippines, Americans can be exhausted and unable to prevent it.

What's more, the formation of an armed army would also reduce Manuel's danger by breaking it up into pieces.

After all, in today's Philippines, it is not easy to stand up to the United States.

The Americans have troops stationed in the Philippines, and dogs can jump over the wall when they are in a hurry, let alone Americans who are similar to dogs?

In addition to secretly forming an anti-American armed force, Sam also reached various agreements with Manuel, including a portion of weapons resources and diplomatic support for Manuel.

Sam promised to provide Manuel with weapons and equipment, including a collection of rifles captured from European battlefields and weapons obsolete from the Australasian indigenous army.

The total number of weapons adds up to more than 100,000 rifles, 50 machine guns, 100 miscellaneous artillery, an airship for emergency escape, and a variety of ammunition, shells, and so on.

These weapons and equipment are not enough for any one battlefield, and if they are only used to harass the Americans, and they are confined to the Philippine region, they are actually completely sufficient.

At the very least, Manuel could privately raise an armed force of more than 100,000 troops, a number far more than the number of American troops stationed in the Philippines.

In fact, the Americans withdrew most of their troops stationed in the Philippines after ending their military government in the Philippines.

The total number of US troops stationed in the Philippines will not exceed 2,000 in total, and the actual number of troops will never exceed 1,200, except for some officers and men of the Navy.

This batch of weapons and equipment was enough for Manuel to entangle with the American army for a long time, but before the Americans used the main army, they could even give Manuel an advantage in the Philippines.

In addition to this batch of weapons and equipment, according to Sam and Manuel's agreement, Manuel will form a team of more than 500 students to study in Australasia.

The 500-strong international student corps, which includes 200 political science students, will be key officials of the new Philippine government in the future and are destined to be strongly influenced by Australasia.

Secondly, there are more than 200 cadets who are going to study abroad in military schools. They will undergo a three-year militarized education at a military school in Australasia before returning to the Philippines to train a regular army for the new Philippine nation.

Of course, the training of the Philippine army is destined to be indispensable in Australasia.

And these people will also be under the influence of Australasia, and they will always involuntarily bias towards Australasia when thinking about problems.

In fact, this is also a common study abroad strategy in later generations. By attracting international students from less developed countries and influencing them subtly, we will train them to become talents close to their own countries.

These high-quality talents with study abroad experience will gradually move to the middle and senior levels of the country because of their own experience after returning to backward regions and countries.

After a long period of accumulation and influence, it can even control a country by attracting students to study abroad on a large scale, and turn the entire national government into a government that favors itself.

Such a study abroad policy is terrible, but it is also inevitable in the rise of backward countries.

If a country wants to move from backwardness to prosperity, it has to learn advanced knowledge from the outside world, and the best way is to study abroad.

It is impossible for a person to be in a foreign country and not be influenced by it. Especially for Filipinos, who feel the huge gap between themselves and others, it is natural for them to have blind worship of more advanced countries.

Together with international students from other industries, the total of 500 students will study in Australasia for three to four years before returning to the Philippines to build a new government.

At that time, the independence of the Philippines was basically in sight, and it was time for more talents to build a new government and eliminate the influence of American control over the country.

Through these students, Australasia is also able to better control the Philippine government. In fact, there is no need to strictly control the Philippine government like the United States.

As long as these students are trained, plus some Philippine officials are co-opted, even if the Philippines succeeds in becoming independent, it is destined to not escape the control of Australasia.

Moreover, even if the Philippines succeeds in becoming independent, various industries are in a state of ruin.

Without the support of Australasia, it would be difficult for the Philippines to survive in such an international environment.

Even without Australasia, there would have been a comeback of Britain and France, and even the United States.

It is almost impossible for a small country with a large area of land to survive in this era.

Even Belgium, a European country that seems to be more developed, although it claims to be a neutral country, has not yet suffered aggression from Germany?

In this era, if a country can be guaranteed to be completely independent of the world, it will either have relatively strong military strength, or it can only pray that it is a very barren country and will not attract the covetousness of those great powers.

But unfortunately, although the area of the Philippines is not as large as those large colonies, it is also a vast land with a total area of nearly 300,000 square kilometers, and has a population of tens of millions, and the geographical location is not bad.

With a little bit of business, it's a good dumping ground for goods. Coupled with the various mineral resources contained in the Philippines, the benefits generated are absolutely huge.

Although the mineral resources are far inferior to Australasia, this does not mean that the Philippines is relatively poor in terms of mineral resources.

On the contrary, the Philippines has significant reserves of nickel, cobalt, gold and copper, and has been ranked among the top 10 in the world in later generations.

Secondly, the Philippines also has a certain amount of oil reserves, and the value of minerals can definitely bring a lot of benefits to the country that controls the Philippines.

In such a situation, the Philippines, unless it is strong itself, cannot avoid the covetousness of foreign powers and other countries.

Whether it is Spain before, the United States now, or Australasia in the future, this conclusion has been confirmed, that is, the weak can only become fish on the board of the strong.

If a civilian official like Manuel is relied on to develop anti-US armed forces in the Philippines, not to mention the progress, such hastily formed armed forces are doomed to be unreliable.

In order to make the Philippines cause more trouble to the United States, Australasia will also help Manuel to form an armed force, including sending more professional instructors for militarized training and teaching them some simpler tactics.

Australasia's most frequent large-scale firepower to suppress the Philippines is not a blessing, after all, it is a great test of the country's logistics level and the production speed of the military industry.

Australasia hoarded a large number of artillery shells before World War I, and only used a few fire suppressions, and the number of shells consumed by each fire suppression was as high as one million, and the average number of shells consumed per day was more than 200,000 rounds, which is enough to see how huge the test of large-scale fire suppression is to logistics.

Judging from the actual situation in the Philippines at present, not to mention the artillery that can afford to use large-scale firepower to suppress it, the artillery that can be mobilized by the anti-US armed forces that have been reduced to zero is already quite good.

Even under normal circumstances, the vast majority of heavy weapons will be mothballed and will not be used until the Philippines forms a real army in the future.

After all, the role of the armed forces now is only to harass the US troops and bases in the Philippines, and they are not intended to completely defeat the Americans.

Two changes tomorrow, 6,000 words guaranteed, ask for a monthly pass, ask for support!

(End of chapter)