Chapter 456

Chapter 456 Imperialism

 July 23, 1875.

 The ocean-going fleet composed of seven East African warships arrived at the Lanfang Republic and landed at Sanyangkou. Archduke Ferdinand said: "Among the islands in the Southeast Asia, this place is indeed developing well!"

Everywhere you see is fertile farmland, which is quite similar to the agricultural scene in the East African coastal areas. This breaks the stereotype that Archduke Ferdinand had just established about the Southeast Asian region along the way from the Strait of Malacca.

The Strait of Malacca is indeed narrow, but along the coast are two large islands, the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, so the land is very vast. However, except for a few cities developed on both sides of the Strait of Malacca (actually, in Ferdinand's eyes, they are rural areas), they are basically deserted. , densely covered with rainforest.

But the Lanfang Republic is completely different. Originally, the East African fleet arrived first from Bang Xia, a city in the north of the Lanfang Republic, but the capital of the Lanfang Republic, Dongwanlu, is in the south, so the East African fleet went south along the coastline.

Along the way, Ferdinand finally saw for the first time the construction situation of a country ruled by purely Chinese people. Lanfang's agriculture and mining industry are very developed, especially the agricultural construction, which can be regarded as the most advanced level among the Nanyang Islands. With this comparison, it can be seen that There is indeed some truth in what Ernst said about the Nanyang natives being useless.

In fact, this is proven by history. The Dutch in the original history knew the Lanfang Republic best. The Dutchman Gao Yan witnessed the last history of the Chinese company in West Borneo: "The Chinese era in the history of Borneo, and even Borneo The prosperous era has gone forever. The local gold mining industry has been replaced by large-scale modern enterprises of Europeans. However, the heyday of mining in the Chinese era no longer exists; agriculture has collapsed due to the large number of Chinese immigrants returning to the Far East. "

So Ernst's statement that the Lanfang Republic represents the highest productivity in the Southeast Asia region is not nonsense. In fact, the Dutch annexation of the Lanfang Republic was indeed a bad move.

 What does Lanfang Republic rely on for its own development? The fundamental problem is still a human problem. After the Dutch drove away the Chinese, the Lanfang Republic area has never recovered. At present, the Lanfang Republic itself is subject to intervention by the Dutch, and its so-called general is also a puppet controlled by the Dutch.

After the East African Fleet arrived at Sanyangkou, it obviously caused a commotion. The huge steel pile was quite shocking to the locals who had never seen an ironclad.

 "That's a boat?"

 "Warship!"

The Dutch businessmen doing business in the Sanyangkou area recognized the ironclad ship, and the more knowledgeable ones even recognized that the flag on the ironclad ship was the flag of the Kingdom of East Africa.

"Why did the Germans suddenly come to Lanfang? What do they want to do?"

Archduke Ferdinand did not come for "friendly" exchanges. Under the "cordial" greetings of the East African Navy, the Chinese leaders from Sanyangkou hurried to pay their respects. It would be impossible not to come, because the other party's troops had all landed.

"I wonder where you are from? Why did you come to my office in Lanfang?"

Ferdinand felt a little confused as soon as he opened his mouth because he couldn't understand it at all. He originally thought that he would be able to communicate with the other party even if he knew some Chinese. It seemed that he was overthinking it!

In terms of language learning, the Habsburg family dares to say that it is first, and no one dares to say that it is second. They are all forced to come out. If the area ruled by the Habsburg family does not speak several languages, it is not worthy of being the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a ruler, Franz himself was fluent in the eight languages ​​of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

 In this regard, Archduke Ferdinand was no less generous, and his experience was even more exciting than Franz himself. He had lived in Europe, America, and Africa, so he knew more languages.

There were many Chinese in the East African navy. Although they all knew German, Archduke Ferdinand learned Chinese specifically. It only took three months for Ferdinand to communicate with Chinese sailors without any barriers in German. This was very helpful for him to master the navy. It is beneficial. After all, the residents of East Africa are complex, and people of some ethnic groups will communicate in their own ethnic languages ​​in private.

 Fortunately, East Africa broke them up and separated them in advance, so that no language other than German itself could challenge the dominance of German in East Africa.

The Northern Chinese that Ferdinand learned is, more accurately, "Guoyu", which is currently the official language of the Far East, while the Lanfang Republic speaks Hakka and Chaozhou, which is beyond the scope of Archduke Ferdinand's abilities.

 Fortunately, there are many southerners in the East African navy. These are all recruited from Zhuhai. They are very good at water. It is the same as the mountain division recruiting troops from Guangxi. With translators, the two sides can finally communicate normally.

 "We are the Kingdom of East Africa…"

 Through the communication of the translator, the leader of Sanyangkou finally understood the purpose of the East Africans, but this was beyond his authority.

"Your Excellency, Archduke Ferdinand, this is not something that I, a small local official, can make the decision about. I will inform the general administration first and then the general administration will make a decision."

"Since you can't make the decision, there's no need to talk. We'll go to Dongwanlu in person to negotiate with the monarch of your country!" Archduke Ferdinand said. "this…"

But looking at the murderous army behind Archduke Ferdinand, as well as the oppressive strong ships and cannons, the leader of Sanyangkou swallowed his words again.

Although Dongwanlu, the capital of the Lanfang Republic, is deeper inland than Sanyangkou, it is actually not far from the sea. Therefore, it took Archduke Ferdinand two days to reach the capital of the Lanfang Republic.

In the 19th century, the population of Lanfang Republic was about one million, and the number of Chinese alone was about half a million. This was the result of the number of miners being reduced by half after the gold mines were exhausted. However, most of the Chinese miners went to the Kingdom of Sarawak. .

Therefore, the Lanfang Republic is not sparsely populated, and is even more densely populated than many areas in East Africa. Pontianak (city) alone has a population of about 200,000 to 300,000. Dongwanlu, as the political center of Lanfang, has a population of more than 10,000 .

Although the Lanfang Republic currently maintains its identity as an independent country, it unilaterally claims to be a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty. In fact, it has to hand over part of its tax revenue as protection fees to the Dutch. Its general government, Liu Asheng, is also the product of the struggle and compromise between the Chinese and the Dutch. It is considered a half-puppet regime.

 The Lanfang Republic was actually quite chaotic. Some people like Liu Asheng colluded with the Dutch, while others insisted on fighting against the Dutch.

This is not important to East Africa. The purpose of the East African Navy this time is to force the Liu family to fully open up the Lanfang Republic. As long as the Dongwanlu government signs the agreement, the East African business organizations will immediately launch economic operations against the Lanfang Republic. Invasion.

 In fact, there is economic trade in East Africa in Lanfang Republic. This is not surprising, because there are also British and Americans doing business in Lanfang Republic. However, East Africa's trade with the Lanfang Republic mainly relies on Zanzibar merchants, and this time he took part in it himself.

There are two intersecting streets in Dongwanlu that are a quarter mile long. They are very wide. The houses on the streets are neat and beautiful, but there are as few people as in American towns after cholera. The houses are all empty. This is the development of local mineral resources. The result after depletion.

 So when Archduke Ferdinand led his army into Dongwanlu, the Dongwanlu government actually had no way of stopping him.

The entire population of Dongwanlu was just over 10,000, and Ferdinand brought more than 2,000 troops ashore, so the Dongwanlu government had no confidence in resisting at all.

The Chinese forces along the way did not dare to resist, because everyone did not know what these outsiders did. As long as they did not threaten their own interests, no one would make the first move.

Of course, the Dutch said otherwise. The Dutch have accumulated a "word of mouth" in the Lanfang Republic over the years, and everyone knows that it is for themselves.

On the contrary, they are not familiar with the yellow and white army in East Africa, which is relatively unfamiliar. In addition, the East African navy is well-equipped and uniformly dressed. It is obviously a regular army. It is completely different from the Dutch's semi-bandit attire (mercenaries). At first glance, It's not someone to be trifled with.

Archduke Ferdinand arrived at Dongwanlu without any hindrance. After seeing the so-called Grand General System in Dongwanlu, he directly took out the wish list for East Africa: "Your Excellency Liu Asheng, these are all the requirements of our East African Kingdom. If your country If you accept our friendship, we in East Africa are willing to have friendly exchanges with your country."

With the muzzle of the gun pressed to his forehead, the general leader, who was called a "traitor" by the local Chinese militant faction, signed the friendly trade agreement tremblingly without even looking carefully.

The main reason is that there seems to be no solution without signing. In addition, the East African Kingdom does not directly ask Lanfang to pay tribute like the Dutch, so it is still acceptable.

The East African Kingdom does not need to be greedy for the little money for the time being. In order to occupy this place in the long term, it mainly focuses on trade, recruitment of armed forces, immigration, and investment. It will first cultivate the local pro-East African forces, and in the future, it will consolidate this divided country. Swallow it in one gulp.

The politics of Lanfang Republic is so weird. In addition to Lanfang Company, there are other Chinese companies, but Lanfang Company is the strongest, equivalent to the "overlord" and can convince the public.

 This so-called "negotiation" is actually a threat of force and intimidation, which is completely different from the practices of East Africa, Africa and Europe.

 In Africa, there is no need for intimidation in East Africa. They have always been straightforward. The disobedient natives can be suppressed directly, and they do not even have the right to negotiate.

 So this "goodwill visit" to Lanfang Republic, East Africa showed the face of ordinary colonists for the first time, and got addicted to "imperialism".

 (End of this chapter)