I'm playing whack-a-mole in Siberia

Chapter 243 Backlash

Hagen finally understood Gavin's pain a few months ago.

The Acehnese were very cunning and did not fight the Dutch head-on.

The search team sent by the Dutch may be attacked by the Acehnese at any time.

The Acehnese's attacks were fierce and extremely efficient.

Yesterday afternoon a company of East India servants was attacked.

When the attack occurred, another Gurkha force was not far from the servant army that was attacked.

It only took the Gurkha troops half an hour to arrive at the site of the attack, which was extremely fast for the Dutch army.

When Gurkha arrived, the battle was already over.

A total of 150 people were wiped out in just half an hour.

The Acehnese even had time to clean up the battlefield, collect all the loot, and leave a letter to the Dutch.

It was this letter that finally made Hagen feel troubled.

The Aceh people claimed in the letter that whatever the Dutch did in Aceh, Aceh would be returned to the Dutch intact. Today's Lansha and Aceh are the future of Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Hagen wondered what the Acehnese would do.

But Hagen could imagine that if the tragedies of Lansha and Aceh really happened in the Netherlands, then the Dutch colonization in East India would collapse in an instant.

The reason why the Dutch did whatever they wanted in the East Indies was that everything that happened in the East Indies had nothing to do with the Dutch mainland.

The East Indians could not threaten the Dutch mainland.

The army being attacked wasn't even a Dutch army, but a fratricidal war between East Indians.

If the East Indians had the ability to threaten the Dutch mainland.

Gavin would not dare to order the massacre of Lansha, and Hagen would not bombard Aceh.

Now Hagen can only hope that the Acehnese are just talking and have no ability to threaten the Dutch mainland.

But the supporter behind the Acehnese people is the Russian Empire.

Aceh may not be able to threaten the Dutch mainland.

The Russian Empire totally does.

So after Hagen finished his toast, Zobnin was invited to the small living room.

"What happens in East India is limited to East India. This should be our consensus."

Hagen hopes to reach an agreement with Zobnin.

"I agree!"

Zobnin surprised Hagen happily.

"So the war can only be in East India and cannot spread to Europe, otherwise it will arouse opposition from all European countries."

Hagen spoke more bluntly, worried that Zobnin wouldn't understand.

"Yes, that should be the case."

Zobnin was heartless and took the initiative to raise his glass to Hagen.

"That's great, I'm glad we came to an understanding."

Hagen was happy. As long as the war did not spread to Holland, Hagen could continue.

"Wait, what consensus?"

Zobnin's words made Hagen feel bad.

"You don't think I have the ability to influence those Aceh people, do you? First of all, I have to declare that the Russian Empire has nothing to do with Aceh. The Slavs in Aceh are their personal actions and have nothing to do with the Russian Empire."

Hagen's expression was gloomy, and he mentally greeted the women in Zobnin's family.

"Although I don't know what happened yet, I want to remind you that if any innocent Russians are harmed in Aceh, you know the consequences - the Russian Empire will never sit idly by!"

Zobnin made Hagen realize what true imperialism is.

Yes, the Russian Empire was behind Aceh.

But if the Dutch dare to hurt any Russian in Aceh, then Zobnin will let Hagen know how violent the mad polar bear really is.

“If any city in the Netherlands is attacked in any form, it will be a subversion of the civilized world and will be opposed by the whole world——”

Hagen knew that the Netherlands was too weak to fight against the Russian Empire alone.

"Ha, don't try to represent the whole world, you are not qualified to represent the whole world!"

Although Hagen still doesn't know how violent the polar bears are, he has seen how arrogant the Russians are.

"If Russia ceased to exist, there would be no need for this world to exist!"

Zobnin's words made Hagen's heart tremble.

Aceh's external news was completely cut off, and Hagen did not know what was happening in the Netherlands.

It was not until a week later that Hagen learned that on the day when the East Indian servants bombarded Aceh, an explosion occurred in an arsenal in Amsterdam.

The location of the arsenal is relatively remote and the impact is not significant.

The Dutch government immediately characterized the accident as an accident.

Hagen knew it wasn't that simple.

It was normal for arsenals to explode. In an era when smokeless gunpowder was unstable, it would explode wherever it was placed.

But it didn't explode sooner or later, but it happened to explode on the day when the East Indian Army attacked Aceh.

The Dutch government has not yet realized the connection between the two. Hagen only felt his eyes black and the soles of his feet weak.

Another day later, Hagen again received news from the Netherlands.

After the explosion of the arsenal in Amsterdam, the Dutch government received an anonymous letter claiming that the explosion of the arsenal was God's punishment for the Dutch invasion of Aceh. If the Dutch did not stop the invasion, the next time the arsenal would be exploded it would not be the arsenal.

The funny thing is that the Dutch government did not take this letter seriously, thinking that it was just a prank by a madman.

So two days later, the armored battleship "King" docked in the Rotterdam military port exploded again.

The last explosion at the arsenal only resulted in the death of two warehouse managers. These two warehouse managers were still employed from the colonies, so the impact was not significant. The "King" is the latest cutting-edge warship in service with the Royal Netherlands Navy. The explosion occurred near the ammunition depot of the "King".

The violent explosion caused the ammunition on the "King" to explode. This ironclad ship, which had been in service for less than half a year, disappeared from the water in only 5 minutes.

Along with the "King" sank, there were 156 Royal Navy officers and soldiers.

Fortunately, of these 156 men, less than 20 were real Dutch, and the rest of the sailors were hired from the colonies.

I want to add something here.

After the establishment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, it suffered from a shortage of local manpower and could only hire a large number of sailors from the colonies to serve in the Royal Netherlands Navy.

There are currently about 10,000 colonial sailors serving in the Royal Netherlands Navy.

If the last explosion was a prank.

Then the explosion of the "King" finally attracted the attention of the Dutch government.

From arsenals to ironclads, the leap is huge and astonishing.

Where will it be next time?

What if the explosion occurred in a densely populated area in the center of Rotterdam?

What if it was the Houses of Parliament or even the Royal Palace?

Hagen received three telegrams from the Netherlands within one day. The Dutch government demanded that Hagen immediately stop the attack on Aceh and negotiate with the Acehnese to end the war as quickly as possible.

After receiving the telegram, Hagen cursed and hated the weakness of local politicians.

But after finishing the scolding, Hagen still had to hold his nose and come to Dewey, because only Dewey could contact the Lansha Sultanate.

It sounds amazing.

Even Zobnin, a real Russian, could not contact the Lansha Sultanate.

Dewey, an American, could.

But this is the fact.

The Deweys were also smart and dragged Zobnin along to see Hagen.

Hagen looked at Zobnin with extremely hateful eyes.

But there was nothing we could do about Zobnin.

"I found the letter on my windowsill. I don't know when it appeared or who put it there. Maybe Mr. Zobnin knows."

Dewey was helpless, he was just a sucker, but he didn't expect to be cheated.

"I know as much as you know."

Zobnin held a nail clipper and trimmed his nails carelessly, filing them twice, blowing on them, filing them twice more, and blowing again——

"Can you concentrate? We are negotiating here!"

Dewey almost laughed out loud, the Russians were so interesting.

"What does it have to do with me? I don't know anything!"

Zobnin shouted that he was innocent and the letter was not found on his window sill.

Dewey gritted his teeth.

The night before he found the letter, Zobnin and Dewey were drinking together in Dewey's room.

Dewey drank a little too much and found the letter when he woke up.

"Whether you know it or not, I have to say that what the Acehnese are asking for is impossible to achieve."

Hagen's heart was filled with humiliation, but he had to swallow it.

The conditions proposed by the Acehnese in the letter were very harsh, requiring the Dutch East Indian colonial government to withdraw from Sumatra and at the same time compensate the Lansa Sultanate 100 million dong as war compensation.

This condition was unacceptable to Hagen.

But when it comes to negotiations, they ask for a high price and pay back the money on the spot. When the Dutch negotiated with the East Indian kings in the past, they opened their mouths loudly, but now it finally backfired on the Dutch.

"Then what else is there to say, bye -"

Zobnin got up and left.

"Wait a minute, can you stop being so grumpy-"

Dewey grabbed Zobnin and refused to let Zobnin leave.

"Ah--"

Zobnin sneered, looking at Hagen like he was looking at prey.

Impossible?

Ok.

Then it was a light explosion, and it didn't hurt the Dutch people to their bones.

"On behalf of Amsterdam, I can agree to the independence of Aceh, and from a humanitarian standpoint, give Aceh some economic compensation——"

Hagen tried to describe the surrender as tactfully as possible.

"You don't seem to understand the situation clearly. Do you still feel aggrieved?"

Zobnin's expression was colder than the Siberian cold wave.

"By coincidence, I also found a letter on the windowsill of my room."

Zuo Bunin took out a letter and placed it in front of Hagen, and Shi Shiran left.

This time Dewey did not stop Zobnin from leaving.

Hagen didn't stop him. He looked at the letter blankly, sweat suddenly oozing out from his forehead.

Hagen's hands were shaking, and the thin letter paper seemed to be heavier than a thousand pounds.

Dewey wanted to know the contents of the letter but had no chance.

Because after Hagen read the letter, he fainted in his chair.

The letter fell to the ground lightly, and Dewey only saw some names and addresses, and then he was asked out of the room by the medical staff swarming in.

(End of this chapter)