Dominate the Country

Nanyang, Batavia, in a gorgeously decorated mansion.

Walking out of the room facing the ice basin, Dong Gao immediately felt his whole body suddenly hot, as if he had entered a big steamer, which made him feel very uncomfortable in his middle age.

Dong Gao waved his hand to the attendant waiting on the side and asked, "Are all the people here?"

"Sir, all the attendants from Nanyang have arrived." The attendant replied.

He was a Jinshi who had just passed the imperial examination. Dong Gao had read this man's answer sheet and could say that his writing was mediocre. With his level of policy essays, he would not have been able to pass the imperial examination in the Qing Dynasty. However, Chen Han's imperial examination paper was scored, and the examination content was more than one policy essay, and the essay only accounted for 40% of the total score.

So this unknown person in history has now entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and may be able to dance on the highest stage of Chinese politics in the future. Of course, Dong Gao is not old. He is only in his early forties and has a long political life ahead of him. Now is the prime of his life. Since he joined Chen Han, he has stepped up to his current position step by step. He has a rich grassroots resume and work experience. He is humble and persistent. In the past few years since he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he has won the favor of his superiors and his position has been promoted step by step to the fourth rank. By the time of the next term, his goal can be set to a higher level.

"Let's go." Dong Gao took the lead and walked towards the meeting room not far away.

This time, he led a group to Batavia to make the final contact with the Dutch. If the Dutch are obedient, they can not only withdraw all their people, but also receive a good amount of compensation from Chen Han.

So Dong Gao did not come alone, he brought a complete negotiation team.

In the hot weather, if possible, Dong Gao would not call everyone to a meeting. But the formal negotiations will begin tomorrow. Before that, they have already informed the other party of some conditions. Today, they have to make a summary, so the things discussed today are very important, and all the important members of the negotiation team must be present.

Dong Gao lives in a "public house" in Batavia. All the important members of the Dutch East India Company lived there before. But the meeting room is in a two-story building separated by a house. This is considered a residence of their negotiation team.

Although it is not a formal meeting with the Dutch, many people are wearing complete official robes, and sweat is dripping on their foreheads. The closed meeting room is like a big steamer. Even if there are ice basins in the four corners, it is useless.

Because of this, more and more Chen Han officials changed into military casual clothes in summer, and more and more people cut their hair. Winter is a great season for this kind of Hanfu official robe, which everyone loves to wear.

Dong Gao will not waste his brains on the problem of "heat". It's autumn in the mainland, and Nanyang is still so hot. What can he do?

The most important thing right now is tomorrow's negotiations, which is what he needs to consider carefully.

First, will the Dutch agree to withdraw from East India?

In that case, their limited forces can all be assembled in Ceylon to maintain the most important port in Ceylon - Trincomalee.

Second, Chen Han can promise to give a sum of money as a "land purchase money" to the Dutch, and then until the end of the war, the Netherlands will give Ceylon to China in its entirety, and China can also appropriately give them convenient and relaxed conditions in the future bilateral maritime trade.

It can be said that these two conditions represent that Chen Ming has covered up all the blood debts of the past Hongxi tragedy, and he really wants to continue with the big windmill.

Even if the Dutch are short of money, China can provide them with a low-interest loan of 10,000 pounds of gold.

Dong Gao had already informed the Dutch of these conditions through the Spanish guards on the day he arrived in Batavia, but three days have passed and there has been no feedback.

This gave Dong Gao a bad premonition in his heart.

"Sir, although the Dutch suffered a little loss at the hands of the British, the general trend of the war in North America is on their side."

Everyone present knew that because China was going to war with the Netherlands, someone else in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was in contact with Robert. He hoped to get some benefits from the British by relying on this condition and the inevitable war between China and the West on the North American continent.

"Will they expect the French to come to their rescue?"

The French fleet is in Ceylon, and it doesn't take much effort to come to Nanyang.

Dong Gao glanced at the man, "The French will only sail their fleet into Malacca unless they are crazy."

Even when the British wanted to pass through Jinghai, they had already informed China in advance. Otherwise, the fleet might not be able to get out of Malacca.

It's just a pity that the British did not capture the city of Malacca.

The result concerning the Dutch can never bypass France and Britain. Dong Gao didn't know where the British fleet had withdrawn to, but when he left Nanjing by boat, the French had not yet taken action. Their sense of smell has become much duller after several years of degeneration.

"The Dutch have been constantly expanding their army in recent years. According to the report of the Military Intelligence Bureau, they now have more than 30,000 people and are still constantly building fortifications in Batavia. This is a very bad phenomenon."

Another person who has no hope for negotiations.

There are quite a few people like this in the negotiation group, because the members of this negotiation group are not very old. Dong Gao is in his early forties and is already the second oldest brother in the group. And those young and energetic young people, compared to paying money to buy land, are more disgusted by seeing Chen Han's army sweeping Batavia with strong ships and powerful guns.

"If the war can be avoided, don't let it break out." Dong Gao's attitude is like this. After a war, China and the Netherlands will not be able to recover for decades. The most important thing is that the court has no money. After this war, the money China needs to spend may be greater than the war.

"If the other side shirks responsibility when we meet tomorrow, we don't need to save face for them. Show our tough attitude. Completely unify negotiation and war."

"Let the Dutch make a quick decision."

"They can either stay away from the war and seek a decent peace. But Nanyang must be ours."

"Or we can go to war and use bilateral force to decide the outcome."

Although his attitude is definitely "dovish", Dong Gao insists on being absolutely tough in negotiations. Soft words in mouth, big stick in hand. You must show your attitude!

Because China is much stronger than the Dutch in Batavia now.

Although the Batavia authorities have not stopped preparing for war in recent years, they have organized an army of more than 30,000 people, but this can't reverse anything at all. Facing an elephant, is the difference between a rabbit and a pug important?

There is no need for Nanjing to draw troops from the mainland. Just Chen Han's troops stationed in Nanyang are enough to sweep East India.

The garrison brigade stationed on Luzon Island, the garrison brigade stationed on Mindanao Island, the garrison brigade in Singapore, the fleets of Penang Island and Zengmu Island, and the troops in Borneo, these garrisons are enough to tear Batavia to pieces.

Chen Han has been established for eight years.

Years of operation have given Chen Han a strong fighting power in Nanyang. And to be honest, Batavia is not a good place to fight at all. It is easy to attack and difficult to defend, and there is no danger in the entire terrain.

The Dutch have been strengthening the city defense of Batavia for the past two years. It is simply a show to calm the hearts of the Dutch and the local natives around them, giving them a feeling that the Dutch will stick to Batavia.

In fact, Dong Gao felt that the two countries were really going to go to war. When warships and transport ships were floating on the sea outside Batavia, the Dutch would disappear from the city at the fastest speed.

No other place in Java and Sumatra would be worse than here.

At this moment, no one here knows that on the other side of the ocean, the Chinese expeditionary force and the Spanish colonial army have already fought each other.

The first step of Chen Ming's grand ambition - setting foot in North America, will eventually come to an end with the outcome of this battle.

Even if Chen Han's expeditionary force defeated the Spanish army of 100,000 with a small number of enemies, they did not have enough strength to occupy more land. If there was still strength left, the expeditionary force should have crossed the Rocky Mountains or thoroughly eliminated the Indians in the country.

The war between China and Spain, and now China has pointed its spearhead at the Dutch in East India, the French are really going to jump up and down.

Even though they knew that Chen Han really helped them on the Indian issue. A large number of weapons were secretly smuggled to the hands of Indian princes, so that although Hyder Ali's troops suffered a setback, they quickly recovered their combat effectiveness. It was just that the navy of the Kingdom of Mysore was completely annihilated by the British West Indian Fleet, which gave Haider a slap in the face. However, Haider's troops still had the upper hand on the crucial land, and one of the important reasons for this was the arms.

A little bit of water makes a big difference. A small order of two or three hundred, three or four hundred muskets, after accumulating twenty, was also a considerable amount.

The most important thing was that the "flood of firearms" appeared not only in Mysore, but also in Mattala. Although Mattala suffered a great loss in the war with Britain, its basic strength was still there.

The situation of the British in India was still very dangerous.

"This is our best chance to get Ceylon."

Everyone regarded Java and Sumatra as China's possession, and the negotiation team's communication with the Dutch also focused on Ceylon. That was the key to how China could intervene in India.

After solving the problem of Nanyang, Myanmar entered the countdown. After Myanmar is resolved, the entire Chinese cultural radiation zone will be unified. Either it is China's territory or China's younger brother.

Then it will be time for China to look westward.

As a middle-level official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as a seedling favored by the superiors, Dong Gao knows a lot of things that ordinary Ministry of Foreign Affairs personnel say they don't know. The cabinet has long had an expansion plan from the emperor's hand, first to the Qing Dynasty and Japan, then to Southeast Asia, and then to Myanmar, India, and Kazakhstan, that is, step by step, step by step, to step China's footsteps to the world.

Even Dong Gao heard a little bit of news about the "closure of the American country".

Therefore, we can't look at the problem in just one place, we have to look at it in a unified way. It is absolutely necessary to force the Dutch, because Ceylon is also in Nanjing's plan, and the British are in a miserable situation in North America and India. It is possible that they can't hold it in one breath and admit defeat, then the French can turn around and protect the Netherlands.

Although this possibility is small, the British cannot lose the two "gems" of North America and India at once.

The problem of Nanyang will be troublesome, and the problem of Ceylon will be more troublesome. The French also successfully returned to India, making the situation in India more complicated and more troublesome.

This is definitely not in China's interests.

So we have to speed up. They can't afford to waste even a little time like a windmill.

It would rather fight than waste a month or two in Batavia.

…

On the 20th day of the eighth lunar month, sunny. A small town outside Tokyo City [Los Angeles], the Third Military Hospital of the North American Expeditionary Force.

As a bell rang, a soldier in a loose hospital gown raised his head in a daze and looked at the sky outside through the window. The weather was really good today. It took him a while to sit up, his eyes were still dazed and his mind was not clear. Only two or three minutes later, his eyes flashed with clarity.

The soldier's head was wrapped in thick white gauze. His confusion after getting up may also have something to do with the injury on his head.

Then, as if he suddenly remembered something, he turned around and lifted up the pillow, opened a blue cloth bag hidden under the pillow, and took out the stack of banknotes and deposit slips from it again. After carefully counting them, he also found a few gold and silver coins he kept as souvenirs. Not a single one was missing, so he grinned with relief.

Every time he saw these ten-dollar bills and thousand-dollar bills, the wounded soldier was deeply stimulated.

A total of 27,700 yuan, all registered bills of the Bank of China. In fact, even if he lost this thing, he could withdraw the money from the Bank of China with his military ID.

Oh my God, when can I be so rich? I am really lucky. The wounded soldier's eyes were full of sparkling luster.

As a marine soldier, the battlefield of this wounded soldier was not a decisive battle in the inland army, but a raid on the coast.

His injury was left in a "cleaning" battle.

He was dazzled by a pile of gold, silver and jewelry and was attacked by a white middle-aged man hiding in the dark. However, a professional soldier is a professional soldier, and the helmet on his head also resisted some of the force. Although the wounded soldier's head immediately bleeds, he still trained to put the bayonet into the chest of the white middle-aged man, and then shouted for help, and then fainted.

Therefore, only about 30% of the bag of gold, silver and jewelry that confused him belonged to him, and the rest had to be handed over to the public, taken as a commission, and distributed to his comrades who rescued him.

But even if it was only 30%, the wounded soldier exchanged more than 27,000 yuan, which can be said to have become rich overnight.

The logistics department in the army is responsible for this matter. Even if the wounded soldiers died in the next battle, the money would be sent to the families of the wounded soldiers without a cent less. After all, it is impossible for soldiers to continue fighting with the spoils. One of the goals of the raid is to make the Spaniards continue to "bleed", and this blood is not only human blood, but also material wealth.

The wounded soldier was just an ordinary soldier. He had fought in two battles before. He was not injured, but he did not find the cellar or the money vault. But this time he really made it.

After a silly smile, the wounded soldier put on a single coat, put on a pair of cloth shoes and got out of bed. There were only two beds in his ward. Military hospitals were different from field hospitals. The latter had to use every inch of space, while the wounded here were mostly recuperated.

The door was wide open, and a refreshing morning breeze blew in from time to time. It seemed that another patient had gone out. The cool breeze made the wounded soldier shudder. He looked at his urinal. Sure enough, his comrade in the same room did not go to empty it. It was really disappointing. The wounded soldier yawned, then picked up the urinal and walked to the door leisurely. He went to the bathroom at the north end of the ward to empty it, then washed it clean, and then leaned lazily against the door frame. He picked up a piece of roasted sweet potato that he had just brought from next door and ate it in small bites.

People, you can't spoil them. Speaking of this wounded soldier, more than a decade ago, when he was still a child, he had never had a full stomach since he could remember. The only good meal he had was during the Chinese New Year and other festivals.

Sweet potato and corn steamed bread, sweet potato rice, corn cakes, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted potatoes, steamed sweet potatoes, boiled corn, the thought of eating sweet potatoes and corn made him vomit acid in his stomach. At that time, he absolutely did not want to eat sweet potatoes again.

But now, he is tired of eating white flour buns and white rice, and occasionally tries roasted sweet potatoes, which tastes really good.