Hidden Dragon in Qing Dynasty

The Queen hesitated, but did not directly refuse. Instead, she hesitated. This time, the Princess Cissie saw hope, and she felt that there was a way.

The question of territories was a very sensitive subject for any country in the world, not only on the topic of interests, but also on the issue of sovereign integrity and the demoralization of the people.

If a country had reached the point of selling its land, then there would be no need for this regime to exist. The people would just abandon it.

But there were exceptions to everything. In the colonial era after the discovery of geography, colonies were clearly not as valuable as natives.

The exploration of the ocean was actually quite romantic, and the navigators, with the support of the nobles of the king, gathered bold sailors into the unknown to search for wealth.

Every captain's most basic skill was drawing, searching for strange islands, continents, and waterways in the sea. Even large whirlpools, sea monsters, reefs and the like all had to be drawn on the map.

Usually, the lookout hand would discover an island and upon landing, they would discover that there were no civilized people on this island, only aboriginals or wild animals and plants. When he looked at the sea map again, he found that no one had marked this island.

This would be easy. The first to discover them would have the right to a name, and he would give this island a name!

The navigators would definitely declare that the sovereignty of the island belonged to the sponsors, not the Home Country but the sponsors. Whoever financed this expedition would own such an island.

If this expedition was funded by everyone, then this land would belong to a certain family!

It seemed like a joke, but this was the way it was back then when they were exploring the sea!

Each country had their own expedition fleet, and in the early days of The Age of Great Navigation, the new nautical chart was a highly secret to the countries.

This way, many islands and lands would be discovered many times, and then declared sovereignty by various countries many times!

Chaos, utter chaos. Valued islands and continents would be fought for by the other countries. War had changed the territory of the colonies.

But there was still a group of land that had no value in the eyes of the people of that time, and which had always belonged to the first finders.

The land that the Princess Cissie wanted belonged to the second person. At that time, people thought that it was worthless, but because it was the British who found it, sovereignty belonged to the British.

For example, Christmas Island was a 100 square kilometers small island in the south of Java Island. In this era, there were no humans migrating here.

When the Princess Cissie mentioned the name of the island, the palace servant couldn't find the island after searching for a long time.

In the end, he could only open up the royal family database and retrieve the detailed nautical map of the Indian Ocean. Only then did he find the unremarkable island.

Christmas Island, 1643 Christmas Eve was discovered by the British captain, but at that time he only recorded the island on the chart and did not board the island.

Since then, the island had been a British colony in the legal sense, but no one had developed it!

This situation did not change until 1887, when geologists on British warships discovered phosphate deposits in rock samples taken from islands.

It was precisely because of the presence of mineral deposits that large-scale immigration began to occur on the worthless island, but the total population of this island up to the twenty-first century was no more than two thousand.

It would be strange if the Queen took a fancy to such an island!

Carefully looking at the map, then looking at the detailed information, Queen Victoria lowered her eyes and helplessly said, "You want to buy Christmas Island? Just to be a forward supply station? "Why is this reason so far-fetched …"

"Your Majesty, your words speak louder than words. The Chinese ocean-going ships have indeed encountered many dangers in the Indian Ocean. It would not be excessive to build several resupplying ports!"

"More importantly, China's ports are always open to the British Empire, is having a supply port also good news for the British fleet and warships?"

"And this Kokos Islands …" Also on the way to the equatorial warm current, shouldn't we develop a way for us British to enjoy the fruits of Chinese spending? "

The Cocos Islands are smaller and belong to a chain of coral reef islands, with a population of no more than 20 square kilometres. Such islands seem to have no strategic value other than tourism.

It is worth mentioning that right now, the sovereignty of the Cocos Islands belongs to the British, but the property is a private property, belonging to the Ross family, whose ancestor was the Scots, who first came here to help the natives improve their coconut crops and develop their agriculture.

A twenty square kilometers small island had no strategic value at all!

However, the island was quite famous because Darwin had done scientific research here!

The Queen waved her hand and gave up on analyzing the two islands. Instead, she smiled and said, "I'm afraid these two islands are just appetizers in the negotiations. Xiao Letian's destination is Western Australia, right?"

"My child, tell me the truth, why is Xiao Letian doing this? Just what exactly is there!? "

The Queen is like a ghost! Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands were of no value to them. They were small in size and had no resources, so what use could they have other than the construction of docks to serve and fish for the ships?

So the Queen Victoria was able to see through Xiao Letian's true motive with one glance, and that was Australia!

Princess Cissie's expression was blank as she laughed awkwardly, "Your Majesty, why do you think that way? This world has always been under your control and the Western Australia has not been developed. The British Expedition has been to that desert more than once, didn't they find nothing? "

"What can the Chinese find out? If you really want me to guess, I think that Xiao Letian has a thirst for the land, and that he has a mental illness! "

"Chinese people are like this. They are born to work hard for food and shelter. They are desperate for land. They don't even want to let go of the most barren desert …"

"Your Majesty, don't laugh. I have seen the geographical photo album that Xiao Letian gave me before. The Chinese can build a kind of farmland like a ladder on the arid plateau of the northwest... "

"In the rebellious Western Desert, where are the people from? They even built underground rivers to water the farmland …"

"The Chinese have such a powerful farming technology that even the desert can be revitalized in their hands!"

Princess Cissie's expression suddenly became serious, "Your Majesty, do you know? "Last year and this year, three provinces, four prefectures, and thirty-one counties in the Kingdom of Qing suffered from severe calamity …"

"Drought, floods, locust plague... All kinds of natural disasters are tormenting the empire, and a large number of citizens can only become refugees! "

"The Qing Empire no longer has the ability to provide disaster relief. They can only let go of the road and allow the refugees to attack everywhere, to beg in richer places!"

"As long as you know about this, you can consult the ambassador in China. I believe that no one can deceive you!"

"Xiao Letian is merciful, why does he want to expand in the Southern Ocean with all his might? "Actually, there are only two things he wants. One is high-yielding rice, while the other is ocean-going fishing …"

"He … He had to find a way to feed the tens of millions of victims of the disaster! Qing Government doesn't care, Xiao Letian cannot ignore it! "

"Over ten million victims? God, are you kidding me? " Edward exclaimed.