Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 167: Gaining a Foothold
ps: Thanks to the three sons of Lunhui for their support! The Natuna Islands include more than 200 islands of various sizes. The island has high temperatures and heavy rainfall throughout the year, and tropical rainforests are spread all over the island.

The tropical rainforest is called a green desert. After the land in the rainforest is reclaimed, the crop yield is low. After a few years of cultivation, the cultivation will have to be abandoned due to severe soil erosion. Therefore, although the Natuna Islands cover an area of ​​more than 2,000 square kilometers, there is not much land on the island suitable for growing crops. The Han people who have migrated to the island in the past dynasties live mainly on the north and south coasts of the big island, and the population is only 3,700 after statistics.

It took the fleet three or four days to clear out the scattered forces on the island. At the same time, a hundred engineering troops that followed the fleet excavated the land at the western port of the big island and built a temporary camp.

There were about a thousand young and strong Han people on the main island. Following the practice in Rio Grande do Sul, Sun Bin selected three hundred people to form a militia. More than twenty fleet soldiers served as grassroots officers in charge of training. The remaining seven hundred young and strong people, under the command of A Chen, leveled the foundation in preparation for the construction of a defensive castle in the near future.

The intensive construction work lasted for more than ten days. With the efforts of more than a thousand young and strong Han people and soldiers, the land leveling work in the western port area was successfully completed. The housing problem of more than 600 fleet soldiers was also solved because a batch of houses confiscated from the rebels were distributed.

The population on the island was originally small, and the ruling ones were only the village chiefs and clan leaders of a few villages. Under the military intimidation of the fleet officers and soldiers, the clan leaders of the seven Han villages honestly handed over the control over the men, women, young and old in the village, so that Sun Bin's orders could be smoothly transmitted to every village under his jurisdiction.

At the fleet's temporary command post, in a wooden house confiscated from the chief of a rebellious village, Sun Bin summoned Ah Chen, Liang Xing and other main leaders of the fleet to discuss future plans.

"Everyone, according to the plan, a large merchant ship consisting of transport vessels will arrive at the Natuna Islands in three months. During these three months, we will be responsible for sending people to contact the Chinese scattered throughout Southeast Asia and try to obtain as many immigrants as possible."

"Sir Sun, I have several acquaintances on the Straits Peninsula. I can recruit a group of Chinese immigrants through them." Liang Xing used to be a British colonial businessman. Sun Bin was not surprised that he had connections on the Straits Peninsula.

Nodding to Liang Xing approvingly, Sun Bin continued, "The first batch of immigrants is marked as about 10,000 people. There are many Chinese workers in the Strait Peninsula, and with the relationship between Liang Xing and his brother, we should be able to get several thousand immigrants from there. Kalimantan Island has a mixture of Dutch, British, indigenous and Han forces, so we will not consider immigration from there for the time being. Thailand and Annan have had a large number of Chinese since ancient times, so we can send more people to these two regions to obtain immigrants."

"Thailand is a stable country, and most of the Chinese immigrants there are in the upper class. It may not be easy to recruit immigrants from Thailand. The southern part of Annan is being invaded by the French, and the government's control in the north is weak, and local forces are mixed. The local Han immigrants have several powerful armed organizations. If we can recruit them for our army, the plan to recruit immigrants will be more successful." Liang Xing suggested.

The national situation in Thailand is stable, and there are very few anti-Chinese massacres in the local area. Most of the Chinese who immigrated to Thailand have integrated into the local society. It is indeed difficult to get Chinese with stable lives to follow the fleet to immigrate to South America.

Sun Bin thought carefully for a while and said, "There are quite a few Chinese in Thailand. If we want to establish a stable immigration channel in Southeast Asia, we cannot do without Thailand, a Southeast Asian country. The plan to send people to Thailand remains unchanged. As for how many immigrants we can recruit, we will put it in the second place. We will first place a team of our people in Thailand."

Sun Bin did not explicitly state the purpose of deploying a large number of personnel in the Nanyang region, because he only learned about this from Li Mingyuan shortly before his departure. Before his departure, Li Mingyuan asked him to secretly develop forces belonging to the National Defense Army in various parts of Nanyang and establish a complete intelligence network, which would not only serve the upcoming immigration operation, but also be responsible for finding out the local situation in various parts of Nanyang and providing intelligence support for the National Defense Army's future operations in Nanyang.

Intelligence is the eyes of a country's military strategy. What Sun Bin did in Rio Gran Sul was to infiltrate intelligence from southern Argentina, Brazil and other countries. Therefore, after receiving the secret mission from Li Mingyuan, he did not make it public and secretly formulated future action plans during the voyage.

After revealing the matter of Thailand, Sun Bin continued, "There are several armed forces in the northern part of Annan that are related to the Kingdom of Heaven. In a few days, I will lead a group of people to Annan in person. During my absence, Brother Liang Xing will be responsible for everything on the island. Everyone must listen carefully to Brother Liang Xing's orders and not delay the prince's important matters."

"As you command." Liang Xing bowed and responded after hearing Sun Bin's arrangement. "While I am away, there are two things I need to tell you. The first is to send people to Kuching in a few days to purchase construction materials. You can let the foreigners in the fleet take charge of this matter, and they will do it according to the requirements.

The second thing is to cooperate with Brother Chen to occupy all the small islands around the Natuna Islands, and select a few larger islands to build outposts to prevent invasion by other armed forces. "

"Don't worry, Lord Sun. I will make careful arrangements." Liang Xing listened carefully to Sun Bin's words and replied.

"We have stayed on Natuna Island for more than ten days. Time is running out. I will leave for Annan with some brothers tomorrow. I will leave the rest to you brothers."

"Isn't it a bit too urgent to leave tomorrow? Sir Sun, why don't you wait for two days before leaving?"

"I can't wait any longer. Yesterday I heard from a Chinese businessman that conflicts between several armed groups in the south and north have intensified, and large-scale conflicts are likely to break out in the near future, so I have to rush there as soon as possible."

"The situation in northern Annan is complicated and it is close to Guangxi, which is ruled by the Qing Dynasty. Please be careful on your way."

"I will be careful." Sun Bin nodded and accepted Liang Xing's kindness. ...

The next day, Sun Bin took more than a hundred good soldiers and sailed to the northern part of Annam, disguised as Chinese merchants in Southeast Asia.

After Sun Bin left, Liang Xing immediately took over the work he left behind. On the one hand, he sent Ah Chen to drive a 600-ton armed merchant ship to occupy the surrounding islands, and on the other hand, he sent more than 30 people led by four Germans on the largest armed merchant ship to visit Kuching.

Kuching is the capital of Sarawak. It is nominally ruled by the white kingdom of the Brooke Dynasty, but in reality it is a British colony.

After the ship arrived in Kuching, the four Germans met with the local British representative in the name of purchasing supplies, and obtained a license to purchase supplies and build a trading post directly from him. The price they paid for this was only a few hundred silver coins.

The meeting was simple and pleasant. In less than an hour, the Germans got what they wanted. Then four Germans stayed to chat with the British, while the remaining Chinese were responsible for purchasing supplies and goods and choosing a suitable location to establish a trading post in Kuching.

(End of this chapter)