Nanyang Storm 1864

Chapter 349: Grab a Woman as a Wife

In the back garden

After chatting with the Queen Mother for a while, seeing that she looked tired, King Zheng Guohui of Chu ordered people to help the old Queen Mother back to rest, and then he took a walk in the back garden.

hazy night
The watery moonlight poured down, shining on the tall and dense trees, forming mottled and sparse shadows, reflecting the winding garden paths and shimmering pools, and waves of floral fragrance came over.

Smelling the cool and fragrant air, King Zheng Guohui of Chu's thoughts became extremely sharp and his mood became much calmer.

This war between Chu and Britain forced the two great powers, Britain and France, to sign a peace treaty, thus realizing all their pre-war plans and unexpectedly intervening in Australia.

This potential benefit is much greater than the three continents of East Malaya that are currently in our pockets.

The Chu State promised not to send targeted immigrants to Australia, and the British side promised to give fair treatment to Chinese immigrants who arrived in Australia legally. This is a great progress.

Chinese immigrant flights to Australia still exist. Without any purposeful organization from the government, there are still many Chinese immigrants who dream of finding gold and spend all their money to buy tickets to Australia.

The Chu government only sold immigration summonses to its own citizens. These Chinese who had lived in Chu for many years generally had relatively wealthy assets and could afford the expensive immigration tickets.

After arriving in Australia, these Chinese immigrants can enjoy fair and just treatment locally, especially in Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory where Chinese are dominant, and will not be subjected to deliberate discrimination and persecution.

Such a relaxed environment is conducive to the development and growth of the local Chinese community.

In the southern states of Victoria and South Australia, the treatment of Chinese immigrants has also been greatly improved.

Australia originally introduced many laws to oppress Chinese immigrants, such as not allowing them to own property, not allowing them to get married, not allowing them to buy land, and requiring them to pay high taxes, which were three to five times that of ordinary white people.

Moreover, the states stipulate that Chinese immigrants must pay separate living expenses ranging from several pounds per month, which can be said to be extremely harsh.

It was precisely because of these restrictive and oppressive policies that in 1861, there were only three Chinese women among the more than 17000 Chinese workers in New South Wales. In Victoria, there were only eight Chinese women among the 2.8 Chinese workers.

At that time, a peculiar "Chinese bachelor society" was formed in various parts of Australia, which made it impossible for Chinese people to take root and reproduce in Australia. This was due to this oppressive policy.

Now everything has changed. The Australian Expeditionary Force swept through that dirty world like a gust of wind. Now the sky has become clean and clear, the river water is clear, and the air is particularly sweet.

There is no accurate statistical data
In this war that was enough to lead to changes in the entire Australian society, many white Australians died, most of whom were men.

Some later experts estimated the number to be between 3.2 and 3.5, some estimated it to be 21 or , some estimated it to be more than , and the most outrageous estimate was more than . This is a major event that will never have a true answer, hidden in the mist of history.

But King Zheng Guohui of Chu knew
The Australian Expeditionary Force was mainly composed of strong men. Ninety-nine percent of them already had families, ranches, houses and relatively stable jobs in Australia, such as cowboys, police officers, municipal officials or dock managers, and were present in every industry in Australia.

Among the Chinese who joined later, less than 40% had families. The women they married might be white women, Chinese women, or women from the East Indies who were trafficked to Australia. Their origins were varied.

One thing is certain:

The marriage problems that have plagued Chinese immigrants in Australia have been greatly alleviated, and as many as more than 100,000 Chinese families have taken root and will thrive in this vast land in the future.

Thanks to their relatively stable careers and incomes, Chinese immigrants gradually gained the favor of local white women, and there were also many cases of free intermarriage.

In these two months alone, more than 3300 couples entered into marriage, the vast majority of whom were combinations of Chinese men and white women.

In order to survive, white housewives who have lost their husbands choose to marry a Chinese man as a way out, at least their life will not be too difficult.

Among the Chinese immigrants who subsequently entered Australia, many brought their families with them, which effectively alleviated the situation of excess male Chinese in the local area.

The situation is developing in a positive direction. The "Chuxiang Association" organization headed by Earl Zheng Fu, as well as non-governmental organizations such as the "Veterans Expeditionary Force Association", "Jiangsu and Zhejiang Association", "Chaoshan Association", "Hakka Association" and so on established in various parts of Australia, have brought together the vast number of Chinese immigrants in Australia.

Through various non-governmental organizations, independently publishing Chinese newspapers, establishing Chinese schools, promoting new ideas and practices transmitted from the Chu State, safeguarding the interests of overseas Chinese, etc., an invisible bond was formed to unite overseas Chinese.

The companies under the Chu royal family have obtained many rights and interests in Australia. King Zheng Guohui of Chu plans to give out a part of the gold mine shares to make friends with the British royal family and upper aristocrats, so that London will also have a spokesperson for the interests of Chu.

This plan has already been secretly promoted by the envoys of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stationed in Europe. Anyway, it is just bribery.

This year

Corruption is rampant in the major colonies under the British flag, and it is also rampant in the British Isles, where it is not considered a big problem.

Without these huge bribes, how could the British elite maintain a decent life and enjoy the extravagant life of reveling every night?
The British are greedy for money, which is almost a universally recognized characteristic.

The Chu State's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Colonies and Ministry of the Interior allocate funds to Australia every year to support and expand pro-Chu forces and subtly infiltrate Australian society.

This work requires decades of unremitting efforts, and the fruits will eventually ripen. Zheng Guohui is not in a hurry at all; he has plenty of patience to wait for the harvest.

This is the policy towards Australia, but what about Hawaii?
Thought of here
King Zheng Guohui of Chu stopped and looked towards the east. His deep gaze seemed to penetrate the distant distance of tens of thousands of kilometers and saw the beautiful islands on the blue sea.

Oahu, Hawaii
A group of four horse-drawn carriages were traveling on the road outside Honolulu. The people driving and riding the carriages were all Han Chinese with black hair and black eyes. They were accompanied by more than ten armed guards, and they looked very alert.

When the front carriage slowed down at a bend, suddenly twenty or thirty white gunmen stood up from the woods on both sides and opened fire fiercely at the leading carriage.

This sudden, close-range attack immediately caused the coachman and an armed guard sitting in the front of the carriage to bleed profusely, and they fell to the ground screaming and died.

The hot bullets sent debris flying all over the carriage, and the strong horse pulling the carriage had several bloody holes on its body. It fell to the ground with a wail, and its four hooves kicked desperately for a while, then it quickly became stiff and motionless.

There was an armed guard hanging behind the carriage. After being attacked, he jumped off the carriage with a loud shout, fell to the ground, rolled a few times, and rolled nimbly into the grass on the side of the road.

This man was quite skilled and luckily escaped the fatal hail of bullets.

Suddenly attacked, the three carriages behind stopped urgently.

The coachman and the guard grabbed their revolvers and opened fire at the attacking white people, and a fierce fight broke out between the two sides.

These Chinese armed guards were all equipped with revolvers, and the Chinese guard following the car was also equipped with a double-barreled rifle. In battles within a few dozen meters, this type of rifle is more accurate and more lethal.

The close-range fire exchange between the two sides resulted in casualties. People who were shot kept falling to the ground with screams and blood splattering.

After the people on the carriage got off, they started to surround the attacking white militants from both sides with guns in hand. Four or five of them were knocked down, and they began to retreat without being able to withstand the pressure.

These Chinese gunmen chased for a while and killed two or three more white people. Then they came back angrily with their guns.

They were surrounding Colonel Wang Haigou, who was wearing a well-tailored suit. He used the pseudonym Wang Hai locally and was a respectable large plantation owner with warehouses and businesses in Honolulu. He was a wealthy Chinese businessman who employed more than 1,700 people.

obviously

The goal of these white gunmen was to kill Wang Hai, and they would stop at nothing to achieve this goal, even resorting to the heinous act of ambush him mid-strike.

This has pierced the last layer of fig leaf between Chinese and white Americans, leaving the issue at zero bottom line.

The conflicts between the two sides are irreconcilable in many aspects and have reached the point of life and death.

"Commander, they are going to start a war. We might as well kill all these Americans so that they don't have to jump around in front of us and disgust us all day long." Luo Bing said angrily.

Wang Haigou glanced at them gloomily, suppressing his anger and asking, "Stop talking in anger. Go check on the brothers and see how much they've lost."

"Yes, sir." Captain Luo Bing walked away with his revolver to count his own losses.

He quickly returned to report, saying, "Sir, we lost two horses, four men were killed, and six were wounded. We killed seven white bandits and captured four wounded, and we are interrogating them."

"Well, send someone back to notify them and bring a few more horses. We'll talk about everything after we get back." Colonel Wang Haigou gave the order calmly.

He also wanted to kill all these jumping white landowners, but he couldn't act rashly without orders from his superiors.

He has been lurking in Hawaii for three years. Unknowingly, his business has grown bigger and bigger. There are 30,000 soldiers hidden on Niihau Island. It can be said that he is very powerful.

If we don't fight now, all these early immigrants will be able to retire.

Fortunately, these Chinese immigrants have no intention of retiring. In order to suppress everyone's desire for war, they have organized several looting operations in Central America over the past year.

Not much gold, silver, and treasures were looted, and the cattle, sheep, and horses were also limited, but 13,000 to 14,000 young women were looted, and basically all of them were given to the group of guys on Ni'ihau Island, which actually helped 15,000 to 16,000 Chinese families.

The extra ones were the indigenous women abducted from the nearby islands, who were taken back to live with them anyway.

These military actions have led to the popularization of the idea of ​​a Chinese pirate group in Central America. The rumor has become increasingly widespread and has become more and more credible.

If Colonel Wang Haigou had not been involved in it himself, he would have really believed it.

Seeing others having wives and children and living in a happy home, the brothers are now very eager to go to Central America to rob women. Money doesn't matter, robbing a woman and bringing her back as a wife is the serious matter.

(End of this chapter)