Nanyang Storm 1864

Chapter 350 The situation escalates

The group hurried back to their residence in Honolulu, which was a large estate covering more than ten acres. It was dotted with several simple Victorian buildings and a thatched cottage with a very Hawaiian style.

The manor has no walls, and from here you can have a panoramic view of the beautiful bay, the coconut breeze, the blue sea and the white beach. The scenery is breathtaking.

There are often strong Chinese men wearing wide-brimmed cowboy hats hanging around the manor. They are dressed in casual clothes, with bulging waists, which shows that they are armed and very difficult to deal with.

When the carriages returned
A dozen Chinese men came out of a building deep in the manor to greet them. Colonel Wang Haigou said a few simple words and then sent the others to send the injured brothers for treatment.

Then he winked and walked into the main building with the leading few people. The other guards of the manor began to search vigilantly, and the defense level was invisibly improved.

The two white men who were hiding in the distance and observing with binoculars saw that they could not see anything, so they put away the binoculars in disappointment, turned around and left quietly.

In the manor hall

Including Colonel Wang Haigou, there were a total of five people, among whom were Huo Chongshan and Dong Jiasheng in plain clothes. Both of them were officers of the Royal Guards and had served as lieutenant colonel commanders of the Royal New Infantry Regiment respectively.

He made many contributions in battles such as the bloody battle of Saigon and the bitter battle of Bandar Seri Begawan, and was promoted to the rank of colonel for his merits. He was a rising star in the army.

Being here obviously means the situation is not simple.

These two men, carrying secret orders from His Majesty, each brought dozens of elite officers with them. They traveled thousands of miles to the Hawaiian Islands after the war and were responsible for reorganizing the 30,000 soldiers on the Hawaiian Islands.

Colonel Huo Chongshan served as the commander-in-chief of the Hawaiian Volunteer Militia, Colonel Dong Jiasheng served as the deputy commander, Colonel Wang Haigou served as the chief of staff, Colonial Office official Fan Zongjie served as the general manager, and former official of the US Trade Representative Office Zhuo Weiting served as the liaison officer. These five people in the hall were considered the leaders of the Hawaiian operation.

Colonel Huo Chongshan and Colonel Dong Jiasheng arrived more than a month ago. They reorganized the troops on the island into two militia divisions and five independent militia regiments, and have begun reorganization training.

In Honolulu, two independent militia regiments were organized, each with more than 1200 soldiers, all of whom remained on the sugar plantations on Oahu.

The rest of the personnel stayed on Niihau Island, more than 180 kilometers away, which is the base camp of the Chinese forces and has been managed tightly in recent years.

"It seems that the Americans are desperate and want to do something desperate. Is it McCain's group?" Colonel Huo Chongshan asked after several people sat down.

The McCain gang he mentioned is a group of white sugar plantation owners headed by McCain, president of the American Sugar Chamber of Hawaii. They are the leading external white force in the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Hawaii's geographical environment is very suitable for growing sugarcane. It is one of the world's four largest sugarcane producing areas along with Cuba, Brazil and Shangri-La Island, and is also the pillar industry of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

On Oahu and the Big Island of Hawaii, there were more than 700 American white plantations, operating thousands of sugar plantations and employing a total of about to workers.

Among these laborers, more than 70% were Chinese, the remaining 10% were white, mostly plantation supervisors and foremen, and 20% were local indigenous workers.

Since this year

Americans realized that hiring too many Chinese workers was not safe, so they began to import workers from the Korean Peninsula, Japan and other places to alleviate the risk of over-employing Chinese workers.

However, the time is still short and it is difficult to shake the absolute advantage of Chinese workers.

The Kingdom of Hawaii had a population of more than 19 in the early 80th century. The population should have been considerable to this day. How could it be that it lacked so much labor?

When Westerners came to Hawaii, they also brought epidemic diseases such as measles, smallpox and typhoid that the locals had never seen before. This was the main reason for the sharp decline in the population of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

By 1869, just two generations after coming into contact with the outside world, the indigenous population of the Kingdom of Hawaii had dropped from 80 at the beginning to 8.7, and this downward trend has not yet eased.

Once local indigenous people who do not produce viral antigens are infected with these diseases, they will almost certainly die.

Because of this, the sugar plantations on the Hawaiian Islands were in urgent need of labor, and many white plantations were in urgent need of expansion, but had no manpower available.

When it comes to labor, the hardworking and down-to-earth Chinese workers are the best. Korean and Japanese workers are also acceptable, but the local natives are far inferior.

Over the years
After the Chu State took control of the Pacific shipping routes, Chinese plantation owners, led by Colonel Wang Haigou, flocked in, gradually gained a foothold in the Kingdom of Hawaii, and developed rapidly.

To date, dozens of Chinese plantation owners have settled here. Relying on the abundant labor force to expand their plantations, they have occupied one-fifth of the Hawaiian sugar market and are showing strong development potential.

This is equivalent to stealing food from the bowls of white plantation owners. How could it not be maliciously targeted?
Hearing the question from Colonel Huo Chongshan, the Grand Commander, Colonel Wang Haigou frowned and nodded, and replied;

"This group of people is too rampant. Now they are openly trying to ambush people on the road and resorting to violence to resolve the dispute. You can only prevent the first day, but you can't prevent the fifteenth day. After all, they are a threat from the inside."

"The conflict has intensified and it's difficult to resolve it amicably." Fan Zongjie sighed lightly, his tone sounding serious.

Colonel Dong Jiasheng said with a rather helpless look;
"These Americans, unaware of the impending disaster, all believed that the situation in Hawaii was under the control of the white people, so they brazenly provoked a fight.

In that case
In my opinion, we should just make things bigger, send the bodies of these white bandits to the Royal Palace Square, and put pressure on the US through diplomatic channels.

We demand that the murderer be severely punished, that the Hawaii Sugar Cane Chamber of Commerce, which maliciously provoked the conflict, be punished, that the victims be given generous compensation, and that the dispute be clarified first."

The white plantation owners were extremely powerful in the Kingdom of Hawaii, almost like emperors, and the native kings would never dare to offend white Americans.

The Hawaii Sugar Cane Chamber of Commerce in the United States also maintains a white militia with a total of about 1400 people, which is also the basis for their courage to overturn the table.

Most of these white armed militias are well-equipped with long and short guns. They are affiliated with various white sugar plantations. Some have 70 or 80 people, while others have 20 or 30 people, or even 10 or 8 people. When they gather together, they form a powerful white armed force.

The tens of thousands of powerful Chinese armed forces hidden on Niihau Island were kept secret very well, and the white plantation owners were unaware of it in the current information blackout situation.

Otherwise, they would have been scared out of their wits and would not have dared to openly provoke like this.

Colonel Dong Jiasheng's suggestion was unanimously approved after a brief discussion among several people.

This is what the Chinese mean when they say "be polite before using force".

Before being ordered to go to Hawaii Island, Huo Chongshan and Dong Jiasheng were secretly received by the king, who had a secret conversation with them for a long time and gave them full authorization.

You can improvise in different situations.

Hawaii is too far away from the mainland of Chu State. It takes more than two months to travel back and forth. If you don't delegate power and ask for instructions on everything, then the opportunity will be lost.

The people present roughly understood what Colonel Dong Jiasheng meant.

From Honolulu to the Niihau Island base camp, it is only about 10 to kilometers by sea, and it can be reached in more than hours, making the round trip very convenient.

A company founded by Chinese businessman Wang Hai owned more than a dozen sailing cargo ships, primarily used to transport sugar and other goods, particularly the abundant sugar produced on Niihau Island. After shipping sugar to North America for sale, the crew would return to Central America, where they would plunder local villages and towns with muskets.

Then they would return with loads of young Central American indigenous women, and the cycle would repeat.

The sugar plantations on Niihau Island not only grow large quantities of sugar, but also grow large quantities of rice, sweet potatoes, corn, peanuts and other crops, mainly to solve the food problem of the island residents and have accumulated a considerable amount of inventory.

The Chinese are naturally good at farming, and this is true wherever they go.

The military reclamation system is implemented on Niihau Island, with the army's regiments, battalions, companies and platoons as the units.

A regiment is the size of a county, a battalion is the size of a town, a company is the size of a village, and a platoon is the size of a production group.

While a large number of indigenous women were gradually introduced, a large number of Chinese-style wooden houses were built on the island, forming a rural scene with connected villages and towns and crisscrossing fields.

With a large number of chickens, ducks, cattle and sheep raised, it is a leisurely countryside like a paradise.

The Chu government did not levy taxes on the outer islands of the border, but only collected a local tax of "one tenth of the tax" for the outer islands of the border. The income tax was entirely used to build urban and rural roads, bridges and basic farmland water conservancy facilities.

Therefore, the people on Niihau Island are military settlers, not part of the army, and are considered an armed militia.

They work on the farm in peacetime and organize military training in their spare time.

Thanks to the tax incentives on the frontier islands, they live quite comfortably, basically have surplus food at home and are quite well-off.

Those looted indigenous women from Central America were not given away for free; they had to be bought with money, but the prices were very favorable.

These indigenous women are divided into two grades. One grade is 30 to 60 silver dollars. Ordinary settlers can buy this grade. Those who perform well in training and receive commendations will be given priority.

The other level is higher, 60 to 150 silver dollars, and you need to be at least a militia squad leader or above to have the right to purchase it.

A small portion of the money earned was used to reward crew members and sailors, while most of it was put into the company's special fund to purchase and expand the fleet, expand the scale of plantation operations, purchase cattle and lambs, expand the herd, etc.

Only one day

The bodies of the Chinese guards who died in the attack were sent to the palace square halfway up the mountain on the Big Island of Hawaii, along with the white bandits who were killed in the attack. This attracted a large number of onlookers and various discussions from local people.

Faced with the indignant accusations of the Chinese, the local white community seemed indifferent, denying them with various excuses, and even biting back, refusing to admit it anyway.

During the argument, they started pushing and shoving each other.

If the palace guards had not intervened urgently, the Chinese and white people would have fought on the spot and a full-scale violence would have broken out.

Zhuo Weiting (note; his official identity), the diplomatic representative of the Chu State in Hawaii, accompanied the victim, Mr. Wang Hai, a wealthy Chinese businessman, to meet with Mr. Edward M. McCook, the U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Hawaii, at the royal palace. He accused McCain and his gang of launching a malicious armed attack and expressed strong protest.

The meeting was witnessed by King Kamehameha V of Hawaii, and two injured white prisoners were brought up. The confessions and accusations against the mastermind, McCain and others, were heard on the spot.

This lawsuit caused a lot of controversy. In the face of witnesses and evidence, McCain and his gang still refused to admit it and acted like a cheat.

This embarrassing performance turned the incident into a farce.

Diplomatic representative Zhuo Weiting said in a strong tone:
"If justice and fairness cannot be upheld and evil cannot be punished, then the Chu State will take decisive measures, including but not limited to the use of force, to safeguard the interests of its citizens."

This put the problem at the feet of the American Minister Edward M. McCook, who seemed to be in a dilemma facing the extremely powerful McCain and his group.

The entire Hawaiian Embassy had only 17 people, including Minister Edward M. McCook and the groom. They had no idea what to do with these lawless white merchants and could not persuade them.

Then Edward M. McCook frowned and said:

"Regrettably, we find it difficult to accept your country's strong protest. The assassination was of a serious nature and the circumstances were quite complicated. It is not possible to simply determine who should bear responsibility for it.

Mr. McCain, whom your country has accused, has a solid alibi and is a respected and successful businessman. The existing evidence makes it difficult to show that he is responsible.

The US will pay close attention to this matter and continue to follow up on subsequent investigations.

We hope that your country will exercise restraint and avoid the uncontrollable escalation of the situation due to momentary anger.

Believe me, that is not a situation you want to see.”

"Since you are still extremely uncooperative in the face of solid facts, then on behalf of the Chu State, I once again strongly condemn this incident. All serious consequences arising from this will be borne entirely by the United States." Diplomatic representative Zhuo Weiting did not give the other party any chance to evade justice and said angrily.

King Kamehameha V and British representative Charles, who were present, expressed their hope that both sides would exercise restraint to avoid further deterioration of the situation.

Such a diplomatic mediation ended with dissatisfaction among all parties as neither side made any concessions.

When leaving

Mr. McCain, with a pipe in his mouth, said loudly and deliberately with a look of disdain;
"What the hell! When will it be the turn of the yellow monkey with pigtails to speak in Hawaii? You damn cockroaches should go back to the Far East. You are only spreading plague and disaster here, not doing anything constructive."

Wang Hai stopped immediately after hearing this, pointed his finger at McCain and shouted angrily;
"Put away that disgusting tone of yours and stop showing off your superiority.

wake up!
In the eyes of the Chinese, who have a 5000-year-old civilization, you Americans are just some reckless bastards with despicable and vulgar character, and the low-class blood of thieves, thieves and prostitutes flowing in your bones.

Do you scum think you are worthy enough to show your superiority in front of the Chinese people?

He's just the offspring of a whore, and his greatest achievement is showing off the scalps he's cut off from Indians. Deep down, he's a bandit, a truly disgusting creature."

This barrage of criticism made Mr. McCain so furious that he wanted to duel with Wang Hai immediately.

Since the duel was delivered to his doorstep, Wang Hai accepted it without hesitation. The two sides scheduled the fight for tomorrow morning.

Everyone present went there as a witness.

It was a diplomatic negotiation that went smoothly, but ended up getting out of control and turning into a duel. This is really outrageous.

(End of this chapter)