Nanyang Storm 1864

Five days after landing

After unloading all the weapons, equipment and soldiers, King Zheng Guohui of Chu led the main fleet to leave Batavia and head towards Sumatra Island.

Although Batavia was the main attack direction, it was only one of the three battlefields after all.

Judging from the current battle situation
The main force of the Javanese Corps, commanded by General Huangshan, attacked effectively and forcefully. They were continuing to advance and clear the fortified areas outside the city, putting greater pressure on the defending Dutch army.

The rhythm of this battle was completely controlled by the Chu Royal Army.

No matter what kind of night attack or infiltration you plan, it is completely useless in the face of tight defense, and it will hit a wall again and again.

General Huangshan was an experienced military commander. The main forces of his four divisions each formed a combat cluster, 4 to 4 kilometers apart, which made it very convenient for them to support each other.

Fierce attacks continued from three directions on Batavia.

Using heavy land artillery as a can opener, they systematically removed the outer fortresses and defense lines, killing and impacting the enemy, and fighting with great success.

It's like peeling an onion, removing the outer layer layer by layer to reveal the soft inside.

The other three newly formed regiments expanded to the east and west wings, carried out sweeps deep into towns and villages, and captured a large number of indigenous women who were returned on the troop transports as part of the spoils.

This style of fighting was not fast, but it was steady. It eliminated the large number of indigenous vassal cannon fodder driven by the Dutch with minimal losses to itself.

After five days of fighting, about 5 indigenous vassal troops and nearly 1.8 Dutch white soldiers were wiped out.

The Chu army itself lost only six or seven hundred people, most of whom were wounded.

If the fighting continues like this, I guess those Dutch native cannon fodder will mutiny.

The effect is very good, but it consumes some ammunition. However, Zheng Guohui doesn't care about this consumption at all.

The attacking Chu Royal Army not only had the devastating 155mm heavy artillery, the terrifying Maxim heavy machine gun, but also the 37mm rapid-fire cannon mounted on armored trucks, which was simply an invincible weapon in street fighting.

Armored trucks are not uncommon. Nowadays, many European countries have welded armor onto tractors or cars, but they are very simple.

These hand-rolled armored trucks come in all shapes and sizes, with no two alike.

Soldiers would also add various horns, manes and devil masks according to their preferences, which often worked wonders on the battlefield.

The main force of the Javanese Legion attacking Batavia has dozens of armored vehicles. It is now in the stage of breaking through the periphery and has not yet entered the city attack and defense battle.

At that stage, armored vehicles will play a huge role of surprise.

The State of Chu had made thorough preparations for the attack on the East Indies, not only in the military field, but also in other aspects.

For example, for the large number of indigenous women who returned with the troop transport ships, hundreds of thousands of buyers in the population markets across the Chu State have already paid deposits and are ready to choose the women of their choice.

As soon as the ship arrived at the port, all the indigenous women brought back would be snatched away within three days.

In order to make the best use of these women, the government even issued temporary regulations prohibiting Chinese men who already have wives and concubines from purchasing them.

Once reported and discovered, a fine of 3000 silver dollars will be imposed, and the maximum fine may be 3 silver dollars depending on the severity of the case. In addition, the offender will be subject to 6 to months of community service.

Any adult Chinese man who has been naturalized for more than three years and does not have a wife or concubine can register to purchase a property. Banks have even launched special loan services to help new immigrants with limited funds realize their dream of starting a family.

Limited to one purchase, no transfer allowed.

The above-mentioned measures are taken to benefit the middle and lower-class Chinese people to the greatest extent possible and to solve the current social phenomenon of high bride prices in Chinese marriages.

I don’t know when it started, but because there were more men than women in the Chu State, the marriage market became a profitable big business, attracting many people to participate.

Some Chinese gangs that specialize in trafficking girls from northern China buy refugee girls at low prices, teach them to read and write, play the piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, and teach them some skills to entertain people with their beauty. They can then sell them to aristocrats and wealthy businessmen as concubines or maids and make a lot of money from them.

Why not sell it to a brothel?

This brings us to the laws of the Chu State. Any woman who speaks Chinese is not allowed to engage in menial occupations, otherwise she would be committing a serious crime.

The State of Chu did not ban prostitution, but strictly prohibited Chinese women from engaging in menial jobs. Once discovered, their homes would be searched, their property confiscated, and they would be beheaded. Those who accomplices would be punished as well and severely.

Especially the last sentence, it’s amazing.

When customers who went to brothels to drink and have fun discovered women speaking Mandarin, they not only kept silent about it, but also became even more interested and lingered among the flowers.

If they are not discovered, it's fine. But if anyone is involved, their property will be confiscated, their assets will be confiscated, and they will be beheaded. No one will be spared if they are killed by mistake.

All those involved in this criminal line, including those who transported, hid, solicited, consumed, led, and directed from behind the scenes, will not be able to escape and will be killed without mercy.

There was a famous case in Davao Province in the past. The owner of a teahouse had a bad business and thought of taking this evil approach. He hired a few beautiful Chinese girls to solicit customers in the store.

As a result, the truth was revealed and 67 people were implicated. All those who knew about the incident were arrested and immediately imprisoned. The property of these 67 families was confiscated, and hundreds of people were implicated.

Among them were officials, wealthy businessmen, and even several gentlemen with the title of knight. They were all taken to the execution ground and beheaded. This was the "Davao Chinese Women Incident" that shocked the world.

In the State of Chu, if you don't want to lose your head, don't step on this high-voltage line.

The business of keeping Chinese girls is a side business that many people do. It is not illegal. The key is that they cannot be bought and sold.

Therefore, they make profits in disguised form by paying high bride prices.

This is tantamount to exploiting legal loopholes, but as long as it does not violate the law, police officials will turn a blind eye and acquiesce in the existence of this gray industrial chain.

This may be a way out for the refugee children in the north who have a tragic fate.

Over time

The custom of bride price has become prevalent in society and is now getting worse. The bride price for getting married can easily be hundreds or thousands of silver dollars, and sometimes even more.

The entry of millions of indigenous women into the population market can solve the problem of gender imbalance in the Chu State from the source, especially those older young men in the middle and lower classes of society.

As for the issue that this move caused a large number of young Javanese indigenous women to leave, seriously affecting the reproduction and development of the indigenous tribal population, no one cared about it.

Weakness is the original sin, there is nothing to say.

In today's world at the end of the 19th century, there is no such thing as equality for all. Even in America, which prides itself on being democratic, free, and just, the so-called equality is only among white people.

As for black slaves and Indians, they suffered even greater bullying.

In this era, no one spoke up for the weak races. All the great powers were colonizers without exception, including the newly emerging Germany, Italy and Japan.

As the powerful fleet sailed on the vast blue ocean, King Zheng Guohui of Chu was in a particularly happy mood. This vast South China Sea was now Chu's own small pond, where they could travel freely.

It's our own son and our own territory, so of course we like it no matter how we look at it.

Two days later

The Royal Navy's main fleet arrived at the Old Port and was greeted with exciting good news.

The Sumatra Corps led by General Pan Tianshou captured this core city in one fell swoop. The defeated Dutch remnants of about 1.3 people, along with more than 3 Dutch women, children and their families, fled to the southeast.

In fact, there is no escape at all.

On the second day after arriving in Palembang, King Zheng Guohui of Chu, dressed in military uniform, stepped into the city of Palembang for the first time, welcomed by a group of senior generals of the Sumatra Corps. However, everything he saw greatly disappointed him.

This is a typical agricultural city with almost no decent factories in the entire city.

Apart from some Dutch-style buildings, churches and buildings with traces of the former Malacca Dynasty in the city center, the rest are just clusters of wooden houses and slums, and there is not much to see.

The general impression was of backwardness, dilapidation and poverty. Smoke billowed from the houses burned down during the war, and half of the city hall in the center of the city was blown down.

Many buildings still bore clear bullet holes and traces of fierce fighting. The bodies had been cleared, but the rubble remained.

According to the standards of the Chu State, all these roads had to be replanned, all shanty towns and wooden houses had to be demolished, new docks had to be built, and bridges and urban sewage facilities almost had to be demolished and rebuilt.

Fortunately, there were a large number of indigenous convicts in the occupied areas, and the Chu State was a powerful industrialized country. With no shortage of labor and materials, the reconstruction of the city was an opportunity to expand domestic demand.

Driven by the massive demand for materials during the Boer War in South Africa, the Chu State's economy has developed very strongly since the beginning of this year, with all walks of life booming.

The average annual income of residents reached 72.3 silver dollars, or 6 silver dollars per month, which is a pretty good figure.

In big cities like Manila, Batangas, and Davao, the average monthly income of ordinary workers is around 12 to 14 silver dollars, while the average monthly income of small business clerks, teachers, and junior clerks in administrative agencies can reach 17 to 21 silver dollars.
As income increases, consumption capacity also grows visibly rapidly.

Only in Chu

This has formed a huge market with annual sales of over 10 billion silver dollars, which has strongly supported the development of industry and commerce. Its business tentacles radiate throughout the Western Pacific and Indochina Peninsula, and even as far as Europe and North America.

The current Chu State has a huge appetite and can easily digest the Dutch East Indies colonies and the indigenous population of more than 20 million, and can hardly make any big waves.

After the annexation, the population of Chu State reached twice that of Germany and exceeded the total population of the Russian Empire of 1.13 million, becoming a world-class power second only to Britain (Britain and France include the population of colonies, and Britain has a population of about 3.4 million).

Zheng Guohui, the King of Chu who occupied Palembang, was full of pride and stood in the central square of the city, with the Catholic church and the city hall behind him as the background, leaving a glorious image.

Generals and high-ranking officials were lined up on the left and right. The tall King of Chu, Zheng Guohui, had a powerful aura in himself, standing out from the crowd and was particularly dazzling in this precious historical image.

The King of Chu proposed

In the future, a number of memorial buildings such as a monument to the fallen soldiers, stone tablets and martyrs' shrines will be established in Palembang to commend the soldiers' loyalty and bravery in expanding the country's territory, which won them unanimous praise from all the ministers.

There is not much to see in the whole city, and the city core area is slightly larger than an ordinary small town.

King Zheng Guohui of Chu took a quick look and was not satisfied with the old site of this city, so he ordered:
"My dear ministers

This huge port is too close to the Musi River, and its terrain is low and there are many rivers. It is not a good place to build a city, but is more suitable as a river port.

The overall terrain in the northeast is higher and flatter, so building the city more than ten kilometers back would be a better choice.

As for this place, perhaps a better solution would be to flatten it and build an inland port to develop the inland shipbuilding industry."

Just a few words from him caused tens of thousands of people in Jiugang to relocate and leave the place where they had lived for generations.

None of the military and political officials present refuted. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Commerce Zhang Huaizhong slapped his thigh and said with admiration;
"Your Majesty is wise and wise, and your words awaken me from my dream.

The average altitude of the city of Palembang is only 2 meters, and the groundwater level is very high. Water can be seen when digging more than one meter down, which is not conducive to the construction of underground pipelines and ditches in the city.

Moreover, the foundation here is loose and tall buildings cannot be built.

Even if the city is rebuilt, it will only be a low-level repetition, which is not conducive to showing the powerful urban appearance of our Great Chu Empire.

If you retreat more than ten kilometers to the northeast, you will enter the hilly area near the mountains.

The geographical altitude can quickly rise to an average height of 40 to 50 meters, and with multiple rock layers, all the problems that were originally almost unsolvable can be easily solved.

It is appropriate to develop a large port of seaport scale on the original site of the city of Palembang, develop land-sea transport through railway transportation, and develop a shipbuilding industry mainly based on inland waterway transportation.

Wonderful, wonderful! "

It can be seen that Zhang Huaizhong had done a lot of homework before this, and he was familiar with the geographical conditions of Palembang, and what he said was meaningful.

This was a higher level of flattery, and everyone agreed with it, and it became the final decision.

Palembang is still an inland port, but it is just a port town.

The new city was named "Fengtian". It was a city that came into being because of Your Majesty's ingenious idea. The city center was established soon after, 23 kilometers away from the original site of the old port.

When the cone is put into the bag, its benefits will become apparent.

Due to Palembang's convenient inland shipping and advantageous geographical location, it was originally the central city of East Sumatra, and thousands of years of historical development have verified this.

Therefore, after a brief period of silence, Fengtian City developed rapidly.

The Chu State developed Jugang in a simple and crude way. All the Chinese residents of the Central Plains in the city were properly resettled. Each adult male could get 500 acres of fertile land, two oxen, and a preferential loan of 4.9 silver dollars with an annual interest rate of %.

As for housing, the announcement did not mention it, which means you live in whatever you are allocated, whether it is an indigenous thatched house or a cave. If that doesn't work, you can build a shack yourself.

The government doesn’t intervene. If conditions permit, they will provide resettlement. If not, they will solve the problem themselves.

There is another key point in the preferential policy: unmarried adult men can buy an indigenous woman on credit for free, with the price being 350 silver dollars. If they give up, the loan will be void.

This is equivalent to saying

As long as you apply, you can bring home a woman who can start a family from the population market. Age, weight, and appearance are not important. The key is that it is exciting.

In various cities in the Chu state, such a quota was worth between 550 and 800 silver dollars. The price was higher in big cities such as Manila, Batangas and Davao, while it was lower in some other prefectures and counties.

But the lowest price is 550 silver dollars. According to the news from the trading markets in various cities, all the transactions are done blindly.

A shawl covers the woman's entire body tightly. There are 20 to 30 women on stage in each round. Those who pay more can be selected first.

It all depends on luck which one you pick. Some people end up being a stunning beauty with fair skin, just a little thin. It's like they've won the lottery.

An indigenous beauty of this level could be sold for more than three or four thousand silver dollars in the human market. Brothels and brothels would all be vying for her. Isn't that a huge profit?
It's not a bad idea to pick the one first. After all, seven or eight hundred silver dollars can't buy you any desirable women in the current Chu population market.

The East Indies War initiated by His Majesty the King received extremely high support in Chu. Most of the industrial, commercial, financial and ordinary citizens supported it enthusiastically. One of the important reasons was that it benefited the people.

For those engaged in industry and commerce, their business can be extended to Java and Sumatra without any obstacles, and the same is true for those working in the financial industry.

The ordinary citizens have solved the problem of difficulty in getting their children married. They can buy a daughter-in-law for seven or eight hundred silver dollars, so the pressure is not too great.

If you really don't have enough money, just borrow a little money.

In the future, if two people work together and earn money together, how can they earn more than one person?
Marrying a wife not only allows her to work and earn money, but also allows her to have children and support the family. Anyone who is not stupid knows how to make the choice.

Through this war of colonial expansion, the King of Chu united the vast majority of social classes around him, which was probably the greatest benefit he could obtain.

Today
The Chu State had not had a plan to grant land for free for many years. The plan of giving each male Chinese resident in the Dutch East Indies 100 acres of good land was very helpful in digesting and absorbing the new territory.

If they could get tangible benefits, such as land and women, then all overseas Chinese would undoubtedly stand on the side of the King of Chu and support all the decisions of the royal family.

This undoubtedly greatly promoted the occupation, digestion and absorption of new territories.

These were the Chinese people living in the former Dutch colonies who became the de facto guides, leaving the white colonists with nowhere to escape and impossible to hide their property.

This is human nature. Who would risk huge losses in their own interests to help those white stray dogs?
There may be some, but definitely not many.

King Zheng Guohui of Chu built the new city of Fengtian on a whim, and the cost was not high.

Because the Chu occupying army had no compensation plan for the assets of the indigenous people and Dutch white colonists, they expropriated them without compensation, and anyone who could raise objections was sent to a hard labor camp.

There is also a large number of Chinese residents who were diverted to various prefectures and counties because they were greedy for the government's reward of 100 acres of good farmland for each male adult, and they may not stay in Palembang.

These two parts combined account for more than 80% of Palembang’s original population.

The rest can stay in Palembang or move to Fengtian, it’s all up to you.

Chinese families whose houses are located in demolition areas will receive a piece of land allocated by the government free of charge, and they can rebuild their houses or transfer the land.

But expecting to make a large sum of money from this is sheer wishful thinking.

There is no room for bargaining under a piece of paper order.

(End of this chapter)