Chapter 145 Floating in the Southern Ocean

Hu Chuyuan evaporated from the world.

Almost no one knows where he went. Yan Shizhang stayed in China. He arrived in Shanghai early and lived in Yongyuan. He sat behind Chen Xiaobai, Tan Zeyun, Zheng Xitai... and made decisions for them.

Yan Shizhang is very clear about what to do at this moment.

To put it bluntly, it's still a vicious fight in officialdom. He has seen too much.

Although Prince Su, Li Hongzao and Weng Tonghe have been alone for a long time and seem to have got rid of all their relationships with Hu Chuyuan, they also have a lot of evidence in Hu Chuyuan's hands. Besides, they and Li Hongzhang are also irreconcilable.

They are still waiting for the opportunity.

Hu Chuyuan said that although he is sure to lose, they may not lose.

At this moment, Zuo Zongtang and He Jing can't speak. Zuo Zongtang may still have some courage and room. He Jing doesn't have it. If he doesn't pay attention, his position as the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang will be beaten.

The same is true for Mei Qizhao.

Everyone is suffering. As long as they get through this level, they will still cover the sky with one hand.

Where is Hu Chuyuan?

No one knows where he is.

He didn't care about the position of the deputy minister in the United States. Even the position of the head office of Jiangnan Commercial Bank was removed, and a more ridiculous Zheng Guanying was sent to take office. How humorous is this?

Li Hongzhang wants to take the opportunity to control Jiangnan Business Bank for himself, but this abacus may not be too loud.

January 17, 1883.

Time flies so fast that the situation has changed in more than ten days. Only I, Li Hongzhang and Sheng Xuanhuai can laugh.

Hu Chuyuan seems to be enlightened.

He finally figured it out that it was almost time for him to leave the mess of the Qing court. In fact, when the Qing court was unwilling to blame him, he knew that this era would always be a fucking disaster.

Man's logic... Absolutely not understandable by normal people.

Tengchong did not go to Singapore. It changed its voyage halfway and went to Lotto.

Passing through the mouth of the river, the huge second-class iron armored ship shuttled through the river in the tropical rainforest at a very slow speed. After bypassing a few bends, Hu Chuyuan saw the Letun Town again.

At this time, Letun is no longer the scene three years ago.

There are six huge forts along the coast, and the muzzle of more than 20 Kruff guns is dark, like a group of monsters. In front of them is Leton City, surrounded by the city, surrounded by vast rice fields.

This is a good place to grow rice three seasons a year.

There are more than a dozen wooden villages scattered around Letun City, where a large number of troops are stationed.

There are people here who can know the origin of the Tengchong. Soon, colorful flags were raised on the recent wooden cottage, and other wooden cottages followed suit. Countless colorful flags floated high, as if they were welcoming the arrival of Tengchong.

In the port, colorful flags were also hung on more than a dozen warships.

This time, the Tengchong can dock in the port. After several years of construction, Letun Port has become a large port with 5,000 tons of berths.

Here, Hu Chuyuan didn't have to worry about the assassination of Japanese. He was very happy to walk down the deck first. Chen Shanyuan, Cheng Tinghua and others walked down quickly in turn.

In front, Zhang Lingpu, Liu Baogui and others came out of the wooden village with a spectacular welcome team and walked to Hu Chuyuan.

More than a dozen steps away, Zhang Lingpu quickly stepped forward to worship and said, "I have seen my lords!"

Liu Baogui and others also knelt down and said, "I've seen my lord!"

Hu Chuyuan picked up Zhang Lingpu first and sighed, "What a bullshit now, a deputy minister of a broken bird egg!"

Zhang Lingpu said, "Your excellency is still an adult, at least you are the general manager of our Nanyang company!"

"Yes!"

Liu Baogui and others echoed one after another.

Hu Chuyuan didn't mind and asked everyone to go back to the military village together.

When they sat down in the military village, Zhang Lingpu briefly told the current situation of Letun.

Since 1879, Hu Chuyuan has invested in Letun to continuously improve the living and living conditions here. The number of immigrants transferred from Fujian continues to increase. At present, there are about 75,000 immigrants, Zhang Lingpu's Red Flag Army has 14,000, and Liu's precious New Hong Kong Army has more than 7,000 people.

The Red Flag Army is mainly responsible for guarding Leton, training at ordinary times, and helping to transplant seedlings and farm when farmers are busy. Liu's precious Xingang Army is mainly a militia. They are usually mining, mining, smelting gold, smelting copper, and fishing. The actual combat strength is limited.

Here, Zhang Lingpu also runs a Xingang School, which teaches everything.

The current land scale of Letong is much larger than that of Fuqing County. The main economic pillars are gold mining, copper smelting, rice, timber, sugar cane, fishing, and shipbuilding. There are often some weaving and handicrafts. The scale of rice fields is very large, seven or eight times larger than that of the paddy fields in Fuqing County.

Because there are more people and fewer fields, most of the rice fields are coarse rice seeds. The average yield is not high, but the total yield is not bad, and there is a large grain surplus.

These rice are mainly sold to indigenous people along the river in exchange for local specialties, even gold, copper ore, etc., and then sold back to China through Nanyang Company.

At present, it can basically maintain the same revenue. In addition, Hu Chuyuan supports hundreds of thousands of taels of silver every year, and the average living standard and situation are many times better than in the past.

As we talked, Zhang Lingpu said angrily, "Your Excellency, let's take down the whole Sarawak, and then directly attack Vietnam in the future, and then attack from Guangxi to overthrow the Qing court."

"That's right, my lord, what are we afraid of!"

Liu Baogui and those people under Zhang Lingpu's account echoed one after another.

Hu Chuyuan laughed. These people raised wild surnames in the mountains and fields. If they have guns and cannons in their hands, they are not afraid of heaven and earth.

But he did not refuse, but said, "You can fight, but not now. As we said, let's beat Sarawak first."

Zhang Lingpu said, "We have almost arranged this matter. Just wait for you to speak!"

Hu Chuyuan said, "Don't worry, I'll think about it again."

Hu Chuyuan likes to build gardens, which is well known to everyone. In order to welcome Hu Chuyuan's visit at any time, Zhang Lingpu especially built a high-footed building group that integrates local and Jiangnan styles on the hillside in the northeast of Ledun City, and is protected by military wooden walls on the periphery.

After living in the garden, Hu Chuyuan lit a kerosene lamp very late, waded on the rattan chair, staggering and thinking about his thoughts.

Thinking about Le Dun, he couldn't help but feel a little conventional.

He has read some late Qing novels before. It seems that he has to do a big job in Nanyang. He has always been unconvinced. Does he always feel that with his huge power in China, will he fall into that field?

As a result, life is unpredictable, the world is unpredictable, and the unpredictable history is even more unpredictable.

How could he think that he had really arrived in this field?

Zhang Lingpu is a person who has seen the world, and probably knows that one day... Hu Chuyuan may live here for a long time. After he stood firm in Le Dun, he took people to repair the garden in this good place. Because it was hidden in the mountains and forests, it was called "Hidden Garden".

He really told me the truth.

What a "hidden garden".

But among the various famous gardens where Hu Chuyuan lived in his life, only the hidden garden gave him a sense of all the troubles of the principle. In the past year, it seems that only today, he is not worried about his assassination and the reversal of the Qing court.

Maybe it's because I didn't know this place at all, but the Qing court had turned against him.

In a word, this is an extremely beautiful place.

Beautiful things will never last long, and it won't be long before this place will be broken by new tranquility.

He was thinking about these things when Cheng Tinghua knocked on the door, came in, and sat cross-legged next to him.

After a while, Cheng Tinghua suddenly smiled and said, "Your Excellency, it's not easy for you to hide a territory here these years."

Hu Chuyuan sighed helplessly that he could not accept such a compliment.

He needs his own military power, but he still doesn't like such a small place. He builds a military base here, more to protect the local Chinese.

Thinking about this, he explained to Cheng Tinghua, "You may not know the blood and debt of Nanyang. It's not easy for the Chinese here. Mindi is a land divided into eight mountains and two branches. It does not support people. A large number of Fujian people can only go out to Nanyang to find a way to live. Unfortunately, the indigenous people and foreigners here are very jealous. There is a place called Shilongmen more than a hundred miles away from us. The British and the Dutch have provoked the indigenous people to slaughter thousands of Chinese there. When I went to Europe, I passed here. After hearing about these things, I gave them some money to buy guns for temporary self-protection.

Cheng Tinghua sighed silently and said, "It's not easy for us Chinese."

Hu Chuyuan added, "I'm too rich. Even if I don't rebel, the court will turn against me sooner or later. Anyway, I have to leave a way to live for myself. I really want to rectify the two industries of silk tea and stabilize the economic vein of the Qing Dynasty. Unfortunately, it's full of people... Let's follow them for the time being. It's hard to say from the current situation. Maybe I still have the possibility of pulling back a game. We have to wait patiently. Anyway, the food and clothing of the people are the first after all, and my personal safety is second.

Cheng Tinghua was speechless for a moment, and then said, "How to put it, my lord, I wanted to say... If you go to the United States, I plan to go back to China with Guo Yunshen and Wang Zhengyi. After hearing what you said, I don't want to leave.

Hu Chuyuan smiled and didn't mind.

These people have the demeanor of chivalry, but they may not be anti-Qing Zhishi.

Everyone has their own aspirations!

At least for now, anti-Qing is still not a mainstream topic.

Next time, Hu Chuyuan, accompanied by Chen Shanyuan and Li Cunyi, inspected the whole Leton and confirmed that the time was ripe, so he asked Zhang Lingpu to prepare to do it, and he officially went to Singapore.

Originally, if it hadn't been for the arrival of Hu Chuyuan, Zhang Lingpu and others would have done it.

These are all agreed things. Be sure to finalize the matter of Sarawak before the outbreak of the Sino-French War, and then you can concentrate on dealing with the Dutch.

Returning to the Changchun Garden in Singapore, Hu Chuyuan took a break and went to the Straits Governor's House to meet with Sir Frederick Whalder. Before Sir Wallard went to Singapore to serve as governor, Hu Chuyuan had a personal relationship with him in London and gave him a piece of Yongzheng porcelain as a gift.

After arriving in Singapore, Sir Wald also visited Fuzhou and sent a private collection of Chinese antiques to Hu Chuyuan.

The personal relationship between the two is still very good. In order to assist Sir Walt's work in Singapore, Hu Chuyuan also asked Ye Wenlan to introduce a number of local Chinese businessmen for him.

The two met in the Governor's Office all afternoon to talk about some international and internal issues of the Qing court.

A few days later, the shocking news came from Sarawak - the Brooke dynasty was overthrown by pirates.

In fact, it is not very troublesome, let alone a big thing. At present, the Brooke Dynasty has only a total of only a few thousand mercenaries, and more often rely on instigating the indigenous people to balance the local forces.

The plan is very simple. Liu Baogui pretended to be a pirate and invited the indigenous pirates, Chinese pirates and foreign pirates outside to attack together, breaking down the Brooke's defense line in Kuching and killing Charles Brooke.

Subsequently, everyone elected foreign pirates to build the country, and specially sent people to notify the governor of the British Colonial Straits.

Before the country was established, there was a "internal" conflict. A large number of pirates who did not obey the "control" robbed the residents in Kuching, triggering a large-scale bloody battle. Zhang Lingpu immediately rushed over with the Red Flag Army and several well-connected indigenous tribes to defeat the "opior other" pirates.

The latter thing is simpler. Zhang Lingpu established the temporary political axe of Sarawak and served as the general system himself.

In order not to affect the life of his family in China and cover up the relationship between him and Hu Chuyuan, Zhang Lingpu had been known as "Chamberlain" in Vietnam, so it was not clear who he was.

I heard that Chamberlain, a Chinese, has a certain scale of military strength and has fought fiercely in Vietnam and France. Sir Wald had to come to Hu Chuyuan, hoping that Hu Chuyuan would mediate.

At this time, it is a special blank point. The British are not ready to carry out a military conquest of Sarawak. They urgently transfer their troops and send troops to Sarawak also need to reach an agreement in Parliament.

With this in mind, Sir Walt was ordered from the British political axe to contact him for the time being.

Therefore, out of "personal friendship", Hu Chuyuan personally went to Kuching in Sarawak to check the situation and took Sir Walld's representative.

Everything was planned in advance. After Hu Chuyuan's arrival, all British businessmen and missionaries living in Kuching, including Hu Chuyuan and representatives of Sir Walled, participated in a military parade of the temporary political axe.

More than 20,000 troops were trained through the streets, followed by soldiers from indigenous tribes, and finally artillery troops, and naval salute performances at the port of Kuching.

There are twelve of Zhang Lingpu's warships, four of which are retired ships purchased from the United States. They have been renovated and equipped with new artillery at the New Jersey Shipyard. The other four are gunboats, which were also purchased from the United States. The last two were purchased from Chile.

In addition to these regular warships, they also obtained seven pirate ships by eliminating pirates, and simply added the naval sequence of temporary political axes.

Anyway, it looks quite shocking.

After "confirming" the strength of the Sarawak temporary political axe army, Hu Chuyuan first held a meeting with Chamberlain. After that, he returned to Singapore and asked Sir Wald to return the news to the British political axe.

After many coordinations by Hu Chuyuan, "Chamberlain" and the British Empire finally reached an agreement that Sarawak became an overseas autonomous state of the British Empire. Under the protection of the United Kingdom, it has autonomy and pays 600,000 taels of silver in taxes to the British Empire every year, while British and Chinese businessmen have the right to trade and invest in Sarawak.

The main dispute between the two sides lies in diplomatic rights. The final condition is that "the Sarawak Autonomous State has independent diplomatic and military rights in the waters of Greater Borneo and its surrounding waters".

(to be continued)