Chapter 939 Belitung Island

The ownership of Belitung Island used to belong to a sultanate in central Sumatra. However, after the Dutch settled in Batavia, in order to establish a safe route to Northeast Asia, they sent armed sailing ships to attack this area.

It was cleaned up and a colony was established on the south coast of the island seven years ago, relying on growing pepper on the island to obtain income. However, the East India Company's ability to construct and develop such island colonies was very limited. By 1631

When Haihan took action on Amborna Island, the population of this colony, which was also a supply point port in the South China Sea with Amborna Island, still did not exceed a thousand people, and the scale of development was not even comparable to Amborna Island at the same time.

It was not until the change of ownership of Amborna Island that the East India Company began to accelerate the dispatch of immigrants and armed personnel to the local area in order to prevent Haihan from continuing southward to seize Belitung Island. So far, the colonial population on the south side of the island is about three

There are about a thousand people, of which only one-tenth is Dutch. The remaining population is composed of Europeans, Malays, Hans and other ethnic groups of other nationalities. Its racial complexity is almost the same as that of Ambrosia.

Of course, it is obviously not enough to rely on such a small population to fully control an island with an area of ​​nearly 5,000 square kilometers. Therefore, although the East India Company unilaterally brought the island under its own rule, in fact, at least there are

Seven to eight thousand indigenous people live scattered in various places and belong to various tribes. It can be said that most areas of the island are still in a state of anarchy.

From a geographical point of view, Belitung Island is located about 400 nautical miles south of Ampurna Island and about 200 nautical miles from Batavia further south. It is the only way for Java to go north and enter the South China Sea. If Haihan wants to suppress

Batavia, which controls the Sunda Strait, is obviously a better choice. The purpose of the joint fleet heading to Belitung Island is to investigate the actual situation here, collect the required information, and then send the military to Belitung Island.

The Party's General Staff assesses whether it is necessary to seize the area, whether the conditions are mature, the subsequent military strength required, the defensive pressure that may be faced, etc.

Because a memorandum of understanding had been initialed with the East India Company, at Yan Chujie's initiative, Van Diemen also sent a group of people to go north with the fleet. On the one hand, he notified the colonial settlement of Belitung Island of the peace news along the way, so that

They provided supplies for the combined fleet, and on the other hand, they went to Ambrosia Island in advance to make a forward stop for next month's negotiations.

Taking advantage of the time to obtain supplies at the port, Yan Chujie had people on the ship conduct a simple survey and mapping of the local topography and sea conditions. The conditions here were very crude, and there were no decent shore defenses at all. Yan Chujie and others believed that as long as they invested two

Three companies of land forces, plus a few warships approaching the coast to provide fire cover, were enough to seize control of the port here. However, Haihan's real interest was not here, so the combined fleet did not stay at the local port for too long.

After a long time, after completing the replenishment, they immediately continued to move northwest along the coastline.

After leaving this small port, the sailing ship carrying the Dutch envoy immediately headed north back to Amborna Island. The fleet's next itinerary was a military secret and the information was not allowed to be obtained by the opponent.

In addition to checking out the East India Company's colonies on the island, the Combined Fleet also has two tasks to complete here, one is prospecting, and the other is investigating an alternative foothold selected by the military.

In addition to pepper, another specialty product on Belitung Island is tin ore. In the time and space before traveling here, the tin produced on Belitung Island accounted for one-third of Indonesia's national tin production. However, originally

In the history of the country, it was not until 1851, more than two hundred years later, that the Dutch discovered and mined tin deposits here. At present, this place is still unexplored, leaving an opportunity for Haihan to take advantage of.

The ductility of tin can be used to make extremely thin tin foil, which will not rust and can be widely used in food preservation and anti-corrosion. Tin cans are coated with a thin layer of tin on the iron sheet. With this

With this technology, Haihan can produce canned food in large quantities, which is of great practical significance for both people's livelihood and the military. In addition, tin, which has stable chemical properties, will also provide Haihan with its anti-corrosion properties.

Han's chemical industry brought great progress.

In addition, bronze, which is widely used in the military, contains 5% tin. Haihan's mine in Shilu currently has stable copper production. Coupled with the tin mine, the cast iron cannons equipped by the army in the future will be

It is expected to be gradually replaced by bronze cannons with better performance and longer life. Tin brass, which is widely used on naval ships, is also an alloy composed of tin.

Of course, there is another use that cannot be ignored, which is to make movable type used in printing. Lead type in the general concept is actually a kind of tin alloy. When this product is widely used in the printing industry, Haihan's cultural propaganda field will obviously gain another

A huge improvement. The cost of type printing is far lower than the woodblock printing that is still commonly used in the Ming Dynasty. Although there are also self-made copper movable type and wooden movable type printing workshops in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, their production capacity is compared with Haihan.

It is far from the same level. It is also expected that Haihan books and printed matter will impact the Ming cultural market.

According to the information collected before crossing, there are a large number of tin ore veins on Belitung Island that can be mined open-pit, so this gives Haihan one more reason to take over this place. If he didn't come to grab this place before, it was because of the sea

The Han's own strength is limited and it is beyond the reach of Belitung Island. But now that the maritime strength of the Han in the Far East has clearly surpassed that of the Dutch, it is natural to seize resource producing areas like Belitung Island step by step.

The fleet did not go too far after leaving the Dutch station. After walking about twenty nautical miles to the west, it approached the coast and put down several teams of people ashore to survey the surface conditions here. Of course, with this kind of opportunity to land for inspection, Zhang Yun

Naturally, I would not miss it, so I took my two apprentices and carried large and small bags ashore.

The total population of this island of several thousand square kilometers is only about 10,000 people. It is considered a vast area and sparsely populated. Moreover, the Dutch "cleared" the indigenous residents on the island several times in the early years, so the indigenous tribes still on the island are still there.

Basically, they gave up the offshore areas that were vulnerable to attacks and moved to the inland areas of the island to settle. Therefore, the landing site chosen by Haihan was basically no different from an uninhabited area. However, in order to prevent some unexpected events on the island

Although ferocious beasts were infested outside, Yan Chujie still sent a company of troops ashore to protect the two groups of people who were exploring mineral deposits and conducting biological research.

According to the map markings made in advance, the exploration team found two mineral veins just a few kilometers away from the coastline without much effort, and collected dozens of kilograms of ore samples. Instead, Zhang Yun led his apprentice into the dense forest.

I didn’t want to come out, so I returned to the meeting place two hours later than the exploration team.

After leaving here, the fleet sailed around the southwest peninsula of Belitung Island and then sailed north. After about five hours of sailing, the fleet arrived at the mouth of a river. Here you can still see the former life of indigenous tribes.

The relics left behind have now become no man's land due to repeated raids by the Dutch.

This place was chosen by the military. Although the river mouth here is not very wide and the size of the port that can be built will still be relatively limited, there are relatively concentrated tin ore veins in the upper reaches of the river.

Water conservancy conditions can be used to transport ore to the seaside for processing. Of course, if conditions are mature in the future, a freight railway can be built between the smelting workshop and the mine on the seaside in the same way as the Shilu Iron Mine. The length of this railway

It is much shorter than the line from Changhua to Shilu. The straight-line distance is only about a quarter of that, and the construction cost will be reduced accordingly.

After the fleet docked at the mouth of the river, a simple shack was built on the spot. Zheng Zha and Fan Ji, who did not know the news in advance, were very surprised by this, and both asked Haihan separately why they wanted to build a temporary residence here.

Haihan's answer was also very simple, and he planned to settle down and build a colony here.

Annan and Champa both understood the principle of following Haihan to have meat. Although they did not understand the specific reason why Haihan chose this place, since they had already built temporary residences here, it meant that this was no joke. This timing

Since they bumped into each other, if they missed it again, they would be their own fault. The two of them returned to the ship and dispatched a team of subordinates to station on the island - send some people to help you guard it. You want to develop here anyway.

Then I'll just drink some soup.

As for the East India Company, which originally claimed ownership of the island, who cares what the Dutch think at this time. Zheng Zha and Fan Ji both listened to the negotiations between Van Diemen and Yan Chujie a few days ago, and they are also very aware of the current strength of these two companies.

In contrast, the Dutch almost couldn't save Batavia, so how could they still have the energy to come to Belitung Island? Besides, the Haihan people chose to settle here, and it seemed that they were not in a hurry to kill all the Dutch on the island, so

The possibility of a war breaking out is not high. Since the risk is not very high, then this investment is worth trying. The unknown is just the level of return. Anyway, with the vision and methods of the Haihan people, you will not lose money when doing business with them.

.

Compared with the previous landing survey, the work done by the Haihan Army here was much more detailed. Roger personally led the special operations brigade he trained to escort the mineral exploration team upstream along the river and entered.

to inland areas.

Fortunately, the indigenous tribes who originally lived in this area seem to have completely abandoned it, which makes Roger, who has been nervous, a lot more relaxed. However, the exploration work in this area is scheduled to take three to five days.

day, so Roger still had to keep his men alert enough during this period.

But after entering the interior, what caused the team the biggest trouble was not the expected natives, nor the poisonous insects and beasts in the forest, but the continuous rain. The rain made this small river with a small flow become turbulent.

up, and the route along the river area is often interrupted by swamps, ponds and even streams that appear after rainfall. Therefore, Roger's team had to detour a long distance before they could reach the intended target area.

"This damn weather!" Roger looked up at the sky that was constantly raining and cursed bitterly. Although he was wearing a raincoat and waterproof boots and was not exposed to the rain, his soldiers

But life was not so good. Most people's raincoats had been soaked by the rain, and the straw sandals and cloth shoes on their feet had no resistance to the wet forest floor, and they soon became wrapped around their feet.

of burden.

The logistics department has developed a new type of military raincoat covered with rubber coating. However, the output of this high-end product is still frighteningly low. Even Qian Tiandun's special operations battalion only received a small amount as experimental equipment. Roger's

Don't even think about applying for a place like this.

There are no quick-acting cold medicines in this era. Once you catch a small cold in this tropical rainforest, it is likely to evolve into serious diseases such as typhoid, malaria, pneumonia, etc. in a short period of time, and you may even die from it.

And risking one's life. Roger has been in the South China Sea all year round, and of course he has seen many cases of slaves who lacked medical treatment and died because of this. Therefore, he still felt uncomfortable about carrying out this kind of mission of marching in the rain and having to be stationed in the wild for several days.

Very anxious.

Two days after setting off, Roger had to lead the team back to the camp by the sea. Due to weather conditions, there was no dry firewood that could be used as fuel in the dense forests inland, and there was no way to build enough camp beds for them.

The soldiers did not have to sleep on the wet ground. In just two days, several people had already developed cold symptoms. Roger did not dare to be careless. If this disease spread among the army, the number of non-combat troops would be reduced very quickly.

, now we can only return to the base camp to let the troops rest and recuperate.

As a result, the time to stay on Belitung Island had to be extended. After discussion, several senior officials decided to wait here for another week. If the rain still shows no sign of stopping, then give up this exploration.

task, and find a suitable time and opportunity.

Fortunately, God seems to have favored this team. By the fifth day, the seemingly endless rain finally stopped without warning. Although it is difficult to know how long this temporary sunny weather can last,

But Roger did not hesitate to lead the team and set off again. But this time Yan Chujie gave Roger all the portable waterproof tents he brought, and also allocated a dozen mules and horses to carry the luggage - all from

The clean coal unloaded from the flagship was placed in bamboo baskets and wrapped in tarpaulin. If it started to rain again in the forest, these clean coals could at least temporarily provide a warm and dry space for the soldiers to rest at night.
Chapter completed!