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Text Chapter 603 The Nanyang Riots (10)

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    The voice in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington spread throughout Europe that night. The British and Dutch, who had already experienced another violent riot in the East India, fell into anxiety. Regardless of whether President Coolidge was willing or not, he and Yang Qiu stood side by side and mobilized the navy to protect overseas Chinese in front of many reporters.  It's definitely sending a message.

    China and the United States will jointly intervene in the East India issue!

    ¡°Whether it is Downing Street, Whitehall, or the Netherlands, judging from their faces, they are all anxious and uneasy.

    While Europe could not sleep at night, the East Indian riots intensified.  On the afternoon of the next day after the riot, the British Royal Navy, seeing that the situation was not going well, immediately organized sailors to go to Batavia to investigate the situation. However, soon after landing, the team was ambushed and suffered heavy casualties.  In the end, Lieutenant General Livingston had to order the Hawkins-class heavy cruiser Effingham outside Batavia Harbor to provide artillery support.  However, due to the lack of any prior communication, the Effingham's sudden roar of naval guns caused a huge misunderstanding. The Chinese Navy heavy cruiser Chongming Island mistakenly thought it was firing at itself, so it launched a "counterattack"!

    The water column rising into the sky also frightened the Effingham to leave the small team and turn its gun muzzle to launch an "attack".  Fortunately, due to the long distance and the Chongming Island, after judging that the artillery hit point was not its own, it immediately took the initiative to distance itself at a high speed of 30 knots, so it did not lead to a sea battle.  The British navy sailors were relieved when the Chongming Island withdrew from the battle. They also discovered that it was a misunderstanding. Since no casualties were caused, they simply sent a telegram and cursed, and then resumed dealing with the critical Batavia battle situation.

    Finally, with the support of naval guns.  The naval squad finally arrived at the Governor's Palace in Batavia and met Lord Deco who led the remaining soldiers to hold the last line of defense.  When it was learned that the Batavia Barracks had been occupied suddenly due to the incident.  About three thousand rifles and a large amount of ammunition were lost, leaving only two strongholds in the city, the Harbor Fortress and the Governor's Palace.  The Effingham immediately informed Livingston in Singapore of the news, who hurriedly forwarded it to Europe and immediately mobilized the Singapore garrison to try to support Batavia.

    But just as he was about to set off, he received three very bad news at the same time.

    The first one is that the two Anhai-class battlecruisers and two US warships that were replenished in Manila set off at the same time, and after converging with two Chinese fast troop carriers off Manila, they quickly headed south at a speed of 20 knots!  The second news is that China and the United States simultaneously announced an evacuation operation from East India in Washington!  The third news was even worse, reported by a British cargo ship resting in Sanduao.  About seven ocean-going transport ships and an oil-water ship are gathering, and thousands of National Defense Force soldiers are getting ready to go.

    If there was only the Chinese Navy, Lieutenant General Livingston would not hesitate to order the Hood formation on alert near Palawan Island to intercept, but the second telegram forced him to consider the consequences of interception!  Because of this concern.  He was forced to send a telegram to Whitehall and wait patiently for a reply. As a result, he was later ridiculed by British newspapers as "the coward who allowed the empire to lose the South China Sea."

    The fierce battle in Batavia was raging, and more than 20,000 Islamic soldiers gathered in Surabaya City quickly headed west.  Lieutenant General Livingston waited for a call back, and the Dutch government was so anxious that it had to withdraw troops from Borneo and send them back to Batavia.  At this moment, the light cruiser Heilongjiang and two Changfeng-class destroyers, which were ordered to support the Second Fleet, had quietly arrived at Natuna Island.

    The Natuna Islands were historically regarded by China as the furthest point in southern Xinjiang.  It has been included in the territory since the Song Dynasty. Later, although it was controlled by the Manchurian Kingdom for a short period of time, maps and documents from all dynasties have stated that this is Chinese territory.  It was not until the appearance of modern colonists and the Dutch seizure of East India.  The Netherlands and the United Kingdom delimited the border with Natuna Island. Singapore and other places belonged to the United Kingdom. The east of the Anambas Islands, including the east of Natuna, was controlled by the Netherlands.  Since the Manchus were powerless, they did not protest, but on the new map of the Republic of China after the Shanghai Communique, both Anambas and Natuna were clearly marked as Chinese territory.

    The Netherlands did not protest against this. Firstly, the Dutch government has set up tax officials in the Natuna Islands to actually control the surrounding islands. Secondly, compared to the huge East Indian colony, Natuna is not important to the Netherlands. In addition, the Republic of China has never  Therefore, the Dutch government is too lazy to lift this veil and cause conflicts.  Since both parties involved were not competing, the UK naturally did not pay much attention to this matter.  But I did not expect that it was precisely because of this "negligence" that it led to a war of words that lasted for more than ten years and did not end until the British and Dutch withdrew from the Far East.

    Natuna Island is the core of the entire archipelago. Although it has a population of less than 10,000 and an area of ??just over 2,000 square kilometers, its strategic location is very important because it lies between Borneo and the Malay Peninsula and can radiate the entire sea area.  , has been known as the gateway to the South China Sea since ancient times!

    But because the Netherlands was no longer able to compete for world hegemony, let alone deal with the British Far East Fleet that controlled Singapore, and had few resources, Natuna Island at this time did not have any modern facilities at all. As a symbol of colonialism, the Batavia government alsoA dozen sailors and a tax collector were sent as symbols.  For the large island of Natuna, which has almost no contact with the outside world and can even be said to be still undergoing slash-and-burn farming, when several speedboats rushed into the fishing port in the north of the island and dozens of heavily armed Chinese navy commandos landed, they could  Imagine what a commotion it would cause!

    "Leave here, immediately! Natuna is the inviolable and sacred land of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Your behavior" The Dutch tax officer, who was born in the navy, finally had some backbone and led the soldiers to the dock in a hurry, pointing out  The commando team that came to the island was shouting curses.  But before he finished speaking, he saw two huge 12.7mm Venom Fang heavy machine guns unloaded from a speedboat behind him, and he immediately stopped talking because his throat went dry.

    "Chinese Navy Commando Lieutenant Feng Zizhang was ordered to take over. Please immediately ask the soldiers to put down their weapons and accept supervision. We will ensure the safety of you and the soldiers! Otherwise, you will be regarded as illegally entering our territory with weapons!"

    "" The Dutch tax officers and soldiers were stunned. When did Natuna become Chinese territory?  And he was so arrogant about opening a warship to receive it?  !  Have the Royal Navy and the British Far East Fleet disappeared?  They looked at the cruiser on the sea with its guns pointed at it.  Look again at the commandos who are fully armed and even have their machine guns set up, although they are determined to protect the dignity of the coachman.  But the reality forced them to put down their weapons and accept commando supervision.

    Seeing the Dutch soldier put down his gun, the Chinese people surrounding him came back to their senses.  A dark-skinned young fisherman seemed to still not believe what was happening.  He stepped forward and pretended to be brave, hesitating: "Junjun ye, did you just saysaidthat this is our land?"

    "Yes! This is Chinese territory! From now on, my comrades and I will be ordered to station here! We will not give up even if we fight to the death of every soldier!"

    "Haha I'm just saying, from now on, our Chinese territory is ours! Haha" The young man was the first to shout in surprise, and then all the Chinese people around him became restless.  In order to deliver this "big news", many people also took the initiative to help the commandos carry their luggage.  They were welcomed all the way to the original Dutch Yamen.

    "Ashore! Ashoreclang."

    Not long after the commando landed, a telegram from the Heilongjiang was sent to the war room of the Ministry of National Defense in Nanjing.  Xu Shuzheng, who was transferred to the General Staff last year, was on duty in the war room. When the telegraph operator told him the news that the commandos had landed on Natuna Island, he immediately rushed to the confidential office shouting excitedly.  He didn't even notice when he knocked over the guard delivering water.

    "Ashore! Natuna is ours!"

    Xu Shuzheng burst open the door, and before Yue Peng and others inside could react, he told the news that the commando team had landed on Natuna Island.  Not to mention officers such as Song Ziqing and Yue Peng who studied domestic and foreign military strategies every day, even Cai Jimin and others who came to the meeting stood up suddenly.

    Natuna!

    That¡¯s Natuna!

    It doesn¡¯t take much esoteric vision to see that controlling Natuna is equivalent to controlling the southern gate of the South China Sea.  Even the United States, which controls Luzon, and Annan's France, have to accept supervision "under their noses"!  "Bah." Yue Peng even put the tea cup on the table, glanced at Song Ziqing and then issued an order: "Send a telegram to Qinzhou, Guangzhou and Sanduao. No matter what method they use, it doesn't matter whether they arrest or rob  , the first batch of support troops and equipment must leave before midnight today! The troops must be sent to the island no matter what in four days! Then send a telegram to all submarines and warships in the South China Sea. Except for the warships responsible for guarding and protecting overseas Chinese, the rest  Everyone move closer to Natuna to prevent the British from jumping over the wall!"

    No one blames him for being so nervous, because Natuna is so important.  In fact, Yang Qiu had discussed with them since the beginning of the Nanyang Plan that Natuna was a strategic location that had to be obtained even if everything had to be given up.  Since they can see it, the UK can also see it. They ignored it before because of the Dutch control, but now it is China Even if the United States has been dragged into the water, no one can guarantee that the UK will not take action.

    So everyone knows how urgent the situation is.  Even those who knew the full plan, such as Song Ziqing and Yue Peng, were not immune. In order to confuse the British and prevent others from discovering that they had planned it, the domestic troops were not mobilized.  Now it is not a simple matter to deliver enough troops to Natuna, 1,800 kilometers away, before the British come to their senses.  But it had to be done at this time, because as long as the Marines went up, unless the British also committed infantry attacks, the navy alone would not be able to take the big island.

    "That's right! The troop transport ship is just off the coast of Pontianak." Cheng Biguang was even more excited. Winning Natuna was of great significance to the navy.  Therefore, he was most anxious about the delivery of follow-up troops. Seeing that he had no clue, he suddenly remembered the Marine Battalion sent to Borneo at the beginning of the crisis, but was blocked from landing. So he pushed away the staff and rushed to the map, pointed at Pontianak and shouted:  "Here, right here. UpDuring the first conflict, I sent a marine battalion to temporarily stay on the island after the British and Dutch were not allowed to go to the island.  The Marine Battalion has 327 people and is fully equipped with artillery and machine guns. It will be no problem to recruit 500 people from the sailors to go to the island. They can arrive no later than tomorrow morning at the latest.  "

    "Tomorrow morning? It's too slow. Are there any destroyers nearby?"

    "There are three ships, and two Tumen River light patrols for protection." A naval staff officer rushed out.

    "Get on the ship! Let all the Marine Battalion board the destroyers and light cruisers and use full power to support Natuna. The troop transport ship is towed behind, and all must be on the island before eight o'clock tonight." Song Ziqing did not dare to delay, and immediately made a decision and ordered the ship to be launched.  After the destroyer transported troops, it shouted at Cai Jimin: "Xiangpu, call the Information Agency and tell Dai Jitao to build up the situation! Tomorrow morning I want to see all newspapers publish [East India Riots, China and the United States jointly protect overseas Chinese]  ¡¿News! In addition, he sent a telegram to the Prime Minister, telling him that the Vice President had reached an agreement with the United States to jointly protect overseas Chinese, and asked him to ask the Japanese Navy whether there was any action to protect overseas Chinese."

    ¡°¡­ completely muddy this pool of water!¡±.

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