Australian Storm 1876

  Chapter 225 Mysterious Landing Troops

   "It's weird, where did these Dutch landing troops go?"

  This is the number one problem that plagues Li Fushou and the entire Shangri-La garrison. It has been a month and a half since landing in early January. The Royal Dutch Army units of the 1000 and hundreds have disappeared completely, and there is no trace.

  Coast Guard ships have searched through a sieve several times on the nearby coastline of more than 1,000 kilometers, and have still found nothing.

  The Marine Police District has considered sending soldiers to land and search, but the facts have proved completely unfeasible.

  The Dutch are not a small group of troops. Once a head-on encounter and end, you can imagine that it is a delivery.

  On Shangri-La Island, with the exception of a town on the east and west sides of the island, the area that has been explored and developed does not exceed thousands of square kilometers. The other ninety-nine percent of the areas are primitive tropical jungles and mountain valleys, uninhabited.

  Shangri-La Island is the second largest island in the world. The whole island has a mountainous terrain, extending from the northwest to the southeast to form a continuous central mountain range. The mountains and plateaus are mostly above 4000 meters above sea level, making it the highest island in the world.

  The highest peak is Chaya Peak, 4884 meters above sea level, which is the highest point in Oceania.

  These high east-west mountains are full of cliffs, scarcely human and beasts, and become a huge obstacle to traffic between the north and the south of the island.

  On the north and south sides of the central ridge, there are coastal plains of varying widths. Among them, the Ligu-Frye Plain in the south is the largest, with vast and flat coastal swamps and mangroves.

The coast is thousands of kilometers long with twists and turns, and there are countless affiliated islands dotted around. Most of them are islands formed by volcanism or coral reefs. Larger rivers all originate in the central mountainous area and flow into the ocean from the north and south slopes. Large and small rivers. Hundreds.

  This kind of complex terrain and landforms coupled with a vast area, to search for a force of more than a thousand people is tantamount to finding a needle in a haystack.

  In a bay about 350 kilometers southwest of Jayapura

This is a small and inconspicuous bay. A river from the central mountain range in the interior merges into the bay. It goes up about ten kilometers along the river. It is a lake with an area of ​​ten square kilometers and surrounded by mountains. Typical valley terrain.

  The valley is full of green eyes and the lake is rippling with blue waves.

  Here, two three-masted galleons were parked impressively. The ship's body was covered with traces of flames and bullet marks. One of the galleons' main mast had broken, revealing a shockingly huge cannon pit.

Colorful wild flowers bloomed on the shore of Fangcaoqiqi, among which gray-white military tents were neatly arranged, occupying the position of the high ground on the side of the river bank, and many artillery positions were dug around in a circular arrangement.

  The thatched shed in the middle of the barracks is the headquarters of the Royal Dutch East Indies Landing Forces.

  At this moment, a circle of middle and high-ranking military officers are surrounding the two Chinese, asking for classified information obtained through investigation.

  The first Chinese was about forty years old. He was tall, white and needless. From a distance, he seemed to be a gentle wind oncoming.

  This person's name is Sheng Yeyun. He is a Chinese businessman living in Batavia. He speaks fluent Dutch and Cantonese, and is fluent in Jianghuai Mandarin. He is clever and skillful with long sleeves.

  This person is the spy head carefully selected by the Governor's Mansion. The strong follower behind him is called Ada, a domestic slave of Sheng Mansion. He has good fists and sharp marksmanship, and serves as a personal bodyguard.

Faced with the questions raised by a group of officers, Sheng Yeyun looked around them calmly and said: "Dear officers, I understand your feelings very much, because the amount of information that comes from this trip is very large. So please be at ease with all the officers, and listen to me one by one. If you have any doubts, I will explain to you in detail and make sure you are satisfied. What do you think of this?"

"Hmm, gentlemen, let's not look so impatient." Colonel Schmidt von Krauns stopped a group of officers with his hands, and politely paid tribute to Sheng Yeyun's jaws, acting very gentlemanly. "Mr. Sheng has brought us extremely important information. He is a true friend of the Dutch. We should serve with fragrant coffee. I believe he will bring us very interesting stories."

"It’s a great honor to be here, Honorable Lord, please allow me to introduce myself. I am a naturalized Dutchman. I am proud to be Dutch. Both of my children are now studying advanced trade knowledge in Amsterdam. I am very longing for it. The beautiful Netherlands."

  The implication is not to confuse it with the Chinese in Batavia.

   "Really, that's great!" Colonel Schmidt von Krauns clearly understood, and looked at Sheng Yeyun, who nodded and bowed with approval.

  This is a loyal and good dog, good use of it will have miraculous effects.

  The Dutch landing force guarding valleys and lakes consists of three parts. The first part is reinforcements from Europe.

Including the Royal Drenthe Musketeer Battalion, the Royal Overijssel Volunteer Barracks, and the Royal Utrecht Grenadier Battalion. After the tragic blow of the sea battle, the existing force of about 900 people is still the most powerful. Landing troops.

The commander is Lord Schmidt-von-Krauns, Colonel of the Royal Netherlands Army. He is also the commander-in-chief of the entire landing force. The assistant is the German Colonel Heinrich, who is responsible for commanding the mercenary-based Royal Shangai Thrall Volunteer Barracks.

  The second part is the troops drawn by the Dutch East Indies’ colonial forces, reorganized into an infantry battalion, with a strength of about 460 troops, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Schmeichel.

  The third part is the sailors on the battle-damaged three-masted galleon and some artillery units, all of which add up to less than 200 people. As the auxiliary firepower, it is directly commanded by the commander-in-chief of the landing force, Colonel Schmidt von Krauns

The   landing force has a total of more than 1,550 people. They have been hiding in this unnamed valley for a month and a half. During this period, several exploratory teams were sent to investigate the surrounding terrain. The farthest one once went deep into the inland mountainous area for more than 100 kilometers, but they all came home.

  Except for the endless mountains, endless tropical virgin forests, and wild beasts that appear from time to time, there is no trace of human smoke at all.

  In a moment

  The fragrant coffee smell lingers in the thatched shed. Here is a simple table. A group of officers and Sheng Yeyun sit around the table, and Ada is standing behind, and everyone is smiling.

  Sheng Yeyun clasped his fists and made a group, telling the story;

  "I’m not talented, I was secretly dispatched by the Governor’s Mansion more than three months ago to go deep into the hinterland of the mainland and even Australia, and finally arrived on Shangri-La Island. During the period, it is difficult to repeat all the difficulties and dangers. I will just talk about what I have seen.

  In the beginning, I waited for the master and servant to arrive in Hong Kong on a Dutch trading ship, then to Yangcheng, Guangdong Province, and then took a boat to the Shanghai Sea. I felt quite a lot along the way.

  Australia, led by the Red River Valley, has strong trading power in the aforementioned coastal areas and Southeast Asia. Dozens of companies, led by Normandy Trading Company, operate a wide range of products.

From refined wheat flour, woolen yarn, prosciutto, canned food, Red River brand toffee, soybean oil, to various steel products, such as iron chains, small steamer propellers, kitchen knives, farm tools, plows, etc., the coverage is very wide. .

  Red River Valley even has star products such as new diesel engines and tractors, and has established wireless telegraph companies and shipping companies, with influence throughout the entire Southeast Asia and the Far East.

  I found through investigation that there is also a charity organization called "Guangjitang" under the Red River Valley, which has branches in many cities in mainland China, and has adopted many lonely homeless children between the ages of 10 and 15.

  By bribing the "Guangjitang" staff with heavy money, I discovered an amazing fact from his mouth;

Red River Valley has more than 40 "Guangjitang" branches on the mainland, and each "Guangjitang" branch has several charity schools, adopting more than 260,000 children, and more than 60,000 to 70,000 children per year. The scale is increasing, and it is expected to reach 300,000 people this year.

  As long as these children reach the age of 16 in Guangjitang, those with outstanding academic performance can go to Australia for further studies, and enter various industries after two years of advanced studies.

"Guangjitang" has its own shipping company, which is loaded with wool, flour, meat and dairy products from Australia every month. In addition to part of the supply of "Guangjitang", other hot commodities are provided by The local merchants reselled them and the profits were used to fill the gaps in the daily operation of "Guangjitang".

  On the return journey, in addition to full of mainland porcelain, tea, silk and other native products, there are no less than six immigration ships every month, carrying six to seven thousand teenagers over the age of 16 to Australia.

What I want to remind you here is... The first Shangri-La Garrison Division, which was just established in the name of the National Guard, is composed of all the officers and soldiers of the "Guangjitang" disciples. The loyalty to the Lord Queensland is self-evident. , Please pay close attention to it. "

  This statement comes out

The Dutch officers around    had serious faces. They quickly realized what this meant?

  This is a young guard that has been cultivated since childhood. It belongs to the kind of desperate loyalty. It will become a trembling and powerful force over time.

  The grass shed fell into silence

  This is not good news for the British, but is it good news for the Dutch?

  This shows that the Earl of Queensland has almost endless and powerful human resources. As long as he is willing to pay, he can pull more divisions into battle at any time. This is definitely a bottomless pit.

  In the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with a population of only 3.8 million, the total number of the Royal Army is only a little over 40,000. Except for the mainland and other colonies, the Dutch East Indies account for more than half, and it looks like a little over 20,000.

  Now the Aceh War is still going on. The 14,000 Dutch colonial army has been trapped in this war for 10 years.

  Unexpectedly, Shangri-La Island is a bigger giant pit.

When Colonel Schmidt-von-Klauens thought of this, he could no longer maintain his elegant gentleman's demeanor and burst into swearing; "God! What the **** did the governor's palace do? These **** sent us to the tiger's mouth. A bunch of guys who should go to hell."

  (End of this chapter)