Expedition to Europe

Withdrawal is not that easy to do.

If Qin Zhiyuan chooses to withdraw the Umbrella Company personnel in Borneo, then once someone stays, Qin Zhiyuan must "abandon" these people.

At least in name.

Then, in the future, when facing the crazy encirclement and suppression of the Dutch, whether these people who stay can still remain 100% loyal to Qin Zhiyuan is a question mark.

Especially after the Dutch were driven out of Borneo, whether these people will still recognize Qin Zhiyuan's leadership is an important issue.

Qin Zhiyuan wants to fight a proxy war, not to raise an ungrateful wolf.

Proxy war is a common situation in the 21st century when some major powers are not convenient to tear their faces openly.

In Chinese words, this is called: repairing the plank road in the open and crossing Chencang in secret.

Qin Zhiyuan just wants to fight a proxy war in Borneo.

The problem now is that in the current situation, in order to defeat the Germans, the French will not tear their faces openly with the Dutch for the sake of face and bear the black pot of bullying.

Then the people who stayed in Borneo would have to face the pressure of the Dutch alone, and whether they could withstand it was a big problem.

The Dutch army was not bad, they were definitely not the opponent of the Chinese troops who were omnipotent on the European battlefield, but the Dutch navy was a big problem.

The Dutch navy now has 3 3,500-ton coastal defense battleships, 5 5,000-ton coastal defense battleships, 6 3,800-ton "Holland" class protected cruisers, and a 6,530-ton "Seven Provinces Alliance" coastal defense battleship.

Most of these warships are old models from the 19th century. Except for the "Seven Provinces Alliance" with a shorter age, the rest are grandfather-class battleships that should have been retired long ago.

Even the "Seven Provinces Alliance" has been more than ten years old.

Although the Dutch fleet looks old at this time, it can still dominate Borneo. You know, Zhang Tianshou and his men don't even have heavy artillery in their hands, so when facing the Dutch "grandfather" class battleships, they have no counterattack ability at all.

If Qin Zhiyuan wanted to fight the Dutch, he had to at least have the strength to compete with the Dutch at sea.

Of course, this kind of competition does not mean that Zhang Tianshou and his team have to establish a naval fleet with the same strength as the Dutch, but that they only need to lower the level of the Dutch and bring them to the same level as Zhang Tianshou and his team's navy.

As the saying goes, destruction is always easier than construction. Since warships cannot be built in a short time, then find a way to sink the Dutch warships. Since neither side has warships, it doesn't matter whether they have advantages or not.

So the scheduled munitions still have to be shipped, but the destination is changed from Surabaya to Christmas Island, 400 kilometers south of Java Island.

Christmas Island has always been a territory of Lion City. When Qin Zhiyuan ordered Gaspard to find an island where an airport could be built, Christmas Island came into Gaspard's sight.

At this time, the Lion City government was not synonymous with "honesty and efficiency". Corruption and incompetence were their labels. Gaspard did not spend much effort to obtain the ownership of Christmas Island from the Lion City government.

The total area of ​​Christmas Island is 135 square kilometers. Gaspard paid 1.35 million francs for it. 10,000 francs per square meter sounds cheap, but compared with the New Baku area, it is expensive.

You should know that when old Renault bought the New Baku area from the French government a few days ago, the price was 100 francs per square kilometer, which is 100 times cheaper than Christmas Island.

In fact, the current British and French governments really don't care about these scattered islands.

The value of the islands is far from being revealed at this time. In the colonial empire established by the British, India, Canada, Australia and other vast and populous areas are the big ones.

For places like Christmas Island, the British are too lazy to ask about it. It is estimated that the Queen of England does not know that she has such a place.

While purchasing Christmas Island, Gaspard is still looking for other islands.

For example, an island in the Charles Islands, where there is only a fishing port now, not even a transit point for routes, is part of British Mauritius. Gaspard did not even go through the British, and directly reached a transfer agreement with the Mauritian government.

When signing this agreement, the Mauritian government did not even mention the residents on the island, because for the Mauritians, this island called "Diego Garcia" has never been the territory of Mauritius, and the people on it are not Mauritians, and whether they live or die has nothing to do with them.

After Qin Zhiyuan learned the news, he almost laughed and took Diego Garcia into his pocket, and immediately transferred a company of troops from Corsica and their families to Diego Garcia.

A company has 120 people, plus family members, about 600 to 700 people, which is enough to form a population advantage in Diego Garcia.

You know, there are less than 500 people on that island now, and Qin Zhiyuan also plans to compensate them with a large sum of money to let them move to other islands or to the mainland. In that case, there will only be Chinese on Diego Garcia, and when the time is right, they can decide for themselves where to belong.

The only regret for Qin Zhiyuan now is that Diego Garcia is too far from Christmas Island. The straight-line distance is more than 3,000 kilometers, and the plane cannot reach it directly. Otherwise, Qin Zhiyuan can now start from Corsica and fly all the way to the Far East. It would be much faster and he could make a round trip in a week.

However, this is not a problem. With the improvement of technology, the flight distance of aircraft will continue to increase. One day, when aircraft with a range of more than 3,000 kilometers appear, the earth will become a global village, and the value of these islands will be highlighted.

What Qin Zhiyuan has to do now is to let Gaspard acquire such islands worldwide. There is no need for too many. As long as there are islands at key nodes, Qin Zhiyuan will have a broad strategic space in the future.

Of course, if the French Congress collectively has a brain twitch, then Qin Zhiyuan will not refuse to hand over a large island like Madagascar to Qin Zhiyuan.

However, for a large island like Madagascar, it is not suitable to use means like Corsica to assimilate it.

You know, there are millions of Malagasy people on the island of Madagascar. Qin Zhiyuan can't find a place to accommodate so many people, and he doesn't have the ability to relocate millions of Chinese to fill Madagascar.

Of course, although it is impossible to assimilate completely, it is still possible to assimilate part of it...

Before the colonial crisis breaks out, forget about Madagascar, which covers an area of ​​hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. The French will never let it go.

For now, Qin Zhiyuan's actions have aroused the vigilance of some people in the French Parliament. Asking Qin Zhiyuan to give an explanation to the Parliament is a signal. If Qin Zhiyuan continues to make big moves, he may be besieged by the Parliament.

The original text is in Liu # 9 @Shu/Bar!

This is a scene that Qin Zhiyuan absolutely does not want to see.

Therefore, since the outbreak of the Surabaya incident, Qin Zhiyuan has been staying in Sidi Bel Abbas, seemingly concentrating on training new recruits of the Foreign Legion to avoid becoming the focus of everyone's attention.

But sometimes things are so strange. If you don't look for trouble, it doesn't mean that trouble won't look for you.

Although the oil drilling in New Baku is progressing smoothly, the construction of the oil pipeline is full of difficulties.

The oil pipeline from New Baku to Gabes is about 500 kilometers in total, plus the ten kilometers on both sides of the pipeline. This section is named the Baku Corridor by the French government.

It is not easy to build a pipeline in the desert. In order to prevent the impact of geological changes on the pipeline, the construction location should be selected in areas with relatively good geological conditions. In these areas, there are often settlements of local indigenous people, which involves a relocation issue.

In this area of ​​about 5,000 square kilometers, there are about a dozen indigenous settlements. It is not a troublesome thing to persuade these residents to move. Just give money.

But when an organization called the "Gabès Alliance" appeared, relocating residents became a troublesome thing.

The requirements of this "Gabès Alliance" are simple and crude: since the oil pipeline passes through our Gabes land, then we Gabes residents must enjoy part of the benefits, otherwise, we will not allow the oil pipeline to pass through our land.

To use a Chinese saying, it is: I opened this mountain, I planted this tree, if you want to pass through here, leave money to buy your way through!

Well, this statement is not accurate, because the pipeline was not built by these Gabes people, and even the leader of this "Gabes Alliance" is not a Gabes person at all, but a standard Tunisian.

But this does not prevent this organization from making its own interests.

When Qin Zhiyuan received the ultimatum-like announcement from this organization, Qin Zhiyuan did not care, because the French government would definitely not sit idly by and watch its interests being damaged. Without Qin Zhiyuan's action, the French government would take the initiative to dissolve this organization.

But what happened next completely changed the direction of this matter.

One day in mid-November, a construction team near Dous was ambushed, and all 45 construction workers and an engineer from mainland France died. Their heads were chopped off with a sharp blade and placed near the bodies in a strange pattern. After identification, this pattern was found to be the symbol of the camel cavalry from the local feudal dynasty, and this practice was also the traditional custom of the camel cavalry.

On the same day, the exploration team in the New Baku area was also attacked. This time, because the exploration team was protected by soldiers of the Foreign Legion and equipped with automatic weapons, the attack did not succeed. Instead, more than 20 attackers were killed, but at the same time, the attackers also caused the death of 4 soldiers of the Foreign Legion in the exploration team.

On the bodies left by the attackers, there were very obvious star and moon signs, which was also the tradition of the camel cavalry. And through the analysis of the bodies, these camel cavalry still used relatively primitive weapons, that is, those spears and long curved sabers, and were not equipped with modern firearms.

It's the 20th century, and they still play with broadswords and spears. They really don't know how to live or die.

Qin Zhiyuan immediately ordered the plane to take off to find the traces of these cavalrymen, and at the same time ordered another regiment to be sent to the New Baku area to prevent such vicious incidents from happening again.

Just after Qin Zhiyuan ordered the troops to set off, Qin Zhiyuan's office welcomed an unusual guest, Jules Freycinet.

This person is Clemenceau's personal representative.