Xiang Ying and the officer corps did not want to land in Iquique. This unexpected war was not in their plan. Since leaving Dakar, the Zhiyuan has stopped all military operations and they put away their fangs. Carefully avoid those golden channels in the depths of the ocean.
They experienced countless dangers on this long return journey. After the bloody battle of Dakar, the Atlantic navies of Britain and France were frantically searching for this legendary battleship. All Western merchant ships on the golden waterway received emergency orders, and everyone Keep your eyes open for this ghost ship.
The Zhiyuan does not dare to approach the golden channel during the day. If it really needs to cross the channel, it must choose the dark night and implement strict lighting control.
It is true that the ancestors have spirits, and China’s national destiny has not declined! Along the way, they were almost caught four times by the British and French fleets, but fate smiled again, and the Zhiyuan saved the day and successfully broke through.
British and French warships, European merchant ships, Atlantic storms, and the loneliness and pain during the slow journey, nothing defeated these brave young people. When they passed through the Drake Strait and entered Chilean territorial waters, everyone in the fleet finally sent them home. They breathed a sigh of relief because before setting sail, they knew through telegrams that Chile and Ryukyu had established diplomatic relations and had close cooperation.
Along the way, we finally reached relatively safe waters. Perhaps the British and French intelligence agencies had always judged that the Zhiyuan would enter the Indian Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, so the density of surveillance here was still very low.
After crossing the Drake Passage, the British and French warships were almost invisible. But the returning fleet was not happy for a few days. When the clipper ship transporting supplies quietly docked in Puerto Montt to purchase a batch of supplies, they received shocking news.
It turns out that not only Weng Derong and Chen Yonglu's Heavenly Kingdom soldiers are fighting in South America, but more than 10,000 Heavenly Kingdom soldiers from Southeast Asia have just arrived in Antofagasta under the escort of Ryukyu officials.
The clipper ship immediately stopped supplying and set sail to the open sea to rendezvous with the Zhiyuan. When Xiang Ying and the others received this information, they immediately ordered to abandon their original plan to go directly to Tahiti and set sail north to watch the battle.
In their plan, if the Chilean army and the Heavenly Kingdom veterans fought smoothly, the Zhiyuan would not appear and go directly westward from the open sea to Tahiti and then return home. But once the war is frustrated, the Zhiyuan will never just watch friendly forces suffer.
"The battleship is the floating country, and the armor of the Zhiyuan is the motherland. This is the military soul injected into the navy by the prime minister. This is the root of the existence of the Ryukyu Navy! The motherland cannot just watch her children suffer defeat and be slaughtered! So we Going to war!"
The powerful words moved all the Heavenly Kingdom veterans in Iquique. It felt so good to have the motherland behind you. A beggar had to lean his back against a wall to beat a dog. Even the poorest child thought that there was a motherland behind him. Mom, he won't be afraid!
The Kingdom of Heaven has been destroyed and cannot be revived. From this moment on, these veterans in South America have completely stood in the Ryukyu camp. All Chinese in Iquique have accepted dual citizenship of Chile and Ryukyu.
Xiao Letian worked hard over the past few years and put in countless efforts and finally got rich rewards. All the legacies left by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, whether tangible or intangible, were all inherited by him.
In the following decades, when Iquique was victorious and the Heavenly Kingdom veterans obtained a 150-year lease, the Heavenly Kingdom relics scattered around the world secretly contacted Ryukyu. There were 130 soldiers south of the Yangtze River alone. More than a dozen secret gangs declared their allegiance to Ryukyu, and the CIA's strength suddenly increased.
This is the support of the people. Xiao Letian seems to have been recognized by all underground gangs and societies in China. Even the legacy of the Kingdom of Heaven can go to great lengths to save it, let alone those small anti-Qing gangs.
Of course, this is all a thing for another day. Xiang Ying and others came ashore not only to encourage these overseas Chinese, but also to negotiate with the Chilean army. When Xiang Ying offered a price of 500,000 taels of silver, Sirapizzo was shocked 's stunned.
"God! Do you want so much money from us just for this battleship? This is blackmail!"
Five hundred thousand taels of silver, converted into the metric system, is one ton and seven taels of silver. Even if Chile is rich in gold and silver, it will not be able to produce so much silver at once.
"Blackmail? Haha... You still want to win this war without our participation? You said five hundred thousand taels is too expensive, but I said this is still a discounted friendship price?"
"Do you know how much a 210-caliber naval gun shell costs? Do you know that we consumed hundreds of shells in that naval battle? How to calculate the loss of forced pressurization of the steam turbine? How to calculate the reduction in service life caused by the wear and tear of the gun bore rifling? You Do you think a battleship’s main gun can last a lifetime without being replaced or repaired?”
"Modern war is a money-burning game. Do you still want to win without gold and silver? If you want to monopolize the struvite and saltpeter mines without investing in military costs, you'd better wake up to such a cheap thing. I'm afraid you'll lose it if you go back to sleep. I fell asleep with a stiff neck!”
Sirapizo was speechless after being refuted, and he also knew that the subsequent war would be inseparable from the support of these Chinese. If he wanted to continue attacking the territories of Peru and Bolivia, these more than 10,000 brown-coated troops must not be missing.
Three days later, Sirapizzo received authorization from the president, allowing him full authority to handle negotiations with the Ryukyus. The final result was similar to what Tang Lei and others negotiated. Military expenses were settled with silver ore and copper ore. Chile provided a total of three tons of high-grade silver ore and ten tons of copper ore as military expenses for the Zhiyuan's participation in the war.
Subsequently, the two parties formally signed a 150-year lease right for Ryukyu to lease two-thirds of Iquique. This two-thirds of the area is not limited to the urban area, but the entire vast land in the northern part of Iquique Province. Two-thirds of a province is under the administration of the Ryukyus, and Chile retains only sovereignty.
The news reached the ears of these veterans of the Kingdom of Heaven, and everyone cried like crazy, laughed wildly, hugged each other and howled hysterically. The kingdom of heaven that Hong Xiuquan had not given them before was unexpectedly found in South America.
In the eyes of these veterans who left their hometowns, heaven is not a land of milk and honey, nor is it a paradise with trees covered with gold and agate. In the simple values of the Chinese people, as long as they can build a house and own some land of their own, there is Wife and children, and then a place that can fairly allow us to work hard to build a home is the Kingdom of Heaven.
It is such a simple ideal, such a simple request, but it cannot be obtained even at the cost of tens of millions of lives. This cannot but be said to be the tragedy of a nation for thousands of years.
After the treaty was signed, Xiang Ying didn't waste a minute. He immediately boarded the ship and left Iquique to join the Zhiyuan in the outer sea. After boarding the ship, he quickly set sail for the Fernandez Islands, where the supply clippers were staying.
However, he never expected that as soon as he left Iquique, the secret message from Ryukyu would be delivered to him.
