The queen hesitated. The queen did not refuse directly but showed hesitation. Now Princess Sissi saw hope and felt that there was a way.
Territorial issues are a very sensitive topic for any country in the world. This involves not only issues of interests, but also issues of sovereignty, integrity, and the support of the people.
If a country reaches the point of selling its land, then there is no need for the regime to exist, and the people will simply abandon it.
But there are exceptions to everything. In the colonial era after the great geographical discovery, colonies were obviously not as valuable as the mainland.
The process of human exploration of the ocean is actually quite romantic. Navigators received funding from kings and nobles and summoned brave sailors to go deep into the unknown ocean to find wealth.
The most basic skill of every captain is drawing. Strange islands, continents, waterways, and even large whirlpools, sea monsters, reefs, etc. that are found on the sea must be drawn on the map.
It is often the lookout who discovers an island. When they land, they find that there are no civilized people, only indigenous people or simply wild animals and plants. Then they look at the chart and find that no one has marked the island.
This is easy to do. The first discoverer will have the right to name it, and he will give the island a name!
Navigators generally declare that the sovereignty of this island belongs to the sponsor. It is definitely not the mother country but the sponsor. Whoever sponsors the expedition owns such an island.
If this expedition was funded by everyone, then this land belongs to a certain family!
It may seem like child’s play, but that’s how it was done when exploring the ocean!
Each country has its own expedition fleet, and in the early days of the Age of Discovery, new nautical charts were highly classified military secrets for all countries.
In this way, many islands and landmasses will be discovered multiple times, and then claimed multiple times by various countries!
Chaos, extreme chaos, valuable islands and continents will definitely be competed by various countries, and wars will change the territory of the colonies.
But there is still a group of land that has no value in the eyes of people at that time, and these lands have always been owned by the earliest discoverers.
The lands that Princess Sissi wanted belonged to the second group and were worthless in the eyes of people at the time. However, because they were first discovered by the British, the sovereignty belonged to the British.
For example, Christmas Island is a small island south of Java with an area of just over 100 square kilometers. At this time, there had been no human settlement.
Just now Princess Sissi mentioned the name of this island, and the palace attendant searched the globe for a long time but could not find the island.
In the end, I could only open the royal database and take out a detailed chart of the Indian Ocean, and then I found this inconspicuous island.
Christmas Island was discovered by a British captain on Christmas Eve in 1643, but at that time he only recorded the island on the chart but did not land on the island.
Since then, the island has only been a British colony in the legal sense, but no one has developed it!
This situation did not change until 1887, when geologists on board British warships discovered phosphate deposits in rock samples collected from the islands.
It was precisely because of the emergence of mineral deposits that large-scale immigrants began to appear on the worthless island. However, until the 21st century, the total population on this island was only more than 2,000.
The queen would only be interested in an island like this!
After looking at the map carefully and then looking at the detailed information, Queen Victoria lowered her eyes and said helplessly, "You want to buy Christmas Island? Is it to be a forward supply station? Why is this reason so far-fetched..."
"Your Majesty, what you said is that facts speak louder than words. The Chinese ocean-going fleet has indeed encountered many dangers in the Indian Ocean. It is not an exaggeration to build a few supply ports!"
"More importantly, the Chinese ports are always open to the British Empire. The addition of an additional supply port is also good news for the British fleet and warships!"
"And the Cocos Islands... are also on the path of the equatorial warm current. Should they also be developed? The Chinese spend money, and we British can finally enjoy the results. Isn't this a good thing?"
The Cocos Islands are smaller and belong to a string of coral reef islands. The inhabitable area does not exceed 20 square kilometers. This kind of island seems to have no strategic value except for tourism.
It is worth mentioning that the sovereignty of the Cocos Islands currently belongs to the United Kingdom, but the property rights are private and belong to the Ross family. The ancestors of this family are Scots. He was the first to come here to help the indigenous people improve coconut crops and develop agriculture.
A small island of twenty square kilometers really has no strategic value!
But this island is still relatively famous because Darwin once did scientific research here!
The Queen waved her hand and gave up analyzing the two islands and said with a smile, "I'm afraid these two islands are just an appetizer for negotiations. Xiao Letian's destination is Western Australia, right?"
"My child, tell me the truth, why did Xiao Letian bring his evil idea to Australia? What is there!"
The queen is as spirited as a ghost! No matter how you look at it, Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands are worthless. They are small and have no resources. Apart from building docks to provide services for the sailing fleet and fishing, what else can they be used for?
So Queen Victoria saw through Xiao Letian's true purpose at a glance, and that was Australia!
Princess Sissi's expression was stunned and she smiled awkwardly, "Your Majesty, why do you think so? This world has always been under your control. Western Australia has not been developed until now. The British expedition team has been to that desert area more than once. Didn’t you find nothing?”
"What can the Chinese find? If I had to guess, I might think that Xiao Letian has a hunger and thirst for land. This is a mental illness!"
"The Chinese people are like this. They are born to struggle for food, clothing, housing and transportation. They are desperately thirsting for land, even the most barren deserts..."
"Your Majesty, please don't laugh. I have seen the geography photo album Xiao Letian gave me. Do you know? The Chinese can build a kind of ladder-like farmland on the extremely arid plateau in the northwest..."
"In the desert areas of the Western Region where rebellions occurred, people there even built underground rivers to irrigate farmland..."
"The Chinese have such powerful farming technology that even the desert can come alive in their hands!"
Princess Sissi's expression suddenly became serious: "Your Majesty, did you know? Just last year and this year, severe famines occurred in three provinces, four prefectures, and thirty-one counties in the Qing Empire..."
"Droughts, floods, locust plagues... all kinds of natural disasters tortured the empire, and a large number of people could only become refugees!"
"The Qing Empire no longer has the ability to provide disaster relief. They can only let go of the post roads and let the refugees rush around and go begging in wealthier places!"
"These things are clear. You can consult the ambassador to China. I believe no one can deceive you!"
"Xiao Letian is compassionate. Why is he desperately trying to expand in Nanyang? In fact, he only wants two things, one is a high yield of rice, and the other is ocean fisheries..."
"He...he has to find a way to feed tens of millions of victims! The Qing government doesn't care, Xiao Letian can't ignore it!"
"Ten million victims? God, are you lying to me?" Prince Edward exclaimed.
Note: I want to get involved in Australia, how cool is it? No matter what, we have to snatch Western Australia over!
All of BHP Billiton’s iron ore mines cannot be escaped, and neither can the gold mines of Pas!
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