Singaporean Zai Chun carefully inspected the huge scale of the Eurasian ocean trade. With complicated emotions, Zai Chun's fleet set off and headed directly east to Kalimantan Island, which is what the Chinese called Borneo in ancient times!
This is the earliest area where Chinese forces penetrated in Southeast Asia. Xiao Letian set up the Kentun District at the earliest for Brunei's oil. It was precisely because of the richness here that the Tsarist Russian fleet launched a sneak attack.
A great Chinese uprising broke out in Borneo during that war, defeating all the local kings and completely unifying the Brunei region and encompassing the northern part of Borneo.
The Dutch forces were huddled in the Matapura area in the southern part of the island and did not dare to move at all. The tragic war scenes in Brunei shocked the country's businessmen.
Even the Lanfang Republic began to secretly negotiate with the Chinese. After countless bargainings and long-term observations, the Lanfang Republic secretly joined the Chinese Alliance.
However, the Lanfang Republic did not announce it to the outside world at the beginning, including the Sulu princely state, which also secretly contacted the Chinese. The Chinese would not disclose this secret until the Franco-Prussian War was over.
It was not until the war situation in Europe was basically determined that the left-behind minister Xiao Hexin launched the Luzon strategy. Lanfang Republic and the ancient country of Sulu officially announced their joining the Chinese Federation.
Zai Chun did not enter Borneo with great fanfare, but sneaked in secretly under the protection of the CIA, while the British fleet anchored near Natuna Island and waited quietly.
Emperor Tongzhi was received by Huang Wanxia and others, and conducted an intensive inspection of Borneo for two weeks without disturbing the soldiers and civilians of Borneo.
This time Zai Chun was even more shocked. He never expected that in such a short period of time after going to Europe, Borneo would change so much. It was completely different from the time of the uprising.
Along the coastline are all areas where Chinese people gather. Ports and wharves are densely built. In the distance are workshops and even modern coal-burning factories.
Further to the horizon are farmlands that are constantly being developed. The rice that is harvested three times a year in Southeast Asia will not be wasted. Chinese farms employ a large number of natives from Borneo, and most of them are women.
Huang Wanxia felt a little ashamed when she saw those hard-working indigenous women. There was a dark secret behind the surface tranquility.
Since most of the refugees fleeing from the mainland are men, it is difficult to continue the development here without women. Gradually, a very ugly business has emerged, human trafficking!
Rich Chinese people began to pay large sums of money to buy indigenous women in the forest, and the business grew bigger and bigger. In the end, there were even headhunters in the dense forest who specifically captured women from other tribes and sold them to the Chinese for money and goods. clan.
All of this is of course prohibited by Chinese law, but there are some things that are prohibited by law but cannot be enforced. Anyway, those indigenous women were forced to be sold to give birth to children for single men, but the local government also provided these people with Proof of household registration.
Huang Wanxia knew that the Chinese were exchanging the blood of these barbarians. In the long run, the primitive tribes in the rain forest were destined to die one by one. Apart from integrating, the only outcome left for them was death.
Zai Chun was obviously not excited about the indigenous women planting rice. He was more concerned about the efficiency with which the Chinese developed the wild land.
Tropical rainforests are indeed not suitable for people from the Central Plains to live in. There is too much rain and the forests are too dense!
But don’t underestimate the Chinese people’s enthusiasm for construction. Repairing the earth is the talent of the Chinese people. Will a nation that can build the Great Wall still be afraid of a little rain forest?
The steam-powered water pumps imported from Prussia began to work, people cast dikes to drain the swamps, and began to build roads deep into the rainforest.
At first, only people and horses could take the dirt road. Gradually, the dirt road became wider and wider, gravel roads appeared here, and then narrow forest tracks were actually built.
Logging camps began to be set up one after another at the edge of the forest, and those precious mahogany, huanghuali, and wenge trees became the wealth of the Chinese.
Hundreds of thousands of loggers are working day and night along the forest, and behind them there are hundreds of thousands of road builders building the railway into the forest.
This is a war between man and the rainforest competing for living space, and what matters is speed!
Zai Chun was dumbfounded. The huge banyan tree required six or seven people to hug it. Under the felling of the loggers, the huge banyan tree fell in front of him like a mountain.
The forest gradually turned into scars before people's eyes, and the open spaces quickly turned into farmland and villages where humans live.
All the natives of Borneo's primitive tribes looked at all this with fear on their faces, especially when the small train pulled cart after cart of wood through the mountains and ridges, they felt desperate in their hearts.
Although these tribesmen are like savages, they are not stupid. They know that their survival depends on the rain forest. Without the protection of the forest, they cannot fight against these pioneers armed with foreign guns.
In the endless rice fields, the primitive tribesmen did not even have a place to hide. The villages, cities and roads like a chess game have changed the entire world.
What shocked Zai Chun was not only the spectacular scene of humans competing for space in the forest, but also the completion of Brunei's first oil well!
"Kowtowing bug? Why is this iron frame always kowtowing!"
In a wasteland near Brunei Bay, the first oil well explored by the Chinese has begun to produce oil. Steam power drives the connecting rod structure to rotate continuously.
The steam engine here burns coal, but in the blink of an eye, what flows in the pipe is dark, sticky oil!
The Brunei Oilfield has become an internship base for the University of Geosciences and the University of Technology. More than 600 college students gather together to study every day how to explore, develop, and utilize this flammable underground black water.
Xiao Letian attaches so much importance to this oil field that he even built a dock exclusively for the oil field!
Barrels after barrels of crude oil were pushed onto the ship. These were all test products and were to be sent to laboratories in the Northern Industrial Zone and Naha, Ryukyu, for more scientists to study.
The Chinese petrochemical industry has gradually taken shape and has reached the forefront of the world!
Zai Chun clenched his little fists and swore secretly in his heart, "When I return to the Qing Dynasty, I will also look for this kind of oil... Although I don't know what the use of this kind of thing is..."
"But I know that every step the master takes has deep meaning! He will never do useless work..."
The half-month expedition to Borneo kept Emperor Tongzhi awake all night. Nothing he inspected involved military affairs.
Strangely enough, what Zai Chun is most interested in now is the construction of these unremarkable places. He likes to see the construction of roads and bridges, he likes to see steam engines draining swamps, and he likes to see the kowtow machines used in oil extraction.
He prefers to see people gathering together to carry out big construction, because he knows that this is the source of real power!
