"The Dutch have been much quieter for more than a year." On July 15, 1689, Major Lu Xiaozhong, who was recently commanded the Southeast Asian Squadron of the Third Navy, led two "Star"-class light cruisers and four transport ships to Brunei Port.

The transport ship belongs to the Taiwan Bank and is a sailboat originally used to transport immigrants. It has served for more than 25 years. Recently, it was processed by the Immigration Department to the Taiwan Bank at a low price to increase their company's maritime capacity. After eating these four old sailboats, the Taiwan Bank has a huge transportation team of four thousand-ton sailboats, six 650-ton flute-shaped transport ships and four "Yaksa" class armed transport ships, with a total capacity of 9,500 tons. It is the leading transport company in the Far East.

In addition, the Taiwan Bank also owns a land war battalion and four "Star"-class light cruisers licensed by the Navy Department. They have combat effectiveness in both land and sea. They also have business stations, warehouses, banks and other branches in many cities. To some extent, these institutions are actually part-time intelligence stations. Therefore, it is no wonder that many people in the Qing Dynasty called it a half-official and half-people collective institution. It makes sense.

The Dutch East India Company, which has Batavia as the colonial center, is now extremely nervous about Taiwan Bank because it already has the ability to threaten their interests. Once upon a time, when Taiwan Bank was not strong enough, the Dutch East India Company operated it as an important partner and generously took out a piece of land in the Gerland Chamberg City as the headquarters and trading venue of Taiwan Bank.

But they did not expect that Taiwan banks had developed too fast with the support of the East Coast official. They initially relied on the favorable factors of having colonies in China on the East Coast, and obtained more intimate goods at a lower cost, and then sold them to China and Europe to make huge profits. At that time, the Dutch East India Company had already realized something was wrong, but they had a great dependence on trade with the East Coast, so it was difficult to turn against each other.

In recent years, Taiwan Bank's deposit and loan business has developed steadily, and the scale of overseas trade has become larger and larger, bringing a large amount of profits to the company and accumulating countless cash. The company has also improved its local position with its beautiful performance, causing the Joint General Staff to nod and agree to its formation of its own armed forces, and gradually towards the same situation as the Nantec Corporation at the time.

Today, Taiwan Banks have a perfect presence in the East Asian waters. If you want to get goods or sell things, you have to establish a good relationship with them, even if both buyers and sellers cannot involve Taiwan Banks, which shows their strength. Of course, Taiwan Banks will not be satisfied with the revolving around the East Asian coast. In fact, they are now starting to focus on trading in the South China Sea areas such as Vietnam, Thailand, Luzon, and Brunei, which seems to have eroded the interests of the Dutch East India Company.

Of course, the degree of erosion is not large at present. After all, the focus of the Dutch East India Company is not here, and the degree of intervention is not very deep. Even Vietnam, which has the greatest interests, is just exporting arms, copper coins and other commodities, and importing raw silk and other scarce materials. Not to mention, there is also competition among merchants in this area between Britain, France, Portugal and even Danish, and no one has dominated trade.

The Taiwan Bank entered this sea area, but was actually driven by the strong promotion of the East Coast Navy. The Third Fleet and the Spaniards and the Portuguese formed a joint fleet to cruise in this sea area, attack common enemies and smuggled merchant ships, and maintain normal order. Although the fleet is not large in size, it has only a few seven or eight ships (mostly armed merchant ships), and it is often uncollected for various reasons, so that the cruise time is very unfixed. But in any case, the existence of this fleet ultimately brings certain convenience to the East Coast, the Portuguese and the Spaniards. In this context, the Taiwan Bank will naturally reduce the pressure and save a lot of unnecessary trouble.

Bank of Taiwan opened banking business at the Brunei Port at the beginning of this year, and next door to the East Coast Merchant Station, which has been built into a fortress-style East Coast Merchant Station, can provide financial services to merchants. Of course, careful people can also see that the branch opened by Bank of Taiwan here has not come to the local settlement of Shandong immigrants to provide preferential financial services such as small interest-free loans, which seems to indicate something.

Speaking of which, as the work of decommissioning the vassal army entered a steady stage of attack, many vassal soldiers and their families from Dengzhou immigrated to Brunei and Timor Island. Especially the Port of Brunei, because it is located in the trade node under the wind, people on the east coast attach great importance to it, and subsidize the soldiers and families of Denglai who immigrated here. Overall, each person can get ten yuan. After arriving in Brunei, you can apply for a five-year interest-free micro-loan to help them run their industries and gain a foothold.

The Taiwan Bank once conducted a statistics on the Denglai military households who immigrated here and found that as of June 1689, the Denglai military households (mainly from the Seventh Division of the Servant Army in Ye County) settled near the Brunei Commercial Station, with a total of 322 households, totaling 1,729 people. These people were planting crops such as rice, bananas, taro, fishing, and business, and they lived quite well. Their person in charge was Ding Wei, the captain of the East Coast Army Reserve, and the youngest son of Ding Daxing, the commander of the 7th Division of the Ye County. They were also the stationmaster of the Brunei Commercial Station, leading more than 100 fully armed soldiers.

Of course, these more than a hundred soldiers are no longer the infantry company on the right wing of the Taiwan Land Battle Battalion that followed him south. The troops have now gone to Timor Island to solve some "small troubles". The replacement of them are veterans who are familiar with the battle formation selected from the 7th Division of Ye County. Although they are not as elite as those of the Taiwan Land Battle Battalion equipped with rifles, they cannot do anything to them with the current strength of the Brunei Sultan.

This time, the four transport ships brought by Major Lu Xiaozhong carried a large amount of supplies, livestock and more than 300 military households, most of which came from Ye County, and even knew each other a little from the 322 households who arrived in advance. After these people arrived, the number of people on the east coast of Brunei Port would double again, and their combat effectiveness should not be underestimated, and not everyone could bully them at will, let alone the East Coast Navy has always supported them.

Major Lu Xiaozhong was extremely convinced that the Sultan of Brunei would be even more restless when he saw this wave of immigrants on the east coast. Other colonists came to Brunei, such as the Dutch, the English, etc., for business and did not stay much. Occasionally, some people stayed to settle down, but they were just a few individuals. They were not as crazy as the East Coast. They brought hundreds of households to settle in groups in one go, and they were all former soldiers who fought wars. These people were undoubtedly the biggest unstable factor in the Sultan of Brunei. With fortresses and cannons, they could compete with the Sultan of Brunei. As long as they were determined, they could definitely create storms within this small city-state.

But as the naval cruise of the East Coast Republic gradually became normalized, the Brunei people really didn’t have the courage to stand up and do anything, so they could only acknowledge the existence of these military households. They had considered using the power of other countries to drive away the East Coast people, but the Dutch East India Company, the largest nearby, was unwilling to stand up in this matter. So what else can Brunei people say? Everyone was desperate!

"Website Manager Ding, I'll bring you another batch of supplies and people. Please send someone to the wharf to count and deliver." As soon as I got ashore, Major Lu Xiaozhong shook Ding Wei's hand and said with a smile.

After hearing this, Ding Wei nodded repeatedly and expressed his gratitude. He knew that the people who came were all "old friends" of Ye County, their former subordinates of the Ding family and their own people. Commander Liao of Denglai had told his father before that he wanted to support their Ding family in Brunei, be an agent on the East Coast, and contribute to the global trade network of the East Coast Republic. The Ding family was naturally not willing to leave Denglai, but there was no way to do this, so he could only nod. So he had been working in this business station for a long time. On the one hand, he was worried about resettlement of military immigrants, and on the other hand, he also tried every means to establish their Ding family's business and gain benefits for the family as much as possible.

"Captain Lu came from afar, so please let his subordinates entertain him. Although Brunei is a remote and deserted place, the food, wine and water are very different from the mainland, so you can try it out. Some women like Hu Ji are also quite impressive. The brothers are rushing around the sea, so they can relax their muscles and have fun." Ding Wei knew that he would rely more on the navy in the future, so he immediately showed his diligence in flattery. Especially Lu Xiaozhong, now the commander of the Southeast Asian Squadron of the Third Fleet, is very popular. When will he wait if he doesn't flatter him at this time?

"It's free, it's free! Our troops only stay here for one day. After supplying food and leaving, they are still in a hurry to go to Diwu Island." Lu Xiaozhong pulled out his hand, pointed to the large ship behind him, and said, "There are two hundred decommissioned military households from the Fourth Division (the commander of Chen Quanzhong) from Jimo. The superiors have ordered that they must be sent to Diwu Island as soon as possible. We have been delayed for some time on the road, and the voyage is a bit tight, so we won't stay here for more."

In fact, Lu Xiaozhong's words are not false. In fact, in addition to the Ding family's 7th Division, the Chen family's Jimo Fourth Division has officially started the deregistration work this year. Yantai plans to use 3-4 years to eliminate all the remaining 4,000 officers and soldiers of the division and be resettled. Some of the best are naturally to fill the new army system under construction. Some of the elderly, weak, sick and disabled people will be demobilized on the spot and settle down for the people, settle down in Jimo County, and the remaining part will be sent to Diwu Island in northwest India to settle in order to supplement the rapidly declining local population.

As for where the people on Diu Island went? It is actually very simple. They all went to the Arabian Peninsula! As the Rajput Legion commanded by the East Coast people became stronger in the Port of Salalah, the Muscat Sultanate seemed to have accepted their fate and no longer tried to regain the oasis city in the desert in vain. Their country has only a population of more than 200,000, and their stalls are still large and there are many enemies. They really don’t have the energy to have a long tug-of-war with the East Coast people in Salalah. Therefore, after several attacks failed, they have not appeared nearby for a long time. The Rajput Legion can be said to have gained a foothold in the local area.

As a long-term plan, the East Coast people intend to move most of the Rajput people on Diu to settle down to the Port of Salalah and establish a small city-state under the East Coast Republic. The country's economy, politics, diplomacy and military are all controlled by East Coast advisers. Their sole purpose is to disgust the Omans and play a role in the Middle East Coast Republic of China.

This migration process will naturally encounter many obstacles. But the East Coast government has made up its mind and cannot be changed! They also believe that with the strong strength of the East Coast, the five or six thousand Rajput people on a small Diwu Island will not be overturned and will have to leave obediently. The vacancy after they left was naturally filled by the deported minions and soldiers from Denlai. These people have been ruled by the East Coast for many years, are loyal and have good combat effectiveness. After Diwu Island "empty the cage and replace the birds", they are very good filling objects. After adapting to the local climate in the future, they can gradually become tools for the East Coast government to interfere in the Indian subcontinent.

There is no doubt that the layout of the East Coast people in Brunei, Diu, Dili and Salalah is very ambitious and forward-looking. They seem to want to use this method to throw chess pieces in various hot spots in the world, and then build and develop silently. When the time is ripe, they can cooperate with local policies to expand, so that the influence of the East Coast Republic can penetrate into the above areas.

Southeast Asia and the Middle East are extremely important places in future generations. It is not necessary to say that the richness of resources is not inferior to its geopolitical role. This is something that every politician with far and wide will not ignore.

The East Coast, a powerful country in the New World, has a population of about 7 million, with the highest industrial productivity worldwide, and the gross tonnage of ships is also the best. It has sufficient strength in New China Island and China, and the pressure to operate the above-mentioned areas is not great. In comparison, neither the Dutch, the English nor any other forces have this condition to complete these tasks. They can only watch the East Coast people step by step, spread their influence, and finally take control of these places completely.

They can cause some minor trouble if they die in this process. If they have the courage, the East Coast people will most likely not take their small actions seriously. They only focus on their own affairs, such as the expansion in the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the layout in the Black Sea, etc.
Chapter completed!