Chapter 1669: Return

The Strait of Malacca is an important channel between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, an important hub for world shipping routes, and is known as the crossroads of the East. If foreign warships want to come over, they have to pass through here for routes with short distances, safe shipping lanes, and rich supplies.

Even if the world trade is only in the preliminary stage, there are many merchant ships coming and going through here. On the sea surface where the narrowest part is only thirty-seven kilometers, people can clearly see the spectacular scene of thousands of sails competing.

Although such a scene is already commonplace for the local commoners on both sides of the strait. But it can be imagined that these people saw huge sea freight cargo ships and ironclad warships increasing day by day, and finally becoming what they are today. The monstrous waves stirred up in the hearts of those who are old, ordinary people really can't understand.

However, there are many people in the Divine Land who understand, and they are even more intense than these "indigenous" people. After all, twenty thousand people forced the Manchu Qing to sign treaties, as well as the tragic stories of the Heavenly Kingdom and the Boxer Rebellion, the helplessness of blocking bullets with flesh, and their own people being harvested like leeks—there is nothing more intense than this.

Although the "indigenous" people also experienced these and were beaten into submission and killed into fear, they do not have the deep accumulation of historical culture, so when their bones were broken, they knelt quite decisively.

Culture makes people define humiliation differently, and the hatred for humiliation is naturally very different.

At the same time, quite a bit of the grain sold by foreigners to the new dynasty was also transported from Nanyang, so their costs were lower and their profit margins were larger...

Now Wang Yan sent Pang Qingyun to the peninsula, stuck in Malacca, collected grain from Nanyang himself, and at the same time controlled the key shipping lanes, which was simply pulling the firewood from under the cauldron.

Honestly, the Strait of Malacca looks narrow on the map, but in fact, it cannot be seen through. Then now Wang Yan's artillery fire cannot cover the entire strait. People only need to go from the other side.

After all, the water depth of Malacca is twenty to over a hundred meters. How much draft do the ships have now? Everywhere is enough.

Moreover, even if artillery shells can be fired thirty or forty kilometers away, there is no observation means to detect so far, and there is no guidance means in accuracy, so although the foreigners are worried, they are not panicked at the moment.

So foreigners can completely bypass it outside the range of the cannons...

But the point they are worried about is that Wang Yan has been unreservedly mobilizing forces to build warships. In the future, if there are really reliable warships and the quantity reaches a certain level, not many, just five, seven, or eight are enough to have the ability to blockade Malacca.

By that time, this place will completely become Wang Yan's backyard, and others will not be able to stop it at all...

They are testing Wang Yan's bottom line step by step, thinking they can continue to make trouble by relying on the advantage of warships, but they didn't expect Wang Yan to directly test their endurance with a slap.

But it must be said that this slap did make them angry.

How could they be willing to watch Wang Yan grow big and strong and have the ability to break through the blockade of the ocean one day? They never doubted whether Wang Yan would attack their determination if he had the ability.

After all, they can scrape resources and treasures in the Divine Land, which is proof. Since they can come to the Divine Land to rob, Wang Yan can of course go to the West to rob. As the saying goes, "coming but not going is not polite."

When faced with a foreseeable and unpleasant future, the foreigners naturally began to resist without giving up. They could not tolerate Wang Yan seizing the interests in Nanyang and potentially blockading the Strait of Malacca. This was too great a blow to their interests.

But at the same time, they cannot really tear their faces with the empire, otherwise they will have nothing to earn. It is really that there are too many people in the Divine Land and the place is too big. Even if they don't sell opium or people, they can actually make a lot of money in the Divine Land...

So while cooperating with many countries in the Divine Land, these foreigners began to support many local forces in Nanyang, providing them with guns and cannons, providing professional military training, and conducting strategic guidance and support, directly formulating combat plans, and letting these local forces unite to attack the Divine Land army.

Wang Yan is very willing to fight them. After all, there is the military industry behind, and at the same time, they are also occupying advantages, and can carry out mining, logging, farming, etc. in Nanyang, which is also a subsidy for the construction of the Divine Land.

Although because transportation is not convenient, transporting to the northern region increases costs, it can also develop the southern region. The mountainous areas here are of course to be managed, and changing customs relies on development, which is that everyone's life is getting better and better.

Ignorance generally occurs in situations of being poor enough and rich enough. Poverty is not understanding, wealth is greed...

In general, although the situation in Nanyang is quite agitated, fighting in a dark and difficult way, the one occupying the advantage and earning the cheap is the Divine Land.

Wang Yan did not invest too much power to form a crushing momentum, but maintained such a small-profit consumption; otherwise, it would be a pure loss.

And most importantly, the casualties were not people of the Divine Land, but the proxy forces supported, fighting proxy wars. The troops brought by Pang Qingyun and others were mainly to maintain the achieved results, suppress the dishonest proxies, occasionally participate in battles that affect the direction of the war, maintain the intensity of the war, and control the scope of the battlefield.

Not losing money at all, and using the consumption of the war to continue to increase the speed of development

The foreigners naturally discovered Wang Yan's intentions, but by using the war, they also made money while simultaneously disrupting Wang Yan's arrangements in Nanyang, delaying his development there.

It was just that they had no other choice; after all, they were far away, the cost of war was higher, and the projection of manpower was more difficult. They might occasionally win a few beautiful battles, but they could never influence the overall situation.

They still overestimated their own abilities. Even if they had made their best efforts within an acceptable range, they had no way to drive Pang Qingyun away from the strait, nor could they destroy that secure supply line.

In the end, they had somewhat forgotten their own lack of strength. If they could have blocked Shenzhou's development in Nanyang, they wouldn't have been beaten and sent scurrying away in Shenzhou back then; the Shenzhou of today might still be a chaotic mess instead of unified...

War is very agonizing for the soldiers on the front lines, but for others, the feeling is quite different, especially since Shenzhou is thriving and the population is so large. Aside from the families involved, there were those students and merchants; almost no one paid attention to the war outside.

It seems that more than a hundred years later, when the internet is highly developed, the news of the Russia-Ukraine war doesn't seem to have made much of a splash, yet unknowingly, it has already been fought for four years...

Two and a half years passed in the blink of an eye.

A massive procession drove out of the capital, walking along the road in a leisurely manner. People scattered to communicate cordially with the local commoners, investigating the conditions along the route, checking the progress of various projects, and verifying whether the completed projects were up to standard.

This was destined to be a journey of rolling heads—no, rolling heads would be a huge waste of resources; mere corruption and bribery were not enough to warrant killing people to establish authority. As for those who needed to be killed to establish authority, it wouldn't be as simple as a clean decapitation; the starting point would have to be capital punishment, it was just a matter of how long they would be tortured.

Relatively speaking, Wang Yan still preferred to send these people to places where they were needed. The Suicide Construction Team was a strong-willed and highly efficient construction force he had established with perseverance and persistence.

Looking at the dilapidated roads in front of him, the crumbling houses by the roadside, and the ragged, listless commoners, Wang Yan flipped through the documents in his hands again.

"Magistrate Liu, the report you submitted last year clearly stated that the land and population of the entire county had been surveyed, and that housing renovations and the construction of main hard-surfaced roads had all been completed. Then tell me, what is going on with these people?"

Facing the words Wang Yan said with a smile, the Magistrate surnamed Liu began to tremble, and the ground where he knelt began to soak through. He could not answer; he only kowtowed repeatedly, begging for his life.

"You were an official of the Manchu Qing, and the new dynasty has been established for several years now; how is it that you still haven't changed this bad habit? Begging for your life at a time like this—I have been sending you the official gazettes, and the fates of those who were caught were written clearly. Didn't you still do it?"

Wang Yan waved his hand. "How you colluded with the local gentry here, and how you were in cahoots with your superiors—you need to confess all these things properly. If you confess clearly and implicate many people, then you can work here locally. If you don't confess clearly and resist interrogation, then you'll have to go to the Southwest. The mountains there are high and the roads are far, and it's not easy for the commoners; the difficulty of building roads is great, and no amount of people is ever enough.

Since you've enjoyed the benefits, make a contribution to our Shenzhou commoners; I have high hopes for you. Take him away, interrogate him thoroughly; no matter who is implicated, handle them all for me."

The Magistrate surnamed Liu was taken away. He wanted to scream, but was interrupted by two slaps and a punch straight to the heart. He was dragged away, his heart dead as ash.

He knew very well that going to the construction team was also death. But compared to the death penalty involving torture, it was much easier than being unable to eat or dress warmly in the construction team and having to rely on sheer endurance when falling ill. It was a comparison between a long, drawn-out suffering and a period of extreme pain...

History tells us that strict rules alone cannot wipe out corrupt officials, but having no rules won't work either. Therefore, one can only constantly improve and perfect the system to try to prevent the scourge of those in power turning corrupt, ensuring the purity of the majority, while also constantly conducting reviews and enabling new people to solve the various man-made problems that arise.

Relying solely on people won't work, and relying solely on the system is also a waste of effort; it is a unity of opposites, and one can only spiral upward amidst such contradictions.

This was just a small problem on the journey; there were many others that couldn't be seen on the surface. One can always trust in people's ability to find loopholes in existing rules; that is how the law progresses.

The process of heading south was a process of checking implementation. Wang Yan hadn't left Zhili for several years, and he still relied on various spies to understand the situation outside.

The main reason was that the best method at this time was to strengthen the trunk and weaken the branches. By developing Zhili, spreading advanced things before one's own eyes, and ensuring their implementation, one could then gradually carry out industrial adjustments and transfers, allowing other regions to accelerate their development. This was the only way to survive and become strong.

After all, scattered resources cannot produce results, and excessive concentration leads to internal division; this is again the unity of opposites.

In this way, he discovered and handled problems all along the way, even taking detours several times to avoid the original fixed route, giving other places a surprise inspection. It can be said that it was a journey of rolling heads.

Even though the vast majority of these people were from the construction team, depending on their sentences and treatment, everyone's life expectancy was greatly reduced. The fastest would die in a year, and the slightly better ones could work for two or three years.

In short, they were all people who would die early, and their ends were quite miserable; it could be considered a journey of rolling heads.

Carrying the bloodiness of the journey and winding around for quite a while, he finally arrived at the destination of this trip.

Songjiang Prefecture!

Here, Wang Yan planned a large-scale shipyard, the Jiang Nan Shipyard. It would research both merchant ships and ironclad warships.

Last year, they built steam-powered ironclad merchant ships here, which had greater tonnage, stronger cargo capacity, and faster speeds. They were already sailing in coastal waters, replacing north-south freight transport, which could be considered tested, and they were currently expanding the scale of construction.

And Wang Yan coming here this time was because, after years of research, the first ironclad warship, as well as gunboats and supply ships that had been successfully built and passed inspection, were finally officially launched into service.

At this time, Songjiang Prefecture was already quite lively, and the foreigners had long since arrived here, waiting for Wang Yan's arrival.

Although there were many problems within the empire, it was indeed thriving and becoming increasingly powerful. Industrial capacity was rising rapidly, and creativity was being unearthed. In recent years, many fresh products had emerged, which were already enough to replace foreign goods.

It was also because of this that the current Shenzhou market had reached the next stage, moving from the original high-price monopoly to the point of price wars. Some people had even set up factories in Shenzhou, just to further reduce costs and carry out production and sales locally to earn profits...

The war in Nanyang was dragging on without results, while instead, Wang Yan was gradually expanding his advantage and occupying more resources.

The foreigners hadn't had a good time these past few years. Now, having received the invitation to observe the launching of the warships, it was practically like stabbing them with knives. Because from today on, the situation was going to change...

The foreigners gathered together, listening to the translator's introduction and looking at the huge warships that were already prepared, buzzing with discussion.

Wang Yan had said several times that the shame of being bullied by foreigners for not having warships was unbearable, and he had occupied the Strait of Malacca. Previously, he lacked the ability, but now he was truly capable of blockading the strait. In a few years, when there were more warships and the projection capability was stronger, he would truly be able to strike their homelands. This was too terrifying.

Right amidst this pointing and gesturing, following Wang Yan's order, the blocking wood was smashed open, and amidst bursts of huge, unpleasant noise, the three ships crashed into the sea one after another.

The main warships, over a hundred meters long, spanned the sea surface, their thick and large gun barrels gleaming with oil; they were undoubtedly the number one warships, bringing a full sense of oppression.

Wang Yan stood on the shore with his hands behind his back, watching the three ships of varying lengths slowly moor at the shore, their names also revealed before everyone's eyes.

Battleship, Ding Yuan.

Gunboat, Zhi Zhen Yuan.

Supply ship, Zhiyuan.

Wang Yan looked at the foreigners with a bright smile.

"Gentlemen, come aboard with me for a look..."

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