novelAbuy Chapter 69 Killing my compatriots will come at a bloody price.
Chapter 69 Killing my compatriots will come at a bloody price.
Let's skip the middle description and go straight to the last paragraph:
"...The conflict lasted approximately forty minutes. Dutch military and police used Lee-Enfield rifles and a Maxim machine gun. More than five hundred shell casings were found at the scene. Among the dead were nine women and three children. The youngest victim was Chen Afu's daughter, six years old, named Chen Xiaohua, who was shot in the back..."
That's enough.
Li Te slammed the telegram onto the control panel. The metal surface made a dull thud, and everyone on the bridge turned to look.
"Captain?" Lin Hai asked cautiously.
Li Te took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. He turned around and faced everyone on the bridge.
"Listen up, all of you." His voice was calm, but every word was like steel that had been tempered in fire. "Now you all know why we're here. Nine women, three children, a six-year-old girl... The Dutch were machine-gunning them."
He paused, letting the words sink in:
"The President's orders to us were: demonstrate our authority, and then stop while we're ahead. My understanding is—today, we must make the Dutch feel the pain to the bone. We must make them remember for a hundred years: killing our compatriots will come at a bloody price."
"Yes!" came a unified response from the bridge.
Li Te walked back to the observation window and raised the binoculars again. This time, he didn't look at the harbor, but moved slowly along the coastline. He was looking for something.
"Lin Hai".
"exist."
"See that mountain on the west side of the port?" Li Te pointed to a bare, rocky mountain in the distance. "What's that mountain called? Is anyone living there?"
Lin Hai quickly flipped to the attached map: "That's 'Waiting-for-Husband Cliff,' a name given by the local Chinese. It's said that in the past, a fisherman's wife waited there every day for her husband to return, and later jumped off the cliff to her death. The mountain is all rocks, with no vegetation and no residents. It's about eight kilometers from the main channel of the port."
"Eight kilometers," Li Te repeated the number. "Is it within our main gun range?"
Zhao Tieshan answered almost immediately: "381mm main gun, maximum range 35,000 meters. Eight kilometers? You could hit it with your eyes closed."
"Okay." Li Te put down the binoculars. "Then we'll choose this one."
There was a moment of silence on the bridge. Everyone understood what the captain meant.
"Captain," Xu Wen adjusted his glasses, "you mean... to bombard that mountain?"
"It wasn't shelling," Li Te corrected him. "It was an artillery calibration exercise. According to international naval practice, newly arriving warships have the right to conduct artillery calibration in a safe area to ensure that the weapon systems are in optimal condition."
He walked up to the communications station and said to communications soldier Wang Xiaohua:
"Send a message to the Batavia Port Authority via public radio channel, in plaintext. The message is as follows—"
Wang Xiaohua quickly picked up a pen and notebook.
"To the Batavia Port Authority and the Dutch East Indies Colonial Authority: The Lanfang Republic Navy warship 'Guangfu' will conduct a routine artillery calibration exercise at 8:00 AM today in the waters north of Wangfu Cliff outside the harbor. The exercise area is a ten-kilometer radius centered on Wangfu Cliff. All vessels in the harbor are requested to cease departure before 7:30 AM, and vessels already outside the harbor are requested to move away from the area. The exercise is expected to last thirty minutes. This is hereby notified."
After Li Te finished speaking, he looked at Wang Xiaohua: "Did you remember it?"
"I...I've got it." Wang Xiaohua's hands trembled slightly. "But Captain...if you send a message in plain text, the whole of Batavia can hear it..."
"The point is to make sure they all hear it." Lee patted him on the shoulder. "Send it out. Then repeat it every fifteen minutes until 7:30."
"yes!"
Seven minutes after the telegram was sent, the radio room of the Batavia Port Authority was in an uproar.
The clerk on duty was a young Dutchman named Hendrik. He was wearing headphones and half-asleep, listening to jazz on a Singaporean commercial radio station, when he was suddenly startled by the plaintext telegram and jumped up from his chair.
"My God..."
He checked the telegram three times, then scrambled out of the radio room and rushed toward the port authority director's office. He didn't even knock; he just barged in.
Port Authority Director Van der Wiel was having breakfast—a cup of coffee and two slices of buttered bread. He was startled when Hendrick burst in, spilling coffee onto his pristine white uniform.
"Damn it! Hendrick, you'd better have a really good reason—"
"Chief! Telegram! Plain text telegram!" Hendrick slammed the record sheet on the table. "A warship called 'Restoration' says it's coming here for artillery exercises!"
Van der Wiel paused for a moment, then grabbed the telegram. He read it quickly, his expression shifting from anger to confusion, then to pallor.
"Lanfang Republic? What's that? 'Restoration Ship'? Never heard of it..."
"But Chief, the exercise area they mentioned—" Hendrick pointed out the window, "Wangfu Cliff is only eight kilometers from the main channel! If they really open fire…"
"I know!" Van der Wiel interrupted him, standing up and pacing rapidly around the office. "Artillery calibration exercises...that's the Navy's usual excuse. What are they trying to do? A show of force? A provocation?"
He walked to the window and looked out at the sea beyond the harbor. The morning mist was dissipating, but there was still no sign of any ships.
"Chief, should we reply?" Hendrick asked.
"A reply? A reply to what? Say 'Welcome to the exercise'?" Van der Wiel waved his hand impatiently. "Go, copy this telegram to the garrison headquarters, the governor's office, and... never mind, send a copy to every department. Hurry!"
"yes!"
After Hendrick ran out, Van der Wiel sat down again, staring at the telegram. His fingers tapped the table unconsciously, faster and faster.
Lanfang Republic.
He felt like he'd heard the name somewhere before. Right, a few months ago, a merchant ship from Europe brought some rumors that a Chinese force had emerged in the Persian Gulf, building warships for the Germans... At the time, he'd taken it as a joke.
Now, the joke has come knocking.
By 7:10 a.m., the morning fog in the port of Batavia had mostly dissipated.
Dockworkers began their shifts, fishing boat engines churned, and merchant ship sailors washed the decks. Everything seemed no different from usual—except for the messengers constantly moving in and out of the port authority building, and the growing number of military and police personnel gathering at the docks.
Chen Jinfu pushed his breakfast cart to his usual spot in the South Wharf area, a predominantly Chinese neighborhood. His cart was laden with steaming hot buns, fried dough sticks, and soy milk, all prepared the night before. But his mind wasn't on business.
Since last night, a rumor has been circulating among the neighbors: a large ship is coming to sea, a large ship belonging to the Chinese.
At first, no one believed it. A large Chinese ship? What a joke! The Qing navy had been completely annihilated in the Yellow Sea ten years earlier; where would such a large ship come from?
But early this morning, several Chinese cleaners at the port authority secretly brought back news: the radio room received a clear telegram that a warship called "Guangfu" was coming, and it was flying a flag they had never seen before—the Yellow Dragon Flag.
Yellow Dragon Flag.
Chen Jinfu remembered that flag. His grandfather had said that the Lanfang Republic used this flag in its early years. But that was a hundred years ago, and Lanfang had long since disappeared.