Start 1861: I Just Inherited the Dutch Throne

“In 1852, the British Governor-General in Burma, David Hewok, ordered George Limbo to lead 6 warships to blockade Yangon on the pretext of the arrest of two British businessmen in Burma. Burma was extremely frightened at first and immediately paid 1,000 pounds in compensation as required. Later, the British Taking the opportunity to increase the compensation to 1 million pounds, and set a limit of Myanmar time to deliver the money within two months.”

This was obviously a deliberate attempt by the British to find trouble, but Bo Kamman, the king of Burma at the time, was already intoxicated with wine and sex and ignored government affairs, and was naturally unable to coordinate the Burmese army against the British army. So when the British army bombarded the Madaban seaport on April 5 of that year, the Afsk reinforcements group of 20,000 people, which was mainly composed of Indian and Bangladeshi soldiers, went upstream along the Irrawaddy River, overwhelming Yangon, Maduba and Bago, during this period, created a tenacious resistance against the Burmese army in Gumuntai, with less than 200 casualties. After the Burmese army's prediction, the British army surrendered in Dajin Pymyo, but this time the British army's goal was only to occupy Lower Burma. (the western and southern coastal areas, accounting for half of the country), so the British soldiers returned the attack when they attacked here.

Through this war, the lower Burmese region south of Mandalay, including Bago, Arakan and Tenasalin, was owned by British India. King Mantong of New Burma was forced to take some reform measures and learn advanced Western technology and knowledge. Cui It is a pity to promote foreign trade and build modern enterprises, develop relations with other Western powers such as the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the French Empire, Spain, the United States, Italy, and even Tsarist Russia, and learn from the Qing Dynasty, the powerful neighbor to the north, to implement the Burmese version of the 'foreign affairs movement'. With little success.

By the late 1860s, the French Empire had turned the protectorates of North and South Vietnam, East Cambodia, and South Laos into its own colonies, threatening British colonial interests in Burma.

Together with the rise of the Netherlands in the Far East, it was reported in 1870 that the Kingdom of the Netherlands would move its capital from Amsterdam to Melbourne on the Australian mainland. This even shocked the world. It also posed a greater threat to British interests in the Far East than its counterpart, the French Empire, especially when the Netherlands and Siam were seen. When the Kingdom of Siam (now composed of Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos) established an alliance and joined the Indochina Peninsula, and the Kingdom of Siam also leased the southern part of the Malay Peninsula and the southernmost part of Myanmar to the Netherlands for 100 years, Britain was completely angry.

At that time, they openly opposed the practices of the Kingdom of Siam and the Netherlands, but unfortunately both countries ignored it. Therefore, in order to prevent the Netherlands and France from once again intervening in the affairs of Indochina in the south and east, British India decided to completely eat up the Burmese Konbaung Dynasty.

In 1870, the Qing Dynasty had already learned that the British Empire was preparing to attack Burma, a dependent country. At this time, although the Westernization Movement was very active and the Qing Dynasty government was fighting against the French Empire for North Vietnam in the Qing-French War, it still did not dare to attack. At the same time, there was a head-on conflict with the British, and they were going to send people to Myanmar to persuade them to surrender to the British. The king of Myanmar was angry, so he announced that he would no longer pay tribute to the Qing Dynasty, so the Qing Dynasty gave away a younger brother in vain.

Britain took advantage of the war between the Qing Dynasty and France to compete with the Netherlands and France for the African island of Madagascar. It allied with France to counter the Dutch struggle for influence in the Far East and issued a diplomatic note, accusing the Netherlands of secretly signing an agreement with the Kingdom of Siam and Burma. In order to deal with the Qing Dynasty, Britain The French war and in exchange for British support for France and the Netherlands in the fight for Madagascar, France made concessions to the British, supported the claim that Burma belonged to the United Kingdom, chose Britain and France to fight against the Netherlands, and at the same time denied the Dutch-French alliance and recalled the staff of the embassy in Burma. This move It was tantamount to a death sentence for Burma, because the Netherlands rose quickly, but was unable to resist the Anglo-French alliance at the time, so Burma was completely occupied by the British at the end of 1870.

When the time came to the second half of 1870, the French and Dutch evacuated Burma, and the British no longer had any scruples. On September 10, 1870, Britain declared war on Burma on the pretext of the teak logging case taken by the Bombay Burma Trading Company. The wealthy Zen and Deleng tribes in Myanmar did not care about the life or death of the Konbang Dynasty and watched as the British army did not enter the Upper Myanmar region. This time, Myanmar could no longer organize as strong a resistance force as before, and it was worth allowing the British to attack the capital city of Mandalay at the cost of less than 10 casualties. At the end of November that year, the British attacked the Burmese Tin Robed King and his The Queen was exiled to Tenagiri in West India, and the Konbaung Dynasty was officially eliminated by the British.

In January 1871, the Netherlands, the Qing Dynasty and the United Kingdom held a meeting on Burma. Witnessed by the Dutch Prime Minister De Vries and the French Governor-General of the Far East, Lugan, the Qing Prime Minister Li Hongzhang and the British Minister Eugenne signed the " The Burmese Articles of the Ching-British Conference, Britain’s Treaty on Burma

The sovereignty of Myanmar was recognized by the Qing Dynasty, but the British allowed Burma to still pay tribute to the Qing Dynasty. The declining Qing Dynasty had just ceded North and South Vietnam to the French Empire, and now had to cede Burma to the British. Although the Kingdom of Siam was protected from British and French colonization, eastern Cambodia and southern Laos were taken over by France. The Qing Dynasty ignored the concessions. Bangkok was heartbroken, and then Bangkok directly announced that it would no longer pay tribute to the Qing Dynasty, but instead broke out and formed an alliance with the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This completely reduced the Qing Dynasty's influence in Indochina to the lowest point in history, almost only slightly stronger than Qin's southern expedition.

As a result, many knowledgeable people within the Qing Dynasty supported the Qing Dynasty's reforms even more.

In short, after the British government in Myanmar, Myanmar was incorporated into the British Indian region. The Burmese Su Ri'an launched anti-British uprisings from time to time, but they were all suppressed by the powerful British army.

Even during each crackdown, hundreds of people were shot and killed by the British as a warning.

William IV couldn't help but sigh. Myanmar is a country with a great geographical location. It is the best route to Southeast Asia and South Asia, and it is extremely critical to Britain's strategic position. With Myanmar, Britain can attack and retreat in Southeast Asia and even the Qing Dynasty. Can be defended.

Look at the map at that time. The west is the British Indian Peninsula, the southwest is British Sri Lanka, the south is the British Nicobar Islands, the southeast is the Andaman Islands, the east is Burma, and the north is Bangladesh. Such an encirclement is so embarrassing. The Bay of Bengal, which was two-thirds larger than the Mediterranean Sea, almost became an inland sea under British rule. It wasn't until 1878 when Britain and the Netherlands competed for the Strait of Malacca that the Netherlands used a strategy to seize the Nicobar Islands near the west of Sumatra. This allowed the Bay of Bengal to be broken, but it also made Britain very angry, so the Anglo-Dutch began to escalate the dispute. Summoning the Dutch ambassador to Britain to protest and severing diplomatic relations, the British assembled troops in the Malay Peninsula, the Dutch navy and army were unwilling to bow in the settlement of Sumatra, and Kalimantan was at the land border with each other.

The Malacca Strait crisis has become a new focus of world attention.

However, in 1878, the first confrontation between the two countries was in Chile in Latin America. Southern Chile, supported by the British, finally launched a war with Northern Chile, supported by the Netherlands. The British and Dutch navies competed, and were finally attacked by 15 ships supported by two rounds. Less than 4 warships were left and fled to Argentina. History calls this the beginning of the Anglo-Dutch struggle for maritime hegemony.

Therefore, Myanmar will be a springboard for the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands needs to reassess the threat posed by the United Kingdom to the Netherlands in this region. Naturally, William IV would not let Britain rule as he did in his previous life, only to become independent after the disintegration of British India in 1948.

"When a country faces a national crisis, if it does not work hard to govern and unite as one, but instead divides itself into internal strife, it will fall apart, and failure is completely foreseeable."

"However, precisely because of the British instigation, there should be many unequal benefits in Myanmar after the destruction of the Konbaung dynasty. This has become the best gap for the Netherlands to intervene."

Also, although the Qing Dynasty initially only cared about itself and could not help Burma, the Qing Dynasty had great influence in Myanmar, especially the large ethnic groups in the north. The Netherlands could use this to bring the Qing Dynasty in and exert influence in the northern part of Myanmar. Influence, coupled with the Siamese king's penetration and pressure on Myanmar from the east, north and southeast, British colonial rule will become difficult. Even if it is forcibly ruled by guns, it will cause huge counterproductive effects.

Regardless of the outcome, Britain will increase its deployment of troops there, constrain Britain's unified deployment around the world, and disrupt Britain's existing plans. These are all developments that are beneficial to the Netherlands.

Also, William IV's eyes were extremely calm, and he murmured firmly to himself: "The Russian Empire is currently in a state of overflowing. After the small-scale war with the Ottoman Empire in Crimea started four years ago, the two countries China continues to have disputes over issues such as Azerbaijan and Georgia, and small battles continue, but no major wars have occurred."

"On the Balkan Peninsula, although Serbia supports the Tsarist Russian Empire, it is surrounded by powerful countries such as Austria-Hungary, Ottoman, and Italy. Even Greece is covered by the Netherlands. The United Kingdom is watching covetously from the side, and the Tsarist Russian Empire wants to use its strength. , making it a bit difficult for the Kingdom of Serbia to handle."

"On the issue of the Far East, the Tsarist Empire is currently vigorously building the Trans-Siberian Railway, but its completion will have to wait until 1890. It is only now 1882, and it will still take 8 years, because the chance of the Tsarist Empire launching a war in the Far East is very small. After all, the supply of logistical materials is not enough, and the chance of losing the war is too high.

So after all the calculations, the Tsarist Empire, an ally of the Netherlands, was the biggest help to the Netherlands, but it was the Middle East and Central Asia. Britain and the Tsarist Empire had been fighting for hundreds of years, and their hatred was almost as much as that of Tsarist Russia and Sweden. The two countries were in the Black Sea. Regarding the issue, the alliance between Britain and the Ottomans blocked Tsarist Russia's access to the sea, and the same was true for the northern Baltic Sea. On the other side of Central Asia, Britain occupied the Indian subcontinent. This almost ruined the development path of the Tsarist Russian Empire's money and money, almost to the point of killing people.

Britain is currently marching into Afghanistan, where the Tsarist Empire can intervene at the right time. Britain and Russia are heavily guarding Central Asia, which reduces Britain's military strength in Indochina and even reduces the number of troops in the Indian subcontinent. It is not bad . "