Chapter 9 The Snake Catcher Said (2)

  2.

  The 171st Division's complete control over Surabaya also brought extra wealth to the Chinese army. The Indonesian Navy's Eastern Fleet, which was blocked by the powerful Chinese Navy in Surabaya Port, had more than 60 large and small ships that almost did not fire a single shot before raising white flags.

  The Indonesian Navy was also considered one of the "small but strong" navies in Southeast Asia before the war, and its German-made Type 209 submarines were among the best in the region. Before the war, the Indonesian rebels had even concentrated their main naval forces in Surabaya Port, boasting that they would defend the Java Sea with their own strength. However, after the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force's 2nd Escort Flotilla, which was stronger than the entire Indonesian Navy, was defeated and sunk off the Natuna Islands, the Indonesian Navy finally faced reality.

  Hiding in the Sunda Strait, waiting to take over. In fact, before the Chinese army controlled the Sunda Strait, Indonesian naval officers and men had already sold most of the fleet's gasoline and electronic spare parts. If it weren't for the missiles and fire control systems being too cumbersome and not easy to sell, I estimate that the Indonesians would have dismantled the entire fleet into empty shells.

  Leading the entire fleet to surrender to the Chinese army, Indonesian Navy Eastern Commander Rear Admiral Gillman Jani expressed his personal and Indonesian Navy's full support for the Lin Guangzhao government and willingness to take the lead in the fight against rebellion.

  However, the history of Indonesian Navy controlled by Javanese must be put to an end. The Chinese troops quickly took control of the entire fleet in order to hand it over to the new Indonesian government formed by Lin Guangzhao and armed forces composed of ethnic Chinese.

  "The shameless traitor, he should have scuttled the ships like those great naval commanders in history." When news of the defection of the entire Eastern Fleet reached Jakarta, General Suharto Dabriki, leader of the Indonesian military government, was furious and wanted to add after his harsh words - "Those sailors should also sink with the ship".

  But in fact, he himself was very clear that this mutiny had opened the door to self-destruction within the Indonesian military government, and more people would choose to surrender rather than die in vain against the Chinese expeditionary forces who held an absolute advantage.

  "It is necessary to tell all Javanese and your Islamic warriors the terror of the Chinese." Faced with his desperate allies, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Expeditionary Forces in the South, General Uesugi Kazushige, said coldly.

  "We now drive your soldiers to fight to the end with fear, not honor." Uesugi threw a thick stack of photos in front of Daburakai, and the bloody scenes even made Daburakai, who was from the special forces, almost vomit on the spot. The photos showed Javanese people wearing Indonesian military uniforms or Islamic traditional clothing being disembowelled, having their eyes gouged out and noses cut off by a group of "Chinese armed elements". There were also several photos of "Chinese" men raping veiled Islamic women. Next to these bizarre tortures, the same phrase was written in Chinese characters: "an eye for an eye, blood for blood."

  "These are......" Daburakai looked up at Uesugi Rokuro with a puzzled expression, "Although these were done by us on behalf of the Chinese, now it's the only way to make your people believe that the Chinese will not let them off alive. The Javanese will exact revenge a thousand times over on the Chinese for the atrocities committed against them in the past few hundred years. That's the only way to make your people willing to die." Although Uesugi knew that the Chinese might not actually take revenge, because they had chosen to be tolerant of their enemies who had ravaged them in the past few hundred years, he also firmly believed that the power of fear would drive the timid Indonesian civilians to madness.

  On the same day, a joint military force of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand launched a comprehensive attack on the Indonesian Navy's Western Fleet base in Makassar, Sulawesi. The tri-national fleet, consisting of more than 70 warships, was led by the Thai Navy's light aircraft carrier "Chakri Naruebet" as its flagship, providing dense naval gunfire support to the amphibious assault troops landing on both flanks of the city of Makassar, which was defended by Indonesian forces.

  Under the alternate air raids of the three-nation air force's "Typhoon", F-16, and A-4S "Super Skyhawk" fighter jets taking off from Singapore, the Indonesians still resisted for an entire day. The Indonesian Western Fleet even took advantage of the geographical advantages of the inner harbor to seal off the port area with sea mines and then acted as a fixed artillery platform on the water surface, crazily supporting the army's actions with small-caliber naval guns.

  However, the inferiority in military strength and equipment could not be compensated for by fighting spirit alone. At dusk, the first Thai Army M24 Chaffee light tank still rumbled into the Port of Singapore, but all it faced was the shattered mast of the Indonesian Western Fleet's flagship, KRI Irian, which had sunk to the bottom of the sea, and the bodies of Indonesian sailors floating everywhere in the port.

  The fall of Jakarta effectively ended the Indonesian military government's rule over Sumatra. The Free Aceh Movement, which had been suppressed by the Indonesian government earlier that day, revived and declared independence in western Sumatra, establishing the "Aceh Democratic Republic". While this was a day to be remembered for the Free Aceh Movement, it seemed to have gone unnoticed in the international community, with no country recognizing the young nation except India, which was closely following the developments in Indonesia.

  Compared to the frequent battles on the Western Front, the situation on the Eastern Front was relatively calm. The Chinese Expeditionary Force spent the whole day adjusting its deployment after establishing contact between Xiashi and Sanbao Ridge.

  A new diplomatic tussle has quietly unfolded between Beijing, Tokyo and Washington. Compared to a few years ago, diplomatic negotiations between China and the US have become increasingly mysterious, and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li Kexin has fully experienced the hardships of being a "secret envoy" in recent years.

  The US is not indifferent to the situation in Indonesia, and according to Stuart Eizenstat, the Under Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs at the White House, America's big stick seems always to be raised. "If war were to spill over into East Timor, Papua New Guinea or Australian territories, the United States would not be able to stand idly by."

  At this moment, Lijiang really wanted to scold a sentence "Damn it, who's afraid of whom!" However, as a diplomat, he still smiled and said: "China also does not want the situation to escalate, but the presence of Japanese troops entering Jakarta will make the war likely to drag on for a long time..."

  It is not clear when the United States and China began to use "secret agreements" to unify their opinions. The ink on the Sino-US New York Agreement signed in 2005 had not yet dried, and the Sino-US Washington Agreement aimed at dividing the spheres of influence between China and the US in the Southwestern Pacific region was freshly minted. Secret agreements have a most lethal and attractive place: anyone can tear them up first without having to bear the infamy of faithlessness internationally. And who will be the first to tear up these secret agreements? Perhaps only God knows.

  "I implore you to reconsider the proposal of our government! I believe no one wants to see a real war between Japan and China, two countries that have been friends for generations." When Japanese Ambassador to China, Nobuo Shina, handed over the thick "Sino-Japanese Memorandum on Peaceful Settlement of Indonesian Issue" to Chinese Premier and Foreign Minister Li Hanwen for the second time, Li simply put down the memorandum with a faint smile and said coldly, "Go negotiate with our military instead." The Chinese government is not unwilling to enjoy peace, but the timing is not yet ripe.