African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1258: Chapter 267: Deal Sealed

After all, this little brother Siam has, over the years, been fairly obedient to the United Kingdom and France, and given Siam’s strategic position and important value, unless absolutely forced to, the United Kingdom and France will not give up on Siam.

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East Africa’s Legation in Siam.

At this moment, the East Africa Legation had been placed under tight protection, its main gate shut, East African soldiers with loaded rifles watching passersby with vigilance.

Clearly, the East Africa Legation was being quite cautious; after all, if the news spread across Siam and stirred up public outrage among the Siamese, prompting locals to storm the East Africa Legation, that would be very bad.

On that same afternoon, after finishing their talks with Rama VI, Sir Claire and Minister Kliyaba arrived in front of the fully armed East Africa Legation.

”Sir Claire, this should be the East Africa Legation, right?” asked French Minister Kliyaba.

Sir Clyde, the British Minister, nodded and said, ”It’s also my first time coming to the East Africa Legation, but judging from the flag, this must be the place.”

After confirming, the two knocked on the gate, and a head popped out from the small window in the iron door.

”Who are you?”

Claire and Kliyaba each reported their names and titles; once their identities had been confirmed, the staff of the East Africa Legation let them in and led them into the compound.

East Africa’s Minister in Siam, Ville, came forward to greet them, saying, ”Haha, Sir Claire and Minister Kliyaba, your presence truly brings glory to our humble legation!”

Although it was the first time the two had come to the East Africa Legation, they and Ville already knew each other—after all, diplomats of the great powers often had occasion to meet.

Minister Kliyaba said, ”Minister Ville, we’re here this time to act as lobbyists on behalf of His Majesty Rama VI, hoping that our two countries can resolve this misunderstanding.”

There was a reason Kliyaba took the lead; among the two powers, the United Kingdom and France, it was the British who had had unpleasant entanglements with East Africa, while France’s relations with East Africa had actually been quite good.

Hearing this, Ville’s expression immediately changed. He said to the two, ”There’s nothing to talk about. Siam just needs to obediently accept our terms. They directly laid murderous hands on our citizens; that is clearly a challenge to the Empire’s bottom line.”

Minister Kliyaba said, ”Minister Ville, don’t be in such a hurry to refuse. We’ve come with the aim of maintaining regional peace and consolidating regional stability.”

”Siam is indeed in the wrong this time, but the crime is not one of capital punishment. The conditions your country has set are far too harsh—Siam simply cannot accept them.”

Ville said, ”I actually think the Empire’s attitude toward Siam is already quite generous. With just a bit of indemnity and a few patches of land, we can turn swords into plowshares. This is an absolute bargain for the Siamese government.”

Hearing Ville’s shameless words, both men’s brows twitched. What did he mean by ”a bit of indemnity”? Eighty million Rhine Shield was no small figure; most countries in the world couldn’t shoulder such a burden.

As for the ”few patches of land” Ville mentioned, the area indeed wasn’t large, but what mattered was where they were. East Africa had demanded that Siam cede four parcels of land along the coast of the Gulf of Siam to East Africa.

This included part of Bangkok and most of its surrounding area—essentially the very heart of Siam. If East Africa really got its hands on these places, it could use them as a springboard to control the entire Siamese economy.

This was no exaggeration. Thanks to the efforts of the United Kingdom and France, Siam’s seaports were currently concentrated mainly along its southern coast.

Although Siam also had seaports on the Malay Peninsula, that area was essentially a protruding section of Siamese territory, poorly connected to the Siamese heartland and populated by forces of another faith.

If East Africa occupied Bangkok and the surrounding lands, it would basically mean that the economic heartland of Siam was under East African control. That was absolutely not something the British and French governments wished to see; after all, even they had never gone that far in their day.

At this point Sir Claire said, ”Minister Ville, let’s speak frankly. Everyone knows perfectly well what East Africa’s goal is this time—you clearly have designs on Siam.”

”We can allow East Africa to obtain some benefits, but your demands must not exceed Siam’s capacity to bear. So the indemnity must come down, and land can be ceded, but it absolutely cannot be these areas your country has marked out.”

Ville said, ”Oh? I wonder what brilliant ideas you have, Sir Claire?”

Sir Claire said, ”As for the indemnity, I think it should be kept under five million Rhine Shield. As for land, the area should not be so large—or your country could select another place instead.”

Ville said, ”Impossible. Five million Rhine Shield is far too little. You must know that the Empire’s Pacific Fleet has already set sail—just the cost of deploying the fleet is considerable, not to mention compensation for our citizens who were killed and damages for the Empire’s injured prestige...”

In fact, East Africa’s Pacific Fleet had indeed been put on alert, but it had not sailed; East Africa naturally preferred to subdue the enemy without fighting.

War is always a last resort, and given the strength of East Africa’s Pacific Fleet, dispatching a single detached squadron would probably be enough to annihilate the entire Siamese navy; there was no need for a full-scale deployment.

Siam’s main warships were only a few hundred-ton steam-powered vessels; such ships, to put it bluntly, could have been easily handled by East Africa’s gunboat flotillas of the 1870s.

Moreover, even these ”most advanced” warships that Siam possessed existed only in small numbers, and the rest of its fleet consisted of wooden-hulled ships.

By contrast, East Africa’s Pacific Fleet, though the weakest of East Africa’s three main fleets, still ranked third in the Pacific Ocean, behind only the United States and Japan.

So, in dealing with the Siamese navy, the East Africa Pacific Fleet would not need to exert much effort to shatter Siam’s maritime ambitions.

In fact, Siam was already the country in the South Sea Region with the strongest sense of sea power; but poor finances, a weak populace, and external threats meant it could never truly develop.

”How about eight million Rhine Shield?” Sir Claire probed.

Ville said, ”For the sake of your two countries’ face, seventy-eight million.”

”Ten million Rhine Shield—we really can’t go any higher!”

”Seventy-six million...”

The two sides fell into a long negotiation, but their expectations were so far apart that they quickly became bogged down in stalemate.

At this point Kliyaba played the role of mediator. He said, ”Why don’t we talk about the land issue first?”

And so the three began a fierce back-and-forth over which territories Siam would cede to East Africa.

The United Kingdom and France did not want East Africa to gain too much influence in Siam, so they tried their best to keep East Africa out of Siam’s core areas.

Minister Ville, naturally, did the opposite, seizing on Siam’s seaports and key cities as bargaining chips.

The negotiations continued for three days. In the end, Ville made a concession: ”Sixty million Rhine Shield—no less. At the same time, the Siamese territories in the southern Malay Peninsula will be ceded to the Empire. This is our final bottom line. If the Siamese government refuses, then we can only settle this on the high seas.”

Ville issued a threat of war, and this move was highly effective; if war truly broke out, East Africa was unlikely to stop halfway.

As for the United Kingdom and France, they had neither the time nor the strength to concern themselves with Siam’s fate—unless they first reached a peace settlement with Germany and Austria on the European front.

Sir Claire and Kliyaba exchanged a glance and finally accepted this outcome.

Although East Africa’s terms were still harsh, they were at least twenty million less in indemnities than the original demand, and the Malay Peninsula territories were not of paramount importance to Siam.

Siam was a Buddhist country, while the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula were predominantly followers of the Arabian Sect; so if it was this region that was to be ceded, Rama VI would likely be able to accept it.

And so it was. The Siamese government, represented by Rama VI, accepted East Africa’s terms. Looking over Siam’s modern history, the Siamese had never been a nation that could stand firm to the very end.

Having studied abroad, Rama VI also understood East Africa’s true strength; East Africa was never a country Siam could afford to provoke. Otherwise, he would not have gone so far as to invite the United Kingdom and France to mediate.