1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3770

At the end of last year, the Special Operations Division arrived in the Persian Gulf for the first time. At that time, Hai Han’s influence in the region was almost zero, and most countries had not yet had any official contact with Hai Han.

However, by the time the special operations division fleet left, it had not only visited various countries in the Persian Gulf, but also set up a garrison on the south side of the Strait of Hormuz, which was regarded as a declaration of Hai Han's determination to enter the Persian Gulf region.

But no one could have imagined that Hai Han's construction progress in Fubo Port would be so fast. After all, when the Portuguese tried to seize Hormuz Island and establish a base, they had been engaged in a tug-of-war with Persia for several years, and their efficiency was completely incomparable to Hai Han's.

The Hai Han people have now established a stronghold on the Arabian Peninsula south of Hormuz Island, and they seem to have encountered no obstacles. Not only have they successfully won the help of local Arab tribes, but they have also easily repelled the various forces that wanted to come to Fubo Port to take advantage of them.

After that, Fubo Port continuously received personnel and materials sent from the East, and construction continued day and night. In just half a year, the original coastal fishing village had been transformed into a port and military base of a certain scale.

The ones who were most anxious about this change were not regional powers such as the Ottomans and Persia, but the Portuguese who lived adjacent to Fubo Port.

Once Fubo Port is completed and put into operation, Portugal's trade position in the Persian Gulf will face a huge challenge. In the past, those oriental goods that have long been monopolized by Portugal will have to be divided into a large piece by Hai Han in the future.

The estimated loss in trade alone was enough to make Lord Rui of Hormuz Island feel uneasy. Although the previous plan to instigate local tribes to besiege Fubo Port had failed, he was unwilling to give up resistance and allow Fubo Port to continue to develop under his nose.

Since the local tribal armed forces cannot defeat Hai Han, Rui can only settle for the second best and try to attack the indigenous tribes that cooperate with Hai Han in order to slow down the construction of Fubo Port.

In order to avoid a direct conflict with Hai Han, Rui remained very cautious and did not show up directly. Instead, he continued to find middlemen to instigate tribal forces in the surrounding areas to send troops to launch an offensive against the Xihu tribe.

However, the mobilization capabilities of these tribal armed forces were obviously not comparable to those of Hai Han and Portugal. Moreover, the Xihu tribe that they were going to deal with this time should have received some weapons and equipment from Hai Han. These tribes proposed that if they wanted to launch a "large-scale" war against the Xihu tribe, they would need at least three to five months to prepare for the war.

In order to implement the plan as quickly as possible, Rui had to use the reserves on Hormuz Island to provide the tribes with the necessary equipment and supplies.

However, these actions of his did not receive the approval of the Governor's Office of Goa. If he failed again, the responsibility he would have to bear might cause him to lose his current position.

Of course, if he succeeds, Rui will become the first Portuguese to successfully fight against Hai Han. Although this honor cannot be made public, it is enough for him to get a chance to be promoted.

It might not be impossible that he would be appointed as the Governor of Goa on the spot and replace Fernandez by then.

However, in all of Rui's plans, he had excluded Hai Han's revenge from his plan and had not included it in the possible consequences. This was not because he ignored such a possibility, but because he knew very well that once Hai Han learned the truth and launched a revenge against him, any resistance would be futile, so he simply did not waste energy thinking about how to deal with such a situation.

But whether Rui is willing or not, he has to face the coming storm.

Gao Qiaonan had always suspected that someone was behind the recent events at Fubo Port, so he instructed little Abdullah to have the Xihu tribe select some smart and capable people to pretend to be traveling merchants and go around to gather information.

As long as there was enough money, it would not be difficult to get some information from the surrounding areas as a businessman. Soon, news came back that someone was secretly connecting the various tribes and persuading them to resist Hai Han's entry into the Persian Gulf.

In the subsequent investigation, all the clues seemed to point to the Portuguese on Hormuz Island. The reason was very simple. During this process, all the benefits given by the mastermind were paid with Portuguese silver coins.

Such an obvious loophole made Takahashi Nan think that it was a deliberate misleading tactic by the other party, and he spent a lot of time to check the clues repeatedly. But he finally found that this was not a clever misleading trick, but a big pit that could not be avoided at all.

Portugal has long been engaged in international trade activities, mostly using silver coins minted by Spain and its own country as currency. This type of silver coin with high manufacturing technology has always been very popular in Middle Eastern countries because of its good quality and standard weight. In some regions, it has become a recognized circulating currency and has even replaced the status of the local currency to a certain extent.

The people who ran errands for Rui also only accepted Portuguese silver coins, and in order to maximize their profits, they only accepted new coins with minimal wear and tear.

If it was an old coin, it might be a little troublesome to trace, but the source of the new coin was only known to the Portuguese, and the new coin accounted for less than 10% of the market, so the clues were very clear and the source was traced without much trouble.

The spies sent out by the Xihu tribe were very powerful, and they even successfully lured and captured one of the middlemen working for the Portuguese. After sending him to Fubo Port, Takahashi Nan was able to obtain a first-hand confession.

Gao Qiaonan was not too surprised by this result. After all, he had never completely trusted those Europeans with high noses and deep eyes. He believed that the alliance between Hai Han and the Europeans was just an agreement that could be torn up at any time and had no binding force.

However, he was still somewhat surprised at the stupidity of the Portuguese in this matter. Not to mention that the relationship between the two countries should not be easily destroyed, Hormuz Island was so close to Fubo Port that there was no time to respond to the retaliatory action launched by Fubo Port. How could the Portuguese dare to take such a risk to do something bad?

Moreover, the means used by the other party were so simple and crude that they thought they would not be exposed by finding a middleman to run errands, but they did not even handle the payment of remuneration properly, and easily left obvious clues.

Takahashi Minami was even a little confused as to whether the other party was simply stupid or there were other ulterior motives.

But no matter what, since it has been confirmed that the Portuguese were behind the incident, Takahashi Minami would never swallow her anger. All she had to consider was what extent of revenge would be appropriate.