Two Realms: Don't call me evil!

Chapter 515 The storm is coming

In the Isthmus of Kra Canal, the Sakura Kunihiro Shinmaru was outside the canal. Captain Junpei Ishioka looked at the pilot climbing up from under the ship with a depressed look on his face. What a coincidence, this pilot was the one he met last time.

"Hey, aren't you the one from Sakura Country? I remember you. Didn't you say you would never walk along our canal again? Why are you back now?"

When the pilot saw Junpei Ishioka, he started to mock him without hesitation.

"idiot."

Junpei Ishioka cursed in his heart. He had left the Kra Canal, passed through the Strait of Malacca, transported the goods to the Persian Gulf, and then pulled a full ship of goods back from the Persian Gulf.

But who would have known that when they left, the Strait of Malacca was still fine, but when they came back, the Strait of Malacca was blocked by kelp and was impassable to navigation, so Junpei Ishioka had to choose to take the Kra Isthmus Canal.

Because apart from this canal route, taking other routes would take too much time and cost too much. I don’t know how much money the fuel would cost just for the extra distance.

Faced with reality, Junpei Ishioka could only go to the Kra Canal, even though the navigation fee was twice as high as that of ships from other countries.

"Sir, I am sorry for offending you last time. Please give me more guidance in the future."

Junpei Ishioka put on a smiling face and swallowed the insults. He had to endure the ridicule, because others controlled the key shipping routes between Asia and Europe.

"I don't have time to teach you. Just pay me and I'll let you go. The navigation fee for your ship, the Hongxin Maru, is $2450000, plus other fees, a total of $2580000. Pay up."

The pilot directly handed a detailed payment list to Junping Ishioka, with the seal of the JEC Group printed on it.

"Wait, this price is wrong. Wasn't the previous air passage fee 1630000 US dollars? How did it suddenly become so high? You must have miscalculated."

Junpei Ishioka's face suddenly changed. This number was too high.

"You haven't been educated. Supply is outstripping demand right now. Our prices are adjusted according to the market. Is it strange to raise prices?"

The pilot said this with a gloating tone, which made Junpei Ishioka very angry.

Ishioka Junpei's face flushed, and he said, "How can the canal fees be raised without any reason? Aren't you afraid of arousing public anger?"

"Why would we at the Jeko Group be afraid of this? You can pay the money or not. If you don't, don't use our Kra Canal. Our canal was not built for you to use for free."

The pilot pointed at Junpei Ishioka's nose arrogantly, and his arrogant attitude made Junpei Ishioka's face turn blue and purple.

But in the end, Ishioka Junpei could only reach out his hand tremblingly, took the bill, and said angrily: "Okay, we'll pay."

Although Junpei Ishioka really wanted to shout that this was too much and then turn around and leave.

But if they don't take the Kra Canal, they will lose even more in shipping costs.

Moreover, the shipping time is too long. If the goods are not delivered on time as agreed in the contract, it will lead to a breach of contract. The consequences will be disastrous. He, as the captain, has worked for nothing for several years. He does not know how much salary he will have to bear.

"It would have been great if you had known better earlier."

The pilot sneered and had no favorable impression of Junpei Ishioka at all.

Who made Sakura Country always oppose the Jeko Group? During the civil war in Zen, it even sent troops to help the Zen government forces. No employee of the Jeko Group would have a good impression of Sakura Country.

After paying by credit card, Junpei Ishioka could only feel depressed and obediently invited the pilot to the cabin to let him direct the ship through the Kra Isthmus Canal.

The Hongshin Maru was sailing on the wide canal. The average width of the Kra Isthmus Canal is over 700 meters, which is much wider than the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal. The water depth is more than 60 meters. Even if a supertanker of or tons comes, this canal is large enough to handle it.

On the banks of the Kra Isthmus Canal, a canal that stretches for hundreds of kilometers, Junpei Ishioka saw three military bases, a warship supply port, armed helicopters and offshore patrol speedboats belonging to the Jeko Group, and occasionally he could hear the presence of fighter jets flying high in the sky.

Junpei Ishioka speculated that there should be an air force base near the canal.

The Isthmus of Kra Canal is located at the southern end of the Indochina Peninsula. With an air force base deployed here, countries such as Johor, Java and Temasek may be unable to sleep or eat uneasy.

Because once the war breaks out, in a short while, most of their territory will be within the attack range of the Jeko Group Air Force.

Junpei Ishioka travels to various countries and knows that countries like Temasek, which are close to the Jacko Group, are very afraid of this behemoth moving south.

"If the JECO Group continues to expand, it will be disastrous!"

Junpei Ishioka grumbled to himself that the Jeko Group now dared to rip off customers so harshly at the Kra Canal. If they were to control the island countries in Southeast Asia, the price of the canal would probably increase further.

Because unless they want to go around the Southern Hemisphere, they have to pass through the sphere of influence of the JEC Group, and they have to pay the toll.

But it was useless for Junpei Ishioka to think about it. Now that the JECCO Group has grown big, it would be difficult to restrict its development.

Like Junpei Ishioka, there are countless shipping ships that have to accept the extortion of the JECCO Group because the Strait of Malacca is blocked and navigation is impossible.

Even though they knew that the Jeko Group was robbing them, they still had to hand over the money with tears in their eyes.

As a large number of shipping vessels changed their route to the Kra Canal, the JECCO Group had difficulty collecting tolls.

A huge amount of money is brought in every day. In addition to the navigation fees, the ships traveling through the Kra Canal also make huge profits by docking at the canal terminal, maintaining and repairing ships, replenishing resources, and paying for crew expenses. In the past, several countries in Malacca made a fortune in this way.

Temasek is a small country with a population of several million, but its per capita GDP reaches US$9, which is higher than that of many developed countries. This is the reason.

Now that Malacca is blocked, all the money has been earned by the Jeko Group.

Without the income from shipping, the three countries surrounding the Strait of Malacca, Johor and Java, are still fine. After all, one of the two countries has a population of more than 30 million and the other has a population of more than 200 million, and their land area is tens of millions of square kilometers. They do not rely entirely on the Strait of Malacca for their livelihood, and there are still many industrial incomes within the country.

But Temasek is different. They have a population of only a few million, and their industries are relatively weak. Domestic resources are scarce, and they cannot even be self-sufficient in fresh water. They need supply from Johor. It is an isolated small island country.

The prosperity of Temasek's most important industries, including oil refining, transit trade, and cargo warehousing, all rely on the Strait of Malacca. Now that the Strait of Malacca is blocked, they have immediately lost most of their economic income, and it is difficult to import resources from the outside world.

Because they are an island country, the input of resources is basically entirely dependent on sea transportation. Many cargo ships dare not approach, fearing that the propellers will be entangled by kelp. Without sea transportation, daily necessities in Temasek immediately became scarce, and food began to be out of supply. Temasek's small and barren land cannot support millions of people at all. The limited land is not enough for building houses and opening factories. In previous years, it relied on land reclamation to expand the land, and food was entirely imported from the outside.

So much so that after the Strait of Malacca was blocked for ten days, the prices of food and other daily necessities in Temasek began to skyrocket. The price of food increased dozens of times, and it all relied on supply from Johor in the north.

Temasek is located at the southernmost tip of Johor. The two countries are separated by a body of water, with a long embankment in the middle, which is built directly from the seabed and is only one kilometer long. Materials from Johor are transported to Temasek via this embankment.

However, Johor did not take into account that Temasek is its neighbor and a member of the Thousand Islands Strategic Alliance, and it raised the prices without mercy. If the prices of various daily necessities were not raised by more than ten times, it would be an injustice to the capitalists in Johor.

The rising prices and the blockage of the Strait of Malacca made millions of citizens in Temasek extremely dissatisfied with the incompetence and cowardice of the government. Massive protest marches began to appear on the streets and soon swept across Temasek.

Under the control of those with ulterior motives, the march quickly turned into a violence, and not only civilians but also the army began to defect.

In just a few days, the original Temasek government collapsed, and after the new Temasek leadership team came to power, they immediately began to turn to the United States.

Politically, economically and militarily, the United States is highly dependent on it, following its lead and generously inviting the U.S. military to enter its territory and build military bases.

At the same time, public opinion about Temasek, which had been suppressed in China, began to rise.

Having been threatened by the Jeko Group before, the Temasek government at that time directly issued a ban, prohibiting the Jeko Group from being blamed for blocking the Strait of Malacca.

But now that a new government has come to power, not only have all those controls been lifted, but Temasek officials have also taken the initiative to publicly accuse the Jacko Group. The new president shouted to the media: "In order to control the international golden waterway, they maliciously released genetically mutated kelp, causing navigation in the Strait of Malacca to be paralyzed. The Jacko Group must give us justice."

Temasek dares to speak so loudly, which is definitely not the courage a small country should have.

What really gives Temasek the courage to do this is the backer behind it, the United States.

Almost at the same time, the United States also announced that it would hold a large-scale military exercise with the Kuril Islands Strategic Alliance. Two aircraft carrier battle groups set sail and headed towards the Indian Ocean.

Before the military exercise even began, accusations against the Jeko Group began to surge internationally, with attacks on the group's political system, economy, and practices from all sides.

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that the United States cannot accept the loss of the strategic Strait of Malacca, so they are starting to take action.

The interests of the world's golden waterway are too closely linked. In addition to economic interests, what is more important is the strategic benefits brought by geopolitics.

In July 1956, Egypt announced that it would take back the Suez Canal Company, which was actually controlled by Britain and France. In October of the same year, Britain and France launched a military war against Egypt.

In 1989, when the Panamanian authorities were about to take back the Panama Canal, the United States invaded Panama under the guise of human rights and drug control, and launched a blitzkrieg called "Just Cause". It took only 15 hours to defeat the Panamanian army's guard forces, overthrow the Panamanian government, and achieve the goal of occupying the canal, even at the cost of shattering its own American justice.

It can be seen from this that the canal of the Golden Waterway is a strategic location that major powers will not hesitate to use force to fight for.

The Strait of Malacca is the world's largest and busiest golden waterway. Now its blockage has been replaced by the Kra Canal. This maritime lifeline is controlled by the Jeko Group, which is difficult for the United States to accept.

To this end, the United States began to actively deploy troops. Two aircraft carrier battle groups came, and a large number of soldiers were stationed in Luzon, Java, Johor and other countries through sea and air transportation.

When answering reporters' questions, the new President of the United States, Jasmin, bluntly stated that the Kra Canal is becoming a strategic waterway controlled by the Djeko Group, which has a major impact on the defense and security situation in the entire region.

Seeing that the United States began to send troops to the battlefield, several Southeast Asian countries also began to tremble.

With the support of the United States, it began to speak out and accuse the Jeko Group of building the Kra Canal.

However, what no one expected was that before the United States' aircraft carrier battle group arrived and the military exercise began, India took the lead in launching an attack because it was jealous of the interests of the Kra Canal.

"The construction of the Kra Isthmus Canal forced free-navigation ships to pay high tolls, and many Chinese merchant ships were forced to pay fees. This behavior is suspected of violating my country's anti-monopoly law. This is an unfair monopoly competition. The Jeko Group is required to pay a fine of US$78 billion to my country within ten days."

2029年2月18日，阿三国以克拉地峡运河干扰了他们安曼达群岛的自然资源为由，要对杰科集团罚款78亿2300万美元。

If the fine is not paid, the western entrance to the Kra Canal will be blocked, preventing any ship from passing through, let alone leaving.

This sudden news shocked the whole world, although India has often claimed that it wants to be a "powerful and influential country that leads the world's development."

But no one expected that they would dare to directly provoke the hot-tempered JECCO Group.

Including the United States itself, they did not expect India to attack so quickly, disrupting their original deployment.

The Indians dare to say this, and they naturally have the confidence.

Looking at the map, the Andaman Islands is an enclave of India overseas with a very important location. The Strait of Malacca is located not far to the east of the Andaman Islands and only a few hundred kilometers away from the Kra Isthmus Canal, like a natural gate blocking the canal.

In addition, since the Andaman Islands have deep-water ports, Afghanistan has continuously strengthened the construction of military bases on the Andaman Islands over the years, formed a Far East Naval Fleet, established the first tri-service joint command in Afghanistan's history, and deployed 48 naval ships on the island.

These ships include patrol boats, missile boats, landing craft, etc. There are also three infantry brigades, a military airport and other military facilities on the island.

With the existence of this Indian enclave adjacent to the Malacca and Kra Canal, Indians gained more confidence and felt that the Jeko Group was very likely to agree to their demands.

If the Isthmus of Kra Canal is the throat of the sea, then their Amanta Islands are a sword at the throat.

The Jake Group extorted passing ships, so the Asan extorted the Jake Group and got rich together.

Before this, India had done this many times. Large companies like Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei, Qualcomm, Samsung, Google, Coca-Cola, etc. have all been fined by India. By extorting and fining these companies, India has made a lot of money and is living a rich life.

Now they have set their sights on the Jeko Group because they are jealous of the staggering profits of the Kra Isthmus Canal.

However, India may have forgotten one thing. Although the Jeko Group is called a group, it is the overlord of the Indochina Peninsula with powerful military force.

Other companies would pay the money and keep the peace, but in the commercial competition of the Jieke Group, there is no such thing as "honesty and duty".

Because of India's sudden interference and the approach of the double aircraft carrier battle group, the world's attention has been turned to the area between the Amanta Islands and the Kra Isthmus Canal. Some people speculate that the Jeko Group will surrender, or it is possible that the Jeko Group will choose to use force.

(End of this chapter)