Chapter 620: First Arrival in Hawaii

At this time, the government of the Kingdom of Hawaii was full of stars. The Minister of Justice, John Ricord, was from New Jersey, USA, and the Minister of Finance, Gerrit Judd, was a French missionary.

William Charles, the ambassador to France, Britain, and the United States, was a British captain, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Robert Wylie, was a Scottish doctor.

In addition, many local officials were foreigners, and the reason for this situation was entirely due to consular jurisdiction.

A large number of foreigners were doing whatever they wanted on the island of Hawaii, which caused great dissatisfaction among the people, but the existence of consular jurisdiction made the native officials helpless against the offending foreigners.

However, this did not satisfy the businessmen, who kept filing lawsuits against the Hawaiian government, demanding more and more excessive conditions.

Kamehameha III tried to refuse, but this soon attracted the patronage of the armies of the great powers, and neither the British nor the French could be dealt with by the Hawaiians.

So the Hawaiian version of "using barbarians to control barbarians" was launched, and Kamehameha III decided to use foreigners to manage the country, so that those businessmen would not dare to mess around.

Under the guidance of this strange idea, the new Hawaiian government was established, which did reduce the strange lawsuits filed by foreign businessmen to a certain extent.

But what followed was that businessmen rushed into the government crazily, and eventually almost sidelined Kamehameha III.

Thomas Fanar was one of them at this time, but due to the changes in history, Americans had no power and energy to care about the indigenous people on a small island.

So he wrote a letter to the Austrian Imperial Government with a try-and-see attitude, and to Thomas Fanar's surprise, he actually got a reply from the other party.

However, Thomas Fanar did not expect much help from Austria, which was thousands of miles away.

But when the Austrian fleet entered the harbor, he was completely shocked.

The Fanar couple and their eldest daughter waved their homemade flags in a panic, and the surrounding indigenous people had already fled in fear.

Although this was not the first time that Westerners visited Hawaii Island, it was the first time they saw a real naval fleet.

Although the British battleship "Callister" was only 1,200 tons, it was still the largest battleship the locals had ever seen.

The tonnage of this ship was only one-sixth of Friedrich's flagship "Prince Eugen" steam ironclad ship, not to mention the chimneys emitting black smoke and the iron-clad hull.

Only the youngest son of the Fanar couple jumped and waved the small flag in his hand as if he had found a treasure.

At the same time, the Nanming merchants who had been dormant on the island of Hawaii for a long time also began to act. They had come here a long time ago and established their own power, but they were never recognized by the white people because of their skin color.

Sandalwood is very common in Hawaii, and the local natives even use it as firewood, but it is a very valuable commodity in the Far East.

The Nanming region is of course no exception, but the purpose of these Nanming merchants coming is not just for sandalwood, but to cooperate with the actions of the Austrian side.

This was part of the agreement Franz had made with Zhu Qiongying many years ago. The Southern Ming could make huge profits from the sandalwood trade, while the Austrian side needed the labor of the Southern Ming to build a dock city for it. This was a win-win deal.

But Kamehameha III's head hurt even more in the Hawaiian Royal Palace. He knew from the panic of his subordinates that this time was a big trouble.

Of course, Kamehameha III had no good way to deal with this situation. Since he couldn't resist, he could only accept it. It was still necessary to find a comfortable posture for himself.

But when Kamehameha III came to the King's Balcony, he was still startled. In his own words, it was a huge black beast with demons flashing constantly.

The flash was mainly a problem of light reflection from the helmet. It was a waste of money to do matte processing in this era, so Franz didn't do that. If necessary, the military also issued matching hemp ropes for camouflage and concealment.

Kamehameha III looked even more embarrassed than the messenger who had delivered the message before. He did not fall down because of the help of Queen Kalama Hakaleleponi Kapakuhaili.

"Oh my God! Oh my God! What kind of monster is that!"

The queen also sighed: "It seems that we can't escape this time. Even if we add up all the men from all the tribes on the island, we can't beat them."

On the other hand, Friedrich was a little worried, that is, Thomas Fanar's power was much weaker than Franz expected.

There were only more than 30 people in the family, including a few helpers, apprentices, bodyguards, and servants, but Friedrich still patiently listened to Mr. Fanar's trembling story.

It was basically a story about the Fanar family, who had no backing, being maliciously squeezed by British and French merchants using Hawaiians.

Thomas Fanar was a high-end coffee merchant, and the new variety he cultivated with great difficulty was sublet to others by the natives.

Although this matter was assisted by British and French merchants, there were not many Westerners who could be bullied by the natives in this era.

In fact, the source of these things can be blamed on Kamehameha III. When the British first occupied Hawaii, the king did not want the entire country to become a British appendage.

After studying Western laws, he came to a conclusion that the only way to prevent Hawaii from being annexed by the powers was to distribute the land to the people.

Because as long as the land did not belong to the king, the powers could no longer force him to cede the land, and it would cost a lot of money to buy a small piece of land, which was obviously not in the interests of the powers.

So Kamehameha III distributed the land to his people, but the natives at that time did not have a deep concept of land.

First, Fanar contracted a large piece of land for coffee planting at a very low price, and then several foreign merchants offered a relatively high price for the natives to sublease the land to themselves.

But in fact, the price of the latter was still unimaginably low. The natives wanted to take back their land and sell it at a higher price, but the British and French merchants had consular jurisdiction, so they had to admit defeat.

Fanar now could not get the land back, and could not get compensation from the hands that tore up the agreement.

The British and French consuls knew when the Austrian fleet just entered the port, and they were standing next to Friedrich with respectful smiles on their faces.

The latter looked back, and the two consuls immediately said.

"Please rest assured, Your Highness. We will definitely handle it impartially and will never protect those who harm the relationship between the two countries!"

Friedrich waved his hand to indicate that there were too many people in the room, and asked the soldiers to leave first.

After the soldiers left the room, the remaining three people breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.