Chapter 498 Cooperation

As of 1919, the population of the Philippines had exceeded 10 million, more than 10.53 million to be precise.

Without data from later generations, Arthur would not believe that this country has increased its population 11 times in just 100 years, and even reached 114 million people in 2023, ranking 13th in the world in terms of population and also Southeast Asia. One of the most populous countries, second only to the future Indonesia, which is now the Dutch East Indies.

A region that can accommodate hundreds of millions of people is still a nail driven into Australasia by the United States. This must be removed.

If the Philippines is run well, it will become a dumping ground for Australasian goods and a source of cheap labor in the future.

At the same time, the Philippines can also serve as the first front against island countries and reduce the dual pressure that Australasia may face from island countries and the United States.

After controlling the Philippines, the United States can completely remove its bases on the west coast of the Pacific. The pan-Pacific policy that the United States cherishes is doomed to fail.

Going further, regions such as the current Dutch East Indies and the Philippines can serve as slave states of Australasia in the future, taking on some low-end industries and heavily polluting industries for Australasia.

The existing Dutch East Indies and the Philippines have a population of more than 300 million in later generations. It is better to form a cannon fodder army of more than 30 million people at any cost, or to provide tens of millions of cheap labor, rather than using the lives of Australasians. It's much better to fill in.

Manuel is a smart man. When he learned that he had no choice, he readily agreed to all the conditions offered by Sam.

After all, Sam’s demands are based on the Philippine government that will be established in the future. Sam will not bear any losses. He even hopes to become the first president of the new Philippine government with the support of Australasia, or the first president of the new Philippine government. A Prime Minister.

There is good news. Because the Philippines has experienced a colonial period that lasted for hundreds of years, the local forces are not actually strong. The most powerful ones are the uprising teams that broke out against Spanish tyranny.

As one of the founders of the uprising at that time, Manuel had a high prestige among the people, and he also had the right to speak for a considerable part of the uprising team.

This also means that if Manuel can persuade a part of the uprising team, coupled with his prestige in the Senate and the people, it will be easy to pass any law.

However, it is impossible to expect the Philippines to directly initiate a war of independence and successfully defeat the Americans and gain independence.

Even with the help of Australasia, the Philippines, with a population of only 10 million, will never be a match for the Americans.

However, the experience from later generations gave Arthur a better way. Compared with directly starting an independence war, cultivating a large number of anti-American teams in the Philippines, allowing them to penetrate deeply into the Philippine people, destroy various US facilities in the Philippines, and increase the cost of US control in the Philippines.

As a result, Americans have only two choices. In addition to increasing investment and sending troops to station in the Philippines, the only option is to be forced to abandon the Philippines.

After all, when the cost of ruling an area is much higher than the income brought by this area, continuing to occupy this area may not be a wise choice.

The reason why the intelligence agents came to Manuel was because they took a fancy to Manuel's reputation and support among the Filipino people.

It is no exaggeration to say that if Manuel inspires the Filipino people, he can easily form an armed force and even set off a wave of resistance in the Philippines against the United States.

You know, the U.S. rule in the Philippines is definitely not peaceful. Various rebellions broke out in the Philippines as early as the Spanish colonial period, and naturally it was impossible to obey the rule of the Americans.

Since the United States ended military control of the Philippines through the Philippines Act in 1902, the Philippines has been under the control of a civilian government dominated by Americans.

Being dominated by Americans is no joke. Although it seems to be the Philippine government, Americans have almost the final say in the Philippine government. If the Filipinos want to pass any bill, they must obtain the consent of the Americans.

This has also led to deepening conflicts between Filipinos and Americans, especially since the Americans implemented policies that hardly took into account the opinions of Filipinos, which greatly aggravated Filipinos' anti-American sentiment.

Manuel expanded the opportunities for Filipinos to participate in politics through the Jones Act. Although he did not gain an advantage, the Philippine political arena did have more local voices. This is why Manuel also has a huge influence in the Philippine political arena. Prestige reasons.

It can be said that without Manuel, the Philippine political arena would still be dominated by Americans, and Philippine officials would have no say in facing Americans.

Although the Jones Act alleviated the contradiction between Filipinos and Americans, this contradiction will never be eliminated as long as the Americans dominate the Philippine government.

Therefore, Sam gave Manuel the first task, which was to secretly form an armed team and split them into very small teams to undermine American rule in the Philippines.

A complete Philippine armed force will never be able to fight against the Americans. If it is split into small teams with varying numbers of people and broken into parts, it will play a more important role.

It is not cost-effective to dispatch large-scale troops for small-scale rebel armies. These small-scale rebel armies can cause great trouble to American rule in the Philippines.

Whether it is interfering with Americans' lives in the Philippines or destroying various facilities built by the United States in the Philippines, Americans are exhausted and unable to take precautions.

More importantly, breaking the formed armed army into pieces can also reduce Manuel's danger.

After all, it is not easy to take a clear-cut stand against the United States in today's Philippines.

The Americans have troops stationed in the Philippines. Dogs can jump over walls when cornered, let alone Americans who are similar to dogs.

In addition to secretly forming an anti-American armed force, Sam also reached various agreements with Manuel, including some weapons resources and diplomatic support for Manuel.

The weapons and equipment Sam promised to provide Manuel included a batch of rifles captured from the European battlefields, as well as weapons eliminated from the Australasian indigenous army.

The various weapons add up to more than 100,000 rifles, 50 machine guns, 100 various artillery pieces, an airship for emergency escape, as well as various supporting bullets, artillery shells, etc.

These weapons and equipment are not enough on any battlefield. If they are only used to harass Americans and are limited to the Philippines, they are actually completely sufficient.

At least it would allow Manuel to privately form an armed force of more than 100,000 people, a number that far exceeds the number of U.S. troops stationed in the Philippines.

In fact, after the Americans ended their military government in the Philippines, they withdrew most of their troops stationed in the Philippines.

The total number of U.S. troops currently stationed in the Philippines does not exceed 2,000. Except for some navy officers and soldiers, the actual number of army troops will never exceed 1,200.

This batch of weapons and equipment is enough to entangle Manuel with the American army for a long time, but before the Americans use the main force, it can even give Manuel an advantage in the Philippines.

In addition to this batch of weapons and equipment, according to the agreement between Sam and Manuel, Manuel will form a team of more than 500 international students to study in Australasia.

This 500-person international student team includes 200 political science students who will become key officials of the new Philippine government in the future and are destined to be greatly influenced by Australasia.

Secondly, there are more than 200 students who are going to military schools to study abroad. They would undergo a three-year militarized education at military schools in Australasia and eventually return to the Philippines to train regular troops for the new Philippine nation.

Of course, by then the training of the Philippine army will inevitably involve Australasia.

And these people will also be under the influence of Australasia, and they will always involuntarily favor Australasia when thinking about problems.

This is actually a common strategy for studying abroad in later generations. By attracting international students from less developed countries and exerting a subtle influence on these international students, we can cultivate them into talents who are close to their own countries.

After these high-quality talents with experience of studying abroad return to backward regions and countries, their own experiences will be valued and they will gradually move towards the middle and senior levels of the country.

After a long period of accumulation and influence, it can even take control of a country by attracting overseas students on a large scale, turning the entire country's government into a government that favors itself.

This kind of study abroad policy is terrible, but it is also inevitable in the rise of backward countries.

If a country wants to move from backwardness to prosperity, it has to learn advanced knowledge from the outside world. The best way is to study abroad.

It is impossible for people living abroad not to be affected by foreign influences. Especially for Filipinos, after feeling the huge gap between themselves and others, it is natural for them to blindly worship more advanced countries.

Together with international students from other industries, the total of 500 international students will study in Australasia for 3 to 4 years before returning to the Philippines to build the new government.

At that time, the independence of the Philippines was basically on the horizon. It was a time when more talents were needed to build a new government and eliminate the influence of the United States on national control.

Through these international students, Australasia is also able to gain better control over the Philippine government. In fact, there is no need to strictly control the Philippine government like the United States does.

As long as these international students are used and some Philippine officials are won over, even if the Philippines succeeds in becoming independent, it is destined to be unable to escape the control of Australasia.

Moreover, even if the Philippines succeeds in independence, various industries are still in a state of exhaustion.

Without the support of Australasia, it would be difficult for the Philippines to survive in such an international environment.

Even without Australasia, there would have been a comeback by Britain and France and even the United States.

It is almost impossible for a country that is weak but owns a large area of ​​land to survive alone in this era.

Even Belgium, a seemingly relatively developed European country, although it claims to be a neutral country, has it not suffered aggression from Germany?

In this era, to ensure that a country is completely independent from the world, it must either have relatively strong military strength, or it can only pray that it is a very poor country and will not attract the covetousness of those powerful countries.

But it is a pity that although the Philippines is not as large as those large colonies, it still has a vast land with a total area of ​​nearly 300,000 square kilometers, a population of tens of millions, and a pretty good geographical location.

With a little bit of management, this can be a good dumping ground for goods. Coupled with the various mineral resources contained in the Philippines, the benefits generated are absolutely huge.

Although the mineral resources are far less than those of Australasia, this does not mean that the Philippines is relatively poor in terms of mineral resources.

On the contrary, the Philippines has large reserves of nickel mines, cobalt mines, gold mines and copper mines, and has ranked among the top ten in the world in later generations.

Secondly, the Philippines also has certain oil reserves, and the value of its minerals can definitely bring considerable benefits to the country that controls the Philippines.

In such a situation, the Philippines cannot avoid the covetousness of the great powers and other countries unless it is strong.

Whether it is Spain before, the United States now, or Australasia in the future, this conclusion has been confirmed, that is, the weak can only become the meat on the chopping board of the strong.

If we rely solely on civilian officials like Manuel to develop anti-American armed forces in the Philippines, let alone the progress, such hastily formed armed forces are destined to be unreliable.

In order to make the Philippines cause more trouble to the United States, Australasia will also help Manuel form an armed force, including sending more professional instructors for militarized training and teaching them some relatively simple tactics.

The large-area firepower most often used in Australasia to suppress the Philippines is not a blessing. After all, this extremely tests the country's logistics level and the production speed of the military industry.

Australasia accumulated a large number of artillery shells before World War I, and only used fire suppression a few times. The number of artillery shells consumed in each fire suppression was as high as millions, and the average number of artillery shells consumed every day was more than 200,000 rounds. , which is enough to show how huge the test of large-scale fire suppression is on logistics.

Judging from the current actual situation in the Philippines, let alone being able to use large-scale firepower to suppress it, the artillery that the anti-American armed forces can use is quite good.

Even under normal circumstances, most of the heavy weapons will be sealed and will not be used until the Philippines forms a real army in the future.

After all, the current role of the armed forces is only to cause harassment to the US troops and bases in the Philippines, but there is no intention to rely on them to completely defeat the Americans.

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