Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 801 Kinmen Night Talk

While Gao Liugeng and his team members were doing their best to deal with the Qing army, it was just midnight at the Kinmen Fortress thousands of miles away. Lu Qi, who was washing up and getting ready to take a rest, almost kicked over the footbath when he heard Zhao Xin's sudden words.

"What? Hold a conference and form an alliance? No. Are you trying to form a united front with the Indians?!"

"Bingo! Your Majesty the Governor is really smart and can tell the truth."

Zhao Xin finished his joke with a smile and then explained his thoughts.

To put it simply, he wanted to use this meeting to sign a memorandum-style agreement with various indigenous tribes in Northern California and even the Columbia River Basin to form an alliance. This was not only to gain moral support for capturing the entire Spanish California, but also to prepare for next year's expedition to the Rocky Mountains.

You must know that in these days, there were no existing roads from the west to the central part of North America. Nevada in the central part was a desert wasteland, so if you wanted to go to the Rocky Mountains, the shortest and fastest route was to take the "Oregon" opened by the Lewis and Clark Expedition of another time and space. Trail”.

That is, take a boat upstream along the Columbia River, then turn into the Snake River and Clearwater River (Clearwater River for short), and then take the land route upstream along the Blackfoot River to reach the Rocky Mountain Pass.

To put it bluntly, this expedition was to pave the way for future entry into the Missouri River Basin. The mission of the expedition was not only to measure hydrology but also to identify locations for building forts along the way. With these military fortresses as supply stations, Beihai Town will be able to continuously send immigrants into Louisiana in the future.

The problem is that this route is full of Indian tribes, especially the Blackfoot River area, which is controlled by three tribes called the "Blackfoot Confederacy." If you want to build a fortress there, you must have a good relationship with the other party.

Zhao Xin's idea was not a whim, but because the trading market outside the fortress had been operating for several months, and its reputation was growing. Even tribes from Nevada came over to trade with bison hides and horses.

Of course, everything has a pros and cons, a yin and a yang. The purpose of this alliance is to cooperate with Indians from various tribes for mutual assistance and mutual benefit, but as long as they sign a contract and become allies, they must follow their own rules. If anyone dares to be disobedient, let him deeply understand the Chinese culture that "a filial son will emerge from a stick, and a good person will emerge from a yellow thorn stick."

"Boss Zhao, we don't do this. Before we leave, you still find something to do for me. Do you think I'm not busy enough?"

"You can't say that. Is it necessary for the development of the revolutionary situation?" Zhao Xin took out a cigarette as he spoke, pulled out one and threw it at Lu Qi.

The latter stretched out his hands to catch it, but did not click it immediately. Instead, he clamped it on his ears, rolled his eyes and said: "This is not asking Chief Dudu to row across the strait, but to call dozens of tribes to hold a meeting! You know Don’t you know? They don’t speak the same language. It’s life-threatening to speak like a chicken.”

"Be patient and don't be impatient. Be patient and don't be impatient. Listen to what I have to say."

Zhao Xin waited for Lu Qi to finish wiping his feet, and the orderly helped carry the water away and poured it outside the door. Then he asked: "Do you think there will still be time in the spring next year? What kind of virtue do the Spaniards have when they leave? In the market All the Indians have seen it. You have to strike while the iron is hot. It will be useless when it is hot."

Well, although Golden Gate has reached an agreement with the Province of New Spain on the return of prisoners of war, and the province has pinched its nose and recognized the Chinese occupation of Kinmen, both sides know full well that the truce is only temporary.

The Spaniards would not accept the loss of Alta California, and Zhao Xin and Rucci were not satisfied with the current situation. Where is this? What they want is the entire Central Valley.

Lu Qi and the officers of the Overseas Corps have already formulated a combat plan for next year and received Zhao Xin's approval. The launch time is scheduled for early March next year.

The entire operation first captured Monterey, the capital of California, with lightning speed, and then went south to capture the Royal Fortress of San Diego, Spain's largest military fortress in California. At the same time, all the remaining 11 Franciscan missions in Alta California were destroyed, leaving no one behind.

Of course, the prerequisite for realizing this military operation must be the cooperation of the navy. Both Monterey and San Diego are seaport cities, and traveling by sea is much faster than by land.

"You don't have time in the first half of next year, and it's too late to postpone it to the second half of the year, so I thought about it and decided that this winter is the most suitable time. Intelligence investigation and political preparations cannot be done by ourselves. We must work with the indigenous people. Alliance. As the saying goes, what is a united front?

Lu Qi didn't wait for Zhao Xin to finish, and then answered quickly: "There are many friends and few enemies."

"That's right!" Because he was too far away from Lu Qi, Zhao Xin patted his thigh this time.

"One more thing. In another twenty years, Tambora volcano on the island of Java will erupt. It will be the year without summer! There will be famine all over the world and food harvests will be cut off. My response is to the Sanjiang Plain, Xinjiang, and... The Central Valley relies on these three places to accumulate enough food, so we don’t have much time left.”

Lu Qi took the calculator from the table and muttered while typing: "Assuming the population is 1642.5 million, the daily ration for each person is one and a half catties. Well, it will cost billion catties in a year!"

"More than that, you have to count it as 4 million people. I remember the information said that the disaster was the most serious in Yunnan, with no food harvest for two years. Then we include Java, the Malay Peninsula, the Lee Dynasty, the island countries, the Indians here, and the future. France is our ally, so we need to increase the food supply by 1000 billion jins. 2600 billion jins of food in twenty years. Governor Lu, do you understand how heavy the burden is on your shoulders?”

"We occupy nearly half of the fertile land in the world, and I'm afraid we will be the enemy of the whole world by then!" Lu Qi covered his forehead and let out a long sigh. He suddenly had a premonition.

Although many of the science and technologies brought by time-travelers have not been leaked yet, who can guarantee that they will not be leaked in twenty years?

The war of civilization sounds very heroic, but when you actually do it, you realize how difficult it is.

This is no longer a problem of preparing a table of food and two people coming to the table, but that I want to monopolize a table of food, while everyone else is waiting for leftovers, so whoever is left behind is not in a hurry!

Thinking of this, he frowned, took a cigarette from his ear, lit it, took two puffs, and said: "I understand everything. However, if more than forty tribes want them to come to Kinmen for a meeting in a month, they will not take out the cigarette." I’m afraid it’s difficult to achieve earth-shattering benefits.”

"Is it earth-shattering to give each family a ton of stick noodles? If not, add one and open up the musket trade. There are still hundreds of flintlock muskets in the warehouse. Each family will give away ten for free."

Lu Qi said in surprise: "A ton?! This is too much."

Zhao Xin chuckled: "How much? Do you know how much corn we sell from Laomei over there?"

"How many?"

"It's 4.88 US dollars per bushel, 18 cents per kilogram, and only 180 US dollars per ton. The total of the forty tribes is less than US dollars."

Lu Qi smacked his lips at the price, and then asked: "It's so cheap, isn't it genetically modified?"

"It's not a big problem. Americans eat it themselves. If it's non-GMO, buy it from Mexico. It's not expensive. One ton only costs over two hundred dollars."

"Then it's better to buy it from Mexico. If something happens to these natives, it will be a good intention but a bad thing."

"No problem. My Lord Governor." Having said that, Lu Qi, who had originally planned to go to bed, no longer felt sleepy. He asked the orderly next door to make a pot of tea and planned to discuss preparations for the meeting with Zhao Xin. Talk item by item.

Zhao Xin had no choice. He dug the hole he dug and buried it himself. Who asked him to raise this topic in the middle of the night? Besides, he didn’t have much time to stay in Kinmen. He had to go to Ryukyu in another time and space to “touch the warships”. That was a big deal!

Ruch first listed the indigenous tribes he planned to invite on his notepad, including Coast Miwok, Plains Miwok, Ohlon, Tongva, Wintu, Pomo, Wapo, and Toro. Wa, Yurok, Shastan, Karuk, Chilula, Wilkuit, Chimarico, Viyot, Western Shoshone, Costano, Winton, Maidu, Yokuts, Chinsi, etc. More than forty tribes.

He was able to write so much because these tribes had regular stalls in the market outside the fort. As the governor of the Golden Gate Fortress, if he didn't even know which guests were coming to his door, then he would really be a loser.

With so many tribes, 50,000 tons of corn were needed, and 500 muskets had to be sent out, as well as matching lead bullets and gunpowder. After this wave of free gift packages were distributed, the arms previously seized from the Spanish, except for cannons and horses, were basically cleared.

Lu Qi is now determined to set up a gunpowder factory. Selling black powder to the Indians will definitely be a big business in the future. As he was writing, his heart suddenly moved, and then he stopped writing and turned to look at Zhao Xin.

"what happened?"

"How about you make a guest appearance as a god?"

"what?"

"Ask Taoist Master Ma to set up an altar, and then you go up and recite a spell. Amidst the smoke, a mountain of food will be created out of thin air. The effect will be guaranteed!"

"Damn! It's not enough for you to be the captain of the transportation team, but you also want me to be the magician? What good things are you thinking of!"

"Don't worry! Don't the natives believe this? When Dudu drinks with us, doesn't he always talk about the wolf god and the eagle god? And, don't you think we have a good relationship with the Miwok people, but he treats us The medical team is very repulsive. I read in the information that they all seek medical treatment from shamans. I thought it would be better to take advantage of this opportunity.”

Seeing Zhao Xin silent, Lu Qi decided to add fuel to the fire.

"Now I not only have to compete with the Spanish for territory, but I also have to drive out the group of priests. If the church is demolished, there must be a new faith to follow in time, right? As long as you come in front of those Indians, it will definitely be better than the Spanish missionary I have said it a hundred times and it will work! If you agree, I will call Taoist Master Ma over early tomorrow morning and ask him to make preparations in advance. By then, there will definitely be many Indians who believe in Taoism, and our words will definitely work."

Zhao Xin knew that what Lu Qi said made sense. Yesterday evening, he went for a walk outside the castle. As he walked, he entered the Taoist temple and happened to meet Ma Benzhu. In the subsequent chat, he learned such a thing.

In fact, Director Ma also heard about it from the Costano Indians. Well, despite Ma Benchu's age, the old man was very talented in languages. In just a few months, he was already able to talk and gesture with the Indians.

Seventeen years ago, a plague brought great disaster to the Indian tribes living in the Santa Clara Valley. Hundreds of children fell ill and died one after another. The shaman in the tribe used all the herbs and prayed to all the gods, but was helpless.

At that time, many parents who had lost their children converted to Catholicism under the instigation of missionaries. As a result, they were taken to missionary sites and became arbitrarily exploited laborers.

Taoist priest Ma told Zhao Xin that based on the analysis of the symptoms mentioned by the narrator, he believed that the plague was likely to be the "wind-heat disease" mentioned by Ye Tianshi in "The Treatise on Warm Heat".

"Wind temperature" is the contagious pneumonia in later generations. Zhao Xin speculated that it should be a large-scale infectious disease caused by the influenza virus brought by Spanish missionaries.

So is the truth. Before the mission, there had never been an influenza outbreak in California, let alone the Santa Clara Valley.

It is said that the Spanish colonization of Alta California was the last large-scale expansion of the declining empire on the North American continent.

To put it simply, its colonial method was to use armed soldiers to militarily intimidate the local Indians, and then the Franciscan missionary group took action to establish missionary areas one by one. These missionary sites in the name of God are essentially compulsory religious labor camps, which fully control the indigenous people from spiritual to physical.

Regardless of whether the indigenous people were deceived or voluntarily converted by baptism, they lost their freedom from then on and had to participate in labor and worship at the mission site. If they do not report for a few days, the village will be searched; if a baptized person is found to have left the mission area without permission, he will be regarded as a fugitive, and the priests will organize people to round him up.

In Zhao Xin's view, the impact of this approach on coastal indigenous tribes is devastating.

Missionaries demanded that tribes abandon their native territories and live in filthy, disease-ridden and overcrowded labor camps. Massive introductions of livestock and new seed crops quickly crowded out Aboriginal game and native plants, the most obvious example being wild boars.

There were no wild boars in the American continent before. After the Spanish arrived, they brought domestic pigs from the mainland and Southeast Asia and brought them to various missions. Since Europeans usually raise pigs free-range, those domestic pigs that escape control will degenerate into wild boars with ferocious tusks within a year.

The reproductive capacity of this thing is amazing. It produces two litters a year, with each litter containing 5 to 10 cubs. In addition, there are not many large carnivores in the North American continent, causing the population to grow rapidly.

Wild boars like to eat acorns the most, but acorns are the staple food of the indigenous people. Even North American grizzly bears and gray wolves do not dare to provoke adult wild boars. The indigenous people who only have wooden sticks and flint spears cannot deal with them. They can only watch the staple food they rely on for survival dwindling.

Then there is the deadly epidemic. The viral pneumonia in the Santa Clara Valley is just the beginning. In the future, waves of viruses will come one after another until every last one of the 20 Indians in California is wiped out.

In another time and space, in 1806, a measles epidemic struck Indian tribes all along the central coast from San Francisco to Santa Barbara, killing thousands. A few decades later, American fur traders who crossed the Rocky Mountains brought malaria and smallpox to the west. The entire California Valley was deserted for hundreds of miles, and there were bones under every tree near the water.

Even though Mexico would be independent in another thirty years, the missions still controlled this land. Large missions similar to plantations occupied one-sixth of the California territory, and the Indians were still slaves.

Generally speaking, the collision and exchanges between different civilizations will allow inferior civilizations to develop through absorption. Such examples can be said to abound in world history.

The ancient Mediterranean countries accepted the influence of Greek civilization and entered the "Hellenistic" era; the contact between the Gauls and Saxons and Roman culture promoted the formation of European feudalism; after absorbing a large amount of Chinese culture, the Jurchens rose rapidly and even took over. Central Plains.

However, after the Indian civilization came into contact with the white Christian civilization, what happened was a historical tragedy. The civilization died and was eventually assimilated by the "Anglo civilization". It was not until the 20s, with the rise of cultural pluralism, that the cultural conquest of Indians finally came to an end.

"Well, instead of letting you believe in those beasts and being exploited and slaughtered by them by breaking their bones and sucking their marrow, it is better to believe in us. At least we are human beings and will pay reasonable remuneration, provide you with medical treatment and food, and will not let you have your flesh and blood." separation.”

Thinking of this, Zhao Xin was relieved, but he still said with a straight face: "It's just this time, it won't be the same next time."

(End of this chapter)