The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 225 The Naughty Spaniard

The Colorado River is one of the major rivers in North America. It originates from the East Kunlun Mountains (Rocky Mountains) in the west. It is provided with water sources by the melting of large-scale glacial snow. It flows all the way to the southwest and merges with dozens of large and small tributaries, opening up a two-thousand-year-old river. More than a kilometer of winding waterway finally flows into the vast Pacific Ocean.

The upper reaches of the Colorado River have more water and more tributaries, while the middle and lower reaches flow through arid and semi-arid areas, so the water volume gradually decreases and there are not many tributaries. The river water level fluctuates greatly with seasonal changes. The flow rate during the spring and summer flood periods from April to May differs by nearly 4 times from the winter dry season.

Because it flows through arid areas, the river has a high sediment content and the water is dark brown. "Colorado" means "red" in Spanish. Hundreds of millions of tons of sediment enter the sea every year, making it known as the "American Nile".

As early as 1540, Spanish explorer Melcio Díaz became the first explorer to explore and document the Colorado River. But the person who truly conducted an all-round exploration of the river and recorded the hydrological conditions of each section in detail was Cao Boyang, a geological explorer from Qi State.

In the 1714th year of Taiping (), he was entrusted by the Governor-General of Xuanzhou and spent nearly two years traveling along the river mouth to the source of the river - the western mountainous area of ​​the East Kunlun Mountains. He recorded and described the details along the way. Geographical and hydrological information.

After the War of Spanish Succession, Qi ceded Baja California through the Treaty of Madrid signed with Spain, and used the lower reaches of the Colorado River as the dividing line between the two countries.

Oh, by the way, people in Qi called this river Jinsha River. This name sounds more in line with its actual situation.

At this time, it was winter, and the water level in the lower reaches of the Colorado River had dropped to its lowest level, exposing large areas of muddy riverbed. In some shoals, people could even wade directly into the water.

Both sides of the river bank are covered with dense reeds and aquatic plants, and a group of wild ducks happily burrow among them, picking at the fresh grass leaves.

High price and quality!

If you look at it from God's perspective, you will find that from California, to Panama, to the Galapagos Islands, and finally extending to Chiloe Island in Baja Chile, the Qi people have created a "chain" along the west coast of the Americas. If you add in the Strait of Magellan controlled by Qingguo and the island territories dotted in the South Pacific, it can be said that the Spanish's westward passage out of the Pacific was almost blocked.

To a certain extent, this "chain" is also the forward base for Qi to attack the Spanish American territories!
The Spaniards were shocked and frightened by this, but due to their declining power and lack of strength, they had no choice but to silently bear this invisible pressure.

Don't think that since you have money in your pocket, you can fool us with some random things and think of ways to make unintentional money.

"In recent times, the people of Qi have become more disciplined, and there has not been a single out-of-bounds behavior." Lieutenant Pedro de Rivera put down his telescope and said with a smile: "This saves us a lot of trouble! "

"This must be because their government has issued corresponding orders to prohibit all kinds of cross-border behavior so as not to damage the friendship between our two countries." Second Lieutenant Antonio Sebastian Bexay nodded and said: "Such a situation is very important to both of us. For the country, it is the best.”

The Galapagos Islands, located northwest of the Viceroyalty of Peru, were openly occupied by the Qi people on the grounds that they were terra nullius and turned into an important naval base.

Yes, after the 90s, Mexico’s silver production surpassed Peru’s. Although most of them were brought back to the homeland by the Spanish royal family, they were used for the palace's squandering and extravagance, as well as to repay the foreign debts that the Spanish Kingdom could never repay. But a considerable amount of silver is still left in Mexico. In addition to being used to meet local internal budget and defense needs, it is also used to carry out frequent and increasingly large-scale smuggling activities.

Since the beginning of this century, especially after the end of the War of Spanish Succession, the growing trans-Pacific trade has tended to overtake the trans-Atlantic trade, which has also prompted the rise of many port cities on the west coast of the Americas.

However, the arrival of the Qi people is not all bad. At the very least, they brought a steady stream of high-end gadgets through trans-Pacific trade with the Kingdom of Luzon.

Oriental tea, supple silk, exquisite porcelain, precious furs, soft cloth, and a wide variety of industrial products, in a short period of time, made the "country bumpkins" in the Spanish American Territory luxurious The level has improved a lot.

Comparing the goods imported from Spain and other countries on the European continent, it suddenly seemed that the things they purchased over hundreds of years had been cheated by unscrupulous merchants!

Unlike Brazil and Peru, Mexico is both part of the Atlantic world and an important player in the Pacific world, and with the influence of Qi radiating, the entire Mexican economy has shown a kind of abnormal prosperity.

In less than fifty years, Qi defeated Spain twice. Not only were several important ports in the country attacked by Qi naval guns, but even the American territories were beaten to pieces by the Qi people. The south has successively lost large areas such as Patagonia, La Plata, Baja Chile, and the East Coast. The north has taken over Upper California and Baja California. The Panama region in the middle has also been cut off by the Qi people on the Pacific side. Iba, Pearl Islands, and the Azuero Peninsula near the isthmus.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the handicraft industry restricted by the Spanish metropolis fell into continuous decline and stagnation, resulting in its inability to meet the daily needs of the colonial territory. Local Mexican handicrafts and household products once occupied a dominant position. Although these products The production is concentrated in specific areas, notably the Puebla-Tlaxca region, Basio, Michoacán, Guadalajara, urban areas of Oaxaca and villages in certain valleys and highland areas, as well as in Mexico city ​​and surrounding areas, but through many wholesalers, it is still transmitted to most parts of Mexico, meeting the daily needs of some local residents.

A dozen Spanish-Mexican soldiers sat on their horses, holding a pergola with their hands, looking up towards the west bank of the river.

Suddenly, a burst of rapid hoofbeats sounded on the east bank of the river, from far to near. After a while, they approached the river bank, and the hoofbeats also gradually slowed down, and finally stopped on the grass not far from the bank.

Not far away, a group of goats screamed "baa baa" and rushed towards the river impatiently, startling flocks of birds.

Spanish colonists introduced wool into the local traditional cotton spinning process. At the same time, commercial capital entered the textile industry, and immigrant craftsmen and indigenous textile workers from the local area were able to expand production to meet the needs of more Hispanics and other groups. .

"Friendship?" Lieutenant Rivera heard this and couldn't help but reveal a sarcastic smile, "Second Lieutenant Bexel, you underestimated the cunning and ferocity of the Qi people. More than twenty years ago, not only the Baja California area west of the Colorado River was our The sacred territory of the Kingdom of Spain, and even the entire Alta California, is an integral part of Mexico. But what about now? During the dry season of the Colorado River every winter, we have to worry from time to time that the Qi people will cross the border to colonize and infringe on the interests of the Kingdom of Spain. What is this? Oh, God, there is no real friendship between us and the people of Qi!"

Regarding the views of the people of Qi, leaving aside the Spanish mainland, in the Spanish American colonial territories, both local colonial officials and native white people were extremely complicated and... twisted deep down.

In 1680, there were more than forty such workshops in Puebla alone. Traded through a network of markets, sold to lowland areas and even to the mining areas of the north-central region.

However, with the two Zixi Wars and the increasing trans-Pacific trade, the once-thriving Mexican handicrafts and family workshop production model were severely damaged. Cheap and high-quality cotton textiles are flooding into the Mexican market. Whether they are flat fine-grained cotton from Qin or mid-to-high-end printed cotton from Qi, they cannot be competed by local handmade workshops.

It is really unimaginable that even after crossing the vast Pacific Ocean and taking fifty or sixty days on the way, the various commodities imported from Qi and Luzon still have great price advantages!

In less than ten years, the Mexican handicraft industry, including cotton spinning, suffered a devastating blow and went bankrupt one after another, turning the entire Mexico into a raw material supplier and precious metal exporter for the country.

Faced with this situation, both the upper-level colonial officials and the influential large estate owners and businessmen all held an indifferent attitude. Where do these goods come from, and does it matter to them?
Even if the Spanish American market is not eroded by the Qi, it will be occupied by the English, Dutch, or French and Portuguese. It’s all about making things cheaper for foreigners anyway, so why can’t we introduce Qi’s products with a wider range of products, better quality, and extremely cost-effective products?
As for the many bankrupt small handicraftsmen and family producers, who will waste time caring about them?
As the Spanish metropolitan power became increasingly weak, political and social relations in the American territories were also undergoing continuous changes. The royal bureaucracy and local colonial governments increasingly served the interests of the colonial elite.

Starting from the 1960s and 1970s of the last century, local forces gradually took a dominant position in politics and deeply affected Spanish colonial policies and management methods. The Government House and the Inquisition increasingly sought to enter into collusion with elites in colonial territories to seize local commercial and mining interests.

The Spanish royal family was involved in too many European disputes and too many wars, forcing the royal government to frantically seek financial support. During the reign of Philip II, he began to sell officials and titles on a large scale, and the scope continued to expand. In this way, native whites in colonial territories were able to obtain senior governorships and gradually establish local family monopolies.

Senior colonial officials who were born in Spain would also establish their own industries within their jurisdictions through marriages with local elite families, once again weakening Spain's control over colonial territories.

Originally a defender of Castilian absolutism, the Inquisition gradually became a defense agency serving interest groups based in the Americas.

It can be said that as long as the strength of the sovereign state is still relatively weak, it is Mexico City, not the Madrid government, that actually controls New Spain.

Of course, this does not mean that the Kingdom of Spain has lost control of its overseas territories. The authority of the royal family has never been seriously challenged, and the close relationship between the court and the governor's palace ensured the support of the ecclesiastical authority for the royal power.

In addition, the long-term threat to Spain's American territories from ambitious countries also made it necessary to maintain close ties between the colonial territories and the Spanish government, relying on them as backing.

The Qi people, the English, the French, the Dutch, and even the Portuguese in Brazil were all eyeing the Spanish American territory, and they all wanted to pounce on it and get a piece of the pie.

With the weak military force of the colonial territories, it was naturally impossible to deal with the covetousness of the above-mentioned powers one by one. Only by staying close to the sovereign country, Spain, could the vital interests and existing power of the colonies be preserved.

In order to strengthen the control of the colonial territories and to better maintain the import of precious metals, the Spanish government slowly launched a time-consuming and labor-intensive reform to adjust the government structure and operating methods of the mainland and the entire empire.

This process began after the end of the First Zixi War. At that time, Spain, as a world power, had just experienced the worst ten years. Its industry and commerce were in decline, it was isolated diplomatically, and it was attacked by a country thousands of miles away. came and ravaged its American territory wantonly.

The Kingdom of Spain had reached a point where it had to reform.

After the War of Spanish Succession, the French Bourbon royal family established its branch in Madrid, and the intensity of reforms was strengthened. Felipe V tried to establish a French-style supervisory system in the Iberian Peninsula. Through a series of administrative and commercial reform measures, he tried his best to strengthen centralization and make Spain a more effective colonial government.

In 1720, Spain rationalized the taxation of American trade and established a formal tariff system. Qi State responded positively to this and took the lead in signing the "Inter-American Free Trade Agreement" with the Spanish government. The two parties agreed on "reasonable" tariff rates for imported and exported goods, transforming the previously rampant smuggling trade into legal bilateral trade.

In order to combat smuggling and piracy (mainly to exclude the entry of other countries' forces and goods), Qi also formed a small Pacific joint fleet with Spain to patrol the west coast of the Americas from time to time to detect smuggling merchant ships and kill pirates. Safeguard the common commercial interests of both countries.

In addition, as Qi's colonial power extended to the lower reaches of the Colorado River, the two countries also reached a rare consensus when dealing with the resistance of the Indians in the northwest, and began to cooperate to kill these rebellious natives.

In the 17s, before the Qi people entered the North American continent, the local Indians clearly opposed the presence of any Spanish influence in the entire northern "frontier" and northwest regions, whether in villages, mines, forts or missionary points.

During the First Qisi War, the Qis invaded several ports and villages on the west coast of Mexico. They not only completely looted the Spanish settlements, but also "lost" a large amount of weapons to the Indian tribes and villages. This also caused the Indian uprisings in 1689 and between 1696 and 1697 to spread wider and become more difficult to extinguish.

However, those who stir up shit will eventually be splashed with shit.

After Qi State ceded Baja California from the Spanish Kingdom, a large number of Indians who had been driven out by the two countries gathered in this very uninhabitable peninsula, numbering between 20,000 and 30,000 people. They took up arms and bravely resisted the colonial actions of the Qi people, destroying the immigrants' crops, killing the immigrants' cattle and sheep, and even attacked the immigrant settlements and tortured the immigrants. For a time, the Qi people were devastated.

The main demands of these Indians' resistance were to seek tribal autonomy and land use rights, to protect their own living habits and religious rituals, and to seek alliances with tribes that were not neighboring before.

This move was naturally rejected by the people of Qi State. Under the principle they believed in, "Everything in the world is the king's land; and the land is the king's ministers." How could local indigenous people be allowed to achieve tribal alliances and seek autonomy? , out of control?
Therefore, the people of Qi did not hesitate to raise their butcher's knives in an attempt to tame these barbarian tribes who "did not submit to the king's rule". Several rounds of militia were mobilized to clear out the Indians and drive them across the Colorado River into Mexican territory.

I was already troubled by the frequent Indian uprisings in the Great Apache region (now west of Texas and east of the Colorado River), but I discovered that tens of thousands more Indians had arrived from Baja California, which immediately made the Mexican colonial government furious. .

Co-author, you Qi people drove all the thugs here to scare us Spaniards!

After some consultations and negotiations, the two sides decided to jointly deal with the Indians in the border areas between the two countries, and were obliged to cooperate with each other in taking necessary military actions to prevent Indian attacks on their respective settlements.

The two countries established military strongholds on both sides of the Colorado River, Fort Fuyuan (now the town of Vicente Guerrero, Mexico) and San Javier (now the city of Yuma, the United States), where hundreds of armed soldiers were stationed for a long time ( Rural soldiers), working together to eliminate Indian resistance forces in nearby areas.

A few years ago, in order to jointly attack England, the two countries once formed a de facto military alliance. In the Mediterranean, North Atlantic, Caribbean and other regions, the two armies provided military support and assistance to each other, causing the relationship between the two sides to change. I love you so much that our fight became passionate for a while.

After the two sides reached a cooperation agreement on the Panama Isthmus Railway, the Qi people also proposed a joint venture to build a railway from Acapulco to Mexico City in order to further promote the development of Western Pacific trade.

However, the Spaniards were hesitant about this.

If one day Qi and Xi become enemies and war breaks out again, wouldn't the Qi people be able to quickly rush to Mexico City along the railway and bring down the colonial government without even having time to react?

Well, think about it again.

At the very least, once the Panama Isthmus Railway is repaired, it won’t be too late for us to make a decision.

(End of this chapter)