Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 132 Navy
In early November 1868, in Joinville, more than fifty large and small merchant ships gathered at the port. Off the coast of the port, an ironclad ship led a battle fleet of twelve sailing warships and fifteen gunboats, setting sail.

After the treaty was signed, the Chinese Independence Army's ground forces withdrew from the land they belonged to in accordance with the treaty's provisions, and the navy deployed half of its ships to transport Chinese workers.

According to the agreement, the ships for transporting the Chinese workers were to be provided by Brazil. However, the news from Cuba was not optimistic. In order to complete the task of transporting the Chinese workers as soon as possible, Li Mingyuan ordered the Chinese Independence Army fleet to participate in the transportation work together with the Brazilian fleet.

On October 1868, 10, C.M. de Cespedes, a plantation owner in Oriente Province of the Cuban colony, launched an uprising in the village of Yala. On October 10, he issued the "Declaration of the Cuban Revolutionary Committee to Compatriots and Peoples of All Countries", which called on the Cuban people to immediately launch an armed uprising to fight for Cuban independence and equality and freedom of the people, and put forward the demand for the liberation of slaves.

After the declaration was issued, Cuban blacks, slaves, mixed-race people and plantation owners responded to the call and joined the uprising.

The rebel army quickly grew to 1.2 men, and they successively captured the towns of Yala, Baire, Higuani, Bayamo and others, and headed straight for Santiago, an important town in the eastern part of Cuba.

Influenced by the successive victories of the rebels, armed uprisings also broke out in Camaguey and Las Villas provinces.

In just over twenty days, the Cuban uprising intensified, and some Chinese workers, as a large group of Cuban workers, began to join the riots.

The Spanish colonists' poor response to the early stages of the Cuban uprising caused the situation to worsen, but once support troops from mainland Spain arrived in Cuba, the seemingly powerful rebels would be wiped out one by one.

The chaotic situation in Cuba had nothing to do with the Chinese Independence Army, but after the Spanish colonists put down the rebellion, they would certainly intensify their crackdown on the slaves and Chinese laborers who participated in the rebellion. In this way, the move to introduce Chinese workers to Cuba would be affected.

Therefore, the most urgent task at hand was to bring the Chinese workers back to the Rio Grande do Sul region before they participated in the rebellion on a large scale.

From the late 16th century to the mid-17th century, approximately 10,000 Chinese came to South America from Manila. Most of them stayed in Peru and Cuba, while a small number drifted to other places.

The Spanish-controlled Manila colony was closest to the mainland, and it was easier for them to obtain laborers than Britain, France and other countries. After more than three hundred years, all the early Chinese who came to South America died in mines and plantations. The increasing number of laborers who came later slowly adapted to the local environment and survived, but they still could not gain freedom and continued to work in various forms of selling their bodies.

So far, there are about 1868 Chinese workers in Cuba. After the Cuban Uprising broke out in , a large number of oppressed Chinese workers joined the rebel forces and fought against the Spanish army. After the uprising failed, a large number of blacks, Indians and Chinese workers who participated in the riots were executed. After Cuba gained independence with the support of the United States, the political status of the workers who participated in independence did not improve at all. The land and wealth of some freed Chinese workers were confiscated by the newly established Cuban government, and the Chinese workers who lost their freedom still had no right to choose.

In 1911, sixteen years after the establishment of the new Cuban government, there were only a few hundred Chinese workers left. Cuba went from being the country with the largest Chinese population to the country with the smallest Chinese population in the Americas.

As for the missing Chinese workers, some fled to other areas, while others slowly disappeared in Cuba’s dense rubber plantations.

Compared with the Chinese in Cuba, the fate of the Chinese workers in Peru was much more fortunate. Li Mingyuan led them to obtain their own land, and some Chinese soldiers had found wives and settled down. Facing the Chinese workers in Cuba on the other side of the South American continent, Li Mingyuan extended a helping hand to them. More than 50 ocean-going merchant ships and more than ten warships formed the first transport fleet. A month later, hired British and Dutch merchant ships will form a larger fleet to participate in the transportation.

Hiring the British fleet was an agreement reached between Liu Pu and the British representatives during the negotiations. After the negotiations were concluded, Liu Pu, in accordance with Li Mingyuan's instructions, proposed the transaction conditions of purchasing two 3,500-ton ironclad ships from the UK and hiring British merchant ships in addition to purchasing a large number of material orders.

When Li Mingyuan instructed Liu Pu to propose the above conditions, he was just trying it out. Unexpectedly, the British representative readily agreed as soon as Liu Pu proposed them.

After Liu Pu came back, he relayed the words of the British representative to Li Mingyuan. Li Mingyuan suddenly realized that the British Empire was currently in a stage of rapid development and it still had a long way to go before becoming the absolute overlord in the early twentieth century. Li Mingyuan was worried that the British would impose a technological blockade on the Chinese Independence Army and would not sell ironclad ships to the Chinese Independence Army. But on second thought, the Chinese Independence Army controlled two states with a population of only one or two hundred thousand. With such a scale and strength, the British would not regard it as a threat at all.

After all, several South American countries fought for territory, but they were just playing house with weapons obsolete by Europeans. Just sending a few regular regiments of troops could sweep across the South American powers. Even the United States across the ocean was no match for the British regular army. A few years ago, the United States felt that it had no rivals in North America and became ambitious to attack Canada, but was severely beaten by the British troops stationed in Canada. Even the capital, the White House, was burned down by the British army.

The British agreed to sell warships and were willing to hire merchant ships to them, and Li Mingyuan was happy to accept.

Ten large British merchant ships, thirty medium-sized merchant ships, and fifteen medium-sized merchant ships provided by the Netherlands, a total of forty-five ships can transport 17,000 people one way. Together with the second batch of ships left by the Chinese Independence Army, it would not be a problem to transport 23,000 people quickly at a time.

The Chinese Independence Army paid a heavy price for hiring a large number of merchant ships within a month. Liu Pu brought British business representatives back to Rio Grande do Sul from Brazil and handed over ten tons of gold in Rio Grande as a deposit for hiring a fleet and purchasing warships and supplies.

At this time, the British currency, the pound sterling, was already pegged to gold. The Chinese Independence Army directly offered gold for trading. The British were very happy and did not ask stupid questions about the origin of gold. They immediately contacted merchant ships to gather at the location designated by the Chinese.

After calculating all the expenses for purchasing machinery, buying warships, and hiring merchant ships, more than half of the gold reserves of the Chinese Independence Army had been spent, and another large sum of money would be spent on resettling the Cuban Chinese workers. All these expenses were spent like water, and the issue of new sources of funds became an important issue that Li Mingyuan had to consider.

After watching the first fleet leave the port, Li Mingyuan temporarily put aside the issue of opening up new sources of income and entered the Joinvia port under construction with Liu Pu and others.

There are five large and small ports along the coast of Santa Catarina State. Among them, Joinville and Florianopolis on Santa Catarina Island have better hydrological environments and are suitable for construction as naval bases for the Chinese Independence Army.

After the Battle of Joinville and the intensive training for nearly half a year, the Chinese Independence Army Navy is now ready to be officially formed. The Navy will be officially formed after completing the transportation of Cuban Chinese workers. Prior to this, the three ports of Porto Alegre, Joinville and Florianopolis were built as naval bases. The main naval force was docked in Porto Alegre to guard the maritime security of the Chinese Independence Army headquarters. Joinville and Florianopolis were used as naval sub-bases, and certain warships were deployed to perform security tasks. At the same time, the formal Marine Corps base was located in Joinville.

The area under construction in the port of Ifinvia consisted of a Marine camp, except for the defensive facilities destroyed by artillery fire.

There are many people in the Chinese Independence Army who are familiar with water, but not many of them can serve as senior naval commanders. Among the navy, Chen Sen is barely qualified, but his military achievements and qualifications are not high, so Li Mingyuan sent him to the Caribbean to try to command a fleet on his own. If he performs well, he will have a position in the officially established navy's senior leadership.

Chen Sen could not return from the Caribbean in a short time, so naval affairs were temporarily handed over to Liu Pu, while the soon-to-be-formed Marine Corps was handed over to Feng Guoan, whose original name was Feng Erhu. He served as the regiment commander in the Chinese Independence Army.

Feng Erhu fought steadily and decisively, which was quite different from his name, so Li Mingyuan changed his name to Feng Guoan.

Li Mingyuan inspected the progress of the construction of the Ruinvia Port, and Feng Guoan followed him. After inspecting the port's artillery, they came to a coastal camp near the sea, where hundreds of Chinese soldiers were training against the current in the sea.

"Sir, the one hundred or so soldiers in front of Hailang are veterans of the frogman unit, and the three hundred soldiers behind are new recruits who have been training for three months. This is the total number of soldiers in the Marine Corps. There is still a gap of two hundred soldiers from the six hundred you requested."

Feng Guoan saw that Li Mingyuan was concentrating on the soldiers training in the sea and took the opportunity to complain.

"If you don't have enough soldiers, go recruit them. Do I need to teach you about this?"

Li Mingyuan said without even turning his head.

"Your Highness, to tell you the truth, I have been running around with my own army to recruit soldiers, but no matter how much I have said, I have not been able to recruit the number of people that meet your requirements.

If the Crown Prince had not come to inspect the base today, I would have come to you in person to report tonight."

"Oh, don't other troops allow you to recruit their soldiers?"

Li Mingyuan turned his head and smiled.

Before Feng Guoan could speak, Liu Pu replied with a smile, "I know something about the Marine Corps' recruitment.

Commander Feng followed the order of the Crown Prince to recruit soldiers for four divisions and three mixed brigades. At first, the commanders of each unit were quite cooperative. Later, Commander Feng took out a training plan from somewhere and selected soldiers according to the standards in the training plan. As a result, the commanders of each unit were not happy about it. Not only did they not allow Commander Feng to recruit soldiers in the unit, they also sent a report to me. "

"What training book are you holding?" Li Mingyuan sensed something fishy.

"It is the training book that the prince gave me. I did it according to his instructions."

Li Mingyuan looked at Feng Guoan, saw an unnatural look in his eyes, and understood the truth of the matter.

"Commander Feng, you are taking the training plan I arranged for the frogman unit as the recruitment standard, right?"

Feng Guoan nodded and did not deny it.

"You asked me for the frogman training plan, but I didn't expect you to use it for recruiting." Li Mingyuan found it a little funny. Feng Guoan used the frogman standard to recruit soldiers. No wonder the commanders of other troops were unwilling. The elite soldiers of each unit were precious. If they were all poached by Feng Guoan alone, how could they manage the troops?

"How about this, return 100 of the recruited soldiers to their original units, and I will transfer 100 soldiers from the Guards Regiment, the First Mixed Brigade, and the Second Mixed Brigade to you, first recruit the full 600-man quota."

"Prince!" Feng Guoan opened his mouth to object, but was stopped by Li Mingyuan's words, "Alright, this matter ends here. If you object again, I will return all the soldiers you have recruited and let you recruit new ones!"

Feng Guoan hurriedly stopped talking, as his recruitment of soldiers caused dissatisfaction among the chief officers of various departments. If he recruited soldiers again, they would not let him choose at will.

The matter of Feng Guoan was just a minor episode. After inspecting Ifinvia, Li Mingyuan returned to his residence and continued to be busy with the resettlement issues in the newly occupied areas.

(End of this chapter)