Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 215 1878 Part
ps: Thanks to Xiaobaicaidui Mushroom for giving 10000 Qidian coins! Two more chapters
Unlike the IDF, which paid a huge price to acquire the newly occupied territories, Lopez Jr. took advantage of the situation and, while the IDF was holding back the Brazilian army, he occupied Mato Grosso do Sul and Misiones Province in Argentina, nearly doubling the country's territory with only a small amount of manpower.

Lopez Jr.'s actions were certainly based on considerations of national interests, but in the eyes of many IDF generals it was a betrayal of the IDF. Not only did Paraguay stand idly by when the IDF was in the most critical moment, but after the IDF achieved a decisive victory, it took the opportunity to occupy Argentina's Misiones Province.

As the leader of the Quad Alliance, Lopez Jr. failed to fulfill his responsibilities as an ally after Brazil declared war on Rio Grande do Sul.

Lopez Jr.'s performance in the war caused a rift in the bilateral relationship, so the National Defense Forces did not participate in the battle between the Brazilian and Paraguayan armies in Magrosso do Sul.

South America gradually returned to calm after the end of the melee. After the King of Prussia proclaimed himself emperor, Britain was busy helping France out of the crisis and doing various things to prevent Germany from dominating Europe. Regarding the chaos in South America, after the British government made a resolution to veto direct military intervention, it increased its support for Brazil and Chile to balance the strength of Paraguay and Rio Grande do Sul.

The National Defense Force once again won a great victory in foreign wars. Its influence among overseas Chinese became increasingly greater. Overseas Chinese such as Chen Jinzhong, Hu Yaji, and Zhang Fanglin joined Rio Grande do Sul under the recruitment of the National Defense Force branches such as the Taiping Society.
Huang Naishang, Xi Zhengpu, Wu Diaoqing and other talents from the mainland also agreed to join Rio Grande do Sul under the persuasion and arrangement of the heads of the National Defense Army's bases on the mainland, and served the National Defense Army in the southern concessions of the mainland as foreign compradors.

The gold that Li Mingyuan had obtained was completely consumed in the war, while the vigorously developed rubber industry and new industries and new products such as bicycles, water pressure wells, and rubber-soled cloth shoes quickly became the main source of funds for the Rio Grande do Sul government. From the end of the large-scale war in late 1870 to Li Mingyuan's title as King of Han in 1875, the domestic rubber industry and related products had always been in a monopoly position, providing the main economic support for large-scale immigration operations.

Starting from 1875, European businessmen continued to secretly smuggle rubber seeds from China and Brazil and transplant them to Southeast Asia and other places, and some imitation Chinese-style bicycles began to appear on the market.

Li Mingyuan understood that Han alone could not stop the development of the rubber industry and the spread of bicycle technology. Therefore, Li Mingyuan used the rubber sources and bicycle patented technology under his control to exchange for recognition of Han from various countries and their agreement to engage in economic and diplomatic cooperation with Han.

After allowing Britain, France, Germany and other countries to obtain rubber seeds from the Han Dynasty and transplant them to their colonies, the Han Dynasty's advantages in the rubber industry did not disappear in a short period of time. On the contrary, due to the development of the third industrial revolution, the use of rubber was expanded, and the Han Dynasty's revenue from the rubber industry also showed a rapid upward trend.

In 1875, Li Mingyuan announced the establishment of the Han Kingdom, which was independent of Brazil. The Chinese in South America officially had an independent national identity. In the mainland, from the beginning of the year, Shanxi, Shandong, Hebei, Shaanxi, and Henan successively suffered from rare large-scale droughts. The drought continued to spread throughout North China. From 1875 to 1878, more than million people starved to death due to lack of food, and more than million people fled to other places. The Qing officials who were responsible for providing relief to the victims made a fortune in the famine, embezzled relief food and silver, occupied the land of the victims, and sold the victims who had nothing to work overseas. In all these ways, the Qing officials used the famine to make a lot of wealth, and some usurers who colluded with the officials also made a lot of money. One debt was worth three harvests. Although the poor harvest brought disasters to ordinary people, it brought officials and businessmen more opportunities to make money than in the years of bumper harvests.

Natural disasters and man-made disasters caused a great famine that swept across half of China. After Li Mingyuan, who was far away in South America, received the news, he immediately ordered merchant ships belonging to the Han Ocean Shipping Company and the Four Countries Shipping Company to go to the Far East to receive refugees.

After five or six years of expansion, the original Rio Grande do Sul Shipping Company had a scale of 300 ships, of which more than half had a displacement of 1,000 tons, capable of transporting 100,000 immigrants in a round trip. Moreover, due to the cooperative relationships accumulated over the years between immigrants and other countries, the Han State could hire more ships to transport refugees.

The huge fleets either set out from South America or were hired from local Chinese merchants in Southeast Asia to transport batches of refugees from the mainland to northern Annam or the Natuna Islands, and then another fleet transported the refugees to South America.

After nearly four years of cost-effective operations to transport Chinese refugees, the Chinese population in Han country surged to 520 million. Together with about 530 white Argentines willing to naturalize, the total population of Han country exceeded million, exceeding that of Argentina, which had lost its northern provinces. In southern South America, its population is second only to Brazil and Peru, making it a veritable populous country in South America.

Because there were too many people affected by the disaster in the mainland, in addition to the Han refugees who directly immigrated to South America, a large number of refugees were also stranded in the two northern provinces of Annan and the Natuna Islands controlled by the National Defense Force.

The total population of Quang Ninh and Lang Son provinces in northern Annam was only over 1878. After receiving refugees from the mainland, the population reached a maximum of two million. Even though the refugees were continuously transported to South America, by the beginning of 130, the number of refugees left was more than . The population of the small Quang Ninh and Lang Son provinces exceeded million.

Guangning and Lang Son were the bridgeheads and Nanyang immigration bases for obtaining immigrants from the mainland. The large number of refugees gathered there had attracted the attention of the Qing government, and the news of a new Chinese country emerging in South America had also reached the ears of the Qing high-level officials through various channels. The Han Kingdom had encountered many obstructions from the Qing government in the process of receiving refugees. If it were not for the serious corruption of Qing government officials, accepting bribes from the responsible persons of the Han Kingdom in the mainland, and the Qing government high-level officials' fear that tens of millions of refugees would accumulate in the country and trigger another Taiping Heavenly Kingdom-style uprising, the Han Kingdom would not have been able to obtain such a large number of immigrants in four years. Five million people is the maximum population that the South American Han Kingdom can currently bear. In order to transport refugees from the Far East to South America, Li Mingyuan not only consumed all the wealth accumulated in the ten years since the founding of the country, but also issued a national debt to domestic and overseas Chinese businessmen to complete the transportation and resettlement of refugees.

If the South American Han Kingdom wants to grow and develop, it needs to obtain a steady supply of population from the Far East. Therefore, although the South American Han Kingdom cannot absorb the excess population at this stage, Li Mingyuan has no intention of giving up the plan of recruiting Chinese. After careful consideration, Li Mingyuan ordered Mei Dongxing, who succeeded Sun Bin in charge of the affairs of the two northern provinces of Annan, to transfer the excess population in the controlled area to Songkhla, Yala, Pattani, Kelantan and other places in the central Malay Peninsula to increase the proportion of Chinese there.

Like Long Hongbang, Mei Dongxing was the leader of a Chinese labor gang from Australia. After choosing to join Li Mingyuan, Mei Dongxing and his other good friend Huang Wenzhu did not choose to join the army, but started as low-level civil servants to assist Long Hongbang in handling Chinese labor immigration affairs. Later, they were transferred to the Annan region and were under the jurisdiction of Sun Bin. Due to Mei Dongxing's outstanding performance in the Annan region, he was gradually promoted to Sun Bin's deputy. After Sun Bin left Annan in 1877, he recommended Mei Dongxing as the Governor-General of Nanyang and was recognized by Li Mingyuan. Mei Dongxing also became the fastest promoted person in the Han country who did not follow Li Mingyuan in the uprising.

Mei Dongxing had just taken up an important position. After receiving Li Mingyuan's order, he did not dare to slack off. He sent people to communicate with Songkhla City Lord Wu Jin, while carefully studying the situation on the Malay Peninsula.

Although the central part of the Malay Peninsula is nominally under the jurisdiction of Thailand, it is actually ruled by the Wu clan.

Since the Wu clan's ancestor Wu Rang ruled Songkhla in 1775, the Wu clan's rule has continued to expand. During the most prosperous period of its rule,

The Wu family not only ruled Songkhla, but also ruled the three provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala in Thailand, as well as the four states of Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah and Perlis in Malaysia, all of which were also under their control.

As British forces invaded the Malay Peninsula, the areas ruled by the Wu family were constantly encroached upon by British colonists. By 1878, the Wu family had lost control of Kedah, Perlis and Terengganu, and the remaining areas such as Kelantan and Pattani also faced the threat of force from British colonists.

The Wu regime had a small area and was later divided up by Britain and Thailand. This was not only because Britain and Thailand reached an agreement on the division of power between the two countries on the Malay Peninsula, but also because the Wu regime itself was weak.

Like other Chinese regimes established in Southeast Asia, the Wu regime did not receive support and protection from its mainland motherland. Its nominal overlord, Thailand, had always wanted to eliminate the independence and separatist nature of the Wu regime. The Wu regime lacked talented and ambitious successors, so it could only survive in the cracks between the big powers and was eventually divided up and annexed by other countries.

The Chinese regimes in Southeast Asia such as Ha Tien, Dai Yen and Sun Thap perished one after another. The only two remaining Chinese regimes, the Wu regime, were on the verge of collapse. The Lan Fang Company, which had surrendered to the Dutch, had lost its independence. Without the intervention of external forces, it would have been easily destroyed by the Dutch.

Wu Jin, the current city lord of the Wu regime, is considered to be one of the more capable city lords of Songkhla. Therefore, after seeing the dangerous situation faced by the Wu regime, Wu Jin has been looking for support from external forces. At first, Wu Jin bribed several Qing officials and sought protection from the Qing court through them, but he never received a response, and his attempts to improve relations with the Thai government were also unsuccessful.

Just when Wu Jin had sought protection from other forces in vain, people sent by Sun Bin contacted him. Then, a few years later, the South American Han Kingdom behind Sun Bin gradually developed, and the military, intelligence and other forces of the National Defense Force in Southeast Asia steadily improved. This change gave Wu Jin hope of maintaining the survival of the regime. So, based on the initial business cooperation between the two parties, Wu Jin continued to increase cooperation with Sun Bin. Not only did he allow the South American Han Kingdom to expand the scale of its trading posts in Songkhla and other places, but in 1876, the two parties also signed a military agreement. The National Defense Force sent soldiers to be stationed in Kelantan, which was under the jurisdiction of the Wu regime. On the one hand, they guarded against the expansion of British colonial forces, and on the other hand, they were responsible for maintaining the safety of the Han Kingdom's ocean-going fleet and providing another supply point and transit base for the immigrant fleet in Southeast Asia.

It took about two days for the messenger to travel by boat from Jinpu, the headquarters of the Governor-General of the South Seas of the National Defense Army, to Songka. After sending the messenger, Mei Dongxing soon received news that Li Wencai, a former Taiping Army general, had arrived in Jinpu.

(End of this chapter)