Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 241 Patagonia III
ps: Thanks to classmates xiaobaicaidunmushu and 20180206182936207 for their support!

I have two exams next week, so I will have to stop updating for at least a week. Sorry.

After the Antonio conflict, relations between the Mapuche and the white Argentines became tense again. On April 12, Argentina imposed an economic blockade on the Patagonian Indians and closed trade channels in the border areas controlled by both sides.

On April 13, Ilia agreed to Ye Chenglin's request and led the only 17 remaining young and strong men in the tribe to join the mixed corps.

On April 15, feeling the hostility from Argentina, the chiefs of various Patagonian tribes began to mobilize young and strong people in their tribes to join Ye Chenglin's troops. As a result, the recruitment work that had been stagnant in the early stage was quickly carried out.

In Sierra Grande, the temporary base of the National Defense Force's Patagonia Corps, Ye Chenglin looked at the letters handed over by the chiefs of various tribes with a satisfied smile on his face.

The Patagonian Indians had been dealing with the Spanish whites for hundreds of years, and they had learned a lot about Western society from the Spaniards. If they were still treated as uncivilized savages, the task of establishing the Patagonian Mixed Corps would never be accomplished.

The Han Dynasty's military strength in Patagonia was only a 151-man infantry company and transferred officers.

Relying on a force of less than two hundred men as support, Ye Chenglin encountered many difficulties in his early recruitment work in Patagonia.

First of all, the chiefs, who were the upper class of the tribe, were worried that sending young and strong tribesmen to join the troops affiliated with the Han State might destroy the peace between the two sides and lead to the outbreak of war again. Therefore, although they respected Li Mingyuan as the King of Patagonia on the surface, they were actually unwilling to cooperate with the actions of the National Defense Forces.

Secondly, the Patagonian Indian military armed forces are composed of small and medium-sized tribes, and the core combat power of the armed forces is tribal warriors like Iria. Without their recognition, even if the thirteen Indian chiefs fully surrender to the Han Dynasty, it will be difficult for Ye Chenglin to recruit enough soldiers from the Patagonian Indian tribes.

When Iria and his two companions clashed with the Argentine white man, the simplest solution was to be patient for a while and have the incident resolved in exchange for Iria and his companions' concession and apology. However, when Ye Chenglin arrived at the scene, facing a situation that was still under control, he chose the most drastic response method. Without giving the other party a chance to react, he directly ordered the two subordinates who followed him to shoot and kill the provocative Argentine white man.

Ye Chenglin's seemingly reckless behavior actually had a lot of meaning. According to the situation at the time, the three people rushed to the scene to help them out, and they would be grateful to Iria and others, but this result was not what Ye Chenglin wanted. Li Mingyuan's order to him was to control the situation in Patagonia and try to control the local Indian armed forces in the hands of the National Defense Force. Simply helping others to do good things for the sake of good for me was not in the interests of the Han country.

After occupying Argentina, Patagonia will certainly be incorporated into the Han Kingdom as a native territory. At that time, the Indian chiefs who originally hoped to use the Han Kingdom to resist the invasion of Argentina are likely to become obstacles to the Han Kingdom's control of Patagonia. Therefore, in the name of resisting the invasion of Argentina, the young and strong Argentines distributed in various tribes are concentrated under the control of the National Defense Army. On the one hand, the military strength of the Indian chiefs is weakened. On the other hand, the assembled Indian young and strong will inevitably suffer a large number of casualties in the war to unify Argentina next year. In this way, the young and strong who are the core of the Patagonian Indians suffered heavy losses, and the remaining old, weak, women and children and the chiefs who lack armed support lost their reliance on resisting the Han Kingdom, and the process of the Han Kingdom controlling Patagonia will also be much smoother.

Population was one of the main reasons for the outbreak of the war. Because the Patagonian desert was inhabited by native Indians, the white people in Argentina and Chile could only choose to reduce or eliminate the Indians in order to seize land. The Han State also wanted to occupy Patagonia permanently. In order to achieve this goal, artificially creating wars and reducing the Indian population was the simplest and most effective method.

The way the Han controlled Patagonia was essentially no different from that of the white people in Argentina. It was just that because the Patagonian Indians looked closer to the Han people than other Indians and their population was small, Li Mingyuan chose to accept them through limited integration and artificial population reduction, giving them a fairly suitable result.

Ye Chenglin carefully considered the hints in Li Mingyuan's order and made careful arrangements for various affairs not only to complete the task, but also to leave an impression on Li Mingyuan that he was steady and capable of handling complex affairs independently, thereby surpassing Wu Fengdian and Chen Zongbai and gaining the advantage of serving as the commander of the 4th Division of the National Defense Force.

Chen Guozhu and other old generals retired. Among the four main divisions of the National Defense Force, the position of commander of the Second Division was taken over by the former special forces commander Zhao Yongzeng. The position of commander of the Third Division was temporarily vacant, but the affairs of the Third Division were all in the charge of deputy commander Wang Xiaoshan. According to the relationship between Wang Dashan and Wang Xiaoshan as Li Mingyuan's youth guards, the position of commander of the Third Division would be held by either Wang Dashan or Wang Xiaoshan. Wang Dashan had served in the Nanyang Corps for a long time, and there was no news within the National Defense Force that he would be transferred back to the mainland. Therefore, the most likely candidate to take over the position of commander of the Third Division is Wang Xiaoshan. As for Wang Dashan, he might be transferred back to the mainland after the end of the Argentine War.

Excluding the positions of commander of the Second and Third Divisions which have already been filled, the commander of the First Division is transferred to Luo Linshan, the former commander of the Fourth Division. Among the four field divisions of the National Defense Army, only the position of commander of the Fourth Division is vacant, and the most likely candidates for the position of commander of the Fourth Division are Ye Chenglin, Wu Fengdian and Chen Zongbai.

Needless to say, before taking charge of Patagonia affairs, Ye Chenglin once served as deputy commander of the 1st Mixed Brigade of the National Defense Army with the rank of colonel. After Chen Zongbai and Wu Fengdian were transferred to the mainland, they successively served as battalion commander, regiment commander, deputy commander of the mixed brigade, and brigade commander, with the same rank as Ye Chenglin.

The first of the three to be promoted to the rank of colonel was Chen Zongbai, who served as the commander of the Second Mixed Brigade in 1874 and was promoted to colonel. Wu Fengdian and Ye Chenglin were promoted to the rank of colonel one year later than Chen Zongbai.

Chen Zongbai, Ye Chenglin and Wu Fengdian have similar qualifications. Chen Zongbai and Wu Fengdian have more opportunities to come into contact with Li Mingyuan because they serve in the local area, while Ye Chenglin is far away in Patagonia. The National Defense Force under his command has only one or two hundred people. The situation he faces is much more complicated than that of Chen Zongbai and Wu Fengdian. Correspondingly, if Ye Chenglin can command the mixed forces in Patagonia and achieve good results, his competitive advantage will be more obvious.

(End of this chapter)