Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 422 Untitled
As night falls and the lights come on, the Chang'an Imperial Palace at night may not be as magnificent as it is during the day, but it has a different kind of quiet and peaceful beauty.

After a busy day of government affairs, Li Mingyuan was tired both physically and mentally. However, when he thought of a recent happy event, his mood improved a lot.

The virtuous concubine who entered the palace in March last year is pregnant. In another ten months, another baby with Li family blood will be born. By then, the Han royal family will also welcome a new prince or princess.

Concubine Xian was born into a noble family of the Brazilian Empire. Her father Silva was the fourth son of the Marquis of Calaveras, a founding father of the Brazilian Empire.

In 1831, Pedro I, the first emperor of the Brazilian Empire, abdicated. On the same day, the parliament elected Marquis of Calaveras, Campos, Lima and others as representatives to form a Regency Committee to exercise temporary control over the country.

Shortly after becoming a member of the Regency Council, the Marquis of Calaveras was eliminated because he opposed the abolition of the primogeniture system and fell out with other members of the Regency Council. Since then, the family of the Marquis of Calaveras has been constantly suppressed by emerging forces, and the family's political status has plummeted.

In 1879, when Pedro II was deposed by republican officials and coup officers, the declining Calaveras family also changed. The direct family members, led by the new marquis, moved to northern Brazil to express their loyalty to Pedro II's daughter, Princess Isabella. Other collateral family members, like Silva, chose to stay in their estate in São Paulo State and watch the development of the situation in the Republic of Brazil.

In February 1885, in order to gain support from the international community and ease conflicts between different ethnic groups in the country, the Brazilian government promulgated the Free Infant Law, declaring that mixed-race children would be given the same political status as white babies and encouraging intermarriage between whites and blacks.

The original intention of the Brazilian government officials to promulgate the "Free Baby Law" was still to discriminate against black people. However, unlike the isolation and expulsion measures taken by the United States, China and other countries, the Brazilian Republic tried to dilute the genes of black people through intermarriage, thereby achieving the so-called racial whitening goal.

Perhaps influenced by Darwin's "Origin of Species", officials of the Brazilian government firmly believed that by doing so, they could dilute the black bloodline, and after several generations of combination, the black genes might even disappear.

Unsurprisingly, the executive order issued by the Brazilian Republican Government was welcomed by the majority of black Brazilians. The blacks, whose total number is nearly twice that of white Brazilians, celebrated the government's great decision with great enthusiasm. However, after the failure of their protest, most of the Portuguese nobles who had reluctantly stayed and suffered oppression from Republican officials chose to leave the land where they had lived for hundreds of years and migrate to northern Brazil, the United States, Canada and other regions.

The Free Babies Law triggered another wave of population migration in Brazil, but it was different from the large-scale population migration during the two Argentine wars because the main force of the latter migrants were upper-class aristocrats who had lost political power. Therefore, the number of migrants was less than 10,000, far from comparable to the scale of previous population migrations.

The Brazilian Republican government was happy to see the backward and corrupt nobles leave. Without the constraints and disruptions of the old nobles, the Republican government would be able to implement the so-called enlightened policies according to their wishes.

The third wave of population migration in Brazil lasted for a year. Within a year, more than 90 percent of the Portuguese nobles and upper-class elites with conservative ideas chose to migrate to the Brazilian Empire and other Western countries. A small number of people, about one hundred or so Portuguese families who had lost their power, chose a high-risk path with a small amount of property.

Traitors are not welcomed in both Chinese and Western cultures. However, compared with the stigma of betraying one's original group and integrating into another group, any defector who has some value will be valued by the other party.

The Han Kingdom and Brazil had been at war for more than 20 years. During the long-term competition and hostility, there were some Brazilian whites who could not resist the temptation of money and voluntarily served as intelligence agents, selling domestic intelligence to the Han Kingdom. There were also some short-sighted and fearful Chinese businessmen who defected to the Brazilian side and begged for mercy from the Brazilian whites.

Unlike the European continent, which had suffered from a thousand years of warfare and had led to a weak national consciousness, the South American Han Empire, which was deeply influenced by the culture of the Xia Dynasty, was more harsh in its treatment of defectors who betrayed its own nation, but was much more tolerant towards non-Chinese ethnic groups who defected.

The reason why the two are treated completely differently is that since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Xia Dynasty has formed an overwhelming advantage over the known surrounding ethnic groups. In the eyes of traditional Chinese, the Xia Dynasty is a civilized country, and the surrounding areas are all barbarians. The barbarians admire the Central Plains culture, and it is reasonable for them to defect to the Central Plains. It is not worthy of doubt. However, if the Chinese betray their ethnic group and defect to the barbarians, it means they are betraying their ancestors and degenerating. When encountering such people, one naturally cannot be merciful.

With this mentality, the Han Dynasty did not treat the impoverished Brazilian nobles who came here harshly. Anyone who could provide useful intelligence to the government would be given different arrangements according to their ability. Of course, the Han Dynasty was a pragmatic country, and those Portuguese nobles who had mediocre abilities and could not provide useful intelligence would not be highly respected or given super-national treatment like some monarchs and officials who loved to engage in face-saving projects.

Useful people can make use of their remaining energy to contribute to the Han Dynasty's strategy for Brazil. Useless people can be arranged to stay somewhere randomly and honestly obey government orders and accept sinicization. As for those who come and make excessive demands, I'm sorry, they should go back to where they came from. Anyway, the population of the Han Dynasty exceeds 1700 million, and there are more than 150 million white people in the country. There is no need for a few useless and decadent white aristocrats to support the situation.

After a reasonable and purposeful screening by the government, about seventy impoverished Brazilian nobles stayed to serve the government, including the family of Concubine Irena.

The original name of Concubine Xian was Elena. She was born in 1870. In March 1886, she came to live in the Kingdom of Han with her father, mother and more than a dozen family members.

In June 1886, under the guidance of her father, she began to learn Chinese. In March 6, she entered the palace through the recommendation of several local officials who were on good terms with her father and became Li Mingyuan's fifth concubine. Elena had a slender figure, fair skin, delicate and gentle facial features. She had the advantages of fair skin and slender figure of Western women, and was in line with the traditional aesthetic concept of China. Therefore, when she entered the palace, she quickly won the favor of Li Mingyuan, and her degree of favor in the palace was second only to the queen and the imperial concubine.

Li Mingyuan loved both the country and beauties, and he also wanted to collect beauties from all over the world to bring into his harem. However, times had changed after all, and they were about to enter the 20th century. Even though the traditional concepts of the nation were deeply rooted and did not reject the monarch having three palaces, six courtyards and seventy-two concubines, considering the impact on the future, Li Mingyuan still tried his best to curb his desires and controlled the number of concubines to five.

When they first met, Li Mingyuan was simply attracted by Elena's affection, which was the intuitive factor that prompted him to take her into his harem. On the other hand, the Calaveras family is an old aristocratic family in Brazil. It has been rooted in Brazil for nearly three hundred years, and its family members are spread across the Brazilian Empire, the Republic of Brazil, and Portugal. Although it is now in decline, it still has a certain influence in Brazil.

Taking into account factors such as uniting and integrating more than 150 million local white people and expanding territory towards the Republic of Brazil in the future, it is necessary for Na to marry a woman of white descent as his concubine.

Give a peach, get a pear in return. Li Mingyuan's choice of marrying Elena as his concubine was later proved to be a choice with more benefits than disadvantages. Influenced by this incident, the resistance of white people in the local area to the government-led sinicization and integration policy was further reduced. From 1888 to the beginning of 1889, the marriage rate between local Chinese and white women increased by 1.8%. About white women of marriageable age married Chinese in this year, while there were only one or two hundred cases of Chinese women marrying white men.

In addition to the influence of traditional concepts, government-guided propaganda also played an important role in causing this phenomenon.

"Han women do not marry outside the Han Dynasty, and Han men marry Hu women." This continued the folk custom from the Han and Tang dynasties. The government encouraged Chinese men to marry white and Indian women, but set up many obstacles for Han women to marry non-Chinese people.
First of all, the small number of black people who originally existed in the northern part of the mainland had all been relocated to the Congo colony. The possibility of intermarriage between Chinese women and black people was not only blocked legally, but also impossible in practice.

Secondly, of the Indian tribes that originally lived in various parts of the native land, about 70% of the population disappeared for various reasons, leaving less than 30%. Among the total number of about 270,000 Indians, about half are mixed-race descendants of Indians and whites. They live scattered throughout the native land and have gradually integrated into the Chinese community. The remaining more than 100,000 Indians are mainly distributed in the virgin forests in the north of the native land and the Patagonia wilderness in the south. Their geographical location is remote, and they have few opportunities to contact with the Chinese. The probability of a Han woman marrying an Indian is extremely small.

Finally, white men, who live scattered in major cities in the country, have the best chance of coming into contact with Chinese women. However, under the influence of traditional culture, very few Chinese women dare to break through ethnic barriers and marry white men despite their parents' opposition.

And even if the family problems are solved, it is impossible for Chinese women to marry white men if they cannot overcome the various obstacles set up by the government.

This obviously biased policy in the Han country caused dissatisfaction among many white men. Hundreds of thousands of white women were already lured by the government to marry Chinese men, and the white community also faced the problem of gender imbalance. Then the government set up obstacles. Although there was no explicit legislation prohibiting Chinese women from marrying white men, it was secretly implemented according to this idea.

The vast majority of white bachelors are not fools. They can certainly see the government's bad intentions, but what can they do? They don't have the courage to riot or rebel. The tragedies that occurred in previous years due to riots and rebellions are still vivid in their minds. They don't have the courage to gamble with their lives. Apart from complaining from time to time, hundreds of thousands of white bachelors can only obey government orders, speed up the pace of sinicization, and transform themselves into Chinese with white faces as soon as possible. According to the new trend, they are white Chinese.

Then he hopes to perform well, receive government rewards, and then marry a white wife to get rid of his bachelor status.

However, the reality is cruel. The phenomenon of more men than women in the local area will exist for a long time. Not to mention white men, even many Chinese men are facing the dilemma of not being able to find a wife.

Among the local white male group, the probability of marrying a Chinese woman is very low. Only a few aristocratic families like the Calaveras family, who are well-connected within the Han government, are fortunate enough to find a Chinese woman as a wife for their descendants.

The Silva family belongs to the side branch of the Calaveras family. As the head of the family, Silva did not inherit the family's title of marquis. During the Brazilian Empire, the highest achievement in his military career was only a major general in the Brazilian Army. The troops under his command were all local armed forces with weak combat effectiveness. However, after moving his family to the Han Kingdom in South America, Silva, with a decisiveness rarely seen in the Western aristocracy, completely cut off ties with the past, gave up his Christian faith, converted his family to Taiyi Religion, and forced family members to learn Chinese. The diet, travel, and clothing were all based on the standards of local Chinese.

When faced with a major decision, Silva chose to stay in the Republic of Brazil and make a living by his business for the first time. However, when he saw that the Brazilian Republican government was making one stupid move after another and had a bleak future, he chose to defect to the South American Han Kingdom and fully attached himself to the Han royal family, intending to rebuild his family's power in a country dominated by East Asians.

From Silva's perspective, it is not difficult to understand his choice. During the European Middle Ages, there were countless Christians who served the Ottomans, and there were also many European white families who changed their original beliefs and embraced the Ottomans.

Among the Ottoman and later Turkish citizens, people of Greek descent or Greek converts were common in the Constantinople area.

Moreover, in the eyes of Europeans, the Portuguese and Spanish are not pure white people. So what's wrong with abandoning their white identity and actively integrating into another South American country with a long civilization and vitality, in exchange for glory and status for their families and individuals?
(End of this chapter)