Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 423 Switch?
"Would the Spanish be willing to open several ports directly, allowing our Xinhua merchant ships to enter and exit freely?"

When Moreno (of mixed Spanish and indigenous descent), the deputy representative of the Acapulco port trading post, rushed back to Black Shark Island (now Guadalupe Island, Mexico) and reported the Spanish demands to Lou Wenhe, the senior manager of the American Trading Company and the person in charge of Black Shark Island, it immediately attracted Lou's attention.

After repeatedly asking Gomez and Garza about the details of their discussion, he did not respond on the spot. Instead, he stood by the window and pondered for a long time, weighing the gains and losses in his mind.

Xinhua's initial purpose in occupying Black Shark Island was not for trade and smuggling, but to transform this deserted island, which was not valued by the Spanish, into a secret maritime base for attacking Mexican coastal port towns, bringing the war to the Spanish, and making them dare not underestimate Xinhua's strength.

Seven years ago, through a self-defense counterattack, Xinhua finally forced the Spanish to recognize Xinhua's status and allow Xinhua people to establish themselves on the northwest coast, with Qiming Island as the core.

Subsequently, Xinhua used Black Shark Island as a transit point to smuggle large quantities of furs and manufactured goods to the Americas, earning substantial trade profits.

After years of development, Shajingbao, located in the northern part of the island, has expanded into a small town covering 140 acres, with more than 130 resident staff. Including the hired Indians and Mestizo helpers, the total population exceeds 280.

Although the island is large enough (approximately 240 square kilometers) to accommodate more storage facilities and residential housing, it should theoretically be able to support more people.

The problem is that the island has a very arid climate with an annual rainfall of only a little over 100 millimeters, and the evaporation rate is high, so the surface cannot retain much water.

The southern part of the island is very barren, consisting of gravel and desert. Only the north has a small amount of fertile valleys and trees. A few artificial water storage ponds have been built, which are used to grow some vegetables for the stationed personnel.

However, given the island's natural environment and climate, large-scale agricultural cultivation is not feasible, and most supplies, including grains, need to be imported from outside.

This also means that the island cannot support too many people, and the population is basically kept at around three hundred.

The Xinhua government spent a considerable amount of money to maintain the normal operation of this smuggling base.

Moreover, it is quite inconvenient for a large number of smuggled goods to transit through this small island, as it adds an extra step in the process, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and results in a lot of damage.

The Xinhua government had long harbored the idea of ​​engaging in normal trade with Spanish America and had approached the Spanish colonial authorities several times, hoping that Xinhua merchant ships could directly enter their ports to achieve the free flow of goods and people.

In response, Xinhua made several concessions, indicating its willingness to pay the full amount of customs duties to the Spanish based on the import and export value of the goods.

Even if import and export tariffs are slightly higher, Xinhua can afford it.

As long as you can open up more channels and allow us to conduct direct trade, everything is negotiable.

But the single-minded Spaniards stubbornly disagreed, claiming they would strictly abide by the king's decree and prohibit any foreign merchants and goods from entering the Spanish American colonies.

All merchants and ships involved in trade with the Americas had to be from the Kingdom of Spain, and in accordance with government directives, they had to gather in specific ports to form large fleets that would travel between the Americas and mainland Spain.

The new Chinese community found the Spanish trade ban both amusing and frustrating.

As everyone knows, due to the limited industrial capacity of Spain, only about 5% of the goods legally imported into the American colonies had Spanish origins. The rest came from France, the Netherlands, England, and other European countries. After being "laundered" through Spanish ports, they entered the Americas openly.

In addition, many more merchant ships skipped the "laundering" process altogether, directly smuggling a cargo of goods into remote ports and selling the goods directly to the Americas.

The Spanish's stubborn and inflexible trade policy was utterly foolish.

Not only did it fail to stop the outflow of precious metals from the country and its colonies, and boost its domestic industry and commerce, it also suffered huge losses in trade and ignored the import and export tariffs that should have been collected.

You said that if Spain opened a few more trading ports to Xinhua, we could not only enjoy high-quality and inexpensive goods, but also collect more tax revenue, which would alleviate your empty treasury.

But the Spanish, clinging to this extremely closed-minded thinking, stubbornly refused to allow any merchants or goods to enter.

What can we do?

It should be noted that apart from a few items such as furs, glass, and weapons that could enter the Ming Dynasty market, there was absolutely no demand for many other goods, such as white sugar, wine, hardware, woodenware, metal utensils, cooking utensils, paper, soap, candles, woolen fabrics, cotton cloth (imported from Mexican cotton, produced in small quantities), canned goods, and pickled salmon. These goods could only be sold to the Spanish Americas.

Of course, the Xinhua government wasn't after the Spaniards' meager sums of money; it wasn't trying to make money off them.

This is because Xinhua needs a large-scale market to cultivate in order to develop its industry and gradually establish related industrial chains.

In addition, we should do our best to increase the income of domestic residents.

After all, you can't make a lot of money by just clearing land and farming.

The entire Spanish Americas have a population of over 600,000, roughly the same as the combined population of Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia.

If black slaves and mixed-race individuals are included, the number exceeds 1.8 million, which is more than the total population of Portugal at that time.

In addition to the aforementioned groups, there are millions of Native Americans in the Americas. These people were either exploited by the Spanish to the point of having almost nothing and being extremely poor with very limited purchasing power, or they migrated to very remote deserts or jungles to escape Spanish persecution.

However, with such a large population, even if each person only consumes an average of 1 peso, the total amount is still enormous.

What delighted the new Chinese was that, due to the Spanish's brutal suppression and restrictions on industry and commerce, the industry in the Americas—well, to be precise, the primary handicraft industry—was extremely desolate, with only a dozen or so industries such as mining, wool, pottery, sugar refining, metal processing, and leather.

Moreover, these handicrafts were extremely backward in terms of technology, heavily reliant on indigenous and African slave labor, and their production efficiency was completely subject to the colonial oppression system.

It can be said that these handicrafts that gradually developed mainly served Spain's mercantilist policies and revolved around the mining of precious metals, and were subject to many policy constraints and restrictions.

When Xinhua products, which were of superior quality and cheaper, flooded into the Americas through smuggling channels, the local handicraft industry, which was already suffering from the impact of European goods, was immediately dealt a devastating blow.

Industries such as wool fabrication, leather, metal processing, copper and iron products, and papermaking shrank rapidly, and countless artisans went bankrupt.

The Americas have gradually become a dumping ground for Xinhua goods, with some even being re-exported to Europe, nurturing the growth and expansion of Xinhua's industries. However, with the continuous expansion of the range of Xinhua's industrial products and the rapid growth of its production scale, there is an urgent need to open the "gateway" of the American market wider and to have more trade windows, rather than being limited to the narrow "blood vessels" of trade and smuggling through Black Shark Island.

However, Xinhua was helpless in the face of the Spanish "closed-door policy".

Among Xinhua's top management, there were even radicals who clamored for a military "switch," hoping to force the Spanish to fully open the entire American market to Xinhua products through a war.

Yes, after fifteen years of development, the overall strength of the new Chinese has already undergone a qualitative leap, and they are now capable of challenging the Spanish American colonial territories.

Although the latest population statistics have not yet been released, we can roughly estimate the current population size of Xinhua by using last year's population base (17.8 people) and the number of immigrants.

Xinhua's total population may exceed 200,000!

If the local indigenous tribes that have submitted to and been incorporated are included, the total population controlled by Xinhua is estimated to be as high as 350,000.

Although this data would be insignificant in densely populated Ming Dynasty or Europe, and wouldn't cause any significant stir.

However, in the vast and sparsely populated New World, they were the second largest local power after the Spanish.

More importantly, Xinhua is a semi-industrialized country. While it may not have an absolute overwhelming advantage over the loosely organized Spanish America, which is mainly based on plantations and mining, it could easily defeat it.

On the Pacific side, the Spanish naval forces were extremely weak. Apart from a few large galleons transporting silver mines in Potosí that posed a slight threat, the remaining ships were almost entirely unarmed.

Even if these ships were temporarily equipped with cannons to serve as a force for naval battle, they were still no match for the much larger number of Xinhua ships, which was like throwing eggs against rocks.

It should be noted that Xinhua has deployed more than fifty ships to the two sides of the Pacific Ocean for immigration, and the number of ships in the No. 1 Shipyard on Qiming Island is increasing at a rate of 8-10 per year.

Needless to say, the several professional warships launched in succession, after completing several rounds of sea trials, will inevitably exert overwhelming naval pressure on the Spanish.

The offensive and defensive momentum is different!

However, war is always the last resort, and Xinhua's top leadership will not make the decision to launch a "switching" war against Spanish America unless absolutely necessary.

Getting involved in the conflict would inevitably affect the normal progress of Xinhua's industrialization and create huge obstacles to immigration activities.

Last June, in an effort to intervene in the Spanish massacre of Chinese in Luzon, Xinhua dispatched more than ten armed migrant ships, resulting in a loss of more than 4,000 people during the entire migration season.

If Xinhua were to engage in a major conflict with the Spanish in the Americas, the manpower and resources mobilized would be several times greater than those in Luzon, resulting in a reduction of at least half of the transport capacity available for immigration.

Moreover, once war breaks out, the thriving smuggling trade will be immediately cut off, thereby affecting the livelihoods of tens of thousands of industrial workers in Xinhua.

As individuals, they can act swiftly and decisively, indulging in personal vendettas and doing whatever they please.

But as a nation, it must consider the multifaceted impacts of war.

Our ancestors repeatedly emphasized: War is a matter of vital importance to the state; it is a matter of life and death, a road to survival or ruin. Therefore, it is imperative to examine it carefully.

The Spanish have always treated the Americas as a dairy cow, while Xinhua wants to turn it into a beehive.

The stinger must break, but the honey must not.

When Lou Wenhe heard Moreno mention that the Spanish Viceroyalty was preparing to purchase weapons from Xinhua, he was slightly taken aback, but immediately pressed for details about what kind of exchange the Spanish could offer and whether they were willing to open their ports and allow Xinhua merchant ships to travel freely.

“In response to the organizer,” Moreno replied respectfully, “the Mexican colonial authorities did not promise to open the port, but only agreed that the price of this batch of weapons could be increased by 20% on the original market price.”

"Tch, we Xinhua don't need their money!" Lou Wenhe said with great dissatisfaction after hearing this. "Damn it, even the Western barbarians are in such a state, they still put on airs and are unwilling to let go. They deserve to be beaten up by the Dutch!"

"..." Moreno chuckled awkwardly upon hearing this.

Although he was an informant for the General Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, his father was a purebred "Westerner." Fourteen years ago, his family of four was abducted to Xinhua in the Banderas Valley.

Although the Xinhua government has been advocating for a unified nation, a unified people, and a unified language, and has tried its best to create a unified national identity, there are still many differences and distinctions among the various ethnic groups in the country.

The original inhabitants of those places were one thing, but their own civilization was already at a very low stage. Attracted by the strong cultural influence and abundant material life of Xinhua, as long as they lived together for more than ten years, even if there were fierce conflicts in customs and traditions, they would choose to attach themselves to Xinhua.

Moreover, they shared similar skin color and appearance with the immigrants from the Ming Dynasty, giving them a natural affinity.

However, these descendants of Spaniards are very different in appearance from Han Chinese and local indigenous people, and they are also a minority in terms of ethnic size, which makes them particularly "eye-catching" in the country.

Six years ago, when the Mexican colonial authorities sent troops to attack Xinhua, many Hispanic citizens were targeted by other immigrants. Some extremists even called for the killing of all Hispanic residents to prevent them from colluding with the West and secretly causing sabotage.

Fortunately, the top leadership of Xinhua News Agency prevented the situation from deteriorating in time, calling on all citizens, regardless of skin color or ethnicity, to unite closely together to resist the tyranny of the Spanish and repel the attack of the Spanish expeditionary fleet.

Moreno received a Chinese education from a young age, and his daily habits and many customs gradually became more aligned with Chinese traditions. Coupled with the relaxed political environment and religious atmosphere in China, as well as his abundant material life, he developed a strong sense of belonging to China.

In transnational conflicts or cultural disputes, he would instinctively stand on Xinhua's side, and even feel a certain sense of alienation from the original cultural groups.

I am a modern Chinese, not the "Western barbarian" that everyone talks about.

“Sir, the Spanish…they say that opening the port is definitely not allowed.” Moreno paused for a moment before speaking, “However, they mentioned that Xinhua could set up a business representative office in the port of Acapulco to facilitate communication between the two sides.”

"Business Representative Office?" Lou Wenhe was stunned for a moment upon hearing this, then a mocking smile appeared on his lips. "Ha, the Spaniards are still so concerned about their image!"
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(End of this chapter)