Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 45 Gradually Melting
July 1626, 7, noon, twelve o'clock.

A simple yet strange collective wedding was being held in Shixing Fort. Six Spaniards, dressed in clean and tidy clothes, each held the arm of an ignorant and naive Indian girl. They stood side by side and accepted the witness of Luo Zhenhui, the director of the decision-making committee.

For this wedding, all the residents of Shixing Fort took a rare day off and came together to attend the wedding ceremony of the six newlyweds.

Strictly controlled alcoholic beverages were also brought out.

A big fat pig, several elks, and dozens of fresh sea fish are processed into delicious dishes.

There were also various seasonal vegetables filling plates and dishes, filling up more than a dozen tables.

Several Spanish women and their children even picked a lot of wild flowers from the forest to decorate the wedding scene and bless the newlyweds.

It can be seen that the six Spaniards who married Indian girls were not opposed to the wedding arrangements and the brides they were going to marry. Instead, they were all filled with happy smiles.

In fact, during this period, the Spaniards did not have much racial consciousness.

You should know that before the Age of Discovery, the Spaniards were under the control of Arab and Islamic monarchs for more than 800 years.

Even though the Spanish Christian kings conquered the entire peninsula and completely eliminated the spread of the True God religion, they did not completely kill off the Arabs and various immigrants from North Africa.

The entire Spanish kingdom was mainly composed of Iberians and Celts, and absorbed elements of Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Arabs, and Jews. Coupled with the previous continuous hemolysis, the Spanish bloodline was very mixed, completely different from the Anglo-Saxons.

The Anglo-Saxons, the main ethnic group of the Kingdom of England, have refused to intermarry with outsiders since they arrived on that broken island. They are even determined not to intermarry with the Celts, who are also white people.

Therefore, in comparison, the English have purer blood and have no tradition or custom of intermarriage with other ethnic groups.

Over a hundred years of Spanish colonization of the Americas, millions of mixed-race people were created, leading to the current reality of multiracial marriage.

Then, they divided these mixed-race descendants into different levels based on their bloodline, such as Creoles (native white people), Mestizos (Indo-European mixed race), Murats (Spanish and black mixed race), Sambos (Indian and black mixed race) and other ethnic groups.

To be more specific, the descendants of Indo-European mixed race are called Castilians if their father is Castilian, and their status is equivalent to that of Spaniards.

But if a strong Indian man marries a beautiful Mestizo woman, their children are called Choro.

The Choro then looked for Indians, and the grandsons and great-grandsons of the Indian men became Chamisau people.

Look, there are so many ethnic groups, it’s so complicated that most people can’t tell them apart.

The situation of the British who colonized North America was relatively simple. Although there were many Indo-European people, the number was far less than that in Spanish America. Moreover, they were basically paternal, and their descendants could be assimilated to a certain extent.

But in general, most ethnic groups in the British American colonies were relatively homogeneous, and under the influence of Protestantism, they were able to control their lower bodies.

In addition, most British immigrants were devout Puritans who had firm beliefs, acted cautiously, obeyed arrangements, had a sense of collectivism, and most of them came to the New World with their families.

The composition of the Spanish was more complex, with a large number of pirates, prisoners, gangsters, and unemployed people. They were not devout Catholics in the traditional sense, and most of them were bachelors with strong physical needs.

More importantly, the Spanish are easygoing and live for the day. To put it in a positive way, they are passionate and romantic; to put it in a negative way, they are the kind of people who attract bees and butterflies.

Therefore, when the travelers from Shixing Fort "introduced" Indian candidates to six outstanding Spaniards, they all readily accepted and happily prepared to become grooms.

Stranded on this desolate island and becoming subjects of the Chinese, what good expectations could they have?
Even though these Chinese people often preach to them how bright the future is, how great the development prospects of the entire group are, and how bright everyone's future is.

Of course they do!
With just over a hundred of them, plus two or three hundred native Indians, could they build a powerful and wealthy kingdom?

Give me a break!

In the eyes of many people, everyone here is just begging for survival, or just trying to live a miserable life.

Just like those pirate gangs that occupy a small island in the Caribbean, they live from day to day, squandering their lives when they have wine and meat, and when they are in dire straits, they can only go with the wind and leave everything to fate.

Let’s live each day as it comes.

No one thinks about the future, and no one expects a better future.

Since the Chinese have found a woman for me, I should accept her without hesitation and live a stable life with a wife, children and a warm bed for two or three days.

He never knew what would happen, that he might lose his life someday, get into a shipwreck, get beaten to death, or die from a sudden illness. Then he would be left with nothing. With a woman, perhaps she could give birth to a few children, continuing his bloodline and making his life worthwhile.

Everyone also knows that the Chinese brought them Indian women and let them start a family and settle down, most likely because they were trying their best to win them over and make them follow the Chinese wholeheartedly until the end.

But it doesn't matter.

In this era, no matter who you hang out with, it doesn’t matter.

At the very least, the Chinese were relatively fair and did not treat them as cannon fodder or slaves, but rather as some kind of superior-subordinate relationship.

I originally thought that since they had such advanced ships, such sharp muskets, and all kinds of magical things, there must be a very powerful force behind them.

They came to this place called Qiming Island to colonize, perhaps just for preliminary investigation or to explore the way. It wouldn't be long before a steady stream of companions would arrive, and then based on this, they would slowly expand to the entire west coast of North America and become a huge force on the American continent.

Just like us Spaniards or English, we started with a few coastal colonies, gradually connected them into a line, and finally covered the vast inland hinterland.

However, it has been more than eight months since the "St. Louis" was captured on the island and they became prisoners of the Chinese, but there has been no sign of the arrival of their follow-up forces.

Even when they raided a small coastal town in Mexico, they chose to take these Spanish captives with them after leaving some men to guard the place.

What's worse, they even abducted more than 30 residents of the town to increase the local population.

The residents of these towns are all skilled craftsmen, and there are also several experienced farmers.

The Spaniards couldn't help but feel skeptical about this.

Could it be that these fifty or so Chinese people who colonized Qiming Island are just these few?

Moreover, when they colonized the area, they seemed to have made no preparations at all. Not only did they lack the necessary production and living tools, they also had few decent craftsmen.

Yet, each of them possesses unimaginable knowledge.

No matter what matters they handle, they always seem to be able to come up with simpler and more effective methods.

For example, when building a house entirely of wood, not a single nail is used in the entire process. Instead, the house is cleverly connected with wooden wedges and holes, and is made of thick logs stacked together.

For example, using dirty and filthy manure can make crops grow abnormally lush.

For example, a magical "blower" was built for the blacksmith Pablo, which allowed the temperature of the furnace for smelting iron to rise higher and even allow him to easily produce molten iron.

Oh, by the way, under the guidance of the Chinese, the blacksmith Pablo also converted the two matchlock guns into the latest flintlock guns, which not only simplified the operating procedures a little, but also could achieve a high frequency of three shots per minute.

At the same time, they made improvements to the gun barrel and gunpowder, which greatly extended the effective range of the musket.

Well, the Chinese say it is 110 meters.

Meter is probably the unit of length they are used to.

Shixing Fort is changing every day.

Two warehouses for brick and tile materials were built and put into use.

A papermaking workshop was also built. Although the paper produced was not durable, it provided toilet paper for everyone.

A small fish processing plant has also been built near the sea, which can provide all residents with sufficient fish for daily consumption.

There are hundreds of acres of farmland near the camp. Maybe it’s the first year of reclamation, and nearly half of the crops are not growing well, but they will eventually provide abundant food supply for hundreds of people in Shixing Fort.

Perhaps, Shixing Fort will really be like what the Chinese people said, everything will slowly get better, everyone will live a life of plenty, and will have a prosperous future.

Holding their brides' arms, several smiling Spaniards accepted everyone's blessings and congratulations one by one, and then couldn't wait to go to the "bridal chamber".

The world is big, but having children is the biggest!
Moreover, where there are people, there is hope.

(End of this chapter)