Nanyang Storm 1864

Chapter 368: Penetration into South America

During the past two years, with the overt and covert support of the Chu State's Colonial Department, there has been an active expansion trend in Kalimantan, Sumatra, Ecuador and Honduras in Central America.

The Chinese adventurer fleet even reached as far as Chieno Island in South America, established several Chinese settlements in Corcobano Bay, and transported more than 22000 Chinese immigrants, who became the mainstream of the local population structure.

Many people don’t know where Chieno Island is, but you will know it if I tell you one thing: Chile will be the country with the narrowest territory in the world in more than a hundred years, but it is not the case now.

Chile borders Argentina to the east, Peru and Bolivia to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is currently impossible to determine the extent of its southern border.

Chieno Island is located in southern Chile, about 1550 kilometers south to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego and about 1417 kilometers from Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America.

If Chinese forces invade these places, the territory of Chile, which is later known as the narrowest country in the world with a length of 4352 kilometers from north to south, a narrowest of 96.8 kilometers from east to west and a widest of 362.3 kilometers, will be completely rewritten.

That is
The north-south length of Chile will be shortened by about one third, and its territory will be greatly reduced, but now Chile has no time to care about the uninhabited south.

Why do you say that?
Around 1871, due to the dispute over guano and saltpeter resources in the Atacama Desert, relations between Chile, Bolivia and Peru were extremely tense. In addition, the United States, Britain and Chu State added fuel to the fire, and the relations between them became tense and almost went to war.

At the intersection of the borders of the three countries is the vast Atacama Desert, which has not seen rain for 91 consecutive years and is known as the "dry pole of the earth."

In the past hundred years, the average annual rainfall has been less than 0.1 mm, which is almost negligible.

This is a sparsely populated area, and for a long time in history, neighboring countries had no strong desire for its territory, and the borders had never been seriously demarcated.

After all, giving more is just more sand. What’s the use of more sand?
But since the mid-19th century, the situation has changed dramatically, as people have discovered abundant resources of guano and saltpeter outside this sandy land.

As the saying goes; wherever there is profit, people will go everywhere.

This ancient Chinese saying well illustrates the relationship between Chile, Bolivia and Peru in South America.

Originally, the relationship between the three countries was good, with no major conflicts. However, due to the division of interests in the Atacama Desert, the relationship became increasingly tense.

In an era without artificial synthetic fertilizers, the value of guano was far beyond the imagination of later generations. It was likened to "platinum" and was a precious resource.

In the mid-to-late 19th century, as Europe's population grew and industry developed, the demand for food increased significantly, leading to a decline in soil fertility.

In this era, artificial synthetic fertilizers had not yet been invented. Guano, rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, became a key resource for solving soil fertility problems, and European countries spared no expense to purchase it in large quantities.

The division of the Atacama Desert's guano resources, whether more or less, involves the difference in profits worth tens of millions of silver dollars, which will naturally cause competition among Chile, Peru and Bolivia.

not to mention

This arid desert also contains an astonishing amount of natural saltpeter resources. This is the only large-scale natural saltpeter mine discovered in human history and is of great strategic significance.

The Chilean government discovered that the land it was allocated in the Atacama Desert had the poorest resources and was difficult to mine, far inferior to the rich resources in Bolivia and Peru.

Chile took the initiative to negotiate with both countries, but the result was, as you can imagine, a bitter and unpleasant outcome.

Later, the Chilean government came up with an idea and established a joint mining company with the British who came to them after smelling the potential, to jointly develop the resources of the Atacama Desert and eventually sell them to the European market.

As the home of mining companies, Chile can enjoy generous mining taxes. Isn't that a great benefit?

But over time

Bolivia and Peru came to their senses and felt that they had suffered a great loss, so they started to find fault with this British and Chilean joint venture mining company. Sometimes they wanted to increase taxes, and sometimes they wanted to confiscate the mining company's shares, which led to the current dirty work.

So when it's in front of your eyes

The Chilean government has largely focused its attention on the Atacama Desert in the north, where its military has been concentrated, and is locked in a dispute with Bolivia and Peru over mining interests.

The invasion of Chinese forces in the south was not taken seriously at all.

Originally, Chile's southern border did not reach the Chieno Islands. In this remote southern region, there were only a few thousand early white pioneers, and there was no real demarcation.

After the massive invasion of the Chinese forces, led by the Chu State, they designated Chieno Island as their sphere of influence, and included the surrounding areas to the north, all the way to the edge of the Andes Mountains.

This includes the northern region of Osorno and the coastal region of Corral, both of which are now occupied by immigrants dominated by Chinese forces and claim to be overseas colonial territories of the Chu State.

The Chilean government, preoccupied with its interests in the northern desert, paid no attention to this. Instead, it was the astute Americans who first noticed something was amiss and, after a field investigation, immediately issued a warning of a massive Chinese invasion of South America.

This warning was reported by the American media, causing widespread vigilance, and the United States also issued a diplomatic protest to the Chu State.

But in fact, there was no clear opposition from Chile.

Why is this so?

This has to be explained from a historical perspective. The foundation of the founding of Chile was based on the Spanish Viceroyalty of Chile in South America, which did not include the Haino Island and the areas to its south.

This is because
Historically, there were two large gaps in the rule of Spanish colonists in South America. One was Brazil occupied by Portugal, and the other was Araucania and Patagonia in the southernmost part of South America.

The two regions are connected, roughly divided by the Andes Mountains. They are the traditional territories of the Mapuche and other indigenous Indians of South America, and are home to fierce indigenous nomadic peoples.

From the Chilean perspective
It is the area around and to the south of Chieno Island, which is now the main area invaded by Chinese immigrants. This land did not belong to the Viceroyalty of Chile before and had no effective jurisdiction. It was considered a barren area.

The Chinese immigrants occupied it, and it did not cause any loss to the current Chile. They could neither control it nor intervene in it. In addition, the focus was on the problem of the Atacama Desert in the north, so they had even less interest in it.

In the original history
Seven years later, in 1878, Chile, feeling the crisis of Argentina's "Desert Expedition" to conquer the south, implemented its expansion to the south, extending its territory all the way south to Cape Horn.

This historical period
Nothing had happened. The southern Chieno Islands did not belong to its own territory. Regardless of whether it was the Chinese or white forces that invaded, Chile's focus was not on the south.

It is no coincidence that the southern regions of Araucanía and Patagonia were "unowned terra nullius" and remained outside the two major colonial empires of Spain and Portugal.

Long before the arrival of Europeans, the Mapuche had held the mighty Inca Empire at bay on the north bank of the Cachapoal River. After the establishment of the Viceroyalty of Peru, the Mapuche dragged the Spanish into the protracted Araucanian War, forcing the Spanish colonists to give up.

This area
It is more than 2,000 kilometers away from the core area of ​​the Viceroyalty of Peru, which can be said to be extremely remote. Under the extremely difficult circumstances of the long expedition, the Spanish colonists were unable to extend the territory of the empire further south.

Many years later, the four major Spanish viceroyalties became independent, but Araucanía and Patagonia retained their independence until 1871.

"I don't want to hear the Americans' complaints. If you have any other good news, please tell me." King Zheng Guohui of Chu said, and then he walked to the wooden chair in front of the row of bookshelves and sat down. He tapped the back of the chair lightly with his fingers and spoke calmly.

The smooth progress of the South American layout gave him more confidence.

The Colonial Office planned to use the Great Eastern immigration fleet to carry out a large-scale immigration to Chieno Island and surrounding areas, and complete the immigration plan of 5 people within the year.

This will bring the number of Chinese immigrants settled on Chieno Island to over 7, many of whom are well-trained military militia from Hawaii.

By the next year, we will increase the intensity of immigration to South America, strive to reach an annual scale of 12 people, and expand Chinese influence to the Patagonia region east of the Andes Mountains.

That is the vast plains in southern Argentina, where there are hundreds of Indian tribes, but they are all scattered and there is no big force like indigenous kingdoms, which is very suitable for Chinese adventurers.

The Chu government promised
The Chinese armed adventure teams organized in a civilian form can claim as their own the territories they gain through armed colonization and development in South America.

No matter how capable you are and how much land you can expand, it all belongs to you.

Similarly, Chinese armed adventure teams need to provide their own weapons and equipment, food and horses, and bear the casualties incurred during the armed expansion process themselves.

The small town established by the State of Chu on the island of Zielo had an adequate supply of weapons, equipment and horses. It had muskets and cannons, but all of them had to be purchased with money.

If the Chinese armed adventurer team has no money, they can also use the captured white or Indian women and men to pay off the debt, or they can use the captured cattle, sheep, horses and other livestock to pay off the debt.

Once this policy was announced, it immediately attracted a large influx of private capital and adventurers from all over the Chu State. Many people wanted to show their talents in the vast South America.

Among them, there are also many retired Chinese military officers and aristocrats.

In order to raise funds for the adventure, many brave retired officers sold their land, mansions and all their property to raise funds to recruit people and buy tickets to Chieno Island.

Either thirty or fifty people, or more than a hundred people from the same clan, would go to the Adventure Town on Chieno Island in groups. As long as they brought money, they could buy weapons, swords, guns, horses and all the supplies needed for equipment here.

You can even get a loan from the Tuozhu Bank, but the interest rate for this type of mercenary loan is extremely high, with a monthly interest rate of more than 2%. If you borrow 1000 silver dollars, you can only get 800 yuan.

By the next month, the interest alone would be 200 silver dollars. If he could not find a medium to large-scale Indian tribe settlement to plunder, he would easily lose everything.

(End of this chapter)