Nanyang Storm 1864

Three years later

Early 1912
The last emperor of the Qing Dynasty abdicated in the northern land of China, and a new system was established, changing the country's name to the Republic of China. This was the first year of the Republic of China.

News came
The Great Chu Empire and the countries of the Indochina Peninsula were in an uproar. Although this was expected, it was still a cause for lamentation and aroused strong expectations for China to enter a new era.

At this time, the Great Chu Empire was in good political and social order. In 1910, a new prime minister, Li Jingxi, took over the reins of government. In the past two years, the empire had focused on developing the domestic and international economy, presenting a thriving scene.

By the end of 1911
The Great Chu Empire had a total population of 1.56 million. According to purchasing power parity, its GDP was US$356 billion, ranking third in the world.

The world's number one is the British Empire, with a domestic GDP of US$224.6 billion based on purchasing power parity. If you include its more than 2540 million square kilometers of colonies (note: excluding Australia), the figure reaches US$570.4 billion.

The United States ranks second in the world, with a GDP of $517.4 billion based on purchasing power parity.

In addition, there is $237.3 billion from Germany itself.

US$144.5 billion in France.

Tsarist Russia received $232.5 billion.

The Republic of China's total assets were US$241.4 billion.

Japan: $71.7 billion.

……

If calculated based on actual national GDP, the Great Chu Empire ranked second in the world, only after the United States, and ahead of Germany.

The two major military blocs in Europe have been vying to win over Chu and the United States in recent years, attracted by the latter's strong economic power and attempting to bring them into their own camps.

Needless to say, the United States has been marginalized and suppressed by Europe for decades, viewing the founding ideals of democracy, freedom, and justice as a monstrous threat, and is naturally unwilling to get involved in Europe's grievances.

The State of Chu was also opportunistic, seizing this opportunity to vigorously develop trade and economic relations with the two major European camps, and opening the door wide to facilitate the material needs of all parties.

But when it comes to taking sides, they start dodging the question.

Its main proposition is to be a world peace force based on "neutrality," not taking sides in European disputes, not supporting or opposing any party, and striving to ease tensions in Europe.

Guided by such a foreign policy, the Great Chu Empire was able to navigate the two major camps in Europe and the world's great powers with ease, reaping numerous benefits in the economic and trade fields.

In the arms race in which major European powers participated, the State of Chu and the United States benefited greatly and became major creditor nations.

Over the decades, the State of Chu has accumulated international claims totaling 37.6 billion silver dollars, mainly from Britain, the United States, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and the three Nordic countries. Countries with relatively distant relations, such as Germany and Austria, account for less than 7.6% of the total international claims.

As for Tsarist Russia, which had a poor credit record, the Chu state strictly prohibited lending from the royal family to the banking industry, requiring all transactions to be cash-on-delivery and no credit was allowed.

International trade with Tsarist Russia totaled no more than ten million silver dollars a year, almost entirely exports, with imports being nearly zero.

Tsarist Russia had a natural demand for tropical products from the State of Chu, such as natural rubber, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, sugar, and palm oil, which was a gap that European products could never fill.

What infuriated the Russians was

The State of Chu only recognized international currencies such as silver dollars, British pounds, French francs, US dollars, and German marks, and ignored all others. To import products from the State of Chu, one had to exchange them for these international currencies, except for the Russian ruble.

Each year, Russia can only spend tens of millions of francs and millions of pounds in loans to purchase necessary supplies from the State of Chu.

As for exports, Tsarist Russia had almost no commodities to trade with the State of Chu.

Russia's greatest strengths lie in oil and grain, and Chu was a world-class trader in these two commodities, dominating the global market.

It is impossible to spend foreign exchange reserves to import these unwanted goods from Russia.

Fortunately, after forming an alliance with Britain and France, Tsarist Russia received a large amount of loans from its British and French allies, which was enough to meet its own needs.

some of

The huge loans from France accounted for 75%, the loans from pounds sterling accounted for 20%, and the rest were other loans from various European countries, but not a single loan came from the State of Chu.

This is also why the Russian Empire was deeply dissatisfied with the State of Chu. What's wrong with you... looking down on people?
This was actually the will of the highest levels of the Great Chu Empire, including banks with royal backing and other private banks, and no one dared to disobey it.

In early 1912, the Great Chu Empire had a total population of 1.56 million, lower than that of the Republic of China, Britain (including its colonies), and Tsarist Russia, ranking fourth in the world.

In early 1912, the population of Tsarist Russia was approximately 1.62 million, including more than 2370 million people from the five Central Asian countries conquered at the end of the last century, of which Kazakhstan accounted for more than half.

From the end of the last century to the present, the population imported into the Great Chu Empire from the northern lands has remained at around one million per year, with some years having as many as one million three or four hundred thousand and others having as few as eight or nine hundred thousand.

Of these, voluntary immigration accounted for the majority.

The immigrant population needed by the Great Chu Empire has also changed from the original low- and middle-level laborers to mid- and high-level talents. This includes craftsmen, artisans with various skills, doctors, merchants, students and scholars, as well as some artists with special skills, in order to meet the needs of social development.

The lowest-level manual laborers did not need to be replenished from the northern lands because the Great Chu Empire had a large number of enslaved Javanese and Japanese laborers, coupled with the rapidly growing rural labor force in the country and the gradually flourishing agricultural machinery.

In particular, the widespread adoption of agricultural and mining machinery has largely replaced heavy manual labor.

world-wide
The Great Chu Empire is one of the world's two leading agricultural machinery powers, on par with the United States. Its domestically produced agricultural machinery products are diverse, of high quality, and extremely competitively priced.

In the millions of villages, towns, farms, and private ranches under the Great Chu Empire, agricultural machinery, mainly hand-held tractors, was widely used. These machines were not only capable of performing farm operations such as plowing, deep tilling, harrowing, harvesting, and shredding, but also served as the main force in agricultural transportation.

A hand-held tractor costs only about 580 silver dollars. It can be equipped with various agricultural implements and a trailer, making it very convenient to use.

In 1911 alone, the Great Chu Empire sold 37.2 hand-held tractors, 4.39 small four-wheeled tractors, and more than 8700 large four-wheeled tractors.

In overseas markets

However, thanks to years of market cultivation and reputation, the agricultural machinery products of the Great Chu Empire were sold to Europe, America and North America, accounting for one-third of the market.

At the beginning of the 20th century

The international agricultural machinery market is still quite small, with an annual scale of only a few hundred thousand units. It is mainly concentrated in countries such as the UK, France, Germany, the US, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium, which are mostly industrialized countries.

Due to the restrictions imposed by tariff barriers in various countries, it is extremely difficult to gain access to the international market and get a share of the profits.

Take agricultural powerhouses like the US, China, and France as examples.
All three countries are world agricultural powers and major producers of agricultural machinery. They place particular emphasis on protecting the development of their domestic agricultural machinery industries, and it is almost a consensus to use customs duties to restrict their operations.

The agricultural machinery needed is mostly made up of domestic agricultural machinery products, with the shortfall made up by imported products, but high customs taxes must be paid.

This is a policy measure to protect the domestic agricultural machinery industry; everyone uses it, just in different ways.

The State of Chu itself was the world's leading market for agricultural machinery, even surpassing the United States in terms of industrial scale, which established Chu's dominant position in the world's major agricultural products.

With such a large market, who wouldn't be envious?
The United States is also one of the world's largest markets for agricultural machinery, and it competes fiercely with the State of Chu. There is cooperation and penetration between them, but more importantly, there is market competition.

American agricultural machinery brands set up factories in the State of Chu, while Chu agricultural machinery brands set up factories in the United States, forming the prototype of multinational corporations. This was also an effective way to avoid high customs duties between them.

Leveraging the advantages of its agricultural machinery industry, the Great Chu Empire promoted agricultural machinery substitution throughout its territory, greatly saving manpower and resources, improving the efficiency of farm operations, and making significant contributions to increasing production and income for farm owners and plantation owners.

It was precisely because of the development of the agricultural machinery industry that the Great Chu Empire's demand for labor in basic agriculture and mining was greatly reduced.

What used to require 30 or even 50 people can now be done by a single large agricultural machine.

The same was true in the mining sector. The application of explosives, steam excavators, mine trains, and other mining machinery transformed the traditional model of mines relying heavily on hard labor. The widespread application of these technological advancements at the societal level also influenced the population policy of the Great Chu Empire, leading to a gradual tightening of immigration restrictions.

In 1910 and 1911, the Great Chu Empire received a total of 89.52 and 78.43 immigrants respectively, a significant decrease compared to previous years.

Nowadays, the most basic requirements for immigrating to the Great Chu Empire are literacy, being between 8 and 35 years old, and having a special skill; those with these qualifications are more likely to pass the immigration review.

The tightening of immigration policies by the Great Chu Empire also led to a large number of Chinese immigrants spreading to Southeast Asia, especially the Indochina Peninsula, including the Kingdom of Siam, the Kingdom of Guangnan, Burma, and British and French colonies, and even further as far as the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

In recent years
The Great Chu Empire in particular intensified its efforts to send new immigrants to Central America, reaching an average of over 30 people per year, which also contributed to the rapid population growth in Central America.

Central America is divided into two provinces: Central Province, which mainly covers the former Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

The other is the Costa Rica Province, which mainly covers the regions of Costa Rica and Panama.

By early 1912
The combined population of these two provinces is over 643 million, of which 92.7% are of Chinese descent, and the remainder are white mixed-race descendants who speak Mandarin, many of whom are also of mixed Chinese descent.

On the new passport registration, the ethnicity is unified as Chinese.

This is also something the Great Chu Empire can be proud of. The empire has an extremely vast territory, yet its ethnic groups are remarkably unified, with over 90% of the population in most areas being of Han Chinese descent.

They speak the same Mandarin, uphold the traditional virtues of respecting the elderly and caring for the young, value family traditions, believe in both Taoism and Buddhism, and are passionate about traditional Chinese cuisine, but many aspects have changed.

Costa Rica is known for its traditional roasted beef and lamb and naan bread, while Central America prefers sweet and sour foods and authentic dishes, similar to the Jiangnan region.

The cuisine of the six West African provinces tends to be heavy on oil and salt, especially in Haian province, where the flavors are spicy, similar to those of the Hubei and Hunan regions.

No matter what kind of regional cuisine one prefers, one can always find a corresponding region across China, which is quite remarkable.

The fact that the Great Chu Empire has favored development in Central America in recent years, and has also seen a significant influx of immigrants, is not without reason.

Since the Chu-Ri War
The struggle for hegemony in the Pacific region came to an end, and the Great Chu Empire established its dominance over the Pacific, a position that no other power could challenge for the time being.

However, a potential challenger still exists, namely the United States.

Since 1902, the United States has been aware of the hegemony of the Great Chu Empire in the Pacific region, which has severely limited the penetration of American political, economic and cultural influence into the western Pacific region, and this limitation has become increasingly severe.

The vast market of northern China was almost entirely dominated by British and Chu capital, with American capital barely getting a taste of the bland soup.

In particular, the trademarks and advertisements of the major oil companies in the Chu Kingdom were ubiquitous, appearing in streets and alleys from northern China to the Indochina Peninsula, from cities to the countryside.

More than 90% of the hugely profitable kerosene market is controlled by the six major oil companies in the State of Chu.

In addition, there are emerging markets for gasoline, diesel, lubricating oil, heavy oil, and petrochemical products, where major enterprises in the Chu state hold an absolute market advantage.

Across the vast Pacific Ocean, the State of Chu, leveraging its maritime advantage, erected numerous obstacles, making it difficult for American industrial and petroleum products to enter the Western Pacific market, and giving them negligible bargaining power.

This led to the development of related enterprises in the State of Chu into behemoths, gradually forming multinational corporations, while American-funded enterprises underdeveloped.

All of this is a predicament caused by being controlled by the Chu state's hegemony in the Pacific.

To change all this, we must challenge the Chu state's hegemony in the Pacific.

After the Spanish-American War
The United States has been keen to build a powerful Pacific Fleet, and this process has accelerated, especially after the Chu-Ri War.

In 1907, the United States reorganized its earlier Pacific Squadrons into the Pacific Fleet, greatly enhancing its status and marking the beginning of the formation of a powerful fleet.

The Pacific Fleet's home port was in Los Angeles, very close to Mexico to the south.

The reason for establishing the Pacific Fleet's home port in Los Angeles, rather than San Francisco, California's largest city, was implicitly intended to guard against the Pacific Fleet and the Central American Fleet of the Southern Chu Kingdom.

Located more than 600 kilometers south of San Francisco, Los Angeles can react more quickly to any unrest in the south, protecting important coastal cities such as San Francisco and Seattle to the north like a mother hen protecting her chicks.

The home port of the Chu Kingdom's Pacific Fleet was Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, which is about 3200 kilometers away from Los Angeles, or a four or five-day voyage.

The home port of the Chu State's Central American fleet was located in Colón, on the other side of Panama, in the Caribbean Sea. It could be easily deployed to the Pacific region via the Panama Canal.

With these two major fleets holding it back, the influence of the U.S. Pacific Fleet is difficult to extend beyond Central America and then affect South American countries, which is a source of great distress for the Americans.

And in the vast Pacific Ocean, there is the even more powerful influence of the Great Chu Empire's home fleet, which stands like a screen across the Pacific.

Without overcoming these formidable obstacles, it would be nothing short of a pipe dream for the United States to project its influence across the vast Pacific Ocean into the Western Pacific region.

From the current situation, it is completely unfavorable to the US.

The Great Chu Empire's hegemony in the Pacific for decades was no joke. Countries along the Pacific coast had become accustomed to the existence of the Great Chu Empire, and, having been strongly influenced by Chinese culture, had become accustomed to depending on and submitting to the Great Chu Empire.

This includes the four South American countries of Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, which were traditionally subordinate to the Great Chu Empire and deeply influenced by Chinese culture.

In the aforementioned four South American countries

Chinese businessmen and Chinese capital occupy a very strong dominant position, including the Chilean military government, which also dares not go against the will of the Chu state.

This is because the Great Chu Empire was right next door. The provinces of Patagonia in the north, the provinces of Central America in the south, and the province of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, along with the frequent trade and economic exchanges, all tightly bound the four Central American countries to the Great Chu Empire's chariot.

In the political, economic, and cultural spheres, it was deeply influenced by the Great Chu Empire.

We have no choice but to bow our heads; the Great Chu Empire is too powerful.

In the past, Colombia attempted to challenge the Great Chu Empire's dominance in the Pacific, repeatedly making disrespectful remarks. What was the result?
Modern Colombia is a predominantly Chinese country. The original indigenous Indians and native whites were either enslaved or assimilated and gradually disappeared into the annals of history.

The lessons of the past are still fresh in our minds.

Chile's major ports are largely controlled by Chinese capital, which also holds a significant share in Chile's copper and nitrate mines, with its influence permeating all aspects of the economy and cultural life.

In the Chilean military and political circles
Those who wield real power are mostly traditional aristocratic families with experience in Chu, either graduates of the Royal Military Academy in Manila, the Royal Naval Academy, or the Cebu Administrative College; otherwise, they would not have the support of the powerful local Chinese community.

In Chile, powerful military and political families either marry into Chinese aristocrats or have close ties with wealthy Chinese businessmen in order to go further in the military and political arena.

Otherwise, at best, one can only reach the middle level, and going further is as difficult as climbing to the sky.

This is also a common phenomenon in the four South American countries. Those Chilean politicians who oppose the expansion of Chinese influence are either suppressed and ostracized, face legal problems and imprisonment, or are frequently involved in scandals and quickly disappear like ripples in water.

This tendency became even more pronounced after the Chu-Ri War.

Chinese capital has established numerous schools of Chinese language and literature in four South American countries, spreading Chinese culture, cuisine, religion, and Confucian influence, thus forming a very strong pro-Chu force.

In South America, the State of Chu used its powerful influence to weave an impenetrable network, which not only existed in the four South American countries, but also spread widely in other South American countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Venezuela.

After decades of development, the political and military interests of South American countries have generally leaned towards the Great Chu Empire, making them strong supporters of the Great Chu Empire on the international stage.

Following the Chu-Sun War, the Great Chu Empire further intensified its penetration and control over various countries in South America.

There's no way around it, you'll get a beating if you don't listen!
This is an unsolvable problem facing the Americans. To break through, they must first demonstrate their strength in the Pacific and present a bargaining chip that can rival the State of Chu.

The U.S. Pacific Fleet is such a powerful bargaining chip, revealing its unrealistic ambition to contend with the Great Chu Empire. (End of Chapter)