New Han Dynasty 1834

Chapter 117 The Silver Road and Texas

After receiving Li Anbang's response, Guan Tianpei commanded the mixed sailing fleet of the three sea fleets to sail south and send all 50,000 pairs of new militiamen to Mexico this year.

On May 25th of the fifth year of the Hanchang era, Guan Tianpei led a large fleet to Mexico, which split into two parts and anchored in the ports of San Blas and Acapulco.

General Li Anbang of the American Army personally went to Acapulco to meet directly with Guan Tianpei to hand over and arrange this year's work.

The following months were the rainy season in the Mexican highlands, and Li Anbang, along with his generals and staff, revised the deployment plan for the Imperial Guard and militia.

First, 10,000 militiamen were stationed in Mexico City.

Then, five thousand militia pairs were stationed in each of the three important cities of Guadalajara, Zacatecas, and Guanajuato.

Each of the other major cities in the states stationed one to two thousand militiamen.

Two thousand militia were stationed in the port of Acapulco, and one thousand militia were stationed in both San Blas and Tepik.

Ports along the Pacific coast are relatively safe and do not require many troops to guard them.

With enough militia, the Military Council of the Americas was able to directly control the local population and the indigenous people, and then begin a full-scale reorganization of the Mexican indigenous population.

The core of the high plateau region of Mexico is home to approximately three million indigenous people, comprising more than 500,000 households.

Li Anbang organized every thousand pairs of Han militia into a local militia garrison, managing a total of fifty militia garrisons.

Most of the militia remained in their original hometowns, responsible for centralized land reclamation, construction, mining, and road building.

Two hundred thousand strong men were then selected from among them to serve as auxiliary troops and fight alongside the Imperial Guard.

When the summer rainy season ended and autumn arrived on the plateau, the rough reorganization of the militia was basically completed, and a new round of campaigns began.

Li Anbang arranged for 30,000 Han Chinese militiamen, along with 30 indigenous militia guards, to control and garrison the Mexican region, while also undertaking routine construction and production tasks.

The 20,000 Imperial Guards, along with 20,000 Han Chinese militia and 200,000 indigenous auxiliary troops, were reorganized into two armies, one for the north and one for the south, and set out to conquer the remaining lands of Mexico.

The Northern Route Army was further divided into Eastern and Western routes.

The Northwest Route Army marched north along the "Royal Inland Expressway," taking over small outposts along the way.

This road is often called the Silver Road because the area along its more than 2,000 kilometers is a huge plateau silver mining belt.

The silver mines currently being mined in Mexico are still mainly concentrated at the southernmost end of the Silver Route.

In most parts of the north, there is no large-scale mining activity yet; the only way to collect the rich minerals from the exposed areas is by a small number of immigrants and local indigenous people.

Historically, after the United States conquered the northern region, it developed several large-scale silver mines there.

In the late 19th century, silver production in the United States soared, at one point surpassing Mexico in the south to become the world's largest silver producer.

By the end of the 19th century, the amount of pure silver mined and smelted annually in the United States and Mexico, according to the Qing Dynasty's silver tael calculation method, had exceeded 100 million taels.

As silver production increased and development became increasingly uneven across silver-producing regions, silver gradually lost its monetary attributes.

Most of the area along this Silver Road is quite arid, and the population of the outposts along the way is relatively small.

By the time the Great Han were clearing out the heart of Mexico, the white population in those areas had already begun to flee.

The scale of the battle was obviously not large, and resupply was difficult in the high-altitude inland areas.

Therefore, the Northwest Route Army only deployed 3,000 Imperial Guards, 3,000 Han militiamen, and 30,000 indigenous auxiliary soldiers.

Most of the auxiliary soldiers will be specifically responsible for transporting supplies.

The Northwest Route Army marched north in batches, dealing with the few stubborn whites and unruly natives, and taking over the large and small strongholds along the Silver Road.

No large-scale wars broke out along the way, and the Northwest Route Army gradually took complete control of the Silver Road.

Then, militia and indigenous auxiliary troops were arranged to continue mining silver and transport it south along the Silver Road to Mexico City for processing.

The initial objective of the Northeast Army was to take over the lands of the states along the northeastern coast, with the ultimate goal of reclaiming the Texas region, which had declared independence.

Without naval support in the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Han had no way to quickly transport supplies by sea.

However, the northeastern coastal areas are all plains, allowing for advance along the relatively flat land at the foot of the mountains, with supplies for the army transported by horse-drawn carts and oxcarts.

Due to the relatively high difficulty of the mission, 7,000 Imperial Guards, 7,000 Han militia, and 70,000 indigenous auxiliary troops were deployed.

Apart from the core of the inland plateau, the rest of Mexico has a sparse population.

But at this time, a large number of refugees fled from the inland core area and gradually migrated to various states in northeastern Mexico.

As the Han army advanced into the northeast, these refugees continued to flee northeastward, eventually reaching Texas.

As the distance of their escape increased, the number of refugees decreased.

Because the border areas are sparsely populated, and more importantly, the elderly, weak, sick and disabled among the refugees have fallen behind one after another, most of those who can still run are young and strong.

In addition, some people stayed behind to surrender and were taken over by the local auxiliary soldiers and escorted back.

Some people stopped to try to stop them, but they were quickly defeated by the Han army and then captured and executed by the locals.

The Northeast Route Army's front line continued to advance northeastward, and the consumption of land transport supplies increased.

In the winter of the fifth year of the Hanchang era, we finally arrived in the Texas region.

The majority of Texas's population at this time was from the United States and was no longer Hispanic Mexicans.

The Republic of Texas, which they formed, was modeled after the United States.

Overall, its organizational capacity is higher than that of the Mexican states, and there have been no sustained coups or internal power struggles.

However, they also learned from the states of the flag country in terms of economy, creating a very chaotic banking system and selling off a large amount of land bonds in the past few years.

Then, just like the United States, it encountered a financial crisis.

However, Texas is far less commercially developed than northern America, so the destructive power of the crisis was far less than that within America.

Texas established trade relations with Britain and continued to export cotton to Britain.

Texas is currently maintaining basic order and is able to organize patrols to keep watch on the other side of the Rio Grande.

When the war between the Great Han and Mexico broke out, the Texas authorities once again sent people to the United States, demanding that it be annexed.

They also sent people to Britain, hoping that Britain would support Texas and prevent it from being annexed by Mexico again.

The key reason why the United States did not dare to take over Texas a few years ago was that it did not want to go to war with Mexico.

Now that Mexico's location has become that of the Han Dynasty, the United States is even less willing to accept it.

Britain's attitude might be more useful in Europe, but it had almost no effect on the decisions of the Han Dynasty, nor did it have any deterrent effect on the Han soldiers.

Although Britain has verbally expressed its support for Texas, it has not yet provided any direct or practical support.

Now Texas needs to fight a war alone against the legions composed of the Han army and native auxiliary troops.

After Wu Kang led his army to the west coast of Grande, he estimated the size of the Texas region and the length of the current supply lines, and felt that the subsequent operations might be a bit troublesome.

Wu Kang wasn't worried about the enemies in the Texas region; what he was worried about was that the subsequent supplies wouldn't be able to be supplied continuously, and he would have to obtain usable supplies from the enemy.

Of course, if you can get the other side to surrender directly or escape completely, that would be much easier.

The war should be nearing its end, there's no need to hide it anymore, and the envoys from various countries should be released so that we can save some food.

So Wu Kang sent someone to summon Povatan Ellis, the US special envoy to Mexico, and his men: "Now I'm giving you a task: go and tell those white leaders in Texas."

"They now have three choices: first, to immediately and unconditionally surrender to the Han; second, to immediately withdraw from the Texas region; and third, to wait to be killed by all the Native Americans."

"The Han army will rest here for a month."

"If you do not return within a month, or if the white Texan leader does not surrender with you, then the Han army will officially launch an attack."

Powatan Ellis had been following the Han army for more than half a year, and these "gentlemen" had never received any respect they deserved.

At first, I was terrified and complained constantly, but I got used to it over time.

However, after a long period of hard work and travel with the army, everyone had become two shades darker, lost a lot of weight, and their spirits had become weak and depressed.

After listening to the translation, Ellis finally regained some energy and agreed without hesitation: "I will definitely fulfill your request."

Ellis and the others had a very simple mindset. Regardless of whether the Texans agreed to surrender to the Great Han, they finally had the opportunity to leave this demon's ranks and return to the free world. Of course, they had to seize this opportunity and leave as soon as possible.

Wu Kang didn't have high expectations for the success of the persuasion, but he thought there was a chance to scare away the local whites so that he could take over Texas directly.

Wu Kang released Ellis and his group, and even provided them with a small boat to cross the river and horses for their journey.

Wu Kang's army did indeed begin to set up camp and rest by the river, but instead of resting and waiting for a month as Wu Kang had verbally told Ellis, they began to move out three days later.

Resupplying from the rear is becoming increasingly difficult, and we absolutely cannot stay in the wilderness for long. We must find other supplies and get whatever we can.

Wu Kang dispersed his army and marched up and down the river.

They quickly seized all settlements, large and small, on both sides of the river, including all white settlements and indigenous villages.

They seized all the food and livestock from the settlements and dismantled the various materials there to build rafts and pontoon bridges in preparation for transporting the army across the river.

At this time, Texas had a total of just over 70,000 people, which was about the same as the total number of troops Wu Kang brought.

Texas has a limited number of patrol soldiers, making it impossible for them to keep an eye on tens of thousands of people.

The Grand River is only about thirty meters wide, and the Han Imperial Guards, equipped with rifled muskets and cannons, were able to suppress patrols on the opposite bank across the river.

The vanguard crossed the river on rafts under the cover of gunfire. After establishing a stronghold on the opposite bank, they built a pontoon bridge and then quickly transported the main force across the river.

After Wu Kang's army crossed the river, they first eliminated all the strongholds on the opposite bank and plundered the grain and livestock of all the settlements on the opposite bank.

The army recovered some supplies through looting and drove the white settlers from nearby settlements northeastward.

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