Dominate the Country

In Havana, Cuba, the meeting room of the Governor's Office was gloomy. A group of high-ranking officials of the Spanish colonial authorities, wearing general uniforms and silk ribbons, were meeting in a listless manner.

This is the Governor's Office in Havana, Cuba, the new 'heart' of Spanish America in the Spanish West Indies.

Since Mexico City was threatened, the high-ranking colonial government officials of the Viceroyalty of New Spain have retreated to Havana. They will not live and die with Mexico City.

But they can't retreat from this earth.

The problems that are coming will still come. The current problem is in front of them, the negotiations with the Chinese.

The Chinese delegation also came to Havana, and the special envoys from Madrid also came to Havana. The negotiations between the two sides have been going on for more than a month, but there is still no satisfactory result. The Chinese's huge appetite makes every Spaniard angry.

But what's the use of their anger?

It can't be used as a gun or a shell. No matter how angry they are, they can't hurt the Chinese half a hair. It was the Chinese attack on the central and northern part of Chile, their support for the Mapuche people in the central and southern part of Chile, and their support for the Amaru Volunteer Army in western Peru that made the Spaniard Alexander.

On the top of the main building of the Governor's Palace, the Spanish flag was flying high. Although it was still fluttering in the wind, it had lost its former spirit.

In 1785 of the Western calendar, Spain abandoned its flag that had been used for nearly three hundred years - two red sticks with thorns crossed in an 'X' shape on the white flag. It was changed to the current crown, castle, and lion flag. The shining little lion before also became listless.

At this time, the meeting had been going on for more than two hours. The person who presided over the meeting was Count Felipe, the king's special envoy sent by Madrid. This person was only a court earl, but he was a favorite of Queen Maria Luisa of Spain. Another person who could sit on an equal footing with him was the Marquis Francisco of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.

Attending the meeting were a group of colonial generals who were beaten up in the war. In addition to the navy, which had little to do with it, there were a group of generals in the army. For example, Antonio Banderas of the Eastern Army, Santiago of the Western Army, and a group of lieutenant generals and major generals of infantry, artillery, and cavalry in the army.

From the composition and lineup of the participants in the meeting, it can be seen that the military focus of this parliament is on the army, not the navy.

No matter how arrogant the Chinese are, they will not send their warships to the Caribbean Sea. On the contrary, some people in Spain have always been obsessed with letting their American fleet go on a long expedition to the west coast of America.

To be honest, the army of the Spanish colonial authorities has had a very difficult time in recent years.

Not to mention the secrets of the Minié rifle and the hexagonal cannon before they were "cracked", the days after the cracking were equally difficult.

The Spanish military industry in America is not strong enough to produce hexagonal cannons, and it is not easy to even produce a large number of rifled guns. And its local military industry system is also difficult to produce hexagonal cannons quickly and efficiently. Only the production speed of rifled guns is relatively fast.

At least one thousand rifled guns with reliable performance can be guaranteed every month.

This tiny production volume is a drop in the bucket compared to Chen Han, but it is a life-saving water for the Spanish colonial army in America. In the next two years, rifled guns were continuously shipped from Spain to America. At most, there were three or four thousand per month - previous stocks, or guns purchased from Britain and France; at least, there were only a few hundred.

Spain was also at war, and advanced new rifles had to be supplied to the mainland.

Anyway, the total number of new rifles in the hands of the Spanish colonial army today is only about six or seven thousand. They also lost a lot of new rifles in the war.

The Spanish colonial authorities in America certainly don't want to watch themselves step by step into the abyss of hell, but they have no money. With the increasing cost of the war in the mainland, coupled with the obstruction of some officials in the Madrid government, the mainland's demands on America are getting bigger and bigger, but the support is getting smaller and smaller.

The military expenditure of the Spanish colonial army in America has dropped sharply, and the treatment is generally not high, and the same is true for weapons and equipment. In the past six months, the speed of their replenishment of new weapons has dropped a lot compared to last year. They repeatedly proposed plans to expand the army and increase military spending to Madrid, but all of them were rejected by Madrid on the grounds of financial constraints.

This year, the new recruits recruited by the Spanish American colonial authorities were forced to go to the battlefield without even completing simple shooting training.

That was completely using cruel war to "train" new recruits.

This made Antonio Banderas, Santiago and other senior officers of the colonial army almost angry. The entire army was also very dissatisfied with this.

However, the war has been going on for so long that Banderas and Santiago feel that there is no need to be "angry" anymore. The war is over, and their military lives will also end.

Madrid cannot tolerate them continuing to serve in the Spanish Army.

During this short period of time, the Spanish colonial army suffered a series of defeats, while the Chinese army seemed to show no signs of material exhaustion and declining morale. However, within Spain, the idea of ​​ending the war as soon as possible began to rise in the local newspapers and public opinion. In the two or three years of war, China's navy and army, although clearly at a disadvantage, continued to win on all fronts. The huge gap in national strength between the Kingdom of Spain and China, the Eastern Empire, really frightened many people - including countless war advocates who previously supported the war.

More importantly, this argument is also quite popular among the top leaders in Madrid.

Although the Chinese want to continue to move south, they simply cannot eat up such a vast territory, but many lands in the Americas are not really controlled by the Spanish.

If the Chinese can give up some benefits to the local Indians, or even native whites and mixed-race people, it would not be surprising for them to fight all the way to Argentina.

The biggest problem of the Chinese is that they are too greedy. After occupying a piece of land, they want to completely control it.

Their way of ruling is completely different from the Spanish way of exploiting wealth and materials. The Chinese are pursuing complete domination, just like what Napoleon did in Egypt. All aspects of society are under their control.

As far as the Spaniards know, more and more native white people [Mexicans] have joined the ranks of resistance against the Chinese. This made Marquis Francisco hate it. This group of damned traitors, now they know how hateful the Chinese are. But Spain has left that land, and it is very likely to leave permanently.

Now this terrible situation makes him unable to see the possibility of the big duck counterattack Mexico.

"General Marquez, tell me honestly, is the problem with the navy big? If the war continues, do you have the possibility of annihilating the Chinese American fleet?" Count Felipe felt that the only hope for the situation in America to turn around was for the Spanish American fleet to go on an expedition to the west coast and fight a life-and-death battle with the Chinese American fleet.

If you can't take advantage on land, you must take advantage at sea, otherwise your negotiation with the Chinese will be a unilateral notification.

The reason why he can still hold on now is that China chose Chile instead of Ecuador, Colombia, or Peru.

"That's impossible."

Admiral Marquez said decisively. The Spanish American fleet led by him gathered mainly on the east coast of America. Here, in addition to guarding against the Chinese fleet in the south and the Chinese developing surface forces in the Gulf of Mexico in the north, their greatest energy was to guard against the British.

On the North American continent, the British are unlikely to stir up waves. But in the West Indies, when the power of the French declined rapidly, the Spanish were so pitiful and helpless.

The French in Europe had just overthrown the autocratic rule of the Bourbon dynasty, and the blacks in Haiti began to revolt.

These black Shu Li were transported from black Africa little by little by Europeans in two hundred years. The local Taino [Indians] had been killed by Europeans. And these colonists had no mercy on the blacks. Under the abuse of white plantation owners, many black slaves chose to flee. They settled down in the Cordillera Central, forming communities called "Maroons" and occasionally coming down the mountains to attack isolated plantations. These escaped slaves were called "Maroons".

Haiti is an Indian language, and it also has a French name - Saint-Domingue.

Saint-Domingue under French rule can be said to be a fertile place, where all available land is cultivated, sugar cane is planted on wet plains, coffee is planted on mountains, indigo is planted on dry hills, and cotton fields are distributed on dry plains. Remote, uncultivated areas are also used to raise cattle and pigs.

In 1767, 72 million pounds of raw sugar and 52 million pounds of white sugar were exported to Europe. In 1780, Saint-Domingue provided 40% of the sugar and 60% of the coffee on the European market. But most of the food needed locally needs to be imported.

In the second year after the French Revolution, a black uprising broke out in Haiti. Without local support, the French colonial rule in Haiti was fragile and vulnerable. 200,000 blacks stood up, almost half of the total number of slaves in Haiti.

The slaves set fire to sugarcane fields and houses and massacred white residents. The local 10,000 white residents and a small group of regular French troops were unable to suppress the uprising. Within a few weeks, northern Haiti had become a ruin. About 2,000 whites were killed, 200 sugarcane plantations and 900 coffee and indigo plantations were destroyed, and all of northern Haiti had fallen into the hands of slaves.

There was no slave rebellion in western Haiti, but there was a war between whites and mixed-race people who demanded decentralization. Except for Port-au-Prince, the mixed-race army had the upper hand in the battle. In southern Haiti, white plantation owners armed black slaves again to oppose mixed-race people.

A year later, the black uprising had evolved into an overlapping melee between the white upper class and poor whites, white royalists and revolutionaries, mixed-race people and whites, mixed-race people and blacks, and armed slaves in the south and rebellious slaves in the north.

Most of the French military forces in the Americas were swallowed up by the black tide of Haiti one after another, as if they had entered a bottomless pit. The only hope of restoring order was to send troops from France, but faced with the resistance of the royalists of Saint-Domingue, they had to unite with the efforts of the rebellion, capture Cape Française [Cap-Haitien], and plunder the city.

The riots in Haiti brought the French influence in the Americas to a freezing point, and also brought the French power in the Americas to a freezing point.

The plantation economy of Saint-Domingue was almost completely destroyed.

However, the black army led by Toussaint Louverture received support from the Americans. Not long ago, the British, who wanted to replace France in Haiti, also reluctantly withdrew their troops. Toussaint Louverture is now turning to attack the mixed-race territories in the south and west.

The pressure on the Spanish was also magnified to the extreme.

Without the French in America, they would have to face the pressure of the British alone.

In this case, asking the Spanish fleet to go on an expedition to the west coast of America, that is a fantasy?

Marquez shook his head as fast as a drum.

"So, gentlemen, what are you still insisting on?"